How To Squeeze The Most Juice Out Of Retirement With Dr. Riley Moynes
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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. I'm so excited to talk to doctor Riley. Moins alcohol, just Riley. And but I think you're a doctor of exactly what we need to talk about here today. And I get the longer I ve done the retire sooner podcast, the more people ask me about what to do next and really want to know what to how to handle the phases that you've studied, you written about for seven years and Younger and Younger Riley, I had a forty five year old dad come up to me at a football game, but just this week, and and ask about that next phase thing about selling his company.

He brought up girth Brooks, and he said, you know, I think scarf brox tord made a bunch of money that he had little kids and he wanted to go to other games. And so he stopped working while and now is back on tour and he's like, I have kind of like that idea. I kind of like that thought so.

But but then for most people, if you're not guards broke, there's some maybe somewhere in between. And I think that's what you'll be able to help us with today. So give us maybe just to our listeners, you want tones of awards.

You were financial adviser at one point, then you've written and interviewed people to really discover the different phase of retirement. And this is so perfect for our retire sooner audience. And I want to get through that. I want to go through that. But maybe first is a little bit about your journey as a financial adviser and a writer and in retirement and semi retirement.

uh, well, I spent the first twenty years of my working career in public education, couple of years actually in the classroom at the high school level and subsequently more at the administrate of levels, and decided that IT turned out to be twenty years IT wasn't of the twenty year plan or anything.

But at about the twenty year period, I realized that I had, as one of my friends said, kind of climb ed to the top of the latter in my field and found that I was leaning against iran house. That was an interesting way of putting that. I thought, and and I kind of spoke to me, and I decided that I I have had gathered enough experience that I could probably be helpful to people to make some wise investment decisions in the financial services area.

And what kind of teacher with you?

I was a history teacher. A history was my was my special team, my my love and um uh and that's where much of my undergraduate work was even H A graduate to masters degree was in was in history as well um and then I I decided to um we had moved away from our home in the torto area and we relocated came back to our home bases that were and became involved, as they say, in the financial services area where I spent another twenty years. But we created an did some joining, emerging in all of that kinds stuff and spent a number of years very happily as a financial adviser and partner in a couple of wealth management of firms and then got to the point where um maybe like girth Brooks, I had decided IT was time to to step back a little bit so a little bit of consulting work with our firm for a couple of years and then kind of watched on what I guess was called retirement. And that was where I discovered some things that we're kind of a big surprise to me, uh, in some ways kind of negative surprise to me because IT wasn't what I had been told to expect or what I was helping my clients to prepare for.

Well, let me see this. So first, it's a big change, right, for going from education to, well, there's a lot of education and financial service. But to get started in that after being A A teacher for all those years, I suspect that like a lot of financial advisors, and i've been in the financial advisory business for a couple of decades now, there's so much focus on the money side of IT.

Yeah, I suspect you probably were rather than that. But the reality is there is still a lot of focus on yeah dollars and sense yeah and investments and financial planning. So how was that evolution for you over twenty years?

Well, that was the case and that was how I started. There's no question about that. Uh as I became more experienced um and expert, I like to think in the field I realized that there was really more more to IT than that. And so we kind of broken and and help people to look at some of the some of the estate issues that that can be so important um powers of attorney, that kind of thing. And and although we were, I think, offering kind of a broader approach to retirement planning, still IT IT wasn't as broad as as the work that i've done in the last several years has become.

And interestingly enough, right now, much of the work that I do is with financial advisers who asked me to speak to their clients because they understand that what i've been talking about, which is in effect, the the psychological changes and chAllenges that almost always a company retirement, but that very few people are talking about as yet is significant. And although they're not perhaps the train or experience in that field, they recognize that there is a component of retirement planning that has to include that, and that's where they often invite me to speak to their clients. So the work that I have done as come as a surprise to me, Frankly and IT has, I hope, been helpful to to many others. Um I speak of the ted talk that I was lucky enough to be invited to which by the way.

you nailed you were there was such a good that so hard I look at that and I and I hope i've never invited to a ted talk because as much speaking and as i've done, I just feel like it's it's a one got it's twelve to fifteen minutes and yeah basically have to nail IT and you did yes.

Well, thank you so much for saying that IT IT was the result of a lot, a lot over the hundreds of hours of effort. I will never do this again because I couldn't I couldn't bring myself to do IT again. But it's so gratifying in the sense that IT has been received well. But secondary is also, to me, instructive of the fact that this topic is one of widespread interest and it's .

just and disillusionment. And we have this I think part of IT is that you break IT down in a really understandable framework where which is kind of them IT is a digestible way to think about the phases which we're gonna to. You went through your own phases. So I look first give us your analogy about the and we all know ten thousand people a day, but even logy of retiree's washing ashore.

Well, yes, I mean, it's a it's it's a proven fact that there are about ten thousand north americans who retire every day. And I make reference to the fact that I think that represents a retirement tsunami. And here they are kind of being washed to shore and really, in many cases, just not having a clue as to as to what to expect.

They've been. They've been told that retirement should look like a certain thing. I call IT face one. And and IT is for a time.

But the truth is that many, many retirees, baby boomers in particular, are likely to spend up to one third of their lives, quite likely thirty years in retirement, which is is an awesome consideration. Went back in one thousand nine hundred and fifty. We know that the ever life expect and see, and north amErica was about, was sixty eight years, and therefore three years of retirement. So the changes that have taken place simply through longevity and increasing longevity are awesome men. While you can build a retirement approach to three year retirement on what everybody thinks retirement should look like, you can build a thirty year retirement on IT all being about you, which is essentially face one.

And I think this this is also important. And maybe just get your comment around whether this protein, well, i'm going to save this. I I want to ask you, i'm going to circle back to this, which is OK.

How much do your phases, which we're gona start with in just a second? How much of these phases apply to somebody who is forty five versus sixty five versus seventy five? But hold that thought.

So let's go into maybe first. You had a tough year. You had a tough couple years right before you discovered the four phases which you written about.

Tell us about your struggles yeah well I am I I experienced what I call face one which I call the vacation phase which is what um is typically told to people as to what retirement should be that represents the ideal retirement. Uh there is a bunch of bucket list activities that you have either mentally or physically put in place and you want to start checking them off.

And that often includes travel that although travel seems to be a consistent through the four phases um IT may well include improving your goal for your pick ball game and there maybe some new golf clubs involved and maybe there's a new sailboat and maybe there's a warm weather place and there's lots of travel and coveting along the beach at sunset with a glasses of wine in your hand with a loved one nearby that's the image that people are presented with as being the ideal retirement and I experienced that and very gratefully so but um there came a time for me and he has proven to be the case for thousands of other people, if not more than that. That at the end of for me was about two years IT IT typically face one last between one in two years in in my research. And there comes a day when you kind of realize that perhaps too much of a good thing is too much.

And I found myself bored. Frankly, I was busy enough, but I wasn't really doing anything that I thought I was particularly meaningful or of any real significance. You can only play so much golf, I I discovered. And I started to kind of wonder this.

did you get Better at golf? I always wondered that if you go from playing once a month to twice a week.

did you get any Better? I hate practicing, and so the answer is no. But I enjoyed being out there. And every now and then, something good would happen. And you know you live on that.

So again and that that's a bonus tip and phase one, your golf likely won't get much Better.

That's right. You just spend more diametrical that that's all. So so so again.

you're right. That's the marketing image of retirement, right? If you describe IT.

So what helps? Sunset at the beach? A glass of wine, maybe a warm weather place? Yeah, did you and golf and pick ball?

When did that creep in to your mind a little bit? This is great, but this is great. but.

Well, about two, you remember.

like what was happening? Or is that the same thing? And then you just start to get kind of bored?

Yes, IT was the same thing for about a two year period, and again, a period for which I am very grateful and and had some wonderful experiences. But I was boring. And I mean, people people need to feel that they're making a contribution of some sort in some way.

I'm convinced that that's genetically wired within us. And I wasn't doing that and I was trying to figure out what that was all about him. If I wasn't what I was told I was, then what was IT?

And by the way, hold for you. Uh.

I was do to do. I was, uh, sixty three so I would .

call that still. It's a pretty early. That's a Young retiring. That's yeah that's an early retiring.

I guess.

Yeah so sixty three you lived IT up for a year to and a kind of you ve got a little more and more bored and then, boom yeah, did you hit phase two or did you not know these? I guess you didn't know these phases just yet, so tell us about .

the next phase. Well, I didn't know about about the phases, and I can only tell you what I did, which LED to the the framework that I created, which I ve called before phases. I did what I might fall back position is when you trying to fun and answer to something, you check the research.

So I went to the retirement planning research. And what did you tell me? What I told me? Exactly what we've already talked about, that the emphasis is on investments somewhat broadly to buy considerations, perhaps of insurance at will's powers of attacking a state plans.

All of that kind of stuff, critically important stuff, gotto be done for sure. But I wasn't what I was looking for. And so I began then with my kind of fallback position, which was, okay, so let's talk to people.

And I was referred initially to probably a dozen or so people, a retirees who I was told her retirement, figured out whatever the hacked bat met. And so I put together a series of questions that I I wanted to ask them. And I always finished up with a question, how they squeak all the juice out of retirement.

That was always my last question. So as time and on, and I spent about three years at this, if not more, and one, you know, one interview LED to another interview, oh, you should talk to so on, so they'll ve also got to figure out as so i've got deeper and broader and more intensive, Frankly. And in the end, IT was probably one hundred and fifty, two hundred and seventy five pretty in depth interviews that I had created.

And I had a massive information. And then the question was, well, how do you make sense of at all? And that was the real chAllenge, was trying to make sense of at all. So in my teaching background, I had discovered that, and and I learned Better.

If I am presented with a framework within which I can make sense of information, so I would always, in my teaching career, I would try to create a theme for every lesson so that I could keep coming back to that and that the students could keep coming back to that. So I was looking for a theme or a framework, and I discovered, after much trial, tribulation and acts and frustration, that the four phases kind of emerged and made sense to me. Then I had to feel test IT.

And I went back to dozens of the same people, but I had spoken to originally and increasingly and almost very consistently, there was kind of confirmation that that made sense for them but that spoke to them. It's certainly spoke to me and IT helped me to understand kind of where I was and what I had been true. And so now um it's it's a it's been found, I think, to be a helpful framework for people, which is part of the book then and certainly part of the of the ted talk as well.

Well, again, in that outline, in the money coach, which is the book.

well, the money coach was was a book that I wrote a number of years ago. And IT was an attempt to really provide good financial advice in a in in a simple kind of way ahead. I had USA today in mind when I was when I was putting that together in some of the graphics that they that they use so effectively and that's what we are able to create uh, with the money coach but no, in fact, the research that i've done literally to oh.

that's in the the four phases .

the four phases of retirement.

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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.

Let's talk about pace two then. So face one vacation phase fun. What gets boring? Tell us about face .

to our face too is I guess what I was to an extended experiencing phase to is, is the phase where where we feel lost and we feel lost. And that's kind of where I where I was at the time feel lost and we feel lost. So in phase two, we suffer five unavoidable losses, all directly related to retirement.

So briefly, they are the laser structure for most of us for if for working outside the home, we've got a structure. Even if were working domestically, we have a structure. And that structure has ruled our lives for many, many, many years.

And now all of a sudden there is no structure. We love the fact that there is no structure for a while in phase one, because we love is being like the vacation phase. We get up and we want, we do IT.

We want. We go where we want, when we want, if we want, when we want. No structure. We love IT for a while.

But there is something unconvinced, which is genetically wired into us west, that that says you need a structure. And I discovered that ultimately, yes, we do. We lose that structure in phase two.

That's one of the losses. The second loss is identity. Many of us identify with the work that we do, whether IT be in home or whether IT be outside, though that doesn't matter.

And when we walk away from that for the last time, a part of us is lost as well. So that's the second loss. The third loss is relationships that we build up over a period of time. Many of our relationships perhaps become good, close personal friends. But when we walk away from that, we walk away from at least some of those relationships.

And although we can go back and have coffee with the guys of the girls once in a while, as I did a few times, you know darn well when you do so that you're a fifth wheel, they're still in IT, you're out of IT and you don't do that for all that many times. So that's relationships. The forest loss is a loss of purpose because many of us get deep purpose from what we do, whatever IT may be when we walk away for the last time, we're just a guy or a goal in the street. And and that purpose has been lost for many of us.

You're referring to the our careers. So with that, the purpose for ninety five percent of folks that financially get to a point where they can walk away on the guy on the street now, but i've got enough money to be on the street ah and do what I want to do. But I have lost the purpose of my .

of my work and i've also lost the power because many of us over a period of time acquire some some power, whether it's through control of budget or or personnel, whatever IT might be. And again, when we walk away for the last time that the lost as well.

that's one that you're write. I I think that that's one that I think it's hard for people to reconcile because you don't, I think, power. I guess the way you're stating IT, it's something that so gradual that you may not realize that, that's part of the framework and you get you start working on your twenty years, you you got no power yeah and then you just gradually in almost in any career, yeah, as long as you're progressing, you do you have more and more responsibility, more people report to you and you you ultimately without really maybe even thinking about IT, you really do have a much greater sense of power, which is the cousin of responsibility, which is the cousin of purpose. And it's one of the things that I don't think many people talk about, but that is that's why they is a kind of a fast anything to bring up.

Yeah IT is so these these five losses are all directly associated with retirement. We lose them all the same time. We don't see them coming.

And it's like pain. IT is traumatic for many, many people. And IT gets worse.

great. But then IT gets worse. Yeah.

now there is hooked on the road. Hang in there. But IT gets worse because in addition to the five losses directly is associated with retirement, we also have to deal with the three d physical decline.

And so you know that socky smooth gold swing that we had for all those years isn't so socky smooth and more. And there is some mental decline, like, where did I put my keys? And where's the? Where's the remote for the television? Dear, where did you put that kind of thing then?

Then there is depression, the world famous male clinic has indicated that there is a forty percent likelihood that when you retire, you will evidence or experiences some types of clinical depression. Forty percent likelihood. And thirdly, there's divorce.

And the rates for divorce of people over fifty have doubled since nineteen ninety. And four people over sixty five, they have tripled since nineteen ninety. Wow.

yeah. So wow.

That is on top of the five significant losses that most people a suffer directly related to retirement. These other three losses are directly at least related more to a time of life then retirement. But that time of life often over lapse retirement right?

Because in in a sense in general, you're speaking to folks who are in there in their sixties yeah that's in general that's that's the overlap. So it's five losses. So it's your structure, your identity, your relationships, your purpose, your power yeah which I think is fascinating to talk about IT.

And i've no one's ever brought no one has ever brought that up here on retire sooner. And then on top of that, you've got the inevitable decline, physically slashed, mentally you then you've got forty percent higher chance of now hitting depression and then divorce two x or three x which is gona staggering. But IT makes IT makes sense. The confluences of all that makes life and relationship tough.

leading to this this statistic, which is again, mine bottling to me the highest i've suicide in north amErica today, men over seventy five.

So men over seventy five. And that's not because someone is already feeling again.

I guess .

there's a lot to that statistic. But IT is yeah not just hate somebody who's already sick and says i'm done with this, but IT, it's it's there's got to be some real .

sense of despair yeah yeah around around all of these five losses and the three days and and the combination can be can be lethal, can be lethal.

Women not know that statistics .

aren't is bad for women. Not quite one of the things that becomes really significant uh that I don't say very much about um is that coincidentally with this time of life phase two um gambling addictions, uh drug and alcohol addictions as well tend to sky rocket again. I haven't broken IT down between men and women but um yeah that the statistics are are are are are kind of scary and you were in that phase how would .

you describe IT and how long was IT and and was IT when you were searching for these answers? Which doesn't sound that bad that needs a kind of a fun journey.

No no that .

that was maybe three three.

I attribute that for me as part of my kind of recovery in in face three um I was lucky in the sense that I think for me fed too lasted for a relatively period, uh, short period of time. I I think in retrospect, perhaps six months s or so and IT wasn't nearly as as deep for me as that has been for other people.

but i've indeed good. So then the phase three, which is you call this trial and error, which IT sounds like that's what you were doing. And what are some other examples of that? I know that you mean i've interviewed so many people around them.

yeah. What does that process look like for people? What are the fumbles that people try? What are the things that people start? They think you're going to be good and then they are not so good.

Yeah well, um I guess to arrive at that point, one sort of has to hit bottom and at some point, people say to themselves or to a significant other. I can't go on like this. I don't want to go on feeling like this for the rest of my life, which could be up to thirty years or so.

I just can't do IT. And that's a good point in the sense that it's kind of the bottom. And we can kind of feel with all of IT that we've been kind of hit by a bus.

And most people, most people decide I can't go on like this. I've got ta try something different. And that's when they start to move into face three. That's when what I say is that the rehab begins in face three and IT is and IT constitute tes trial and error.

So what you have to do at that point is to say to yourselves what what is IT that's going to make me want to get up in the morning again? It's kind of that simple. What do I have to do to make my life more meaningful? But IT has been for a period of time.

How can I, in other words, freeze all the juice out of retirement? And for me, and for many others that i've interviewed, IT involved kind of throwing things against the wall and seeing what sticks would be a way to put IT. So for me, I can give you a kind of three quick personal examples.

I served for a period of time on a condo board, usually dry our workshops. I paused there, and people smile. And because some of them have been there, giggle, giggle. And i'll .

say until I get that.

say that again and then I get tired of being ill. That and you know, one time we decided that instead of planting the traditional daffodils on our property in ford a, we're we're going to plant day dies instead. And we got yelled that.

So you know, that didn't work all that well. I thought about law school. I'd always been interested in law school and in that concept.

And I realized, you know, that's a big bite and there's a big investment there, timely SE. And I wasn't sure that I was up to that. And then I thought about, well, maybe I could become a paralegal.

And then I thought, well, you know, there's less time involved there, but I really didn't want spend most of my time fighting over speeding tickets at small claims court. But there was a component of that that really did appeal to me. And I was alternate dispute resolution or mediation.

I took a number of courses for about three year period and thought that there was an opportunity there to do something meaningful. IT went nowhere. IT just went nowhere.

I love to write so I thought, well, maybe um maybe I could help people who are retiring. Some people wanted write about, you know, family history or memories and so I put together a beautiful little package called getting started on your memories. And so far, IT has received what I could turn limited results.

So you so but I just didn't sell lot of copies.

just didn't. So no, not not very about. So those are just three examples. I could go on and on, but I won't. But you you get the point. You've got ta try something that you think might work for you and you got ta keep at IT because, well, what i've seen is for me and for some other people, they finally discovered what IT was that could allow them to break through to face for hello, lua, but there are some people who keep trying and trying and beating their heads against the wall, and they can't break through and they slip back into face too. That is among the hardest things to see that I have witnessed.

So the trial and air of phase, and I think it's just look at this is not you all roses here, is it's not a guaranteed escape. Not everybody breaks through. And and I guess I do see this.

I don't think people wanted admit IT. I don't think that retirees railly, particularly, you know the guy that writes about. What I write about, I write about happiness and retirement, what time, what retirees should be doing and and again, I approached in a slightly different way.

But I really love your framework here. I guess I don't always get folks that are telling me that they they continue to not break through. It's like don't I don't know people want to tell me I didn't get to i'm not figure in this thing out.

And though I suspect that more people are of so many more people are struggling with this than we really know, mean, again, ten thousand people times, however many days has been since that demographic statistics started. But IT is millions and millions of people. We know that you can try a bunch of stuff and IT doesn't stick and IT doesn't stick and IT doesn't stick, and you end up back into the the three days and the five losses.

Is there anything where do you have any other advice around that for somebody who is still struggling? Is there anything that you've seen that, that maybe is that gets more creative? Is that a level of protectively and and social ization are the groups that kind of help people rediscover what they should be doing. What are some of your thoughts around breaking through for the people? I have a hard time.

First of all, I estimate west that only between sixty and sixty five percent of people break through to face for I can't, I can't you validate that in any scientific way, but it's it's it's been my my experience. I, I, I believe it's relatively accurate and it's somewhat discouraging. So what we've taken to doing in in our worships is to try to provide people with four strategies that they can use to help them break through to face for. But in terms of of dealing with IT would say socialization is is an important element of getting to face for people who kind of locked themselves away are more likely aid to be depressed and and less likely to discover um an idea or or an involvement that that may lead to some really positive things for that. So I think it's really critical to to be social and to continue to be involved in community of of some sort activities of some sort and that's really part of um leading in into face for which i'd love to get to because it's the most satisfying and gratifying of the fall phases for sure.

Hold up. We're not there yet. We're not there yet. We're making people wait for just one minute. So socialization, what and that want to be I would say rally makes the most sense because it's conversation begets ideas and then ideas begets conversation and and that snowball and really be productive. There's a fly we will effect there. Um what are what are you say that there's a couple more what's another one or two keys to breaking through?

Um well, another key is because I found that if there is a consistent theme in people who reach face for IT is providing service to others, it's as simple as that. IT makes us feel good. IT gives us a sense of a making a contribution. And I think deep down, virtually everyone wants to leave the world a slightly Better place than they found IT, if they can. And that's an important component of face for you.

So we're in trial error. We're socializing. Hopefully, we figure this out our next call, our next purpose part of that may be service, but that still isn't necessarily get you fully to face for just yet. So let's talk about that reinvest and rewire, if is number four yeah um .

I believe that there are some really key components that can help people to reinvent and rewire the first of those. And again, it's one of the the tools that we use in a workshop is to first of all, I found that people have this idea that whatever they've done for the last forty years or so, they worked pretty hard at IT. And they have a sense that retirement should kind of be a coast and it's not and IT shouldn't be viewed as a cost.

And I found, along with that, that we tend not to be particularly introspective unless we are forced to do so. So I encourage people, I ask people, you need to identify what your unique about ideas. And when I say unique ability, I don't mean unique in the sense that no one else I know if has that ability.

But but I described IT as what are the thing or things that you love to do and that you know darn well you do exceedingly well. And we take some time in our in our workshop to force people to think about those things in at least to make a start of writing some of those things down because we just don't usually think about that. But it's an important component of reinventing and requiring.

We need to know what our strength and what our loves are because we're going to use them maybe an entirely different way than we've ever used them before in the best. But those are things that we have in our quiver, as IT were. That's ammunition we can use, and we need to know what the heck that is.

So the second thing that we encourage people to do is to identify just just five Victories, winds successes that they've experience so far in their lives. And I know given time, people could generally do way more than those. But just to look at for the purposes of of the workshop and the discussion and getting things started, think of just five Victories that you've experienced in the past.

Then I ask people to look at what their unique way is, things they love to do and do really well, and look at the five successes that they listed there. And guess what they don't often see. That said, that boggles my mind.

There is a connection. The things that you love to do and do really well have LED to success is for you in the past. hello. So use that, build on that and then forth.

Ly, we try to take all of that stuff into account, things they love to do, do really well that have had to success in the past. And then we ask people to consider what's in IT for you because there has to be something in IT for you. Maybe it's remote ation, but maybe it's just a psychic feeling of knowing darn well that you've done something good. And I put that all together. And IT IT involves, generally speaking, service to .

others giving. As mitchy album says in his books, the author tuesdays with murray giving is living. Yeah, but that's where you see people arrive at that. That's when they are arriving in the face for you want we all want to be in.

And IT can take so many different forms, of course, from, you know, from entering students to one fill of that I reviewed, he sets aside about three or four hours A A week on fridays. And he delivers hot, piping hot, delicious pizzas to people. He gets a little bit of beer money for IT, but he just loves arriving on people's doorstep.

When they're hungry, they're looking for him. He gets pretty good tips, he says. But that was kind of a side effect.

IT just makes them feel good to do something like that. And he walks away with a big smile on its face. It's IT can be so simple.

I feel like i've met that guy only once. I just remember most pizza deliveries that to drop off. It's a quick, yes, but sometimes, like one out of every fifty, the guy that brings the pizza is so sight to give you the pizza.

He's like, doesn't that smell great? Yeah, this is gonna great. You guys. You're going to love kids like looking at the window, the dogs tongue and nose on the window you know jake is like, ah you know my kids are painting and he's like, I got at your pizzas and yeah .

so thing it's a real thing .

if you wanted to be a real thing if you wanted to be.

Absolutely but there are just so many ways that we can get involved either you know for minor remuneration or or or on a volunteer basis, that all kinds of organizations that that need that need help. Um and I introduced you may I think you saw in the in the ted talk about the old quotes giving advice and you know there was people who kind of meet together from time to time. I've got a brand and the lack of experience that these folks just wanted to share with others and now they become uh according to them the most popular uh the most popular booth at the farmer's market in salt city. And they've got their own podcast every week, podcast on all the available platforms, all cuts, giving advice.

No, I haven't listen to that. Yeah, but I need to. So then does that also? I suspect that reshapes your social configuration. And I also one of the themes here that I am hearing from you is that IT IT, again, I am just i'm the same way here thinking about this next phase.

You think you don't want them to be difficult or hard, but you're essentially saying IT doesn't really work unless IT is a little bit difficult and a little bit hard because that's what is helped. You feel like you have some purpose, right? Or or is that and i've reading that wrong? No, I think .

you're reading IT exactly right. We expect to coast in retirement. Many people do. And you can't expect to do that. You if there has to be some work involved, and I call IT introspection, that we're not always all that good, bad unless kind of force to do so. But by being perspective, we can kind of call some of these things and be reminded of the things that we love to do and and do very well and have had the success in the past. And maybe we can apply them in a different way than we've ever applied them before because we've all got things that we do really well and love to do and have had the success of why not apply them in whatever situation might might present itself.

You refer to I read this somewhere, the brain and the bicycle tell our listeners what you mean by that.

Well um the analogy that we use is that the um the brain in in in many ways is like a bicycle is that the a bicycle performs at a peak performance when it's working hard, when it's whistling along the road and and it's just it's moving quickly and it's efficient and it's effective and IT gets you where you want to go. And the brain is kind of like that as well.

We need to keep chAllenging our brain to make IT work at kind of top isoline performance. And if we kind of get away from that and if we retreat and if we isolate ourselves, the brain kind of like a bicycle that slows down, kind of gets mobility and then finally kind of falls over. Ah IT just IT needs to be used.

IT need is kind of like our hearts. Y in the same way IT needs to be used to be exercise. And in many cases, we kind of think that that's not part of the job or not necessary in retirement .

when you work with either firms or tell us about other workshops. So you do these, do you have ten people sign up online or hundred people sign up and then you just do them? Or do you typically do them through an advisory type firm? How does that usually work?

Usually work west, through advise reforms. People who h have either hurt me speak at conferences, or a perhaps of watch the ted talk or read the book whatever IT might be um but these are advisers who understand that there's more to complete retirement planning then they typically deliver because they typically deliver the financial and the estate and the and the powers of attack y and and perhaps insurance, they they deliver the that part but IT mostly comes, as they say, from advisors to realized that this psychological part of these chAllenges are things that their clients are going to, if they haven't already experienced and they need to address them and so they are the ones who are most likely to invite me to speak to their to their a clients and their prospects and as well, again, I speak to a number of financial organizations who are holding annual conferences and that sort of thing.

What's the structure of IT? How many hours do people take this? And in what is that one sittings is at multiple settings. How do you like .

to do the best? I the way the way that works best in my experience is that it's done live. Um we've done a number of zoom during the pandemic and so on and IT can be done that way.

But there is there's something special about an impression presentation in the vibes that are in the room in in the conversations that take place are amongst people. So typically at last for uh sixty to ninety minutes depending on the preference of the of the adviser. And we will always introduce the these these four strategies and we provide time for people to work on them in the sixty minute presentation.

It's for a shorter period of time in the ninety minute presentation. There's a more extended time that people can can work on these. Um and so the ideally um that begins with the assumption and we cover a number of the material, a much of the material that we've covered here in our conversation today.

But the purpose is to help people reach chase for because there's no question in my mind that that's where they want to spend as much of their retirement time as possible. And so then we try to equip them as best we can during that period of time to do so. And then people move on.

And hopefully they can apply some of those principles and discover where IT is that y'd like to apply their unique ability. And and and so i'm going forward. Yeah, it's it's .

funny to think about you've got such a long bumpy journey. It's funny to think about how just a focus for a net like an hour to can could really make a really big difference because IT forces you to think about something. It's theories, decodeme zed, between what you think I should be, what IT really is, and you never get to the answer. yeah. Have you ever done in this over a longer periods where you have people come back and it's even more workshop or in IT or if it's just not at this point?

I had not at this point, I I have considered IT and I have talk to number of people who have encouraged me to to do that. Um to be perfectly honest though, at this point, i'm as busy as I want to be doing the sixty year and ninety minute .

or shops and look, guys and now and I was enough, there was always so much I got a marty and face for I don't need to do this thing for four days.

I would have I would love to do more because i've got all, all kinds of material that i've been no ting and developing over the over the the years. So that could make that happen. Uh, I just as they say, I I just haven't got there yet.

The one thing I wanted to circle back to, i'd originally asked, and I said we put a pin in for just a minute, would be, and I I suspect the answer is that there's no reason age should not matter on these phases. They really should matter. However, do you have any thoughts around somebody who's forty, forty, forty five? If they're A A little bit if they are, they're not in that Normal retirement age zone? Or does that should .

really matter? What I find, certainly, that group is probably the second largest group that I generally speak to and then they usually are part of of the larger group of signal folks who are very close to retirement, already retired. But what i've been told is that for those folks, they have never thought about the approach using this framework, and it's helpful to them to have a kind of a heads up as to what they can expect. And in effect, by providing with them with some of these strategies that we think have proven to be helpful, they can kind of be thinking about this sort of thing in advance of what they might have been thinking about as they approach.

So really, that's the goal. If we're aware of this and we're aware of these phases, then we don't really have to I an again, ideally rather, you're not having to get mired down in in really in face too, and that's a much shorter period time or maybe you skip IT.

yeah maybe and you .

skip the two years of trial and era and then maybe don't you don't even get out of IT. So the the point then is to to understand these phases and and essentially get to face force quickly as you can. And and if you work at IT, you've seen people do that.

absolutely. There are two groups of people. And your question leads into that. There are two groups of people that I have found have been able to avoid phases two and three. They tend, I think they constitute about ten percent of retirees again, that's a kind of of edge of an educated yes um about ten percent I think. And those two groups are these number .

one about ten percent that skip rights to face for yes, okay and yes. But what are the two groups again?

Well, the first group are entrepreneurs, people who have been doing what they're been doing for a number of years. They love what they're doing and their goal is to perhaps do slightly less of IT, uh, going forward as they prepare perhaps the next generation or they've identified someone who is going to take over for them at some point. But for now, they are happy doing what they've been doing preps at a little more relaxed pace.

So they may enjoy phase one. They don't have to deal with. Phase is two or three because they know what their unique ability is. They know what they love to do. They know it's lead to success in the past, and they're going to keep doing IT as long as they can.

Okay, that makes sense. And that goes back to the conversation that I had about guards Brooks and in the forty five year old entrepreneur, man or woman doesn't matter IT doesn't matter for thirty five or forty five. But it's essentially, if the entrepreneur stays in, let's save the game to summer tand, then they can back off the sixty hour weeks or seventy hour weeks. And and they they still have their purpose, they still have their socialization, they still have their network, and they shift their mindset then from kind of skip right over a vacation mode, they already nose face to they get to face four, sorry, yeah, they don't have to deal to face to the the loss right so much they are figured out the trial in their and then they shift their focus from maybe just always building and growing and building and growing for, let's say, their economic interest and their companies of interest to the next generation that's the way the entrepreneurs ah what's group number two uh.

well, the second before we need that, when if I made to say i'm just i'm working with a group of entrepreneurs right now, about a dozen in number and they're interested in going beyond what we've just described because what they're saying is we expect that there will come a time when we are working at our entrepreneurial enterprise for as little as we want to. But then what but then what? Yeah, I wanna do .

you have an answer .

for that? Well, again, I come back to yes, because IT is face for is service to others. So we're going to be expLoring some ways.

We're gonna asking them to identify, again, some of the things we've already talked about that they can use as a springboard for service to others in in different ways than they might have in the past. So that's a preparation and i'm working on right now the first time i've done IT and IT. To me, that IT sounds very exciting. I'm looking forward .

to i'm excited because this is breaking news. This is breaking news on the retire the poet IT.

The second group are people who during their working or domestic careers had identified a love, a hobby that that um got them through and that they did throw out their working or domestic career. And for them, they just can't wait to get going to do more of IT, whether it's coaching, whether it's photography, whether it's whatever IT might be uh, teaching bridge teaching or whatever IT is, they just can't wait to get to do more of IT. So they tend to avoid phases two and three as well. But I believe, as I say, that, that two pronged group constitutes about ten percent of retirees.

Oh, okay. And then the other ninety percent to some extent has the kind of labor through, yes, the first three phases. Yes, that's just the reality of the world. Yes, unless you are entrepreneur r or you have some burgeoning hobby, you just can't wait to do more of that, right?

Hopefully, they will experience all four phases, but certainly most importantly, they will get to face for. But yes, ninety percent of retirees, I believe, are are going to deal with those four phases for whatever length the time that might be in across. That varies tremendously and at whatever debt they might experience each of the faces as well.

really. Thank you so much. I feel like it's such a cool for, to your point, the framework, I think, for so many of us IT goes back to your idea of structure.

We need a structure and a framework is a structure. Yeah, framework is a nice, simple yet chAllenging group of steps that we just seem to be prepared forward. If we can know about IT early, we can skip over the tougher parts with Better shocks of absorbers.

What the ivi said, kind of what you're working on next, which is this group of entrepreneurs seems to go IT still goes back to service. Yeah, service to others still goes back there. What also you either work IT on, by the way, for summer on that I could not find I suspect you have a PHD. What is IT in? I don't know.

That's an education.

So you have P, H, G. And education.

Get you okay? yes. OK.

The do people connect with you and do workshops? I know you said to mostly through advisory firms, but what's where we where do we find you?

The four phases dot com is our our website tough .

four phases outcome? okay.

And people can purchase copies of the book through that website and can make arrangements for workshops should they wish to discuss that as well.

Yeah so as some extent, as we rap up our you're just perpetual in service to others and working, I suspect. What is your most fun thing now? Do you ever feel like you're going on vacation now even though you've been on been in retirement, you get the feeling of vacation still? And what are your favor, things to do and where to go?

Well um we we've for a number of years, we've been able to spend a significant amount of time uh at our place in ford a on the on the gulf coast, and we look forward doing that. We're prd of a community down there that we've been part of for a number of years and enjoy doing that. Uh, we enjoy, we enjoy cruising from time to time.

I've volunteer every friday morning at our local hospital and i'm remembred of what we you for mister, we call the welcome team. And what what we've discovered, what i've discovered is that, first of all, nobody comes to the hospital for the fun of IT, and that there is a group of people who come through the hospital doors. And you can just, I can tell by the look on their face that they are understand they need help.

And so what my mission is to approach those folks, ask if I can be of any help. And whenever we can, we take them to the portion of the hospital that they need to go, rather than giving them directions to get there. And I can just see the sense of relief that comes over some of these people's faces when i'm happy to say i'll take you there and they're just so relieved and so grateful.

And it's a very gratifying experience that I experiences every friday morning from eight A M until noon. And what's in IT for me is a gate feeling that I making a contribution. And in addition to that, I put tend to twelve thousand steps of my fitbit. I love that mission.

and I think you've held our mission here on the retire super podcast, which to help families find happiness in retirement and to help a million folks retire at least one year sooner and after your work today. Hopefully skip right to face .

for yeah well, that would be all right.

my friend. Thank you so much for being here to am so glad we found you. yeah.

Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to share a some of the work that i've been doing and that. Spread the word.

hey, all this is melloy with a retire scene or team. Please be sure to write and subscribe to this podcast and share with a friend if you have any questions. You can find us at west most 点 com。 That's W E S M O S S dom.

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