I got advice from a client recently that, in my 14 years of helping people retire, I hadn’t heard before, so I want to share it with you. This client’s been retired for about seven years, and he told me he had a group meetup with his buddies – some of them retired and some of them not – but the topic of discussion was retirement, and they were asking him for advice on how he did it because (according to them) it seems like he’s got it all figured out. He’s a humble guy and he obviously knows no one’s got it all figured out, but he did have some really good ideas, so to share them with you.
The Three Essentials of Retirement
As we were at lunch, I was asking him, “Why do you think they thought that you had it all figured out?” And what makes his retirement experience seem so much better than everybody else’s, compared to people who are not having that same experience? Some of the discussion that we had was on those three essentials, but he also did something a few years before he retired that set him up for success.
Those three essentials are the three Cs. The first one being creativity; we’re creative beings. You got to be creative when you were working, but you also have to make sure that you can continue to create and be curious after work. Some of the happiest retirees that I know are the most curious and creative ones, too.
The second C is connection. Your closest friends might be the people you’ve been with between ages 25 and 55 during your working years, and it could be quite an adjustment all of a sudden when you’re not seeing them anymore. It takes effort to keep those friendships going, but you can also deepen relationships with family, with God, or maybe new grandchildren along the way.
C number three is contribution. When we’re not able to help others, there’s something missing in our lives. In some way, your work helped others, but you have to continue that after work ends. It could end up being a contribution to a cause or a charity, a person, or a group of people where you can use your knowledge, skills, or your money to help.
Those are the three Cs, but there’s something else that this client who has given this advice said that I didn’t think about before, and he brought it up in this discussion.
Advice from a Retiree
While we were talking about contribution, he mentioned that he’d started purposefully finding the time and using it for contribution well before he retired. He actively found ways to serve and help others with a small percentage of his working time. As retirement came, it was almost like a natural progression that that percentage of time grew a little bit, and it didn’t feel like a brand-new life he didn’t recognize. Sometimes retirement can feel like a complete transition, but he made it more of a steady transition into this retirement life that was filled with those three Cs of contribution, connection, and creativity.
The piece of advice that he had was to take time before you stop working to just explore these three Cs more, especially the contribution one. Don’t wait until you have free time in retirement and invest it now. Take quiet time to think about life in retirement before you get there. I have a video on prompts to help you think about retirement before you get there. Take some time in the morning, or whenever you have your best thinking time, and start exploring those three Cs. Whether you’re already retired or not just yet, it’s worth the investment.
Disclaimer: Since we don’t know your specific situation, none of this information should be construed as tax, legal, financial, insurance, financial advice, or other advice and may be outdated or inaccurate. It is your responsibility to verify all information yourself. This content is prepared for entertainment purposes only. If you need advice, please contact a qualified CPA, attorney, insurance agent, financial advisor, or the appropriate professional for the subject you would like help with. Streamline Financial Services, LLC or its members cannot be held liable for any use or misuse of this content.
Affiliate Disclaimer: This post may include affiliate links where we may earn a payment when you click on the links at no additional cost to you.
Disclosures: Securities offered through LaSalle St. Securities LLC (LSS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through LaSalle St. Investment Advisors LLC (LSIA), a Registered Investment Advisor. Streamline Financial Services is not affiliated with LSS or LSIA. LSS is affiliated with LSIA.
As you’re planning your retirement, there’s a shift that we should think about as we map out our finances and our life after our career. There are two important things that I want to share with you. The first one’s for everybody, and then the second one is for business owners or entrepreneurs who might have the option to design their day and their week while they’re working.
How Do You Envision Your Retirement?
The first example is a reframing of the way that we’re thinking about retirement. When done right, it can confirm that you’re making the best decision possible about when to retire. Additionally, it can also keep you motivated to actually accomplish the future financial and retirement goals that you want. Last but possibly the most rewarding of all, is that it can also help you to make your future bigger than your past. This is an important concept in positive psychology because if we don’t have hope, or if we don’t have things to look forward to, that can greatly reduce our present life satisfaction.
You know that quote, “Where there is no vision, the people perish”? For some, as they’re planning their future, they don’t like the term “retirement” because it conjures up ideas or images of the opposite of what they want their life to become. It could be the image of an old fogey rocking in a rocking chair on the porch or being unproductive, or maybe a memory of their elderly grandparents just watching TV all day in retirement.
There’s nothing wrong with either of those things, but it’s probably not what we’re looking for, thus causing us to put off retiring or delaying retirement planning out of fear of facing the question: what am I going to do all day? So they keep working because they don’t know how good life can be after we’re done with work.
Finding Fulfillment in Retirement
If you’re anything like our clients, life after work is really about time freedom; it’s about enjoying life while continuing to find fulfillment. I mention the three Cs often: creativity, connection, and contribution. Ask yourself: is there something that might be stopping me from mapping out or getting clarity about what’s possible in this next stage of my life? If it’s a negative feeling about the word “retirement”, what if you just replace that word in your head?
Use “freedom” or “independence” instead because if you’ve achieved financial freedom, you have the option to continue work if you want to, or to stop work. You have the option to explore other pursuits if they interest you if you want to do so. And you have the freedom to decide how you are going to express your creativity, or maybe your curiosity, and who you’re going to connect with more, and what you are going to do to contribute to other people’s lives.
A Different Path for Entrepreneurs or Business Owners
This second part is for business owners or entrepreneurs. As a business owner, your retirement could look quite different. You might have more freedom in your career to decide how you want to spend your time. It might feel like the opposite of that when you look at all the day-to-day things it takes to run the business – you might feel more like an overworked employee than the owner. However, as the decision maker, you’ve got some options.
The concept that I want to share with you is the idea of retiring in your business. Think about it like this – in your business, there are all these things that you need to do right so that the business can run. There’s sales, marketing, product, distribution, operations of people, management – all these things that you need to do. Some of these things you enjoy, and some you don’t, right? You may really enjoy the marketing side or the sales, or talking to new clients or customers if you have them. As you think about your financial freedom and your time freedom, are there things in your business that you do better than anybody else?
Secondly, are there things that you do right now that you could actually spend money on so you wouldn’t have to do them anymore? You’d essentially be lowering your income with the goal of freeing up your time. The idea is to spend your time on the things that are most engaging to you – the things you love doing and bring the greatest return to your business or your life – and everything else is getting handled by somebody else.
The people that can do that are essentially retiring in their business. It’s not for everyone, but it’s an idea to at least think about.
Disclaimer: Since we don’t know your specific situation, none of this information should be construed as tax, legal, financial, insurance, financial advice, or other advice and may be outdated or inaccurate. It is your responsibility to verify all information yourself. This content is prepared for entertainment purposes only. If you need advice, please contact a qualified CPA, attorney, insurance agent, financial advisor, or the appropriate professional for the subject you would like help with. Streamline Financial Services, LLC or its members cannot be held liable for any use or misuse of this content.
Affiliate Disclaimer: This post may include affiliate links where we may earn a payment when you click on the links at no additional cost to you.
Disclosures: Securities offered through LaSalle St. Securities LLC (LSS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through LaSalle St. Investment Advisors LLC (LSIA), a Registered Investment Advisor. Streamline Financial Services is not affiliated with LSS or LSIA. LSS is affiliated with LSIA.
If you could answer a yes to these four questions, then you might have everything aligned for you to retire right now. Not in a year or two years from now – right now.
Question 1: Financial Preparedness
The first one is the question of, “Do I have enough?” This is the most obvious one, but not everyone’s a hundred percent sure that their financial assets are going to last the rest of their lifetime. There’s a way to get to this level 10 out of 10 confidence with the question, “Do I have enough?”, and it starts by doing something that looks like this. It’s the creation of your perfect retirement plan focused on three core parts.
Number one is the investment plan, and that’s realizing that your investment strategy may start to look a little bit different now as you get closer to it, into retirement. It’s looking different than what it did maybe 10 or 20 years ago. The second part is the income plan, which really just means identifying the right tax-efficient withdrawal strategy and then what accounts to take from and when. Most likely you’ll have three types of accounts in retirement that are going to be treated differently, at least tax-wise. Designing the withdrawal strategy can actually save a lot in taxes. Then finally, third is the tax plan and just knowing that every financial decision that you make also has a tax impact. But having all three of those plans working together and coordinating, the result looks like this, and that’s what we want to see.
Question 2: Know What You’re Giving Up
Now, onto the second question, “Have I had enough?” You may have or have had a successful career, but if the stresses of your work are starting to outweigh the joy of work, you might be ready to spend more time on things that are more fulfilling or maybe more joy-filled than what work is now.
A client we spoke with not long ago knew what he was good at in his career, and he actually enjoyed doing it. It brought him a lot of fulfillment, too. What is the problem here? That circle of his core competency and what he was really good at began to take less and less time, and the stuff he didn’t like was taking up a bigger piece of his day and his week; it was impacting his mood and stress levels as he got older. He realized there were other things he wanted to spend his time on while he was still at an age where those were available to him.
Question 3: Preparing for Stage Three of Retirement
The third question to think about is, “Do I have enough to do?” What you don’t want to have happen is to get into retirement and a few months later you think, “Is this all that there is?” Something to note is that there are actually five stages of retirement, and the third stage is sort of a letdown stage, or could even be a depression stage.
But if we can do something about it, it could be the best time of your life. Like many of our clients, they were able to avoid that third stage by making sure that they were both financially and emotionally prepared ahead of time. As I think about it, I’ve got a few more videos on this topic that have been helpful to others, so I’m going to put that below in the description below and look for the headline of “Fulfilling Retirement” and then look for some of the videos under that headline to hopefully watch after this.
Question 4: Coordinating With Your Spouse
The next question is if you have a significant other. The question is, “Does my partner want me home all day?” It might sound kind of funny, but I know couples where the wife had a harder time, or the husband had a harder time when their spouse came back home 24/7. It messes with the routine of the other spouse. It takes a readjustment or a redelegation period of figuring out the household duties and overall getting on the same page. This is another thing you can plan ahead for before retirement comes.
If you’re thinking about your retirement more now, be sure to subscribe to this channel because we’ll come out with new videos each week, really focused on making your retirement just a little bit better. Hopefully, these four questions were helpful and then I’ll see you in the next video.
Disclaimer: Since we don’t know your specific situation, none of this information should be construed as tax, legal, financial, insurance, financial advice, or other advice and may be outdated or inaccurate. It is your responsibility to verify all information yourself. This content is prepared for entertainment purposes only. If you need advice, please contact a qualified CPA, attorney, insurance agent, financial advisor, or the appropriate professional for the subject you would like help with. Streamline Financial Services, LLC or its members cannot be held liable for any use or misuse of this content.
Affiliate Disclaimer: This post may include affiliate links where we may earn a payment when you click on the links at no additional cost to you.
Disclosures: Securities offered through LaSalle St. Securities LLC (LSS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through LaSalle St. Investment Advisors LLC (LSIA), a Registered Investment Advisor. Streamline Financial Services is not affiliated with LSS or LSIA. LSS is affiliated with LSIA.
Something important disappears when you get to this new stage of life that we call retirement, financial independence, financial freedom – whatever you want to call it. Unless you do something about it, you may never get this thing back.
One of the big reasons that people retire is because there’s a certain part of their career or their work that’s quite stressful. Of course there are parts of your work that you really like, but as you get older, the stressful part seems to outweigh the good parts. You might wonder, “Why am I still doing this? Maybe there’s other things I could be doing that are a better use of my time.”
Then you stop working and that stress goes away, which is great, but that stress gives us something we don’t always think about as we’re getting to retirement, and it’s related to keeping our brain healthy.
I’m going to share a simple tip to have the best of both worlds; to still keep a healthy body and mind, have a little healthy dose of stress, or more time to spend on things that you really want to spend your time on.
In order to continue to grow and reach new levels of fulfillment in retirement, for this next stage of life, we first have to adopt a mindset, and then we have to put it into practice.
A Beginner’s Mindset
At this stage of life, retirement can feel like starting over, which is never easy but especially not as you get older. That’s why you need to have the beginner’s mind in retirement. Even though you’re an expert in your field, and even though you have more wisdom than you’ve ever had before, you still want to be able to approach new things. That’s partly why you’re letting yourself retire in the first place.
As a reminder, the Alzheimer’s Association says challenging and activating your mind by learning new things is one of the top ways to actually love your brain, and having the beginner’s mind will help increase our fulfillment and our happiness. When you stay curious, when you challenge yourself and learn new things, your future is going to continue to be bigger than your past. You might have heard before that curiosity is the fountain of youth. There’s also studies in positive psychology that state that looking forward in anticipation to the future is very, very healthy for the brain and body.
Curiosity: The Fountain of Youth
Let’s move on to the challenge for you; something for you to practice. Think of something that seems interesting to you, something you think would be cool to learn and try. Maybe it’s a sport, a new hobby, or maybe a language. Then set aside time to learn. Whether you’re in retirement now or you’re going to be, set time aside to be a complete beginner again.
This is so important because it’s that curiosity piece that is going to keep you young. There’s a Harvard study that shows how learning new things is one of the best ways that you can keep your brain healthy as you age.
I’d love to hear from you. What do you want to learn more about at this current stage or this next stage coming up in life? What do you want to do more of now, if you’re already retired? Leave a comment on the YouTube video and let me know!
Disclaimer: Since we don’t know your specific situation, none of this information should be construed as tax, legal, financial, insurance, financial advice, or other advice and may be outdated or inaccurate. It is your responsibility to verify all information yourself. This content is prepared for entertainment purposes only. If you need advice, please contact a qualified CPA, attorney, insurance agent, financial advisor, or the appropriate professional for the subject you would like help with. Streamline Financial Services, LLC or its members cannot be held liable for any use or misuse of this content.
Affiliate Disclaimer: This post may include affiliate links where we may earn a payment when you click on the links at no additional cost to you.
Disclosures: Securities offered through LaSalle St. Securities LLC (LSS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through LaSalle St. Investment Advisors LLC (LSIA), a Registered Investment Advisor. Streamline Financial Services is not affiliated with LSS or LSIA. LSS is affiliated with LSIA.
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