Interview with a Successful Retiree
Interview with a Successful Retiree - June 20th, 2019
John Layton:
Last week, you and I met, and you told me, which was extremely exciting, that you had discovered some of the successes for going into retirement.
When I heard that I thought that was fantastic, because for me it's all about the money and the planning and making sure people have a successful financial retirement. But I was really impressed with your comment that you've kind of figured it out. So, you agreed when I asked if you would be willing to sit down and share some of the thoughts that you have on retirement and I really appreciate that.
Let’s talk a little bit about your background. Tell us about yourself:
Larry:
Okay. I'm, currently, 72 years old, pushing 73, been retired for ten years. This is June of 2019, so that put my retirement date in June of 2009, which, if you do the math that fell right after 2008, which was somewhat of a difficult year financially and there was some anxiety attached with retirement at that time, but that all worked out nicely I'm pleased to say. I originally moved up here from St Louis, Missouri for a job transfer, job change. I've been a resident of Minnesota for 26 years and loving it, I call it my home, with the exception of the baseball season, which I generally still root for the Cardinals. Not so much this year, since the Twins are doing so well.
You asked about priorities, some things that I've identified, you know what I have found is there are several areas to have a balanced retirement that a person needs to either get prepared for, or quickly become prepared for, and these are in no particular order.
Social interaction is something that, as we work, we’re involved with other people all the time, and in retirement, you don't have the benefit of that, so it's very important to seek out ways that you can engage with people. You know, some friends, some not. People that are new to you.
Intellectual growth is another area. You know I, you know most people who council say, “You're going to continue to learn and grow your entire life”, and you know I personally think that's important, because if you don't continue to try to learn, your mind will go stagnant and we know that's not a good thing.
Obviously, physical growth or health issues come into play. You know, as you age, new things happen to your body and you have to be very conscious of that. So, staying physically active… Ironically, I joined the Y, and I even go occasionally! And I do play a fair amount of golf.
Another thing is family involvement, relationship building and strengthening. I'm probably not the best in that and I need to work on that some more, but it is something that takes some effort. Spiritual growth comes into play as we as we age, and that's another thing to think about.
Then there’s volunteerism, which is an area that I'll probably expand on a little bit later. So those are the key areas of that I’ve identified.
John Layton:
Okay, do you think that it is more work planning those things in retirement than it was when you were working? Or is it less?
Larry:
It's probably more work. You know what, when you're working or during your working career, your days are somewhat established by the needs of others or by work priorities and that's because there's meetings that other people set up. There are demands of your job or your employees if you have people reporting to you, so your calendar is filled by those.
In retirement, you start off with somewhat of a blank calendar. And if you want to maintain a healthy balance and maintain your sanity you need to do more than just get up in the morning, drink coffee, read the paper and sit around watching television or the news. That's why I think it is important to proactively schedule new commitments, new interests, things of that nature. Eventually your calendar will fill up. Funnily enough, on Monday of this week, I looked at my wife and my combined calendars, and we had thirty items on for just this one week.
John Layton:
That’s fantastic, that’s more than most working people have!
You talked about the blank calendar and that might scare a few people, because they talk about the first year of life as a baby, is one of the most dangerous years of your life. They also talk about the first year of retirement being the second most dangerous time of your life because of that new blank calendar. So how do you deal with that? Do you approach that in a systematic way? Do you think “Oh no! I've only got three things scheduled this week. I need to get something booked or I'm going to go down a slippery slope?”
Larry:
Well, you have to train yourself to do that - to book things in advance. When I first retired I had compiled a list of about forty different projects, plans and things that I wanted to accomplish and in the first year, I probably did the first third of that list, and then I either threw away the list or lost it. I may have accomplished the other stuff, I'm not really quite sure, but also in that same year is when I realized that I needed some of the areas that I first spoke about. I did maintain new relationships, some commitments, and a lot of volunteer type activities were involved at that point in time. But finally, the calendar just fills itself. Getting involved isn’t too hard, especially if you have grandkids that need transportation, or their parents need help. That's just an added benefit and those really do feel in your calendar quickly.
John Layton:
Yeah, parents realize pretty quickly that you are a transportation service and your schedule’s open. But that kills two birds with one stone and you get to spend time with the grandkids.
Asking about the health piece of this - as you go into retirement, as you said, health changes, and you probably see this with some of your former coworkers and your community. Their health changes. Does that change the social structure that you used to have, because now people can't do the things they used to do? You’re navigating through different scenarios that you didn't have to before.
Larry:
Health changes a lot. In fact, several of my closest friends are physically incapable of doing the things that I really enjoy doing. I have to be conscious of that and step back a little bit with when I'm with them, to show that we can do the things that they're more interested in. I have, however, at the same time accumulated a list of new friends. Primarily through golf, to tell you the truth, but we enjoy doing that. Several times a week I get together with them and you know, enjoy their friendship, in addition to my old friends.
John Layton:
So, it’s important to get new friends in retirement rather than just rely on your old network?
Larry:
That's right!
John Layton:
Do you find that men are not great at scheduling those get-togethers and social activities? Women seem to be much better at that.
Larry:
Women are better at it, but some men have to come to the top. You can identify quickly who the organizers are. If there is no organizer, you have to become that if you want things to happen. Even though that might be awkward for some people, it's really important, because there are other people that are looking to you to get your help. Go and make the initial phone call or the e-mail or whatever, to get things moving.
John Layton:
When you talked about intellectual growth, I would think of that as the most challenging piece of retirement, because it's easy to just kind of take your foot off the gas pedal and relax a little bit. You sleep in a little bit more. You have maybe one thing on the calendar that day, one thing to look forward to, but you can fall into an unhealthy pattern.
It's important to think about spending time, investing time and intellectual growth. How do you do that?
Larry:
That's one of the things that I'm not the best at. In fact, when I retired, I hoped to learn a foreign language or learn a musical instrument and I've done neither. I’m not dead yet, so I still have time.
What I did find is to keep engaged intellectually, I fell back on some skills that I learned while I was working - facilitation skills and communication skills. I did some volunteer work. I currently volunteer for the Hennepin County Court System and do some mediation work there, which is interesting for me and keeps me mentally sharp.
There’re a couple other volunteer areas that you can take a leadership role in that help you keep mentally engaged.
John Layton:
People that volunteer, sometimes it's done with just purpose, it's just a thing to do. Maybe you've always done it and it's kind of your new role, your routine, or maybe it's an old role. It seems like in retirement what's really key is people doing it with meaning. Their passion.
Have you found things in retirement to become more passionate that you didn't have before?
Larry:
Yeah, I have, and passion and interest are two different things. If someone always wanted to do something, but they never had the time or the resources, that's one area that you can volunteer around. The second thing is a passion.
Golf seems to be a common theme in this conversation, so early on for the first few years, I volunteered as a coach for kids with the First Tee program and I found that not only emotionally rewarding, but it also touched on the physical aspect that I wanted to push. It was giving back to the community, there were social interaction. It checks out a lot of boxes.
I would supervise a golf camp type setting, so I would do it four consecutive days. The kids were fun and anxious to learn. I just hope, I didn’t teach them too bad! The camp ran for several weeks, so you get to build relationships.
John Layton:
How do you remain intentional about your energy? You only have so much time to give in a given day or week. Do you think about that, like, “okay, here's one week, this is what I've got energy for?”
Larry:
Now, ten years into it, I try not to overfill the calendar, or create conflicts, but it took a long time to get to that point, to tell you the truth. You know early on, it was a “what am I gonna do Monday?”, “what am I gonna do Tuesday?” type of thing. Now it's more about limiting than it is about making additions to the calendar.
John Layton:
You have to kind of budget that time out.
What does a typical, successful day of retirement look like? Just like when you worked and had an awesome day, you came home, and it was something to celebrate. What does that look like today?
Larry:
Well now, with multiple calendar points, you know what-
And by the way a calendar point doesn't necessarily mean you're doing something with a great deal of substance every day. It could be put on your calendar to get a haircut, or get a car wash, or go to the grocery store or something of that nature. But it's something to get you out and about and moving. The more substantive things do require a little bit more planning because they generally involve other people or organization. A successful day would be a mix of all of that.
John Layton:
I've heard that, and we all feel it as we get older, that it seems like time goes faster. Do you feel that?
Larry:
I do, I do.
John Layton:
I've heard that one of the ways to disrupt that is to change your routines to break out of that normal routine. You just mentioned that a day is a mix of several things. Does that help kind of slow down time and savor it?
Larry:
It slows it down a little, but it still goes fast.
John Layton:
How about the financial side of things? You’ve shared with me that you’ve had a successful financial retirement, but how do you balance your personal financial need with what your family might need.
Of course, retirement can go for a lot of years. I mean, this is maybe a third of our life. This is the third chapter of three chapters.
How do you view the financial support you might provide for family and retirement differently than when you were working?
Larry:
My wife and I are really very lucky up between the two of us. We have five adult children and seven grandkids. Overall, the kids have good jobs and don't need a lot of financial help. Where we do intervene is when it comes to the grandchildren and making sure that, even though the parents may not be able to afford the better private type schools, we can continue to help the grandkids into those schools. They’ll have a better chance of getting into a good college and having a good career. It's amazing how much private high school and sometimes grade school education costs these days. It’s comparable to what it cost for college a while back. We do help with that.
Another way that I found is, I'm kinda lucky in that I am a fairly handy individual, so I help out with construction type projects in their homes. We just completed one of my son-in-law’s redo of his bathroom, which saves them a great deal of money. I get to use and refresh my skills. It's amazing how you can learn things like that from YouTube! Anything in the world on YouTube just, you know, look it up. That’s not only fun, but they’re other calendar points and that that takes effort. It's also physical. So again, it touches on a lot of the areas.
John Layton:
So financially, it's investing in education, which is a really great place to put your money. I mean, that's legacy, right? Your contributions to the grandkids going to private school. They'll never forget that. That’ll be a gift for the rest of their life.
And then time. Sometimes money isn't always the answer. Time is extremely valuable as well, which you have in retirement, as long as you're not too busy.
Were there any major surprises when you went into retirement? Moments after the first year or in the first year that made you think, “Wow, I wasn't prepared for this or that!”
Larry:
It's hard to say… I thought I had planned it well, but I know I didn't. I went through some health issues, after a few years. That was a surprise and made me feel much more aware of how you need to take care of yourself. You think you’re bullet proof, but the older you get, I guess the kryptonite gets to you. So that was somewhat of a surprise, but it should have been anticipated. Fortunately, that’s mostly behind me now so I'm glad to say that.
John Layton:
Congratulations!
Is there a bucket list? Do you follow the bucket list strategy? Are there other things, you mentioned learning a language or playing an instrument, aside from those two, are there things you have to do?
Larry:
There were a couple. I wanted to go on out to Alaska. We did an Alaskan cruise last summer. That was an extravagant vacation for us because that wasn’t typical.
One thing we had talked about was: do you spend more or less in retirement? And I believe that you really don't have to spend more than you did while you were working, you probably do spend less, with the exception of maybe a bucket list item or a trip that you been hoping to go on all your life. What I have found is in those spending less categories, you don't need to accumulate more stuff. I mean, you don't need clothing. All the, say, ties that you used for your leisure activities, you probably already have them. You’ll probably even try to get rid of some of them.
It doesn't cost a lot more to retire unless you go way off the deep end and expect to travel first class on every trip you go. I mean you don't need to change your lifestyle just because you're retired.
John Layton:
We talk about the you know: go-go years, the early years of retirement, then the slow-go middle years, and the no-go later years. You probably have seen it with other people around you that are retired.
Any advice for how to prepare for that? Those are transitions that oftentimes, people don't think of. We think of just retirement as one big long steady path. Anything to say on that?
Larry:
I'd say be honest with yourself. When your body makes it so that it's not possible to do things that you used to do, accept that and look for other things to replace those activities. Maybe move more from the physical to the intellectual.
John Layton:
Are there any mistakes that you think that you've made in retirement that others can learn from?
Larry:
Well I already stated: I wish I had learned a language or a musical instrument, so that was a mistake that I haven't done that yet.
The biggest mistake, and this was prior to retirement, I invested in a property in Mexico and ultimately, the developer ran away with all my money, and that was a fairly significant financial hit. And in retrospect, I did not think that through all the way up front, and I should have consulted with other people and my advisors, prior to making that investment.
John Layton:
But you survived and recovered!
Larry:
Yeah, yeah. Everything's recovered fine.
John Layton:
Is there a moment or choice that you made in return that you feel especially proud of?
Larry:
Well, you know it's funny: I joked with you about possibly being a retirement consultant and I've used that line with my friends as well and I feel flattered that several of them of come to me and asked advice in certain areas. It's also very flattering that you invited me to participate in this thing today. That's kind of nice to know. I guess I am doing a few things right. I'm sure that you know people more knowledgeable than I that would be able to give me a lot of suggestions on what I could do different and better.
John Layton:
Sure, you're always learning.
The key is that some people seem like they've quit when they retire. Quit learning, quit doing new things, and venturing out. You've got this whole other life and it just looks different. You have to navigate through it, day by day, right?
We talk about the engagement and that piece, I think, is the most challenging for retirees. And it's probably the most challenging for single retirees. You know the divorce rate for people over fifty has doubled over the last twenty years. So, there's a huge population, and I see it in my client base, that are retired and single, and the statistics for those people is significantly different than a joined couple.
Depression is significantly higher, use of alcohol and chemical dependency is significantly higher. Loneliness is worse than smoking ten cigarettes a day. The statistics are terrible. I think Britain just appointed a Minister of Loneliness because it's a big issue in Britain.
Do you have friends that are retired that are dealing with some of those things?
Larry:
I have friends like that, but I can personalize it even more. You know earlier I referred to my wife and I, and our kids and grandkids. We've been together for 25 years, but technically we aren’t married. We're two single individuals in a committed relationship and we believe we’re both very supportive of each other, and we do talk things over with each other. I think that's important! I'm lucky that I found a partner that I could do that with. I would say to people who haven't had that, search it out.
There are ways for older people to meet people. Obviously, there's the online stuff. I never really had to participate in that, but in observing others, I think that, through your church, your grandkids school, or sporting events there are ways to meet other people. Sometimes you have to look and sometimes you have to ask for help. There are ways to find people to make you less lonely, if you choose to do that. Choice is probably the most important thing. You need to choose to do that.
John Layton:
Exactly, and having even just someone as a daily contact, just checking in with you. It could be health issues that a lot of times, people ignore, like, “I’ll eventually go to the doctor”. But if you've got someone checking in, you've got someone that you're living that says, “You know, listen Larry! You really need to go, and I’ll help you set an appointment for Friday”. It makes a big difference. That changes your health!
Larry:
And sometimes it’s providing transportation for them because they don't know how they're going to get there. Or they don't know how to do what they would like to do, but to pry that out of them or make suggestions to help them, I think, is a healthy thing.
John Layton:
Is there anything else that you feel has been key to your success in retirement, but you can elaborate on?
Larry:
At the very beginning, I mentioned one of the key points to consider was volunteerism and I feel very strongly about that. What I find and what I've observed is early in everyone’s should adult life, if they're lucky enough to have children, they're always willing to go and volunteer time. You know, for the kids. If that’s at school, being a coach or a scout master, maybe a Sunday school teacher or something like that. They find a little slice of time to volunteer, if it involves their kids.
Now the kids grow up, and that little slice of time gets absorbed into everybody's busy schedules and it kind of goes away. Well, then, all the sudden, your career’s done and you're in retirement now. You've got a big slice of time available to you and I think it's really great if you can identify areas to give back to the community. There’s so much need out there. You know people say, “I don't have any skills. I can't do this”.
Everybody has skills, even small ones. If you don't think you have a skill, go to a nursing home sometime. Talk to senior citizens and push them to meals. Go to preschool and read to the kids. If you're on a walk, and you see kids’ kind of playing by themselves go over and talk to them.
There’s a need there and everybody can do it, so I encourage everyone to do it.
John Layton:
That's right. We are in the land of ten thousand volunteer opportunities, so there's no shortage.
Larry:
More than that!
John Layton:
Let’s close with this: Legacy. When you get to, maybe in the later stages of retirement, people start to think, “What is my legacy?”, “What have I done?”. Work is 20, 25 or 30 years behind them. It’s less about what they did is a job, that's just how you got your money, that's how you got to retirement.
What would you say you, you want your legacy to be?
Larry:
Well, I have never thought about that. You know but I guess if I had something chiseled on my tombstone it would say “Larry was a good guy”. That’s it.
John Layton:
I think the work you're doing with the kids with the golf, the volunteering that you've always done, I've known you for a long time: It seems like you’re always talking about your volunteer efforts.
Working with the grandkids, investing in their education. You’re a role model, I mean you really. You’re doing all the right things. It's pretty inspiring to think about.
You know the financial piece of retirement, but we often don't spend any time at all planning this whole other lifestyle piece of retirement. Think of the hours we spend looking at asset allocation, to distribution plans, and tax management and what the markets are doing, and how much brain power we apply to that. We don't really talk to people about what does next week look like! What's your engagement, what's your social contact, when are you going to go have lunch with a friend you haven't seen for fifteen years. Those are probably the most important things. You've given us some great inspiration today. Thank you very much for your time.
Larry:
Glad you gave me the chance!
John Layton:
Thanks, Larry.