Retirement or Your You 2.0
Retirement is More Than Just: What's Your Number
There's a terrific explanation of the history of modern the American retirement machine provided in Chapter One of The New Retirementality by Mitch Anthony, where he makes the point that the act of retiring is actually a relatively unnatural invention designed as a convenience to law makers and industrialists.
The idea of "Retirement" was legislated, marketed and in all manner of messaging—ways reinforced over the years, so that the idea of retiring at the magic age like 62 has picked up tremendous steam to the point where now we rarely stop to ask the question why then, and why at all? Even when it's faced by people with a range of excitement to terrible fear because they're sure they'll run out of money. Yet when you think of it, especially for those in professions considered practices like accounting, medicine or law, it's at about that age when you're just hitting your stride in professional reputation and expertise.
The retirement, when it's derailed, can look like this. See if you can think of people for whom this may apply:
- Imagination and excitement at making it to the targeted date
- Implementation, making the changes of exiting the profession and any other changes that may have been planned, like down-sizing, and generally busy-busy-busy.
- Day-in-Day-out...Dissatisfaction, boredom, retirement whiplash—when even living the big golf or travel dream starts to gets old and expensive, this stage is usually accompanied by self-medicating through shopping, alcohol, or other behaviors rooted in boredom and dissatisfaction—quality of life deteriorates as does overall health and life expectancy if left unchecked.
- Finally requiring rehab & reboot - finding something meaningful to do. We call this developing your "YOU version 2.0 plan."
Sadly, there's a neighborhood close to Oro Valley, Arizona that is referred to as where the FIPS live, which stands for "Formerly Important People," (note, that's not intended as a good thing by the other locals). They have a reputation for being insufferable, cranky and generally tough people to be around.
For those who's life has been characteristically defined by professional achievement and you've been "asked to retire", or for those in heavy physically demanding work where your body just can't take continuing in the same way, and that's largely all you've known—now what do you do with your time and day?
Keys to Successful Retirement Requires:
- Understanding yourself (and your partner) and having a plan and vision for how you'll daily engage in a meaningful way somehow.
- Having a financial plan that accounts for and flexes with what you may want to achieve on your "bucket list" and that leaves room for your ultimate vision of your life's needs and legacy in the Slow-Go and No-Go phases of retirement.
- A financial plan conservatively invested for income, designed to keep up with inflation, and managed for volatility—even in today's lower-interest environment.
How Our Team is Uniquely Positioned to Navigate this Successfully
- Jen is a former executive coach and uses those skills now with our clients to facilitate conversations, use assessments, and navigate and plan for these choices for themselves.
- As a financial advisory firm, we also understand the numbers and work with you on your vision, your budget and where you are and what you'll need and how to best manage everything.
- We’re members of the Bucket Strategy Advisor Network and provide Advanced Time Segmented Retirement Strategy Planning, based on the Household Endowment Model—which we employ in an especially effective manner for those in retirement.
Beyond the right numbers, there are a number of choices that goes into what happens in Retirement, and a little up-front thinking can save people a great deal of surprise and often painful lessons.