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Episode #638 - Should I take Social Security early and invest It?

Roger: Hey there, welcome to the show dedicated to helping you not just survive retirement, but you have the confidence because you're doing the work to lean in and rock it. My name is Roger Whitney. I'm excited to hang out with you today. Today on the show, we're going to have two rocking retirement in the wild stories, and then we're going to answer a number of your questions to help you take a baby step towards rocking retirement and perhaps share a book or two that are on our bookshelf. Without further ado, let's get this party started.

ROCKIN' RETIREMENT IN THE WILD

Roger: All right, it's time to highlight those rocking retirement in the wild. I love these stories of people just like you doing all sorts of things to create a great life in retirement. Our first one comes from Steve, and I really love this perspective, because it's one that can get lost in this rah rah go go mindset that permeates maybe too much on this show, but in other shows as well.

THE NON-FINANCIAL BENEFITS OF ENJOYING FREEDOM DAY-BY-DAY

Roger: Steve says, I've enjoyed learning from your perspective on retirement planning. I tend to be highly analytical, loves spreadsheets, and perhaps attuned to optimizing my financial plan. I'm 67 and had been retired for a year and a half and in pretty good shape financially right now. I'd like to share my thoughts on some of the non-financial aspects of retirement. I listen or read many of your podcasts and I also studied advice from many other sources for several years prior to retiring.

Roger: Every piece of non-financial advice I got about retirement was oriented towards planning meaningful activities. But what I have enjoyed the most is having the freedom to not do anything. Allowing my mind to wander, explore, whatever happens to interest me day by day is a privilege that brings me joy.

Roger: I love this Steve. Steve goes on to say, I spent my whole career planning and driving towards accomplishing goals with most of those goals being directed by others. My desire to explore and express my own creativity was partially fulfilled in working within their direction, but my highest ambitions were severely constrained by the limitations of corporate culture. I accepted those conditions as a necessary evil to have an income to support my family.

Roger: In spite of that, I'm proud of what I was able to accomplish in my career. However, it came with serious struggle and personal sacrifice. Steve goes on to say, in retirement, rather than planning and setting goals, I'm striving to live day by day and to appreciate the moments of peace or joy I find in each day. As the result of having no goals and few plans, I may not accomplish anything that others would see as significant, but enjoying the freedom each day to choose to do nothing, to think, to explore, or to be creative is significant to me. My purpose in sharing this with you is not to be critical. I think that many people need and want to have plans, goals, and lots of activities in retirement. I simply wanted to point out that some of us are happy without that.

Roger: Steve, what a wonderful story of how you've settled to a meaningful life for you. I love that. And you're 100% on. There's this productivity cult that we get grinded into in corporate culture of having a goal and being intentional. And I am definitely a victim of that at times. And I'm working on that. I mentioned last week, I'm in this season of solitude of an experiment of just thinking, just relaxing, being okay with watching golf or sitting down and not accomplishing something for today. So I think you're spot on.

CULTURAL PRESSURE TO PLAN AND SET GOALS IN RETIREMENT

Roger: You know, Steve, this actually came up — I think the first time I had an aha moment about this was a few years ago. We were having a rock retirement club local event where we had about 30 people in a room and we hang out and talk for like four hours. It was wonderful. And there was a gentleman that shared that he had postponed his retirement date because he hadn't figured out what his purpose was. He said it with more words than that, but that's essentially what he said. And that was like a lightning strike. It's like, oh my goodness. There's so much talk because you can create a podcast episode, five steps to finding purpose and all this other stuff that I and others do. And when we hear this, like this gentleman, all of a sudden it's like, oh, I can't retire. I don't know what my purpose is. And so they stay working. That's scary.

Roger: That was an aha moment of no, you don't delay because someone else, there's some script out there that you're supposed to have a purpose. That was the first time that really hit me, Steve. And yours was another good right hook to remind me that, yeah, I believe in being intentional about our lives because we don't want to miss it. But that doesn't mean we have to be active in accomplishing things. There can be seasons for different things and I'm trying to practice that right now with solitude and creating space. I love that you're living your authentic self. Now, Steve also shared a Wall Street Journal article related to this. We'll have a link to that in our weekly newsletter, The Noodle. So if you're not signed up for that, you can sign up at thenoodle.me. Thank you, Steve.

RETIREMENT DREAMS: TAKING THE WORLD'S LONGEST FLIGHT

Roger: All right, our next rocking retirement in the wild story actually comes from a client. He said I could share this. I won't share his name. He's getting ready to retire here — wow, he might be retired by the time this comes out. I forget the date, but he and I were talking and he was in the Navy. He was crew Navy for a long period of time. Sailed in the Pacific, talked about Singapore, et cetera. And he said, you know, Roger, I always had this dream and this is what I'm going to do for retirement — when I was in the Navy, I always saw this flight or heard about this flight from Singapore to New York, which is the longest nonstop flight in the world. And when he was in Singapore, while he was in the Navy, he always fantasized about taking that flight. So he is going to take it in retirement.

Roger: I think it's happening a little later this year — the longest nonstop flight in the world from New York to Singapore. He'll only fly business class because the plane has a lot fewer seats since you gotta have so much fuel, so they're not like coach type seats. So he's doing this flight and God bless her, his wife is doing it with him. Although she has no interest in it, but she knows this is something that he wanted to do. And so she's gonna support him in that. What an odd, but cool thing. I'm excited for him and that journey. And I hope his wife has a blast in business class from New York to Singapore. That is rocking retirement in the wild. Alright, let's get to your questions.

PRACTICAL PLANNING SEGMENT

ADDRESSING THE DILEMMA: TAKE SOCIAL SECURITY EARLY AND INVEST IT?

Roger: So our title question is, should I take social security early and invest it? And we have two different questions related to this. So I'm gonna read both questions and then we'll try to answer them in tandem. The first question comes from Ken. Ken says, hey Roger, I have a friend of mine and he's wrapped up in trying to calculate when to take social security. He wants to maximize his money, and thinks he should take it early and invest it himself rather than letting the benefit grow by waiting until age 70. He does not need the money and will likely live a long life after recently retiring at age 57. Is there a podcast episode where you cover this? Well, Ken, let's cover this.

Roger: So some important facts here. One is that this gentleman doesn't need the money. He doesn't need his social security. Sounds like he's overfunded without it. That's an important fact. The other fact is based on what they say, he will likely live a long life after retiring. So relatively healthy, perhaps has more longevity than the normal life expectancy. And third, he says he wants to maximize his money. Now that's an odd term. What does that actually mean, maximize his money? That implies that we're literally just doing a calculation here within a spreadsheet — whatever number wins out, wins — without consideration to a lot more dynamics going on behind the scenes.

KEY FACTS IMPACTING SOCIAL SECURITY CLAIMING STRATEGY

Roger: So let's just focus on that. Given that fact set, there's a really good case for taking the social security early and investing it. Now, if you take it early, meaning at age 62, you're gonna take a significantly less benefit than you would at full retirement age or at age 70. You gotta understand that you're gonna get a lower benefit, then that benefit will slowly increase. Now, if you take it before full retirement age, remind your friend that if he's gonna have any type of income, he's gonna have to be careful not to have too much income. Because if you have too much income when you take your social security early — meaning before full retirement age — that income from social security could go away.

Roger: And what happens is if you earn too much, the threshold in 2025 was $22,320 a year. So as soon as you earn over that, Social Security, if you take it prior to full retirement age, will start to go away $1 for every $2 earned over that income amount. Now that's gonna be indexed so 2026 is gonna be a little bit different. This gentleman sounds like he is 57, so these numbers are gonna be sort of moving. So just realize if you take it early and you earn over a certain amount, you're gonna start to have your Social Security payment decreased because of that earnings test.

Roger: So that might negate him being able to invest it if he's going to have any kind of earnings. Now what happens to that money that gets taken away because of that earnings test? Well, if you take it early — meaning before full retirement age — and this occurs to you, what happens is when you reach full retirement age, then your payment gets recalculated and will be a little bit higher than it would have been. So you recapture it just over the life of that. So just be aware of that.

INVESTMENT RETURN SCENARIOS

Roger: But from a simple math perspective, if you're going to live a long life and you don't need the money and you're trying to maximize the dollar, there's a decent case for taking it early. Let's assume that if you were to take Social Security at age 62 that your monthly benefit was $2,887 a month. And then if you took it at full retirement age — 67 for this gentleman — it would be $4,211 per month. And then if you waited until age 70, it would be $5,243 a month.

Roger: So if that's the fact set, when does it make sense to take Social Security early and invest it, just simply from a math perspective? It's gonna be based on those numbers, the annual investment return, and your life expectancy. So for life expectancy, let's assume that this person lives to say age 90. Now for investment return — a caveat here: we're just doing a linear return. So at a 4% annual return, delaying to age 70 wins out. At 4.5%, delaying to age 70 wins out. At 5%, now it starts to get interesting — taking at full retirement age wins out, barely overtaking it at 62. And as we get to a 6% return, now taking it at age 62 leads from the investment end within that timeframe. Now that's assuming you get that 6% return, you live to age 90, et cetera. So you could play around with this math all day long.

BENEFITS OF NOT TAKING SS EARLY: MARKET RISK, GUARANTEED INCOME, SIMPLICITY

Roger: To get to an answer, Ken, for your friend — what are some arguments to take early? Well, one is you don't need the money. Okay, this friend of yours meets that. Another argument to take early would be an impaired life expectancy. This doesn't sound like your friend, Ken. Another argument would be you're convicted that social security won't be there, so better have a bird in the hand, get the money, than not. Another argument for taking early is that you're not gonna have any other income, so that earnings test won't get you unnecessarily. And then you could argue that if you think you can get, say above 6.5% return or more, that it could work out better for you.

Roger: Now, what are arguments for not doing this and for thinking about social security in a more traditional sense? One is there's no market risk, because in our models from a math perspective, we're just using linear returns. So we don't have to worry about sequence of returns, et cetera — you don't have any market risk if you wait to maximize your social security benefit. Number two is you're going to maximize your guaranteed income. Social security is essentially a fantastic pension that is inflation adjusted, which is something we really underappreciate given how long many of us live. I think last I looked the average was like 2.6% since they instituted it. That's a really powerful benefit. And if you're married, that's a survivor benefit that goes to the other spouse.

Roger: Three is it makes life simpler when you get older. If you maximize the guaranteed income that's adjusted for COLA, it's a gift you give your later self who may not have as much energy, may have cognitive issues, and will naturally get older just as we all do. It really future-proofs that part of that season of life a little bit more with this guaranteed income. It gives you better longevity insurance if you are going to live really long because you have guaranteed income that is inflation adjusted as of now. Another one — it's going to give you some psychological cover. By having higher guaranteed income, it's going to help you feel comfortable spending even in down markets.

Roger: So much of this math depends on longevity and return sequence to make the quote unquote maximizing the money part work. And your friend is healthy and happy and that's wonderful. From my experience, I've seen too many healthy and happy people have life happen to them unexpectedly because as healthy and happy as he may be at age 57, there could be things that compound and start to present themselves later in life. That's how health issues work — and that could be disease, that could be physical impairments, all those types of things. They have compounded in the background, we all have them, and they tend to pop up in your 60s. And that's a little hard to gauge.

Roger: Another aspect of what I would argue against it is just simply execution risk. If you choose to take it early and invest it, now you have to choose your portfolio, you have to manage that portfolio. You have execution risk when you get greedy. You have execution risk when you get fearful. You have set yourself up for a whole bunch of other decisions that present the opportunity for you to make a mistake over decades. Whereas if you delay — take social security at full retirement age or at age 70 — you have future-proofed a lot of those decisions and actually allowed yourself to spend more of your money now rather than trying to manage this because you're going to have a lower Social Security payment.

Roger: A lot of things to consider here. From a pure math perspective, it's right around the 6, 6.5% range where it looks like this could make sense. I have never done this in 30 years in practice and maximizing money is important, but sometimes we can get cute and set ourselves up for a lot of decisions and management that we could just simply do without by delaying and taking Social Security and just getting the more guaranteed payment. So that's my perspective on your friend Ken. I'd be wary of doing this. It's easy to get too cute with this stuff.

Roger: Now our next question, which is related to this — this is from Bill. I've been listening to your podcast since I retired early a year ago at age 61 due to health reasons. You track on my own values and priorities very well and provide good guidance. Well, that's great to hear Bill. You mentioned, as many people do and as the math would seem to suggest, hold out for the delayed social security. However, when I do the math, by age 85, I project having $335,000 more in my account if I actually take early social security. Earning a minimum of 5% interest on the extra money saved from social security payments adds up significantly.

MANAGING UNCERTAINTY AND BALANCING INVESTMENT RETURNS

Roger: I haven't seen your math, Bill, to know exactly how you came up with that extra amount of $335,000 from 61 to age 85. But one thing that's important here is that you retired due to health reasons. And I don't know the specifics of that. But given that you have some health issues, whatever they are, if that impairs your longevity, that would definitely be a vote to take Social Security a little bit earlier — at 62 or at least at full retirement age — in order to get the benefit and be able to use it, whether you spend it or you invest it, regardless. That's definitely a vote for maybe taking it a little bit earlier.

Roger: One thing to consider again, if you take it before full retirement age, is that if you hit those earnings tests, it could go away and get recaptured. So that's something to be aware of. And one thing to consider for both Ken's friend and you Bill is — let's say we take Bill's numbers as gospel and you're going to have $335,000 more at age 85. If you get that kind of return, you avoid execution risk, all the caveats that I've already mentioned. Okay, great. How material is that money to your life? In the first case, Ken's friend, it sounds like it's not — he doesn't even need social security. So maybe it is just about maximizing return and legacy, et cetera. Bill, I don't know your situation, but you definitely take on a lot more management and tracking by taking it and investing, that you could just simply avoid by doing nothing and taking Social Security at full retirement age or whatever age you feel appropriate. Collect your checks, invest those — it just is like the easy button. And there's a lot to be said for positioning yourself to just simply not have to think about it. So hopefully that gave you some perspective. I'm sure we'll get some replies in the noodle with other perspectives. And I'd love to hear them.

STRATEGIES FOR INHERITED ROTH IRAS AND MEGA BACKDOOR ROTH APPROACHES

Roger: Our next question comes from Adam about a backdoor stretch Roth IRA. Adam says, hey Roger, thank you and the RC for all you do and the community — love the show and have been an avid listener and member. I was hoping you could provide perspective on an idea that has come to me on a way to stretch an inherited Roth IRA using the mega backdoor Roth approach with my employer, and traditional IRA backdoor Roth contributions.

Roger: So here's the fact set. I'm going to summarize what Adam said: he has an inherited Roth IRA of $200,000 and that has to come out over the next 10 years. So in your case, Adam, you have this $200,000. It's in a tax free account and you're going to have to drain it within 10 years. The idea that Adam presented is — with his employer, he can make after-tax contributions to his 401k. And this is going to lower his take home pay. But he can make large after-tax contributions up to the limits of qualified plans. His 401k also allows him to do Roth conversions within the 401k plan, which is a unique feature that 401ks can offer, but you don't often see.

Roger: So Adam's idea is to use the Roth conversion feature within the 401k to convert his after-tax contributions to a Roth. The money's already been taxed, so it's relatively tax neutral there because he paid in with after-tax assets. And then withdraw money from his inherited IRA to replenish the lost take-home pay. So as an example, let's say he put $50,000 into his 401k after tax. Well, now he doesn't have $50,000 — that went away because he deferred it. He could take a distribution from his inherited Roth IRA of $50,000 of the $200,000 that has to come out anyway. That money comes out tax free and it replenishes the money that he gave to his 401k in the form of after-tax contributions. So the end result is he's relocated his money from the inherited Roth IRA, which has to be depleted in 10 years, to his Roth IRA in his 401k, which doesn't have required minimum distributions, can last as long as he is alive, go to his wife or go to his heirs and then follow the rules.

Roger: And so Adam wants to know, is there anything I'm really missing here? Well, a lot of it goes into the math, but I think generally you're on the right track, Adam. Essentially what you're doing is a relocation strategy from a tax free account that has to be drained — so you gotta take the money out either way — to an account that has a much longer time frame. And assuming you're looking at your Roth as a long term investment vehicle, not something that you're going to use to tap for retirement at least early in retirement, and assuming that they're invested identically, we're just shifting money from a short-term Roth to a long-term Roth with some work in between. I don't see much wrong with that idea, as long as you understand some of those caveats.

INHERITANCE, ASPIRATIONAL GOALS, AND RESILIENT PLANS

Roger: So our next question is an audio question about inheritance and aspirational goals.

Listener: Hi, Roger. Thank you for your show. I have a question regarding goal setting versus resilient planning. Not part of our base grade life and not part of our more immediate wants is long-term nice to haves, one of which is my wife and I, when we pass on in 20 or 30 years, would like to have some of our money go to our children in terms of inheritance to help them continue their lives and make their lives easier at that point. And as I think about resilient planning — because that inheritance is not an immediate need and not something that has to happen, we've already gotten our kids off to a great start in life — how does that goal intersect with resilience planning in that, can I consider that pool of money out there part of the resilience plan that we need in case we hit a major landmine, et cetera? So I'd like to get your opinion on how those two things intersect each other. Really enjoying your show. I have it stacked when I'm walking several times a week, listening to two or three episodes, hoping to catch up through all 600 by the end of this year. Thank you so much for all you do.

Roger: That's a great question related to inheritance. So here we are — you have a 20 to 30 year timeline before an inheritance occurs. How do you plan for that? The intent is we would like to give something to our kids. It's gonna be 20 or 30 years from now. I think you gotta be careful in hardwiring that into your retirement plan. I wouldn't put it as a goal to give a million dollars to Johnny and a million dollars to Sally at end of life. I would be very careful in hardwiring it into the plan. And the reason is that this aspirational goal can frame the results and likely lead to unintentionally different decisions because you're trying to hit this amount at the end of it.

Roger: So I wouldn't hardwire it in there. A couple of ways I would suggest approaching this. Number one is — realize that most retirement planning software, when it's looking at the projections of what you might have at the end of life, it's not including any use assets like your real estate, like your house. So just realize a lot of times you may have a say a million dollar house that's on your net worth statement, maybe in the software, but if it's not used in the plan, that's still an asset that somebody is going to inherit. So it doesn't necessarily have to be money. That's one.

Roger: Two is, if you're really clear that you want to have money at the end of the plan for your children, one thing that you could do is consider life insurance. In this case, like a second-to-die policy, which is less expensive than an individual policy. Generally, these are gonna be permanent life insurance. It doesn't pay out until the second person dies, hence the name. So at the end of say you and your spouse's death, then the insurance pays out. This insurance is generally not that expensive relative to other forms. And you have the option to just pay it once. So you could literally just put money in, make one payment and it's insured permanently for the rest of both of your lives. You can do it as a five pay or a 10 pay. That's one way to literally make it a goal, get the money out of your estate, put it in there. The downside to that is it's permanent — a lot harder to undo, and you've got a big check you have to pay at the moment. So if you ended up needing that money, then you're in a little bit of a pickle.

Roger: Another option — I think this is a reasonable option if this is a really solid goal — is sort of what you were implying. Do some time value of money math. Say, okay, in today's dollars, if we both were to die, I would like our kids each to have $250,000. Well, you could create an account, put a half a million dollars into that account, invest it, title the account in your name, but put a nickname on it — Kids Inheritance. That half a million dollars would be invested as a separate account labeled as Kids Inheritance, but that's just a label that you put on it. You could repatriate that money to your use if you had to. I've seen this happen.

Roger: The way that I would typically approach this is not to do any of what I just said. What I would do is build a feasible plan of record and look at using Monte Carlo scenarios — we talked in depth about that a few episodes ago — but not just simply look at the results, the 85% confidence or whatever, but look at the distributions of outcomes. What's the high, and what's the first percentile, the 25th percentile, the 50th percentile, 75th and 99th percentile? That will give you at least an idea of end-of-plan resources. And if they're relatively bunched up, that gives you a little bit more resilience and you can get a sense for how much that money is, and then just sort of manage it as an aside, knowing that given your spending and everything else, you're likely going to have money at the end. And then you can decide how much you hardwire in as life goes on.

Roger: That is typically the approach that I would do — examine and interpret the results to see: we're likely going to have a decent amount of money at the end, so I don't have to hardwire plan for it. So hopefully that gives you some perspective on how to manage a very long-term aspirational goal. I'd be very careful about hardwiring it into a plan.

HOW TO AVOID FEES MOVING 401K

Roger: Let's get to one more question before we have a smart sprint. This question comes from Todd — it's an audio question.

Listener (Todd): Hi, Roger and team. I'm on the verge of retirement at the end of 2025. And probably by the time you hear this, I will be floating into the sunset of retirement. But quick question for you — as I move my finances out of a qualified 401k plan with my employer, which has some fees associated with it, I'm curious what your advice is on where to move that money, whether to move it to a paid financial consultant or right into a low cost fund. And just would look for any guidance or advice on how to avoid fees and what's worthwhile and what's not. Appreciate any feedback.

Roger: Well, congratulations. You probably are sailing into the sunset. Sorry for the delay on getting to your question. So the question is, I want to avoid fees — should I move my 401k to an advisor or a low cost mutual fund? Well, given the parameters that you shared, I think it's pretty obvious: if your intent is to avoid fees, low cost mutual fund. You can build asset allocation. You can run retirement analysis. You can manage this all on your own and capture the fees that you would pay an advisor. Makes total sense.

Roger: Now that is given the intent that you have to avoid fees. Now I am a retirement planner. I charge fees. So why would you move it to somebody that charges fees? Well, just like you would pay fees for anything else in life to avoid the work — I pay fees to have somebody mow my yard so I can recapture my time. I pay fees to an attorney in order to borrow their wisdom so I can avoid having to review or write a contract myself, and also to borrow the wisdom of the fact that they have done that over and over and over again. That's really the thing, but the way that you frame the question — yeah, low cost mutual fund.

Roger: And that's one reason why we do the Rock Retirement Club — for those that want to manage their own assets and manage their own retirement, but still want education and tools and some wisdom so they're not walking by themselves. It's a very cost effective way to get a lot of what you might get with an advisor, just not in a personalized way. The value of having an advisor is going to have to outweigh the fees that you're paying and that can outweigh it. I would probably argue against hiring an advisor and thinking that by hiring them, you're going to get better returns than in an index fund or whatever. Now they may have more diversified approaches. They may help you with taxes. They may help you frame what's possible and what's not possible, decision-making analysis, look for blind spots in your plan. It's going to be all around managing the complexities of retirement and helping extract life and save you time by avoiding unforced errors. But it's not going to be based on investment returns.

Roger: I'm actually redoing the how to find a retirement advisor worksheet, maybe make a little mini course out of it, because I think it's a really important thing. Fees are not bad. I don't think they are to be avoided if there's enough value that you're going to get from it. But the way you framed it, yeah, low cost mutual fund. Sounds good to me.

SMART SPRINT: DOWNLOAD YOUR MOST RECENT SOCIAL SECURITY STATEMENT

Roger: And now we're off to set a baby step you can take in the next seven days, not just to rock retirement, but rock life. All right, in the next seven days, I want you to download your most recent social security statement. I just did mine — I hadn't done it this year. I did mine because I was prepping for answering the question on social security, but log into your social security account at ssa.gov and download your Social Security statement. That's going to give you the most recent estimate of what your benefit will be, whether you take it at 62, 63, full retirement age, all the way up to age 70. It will talk about the survivor benefits, all those types of things. It's a good statement to download once a year. You can upload those numbers into your retirement plan of record so you keep it current.

Roger: Also, if you've never downloaded your social security statement, it's a great time to claim your social security account at the administration, which I think is an important thing to do from a cybersecurity standpoint. So that's your sprint for this week.

ON THE BOOKSHELF

Roger: All right, to end the show, let's share a couple more books. This one comes from the retirement coach, Mark Ross from the club, and it is Unforgettable: The Art and Science of Creating Memorable Experiences by Phil Marshon. All right, here are Mark's thoughts: Ever been bored at an event, conference, special occasion? Ugh, it doesn't have to be that way. I recommend Unforgettable by Phil Marshon because it shows how great events go beyond content to creating meaningful, memorable experiences. It emphasizes the importance of engagement, connection, and intentional design in fostering lasting impact. The book is ideal for event planners, conference organizers, anyone looking to create a gathering that truly resonates and drives personal and professional growth. Five out of five, Mark rates this.

Roger: Now I'm thinking of this Mark — we're in the midst of creating the agenda for the 2026 Roundup, our conference for the club. And you haven't told me about this book. I need to read this book. We have Paul Merriman coming to the conference. Christine Benz is coming to the conference. We've got like 350 Club members there. That's gonna be awesome. I gotta read this book. I thought this book was going to be about how to make a forgettable event unforgettable for yourself — not as a planner, but as someone who just attends something. That's where I thought this was going, because I try to do this all the time. I tend to play games in my head even at the grocery store. I just play games and say random things to people — my kids always tell me I need to smile when I do it — but I have a tendency to just play my own game in my head sometimes, just to make it interesting for me. It's actually a fun way to play life. But great recommendation. We'll have links to the books that we mention in the noodle just so you can get those.

Roger: Okay, one more book and then we'll get on with your Wednesday. This comes from Aaron Coe. How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith. Aaron says, this is a non-fiction work by Clint Smith that explores how to tell the history of slavery in the United States and across the globe. The author provides an account of his visits to seven different sites with historical significance to the slave trade and describes how these sites vary in their accuracy, depth, and overall presentation of their relationship to human bondage. It is thought provoking and eloquently written. It has encouraged me to plan a couple visits to two of the sites near my Richmond home. More importantly, it provided me with greater context and new perspective on our shared history. Five out of five.

Roger: What an interesting book on a very difficult topic, but real topic — perspective is everything, right? I'll have to check that out, Aaron. Thanks for recommending it. I got a dose of that when I went to Cuba. Because when I went to Cuba, I toured the Museum of the Revolution — the palace where Batista was — and they told the story of the Cuban Revolution and the Bay of Pigs incident, et cetera, but they told it from their side, the communist side. And it was factual, just as the US version was factual, but from a totally different perspective. That was like the highlight for me. Wow — that's interesting because they're both relatively accurate, but it all depends on the eyes that you're reading it through. All right. Two great books to check out. Thanks so much for hanging out with me. Have a wonderful week.

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