The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

The right retirement tips are like gold. The retirement ideas you envision and the pre-retirement planning you do now can make it happen. Imagine the feeling when you do achieve the freedom to retire. And what does it take? More than ever, it takes sound planning, a balanced approach, and discovering a new purpose in retirement. We're honored to have Fritz Gilbert, of the Retirement Manifesto, return to our podcast to share his retirement advice, and talk about his book The Keys to a Successful Retirement. And you'll find this book to be a go-to resource to retire smarter. Professionals planning for retirement, devotees of the FIRE movement (and Fat Fire), and retirees will all find it to be a trusted source of retirement tips, practical retirement planning advice, and inspiration.

We discuss:

How he and his wife are doing in the pandemic

His perspective on the economic impact of COVID-19, as an early retiree

How he thinks this will affect the FIRE movement

What day-to-day life as an early retire is like - and what's surprised him

Which factors mattered most in his pre-retirement planning

What inspired him to write his book Keys to a Successful Retirement

Why test driving retirement life helped him

What differentiates people who do it right in retirement from those who don't

Why Attitude & Passion should be part of your retirement planning

The role the Freedom for Fido project has played in their retirement life - and what hints it gives you for yours

Why finding a new purpose is vital

What he learned for his ONE Retirement Question project

His advice for pre-retirees

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Bio

Fritz Gilbert retired after more than three decades in corporate America, where he progressed through the various levels of a multinational corporation serving the global aluminum industry.  His award-winning blog "The Retirement Manifesto" is focused on people achieving a great retirement. Fritz and his wife, Jackie, live in a cabin in Blue Ridge, Georgia, an Appalachian Mountain town where they're active in their local church and various local charities, including Jackie's charity Freedom for Fido (FreedomForFido.com). When he's not writing, Fritz enjoys spending his time outdoors and is an avid fly fisherman, mountain biker, hiker, camper, photographer, and fitness fanatic. He also cherishes his daily walks in the woods with their four dogs, who run the household. Fritz and Jackie also travel cross country in their RV to visit their daughter and her family in the Pacific Northwest.

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Wise Quotes

 

On Envisioning Your Life in Retirement

"Think about what you want your life to be. And there's a direct correlation between those that take more time to think about it and how successful their retirement is. The people that are Type A and hard-charging right up til the end, especially if they lose their job unexpectedly, Boom, they're retired. They tend to be the ones that struggle the most. And it really does go back to this getting onto the off-ramp and mentally preparing yourself to start changing gears. You're getting off the Interstate and you're going back on a country road. You've got to be prepared for how that drive is going to differ. And, taking the time to do that before you hit the country road. No doubt in my mind that's the most important thing people can do."

 

On Taking Retirement for a Test Drive

"I took an extra week off. We, so I made it, 10 days or so, and my wife and I both said, Hey, let's just kind of pretend we're retired.

We'll try to really make this like a retirement lifestyle and let's just think about what do we want our days to be.  What do we want our retirement dreams to be?

Volunteering plays a big role in many retirements across many types of volunteer organizations. Today’s guest, David Jarmul, shares his experiences volunteering abroad with his wife with the Peace Corps in his sixties. David’s new book, Not Exactly Retired, tells the inspiring story of a couple who steered off the main highway of the American Dream to reinvent themselves. They left their home to wander around the United States and Nepal and then serve as Peace Corps volunteers in Moldova, in Eastern Europe. Not Exactly Retired is a book for anyone seeking inspiration about how they, too, might pursue adventure, serve others, and embrace the next phase of their lives. This book is a shining example of why volunteering is important – and why it can be a unique way of reinvention in early retirement.

We discuss with David:

What it was like to walk away from a great job and career to pursue adventure and service.

What his sendoff was like at Duke University.

His side trip across the US and a return visit to Nepal before his new Peace Corps mission.

What it was like to be in the Peace Corps in Moldova in his sixties.

What he learned about himself.

How the experience affected his relationship with his wife Champa.

What the re-entry to the US was like.

What’s next for him.

How individuals and non-profit organizations can be more strategic about volunteer opportunities.

How he’d advise someone looking for a way to be more creative, serve others and pursue a higher purpose.

Why drifting in retirement is important to avoid.

David joins me from North Carolina.

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Bio

David Jarmul is a writer and world traveler whose blog has been read in more than 100 countries. He was the head of news and communications at Duke University for many years and held senior communications positions at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Academy of Sciences. An honors graduate of Brown University and past president of the D.C. Science Writers Association, he has also worked as an editor for an international development organization, a writer for the Voice of America, and a reporter for a business newspaper. His previous books are Headline News, Science Views and Plain Talk: Clear Communication for International Development. David has traveled throughout the world and in all 50 U.S. states. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nepal, where he met his wife, Champa, and with her in Moldova, Eastern Europe. They live in Durham, N.C.

Source: https://notexactlyretiredbook.com/

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Wise Quotes

On Identity and Retirement

“I began to redefine my identity. It took me months to change my LinkedIn profile and to let go and stop thinking of myself as the former this or the former that, and to embrace my new role as a Peace Corps volunteer – and also as a blogger. So, that was good. More broadly, I felt like being a Peace Corps volunteer really helped me to be flexible to this. Can I step into a place where the resources are much less than we have in America? In many ways, it’s a simpler life. And to realize that what really matters in life is, is not necessarily what we obsess about here in America.”

 

On Volunteering Abroad in His Sixties

“I was serving in my sixties this time, which many people listening to this might think, ‘Wow, that must be pretty tough.’ But actually I thought it was easier to be a volunteer in my sixties than it was in my twenties. Particularly since I was serving with my wife. I wasn’t lonely. I always had my best friend there. And with the people who ran the community where we were – the mayor and the head of the school and the library and so forth – they were the same age as us.

Life planning & career planning can be challenging things to tackle, especially in uncertain times like these. Dave Evans, the co-author of Designing Your Life and the new book Designing your Work Life, explains how the principles of design thinking can give you an edge. Whether you’re anticipating a transition to a new chapter in life in retirement, creating a second career or making a savvy career change, “iterating your way forward” is the best way to explore new options.

Designing Your Life is one of the most impactful books I’ve ever read and the one I’ve most often given as a gift. It’s the best book on life planning and career planning in my view.

We talk about:

The story of how Designing Your Life came to be

The Principles of Design Thinking and how they can be applied to life planning and career planning using DYL

How Designing Your Life is used in different populations around the world today

How DYL is leverage by older adults in mid-life and later life

Why Reframing is a skill you’ll want to develop

How Prototyping works with a person instead of a product

What the new book Designing Your Work Life is about

How networking is done with a DYL mindset

Dave Evans’ advice for someone considering making a change in their life or career

Dave joins us from California.

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Note: We’re in challenging times. Investing some time in reflection and self-renewal is especially important now. These podcast episodes are offered now with that intention in mind. We hope you find them helpful and hope that you stay well.

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Bio

Dave Evans has worked in alternative energy, telecommunications, and high tech. As an early member of the advanced systems group that built the technology that became the Macintosh, he led the first computer mouse team and laser-printing projects, before leaving to co-found the software giant Electronic Arts.

After more than thirty years of executive leadership and management consulting in the high tech world, Evans realized that what he really wanted and needed to do was help people rediscover purpose in their jobs and lives. He joined Stanford’s Design Program, where he now co-teaches the incredibly popular Designing Your Life course, which helps undergraduates discover their paths after graduation.

In the book Designing Your Life, Evans and co-author Bill Burnett, Executive Director of Stanford’s Design School, bring these principles to a larger audience, proving it’s never too late to design a life you love through innovation and creative problem-solving. A dynamic and entertaining speaker, Evans teaches audiences of all ages that the same principles used to create amazing technology and products can also be used to design and build a life filled with purpose and joy that is constantly creative and productive.

 

He lectures around the country on design thinking and offers a popular e-course on the subject through Creative Live with Bill Burnett. From his travel around the country and meeting and hearing from thousands of people, Evans was inspired by the Designing Your Life community to compose a second toolkit with Burnett, this time specifically focused on work. Designing Your Work Life is full of tips, tricks, and tools for optimizing and “future-proofing” work.

 

Evans earned a Bachelors of Science and Masters of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford and a graduate diploma in Contemplative Spirituality from San Francisco Theological Seminary. He and his wife live in Santa Cruz and have five adult children, including three Stanford grads.

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For More on Dave Evans

Buy the new book Designing Your Work Life by Bill...

Our guest today is Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., and author of The Joy of Movement. Kelly is a health psychologist at Stanford whose Ted Talk on stress has over 22 million views.  The Joy Of Movement is an exceptional book that blends the science behind the psychological benefits of exercise and physical activity with compelling stories of how exercise has helped people overcome challenges and thrive. It’s a great time of year to (carefully) start or resume working out and this book has inspiring messages that will get you moving. You’ll find this book to be helpful for people of any age and any level of fitness, including exercise for seniors.

Our Conversation with Kelly McGonigal

We talk with Kelly about:

Her personal story with exercise and the role it plays in her life

How movement affects our moods

How movement can bring out the best version of ourselves – and a braver version of ourselves

The social side of movement and exercise

How the people she interviewed for her new book showed her how exercise, hope, and courage are connected

The mind-body connection – and what a rock-climbing experience taught her about overcoming fear

The story of her grandparents and the role of music and movement in their lives

Her advice if you want to start exercising, resume exercising or take it up a notch

Bio

Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., is a health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University, and a leading expert in the new field of “science-help.” She is passionate about translating cutting-edge research from psychology, neuroscience, and medicine into practical strategies for health, happiness, and personal success. Kelly’s latest book is The Joy of Movement: How Exercise Helps Us Find Happiness, Hope, Connection, and Courage.

She is also the author of The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It (Penguin 2012), which explores the latest research on motivation, temptation, and procrastination, as well as what it takes to transform habits, persevere at challenges, and make a successful change. Her audio series The Neuroscience of Change (Sounds True 2012) weaves the newest findings of science with Eastern contemplative wisdom to give listeners a revolutionary process for personal transformation. She is also the author of Yoga for Pain Relief: Simple Practices to Calm Your Mind and Heal Your Pain (New Harbinger, 2009), which translates recent advances in neuroscience and medicine into mind-body strategies for relieving chronic pain, stress, depression, and anxiety.

She teaches for a wide range of programs at Stanford University, including the Stanford Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, the Graduate School of Business, and the School of Medicine’s Health Improvement Program. She has received a number of teaching awards for her undergraduate psychology courses, including Stanford University’s highest teaching honor, the Walter J. Gores award. Her popular public courses through Stanford’s Continuing Studies program—including the Science of Willpower and the Science of Compassion—demonstrate the applications of psychological science to personal health and happiness, as well as organizational success and social change. Through a wide range of conferences, workshops, university-affiliated programs, and consulting, Dr. McGonigal also provides continuing education and training to executives, teachers, healthcare providers, and other professionals.

Her psychology research (on compassion, mindfulness, and emotion regulation) has been published in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Motivation and Emotion, The International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, and The Journal of Happiness Studies. From 2005-2012, Dr. McGonigal served as the Editor in Chief of the ...

As people work longer, making a career switch is becoming more common. Planning a career change after 50+ takes a savvy approach that’s in tune with what’s needed in the marketplace today. And a second career can offer an opportunity to apply your skillset in different ways and pursue greater meaning and purpose. But a mid-life career shift takes a smart strategy and a targeted plan to fully leverage your skills and your network.

Is It Time for a Career Switch?

In this episode, we talk with Dr. Dawn Graham, who’s written Switchers, a go-to book on making a career change. We talk with Dawn about:

Her personal experience with making a career shift

What skills are critical in making a smart career change

What types of career transitions are the easiest – and which are the most difficult

How people can best prepare to change careers later in life

What people really need to know about networking

Advice for people re-entering the workforce or unretiring

How people can navigate the realities of ageism in making a career change after 50

The best place to start when planning a career switch

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Bio

Dr. Dawn Graham is one of the country’s leading career coaches, with two decades of corporate experience in recruiting, executive coaching, talent management, leadership assessment, teaching, and business transformation. As Career Director for The Wharton School’s Executive MBA program, Dawn works with a population of hard-driving business executives, most of whom are changing careers at the prime of their professional lives while vying for some of the world’s most competitive jobs. Dawn is also the of host Sirius XM Radio’s popular weekly call- in talk show “Dr. Dawn on Careers” offering advice on career transitions to a diverse population of North America.

A contributing writer for Forbes.com, Dawn’s first book “Switchers: How Smart Professionals Change Careers and Seize Success” was a #1 new release and shares a practical roadmap with fresh strategies based on her background as a recruiter and psychologist for how job seekers can get into the mind of the hirer and successfully land a career switch. A licensed psychologist, Dawn holds a doctorate in counseling psychology from the University of Denver, a master’s degree in applied behavioral science from the Johns Hopkins University, and a bachelors’ degree in psychology from Seton Hall University. She is on the Board of Directors for the MBA Career Services for Working Professionals, an alliance of the top 30 global MBA programs. She also has an appointment with the Wharton Management Department.

Dawn joins us today from Philadelphia.

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Wise Quotes

On The Power of Your Transferable Skills

“People are making more switches today for a variety of reasons…a lot of times we get on a path early in our career that turns out to not be as interesting as we thought or maybe it doesn’t align with our values as we move forward with other parts of our life. I think the people who are successful in making switches recognize the power of transferable skills. Certainly, it’s important to have some technical capabilities. But what we’re seeing now, especially as the market is changing so rapidly, is that there’s a lot of hybrid careers. Meaning they want technical skills, but they also want what has been for a long time called ‘soft skills’. And I would venture to say that they’re not soft at all, that they’re pretty key.”

 

On Planning a Career Shift

“Our identity gets really wrapped up in a career, especially if you’ve done it for several years or even several decades. It’s hard to look at yourself differently.

Is there a playbook on how to retire early?  You may find yourself dreaming of early retirement now after reading stories of the FIRE movement (Financial Independence and Retire Early). But maybe you’re wondering what it would really be like to retire early and walk away? And perhaps you’ve fantasized about what life would be like without a blaring alarm clock five days a week.

 

An Early Retirement Story In Progress

Our guest is Leif Dahleen, who at 43, did just that in August. We talk with Leif about his story and:

What the FIRE Movement is about

What early retirement life is really like

Why he wanted to retire early

What his decision-making process was like

How he test drove his retirement

What’s surprised him so far

What he misses about work

Why he started his blog Physician on FIRE

 

Bio

Leif Dahleen is a former anesthesiologist, who retired from medicine at the age of 43, having achieved financial independence several years earlier. He started his blog Physician on FIRE in January 2016 to enlighten, educate, and entertain other high-income professionals while discussing money matters of all sorts. Leif achieved both his Bachelors and Medical Degree from the University of Minnesota. Leif is happily married with two children. They call northern Michigan their home base and spend much of the year traveling. Leif joins us today from Spain.

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Wise Quote

 

On How To Achieve Financial Independence and Retire Early

“The thing is to Mind the Gap,  as they say by the subway in London. You need to grow the gap between your income and your spending. There are obviously two ways to do that, more income or less spending – and either one will work. If you do both, that’ll work even better. But what will matter by far the most, especially over the short term and now over the long term (meaning decades, multiple decades) are your investment returns – and fees and expenses –  all of that matters quite a bit.

But over the short term, meaning months to a number of years, it’s how much you save and how much you put aside for retirement that’s going to matter the most. So I tell my readers ( and again I mostly speak to a high-income audience who already has the earning side pretty well figured out ) to try to live on half their take home. If they can basically live their lives on half of what they’re bringing home and use the rest to either pay off debt and or invest, then they can become financially independent from being flat broke to being Financially Independent, in 15 to 20 years  – more or less –  depending on market returns.”

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Follow Leif Dahleen’s blog Physician on FIRE

Follow Leif Dahleen on Twitter  

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Related Podcast Conversations on Retiring Early

Stephen Chen

Chris Farrell

Ted Carr

Chris Mamula

Fritz Gilbert

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About Retirement Wisdom

We help people who are retiring, but not done yet, discover what’s next.

A long retirement is a terrible thing to waste.

And a meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

We help you design the life in retirement that’s uniquely right for you.

Retire smarter. Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you make yours great.

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RW on IG

The Retirement Wisdom Podcast is now on Instagram

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Once you’ve earned the freedom to retire, what will you do next? What are your plans for retirement? How will you approach preparing to retire so that one day you’ll be happily retired? Well, Don Ezra thinks that the word retirement is obsolete. He believes it’s high time that we reframe how we think about it. In Don’s view what we used to call retirement, is today the beginning of a new second life. He calls it Life Two – life after full-time work. In fact, multiple surveys indicate that the vast majority of people want to continue to work past what used to be seen as the “normal retirement age.” For many people, the desire to work longer is not primarily financially driven. For some, it’s about purpose. When work is a calling in retirement, it’s wise to be thinking about how you’ll be creating a second career – and a second life.

Will You Be Happily Retired Someday?

Achieving the freedom to retire is not easy. Neither is creating a new second life. It takes a different level of planning and preparing to retire to do that well, both financially and emotionally. Don has written one of the best books on retirement planning: Life Two. Based on Don’s experience, the keys to sound retirement planning lie in education and introspection. And it’s not theoretical for Don. He does not refer to himself with references to his previous titles in an impressive and distinguished career. He’s simply ‘happily retired.’ He describes his experience in transitioning to this second life in retirement as planting a new tree, different from the tree he grew in his years of full-time work.

If you want to learn more about how to retire happy and make the most of your freedom to retire, you’ll want to listen to our conversation with Don Ezra.

We discuss with Don:

What inspired him to write Life Two

How Life Two differs from Life One

The concept of a “Life’s Abundance Portfolio”

Why having the freedom to retire is exciting – but why retirement can be scary – and what to do about that

How couples can prepare for Life Two – and stay up to date on what’s most important – as a couple and as individuals

Lessons learned in his personal journey

Advice on how to prepare for retirement & Life Two

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Bio

In Life One, Don Ezra was Co-Chairman , Global Consulting at Russell Investments. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Washington DC-based Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), and as Chairman of its Research Committee. In 2004, he was awarded the EBRI’s Lillywhite Award “for extraordinary lifetime contributions to Americans’ economic security.” Don is the author of Life Two: How to Get and Enjoy What Used to Be Called Retirement, Happiness: the Best is Yet to Come and several books on pensions and the financial side of retirement.  Don joins us from Toronto.

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Wise Quotes

 On Life Two:

 “That’s when I realized that if you think of this as Life Two, Life One is our grown-up working life. So Life Two is what follows. And for most of us, it’s going to be long enough. It’s going to be healthy enough to be a life that we can enjoy. It’s not just an end to Life One, it’s a life in its own right. And so, forget the old concept of retirement. In fact, let’s retire the word. So, I think of Life Two as the best part of life. I think of Life One in fact is just being a very long prologue that finally gives way to the real show – when enjoyment and happiness and fulfillment peak.”

 

On Freedom & Stress

“It’s not until we retire or at least stop working full time that we have both the time and the money to truly enjoy all of life. And that gives us freedom. So, I think of Life Two as a full life. I think of it as a mature life rather than an immature one.

Behavior change is hard. Studies show that up to 45% of our behavior comes from habits. So, what if we could learn how to build habits and design the new behaviors we want? In this podcast episode, our guest is BJ Fogg, Ph.D., the founder of Stanford’s Behavior Design Lab, and the world’s leading expert in habit formation. His new book Tiny Habits: Small Changes That Change Everything is based on over two decades of groundbreaking research and lays out a simple – yet powerful – behavior change model and a broader master system. His Tiny Habits® Method helps you create a three-step recipe designed to break big aspirations into specific micro behaviors; anchor them to a reliable prompt, and wire them in through a celebration with positive emotion.

People use Tiny Habits for a wide range of situations and challenges. It’s up to you on how you choose to use it and design the recipes that are right for you. However, the book includes over 300 sample Tiny Habit Recipes across 15 common life situations and challenges to spur your thinking.

These include recipes to build habits for:

active older adults

caregivers

better sleep

reducing stress

cultivating brain health

strengthening close relationships

stopping habits that are getting in your way

 

We talk with BJ Fogg about his new habit book and:

What Behavior Design is all about – and how he become interested in it

How the Fogg Behavior Model works

Why leaning on motivation and willpower aren’t reliable paths to behavior change

How to build habits – and what emotion has to do with it

Why the Tiny Habits Method is a valuable skillset

Why some habits are Golden Behaviors and how to identify them and create them

Why the Tiny Habits Method is transformational

Why you’ll want to try The Super Fridge habit (among others in the Tiny Habits book)

How he is personally using Tiny Habits today in his life

His advice for people who want to create new behaviors this year

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Bio

BJ Fogg, Ph.D., is the founder and director of the Behavior Design Lab at Stanford. In addition to his research, he teaches Boot Camps in Behavior Design for industry innovators and also leads the Tiny Habits Academy helping people around the world. One of Fortune’s “10 New Gurus You Should Know.”

Each year Dr. Fogg creates a new course to teach at Stanford, with topics ranging from mobile persuasion to health habits. His students have gone on to create successful products, including Instagram, that millions of people use every day. Today, Dr. Fogg is primarily interested in how human behavior works and how to help people acquire habits that lead to health and happiness. He has personally coached over 42,000 people in his behavior change method called “Tiny Habits.”

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Wise Quotes 

On Behavior Design

“It came together for me in 2007 and this model – it’s really easy to understand, and it applies to all types of behaviors and all habits. Basically, it’s three elements. There’s motivation to do the behavior, the ability to the behavior, and a prompt. And so, with any behavior, we’ll have Motivation, Ability, and a Prompt. And this is what we discovered in research at Stanford and in industry. And if you make a small tweak to any one of those elements, you can change behavior. So, for example, if you want to stop a habit, if you can remove the motivation, boom, it will stop. If you can’t do that, can you remove the ability to make it harder to do? You can stop it – or can you remove the prompt? You can also use the model for one-time behaviors for creating habits and so on. So, it’s really pretty straightforward,

Aging Well Takes Skill

Wise retirement planning transcends your 401k. The transition to retirement is one of the most significant experiences you’ll encounter in your lifetime. And it’s increasingly being recognized as a new and distinct phase of life. One that’s rich with possibilities for personal development, spiritual growth, learning, and wisdom. While people retire at different ages, what we all have in common is that we are all growing older. And it turns out that aging well takes a new skillset.

In this episode of our retirement podcast, our guest is Rabbi Laura Geller, Rabbi Emerita of Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills, California, a founder of ChaiVillageLA and co-author of the new book, Getting Good at Getting Older. She was the third woman in the Reform Movement to become a rabbi and among the first to be selected to lead a major metropolitan synagogue.

We talk with Rabbi Geller about:

Why she and her late husband decided to write the new book Getting Good at Getting Older

If wisdom comes with age

How we can cultivate wisdom (and as she recommends – a heart of wisdom) in the second half of life

Why creating the right mindset and attitude about retirement is so important

Spirituality and inner life in the second half of life

The benefits of embracing lifelong learning and aging well

What people who thrive in retirement do differently from those who struggle with the transition to retirement

Where to begin if you want to get good at getting older

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Bio

Rabbi Laura Geller, Emerita Rabbi of Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, was the first woman to be selected through a national search to lead a major metropolitan synagogue as Senior Rabbi. She was twice named one of Newsweek’s 50 Most Influential Rabbis in America and was featured in the PBS documentary “Jewish Americans.” Author of numerous articles in books and journals, she was on the editorial board of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary. She is a Fellow of the Corporation of Brown University from where she graduated in 1971. Ordained by Hebrew Union College in 1976, she is the third woman in the Reform Movement to become a rabbi. She is a Rabbinic Fellow of the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, a mentor in the Clergy Leadership Initiative, a facilitator in the Formation Project of On Being, and a member of the Board of The Jewish Women’s Archive. She is a founder of the first synagogue-based village, ChaiVillageLA, which is part of the national Village Movement. She is co-author with her late husband Richard Siegel, co-author of The Jewish Catalog(1973), of Getting Good at Getting Older.

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Wise Quotes 

On Wisdom

“It’s very important to acknowledge that it’s hard to have a lot of wisdom when you’re young. But as you say, getting older doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily wise. So, the activity of acquiring wisdom is a practice many of us prepare when we’re younger for our retirement. We need also to prepare for our spiritual work of this second stage of our life. And part of it, I think is really paying attention to what it means to be wise. What does it mean to pay attention to the opportunities that exist that this stage of our life and what are the practices that can help us do that? So, in our book, we speak about meditation, we talk about journaling, we talk about pilgrimage as opposed to travel. It’s one thing to take a trip. It’s another thing to experience that trip as a pilgrimage, a journey that will help us discover not only our roots but also what’s really important to us. It takes a focus on lifelong learning. We continue to learn and gain wisdom through the notion that when you stop learning, you start dying.”

 

On Intergenerational Relationships

How's Your Mind-Body Connection?

In this episode of our retirement podcast, our guest is Dr. Kelli Harding, author of The Rabbit Effect: Live Longer, Happier, and Healthier With the Groundbreaking Science of Kindness. Is there anything more important than your health and well-being? Most books for retirement focus on financing retirement and health care, which are important topics. If you want to retire smarter, you have to go beyond that. The Rabbit Effect is not a retirement book per se, but it offers recommendations, based on research, on how you can enhance your overall wellness by mindful of hidden factors, like compassion and kindness.

We discuss with Kelli Harding:

How scientific research on compassion and kindness changed how she viewed medicine

Why the Mind-Body connection and hidden factors affect health and well-being

The role of relationships and social ties to health

The long-term consequences of seemingly small decisions like compassion and choices we make – do acts of kindness matter?

The importance of cultivating a sense of purpose

The ripple effect of compassion and kindness

Her recommendations on how to start to make mindful daily choices that matter to your well-being

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Bio

Kelli Harding, MD, MPH, is an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She is a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, as well as boarded in the specialty of psychosomatic (mind-body) medicine. Harding has spent much of her career in the emergency room at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. She has also served nationally on the Association of American Medical Colleges Board of Directors, which leads the academic medicine community to improve the health of all.

Harding is also the author of  “The Rabbit Effect: Live Longer, Happier, and Healthier with the Groundbreaking Science of Kindness”. She has appeared as an expert source for media outlets including Today, Good Morning America, NPR, The New York Times, Medscape, Oprah.com, Parents, and US News & World Report.

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Wise Quotes

On Hidden Factors that Influence Health

“Here’s the really shocking statistic – we know that lifestyle factors are important and we know that medical care and access to quality medical care is absolutely critical for every human being. But it probably only accounts for about 10 to 20% of our overall health status. And the rest of it has to do with our social world and all these hidden factors in our homes, relationships, communities, workplaces, schools that we need to be talking and addressing that we often don’t think about, like health.”

“So for listeners, if there is one thing that you can invest in for your health, it’s building positive relationships – and this pans out in multiple studies. In fact, the longest-running study ever, which has been done out of Harvard, shows that the number one predictor of somebody’s health is actually positive relationships.”

 

On Inflammation, Stress and Support

“So, probably the big culprit, and I talk a lot about this in the book, is inflammation…We know that inflammation has been linked with depression and anxiety and other things. And it’s interesting because some of the medicines that we use to treat those illnesses that we didn’t fully understand. We know from clinical trials that they work, but we didn’t know how they worked and it seems to be a common pathway among many of them that they’re anti-inflammatory. And what’s interesting about that is we might be looking at sort of like a underlying cause of all illness, which is, as a clinician, quite exciting. But then the other question is how, what can you do to try to reduce that?