Retirement Doesn’t End at 65—Here’s Why

speaker-0 (00:00.088)
Phase two is when we realize w that when we that we suffer five virtually in very five losses that are almost impossible to avoid and that are all directly related to retirement.

speaker-1 (00:26.634)
Mm.

Welcome back. Today we have Dr. Riley Moines with us. He is a well-known author and an outstanding public speaker who has done detailed research into what happens when people enter and go through retirement. He’s created a framework based on that research that details the four phases that people go through in retirement. Riley gave a TED talk back in 2022.

Which has now been viewed by nearly five million people, and it’s counting. Based on that research, as well as his own personal journey, Riley explores and will talk with us about the four phases of retirement that almost everyone experiences. In the conversation, what you’ll find is that there’s a lot of parallels between his framework and what the transition networks talks about from our pillar point of view.

Riley fa waltzed through phase one of retirement, struggled with phase two, and he’ll explain what these phases are, tried a dozen ventures in phase three, and now in phase four, he researches, writes, and publishes on topics of interest.

Really hope you enjoy this. I think this is something that will help explain what is coming or what you are entering into as you go into the retirement side of things. Hope this helps. And thanks for joining us. Riley, thank you for joining us for this conversation. I’ve done an introduction for you, but it’s always best to hear

speaker-1 (02:09.08)
from people in their own words, who they are. So if you could give us a bit of an introduction.

speaker-0 (02:15.768)
Sure, happy to do so. And thanks for inviting me to to join you, Neil. Thank you. yes, I’ve had a some some some experience. I spent the first 20 years of my working career in public education, a couple of years in the classroom as a high school teacher and history teacher, and most of the time that I spent was kind of administrative, including

some time as a superintendent and as a director of education in a tr in an Ontario school board. and then after about 20 years in public education, I decided that I I wanted I wanted to do something else. I I I enjoyed teaching. I was a good teacher, I think, and was looking for ways to to to use my teaching experience and background and expertise.

I became involved in the financial services area, wealth management, and built a little a little firm and joined another firm and ultimately was one of the founding partners at what is now Asante Wealth Management. Spent spent 20 years with Asante and then I began to step back a little bit. was was hired by Asante to do some traveling across the country to help

advisors to grow their businesses. And and then when I stepped back from that, finally after about three years, I entered what’s some call retirement. found that it was not what I expected it to be, at least after the first year or so. And so I’ve spent much of the rest of the time in in doing research to figure out what the heck goes on when you retire and

I focused on the psychological changes and challenges that almost always accompany retirement I’ve discovered, but that very few people are talking about as yet.

speaker-1 (04:17.368)
That’s the reason for this podcast. So let’s start off with the that one statement you said. When you retired, it wasn’t what you expected. What was not what you expected?

speaker-0 (04:30.648)
Well I I I guess it it turned out to be phase phase one, which I call the vacation phase. that part of it was what I was ex what I was what I was expecting and what everybody had told me was the ideal form of retirement where you do what you want, when you want, where you want, if you want, when you want, with whom you want. there’s lots of travel involved. There’s checking off all kinds of bucket list things that you’ve

either physically written down or you’ve got in your head as to what you’re going to do when you retire. And I played a lot of golf and we did a lot of traveling and we bought a place in the South and all of that kind of stuff. And that lasted for about well, for me it was just about two years. And then and then I was bored stiff. And I realized that you can only play so much golf. You can only do so much traveling. You can only do so much of anything. and I was

busy enough, but I wasn’t doing anything that was particularly meaningful or significant to me. And that’s the part that caught me by surprise.

speaker-1 (05:36.052)
I’m actually if you’re as active as I’ve been, which I I think you have been, that doesn’t c catch me by surprise because I can’t see myself retiring and playing golf or doing something like that. I’d always have to be active. That goes to you did a TED talk, correct? Okay. What was the title of that TED talk? And I think you hinted at it when you said phase one, vacation the vacation phase.

speaker-0 (06:06.188)
Yeah, I well, several years before I I did the TED talk, I I did a lot of research trying to figure out what was going on because I was discombobulated in my retirement at that time. I read all the research, or at least a lot of the research, and of course it said what I knew it was going to say. It focused on on investments and on estate planning and wills and powers of attorney and all of which is critically important, but just not what I was looking for. And so

speaker-1 (06:33.462)
Right.

speaker-0 (06:35.27)
I decided then that I would interview people that I had been told had figured out retirement, whatever that means. I started with about a dozen folks that I met with, and I had some ser a series of questions that I wanted to ask them. And I always finished up by asking how do you squeeze all the juice out of retirement? and one thing led to another, and people said, well, you should talk to so-and-so and so-and-so.

And so ultimately after four, three, three and a half to four years, I had spoken with well over 200 people. I had a massive amount of information, and and then I tried to figure it all out. And in figuring it all out, that led to to writing the four phases of retirement, which led to an invitation to to do my TED talk, which is of the same same title, The Four Phases of Retirement.

speaker-1 (07:30.36)
So what are the four phases? Tell me more about that.

speaker-0 (07:34.886)
happily. Thank you for asking. we’ve already talked a little bit about phase one. it’s as I say, where it’s all about you, it’s all about the person who has worked hard for whatever length of time, probably a number of decades. And it it’s time for time for you. and and that’s wonderful and that’s fine. Problem is that that

That’s the ideal retirement as advertised in all of the you know, in virtually all of the advertising. It’s people cavorting along the beach at sunset with a glass of wine in their hand with a loved one. It’s it’s all that kind of stuff. And it’s lovely as long as it lasts. But many of the baby boomers are going to live about a third of their lives, about 30 years in retirement.

And how different that is from nineteen fifty when the average life expectancy in Canada was sixty eight years. We could expect three years of retirement. Three thirty.

speaker-1 (08:43.138)
That’s a interesting thing because that’s what I learned about the reason why retirement was set at 65 was because at that time the average lifespan of a person was 65. So it was basically if you were able to get past the average, congratulations, you don’t have to work anymore. Well, of course not. You’re dead.

speaker-0 (09:04.472)
You did. That’s right. Yeah. Well, after that period of time when when as I call the vacation phase, I was hit hard by a realization that I was bored stiff, that that it that I wasn’t enjoying retirement in the way that it had been advertised, and I as I say, I set out to try to figure it out. And that led to the work that I’ve just described and to production or or the creation, I guess.

of the four phases. So we’ve talked about phase one. Phase two is when we realize w that when we that we suffer five virtually in very five losses that are almost impossible to avoid and that are all directly related to retirement we lose we lose our our sense of structure or routine.

And although we often don’t like being guided by a routine, or maybe even we would say controlled by a routine, the fact is, I’m convinced that we are genetically wired so that over the long term we need a routine. But when we retire, we we lose that routine and we’re happy about that for a while. That’s what gives us the freedom of phase one, but it doesn’t last long. So we we lose structure. We also lose.

Part of our identity because oftentimes we identify with the work that we do, whether it’s outside the home or inside the home. We identify with that and we lose a part of that. So we lose a part of ourselves, a part of that identity. Thirdly, we lose some of the relationships that we may well have developed over a period of time. Some of those folks have probably become pretty good friends, long-term friends. But when we walk away, when we retire, we lose much of those relationships.

We lose a sense number four, we lose a sense of purpose. And again, we in many cases take purpose. We we we we take pride in in what we do. And when we walk away, a part of that sense of purpose is lost to us. And finally, there is the loss for some people of power, because over a period of time they may have acquired some responsibility perhaps for budget or for personnel.

speaker-0 (11:28.642)
But when they walk out the door for the last time, they’re just a guy or a gal in the street and nobody cares. So we lose these five losses we we we we suffer these five losses, all directly related to retirement. We don’t see them coming. We lose them all at once, and it’s like bam, it’s it’s it’s traumatic. It just it can be crushing.

speaker-1 (11:55.576)
So this is all part of phase two, you’re saying?

speaker-0 (11:58.359)
all part of phase two. These are losses directly related to retirement.

speaker-1 (12:04.094)
And what did you call that phase?

speaker-0 (12:07.18)
I call that the phase where we suffer loss and we feel lost.

speaker-1 (12:12.31)
Okay. So you said

speaker-0 (12:14.114)
Two phase two though gets worse, if I may Neil, it gets worse because in addition to the five losses directly related to retirement, we also suffer the three D’s. These are losses that are not directly related to retirement, but more to a time of life, which interestingly overlaps with retirement. We suffer the first D, which is decline.

Physical, mental decline, that silky smooth golf swing that I used to have isn’t so silky smooth anymore. And we lose you know, we lose our keys, we we lose the remote, we the there’s there’s there’s decline, both physical and some mental decline. There is depression. Second is depression. The world famous Mayo Clinic says that there is a forty percent likelihood.

That when you retire, you will demonstrate signs of clinical depression. And the third one, which was the most shocking one of all to me, is divorce. Levels of divorce for those over 60 have doubled since 1990. And for those over 65, the rate has tripled since 1990. So when you combine the five losses directly related to retirement.

Plus the three D’s, not related directly to retirement, but overlapping those, we can feel like we’ve been hit by a bus. And phase two is a very trying time for many, many people. There is far more alcohol abuse among seniors than we have been told about. There’s far more gambling that goes on, drug abuse goes on, people stuck in phase two, with the highest rate of suicide.

In Canada today, men over seventy five.

speaker-1 (14:16.108)
Jesus. So a a lot of what you said aligns with the pillars from the transitions network. So

speaker-0 (14:17.41)
Yeah. Shocking.

Shots.

speaker-1 (14:27.53)
You said loss of identity. We have our identity and emotional reinvention pillar. Because we are so we identify ourselves so much with our career. Or if somebody has been a homemaker, the kids have moved out and they lost their identity as a mother or as a homemaker, that sort of thing. We have a s another pillar tied to couples and f family dynamics because all of a sudden we’re at home all the time.

And that just changes the dynamic of between s spouses, between partners, as well as with the family. I hadn’t thought about the power side of things. and physical decline, mental decline. I started seeing that like five years ago. So that’s you’re right, that’s about an overlap with retirement, but it’s a physical limitation.

Now you did say something about loss of relationships. You’re you were tying that to the work environment. My father’s 94, we’ll be 95 this year. We just I just lost my aunt two days ago. she died at age ninety-seven. And he said to me, he was the last one of his generation. There’s nobody less less left.

So he is part of what I have to deal with with him is dealing with his depression around everybody I know is gone type thing. That fits into what you’re talking about?

speaker-0 (16:04.8)
It does indeed. Yes. Yeah. Okay.

speaker-1 (16:08.675)
talk to me about the next phase. So phase one is vacation. Phase two is the loss. What’s phase three?

speaker-0 (16:18.616)
Phase three is what I’ve referred to as the trial and error phase. At some point I’ve discovered that most of us say to ourselves or a significant other friend, perhaps, hey, I can’t go on like this. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life, perhaps 30 years or so, feeling like this. I need to do something. I need to do something. I’m desperate.

And that’s when we’ve kind of hit the bottom, as it were, but that’s that that’s a good thing in in a sense because it leads to the turnaround, it leads to the trial and error. And so what I’ve discovered that people do in that phase is that they try to figure out what is it that’s going to make them want to get up in the morning again? What is them that’s going to reconnect them to people because they’ve been isolated in phase two, quite likely.

What is it that is just going to kind of turn their crank again? What’s going to make life interesting again? And so in phase three, many, many people, certainly myself included, start to look at possibilities. I have documented about 15 initiatives that I took in phase three, most of which were complete failures.

and and that’s why I link that it’s trial and error, it’s trial and failure. It is unlikely that the very first bright idea that we come up with is going to be the one that propels us into phase four. It’s highly unlikely that that will be the case. So I, for example, I could just cite briefly three failures that I had in in phase three.

One was that I spent a few years volunteering to work on a condo board. Usually in the workshops, that leads to great l outbursts of laughter. and I did that until I got tired of being yelled at over and over again. Yeah. you may have been there, you may have experienced that kind of thing. I I thought about

speaker-0 (18:40.1)
law school. I thought seriously about law school ahead over over parts of my career and I thought maybe this was the opportunity. then I realized that’s probably that was a a lot to bite off. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to commit to that length of time and so on. And so I thought, well maybe I maybe I’ll become a paralegal. And and then I thought well I’m not really sure that I want to spend much of my time fighting over traffic tickets in small claims court.

But there was an element of that called mediation or alternate dispute resolution that I really did find interesting. And I devoted about three years to taking courses in that area. And I I I I was optimistic that there was opportunity there. Failed miserably. thirdly, I loved to write and I decided that I would probably

I would enjoy putting together something that I call getting started on your memoirs. A lot of people retiring, maybe thinking about family history or something along that line. I put together what I consider to be a brilliant little package that has met so far with what we call limited response. I could go on, but I won’t.

speaker-1 (20:00.962)
Yeah. So everything you’re saying, my fa I I keep looking at what my father went through because that gives me a precursor of what to expect for myself. He volunteered with Elections B C as a person that ran the the zone, the area where he was living. And so he organized that. But my mother,

didn’t like that he was gone all the time all of a sudden, which was complete opposite from what happened before, where he was gone and then he came back and it’s like, Why are you here all the time? So the family dynamic going on. Yep. he wrote his memoirs. He’s been in he’s been in genealogy since the seventies, and he’s gotten really d good and wrote a book around genealogy and and and that sort of thing. I would suspect

That there’s a lot of commonalities of what people go through thinking in terms of what to do once I’m retired. It’s part of the reason you mentioned volunteering. That’s one of our pillars is retirement and volunteering. It also sounded like you were thinking, okay, maybe I can start a business. That’s one of our pillars. And I one of the very first conversations I had was with a gentleman that.

He was forced into retirement at 64. He wasn’t ready. At age 66, he started up a business. And he’s still doing it at age 80. So it’s that discovery of what’s the next stage? What’s the next thing to do? Hmm. That’s phase four or phase phase three? Because phase three is that trial and error that

speaker-0 (21:35.618)
Yeah, great.

speaker-0 (21:46.358)
That’s phase four.

speaker-0 (21:53.75)
We’re just talking about. That’s trial and error. And some people are never successful in finding out what it is that is going to make them want to get up in the morning again. And those are the folks who fall back into phase two and become part of those terrible statistics. But my calculation is, and it it’s it’s more of an educated guess than anything that I could document or prove, is that.

In the work that I have done, I believe that about fifty to sixty percent of retirees break through to phase four.

That’s a number that I find discouraging. It’s a number that I’m working to try to improve if at all possible. But but some folks do break forth into phase four. It’s the phase that I call the the time to reinvent and to rewire. And these are the some of the happiest people that I have ever met.

They cannot wait for the sun to rise in the morning. They’ve got a million things that they want to do. They are engaged to their eyeballs sometimes in things in involvement in volunteer, in part-time work, in you name it. They are they are the people who are just almost vibrating with excitement.

speaker-1 (23:25.474)
So are these people doing multiple things or have they focused like when we were working adults, forty hours on one thing and then hobbies type thing?

speaker-0 (23:36.828)
some do, some don’t. the point is that what separates phase four people from all other phases is that phase four people provide service to others. It’s that simple. Maybe it’s volunteering, maybe it’s part-time work, maybe it’s whatever it is, maybe they’re spending time helping raise grandchildren.

Maybe they’re mentoring students. It doesn’t matter what they do, but they are providing service to others. And that’s what separates those people from all the rest.

speaker-1 (24:15.414)
Now is there s slip back from one phase to previous phases?

speaker-0 (24:22.358)
I have not I have I’ve seen people slip from phase three to phase two, unfortunately. I’ve seen people, as I say, I think fifty to sixty percent move from phase three to phase four. I have not met in in any of my interviews, I’ve not met someone who slipped back from phase four into something else. no, they are

active, they’re involved, they’re busy, they’re finding meaningful things to do, and it’s all got to do in one way or another with providing service to others.

speaker-1 (25:01.92)
Interesting. Cause I look at I w if we were to look at our normal careers as adults, they always say find something that you are you enjoy doing. And I’ve always found that as a false flag for because you may enjoy painting, but you might be an awful painter. So as a result you can’t really make a career at it. You end up making a career around

What you’re good at, not what you enjoy. Whereas it sounds like phase four is doing the things you enjoy.

speaker-0 (25:40.3)
Yes. Now w one of the questions, Neil, that comes up in my workshops usually is is it is it possible to avoid phases two and three?

And the answer is yes, I have found. I believe about ten percent of retirees avoid phases two and three, and they tend to be in two categories. They tend to be number one entrepreneurs, people who have been doing what they’ve been doing forever. They love what they’ve been doing. They’re going to continue to do it probably until they drop dead, but they’re probably going to do a little bit less of it than they might have been doing in the past.

That’s one group. They don’t have to go through phases two and three. They know exactly where they’re focused and where they want to be. The second group is people who during their their their working or domestic career did find something that they enjoy doing. Whether it’s painting, whether it’s photography, whether it’s coaching, whatever it might be, those people look forward.

to spending more time doing the things that they didn’t have enough time to do when they were trying to earn a living or working raising children. So they also tend to avoid phases two and three. They just want to spend more time doing what they’ve wanted to do for all these years.

speaker-1 (27:08.428)
Hmm. I’d almost suggest Okay, so I’ve been an entrepreneur since I was in my twenties. I’ve always worked for myself, or if I was working for somebody else, I had a side thing going on. One of the things we ended up doing is our relationships were not vast. We weren’t social butterflies.

Now, some people are good at sales and they’d be into that. But by and large, our close friends were few and far between, one or two people. We weren’t s out at parties every weekends or anything like that. So the loss of a pr of people and of relationships doesn’t impact as much. Plus, we’re focused on those things or continuously reinventing ourselves as we go along. And that goes to the phase four you were talking about, about the reinvention, where

We’re used to already thinking about, okay, what do I do now? type thing. It’s almost a a a thinking pattern. But it does go to something that Dr. Helen Lavretzky, who we interviewed a few interviews back, she’s from the UCLA Longevity Center. And she said one of the things her research has found, she combines mind, body, and soul.

with regards to the aging process. Whereas traditional Western medicine just focuses on the body. She’s found that people that find a purpose they live longer than those people that are just focusing on their body and their physical health. So that goes to what you’re talking about there.

speaker-0 (28:54.318)
Well, all every phase four person that I’ve ever spoken to has knows what their purpose in life is. Yeah. It’s to provide service to others.

speaker-1 (29:05.038)
Is it something that

That they only discover at that time, or is it something that’s been in the back of their mind for a long time?

speaker-0 (29:16.15)
In my opinion, it has been in the back of their mind for a long time. And so one of the things that we do in our workshops is to help people to well, first of all, what I’ve discovered is that people left to their own devices do not tend to be introspective. And in order to get to phase four, you need to be introspective, you need to ask and answer.

Questions like, why am I here? What is my purpose in life? Why am I here? And what I encourage people and help try to help people to do is to identify that. And I believe that it that can be identified in a couple of ways. Number one, you need to know what your unique ability is. Now, unique ability in my in my

Terminology is not something that’s unique to you and no one else on earth. No. Your unique ability is the thing or things that you love to do and do exceedingly well.

That’s your unique ability. The thing or things that you love to do and do exceedingly well. You need to identify that. Second thing you need to identify is five. Well, you could do 50, but in the workshops we only do five. Five victories, wins, achievements, things that you have created, five wins that you have.

have experienced so far in your life. Third third thing we ask them to do is to look at the relationship between your unique ability and the five winds. And people almost always do not see this connection. But I encourage them to to to realize that there is definitely a connection between the things you love to do and do very well

speaker-0 (31:28.138)
And past successes, realize that there is a connection there. So, what you’re going to do then is to take those your unique ability that has led to past successes, and you’re going to add a third element to it, which is what do I get out of it? Because there has to be something in it for you. It has to make you feel good, or it has to cause you.

To receive some reimbursement. So whether it’s money or whether it’s just psychic pleasure out of doing something that makes you feel good, when you can identify unique ability that has led to past successes and what’s in it for you, then you’re well down the way to identifying your unique ability why you’re here. And what I encourage people to do is to consider that there’s a very good chance.

that you will use those strengths which have always been with you, but that you haven’t thought about for a long time. They’ll always be with you and you’re going to be able to apply them in perhaps entirely different situations than they were applied during your working or domestic career.

speaker-1 (32:42.766)
I was gonna say that it may be something that you you’ve never thought of applying in a certain direction. Like exactly when you look at for those people that have been in a career and have made progressive steps up the the ladder, it’s typically because there’s a core aspect that they’re really good at and those are the things that they focus on. But we never think in terms of just that. We think of the aggregate whole.

Whereas if you strip out all the stuff that we don’t enjoy, like I don’t like doing paperwork, but I love designing. If we get rid of the paperwork, there’s that core of who you are and what you enjoy doing. Now here’s the question. So that is that part that’s part of that trial and error phase that you were talking about, correct?

speaker-0 (33:28.798)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (33:35.362)
This is all phase four now. We are in phase four now.

speaker-1 (33:38.658)
But trying to find what it is, like your workshops of trying to figure out what it is, that’s your trial and error phase.

speaker-0 (33:45.844)
That can help you identify what it is that makes you want to get up in the morning that catapults you into phase four.

speaker-1 (33:53.142)
Okay. Now you had said you went through what did you say? Fifteen failures.

speaker-0 (34:00.056)
Yeah.

speaker-1 (34:02.272)
Having failed a lot in my life as an entrepreneur, I have caught myself numerous times getting depressed. So that’s that phase two, trial and error, slipping back to phase one, the d that D, the depression. So you had said three D’s, decline, depression, and divorce.

As well as the loss of identity, loss of relationships, loss of purpose, and loss of power. So does the attempt in phase three, your trial and error phase, sometimes cause that slip back into phase the loss phase?

speaker-0 (34:47.095)
Two. Only if you quit.

speaker-1 (34:49.303)
Only if you quit.

speaker-0 (34:51.102)
You have to keep you have to keep trialing and erroring in phase three because without that you won’t get to phase four. If you quit trialling and erroring, you will slip back to phase two and you’re in trouble.

speaker-1 (35:08.322)
But depression doesn’t necessarily mean you stay there. It could be I didn’t do it. It’s like, Jesus, I thought this was gonna work. And then you slip for, you know, what a few days, maybe a week, something like that in depression. And then you s so that’s that phase one and sorry, phase two, and then you s go move back into phase three for the trial and error. So there’s a bit of a feedback loop.

speaker-0 (35:31.138)
There can be and there often is. There often is. But critically important is that you not quit because when you quit trialing and erroring, you are back in phase two, subject to depression. And I mean there may be some depression in in as part of the failures in phase three. You know, you can only fail so many times without wondering what’s going on here. Right. But but the option is the option is either to quit or not to quit.

That’s true. And if y if you quit you’re back in phase two and you’re part of the statistics and you’re in big trouble.

speaker-1 (36:06.798)
Yeah. Interesting. Does phase four like I’ve I’ve been you’ve changed careers twice, 20 years as a teacher and then another 20 odd years w in the finance side of things. Right. Did you ever once you found your new calling, which I I’m assuming is in the retirement coaching side of things?

speaker-0 (36:33.602)
Teaching is is my unique ability.

speaker-1 (36:35.938)
So, this is the teaching side of things. Have does it ever happen where you get to the point where, okay, I’ve done this long enough, I’d like to try something new?

speaker-0 (36:45.664)
In phase four? Yeah. Yeah. I I’m at that I’m at that point right now. I have been traveling f and and speaking for a number of years, both in the US and Canada. I’m not traveling to the US anymore. And I am winding down the number of the times that I’m I’m traveling even in Canada now. and although I enjoy that, it’s

You know, I’m not getting any younger, none of us is, and it’s you know, airports aren’t as thrilling as they used to be. and so I’m developing another project that is, I think, consistent with my unique ability and my past successes and what’s gonna make me feel good. and I’m working on that right now. So I’m in a sense winding down what I’ve been doing in phase four for several years.

And getting ready to rev up on something that will be brand new but but but related.

speaker-1 (37:49.984)
Okay. So is this a slip back to phase three with the trial and error? Trying something new?

speaker-0 (37:56.584)
No. Well, I mean I I I know what it is, so and and I see it as being entirely consistent with with my unique ability and past successes. So I I don’t see it as slipping back to phase three, no. Okay. I think in phase three you’re not sure. I I’m pretty darn sure as to what this next one is going to be.

speaker-1 (38:16.75)
okay. It’s it’s there’s a assuredness with regards to these things. And it doesn’t necessarily mean the moment you start, you’re right away successful. It means that ramp up as you get better and better.

speaker-0 (38:30.988)
There will be a ramp up for sure. At least I’m I’m pretty darn sure there will be a ramp up.

speaker-1 (38:35.776)
Okay, so that’s pretty much like everything in life is when you shift. Like I’ve when I changed from tech sales to architecture, so designing, there was a ramp up. I was going from something I was good at to something that I wanted to do, and I started ramping up. It’s gonna be the same thing here. I’m wondering.

speaker-0 (39:00.994)
Sure.

speaker-1 (39:04.14)
So I’m in the process right now of talking with Dr. Catherine Rickwood down in Australia. She did a TED talk as well. and her TED talk was called Retirement Redefined. So it wasn’t so much about being in retirement as changing the definition of retirement so that businesses could instead of

You’re at this age, go off, go play golf. It’s okay, let’s change the way we work with older people. Understand that they’re in you have those three declines. You have those declines of physical and mental and that sort of stuff. So we have to make adjustments for them. Sure. But they can still be very useful and very powerful in those ages. So the redefining of retirement. I actually

I’m starting to think that Australia is ahead of North America with regards to the way they approach retirement, simply because of the number of people I’m ending up talking to down there.

speaker-0 (40:07.116)
They are also ahead of us when it comes to the financial services area. They are much more acutely aware of the psychological changes and challenges that accompany retirement than we are in North America. And they are much more it’s much more integrated into their retirement planning than it is here because here it’s still almost exclusively financial.

estate, wills, powers of attorney, insurance, it’s all of that kind of stuff. And little consideration has been given as yet to the psychological part of it.

speaker-1 (40:48.674)
When you slipped yourself from trial and error into this current phase, did you start off with too wide of a scope and then you narrowed it down to something really specific?

speaker-0 (41:05.038)
I I I have when I was in education I was author or co-author of a number of history textbooks. When I entered financial services, I I’ve I’ve written a number of of books on that topic. So for me it was a matter of hello, Riley, what you’re good at is writing and teaching, smarten up and get at it again.

Yeah. I don’t know why it took me so many efforts in trial and error to get it, but but it did.

speaker-1 (41:45.944)
Yeah, I’m not okay, so I’m not surprised. And and that’s not on you. That’s I think in general people have multiple different things that they like that they fancy. But it doesn’t rema it goes back to what I said about enjoy versus are good at. And it’s that combination I think that it comes together with. So you’re good at and you enjoyed.

Right.

speaker-0 (42:17.122)
But I didn’t realize that for too long. I didn’t realize that that was my unique ability until later than I than I would have preferred.

speaker-1 (42:30.55)
Is there amount of time the various different phases people sit within? So for example, the vacation, there’s a gentleman in in England that I’m talking with right now. He has a podcast about his life, his journey into retirement, and he said the first six months, perfect, and then it hit him like what do I do now?

speaker-0 (42:52.6)
Wall. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve experienced or at least I’ve I’ve found that that phase one tends to last up to two years. it’s rare that it goes beyond two years. One woman it lasted six six weeks. But in general, I found that it one to two years has has been. and so it it varies. it varies the

the the second and the third phases tend to last a little bit longer. They certainly did in my in my experience. And I also realized that people experience these these phases at different levels of intensity as well. you know, for some phase two can be d debilitating. I was lucky that that you know that wasn’t that wasn’t the case for me, but I certainly in retrospect I can see that I went through phase two.

And but it wasn’t for as long as some people and it wasn’t at as at as deep a depth as some people. What I haven’t found a a a a pattern that I could speak to.

speaker-1 (44:01.452)
What helped get out of phase two?

speaker-0 (44:05.65)
d I guess it’s just it’s it’s more my nature to to get on and do something than it is to sit around and and and not do anything. So I I tend to be a doer and it was just a matter of, you know, which of these things, which of these fifteen things will I will I attack first.

speaker-1 (44:26.19)
Okay. Do people have, for example, kids, their adult children saying, why don’t you go do this? Why don’t you go do that? or trying to push them in a in directions?

speaker-0 (44:39.144)
that wasn’t really part of my research. I I I suspect it probably I I I’m I’m almost certain that it that it that it exists. The people trying to provide good advice and I’m sure spouses and friends and children all have all have bright ideas as to what you should be doing. Ultimately it it has to be up to you though, of course.

speaker-1 (45:02.804)
What one of our pillars are the global retirement perspectives. So I have a a partnership with Live and Invest Overseas. It’s basically finding properties to retire to. and

One of the things that they keep saying is that when you change environments, you end up changing the way you live, learning more about the environment, that sort of stuff. Is there an external stimulation that can be associated with that trial and error side of things?

speaker-0 (45:41.076)
I have in in my research, I can only speak to I think two people out of a couple of hundred who have not remained in North America.

speaker-1 (45:57.12)
Okay. That’s interesting. Interesting. Now, in your that phase two, the loss phase, one of the things you said was loss of relationships.

speaker-1 (46:13.268)
Is there you can see the loss of relationships as we get older because as we get older, people that we know pass on. Is there yeah. Are there so that infers then that that phase two can extend in parallel with say phase four?

Can these phases w go in parallel or are they always series?

speaker-0 (46:41.256)
My experience is that they tend to be more sequential than parallel. Okay. I find that phase four people have rich relationships. They may be church relationships, they may be they may be you know, a any kind of of of group organization. some of the best ones tended tend to be in in some of the retirement communities that that I’ve

that I’ve investigated in this part of the world. so my experience would be that if you’re in phase two, part of the reason you’re in phase two is that you’re isolated. If you’re in phase four, you’re not isolated. No. Yeah. Yeah. You’re actively engaged.

speaker-1 (47:26.242)
I’m wondering whether that’s part of where from the entrepreneurship side. Remember you said those two unique groups, entrepreneurship and hobbyists, the people that have found what they like to do. They’re already engaged with other people on a regular basis, as opposed to they’re in a workplace and all of a sudden they’re not and they’re at home and their their relationships go from forty to a hundred down to

speaker-0 (47:36.27)
Yeah.

speaker-1 (47:55.456)
My wife and my kids when I see my kids.

speaker-0 (47:58.755)
Right.

speaker-1 (48:00.958)
Interesting. Okay. Any hints on what this next project is?

speaker-0 (48:07.438)
Well, sure. this next project is is a is a a social matching project where we identify in a community people who are retired or near retiring and who wish to volunteer. And we match those people with the innumerable

volunteer organizations who are looking for volunteers. Most my experience is that most volunteer organizations looking for volunteers expect that you will find them and that you will go online. Both of which are anathema to many of the people that I’m dealing with. They don’t they don’t know where they want to volunteer.

And so this this project that I’m hoping to will be a time kind of a four-week training period where groups of willing volunteers will actually get to visit volunteer opportunities in our community. And the and so they will meet face to face with those folks. They won’t be going online to say I’d like to volunteer. That’s not the way they want to do things.

it’s based on a model that has existed in in the US for a number of years. and it’s it’s been proven to be very, very successful and I’m hoping to to make something like that happen in our community here in the Burlington, Ontario area.

speaker-1 (49:50.35)
Well, when you’re ready to, I’d love to have a conversation with you because that fits into our retirement and volunteering pillar, which it’s interesting. I don’t have a lot of volunteer organizations that are are talking with regards to getting retirees in there. A lot of them they seem tend to focus on younger people. And when I say younger, I’m talking like forties, maybe.

early fifties as opposed to in the people that are in their retirement. I’m wondering why that is.

speaker-0 (50:25.824)
Well, I that’s that’s astounds me because people at that age in the forties and fifties generally don’t have time to be volunteering. I I have found except for their kids’ hockey or something like that. It’s the it’s the retirees who have the time and in many cases the expertise. th this is not just stuffing envelopes. Th this can be very high level volunteering and people can use the expertise that they’ve developed over a number of years to apply to a volunteer organization that desperately needs it.

speaker-1 (50:55.623)
Could be at a food bank, could be at a soup kitchen, could be coaching sports, could be a number of different things.

speaker-0 (51:03.19)
That’s true. Yeah.

speaker-1 (51:05.358)
Interesting. So

Wow. It it’s amazing how much of your research has overlapped with the direction that the podcast is going with the various different pillars.

Interesting. Okay. So you know what? I’d I’d like to get you back on once you’re ready with the volunteer side of things because I think that would be really useful information for the people that are listening. is there any last recommendations you would have for people that are still working but looking, hey, in two years I’m planning on retiring. What would you recommend them do?

They do now.

speaker-0 (51:55.266)
Yep. number one, identify your unique ability. You probably haven’t done that consciously for a long time. identify some of the past successes that you have that you’ve experienced that you’ve enjoyed so far. thirdly, you need to identify the kinds of activities that

will be meaningful and give you a sense of of of of accomplishment. And that once you’ve done those things, you will have a very clear idea of where your sweet spot is. I use that term for want of a better term. But that’s the area in which you probably want to spend as much of your retirement time as you possibly can.

speaker-1 (52:46.702)
I’m wondering whether that what you enjoy is something that’s been around you since you were little kid. You know, there’s some things that I know I’ve I’ve enjoyed since I was in grade one, grade two type thing.

speaker-0 (52:59.544)
Sure. Quite likely. I mean, your unique ability has been around you forever, but you you’ve you’ve rarely thought about it.

speaker-1 (53:05.592)
Or recognize it or it’s so ingrained. Exactly.

speaker-0 (53:10.008)
And that may well be the the case as far as, you know, what what it is that you would really find enjoyable and gratifying as well.

speaker-1 (53:17.934)
Okay. Well, Riley, Riley, thank you very much for taking the time and having this conversation. for all those that are listening, I will put links to the various different things from Riley, his TED Talk, his organization, Riley himself, down in the description of this video. and I would highly recommend you reach out to Riley moving forward. Riley, thank you very much, sir. Thank you.

speaker-0 (53:44.366)
My pleasure, Neil. Thanks very much. Bye for now. Bye.