The No-Regrets Retirement Framework Robert Laura Created

speaker-1 (00:05.006)
Welcome folks, welcome back. Today we have Robert Lora from the Retirement Coaching Association. And Bob, correct me if I said that wrong. It always sounds better if people introduce themselves and say who they are rather than me saying it. tell us a bit more about who you are and what you do.

speaker-0 (00:30.786)
Yeah, thanks. Appreciate the opportunity. Bob Laura, I co-founded the retirement coaches association with my wife, Amy. And then in addition to that, we run the certified professional retirement coach designation. And so that is a program that trains professionals on how to help people for the non-financial side of retirement. So by trade, I am also a financial advisor, but I really found that even though people have plenty of money, they really have issues with the

the mental, the social, the physical, the spiritual side of life after work. And so we created this program to certify people on it. And then the RCA is the community where we come together to kind of grow this relatively new industry. And so that’s a quick to do for you.

speaker-1 (01:17.422)
How long has it been around?

speaker-0 (01:20.076)
So the RCA and the program have been around for eight years. And then I’ve been doing the retirement coaching work since really 2010. So I’m an overnight success after 17, 16, 17 years. And it’s been an interesting journey just because when I first started doing it, people thought I was crazy. And you’re like, why are you spending any time on the psychology of retirement? But it’s become.

much more popular and mainstream today. like I said, just took 16 years of hard.

speaker-1 (01:51.022)
Well, that’s OK. So you mentioned that you are also a financial planner and everything that I was finding online was with regards to financial planning or estate planning. What made you start to think about the non-financial side of things?

speaker-0 (02:06.398)
I they were really these guideposts in meetings with clients and I was just really taken aback and to be fair, I was a social worker before I became a financial advisor. And so I was trained really to observe and pay attention because that’s what you have to document when you’re meeting with a client, whether you do an individual family or group therapy, you can only document how they look. You can’t say they were mad or angry. You have to say they did these things. And so

I started, you know, I came into financial services paying attention to what people did. And then you could see how people described retirement or talked about it. It made me more more curious. And then probably one of the biggest turning points, I had a client or it wasn’t even a client. I was a friend. was a brand new advisor. I was at a buddy’s house and his dad came to help him remodel this house. And I said to him, you know, gosh, it must be great to be retired and

have all this time to do whatever you want and utilize your resources with your family. And he looks at me and he says, Bob, don’t ever retire because you won’t mean anything to anyone anymore. And I was like, what? Like, you know, and I’m like in my second year as an advisor and I’m thinking that retirement’s the Holy grail. It’s like, it’s the achievement of life. This is what you go to college for. This is what you work hard for. And here’s someone saying,

speaker-1 (03:17.774)
you

speaker-0 (03:34.626)
don’t do it, you won’t mean anything. And I was like, what are you talking about? And so that was kind of the catalyst for me starting to dig in. And then of course, to being a financial advisor, when you talk to people and you’re like, well, how’s retirement going? And they’re like, it’s great. But then when you ask them what they’re doing, they weren’t doing anything. And so the signals were there. And it really just put me on a course to start to really research and pay more attention to

what was really happening behind the scenes.

speaker-1 (04:06.574)
So you started as a retirement coach and advisor 16 years ago.

speaker-0 (04:13.326)
So I started as an advisor back in 1999. And then it wasn’t until 2010 that I wrote my first book was called Naked Retirement. Because naked being that we weren’t gonna talk about money, so we were gonna strip out all the dollars and cents. And so in 2010, I really started to focus on the non-financial side. I started writing for Forbes where I wrote 500 articles on the non-financial.

It kind of ballooned into then the certification. I was doing workshops and being paid to come in and do speaking engagements. And then in 2017 is when we launched the certification and the retirement coaches association.

speaker-1 (04:58.678)
So how many people in the, and I’m sorry, my brain is mush right now. Retirement Coaching Association, how many members?

speaker-0 (05:10.52)
So we’ve got over 500. It’s a global program. What’s interesting, this is kind of a tricky thing, and you know this from all your background, Neil, and working with different organizations and technology and different things. The hardest part is we want to grow and get bigger, but we don’t want to. Because I don’t want everyone to become a retirement coach. Right now, we attract the top talent out there. I am always shocked when I

meet someone or talk to them about the program and they’ve got a PhD or they’ve been a high level executive and a lot of people are just lifelong learners and they’ve transitioned into retirement and they want to help others and so we don’t want there to be 10,000 you know people inside of it because right now we have some of the best and the strongest people but 500 to answer your question we’ve had about 2,500 go through or be part of some part of the certification.

But that also means someone could have stepped into the certification two years ago, but never finished. But we’re growing probably by, I’d say 20 to 25 % a year. We’re continuing to pick up more steam as this topic becomes more mainstream, but we’re not in a rush to be the biggest organization, that’s for sure.

speaker-1 (06:32.75)
Okay, so in all these certifications that I’ve gone through, there’s always been pillars. There’s always been a resonance, for lack of a better term, on how I got to those certifications. Tell me about what a certification means with you guys.

speaker-0 (06:51.17)
Yeah, so our certification is the Certified Professional Retirement Coach, or the CPRC. It’s a curriculum-based program. so what I’ve really found about retirement is, and especially from a coaching perspective, because the coaching purists will tell you that the client has the answers. In retirement, they don’t. You can ask them questions all day long. They don’t have a really strong frame of mind for what

life like looks like or feels like in retirement and they don’t have a lot of role models. And so our model is what I kind of call coach salting because you’re still going to, you know, coach them and kind of engage them. But at times you have to be a consultant to share insights and ideas. And so our program is curriculum based in that we have a client workbook that we take people through. So it’s a duplicatable process that again helps people

replace their work identity, fill their time, stay relevant and connected, keep mentally and physically active, express their spiritual beliefs, and then we don’t do this part, but we want them to feel financially secure as well. So that is our process that we teach and train people on, and then we give them the tools to execute that. They can alter and change that as they go, because retirement coaching is a skill, right? And so it’s not…

You just don’t need to know the framework of positive psychology or behavioral economics. You got to know how to work with clients. and stepping that back one step further, we, we follow kind of five pillars and it’s just a spiritual, mental, social, physical, and financial. So that is truly comprehensive retirement planning. Now, a lot of financial professionals will say they do comprehensive planning, but they just focus on the financial.

And I think it’s important. I always like to point out when I say spiritual, I’m not talking about necessarily faith or religion, but more so living according to your core values and beliefs. And so I always use the hand, you know, spiritual, mental, social, physical, financial. Now, the problem is most people just go in with the financial. And so they only have done 20 % of the work before they step into retirement. And I know I’m talking a lot here, Bruce, but let me get to my point. The issue is

speaker-0 (09:11.566)
Is that they go in with just a financial plan, but it takes people sometimes two years to figure it out The downside of that is you can’t tell anyone and so there’s a huge stigma because if you’re like, bruce You’re retired how long you’ve been retired. You’re like i’ve been retired for a couple years. Well, how’s it going? You’re like, well, it’s terrible. It’s the worst decision i’ve ever made Nobody says that because as society we’ve created this stigma That if you can retire if you have enough money not to work and all the time to do whatever you want

it’s going to be amazing. And it can be, but it’s usually not. And so that’s like the wake up call is that retirement isn’t that amazing. And again, the whole idea that 10,000 baby boomers are returning retirement age every day, we’ve all heard it. I think 6,000, if not more fail at it. And so I think that having a program that has strong foundations, that has these pillars, that results in a concrete tangible plan

is what our program is really about. And that’s what makes us different. We’re trying to set the standard for retirement coaching that you can’t just retire, take a class for four hours and help people. There’s a much higher standard and a bigger opportunity.

speaker-1 (10:25.902)
interesting you have your third pillar that you mentioned was social. One of the things I continuously hear are people, especially men, their social connections are tied up with their work. Their friends are from work. Their after work drinking buddies are from work. And when they retire, they’ve lost those connections. So that’s where you’re dealing with this.

speaker-0 (10:54.712)
So it’s on a couple front. just, know, stereotypically men are not as good at retirement as women, because women tend to have more roles. Men have a lot of their identity tied up in the workplace. And the interesting thing is when you really diagnose friendships, one of the biggest differences between men and women is women don’t need to be doing anything to build their friendship. They can just be sitting anywhere.

Right, and so they have much more of an emotional connection of just like, we’re sitting and we’re talking for hours. Whereas guys need to have, most of the time, some type of activity attached to it. And so the issue, and this is what we, again, what we try to train our coaches on and teach people, is that like, if you can start exploring your work relationships outside of the workplace, like invite a buddy to go to a car show.

go play golf, know, do something. And so there’s an activity attached to it because when there’s not, they fall by the wayside. And then of course, what happens is you don’t reach out to your work buddies for 30 or 60 or 90 days and it starts getting longer than it just falls by the wayside. And so I think that it’s really important for men to recognize what relationships are important and to start to build activities outside of the workplace.

And then I’ll add that the other side of the social side, two things, personality matters. You will read the research all day that says social connection is one of the most essential pieces to a successful retirement. But what does that mean to an introvert and an extrovert? Two very different things. And so the idea, and this is where I don’t love the research, it’s you got to have more and better connections. You got to be plugged in here and plugged in there. Well,

an introvert, know, and really the way I like to emphasize introverts and extroverts is it’s energy. It’s not a personality. And so an introvert, their energy tends to be drained when they’re around lots of people where an introvert is infused. And so you really have to look at this of, okay, an introvert doesn’t have to have 400 friends or feel pressured to go fit into more places. It’s like, you can still have three or five close or strong connections because that’s really what the research says. It’s not your

speaker-0 (13:15.566)
Quantity but your quality of connections that dictate and then lastly I’ll say couples. It’s a huge deal Because again a lot of times this is very stereotypical and a head of heterosexual couple The wife does the social planning and the husband’s been working and now guess what he’s home He’s got nothing to do and she doesn’t want to be a social planner. And so making sure that couples have individual social networks

as well as combined and one person is not responsible for making all of the connections. And I say this to guys all the time, because this happens just because your wife doesn’t want to be around you doesn’t mean she loves you less. She needs space and she’s going to be happier and you’ve got to find your own way. And again, that sounds a little crass or sarcastic, but it’s really the truth. And you’ve got to start doing that before you get to retirement. So don’t wait to retire and be like,

now I got to have my own social network because it’s not going to work. And so it’s really important to build the foundation before you get.

speaker-1 (14:20.15)
I was going to ask you that when do you when have you seen typically retirement coaches starting to work with people? it once they’ve already retired or is it those people that are actually planning? Because I find most people don’t actually plan.

speaker-0 (14:37.158)
You’re spot on, you’re just exactly right. The issue is, think that retirement’s always been three or five years away, right? Forever, like, when are you gonna retire? I don’t know, three or five years. Like you say that for like 10 years and then it shows up. And so unfortunately the trigger point for most coaching is either a year before they retire because they have that no moment. They’re like, this is really gonna happen. Now what am I gonna do?

or they’re a year or less into it and they’re like, this ain’t right. I don’t know why it’s not right, but it’s not right. And so I think what we’re trying to do is expand that conversation so that we’re getting in front of people three to five years before so they can start to figure it out. The biggest mistake that I see that’s been made so far, generationally, a lot of the baby boomers

that have been programmed, if you will, brainwashed to really focus on getting to retirement. And so they get there, excuse me, whether that’s 62 or 65, and they’re like, I’m done, I made it. And I’m like, yeah, now it’s gonna take you like two years to figure it out. So I think the real opportunity for Gen X, which is turning 61 this year, is really to start two, three, four, five years to really start to think about

What does this next phase of life look like? Cause I also think it’s getting harder and harder to save enough money to sit around and do nothing for 30 years. And so if you can, you know, at say age 55 or 58 or even 60, if you’re going to retire at 65, start thinking about who do I want to be? Where do I want to be? Do I want to have an on-court career? Do I want to start an awesome podcast like you have here? What do you really want to do?

instead of waiting until you get there. And my philosophy is a lot of people will say, you need to retire to something. That’s a bad idea because it assumes you’re going to do something when you get there. It’s like a new year’s resolution. Like, man, you’ll wait till next year. I’m going to lose weight and save a bunch of money. You’re like, no, you’re not. You just spent a bunch of money and gained a bunch of weight in December. You’re not going to do it in January. It’s the same with retirement. Don’t wait till you get there.

speaker-0 (16:51.446)
So you don’t retire to, you retire with. If you’re already doing it, it’s easier to do. Stephen Covey talks about, you know, seven habits. First we make our habits and then our habits make us. You want to create a successful life in retirement, do it before you get there. Don’t wait until you’re

speaker-1 (17:09.538)
It’s interesting. I interviewed Chris Farrell yesterday from PBS’s Marketplace, if I remember correctly. And he was calling it unretirement because the entire concept of retirement is probably a misnomer. It’s not the right term for what’s going on.

speaker-0 (17:33.614)
It’s interesting, it comes up a lot, know, because people are like, I want to retire the word retirement. And I’m not against that. You know, I think it’s got an outdated definition to it, but that definition is changing. And so what retirement talked about 10 years ago is different. I prefer to pluralize it. I think retirement is just going to be plural. So it’s retirements. And so you’re either on your first, your second, your third retirement.

and you’re going to go through different phases and stages. And so it’s going to become more common for people to say, I’m on my first retirement, moving into my new career or my new role, my second retirement. And it also just allows people to explore new things. And you can retire as a lot of different things. And so it doesn’t have to be a career or a job with economic value. You can be a volunteer, you can play a particular role. so, the concept of unretirement is,

Spot on. Rich Eisenberg is good friend. He used to work with Chris at PBS The Next Avenue. He writes a column in Market Watch about just un-retirement. That’s all he does. And I also think too, I’ll say this real quick, know, here in the States when social security came out in 1935, average life expectancy was 61. You weren’t supposed to get it. And if you look at, we’ve increased life expectancy by 30%. That would be equivalent to 18 years.

Now that same philosophy would mean people got social security at age 80. So 62, 65, 70 makes you a spring chicken. So it’s not like, even though society tells us different, like, you’re like, oh, you’re 65 or 67 and still working. Well, you must hate your family or not have saved money early enough. That’s not true. And I think I’m seeing that more is that people are turning 65 and they’re like,

The gas tank’s not empty. I’m still ready to go. And society just really hasn’t honored that. And worse, the workplace hasn’t. That really, we’re letting people walk out the door with decades of knowledge, experience, huge Rolodexes, and they’re letting them walk out because of the old idea of when someone should retire.

speaker-1 (19:49.132)
Yeah, I was talking with Jerry Settler a few days ago, and we were talking about how people still have way too much energy when they get to that retirement age. I’m thinking back to back in the 90s, I remember seeing a stat that we all go through four career changes in our life. I’m really thinking that it’s not so much career changes as it is phases.

of your life and it’s not about careers. It’s just we find different things we want to focus on for a period of decades.

speaker-0 (20:27.737)
It’s fine, because it’s the same thing with retirement though too, because someone who retires at 60 does different things at 70. Like again, very stereotypical, you know, the person at 60 wants to RV, right? And so they get the RV, they go across the country for 10 years and they’re like, man, that’s a lot of work. I’d rather just fly somewhere and relax. And so, you know, I think there’s, to your point, there’s phases that we go through getting to retirement. And then even once we get there,

And I think that’s just what I hope people who are listening to this here is that it’s okay to change. It’s okay for things to be differently. In fact, I wrote an article, it’s on Financial Advisor Magazine today that talks about we change. And so one of the challenges I find is that most of the time we’re trying to create a retirement plan for a person that may not exist, meaning

You are going to change, right? And so let’s say, Neil, at 55, you started thinking about, I’m gonna retire at 62, and here’s what it’s gonna mean, and here’s who I’m gonna be. And then you turn 62 and you’re someone different. And so I think that’s really important for people to understand is that sometimes we build plans for someone who’s not gonna be there, and it’s okay if it doesn’t feel right to change direction.

speaker-1 (21:50.382)
Yeah, it’s interesting. was talking with a, or not talking, I was watching a show and one of the main characters says, don’t make a plan, just roll with it type thing. And it had nothing to do with retirement. But when I heard that and what you were just saying is like, you know what? That’s in essence, it’s more the habits than it is the plan that you need to follow.

speaker-0 (22:17.07)
Well, and I think the one thing I will say too, and I think this is interesting is people think they’re going to change when they retire. And so they think they’re going to be this new and different person of like, my gosh, now the heavens have opened up and I’m retired and look at me now. And you’re like, you’re not a new you, you’re you times two. And so you become more of who you already are. That’s behavioral economics. That’s default, right? You just do what you know.

And the problem is if there’s not some disruption to help you change that, then you just become more of yourself. And so that’s a big reason why, in my opinion, people flop. And so it’s not about becoming someone new or different. And this is what I try to do with the RQ assessment I created. It’s look at your personality.

speaker-1 (23:05.342)
RQ assessment?

speaker-0 (23:07.18)
Yeah, retirement intelligence assessment. And so it’s the first really tool that measures personal retirement readiness. So it does not ask any questions about how much money you have and how long it’s going to last, but it really hones in on your personality because of your type A left brain or type B right brain, know, different people bring different personalities to retirement.

And a lot of times the reason why people fail or struggle with the transition is they don’t honor who they really are and what they prefer. They think they’re going to be, you know, again, a type A driven executive is not all of a sudden going to be chill in retirement and just go with the flow. They can learn to, but the real reality of it is they may not need to have a eight or 10 hour structured day.

but they’re still gonna have to have some routine, some structure and some goals. Otherwise you’re gonna feel completely out of sorts. And again, that’s why it usually takes people a year or two to figure it out because no one’s front running it to say, whoa, if we know who you are and what’s important to you and where you wanna go, we need to match that up with your retirement. Otherwise you’re gonna feel out of sorts.

speaker-1 (24:26.798)
So you’ve talked about spiritual, you’ve talked about social, I’ll avoid the financial. Talk to me about that mental pillar. What do people need to think about from that point of view?

speaker-0 (24:38.978)
Yeah, for a lot of it for is just the mindset. And, you know, one of the things I like to ask people because it’s, you know, it’s a combination of things. It’s first having a philosophical approach to retirement and aging. Aging is not necessarily fun. And some people can be angry about it and not happy about it. But philosophically, you know, research have done like the ancient philosophers had retirement figured out, you know,

thousands of years ago. What do they always say and focus on? Focus on you and who you are, knowing yourself and what’s important to you. A good decision is based on knowledge, not numbers. Aristotle said that. And so the problem is we make these giant retirement decisions based on two anchors, age and assets. Anchors come from behavioral economics. Again, these are pillars that we choose to make decisions on. Well, it’s not always a good decision.

Just because you’re 65 and you have 1.5 million doesn’t mean you should retire. And so we really have to take this new philosophical approach that says, what does this next phase of life look like to me? Why is it important? And then I think the mindset really comes from shifting what does success or thriving or meaning mean for you in the second phase of life? And most people can’t answer that question. And that’s what I say, I said,

For guys, I say, how do you know if you’ll be winning at retirement? And women don’t necessarily aren’t as like die hard competitive. They don’t necessarily want to win at retirement, but how will you know if you’re thriving and not just surviving? And most people don’t have an answer because now you know technically how to win or thrive as a podcaster, as a tech executive, as an entrepreneur, as a father, as a husband, you know how to, we’ve got these things that

kind of these markers that we follow. They’re not there for retirement. We have them, that’s what we teach in our course, but people don’t know them and so they don’t know how to gauge what they’re doing. And again, from the mental side, if you can’t change your mindset or at least adapt to what does success mean in this phase of my life, if you don’t have a way to do that, then you’re not gonna be able to gauge if you’re doing well. And if you don’t know if you’re doing well or not, you’re not gonna feel good about

speaker-1 (27:03.726)
Now you said you started this in as a retirement coach in 99.

speaker-0 (27:11.51)
I started as a financial advisor in 99. 2010.

speaker-1 (27:13.614)
Okay, when did you start?

2010. That’s 16 years now.

Have you seen it change?

speaker-0 (27:26.05)
Yeah, I mean, it’s way more mainstream. And so it’s what you know, so I get invited to speak at a lot more conferences. I get a lot more engagements, just consulting, whether it’s with organizations or even training, you know, so there’s a real soft skills deficiency in financial services. And rightfully so. mean, financial advisors aren’t trained to be coaches. They’re not trained to be counselors. They’re trained to manage money.

But that’s what’s changing probably the biggest aspect of financial services. And that’s really where the changes happen is in them beginning to adopt it because technically financial services have become pretty democratized. We all do the same thing and pretty soon AI will be doing it. And so if you don’t know how to humanize the retirement planning process, the amounts will start looking for a different job because if you’re just doing the dollars and cents,

You’re not going to be around in the next 10 years. And so that’s probably the biggest change is financial services recognizing that. Interestingly, not everyone does because they still don’t realize because it’s monetization. Right. And so the big firms like Merrill Lynch, Edward Jones, Morgan Stanley, like, well, you can’t monetize the non-financial side or they call it the soft skills. Right. And so there’s the soft side and there’s the hard side.

but actually you can monetize it. I actually built my entire business by not talking about money. There’s a difference between what clients want to know and what they want to talk about. They want to know their investments are good, but they want to talk about different things. And so the financial services industry in the future will not be run by quants. It’ll be run by people who understand people and what they need and the support they need during these major transitions, not just the dollars and cents.

speaker-1 (29:19.694)
I actually have a view that, and this is the techie of me coming into play, that the AI will replace any human to non-human interface. What can’t be replaced is the person-to-person interface, the coaching aspect, and that can’t be replaced. they’ll try, but it’ll, you still need that handshake.

speaker-0 (29:49.326)
Well, yeah, and I agree like I still you know, even though I have clients across the United States I still like to see my clients and again, I’m 54 so I’m a Gen X You know, I think the 50 up still wants to interact with people now a 20 year old or a 25 year old They are used to doing everything on their phone And so looking ahead they’re more they’re gonna be less likely to engage but that’s why again I think financial services will change

but it’s gonna be the human element that matters the most to your.

speaker-1 (30:20.974)
Okay, so here’s then the question. Because you just mentioned Gen X. I’m the last year of the Baby Boomers. I’m making the assumption that you’ve worked with Baby Boomers before they retired or just shortly after they retired. Two completely different groups of ages. What’s the difference between the two in terms of their views for retirement?

speaker-0 (30:47.48)
Yeah, I think it’s kind of shared earlier. I think, you know, first the baby boomers have been essential to retirement coaching and for that, meaning that like their parents generation, son generation didn’t talk about their problems.

speaker-1 (31:03.232)
And so my dad just hasn’t decided. That’s my dad, who’s 94 years old. He was born before World War II.

speaker-0 (31:10.178)
Yeah, they didn’t talk about this stuff. And I think that there’s a little bit of a lag, kind of in the UK and other places where they’re still pretty close to the vest. They don’t talk about these things. But the boomers were the first one. And of course, because that’s been the mark they left on society since the 60s and 70s of, hey, we’re going to talk about stuff. We’re going to explore these things. We’re going to try this. And so for the first time, people were like, hey, retirement isn’t what it

cracked up to be or why isn’t this going so well? And so that’s a really, really important thing that we started to open up this door for conversations about what retirement is really supposed to be like and look like. The detriment of the boomers is many have been programmed that retirement is a finish line that you got to get to. And once you cross it, then you figure it out. And that’s been a really big trap for a lot of people because it takes time.

Even if you have a perfect plan to retire, there’s still this adjustment period, the honeymoon period by our research last 12 months or longer. And if you go into it without some specific ideas, like I love what you’re doing with the podcast, it kind of branching out your network. Like that’s a really cool and powerful thing that can give you purpose, give you direction, help you learn and stay engaged.

You’re starting to check all these boxes of what you’re doing with your programming. Most people don’t have any of those things. And so that’s the gap for boomers is that there’s, and there’s still, whether there’s 62, 65 or 67 or 70, they’re getting there like, oh no, now what? And that’s really what we’re trying to push with GenX. And again, I think GenX really was similar to boomers. We were all sold the script, right?

go to school, get a good job, work hard, and then it’s gonna be all worth it. But I think the one thing GenX is realizing ahead of the Boomers, but also because of the Boomers, is that the script stinks, and I don’t wanna follow it anymore. And so they’re recognizing a little bit sooner than Boomers did that at 50 or 55, they don’t wanna necessarily retire because they can’t, but instead they wanna have some type of a career that has

speaker-0 (33:29.844)
Impact they still make money. They still have connections. They’re still doing things, but they’re not grinding out 60 hour weeks for you know for pay They’re doing it a little bit more for him

speaker-1 (33:40.946)
I’ve mentioned this in other interviews. I interviewed Dr. Catherine Rickwood, who’s down in Australia. Her research is about that end-of-career transition into a retirement phase. And what she’s starting to see are people transitioning from 40 hours to work sharing. So that it’s an ease off, as opposed to 40 hours to zero. And that cliff is hit.

and allows them to figure out what their next phase is, what their second act is. I’m starting to dislike that term, second act.

speaker-0 (34:19.938)
Well, but you’re, you’re, you’re spot on, you know, so like, but here’s the problem. There are no programs. And so I meet with executives and C-suite people all the time. do specific consulting just for that group. There’s no succession plan. Even when I ask them about their successions, like, okay, how long would it take for you to train someone at least a year? Well, do you have someone picked out? Sorta.

And then during that time would you want to phase out? Yes. Is there a program for it? No, and so there’s nothing there There are no phase outs for a lot of people and again I think that is a huge miss by large organizations not embracing wisdom workers to say yeah We’re gonna phase you out over six months and we’re gonna bring you back every three years and so there’s a huge opportunity there, but it is

It’s a black swan type of a thing of you just don’t talk about it. We don’t know how that’s gonna work. We can’t do this, but it’s problematic for organization and talent management. It needs to be addressed. And I would love to hear more about the job sharing, but it doesn’t exist.

speaker-1 (35:36.79)
Yeah, it’s funny. Everything you just said, Chris said yesterday. The exact same thing about people, companies not having that plan for that transition. That sort of thing. Here’s the thing. So next week I have from the BC government, they have a role that’s in essence an ombudsman for seniors.

So being an advocate for seniors within policy development and that sort of stuff. When I was talking with some people from your US Senate’s special committee on aging, everything they’re talking about is about pension and about dollars and cents. They’re not really talking about the other things. If you were to be a politician, what do you think they should be focusing on?

speaker-0 (36:28.738)
Well, I’ve reached out to that same committee and I’ve reached out to social security administration. You should not be able to get, you know, here in the States, a social security check without going through a retirement coaching program. It should not be allowed. and I say that cause it’s obviously a little bit self-serving, but if, if we don’t, if we don’t help people prepare personally, it doesn’t matter how much money they have.

or what they’re getting from a pension or what they’re getting from the government. And so what the government really has to recognize, and this is for organizations too, like why do we only focus on getting people to retirement? These people are future ambassadors of your business, of that organization. Why are we not getting them through? And why do we do, you know, again, here in the States, we do one lousy benefits meeting a year on your 401k or 403b and tell you, you know, that your diversification is wrong. Well,

Guess what? Even in our model, our spiritual, mental, social, physical, financial, what’s last? Money. Because running out of money pales in comparison to running out of family, friends, good health and time. But it’s again what we’ve been programmed. And so there really is a huge opportunity for politicians in Canada, the UK, the US, just to say, we’re really interested in your health and well-being.

There is obviously a mental health crisis, in my opinion, at least here in the States, with young adults because of technology. It is equally there for older adults. Nobody wants to talk about it. I’ve done a ton of research on the dark side of retirement. More people over the age of 65 are depressed. They’re isolated. Suicide rates are ridiculous for men over the age of 65. Interestingly, women actually attempt suicide more often in that age group.

but it’s less lethal. And whenever I bring that stuff up like to a corporation or I’m doing an event, let’s cut that slide. Let’s not go there. But that’s what’s happening. And again, you even think about if you’re a senior right now, you can’t even go to the grocery store to have a conversation because you’re to get pushed into a self checkout line. And I wrote an article even about that, but there’s a lot of ageism with technology and a lot of things happening. so

speaker-0 (38:47.982)
There’s a real opportunity for, I think, politicians to get on board with mental health and wellbeing for older adults too, and making sure they’re prepared for this transition, not just financially.

speaker-1 (39:00.238)
Your retirement training kind of reminds me of when people go on unemployment insurance. There is a training aspect or a retraining aspect that people can leverage in order to move into different areas, that sort of thing. So you’re in essence taking a parallel to that, to those that are going from one phase to another.

speaker-0 (39:24.846)
Well, and the other thing too, like this thing, cause I’ve got kids in college. There’s an orientate, so my son is going to be going to Michigan state next year. Like they inundate us with emails, come to the admitted student thing, sign up for these organizations on campus, get involved, do this. Like I’m like overwhelmed by all the emails I get, but they are constantly educating, engaging, involving them. There’s nothing like that for retirement. You’re just like,

There you go. And I think even too, this is interesting. This comes up a lot. This is, we talk about this in our training. We don’t as coaches cover this, but if you think about sexuality and intimacy in retirement, what does that look and feel like? It doesn’t come up and we’re not trying to have these conversations, but as we age, things change. If we’re on medications, things change. Intimacy by itself does not just mean, you know, physical or again, like

You know necessarily has to evolve into intercourse like there’s other forms of intimacy But there’s doctors aren’t even trained to talk about it. And so again, there’s these big misses for people in this transition and it’s not about again Talking about that but it is understanding how our bodies and our lives change and adapting to it or understand You know just moving towards it instead of assuming. Well, we don’t talk about it we just hope it works out

speaker-1 (40:54.208)
Interesting. Okay. If you were, we’re getting towards the end of the interview itself. And I always ask this one question of everybody. If you were to give one piece, easy for me to say, Jesus Christ, one piece of advice to people, what would it be?

speaker-0 (41:18.292)
It would really, that’s why I think I would probably give two pieces of advice, but it’s spend as much time focusing on the non-financial as you do the financial, right? And so people spend thousands of dollars to go to a financial planner to have run their numbers. They’ll buy software. They’ll get a giant, you know, a hundred page book on, know, everything that’s going to happen to them with their money. So they need to spend equal amounts of time, if not more focused on the non-financial and what, what really is important to them? Cause

It’s about getting people off autopilot and disrupting their patterns. so start to focus on you and what’s important to you and take a personal approach. So focus on you first, then money. And then the second thing that I think is really, really important is legacy, because I think the concept of legacy is like, Neo, when you die, what do you want to leave? Well, that doesn’t really matter because you’re not going to be here. But legacy for me is right now, what are you giving and doing every day?

And not what do you want to pass on when you’re not here in terms of assets, but what do you want to pass on in terms of wisdom instead of wealth? And so how are you getting the next generation, the next Stuart ready? And really thinking about that’s what you do every day, whether you’re working or retired is kind of you’re creating your legacy. And so it’s that shift in the thought process of this isn’t something in the future. It’s something I’m doing every day. So to wrap up, it would be the

Create a non-financial plan first. Because when your values are clear, your decisions are easy. If you know what’s important to you, you know how to invest your money. It doesn’t work the other way around. And focus on passing on wisdom with what you do every day, not just your work.

speaker-1 (42:58.798)
It’s interesting. That legacy aspect. My father, 94, in his mid-80s, decided he was going to write his own autobiography. And he did. I don’t think I’ve read it, because I was there for much of it. But one of the things I noticed is that it was all about facts and figures. It was, I was born on this time. I went from here to here at this time, as opposed to how he’s feeling and what he was thinking at that time.

And that, to me, is more valuable, passing from father to son, which is the reason why I’ve spent the last decade, two decades, since he retired, just watching what he’s doing and learning from his actions, more than anything else.

speaker-0 (43:43.534)
It says a lot about you and what’s important to you. And I think that’s the point I’m trying to make. It’s the same thing that’s important to you, it’s important to other people. Because I’ve worked with people who they’ve inherited money. And what do they want? They don’t want the money. They want the wisdom. Well, what would my mom or dad have done? What were the hard lessons they learned? When they didn’t know what to do, what did they do? So you’re spot on with what you’re thinking. And it’s a pleasure to be working with you. And I really enjoy it.

speaker-1 (44:10.574)
Bob, I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody. I hope you really enjoyed this. And I’ve referred to a number of other interviews. So take a look at, after you’ve watched this, a few of the other interviews, because there is a common thread running through all these interviews on a number of different things. I just think there is a need to.

to create a conversation about moving forward. Anyway, Bob, thank you very much.

speaker-0 (44:40.302)
Thank you, Neil.