The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

Part Two is here

What does it mean to grandparent on purpose? For Richard and Linda Eyre, the answer has been decades in the making. The bestselling authors of Teaching Your Children Values have evolved with their family, from nine children to 34 grandchildren, and along the way have developed a philosophy of proactive grandparenting that mirrors what good leadership looks like at any stage of life. In this 1st of 2 conversations about Richard Eyre’s new book, The Grandparenting Blueprint:How to Teach Your Grandchildren Life’s Most Important Lessons, we discuss:

Linda brings warmth, insights and creativity to the grandmothering side of the equation, such as music, art, storytelling, and the precious one-on-one moments that reveal what grandchildren are really thinking. Richard brings his Harvard MBA mindset (and toolkit) to the legacy-building and structured side of grandparenting, including how to give financial help without creating entitlement.

This episode is a masterclass on how to cultivate meaningful relationships with intention. It’s a powerful reminder that grandparenting, like retirement itself, is far too important to leave to chance.

Linda and Richard Eyre join us from Utah.

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For More on Linda & Richard Eyre

The Grandparenting Blueprint:How to Teach Your Grandchildren Life’s Most Important Lessons (Amazon)

Also available from the publisher at the author’s price (40% off)

Use the coupon code EYREFRIEND at checkout

Website

Grandmothering: The Secrets to Making a Difference While Having the Time of Your Life – by Linda Eyre

Online Grandparenting 101 Course

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Bio

Richard and Linda Eyre are among the most popular speakers in the world on parenting and families. Their clients and audiences range from The Young President’s Organization (YPO) and major corporations and associations to a wide array of school, civic, church and community groups. They find it remarkable and gratifying that in every one of the 50+ countries where they have presented, parents have similar hopes, dreams and worries about their children regardless of economic, religious, geographic, and cultural differences.

The Eyres are authors of more than 50 books, most of which deal with work/family balance and parenting, and one of which, Teaching Your Children Values, became the only parenting book in more than fifty years  to reach #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. In addition to their ongoing work with parents, their latest books are about grandparenting and “Life in Full” for Baby Boomers.

Richard and Linda have been frequent guests on national network shows including Oprah, The Today Show, Prime Time Live, 60 Minutes, and Good Morning America; and they once did regular segments on the CBS Early Show. Their parenting website, ValuesParenting.com, provides ideas, guidance and creative programs for families throughout the world.

But their most important production is their nine children (“one of every kind”) who, through the years, have helped formulate their ideas for books and speeches. The second generation Eyres and their spouses are an impressive bunch, all with university degrees from the likes of Wellesley, Harvard, Columbia, M.I.T., Stanford, and BYU and all having interrupted their university education to spend up to two years living abroad, studying, doing missionary work and providing humanitarian service. They are also doing their part to expand the importance of family through their own speaking, books, blogs, and websites, and they have presented Richard and Linda with 34 grandchildren.

Beyond their speaking engagements, the Eyre’s favorite travel projects are humanitarian expeditions to places like Ethiopia, Kenya, Bolivia, India, Romania and Mexico, and the family’s Eyrealm Foundation focuses on assisting and strengthening third world families.

Richard is a Harvard MBA, president of his own management consulting company (which worked with national political candidates and locally ran campaigns to build Symphony Hall, restore the Capitol Theater, expand the Salt Palace, extend the Central Utah Project and save the Hogle Zoo) and a nationally ranked senior tennis player. He was a mission president for his church in London and a former director of the White House Conference on Parents and Children as well as a candidate for Utah Governor. Linda is a teacher, musician, and co-founder of International JoySchools.com, an in-home, do-it-yourself co-op and program for teaching preschoolers the joys of life. Both Richard and Linda have served on numerous arts, university, and non-profit boards and do a radio show/podcast at BYUradio called Eyres on the Road that is now in its 14th annual season.

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Retirement Podcast Conversations You May Love

Grandparents’ Day – Kerry Byrne & Ted Page

The Mindful Grandparent – Dr. Shirley Showalter

The Art of Relationships with Adult Children – Francine Toder, PhD

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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 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 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 2 million downloads. Business Insider 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.

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Wise Quotes

On The Grandparent’s Blueprint

“Linda does it by group. So she’ll have her preschool group and then she’ll have her elementary age group and they all get their turn at the Grammy camp. And I’m sitting there, Joe, like, what am I? I mean, what am I doing? This fabulous Grammy is doing all these things with all these kids and I’m just sort of an observer.  And that’s really what led to this new book about these grandfather’s secrets. I thought, well, I want to leave a legacy. There’s certain life lessons I think I’ve learned as a management consultant and all the other things I’ve done in my life. And I want to  somehow condense those concepts into something simple enough that children can understand them. That’s my legacy.”

– Richard Eyre

—

On Listening 

“We just recently met with three of our granddaughters. They’re all in university. And so we went down there to meet with them and for breakfast. And it was so fun.  We call them the babes because we have these little separate groups and these are the babes. And it was so fun to be with them. But in one breakfast, we learned more about their life than we could have imagined. And what were the three things you asked? We just said, Look, we just said, while we’re having breakfast, we just want to hear your story. We want to hear your recent story. And they just got going on telling us things. And I thought, if we’d been too specific with our questions, we would have missed part of what they said.  We love to tell stories to grad kids, but what’s really great is having them tell you their story. We’ve found that if we, it sounds funny, but if we pull out a pad or a pen and take a few notes on what they’re saying, they realize we really are paying attention. We really want to know. And they tell their story and they know it’s safe with us.we we know more about them than we would have if we just spent a big family reunion and everybody because we had some one-on-one and not only that we had one-on-ones with little kids.”

– Linda Eyre

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On Lecturing

“But the failure is the lecturing and the other failure I want to mention and I’ve made this more than Linda. Linda is way more sensitive.  I have failed in the sense that I’ve said to some of my own sons or daughters, I think you need to do a little better with this child on such and such. In other words, giving advice that’s unsolicited on parenting to your own children is almost always a mistake. It is. And we found another interesting thing. At one reunion, we did a survey, we had a survey to our adult kids and ask them, you know, do you feel like we’re too involved and not involved enough? Would you like more? Would you like less and all that. And we just saw everybody would just love everything we’ve done.  And then we got a couple of responses like, oops, we have not been very sensitive about this. He comes from a different family with a different mindset. And you really have to be so careful. So we learned so much from that. We backed off, we learned how to ask before we did things and not just blunder into it.”

– Richard Eyre

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Watch out for Part Two coming on Thursday on The Secrets section of The Grandparenting Blueprint

The wellness industry has a problem, and Ezekiel Emanuel is one of the few people willing to call it out. In his new book, Eat Your Ice Cream: A Contrarian’s Guide to Living Longer, Healthier, and Happier, the bioethicist, oncologist, and former White House health advisor challenges both the influencers selling unproven supplements and the culture of wellness-as-self-punishment.

In this episode, Emanuel makes a compelling research-backed case that the single most powerful determinant of health, longevity, and happiness is social connection, not sleep scores, protein intake, or VO2 max. Drawing on the Harvard Adult Development Study, the longitudinal study, going strong after 88 years, and other research worldwide, he explains why loneliness is biologically dangerous, and why doctors almost never ask about it.

He also makes important points about retirement. When 40 hours of purposeful work becomes 40 hours of passive television, the brain pays a price. Emanuel argues that retirement requires deliberate design to replace the cognitive challenge, social contact, and structured schedule that work once provided. And he offers Ben Franklin, inventor of bifocals at 79, and still inventing at 81, as a model for what staying fully alive in later life actually looks like.

Ezekiel Emanuel joins us from Washington, DC.

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Eat Your Ice Cream: A Contrarian’s Guide to Living Longer, Healthier, and Happier

Website

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Bio

Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, is the Vice Provost for Global Initiatives and the Diane v.S. Levy and Robert M. Levy University Professor.

An oncologist and world leader in health policy and bioethics, he is a Special Advisor to the Director General of the World Health Organization, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, and member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He was the founding chair of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health and held that position until August 2011. From 2009 to 2011, he served as a Special Advisor on Health Policy to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and National Economic Council. In this role, he was instrumental in drafting the Affordable Care Act.

Dr. Emanuel is the most widely cited bioethicist in history. He has over 350 publications and has authored or edited 15 books. His recent publications include Which Country Has the World’s Best Health Care (2020), Prescription for the Future (2017), Reinventing American Health Care: How the Affordable Care Act Will Improve our Terribly Complex, Blatantly Unjust, Outrageously Expensive, Grossly Inefficient, Error Prone System (2014) and Brothers Emanuel: A Memoir of an American Family (2013). In 2008, he published Healthcare, Guaranteed: A Simple, Secure Solution for America, which included his own recommendations for health care reform.Dr. Emanuel regularly contributes to The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic and often appears on BBC, NPR, CNN, MS NOW and other media outlets.

He has received numerous awards, including election to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Science and awards from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Association of American Physicians, and the Royal College of Medicine (UK). He has been named a Dan David Prize Laureate in Bioethics and is a recipient of the AMA-Burroughs Wellcome Leadership Award, the Public Service Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation David E. Rogers Award, the President’s Medal for Social Justice from Roosevelt University, and the John Mendelsohn Award from the MD Anderson Cancer Center, as well as honorary degrees from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Union Graduate College, the Medical College of Wisconsin, and Macalester College.

Dr. Emanuel is a graduate of Amherst College. He holds a M.Sc. from Oxford University in Biochemistry and received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and a Ph.D. in political philosophy from Harvard University.

The Good Life – Marc Schulz, PhD

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

How Not to Age – Dr. Michael Greger

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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 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 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 2 million downloads. Business Insider 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.

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Wise Quotes

On Wellness

“Wellness should be about joie de vivre — about joy in life. It should not be only self-deprivation…Most of wellness is about don’t do stupid stuff — and most of it, we already know.”

On Retirement

“Most people when 40 hours of work drops out, 40 hours of TV comes in. Very passive. Not very intellectually challenging. That’s not retirement — that’s a slow decline…We don’t spend nearly enough time thinking about the brain part of retirement. Your brain is probably more important than your money.”

On Willpower vs. Habits

“If you have to use your willpower every time you do something, you can forget it. You have to make the wellness activity part of your habit. Doing it three to four times a week for about six weeks, that’s about what you need for a new activity to become ingrained.”

What if cognitive decline in your 60s, 70s, and 80s is not inevitable — but largely a function of choices you’re making right now? What can you do to stay sharp in retirement?

Dr. Majid Fotuhi is a neurologist, who teaches at Johns Hopkins University, and the author of The Invincible Brain: The Clinically Proven Plan to Age-Proof Your Brain and Stay Sharp for Life. He has spent decades studying the most malleable structure in the human brain, the hippocampus, and what he’s found challenges almost everything most people believe about aging and the mind.  The brain can grow. New neurons can form at any age. The most powerful predictor of late-life cognitive health is not your genes — it’s your daily habits.

And retirement, done the traditional way, is one of the most reliable accelerants of cognitive decline that exists.  In this episode, Dr. Fotuhi walks us through his Five Pillars of Brain Health, the science of neuroplasticity, and what the research says about exercise, sleep, stress, nutrition, and brain training. He also shares one of the most remarkable patient stories of his career including a woman who arrived at his clinic in a wheelchair, seemingly destined for a nursing home, and left 12 weeks later looking for a new job.  If there’s one conversation that makes the case for designing an active, engaged, and cognitively rich retirement life, this is it.

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Bio

Dr. Majid Fotuhi is a neurologist and neuroscientist who has spent more than three decades studying memory, aging, and Alzheimer’s disease. He trained at Harvard Medical School and Johns Hopkins University, where he later served on the faculty and taught neuroscience to students and physicians.

Over the course of his career, Dr. Fotuhi has evaluated thousands of patients with memory concerns and has researched how lifestyle, medical health, and brain biology interact. His work focuses on a central question: why do some people remain mentally sharp into their 80s and 90s while others develop cognitive decline?

To answer this, he developed a practical brain-health program that integrates exercise, nutrition, sleep, stress management, and cognitive training. His research and clinical experience led him to write The Invincible Brain, a guide designed to help readers strengthen memory, improve focus, and reduce their risk of dementia by building what he calls “brain reserve.”

Dr. Fotuhi is also the founder of NeuroGrow Brain Fitness Center and frequently lectures to physicians, corporations, and community groups about preserving cognitive vitality across the lifespan. His goal is to shift the public conversation about aging—from fear of Alzheimer’s disease to proactive brain health.

He lives in the Washington, DC area with his family and continues to teach, write, and develop educational programs that empower people to take an active role in protecting their brains.

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For More on Majid Fotuhi

The Invincible Brain: The Clinically Proven Plan to Age-Proof Your Brain and Stay Sharp for Life

NeuroGrow Brain Fitness Center

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Retirement Podcast Conversations You May Also Love

Make Your Next Years Your Best Years – Harry Agress, MD

Why Brains Need Friends – Ben Rein

Breaking the Age Code – Dr. Becca Levy

Why We Remember – Charan Ranganath

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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 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 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 2 million downloads. Business Insider 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.

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Wise Quotes

On Retirement and Your Brain

“The idea that you retire and now you relax, you sit by the pool and just do crossword puzzles, is not a good idea. I view retirement as a new childhood. I think that as I’m in my 60s now, it’s like a new world. You can choose how busy you will be by the decisions you make. A mistake that people commonly make about retirement is to think that they just need to have enough money. What they don’t realize is the cognitive reserve — that’s the most important factor. Your brain is your biggest asset. And the good news is that you can keep on growing your brain reserve in your 70s and 80s.

On Lifestyle vs. Genetics

“Genetics play a strong role for early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. However, the most common form — late-onset Alzheimer’s disease — has a small genetic component. If you have a grandmother or parents who developed Alzheimer’s in their 80s, your risk may go from 2% to 4%. However, if you have poor lifestyle choices — diabetes, obesity, sedentary lifestyle, too much stress, lack of brain activity — your risk is 16-fold higher. Your 2% chance becomes a 32% chance. In summary, your lifestyle choices have a much stronger role in your cognitive function in late life than genetics do for late-life Alzheimer’s disease.”

On the Power of Narrative

“So much of what happens to our brain depends on the narrative that we have in our head about how things should happen. If you think you’re going to decline as you go into your sixties and seventies, you will. But if you have the narrative that, hey, I may be forgetting names a bit more often, but look at all the things I’m doing, look at how I’m impacting my community — there are two different narratives. If you have the negative narrative, you will get there. If you have a positive narrative, you will continue on that path.”

On Exercise 

“Exercise is really the fountain of youth. I know people talk about it figuratively, but it really is the fountain of youth. If you could bottle the benefits of exercise and give it to people as medicine, it would reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease literally — not just indirectly, directly. Walking 10,000 steps a day reduces your risk of Alzheimer’s disease by 50%. Dozens of studies have shown that. Physical movement should be a priority — the number one priority. You don’t have to do a marathon or a triathlon in order to see the benefits. Walking 3,000 to 5,000 steps a day reduces the footprints of Alzheimer’s disease in the brain.”

On Sleep

“Sleep is not a passive process — it’s not like you’re just lying in bed doing nothing. During sleep, a lot of cleaning and rinsing happens in the brain, and your memories are being consolidated. The things that go on during deep sleep at night are similar to all the garbage collection that happens at night in New York City. Imagine if the garbage collection doesn’t happen for a month — it would be a disaster. When people cut down on their sleep, the brain is not as clean and crisp as it would be otherwise. Your neurons are very sensitive, fragile cells. When they don’t work, your brain doesn’t work, your cognitive abilities, your mood, your experience of daily life — the joy you would have otherwise is not there. Sleep is critically important for brain maintenance.”

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The views and opinions expressed by guests on The Retirement Wisdom Podcast are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of the host or Retirement Wisdom, LLC. The Retirement Wisdom Podcast 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.

Retirement triggers one of the most profound re-evaluations many people will ever face. A career ends. Structure disappears. Identity shifts. And suddenly a question that could be put off — What do I really want out of life? — becomes more urgent and unavoidable. Valerie Tiberius has spent her career building a useful framework for exactly that question. Her insights offer you something much more valuable than advice on life from your Financial Advisor – a way of thinking about your values, goals, and well-being in one of the most important transitions of your lifetime.

Valerie Tiberius joins us from Minnesota.

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Bio

Valerie Tiberius is the author of What Do You Want Out of Life? A Philosophical Guide to Figuring Out What Matters (Princeton University Press, 2023). She is the Paul W. Frenzel Chair in Liberal Arts and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota, where she has taught since 1998. Her work sits at the crossroads of philosophy and psychology — specifically, how both disciplines illuminate what it means to live well. She is the author of four additional  books, including The Reflective Life: Living Wisely with Our Limits, Well-Being as Value Fulfillment, and her widely acclaimed ). Her newest book, Artificially Yours: Real Friendship in a World of Chatbots, is forthcoming from Princeton University Press in May 2026. Valerie has received grants from the Templeton Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and her ideas have reached audiences through MPR News, numerous podcasts, and speaking engagements worldwide.

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For More on Valerie Tiberius

What Do You Want Out of Life? A Philosophical Guide to Figuring Out What Matters

Artificially Yours: Real Friendship in a World of Chatbots (availabkle for pre-order – coming in May)

Website

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Mentioned in This Episode

Why you should swap your bucket list with a chuck-it list

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Retirement Podcast Conversations You May Like

The Art of the Interesting – Lorraine Besser, PhD

The Good Life – Marc Schulz, PhD

Living for Pleasure – Emily Austin, PhD

Life in Three Dimensions – Dr. Shige Oishi

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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 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 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider 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.

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Wise Quotes

On Values and Alignnment

“I think living in accordance with your values, living up to your values, doing the things you value, that just is what it is to live a good life. So the good life is the life in which you fulfill the best values for you… Life goes well to the extent that we pursue and fulfill our appropriate values over time — not the values society assigns us, but the ones that are emotionally authentic, reflectively endorsed, and capable of being sustained together.”

On Hidden Goals

“If you don’t acknowledge [a hidden goal] and it’s there, it will come up and haunt you at some point. It will come and hit you in the face.”

On Adding a Chuck It List to Your Bucket List

“Sometimes you have to give yourself permission to say, I’m never going to do that. I’m just not going to do it. And for my dad, it was learning Spanish. He really thought an educated person – my father has a PhD, he’s very educated – an educated person knows a foreign language. And then at some point in his 70s, he was like, it’s not happening now. I got better things to do.  And he does have other things to do. So I think the Chuck-it list is important for the specific goals we have. And sometimes there’s a whole big value that needs to be chucked. If your capacities change, there are things you just can’t do anymore.”

On Listening to Your Emotions

“I really think it’s worth spending some time reflecting on what matters to you and thinking about whether you’re tracking it – because I think people have a tendency to get caught up in trivial crap that doesn’t really matter. And then the second part is I think that, although I’m recommending being reflective and thinking about these things, that process has to be informed by our emotions. So you can’t just sit and think about what you believe. You also have to listen to your body, they would say if you were in a yoga class. But there’s something to that. Listen to what your emotions and motivations are yelling at you from the bullpen.”

Friendship is one of the most powerful forces shaping our lives—and our health. Friendships become harder to maintain as life evolves, especially during major transitions like retirement. Losing work friends is normal, yet few realize how new connections can be cultivated. Our guest today highlights why identity shifts can, perhaps counterintuitively, create oppotunities to build new friendships.

My guest today is Janice McCabe, is a sociologist at Dartmouth and author of Making, Keeping, and Losing Friends. Her research, mainly on college campuses, illuminates key principles of forming friendships like the hidden structures that shape our friendships.

In this conversation, we explore how anyone—at any stage of life—can become more intentional about building meaningful connections.

If you’re approaching retirement or navigating a major life transition, understanding these patterns can help you design a richer and more connected life.

Janice McCabe joins us from New Hampshire.

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Bio

Janice M. McCabe is associate professor of sociology at Dartmouth College and the Allen House Professor. She is the current president of the Sociology of Education Association and the author of Making, Keeping, and Losing Friends and Connecting in College: How Networks Matter for Academic and Social Success.

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For More on Janice McCabe

Website

Books

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Mentioned in This Retirement Podcast Conversation

I Study Friendship. Here’s How You Make Lasting Friends.

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Retirement Podcast Conversations You May Like

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

Our New Social Life – Natalie Kerr & Jaime Kurtz

The Good Life – Marc Schulz, PhD

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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 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 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider 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.

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Wise Quotes

On Life Changes & Friendships

” We’re changing and we’re growing throughout our lives, and there may be times that we change with our friends, and so our identities, our interests change in similar ways, or we’re able to keep some sort of connection through those transitions. But it can be harder for people who are now retired. They likely have friendships that, started earlier in life, and you may have similar transitions with having kids at the same time, or living in the same area or in different areas throughout your lives. So all of those things, some of which are structural. When you’re having those life transitions, sometimes we feel like a friendship is really important to us, but then someone changes jobs, or someone moves, and we may realize that that connection was either more or less important than we thought, just because we took it for granted when it was easy.”

On Prioritizing Friendships

“I interviewed a lot of people in the course of my research and the people that were able to both make and keep particularly meaningful friends, one thing was that they were intentional about is making time for friends. Also being reflective about which friends are most meaningful to you,who are you really excited to see, excited to talk to, excited to do things about and making sure that you’re reaching out to them. That not always, just up to your paths crossing or them reaching out to you, but thinking through, what people do I especially want to prioritize is part of it.  Another thing that I saw people do is that is just making time for friendship in general. We typically have goals for our work lives, we may have goals for our family lives, but I’d say most of us don’t have goals for our friendship lives. But having that would help us see that as another really valuable part of life. And so not just letting friendship fill the cracks of like our extra time, but really going out of the way to make sure that we are prioritizing friendship in our lives, making time for friends.”

On Friends & Health – and Being a Good Friend

“A lot of research has shown that our friendships help us live longer. It’s actually more important to have connections than to not smoke, not be obese, the things that we look at as healthy behaviors. Having friends are equally, if not more, important from other people’s research, epidemiologically, that have looked at those factors. So making sure that you invest in friendships is really important.  And I think we can get so busy going through life that we don’t slow down to take stock of our friendships and just see who’s there. And, not just do I have good friends, but am I being a good friend also? Because friendship is a reciprocal relationship. Friendship isn’t just a one time event. It’s not just that you make friends and Oh, I’m done. Instead, you constantly are making new friends and thinking through those factors that I was mentioning; who’s important, what am I getting from my friends? What am I missing? And not assuming that either our partner, our romantic partner, or one friend will meet all of our needs.”

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Get started in April on your most important project. Learn more here

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Retirement planning focuses heavily on finances — investments, Social Security, and risks.

But there’s another question that often sneaks up on people once the career chapter closes:

Do I still matter?

Our guest today has spent years researching one of the most powerful psychological needs we have as human beings — the need to feel valued and to add value.

Jennifer Breheny Wallace is an award-winning journalist and author of the new book Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose. Her work explores how feeling significant, appreciated, invested in, and depended on shapes our well-being throughout life.

And her insights have important implications for retirement. Because when work ends, many people lose one of the primary places where they knew they mattered — where their contributions were visible, valued, and relied upon.

In this conversation, we explore:

       • Why the need to matter doesn’t diminish with age
       • How retirees can build what Jennifer calls a “mattering portfolio”
       • The surprising research on relationships and resilience
       • Practical daily actions that restore a sense of meaning and contribution

If you’re thinking about retirement — or already there — this conversation may change how you think about purpose, connection, and belonging in the next chapter.

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Bio

Jennifer Breheny Wallace is the author of Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose.  She is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author whose work explores the power of mattering in our everyday lives. Through research and storytelling, Wallace examines the hidden forces shaping modern life, from the crisis of meaning in achievement culture to the essential role of mattering in personal, workplace, and societal health.  Her first book, Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic — And What We Can Do About It, was a New York Times Bestseller, an Amazon Best Book of the Year, and a Next Big Idea selection.

Wallace is the founder of The Mattering Institute, whose mission is to create cultures of mattering in workplaces and communities, and co-founder of The Mattering Movement, a nonprofit whose mission is to create cultures of mattering in K-12 schools. Wallace has partnered with The LEGO Group on its global Play Unstoppable campaign to address perfectionism and grow confidence through play. She has also consulted with Calm wellness app, Netflix, and is a BCG  BrightHouse Luminary.

She serves on the University of Michigan’s Well-being Collective Advisory Council, and the Advisory Board for Making Caring Common, a project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Wallace is a Journalism Fellow at The Center for Parent and Teen Communication at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

After graduating from Harvard College, Wallace was a journalist for CBS “60 Minutes” and was part of the team that won The Robert F. Kennedy Awards for Excellence in Journalism. She is a contributor to The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post and frequently appears on national television programs to discuss her work. Wallace serves on the board of the Coalition for the Homeless in New York City, where she lives with her husband and their three children.

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For More on Jennifer Breheny Wallace

Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose by Jennifer Breheny Wallace

Website

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Mentioned in This Retirement Podcast 

The Retirement Crisis No One Warns You About: Mattering – The Wall Street Journal

Video: Taylor Mali (What Do You Make?)

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Your choices shaped your career.

But when retirement approaches, a new design challenge appears.

Not a financial one. A life design challenge.

What will your days look like? What will energize you?  What might the next five years become?

In the Designing Your New Life in Retirement program, you’ll step back from the fray and apply design thinking to those questions, with a bias for action.

Learn more here.

Our next two groups begin in April.

Join us and get started on your most important project.

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Podcast Conversations You May Like

What Matters Most – Diane Button

How to Live a Meaningful Life – Dave Evans

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

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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 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 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider 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.

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Wise Quotes

On Adding Value

“I found this very common thread among the hundreds of people that I interviewed who, when they were going through a life transition—if it was retirement or grief, getting divorced, all these things—what they did over and over again was that they found new ways to add value. And so they would look for what I call in the book a genuine need in the world. And then they would use either their time or their talents or their treasure to meet those needs. It’s kind of a handy formula for finding purpose.”

On Your Mattering Portfolio

“Plan your retirement social portfolio—your mattering portfolio—as carefully as you plan your financial portfolio…You are only one decision, one action away from getting back on that path to mattering.”

Discern what you’ll retire to.

Join our group program starting in April.

Learn more here

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What if the secret to happiness isn’t success or achievement — but simply feeling loved?

In this episode, one of the world’s top researchers on happiness and well-being Sonja Lyubomirsky explains why connection, curiosity, and listening may be the most powerful ingredients for a fulfilling life — and a meaningful retirement.

Her new book, co-authored with relationship scientist Dr. Harry Reis, is How to Feel Loved: The Five Mindsets That Get You More of What Matters Most —and it offers a surprising and practical roadmap for getting there. Key insights? When you want to feel more loved, don’t try to make yourself more lovable. Don’t try to change the other person. Instead, change the conversation. Go first. Make them feel loved—and watch what happens next.

This conversation is full of wisdom for anyone planning for or navigating retirement—a life stage where relationships become the center of your world. Dr. Lyubomirsky talks about the vulnerability paradox, the three magic words everyone wants to hear, why older people are actually happier than younger ones, and what really matters when you’re designing a life worth living.

Sonja Lyubomirsky joins us from Santa Monica, California.

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Bio

Sonja Lyubomirsky (AB Harvard, summa cum laude; PhD Stanford) is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside and author of the best-selling The How of Happiness and The Myths of Happiness (published in 39 countries). Lyubomirsky’s research—on the possibility of lastingly increasing happiness via gratitude, kindness, and connection interventions—have been the recipients of many grants and honors, including Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Basel, the Diener Award for Outstanding Midcareer Contributions in Personality Psychology, the Christopher Peterson Gold Medal, a Positive Psychology Prize, and the Faculty of the Year Award (twice). She has four kids, ages 12 to 26, and lives in Santa Monica, California.

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For More on Sonja Lyubomirsky

How to Feel Loved: The Five Mindsets That Get You More of What Matters Most

Website 

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Retirement Podcast Conversations You May Like

How to Live a Meaningful Life – Dave Evans

Retire Happy – Dr. Catherine Sanderson

The Good Life – Marc Schulz, PhD

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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 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 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider 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.

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Wise Quotes

On Love & Happiness

“The key to happiness is feeling connected and loved. The secret to feeling loved is really feeling known.”

On Going First

“When we want to feel more loved, we often try to make ourselves more lovable. But the research suggests something different — we need to start by making the other person feel loved. A relationship is really a series of conversations. Changing the conversation can change the relationship. When you think about a relationship is a series of conversations. And so during your next conversation, the first step is actually to try to make the other person feel more loved. And so we talk about, you know, showing curiosity in the other person and really listening to them and helping them open up, you know, because the secret to feeling loved is really feeling known. You know, you can’t really feel loved by someone else if they don’t know you, right?  If you don’t really know me, I can’t feel loved by you because I’ll always wonder would he still love me if he knew me? If you could see what was sort of behind those walls. It’s a little bit counterintuitive, right? If you want to feel more loved, you want to go first and make the other person feel more loved.”

On Vulnerability

“I’m not going to feel loved by you just if you’re admiring me. And so that’s where sort of we go wrong where like, it turns out that actually being a little vulnerable and showing more of our kind of real selves, not really real selves, it’s all real, you know, but you know, kind of showing more of our full selves, what’s beneath those walls. That’s actually what forges a connection. So that kind of, in fact, I think it’s called the vulnerability paradox. Like we think people won’t like us if we show a little bit vulnerability or weakness even, but actually people will like us more. Now, if it has to be done at the right pace and at the right time for the right person, right, you have to really read the room so you don’t just like dump your traumas or your weaknesses right away on another person. That’s not, that’s not going to work either.”

What’s next?

Don’t drift. Design.

Our next small group coaching program starts in April.

Learn more here.

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Most retirement planning conversations start and end with money. Rod Yancy, founder of Oath Planning, challenges that assumption head-on — arguing that mindset, emotional health, and identity matter more than any portfolio balance when it comes to actually thriving in retirement. In this conversation, Rod shares data from Oath’s latest client survey, their Q1 2026 Money and Meaning Institute survey of over 500 retirees and near-retirees, and some the findings may surprise you. For example, the biggest regrets aren’t about money. The financial advisory industry is structurally incentivized to keep money at the center of retirement planning — even when that leaves clients less than fully prepared for what they’ll face in planning for life in retirement. He offers a candid, practitioner-level view of what he actually sees working (and failing) in retirement transitions.

Rod Yancy joins us from Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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Rod Yancy is a multifaceted entrepreneur, writer, attorney, and leader. His personal mission to empower others to live their lives to the fullest is woven into both his business ventures and creative projects.

After graduating from the University of Oklahoma in 2002 with a double major in philosophy and political science, Rod made adventure his top priority, traveling in search of new experiences, inspiration, and deeper meaning. He began writing about his journeys while immersing himself in diverse fields, from mindfulness to literature to software development.

Recognizing the importance of legal expertise for his entrepreneurial goals, Rod pursued a J.D. at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, graduating in 2006. He quickly put his education to use by founding two app-based software companies in fantasy sports and photo sharing, before shifting his focus to creating what became one of his life’s major undertakings – Oath.

Since its inception in 2010, Oath Law has been guided by Rod’s belief that life is short and everyone should embrace their unique journey to achieve their full potential. With this perspective, Rod utilized estate planning as a means to help people recognize life is short and organize their affairs, allowing them to focus on what truly matters: enjoying life.

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For More on Rod Yancy

Oath Planning

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Retirement Podcast Conversations You May Like

Retire with Purpose – Cesar Aguirre

Design a Phased Retirement – Anna Rappaport

Coming of Age in Retirement – Tom Marks

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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 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 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider 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.

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Wise Quotes

On Mindfulness 

“I remember hearing when I was young, about a farmer whose crops had failed. And when they asked him what he would have done different, he said I would have cared for the soil sooner. And that that really is the thing. Oftentimes, we really don’t care for what matters until after it’s too late to fix it. And I think that when it comes to emotional well being and mindfulness, people sometimes don’t even know what they were missing. But when we sit down with our clients who are retirees, we see clearly that their mindset does shape their experience in retirement even more than money.”

On Resilience

“Oftentimes, resilience determines whether the change going into retirement feels like freedom, or feels like a loss of identity. And their purpose or what they what they mean to do with their life can make their calendar either feel very empty or open for for better things for them to do.  I don’t know if it’s counterintuitive, but I just keep seeing it time and time again, that people really need to pay attention to who they are before retirement.”

On Taking Aim in Retirement

“A man without an aim or a woman without an aim…is just that drifting. Taking aim at something is really important even in retirement. I think that is where you find the peace and that’s where you find that purpose.”

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What’s next?

Don’t drift. Design.

Our next small group coaching program starts in April.

Learn more here.

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Who are you when you’re no longer your title? For many high-performing professionals, that question can feel destabilizing — even frightening.

Michael Kay is a CFP, a financial life planner, the author of the new book How To Craft Your Chapter X: A Guide For High-Performing Men to Discover Meaning (and Joy) In Retirement. He’s been through it himself—the excitement of the new chapter, and then, six months in, the wall he didn’t see coming.

Today he shares what he’s learned about reopening the aperture, grieving what you’ve left behind, and finding out who you were before you were your job. This is a conversation every high-achieving man—and the people who love them—needs to hear.

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Michael F. Kay is a coach, teacher, author and retired CFP(R). Through his books, workshops, speeches, and the Chapter X community, he’s helped thousands of women, men, and families master their financial lives—and navigate the transition from full-time work to what comes next.

He’s written three books: How to Craft Your Chapter X, The Feel Rich Project, and The Business of Life. His insights have been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, Forbes, and Psychology Today. Today, he publishes weekly essays for the Chapter X newsletter, hosts the Chapter X podcast, and shares his thoughts on LinkedIn. He is the former president of Financial Life Focus, a fee-only multi-advisor financial life planning firm.

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For More on Michael Kay

How To Craft Your Chapter X: A Guide For High-Performing Men to Discover Meaning (and Joy) In Retirement

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Podcast Conversations You May Like

The Inspired Retirement – Nathalie Martin

How to Prepare Mentally for Life After Work – Joseph Maugeri

Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Save Lives – Daisy Fancourt

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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 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 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider 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.

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Wise Quotes

On Saying No in Retirement

“If it’s not joyful, I’m not going to do it.”

On Perspective

“As we get older and we start focusing towards career, that aperture narrows. And so when we get ready to step into this next chapter, whether it’s our choice or not, we are at our narrowest. So we need to, mindfully and intentionally—I think that’s the right word—look to reopen that aperture.”

On Returning to Music – For Fun

“I got the trumpet out and had it cleaned, and I found a teacher, and I started playing again, and I put up on my music stand, ‘fun’—the word fun—to remind me. Because if you miss a note, I was like, ‘You suck.’ All these things that come back. And so I had to keep reminding myself: this is for fun. I am never going to be a touring professional musician. I’m never going to play with Blood, Sweat and Tears or Chicago. This is for fun. And it just takes the discipline to keep reminding yourself—have joy in the music, have joy in the doing. The joy is in the journey, not in the destination. Because the destination is the journey.”

What if the biggest risk in retirement isn’t the market — but misunderstanding your own goals?

As you approach retirement, the questions shift. It’s no longer just “How much have I saved?” It becomes, “When do I want the freedom to retire?” “How much risk do I really need to take?” And perhaps most importantly — “What is my money for?”

Today, I’m joined by financial planner Zach Morris for a candid conversation about risk tolerance versus risk capacity, sequence of return risk, working one more year, helping family, and why having a 100% probability of financial success might actually mean you’re leaving life on the table.

If you’re within five years of retirement — or wondering whether you’re truly ready — this episode will help you think differently about risk, purpose, and pulling the trigger.

Zach Morris, CFP joins us from Atlanta.

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Bio

Having traveled to over 35 countries, Zach is a believer in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s statement that Life is about the journey, not the destination. Being a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® provides Zach the opportunity to help clients define and realize their journey, and co-founding Paces Ferry Wealth Advisors, an independent firm, allows the freedom to define the client experience along the way.

Previously, Zach was a partner in The Diamond Morris Group and a Financial Advisor with J.P. Morgan Securities, a wealth management division of J.P. Morgan. Before becoming a Financial Advisor, Zach started as an Associate with the firm in 2011, where he developed skills for building lasting relationships with clients. Later, Zach developed and oversaw a training and mentorship program for J.P. Morgan Associates.

Zach supports a number of organizations including Alzheimer’s Association, Georgia Chapter, The Shepherd Center, Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America, and NewStory.

Zach received a B.S. in finance, with a minor in economics, from Elon University in North Carolina. He was a member of The Kappa Alpha Order and has served on the board of the Elon Alumni Association’s Atlanta chapter. Zach speaks Spanish and is an Atlanta native. He and his wife live in West Midtown’s Underwood Hills neighborhood and his parents and two of his three sisters and their families live nearby. In his spare time, Zach golfs, plays tennis, rides his mountain bike and travels.

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For More on Zach Morris, CFP

Paces Ferry Wealth Advisors

Zach Morris, CFP® You Tube channel

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Podcast Conversations You May Like

How to Live a Meaningful Life – Dave Evans

Re-Visioning Retirement – Susan Reid, PhD

Retire with Purpose – Cesar Aguirre

______________________________

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 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 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider 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.

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Wise Quotes

On The One More Year Trap

“Sometimes it’s just one more year because they don’t know what the next step is…If somebody is working one more year and they have 100% probability of success — they’re not just leaving money on the table, they’re leaving life on the table.”

On Risk

“Risk is invisible… you can have a risk tolerance today, but once you hit that maximum threshold, it can very quickly become uncomfortable.”

On Retirement Planning

“You don’t want to go into retirement with unfulfilled expectations. You want to go into retirement knowing what to expect.”

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