The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

Our guest today notes that “retirement is a little bit like life. It’s likely to be different than you think it’s going to be.” David Horton, MD shares the story of his life wife Dee Dee, and carrying on her mission and legacy. He discusses her book, Layer Upon Layer, which he helped complete.

David Horton joins us from Washington State.

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David Horton, a retired oncologist turned book editor, spent his career driven by a deep passion for science and genuine connection with his patients. After completing his residency, he moved to the Pacific Northwest, where he met his wife, DeeDee. Known for his patient-centered approach grounded in respect, empathy, and the art of deep listening, David founded RadiantCare Oncology, building a practice that aligned with his values as both a doctor and a person. David and DeeDee shared 32 years of love, self-growth, and adventure, creating a steadfast partnership.

Now retired, David is dedicated to honoring DeeDee’s mission by publishing her book, Layer Upon Layer, to continue her message and legacy

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For More on David Horton, MD

Layer Upon Layer book

Website

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Best Books on Retirement

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

The Well-Lived Life – Dr. Gladys McGarey

Ride or Die – Jarie Bolander

On My Way Back to You – Sarah Cart

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how The Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one – on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host 

Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.5 million downloads. Business Insider has recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

Connect on LinkedIn

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Wise Quotes

Redefining Yourself in Retirement

“Retirement is a little bit like life. It’s likely to be different than you think it’s going to be. I think of retirement as quitting the structured daily routine of your week. Mainly, we’re keeping that because we need work to provide us with financial stability. The beauty of retirement is the opportunity to redefine yourself, realizing you’ve grown so much since you chose a career and started things. And so the first thing is you have to pay attention to the financial aspect early on, if you want the freedom to redefine yourself earlier while you have better health and you have more flexibility to integrate into the world and how it’s changed. And I think that’s so essential now because technology and things has taken over so much. The earlier you get on that, the more significant you can redefine yourself with retirement.”

On Layer Upon Layer by Dee Dee Horton

“A lot of the things described in Layer Upon Layer are things that Dee Dee either experienced herself or observed in her years of growing up as an athlete, as well as being a teacher and ultimately a coach. And I think one of the things that always bothered her was more the idea that the attention related to sports and being quote unquote successful in our society was a little bit of an easier journey or a lot of an easier journey for the males in our society. And that was always something that I think bothered her. And what also bothered her was whenever she did see in the media stories that were related to female athletes, it wasn’t about the female athletes working hard and striving and giving up things and discipline and all of that, which is the true sporting experience. Instead, it seemed to be the female athlete that was giving up the sport for either the love of a man, or it would be the male coach or the male boyfriend that came in and said, somehow motivated her and turned her into something more as opposed to having done it herself. And so I think she having a love of writing and things like that, she decided to write a book to I guess try to make people pay a little more attention to those issues. Well, interestingly, that was something that she picked very early on. And she loved it.”

On Purpose

“I do feel like retirement is a chance for people to redefine themselves and recognizing how much we’ve grown from the time we chose our profession and to where we are now. And in many ways, a huge part of my initial decision to retire was because my father had passed young, he was 61, and when I got to be in my early 50s and had a doc examine me where I had a little neurologic thing. And I went to see the neurologist and basically said to me goes, Well, Dave, don’t worry, this is one of two things. It’s either ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease, which that’s one of the worst, that’s a bad bad when you get or it’s or it’s nothing. And the light went, wait a minute, I could be my dad so easy. So that was my chance to break away from an extremely, extremely intense, busy profession of providing cancer care for a large region in western Washington. I had spent my life, not only taking care of tons of patients, but planning out how to build clinics that it made it easier for patients to get in for treatment. And I said, Wow, this will be my chance to spend more time with Dee Dee and and continue to do more of the things that we could do together. And also free her to explore some things that she wanted to go into because she had been tied down to me being in a fixed location. And that’s the way it started. But it, of course, as we talked about retirement is going to be different, just life is going to be different than you think it’s going to be. For me, I guess what I’ve done is the heartbreak of losing Dee Dee has given me a purpose. I really felt satisfied with the gift that I had left my community, feeling like I’d made my community a better place and made a contribution.”

A lot will change once you retire and you may need build a new a social circle. Natalie Kerr and Jaime Kurtz join us to share research-backed strategies you can use to build and strengthen meaningful relationships from their new book Our New Social Life: Science-Backed Strategies for Creating Meaningful Connection.

Natalie Kerr and Jaime Kurtz join us from Virginia.

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Natalie Kerr, Ph.D., is a social psychologist and award-winning professor at James Madison University, where she studies social connection and loneliness. Her work has been published in journals such as the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, Personality and Individual Differences, and Social Influence. She is co-author of the book Our New Social Life: Science-Backed Strategies for Creating Meaningful Connection. She also designs community programs for people who want to cultivated deeper connection in their lives.

Jaime Kurtz, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at James Madison University. Her research focuses on strategies for savoring and well-being and has been published in journals such as Psychological Science, the Journal of Positive Psychology, Emotion, and Developmental Psychology. Her work has been published in journals such as Psychological Science and the Journal of Positive Psychology. Most recently, she is the author of The Happy Traveler: Unpacking the Secrets of Better Vacations. She is also the co-author, with Sonja Lyubomirsky, of Positively Happy: Routes to Sustainable Happiness, and she regularly presents seminars on mental health to continuing education health care professionals nationwide.

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For More on Natalie Kerr & Jaime Kurtz

Our New Social Life: Science-Backed Strategies for Creating Meaningful Connection

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

How to Make New Friends in Retirement – Dr. Marisa G. Franco

The Laws of Connection – David Robson

The Good Life – Marc Schulz, PhD

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how The Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one – on your own terms.

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On Social Connection

“So, as humans, we have a fundamental need for social connection. We live happier, healthier, and longer lives when we feel deeply connected to other people. And while we might experience and express this need in different ways, the need for social connection is really universal. It’s so fundamental that we have built-in biological mechanisms to encourage it. When we’re socially isolated, our brain triggers cravings for human contact, in much the same way that it triggers cravings for food after a few hours of not eating. So, we literally crave connection. And that’s why so many of us felt starved for connection during the pandemic. The problem is that in everyday life, many of us simply ignore the craving or we deny it. We treat socializing like an indulgence rather than an essential health behavior, and we fail to prioritize it. We recognize the importance of sleep, exercise, and healthy eating, and we take steps to maintain them. But going out with friends, going to Happy Hour, Trivia Night, these things often take a backseat. Somehow, they feel less important when in reality, they’re just as vital to our health and well-being.  So, we really need to shift our mindset and see social connection as an essential need rather than a want.”

On Meaningful Conversations 

“But keep in mind that that signal, that inner kind of guidance can go a little awry with a season of extended isolation. So it can become very cyclical. So just be on the lookout for that when you tune in. I love this question because I absolutely hate small talk, and I’m always looking for opportunities to go deeper. Small talk is the norm in everyday conversation. Unfortunately, it just is. And breaking away from that can be a little scary, but there’s some research that suggests that maybe we shouldn’t be as afraid as we are.  Let me tell you about one study real quick. So they had participants engage in both shallow and deep conversations with strangers. And the shallow conversation, they answered questions like, how’s your day going so far? And in the deep conversation condition, they went a little deeper. They disclosed more personal information by answering questions like, if you could undo one mistake you have made in your life, what would it be – and why would you undo it? So pretty deep, especially with a stranger, right? Well, they had people predict how they would feel about the conversations, how much they would enjoy them, and then they reported on their actual experience. And what they found was that people expected to prefer the shallow conversation, but they actually preferred the deeper one. And they felt closer to their deep conversation partner than to the shallow conversation partner. And the deep conversations were not as awkward as they thought they would be. Sure, they were a little bit awkward at first, but not as much as they thought. They liked the deep conversations better.”

On Attention

“For me, one of the practices that I’ve really tried to put into my life, in addition to going deeper in conversations, is really being aware of where my attention is when I am interacting with people. I’ve just noticed how good it feels to be the focus of someone’s attention, and being able to give that back is a really valuable gift, especially in these times when our attention is so limited, and being pulled in a million different directions. We all know how crummy it feels to be in an interaction, and somebody just picks up their phone and starts looking at their phone, or just looks away, and you can tell they’re not with you. I try my best to really give people my attention, and realize how valuable that is.  It also underscores a point that we make in the book, too, that I think a lot of people think to be liked, and to have a rich social life, you have to be incredibly charismatic, you have to have a great sense of humor, or all these stories to tell. And sure, those things help, but just being with someone, truly with someone, and giving them your attention, even if you’re quiet about it, that can also really boost connection and relationship quality. I’ve been trying to just be more aware of where my attention is, focused. So part of it, just with any habit, really starts with awareness.”

A great retirement takes work – and learning. In her seventh year in retirement, Judith Nadratowski joins us to share her lessons learned so far in her retirement journey – lessons that can help you plan better for yours.

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Judith Nadratowski is her seventh year of retirement after a 40-year career at Cleary Gottlieb, a top international law firm based in New York where she was most recently Manager, Partnership Resources & Executive Committee Matters. You can read more of Judith’s insights, ideas and reflections on retirement on her blog Retirement Commentaries.

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For More on Judith Nadratowski

Judith Nadratowki’s Retirement Commentaries

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Life After Work – Brian Feutz

Retirement Rookies – Stephen & Karen Kreider Yoder

Strategic Quitting – Julia Keller

The Vintage Years – Dr. Francine Toder

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how The Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one – on your own terms.

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Mentioned in This Episode

Yes Man – Jim Carrey

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Do Your Homework

Explore summaries of the Best Books on Retirement

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Wise Quotes

On Being a Beginner

“…being a beginner and learning to build things from scratch. I really went into my retirement thinking I would just really easily slip into my life. And now I could do all the things I never had the time to do. And that was exactly the reason I chose to retire. I wanted to take advantage of time. I was still in my early 60s and wanted to do new things and things I had done during a very demanding career. And I also wanted to search for a new focus. I knew I needed –  I dread using the purpose word, but that sense of purpose is something that I definitely felt I needed. And I knew that I wanted to search for something that would fill that, that I could really sink into…Retirement life takes some work and it’s not going to just happen and you have to be the catalyst. You have to figure out the gaps and start filling them in…you can really seriously think that you could try something new. So what I meant by being a beginner was I had to shed all of my sense of knowing everything and really strip down to get things that would bubble up, that would be of interest to me and to really that start from scratch. Design from the bottom up. And that wasn’t so easy when you’re used to mastering your job for quite some time.”

On the Transition to Retirement

“But the hardest thing for me, the challenge really was that my life wasn’t just that change in schedule. But it was [when] I realized how many intangibles my job gave me that I missed. And I wasn’t even able to articulate them at first. But as I started to think more deeply about them, I realized that my job really shaped so many things about me and was always in the background. It was how I saw myself, it was how I even chose to spend my free time. It was based around my job and how much time I would spend and even sometimes how I viewed other people. It was just so much a part of me that I never realized it was so entrenched so that when I started thinking about it, I knew that I was choosing my retirement. I was enthusiastic about it, but I felt lost. I couldn’t really figure out what those things were. And when you, if anyone were to ask me, well, what do you want to do? I couldn’t really come up with good ideas. I was really pretty lost that way. So I guess I would say how I met the challenge was one baby step at a time. I really just regained perspective. I felt that first I was kind of anxious and upset about it, but I just realized how fortunate I am to be in that position. And that helped a lot. It controls your emotions. And then I just took it in baby steps. I knew what I didn’t want to do. So I could start there, even if I didn’t know exactly what I did want to do.”

On Saying No

“When I stepped into retirement, my default was going to be yes. And that worked. That was good in the beginning, but it’s not necessarily the approach you can follow for a long time. And so what I’ve learned is that saying no isn’t a bad attitude and it isn’t it’s not necessarily that you’re being ungrateful or…being lazy about it. It’s really you saying on track, and for me, especially when I was in more kind of emotional or feeling like if I was unoccupied or a little frustrated and not getting where I wanted to be quick enough, if I had opportunities that really didn’t work or even ones I tried that I knew they weren’t working, I would almost default to yes, because I would think, Well, I don’t know, maybe it’ll be better. But deep down , really, I knew these were not working. So what I’ve learned is that having that kind of mission statement of what your values and goals are – and I mean goals in a very broad way – just what matters, how you want to spend your time – and if you have that as sort of your benchmark, it helps you,. It’s your framework, and it’ll help you make decisions. So saying no is a very positive thing is what I’ve learned.”

On a Weekday Mindset

“I think they would say it’s flexible within its structure and well-balanced and I think the part they would probably notice the most is that I’d like to keep a Weekday Mindset. I found what worked for me when I retired was I didn’t like that notion of every day is Saturday – that was like Oh my gosh! That was dreadful to me and I needed to put myself back on a weekday schedule. I’m certainly not strict but what I mean is that I use the mindset of the Monday through Friday rhythm and I like that. My work – and I put it in quotes ‘my work’ – which would be like my projects, my writing scheduling, meetings and things like that I do on a weekday schedule. Saturdays and Sundays, the weekends, are my time for leisure and fun activities and even desserts. So it works for me.”

On Advice to Friends on Planning for Retirement

“I know a friend who has said to me my retirement is just going to be sitting on the beach with a book. That might be what you think, but it really won’t be. I just want them to think about it as a lifetime and so I’d recommend reading to them. Think about why they wanted to retire. It’s not just about taking a vacation or stopping work, but what is beyond that? What does it mean to you? Think about what they think they might miss about their job. There will be some gaps to fill and there’s ways to do it, but you need to know what they are before you can start to do that.  I think also that there are retirement coaches and career coaches who are very helpful and can help you even a year out, I would say even more, but a year out would be a nice time…Even if you don’t know exactly how you’re going to do,  just build some awareness because I think that was something I lacked was that awareness. It’s very important to me and why my blog was born is to build some awareness. And the other thing I would tell them though is not to get too caught up in thinking you have to have all the answers. Because you want to,really be in the time and get to know who you are and what matters to you.”

What’s the current stage of retirement and aging in the US? And how did we get here? James Chappel discusses his new book Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age, the impact of The Gray Panthers and why The Golden Girls is “the most important TV show in the history of American aging.”

James Chappel joins us from Durham, North Carolina.

James Chappel is the Gilhuly Family Associate Professor of History at Duke University and a senior fellow at the Duke Aging Center. He’s the author of the new book Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age, a history of aging, health, and disability in the USA from 1920 to the present. It appeared in November 2024 and has been widely reviewed in outlets like The New Yorker and the Los Angeles Times.

He received his PhD from Columbia University. At Duke, he works on the intellectual history of modern Europe and the United States, focusing on themes of religion, gender, and the family. He has published two books and published widely in both scholarly and non-scholarly sites (The New York Times, The Nation, and more).. He is currently co-chair of the Prison Engagement Initiative at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, and founded the Duke-in-Prison lecture series.

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For More on James  Chappel

Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age by James Chappel

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Mentioned in This Podcast Episode

The Simpsons clip (2:45)

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

The Uncertainty of Retirement in the New Economy – Teresa Ghilarducci

Life in Retirement: Expectations & Realities – Catherine Collinson

Live Life in Crescendo – Cynthia Covey Haller

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how The Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one – on your own terms.

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Wise Quotes

On The Gray Panthers

“Actually, the 60s was a lot more intergenerational than people remember. There are a lot of older activists. And there also was a lot of old age activism. So what the finally winding back to your question, they’re kind of like the 60s for old people. Obviously the name, right? So the Great Panthers, it’s obviously a play in the Black Panthers. Black Panthers are, among many other things, kind of the more radical wing of the Civil Rights movement, just as the Gray Panthers were the more radical wing of the old age movement. There was a kind of mainstream old age movement, which was in favor of things like Medicare, which was great, you know, they succeeded. The Gray Panthers are more like the talented movement. They are more like less dramatically reoriented American society towards older people. And so they do a lot of amazing things that I think ought to be remembered. And I think that in 2025, what’s most striking about their activism is how, in today’s words, we’d say it’s very intersectional. So they don’t think about old age by itself. They actually think about old age and environmental justice. They think about old age and how to have like a greener society. They’re already doing this in the 1970s. They’re thinking about old age and racial justice. They’re paying a lot of attention to communities of color. They’re paying a lot of attention to nursing home residents. This is that period when the mainstream discussion of the AARP groups like that were paying very little attention to nursing. But the Great Panthers said, no, we have to pay attention to the most needy of us. We need to pay attention to nursing home residents. Let’s empower them. Let’s organize them. Let’s organize nursing home workers to improve their conditions and wages. And so I think that if we’re thinking in the 21st century about a [vision], which maybe not all of your listeners are, but I think it’s an important thing, a kind of more radical transformative vision for old age and old age policy, I think the Gray Panthers are the most interesting kind of recent group for things like that.”

On The Golden Girls

“A show like Gracesand Frankie, I don’t know what would the viewership numbers are,  probably a couple of hundred thousand people or so, whereas The Golden Girls, this is 30 or 40 million people watching it. I guess a lot of your viewers probably skew older if they might remember that world, but any younger listeners, which, might not know or even remember that once upon a time, a TV show could actually matter, because it’s watched by so many people. And The Golden Girls is one of those shows. So I think the Golden Girls is the most important TV show in the history of American aging. In the early days of TV and film, you do not see that many older people represented. And after World War II, when older people are represented at all, it’s mainly a negative portrayal.  Then the Golden Girls comes on the stage in the 1980s. And it’s a great show. It’s very funny. But what makes it revolutionary is that it’s a show about older women living alone. It’s basically about congregate housing. I can experiment in congregate housing for older women in 1980s Miami. That’s the show. It’s four older people, they aren’t even that old – three of the four characters are in their mid fifties, and one of them is in their mid seventies. And they have like kind of low status jobs, they’re substitute teachers and social workers, things like that. It was kind of interesting is that these are either single or divorced women in low status, low paying jobs. You would think a show like that would be like a depressing show. And that was always seen as like the worst case scenario. Here we have like retired unmarried school teachers, that’s like the neediest population of older women. And their children do not help them. But this is not a sad show. It is a happy show about what old age can be in late 20th century America. And so the show is a comedy. And if you watch the show, they do all kinds of things like they are like, it’s a very sexually liberated show. All four of the women are sexually active, like outside of marriage. They are doing lots of jobs. And so even though they’re, they’re really like in their over the course of the show, they’re kind of in their late 50s, early 60s.”

On Retirement

“Some of it is financial. Some people need to stay in their job. But a lot of people, including people in my own family, they don’t know what to do without their job. So they stay in their jobs, which has a numerous kind of negative consequences for the firms and also for younger workers, mainly because they don’t know what to do with retirement. And so I think that, I don’t know, a bigger public conversation about what retirement is, I think that we’re overdue for such a conversation.”

Are you thinking big enough about your retirement? You’ll have time for the things you always wanted to do but didn’t have time for in your full-time working years. With a blank canvas to work with, what are the meaningful personal goals you’d like to pursue now? How you start can make the difference. Caroline Adams Miller joins us to discuss her new book Big Goals: The Science of Setting Them, Achieving Them, and Creating Your Best Life  and how you can use a research-backed method to set challenging but attainable goals – and make this year your best year.

Caroline Adams Miller joins us from Maryland.

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Caroline Adams Miller is a globally renowned expert in positive psychology, with a special focus on goals and grit.

For over 30 years, she has been a trailblazer in advancing these fields, helping individuals and organizations reach their most ambitious goals and improve overall well- being. She was among the first to earn a Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) from the University of Pennsylvania in 2006, a program pioneered by Dr. Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology. Caroline also graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University, laying the groundwork for her future achievements in psychology and personal development. She is a black-belt martial artist and a Masters swimmer.

Caroline is the author of nine influential books, including:

Her books have been translated into multiple languages, including German, Korean, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, and Italian, reaching a global audience.

Caroline’s impact on positive psychology has earned widespread recognition. Dr. Martin Seligman highlighted her work in Flourish, and Angela Duckworth, a leading researcher on grit, praised Caroline’s profound insights and practical applications of grit research, saying, “No one has thought more than Caroline about how to apply the scientific research on grit and achievement to our own lives!”

A sought-after speaker, Caroline has presented at prestigious venues such as Wharton Business School’s Executive Education program and delivered a TEDx talk titled “The Moments That Make Champions,” resonating with audiences worldwide. Her work has been featured in major media outlets like BBC World News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, and CNN.

She has consulted with high-profile clients, including Morgan Stanley, lululemon, Coldwell Banker, American Bankers Association, Blizzard Entertainment, RE/MAX, Booz Allen, Harvard Law School, The World Bank, and Swisse Wellness, helping them pursue ambitious goals and create environments that foster success and well-being.

Caroline’s memoir My Name is Caroline details her personal journey of overcoming bulimia and demonstrates her belief in the power of grit and goal setting. She emphasizes that pursuing hard, meaningful goals is one of the most fulfilling paths in life, leading to deep personal and professional growth.

Through her books, speeches, and consulting, Caroline Adams Miller continues to inspire and empower people and organizations around the world to harness grit and positive psychology, achieve their highest potential, and transform their lives.

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For More on Caroline Adams Miller

Big Goals: The Science of Setting Them, Achieving Them, and Creating Your Best Life

For More on Big Goals

Website

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Podcast Episodes You  May Like

Retiring: Creating a Life That Works for You – Teresa Amabile

How to Begin – Michael Bungay Stanier

Living Like You Mean It – Jodi Wellman

Think Big – Dr. Grace Lordan

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Wise Quotes

On Why Goals Matter

“….it’s interesting that when you stop testing yourself, when you stop seeking novelty, when you start to think that taking risks is going to a new restaurant, then you start to die while you’re alive.  And for women in particular, what happens is we’re finding that women are dying more and more in midlife from diseases of despair because they have not reinvented themselves or found a new purpose for themselves because many of them get divorced, their bodies change, their children have moved on, or they’ve been primary caretakers, or even secondary caregivers. For women, it’s a very different phase of life and you need to surround yourself with a tribe of people who want to see the world the way you should be seeing the world.”

On Why SMART Goals Aren’t Very… Smart

“…there is a real science to it and that SMART goals is not science. In fact, SMART goals qualifies for jargon mishmash syndrome, which means that acronym and those letters mean different things to different people. So it’s lost its power. But many of the definitions of it are attainable or realistic. And if you’ve had any kind of brush with Goal Setting Theory, you know that Locke and Latham said, if you want the best possible outcome with your goals, they have to be challenging and specific. So attainable and realistic goals are what’s called low goals. You do not get best outcomes from that. And unfortunately, in 1982, this dude who was running a workshop came up with it and it’s sticky. And the scary thing is you go into any form of artificial intelligence from Claude to Perplexity and if you ask about goal setting, it shoots back SMART goals. So I’m very aware that this inconsistency between the science and this kind of ‘Zombie Goal Theory’ that should be dead by now, but it’s not.  It’s still alive walking around. I’m very aware that it has caught on to the point where people think it’s real. And I’m up against the tide of people who think it’s real, but it’s time we have access to the research.”

On the Heliotropic Effect

” So the Heliotropic Effect…this is Barbara Fredrickson’s wonderful work showing that all living beings, human beings and plants and flowers, all open up and become our best selves when we’re around the warmth of the sun, Helios’s sun. And when we’re around people who shine their warmth of approval, kindness and support on us, that’s when we become our best selves.  That’s when we thrive. And if you don’t know who those people are in your life, it’s important that you know Shelly Gable’s research showing that the one way to tell if someone will have the Heliotropic Effect on you and your goals is if you float a trial balloon, some fake good news or some big dream of yours and you watch how they respond. And if they don’t respond with two things, curiosity and enthusiasm, they have just told you who they are. And the dangerous thing is you’re likely to abandon your goals in the next week. If you share that good news or that dream with somebody else. Shelly Gable, the researcher, said, it’s like hitting the red button on the smoke alarm. You’ll know and just see who has your back.”

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how The Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one – on your own terms

About Your Podcast Host 

Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.5 million downloads. Business Insider has recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

Connect on LinkedIn

What’s your purpose now? It’s a big question, an important one – and one that many people get stuck on when they retire. Dr. Jordan Grumet believes we need to change how we think about purpose. He rejoins us to discuss his new book The Purpose Code: How to unlock meaning, maximize happiness, and leave a lasting legacy.

Jordan Grumet joins us from Illinois.

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Jordan Grumet, born in Evanston, Illinois in 1973, found the spark to become a doctor after a deeply personal event reshaped his life’s trajectory. The unexpected loss of his father, an oncologist, ignited a passion within him to practice medicine and instilled a unique vantage point that later melded seamlessly with his financial expertise. This convergence of roles has spurred him to explore profound notions like wealth, abundance, and financial independence with a thoughtful and critical lens.

Completing his studies at the University of Michigan, Jordan earned his medical degree from Northwestern University before embarking on a journey in Internal Medicine in Northbrook, Illinois. Presently, he serves as an associate medical director at Unity Hospice.

With a profound understanding of both medicine and finance, Jordan unveiled his thoughts through blogging, specifically focusing on financial independence and wellness. This passion culminated in the launch of the Earn & Invest podcast in 2018. His dedication bore fruit in 2019 when he was honored with the Plutus Award for Best New Personal Finance Podcast, followed by consecutive nominations for Best Personal Finance Podcast of the year in 2020 and 2021.

In August 2022, Jordan’s literary pursuit took shape as his book, Taking Stock: A Hospice Doctor’s Advice on Financial Independence, Building Wealth, and Living a Regret-Free Life, was published by Ulysses Press. His second book, The Purpose Code, was published by Harriman House Press. Jordan’s journey intertwines medical insight and financial wisdom, resonating deeply with those seeking a balanced, meaningful life.

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For More on Dr. Jordan Grumet

The Purpose Code

Website

Our first podcast conversation with Jordan Grumet on Taking Stock

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Retiring: Creating a Life That Works for You – Teresa Amabile

Living Like You Mean It – Jodi Wellman

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how The Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one – on your own terms.

__________________________

Wise Quotes

On Purpose

“The studies show that purpose in life is associated with health, happiness, and longevity, very clearly in tons of studies. On the other hand, I found other studies that show that up to 91% of people get anxious when it comes to purpose at least some point in their life, they feel frustrated and thwarted and depressed. And so the big question is how could it be both? And what I really came to the conclusion is purpose is not one thing but two. And one of those versions of purpose, what I call big P purpose, is more associated with anxiety while the other, what I call little p purpose, is probably more associated with that happiness, longevity, and health. And so I wrote this book to help people pursue that better version of purpose.”

On Purpose Anchors

“People think purpose is this big thing that either they find, it falls on them from the sky, or they don’t find it.And if they find it, life is great. And if they don’t find it, everything’s miserable. And I often argue that you don’t find purpose, you build purpose.  You have to have these inklings, these beckonings, these interests to start building a life of purpose around. I call those purpose anchors. And so really the first step is to  get in touch with what your purpose anchors are, so that you can then build a life of purpose around them.”

On Building Purpose

“The first step is to really get in touch with what your purpose anchors are so that you can then build a life of purpose around them. So there are lots of different ways to do this. There are a few that I really love – a big one is regret. So I deal with dying patients all the time, and they talk to me about their regrets. Regret in a dying patient is sad because they don’t have agency to do anything about it. But if you have regrets when you’re much younger, when you’re not on your deathbed, you can actually turn those around into a purpose anchor. For me, writing a book would have been a deathbed regret if I had never done it. And so I knew, Okay, I have to start building a life of purpose around that. That’s one of the easy ways – regrets. Another way is the joys of childhood. Look, almost all of us have things we loved as a child when we did things that were really purposeful, that we didn’t worry about what society says or what we were supposed to do for a living. We just did them because we enjoy them. And then we got older and we tend to drop those things not because we didn’t love them anymore. Usually we just got too busy. So the joys of childhood are a great way to find some purpose anchors. Another great way is what I call the artist subtraction. You can look at your job and get rid of everything you don’t like, what’s left. I did this with being a doctor. Hospice medicine was left when I got rid of everything I didn’t like. And so I knew that was a purpose anchor. And last but not least, I talk about the spaghetti method all the time. Look, throw a bunch of stuff against the wall, see what sticks. That means try things you don’t normally try. Hang out with people you don’t normally hang out with. People will say yes more often and see if you like any of it. ”

What mindset are bringing to this winter season? Kari Leibowitz joins us to discuss her book How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days with interesting and useful ideas on how to make this winter special. Yes, special.

Kari Leibowitz joins us from Amsterdam.

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Kari Leibowitz, author of How to Winter, is a health psychologist, speaker, and writer. She received her PhD in Social Psychology from Stanford University, served as a US-Norway Fulbright Scholar, and taught the “Mindsets Matter” Stanford Continuing Studies Course. Leibowitz combines scholarly expertise with practical strategies to help people understand and harness the power of their mindsets and find joy in winter. Her writing on the power of the wintertime mindset has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, and many other publications have reported on her work including The Guardian, The Financial Times, BBC, and The Telegraph. She has taught winter workshops to businesses, universities, non-profits, and organizations around the world.

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For More on Kari Leibowitz

How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days

Website

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Happier Hour – Cassie Holmes, PhD

Edit Your Life – Elisabeth Sharp McKetta

The Joy Choice – Dr. Michelle Segar

_________________________

About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how The Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one – on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host 

Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.5 million downloads. Business Insider has recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

Connect on LinkedIn

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Wise Quotes

On Slowing Down

“…it’s objectively true that winter is the darkest season, it’s the coldest season, it may be the wettest, windiest season, depending on where you live. But I think that there are so many opportunities in the cold and in the darkness. And I think one of the things that we can really appreciate is winter as a time of year when we get to slow down, and when it really can feel good to slow down. So I think a lot of people who struggle with winter are struggling with feeling the effects of the darkness on their energy with feeling more tired, or maybe less motivated or a little bit down. But when we see this not as a problem, but a natural response to a change in our environment, we can really embrace that as winter as a time for being cozy at home for reading that file of books on our nightstand or catching up on our TV shows or artistic pursuits, cooking and baking. So I think part of what we need to do to rehab winter’s PR image is to start appreciating the season for what it is and asking what feels good when it’s dark and cold out and how can we help people embrace and enjoy those activities for this time of year?”

On Mindset

“So a lot of listeners might be familiar with Carol Dweck’s work on the growth and fixed mindsets about intelligence, whether our intelligence is something sort of set or fixed about us or whether it can grow with effort. And another of my mentors at Stanford, Aliyah Crum, who runs the Stanford Mind and Body Lab, has really expanded on that work to look at mindsets in health and mindsets in performance and mindsets in wellbeing. And, I think it’s really easy to look at mindsets as something magical. I adopted this mindset that winter is wonderful and all of a sudden my life changes and the season changes and everything is sunshine and rainbows. But what I love about Carol’s work and my mentor, Aliyah Crum’s work, and really being a psychologist who studies mindset is that you can unpack of the mechanisms by which mindset influences our health and well-being. So our mindset influences things like our attention, what we notice. So when we make an effort to try to have a more positive mindset about winter, to see winter is full of opportunity, then rather than attending to every time we feel cold or having to shovel our driveway when it snows or how tired we feel when the sun sets earlier, we might attend to different things. We might attend to how beautiful the world looks in the snow or how the cold air can feel crisp and refreshing and sort of wake us up in the morning or you know make us feel more ready to come in and get cozy and get ready for bed at night. We might notice how the darkness is an opportunity to eat dinner by candlelight or have intimate conversations with family or friends. And so when we start thinking about cultivating a more positive wintertime mindset, it changes what we notice, which is then going to change what we’re motivated to do, how we interact with the world around us, which is going to change how we experience the season.”

On How to Winter

“What are the things that maybe I don’t have time for in other seasons or things that feel good in the darkness or in the cold. I would recommend leaning into those things and prioritizing them because when you have things that you look forward to doing that feel special to the winter they really help you reclaim the season. I think that doing this with just a little bit more intention and with a little bit more of an eye towards trying to embrace and celebrate the season can really change your experience of these winter months. The first step of cultivating one of these more positive mindsets is to just notice your mindset about winter and set that intention to start noticing things a little bit differently and trying to attend to the parts of winter that you find enjoyable.”

Happy New Year! What will make you happy this year? Our guest today, Stephanie Harrison, author of New Happy, believes that it’s time to retire the old beliefs about happiness. If you’re moving on from full-time work, you’ll want to hear her research-based ideas to reimagine what happiness will be like in this new phase of life – and how to move on from the “old happy.”

In addition to her book, I highly recommend her newsletter, and join over 1 million people who also love her work.

Stephanie Harrison joins us from California.

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Stephanie Harrison is author of New Happy: Getting Happiness Right in a World That’s Got It Wrong and the creator of the New Happy philosophy and an expert in the science of well-being. Her company, The New Happy, teaches millions of people around the world how to be happier every day.

She has a Masters Degree in positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, where she was later an instructor. Previously, she was the head of Learning at Thrive Global, where she directed the development of science-backed programs for well-being that reaches millions of employees at Fortune 500 companies around the world.

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For More on Stephanie Harrison

Read New Happy: Getting Happiness Right in a World That’s Got It Wrong 

The New Happy website

Sign up for the free weekly Newsletter

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Mentioned in This Episode

How To Become A Wiser Person

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Happier Hour – Cassie Holmes, PhD

Living Like You Mean It – Jodi Wellman

The Power of Fun – Catherine Price

The Good Life – Marc Schulz, PhD

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how The Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one – on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host 

Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.5 million downloads. Business Insider has recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

Connect on LinkedIn

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Wise Quotes 

The New Happy vs. Old Happy

“I now define happiness in a very different way than I did when I was younger…It’s the state of being connected to yourself, others, and the world around you. That’s how I would describe the experience of it. And then I define the pathway to getting that as having these two pillars of being who you are and then using who you are to help other people. So that, which I just said, is the New Happy. And then Old Happy is what society teaches us about happiness – what we need to do and achieve and become in order to experience that state of well-being that we’re all looking for. And Old Happy tells us that if we want to be happy, we have these three core tasks that we have to accomplish. We have to perfect ourselves, essentially optimize ourselves in every possible way. We have to achieve certain societally approved goals, things that are venerated or celebrated in our society. And three, we have to do everything alone. We are separate from other people and we have to do these things without leaning on them, without asking for help, without being a part of a community.”

On Retirement & Identity 

“…if your identity is entirely centred upon your workplace role and your title, then of course it feels incredibly destabilizing if that’s taken away. It’s like you’re trying to live in a house with the foundation ripped out. It’s not going to work very well. And I think that there are different things that you can do depending on what stage you’re in, whether you’re approaching retirement or already in a state of retirement. But if you’re already retired and you’re experiencing that loss of identity, what I would tell you is that you have so many wonderful, amazing gifts that just need a new location to be used. They don’t have to be used in the same way that they were before. So if you were working at a job and you had this amazing career and you developed all of these skills and talents, then that gives you something to use. And those things are very much needed in the world, in our communities, in nonprofits, in our families and all of these different environments. And so what I would say to you is separate yourself from the job, identify the skills that you now possess through all of that work, and then think about where could I use these? Where could I be of service and use these to support other people? And that’s going to help you to rediscover who you are, but also to bring you that sense of meaning that often disappears with retirement.”

On Purpose

“I think purpose is inextricably tied to happiness. I’m not sure that there’s a real experience of happiness that’s divorced from purpose. I say that because scientists often break up happiness into these two different dimensions. There’s hedonic happiness, which is essentially pleasure, feeling good and then there’s eudaimonic happiness, which is what I’m talking about. And that’s essentially  living at your fullest capacity and cultivating yourself in a way that contributes also to the world around you. And if you’re doing that, then you’ve inevitably found some sort of purpose in your life. And I think that the purpose is what gives us a much more stable experience of happiness.  Your purpose is something where it drives you every single day. It provides you with meaningful feedback and the opportunity to grow, and the chance to see how your efforts matter and make a difference. We can find purpose in our jobs, of course, but there are so many other venues that it can be found in as well, whether that’s through sharing your knowledge and your wisdom with people who are younger than you, who desperately need it, who are looking for these answers and don’t know where to find it.”

Thinking of retiring? Start here with our Best Books on Retirement summaries.

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Before we move on to a new season of the podcast, let’s catch up on our best conversations with a question in mind:

Which one of these retirement lessons can I apply in 2025?

Click the links below for the full conversations:

How Not to Age – Dr. Michael Greger

The Portfolio Life – Christina Wallace

The Balancing Act in Retirement – Stew Friedman

The Fourth Quarter – Allen Hunt

Living Like You Mean It – Jodi Wellman

Retiring: Creating a Life That Works for You – Teresa Amabile

Changing Lanes to Make a Difference – Jennifer Jacobs

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Other Best Of Episodes

Best of the Retirement Wisdom Podcast 2024 – Part 3

Best of 2023 – Part 3

The Very Best of 2022

The Best of 2021 – Retirement Wisdom

_______________________

About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how The Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one – on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host 

Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.5 million downloads. Business Insider has recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

Connect on LinkedIn

Make 2025 your year!

Free 2-part Workshop to build 3 new habits

January 3 and 10th  – 12 Noon Eastern – 1 hour via Zoom

Sign Up here

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While we focus on the non-financial aspects of retirement here, your money clearly matters. With a new year around the corner we check back in with economist Larry Kotlikoff, author of Money Magic: An Economist’s Secrets to More Money,Less Risk and a Better Life, for his views on what may lie ahead, common mistakes to avoid with Social Security, how you can Maximize (Your) Social Security, why Roth IRA conversions make sense for many people and his retirement planning software MaxiFi.

Larry Kotlikoff joins us from Rhode Island.

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Bio

Laurence J. Kotlikoff is a William Fairfield Warren Professor at Boston University, a Professor of Economics at Boston University, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, President of Economic Security Planning, Inc., a company specializing in financial planning software, a Research Associate of the Gaidar Institute, and a Research Fellow of the Goodman Institute. Kotlikoff is also a New York Times Best Selling author. The Economist Magazine ranked Kotlikoff one of the world’s 25 most influential economists.

Professor Kotlikoff received his B.A. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1973 and his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1977. From 1977 through 1983, Kotlikoff served on the faculties of economics of the University of California, Los Angeles and Yale University. In 1981-82 Professor Kotlikoff was a Senior Economist with the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. Professor Kotlikoff’s writings and research address personal finance, inequality, taxation, Social Security, climate change, investing, healthcare, deficits, and insurance.

Professor Kotlikoff is author or co-author of 20 books, hundreds of professional journal articles, and a multitude of op eds and blogs. His most recent books are Money Magic: An Economist’s Secrets to More Money,Less Risk and a Better Life, You’re Hired, Get What’s Yours – the Revised Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security (a NY Times Best Seller co-authored with Philip Moeller and Paul Solman), The Clash of Generations (co-authored with Scott Burns), The Economic Consequences of the Vickers Commission, Jimmy Stewart Is Dead, Spend ‘Til the End, (co-authored with Scott Burns), Generational Policy (MIT Press), The Healthcare Fix, and The Coming Generational Storm (co-authored with Scott Burns). Kotlikoff’s columns have appeared in The NY Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Hill, The Financial Times, The Times of London, Forbes, CBNC, Bloomberg, PBS NewsHour, The Dallas News, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the Seattle Times, Vox, Fortune, Seeking Alpha, Yahoo.com, VoxEU, Huffington Post, and other leading media.

Kotlikoff has served as a consultant to the Federal Reserve, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Harvard Institute for International Development, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Swedish Ministry of Finance, the Norwegian Ministry of Finance, the Bank of Italy, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, the Government of Russia, the Government of Ukraine, the Government of Bolivia, the Government of Bulgaria, the Treasury of New Zealand, the Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Labor, the Joint Committee on Taxation, The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, The American Council of Life Insurance, Merrill Lynch, Fidelity Investments, AT&T, AON Corp., and other major U.S. corporations. Kotlikoff has provided expert testimony on numerous occasions to committees of Congress including the Senate Finance Committee, the Senate Budget Committee, the House Ways and Means Committee, and the Joint Economic Committee.  Kotlikoff’s company markets economics-based financial planning software, including maxifiplanner.com, maximizemysocialssecurity.com, and analyzemydivorcesettlement.com.

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For More on Laurence J. Kotlikoff

MaxiFi financial planning software

Maximize My Social Security,

Money Magic: An Economist’s Secrets to More Money,Less Risk, and a Better Life

Website: Kotlikoff.net

Follow on Twitter @Kotlikoff

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

The Retirement Savings Time Bomb – Ed Slott

An Economist’s Take on Retirement Planning – Larry Kotlikoff

The Key Decisions for Retirement Success – Wade Pfau

_____________________________

About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how The Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one – on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host 

Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.5 million downloads. Business Insider has recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

Connect on LinkedIn

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Wise Quotes

On Social Security Mistakes

“Well, almost everybody’s taking Social Security as soon as they can, or as soon as soon as they retire. And so we’re talking about probably 90% of people taking it before 65 or at 65. And that’s for almost everybody way too early. So we have, and when we’re talking about the typical American household leaving $182,000 on the table by taking the wrong benefits at the wrong time. And so going too early, not knowing about all the benefits that they have available, not running optimization software. I have a software company that has a $49 tool, which is called Maximize My Social Security, which for 49 bucks, you can figure out what to do in terms of raising your lifetime benefits. And it can be, for some people, we’ve raised their benefits with our tool, just that alone by $600,000. If you talk about a high earning couple, both of whom want to take benefits, retire at 62 and take benefits at 62. Well, rather than 70, when their benefit would start 76% higher adjusted for inflation. This is like the dumbest thing in the world. If you’re cashflow constrained, you should borrow steal or beg from your brother to give you money to get by to let, and then pay them back when you get this much higher benefit because it’s fantastic return to patients. And a lot of people are doing this because they’re being focused. by the financial industry by Wall Street on life expectancy. Hey, your life expectancy is only this, you better take your money because if you don’t take it, you’re going to lose it. So if you don’t take your Social Security at 62 and you die at 63, where are you going to be? You’re going to be in heaven, right? And you’re not going to need any money. So the idea that you’re going to lose it, well, you’re not going to lose it, okay? What you’re really going to lose is the insurance protection. When you’re 98 and you’ve lived that long and you’ve had to pay for yourself that whole way, not having a 76% higher number every month coming in to your bank account. So Social Security is longevity insurance. And if social security, which is our largest insurance company in the world, would take off all these life expectancy calculators on its website and it’s like having a health. It’s like having a homeowners insurance company putting onto their website a calculator that says what your expected loss from a fire is. And they’ll show everybody that it’s not that big and not that many fires. So therefore don’t buy full coverage. Let your house burn down and because it’s not going to happen on that often. Yeah, but you only have one house, right? You only have one life. You’re not going to die on time. Nobody dies on time. You can’t count on dying on time. So you have and then you also have people with this psychology that if they think about living to 100, they’re going to die the next morning, if they’re going to jinx themselves. Well, OK, but they do think about their house burning down and they ensure against it, right? It doesn’t it doesn’t lead to their house burning down, but and that’s money well lost if your house doesn’t burn down, right having paid that premium.”

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The views and opinions expressed by guests on The Retirement Wisdom Podcast are solely those of the guests and do not reflect the opinion of the host or Retirement Wisdom, LLC. The Retirement Wisdom Podcast primarily covers the non-financial aspects of retirement. From time to time we may invite guests who discuss other aspects of retirement planning, solely for educational purposes. Listeners are advised to consult qualified financial and/or medical professionals on those matters.