Retire Without Regrets: A Harvard Business Review Longitudinal Study
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I'm west mos. The prevAiling thought in amErica is that you'll never have enough money and it's almost impossible to retire early. Actually, I think the opposite is true.

For more than twenty years, i've been researching, studying and advising american families, including those who started late on how to retire sooner and happier. So my mission with retire sooner podcasts to help a million people retire earlier while enjoying the adventure along the way. I love free to be one of them.

Let's get started. Every once in a while, brand new study comes out from a very real place, in this case, harvard. In the harvard business review comes out, and we take note. We are constantly studying how to help families find happiness and retirement.

How do we get to retire a little bit sooner? How do we have a wonderful purpose field retirement? And it's about the news comes out particularly, that has drawings with IT in life maps.

I going to pay attention. So I recently came across a study that immediately I put into action because they spoke to me directly. Now, IT was from harvard and had a very different tone than the cup, the few books i've written, particularly what the happiness retirees know.

But the wonderful thing that harvard studies seem to be able to do, that I have not been able to recreate, are these long, genuine al studies, these ultra long term ways to track people, behaviors, habits, their famous. And the reason I know they're good at long ji udal studies many years is the well known harvard study of adult development. They started back in nineteen thirty eight, one of the longest running studies on happiness well being that we've ever seen in the history of america.

And they're followed two very different groups of men over the course of eighty, some on years. And I think they are continue to do this. But they, when I first read this, they'd they'd never have been running for eighty years.

One of them was a group of harvard software, and the other was a group of boys from boston intercity. So the most from boston ones with the city once from harvard. Then they track them their entire lives.

And they continue this on a rolling basis to see what really impacted that. They're well being to arguably very different education levels, very different society omy groups. But they're ultimate happiness.

Whether they are from one grouper another, all came down to the same thing. And IT was really about relationships. Relationships were the precursor and the predict of a happy, healthy life.

The quality relationships, more than anything, more than fame recognition, or whether there are sea level executives. I Q. Anything was by far the most reliable predictor, whether they had true well being in their life and life satisfaction. So I know harvard does really long term studies.

I've done lots of research over the past decade or so, but what I love about their most recent publication called retire without regrets, they followed a group of retire systematically, I guess you could say, over and over, over again for an entire decade. So they were able to see how they were planning for retirement, and then how that retirement came deformation or not. So as you can imagine, this study, retire without regrets, set out something similar to the study of adult development, in this case, kind of the development of the happy retirement.

And they wanted to see what the keys were to a fulfilling retirement. And they got to observe how this group that they followed, we're able to transition from working career life, not working. Now they call retire without regrets.

I just called a purpose field happy retirement. Not far as the study is concerned, IT went for over a decade. They look at two different groups.

First was a larger group of one hundred and six different participants. They interview them preretirement. And they interview them post retirement from across multiple industries, multiple geography around the us. The second group, which is a smaller group of fourteen participants, allow the researchers to get even more in depth conduct to multiple, multiple interviews year after year, intensive, again lagi ual study of folks who are transitioning in the retirement.

So if you got a pretty decent size group, this hundred and six or so, or they essentially try to map what they thought retirees going to be and then severs in a retirement, what I was actually like, and then a more select group that they followed up with, seemed like all the time. And they really got ta feel for the preretirement ears what they thought retirement would be like and then what that actually was like. So the way they went about, I think, makes a lot of sets.

They had them sit down before retirement and say, how do you think you're going to hand retirement? What do you think you wanted to? What the structure look like? Who are going to go see we're going to live. Let's just talk about IT and give us an idea what you're thinking it's going to be.

And in a smaller, more intimate group, they had to map out, literally draw out in paper and colored pencils, draw out what you think life will look like, use stick figures, shapes, hearts, houses, draw a little icons out about the hobby you think you might want to do, the people you want to be with hiking to spend your time so that they're drawing out, i'd call this is life mapping, their ideal future life structure. And that as time went on, the researchers were able to figure out, hey, did what this group wanted to have happened, or this individual wanted to have happened, or thought what happened actually come to fruition. And through this process, through this cheny plus study, they came up with the framework that, if followed, explains why the group that really lived out what they wanted lived out their wonderful retirement, lived out their retirement dreams, or in their case, lived their life without regret.

They follow this framework. And they got the following four steps that get, harvard came up with this, not me. They get IT right now. I pride name is all very differently. And IT took me a little wild to understand exactly what they were saying.

But i'm going to explain IT here on today's episode because I really even though this approach is a little different than i've done over the years, I think it's a really refreshing, smart way. Look at IT. So here are the four steps that they came up with in their long term study alignment awareness agency, which I had to look up exactly how they were using the word and adapt ly.

They called the four a. So it's their framework to try to set yourself up to a healthy transition again. So there's no regrets.

A K A happy retirement. So here's the punch line of the study. IT shows one success story, which is kind of how I would envision amazing retirement.

And then one disaster story from the group of fourteen that they intimately followed iran so they don't give any last name, is what they do. Talk about iran. An who seems to nail retirement life ten out of ten.

And Lawrence is on the other side of the spectrum, and he literally ends up lonely in we have. Now here's what I think made this so interesting to me. And that's this physically drawn life map, live road map, whatever you would call sitting down for ten minutes, twenty minutes an hour, and drawing out what you think you would like your life to look like.

Now I did this for the Better part of my career. I've been drawing out by hand financial roadblocks, financial plans. I used to use different color highlighters than different color markers. Now use one of these digital pads that has different colors so that I can really help visualize and just customize what life can look like from a financial perspective. So think about drawing a line from the left to the right, different years today versus five years and ten years and fifteen years.

Maybe when a mortgage gets paid off, when an income stream kicks in, maybe when the kids are out of college, what your savings level looks like today, what you might look like if you add a certain amount per year, certain rate to return, and that all maps out over time. And to me, that's a little bit like a financial blueprint. And i've used that and developed that and done hundreds and hundreds of these roadblocks, and they've really changed over the years.

But what i've also noticed in the last call, IT, five years or so is a lot of families that i've worked with and helped to their planning. They to a large extent, because they've been investing now for maybe ten or twenty years with me. But ten or twenty years before that, the money side of things is beyond what they ever even thought.

They save more resources of grown beyond what they had originally planned for. So now they are thinking less about just the financial checkpoints and more about what life with all this money he is going to look like. And that's where the harvard study really starts.

That doesn't ask to draw out your savings, what you think you're might be. They just said, hey Lawrence, sit down and during the rope of what do you think life should look like over the next year or two, iran physically draw out what you just take that out. You want to be a great artist, just draw out what you think life is going to look like.

So what did I read do should you record little sketch of what looks kind of like a coastline, little bit like the united states? But I think IT kind of represented where he wanted to move, just the cape cod area SHE wted to move to the coast. So there was this seemingly parked.

There was the land. And then beyond that was the coast line. And in the upper left hand corner there is little picture of a house. But IT was labeled as the library where he thought he might want to volunteer.

This is a little picture of somebody doing art, stick figure doing art, that a little icon that looked like walking down the beach, labelled conservation, volunteering for the, and that IT had friends to the north, south, east and west. And the hearts around family said, I want to visit jim and Susan. That IT had a thick figure.

I guess I was irregular her own mind doing some sort of other activity, stay in active and IT. Looks like there was a lot of not just thought that went into IT, but a lot of diversity of activity looked like there is a lot of thing he was looking to deal or looking to structure her days, weeks and months with and for just this little sketch look pretty good to me. Now the other hand, I say the artistic part of both subjects here, iron and launch pretty much the same.

They're both pretty decent, some little stick figures and drawing out whether it's a bubble for family, hard for friends, a little house cicons, which is kind of easy to draw. But law sketch looked so a little empty. Kind of this big pie chart, and in almost half of the pie chart was visiting sun and taking care of grandson, both very noble pursuits, was the phrase over the right that said, maybe do some volunteering.

Another bubble offshore to the main chart, chores, paying bills, managing money. By the way, we haven't even talked about the money side of this. And the harvard study doesn't give me the exact figures, but I get the sense that they are both financially in equivalent space.

Both had plenty of money to do what they wanted to do. I didn't get the sense that either was some mega millions allier, but both had enough to be able to afford retirement. Will come back to the drawings in A.

If you've ever done a gene fund a workout, or if you remember as a kid, rocky running the steps and if Michael kitten is still mr. Mom to you, I guess what it's officially time to do some retirement planning is west boss from money matters worth those? The good old days.

Well, with a little bit of retirement planning, there are plenty of good days ahead. Schedule appointment with our team today. Wealth come while you are your wealth dot com.

Here are the four areas that the H. P. R.

Study tells us we need to get a hold of. And the first one is alignment. The second one is awareness. The third agency in the fourth, adapt.

Ly, what's alignment? Alignment essentially means you want to create A A data retirement life that fits you, your current values, in your interest, in your relationships, in your motivations. Essentially, you, anna, fit between who you are in high menu time.

So, for example, I, reine, ended up by the ocean in her head. SHE thought, I think I wanted live up there on the coast to new the coast. SHE drew out her picture because he wanted to be part of ocean conservation.

SHE wanted to be part of a town that was near the water. He wanted to be closer to family. And in figuring that out, figuring out what that line minute is, IT helped her.

Just feel that is, when he was in retirement, one party. Your brain is not disconnected from what you're actually doing in her mind. He wanted to be near her, close her nature.

SHE wanted be in a community and that's really where he ended up align. Now I think four align IT takes number two, which is awareness. And I think awareness comes down to maybe being just honest with yourself, being introduction cc around what that self identity really is deep inside.

And I think that's why these exercises, although they might seem a bit silly and life mapping might seem a little silly, that makes you think IT makes you brain storm about what you already like, what maybe doesn't fit and maybe what you would like to implement. And that's my experience as you draw things out, IT gives you awareness of where yourself identity is and where you'd like to take IT. And I think IT also helps with figuring out where you are.

Missile, hey, I wrote down all these things over here, and I want to be a part of nature and I want to be part of a community, but I live somewhere else that just doesn't lend itself to that. Wait a minute. I missile, so awareness, anything helps with that agency? Number three, agency is really just about taking control and and making these productive decisions to create that alignment that we're talking about or what harvard talking about in step one.

And IT takes some work and takes some ownership. IT takes some productivity. It's starting. It's thinking about i'm aware that i'd like to do a new hobby i'd be in a line with, but I have have the agency to actually join the club, get an instructor, start a group, join a group.

If I want to be part of a new community or expand my community, i've got to do something to facility that i've joined a volunteer work, I joined a church. I take on a new role, and I think he takes a ton of work. You can just drop into a whole new life with a brand new schedule, brand new outlook, a brand new flood of time, and think it's just going to imagine ally all found a place.

So I agree with what H B, R saying here, which is we're going to take a real level of agency, I would just called ownership and productive tivy in order to get a light and get the alignment of talking about. So as an example in large, his road map, he wrote down something like maybe volunteer or think about volunteering. This was a really kind of a wish.

He was he thought I didn't have a look up behind IT and guess what, he never ended up doing any volunteering. So we got a look warm on, ah maybe I wanted do IT but didn't really map IT out then didn't have the for activity to make that happen. On the flip side, think about what I rented SHE moved to keep god SHE joined the library as a volunteer SHE joined the conservancy for the shoreline SHE took all these steps are really and integrated, because he wanted to be part of the community and had helped take care of all those other pieces of structure.

SHE took a leadership. Number four, adaptability. Now, again, this is something we all have to have added ability throughout the course of our lives.

But if they can, takes on an even higher level of importance because we we potentially have less things to fall back on. If we're working, if this doesn't workout, we can do something else at work. We've got a big social network at work.

We ve got if if we have kids, we're doing lots of different things. We have options. And if something doesn't work out, sometimes we have this closer circuit board that we can jump to something new.

We were in retirement and we lose a sense of purpose because of our work. We lose the structure of time with work. We lose our social network. The circuit board gets little more spread out.

So we've gotten be able to be extra adaptable going that it's going to be a chAllenging path to have all the things that we think we see in our head to manius out into real life. And they're going to be curve balls along the way, particularly as we get older. So we put them all together.

We have alignment and awareness of what we'd really like to be doing and then take agency to make IT all happen. And then, of course, we willing to adapt as things don't go exactly the plan. And this where I wanted to come back to the large story that I promised earlier.

Ultimately, what happened, and this was an issue. I think there were submissions and a lot of these categories, but adapt ly was a tough one because in his life plan, a big percentage of his time and purpose and structure was going to be around spending time and taking her with grandsons. Go live near your son who's working and then be able to take care.

The grounds up, I was a big, big part of he and his wife long to retirement plan. Well, his son, the father is grandson, got divorced. And then the mom got custody.

The grandson. So not only did the dad not get to see the sun as much, but neither to learn that whole big part of pie chart. Almost half of his retirement roadmap was just gone.

Now, he had really no control over her. Wasn't his fault t that this happened? But he was such a big part of the plan that for him, IT was really hard to adapt.

Then what happens then? He had even less structure, had more time on his hands. His casual or Normal typical drinking habit got to be more and more dependent to the point where he ended up having a real, a real is a real problem.

I had to going to read up now, just a minute. I'm going to give you that there are some rays of sunshine when IT comes. The Lawrence is end of the end of the story, or at least, well, fast forward a little bit because he did show some mood apt ability.

Now can you try this at home? I think certainly you can. The own version of the road map. And I think this is different than writing out new year's resolutions. It's such as, hey, we here's what I want to accomplish.

I think it's this vision of what is life look like? If I were to go out a year or two from now, what do I want to be doing? Who do I want to be sending my time with? What's my structure in any given day look like? Where do I want to live? Where do I want to spend my time? Where do I want to travel? By the way, they seem like a lot of the habits of the happiest retirement.

I did this exercise, I did myself, and I SAT down with my dad and my step bomb to do the same thing. Now I could tell you in any given couple, it's not every couple both are excited to draw out with coloured pencils this life road map a year to from today. My dad was kind in that camp, but he was open to, and he kind of smiles, okay, i'll do IT all i'll draw out as that mom has got one more excited about IT.

SHE was think I would be fun to do some life planning, and we spend some time sitting down doing, and I kind of coach them through, okay, well, where do we start? I do not draw circle, draw, draw the state you live and draw the country, draw house and then start layer in the things that are important. You so what goes on the the blueprint of the roadman? Maybe it's family, may be its friends who it's both, maybe s kids, grandkids, and maybe they're all over the place.

And then you layer in your core pursuits, what are the fun things? Your hobby on steroids? As you saw sea, I from stacking Benjamin would call them super activities. They need to go in your old map.

And then I like to put in, well, how often do you want to go to see the grand kids is at once years, twice here? Well, my dad put down three times year my stemm, who writes horses. It's a huge part of her life.

SHE wrote out that during the weekdays, SHE wants to be training two hours a day. SHE did something called to sage. You may be seen in the olympics hard given and explain how these how these horses move.

It's kind of a fascinating sport, but also SHE judges that and she's a high level judge for just a that's another one to hear. Super activities, core pursuits. But they went on to map out and draw out a long list. And my dad did in this big circle.

He called to the circle of life, all these arrows, all these different past times and super activities and cycling, but then thinking, vi, dom amin, and how many times a week I want to do this, and is that all you want to do? Oh, you know, I forgot. I want to e back.

I ve got one of my needs Better, and I like to get my knee Better. And his list included music and his band, and how often he wanted to do that and riding horses, and how often he wanted to do that and reconnecting with colleagues and going back to work one day a week. mr.

Veteran, surgery too much, write a book. Isn't here even less to the kind of book he wanted to write? He mentioned the category and really know exactly what I was.

He calls them adventures. I guess what? So did I step on? SHE wrote down more adventures, and they look at adventures as cowboy rein actions. I do these stage train robberies for audiences and I I don't know the occasions, but I think it's a couple times a year and variety of other klb loy activities for whatever whatever that might be. They they count them as adventures.

And the cool thing about doing this a couple is, as you're reading them out, hopefully there's some overnight and is that I listed I listed that I want to do one adventure and month. So I listed I want. So it's cool to find some common ground too because we're not going to do everything together.

And some couples do not a whole lot together, but IT makes sense that you'd want them overall. So it's an exercise you can do at home. You don't need a harvard researcher looking you through a one way glass mere with a clipboard in the pen.

This is something that you can sit down, do with your spouse, do with your partner. And in my case, you would do IT with your financial adviser. And I think it's a cool thing to do.

It's not for everyone. And not everybody wants to spend this much time in introspection and thinking about where you're headed and what life should look like a year or two for now. But retirement can be a tough transition.

It's hard for a lot of folks, and I think this is a really good exercise and a good way to think about IT in a good tool to lower the probability that the transitions that rough. So let's go to the bottle line for irae, who I can't want to be iron when i'm in retirement. SHE took time to build a life that really fit her values and really fit her interest, even geographically.

SHE figured out away for her days, literally her schedule to revolve around what really mattered to her. I was spending time with her family, diving into her creative pursuits like art classes, guarding, connecting with nature, joining this coastal conservation group, working in the library. So SHE had this really nice mix of painting, A B talks and conservative work, and put that all together.

He ended up with this cool rythm. They capture energized and capture engaged. So her retirement ended up feeling just as rewarding as her career had been.

Now lower on the other hand, and this is where we'll get to the end of his story, he was a much tougher path. His big over watching plan didn't have a lot of concrete areas to explore. One of the big parts of IT kind of got unexpectedly vely taken a while, and he ended up in a pretty dark place.

But that dark place ultimately let him to a place of purpose. So he hit rock bottom, he checks in the rehab. But that in itself said, on new course, he began a new journey of recovery, and he gets over.

And he ended up meeting all these people that did the same thing. He ended up with this recovery community with lots of meaningful relationships, a sober community and a group of folks that he never, ever would have connected with otherwise. Then his purpose became helping others in their own recovery.

And that really woke something up inside of him that gave him a new sense purpose that gave him a community. And then his community flourish from there, then his socialization blossom from there. So his road wasn't easy.

And ultimately he was almost forced to take control and forced to get some agency of his life. And when he finally committed doing IT worked, he did have finding the rewarding retirement, even though was a really tough path that he'd been searching for all long. And I think here's the bottom for all of us, purpose filled, wonderful retirement.

IT doesn't just fall. The sky does not just happen. You gotta draw a map out yourself what H B. R that is doing here.

It's very similar to how what we think about here on the podcast, helping families find happiness, retirement to IT. So we got to start by outlining our life around the things that matter, whether its family, your hobby or giving back. But you've got to get that alignment.

Then you got to build awareness of your current lifestyle and where you might need more baLance or need more connection, and then take action to shape your days with intention. So having the alignment of what managed you and the awareness of actually doing so means you have agency, means you have control over your retirement face life. And that's all about being proactive and retirement is impossible, being passive.

And of course, we've all got to say highly, he adaptable to whatever life throws at us. And finally, and I think Lawrence is a great example of this, ultimately about adapt ly, we've gotten be adaptable to what life throws at us. So that's the forest.

That's harvard version. I've had to have a happy retirement. They called a retirement without regret.

So like harvard, I called a happy retire. They called a retirement without regret. But I think IT works, and I love IT. Or you could simply just read what the happiness retiree's. Now I think more than anything, maybe you end up just drawing, get now the color pencils and a sheet paper, which I was lucky enough to have right on my desk because of one of my kids do to school project and map IT out. And my heart, ballerina is heart, and my heart both would probably melt if you are the email, this pictures.

do you draw out? Hey, all this is mellowing with a retire sooner or team. Please be sure to rate and subscribed to this podcast and share with a friend if you have any questions.

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