Transcription
There are many people that continue to put off retirement for all kinds of reasons. One of them is that they're not really sure what they're going to do with this free time that come their way and they haven't really planned properly beyond their finances.
You know, there's a short window in life where health, freedom, and curiosity overlap. Most people assume that's going to last forever. We have five statistics for you today that prove it doesn't last forever. and we both retired earlier than we thought we would. I for sure thought I'd be working well into my mid, if not late 60s, and I'm 68 now, but I actually retired at 60 from my corporate career. It wasn't my plan, but I really started to feel unhealthy. I started to have unhealthy habits. I would say we both had unhealthy habits and realized if we kept this up, the mental stress, the drinking, not exercising, all the bad habits that we were going to get so sick long term that we wouldn't have a good long healthy retirement. My father is a great example of that. He retired at 65 and his health went downhill quickly because he didn't take care of himself. So you can't just assume that staying in your job longer is going to make you healthier because it doesn't.
Well, yeah. I guess you know all these things retirement in my opinion, it depends on you, right? It depends on your state of health. It depends on your current focuses. If you're, you know, not yet retired, but you eat healthy, you exercise, you hydrate, you have great relationships. If you're doing all the things, operating on all your cylinders and working a healthy, fulfilling job, you know, I think it's okay to keep going.
Okay.
I really do if something changes. So, I felt like I was that person until my company was sold.
Mhm.
And then once it was sold and the dynamic shift happened and very senior people started losing footing on you know where they were and what the corporate values were and all the things it then became unhealthy and I also retired before I thought I would quite frankly even before I wanted to. And at that point I hadn't even really in my mind turned the corner to envision what retirement should be like let alone how long it should be. So, you know, you might find yourself in one of those two scenarios. And I would say stick with us on this video and learn a couple of these key statistics.
Yeah, I was going to say the statistics will back up what we said in the beginning, but you're right. We left our careers eight years ago, but if you look at our life now, which we call the discovery years, it's a blend of traditional retirement, playing golf a couple days a week, having lunch with friends, traveling, but we also have this business, retirement transformed, that takes up 15 hours a week on average for both of us to keep going. It gives us reason to get up in the morning. It keeps our brains active. It keeps our energy level up. you know, we're living what we're teaching and it makes a huge difference cuz the first thing that people think is that my father thought the best retirement years are not the last ones. The best retirement years are the early years and his best retirement years were about four and then he got sick because he didn't take care of himself. But people assume that retirement is going to improve solely over time and it doesn't. So I'm going to read this stat from AARP. Data shows that nearly 60% of people between ages of 55 and 64 can still engage in physical activity. The 55 to 64, they're still active. But that drops to 35% after age 70. And that goes, you know, when we go to the gym, I'm 68. I'm the only 68-year-old in there. Everyone else is a lot younger. And if you look at the whole cohort of people that go to that gym from 5:00 a.m. when I go, 6:00 a.m., 7 a.m. when you go, most of them are younger people. We don't see a lot of older people in there. And that's a huge mistake.
Yeah. Well, and so I think, you know, intuitively you would say, yeah, of course, energy is stronger in my earlier years. You know, the question really becomes, what can you do to prolong energy, prolong your health span? you know prolong your active years when you get into this phase of life and if you are about prolonging it would it make sense to start it early like would it make sense to not only start the habits early but the retirement early so you can really maximize those early years
yeah I wouldn't want to mislead you and say um you said earlier that if everything is working well
right
keep working but if everything's working well that means that the seven pillars that we talk about are all strong. So, your physical wellness, your mental wellness, your relationships, the relationship with your spouse or partner or significant other, all of these things, this journey that we're on, have to be strong and solid. But don't wait until you're 70, 75, 80 thinking that, you know what, I'm going to wait till 80 and then everything's going to be great. You will age over time, but if you're, you know, I my my mantra is I'll be physically independent at the age of 90 only because of the exercise that I do, the food that I eat, the alcohol that I don't drink, the mental wellness exercises that we do. So, you've really got to work at it. Yeah, I do think that your individual retirement, if you've tuned in to this channel for retirement conversations, your individual retirement is deeply personal. And that sounds great because now I've given you the power, right? But double-edged sword in that is now you have the power. What are you going to do when you decide to retire to maximize those early years in terms of your activities, your health, your wellness, your mental health and wellness, and your relationships? And are you doing enough? Because if the ARP study is correct and you're bearing down on 70, it's suggesting that on average your physical abilities are going to decline.
Yeah, that's true. All right. The next point we want to make is that most someday plans expire faster than you think. And this is a stat from the OECD. The research shows that participation in travel, learning, and active leisure drops from about 45% in the 55 to 64 age group to roughly 20% by the age of 75 and beyond. So the point is this is a statistic that's true that's been studied. Now is the time between 55 and 64 to do your travel to do your learning to grow as a person. You don't want to wait till 70 because statistics show it's not going to work
well not for everybody. And this idea of someday plans, right? So that really plays to your vision. You know, what is your vision in retirement? And if it's someday I'm going to go to Africa and trail run with chimps, you know, that vision has to take place when you are physically capable of being at 11,000 ft in a mountain in the Congo running, trail running with chimps so as not to get caught. Right? So that has to happen before you don't have lung capacity, physical capacity, mental strength, the ability to travel and all the things. So I am a big fan of this idea of visualize your someday plans and then anchor them in time frames.
Yeah. And now is the time when your energy level is higher to do these kind of trips and experiences, not when you're 80. Right.
I mean, when I'm 80, I don't think I'm going to go to Africa on another safari. If we're going to do it, we're going to do it soon because we did really enjoy it. By the way, if you um are new to the channel, there's a download in the link below, the one-year retirement checklist. Make sure you download that and go through it. It's really a great document that many people think it's the best one that we offer. So, download that for free today.
The next one um is maybe a little bit surprising and I had to really think about this. I mean, leaving work earlier can actually improve your health, and that surprises a lot of people, but long-term studies prove that people that leave their work experience 15 to 20% lower risk of mental health decline. And mental health is such a big thing in the world today. And if your career has proved to take a toll on your mental health, that is an indicator that, you know, maybe you should retire sooner than you think and maybe not do nothing because you're physically capable on the physical side, but protecting your mental health as you age is very important.
Yeah. And I don't know if it's because of us, but there are a lot of people that comment on our channel that say, you know, I've been watching your channel for years and I'm finally pulling the trigger. I'm leaving work in a month or a year or 6 months because it's just causing such strain on my life, my physical, my mental, my relationships. People are now starting to be more aware of the fact that it's okay to retire a little bit early and enjoy the rest of your life in these discovery years. And that's really what we preach. We want this phase of life for you to be the most wonderful years of your life. And the only way to do that is to be able to be physically and mentally in good shape to do it.
And you know to calculate your stress levels as they are today. What's your baseline? Where do you need to go? How's your sleep? You know, as we age, sleep is wildly important. And I'll say it again so Mark understands how important sleep is cuz he's a terrible sleeper.
Except for last night.
Last night you did well.
So the last week I've had really good sleep. You have to admit cuz my numbers are off the chart. If getting up at 3:30 in the morning is really good sleep.
Yeah, it's great. I went to bed at 8:30.
Chime in on this for me, people.
At 8:30.
Chime in. 3:30 in the morning. You only get up if you're going to Greece. I swear to God. Get on a plane to go to Greece. It's the only time.
I am sleeping well. I have good numbers.
What I'm saying is, you know, now is the time to really measure these things for yourself and what is your body indicating to you? When will you be your strongest to enjoy these years?
Yeah. The other thing is that number four is whether you like it or not, health often retires you anyway, whether you're ready or not. Because many retirements really aren't planned at all, but they're forced because of health. And the stat is that CDC data shows that about 50% of adults over the age of 65 live with two or more chronic conditions. And I'm including myself in that. I have high blood pressure and high cholesterol. and I do everything that I can to manage that without drug intervention, but it's hard. But 50% of adults over 65 have two or more chronic conditions. So, you've got to really think about the importance of having a retirement phase, discovery years, that you can be active and do some of the things you want. You don't want to wait till it's too late.
Yeah. And you know, chronic conditions definitely rise with age and it takes a lot longer to recover. We were out on a two-mile walk this morning with Ruby and I asked you how your back was doing, for example, and Mark had hurt his back at the gym three weeks ago
and it has taken three weeks for it not to be tender. Right.
Right. So, I mean, before, you know, earlier years, you could do a little tweak here or there and in two or three days with maybe a little heat and ice, you're good to go. I mean, it took three weeks for your back to get better and that was just a little tweak and waiting to retire, you know, knowing that chronic illnesses are coming perhaps down the pike and it takes longer to recover from any type of
injury
injury and your flexibility over time as you age is challenged and your balance over time is challenged. I mean, you really want to take hold of these years as soon as you can. Right now, there are some people that we know, some clients we've worked with that say, "I'm going to work and I'm going to die at my desk." And that's a position that these people hold, and that's fine. That's up to them. Again, as Jod and I say, retirement, the discovery years, is a very individual choice that you make. We're trying to give you some stats today to encourage you to say, "Hm, what they're saying makes sense, and I'm never going to have a retirement if I don't do some of the things they're talking about." But this last one we want to talk about is working longer doesn't mean retirement's going to last longer.
We talk a lot about um lifespan. Like what the average number of years you have left if you're 68 years old. I think my number now is about 78 79. I'm not I'm not sure. I should really have looked it up. But there's the lifespan. But then more importantly is the health span. And we call that the last 10 years of your life. And here's a stat from the World Health Organization. It says people typically spend 8 to 10 fewer years in good health than their total lifespan. Meaning many extra working years come out of the most active, enjoyable ones. So you're working longer in your best years. Then you leave at 75 or whatever it might be. then your last 10 years you're unhealthy and you can't really enjoy anything.
Yeah. You know, and that goes along with not just physical health but also your mental health. You know, mental fatigue accumulates over time and is really disable you. Yeah.
You know, in many ways. But I think the grand point is quality matters more than duration. And if you know according to the World Health Organization, you're going to lose 8 to 10 years of your health span. You know, quality matters today.
Yeah. because we never know if tomorrow will come. So anyway, here's a few questions from YouTube from you guys that our team put together. Uh the first one is from Dana Sessions and she said, "I'm following you guys. Do you post up when you run the next course?"
Uh we will. If you're on our email list, but because you downloaded one of our documents, we do a weekly um email Tuesday mornings at 8:30. Just not salesy. it's just kind of um informative and give you something to think about. But then once in a while we will run a program and we will send that out by email. So making sure you're on our email list and keep an eye open for that. I will tell you that we just launched a membership program and for now it's only available to the alumni that have went through the master class that we ran last fall, right? But that master class is going to be run again in February of 2027. So you'll be hearing about the membership program in May and then the master class in the fall.
Great.
So okay, Anthony Bashett, I may have really screwed up the pronouncement of that. Did you guys buy a retirement home or condo or just staying home and traveling? So we have our home now in Florida, Marco Island, Florida. This is where we live full-time most of the year. Um, and from here we'll go to travel and see the kids and all that. And then we have a place up in New Jersey for the summer where it's sort of a family retreat area. This is where all the kids come in the summer and spend a week or two together at the beach with us and we kind of hang out and, you know, barbecue every night and just have a lot of fun.
Yeah. And we do travel and those are usually big trips that are planned. We need to do better on the quick hit trips, you know, like a weekend here or a day even exploring different places in Florida. So, Anthony gave me a little push to get us to do better.
Most of our travels to go to see our six kids. Yeah.
So, which is great, but we need to do some things alone. Okay,
here's a Oh, this person must be a traveler. Leila Traveler, how did you manage to raise six children and simultaneously achieve career success? This topic is more interesting to me than retirement. If you have a video on this topic, please send me a link. Well, we are in a blended marriage. So, Jod and I got married 17 years ago. So, we up until then were had other spouses.
Mhm.
Yep. And I had my career where I was a entrepreneur with my brother and ran a business and Jod was a corporate executive and she can talk about that with her three daughters. Um, but we worked hard I guess and we did as best we could balancing life and work. I don't know if that's really an answer. We haven't done a video on it but we could.
Um, Ila I would tell you that it's not easy. So, um, by reading your note, I can tell you know that it's not easy. Not specifically not easy for men or women or one more not easy than the other. But it's not easy for me. It was about doing some of the right things and some of the wrong things. So, some of the right things were always putting our family first, always putting the kids and their needs and their activities first, always making them show up for each other as much as we were showing up for them. That was very important. you know, setting family values. Um, bringing my kids into my work. I did that from day one. From the day they were little, my work wasn't separate from them. Uh, as a single mom, they knew everything I was doing. They would come to my office. They knew everybody in my office. Some of my backup contacts were people that I worked with in my office. In other words, if I missed a flight and the kids needed to be picked up from school, it was sometimes somebody from my office that had the authority to do that. So, I blended those pretty significantly throughout my career. And then I would say uh we spent quite a bit of time u making sure that we had time together and whether that was a date night here or there, not didn't do that the best. And probably the thing that I didn't do well at all was my name was never on the priority list. Uh self-care, putting myself first, putting my friends and myself first. So, a lot of sacrifice, I would say, a lot of communication, a lot of family values, you know, and we cobbled it together.
Sounds to me like you need to do a video on this. That was really good.
The way you put it together just off the top of your head. I think that's uh we don't spend enough time sharing what we did during our career and how we got here. Uh cuz we talked more about now that we're here, what are the discovery years look like? What are the seven pillars? But it would be interesting for you for sure to do a video for women in the middle of their career that have children. I thought you did a great job with that.
Thanks.
Okay, here's a question from Denise B. What happens when he retires years before her? One of the biggest problems that we see and that we talk about with our clients and in our master class is that very thing that people retire ahead of the other partner and then that one person that retires early gets into a rhythm, gets into a routine, has a morning routine that's pretty solid, has friends, has volunteer work, has activities, and they really get comfortable with that. And then the working partner comes home every night and they have dinner and that's great. or they have weekends together. But when the second person retires, that's when there can be friction because you really haven't talked about what's important to you in your retirement. If you retired 5 years earlier, you kind of have it figured out. The new person doesn't and they can feel alone and they can feel lost. So, you've really got to spend a little bit of time comparing what visions would be for your retirement.
And I would say, Denise, that you know, it takes a lot of communication. It's not an easy transition for either person. So having uh the ability to give each other grace during the transition is really important. Actively listening, not just talking all the time. Stating um what you will and can do and what you won't and can't do um is really important. If you're the person at home or you're the person working, there needs to be conversations around boundaries and conversations around friends and conversations around how time's spent. you know, all the things. If I were you, I'd search the channel because we've done quite a bit of videos on this.
Yep. By the way, I hope you enjoyed this video. This next one, retirement is short. Spend it wisely. It's not about money. It's how you actually spend your discovery years in your retirement. So watch this next.