Where Do You Go With Your Wisdom? Don’t Waste It On An 88-year Old Retirement Model.

Image by Georgi Dyulgerov from Pixabay

Shouldn’t we, as “modern elders” be marrying our wisdom to others, somehow, someway?

We’ve piled up 30, 40, 50 years of it. Where does it make sense to hoard it, warehouse it, let it go stale?

OK, so you don’t feel like you are wise.

Wrong, dear friend!

You have your own individual wisdom, a mash up of all your victories, defeats, exhilarations, embarrassments.

Personally, I feel I’ve earned a masters degree in screw ups and a doctorate in toe-stubbing.

But, I claim no failures. It’s all just been a long string of research and development.

One of my failures, some would say, was that I missed that road sign that said “Detour 65. Please move to the sidelines, get out of the way, and take it easy.”

I often wonder what it would be like for me today if I had bought the traditional retirement Kool-Aid.

I can only conjecture, but there’s a part of me that still wants to avoid challenge, problems, or leaving the comfort zone. At my core, I’m as likely a candidate as those who succumb to the temptation to grab hold of this semi-entitlement and hop on to an ever accelerating downward curve.

We’ve all got this part in us. In fact, Steven Pressfield wrote a whole book on it: “The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles.” He calls it “the resistance” and “genius’s shadow” saying further that “- it prevents us from achieving the life God intended when He endowed each of us with our own unique genius.”

I arm wrestle with resistance everyday. Some days it wins, like last week when I failed to post my weekly article for only the 3rd time in 5 1/2 years. OK, it was the day the Nuggets swept the Lakers, so a little slack is accepted.

There is little more gratifying than winning that wrestling match and breaking through the imposter syndrome and doing what is invariably a mix of discomfort, inconvenience, and doubt.

Just know that the resistance doesn’t want you spreading that wisdom around. It won’t get in the way of you letting it atrophy.

 

Genius? Who me?

Yep. You!

We were all born individual geniuses. It doesn’t take long for that to be squashed. Parents, peers, professors, pastors, physicians, politicians, and pundits team up with the media and Pressfield’s resistance to take it away in favor of conformity, comfort, and convenience.

The result is a learned mindset that puts a time stamp on our value.

Retirement by it’s very definition means to “retreat to a place of safety and security.”

Biologically, neurologically, physically – that’s not a good place to go. But, the temptation is great because of the disguise that the resistance puts on an environment that slows the learning process, leads to sedentary lifestyles, reduces social relationships, and encourages removal of a key component of longevity – work!

Don’t be a burned-down library.

There’s an African proverb that says:

“When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.”

What say, let’s spread our library around before it burns down. And, oh, by the way, it is going to burn down.

Keep learning. Keep stretching and pushing the edges. Help somebody. Be a rebel against the stale, illogical retirement model.

Favor us with your genius – it ain’t dead yet!!

 

 

 

 

Can We “Unteach” Traditional Retirement? Maybe We Should.

Image by CoxinhaFotos from Pixabay

Quiz for you: Name two major industries that are ripe for disruption but remain rigidly unassailable.

If you guessed education and healthcare, you are spot on.

Both are yellow brick roads to rising costs and decreased value. Both are heavyweight political playgrounds where the needle just doesn’t get moved.

In his book “The Practice”, Seth Godin riffs on education, saying:

“– we’ve built an industrial solution to teaching in bulk” and “seduced ourselves into believing that the only thing that can be taught are easily measured hard skills. We shouldn’t be buying this.”

Seth’s point is that we can teach people to overcome fear, innovate, express our uniqueness but our entrenched system unteaches bravery, creativity, initiative.

Take healthcare.

I’ve written before about how ineffective our U.S. healthcare system is. 

It occurred to me, as I pondered Seth’s comments about education, that our healthcare system unteaches good health. As the general health of our population continue to cascade downward, where is the proactive teaching that will reverse the cascade?

Let’s not hold our breath that it will come from a system that is currently shoveling truckloads of money out the door as they struggle to prop up a system built on a broken model.

I doubt that any of the efforts to right the healthcare ship will change the fundamental “drug it or cut it out” foundation of the system.

We unteach preventive healthcare by only offering cure. Doesn’t it seem reasonable to unteach cure by teaching prevention? 

We’ve been taught that healthcare is a $35 copay experience available when thing skid off the tracks. The monoliths and the providers within them are not schooled to help us unlearn bad habits and take possession of our birthright of good health.

We shouldn’t be buying this either.

Is there a third?

I believe there is a third entrenched concept that is subject to, and deserving of disruption and unlearning. I won’t win any popularity contests amongst my cohort by saying it, but here it is – – –

Traditional retirement

I’m talking about the off-the-cliff, labor-to-leisure, vocation-to-vacation retirement. The total-rejection-of-work type of retirement. The park bench, beach, bingo, bridge, backgammon, and bocce ball type of retirement.

The one that continues to invade and entrench our psyche with the questionable theory that work is best avoided and that leisure is healthy.

The one that has enriched the financial services industry for a half-century while our population continues to stack more years of chronic illness onto the the post-career phase of life.

How do we “unlearn” retirement.

Start by accepting the fact that retirement- –

  1. — is an unnatural act that doesn’t exist in nature and didn’t exist anywhere on the planet 150 years ago.
  2. — was conceived by politicians, business owners, and unions for business and political purposes and not humanitarian.
  3. — doesn’t exist in many cultures, some of which demonstrate the healthiest and longest living populations.
  4. — goes against our basic biology which offers us only two choices – growth or decay.
  5. — encourages people to abandon one of the key components of longevity – purposeful work.
  6. — warehouses or puts out to pasture one of society’s most needed resources – wisdom.

The GenXers and Millennials are starting to figure it out.

They’ve witnessed the generations ahead of them burn themselves out trying to abide by the 20th-century linear life model:  Earn – Learn  – Adjourn – Die. 

They see plainly the futility of expecting to be able to support 30 years of doing little or nothing with 40 years of working and saving.

The average savings by generation tells it all:

Total household retirement savings among all workers is $93,000 (estimated median). Baby Boomer workers have the most retirement savings at $202,000, compared with Generation X ($107,000), Millennials ($68,000), and Generation Z ($26,000) (estimated medians). (Source: Medium article by Rocco Pendola, Never Retire)
Savvy Millennials and younger GenXers are beginning to favor a “Never Retire” model and mindset. They are unlearning retirement. They are building their lives around a more balanced and experiential lifestyle with an eye toward expecting to work doing what they are good at and enjoy doing well into their later years – perhaps even to the end.
It’s a mindset that espouses less accumulation, lower overhead and cost of living, more investment in health and wellness, focus on healthspan instead of lifespan, experiential leisure, and owning their dreams with retirement nowhere in the formula.

Can we get our egos out of the way?

I know it’s difficult for hard-headed modern elders like you and me to accept advice from someone two generations back. I’m still dealing with having my 48-year-old daughter show me how to dead lift at Lifetime Fitness last week.

But, given the times and conditions, I believe they are onto something that we need and that will stick.

And I believe the financial planning industry will finally be forced to change their approach to planning with an increased focus on healthspan-oriented lifestyle design and less emphasis on work abandonment.

I sat through a webinar last week presented by ROL Advisors featuring a young financial planner, Jake Northrup, that I believe is a model for how financial planning is beginning to transform. This is not a commercial for Jake, but you can check him out at https://experienceyourwealth.com/

What are your thoughts?

Should we “unlearn” our education and healthcare systems and traditional retirement?  What else should we maybe be unlearning?  We’d love your feedback – leave a comment.

We Stopped Listening to the Ancient Greeks. It’s Costing Us.

I’m still working at 81. I blew right past that obligatory “65” retirement stop sign. I don’t remember seeing it.

Some say I’m nuts, not realizing that’s the best compliment you can pay an oddball like me.

I still get asked why I haven’t retired by those in my age cohort. There is a steady decline in the question because the cohort is shrinking.

Maybe there’s a connection. 

I respond to the question with: “Retire to what? What could be better than doing what I like, when I want, for whom I choose, on my timetable, at a price that I control, helping someone, and mixing in leisure at my will.” Oh, did I mention the afternoon power naps?

The response to my response is usually a blank stare rooted in deep dissonance.

Socrates and friends figured it out!

Back in the 1980s, as I began to immerse myself in the growing field of self-development and positive psychology, I observed that many of the longest-living high achievers in a number of fields never removed themselves from the creative process by retiring and ceasing their work – artists, composers, musicians, business owners.

It even stretched all the way back to ancient Greeks who introduced the concept of “eugeria” which meant“a long and happy life of the pursuit of worthy goals.”  To the Greeks, the path to eugeria was work and paying it forward and working for the sake of others.

The evidence of the payback of this philosophy in ancient Greece was revealed as men of distinction typically had the “eugeria” mindset and were discovered to have much longer lives, averaging around 70 years when the normal lifespans were about 35.

For example, Socrates lived to 80; Isocrates to 98; Sophocles to 90. Some even lived to be centenarians.

Recent global research on centenarians, the fastest-growing population segment, has revealed that few stopped doing work of some form.

Work as a villain.

We ignore the importance of work in our western culture and seem to have turned it into a negative four-letter word that we can’t wait to get away from, refusing to acknowledge that work plays a key role in our overall health and longevity.

I love what Wendell Berry, conservationist, farmer, essayist, novelist, professor of English and poet says about work and retirement:

“We can say without exaggeration that the present national ambition of the United States is unemployment. People live for quitting time, for weekends, for vacations, and for retirement; moreover, this ambition seems to be classless, as true in the executive suites as on the assembly lines. One works not because the work is necessary, valuable, useful to a desirable end, or because one loves to do it, but only to be able to quit – a condition that a saner time would regard as infernal, a condemnation.”

Pretty harsh words, but true. We’ve disconnected what we do for 40–60 hours a week from life satisfaction. So many of us toil in jobs we simply tolerate until we collect enough to sail into the “golden years” often to find that the bloom on the rose of traditional, leisure-based retirement fades and reveals itself as a trojan horse with unrevealed downsides in terms of health and longevity.

In his book “Boundless Potential”, author Mark Walton tells the story of when, in 1962, distinguished educator and author, Dr. Mortimer Adler, was a guest speaker before a group of the elite of insurance executives at a million-dollar roundtable. Adler shocked the group, who expected a dose of his highly-touted executive coaching. Instead, he delivered this provocative message, at a time when retirement was a national rage (bolding is mine):

“The retirement age is coming down. But the dream come true is a nightmare. For retirement, conceived as a protracted vacation, is a form of prolonged suicide. It marks the first formal stage on the road to oblivion. Consider the loss to society and the deprivation of the individual involved when a man in the real prime of life, the mental, moral, and spiritual prime, is turned out to pasture at the decree of the calendar – someone who has the most creative and most socially useful part of his labor still in him. Here is greatness wasted on the putting greens of Long Beach or the green benches of St. Petersburg. What is the solution, or is there a solution? Just – work. Work, not to insure your retirement, but to prevent it! You will benefit greatly from any kind of work which is a challenge to that part of you which continues growing.”
Find, instead, a way to work for the sake of others and you will step up, he asserted, “from a lower to a higher grade of life.”

My position on this has won me no popularity contests as I realize I am assaulting a pseudo-entitlement that has become so deeply entrenched that it will fade only slowly as we gradually awaken to the wasted potential that it engenders.

But it is beginning to fade as we now face 20–40 years of extended post-career life phases and realize that multiple-decades of beach, bingo, bridge, backgammon, and boche ball don’t make for a fulfilling life.

We are slowly – very slowly – trending away from off-the-cliff, labor-to-leisure retirement, and toward unretirement or semi-retirement. More businesses are being started by people over 50 than any other population segment. More and more “retirees” are pivoting from their leisure-based retirement and finding meaningful work by volunteering or starting non-profit organizations or, in some way, finding engaging work, realizing that their health, energy, vitality, and sense of self-worth depends on it.

My observation, as a career/life transition coach, is that retirement stays a motivating goal because people are functioning, in their work environment, outside of their core talents and strengths, and suppressing deep inner dreams or passions in favor of earning and conforming to cultural beliefs and expectations.

Retirement is thus viewed, as one answerer to the question so aptly stated, as a way to get away from “the politics in the workplace and being accountable to the system every single day for 8 – 10 hours.”

We all want freedom. Retirement seems to offer that. But freedom without purpose has few upsides.

As I engage coaching clients who are approaching the generally accepted retirement phase of life, I encourage viewing the third-age of life – between end-of-career and true old age – as an opportunity for a balanced lifestyle of labor, leisure, and learning that dusts off and pays forward accumulated skills, talents, and experiences in the service of others.

That’s “eugeria” for the 21st century.

FOGO vs LOGO – A Formula for Aging With Purpose

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

A month ago, I wrote about a new acronym that has emerged regarding aging: FOGO – Fear of Growing Old. Allow me to quote myself from the article:

“FOGO is rooted in time travel. By that I mean, traveling to and wallowing in the regrets and guilt of the past or casting into the future where fear is inevitable.

The most effective antidote to our sadness and mood issues is to take today and make something of it using our talents and accumulated skills and experiences to be of service to someone.

Then rinse and repeat.

Fear and regrets cannot exist in the present moment.”

Well, I’ve got another acronym for you to consider: LOGO.

I know – it’s already a word meaning “an identifying symbol” as in advertising.

How ’bout we commandeer it and adapt and adopt it into our thinking as we advance through this second half.

LOGO = Love Of Growing Old

Hey, I get it – that’s counterintuitive, countercultural, counterwhatever.

Who in their right mind would love growing old?

Hang with me for a few paragraphs and let’s see how it just might make sense.

The opposite of fear is – -?

What would you guess it to be? Courage? Braveness? Confidence? Heroism? Faith? Joy?

Nope. It’s LOVE.

The gospel according to Chandler

I said last week that I’m going to immerse myself with a select group of authors/coaches/books. Right now, I’m one with Steve Chandler’s “Time Warrior“ for the third time.

One of Chandler’s constant themes is that the opposite of fear is love and that all fear comes from contemplating the future.

It’s darn easy to tumble into the future as we age: achy knees and backs, observation of others who haven’t aged well, loss of loved ones or friends.

When we contemplate growing old, fear will make its appearance.

Can we love growing old? I agree with Chandler – we can. In his words:

“Love comes from present-moment service. If you are swept up in pure, creative service, you won’t know how old you are. You won’t care. Practice everything you want to be good at no matter what age you think you are. Whether things go ‘according to plan’ is far less important than who you become in the process. Practice taking on ‘problems’ as intriguing and amusing challenges that fire you up.

“How do you get good at playing your life? Practice now. Not in the future. It’s really the answer. It eliminates the whole growing old issue. You’re too swept up to worry about some number that our social convention of ‘aging’ tries to attach to your life.”

Life as a game – not a gauntlet.

Number 81 gets tagged to me next week. I’m getting better at letting it be more important to others than it is to me. Yeah, there are those moments when I ask, “How did I get here so fast?” I don’t know what 81 should feel like since I haven’t been here before but I sense that those around me feel I should be feeling different than I do. I guess they’ve got time to contemplate my future.

I don’t.

I have a choice. Make my aging a game or a gauntlet.

As I get better at living in the moment without too much on my mind, it’s easier to turn it into a game. A game with “24 little hours.”

I  can find LOGO in those 24 hours.

If I stray from present-moment service and pull back from trying to create, I find myself in the gauntlet thinking about how old I am.

Game over.

 

Do you think you are ageing gracefully or is there some work to be done?

Image by G John from Pixabay

I had to stop and think about this question.

What does “gracefully” mean? My dictionary doesn’t have it except as an adverb of grace.

Under grace, we find words like charm, attractiveness, beauty, and ease of movement.

I’ve been on the planet longer than most, having entered my 9th decade (for you Las Vegas Raiders fans, that means I’m in my 80s), and, candidly, there isn’t much about aging that I would consider graceful.

Charming? I can’t think of a single person in my circle of family, friends, and acquaintances that would herald me as charming. I think Webster’s antonym would better apply: inelegant, stiff, unchangeable, nondisposable, gaseous.

Attractiveness? Yes – to my daughter’s two standard poodles. Beyond that, the ranks dwindle to, well, zero.

Beauty? Exit from shower tells it all – it ain’t a pretty picture.

Ease of movement? Not bad for an octogenarian, but only because I take my physical health very seriously, and do serious weight training and balance exercises. Thankfully, the grandkids don’t need me on the floor with them anymore. Half of that playtime went to getting up.

Trying to match graceful and aging is too much work.

I’ve decided not to try to be graceful but rather to move to the antonym side.

There’s an argument for being inelegant at this age. Most of us octogenarians have something to say that’s important. Unfortunately, it requires being inelegant to get anyone’s attention since most have sort of written us off as irrelevant based on the number.

Yeah, I’m largely unchangeable. At 80, we have all the answers hoping that any day now, somebody will start asking the questions.

So, I’m not going to pursue graceful. I’m choosing “audacious” as my adjective of choice and the style that I will finish out with.

I don’t think you will find much graceful in the definition of audacious:

  1. Extremely bold or daring
  2. Recklessly brave
  3. Fearless
  4. Extremely original
  5. Without restriction to prior ideas
  6. Highly inventive
  7. Recklessly bold in defiance of convention, propriety,
  8. Insolent
  9. Brazen
  10. Lively
  11. Unrestrained
  12. Uninhibited

Some of the above come naturally and were built in when the universe assembled my parts. #8 and #9 are like breathing. Some are coming along nicely. Most still need work.

“Do not go gentle into that good night.” Dylan Thomas

I’m not into poetry, but I’m all in with Dylan.

Better to make a ruckus on the way out than to go silently into the night.

More like this –

 

Than this-

What have I got to lose?

Can You Start Life Over at 60? It May Be the Best Time!

It’s a question that gets asked a lot, especially by men since we’re the ones that inflict ourselves with the pressure to “perform.”

I wrestled with this question at that age two decades ago.

My simple answer is “yes” – but – – – –

– – – you may want to consider “pivoting” rather than “starting over.” “Starting over” is too heavy mentally. It suggests dropping everything you’ve done and your accumulated life experience and starting with a completely fresh slate. That’s pretty daunting and impractical.

A pivot, on the other hand, suggests a change in direction but from a base of knowledge, experience, and understanding.

We see a lot of terms thrown around these days that imply starting over: re-invention, re-careering, re-wirement, renewal. It’s a pretty popular concept as our boomer generation hurtles into their sixties and seventies in a volatile, uncertain global economy.

Reintegrate

When considering a pivot, I favor a more practical term: re-integration. I borrowed the term and idea from Marc Freedman, CEO and President of Encore.org and one of the nation’s leading experts on the longevity revolution.

Freedman makes some very valid points in his argument for re-integration (the bolding is mine):

“Isn’t there something to be said for racking up decades of know-how and lessons, from failures as well as triumphs? Shouldn’t we aspire to build on that wisdom and understanding?

After years studying social innovators in the second half of life — individuals who have done their greatest work after 50 —I’m convinced the most powerful pattern that emerges from their stories can be described as reintegration, not reinvention. These successful late-blooming entrepreneurs weave together accumulated knowledge with creativity, while balancing continuity with change, in crafting a new idea that’s almost always deeply rooted in earlier chapters and activities.”

Career- or life-pivoting has never been more common than it is today, driven by rapid technological change, increased volatility of corporate employment, global competition, and a higher-than-average entrepreneurial spirit amongst baby boomers.

I have personally “pivoted” three times since turning 60. I left the corporate world at age 60 and started my own recruiting business. That was a major pivot and came close to a full start-over. However, I found that my 35+ years of sales and marketing “integrated” reasonably well with the recruiting business because it’s a difficult business built on the ability to sell.

I then did a gradual pivot to more career coaching as a supplement to my recruiting business as I found I was more effective in a coaching role and enjoyed helping people find their way in their careers.

I pivoted again, at 77, away from recruiting and focusing more on career- and retirement coaching for people over 50. I also have discovered that I have a love and knack for writing.  I write daily and this weekly blog is now 5 1/2 years and 275 published articles old.

That pivot continues as I’m now enjoying being able to combine my ability to write creatively with meeting and helping executive-level professionals – particularly healthcare executives – develop career marketing documents along with providing career transition coaching.

I believe I’m an example of how re-integration works because nowhere along the way since age 60 was it a complete start over for me. I was acknowledging my core interests and talents and bringing forward skills and experiences that support them.

If you find yourself in what you feel is a “start over” situation, here are a few things you may want to consider:

  1. Find your true self. Most people have suppressed their deepest desires and talents in favor of a paycheck, building someone else’s dream. Start your “pivot” with some deep reflection and strive to “re-discover” your true self. What are you really, really, really good at? What do you really, really, really want to do with your life? I would suggest some personal assessments such as Strengthsfinders or Enneagram or DISC to help you discover your true self. And do some serious reading such as Martha Beck’s “Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live” and “Transitions” by William Bridges.
  2. Take the long view. If you are 60 and in relatively good health, you may have a runway of 30–40 years ahead of you with easily more than half of those years having the potential to be highly productive and fulfilling. Above all, don’t succumb to the cultural pressure of needing to be “retired” at 65. That number is a relic established 86 years ago for political reasons when the average life span was 62. Retirement is a killer of creativity and dreams, not to mention bodies and minds. Think about what you have experienced in terms of changes around you in one generation (18 years). It’s staggering but speaks to how much can be accomplished in a single generation. And technological changes are accelerating that. With the possibility of a two-generation runway ahead of you, the possibilities can, and should be, exciting.
  3. Take a hard look at your cultural beliefs. You have some (maybe many) that are holding you back, guaranteed. Tony Robbins has transformed the lives of thousands by helping them understand that much of our lives are driven by our beliefs and many of them are harmful. Here’s a couple that I see a lot: (1) retirement is good, and I’m entitled to it. I’ve heard retirement referred to by high achievers as “the ultimate casualty”, “statutory senility” “a signal to the universe that you are getting ready to send your parts back”. Traditional labor-to-leisure retirement has few upsides and many downsides. It’s an unnatural act that goes against our natural biology; (2) you are “over-the-hill” at 60 and your brain and body are automatically going to atrophy. Totally false. We can grow brain cells until we die by maintaining a healthy lifestyle and continuing to challenge ourselves mentally through continuous learning. And we can maintain vitality and delay frailty through an active lifestyle that includes exercise and a good diet.

People are “pivoting” in large numbers and realizing tremendous successes, even in the face of these volatile, rapidly-changing times. So gather up your talents, skills, and experience and put them to work doing something that you are really good at and that society needs. When that comes together, you’ll forget all those numbers that our culture throws at us and has us second-guessing ourselves.

Good luck – pivot on!

Got a “pivot story?” Love to hear about it. Leave a comment with your story.

Removing the Friction of Retirement. Who’s Crazy Idea Was This Anyway?

Photo by Sandeep Singh on Unsplash

I follow a young fella on Medium.com by the name of Rocco Pendola. Rocco has a newsletter entitled “Never Retire.”

Since that’s my personal position on this unnatural concept, I was obviously intrigued when I came across his writing.

Rocco is a deep-thinking, iconoclastic, 40-something GenXer.

I like that age group. There’s a certain kind of experiential and whipsawed-based wisdom there that you don’t find in the groups before and after. I try to hang out with them as much as I can. My daughter and son are in that group. The parent-child role reversal has not happened – yet. It’s germinating. I’m learning to listen and pay more attention now while suppressing my “dad lecture” tendency they’ve endured for so long.

Nothing against my long-standing and beloved pre-boomer and older boomer inner circle. It’s just that there there’s a bit too much of a rut there, in the classic definition – a grave with the ends kicked out.

It’s not easy being weird.

There are things that Rocco advocates that I don’t line up with – inner-city rental apartment living, moving to Spain to avoid the current cultural insanity, to name a few – but his core principle of living a semi-retired life starting in your 20s or 30s really resonated with me.

In a recent post, Rocco was lamenting that he misnamed his newsletter because the name triggers friction. In his words:

“When most people think about never retiring, they take it as a negative. I probably should have called my newsletter Living the Semi-Retired Life. “

Wow, can I relate to the friction. I’ve been encountering it for a few decades on two fronts:

  1. Advocating for living to 100 or beyond.
  2. Never retiring.

The friction is greatest amongst the 70+ cohort. That space between the temples has taken on concrete block characteristics when asked to consider these ideas. Few minds get changed on these two topics at that age.

My advocacy – and Rocco’s – makes sense for the generations behind the boomers. They are more open to removing the friction that the idea of retirement creates.

What friction?

We start early creating friction with the anxiety over needing to be able to retire. It shows up in alarming intensity even amongst 20- and 30-year-olds.

I’ve been helping a master-degreed nurse executive with her career documents recently. In her 50s and on a solid career track, she recently decided to sign up to get her doctorate in nursing. Her 20-year-old son chastised her, saying she was too old to do that and that she should be focusing on planning for retirement.

Friction!

If I’m 65 and unretired, I’m considered unfortunate, a laggard – or strange.

Friction!

If I retire early, I’m a hero and am envied.

Friction!

If I speak out against the concept, I’m weird and misinformed (I’m taking a bow!).

Friction!

If I’m 50, an average saver, I wake up one day to realize I’m only about $1 million short of being able to experience that dream retirement.

Friction!  

The reality behind the friction.

Lending Tree just announced that $1 million in retirement savings is no longer adequate for a “comfortable” retirement, at least in 146 metro areas.

My current domicile is one of those. The Denver Post recently reported this:

“In metro Denver, the typical retiree makes $25,504 from Social Security a year, spends $58,992 a year, which implies the need to earn $75,245 before taxes. A retirement portfolio would need to provide $49,741 to meet that demand.  Following the 4% rule, a Denver area retiree would need to set aside $1,243,532 at the time of retirement.”

Let’s bounce that up against the reality of retirement saving in the U.S.,  as revealed in this federal report published by Edward Jones recently:

Average retirement savings by age

Chart showing the average retirement savings by age

Source: Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances, 1989-2019; https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scfindex.htm

Friction!

Semi-retirement is the friction antidote.

Friction suggests a lubricant. Semi-retirement is the lubricant.

Rocco and I are on the same page – just different starting points. Rocco advocates semi-retirement starting in the 20s and 30s. I suggest it for those entering late mid-life and later.

Here’s an excerpt from a recent Rocco post that describes the friction and a “practical and psychological guide to living the semi-retired life.

  • You realize you’ll Never Retire. Because, like so many Americans, you simply don’t and will never have enough money saved to quit working.

  • You fight this feeling, doubling down on the lame how to catch up on your retirement savings advice that litters the financial media.

  • You do the math. If you don’t have nearly enough saved today to retire and will most certainly be unsuccessful playing catch up, why expend the energy — physical and mental — and resources — particularly time — for a most likely futile effort?

  • You let logic overtake your emotions. You rebel against what you’ve been told and taught over the years about how to live during mid-life on the road to relative old age.

  • You start to live more evenly across the lifespan. If you’re going to fall short on retirement savings, why bust your ass? Because, if and when you fall short, you will continue to require cash flow. This is the obvious consequence of falling short — needing to continue to make money.

  • For example, at age 40, you have $100,000 (or much, much less!) saved. The chances of hitting whatever the retirement calculator spits out at you by, say, age 65, are slim. Often, they’re next to impossible.

So you slow down.

You officially become semi-retired.

My advocacy for semi-retirement amongst the 60+ cohort is more about not wasting the talent and accumulated skills and experiences on a leisure-based, purposeless lifestyle that can increase the risk of early frailty and extended morbidity.

Semi-retirement in the second half or third stage presents the opportunity for a healthy balance of labor, leisure, and learning, not to mention reducing the friction that the fear of outliving your financial resources can create.

It’s unfortunate that we’ve allowed this unnatural, illogical concept to take such deep root in our culture and in our psyche.

Semi-retirement shields you from the friction, anxiety, and physical and emotional downsides that accompany retirement for many. You mix labor, leisure, and learning on a schedule determined only by you doing what you enjoy doing and perhaps even continue doing until the universe calls for the parts back.

 

Full-stop retirement deprives us of the opportunity to continue to contribute and create and live a healthier, longer life.

I suspect the politicians that dreamed up the idea 88 years ago didn’t give that an ounce of thought.

Leave us a comment and share your thoughts on this topic.

Are Millennials and GenXer’s More Prepared Than Previous Generations for Retirement? Probably Not? So What?

I’m not sure how many in my subscriber tribe fall in the GenX or millennial age category. I’m guessing not the majority. Regardless, I’m forging forward with this message because it also has relevancy for us modern elders.

Statistics are revealing that the millennial and GenX generations are less financially prepared for retirement than previous generations. Here’s a chart that supports that:

The chart sends off some pretty scary signals if you are stacking it up against the still prevalent view of where one should be to experience traditional, full-stop retirement.

Here are some headlines from a Business Insider article quoting a Boston University economist who warns that GenXers and millennials will be facing a “retirement crisis.”

    • Over half of Gen Z and millennials could enter retirement with insufficient savings, says a Boston University economist.

    • With inflation rising, the magic number for a comfortable retirement could be close to $3 million.

    • Working later in life to catch up on savings might not be a tenable solution.

The article goes on to suggest that, while $1 million has long been considered the “magic number for retirement savings”, for late GenXers and millennials that number should be closer to $3 million.

Chew on that for a second and do the math.

So, you’re 30 and have $37K in the bank. A well-meaning financial planner suggests that you should find an occupation and adjust to a lifestyle that will enable you to accumulate that $3M over the next 35 years (he/she probably still holds the number 65 as sacrosanct).

That’s too much math for me to calculate, but I’m comfortable suggesting that you will need to start saving somewhere around $2500-$3000 per month.

Uh – have fun with that!

Even if you are a slug and settle for a mere $1 million, the number is still a lifestyle-destroying number.

That’s why the retirement story is changing.

Although far too many of us pre-boomers and boomers continue to infer it, GenXers and millennials aren’t stupid. They are very aware. Many are looking at the consequences of previous generations’ commitment to the 20th-century linear life model of Learn – Earn – Retire – Die and deciding they want no part of it.

They are realizing it isn’t about the numbers, but about the lifestyle. They see no logic in a model that suggests 30–40 years of busting your hump and sacrificing health and relationships to achieve a number to support what, for far too many, is a retirement that is shorter than expected and full of health challenges as a result of the stress and poor lifestyle habits built into this old model.

Traditional, full-stop retirement is dying –

-and GenXer and millennials are helping drive the demise.

There is a growing “never retire” movement beginning to develop that eschews traditional retirement in favor of a life plan that calls for retiring into a lifestyle early in life doing what you enjoy most, are good at, that brings value to the world and the community, that supports their financial needs, and that they can do late into old age if they choose.

Call it a “never retire” model.

Yep, it’s totally antithetical and counter-cultural. But, it recognizes that the Learn-Earn-Retire-Die model worked 50 years ago, but makes no sense now. Learning and earning can be spread over the lifetime and in a way that is more fulfilling, less stressful, less selfish, less self-indulgent, and more in step with how our lifespans and healthspans are changing.

So, yes GenXers and millennials are less prepared for the archaic, traditional retirement model but are growing in their awareness of a more sensible, logical, relevant model that puts lifestyle and experience ahead of money and puts them on a path for a longer, healthier, and more fulfilling lifespan.

Should we be taking notes?

The reality is that lots of us modern elders – especially the younger boomers who missed the internet boom – aren’t financially prepared to support our extended life spans. Check out that $280K average retirement savings for the 65+ in the chart above. That may get us a lifetime of bingo and backgammon, but not much else.

Sorry, Mabel – the Norwegian cruise is off the table.

Maybe it’s not too late for us to listen to these youngers and jettison the retirement mindset and consider the never-retire option. I’ve been giving semi-retirement a go for almost two decades now balancing labor, leisure, and learning and it feels increasingly comfortable as the years advance.

But, no one wants to be me – including me more days than I wish to admit.

I’ll keep rolling with this model until the parts give out.

Maybe those behind us are onto something!

Whaddayathink about this?  We’d love to have your two cents worth – or more. Leave us a comment or shoot an email to gary@makeagingwork.com.

 

 

 

 

Are You a “Modern Elder?” Take This Test and Find Out.

By now, you know I’m a big fan of Chip Conley, author, entrepreneur, and founder of the Modern Elder Academy. 

His book “Wisdom @ Work: The Making of a Modern Elder” was a top read for me in 2019 and led me to write about the Modern Elder concept a few times:

Chip has a daily newsletter that I follow. He recently sent out a “quiz” to test how we stack up against the Modern Elder criteria. I’m sharing it here so you can take it and test yourself to see where you fall.

Straight from his weekly newsletter:

Here are 10 affirmative statements. Rate yourself as a 0 if the statement doesn’t resonate with you. Give yourself a half-point if it feels right to you, but it’s not an enthusiastic “yes.” And give yourself 1 point per statement if you feel a full-body yes. 
  1. Outside of my family, I am often in environments where I am the oldest or one of the oldest, and I don’t hide my age.
  2. I am both a lifelong learner and a “long-life learner,” someone who wants to live a life that’s as deep and meaningful as it is long.
  3. I enjoy growing older, and I believe my best work and life are ahead of me.
  4. I feel like my ego is no longer my primary operating system, and I have a growing stirring in my soul. 
  5. I have developed an active practice of cultivating and harvesting wisdom based on metabolizing my life experiences, and I can teach others to do the same.
  6. I love becoming a new beginner at something and am endlessly curious.
  7. I believe my emotional intelligence has grown, and I’m less reactive than I was ten years ago. 
  8. I have moved from the accumulation stage of my life to the editing stage. I am good at ending projects, relationships, mindsets, and distractions that don’t feel nourishing or allow me to serve others effectively. 
  9. People tell me that I’m a great mentor and a conduit for wisdom. I would be honored to be called a “wisdom worker” instead of a “knowledge worker.” 
  10. I no longer define myself based on my achievements, image, status, or power, as I’m more focused on my purpose and legacy. The sentence “I am what survives me” defines my life today. 
Of course, depending on the day, your answers may differ. Your tabulated score will run from 0 to 10. 
If you scored from 0 to 5, you’re probably not a modern elder yet, so you might focus on those statements in which you scored yourself a 0 and ask, “How might I develop habits or practices that allow me to feel more affirmative about this characteristic?” 
If you scored above a 5 and below an 8, you’re a budding modern elder, and you might find MEA’s programming perfectly timed for where you are in your life as a prep school for modern elderhood.
If you scored an 8 or above, who knows, you might be teaching at MEA someday. If you haven’t experienced our in-person or online programs, start with that and begin documenting the ways you’re developing your curiosity and wisdom. 

I gave myself a 9. Not sure my roommate would agree, but I felt pretty good with it.

How did you rate yourself? What areas do you feel strongest about? Where do you need the most work? Let us know with a comment below.

 

A Retirement Salvaged – A Story About Paying Attention.

The picture above is of Paul Debrone, retired Air Canada pilot, in the early days of his retirement. Paul still holds the world record for the longest-tenured pilot in aviation history – 46 years of continuous service with Air Canada, which included being the #1 pilot in seniority for eight straight years.

It’s also the picture that spawned an awareness that his coveted retirement was not serving him well.

I introduced you to Paul in a post (click here for the article) almost a year ago. Paul and I had met by phone about a year before posting the article. I was impressed with the life adjustments he was making as he transitioned into retired life and his awareness that he needed to do something about his physical condition.

Motivated heavily by the picture above, he had changed his diet, started an exercise regimen, lost 30 pounds, and committed to, and completed, a sprint triathlon. His wife, Cheryl, recorded the event in this nicely done YouTube video.

Then this email hit my inbox:

Good evening Gary,

Last April I did a sprint triathlon and started training for an Iron Man 70.3. I am retired and 67 years old and I thought in excellent shape with a change to a whole plant-based diet. In my excitement for my newfound energy, I decided to get my FAA pilot (license renewed). Well. I failed my EKG. Fast forward, testing etc. I am at this time sitting in my room at the Cleveland Clinic in Weston Florida, just had quadruple open heart bypass performed on Thursday. There is too much to share on an email – feel free if you’re still up give me a call till 2 AM another 55 minutes from now on my cell phone and I can discuss these matters.

Fly safe

Paul

From sprint triathlon and training for an Iron Man 70.3 to this:

And from that to this – in 10 months:

No podium honors, but he finished the swim-bike-run in his first attempt at an Ironman 70.3 – at age 68 and less than a year after a quadruple bypass.

But, there’s a bigger story here!

It would be easy to stop here and have a good story. But, as significant as it is, the 70.3 Iron Man success is just a product of a bigger story – one kickstarted with the boat picture.

Paul’s deteriorating physical condition paired up with a post-retirement depression rooted in going from the highest-ranked, most-recognized, and most-followed pilot at Air Canada to “who am I now?”

This double-whammy moved him to take action on more than just the physical front that led to this amazing sequence of achievements.

Other things moved in Paul that are even more significant.

For years, Paul had been an active contributor to Air Canada’s Employer Assistance Program, providing guidance and counseling to pilots who were struggling with issues such as depression, anxiety, addictions, communication challenges, and interpersonal relationships. Air Canada found that $1 invested in this program had a $7 payback in terms of retaining talented pilots.

Following retirement, Paul continued his commitment to working with Air Canada pilots under that program.

The 70.3 deepened and added a new dimension to this commitment.

Enter post-race depression.

Unexpectedly, Paul experienced significant post-race depression.

It felt very much like his post-retirement depression.

He learned from fellow racers that it happens to nearly every triathlete/marathoner upon completion of a goal that required such a deep and extensive mental and physical build-up.

He also learned that the most effective antidote was to set another challenging goal – and do it quickly.

He and Cheryl booked another 70.3 in Luxemburg – a race that touches three countries and takes place in June 2023. They start the serious training in January.

A salvaged retirement-

Paul realizes now that his post-retirement depression was because it was a “retirement from” and not a “retirement to.”

Goalless, drifting, vocation-to-vacation, labor-to-leisure retirement.

They had bought into the traditional off-the-cliff model.

Their observation of the deterioration of fellow retirees and a photograph in a boat turned their ship in a different direction.

– and a new mission

Based on his experience, Paul has a concern and a heart for the other retirees in his community, where he observes the same type of mental and physical deterioration he had experienced. He’s also learned that his best chance of affecting change in that community is through example and not confrontation. Hence, he and Cheryl remain highly visible in the community with their commitments to physical conditioning and other healthful lifestyle choices.

Paul is deepening his commitment to the Air Canada EAP program by reaching out to pilots entering retirement with his message of the importance of retiring to something, protecting their health, and seeking a purpose within their retired life.

Pilots are trained to pay attention to the important. For that, we can all be thankful.

Paul used that training and instinct to turn his own life around and commit to making a difference in others.

Paying attention today is a challenge. Much of what we pay attention to isn’t important. The easy, comfortable, convenient, and urgent crowd out the important.

If we’re fortunate, we’ll all have a boat picture in our future to help us pay attention.