Why Retirement Is a Terrible Idea – 257

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[00:04] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast, fresh alternative personal finance talk for independent thinkers who prosper outside of Wall Street. Here’s your host, bestselling author, Kim D.H. Butler. Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about this thing that happens in most people’s lives when they get older. No, I’m not talking about death. I’m talking about retirement and why it’s a horrible idea to retire and how we’re going to come up with a solution. Kim, are you there with me? Yes, Spencer. Hello. Hello. So the solution to never retiring is finding work that you love to do. Would you say that’s pretty accurate? Absolutely. I am so grateful that early on I kind of stumbled into the work that I do.

[00:58] Of course, now when I look back on it, it’s probably completely logical that I’m helping people with their finances because I’ve been working with my own money since fourth grade. I literally had a milk cow that I milked and sold the milk and got involved in 4-H and all the record keeping, et cetera, of all the financial transactions from fourth grade on. My dad just told me something interesting the other day. I knew that my sister had a milk cow too. Her name is Tammy and some of you have heard us talk either on this podcast or the other podcast that we do for advisors. Of course, Spencer knows Tammy because of her own podcast. But I said something to dad about, well, Tammy got a milk cow two or three years

[01:42] later, didn’t she? And he said, yeah. And I kind of had in my head why. And he said, oh, no, the reason that she got her milk cow is because she saw the money that you were making and she wanted to have some of her own. We’re talking like sixth grade when this happened. So in any case, from that point, the love of work has always been something I’m just very grateful for. And it’s become more and more clear as I’ve continued in my work with strategic coach. So a strategic coach is a program for entrepreneurs. It’s a lifetime focusing program. You have to be owning a business and you have to have success in that business for a few years before you can be involved in the program. And they teach something called unique ability.

[02:36] And Spencer, maybe in the show notes, you can put a link to unique ability 2.0, which is a fabulous book and workbook that you can get on Amazon that really help people understand what it is about their work. And in this sense, I use work as a verb, not necessarily a noun, like the thing that you go to do every day, but the work that you do in that environment. And what unique ability says is that you’re going to absolutely love the work that you do that is your unique ability. And so getting clear on that unique ability is very, very important. And whether you want to do that on your own, like with a book and a workbook, or if you are appropriate to go to strategic coach, you can check that out,

[03:24] strategiccoach.com. And if you feel like you need help with this area, back to Tammy, this is something that she does in her work every single day is helping people figure out that that they love to do. And so she calls it your instinctive life, whether you want to call it unique ability or your sole purpose. There’s a lot of different terms out there, but it’s so important, so valuable at no matter what age that you not only discover, but continue to discover what your unique ability is. Because if you can find work as a noun now in that environment, then the work as a verb that you do won’t be work anymore because you will truly love it so much. And to go back to the definition of unique ability from Dan Sullivan,

[04:15] it is love, doing work that you love and never ending improvement. And I love that aspect of the definition, because we basically know that you can either grow or you can die. There’s not really a hang out and happy medium space. You know, there might be for a year or so, but you’re either growing or you’re dying. And so if your unique ability is something that you’re always working to improve because you just love it so much and you always want to get better at it, that’s a wonderful place to be. And when that’s going on, why would you retire? I mean, retire from what? Retire from the work that you love to do? That just makes no sense. And as we know, retirement is something that’s fairly recent in our

[05:01] society when you look at society as a whole. And there are certainly not evidence of retirement long before, you know, people literally died in the field or they died doing whatever it was that they were doing. And that, I think, should be more common. That’s what we should be doing as human beings. We should be giving and loving our work and continuing to be engaged and involved and growing literally right up to the day that we die. And of course, there’s maybe some physical things that might change that or what have you. But for the most part, it’s interesting when you talk to millennials, they don’t think of retirement as anything normal. For the most part, I think our society has just gotten stuck on the idea.

[05:49] And we can get removed from that idea just as quickly as we got stuck on it. You know, that’s that is very true. So I want to unpack a couple of things and maybe we’ll get a little bit personal and understand Kim some more. So when we talk about unique ability and loving the work inside of your business, what do you love doing the most? That’s a great question. I love solving problems. So whether it is a client with cash that they need to store more efficiently or a client or prospect with a desire to create additional cash flow with some of their money or somebody that has an IRA or an old 401k plan where they really want it to grow. Those are all specific monetary problems that I just go after with a vengeance.

[06:44] Like the inefficiency of money really bugs me when I see it and it’s sitting and it’s stagnating and it’s not doing the good work that it could do money. I want to go after it and fix those problems. And I get very excited about doing that. And it’s also something that comes to me very easily. Like I can immediately see what the problem is and how to fix it. And I like helping clients take steps, baby steps to get that rectified. And I’m a real big believer in those baby steps. My mantra is kind of go slow and start small with money. And so with that capability, it enables people to take steps that they might not normally take because if you try to make this big decision, you’re not going to make the decision.

[07:29] You’re going to procrastinate on it. But if you break it up into small steps, then you’ll get the results that you’re looking for. So that is one thing that I absolutely love to do. And just on another side note, when I see if I am talking to advisors, which I do quite a bit as well, I help other advisors with their practices. Same deal. When I see inefficiencies where they’re not using a particular product or strategy that they could be, I would just want to immediately tackle that. But then there’s an additional thing. And this is true both clients and advisors. And that is when they’re using something or their understanding of something is incorrect. So like as an example, when somebody says to me,

[08:12] well, I’m going to borrow from my life insurance policy to go do this real estate investment, I immediately say, let’s really look at that word because you’re not borrowing from it. You’re borrowing against it. And I want you to use the right language so that you truly understand what it is that you’re doing. So those are things that I could do all day long. I get energy from doing them. I love to get better at them. Like if I can find a way to describe something better or what have you. And I could do them forever. Isn’t that fantastic? And I’ve been taking some notes and thinking, that really comes back to the 4-H days that you loved to manage the operation, the transactions, see the opportunity,

[08:58] and then be efficient with that entire process. And now it’s translated into making a career out of it and helping people that could be clients or advisors. Yes, that’s very true. And I think the helping people part is really an aspect of it as well. And one of the things I like to say is to help more people in more ways. And there are a lot of environments out there where an advisor maybe is a specialist in one or two areas. Like maybe they just do life insurance. And I like the more ways part of that sentence because to me, adding the alternative investments, which we’ve worked in our practice with for so long, enables me to help more clients in more ways. And so I like that second part of it.

[09:42] That’s excellent. So as we start to wrap up this conversation about finding the work that we love, what would you say if you were sitting across from the table of someone and you were talking to a close friend and they’re thinking of retiring and you get to give them some insight so that maybe they decide not to retire or they decide to dive into something new? What would you advise them? Yeah, I would very bluntly say, and I have said this to clients, please do not retire. Don’t do that. Now, if you absolutely can’t stand your work, then fine, stop that job and go find another one. But the idea of retirement is so harmful. And those are strong words. And I’m well aware that in a lot of instances, this could be

[10:29] kind of a shock to somebody. But I got to tell you, everybody that I’ve said that to, they they give me one of those like, yeah, I kind of knew that I really shouldn’t or couldn’t retire because it’s not good for them socially. It’s not good for them emotionally, physically, psychologically, financially. I mean, how many other ways can I think of that it is not good for us as human beings? And then we have my husband’s favorite saying, which is, OK, you retire. Now, every day is a Saturday and you’re supposed to spend less. And it’s such a great reminder to us of when you live your life and you’re working three, four, five days a week. And now it’s, quote, Saturday. You know, you’re going to be out and about.

[11:14] You’re probably going to be shopping. You’re going to be doing things that cost money. And now when you have a whole string of Saturdays, you’re supposed to live on 70 to 80 percent of your income. I mean, it’s just a flawed thought process to begin with. So please don’t retire. Please find work you love. Please continue to do that work for as long as you possibly can. And maybe that means that you take a sabbatical or you work only four days a week or three days a week or four hours a day instead of eight or 10 hours a day or whatever. It means. But in the typical sense of retirement, which is for most people, completely stopping work, don’t do that. And so either change the definition of retirement

[11:57] or change up how you’re going to implement it so that you can keep giving and you can keep growing and you can find work that you love. And because of that, you can keep giving. You know, I I think that is a wonderful summary. And I’m going to also suggest a book that listeners should read. It’s one of the books that you wrote. I have it in my hands right here. It’s called Busting the Retirement Lies. And just so our listeners can have a sneak peek of some of the ideas that are in there. You know, some of the chapters are getting older and getting better. So you can also look at this and finding it’s going to go into depth of finding the work that you love. And then it’s also going to talk about the reality of retirement plans.

[12:42] And then live and share with passion. So that’s just a snapshot of some of those chapters. I really can’t emphasize enough. And I haven’t told you this, Kim, but years ago, I was living in Puerto Rico and I had a software company and I didn’t have to work much at it. The company was operating very well. And I had a separate podcast and I interviewed a guy that happens to be a billionaire. And after our interview, he tore me apart. I mean, up and down tore me apart because I was in that backseat semi-retirement type of thing. And he said, just take a snapshot of where you are and how much you’re not progressing. And I think that happens to a lot of people that are thinking of retiring. And yes, it may be some picture in your head of walking down the beach

[13:38] hand in hand with your spouse and then going out to dinner. But after a couple of weeks, that gets pretty old. Absolutely. And that’s why we need to be taking breaks, enjoying vacation, taking sabbaticals, if necessary, whatever it is, so that we can come back and continue to grow in a rejuvenated mindset. And that is going to be so much more fun and effective and heartwarming and life-giving than the typical fade off into the sunset environment. Plus, people are living so much longer these days. And so I love hearing examples. And this is part of what’s also in that Busting the Retirement Lies book. Examples of people in their 70s, 80s, 90s, even over a hundred who are still working because they have found work they love.

[14:32] Absolutely. Well, Kim, hopefully is a non official commitment for both of us. I hope that in another 50 years, we’re still having conversations like this. Absolutely. That’s part of my game plan for sure. Well, good. And I hope that in another 50 years, listeners are turning into this podcast and they’re finding the work that they love. So thank you for tuning in with us again. You can check out the book Busting the Retirement Lies. You can get that on Amazon. We’ll also put it inside of the show notes. So thanks for tuning in with us again today. 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.