Designing a Life You Never Want to Retire From

Speaker 1 – 00:00
Welcome to EWA’s FinLit podcast. EWA is a fee only RIA based out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We hope all listeners
of this podcast will benefit as we deep dive into complex financial topics that we will make simplified for you. And
we hope that this really serves as a catalyst so that you can make the best financial planning decisions for your
family and also save time.
Speaker 2 – 00:29
I am joined by Ben today and today we’re going to talk about how you design a life that you never have to retire from.
So Ben, I think this will be a good topic. Head home to a lot of people that are thinking about retirement or even
younger people to gear up for down the road when they think they do want to retire. So give us a background
opening thoughts kind of. Why are we talking about this?
Speaker 3 – 00:52
Yeah, because I think as soon as people start working, whether they love their job or not, they’re always starting to
plan for retirement and they always have a number in mind or an age in mind where they feel like they want to shut it
down. The fire movement has taken over a lot of people’s thoughts lately of just being able to be financially
independent as soon as possible. So we have people wanting to retire in their 50s, 60s, just kind of getting to a
number. But part of this discussion is going to be what does that life look like when you’re actually in retirement? We
found that a lot of people really like the work that they do and find a lot of purpose in having work and having things
to do.
Speaker 3 – 01:31
And I think in retirement, when that gets taken away, a lot of people can struggle with spending their time and
figuring out what to do. So this podcast we’re going to talk about how to structure your retirement so that you’re
doing the things you want to do and being really cognizant of your time, because that’s the only kind of non
renewable resource that you have at your disposal.
Speaker 2 – 01:54
Yeah. So let’s start with what. I know you did some research on this, but let’s just talk about what traditional
retirement looks like. How did we get to age 65? Why is that what everyone thinks of as retirement?
Speaker 3 – 02:09
Yeah, that’s kind of the standard retirement age. It’s really a legacy of industrial area, think industrial era thinking.
Like a lot of people’s parents kind of retired at 65 and their parents. So this is, it’s just kind of the back of the napkin
number that a lot of people think they need to work to. And you know, that is true. But oftentimes, like if you start a
financial plan early, it’s something that you can work towards for an earlier retirement. So oftentimes retirements
become synonymous with freedom from work. But really like what are we escaping from? And we’re going to talk
through kind of how to structure your life and your day after you retire. We’ll sit with people in their 30s and 40s and
talk through how they spend their day. And we’ll do an exercise where it’s called a 24 hour exercise.
Speaker 3 – 02:57
We break down kind of how they spend their day. Eight hours of sleeping, eight hours of working and then kind of
what are they doing? 8 hours of free time. And in retirement you’re still sleeping eight hours, but now you have 16
hours of free time. And oftentimes we get a lot of blank stares of people trying to figure out how to spend their time
when they’re not working. So it’s hard when you want to plan for retirement at 55 and you have another 40 years to
kind of figure out what you want to do. So that’s become a big issue I think with a lot of clients in that timeframe.
Speaker 2 – 03:27
Yeah, I think the 65, like, you know that Social Security can start at 62 and defer it till 70. People think of whatever
the full retirement age is for Social Security, I think at some point for years of it’s dependent on the year you’re born. I
think for a while it was around 65. Now it’s like roughly 67 for most people. But I think that’s where most people get
that. And I think that retirement a lot of times can just be like a, almost like a social norm of like, hey, you should get
to a point where you’re, you know, you’re not working, you’re enjoying your life. And a couple of things that I think not
that’s wrong with that, but maybe it’s just a little different of an opinion is I think just humans in general, we’re
working creatures.
Speaker 2 – 04:17
Most people want to work, they enjoy working. It’s hard for some people can enjoy just doing nothing. But a lot of
people really enjoy working in some capacity. So if you could design some sort of life where you’re not just I get to
65 because society tells me I should stop working, then I’m gonna stop working. But something where you’re still
working and you have that freedom like you where you’re financially independent. And then the other thing now is
with health medicine, longevity, I think that people our age probably will be living to over 100, maybe even 120. So I
think that’s going to rethink retirement a lot too. Because if you retire at 65, let’s say you live to 120, you have half
your life.
Speaker 3 – 05:01
Now that’s a whole different podcast, by the way, living to 120.
Speaker 2 – 05:06
But. So maybe back to what we’re talking about is how do you design that life where you’re not just stopping
working.
Speaker 3 – 05:13
Completely, but think about this. I mean, let’s. The flip side of that coin is you delay your life, you work, work, work.
You get to 65 and then your health fails. And it’s like, well, what did I save all this money for? I have a ton of regrets
from. I didn’t take that trip, I wanted to. I didn’t spend that time with my kids. I didn’t do X, Y and Z. And now you’re
sitting at 65 and your health is not what it was and you can’t do all these things now. That’s a whole different side of
the conversation.
Speaker 2 – 05:40
We’ll talk of the action items with health. But yeah, I totally agree. I think a lot of people will delay gratification and
put off their health, their well being to work. And then like you said, they get to the point where they have all this
money but their health goes and they never get to actually enjoy it. So let’s talk about what, Ben, what are some
action items? What can people do to actually do this? How do we tackle tactically implemented?
Speaker 3 – 06:11
Yeah, I think it’s, we do this oftentimes with clients, but it’s doing what’s called a values exercise. So figuring out like
what truly matters to you from a value standpoint, what are the things that you want to focus on and define your
goals specifically. So whether that’s legacy planning, what are your travel goals, what are your goals with your family
and your kids? You know, really lay it out and make sure that you have goals that you’re working towards and just
keeping work as a source of meaning, identity, community, and just having a mindset of ongoing growth. I mean,
those are things that you need to always be thinking about. It’s hard to do when you don’t have specific goals in mind
to keep those values front of mind.
Speaker 3 – 06:59
So the more you can define what you actually want to do with your life in your 60s, 70s, 80s, what’s the kind of legacy
you want to leave then, the more you’re able to work towards it, that would be the biggest thing. What else on your
end do you.
Speaker 2 – 07:12
Think I’M going to take a bite from Peter Attia, who’s a, he’s a medical doctor. You familiar with him? He’s like a big.
One of the biggest names in like medicine that just has like, you know, he public is a podcast and videos and stuff,
but he talks about the, he calls it the marginal decade. So plan for. And this is from a health standpoint, but I think
this applies to retirement too, and just life in general. Plan for the last 10 years of your life. So he talks about from a
health standpoint, how do you set yourself up so the last 10 years of your life you’re able to do the things you want,
but same thing with your money, your work.
Speaker 2 – 07:54
What do you want to actually, how would you want to design your life at the end and work backwards from there? We
see some people work like don’t stop working and that’s probably not the optimal outcome. And they look back and
wish they had more free time. And then we have some people that the opposite. Maybe they stop working and they
don’t have a purpose or their fulfillment and they don’t get to continue to enjoy that. So whatever that looks like of
how you design the back half of your life and start implementing that now. But I think the values like you said, is
really good. And I think, yeah, just finding a purpose and fulfillment rather than just showing up at a job probably
would help that too.
Speaker 3 – 08:33
Yeah, purposeful work. I mean, we’re going to talk through some things that like actionable steps that you can take
to help design this life, but finding work that you find a lot of purpose in when you’re either in retirement or
approaching retirement makes a ton of sense. Want to transition more from like a job to like a hobby or like a
passion project, but something that can reshape your role and energize you rather than feeling like it’s depleting you
and feeling like you’re grinding to get up in the morning when the alarm goes off.
Speaker 3 – 09:04
So whether that’s consulting work, taking more of a volunteer role or a part time role, I mean things that you find
interesting, it’s not necessarily the thing that maybe led you to that point, but finding work that you want to do is
huge to just keep your brain moving.
Speaker 2 – 09:23
So I would recommend doing what I like to call an energy audit. Not a time audit, but look at what am I doing during
the day, what are my actual go every 10 minutes, 15 minutes, whatever, write down what you’re doing and then look
at what gives you energy and what sucks Your energy away, the people you’re around, the things you’re doing, and
then just do the things, cut the bad energy out. So I’m doing this right now, actually. That’s why I brought this up. One
of the things I hate doing more than anything is laundry. So I found this laundry service you pay, you know, probably
comes out to like 20 to 30 bucks a week, and they come, pick up your laundry, do it, bring it back.
Speaker 2 – 09:58
And so like, so doing things like that, where it’s like, okay, now that’s not going to suck my energy. I can just
outsource that. But same thing with like your job or. And again, a lot of the times, like the clients we’re working with,
they’ve accumulated some money. You know, they’re in a position where they’re probably close to financial
independence. And so they can do this and they’re not tied, they’re not completely tied to that paycheck where it’s
like, you know, we have some money saved that we’d be okay, but we can look at our day to day and sort the things
like what gives me energy and what doesn’t and do the things that give you energy and do more of those things.
Speaker 3 – 10:30
You really got my brain turning with this energy audit. I got it. I got to take a look at that.
Speaker 2 – 10:34
Yeah.
Speaker 3 – 10:34
Because the biggest thing too, like on top of that is your time. Like not only energy, but what’s sucking up your time. I
mean, the time is the only thing that you can’t really get back. And that’s when I’m talking with clients that are in their
60s and like retired and have all the money. Like, they look back and say, man, I could have taken that vacation, or
man, I could have taken more time off. Like, my kids are older now. I don’t see them as much. What’s the statistic of
time spent? Kids 0 to 18 under the age.
Speaker 2 – 11:08
Of 10, I think is like, I don’t remember the stats, but it was like under the age of 10 is most of the time. And then
before the age of like 18 is like 70 or 80% of the time you spend with your kids.
Speaker 3 – 11:21
Yeah, having that hindset of meeting with clients that are in that position. The time autonomy and just designing life
around what’s taking up a lot of your time and how you’re spending your time makes a ton of sense. And that kind of
takes more to that semi retirement role. The analogy we like to use is like, you know, if you’re working super hard.
You’re like driving, you know, let’s say you’re driving 80 miles an hour. It’s so hard to go to break and go from 80 to
zero, go from 80 and then slow down to 40, slow down to 20, slow down to zero. That semi retirement is just really
helpful, I think, for a lot of people. That.
Speaker 2 – 11:56
And let’s go through two examples along the lines of that with, like, let’s go two big areas we work in. Physicians,
business owners. Let’s start with physician. Let’s say we have somebody that’s, you know, late 50s, early 60s, they
have enough money saved, they’re okay, they’re financially independent, but they want to keep working because they
like it. And if they stop completely, let’s just. Physicians in general, they go through a lot of school, they go through a
lot of training. Their identity is tied up in their work. They’re used to working long hours. It’s really hard for them to
stop. Just like you said, what can a physician do? If we’re at that point where we’re financially independent and we
want to keep working, how do we help them design their life?
Speaker 3 – 12:37
Yeah, it depends on. Depends on the person. But I mean, we have people taking locum shifts, going part time,
working two days a week, you know, just not putting in nearly the amount of hours that they were. And, you know, in
our. Not to get too detailed, but in our retirement analysis, that makes a huge difference. If you’re just. If someone’s
used to making 2 million a year and they’re making 500,000, well, that’s still. If they’re doing that for five years, that’s
five years that they’re probably not touching their portfolio. That’s five more years that you’re able to make retirement
contributions. So, like, from an accumulation standpoint, it makes a huge difference. But then just from a peace of
mind and time standpoint, it helps tremendously. So that’s huge for us. And then on the same token, business
owners.
Speaker 3 – 13:21
Jameson, what are you seeing if. Whether it’s. This could be more complicated if they’re transitioning the business, if
there are kids involved.
Speaker 2 – 13:28
Yeah, I mean, I guess we’ll say similar situation of. Yeah, I don’t want to get down a rabbit hole because we could do
a whole podcast on what we have on transition planning. I don’t know. Yeah, let’s say they’re in their late 50s, early
60s. And ideally, at this point, there probably is some sort of. What’s the next step? Is there an exit? Are we
transitioning to the kids? Are we finding somebody to come in and run this? And so whatever that looks like, I think
that’s a really good time. I mean, your business is most valuable if you as the owner were removed from it and the
business still operated. That’s when somebody like someone’s going to actually want to buy it because they know if
they take you away that it still runs and makes money.
Speaker 2 – 14:16
So I think that’s a really good time to start thinking about that. Whatever the next phase of the business looks like.
Let’s just use one example. I don’t know, let’s say you’re getting ready to sell it and you’re saying, okay, let’s audit my
day to day. What are the things I like doing? What are the things I hate doing? And let’s delegate all the things I hate
doing. So now I’m gonna be more energized. Ideally always gonna be problems and stressors when you’re in a
business. But get a little bit more of your energy back and you delegate a lot of that stuff to somebody else. And
sometimes when we help business owners do that, it’s like a mindset shift, like a life switch of like they may not even
wanna sell now or transition.
Speaker 2 – 15:00
Well, I’m actually doing the things that I love doing and I could keep doing this because it’s much more energizing. So
that would probably be one thing is just, I guess in that situation you have to think about what the end goal is, but
what can you delegate and give to somebody else and how can you just work on the things that you want? Maybe as
a business owner you love marketing and it’s like, well, I’m just only going to do this and I’m going to delegate
everything else to the team and that’s probably going to help whatever your next step is, whether it’s a sale or
transition.
Speaker 3 – 15:27
Yeah, that was really good. I think one of the things you mentioned was just that mindset shift. I think that’s one of
the biggest, like challenges or obstacles that we see with people in this position is just getting that mindset shift of
delegating. I think that’s hard for a lot of people.
Speaker 2 – 15:43
There’s, I think you’ve read the thing called money scripts. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you have these like, you know, there’s like
these ner, like hardwired into your brain and I guess nervous system from like when you’re a kid on how you handle
money. And a lot of people, like one of the money scripts Is, I think it was paranoid or anxious or something. And so
it’s like you’re overly anxious about accumulating and saving money. You may not want to spend it. And that goes
back to how you were raised and how your parents taught you about money. And so those types of people, it can be
really hard for them to retire because they might be the best savers in the world and they didn’t spend a lot and
they’ve accumulated all this money.
Speaker 2 – 16:21
But the minute that you tell them, hey, you’re not going to have an income anymore and you have to live on your
investments, they just like, they can’t do it because they can’t take that money out. So that’s a lot of it is, like you said,
is just coaching the mindset change of, like, how do we shift this now to like, let’s actually spend this money and do
the things we want to do so we don’t just over accumulate. And.
Speaker 3 – 16:43
And that’s a hard. I think the easy decision is, I’m just gonna keep working. Like, this is fine. I’m fine. Like, this is no
big deal. Like, I’m just gonna keep working the hard decision and actually, like, why we exist is to be a catalyst for
these difficult conversations, is encouraging them. Hey, you’re. You’re good. Like, the analogy I’m thinking in my head
is like jumping off the diving board when you’re a kid, when you’re super nervous, there’s a line behind you, the
lifeguard saying, come on, man, you gotta jump. Like, jump, Retire. Like you’re good. It’s easy to just keep working.
And, you know, it’s hard to have that mindset shift and start spending down. But, you know, if you don’t do it, then it
goes back to the goal planning. Because we have oftentimes clients saying, Hey, 10 out of 10.
Speaker 3 – 17:29
The most important thing for me is enjoying my financial independence, doing all this travel, you know, spending
more, enjoying what I’ve saved. And the longer you work and the harder, you know, you’re not living up to what you’ve
said is most important. You know, sometimes people say, well, hey, legacy is for my kids is not the most important.
Speaker 2 – 17:49
Well, but they’re on track.
Speaker 3 – 17:50
You’re on track.
Speaker 2 – 17:51
Millions of dollars.
Speaker 3 – 17:52
Exactly right?
Speaker 2 – 17:53
So one other thing. Let’s talk about health and relationships. So I think that ties into this a lot too. I got a question for
you, Ben. What’s the number one indicator of. I’m going to mess this up. But it’s the number one indicator of health
and longevity. Any idea?
Speaker 3 – 18:15
Very vague. Yeah, just period.
Speaker 2 – 18:17
Yeah, I might have missed it, might have butchered that. But it’s something along those lines.
Speaker 3 – 18:21
The number one indicator of someone who.
Speaker 2 – 18:23
Is of like living a long, healthy life.
Speaker 3 – 18:29
I’m gonna say, I’m gonna say getting eight hours of sleep.
Speaker 2 – 18:31
No, it’s your relationships.
Speaker 3 – 18:34
Better. Better answer.
Speaker 2 – 18:36
There was like a Harvard 80 year study. It was called, like, I think it was literally called the happiness study. And it
looked at. They followed people like 80 years of their life and it was like the number one indication of like a happy,
long life was relationships.
Speaker 3 – 18:50
That’s a better answer than sleep, by the way.
Speaker 2 – 18:52
Sleep is probably the most important of your. I’m not a doctor, but I would say it’s probably the most important of
your actual health stuff. But anyway, why we’re bringing this up is like we talked about earlier is a lot of people will
work and put this stuff to the side. They won’t spend, you know, sure, they’re probably spending some time with their
family, but like, you know, maybe they’re not spending a lot of time with their friends or their relationships aren’t
where they wanted to be and they’re not exercising, they’re not eating healthy, they’re not getting their eight hours of
sleep because they’re so focused on their work. And then when they go to retire, I mean, or those people probably
keep working because, like, they don’t, like, what are they going to do if they retire?
Speaker 2 – 19:34
But our advice would be prioritize relationships because that’s gonna keep you healthy longer and keep you alive,
literally alive, and then prioritize exercise, diet, sleep, all of those things. And that stuff will probably allow you to
work longer because you’ll be able to withstand that, have the longevity to work. So I think all of those things and just
not putting them to the side and getting to retirement and being like, oh, now I have all this money saved, but my
health’s in shambles.
Speaker 3 – 20:04
Right, right. Exactly right. I agree with you 100%.
Speaker 2 – 20:08
All right, well, what did we miss? Anything else to.
Speaker 3 – 20:11
No, I think we talked about in the beginning, but just like the social pressure around just like the status of retirement,
I think that can be hard. There’s always a comparison factor of your peers. And just financial health is not always
what you see. I think people equate someone with a really big house or a really big car to someone who is a really
fancy car to someone who is just super financially well off that may or may not be true. So just try not to compare
your situation to your peers because everyone’s going to be different.
Speaker 2 – 20:43
Yeah, well, if you have any questions about your situation or any follow ups, feel free to reach out.
Speaker 1 – 20:51
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