The BOOST Podcast: Inspiring Stories of Professional and Personal Growth from Entrepreneurs, Athletes and Healthcare Pros

I'm excited to introduce today’s featured guest, Katherine Tallmadge. Katherine is a licensed and registered dietician. She founded Personalized Nutrition in 1984, which designs nutrition, weight loss and wellness programs for individuals, corporations, and restaurants.

She’s also the author of Diet Simple and an award-winning journalist, regularly contributing to The Washington Post, US News and World Report, Politico, and others.  You may have also seen her on TV as she’s been featured on CNN, many of the major network news programs, PBS, and The Daily Show.

Given Katherine’s unique professional qualifications — she has a B.S in Dietetics and Nutrition, an M.A. degree in Behavioral Sciences, and a second M.A. degree in Journalism and Public Affairs — it’s not surprising that The Washington Post and Harper’s Bazaar have named her the "Best Nutritionist".

Her appearance on the show today couldn’t be more timely. The holidays are here and in addition to friends, family, and fun, it can also mean more stress and more food. Katherine is going to share some tips to help us maintain our sanity and ensure that we still fit into our jeans at the end of the year. 

Today’s featured guest is Rick Jackson from Riverside Health System. Rick is the Executive Director of the Riverside Center for Excellence in Aging and Lifelong Health, which helps older adults and their families make informed decisions about their health and wellbeing. Their services range from providing geriatric assessments, to teaching individuals with chronic conditions how to manage their symptoms, to providing a haven of resources and education for caregivers. They make a complex system of services more easily accessible through education, referrals and individualized, person-centered services, tailored to the unique needs of aging adults and their families.

Rick is also the Executive Director of ChooseHome, which is Riverside’s Continuing Care at Home program, which allows qualified individuals 60 and older to live in their homes, while providing them with the resources of a health system so that they can stay healthy as they age. In addition to these programs, Riverside Health System, which is based in Virginia, operates a medical center and three Continuing Care Retirement Communities.

On today’s show, Rick shares how Riverside is personalizing care for older adults and the role that technology, and specifically LivWell Health, have played in helping more adults age healthily and safely in the setting of their choice.  

Today’s featured guest is Sharie Torres. Sharie is a Registered Nurse from Hawaii and has worked in a large healthcare system there for 20 years. She acts as a Utilization Manager and has witnessed first-hand how technology has helped one of the largest providers in the nation improve their workflow and referral management processes.

As health systems increasingly make the transition from paper-based processes to digitized solutions, they experience common challenges. Today's podcast explores how Sharie and her team have integrated new technology into their workflow.  She outlines the challenges and benefits, and offers advice for coordinators who are considering digitizing their paper-based workflows. 

Today’s featured guest is Denise Rabidoux, President and CEO of EHM Senior Solutions. EHM Senior Solutions is a not-for-profit organization with a history dating back to 1879. Formerly known as Evangelical Homes of Michigan, EHM operates senior living, Medicare At Home and private-duty LifeChoices Programs.

EHM is one of the industry leaders in the movement of what is called Life Plan Communities, formerly known as Continuing Care Retirement Communities (or CCRCs) without walls. These programs allow healthy active older adults to maintain their independence at home, but also enable them to make arrangements for long-term care in the event of a change in their acuity. 

Throughout its long history, EHM has always worked to stay focused on the client and involve them in the organization’s transformation. They’ve made it a priority to listen to the customers' voice above their own, especially during times of strategic planning and discernment.

Denise has led the organization for the majority of its transformation from a focus on skilled nursing centers and nursing homes to what EHM is today. She’s known nationally for her ability to work with a team of employees to transform existing programs and build new ones that focus on technology and innovation and a high-tough approach to the array of services and solutions that EHM Senior Solutions provide. From serving 660 seniors in 2000 to nearly 6,000 seniors each year today, EHM is committed to saving individuals no matter where they are on life’s journey and no matter where they call home.

We are in for a treat with today’s featured guest, Alex Go. Alex is the CEO and Co-founder of LivWell Health, a technology-enabled service provider that assists seniors to live independently at home and also for families seeking assistance in their care. Their goal is to make caregiving easier for the 44 million Americans that are caring for older adults and special needs children. LivWell Health partners with senior service providers to expand the markets they serve with the goals of enhancing revenue and improving staff productivity.

Prior to starting LivWell Health, Alex had more than 20 years of experience in strategic planning, sales and management consulting, and healthcare IT. He previously led Intel Health’s market development team in the US and Asia.  But despite spending two decades in healthcare, it was actually Alex’s personal experience that led him to start LivWell Health, and we are going to hear more about that on today’s episode. We’ll dive into LivWell Health’s focus on bridging the gap between home and community-based services and the opportunities provided by a growing caregiving market.

Today’s featured guest is Tristan White. Tristan is the CEO and founder of The Physio Co, which helps Australian seniors stay mobile, safe, and happy. Onsite physiotherapy is their thing. In 2004, The Physio Co was just one person with a vision to change seniors' healthcare forever. Today, The Physio Co is ranked as Australia’s best place to work, has 100 team members and delivers over 200,000 physiotherapy consultations per year. 

Tristan is a qualified physiotherapist from the University of Melbourne. He has an MBA from Queensland University of Technology and a Masters degree from MIT for their Entrepreneurial Masters Program. Tristan also loves helping other people build strong cultures and be happier at work. He writes a blog called Culture is Everything, which Smart Company lists as one of Australia’s 25 Best Business Blogs and he is also a speaker. In today’s episode we hear all about Tristan’s work with The Physio Co as well as the systems he uses to create successful cultures in his organization and in others.

I am pumped to introduce today’s featured guest, Ronen Gafni. Ronen is a serial entrepreneur who grew up in the startup nation of Israel, trading on the stock market, operating a branding company, training companies, and more. He is the creator and founder of FreshBiz and the FreshBiz game developer as well. Ronen also co-authored the book, The New Entrepreneurz: Changing the Way You Play Life, and he is also a visionary global trainer, or business coach, as many like to call him. 

Ronen has been featured on TV, radio, and magazines talking about the future of business, and he has trained over 15,000 people across 20 countries on innovation and entrepreneurial thinking. As a keynote speaker and futurist, Ronen weaves together new approaches to business, education, design, and lifestyle. Today we dive into applying gaming to business by starting with lifestyle and designing the business model accordingly. We also go further into creating a business model based on partnerships, the role of game-based learning in entrepreneurship, the effect of culture on creative thinking, and much more.

I am so excited to introduce today’s featured guest, Courtney Kingston. Courtney is the founder of Kingston Family Vineyards in Casablanca Valley, Chile. She’s a graduate of Princeton University and she started her career as a consultant for Deloitte’s wine industry practice. There she began learning the ins and outs of the California wine business, and later as a student at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, she wrote the vineyard’s original business plan using the Chilean cattle ranch that her family had owned and operated since 1922. 

After many discussions about the feasibility of converting the family farm into a vineyard, Kingston Family Vineyards became a reality in 1998. Courtney and her husband, Andy, have three daughters and share their time between Portola Valley, California and Chile’s Casablanca Valley. Today Courtney shares the story how how it all began, as well as the ins and outs of what it’s really like to start and run your own vineyard.

Today’s featured guest is Jim Klopman. Jim is a lifelong innovator who has always been one of those people who thinks differently. He was born with brain damage, ADHD, and dyslexia and used athletics to overcome these challenges. After years of being an athlete and unsure of his purpose in life, Jim found his purpose and developed his own business called The SlackBow Balance Training System. 

After five years of development, Jim believes that with the right neural whole-body training to optimize the human balance system, everyone can improve physically and mentally, and can even live longer and feel younger. Prior to starting SlackBow, Jim worked as a VP of Marketing at Intera Corporation and at Russell Athletic as a Management Turnaround Specialist and Product Developer. Today Jim is here to share more about balance training and what the SlackBow System is all about.

Today on the show we welcome Stephanie Goetsch. Stephanie is the founder of Spark Career Strategy, which she launched in 2010. What began as a dedicated career coaching for "what’s next" professionals, blossomed into organizational development and human resources consulting, career and performance coaching, and group training offerings. As the name suggests, Stephanie delivers both spark and strategy to each company and client that she works with. She’s a lover of change, whether it’s changing minds with learning, changing careers with career coaching, changing business with innovation and design, or changing behaviors with performance coaching. 

Prior to launching her own business, she held a number of human resource positions in different organizations, including US Pharmacopeia and Chevy Chase Bank. She’s also a passionate supporter of the US Military and in 2016 she founded Call to Action, which is a non-profit organization that delivers exceptional career transition strategies to US veterans and military spouses to successfully leverage their unique talents for civilian careers.