WCRN Radio 830 Appearance
Legacy Video Stories Founder Jim Cosco talks with WCRN Radio Host Russ Swallow.
Legacy Video Stories was Featured on WCRN’s “Senior Resources” Radio Show
Legacy Video Stories appeared on local radio recently to talk about the importance of telling your story for future generations by recording a family legacy video. If, you missed it, here is the recording and transcript.
Legacy Video Stories on WCRN's "Senior Resources"
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Announcer:
Welcome to Senior Resources Live and Local Radio from the center of New England, the Center of the Dial and the Center of Information Radio, radio Central eight 30 WCRN. Now, here's your host, Russ Swallow.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Hello again. I've got another central location. This voice is coming from the center of the universe. So I look around here and I see a microphone in front of me and I am in a radio studio, so it must be Wednesday afternoon. We're live and local Radio Central AM eight 30 WCRN. If anybody should have any questions or issues they'd like to discuss on air with either myself or my guests, they can call in at five oh eight eight seven one 7,000 5 0 8 8 7 1 7,000. I don't get a lot of ton of calls about Medicare because many of the issues are dealing with health issues or questions are dealing with health issues. But people call me later, but we'll get into that. So now, before I start with the guest, we have a producer here that can help me understand what it is I do. Can you help me out? Ted
Announcer:
Medicare can be very confusing. Our Medicare workshop will confuse. We can meet in your home office or a coffee shop. We'll show you how and when to enroll in part A and Part B. We'll show you all your options so you can make an informed decision and we'll help you enroll in the plan you choose. There is no charge for our services. The insurance companies pay us.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Yes, we're back. Thank you, Ted. Now I know who I am and why I am here and what I'm doing here. Now I have a guest this week who, or has an interesting business. He's movie or video producer. He's been doing this for a week or two, and we're going to get into that in a few minutes. But he has an interesting program called, I don't know if I, Jim, what's the name of the,
Jim Cosco:
Well, my business is called Legacy Video Stories.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Alright,
Jim Cosco:
Do you want to know more? Yeah,
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Yeah, yeah. Tell me some. What is it? What do you do? Who
Jim Cosco:
Are you? So thanks for having me first. Russ. Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here in central Massachusetts. Fantastic. So I am a video producer. I have been making videos for companies and brands for the better part of 30 years. Wow. I started in local news. I have worked for making stories for Fox, CNN and local stations. And 20 years ago I a company, a marketing company, a production company called Tipping Point Labs. We're based in Newton, Massachusetts. And as part of Tipping point, I make videos for companies you might've heard of, like Breville, vertex, Phillips, Dell, legal Seafood, Putnam Investments, and we tell their brand story through video and it goes online. Well, Ross, as a part of doing that, over the last 20 years, I've collected lots of video equipment, cameras, microphones, lights, Hollywood style equipment to make real professional videos, stuff, stuff that makes movies.
Exactly right. And I guess I'll just tell you the genesis story of the Legacy video. So as a part of that, I've been doing that for a long time and a part of owning all this equipment, probably about 10 years ago, my dad turned 75 and when he turned 75, I said, Hey dad, I own all this gear, all this movie equipment. I interview people for a living. I've been doing it for a long time. How about I bring my gear to your house one day, sit down and talk with you and find out about you and find out about you when you were a kid and how you met mom and the Costco family story. And he got excited. He was like, yeah, let's do that. That'd be great. My dad, if you knew him, Russ, he was a salesman for his whole career.
He was a talker just like you. He had stories about everything and he was excited to do it. So I left feeling good about that. And what happened over the last 10 years later, life gets in the way. I tried to grow my business and I worked on things and things happen and I never got around to it. And last year, Russie passed away and I had never done it. I had never sat down with him on camera. And it was a big regret for me, and I knew it was probably something I should have done. I probably should have interviewed him when I had a chance, but it didn't really hit me that this could be a business until a few months, until right before, right around Christmas time of last year, I sent around a video that I did during Covid during Covid.
My mom turned 80 and everybody else, we couldn't get together with her. So we did a Zoom call for her 80th birthday, and I put together this call, which was an interesting call where it was kind of like, this is your life call. The first 10 minutes were her kids. And then I had her high school friends Zoom bombing, and they had her grandkids come in and her brothers and sisters came in at a later date. It was like a one hour call, but setting that call up, the first five minutes of that recording was my dad on camera, making sure things were okay and trying to get wrangle my mom. And he was happy and he was jovial. And when I sent the video of my mom's birthday to my siblings, they were like, oh, that was really great. It was so fun to watch Jim.
But you know what we really liked? We liked seeing dad. He was happy and it was good to see him again. He had just died like six months beforehand. And so they saw him on video and they saw him talking and smiling on video and it's a powerful medium. And as soon as they said that, I was like, man, that's when I thought back to that 10 years ago when I was like, I should have done that video. So the very next month I put a website together, I registered a company called Legacy Video Stories, and you can get it, legacy video stories.com, find out all about it. What I do for legacy video stories.com is I interview seniors about their lives. I capture their family history, I capture things about their childhood and ask them questions about where they grew up and their parents and their grandparents. And I do this for the benefit of their children and their grandkids. So
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Maybe I should give you a handful of Medicare insurance applications and you can fill it out for me. And then
Jim Cosco:
I mean, bring them with me and hand them with the waiver. Just send them to you and say, here you go. Get more people signed up. Yeah, we can do that. We should do that. But yeah, that's how this company started. So this company now I interview, I bring my equipment, my fancy equipment and make videos that look really great. And I interview seniors about their lives for posterity and for future generations because to tell their story. And Russ, I think that everybody has a story to tell. You don't have to be Oprah Winfrey, you don't have to be Joe Biden or Donald Trump. You can be anybody. Everybody has something interesting to say. We were talking right before we went on the air and you have interesting things to say. I'm not surprised everybody has that. And it's important to capture these memories and these moments while we can because everybody's getting older and we're all not going to be around forever. And so you got to do it now and you can't procrastinate like I did it, learn from me, learn from my lesson. I procrastinate and didn't do this and it was a major mistake. So I went and I did it with my mom. I did it with other friends and families. Now I'm doing it for strangers and I'm meeting new people all the time and hearing wonderful stories about life and lessons. And it's so much more fun than making videos for brands. I'll
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Tell you that. Oh yeah. Because I had two great parents. My mother passed away 18 years ago at the age of 94. Wow. And my father had passed away in 1981 at the age of 73. And I remember a lot of things they told me, but beyond me, my two sons don't know who they were.
Jim Cosco:
Isn't that a shame?
Russ Swallow (HOST):
They don't know who my parents were and what they did and so forth and so on. It was just grandma and grandpa.
Jim Cosco:
It's a shame. And I was the same with my parents, my grandparents, rather until I sat down with my mom in January to do the very first legacy video that I've done, I learned things about my grandparents that I never knew before. We're too busy, Russ. Talking to our parents are too busy taking care of us on a day-to-day basis. As we grow up, I know more personal stories about my friends because that's the relationship we have. My parents are busy, we're busy raising me, feeding me, cooking me dinner, taking me to soccer practice, all these things. And you don't have the time. They're too busy taking care of you. We don't have time to sit down and talk. And so this is so important to find time to sit and talk. Especially now people aren't having dinner around the dinner table these days. They're watching TV or they're too busy. People are eating.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Get rid of these cell phones. The
Jim Cosco:
Cell phones are a problem.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Get rid of them. I mean, when I was a kid, we didn't have cell phones. So what do you do in your spare time? You went out and played with other kids. Of
Jim Cosco:
Course. Of course. And that's why you know so much about your friends and your friends more than you know about your parents.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Yeah. I'm taking my two granddaughters. This was a year or so ago. I forget where I was driving them. They're both in the backseat and they're both on their cell phones, texting. You know who they're texting to
Jim Cosco:
Each other? Probably. Yeah.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Can you believe
Jim Cosco:
That? They're texting each other? Yeah, they're telling. What do you think cramp is going to take us today? I don't know.
Jim Cosco:
I don't want to go.
Jim Cosco:
Yeah, absolutely. And instead of picking up the phone and talking to somebody, they're texting and that's fine. There's a place for that. But you really, if you don't make point to have these meaningful conversations with your family and your parents like yourself, you're going to lose these stories forever. You'll never know about them unless you ask about them. And you have to do that. And you don't have to do it with me. You don't have to do it with the video. There's a million ways to do it. We can talk about other ways to do it and the kinds of questions you should ask, but you have to make time. You have to.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
No, I understand that. And everybody should want this.
Jim Cosco:
Everybody.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Because the old saying, when I die, the world dies. But what about this great and fun life I've been having and all the stuff I've been doing and all the experiences that I had
Jim Cosco:
And all the experience and all the wisdom you can pass down and you can tell people and they can learn from it. For sure. Absolutely.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Interesting. Well, I think we're coming up on a break in a few more seconds. So I guess it's time for me to say something like, we'll be right back.
Singer:
I am sitting on top of, I'm rolling along. Yes, rolling along. And I'm the blue of, I'm singing a song. Yes, singing a song.
Hallelujah. Just get ready to call. Just my company dump. I'm going to fall and I'm sitting on top of the world. I'm rolling along, rolling along. Don't want any million. I'm getting my chef. I've only got one suit just once. That's all. I can wear a bundle of money. Don't make me a sweet little honey. He'll make sad. And I'm on top of the, I'm rolling along, rolling along, and I'm the, I'm singing a song, singing a song. Hallelujah. Just told the person, Hey Paul, get ready to call. Just like I'm going to fall. Yeah. I'm sitting on top, top of the, I'm rolling along,
Announcer:
Looking for guidance. As you face a future on social security, it's hard to figure out on your own. The medicare advisors.com is a completely independent insurance agency specializing in Medicare insurance planning. We work at the top insurance company so we can offer our clients the best coverage for them. We design plans with a focus on low costs, which we combine with personalized insurance advice aimed at helping our clients make better informed decisions. Russ Swallow is a certified senior advisor and a licensed insurance advisor. He's been helping clients with their health insurance needs since 1970 and after a failed attempt at retirement, he created the Medicare advisors in 2014. Russ concluded that since Medicare is health insurance, he might as well put his almost 50 years of health insurance experience to good use. At 75,000 people reach age 65 Massachusetts every year and they can use some help. Call us today at oh eight eight three one zero eight zero five. Put his years of personal experience to work for you as you try to unravel the complexities of social security.
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Now senior resources continues live and local radio from the center of New England, the center of the Dial and the Center of Information Radio, radio Central eight 30 W crn. Once again, here's your host, Russ Swallow.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
And once again, we're back and Jim Costco was telling us about what he does, but do you have a telephone?
Jim Cosco:
I do have a telephone. You can call me. Really? (617) 332-8261.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
I can't write that fast. Can you
Jim Cosco:
Tell me? 6 1 7 3 3 2 8 2 6 1. I wish it spelled out. Legacy or something cool, but it doesn't.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
You have email or whatever,
Jim Cosco:
Jim c@legacyvideostories.com or just go right on the website, legacy video stories.com, legacy video stories.com. Learn all about it. Learn what I do. Email me directly from there and yeah, let's tell your story. Let's make it happen. Tell your story on your own. If you want, you can go to my website and you get some advice on the blog about questions. You can be asked about how to do it on your own because you don't have to do it with me, Russ. You don't have to do, I'm a big advocate of getting people and encouraging people to do it and make them excited about telling their own story any way they want to do it. Any way they find is the easiest way for them, any medium to do it themselves, because I think it's that important that they should do it. Now, if you use me, it's great. We'll book a date, we'll knock it off. We'll get it done. There'll be no procrastination. That is the single biggest deterrent of somebody actually getting it done on their own is that they always think they can do it tomorrow. They can think they can do it. Well, you can do it
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Tomorrow. I don't have time today. Tomorrow never
Jim Cosco:
Comes and tomorrow never comes. Tomorrow comes and the next day comes and you just don't ever do it. So just do it. Just get started. Do it some way. Do it with your iPhone, write it down as a journal if you want, do it some way that makes sense for you or call me. I'll do it for you.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Alright, now I'm just thinking about all of this now, folks listening to the station are either driving their car and once they turn to be one o'clock on a Wednesday, they don't pull over to the side of the road, stop the car and listen to this program. And again, the other type of listeners are at home doing something else so they don't have a chance to write all this stuff down. When I first started this show, I would say, if you want to reach me, call me at (501) 831-0805. Or you can send an email to russ@themedicareadvisor.com. That's
Jim Cosco:
Very, what was that, Russ? At the I gotcha. I get what
Russ Swallow (HOST):
You're saying. Okay. So what I did now is I went out and I spent $12 and 99 cents for a different URLA different website. The name of that website is Medicare Russ. Okay? So
Jim Cosco:
It's catchy. There's
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Nothing on there, but it goes right straight to my regular, the medicare advisors.com page. So I tell people, not only if you want to get back to me or my guest and you want to reach me, yeah, I can give you my phone number, I give you the email. But just remember, go to medicare russ.com. That's Medicare, then my name RUSS. That's all one word. Then dot, if you don't know how to spell dot, use the period. Whoops. I shoulda have shut my phone
Jim Cosco:
Off. That wasn't me. That wasn't my phone, Ted. That wasn't me.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
I
Jim Cosco:
Supposed to shut. I'm trying to be a good guess.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
So the point is, if you not only have questions for me, but you have questions for Jim and about what he does, but you didn't have a chance to write all that stuff down, you were doing something else, just go to medicare rust.com. You can reach me through there and then say, Hey, the video guy, the legacy guy, how do I reach him? And I'll get back to you. That'd be great. So that's, I'm not going to stop my car to write down somebody's name. Call
Jim Cosco:
Ross or go onto legacy video stories.com.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Okay. I'll try to remember that. But yeah,
Jim Cosco:
I know, I hear
Russ Swallow (HOST):
You. Old people like me are short term me sucks out loud big time. So,
Jim Cosco:
Yep, I hear you.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Alright, so who were you before this video stuff?
Jim Cosco:
Who was I?
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Yeah, what did you do before
Jim Cosco:
That? I wanted to be making videos. Since I was a kid, I was videotaping things with an old VHS camcorder growing up, every holiday I'd videotape that I'd always have a camera going. I start a video club in high school, so learn how to, because the AV teacher had very cool video equipment that nobody could use because only the AV teacher could use. It was editing equipment. And my friend Steve and I said, we want to use that equipment, how do we do that? I don't know, let's start a club and get her on board. So she got us, she became the advisor and taught us how to edit. So at age 16, I knew how to edit video. Went into college freshman year, I was the only one that knew how to do that. So I've been doing this for a long, long time.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
That's who you are and that's what you do. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Jim Cosco:
What are you getting at?
Russ Swallow (HOST):
No, I was just saying that the reason why I got into the Medicare business is I had been a group health insurance and benefits broker for 45 plus years. And about nine or 10 years ago, I had a little bump in the road. It was a health bump and it was a quadruple bypass. So they told me get rid of the stress. So I sold my business and I became retired. And that lasted for three consecutive weeks because the first thing in retirement, I got a Medicare summary notice about something that had been paid. So I said, where's my Medicare card? I finally dug it out and yeah, it says on the top line what I know, it says, it says Medicare health insurance. Well, Medicare's health insurance. I know something about health insurance. So I just became the Medicare advisor and I know what I'm doing. I'm good at it. So I'm going to keep on doing it. Now I work 24 7 between my left ear and right ear. I wake up in the middle of the night and I have to start writing stuff down. But the rest of the time I might spend 25 hours a week. I don't really need the money, but I like what I do and what I'm doing is considered a quasi-public service because no one understands what this Medicare stuff is about. And that's why I set it up that way. So they'd have to come to me
Jim Cosco:
And it seems like it's something easy, like you hit 65 or so, you sign up for Medicare, you're taking care of nothing to worry about. No questions. It just happens, right?
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Yeah. Well there's a lot of moving parts to this and people are very confused and there's more information out there than anyone could ever need or want. But you get all this information, how do you use it? And that's where the rubber meets the road.
Jim Cosco:
And it probably is one of the most important decisions you can make as somebody who's getting up there in age. This is your health, this is your healthcare.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Exactly. And what you don't want to do is you don't want to make the wrong decision because the wrong decision could affect your health and your finances. So what I do is I speak at groups or employers or lunch and learn session, whatever, and I explain Medicare with a PowerPoint slideshow and it covers anything and everything everybody would want to know. But I meet with individuals at their home office or in one of my many offices, you might think they're Panera Bread, but those are my offices because 90% of the meetings I have with people are at a Panera Bread. There you go. And I pay Panera Bread $12 and 83 cents a month to rent office space and all of them.
Jim Cosco:
There you
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Go. They also give me free coffee. And some naysayer might say, well Russ, don't you really have their unlimited coffee program? And I say, well, yeah, my story sounds better.
Jim Cosco:
Have you tried their muffin tops? No. Oh my god. Panera bread, their muffin tops, they slice off the bottom of the muffin. I don't know what they do with it, but they just sell you the muffin top. Try that next time.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Alright, I'll give it a shot. But it got to the point once where other people were going to meet somebody else and they say, I'll meet you at Russ's office. But that's where it is, just a great convenience setting, free wifi. And it's the meeting I have is like a conversation like you and I are having. I explain all the parts of Medicare so that an individual can make an informed decision. And if they want to go further, I don't charge anything for that. It's, it's a complimentary consultation. But if they want me to help them find a plan, then I'll need the information from them about who are the doctors and who are, what medications are they taking and all the name of it, the dosage, how many per day. And then I'll go find a plan for them, and if I find a plan for them and enroll 'em in that plan, I get paid by the insurance company.
Jim Cosco:
Oh, it's a win-win.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
I get paid immediately, but I get paid year after year after year.
Jim Cosco:
No, it's a win win, win win.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Yeah. Yeah. And beyond that, if there you go, winning to Infinity. Yeah, if I live
Jim Cosco:
That long, hey, I mean it makes sense because free advice is free is great, and that you know what you're talking about. That's great. Like you said, it's very complicated if somebody can explain it or put it into a one sheet or a graphic or something. I know you have some graphics that that's great and it's a very important decision, so you better do your research. I
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Like what I'm doing and I'd like to say I get the weird stuff. I mean the crazy stuff,
Jim Cosco:
Like what's the weirdest thing you have ever had without throwing a client under the bus?
Russ Swallow (HOST):
No, it goes on and on and on. I have one friend that she went on a Medicare plan with me, and there's two types of Medicare plans. One is an H-M-O-P-P-O type as a zero premium subsidized by Medicare. On the opposite Sure. Is a plan called Medigap, which covers every doctrine hospital in the country that accepts Medicare. I'm a user. That's the plan I have. But we've got some time. We're coming up on a break zone, so at the end of the break I'll try to remember to talk about this one instance, but I'm old. My short-term memory is tanking fast. So maybe Jim can help me to finish off what I was trying to say before the break and then I'll shut up for a while because we got to know more about this stuff that Jim does. I mean it sounds good. Yeah, so I'm trying to look at my watch. I think we got 20 seconds to go so I could do a countdown, but my producer would go ballistic if I tried to do that. And he's such a helpful guy because he helped me understand what it is I do at the beginning of the show.
But I got to remember what I was talking about when we come back. So we'll be right back.
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Looking for guidance. As you face a future on social security, it's hard to figure out on your own. The medicare advisors.com is a completely independent insurance agency specializing in Medicare insurance planning. We work at the top insurance company so we can offer our clients the best coverage for them. We design plans with a focus on low costs, which we combine with personalized insurance advice aimed at helping our clients make better informed decisions. Russ Swallow is a certified senior advisor and a licensed insurance advisor. He's been helping clients with their health insurance needs since 1970 and after a failed attempt at retirement, he created the Medicare advisors in 2014. Russ concluded that since Medicare is health insurance, he might as well put his almost 50 years of health insurance experience to good use. As 75,000 people reach 8 65 Massachusetts every year and they can use some help. Call RU today at oh eight three one zero eight zero five. Put his years of personal experience to work for you as you try to unravel the complexities of Social Security
Announcer:
Radio Central eight 30 WCRN. Worcester. You are listening to senior resources live and local radio from the center of New England, the center of the Dial and the Center of Information Radio, radio Central eight 30 WCRN. Once again, here's your host, Russ Swallow.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
And once again, from the center of the universe,
We ended up the previous segment when I had a story about an individual. I call 'em, I get the weird ones. The weird is the wrong name. I get the complicated ones. This was an individual who is in her early 80 thirties, early in her eighties. And when she first signed up for Medicare, she signed up for Medicare A and B, and she opted for a particular Medicare plan with which you need a separate drug plan. So consequently, we put that on there, her on that plan, and then she got slammed with a penalty. She didn't have it. She had to shell out $400 upfront and an extra $45 a month for the rest of her life. Now she can afford that. But you want to understand as far as signing up for any Medicare plan or a supplemental plan, if you don't do it when you're first eligible, you could be faced with penalties for the rest of your life. Now if you're working and you're covered by a group health plan, you don't have to worry about that until you get off to Group Health Plan. But let's get back to the legacy videos and making the individual like myself a movie star for my own family. Is that what it's about?
Jim Cosco:
Yeah, I mean it is about that. It's funny because the other life I lead is I'm a video producer director for brands, and their goal is to get as many eyeballs as possible on their video. So I'm making a video and hoping that tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people will watch that when I'm making a legacy video. The audience is a micro audience. It's the exact opposite really. We're making a video for an audience of 6, 10, 12, your kids, your grandkids, maybe your great grandkids, but it's a small audience, but it's a more valuable audience. We want them to watch this. We want them to learn about you. Your story. They're learning about their family and their family history. They're learning about generations that came before you because you're the one that knows about it. You're telling these stories and if you don't tell the stories, they'll never know.
And I know off the air we were talking about that. The same with stories about your own grandparents. And it's absolutely true. So yes, we're making movie stars out of them, but we're really making historians out of them. We're making them. If you're into genealogy and you're into history and you're into all of these stories are things that you get together and you tell these stories and it becomes your own family mythology. And it's things that are passed down. When you think about a legacy Russ, right, a legacy, what is it? It's the definition of a legacy can be one thing can be, it's something passed down that's of value. Like, oh, you're a state, your house, your business. That's my legacy. The second definition is just something that's transmitted from the past, from your ancestors to you. And that's a story that could be something small.
It doesn't have to be something big, right? It could be a memento, it could be a story. And I'll tell you a funny story is that when my dad downsized, my parents downsized from their big house that we lived in for 30 years in Melrose. He packed his truck, his moving truck to the brim like Tetris and had everything in there. And he thinks everything's valuable and it all is valuable, but it's just stuff really, nobody cares about it. The thing that I took from that house that day when I helped him pack up and move was a key chain that my parents got from Melrose Cooperative Bank for free. When they opened, they moved to Melrose and they opened their savings account and on that key chain that was hanging in the garage for years and years and years with the back door to it, because both parents worked.
Whichever kid came home from school back then, first they would go to the garage, which was open, get the key open, let themselves in. Over the course of like 20, 30 years, we all touched that key chain every single day. And so I took that because it had a story and it's a mythology behind it. And when my brothers and sisters saw that hanging in my house today, they saw that and they're like, oh, you got the key chain from the back. Can I have that? That's so cool. I'm like, you can't have it. That means something. And so I guess what I'm saying is that if something doesn't have a story behind it, then it's kind of worthless.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
I understand. An example with me and my situation, I'm from Worcester, but I lived in Southern California from 1965 to 1985, and unfortunately my wife and I just grew apart. We could not agree on parenting. So in 1985, I was divorced. So I came back here as a single parent with two boys, 12 and 10 to look after my 73-year-old, a mother who lived another 21 years. And one day she asked me to get something from the cellar. So I went down cellar, I couldn't move. It took me a week or two to clear a path over to the boiler. And then she told me one day, she said, Russell, I would like you to clean up the cellar for me, but don't throw anything away because all those things throw away are that key chain. There's memories attached to it.
Jim Cosco:
Yeah, that's right. I'll tell you, cleaning my dad's house out when we moved him was tough because there was a lot of stuff. We had a dumpster. It took weeks to fill the dumpster because he wanted to see everything we were throwing out. And we gave him a lot of trouble about that at the time and it caused a lot of frustration. But I can see where he's coming from. If I had to throw stuff out, I have a bunch of stuff that a lot of it's garbage. If you don't look at something for 10 years, it's garbage. Throw it away. Throw it away. If you don't wear a shirt in your closet, I have this fight with my girlfriend all the time. If you don't wear a shirt that's sitting in the closet in a year, you're not going to wear it. Throw it away.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
But I can't throw the stuff away, but my oldest son is brutal. He will throw anything out.
Jim Cosco:
You got to be like that. You got to be heartless.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
And we get great stories from California. See, I was Mr. Dad and also Mr. Mom and I got the kids coached to coach 'em in soccer, little league baseball, got 'em involved in hockey out there. And then back in 1984, they had seen a movie called Break Dance Electric, boogaloo. They wanted me to take 'em out to Venice Beach so they could see the break dancers.
Jim Cosco:
Oh,
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Interesting. So we went out to Venice Beach and the thing that attracted us most were the roller skaters. These are the greatest roller skaters in the world. And this was in the days where they weren't inline skates. There were
Jim Cosco:
Oh yeah, actual roller skates.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Actual roller skates. So we started going out every Sunday and we became part of that crowd in front of the Venice Beach Pavilion is a slight decline that they'd set up a slalom course with cones in it. I could do those. Crossing the legs back and forth. Wow. My oldest son could dole on one leg and we had quite a collection. One guy was a bus driver. There was another guy who was a computer genius, another guy who was a chiropractor and another guy sold coke. So I mean it was Coca-Cola. No, no. Anyway, those are the kind of stories I think people should want to share. Do you
Jim Cosco:
Still have those roller skates?
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Yeah, but I haven't used them. That's
Jim Cosco:
Okay. But that's the kind of thing that's valuable. Right? I bet your kids would want that when you're not around. Your kids are going to want those roller skates.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
I don't know if I still have them. I later graduated to inline skates. So
Jim Cosco:
Anyway, let's
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Hope be that as it may. So it's memories that are important probably to someone like myself or yourself and dealing with the kids. The kids today, do they really want to know about it today? No. But after you're gone, I would think they really want to know more about you.
Jim Cosco:
They will. And you know what people ask it. When does somebody start thinking about, when's a good time to record a legacy video? The number one time
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Before you die.
Jim Cosco:
That's right.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Yeah.
Jim Cosco:
That's not what I was going to say, but that's right. I'm going to use that though. I'm going to use that. I'm going to use that next time. But one of the things that sparks a recording of a legacy video is when your first parent dies, and this is what happened with me, right? My dad passed away and I was like, okay, well I got to do this with my mom because, and if you haven't thought about it and you don't think it's important, I'll tell you when your first parent dies, you're going to think it's important and you're going to do this any way you can with the remaining parent. That's one thing that sparks it. There's other things too. If you're smart enough to and thoughtful enough to
Go to a funeral home when you're older and preplan your own services, that's a hard thing to do. But what a gift that is, right? My dad did that when he passed away and it took a lot of the decisions out of it off the table for us because he already paid for it. He already told us, told the funeral director what he wanted. And so I'm working with funeral homes in the state now to be a resource for them and their customers. When they come in to preplan their own services, they say, okay, well here's something else you might want to consider doing. It's called a legacy video. It's an interview with this guy Jim. They give him a flyer about my company. And if you're thoughtful enough to think about that, you might want to do that as well because you want to be able to control your own narrative too, to some extent and control how you want to be remembered. You want to be able to offer advice to your grandkids life advice for us. You have a ton of lived experience and a ton of stories, and you're wise because of it, and you have a lot to pass down. Everybody has a lot to pass down and things to tell their kids and their grandkids. So a little bit about it is history and just the facts.
What were your parents like? What did they do for work? Where did they come from in the old country? Things like that. But a lot of it's advice. What would you tell your kids is the most important thing in life? Hard questions that take a lot of,
Russ Swallow (HOST):
No, mine is very simple.
Jim Cosco:
Oh, what is it?
Russ Swallow (HOST):
It's not what happens to you, it's how you react to it.
Jim Cosco:
Sure.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
That's the biggie. I mean, that's what it's all about. You can't let things bother you. You have to react to them in a way so you can keep on making one step in front of the other and you got to keep on trucking.
Jim Cosco:
And it probably took you decades to learn that. Decades. And you probably thought, and it came to you in some epiphany probably later in life. Yeah, of course.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Well, because then you know it all. And I had been encourageable since kindergarten, so that's what I,
Jim Cosco:
It's questions like that that are important. How do you want to be remembered? Who's your biggest influence in your life? Those are the kinds of questions you need to really take stock of and to stop and think about. But the other questions you should answer are things like, tell your kids how your marriage proposal was. We have 10 seconds, but tell them about things like that. They'd never know unless you tell them. I didn't.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
We'll be right back folks.
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Announcer:
Now Senior resources continues live and local radio from the center of New England, the center of the Dial and the Center of Information Radio, radio Central eight 30 WCRN. Once again, here's your host, Russ Swallow,
Russ Swallow (HOST):
And Ted, Ted is our producer. When you're talking about the center of everything, I think you have to include it to be the center of the universe, right inside of Russ Swallow's two ears, left ear and his right ear. So we got to think about that sometime. Now I've rambled on and rambled on, but Jim, tell us about one really complicated case you've had to do. I'm sure some are. We were talking about having your kids or your grandkids ask you questions or Yeah,
Jim Cosco:
Sometimes I the I always offer, I can do the interview. I've done many interviews. I've spent my career doing interviews just like you have. And I always offer the client, and by the way, the client's, usually the grown children, right? The grown children are one approach me. They want to know the story about their parents. And sometimes the parents are reluctant to go on, but they convince them I'll have the children, I'll give them the option of sitting down and interviewing their own mom, their own dad, or a grandkid interviewing them. And I think that's really sweet. I'll help them come up with the questions. I go on my website. There's a lot of starter questions you can download and you can get some ideas there, even if you're doing it yourself. Go on my website, download the questions and start there. But it's really sweet to have the daughter, the son interview their own parent because there's a connection there already.
And after the fact when the interview's done, I pack up my gear and I leave. They have a special memory and a special moment. They'll rewatch the interview someday and they won't hear my voice asking the questions. They'll hear their own voice asking the questions, and that's a better too. And so sometimes they get a better connection there. Or sometimes a senior won't want their kid doing the interview. It's easier probably to tell these stories or these family secrets to a stranger at first, and they know the kids are going to watch it eventually. But yeah, sometimes it's better for them to have me do the interview either way. It's great. And again, Russ, I'm a big advocate of just sitting down and planning your legacy and shooting a video or telling your story any way you want. For us, we all have these cameras in our pocket. We have phones with really nice cameras. If you don't want to use me, get your grandkid to film you with your iPhone, ask you questions. They'll never regret it. They'll never regret it. They might do this eventually.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Well, my grandkids are too young. There's two girls, 17 and 14. My son is having a difficult time with them because these girls have opinions.
Jim Cosco:
You don't want that. No, you got to squash that right away.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
They think they're real people. Yeah,
Jim Cosco:
You got to squash that right away, but I hear what you're saying,
But if you do this, if you convince your parent to do this, you'll never regret it. And you might rewatch this video. Eventually everybody passes away and when that happens, you might rewatch the video 10 times. You might rewatch it every day. People deal with grief differently. I've learned that. Or you might watch it just once and any of that's okay. It's going to provide some sort of comfort. And I'm a big advocate for doing it on video because you could have them journal, have them write it down. You could have them scrapbook and write captions on the back of photos. They're all good ways to do this, but there's nothing like seeing them answer a question on video, seeing their mannerism, seeing them again. It's my favorite way to do it and I think it's how people should do it, but the moral is, or do it any way you can do it any way that's easy. And I try to make this easy, but if you don't want to do it this way, just do it some other way because it will be just planning your own services. It's morbid, but as a gift to your family doing this is a huge gift to them too.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Yeah. Well, in my case, I think the best way for me to consider thinking about this more deeply is to find out the stuff that's on your website and point out to my son that this seems to be interesting and see where it goes from there. But he's got his hands full with the two daughters and I have my hands full with his brother. Richard is 51, his brother Randy is going to be 49 next month. Richard is all set. But Randy is disabled. He's a good person with a rotten illness. He has schizophrenia and I'm with him half the nights of the week and half the nights I'm with Linda. And every family's different. But like I said to begin with, it's not what happens to you, it's how you deal with it. So you just got to keep on trucking and doing it the best way you can. So do you have a recent individual that you think would be interesting for people to hear about? Obviously you don't mention their name, but generically what happened was there,
Jim Cosco:
Well, luckily things haven't been challenging yet. I've been doing this since February. I haven't gotten a client that's challenging, but I can imagine that's going to happen one day. Somebody that might be a little gruff or grumpy, but I haven't got there yet. I will say some of the more memorable ones have been ones where I've done them with couples. You can do with just your mom, just your dad. But doing with both of them, sitting together and having them play off of each other and tell stories and reminiscing together is really powerful and really nice to have.
Would encourage if you have the chance to do that, I would encourage that and try to get them to do that. I have had other people that give you one word answers and things like that, so you try not to get them, pull out more information. I think that's the most challenging thing is that you might come up with a shy person once in a while who doesn't want to talk about themselves. So you make it easy at first. I always say start with the simple and make it more complex and just start getting them answering questions about something you don't have to think about. What's your earliest memory? What were your family holidays like? Things that they can answer off the top of mind without having to really struggle to think about some sort of snazzy or interesting answer. Because
Russ Swallow (HOST):
I remember way, way back when I had just come out into the world and some guy was holding me. I had a mask on holding me upside down. Do you remember that? Yeah.
Jim Cosco:
There you
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Go. Whacking me on the butt. So there
Jim Cosco:
You go.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
No, I don't remember
Jim Cosco:
That. Of course you don't. Of course you don't. But you'd be surprised. And I do these discussions and talks at senior living centers and part of the discussion at the end, I kind of get them to answer questions and I have this, and if anybody wants to go on Amazon and buy it, it's a deck of cards. And it is, I'm looking at the, I'm trying to find it right now for you. Sorry about the Dead Air. It's called Life Story Interview Kit, and look that up. It's a tool for capturing memories. It's a deck of cards and you can pick from Early Life card, midlife card or later in Life card. And they're just personal questions about your life. And it's a way to get around the table as a family and ask each other these questions.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
What's the name of that?
Jim Cosco:
Oh man, you got to make me do that again, huh? Okay, here we go. It's called Life Story Interview Kit, and they bill it as a way to, it's the Life Story interview kit. Yeah, it's on amazon.com. There you go. A tool for capturing memories. Life story interview kit. It's a deck of cards. It looks like that. It's just a little box of cards.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Alright, so let me just send an email to myself. There you
Jim Cosco:
Go. And I bring this to senior living centers and at the end of my talk, I make the seniors jar a card either from early life midlife or later in life and have them answer one question and let everybody learn a little bit about them. And it really is nice because most of the time, 80% of the time they take the question from their early life. They like their childhood and their earliest memory, and it's very interesting to me that they choose to do that as opposed to mid or later in life.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Okay, so now I'm old. My short-term memory, memory tanks. So I left. No, after we're finished up, let me write it down. Speaking
Jim Cosco:
Of that, I know we only have a few minutes left. Speaking of that though, another moment where people might think about doing this is when they're diagnosed with something and it could be diagnosed with a terminal illness and you want to race to get your story down, or you could be diagnosed with early stage dementia or Alzheimer's. And it's a good chance, a good opportunity really to sit down and tell your story then before things get worse. And so the other thing is, people who are in memory care facilities, long-term memories or memories that still stick around for patients that are experiencing Alzheimer's and dementia, whereas they forget the more recent stuff, but they can dig back pretty deep into the past and tell their stories. So even if they're diagnosed with that, it's still worth trying. It's still worth trying.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Now you said assisted living facilities or whatever speaking, do you know what a continuing care retirement community is?
Jim Cosco:
Yes.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
It's the whole McGill. You start out with a cottage or whatever. Yes. Then as you progress down the road, you could go into assisted living and ultimately a nursing home.
Jim Cosco:
Yes.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Now there's a big one in the Worcester area that I am speaking to their, they have a men's club and they have a monthly men's club there of all from the residents in the community. And I'm speaking at September 5th meeting breakfast, and then you speak afterwards. I'm talking about Medicare. Let me think as we go along there. That might be a good contact for you.
Jim Cosco:
Yeah, that'd be great. Anybody listening that wants to learn more about this, go to legacy video stories.com or just email me at Jim c@legacyvideostories.com or again, go on your website. I think you can put them in touch with me too. And there's a lot more ways to do this. I think you just need to do it any way you want.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
Yeah. Well, what I want to do tonight is I want to win Powerball.
Jim Cosco:
I want to win too. So we're both going to buy tickets. How about we both buy tickets? If we win, we'll split it.
Russ Swallow (HOST):
No, I need the winning numbers before the drawing. And don't call me tomorrow morning and say last night the numbers were, you might think it's humorous, but I wouldn't think it. We won't
Jim Cosco:
Do it. Well,
Russ Swallow (HOST):
We're winding up for the week and if we wait another seven days or 168 hours, we'll be back.
Announcer:
You've been listening to Senior Resources with your host, Russ Swallow. Stay tuned for more live and local radio. From the center of New England, the center of the Dial and the Center of Information Radio. Radio Central eight 30 WCRN.
