The Silver Ceiling You Don’t Know You Have

speaker-0 (00:06.446)
Welcome everybody. Thanks for coming back with us. Today we are meeting with, interviewing with Jerry Sedler. Jerry is an author. Jerry, thanks for joining us. It always sounds better coming from the person I talk to. So why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself, what you do and the reason why I’m talking with you.

speaker-1 (00:27.79)
Hey, terrific. Thank you. Well, it’s a pleasure to be here. Well, I guess I’m going to start right out of the gate then to say why I am so thrilled to be with you today and this audience is that I’m the co-author of the book Don’t Retire, Rewire. And I’m going to say that the first edition of this book came out in 2002, the second edition in 2007, the third edition in 2018. And if there hadn’t been a horrible thing called

COVID, there would have been a fourth edition. And probably the best way to say it is that when our publisher Penguin, the Alpha Division, when that editor took the book, he said, Jerry, this book is evergreen. And let me tell you, Neil, it really is because it’s been there for so many of the boomers. And now it’s really being in, you know, received and recept…

very well respected in the hands of Gen X as they look forward to the future. But I should just say, I’m a Michigander who spent the last 48 years in Manhattan and during COVID did a reload down to Florida. So I guess I can even say that I’m even better at understanding what the future is all about because in a way I’ve experienced more of the future.

than when I even originally wrote the book in conjunction with my co-author, who’s also my husband, Rick Miners. So that’s a challenge and a feat too.

speaker-0 (02:05.708)
So what exactly is the book about? Or, more clearly, what do you mean by don’t retire rewire?

speaker-1 (02:13.262)
All right, so tiny little bit of backstory here. So hopefully people will remember it was the late 1990s. It was the end of the dot com era and people had just the concept of retirement on their mind. And they’d say, what’s your number? It wasn’t just from the chronology. you 65 or 60, but rather your net worth and people were really getting competitive and like, I’m out of here.

And I was a headhunter, an executive recruiter at the time, and a client who, 59 years old and said, I’m retiring, came, called me one day and said, hey, Jerry, are there going to be any part-time C-suite or senior executive jobs? And I stopped from him and I said, not that I know of right now, but why, what’s going on?

And he said, you know, I’ve been focusing so much on what I’m giving up, you know, all the negative things, the commute, the demands, the clients, the leadership is I just had it. But he said, he walked in his office and all of a sudden he looked around. said, wow, this is where I get my atta boys or for us are atta girls. Now is that now, do you know what I mean by that term?

speaker-0 (03:38.878)
I think I do. Okay. You and I have talked about it, but for those of people that don’t, what do mean by atta boy?

speaker-1 (03:46.306)
Right, the Etta boys are the, you know, and the Etta girls are when something really goes well. It’s the kudos, it’s the pat on the back, it’s the, great job. And all of a sudden it had just hit him that work was just not all the negative he was leaving. There were some really powerful, positive things going on that he was getting through work. And it doesn’t matter.

What level you’re at. want to make a point of saying this. It doesn’t matter if you’re in corporate, entrepreneurial, any of the professions, there is something else going on in that workplace, not just the, I can’t wait to get rid of this. That is exactly what got me thinking about, my gosh, there are 77 million boomers. And if this is how they’re thinking, they’re giving up the negative. Do they know?

that they’re also giving up the positive. And I should just interject and say, I did want to be a psychiatrist. I, people are my passion. It was my father who said, ah, Jerry, you’re a softie and it’s probably not right for you. And I do think he was absolutely right, but it has not stopped me in any way from saying I really care about what people do or what people don’t do.

And that is what I think really hit me because it was a different time. And if you turned on the TV, every ad that had to do with retirement had to do with the green stuff. You have enough money to retire. And you know, one day I just said to Rick, my husband, said, it’s bigger than that. Do you have enough money to do what?

speaker-0 (05:28.438)
Indeed.

speaker-1 (05:40.428)
And then people will say, I’m going to do some golf tour. I’m going to go. And then I said, no, the real question is, do you have enough money to retire to do what fulfills you? That was the starting point because I hope right now, as people are listening to this and hear that question on what fulfills you, I hope that they’re looking at each other and looking inside themselves and saying, gosh, do I really know what fulfills me?

To me, that is the secret sauce, one of the key ingredients for a successful retirement.

speaker-0 (06:19.086)
So do you help people work through what it is that fulfills them? Is that what you’re

speaker-1 (06:24.302)
I do. so what may be like stepping back then a little bit here and saying, all right, how do we get to the essence? How do you help people discover this when you don’t have the benefit of a large audience or one-on-one? We did a major piece of research and we did it really across the country and even a little bit global on some things too. And we asked only one question.

We had post and pre retirees in our audience and we asked, why did you or do you work beyond the money? Okay. So think about that. Why do you work beyond the money? Unsolicited, we got 85 reasons back. Now some of them duplicated each other slightly, but when people said, well, what were they like?

I want to have accomplishments. I want to belong. I want to be creative. I want to make a difference. I want to be a problem solver. I like the recognition. I like to be valued. It’s my self-esteem. This list went all the way down. And what we have done is we have listed all 85 of those and we call them drivers because it’s like you’re

your personal DNA. So we list those in the book, but we took a look at what were the top 30. And those were the top 30 that had just really appeared most frequently across all of the research. And we said, we are going to integrate those into the steps of the book. So that’s when you asked me, we help people? Let me tell you first on this.

that Rick came from a background very much of executive search, outplacement, career transition. And his belief was that people need steps. People just can’t hear a story. And I definitely think narrative is important. So we decided to combine the narrative as we follow four people through the book as they go on this journey. I’m sorry.

speaker-0 (08:47.638)
real people? real people? were these are real people

speaker-1 (08:52.366)
Right. They are composites because we did not want to use any actual names. you will see not all journeys complete on the timetable of a book. So it was better to do it that way. But having the steps are, I think, what really helped people. Because the first step is just to have people say,

you retire from, you rewire to. And that’s a big difference there. The word rewire is about taking that energy that we have on those, what I’m going to call that traditional job. And then when that job, that career, that profession, you sell your business ends, energy is still going through our veins.

speaker-0 (09:27.854)
Okay.

speaker-1 (09:49.87)
It has to go somewhere. So that’s why we say don’t retire. Recognize you’ve got this energy. Where’s it going to go? But this is where I have seen and you, you know, I told the audience the time period working on this because it has been thousands of people and I’ve done the work from, you know, Des Moines to Dubai. I mean, you know, it’s taken us all over.

But we want people to know themselves before they go out. And that’s why the second step is identifying your drivers. And we don’t care what your drivers are, but we care that you know what your drivers are, because that’s where we see mistakes. People go, my gosh, I’m retiring. I have to go and do something. Well.

you don’t, you haven’t worked this hard, saved all this money and invested just to go out and do something. And that’s where we said, no, we want people to really, to deliver a fulfilling future for themselves. So, and then that third part, when you said, we help? Well, the third step is linking your drivers to your life. And this is where I mean,

I love it. And as people will say, Jerry, you and Rick are so you’re practical, you’re tactical, you’re realistic. But we really show people how to use what’s in their life today and to identify where they’re currently getting fulfillment. Now, the reason I say this, we show people how to read their calendars.

And we don’t care if they’re electronic or paper, whatever. But the reality is when you do retire, leave the organization, go into your next act, whatever you want to call it, there’s an impact on your calendar. And the things even just sheer doing the work, whether you call it, you know, in the old days, nine to five, nine to six, nine to seven. I mean, everything has changed. That’s all going to come off the screen.

speaker-1 (12:12.494)
But other things that are going to come off the screen too, like one of the clients said, goes, well, I golf on Saturdays with one my clients. He happens to be a vice president of sales. And then he said, well, will he still want to golf with me? I said, I don’t know. And then out of the blue, said, well, who pays then? And I thought, okay, that’s a simplistic thing in a way, but that’s exactly what we’re talking about.

There’s other things that relate to work that when work ends, you may be giving that up also. people need to think about this. We don’t want anybody falling off cliffs. That’s probably one of the key reasons that we wrote the book. We don’t want you to be naive on this, but the third step is really helping you to create a rewired vision.

We take people to say, what’s your interests? So let me do a call out since you’re letting me talk on this. Work is demanding. There’s no question. And for many people, and they have told me through the years, I work so hard between, you know, the family, the children, the job and everything. A lot of people really did not have the time or make the time to develop an interest or two.

So they can be entering a next act void. We even show you through the steps to take a look at sometimes it’s past interests. Sometimes it’s things you thought you were going to do when you were 21. And now at 61, you’re saying, now I’m going to do this. Perfect example, somebody in banking and he was leaving and he had said, I always wanted to get my master’s in history.

I assumed I would have done it after I got my bachelor’s. And I’m going to go and I’m going to do it now. The interesting thing is his friends said, are you crazy? You could be like 71, 72, 73 by the time you got done. And he said to them, which I loved, he goes, I’m still going to be 71, 72 or 78. This way I’m going to have my master’s in history.

speaker-1 (14:36.622)
See, this is what I mean. Sometimes we forget to look back at what we used to love and like, and don’t always realize, hey, this is the time to go back and take a look at those things that might still be there and some might be valid. So then it leads to the fourth step, doing some kind of investigation, putting things, a plan in motion.

and really thinking about, okay, I guess I jumped one, kind of creating your rewired vision. That’s what the interest, and then the fifth one is putting it into motion. But as I said to you earlier, Rick, in the time he’s worked with people in transition, and subsequently all of the client work, we see that people need a process. Even though the goal,

I hate presses. don’t want to do it. It’s our lives. We’re not talking about a business now. We’re talking about us as the business.

speaker-0 (15:44.694)
Yeah, know a lot of people, it’s not so much process, is they want to be told what to do. And this breaks it down for them into those steps. This is what you have to do. One, two, three, four, five, type thing.

speaker-1 (15:59.566)
You know, and since we said, it’d go a little organic and free form. And let me tell you that that’s one of the things in the years doing this work I have seen that corporate America had defined steps. You know, there were the career ladders. We were all there. So you had a good idea of if you did something where you might go. We’re talking about a life stage now that it’s

It can be quite a clean, open screen, slight easel, whatever you want to call it. For some people on it, it’s so exciting. They look at it and it’s like freedom. And other people look at that. They look at their calendar that’s going empty. They freak at the white space. And that’s when mistakes do occur because too quickly.

They just want to put something on. That’s why knowing yourself to me, there’s just no replacement for it. Obviously the one piece is knowing where you are financially, but the real piece is knowing yourself. What really makes you tick. That’s really why we wrote the book because we just feel that when you start this next step journey,

You have to have a roadmap and we help you with the roadmap. You don’t build a house without a blueprint. Don’t create your future without some type of boundary, some type of plan.

speaker-0 (17:40.808)
It’s funny you’re talking to an architect here so that’s everything that I always think about.

speaker-1 (17:45.998)
very good. And I haven’t to love architecture, so we’re there.

speaker-0 (17:51.33)
So you said how many editions of this book? Four?

speaker-1 (17:54.954)
At the third, as I said, there would have been a fourth if COVID hadn’t come. Yes.

speaker-0 (18:00.543)
So over this time, what’s changed? Because I’m making the assumption things have changed and evolved since you started this entire process.

speaker-1 (18:10.072)
Dreat very much so. So let me tell you why there are visits not so common for a nonfiction book to have the additions like this. So I did a lot of work after the book came out for a financial institution working with their clients. And one of the things that became very obvious was that couples did not always appear to be on the same page.

And often they did not know how to get on the same page. And they were really kind of at crossroads. So it was really in 2007 between our agent and our editor, I said, I see a missed opportunity here. That there’s, you know, it’s theirs, but it’s our retirements too.

And that’s why we did the second edition, everything in the book. So we added content in that to really try to help people understand themselves better. And we did not mind or mix or have any problems saying to people, if you really think you need something a bit more, kind of from a therapeutic standpoint, because there are a lot of people who get to this life stage and they have focused so much on the family and work.

that they can look at each other and say, wow, I’ve kind of forgotten who you are and vice versa. So that to me was an important thing. But then 2007, then to 2018, at that time, we could see the technology changing, but we could also see people were saying, if I love my job, Jerry, and have the chance, do you think I should continue working? Yes.

because if you love what you do and if you have the opportunity to continue doing it, then do it. That was a large change. So what we added in there is the changes that occurred in technology. Now, this is before AI and everything came on the screen too, but it was just hands down, people were telling us, and this is…

speaker-1 (20:30.914)
This is going to sound funny, but of course it was before COVID and everything too, but people would say they would walk into a meeting and if they had younger clients they were working with or even their peers, and I’ll never forget it, one man saying this to me and he said, I was told before I went on this sales call, take off your tie.

And he was so surprised and shocked and everything, but he was still kind of an, an older model, even though he himself was like a mid fifties that he was like, I don’t know how I’m supposed to look anymore. Now, obviously a lot has changed since 2018. So I’m, going to make a point of that. The other thing was on technology and people, you know, it’s like, well, I don’t know if I always want to be up on all the tools.

Well, if you don’t, then what you’re saying to me and to a potential client is I really don’t want to be in the game. So those were some of things. And then COVID comes. That was a test market for people. Could I work at home? Can I do it remotely? Did I want to? Many people saw

speaker-0 (21:38.83)
Okay.

speaker-1 (21:53.814)
my gosh, I got a little bit of taste of the future and I think I might retire a little bit earlier than I thought because I do have other things to focus on. Other people realize maybe they didn’t want to go out of retirement at the same time as their spouse or partner did. That was probably some of the biggest things there. We know that people made some geographic, some real estate moves.

that they’re either loving now or trying to change. And if I could say now, we probably have, if I’m not mistaken on the numbers, the greatest number or percentage and overall raw number of people over the age of 65 working in America.

Now there are a few reasons for this. As I said earlier, if you love what you do and if you have the chance, continue doing it. Other people just, they fell short on some of the financials. Other people said, I want to work. Maybe it has nothing to do with what I was doing before. I recently seen, it is, know, boomers cover that 18 year span who are saying that

I used to be somebody and this is one of the biggest things that’s coming up. Yeah. Have you heard about the pips? The previously the pips. Yep. Previously important people and people are telling me I used to be one of them and now I’m not. This is why we go back to your drivers. Know where you’re going to have some pain. Know where you’re going to have the ouch.

And yet that’s the thing, even though we’ve been talking about it for this long now, that I guess it’s like people don’t do things until they really get into the situation. Now, when you ask about it, know, boomers, depending upon the year and then you, there were nine to five jobs that boomers did have. The, those who are, you know, the, the youngest that’s faced with the particular approach.

speaker-1 (24:16.034)
productivity and the demands. Many of them are saying, I’m ready to go out. My ego is fine. I don’t need to continue, you know, working. But I am seeing some things kind of with that middle who is still kind of mad that they’re not being recognized for their currency, for the value that they do have.

speaker-0 (24:40.878)
You’re saying so many things that just remind me of me. When I say architect, I’m talking about an IT architect.

speaker-1 (24:45.235)
okay.

speaker-1 (24:50.254)
gotcha, okay.

speaker-0 (24:52.942)
And the older I’ve gotten, the harder it’s been to actually find contract work. So, and that’s because at six, I’m 61 now trying to talk to 20 year olds and 30 year olds. They’re saying you’re not going to fit for our culture. Even though I know exactly where everything came from and I can see where it’s going and where the trends are and that sort of thing. Oh, by the way, your comment about don’t wear a tie.

The reason why I wear golf shirts is because I learned very early in my career that if I wore a suit in to talk with the engineers and the techies, they’d ignore me because they would assume I don’t know what I’m talking about. So I had to change. I can’t remember the last time I wore a suit.

speaker-1 (25:41.55)
Okay, see now you should also know that somebody not totally dissimilar then had said to me I want to stay in the game and one of the things that I said is do you have a younger partner? Not a romantic partner, business partner. Okay. And he was like, no, what do mean? I said, but first that’s how to me you package the use the generations well.

because it shows you were smart enough to partner with somebody who is of that culture, but you’re bringing in a different level of the brains. And then hopefully, you know, that’s what the client sees too. So I am a huge proponent, you know, of this. And so there are many things that we can do to tweak to do differently. If you really are serious about saying, I want to stay in the game, I want to make it work.

Many people just say, love the end of the deal. You know, I love the deal make and I love selling this. I want to be in it. And that’s it. And you could see that they’re lusting from the sidelines. And that’s when I really do like work and talk to them and say, Kate, let’s drill down. know, WIT is something a lot of people just think the word wit, but to me it stands for whatever it takes. Wit.

speaker-0 (27:06.702)
Okay. Okay.

speaker-1 (27:08.174)
And that’s what I try to share with people too. And that’s when people, think it’s a little bit of discernment for themselves to begin to say, how serious am I? Because it takes work. And when people today say, well, I really don’t want to be on social media. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to have to do the marketing. Well, then I always say, come and listen to yourself because you’re saying some things that you’re not willing to do. And the workplace has changed.

So I think that’s part of it, but also the thing when you said, what else have we seen? Let’s face it, we are living longer, younger, healthier lives. Longevity is, mean, when you hear like somebody saying, oh yeah, I’m going to 102 birthday party, it’s not the fluke or, you know, what it was kind of in the year 2002. There’s just, there’s more of it. So we’re also talking about,

Whereas, you know, retirement used to be 10 to 12 years. If you were lucky, now you’re really saying there’s an additional like 25 to 30 years. So that’s how people have to think about it too. It isn’t just, I going to outlive my money? My feeling is what are you going to do with all that time? How are you going to find fun fulfillment? And that is about the rewiring.

speaker-0 (28:29.624)
So when we started this interview, you talked about boomers. Yes. And then you tailed into Gen Xs. Gen Xs. Because at 61, I’m the last year of the boomers. Yes. You’re part of the Gen Zs, but maybe you had…

speaker-1 (28:47.214)
No, I am right. I’m a boomer. Nice try.

speaker-0 (28:52.622)
Is there a difference? I say that I’m going to preface this question with the fact that my dad is still alive at 94. And I can tell there’s a generational difference between him and me. Like he was born before World War II, for example. Is there a difference that you’ve seen with approaching retirement by the Boomers versus the Gen Xs?

speaker-1 (29:18.03)
Yes, and only in the past week or two does this seem to have come full force a little bit on my screen. So when you think about first, you know, baby boomers, the sheer number, the 76, 77, you know, million boomers out here. When you think that, but those numbers alone, that they build the modular schools to accommodate us and everything. you know, boomers.

you know, even the fact that you’re called a boomer, mean, it’s not, you know, it says, wow, you’re gonna, you know, kind of bust out in that. so when you, and then, you know, there’ve been wonderful things saying, hey, boomers are gonna change the face of retirement, change the face of the world and everything. One of the traits that are very strong in the boomer generation is that we’re belongers. And right, so that can be, you know, belonging to, you know,

corporations and remember those were in a resume you could be there 30, 35 years. Let me tell you, I know it sounds funny to say.

speaker-0 (30:21.082)
No, no, I completely know what you’re talking about because that was my dad. That was part of what we grew up. Like I grew up thinking I would get a job, I’d be with that company 30, 35 years, and I’d retire from that company. And that’s not what happened.

speaker-1 (30:40.398)
No, no, no, it’s not a party. It’s not a gold watch. It’s like, you know, don’t let the door hitch in the behind as you walk out. It’s very different. But one of the things then are a few things about, um, Jen X is first their numbers were so much smaller. I think it was like 47, 49 million. So big difference with the boomers, but more than that, they were known as the latch key kids because you had both the mother

and the father in the workplace. So those kids became much more self-sufficient. They were independent. They did a lot more, you know, on their own. And something that just happened the other day is somebody shared with me and she kind of said that, want to get involved. I’m not even sure how to.

So socially she wanted to be there. She just really didn’t know how do I merge in with this group? But yet she openly admitted then to me too, she goes, because I’m lonely. And I thought, now this is interesting. So 58 years old has relocated and everything now to more of a retirement environment. And she’s unsure.

But the one thing that I am hearing is that these Gen Xs are more ready to go out. They’re not lusting to continue working. are not, not everything was totally tied up with their identity. I mean, that’s one of the key reasons about knowing your drivers. Many boomers became their business cards. You know, let’s face it, think about what we do.

You know, when you meet somebody, it’s like you gave your name and what do you do? Well, that, you know, that’s, that’s not it. And, so all of a sudden now when somebody goes, so what do you do? People are like, they don’t want to even say they’re retired as if there’s something bad to it. Whereas others are a glory in it. See, that’s the other thing. I guess I would love it if we got across that, you know, no pejoratives on this because boy, people are at all points on the continuum.

speaker-1 (33:00.5)
on the spectrum. And I think we have to own our feelings and not to be dictated by somebody else. And, know, if one more person will say, didn’t you used to be? Well, you still are, but now you’re going into your next act. So it’s, it’s almost like a refresh of your self esteem, who you are getting all suited up again, because that

is the word. It’s a French word, retire, retiree. It just means to leave the battlefield, to go back, refresh, get the arm and to go back again. That’s what I’m really talking about here. You’re going into a next act and that next step for some people could almost be as long as their first act was.

if they have this gift of longevity, if they take care of themselves. And we don’t know who’s going to get it. But the truth is, that for the time that we’re here, I’ve taken it on as my purpose to try to help people see how they can live a more fulfilling life. Even though people have a lot of responsibilities, because you just alluded to it. It’s the sandwich generation.

Yeah. You’ve got your parents, you have your children and they might have children there too. So how many generations? So then people will say, wow, I thought it was going to be my time, my turn. And now because of some changes with my family, I’m taking care of my grandchildren all the time or my children are moving back in to live with us. That’s why to me, it’s so important to know.

your drivers and what makes you tick. when times do get challenging and let’s face it, nothing is totally smooth or perfect all the time. You’re going to know how to handle it. You’re going to know, what do I get my joy from? That’s why knowing your interest in it, if you know, as somebody said to me, one of the things I noticed when I didn’t commute anymore, I don’t listen to jazz anymore because

speaker-1 (35:22.712)
They listen to jazz on the way to work. Now somebody could say, come on, that’s a simple thing. Well, if your commute was about 45, 50 minutes, that’s a lot of good jazz every day. And now they have to find a way to get it.

speaker-0 (35:25.838)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (35:40.95)
You actually just said something that triggered for me. I’m… Before, when my kids were just a little younger, they’re in their mid-twenties now, but when they were high school age, I was driving everywhere. And it wasn’t just for them. It was also for work and drive and drive and drive. I just realized while you were talking, I drive maybe twice a week now. I used to really enjoy just…

driving because you could lose yourself, But now I don’t even drive anymore. It’s interesting.

speaker-1 (36:18.094)
See, what I’ve discovered in doing this work and sometimes I do a lot of work from what I call platform speeches and big audiences and one-on-ones. Sometimes it’s the small thing somebody is just like, that’s the aha moment. Like I didn’t realize it because I think that 24 seven

speaker-0 (36:19.583)
Go ahead.

speaker-1 (36:44.908)
it’s just somehow, and then now, you know, being on the phone and with the social media and staying connected, that we’ve got a little bit disconnected from ourselves and trying to find the time to, you know, and I always say too, if you want to find your, just don’t sit in your own home. There’s too many distractions. It’s like, go someplace, get that cup of coffee, get that whatever and sit there and just.

And just think about you. Think about yourself.

speaker-0 (37:18.606)
An interview I just published today was with Connie Zweig, who is a Jungian psychologist. And she was talking about, we were talking about conscious aging and just sitting there and being aware of what’s going on with you as you go along.

speaker-1 (37:39.458)
Yeah. And I think there’s two things. It’s kind of like the one when you say, you know, it’s, you know, and friends, always heard that that line, you know, people will say, okay, let’s get the organ recital out of the way. You know, my thumb, your knee, whatever. But but it’s also being with your friends and saying, just still have some dreams you want to do. And if you and this is where you have to be careful, because there are dream stealers out there.

So you have to know who you are talking to. But I always say, sit here and talk to yourself first or do like free form writing because I don’t want people to go to the grave with the to-do list in their hand or their bucket list.

speaker-0 (38:25.57)
Jerry, at this age, if somebody saw me talking to myself, I’d be put into a home.

speaker-1 (38:30.606)
Now they would think you’re just on your buds!

speaker-0 (38:33.934)
There you go. That’s true. That’s true. It does beg the question, should we be thinking about just getting rid of the concept of retirement? Because I remember back in the 90s, I remember reading that people go through four different changes in careers. I’m just wondering whether all we’re dealing with right now

is just another change in, and I’ll use air quotes, career to a new way of approaching life.

speaker-1 (39:09.198)
I love this. I love this kind of thinking and contemplation too, because I think the whole, I think the concept of retirement is changing. think COVID did a little bit of that when people are doing travel when you’re 20 and you’re doing the job over in Portugal, things that, to be honest, that you said, oh, you’ll do when you’re done with that full-time job.

the sabbaticals that people are taking. Today, when we hear about, in the field with AI, what’s the impact gonna be? Or are you gonna be working on the moon? Or is it gonna be delivering the Ubers on Mars? I mean, I know it’s things that maybe we would have laughed about. I’m not 100 % laughing anymore. My father was a huge science fiction reader. And then when he, I said,

Dad, why did you stop and switch over? said, everything started coming true. And I think there’s something there. The word retire. I remember years ago where there were different campaigns. People tried to get rid of the look. The word is there in the lexicon. And I think because of the financial component, that’s why I try to say your next act, the future, what, whatever what it’s.

It is there, but I, and I do wonder sometimes will boomers be the last who will really do it a certain way that I, I don’t know for sure.

speaker-0 (40:50.158)
Don’t forget, retirement started in the late 1800s. Right? It’s not a natural part of human life. It’s just been a cultural creation.

speaker-1 (41:03.406)
Well, it was Otto von Bismarck. And I would say to my audience is, you know where, this could be like a room on like a 340 people. And I said, how many of you know where did the concept of retirement come from? Not one hand went up. And I said, I want you to stop and think about this. You’ve been saving for it. You can’t wait to get there. The truth is you have absolutely no idea where it came from. And it was Otto von Bismarck, just what you said, the late 1880s to get that older worker out of the workforce.

That happened. He plucks the age of 65 when at that time 49 to 50 was really more the ages. Then it gets put into place with our FDR coming off of the depression, 33 % unemployment. He creates a social net and he takes the age of 65. And then it was really Amanda, I’m really going to tease you. Do you recognize the Dell web?

Dell web created Sun City, a person’s name, and this was out in Arizona because the concept was, I’m going to say Americans in this instance, but it was like you had the three-legged stool. So you had your own savings. then American Express was the first one to do kind of the pension plans. Then you had the social net. so Dell web, the concept was

wait a minute, if we have, you know, all of this, then this is where the life of leisure comes from. And what became the symbol ubiquitous golf. So totally I agree, but it is now my feeling social engineering run amok because we are living longer. Yeah. Those things. was never expect.

And that’s, it’s a lot of time now. And that’s where I think people don’t really realize, but that’s where you and I should also say too. It’s not just one big chunk of time. It’s when people say, so what are you going to do when you retire? What? Yeah. I need an answer for the next 30 years. No, you chunk it out and blocks of time. And my belief and there’s, it’s not my line.

speaker-1 (43:31.458)
But people are saying now when you retire and usually it’s you’ve got that honeymoon stage, which really lasts until about the first 18 months. And then people kind of hit the wall and go, okay, now what am I going to do? we call it the go go, the slow go and the no go. But you just don’t know how long any of those are because it’s so different for everyone. But it’s not.

This huge, you know, like it’s like asking a baby, what are you going to do when you’re 30? Well, that’s ridiculous. It’s the same thing like asking us at 60 or whatever at 90. Then you’ve got the health facets in there too, but conscious aging, as you were just saying. So I don’t want people to get too caught up. Also, like they’ll tell me, I hate it when people ask, what are you going to do when you retire? And I said, you don’t have to have an answer for them.

You you could just say, stay tuned. I’m going to rewire, but don’t fall apart. And also just don’t add something to your life because you’re so afraid of that white space. Know yourself, know your drivers. It’s kind of like a honing device. You’re going mining for gold. That’s what our lives are. We got to go back and say, if I’m on this earth, I want the best. I want to get the most gusto I can.

speaker-0 (45:01.614)
That’s so cool. That’s so cool. I wouldn’t be surprised if with AI that search for what our core purpose is starts earlier and then it becomes transitory through multiple decades as opposed to from career into retirement.

speaker-1 (45:22.638)
I would like to see that a little bit as well. I’m seeing one of the things, I just saw it again today too, is going back kind of with the, it was a mid 30 year old who was looking for what I’m gonna call more of the traditional. And he’s in higher education, but he was saying, really just, I want the job with the insurance and the whatever. And I thought,

Wow. So he almost sounds like he was mimicking somebody, the oldest boomer or the silent generation. So I do try to, as many people do, take a look at demographics. What, you know, what are we seeing? And then really tracking some of the psycho graphics, because I do think COVID did unwittingly just change a lot of things that we’re still just learning.

daily. But when you said the word about purpose, the other thing that I want to say too, there are some things with purpose with a capital P and purpose with a small P.

speaker-0 (46:34.114)
What do mean by the difference?

speaker-1 (46:35.938)
Well, sometimes people say, Jerry, how do you really discover your purpose in life? now they’ll put the heavy, call it the breath tones and everything. it’s like, know, Neil, I’d like to think up to this point too. still have, we selected careers that would hopefully not only give us that paycheck, but help us fulfill on some purpose. Some people.

uh, call their careers a calling and, know, it could be in marketing, but they still, you know, loved it. But when somebody says to me, I’d like to, the iron man, that was one of the things he wanted to have to retire. And, and he said, is that a purpose? I said, my feeling is to go in training to, to, do the iron man and all it entails. Yeah, but it’s a purpose. It’s an episodic for that.

point in time. Other people have flat out said to me, I want to eliminate poverty. That’s a purpose with a capital P. That’s big. That’s huge. That’s all encompassing. So I know that there have been other consultants and authors who definitely focus a lot on that word purpose, but there’s two P words that challenge me. One, this thing on purpose.

because I’m afraid people are gonna go through life looking for their purpose and go to their grave and think, you know, their purpose just became looking for their purpose. And the other P word is perfect. There is no such thing as perfect. And I know people now who have been retired almost 10 years, they are still looking for that perfect place to move, that perfect opportunity.

And all that’s really transpired is 10 years have gone by. So if you can try to get rid of that word. There’s it’s it’s not a good word for this stage of life. Yeah. Or any stage really.

speaker-0 (48:44.67)
It’s like the old saying, don’t let perfect get in the way of good enough.

speaker-1 (48:49.006)
And you know what? I couldn’t agree more. Good advice. It really is. And I’ve learned too. And I think that women, I’m the former editor at large of Working Woman Magazine, doesn’t exist anymore. But the reality is, I’ll never forget during the time period, and women needed to be, I want to be perfect at home and in the workplace and as a mother. And it’s impossible to be totally in balance like that.

But the line I always remember from my own mother when she would say, her home was so perfect you could eat it off the floor. And I always used to say, mom, who would ever want to eat off the floor? So sometimes I, this is a message to women. I think sometimes we have to break some of our own models to go forward and to say, good enough is good enough.

speaker-0 (49:45.61)
Yeah, it’s funny. If we talk about absolutes, we miss things. I interviewed last week Ashton Applewhite. And what she does is she uses the terms, just looked it up while you were talking, olders versus youngers. Because it’s comparative as opposed to absolute. Yes. Yes. As a result, it allows us to move forward, which

speaker-1 (49:51.039)
Ow.

speaker-0 (50:14.444)
Just as an aside, that’s one of things that I’m starting to see a lot of people that I interview, is they’re starting to have a different language, be very aware of the words that they’re using for this time of life, this age group, because it’s not accurate what’s been used. It’s tied to ageism. It’s tied to those sorts of things.

speaker-1 (50:39.394)
Yeah, now it truly is. And I think that we all have to be conscious too and make sure that if somebody is walking too slowly, they’ll come on, and then stop and say, you know what? That is a natural. mean, aging, it’s better than the alternative, but it’s just, it’s a life stage.

You know, and let’s hope we all live long enough to experience aging. And I know we all go through it and people say, well, when I get old and I got older.

speaker-0 (51:14.574)
It’s honey, you’re the second person to say that to me today. Aging is better than the alternative.

speaker-1 (51:21.954)
Right. Well, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a good life. It’s a good time period, but like anything, it’s like, we’re trying to give ingredients to make the journey what you want it to be. And there are a lot of good books out there. There are a lot of good people as resources. It’s fabulous that you’re doing this.

And I just say to people, take the time to sit with yourself and go, you know, what do I want now? listen, listen to yourself, but you’ve got to make the time to do it. And if you don’t, then that’s a message to yourself too.

speaker-0 (52:13.56)
Absolutely. So we are now coming towards the end of the interview. I always ask the same question of all my guests. I think I know what your answer is going to be. But if you were to give one piece of advice to the people that are listening to this, what would it be?

speaker-1 (52:36.376)
Be curious.

speaker-1 (52:40.916)
I curiosity is one of the most important things that we can own in this next act. Whether it’s to be curious as you’re selecting travel, be curious if it’s contemplating going maybe to a different concert or whatever, don’t get, don’t make yourself older when…

it’ll happen soon enough anyway. So when people used to say, Jerry, you want people to have a positive mental attitude. And I said, no, no, it’s if I could give everybody the curiosity gene, that’s what I would. So I would tell every listener to be curious about something, take a look into it. And even if you come up to chat, GPT perplexity,

They all can give you ideas. can print for you. Then go and do it. Surprise yourself and surprise your, your family, your partner, whatever, because a good friend always said, if you don’t make today special, it won’t be. But also somebody I value very much said to me, Jerry, you are not a motivational speaker.

I said, okay. He said, you’re an inspirational speaker. And I said, what’s the difference? And he said, you can inspire only a person can motivate themselves to get up off the seat.

speaker-0 (54:24.822)
Yeah. You can’t make anybody do something they don’t want to do. No.

speaker-1 (54:29.484)
I’ve learned that now. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, Neil. So, well, we’ve given a lot of advice. Like I said, I’m going to plug it again on Amazon and my address, you know, email is in there. So I always love to hear from readers. Don’t be shy. I love to say we’re all in this together.

speaker-0 (54:52.446)
I will, for everybody listening, I will put all this information for Jerry, the book, that sort of thing, in the description of the video so you’ll be able to find it very easily. Jerry, thank you very much. really appreciate it.

speaker-1 (55:08.819)
Neil, it was real pleasure. Stay well. Thank you.