Savor the Golden Years with These Two Frameworks – Episode 523   

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors.

[00:01] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast. Prosperity thinkers, on this episode of the podcast, we are going to be talking about not retirement, because we don’t want to use that word, but it is in the post-work stage. But there should never be a post-work stage. I don’t know what we call it. What would you call that, Kim? We really do need another word. I like rewirement, I like financial freedom, but I don’t have a good word. We’ll keep working on that. We absolutely need a word. I was horrified the other day. Somebody said, oh, there’s going to be go-go years, slow-go years, and then no-go years. And I was like, what? No! Well, I mean, I guess the no-go years are true, but is that where you go visit

[00:50] someone and look at the headstone? Is that what it is? I was so appalled by the language that I don’t even know the answer. So here’s the interesting thing. I’ve had a lot of conversations with people, because we’re out visiting the old area where we used to live in. And for me, I had a lot of friends that are in their 60s and 70s. I happen to relate really well with them. And so I’m seeing people come up for this retirement or just going through it now. And this conversation happened last week. And I want to get your input because I’d never actually heard this. So my old neighbor, he’s retired, he’s been retired for 15 years. Amazing guy. He’s always working in his wood shop, and he’s the person that’s got a project

[01:43] going all the time. He and I have spent hours and hours together on various projects because we just love it. And I saw another person that had recently retired, and they had spending all day on their phone and just doing nothing. And I talked with my friend, Mike, and I said, why would a person do that? And he gave me an answer that I had never heard before. In fact, I’d never even thought of it. So I want your take to create a solution. He goes, well, he’s just cheap. And I go, what do you mean? So the guy that’s just on his phone doing nothing because he’s just cheap. He’s not willing to create a hobby that will entertain himself or take the time or the money to go and do something for someone else.

[02:39] I hadn’t thought of it that way. Have you thought of that before? No, that is interesting. And yet, at the same time, I totally understand people at all stages of life think that they cannot do anything about whatever the problem is because of money. And I assume that that’s what he was implying by the word cheap is that he wasn’t willing to invest money of any sort in either purchasing items so that he could work a hobby, interesting word, work a hobby, or in maybe learning something so that he could then serve. And so interestingly enough, the podcast that we did a week or two ago about gravy stack for kids, it has a whole list of ways that you can serve the community if you have two hands and at least one foot, possibly two.

[03:39] And you know what, frankly, even if you don’t, because we all know people that do have physical defects and still get out in the world and serve, and it doesn’t cost anything to do that. Now, you could argue that it costs some time. Sounds to me like this guy has a plethora of time on his hands. And that’s exactly the problem. It is. So it had me think, OK, and this was just me, like I’ve actually stood on this one a lot. So by being cheap, is it common? And I would imagine this happens often when you’re talking with people, they’re afraid that they’re going to live longer than their money. Yes. So it’s an irrational fear of what they’re going through, yet it’s a rational fear. And I agree, all of us have time.

[04:37] So how can we navigate something around this so that we can change the mindset? And if it is that they don’t want to work, at least we can make the days that they are alive better. Yes. OK, I have two specific suggestions. The first is please consider a product that is called a single premium immediate annuity. Take the dollars that you have and purchase a guaranteed lifetime income because it will remove that fear entirely. And I think, Spencer, also, some people, maybe they’re not as afraid of outrunning the money as they are of the money doing the roller coaster ride thing that the stock market tends to do. Same thing, please get with somebody. If you want to come to me for help, I’m happy to do it.

[05:29] If you want to go to somebody else that you know, this is more often in the insurance world, not in the stockbroker world, but I think stockbrokers probably have the product as well, and purchase a guaranteed lifetime income so that you do not worry about running out of money. And then the second suggestion that I have is to look at your life the same way that Dan Sullivan has entrepreneurs look at their lives. And Dan states that the problem with the entrepreneurial world is that any day can be a workday. Well, the problem with the retiree world is that every day is a Saturday. And the problem with that is that every day is the same. Every day. And so I encourage entrepreneurs to follow the Dan Sullivan time system,

[06:25] which is free days, focused days and buffer days. And while I don’t speak with a lot of retirees, I encourage them to implement the same exact system of free days, focused days and buffer days. And here’s what it would look like. You identify days in the week where you have an obligation to get results. Maybe it’s you’re an usher at church on Sunday. Maybe it’s you’re going to volunteer at the food bank on Wednesday. Done. Like those are your focused days. And I realize that either of those things don’t take all day, but let’s not even worry about that right now. Just identify the days that you’re to get results and make those focused days. And during those days, you get those results and you are all in.

[07:08] Go early, stay late, help more, do all that you can. Then identify the days that you want to be free. And I mean truly free. You’re not going to do anything that you don’t want to do. Now, for some people, this is going to look different than other people. As an example, maybe somebody absolutely adores gardening and mowing the lawn and fussing in the flower beds. And that’s your free day thing. Awesome. Then you do that on those days. But if that is not your thing, then do not do that on those days. Don’t run errands. Don’t do chores. Don’t try to clean the house, do the laundry, anything. And again, there’s going to be exceptions with all of this. But try to create within your week at least one or two or three truly free days.

[08:01] And then the last day is the buffer day. It’s the in-between day where you get all the other stuff done. You clean the house, you take the dog to the vet, you run the doctor’s errands, you know, whatever it is that you need to do that is necessary to live your life. And as a husband and wife, you’re going to need to coordinate on these days. And you can have free days that are just for yourself, as well as free days that are for you and your wife, as well as free days that are for family. And some of those three days will be all broken up. But ideally, if you can truly separate them out as black and white as you possibly can, I like to think about it like Neapolitan ice cream straight out of the freezer,

[08:44] cut with a hot knife, chocolate, strawberry and vanilla and break up your three days. That way you will live a much more fulfilling life. That was jam-packed, great, actionable information, both on the annuity and on that. That was so good. So you mentioned one little piece in there that I’m going to connect some dots. Even though they’re not connected, we’re going to do it live real time. So you mentioned Gravy Stack. It’s an episode we had a couple of weeks ago. And really, this is called the impetus to getting children becoming entrepreneurial, financial savvy. So how do we take some of the frameworks of Gravy Stack, pulling that into the retirement? Because they might not be starting a business.

[09:38] Maybe they are, but maybe they’re starting a hobby. What does that look like to you? Yep. I would like them to purchase on Amazon the value creation kid. And in that book is a list of community service things that you can go do. Maybe some of them will generate money. Maybe some of them will not. It doesn’t matter. I learned the other day of a guy that has a power washer. And he just drags his power washer up and down the streets of his small little town, washing anybody’s anything that needs to be washed, including the sidewalks of the town, because he was so tired of how dirty they were. And apparently, there’s one area in his town where the sidewalk was like this gorgeous flagstone, something that nobody had seen for decades because it was just mucky and filthy and you couldn’t see the beautiful stone that was there.

[10:37] So whatever it is that you love to do, take it into the community. But if you’ll buy the value creation kid book, it will bring a little bit of kid back into your life. And you can find something in there that you would look at and say, I like to do that. I will go do that. And if it costs 20 bucks of supplies from Home Depot, even better. I love it. That’s great. I’m going to pro tip add one layer to that, which is this. If you’re a parent and you now have your parent or maybe there’s a grandparent in your life, go buy it for them. Now, here’s the pro tip. I’m going to I’m going to stack it. So let’s say you have kids, but your parents are still alive and they’re at retirement age. Buy the book for both the kid and your family and your parent and say, would you mind being the mentor of the grandchild?

[11:33] So they’re going to learn. The kids are going to learn. Everyone’s going to collaborate. Everyone’s going to benefit from that. It’s it’s a win win win across the board. So it’s very cool. One of my faves when times three. Absolutely. So for all of you listeners out there, there are ways that we can avoid aging both our bodies and our brains by being engaged. We’ll have to still figure out what that retirement word is because there’s there’s something in there. But regardless of that, I know that we have created a framework. What you’ve just shared and that couple of minutes of you explaining the free days, the work days, the focus days, the buffer days, gold, so gold. And then on the financial piece, annuity questions, send an email to Hello Prosperity Thinkers to be able to figure out what that looks like for you,

[12:32] what those numbers are. And there’s questions to be answered. And that’s fine. But getting that stuff handled now makes it so that you can drink from the fountain of youth again. Sound like a plan. Yes, very well said. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Prosperity Podcast. To take control of your money and have it work for you, visit ProsperityThinkers.com.