I’m 25 and want to retire early.  What is my best strategy moving forward?

I’m an information gatherer – probably to the excess.  I guess it’s just part of my wiring.  In this quest for information, I’m a sucker for signing up to services like Medium.org, the Quora Digest at Quora.com, and others.

Quora is kind of a strange concept – a Q&A site where questions are asked, answered, edited and organized by its community of users in the form of opinions.  It’s an information exchange site that discourages low-quality answers and requires users to use their real name to sign up.

Kind of a Wikipedia on the fly with identifiable culprits.

I don’t pay much attention to it, which begs the question of why I let it invade my inbox.  A question I’ll someday need to address relative to lots of stuff that invades my inbox.

That’s more than you wanted to know about Quora – and certainly about one of my many quirks.

But I couldn’t pass up one Quora conversation that caught my eye last week.  The topic submitted was this:

I’m 25 and want to retire early.  What is my best strategy moving forward?

I had to respond.  The question hit me two ways:

  1. Why is a 25-year old already thinking retirement?
  2. It illustrates how pervasive and deep into our culture the concept continues to persist.

So I’m sharing my response.  I have no clue if he got it, read it or gives a damn.  And my response has a touch of a rant in it, but – well, it’s just the way I feel about it.

Some will agree, some will be offended, many will find it a yawner. Let me know which you are at the end in the comment section.

Young man:

Perhaps, at 25, you could consider an alternate view: why retire at all? Consider that “retire” comes from the French verb that means “to retreat, go backward, move to a place of seclusion.”

Fortunately, we are beginning to realize that labor-to-leisure/vocation-to-vacation retirement has more downsides than upsides. It’s a concept trying to stand on 20th-century legs, promoted and glamorized by the financial services industry. Retirement didn’t exist 150 years ago and doesn’t exist in nature. It is, fundamentally, an unnatural, politically-motivated notion whose genesis goes back 80 years.

The reality of retirement is that it’s less about the “numbers” and more about achieving a fulfilling life. Some, including myself, are predicting that “unretirement” or “semi-retirement” will become the new prestige rather than traditional retirement, especially early retirement.

Some of the leading voices on lifetime achievement and purposeful living refer to retirement as the “ultimate casualty” where mental, physical, social and spiritual qualities go to die a slow death.

If you are doing what you truly “want” to do and are using your core talents and working toward that deep inner dream, then why would you retire and deny society the impact you can bring forward?

Retirement can be a deeply selfish move by denying us all the deep inner talent and skill you are gifted with.

Most people retire “from” something and rarely “to” something.  For many, retirement affords them the opportunity to get away from something that they have tolerated for years rather than something that inspired them daily and that used their core talents.

You are in a position to be way ahead in this game and be a “game changer” or “world changer”. Rather than think retirement, think impact. When you connect your unique ability or essential self with a vision for your life, a desire for retirement is going to fade away – and we all benefit much more.

Good luck to you!

Gary

 

Wealthy? Check! Healthy? Not so much!

Maybe you saw the news article in your local paper this week from The Washington Post announcing that for the first time in a decade, the United States was crowned the world’s most competitive economy by the World Economic Forum in Davos.

I wasn’t on their invitation list so I didn’t know it was going on, or who makes up the forum.  Without my help, they scored the U.S. at 85.6 out of 100 against metrics that included infrastructure, information and communications technology, macroeconomic stability, health, skills and labor market.

Whew!  So glad we were able to claw our way back to the top.

But wait.  Three paragraphs later we see that the Forum also pointed out that the U.S. “is far behind most advanced economies in health, with life expectancy six years behind competitors Singapore and Japan.”

Maybe if we knew how to get healthy, that 85.6 could have bumped up against 100.

The fact is, we do know how to get healthy but it’s apparently just not a priority for most of us – until it is.  That’s usually after the fit hits the shan.  Then we are “all in” – and desperate to catch the horse long after it left the barn.

We know all we need to know

OK, I’m going to sound like a broken record so I hope you’ll forgive another rant or two.  Repetition is still the mother of learning last time I checked.

Fact:  The five major killers in the U.S. are heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, and dementia.  That hasn’t changed in decades, other than some repositioning in the stack ranking.  Diabetes is now slowly working its way to the top as the biggest health threat.  Our own American Medical Association recently announced that half of our American population is either diabetic or pre-diabetic and 70% don’t know it.  OUCH!

Fact:  All five are, for the most part, lifestyle diseases and are subject to intervention.  Genetics plays, at most, a 30% role in the development of these diseases.  In the words of Dr. David Katz, a physician at the Yale School of Medicine, and founder of an organization called the Academy of Lifestyle Medicine:

“We already know all that we need to know to reduce, by 80%, the five major killers in our country.  We don’t need any more fancy drugs or equipment or more Nobel Prizes.  We know all we need to know today.”

 Fact:  the meteoric rise in U.S. average life expectancy appears to have peaked, actually going backward in 2015.   We’ve gotten very good at finding ways to kill ourselves early in the face of all that we know about how to do the opposite.

Fact:  We’re getting bigger, but not any taller.  This at the same time that Americans now spend more eating out than they do cooking at home.

 

Fact: The Standard American Diet (SAD) is deplorable and is killing us early.  According to the website Forks Over Knives:

  • 63% of America’s calories come from refined and processed foods (e.g. soft drinks, packaged snacks like potato chips, packaged desserts, etc.)
  • 25% of America’s calories come from animal-based foods
  • 12% of America’s calories come from plant-based foods
  • Unfortunately, half of the plant-based calories (6%) come from french fries. That means only 6% of America’s calories are coming from health-promoting fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and seeds.

There’s a good reason we abbreviate standard American diet to S.A.D. The standard American diet leads to standard American diseases that lead to standard American deaths.

Fact: Our healthcare system cares little about what we eat and our food industry cares little about our health.  Need proof?  (1)  Has your primary care physician ever initiated a conversation with you about what you eat? Not!  There’s no box to check for that category in his electronic medical record.  (2) Burger King just confirmed that meat and cheese cause nightmare diseases.  The fast-food chain just launched the “Nightmare King” sandwich – a quarter pound of beef, a chicken filet, cheese, bacon mayonnaise and onions –  which they openly claim is “clinically proven to induce nightmares.” 

Fact:  We’ve gotten very sedentary.  The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics just this year announced that only 23% of Americans meet national physical activity guidelines which, for adults, are 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise per week.  Do the math:  that means we can’t find .007% of our week to get our heart rate up.   But we can find, on average 49 hours (29%) to veg out in front of the TV or on social media.  A lack of physical exercise is now being equated to the equivalent of having a major disease.

What Can We Do?

Few things are simpler and more impactful than taking charge of our own health.  The biggest overall killer is healthcare illiteracy combined with complacency and lethargy, all of which are addressable.

The formula is simple – but not easy, considering the deeply ingrained habits we function in.

Here’s an optimized plan as offered up by Dr. Henry Lodge, co-author of the best-selling book “Younger Next Year.” It’s referred to as “Harry’s Rules”:

  1. Exercise six days a week for the rest of your life
  2. Do serious aerobic exercise four days a week for the rest of your life
  3. Do serious strength training, with weights, two days a week for the rest of your life.
  4. Spend less than you make
  5. Quit eating crap!
  6. Care
  7. Connect and commit

Simple, but not easy.  SAD if we don’t.

How To Make Aging Work

I added to my hero list this week.

During another boring 24-Hour Fitness workout this week, my aging I-pod Classic served up a James Altucher podcast interview with William Shatner of Startrek, Boston Legal, and Priceline fame.

Now 87, Shatner looks 20-years younger and is living like his hair is on fire (yes, he still has plenty)  – writing books; doing a country-western album, a blues album, and a Christmas album; touring internationally; producing, directing and performing on NYC Broadway stage; speaking.

It’s obvious Shatner doesn’t spend much time thinking about his endpoint. He’s too busy.

He subscribes to George Burn’s viewpoint on dying:

“How can I die?  I’m booked”

And

“As long as you’re working, you stay young.”

One of Shatner’s opening comments was that “all the 87 year-olds I know are dead. They didn’t follow my advice – I told them ‘don’t die’, but they died.  Why did they die?  Because they changed their mind about living”.

No mystery to him about it.  “They decided they were through.”

He’s far from through.

Try the schedule described above and see if you could make it happen, at any age, let alone 87.

It strikes me that Shatner epitomizes the merits of refusing to retire and of continuing to work. He validates what we need more of to sustain – in fact, build – our vigor and vitality as we enter and move through the third stage of life.

For example:

  1. Doing something we’ve never done before. Just a few Shatner examples: c&w, blues and Christmas album; interview and dinner with Stephen Hawkings shortly before Hawking’s death; writing a book.
  2. Staying physically active e.g. touring globally. I’m sure he does more physically – he appears to be in better shape than the loose-cannon, Denny Crane, in Boston Legal.
  3. Challenging ourselves mentally. Shatner is no slouch here.  Honestly, I bailed on the podcast when Altucher added world-renowned theoretical physicist, Dr. Michio Kaku, to the conversation and the three of them went off into “woo-woo” land talking about quantum physics, string field theory, hyperspace and the “physics of the impossible.”  Shatner’s mental acuity and ability to not only engage in this type of dialog but to lead it, was amazing.  What happened to the myth about declining brain-power as we age? (BTW, Kaku is no spring chicken – he’s 71).
  4. Always having something that isn’t complete. It’s apparent from Shatner’s conversation that he doesn’t hesitate to start something new while he has other things going.  He’s not concerned about each activity being perfect – in fact, admits to a number of stinkers in his prolific list of projects.  For him, it’s just constant forward movement. No living from the rear-view mirror for him.

On this last point, I’m reminded of one of the principles espoused by world-renowned entrepreneurial/business coach Dan Sullivan, founder of Strategic Coach.  Sullivan opposes completing one’s life.  He argues persuasively that our culturally-infused notion that it’s important to “wrap up one’s life” and “leave a legacy” is like planning for a funeral and is counter-productive and life-shortening.

This leave-a-legacy mindset is a product of what Sullivan calls one of the many “general narratives” that our culture instills in us that rob us of the potential we can bring forward into this third stage of life.  It’s a general narrative that says “I’ve only got 70 or 80 years on this mudball so I should start winding down as I approach that period of my life.”

That’s giving up on one’s uniqueness and on one’s self as a creator.  It’s apparent that Shatner and Sullivan don’t buy into that general narrative.

At 74, Sullivan’s whole idea for his future– and for the professional and personal lives of his coaching students – is an “ever-expanding incompleteness” as opposed to bringing life to some sort of legacy.  He teaches “always expanding one’s present into a bigger future” with “each tomorrow starting at a higher level.”  Any legacy – if it were important – will take care of itself.

We waste energy worrying about when the end is coming. It’s not for us to determine – nature owns that and has her own unpredictable timetable.

Sullivan intends to leave a total mess of in-process creative projects for his team to straighten out or complete when he checks out – a rather refreshing new spin on the concept of a legacy.  I suspect this is a concept that resonates with Shatner as well.

Shatner, Sullivan and probably hundreds or thousands of other third-act participants are busting several myths (or “general narratives”) that need busting.   To name a few:

  1. That creativity dies as we age.
  2. That brainpower deteriorates as we age and senescence is automatic.
  3. That “labor-to-leisure” retirement is good for the body and the soul.
  4. That unhappiness accompanies growing old. (NOTE: the nadir of unhappiness is age 47 – see this article.)

Fascination and motivation lie available for the taking for all of us by creating every day; by striving to make our future bigger than our past regardless of age.  It starts with rediscovering what we are uniquely gifted to be able to do and linking that with a vision and sense of purpose for this third act.

I’ll wrap by adding to the overuse of an overused but important cliché:

It’s never too late to start, but always too early to quit.

Do you have a unique giftedness deep inside that cultural expectations/general narratives have stolen or covered over – one that you can resurrect and apply against a vision for your future that is bigger than your past?  Does the concept of an “incomplete life” versus a “legacy” resonate with you?   Your thoughts on either or both are welcome – scroll down and give us your thoughts.

Retirement: Where Good Habits Go to Die and Bad Habits Flourish.

 

 

For starters this week, click on and read this humorous article “What Day Is it? The Muddled Confusion of a Recent Retiree.” 

New blogger and recent retiree, Howard Fishman, takes a very refreshing swipe at the realities of transitioning from labor-to-leisure, vocation-to-vacation.

Fishman makes a seminal statement in the article (the bolding  is mine):

“Since retirement, I find myself awash in days bearing little difference from days that came before. Few benchmarks punctuate time. Though busy with a hundred things on an inexhaustible “honey-do” list, nothing seems particularly celebrated if compared to the highs experienced by successful career accomplishments. There’s no discernable movement on my emotional Richter scale.”

I’m reading between the lines on Fishman’s article. This is a guy with an exemplary track record in executive management at the Fortune 500 level. Could we agree that he is whimsically lamenting a lost identity? From Richter scale strokes to no Richter scale. From a schedule with substance and impact to a – hmm, what schedule?


Many enter retirement because they’ve somehow been convinced to want to get away from having their personal Richter scale moved, even though, in the long run, positive Richter scale movement is certainly healthier than no movement.

 

Let’s be honest, most people retire “from something”, rarely “to something”.

Unless, of course, the interpretation of “to something” is sleeping-in, marathon TV, garage cleanup, dog walking and golf with the same un-benchmarked cronies every week.

As a culture, we are deeply brainwashed to believe that retirement is a life-portal entitlement – or obligation. To not retire is to be tagged as “unfortunate”; to retire early is to be tagged with a “badge of honor.” To admit that you are “flunking” retirement will rarely leave the lips of a retiree, especially from the male-type.

To denounce retirement is blasphemous. It’s an attack on one of the strongest – and biologically/emotionally/physically unsound – mindsets in our culture. Take this from a seasoned blasphemer.

Lost identity may be one of the most common, most unplanned-for, and most devastating of the myriad downsides to a traditional retirement.

Six months ago, you were:

  • “Somebody” to a large group
  • Titled
  • Respected
  • Turned to for advice
  • Tightly scheduled with deadlined projects
  • Learning something new continuously to thrive in your job
  • Bringing in a paycheck as a sign of achievement.

Today:

  • You are “somebody” to spouse and progeny, and not much more.
  • Your title? Retired – which derives from the French verb “retirer” that means to “retreat or go backward”.
  • Still respected – but, as with “somebody”, that circle of respect has shrunk mightily. Face it, the people who respected you at work forgot about you 60 minutes after the last piece of retirement cake was served. They are moving on. And, to your surprise, they aren’t calling you to “stay in touch” which they promised to do as they sucked down your retirement cake.
  • The advice you are asked for now? Probably not brain stretchers. Things like “what’s the best way to clip the dog’s toenails” or “who do you recommend for a tree-trimming service?” or “would you recommend a 20-degree or 23-degree loft hybrid?”
  • You’re mostly unscheduled. After all, that’s why you retired, right? For the freedom of controlling your own time. The honey-do list is done by noon, and you find yourself wandering through the garage looking for something to break so you can fix it. No magnitude, no hard deadlines to challenge your talents, lots of open time to be sucked into intellectual pursuits such as the 49 hours-per-week the average retiree spends zoning out in front of the TV.
  • Learning? Be honest, you’re taking a sabbatical from learning, which, for many, becomes permanent. A been-there, done-that attitude prevails.
  • No paycheck – and the question “what am I worth now?” It’s all going out, nothing coming in.

The emerging dark sides of retirement that are the consequences of the above are well documented. I’m not going to bother you with them again. Click on my May 14 blog “Avoiding Retirement Chaos” for a refresher.

BEWARE the free time.

A study from Taiwan said the key to a happy retirement isn’t how much free time you have, it’s how you manage whatever free time you have. Free time -the very thing we covet in moving to retirement – is a Trojan horse. Free time can lead to loss of good habits which in turn, over the long term, can lead to early mental and physical deterioration.

Good habits like: regular exercise; social engagement; healthy diet; continued learning; service to others, spiritual development.

An unplanned, no-purpose retirement can move us to the “live short, die long” lifestyle that pervades our society, where post-retirement health and vitality gradually fade away and prolonged frailty sets in. It’s largely a choice resulting from the misuse of our time and true talents during this period between middle age and true old age.

 

A new prestige

As Boomers move into and past middle-age, we are seeing a gradual shift away from the notion that retirement makes sense. I predict that no-retirement/un-retirement or, at a minimum, semi-retirement will become the new prestige.

Howard Fishman perhaps illustrates the new model – one unwilling to “go quietly into the night nursing home.”

Six months into his “traditional retirement”, he admits to needing a “do-over” and a “decompression from the whirlpool of work.” He has realized that “it’s less about how to fill the days and more about self-fulfillment to be found in those days.”

And his do-over will include “finding that old box of Crayolas and start to draw outside of the lines – just for spite and just once, for kicks – like that crazy Kindergarten kid who imagined that the sun and planets all revolved around him.”

Ah yes – resurrecting the innate creativity siphoned off by 30+ years of meeting cultural expectations.

For the Howard Fishman’s, it’s more likely to be a third-act lifestyle filled with:

• Mentoring, not movies
• Teaching, not TV
• Learning, not Lazy-Boy
• Biking, not bingo
• Philanthropy, not pickleball
• Vocation, not vacation
• Contrarian, not conformist
• Playground, not park bench

Good habits, leaving no room for bad habits.

Retired? Relative to the above thoughts, how has your retirement gone? What can you share for prospective or early retirees that can help them make this “third act” life portal the happiest, most fulfilling and productive time of life? Scroll down and leave us your thoughts – or email me at gary@makeagingwork.com. Or better yet, call me 720-344-7784 – I’d love to chat with you about this.

Regain Your Brain – for $79!!

Would $79 and 12 hours be too much for you to spend to avoid Alzheimer’s?

If so, kill this blog and return to – whatever.

Too close to home

Alzheimer’s recently became a reality for my wife and me when the wife of a dear friend, half of a close 40-year friendship, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

We feel fortunate that it hasn’t occurred in our immediate or extended family, and that, so far, this is a single incident within our reasonably normal-sized circle of friends.  Nonetheless, this single incident has validated all that we’ve read or heard about the devastating impact of this brain disease – and more.

The speed with which this has transformed a beautiful, wonderful woman into one that we can’t recognize or who can’t recognize us has been stunning – and deeply saddening.

Following this development, I have had my radar up for any information related to answers to solving this devastating disease.  What I have found, until very recently, has been pretty grim.  This summarizes some of what I’ve found:

  • It’s generally accepted that 1 in 3 of us will develop Alzheimer’s in America.
  • While medicine has made significant progress against heart disease and several types of cancer, progress against Alzheimer’s has remained elusive. Time after time, a “promising” new drug has failed to come through.
  • Industry-research service EvaluatePharma revealed in a 2017 study that of the 20 most promising future drugs coming to market, none are aimed at Alzheimer’s.
  • Many of the major pharmaceutical industries are reducing or eliminating entirely their departments in the area of Alzheimer’s and dementia research!
  • In January of this year, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals ended their research to discover new medications for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. They laid off over 300 scientists in their labs and closed down the entire division.
  • In an interview, one recently laid-off neuroscientist said, “The current medication for Alzheimer’s disease is approved, essentially, because it’s better than nothing. There’s nothing else at the moment.”
  • The reason? Shareholder value.

There’s much more I could share, but I realize that I only have people’s attention for about 1200 words/six minutes if I’m lucky, even on a life-and-death issue.  So let me cut to the chase.

We’re getting answers

About 10 days ago, a promo-email hit my mailbox that my radar picked up immediately – a “free” 12-episode video series entitled “Regain Your Brain: Awakening From Alzheimer’s”. 

Being cheap and a knowledge-accumulator, I was all over it.  I just completed about 20 hours of watching and taking extensive notes from this series.   It’s a collection of interviews with some of the top neurologists, psychologists, neurosurgeons and functional medicine physicians in the country.

I’m going to try to summarize my key takeaways from the series below – a tough task because there are so many.  Just let me say first that we are getting answers to solving the Alzheimer’s puzzle, but they aren’t going to come from your doctor’s office or from your local pharmacy.

More on that in a moment.

Invest in your healthy future

Here’s the deal.

The free version of the series went away – they left each video up for 24 hours.  But the entire series, plus a plethora of other supplemental information is available in three different packages ranging from $79 to $189.  It’s all explained here.

At a minimum, own the DVD of the video series ($79 package) and find twelve hours at your leisure to digest the information therein.

Disclaimer: 

Please know, that I have no affiliation with the producing organization, nor do I stand to benefit one nickel if you purchase the series.  With very few exceptions, I found it highly credible and thought-provoking.  It unveils a lot of information we aren’t going to hear from our hospital-system-ensnared, insurance-company-directed primary care docs.

It addresses some questions a lot of us may be asking ourselves, such as…

  • Why haven’t I heard of these therapies before?
  • Why have I been led to believe we’re hopeless in the face of these diseases?
  • Why hasn’t my doctor made me aware of these methods of prevention and recovery?
  • Why does the media insist that there’s “no cure” for Alzheimer’s or dementia?
  • Why do the drug companies ignore this research, coming up short again and again?

Sadly, the answer to all of these questions comes down to money.

My takeaway

I’ll try to briefly summarize my take away from this experience.  You may draw different conclusions should you invest in the series.

  1. Dementia and Alzheimer’s, in particular, is a preventable disease. Reversal of advanced stages of Alzheimer’s remains out of reach, although the series references examples of reversal of early onset.  The central message is that Alzheimer’s is preventable because we now know, through extensive brain research, what brings it on.  The brain is susceptible to the very same lifestyle-initiated pathogens that keep heart-disease our #1 killer and diabetes as the greatest threat to our national health.   Namely, poor diet, lack of exercise, hormonal imbalance, vitamin deficiency, exposure to toxins, amongst other factors.
  2. Your primary care physician doesn’t (care to) know this stuff. I respect my primary-care doc – I’ve been with him for 25 years.  But he’s a traditional “drug it or cut it” doc.  He’s never initiated a conversation about my homocysteine levels, asked me about my diet, suggested I visit a Vitamin Shoppe for some key missing vitamin supplements, had me tested for toxins in my system, or for hormonal imbalance.  The blood tests he is authorized to authorize by his hospital system and covered by my insurance is cursory at best.  He and his hospital system are paid to cure, not to prevent.  Prevention doesn’t pay.
  3. Big pharma isn’t likely to help. As noted above, Big Pharma is bailing out. And that’s a good thing.  The industry only knows to try to catch the horse after it has left the barn, not preventing the horse from leaving the barn.  Functional/Personalized Medicine is beginning to demonstrate that there are myriad of effective natural remedies that Big Pharma won’t bother with because of, well – no shareholder value.
  4. Functional/Personalized Medicine is the future. A growing segment of our healthcare system is Functional Medicine – referred to also as Holistic Medicine or Personalized Medicine.  It is within this emerging area of medicine that analysis and testing are taking place that isolate the pathogens, toxins, hormonal deficiencies and lifestyle habits that result in Alzheimer’s.  You can learn more about Functional Medicine at this site.
  5. We control our “dementia destiny”. Twenty years ago, the brain was considered a fixed, unalterable organ that was destined for deterioration over time.  We now know, unequivocally, that this is false.  Our brain is a “use or lose it” organ that can grow new cells at any age (neurogenesis) and is alterable (neuroplasticity) based on lifestyle decisions that we make.  WE CAN DIRECTLY AFFECT OUR CHANCES OF DEVELOPING ALZHEIMER’S.

I think I hear what you’re thinking.  OK, I’m 55/60/70 – isn’t it too late?  Maybe.  But, as with many things, it’s never too late to start but always too early to quit.  If you are reading this and making some sense of it, then I say it’s not too late.  This series helped me appreciate the fact that there are now ways to know if we are headed toward this disease and to take the steps to head it off and even reverse the early symptoms.

The research has been done, the treatment pathways for prevention have been laid out.  But we will have to go outside our traditional disease-care system to participate.

I hope you’ll invest in this series.  If you do, drop me a note or scroll down and leave a comment with your impression or with any thoughts that you have along these lines of dementia prevention.

I plan to dig more into this area of Functional Medicine and to publish more articles in the future on this emerging dimension of healthcare.