Retirement – Episode 428

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[00:02] Hello, prosperity listeners. Welcome to another episode. Recently, I was reading on a website and I saw a post and it said, one of the greatest conspiracies alive is that people must retire when they’re 65. Yet our country is run by 70 and 80 year olds. How about that? That is so amazing. And I just came back from a week in Oregon with my 80 plus year old dad who’s still working part time. And I know I’ve shared before that my husband’s mom also over 80 still working part time. And I love it. It’s what should be because age 65 was put out in the 1930s and it has never moved. And it’s just a ludicrous aspect of our society that we are still stuck on this age 65. And not even that, right? Like most people get in their head that

[01:00] they want to quote retire early. So now you’ve got 62 year olds, heaven forbid even 55 year olds that are thinking, Oh, I’ll retire. I’m able to, to make a go of it. Well, not only is monetarily that extremely difficult step, yet more importantly, look at the fun that the 70 and 80 year olds who are, as you say, running the country are having as they’re out and about and they’re applying their skill sets. I mean, we could argue that maybe we don’t like some of how they’re applying them, but that isn’t the point of today’s conversation. The point is that there is so much good that you have as a human being to give into the world. And if you’re in this space of 50s, 60s, 70s, just lengthening the lens of your life is so important. A typical 60 year old person that’s

[02:00] healthy today, easy, another 30 years to live easy. And that is just an amazing long time. And so what do you want to do with that? How do you want to continue to expand your gifts and continue to grow them? And then for the younger set, we’ve got this old thinking of get a job and work it really hard and save a bunch of money so that you can quit and then do what it just doesn’t make sense. And I’ve had, I’ve got adult children that are in this late 20s or mid to late 20s age range. And they will openly say to me, you know, I never really understood the retirement thing. Like why would I want to do that? Aren’t I supposed to find work I love? And then why would I want to stop that work? And so I love the perspective that is coming from this next generation now

[03:04] as to what ages don’t matter. And then more importantly, what work can look like and what a life well lived can look like when they find work that they love and then continue to grow with that work and continue to get better and better at that work. It’s such a joy to watch. And it’s so satisfying to them as individuals and not an easy road, believe me. And it’s not one that you can get on and stay on. It takes tweaks and there are detours and times of real like, oh, am I doing the right thing? In fact, I think if you don’t go through a little bit of a midlife crisis about every 10 years, then you aren’t thinking about your thinking well enough. You’re not thinking about your work and thinking about the life that you’re

[03:58] leading and living. And if you are using those skills and talents that you’ve been given in the best way, et cetera. So I think it’s awesome to every decade or so just have a real good time away of how am I doing a check in with yourself and then a shift in your business or in your career or in the work that you’re doing that will then enable you to bring back in more of the work that you love or a new perspective on the work that you love or possibly even a totally different career because what’s important to you has shifted out. All of those are good things. And if we’re going to be working 60, 70, 80 years, which is really what we should be focused on like literally age 20 to 100, then it is perfectly acceptable to have shifts occur

[04:49] and changes occur and have the quote job or career environment be one of progress and change instead of static gold watch thinking of, oh, I’ve put in my 30 years and now I’m done. And thankfully, our corporations are booting us into that kind of thinking whether we like it or not. You know, I, I always love reflecting back to the story of Kentucky Fried Chicken and the Colonel Sanders story of him really having a breakthrough in his 70s. I mean, I love hearing that because, you know, there’s so many people, they hit that 65 and then it’s that next stage is the love seat in the remote. And it’s like, oh, please, please know. So, you know, you have a mentor, Dan Sullivan. One thing that Dan has done is he keeps his mind young

[05:43] and he does that by associating and talking with a lot of younger people. And that’s a tool, a technique that he’s used. Maybe what we can do on this episode is share some different frameworks, tools, and techniques. And then also let’s play a little game and create somewhat of an action item list. Sound like a plan? Yes, absolutely. First, we’ll go through this. When a person is getting to that retirement age that they feel, you know, because society is telling them that they’re out, let’s come up with just five things that they could do alternatively. So would you like to shoot with number one? Yes, I think it’s critical to adjust your definition of work so that it maybe no longer includes

[06:37] the nine to five, 40, 50 hour a week job that you are currently in, but entails something that is a little bit more inspirational to you. Now, if you’re a business owner, you can do the same thing by just looking at the daily things that you do and taking 20% of them off the table. Either stop doing them. There’s so much that can be replaced with technology these days or bring in a person to help you get them done so that you can maintain the bulk of your time in work that you love. I love that. Adjusting the definition of work. That’s really good. I think most people don’t ever consider doing that. Okay, so I’m going to give one out here. For me, the second one that I look at is to make your mind young, you’d have to be around someone that’s young.

[07:31] So find someone to mentor. And I’ll add to that. If you don’t feel like you’re in a space to mentor, although I think there is so much good that occurs from that, maybe just start with taking a young person to lunch once a week, once a month, whatever can fit into your schedule. And where might you find these young people? Well, they could be friends of your adult children or adult grandchildren. They could be people at church. They could be people in various civic clubs. They could just be somebody that you meet out and about. And it would be perfectly acceptable in a public setting to hand somebody your business card and say, I’d like to chat with you more. Would you meet for coffee or something? Or

[08:22] let’s jump on a Zoom call. Because there’s so much good that can come from listening, watching and learning and conversing with the next generation, whatever that is for you. I’m going to piggyback on that one. And that would be sharing the wisdom that you’ve developed in your craft or field. So for us and our family, our old neighbor, he’s in his seventies and currently we’re out visiting our old neighborhood. And my son gets to go over and work side by side with him in the wood workshop out in the yard gardening. And he’s learning skills that he, my neighbor has obtained over the last 70 years. And at the end of the day, they always go out and get a bite to eat and kind of relish in it. That’s so beneficial for both parties. I was thinking the other day, we have such a

[09:28] awesome situation in our family because my husband’s dad is available and helps out with things like taking the car in for servicing, tire rotation, oil, lube filter, that kind of thing. Because it just seems like the little odometer rolls over into, hello, I need service at never a good time. And how grateful we can be for that. And so if there are listeners that don’t have that, your community is your family. And whether you’re using something formal, like seniors helping seniors is it either.com or.org. I can’t remember or more informal, like what you and your family are developing there in your neighborhood. There’s so much good in asking for help. And there’s so much good then of course,

[10:23] and giving help. Oh, so good. So there’s a lot of wisdom that can be gained from people in the retirement class, we’ll call it. But retirement by definition, as you’ve mentioned before, and hopefully I get this one right, means to be taken out of service. Is that correct? Yes. Yes. None of us should ever retire. And all of us, our brains can hopefully, unless medical reasons cannot, hopefully our brains can remain sharp and continuing to learn. But going back to your very first one, which I think may be the rub, maybe the problem that we’re seeing with a lot of retirement folks is that they’re not adjusting their definition of work. See, the older we get, we may need to sleep more or eat different foods or et cetera, et cetera. And so we can adjust our definition of

[11:21] it, but we have to get outside of ourselves to do that. And we definitely don’t want to be taken out of service. What are your parting words of wisdom, Kim? Well, it’s so fun as somebody that’s observing those that are in retirement, to see the things that they can’t do as well anymore and watch how they choose to handle those things. So we think, oh, I’ll have this certain income and that will be sufficient. Well, what happens when you physically can’t do anything anymore or not anything, but physically can’t do certain things or mentally don’t want to tackle certain things or just need more help. This is a great time to get that mentoring pot stirred up and to ask for the help in the things that you want help with. And this is why we want to have more money

[12:13] than what we were spending before in order to pay for that kind of help. It’s so cool to see like a younger person helping an older person with the yard, like what you just mentioned, or maybe with paying the bills or grocery shopping or whatever it is, because it energizes both parties and it lets money move, which is a principle of prosperity that we always want to be seeking. When our money is moving, it’s doing good jobs, no different than when our bodies and our brains are moving. And so using that lens, again, that prosperity lens, or if you want the principle of movement, if you are hoarding money and feeling like, oh, I might need this, you’ll get better results if you’ll move the money and get something done that you want done. So then your definition of work is inspiring and

[13:07] leading as opposed to getting out on your hands and knees and digging through the garden or whatever it is that you’re paying to get help done with. And then you get the joy of sharing the wisdom that you have about that particular job or anything else that comes up in the conversation while that younger person is helping you do whatever it is that is needing to be done. Oh, wonderful. I can just picture a family driving in the car, listening to this podcast, thinking about someone in their life that they can have a conversation and engage with them and then find new ways, new life, new joy that’s going to help out. And hopefully this conversation did that for you today. That was wonderful, Kim. Thank you.

[13:57] Thank you for listening to the Prosperity Podcast. To take control of your money and have it work for you, visit us at partnersforprosperity.com. If you liked this episode, make sure you subscribe and leave a review.