Transcript
Speech-to-text transcription can look a little quirky. Please excuse any grammar or spelling errors.
Episode #472 - How Do I Calculate the Decreased Social Security Benefit If I Retire Early?
February 1st, 2023
Roger: [00:00:00] All right. I'm just gonna say it. The fear of death and aging can make us cowards.
Practical Planning Segment
Roger:
Hey, welcome to the Retirement Answer Man Show. My name is Roger Whitney I am your host. This is the show dedicated to helping you not just survive retirement, but actually have the confidence to lean in and rock retirement. Sorry to start off on such a remote statement, but it's kind of true, isn't it?
We're gonna dive in today into the books that I read in January. I'm off to a good start, which I'm excited. I'm gonna answer your questions, which we always love to do. Then we're gonna bring on Kevin Lyles in this episode to talk about mindset and our new, bring it on segment on how to master the non-financial part of life.
" How to Think Like a Roman Emperor " - Donald Miller
Roger: Let's start off here [00:01:00] with the books that I read in January. This seems to be a good theme that I get a lot of great feedback from, and I get a lot of great book recommendations, which definitely helps. So I just finished How to Think Like A Roman Emperor by Donald Miller, the philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, who is a stoic.
In it. He talked a lot about contemplating our own death, and I added in contemplating our own aging, which is a little ugh. I know. But the idea around that is, That by bringing it out of the shadows, acknowledging that we are literally on this earth for but an instant, literally. It's just an instant we can embrace what is inevitable and live more fully.
In this moment, which is all we got. So I've been contemplating that and I think the fear of, yes, death and aging can make us cowards. Also, the fear of the [00:02:00] unknown when it comes to markets and inflation and everything else can make us cowards in our own retirement. So I just wanna bring that to light and maybe we address that a little bit deeper later, but something worth thinking about.
"Never Finished"- David Goggins
Roger: All right. The second book that I finished, was Never Finished by David Goggins. Now warning, warning Will Robertson alert and a lot of cussing, a lot of salty language in this book. David Goggins is a former Navy Seal, an endurance athlete, and it was an interesting book. Seeing him as an example of what you can actually endure and do far beyond what mentally we think we are capable of.
In his case physically, but mentally as well. I think he's holding himself out as an exemplar of, Hey, you can do a lot more than you can even imagine. It's your own mind. That's limiting [00:03:00] to you. That was a good book. Interesting.
"The Boys from Biloxi"- John Grisham
Roger: The third book was non-fiction. It was The Boys from Biloxi by John Grisham. My wife and I were on a road trip and we listened to that over eight or nine hours.
Good book. The man has his formula down and man, he cranks him out, but they're always. The one thing I enjoyed about legal aspect, the one thing I enjoyed about this book though is it talked a lot about the history of the Biloxi, Mississippi area and a lot of just sort of the threads that helped develop that area I was not very familiar with because I wasn't born in the deep south. And then the last book. So I got four books done in January, so bam, off to a good start. I was having a conversation with a client the other day. I think I read 37 books last year. He read 55 and then I was feeling a little inferior, and then I remembered he's retired.
" The Comfort Crisis"- Michael Easter
Roger: So actually good for him though. He had a lot of great book suggestions too. But the last book I read, which was [00:04:00] probably my favorite, and I would highly recommend this book, is a book called The Comfort Crisis. By Michael Easter. He is a great writer, first of all, and he goes on this month long hunt in the Arctic with these more extreme ethical hunters, which was way outside of his comfort zone.
Throughout the book, as he's telling that journey of this extreme thing that he went through, he weaves in. The comfort crisis that we are in and that we always live in controlled temperatures we're relatively safe compared to history, et cetera. Wonderful book. It will challenge your thinking about what you're gonna put yourself through or what you are capable of.
Let me say that. The two things that came out of it for me, well, there are a few things actually. One is I didn't realize that a grizzly bear can eat a hundred thousand moths a day. I don't even know how that's possible. And I was talking to someone and they sort of [00:05:00] explained it to me. Evidently they gather and the grizzly just sits here and gobbles 'em up. I didn't know that.
Second is, he talked about this, I don't know if I'm pronouncing it correctly, called a misogi , which is a thread that goes through a lot of ancient tribes all over the world where someone takes an adventure, doing something that they realistically only have in their mind a 50% chance of completing.
And this doesn't have to be a total physical thing. One of the rules is obviously that you can't die, but the idea that stretching yourself and attempting something that is way outside what you think is even possible, is healthy for us. Not just physically, but mentally and rewiring things.
I definitely experienced that when I finished an Ironman, but now 15 years ago, is it redefined what I was capable of, and so I had a lot of mental benefits beyond simply the physical getting in shape stuff. The other thing, that I may attempt, I haven't bought one yet, is [00:06:00] rucking and went into a lot of the research around how rucking can be very healthy for you. Essentially rucking is, it's like hiking or walking except you carry weight on your back.
He talked about a company called Go Ruck, which I've been to their website. It's mostly American Made, which is awesome, that have these packs where you can, and plates that you can put into the pack. So when you're going for a walk or even going for a hike, you put in these plates and you ruck, and it supposedly helps intensifies the walk for sure, but it helps build muscle mass and everything else.
So I haven't bought a GoRuck yet, but I'm considering it. So those are my books. If you have books that you enjoyed and you wanna recommend reply to me at Six Shot Saturday or weekly summary email, we'll have links to these books. If you're not signed up for a six shot Saturday email, you can go to well rogerwhitney.com or sixshotsaturday.com.
But for now, let's go answer your questions.[00:07:00]
Listener Questions
Roger: Now it's time to answer your questions. If you have a question for the show, you can submit it in two ways. Number one is we have a link in our Six Shot Saturday email, which is our weekly email that summarizes the answers, plus gives you links to resources that we might mention. You can get that weekly email if you could just go to sixshot saturday.com, or you can go directly to roger whitney.com/ask roger and type in your question, leave an audio question, which would really make me happy and smile. So that's how you can submit a question for the show.
Question One
Roger: Now, the first thing I wanna talk about actually isn't a question. It's a review on Apple Podcast from Kawa Yama titled Non-committal and I believe Kawa left like a two-star review. I love feedback and what Kawa Yama said was very knowledgeable, but never takes a position and I can understand that feedback. So I wanna address [00:08:00] this briefly and then we'll get on to your questions.
I can understand how sometimes it feels like I never take a position, and I'm actually working at making sure I have sharper lines about opinions that I have, but I have to be careful with that because I am not in a position to give you advice. To take a position, to tell you, yes, take your social security at that date, or take the lump sum.
Having given advice professionally over a very long period of time, I understand that there's a lot more to the story than simply the question, to get the right answer to a particular question. I wanna respect you with that and not simply tell you what to do. I would rather give you a scaffolding or a framework to think through the issue for yourself and give you things to consider on either side so you can make the decision for yourself because you know all about you.
I only see the paragraph or two in your [00:09:00] question. And I don't think it's fair to take a firm position to tell you what to do. That's just not the level that I'm willing to give advice. There's enough of that out there of people with really firm opinions that don't know anything about the people that are given the opinions to.
I would much rather teach you to fish in that sense, but I will be cognizant of this, Kawa to make sure I take firmer positions on things that I think are critical in rocking retirement. So thanks so much for the feedback. So our next bit of information I wanna share before we get to the questions is a feedback relative to the retirement plan live that we just finished.
Tomorrow night is the live Results Show with Rosie. So if you haven't signed up for that yet, you can go to livewithroger.com and register because Thursday night, tomorrow night, we're going to chat with Rosie and try to build a feasible plan.
This came from April and April says, thank you for having Rosie on your show. She seems like [00:10:00] such a down to earth person and I really appreciate her sharing her retirement journey with listeners. Please let her know that through sharing her experiences, she is helping others navigate their own journeys, and I look forward to hearing more of her story. So thanks so much. April, it takes a little bit to put yourself out there.
And Rosie's case got hit with a bear market and things are a little bit, hmm is this all gonna work? She is a wonderful person. So I will pass that along April, and she probably heard it here.
Question Two
Roger: All right, let's get on to your questions. And the first one warms my heart because it. Audio question from Christine.
Chrstine " Hi Roger. My name is Christine and I've been a loyal listener retirement answer man since 2017. My question today is about social security benefits. If I retire at 59 and don't take benefits until 67 or 70, how do I calculate what my decreased benefit would be? Also, would my husband that claims on my [00:11:00] benefit have a decrease as well? I haven't had any luck with an online calculator. Any help is appreciated as this could be a big variable on my retirement date. Thanks so much."
well, thanks for the question, Christine. First off, thank you for being OG of the show . That is pretty much at the beginning, maybe in the first year or so. I'm honored that you have stuck with us for so long.
So I'm gonna paraphrase what I heard is that you're retiring in at 59, but you're gonna delay taking Social Security until later in life, and you're not sure how to calculate the reduction in your benefit. I'm assuming, Christine, that you're referring to the fact that you're not gonna have income from 59 to your full retirement age because you're retiring.
When you get your social security statement and you see the benefit that is presented on the statement, it makes the assumption that you are working all the way until your full retirement age, and if you retire at 59, you're gonna have zeros for those [00:12:00] years and the way that your benefit is calculated, average of the 35 highest income years. If you have all these zeros, how would that impact the actual benefit that you get, which isn't exactly what's gonna be on that social security statement that you can get at Social Security website.
So, Christine, the best calculator that I have found, really it's the calculator of record, we would say is the detailed calculator at ssa.gov, the security website. In the detailed calculator, what you will do is you'll actually enter every single year of earnings, so you have your earnings history listed in your social security account. You would actually enter in 1970, this is what I earned in 1971, this is what I earned. Using those numbers, and then when you get to. When you are retiring, say 59, let's say you retire year end 59 for 60, 61, 62, 63, et cetera, you [00:13:00] would put zero. That way it will tell the calculator that, oh wait, she's not gonna earn what she's been earning, which is the assumption in the statement, and it will give you a more accurate number of what your benefit will be when you decide to claim and full retirement age is sort of that pivot point of where the calculation goes to
So that we'll have a link to that, Christine in six shot Saturday. In my experience, it's not often that the. Reduced benefit because of those zeros, especially at 59, is dramatically lower.
A lot of that is going to be based off of what your earnings history has been. So as an example, if you earned say, very modest income in your twenties and thirties and maybe your forties, and then really started to earn major income in your 50. That's gonna change it, right?
Because those zeros after you retire are gonna skew the average of what would've been. So a lot of this will [00:14:00] depend on your earnings history, but that is a way to get the closer estimate of what it will be ultimately when you retire.
Now, related to your husband, if he's claiming off of yours, ultimately he's going to receive his own social security benefit and then when you claim he is eligible to have the spousal benefit, and if his benefit is lower than half of yours, it will be trued up to half of yours of what it would've been at full retirement.
So there is some impact to his as well, but that's where you can find it and we'll have a link to that calculator in our Six Shot Saturday email.
Question Three
Roger: Our next question comes from JR related to building his retirement paycheck. He and his wife building the retirement paycheck, JR says, I'm retiring in April. Wanted to run this by someone to make sure it's not the worst idea in the world.
Okay, we'll take it from that perspective.
JR: " I'm 60 and a half, my wife is 63. She's retired [00:15:00] already, but does have some income. About 7,500 a year in income plus social security disability of about 20,000 and I'll have about 17,000 in income after taxes. Retirement resources are about 3 million split between Roth, traditional IRAs, and after tax accounts. We have considerable capital gains over the years in our after tax accounts. No children, no heirs, planned to donate to charities while alive. I've been thinking on which accounts to draw from in order to keep our income low. To one, possibly draw from after tax account brokerage accounts, and then to qualify for healthcare subsidies via the ACA Affordable Care Act, costs after the 18 months of cover coverage.
I also plan to pay for the 18 months of COBRA coverage from my hsa. That has about 40,000 in it currently. My logic is to draw from after tax brokerage until I fill up my 0% capital gains tax, then draw from my Roth accounts. I [00:16:00] will not tap my social security until age 70. We would like to take home about a hundred thousand dollars per year in living. When we reach required minimum distributions, and this is part of the logic I think of JR's plan, is we plan to do qualified charit. Distributions in order to give to charity, which will help greatly reduce our required minimum distributions, which are now a lot higher, depending on what birthdate you have with the Secure Act 2.0."
Roger: So he wants to know if this is the worst idea in the world.
I think there's a couple keys here JR to think about. One is you have no heirs, no children. and so you're not worried about leaving money to someone else, and so you're going to go to zero while giving to charities over the years. This is a perfect example JR. Of there are multiple pathways to do this.
Is yours insane? No, it's not. I think the way to get more information on which one is right for you is to run multiple [00:17:00] tax projections using the scenario. Start with the scenario that you're proposing. Build out that tax projection, say over the next 10 years or so. And then think of another one. Cuz you have some moving parts here, right?
You have the QCD S, which are allowed to do at 70 and a half still, and those have been adjusted up for a little bit for COLA. You also have the opportunity now to potentially gift a lot of stock, whether it's to a donor advised fund or gifting appreciated stock directly in order to maximize the fact that you have these gains and you also are charitable inclined. You potentially could do part of that and then take IRA withdrawals to perhaps fill up your 12% tax bracket as well as do these charitable gifts year by year, whether it's to a donor advised fund or to an exchange fund or to a charity directly. So I would build tax projections around a couple different pathways.
Another pathway that you could create, which I think this would be [00:18:00] interesting to do JR, is to create a plan for the money that you and your wife need, to live the kind of life you want. Then identify what is the excess wealth that you have in dollar amounts.
Now you have bifurcated the two issues. I have, this is the money that we believe we need to rock retirement, over our lifetime, and that is X amount. This is what we call the excess wealth, which in theory is we save too much, we have too much, so we're either gonna give it away or spend it or whatever.
Doing that, you can compartmentalize this a little bit. Once you have that figured out, you can start to create pathways of, well, let's have some excess wealth that we keep for the unexpected. Now what's this excess wealth that we ultimately are going to give away? Then you can start going down the path of giving it away in later years and current years or [00:19:00] somewhere in between. I think if you start from that perspective, you'll build a strategy and have those guardrails defined before you get down into these tactical things of, do I just draw off my ROTH and do QCD's later on? I think the plan that you have sounds like it will work. Assuming you have excess wealth, which it sounds like you.
The one concern I have with the strategy that you've outlined is, what will be your RMDs required minimum distributions. When you get to that stage of life, even after QCD's, will this inevitably push you up a higher tax bracket after you do the QCD and the money that you have to take out. So I would do some projections on what you anticipate your required minimum distributions to be.
Because by drawing from your Roth accounts and drawing from your HSA accounts right now, early in retirement, yeah, you're getting the tax benefit in order to qualify for ACA, but you could be hurting yourself [00:20:00] later on. In that you'll have lot less flexibility in terms of managing tax rates. We know what tax rates are right now. A lot of times in retirement planning, it can make sense to pay a little bit more tax now in order to give you optionality later in life, and also to decrease the risk of what the tax policy is later.
But I don't think you're on a bad track. I would just create some multiple pathways and just compare them and make a judgment. And ultimately it's just gonna come down to a judgment like most things.
Question Four
Roger: Next question comes from Dale, related to changing jobs and 401k limits.
Dale: " The site I am currently working is being sold and will transition from one company to another. I have historically maxed out my four contributions early. I know the service provider will change, I think it's from Fidelity to T Row price he. Do I have to manage across providers for the maximum year-able allowable, or is it more like a reset and I can max out in [00:21:00] the second one without worrying about how much is in the first one?"
Roger: well, the answer, Dale, is that the employee contribution to a 401k is not plan specific. It is individual specific. So you'll want to structure it within these two providers and likely all the data, since it's within the same company is just rolling to a new provider, will roll over. So if your yearly allowable is 22,500 and you've done 20,000 in first provider, you still only have 2,500 left, regardless of whether it was in this provider or you changed employers all together.
So it works based off of your social security number, not the provider.
Question Five
Roger: Our next question comes from Todd. He says he loves the show, has been listening for about a year now. Great. You're here Todd.
Todd: " My question is a general question about switching advisors. Our financial advisor is really our family advisor.
He is my grandparents' advisor. He is [00:22:00] my parents and aunts and uncle's advisor and he is now our advisor. But that is a long time of advising as it started in the. I'm not sure he would take us on if it wasn't the history of the family. Anyway. I recently asked another advisor that I work with at our company 401k, about our portfolio and if it made much sense, his answer was interesting.
He said how he is allocating our money is fine, but it is definitely old school. It is how it was done a couple generations ago. Said there's nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't take advantage of modern options like NFTs, et cetera, that have similar results, but fees will likely be higher. He did say our overall fees were standard.
The overall performance is fine as well. I feel a little obligated to stay with him. But also want to be current. Is this something I should even care about? I mean, his methods, even if a bit antiquated, get the job done. So why worry about the details?
[00:23:00] Sincerely, Todd."
Roger: that's a great question, Todd, when you're thinking about your advisor, definitely that relational currency comes into play.
They're a trusted entity or in the family dynamic, and it sounds definitely that way. That can go a long way. That doesn't necessarily mean that the advisor is right for you, right? Because you are a different generation than your aunts and your uncles and your grandparents, et cetera. You have different needs, and those needs and structures of life have evolved a lot since the eighties.
Perhaps this advisor has kept up with his process for how to do things to address the needs that are specific to your family, and hopefully he has a process specific to your family. If it's simply about investment management, most likely it's fine. It's more the financial planning and the consulting on making decisions around life and risk management and et cetera that have changed in some ways, in [00:24:00] material ways.
Investment management is pretty straightforward, and so assuming that he has a good investment management philosophy around how it's been done, prudently, that has worked for your grandparents, it's worked for your parents, it's worked for your aunts, you say it feels like it's working for you and the fees are reasonable.
Maybe that's good enough.
The key here is if it's beyond investment management, do you agree with the process and the consulting you're getting on all the financial decisions going on in your life. Do you feel he is the right guide for your journey? That's really the key, right?
I'll use myself as an example.
I focus on people that are at the cusp of retiring or living in retirement. So that is my process. That is all I think about. The concerns of this constituency is how I designed everything. . So working with you in this case, I don't think about the issues you're dealing with near as much, about 529's or paying down debt or all those other things doesn't [00:25:00] mean I'm not capable there. I just don't think about them, and that's the question you need to ask. Is he thinking about what is important for you? Now, the modern options of NFTs, et cetera. I would be very leery of because there are a lot of shiny objects, whether it's NFTs, whether it's crypto. Whether it's newfangled insurance products, I would be very leery of the shiny new objects.
Simplicity, not simplistic. Simplicity and agility trumps shiny objects any day of the week, in my opinion, there's a firm position. If it's reasonable performance, it's structured and it's rebalanced and it's focused to match your area in life? Perfect. The fact that this advisor brought up NFTs would be a big red flag for me to say stay clear of them, because these shiny new objects, they flourish and then they blow up and then they flourish and they blow up.
That's not how you build [00:26:00] wealth.
Let's step back a bit here, Dale. And this is the problem with these shiny new objects. The shiny new objects generally are focused on accelerating wealth creation, but they get it wrong. The way that wealth is created, and I'm guessing your grandparents and your parents and your aunts and uncles did this, and you're doing this.
The way you create wealth is by earning income and then controlling your standard of living. You try to increase your income. You try to control your standard of living. That creates free cash flow, excess money in which you take and you invest and pay down debt and everything else. You are the wealth creation engine.
When you're investing it's about preserving and growing that wealth over very long periods of time so you can harvest it later on to serve your family. Where we often go wrong with investing is when we forget all of this stuff that I just talked about, and we try to think that we're going to create wealth out of nothing by buying a fancy new object, and that is [00:27:00] generally a recipe for disaster.
Todd, hopefully that helped.
Bring it on with Kevin Lyles
Roger: Bring it on. You know, you're the hero that you've been looking for. So let's go.
Today we are gonna talk about mindset. For the first time with Kevin Lyles, you're the first official segment of. New segment. We're calling it Bring It On right now in the music. What do you think of this? I want to get your feedback. . I'm not settled on it.
Kevin: I love the music. I'll say that. I started moving in my chair. I still like living your best life but bring it on, I can do that.
Roger: Yeah. Bring it on. Okay, we're gonna work with this. We may change this, but here we are. So Kevin, coach in the Rock Retirement Club. Good friend of the show, I'm sure you're familiar with him. We are talking about mindset today and somewhat how it relates to retirement, but really in general, right, just a universal thing.
[00:28:00] Why is mindset so important?
Kevin: Well its the attitude you bring to your life and and your retirement. Really I think it's how you respond to the challenges. you're gonna face both when you're transitioning into retirement, but more importantly as you're living your life, as you're going through retirement, you face a bunch of challenges and the mindset you bring to those challenges I think will make all the difference in the world.
Roger: The first thing I think of when I think of mindset, and maybe it's cuz I was reading about this just the other day, Kevin, is there is a lot of science, that if you look for bad things, you see more of them. If you look for good things, you see more of them.
Like we're hardwired probably somewhere on that spectrum between the two of those and wherever we're at, you can move the dial.
You don't wanna be pollyannish for sure, but you don't wanna be Eeyore either. So what aspects of mindset do you think we're gonna explore?
Kevin: That's where I think it gets fun when you talk about how important it is and the science behind it, there really was, I don't know when it started, 40, 50 years ago, this [00:29:00] positive psychology movement, and there were a lot of studies.
So we do have a lot of research that says how you approach things, your mindset matters and will affect not only how you feel, but will affect the outcomes you achieve. But some of the things I think we're gonna deal with here is, losing your status or your significance when you leave your career behind. Dealing with boredom, a lot of people get into retirement and they've lived a very busy corporate life, and they're bored and they have a smaller social network. We're gonna talk about those kinds of things, caregiving obligations. The research says that your mindset when dealing with these kinds of challenge, Will affect the outcome, will affect your longevity, and that's what it's all about.
That's what we're trying to do. So we're gonna talk about your attitude about retirement, about aging. That's important. We're gonna talk about your identity, who you'll be in retirement. How you think about yourself, how you relate to the world, living with [00:30:00] gratitude and grace, that's one of my favorite ones.
I think we all can sort of step down off of our high towers and be humble and live with gratitude and grace, and that will help us. That mindset really will help us. Resilience is a big one. We'll do segments on resilience, how you respond to things, and then adaptability and flexibility. Those are two that are so important to retirement success and frankly, success in life.
Roger: Man, there are so many things that were going through my head as you were talking about these topics of actual situations that I am dealing with or have dealt with. Obviously in my own life, but with clients on this journey, I was thinking of an 80 plus year old client who is the most vibrant lady I've ever met, and she is bored in her eighties.
I just noticed it, that it was more acute just in the last conversation we had. I'm struggling for pathways of how to inspire her. Then like another one was someone, I know multiple couples are [00:31:00] individuals that have had to help their parents take care, right? Take care of their parents.
I've seen both sides of this is a chain and I dread it. I'm glad that I can do it, but I think of it, it's holding me down and also, I've seen the mindset of, I'm so grateful I get to do this for someone.
Kevin: I've got a question for you. Your 80 year old client, is the boredom. I wonder, is she experiencing physical limitations now?
In other words, can she not do the things that she was doing?
Roger: Actually with her? No, she's not. She's very active. What I think it is, is that her husband died in her mid sixties and she lived in a country club community where she had a wide network of friends and activities just built into that social system, and there are always negatives to that.
But then she moved about 200 miles away to be closer to her daughter and downgrade some of her spending, not that she needed to necessarily. Now she's in an entirely new [00:32:00] community. She is close to her daughter, but she doesn't know anybody, and everybody already has their cliques.
Kevin: You know, that happens to a lot of retirees who move often to be closer to the grandchildren. Then once they move, they've upended their entire social network, a lot of their activities, and they realize that their children and grandchildren have their lives. And while it's great to have mom or dad close by, maybe as a babysitter for every now and then, they're not gonna become a huge part of your lives.
So a lot of retirees experience that. Yeah, she's gonna have to work on rebuilding the social network and, and you can do that through starting some of those same activities she did at her old place that maybe she can meet some new friends.
Roger: Well I imagine this is like the grieving process for her in this instance, right?
She's going through sort of the "woe is me. I don't have any agency" I think she'll have to find her way out of that. But I think when I think of mindset, I think of the ways that we approach things like you're talking about. And one book on modern positive [00:33:00] psychology by the founder really is "Flourish", right? From Martin Seligman, I believe.
Kevin: Great book. Yeah,, and that's what this segment is going to be about. It's about our mindset, our attitude. That's really what this segment's gonna be about, so that we all know people who react negatively to everything that happens to them, and we can see what that does to their life.
It puts 'em in a, in a tailspin. We also know people who are optimistic and see the bright side of everything and, and accept them as challenges, and you do better when you do that. So that's what we're going to do and I think these are gonna be really valuable segments for your listeners.
Roger: I literally program myself on my mindset. It takes work. Some people think I'm pollyannish, but I think I'm very realistic, but I work at it. It's not easy.
Kevin: No, you are one of my mindset mentors. I learn a lot by watching you.
So I've got a call to action for your listeners this week. We're just getting started and we're gonna cover a lot of topics, but right now I want you to just think about, whether [00:34:00] you're just thinking about retirement or whether you're already retired.
Spend some time thinking about your own attitude about retirement and aging. Many of us have formed our attitudes about these things when we were young. Maybe it was watching our grandparents or watching our parents, and we may have some negative perceptions about retirement, about aging. Acknowledging whether you're mostly positive or mostly negative about it will help you think through if you need to change your mindset about these.
So just sit down. Think of what are the five words that come to mind when you talk about retirement, and what are the top five words that come to mind when you think of your own aging? And then reflect on it. If you've got a spouse or a close friend that you can talk to about these things, discuss them and just evaluate whether you think you can improve your attitude, and I think that'll help you.
Roger: All right. I'm excited for this and all the non-financial episodes or segments we're gonna [00:35:00] have. I'll talk to you here next month.
Kevin: I think next month on this one we're going to talk about finding meaning and purpose in retirement, so that'll be a good one.
Today's
Marker
Kevin: Sart Sprint Segment
Roger:
Roger: Now let's go set Smart Sprint. Get set.
We're off to set a little baby step you can take over the next seven days to not just rock retirement, but rock life. All right?
We're gonna embrace Kevin's challenge in the next seven days. Maybe you're at a coffee shop, you find a little quiet time in the morning, and write down the words that come to mind when you think of retirement or someone that's retired and aging.
Write down the first words that come to mind, and if you want extra credit, if you're brave enough, write down the words that come to mind when you think of death. Just reflect on that to challenge your mindset. Maybe you can shift your vision a little bit so you can embrace [00:36:00] life today.
Wrap-up
All right here at the end of the show, I want to test version one of the Retirement Answer Man Pledge to you and to me. This is literally just a rough draft that I put together on a mind map. So I'm gonna craft this a little bit, I've been thinking about doing this for a while, but came to a head when I was considering, do I continue with advertisers on the show?
Do I join a large podcast network and generally a large podcast network will tee up advertisers for you that want to tell you about their products, and some of them are amazing and the ads that we've had on this show as I experimented last year with Boomer Benefits or L TCI partners are all things that I use in my practice in some way or another, even Cozy Earth, the clothing, I have one on right now and I love it, but do I have ads?
Then I started to journal [00:37:00] about what is this show about for you and what is it about for me? Why did I start this in the first place? So anyway, here's version one of the RAM Pledge.
What's the focus of the show?
It's on you and your journey. Transitioning into and rocking retirement. I want you to have hope. I want you to have an inspiring goal. I want you to feel like you have agency and I wanna help you identify pathways. I care much more about you actually doing things than learning about things. Because life is now.
Authenticity.
I don't want any pretense on the show. I wanna be very humble and I want to be respectful as we explore topics, be respectful to people.
Curiosity.
This serves me hopefully as well as you. I wanna approach life with fresh eyes, and I want to hold my beliefs up for examination by revisiting whether it's long-term or a safety first approach. I wanna hold these beliefs up and look at them with fresh eyes for you and for me, so we don't get stuck in a rut.
[00:38:00] Freedom.
I wanna be free from big finance, and I don't have an agenda here from a big finance. I don't work for any major company. I don't want to talk about products for money.
I am gonna talk about products a lot, but I'm not gonna get paid for it. Well, that is the stand I'm taking right now, and I wanna be free from gimmicks. I'm not going to be gimmicky with you.
Now, we are very proud of the Rock Retirement Club, which is opening I think tomorrow, February 2nd. We're gonna talk about the Rock Retirement Club. I think it could be useful to you, but I want this show to be useful to you and not just simply be a vehicle for me to talk about that.
Action.
You taking incremental action is where it's at, or you taking action to expand your perspective so you can live it a little bit more fuller is where it's at.
I am all in on this, so let's do this.
The opinions voice in this podcast are for general information only and not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. [00:39:00] All performance references historical and does not guarantee future results. All indices are unmanaged and cannot be invested in directly. Make sure you consult your legal, tax or financial advisor before making any decisions.