Caregiving Mom Creates Secure Communications Platform Resource for Fellow Caregivers

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Call 866-WINASIA. Or to see chickens and other animals to donate, go to CritterCampaign.org. This fellow reached out to me and said, hey, would you like to talk about this particular issue? And I said, yes, I would, because so much data is being pooled by family members when you take care of a loved one. Okay, for example, I'm taking care of helping my family with my parents. We're dealing with some stuff with mom and dad, and they're doing okay, but there's a lot of information being shared. Do you want to share that information on open source stuff?

There's a lot of personal information. Are you comfortable with that, John? It depends, you know. Being the clandestine conspiracy tinfoil hat-wearing guy that you are, are you comfortable with that? Excuse me, I will only answer to my true name, which is Rusty Shackleford.

As long as it's not Pierre Delecto. You don't know who that is, do you? I was making a King of the Hill joke, because that's the tinfoil hat-wearing guy. I was making a Mitt Romney joke. Oh, there you go.

Mitt Romney's fake name that he used on Twitter was Pierre Delecto. Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah.

I don't know why. But anyway, so my next guest, Audrey Bond, has a solution for families that are doing this sort of thing, and she is the CEO. I'm going to give it away in the title of the organization. However, that's the mark of a good organizational name, is if it tells you what they do in the title of the organization.

It does what it says on the tin, yeah. And her company is called Vault. Vault. All right, so Audrey, you with us? I'm here. Well, it's great to have you here, and thank you for taking the time. I just thought this was fascinating, what you do.

Tell me about Vault, and tell me why you started it, why you do it, what it does, and how people can be a part of this. Well, thank you for having me. I'm very, very thankful to be here.

I'm so pleased to meet you. I'm calling from way up north here in Canada. Well, we're closer to you. I'm in Montana. Where about in Canada are you? You're in Quebec? I'm in Ottawa, actually.

I'm nation's capital. All right. Okay, well, I'm a little further from you.

Well, I don't know. I don't know how far John is from you from Nashville. We're just a long ways, but you sound so close to us, Audrey. You sound so close. It feels good. So, I have to admit, I built this. I actually started this 10 years ago. Let me tell you.

Let me go backwards. Vault is a secure information management and communication platform, and I built this to help families and caregivers communicate and really easily store and share important information and tasks and schedules. My mission is, and this is what I'm planning to do. This is what we're doing right now. This is what I'm going to be doing to the end of my days is to help families and caregivers stay organized and stay connected and alleviate stress and information and give people back control of their data. We built an end-to-end encrypted organizational and communication platform. While there were apps out there and document sharing platforms like Dropbox and others, none provided the features that I needed, and most were not user-friendly, and so you couldn't just get in there and start and get going.

More often than not, they were not secure, and they mined your data. I've always believed that better support for caregivers can improve the well-being of those giving and receiving the care, and that's what we're doing. We want to empower caregivers. We want them to help regain control and help their peace of mind. And I've got to admit, I built this for myself.

Well, that was really my question, because something of this innovative is not built in a vacuum. There's always a reason why you're doing this, so what was that reason? Yeah, there's two reasons. So I actually started this journey 10 years ago, and I was going through a divorce, and my ex-husband, unfortunately, didn't really know anything about her daughter. So we had these communication barriers, and that created issues between the information silos and issues between my daughter and my ex-husband. And I wasn't in the position to wanting to be constantly feeding him information daily about her, but he was out of touch, and that wasn't right, and it wasn't like he was doing it on purpose.

He wasn't a bad guy. It was just the way it was. And so I struggled, and I looked around, and I recognized that my problem was actually quite universal back then. It wasn't just because of people that had divorces. It was because there was people, my friends, whose husbands traveled a lot for work. My friends that were in the military, they struggled big time.

My friends where both parents worked a lot and they had nannies or they were just rarely home, they were very disorganized, very stressed out and very disconnected. And I always thought, we've got to create something, this place where I could go in and put all my daughter's information and updates on her life, and my ex-husband could come in and he could access it and share it, and he could feel empowered with this information. And it didn't exist ten years ago, but the thing was ten years ago, my daughter was seven, and I was a single mom, but I was also an entrepreneur. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to build this, but I realized there was too many obstacles back then. Again, my daughter was seven.

She needed me, and I had my business, and I was a single mom. And so I actually started looking into it. Are you a computer programmer? I mean, is that what you do? No. No.

No. I hired people to do that. This gets even more impressive here, because you're saying words like information silos and things such as that, and I'm thinking, wow, she's in military and grade encryption, but you weren't any of those things, were you? No, I was in the military for a few years, but more than anything, I was a caregiver to my daughter. I was the daughter, and this is where I'm getting to this, I was also the daughter to disabled parents, and this is what I grew up with. And I wanted to build this.

I found Developer. I started doing market research again ten years ago, and I'm like, I need this. And everybody was like, oh my God, I need this too. Everybody was overwhelmed. They wanted this. They needed this in their life. But I recognized at that moment in my life at that time, I couldn't do it.

It required me to do this full time, and I had to run the business that I had. I had to take care of my daughter, so I walked away, and I regretted it every single day of my life. And if you had ever asked me what's the single biggest regret of your life, I would have said, oh, there's none.

Oh, wait. Yeah, there was one. There was just one thing that I always felt that I was meant to do.

Hey, hey, you have one, all right? I have a show full, I have a history of regret. I have a library of regrets, so you are so far ahead of the curve here, Audrey. Peter is a regret connoisseur, you know. I'm a failure connoisseur, you know, and failures, I've had many, right? Because that has brought me to where I am. Yeah, that's the only way you get better at anything is by not being good at something and realizing it. And then you go, oh, I guess I better get good at that.

I'd like to think that some of the most successful people that I've ever met in my life have failed hard, but they learned hard from it, you know. And so the universe, you know, I went back to doing what I was doing and, you know, doing what I knew best and taking care of my daughter, taking care of my parents. And my parents aged, and I aged, and everybody aged. And my mom is a paraplegic, and my dad has dementia, and my brother has mental health issues.

And so now I'm managing, you know, like, I'm doing okay-ish. And I'm like, I really, really need involved. I'm like, I really wish I had this place, because now I'm really having to look. As my parents aged, I really had to start, so I had to step in, you know. And I think I stepped in a bit too late, because it's always the way, because they were all so proud, they didn't want that, they resist, you know.

And I was trying to do it all on my own, and how do I share this information with my brother, you know. And the ball dropped a lot, and there were so many problems, and I was so stressed out. And I'm like, oh my goodness, I have to do something. But I couldn't, I just, and then the universe again did its thing, and it, vaults landed on my lap again. And I bumped into one of the developers that I had met 10 years before, and he's like, hey Audrey, you know, how's it going?

And I, you know, he's like, so whatever happened to vaults? And I said, biggest regret, you know, yada yada. And he said, would you consider looking into it again? And I thought, well, my daughter's 15 now, and if I don't do this now, I mean, now the universe is screaming at me.

Like, just put it on my lap. And I, and I'm, if I don't follow these signs, and listen to what's going on, I will, I don't want to regret this the rest of my life. And I need this very badly now. If I thought I needed it 10 years ago, oh, I need it so much more now. And so we did it. So I dropped my business, I said goodbye to all the clients that I had, and I threw myself in this two years ago. And we did our market research so that we knew what we're doing. We decided that we realized, and I've always felt that I never liked that my information was mined when I go online. So I decided that, you know, the biggest, the biggest issue with people coming to something like vaults is the concern that, you know, they're putting their private and personal information out there and it can be hacked.

And so we had to develop architecture that would ensure that wouldn't happen to protect, you know, users' sensitive data. So we did it, we built it, it's live, it's out there. And, you know, I'm, I followed through, and we're still very fortunate. Well, first off, first off, let me let me address a couple things here, because you've hit a couple of huge, important things that John and I talk about a lot on the show. One of them is, is that that point we said I was doing everything myself. That's one of the landmines in my book, Seven Caregiver Landmines, thinking that it's all up to me. So congratulations on asking for help and partnering with people to help you do that.

Number two, I just think this is awesome because only a caregiver, particularly one that deals with the multiple things that you're dealing with, is going to really understand the core needs of fellow caregivers. You know, it's not something you could theoretically come up with. You've got to live it.

You just got to have skin in the game. And you do. And so I really want you to know how meaningful that is to me personally, because I like to see that the innovation of caregivers, because I think we're a highly innovative type of person. We're high skilled, functioning multitaskers. And then one of the things that I also like to do is see caregivers succeed in whatever they're putting their hands to because they're finding such purpose in what they're doing. They bring that passion, that purpose into it. And so I just need to get that out there because those are very important things that you hit on.

And I know that my listeners are going to respond to this. How do they access this? What's involved? Is the subscription rate?

Are there tiers of subscription? How do people get involved with this? Because this is so important when you're sharing this vast amount of data. And I'm tired of my data being mine, too.

And the last thing you want to do is send stuff over Facebook Messenger, you know, that you're dealing with complex family dynamic situations. You want to have a place. So what are some of the practical things that people are going to see immediately when they start looking at this? And then how do they access it? So first off, again, we're a tech startup.

We're new to the world. And so right now we're available in the Apple App Store. So you can either go into the App Store and search up Vault by name, V-A-U-L-T-T.

So two T's. You can also just look at vault.com. And that really will give you an understanding of the features that we have and really what our mission is.

We are subscription based, so it's monthly. And if people… And by the way, let me interrupt for just a second. Sure. To my listeners.

When somebody says it's subscription based or something like this, thank them because if it's free, then you're the customer. That's right. Always remember that. Absolutely.

People that offer you stuff for free… If it's free, you're the product. Well, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. John corrected me beautifully, John. Thank you for that. See, I was testing you, John. I was testing you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if they're offering you for free, then you're the product.

And Audrey's exactly right. You're the product. They're going to mine your data and they're going to sell things about you. And you're going to be just inundated with this stuff and your personal stuff is getting out there. And so, thank them that it's subscription based so that they… That's the number one tier thing of saying this is protected, this is encrypted. You know, part of our mission, not only to help caregivers and therefore also helping those that are being cared for, but it's also to educate people. And so, if you look, we have a blog on our website and there's a new blog up recently. And it's about security.

And it's fairly, you know, easy to understand for the average person to understand that, you know, when you go online and when you start searching for things. And if you've ever, you know, so you looked for, I don't know, a yellow sofa and then all of a sudden, you know, you're on Facebook and you see yellow sofa ads. You're like, what's going on? Right.

Yes. We made a joke about this with the last guest, actually. This happens a lot. Well, don't listen. Don't go away.

We just got to take a quick break. We're talking with Audrey Bond. That's Bond.

Audrey Bond. And that's a joke, by the way, Audrey. That's funny. I'm sure she's never heard it before. First time I've heard it. I've never heard of that before. But we're grateful to see her. She's CEO of Vault with two Ts. V-A-U-L-T-T dot com. And it's providing you yet one more fabulous tool to help you in your journey as a caregiver.

It's from a caregiver for caregivers and it's being endorsed by a caregiver. So we are glad to have you with us. Don't go away.

We'll be right back. Have you ever struggled to trust God when lousy things happen to you? I'm Gracie Rosenberger. And in 1983, I experienced a horrific car accident leading to 80 surgeries and both legs amputated. I questioned why God allowed something so brutal to happen to me.

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The joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord is my strength. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver. By the way, we have this show on podcast that we do. We do the live podcast every Sunday evening, John and I do, and Ed, of course, in Dallas. And then we also do the broadcast, which we're on now almost 200 stations.

And John, I think we're getting ready to cross that big 200 here very shortly, so stay tuned on that. And then that, by the way, is my wife, Gracie, from her new CD, Resilient, and you can get a copy of that. If you want to go out to Hopeforthecaregiver.com, just click on that donate button. Anything you want. It's on your heart, whatever. Just send it to help us do this better and do it more, and we'll send you a copy of Gracie's CD.

Put whatever's on your heart. It's a tax-deductible gift. It goes to Standing with Hope, which is the presenting sponsor of everything we do. It's the ministry Gracie and I founded. You've heard her story about the prosthetic work she does with amputees in West Africa. This is something she had a passion for when she lost her legs. And sometimes when you have these horrific events in your life, it just redirects your thinking. And she said, you know what, I'm going to go out there and put legs on my fellow amputees and share the gospel with them.

And she does, and we do. And you can be a part of that at Hopeforthecaregiver.com. Just click on the link and you'll see it. All right, we're talking with Audrey Bond, and she is the founder, CEO of Vault, and this is this new app. It's in the Apple Store right now for your iPhone users. And it's coming soon to the Google Play Store where you can get this on your other devices.

And it is a – let me just throw out some of the things she says on her. How easily can you access and share your passport number, kids' health care, power of attorney documents, wills, vaccination records, health and wellness updates for aging parents, schedules, tasks, all these kinds of things. And I got a full disclosure here. I got to tell you, Audrey, I actually several years ago worked on an app. John, I don't know if I ever told you this, but a developer and I were working on an app for this very thing. And we developed the app and it was pretty good.

He and I just started kicking around some things because I really wanted to do something for caregivers, and we had a very cool name for it. And I registered the domain. I paid $15 for the domain name, and then we developed this app. But the app didn't go anywhere, really.

I didn't take it to the next level. But we got an insane amount of money for the name of the website. Oh, that's right.

You did tell me about that. But I can't tell you who it was. Well, I can't tell you what it was, but I paid $15 for the name of the website. It wasn't Audrey, though.

No, no, no. And if I'd known who was buying it, I could have charged more for that thing. I paid a lot more for ours. I don't even want to tell you how much I paid. It's a good name. So, yeah, I imagine you ended up having to shell out a little bit for that.

We did. I'm happy that you have done this, because this is something that is hugely important. And families are more and more going to need things like this.

And I'm like you. I don't feel comfortable just sending this even through e-mails. You know, your passport stuff and all that stuff? Yeah.

Well, I mean, I used to just, you know, it was like a social experiment. I'd ask people, I'm like, if you lost your passport, right, would you be able to access it? And ask, do you have the information? And in Canada, it's actually, and let me tell you, it is not easy to buy a gun in Canada, okay?

But it is easier to buy a gun in Canada than it is to have your passport cancelled, because you need to provide them all the information. Oh, wow. Yeah. So, it's interesting. Well, I really like that idea.

Oh, go ahead. I know, I have two friends that are frequent travellers that do have photocopies that keep a photocopy in their luggage, they keep one at home. But most people are like, no, I don't know what I would do if my passport was stolen, right? I know that my friends, my neighbours actually were looking for their social insurance cards. So, I guess it's a similar thing that you have there for one of their children, because they didn't know the number off by heart. They had to turn the house, they spent hours turning the house upside down, looking for this card, never to be found, never to be found. I remember there were so many times that I've had instances that I was, you know, I have power of attorney for my parents, but this is a paper document, and it was basically on my shelf in my office at the back in a folder, but when I go down to Montreal where my parents live, I mean, I'm not carrying that with me everywhere I go, but there's been a number of situations where it was very close to having to, needing to wave that wand of I have power of attorney, but if I couldn't prove it, what do I have to do, right? John, do you know where your social security card is?

I absolutely do, because mine's in a fireproof safe in my room, but I do have digital copies on something less secure than Vault, so maybe I'll take a look at that, but I've got some stuff in the cloud, because one time I was out traveling, and I lost my wallet, and I had to go through airport security and TSA and all that stuff with no wallet and no identity, and that was a bit of a task, so I learned my lesson. Well, they called me and asked me if I knew him, and I refused to answer the question. Oh, yeah, yeah, you really talked me into that buzz pretty fast. Tall fellow, deep voice?

No, never heard of him. Well, so when do you think this will – what's the next step for you guys, Audrey? So right now we're in beta, so we're early stages, and so there's a big deal right now that people do want to – if they do want to subscribe, it is a monthly payment. Again, we cannot access your data. Vault is actually more secure than a mobile banking app, so even if I wanted to, as CEO of the company or any of the developers, we couldn't access your data. So we have right now – it's a special, a launch special. Normally it's $11.99 per month for the service.

Right now we've actually cut it in half. We're like $5.99 a month, and that will be your price. You lock in at that price, and so once we – All right, now listen, by the way, that is a deal.

That is a deal for what you're getting, because I'm looking at the stuff online right now with what she's offering. That is a deal, and if you – iPhone users, I mean, Apple users, go out there and do this. Please do yourself a favor right now and start this, and by the way, I'm thinking I'm going to do this too with – when you guys get into Google Play, so I can do this on my phone as well, and I – That's coming soon. Sadly, I'm Android, but, you know, and my son fusses at me. I should be on iOS, but I'm not, and I should be. There are some very, very smart people on Android, so it's okay. Sadly, I'm not one of them, but, you know, somehow that makes me feel better.

But, no, I just think this is a tremendous tool for the family caregiver. The world is truly upside down, and people are getting hacked. I mean, you just saw the Twitter feeds being hacked. Who was that that was just hacked, John, in Twitter just last week? Oh, no, no, no, I didn't know that, yeah. I mean, it was the big names.

I mean, like, I don't remember, you know, just really big names of people that were being hacked. True, just the information security is quite important, especially when it's your loved ones. Well, indeed, and there's also – it's so good for everybody, as we say in the South, you know, singing from the same hymnal, you know, and when you have – everybody's able to look at the same documentations and workflow and agendas and doctor's appointments and things like that. You got it. This is an incredible tool. Well, I'm looking – I'll put this out there, and then, Audrey, I want you – when this thing goes out of beta, you come back on the show, okay? Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Give us all the updates that we can, because I really appreciate what you do, okay? I really do. Thank you. And it's vault.com, V-A-U-L-T-T, Audrey Bond, thank you so much. This is Hope for the Caregiver. We've had a great time this week. We'll see you next week. Thank you so much.