Senior Issues -

Let’s Unpack America’s Loneliness Epidemic: Why Life’s Hardest Moments Push Us Into Isolation

America is facing what the U.S. Surgeon General recently called an epidemic of loneliness. Nearly half of adults say they feel isolated at times, and that isolation often deepens during life’s hardest moments: serious illness, caregiving, grief, infertility, or financial uncertainty. Author and loneliness coach Karen Kay Smith asserts these “waiting room seasons” can quietly push people away from the very support they need most.

On your show, Smith explains why people often shift into “functioning versus feeling” during crises, how emotional suppression fuels loneliness, and why many struggle to communicate what they truly need. She offers practical, yet life-changing tools listeners can use immediately, including how a simple “breath prayer” can replace pressure-filled spiritual routines, why naming emotions out loud can be more healing than staying strong, and how her “3 C’s” framework—confidence, communication, and community—helps people rebuild connection step by step.

Drawing from 15 years caring for her husband during his battle with multiple sclerosis, along with years in women’s ministry and training as a transformational life coach, Smith brings a rare blend of lived experience and practical guidance to conversations about loneliness and connection. She is the author of Nearsighted: Choosing to See Eating Disorders Differently and the upcoming Hope Has a Seat in Every Waiting Room.

Contact Karen Kay Smith at (256) 812-5106; ksmith@rtirguests.com

Chronic Disease Now Affects 6 in 10 U.S. Adults– What Is Their Pain Trying to Tell Them?

Do a Show on The Hidden Meaning Behind Your Pain and Illness

Chronic illness is rising in America, and many patients leave medical appointments with prescriptions, but few answers about why their symptoms developed in the first place. On this show, Marcel Vögeli explores how stress, emotional patterns, and long-term internal pressure may influence physical health. After eight years of intensive autoimmune treatments that managed symptoms but didn’t restore his life, Marcel began examining the deeper drivers behind his condition. He has been hospital-free since 2012. This is not about rejecting medicine. It’s about asking a broader question: why do two people with the same diagnosis often recover at different rates? Marcel discusses how understanding recurring symptoms, personal stress history, and emotional triggers may complement conventional care.

SAMPLE QUESTIONS: You’re essentially asking people to make friends with their pain — is that a fair way to put it? If someone has recurring symptoms, where should they start looking beyond medication? How can people explore these connections without feeling blamed for their illness?

Marcel Vögeli is spokesperson for The Key to Self-Liberation by the late Christiane Beerlandt, an encyclopedic work on the psychological and emotional roots of more than 1,000 diseases and symptoms.

Contact Marcel Vogeli at Mvogeli@rtirguests.com

How to Protect Your Parents From Today’s New AI Scams

Scammers are increasingly targeting parents and grandparents using sophisticated tactics designed to exploit trust, urgency, and emotion. Many parents are conditioned to act quickly in emergencies and to help their children without hesitation, making caring parents prime targets. From AI-cloned faces and voices that sound like loved ones to impersonation scams that mimic trusted companies, today’s threats are now past the ability for the human eye and ear to spot.

Jocelyn King, founder and CEO of Smarter Online Safety, helps families understand why parents are targeted by scammers and what adult children can do to protect them. After becoming a victim of cybercrime herself, King joined forces with leading cybercrime fighters and learned cybersecurity, the Dark Web, and the business of cybercrime — and how to prevent becoming a victim. She was named a Top 10 Women in Cybersecurity and has helped millions become empowered and equipped to protect themselves in our AI world.

SAMPLE QUESTIONS: Why are parents such effective targets for modern scams? How is the new pandemic of AI voice cloning fooling families? What conversations should families be having before something happens? What’s the smartest first step when a call feels urgent but wrong?

CONTACT: Jocelyn King (970) 762-7837; jking@rtirguests.com

Why This Entrepreneur Says “You Can’t Teach What You Haven’t Done” – And He’s Done It All

At 87, David Selley has lived in three countries, built three careers, and stayed married for 65 years—and he’s already completed a Guinness Record as the oldest author to publish the most books in one year. His message about entrepreneurship is turning heads.

In “PAPA3$ The Entrepreneur,” Selley reveals why modern education creates worker bees instead of entrepreneurs. The statistics are shocking: 87% of college graduates never use their degrees, 56% experience job turnover, and creativity gets systematically crushed. He’ll share why real-world experience trumps classroom theory, how he’s helping 700 million entrepreneurs worldwide, and what his 65-year marriage taught him about building anything that lasts.

SAMPLE QUESTIONS:
• You say 87% of college graduates never use their degrees—what’s really happening with our education system?
• What does your 65-year marriage have to do with entrepreneurial success?
• At 87, you’ve just completed a Guinness Record—what’s next?

CONTACT: David Selley at (808) 229-3985; dselley@rtirguests.com

This 90-Year-Old Has a Ten-Year Plan. Here’s Why You Should Too.

At 90, Jim Flaherty is ramping up, not winding down. This former MadMan ad exec turns 90 in September with a mission: reach 7.5 million depressed seniors living alone in America. His secret? A mindset that refuses to accept aging as decline.Drawing from “Loving Longevity: Make Your Next Years Your Best Years,” Flaherty shares lessons from launching a country inn at 45 with zero experience, moving his kids to Buenos Aires, and caregiving his partner through dementia. Listeners will learn how to embrace aging with purpose and creativity. Ask him:

• You once said, “I’m 89 going on 49″—what does that mindset look like daily?
• What made you “crap-shoot” with your life by starting a business you knew nothing about?
• What did caregiving through dementia teach you that your previous 85 years didn’t?

CONTACT: James B. Flaherty, (914) 326-2697; jflaherty@rtirguests.com

Do a Show On the Protein Myth That Keeps Americans Sick

A heart attack at age 70 forced Dorothy Greet to rethink everything she believed about nutrition—especially protein. After she and her 80-year-old husband ditched all animal products, their results were dramatic: normalized blood pressure and cholesterol, effortless weight loss, and energy levels they hadn’t felt in decades. Now at 85, Greet is credentialed in plant-based nutrition from Cornell and ready to debunk the protein myth keeping millions sick.

In interviews, Greet will reveal how Americans have been misled about protein requirements and why plant foods provide all the protein needed for optimal health. Drawing from her book Go Veg with Class, she’ll share how two lifelong carnivores reversed heart disease through dietary change alone—and why it’s never too late. Listeners will learn simple swaps to “ditch dairy” and “remove meat” while discovering how this shift could eliminate up to 80% of chronic diseases.

SAMPLE QUESTIONS:

Where do you actually get your protein on a plant-based diet?
You reversed heart disease at 70—what happened to your health markers?
Why don’t doctors tell patients about the power of dietary change?

CONTACT: Dorothy Greet at (302) 314-6010; dgreet@rtirguests.com

Interview the “Hire-a-Daughter” Who Clears Out Hoarders, Handles Dead Bodies, and Saves Families from Elder Care Nightmares

Most adult children wait until it’s too late—when Mom falls in the bathroom or Dad has a heart attack—to learn what they should’ve asked, who to call, or where to turn. Debbie C. Miller has spent 30 years as a professional “hire-a-daughter,” helping hundreds of families navigate the overwhelming process of caring for aging loved ones. Her Kirkus-starred, award-winning book, Doing the Right Thing, provides the insider knowledge families desperately need but don’t know exists.

Miller has seen it all: the millionaire miser dead in his driveway for months, properties requiring HazMat suits, extreme hoarding cases, and grief-stricken families being ripped off by unscrupulous estate sale companies. She knows the 40+ questions to ask assisted living facilities, the myths about aging-in-place that endanger seniors, and how to help families make impossible decisions before it’s too late. Family therapists and aging life care managers use her systematic approach nationwide.

SAMPLE QUESTIONS:

What’s the biggest mistake adult children make when their parent has a health crisis?
What questions should families ask assisted living facilities that nobody thinks to ask?
Why do you say aging-in-place is often a dangerous myth?

CONTACT: Debbie Miller at (703) 844-4074; dmiller@rtirguests.com

Why Healing Doesn’t Always Follow a Straight Line

Healing is not neat, inspiring, or Instagram-ready, and pretending it is leaves people feeling broken. Avonley Lightstone explains why healing often looks messy, slow, and unresolved, and why lingering pain does not mean failure. She challenges the belief that healing requires closure and reframes progress as something that can happen even when wounds remain.

Lightstone speaks from lived experience. After losing her mother in a childhood house fire and facing abandonment soon after, she learned that healing comes in small, honest steps, not sudden breakthroughs. She is the author of Strength of Scars, a memoir on resilience and faith, and her story has gained media attention as it moves toward a potential film or television adaptation.

SAMPLE QUESTIONS:
Why does healing feel like failure to so many people? Can you heal without closure? What does real progress actually look like?

CONTACT: Avonley Lightstone at (801) 980-0447; alightstone@rtirguests.com

Why Will So Many Americans Have to Work Past Retirement Age?

Many Americans worry they are already too far behind to retire comfortably. Tom Loegering explains why so many people end up working longer than planned and why it is rarely too late to change direction. Research from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College shows nearly half of working households risk falling short in retirement, often because they believe missed opportunities cannot be fixed.

Loegering is a financial planner, entrepreneur, and author who shows how small adjustments, even later in life, can create meaningful change. He is also the Founder and CEO of Golf Program in Schools, a nonprofit that has helped more than 51,000 students prepare for their futures.

SAMPLE QUESTIONS:
Why do so many Americans assume it’s too late to fix retirement plans? What’s the biggest mistake people make when working longer feels inevitable? What can people in their 50s or 60s still do today?

CONTACT: Tom Loegering at (623) 400-8648; tloegering@rtirguests.com

Physical Therapist Says We’re Treating Pain the Wrong Way

Most people assume pain means something is torn or broken. But Stacey Roberts, physical therapist to professional athletes and celebrities, explains that chronic pain is often driven more by inflammation and less by structural damage. Treating pain solely as an injury may only mask the problem instead of solving it. Chronic inflammatory diseases affect over 60 million people in the U.S. alone, and up to 90% of chronic conditions have an inflammatory component. This means inflammation impacts most people, directly or indirectly making it a root cause of pain for many. Roberts’ approach uses hormone testing, food sensitivity panels like the ALCAT, and a targeted anti-inflammatory protocol involving nutrition, movement, and advanced therapies. “Chronic pain is a whole-body issue,” Roberts says. “Addressing inflammation and biomechanics helps reduce pain and promotes lasting healing far beyond just treating the injury.” Contact Stacey Roberts at (414)522-6153; sroberts@rtirguests.com