From Pain to Cozy: The Journey to Achieving Comfort

0:00 [Music] And now the podcast we're together, we discuss proactive aging on your terms, connecting to the professional advice of our special guests while creating better days throughout the aging process. Now here's your host, Mark Turnbull. Alright, I want to welcome everybody back to another live view discussion on aging today.

0:41 We are the podcast where together we explore the many options to aging on your terms. You can find aging today and our past eight years of programming all you got to do is go to www.AgingToday.us. And for those of you that would rather follow us on your favorite podcast channels such as Spotify, Bandore, Apple, I Heart, we're on 15 different channels and now we are on YouTube, so be sure to tune in. And then finally, I'd like for all of you, our listeners to reach out to me, your host, Mark Turnbull, because I want to know the questions that you're asking about the aging process.

1:24 And I would also like to know who you know that might be an intriguing guest to have on aging today, because we're interested in being a platform where you can go to get all the answers to your aging questions. So all you got to do is reach out to me, your host, Mark Turnbull, and my email is Mark and that's with a K, mark@AgingToday.us. Well one of the things that we always say here on aging today is if you're not too busy being born, you're too busy aging. And today we want to make sure that the topic we're covering is that in the aging process you're comfortable.

2:04 You don't have a stiff neck. And we want to make sure that you are introduced to a good friend of mine. But here to represent Towsie is the creator of Towsie and that is Janice Shocker and Janice Welcome to aging today. Thank you so much, Mark. I'm happy to be here. Yeah, I'm excited to have you here because we have a short history in our past and how we got together before we get into that. I want you to introduce to our listening audience, you know, how you got to the place where you are. Tell us your story because this is an aging platform and it's all about story.

2:49 Thank you for that. And yes, I'm excited to share with you listeners how you and I met. But and it's through the path and vehicle of Towsie. Towsie means caring for and it's derived from the word Towsimo, which is a small inward and it's how I helped to care for my father. So when he was in a care community, he was slumped over in a geriatric chair and when I went to visit him, the first thing I noticed is that he looked uncomfortable and I thought, gosh, there's got to be something that can hold his head and neck in place and he doesn't do that next slump and roll and everybody who's listening to this has experienced this or witnessed this sometime in their life.

3:34 Just go on a airplane, just go into a care community. Towsie is falling asleep and their head slumps over. So my dad had a pill behind him. Have you ever had that experience, Mark? Oh, yeah. So I grew up with my with my mom in the car and every time we had five kids and we would all sit in the back seat of the station wagon and as soon as my dad started driving, my mom fell asleep. And her head went bob back and forth all the way to the end where the destination was and we would all have just a good laugh at it. To this day, she still does it until we introduce her to Towsie, but that's getting ahead of the story.

4:17 But I just want you to know that yes, Dan, your question, the bobbing of the head is something I think we all struggle with and I'm so grateful that you came up with a solution. But before we get into Towsie, I want to know more and my listening, Andy, once know more about you and were you always an innovator or is this something that just came out of necessity? I have to say I think I've been an innovator. I remember in third grade was my very first invention for a class assignment and I was so afraid to share it with the teacher because I thought she would steal it. And it was liquid paper in a pen.

4:59 My sister was in high school and she was using liquid paper back for those who don't know when you did anything on a typewriter. If you made a mistake, you can erase it with this little liquid white, white out basically. And so when she was shoving it back into the little container or nail polish container, it was the brush was all cakey and I thought that's terrible idea. I was like, we were taking it out and exposing it to air and then it was drying and going down so I invented liquid paper in a pen. I have 17 different inventions since I've been an adult. But Towsie is the first one I took to market and the first one I got a patent on.

5:40 Yeah, well, so I mean, that's intriguing because I think there's a budding entrepreneur, there's a budding innovator in most all of us. But I think the thing, like you said, you had like 17 different ideas and for whatever reason this one you actually acted upon and how many times in my life where I've, I'm kind of built the same way. I've got all these ideas running through my head. I've got all these innovations and then somebody actually comes out with and I go, why didn't I act on that? Right. You know, I had the same idea. And they're sitting on a beach, you know, sipping, you know, my ties.

6:22 You know, truthfully, they're most likely not. It's not the get rid of quick scheme with an idea. I've, I, that's a misnomer that I've experienced. So it's a, it's a haul and it's a lot of dedication and this idea was really because it was born out of a need to care for my father. You know, when people innovate and create ideas, usually it's to solve a problem that we all have. And when I researched it, like not everybody had a problem about being a bad ice cream cone eater and I'll tell you about that invention another time. But, but it's a, it's a way of me saying, you know what?

7:04 I went to focus groups. I put together a bunch of people and I, and I had seven different focus groups, all different ages and I'm like, is this something that you would like? And everybody who experienced Towsie had the exact same reaction and I was recording their reactions. But when they leaned back into Towsie and for your listeners, I just want to describe a Towsie's a pillowcase that supports your head and neck while resting in an upright position and it straps to a chair. And when they would lean back into Towsie, they would say, Oh, I need this. Yeah. And I think there's some, because even when you're with a high back chair and you're leaning back, your head always flops to the right or to the left one way or the other, right?

7:55 And inevitably. So this then supports your head is what you've set out to create. Correct. So for your, for your listeners, I want you envision the shape of a you. The sides of the you is what's cradling the sides of your head. And it's not stuck against your head. You have some space. And then for then the bottom of the you hits your occipital nerves behind your neck and that helps to give you accurate pressure to release stress. So that return to being comfortable, I think it's, it's when a baby was cradled in somebody's arm. I think Towsie returns you to that old familiar feeling that you forgot.

8:36 Good. I was going to say so you, you have Towsie right there. It's you. And for those that are on YouTube, they can actually see what Towsie looks like. Is this a good time to show Towsie? This is going to be a great time to show. I'm going to demonstrate Towsie. I have it in the back of my chair just so you know, and I, every Towsie, you're going to see a, this is a marine blue color Towsie. And it comes with a little mini bonus pillow. I put the white ivory bonus pillow into the marine just so you can see the contrast. Towsie lifts up, has straps on the back so you can strap it to your favorite chair.

9:17 And I'm taking out the mini bonus pillow and I'm hooding it behind my head and neck and you can see how your head would be caught to the left or to the right. So you will naturally start to slump when you fall asleep, but Towsie is strong enough to keep your head in place. So you'll get that neck strain that we all get. And it's machine washable. The key to that is it supports the head from flopping back and forth. And then also what about when you're sitting upright, what keeps your head from flopping forward?

9:57 That's when you have to make the adjustments and recline your chair back a little bit so you've got the gravity pulling that way. You could, but people's heads do the same thing when I did a study on heads slumping and rolling. The first thing the head does is goes to the side and then it will go forward. So if you're catching the head before it goes forward, then you are in then Towsie's super effective. Now some people do have a condition where their head is bent forward as you age. Towsie would be effective if they're leaning back. At least a good 45 degrees back.

10:39 And that's where you'd want to have a reclining chair where you could tip the chair backwards to force the gravity to take the head. And then but you're keeping it stabilized from right to left. Correct. Yes. Yeah. I've been on planes where I'm in the emergency row and I cannot or right before in front of the emergency row and I could not leave my chair back on the airplane. And I use Towsie because it can fit perfectly. Wrap, strap it around the headrest, not the whole seat. And I was still able to sleep and did not do that forward slump and roll. Well, and I think that's something that, you know, our listeners should realize about Towsie is that it's not an age, so much of an age related or, you know, what's the word I'm looking for and not a product, but it, um, a, uh, adaptive equipment.

11:30 It's, it's, what it's doing is it's crossing all barriers of the demographics, whether you're young or old, our heads when we fall asleep, they still want to flop. Absolutely. And I really appreciate you recognizing that and bringing that up like my son used to in college because he used his bed as a desk as well. So he used it for more comfort while he was working on his laptop and he took the little mini bonus pillow and, and put his laptop on it. So it was at a better height so he didn't get tech neck. So, you know, you're absolutely right, Mark. It's not age dependent.

12:10 Yeah. Okay. And so, um, and how many colors does it come in? Because I noticed you got the blue. I have the, the tan one or the brown one. Tell us who comes in four colors. We have your gray, ivory, camel and marine blue and we come in horizontal and vertical configurations and horizontal is, think about a pillow sham on your bed that fits your bed pillow. So you can have a different experience and the horizontal gives you upper, upper back support. Okay. Okay. So, and let's get into the application of it. Sure. It's, it was primarily designed because your dad, his head was flopping as he was sitting in a, in a chair for our senior population.

13:01 What, who best benefits from the Towsie and does it transfer to like a quadriplegic, a parapoligic, more so, even more so than somebody like myself who just flops when I sleep? Great question. Uh, you, I, upon my research of this product, I found that 17 markets, um, in the healthcare industry from, um, people with heart conditions to strokes to 17 different challenges. Parkinson's, um, ALS, how about, have a tough time adjusting themselves like with somebody who has heart surgery, you have to sleep upright for three weeks during your recovery.

13:51 The first three weeks and 80% of people get head and neck pain while sleeping upright. And when I research seniors, 80% of those seniors don't want medical intervention. They want comfort care. And that whole notion of comfort care is, um, really a beautiful way of approaching aging where we don't necessarily want to just take a pill, but we just want to be comfortable. Okay. And, um, and so there's, there's many types of, of, where there's many populations of people that can utilize it and for those that don't have the neck muscles or the strength to support their heads, um, Towsie accomplishes that mission.

14:42 100%. Yes. A friend of mine had a stroke, um, and it was, and then she had three strokes back to back to back. So she was in a really rough spot. And she preferred to use her Towsie. What I would call upside down. So if you're envisioning the use, she had it on top of her head, the site of where her surgeries were. And she felt like she was cocooning and caving, you know, caving in. You know, that's a beauty about Towsie. It's one product that you can use in multiple ways. So it's sustainable as well. You can use it for lumbar support, head and neck support. Like your mom would have really benefited when traveling with five boys who were laughing at her from her head, flopping.

15:27 So it's, it's a product that's again, not age dependent, but it's something that we really want to make sure that people feel comforted and cared for. Yeah. And so with you alluded to this in the beginning, the name Towsie, how did you come up with that name? And you know, what personal was there something personal that resonated with you when coming up with the name Towsie? Great question. Towsie is derived from Towsie mode, that Simone word for caring for.

16:08 I am, I'm going to tell your audience in you a secret. I am really bad at naming anybody, anything. My kids and my, uh, was, their names are very similar sounding and basically named after my very first pet, which was her cat named Camille and I've got Camille and Cameron. It's like, there's no imagination there. And so I was really afraid of like coming up with the name for this product. And I've had, I had different groups of people trying to help me out because they thought it was a great idea. And we had heads up and we had, you know, rest your head and all these things. And I really wanted care in there. And so just really troving words that were from another country was, um, I had two people were helping with some idea and branding and, um, anybody's interested in a brand designer, a tricky water is a great company.

17:04 And Manish and Mary Swenson came up with the whole suite of names and this was the one I chose. Yeah. Okay. And you're not even, um, Simone. No, no. No, no, no relation there at all. I'm trying to think, I think my 23 and me said, I'm like 1% Simone, um, but I don't know where it really in the lineage. I don't know how. Yeah. Okay. Let's, let's talk a little bit about, you know, okay. So it's primary mission is in an upright position, but you also alluded to that there's other positions, other applications that you've discovered that Towsie can assist people with.

17:47 The waves said that question was so true, discovered. I didn't realize how fun this invention is until I started using it. Um, the first one to really use it was my husband who had retinal surgery and he was doctor prescribed to sleep upright for a week and from where his tear was on his eye. So he had zero scarring on his eye, which most people get like 20% because their head gets out of plant whack and then, um, and then following that, I wound up injuring my back. And so I want to show you why I have Towsie on my chair for back supports. And for those who can see, you can take your mini bonus pillow, rotate it 90 degrees and you can have acupressure on your back from that rotation.

18:37 So Towsie is a product that you can use in the way you need to be comfortable at that time. Okay. And so, and then some of the other applications that you've discovered along the way, you know, you mentioned earlier about traveling. Yes. Talk a little bit about how they, it helps assisting you with travel. Well, if you, if we were to pull out my, my vertical Towsie, which I'm going to hold up, you can see how it has a longer, um, uh, last of fabric, which is you would put your pillow inside. You would strap Towsie to your headrest of your airplane or again around your, um, seat in your car.

19:23 Uh, I put it on a mounge chair, uh, in Maui by the pool and it just supports your head index. You're not having a travel pillow that goes around your neck because I've purchased so many different travel pillows that I force my neck to act like it's comfortable and lean to the left and lean to the right. I have, I have yet to find a travel pillow that works. I mean, the way that's comfortable. Right. Towsie the next time you travel. I will. For sure. Yeah. It's a, um, it's something that I wind up, uh, you know, I just like to be able to, um, be comfortable and I used to call myself the queen of comfort in my house and, uh, I used to fluff my kids pillows when they were sick and make them flip flop on the couch because if you're not comfortable, you're not really getting restored of rest.

20:13 So how does that work on an airplane when you're, you know, sitting in a seat and you, you want that rest and you don't want to use a travel pillow, but you want to use Towsie. And there's a strap that goes around. How does that, does that strap and feed the passenger behind you? Great question. No, usually most, most, uh, airline seats have a little headrest that you can create wings of that headrest, you know, support, supposed to support your, the size of your head. Mm hmm. So I just take my Towsie straps and I just wrap it around that headrest and sometimes I don't even bother strapping them because the weight of my body holds the Towsie in the right position for myself.

20:57 So you don't have to even worry about the straps? No. No. And your body will keep your, your Towsie in place. And then I take the mini bonus pillow, put it on my lap and I put my cell phone on that so I can watch a movie and I don't get tech neck because you know, when we look down too long, we get that tingle in the back of your neck. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I can, I can really see the application for our senior population with those that have, you know, low neck muscles, you know, that ability, that strength to hold up their, their neck's ALS. I could see where that would really be, something that would be useful in quadruplee jigs, parablee jigs.

21:43 Exactly. And you know, our neck's never get to relax fully. Yeah. If you think about it, you're watching TV, you're investing your bodies relax, but your, your head and neck is more upright and we get neck pain. Did you know that 80% of seniors have head and neck pain? 80% of these seniors prefer comfort care over medical intervention. Towsie of Towsie brands is the comfort you always needed for head, neck or back support. Go to Towsie brands and use the discount code, Comfy, C-O-M-F-Y for 15% off of your Towsie.

22:27 This did you know moment was provided by today's guest and is brought to you by Royal Hospice of Oregon. And then with that, what are the benefits of getting that rest? Because one of the things that I notice when you're taking a nap and your head is flopping around, you either have a sore neck or you really don't go into, you know, a deep sleep. And I think that that's, you know, if you know that your head is supported, then your body does relax and then you can go into that deep sleep. Talk a little bit about the benefits of a full rest. Oh, Restorative Rest is key to our health and it's important that we have that, that we start a rest, you know, as I mentioned after heart surgery, having a sleep upright for three weeks.

23:21 My husband being really afraid of having a sleep upright for one week after his eye surgery. When you can fully relax into a product that you know that's got you, you know, that's got your back. It's like if you're camping and you don't feel safe or in your environment, you're not going to rest. And if you're uncomfortable in trying to sleep, you are always waking up. You're not getting that full 90, you have to be 90 minutes into your REM sleep in order to have that time for your cell on a cellular level for you to restore. It's important. You know, you think I'm a napper, I'm a sleeper.

24:02 I use Towsie, here's one other vanity application for Towsie, if you don't mind if I take a soft topic. Oh, yeah, that's right. And this one, I like, because I put on so many nighttime creams because I'm a woman of a certain age now and the anti-wrinkles and all of the serums and lotions. And I found, I was just wiping them off on my bed pillow and I was like, well, let me just use Towsie at night because I always use Towsie on my chair. So now Towsie's and I have another Towsie in bed with me. So my head is not falling to the side when I lie in my back. And so all the moisture goes into my face.

24:44 So. Well, and that's really important for women, you know, that, you know, go to bed with all the creams and, you know, all the war paint that you guys have to put on at night, right? Right. I just think of this. Yeah. No, but it's true. Like men don't have that situation issue. And women, you know, we lose the collagen after menopause and boom, you know, we're struggling. Yeah. And it's important for, you know, you're just your overall health to make sure that, you have that confidence in how you look because we do live in a very physical world. And I think that's important.

25:25 You know, the other thing that my mom has tried Towsie out and continues to utilize it. She utilizes it in two ways. She utilizes it when we're sitting out on the back patio on the deck and she's in an upright chair. And it's at 94. She takes her naps during the day. And I just, I put her there and she can literally take a nap and, you know, she doesn't flop around like she did when she was in the car. And I don't get to laugh at her anymore, you know, now that she's got her head stabilized, but she does really notice a difference. The second way that my mom utilizes Towsie is at night and supporting her laying down in the bed.

26:14 And I know you've kind of alluded to that already, but there's the vertical Towsie and then there's the horizontal Towsie. Take a little and show the difference in the two and how they function. Absolutely. So, I love that your mom is comfortable. And the horizontal and vertical, the Towsie itself, that you that we talked about in the beginning, that you shape has not changed. Any size is just is 90 degree rotation on from the horizontal to the vertical. So the vertical I'm going to hold up and this, if you stuff it with the bed pillow, you can get extra lumbar support.

26:59 You don't have to stuff it with the bed pillow. You can fold it and now you have a shorter Towsie that can go on a airplane. Actually, I like to have the longer, the longer fabric down on my seat because once I had to go to an event and I was on the plane and somebody had some food product. Maybe a kid was in the seat before me and I wound up with chocolate on the back of my shirt. It was white too. Of course it was white. So I'm like knowing that my seat is actually there for my protection, right with my Towsie. So it has shorter straps on your vertical Towsie.

27:42 Now your horizontal Towsie has longer straps meant for that lazy boy and that geriatric chair and when I turn it around, you stuff your Towsie with the bed pillow and here are the straps and you can extend it as white as you need to and you can also unzip your Towsie. The U-shaped foam comes out and it is covered in antimicrobial and antibacterial fabric as well as lined in that fabric. The reason why I did that was so if you had any head trauma, you can wash your Towsie and your bed pillow is protected.

28:25 And is it washed with hot water, cold water? It's pretty easy to clean them. My Towsie has been washed over 100 times each and I put them through the ringer. I put them in hot water, I put them in cold water just to see what would happen. I was really trying to investigate this product when I was in the prototyping stages. So it's important to me that you're not buying something that looks shabby. You have to feel good about a Towsie can sit in your living room. That was my goal. I think if you have a bed pillow sitting around your house, you feel like it's almost like a sick word and you don't feel good about your environment.

29:09 Yeah, I think they are attractive and they don't look like something that they're medical which is really important. Yeah. And the color selection is great too. Oh good, thank you. You know how often do we give flowers and chocolate to somebody when visiting them in a hospital or a care community? And Towsie is something that they can really use right then and there and also it's something that helps to extend our visitation with somebody who's not feeling well because now they look more comfortable. And our discomfort of the fact that somebody may be on hospice or somebody may be in the hospital starts, we start to feel more comfortable seeing them look comfortable.

29:57 Yeah. You know, I always find it interesting how you know there's such a great need out there for Towsie and why somebody didn't come up with it before you did. I mean, isn't that amazing? And yet you know that somebody out there is listening right now and they said, "I had that idea and darn it Janice, you beat me to the punch." Well call me. Seriously, if you had this idea, let's collaborate. It's a very nice chat because doing this alone, it's a lonely road and it's important I really want people to know about this. Everyone deserves to be comfortable.

30:39 Yeah. And I think that you know I've had the opportunity to utilize your Towsie product and it works and I've seen the expression on my mom's face when she's sitting in her chair and her head's not flopping back and forth because that's usually what happens with her. And it doesn't matter age. She used to do it when she was in her 20s and 30s and 40s and 50s and 60s because I know I was there watching her as we were driving down the road with her head flopping around. And there's something, and I do the same thing. Maybe it's Jean Poul, but when I get into a car, if I'm not driving, I mean I'm out really fast.

31:23 And yeah, it's, I got it from my mom, but it's frustrating because your head flops well, you know, now it doesn't have to flop anymore. The only thing is I'm always the one driving. So better not, it better not flop if you're in that situation. Yeah. So is this the first generation Towsie and then do you have aspirations for a second generation? Well, this is a sad story. This is my second generation. I started the first generation and manufactured and was ready to launch and go in March of 2020.

32:06 My goal was to get into hospitals and care communities where the fabric was more industrial. It was still soft, but it was ready to be washed 300,000 times while my current fabric can be washed 100,000 times. So then I was ready to go on Shark Tank. I got to, you know, move through those levels and COVID shut everything down. Oh, so I had... And it's hard to get on Shark Tank. Yes. I mean, it's a lengthy process, isn't it? Yes. Yes, I had my plane ticket. I had my hotel room. I, you know, and we were, it was March 13th that we were going and my son came home from college for spring break and he was in Pittsburgh and two days later and I'm out in Oregon.

32:53 We had a turnaround and go pick up all of his stuff and move him out of college. It was that fast and I had to... My, my TLC was not something that... It was, it was definitely more hospital quality, not that it was not lovely. I still, you know, I will still sell that. But this one is the luxurious feel of the, of the Chanel fabric you want around. It's so soft and it's yummy. And so I had a remanufacture, which is another expense and, and then rebrand and give it another name and really go to market. So it's, TLC may have been older but this is my second iteration launched on Father's Day just two years ago.

33:39 And my third TLC which I launched at a travel good show is the travel size. So just think about your vertical TLC chop off the bottom fabric and it's a child size pillow. Travel size. Yeah, I think that was one of the biggest challenges I had with the TLC on a plane was holding it up, you know, into a backpack, you know, where there was enough room for the bigger one. And that was my biggest frustration. I just wanted something a little bit smaller. I 100% agree. I was looking for a cinch sack. So if any of your listeners has any connection to cinch sack companies, I would like one then you can just, you can manipulate world TLC in and then, and then suck out the air so you can, you can push it down and these would be smaller.

34:27 Yeah, yeah, that's a good idea. Thank you. They actually make little pouches like that where it sucks. Thanks, girl. Huh. Yes. Nice. Well, I've not found the manufacturer yet, but somebody knows of it. Yeah. Okay. So there's, and is there a third generation then coming online or is it, it's really kind of, this is it? No, that would be the travel. And then I have some, some other aspects where people, the U-shaped foam insert has some changes that it will be coming with it too. So if you wanted to have the, the, like a heating pad version or a old pack version or a blue tooth version, so those are all in the pipeline for my next one day.

35:16 Yeah. Is it memory foam? No. Oh my goodness. Foam. No, foam is a, is a beast. The foam that we use is extruded here in the United States. My manufacturing is also in the United States because we don't put any additives in our foam. And also memory foam, if you think about, if you're audience thinks about it, you just collapse keep going. It doesn't resist you. And it, it craze like that mold for your, for your head. And I needed that resistance and Towsie has that perfect resistance that you're not going to, you can rely on that support that you're going to get with Towsie. Yeah.

35:56 Yeah. Do you have any aspirations to try to get back on Shark Tank? You know, I, I don't at this moment. I really am into the adaptive equipment and caregiving space because that's my founder's story to take care of my father. And I really, I just really want to get this in the hands of those who need to be comfortable as they age or as they are faced with some, you know, just life altering challenges. Immotherapy, we have lots of sales going to people who are going through chemotherapy. And for 15 years old to a five years old have been using Towsie in their oncology visits to, because you're in that chair for a long time.

36:45 Yeah. And that gives them comfort. Sounds good. Well, is there, is there anything else that you want to talk about in relationship to Towsie and something that we haven't covered yet? I think we, I think we covered all the applications. We covered the benefits. Anything else that you can think of? Yeah. I think we have. I, you know, I just really want your audience to know that there's, that they deserve comfort. They're loved ones deserve comfort. Even they're, they're people who that they're caring for. We all deserve to be comfortable. And we all have that universal need to help somebody be comfortable.

37:27 So when we get a Towsie in our hands, that's a game changer for, and you get to decide how you want to be comfortable with Towsie. Yeah. Amen to that. So if anybody is out there listening and they want to reach out to you, what's the best way for them to connect? You can go to Towsie Brands, T-A-U-S-I, brands, B-R-A-N-D-S, dot com. I'm on all your social media platforms, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and, and yeah, that's LinkedIn. So we can, and we can put up our, my links below for this, for this meeting and on our podcast.

38:12 Well, Towsie definitely is filling a niche, a need inside of a specific niche and making someone comfortable that doesn't have that muscle strength in their neck, and they need that additional support. And so Towsie satisfies that mission for sure. I know that because I've introduced it to my mom. I've used it myself, you know, in cars and it doesn't really does work. It's actually kind of cool, the way it works and way it functions. It was fun how you and I met with through Towsie because I, I was a little shy, you know, I have to say COVID kind of changed my personality.

38:56 Usually I'd be like, I'm going out there like gangbusters and I felt a little shy to bring Towsie around and I went and knocked on your door as a, as a community, you know, a well-known person in our community who cares for others, you know, and just to say, hey, would you want to see what I have here and would you, you know, it was a cold call and, yeah, nothing but welcome. I appreciate that. Well, and, and see, I'm an innovator myself. I've innovated in a lot of different products, you know, in my past. And I, I love people that think outside the box. I love people that think counter to expectations and you're one of those people and it was in just a mutual attraction.

39:41 And, and just, it's, it's, innovation is cool. I just, I love being around innovating people. My grandfather was an innovator. My high school coaches were innovators and reshaping the way American football was played. Wow. And I went into the ministry and the way the ministry in America, you know, the Christian ministry is portrayed. And just, you know, my companies that we are running now in home care in the hospice company, they're, they're innovative companies. We're not just doing the same thing that everybody else is doing.

40:21 Oh, I love that book when everybody's zgging. I'm zagging. And I think that's important because, you know, there's, you have to separate yourself. You have to find out what the needs are and meet those needs that people have. Absolutely. Because when we innovate, when we, when we carve out our own path, it becomes exciting. And the energy is there. And everybody feels it. Like your care, your caregivers who are working with, with their clients and, with they can bring something new to the table for that client. If it's like, you know, bringing snow inside so they can make a snow, snowman, you know, just things that are the sweet story that I heard from one of your caregivers, that to me is, is a way that we empower each other to live our best.

41:13 And that's the whole point of this life, isn't it, to live our best versions? You get one life. Yeah. Yeah. You only get one time and you only get to go around one time. That's it. That's it. Yeah. And I go around comfortably and this is, that's my, that's my argument. Like, let's be comfortable in this journey. Yeah. And, and, and why do what everybody else is doing? That doesn't, that doesn't attract me at all. I mean, again, I'm not, you know, somebody that is about change for the sake of change. I'm all about change for the sake of making my life better and making other people's lives better, looking at it from a different perspective, taking a step back.

41:55 And, you know, always say that we're all in the business of touching one another, touching each other's lives. And think about all the ways that we touch, we touch with our eyes, we touch with our mouths, the way, we use language. And most importantly, the way we touch physically with our hands. And it's, you know, we, we can't lose that, that ability to touch. And we, we did, it's important, especially when you're a senior. I know, oh, I know. And that's, that's the hardest part is when we, when we age, we don't have all those hugs and, and bringing that touch to seniors.

42:43 It's so important and love that mark. Yeah. Well, and thank you for reaching out and touching people's lives through Towsie. Yeah. And it's all about changing and making everybody's life that much better because we all have that desire to live our best lives possible. Once again, Janice, how can people reach out and connect with you on the internet? Well, thank you, Mark, for this time. Hi, everyone.

43:24 You can go to find me, Janice Shokrian, SHOKE, R-I-A-N, at Towsie Brands, T-A-U-S-I-B-R-A-N-D-S. You know, just, just, just Google Towsie Brands. You'll find me on every platform. I'm out there on social media, so I would love to connect. And if you go to Towsie Brands, you can message me directly. And you know, as you said, something about people want to be touched. Towsie, I think, is a return to feeling hugged. And when you're using Towsie, you certainly feel cradled and loved. Yeah. Amen to that. Well, and I know that because, and it's, the material is soft and it's pleasant to put your head on it. And so I encourage everybody out there that, you know, has someone in their life where their heads are flopping.

44:07 Does it matter your age? Does it matter your physical condition? So Towsie is out to, to stabilize. No more head flopping out there. We want to get rid of the flops. Sounds good. No, it's for Lex. All right. Sounds good. All right. This is Mark Turnbull, your host, and I want to thank all of you for tuning into aging today. As a reminder, we are the podcasts where together we're exploring the options to aging on your terms. And it's every Monday as we release a new show to a new conversation to your favorite podcast channel. And remember this, we're all in the process of aging.

44:49 And as we age, we really are better together. So stay young at heart. You make me feel so young. Just like a toy balloon, well, you and I are just like a bulletots running across the metal.

45:30 They can have lots of, forget me night so you made me feel so young. You made me feel there are songs to be sung. There will still be wrong and wonderful things to be found. Anything when I'm old and grey. You've been listening to Aging Today, where together we explore the options to aging on your terms. Join Mark and his guest next week for another lively discussion on proactively aging on your terms, connecting you to the professional advice of his special guests with the goal of creating better days throughout the aging process. Your host has been Mark Turnbull.

46:11 Join Mark and his guest every week on Aging Today, your podcast to exploring your options for aging on your terms. And even when I'm old and grey, you make me feel the way I feel today. Cause you make me feel so. You make me feel so. You make me feel so young. So young. You make me feel so young. You make me feel so young. [Music]