Season 1

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:34 — 37.1MB)

Living Your Life at the Pace You Want

Time management isn’t always the answer. Sometimes you have to take a step back and rethink how you’re living your life. In this episode of our retirement podcast, we talk with Yvonne Tally, author of Breaking Up with Busy: Real-Life Solutions for Overscheduled Women. We discuss Yvonne’s story, how being busy has become a status symbol today, even in retirement. And creating a different mindset can be a game-changer at any stage of life. Yvonne offers her insights on how technology and expectations can get in our way. She offers practical, yet powerful recommendations on actions you can take to cultivate a deeper connection in your life.

Our world has become a 24/7 whirlwind of activity and that doesn’t stop. With the buzzing of devices, packed schedules, and commitments, we can become blind to what truly matters most. And losing sight of that’s can have serious consequences as Yvonne shares in her personal story. Yet slower down to a saner pace of life offers a chance to take back control and appreciate what we value most.

Although her inspiring book is geared toward women, we found it to be very valuable as well, and highly relevant to transitioning to retirement or even in your life in retirement. Start living your life the way you want to and Break  Up With Busy.

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UPDATE: The pandemic and lockdown life have a silver lining. It’s stopped the Merry-Go-Round for a while and given you an opportunity to step back and evaluate how you’ve been living your life. Yvonne’s advice is timely now. Is it time for you to Break Up With Busy in the New Normal?

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For more on Yvonne Tally:

Yvonne’s Website

Breaking Up with Busy  on Amazon

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Related Podcasts You May Like:

We’re All Ageing. Are You Up for a Bolder Approach? – Carl Honoré

Why Settle for Happiness in Your Retirement? – Emily Esfahani Smith

Who Will You Be in Retirement? – David Ekerdt

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Stick around for the brief Noteworthy segment 

This week we discuss:

The Problem of Being Overcommitted in Retirement  By Glenn Ruffenach – The Wall Street Journal

 We also touch on:

Saying ‘No’ is a Key Part of the New Retirement Skill Set   By Joe Casey – Retirement Wisdom

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Balance Your Retirement Planning with a Bit of Wisdom

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About Retirement Wisdom

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:33 — 32.6MB)

How Will You Navigate The Retirement Transition?

Today on our retirement podcast, we welcome Brendan Hare, author of From Working to Wisdom: The Adventures and Dreams of Older Americans. Upon retiring as a lawyer, Brendan invested two years interviewing 46 older Americans from a variety of backgrounds about their life stories. The book provides a rare look at the real stories of how people are navigating the transition to retirement and a bounty of valuable lessons learned that we can all benefit from.

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Bio

Brendan M. Hare is a recent retiree and the author of From Working to Wisdom: The Adventures ad Dreams of Older Americans. He lives outside Boston with his wife, near his three grown children.

Mr. Hare worked as a teacher, college economics instructor, and for over forty years, as an attorney. He served as chief litigation counsel for a Fortune 50 company and later as the founder and managing partner of his own law firm. For over twenty years, he built and guided a sizeable national law practice, with clients drawn from some of the largest corporations in America.

Few experiences have been as rewarding as this book project. He spent two years traveling the country, meeting new people, and listening to them discuss their lives and thoughts about growing older. Writing this book changed him profoundly. He hopes it will have a similar impact on readers.

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Wise Quotes

On What He Learned From Writing the Book

“We’re in charge of our own lives and always have the power and responsibility to choose our attitudes. The people in this book are elderly, but they speak to everyone, even to the very young. They made me realize that aging is not just a physical journey, not just a decline, but a psychological and spiritual journey as well. The quality, shape, and direction of which is entirely my responsibility.”

On The Role of Adventure in Retirement

“Adventure, however you define it, can help you through this period of transition. To successfully navigate this period of transition you have to go through a process of discernment when you’re seeing yourself from a new perspective and you’re re-ordering your priorities to match that new perspective. An adventure that involves risk does that because as one profile subject observed, “when mortality moves in, we get serious about life.” We shed all the unnecessary baggage: the ego and the materialistic focus. Risk reveals the fragility of life and deepens our commitment to living fully.”

On Ageism

“The consequences of ageism are real and very troubling. First, it sets up a dangerous loop: it tells seniors, Time has made you infirm, obsolete, and worthless. ….In response—as is natural—seniors feel pressure to accept and internalize this view of themselves, with disastrous consequences for their mental and physical health. Studies have correlated experiences of ageism with memory loss, cardiovascular sickness, low self-esteem, diminished will to live, and shorter life expectancies. All of this is staggering when we consider how widespread ageism is: Over seventy percent of American seniors report that they have been insulted or mistreated on the basis of their age. There is no reason to accept these attitudes. Our generation can proudly reflect on the many ways in which, together, we helped to shape popular culture, music, politics, and civil rights.”

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For More on Brendan Hare:

Brendan Hare’s book on Amazon (From Working to Wisdom: The Adventures and Dreams of Older Americans)

The From Working to Wisdom Website

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About Retirement Wisdom

We help people who are retiring, but not done yet, discover what’s next.

A long retirement is a terrible thing to waste. And a meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Retire smarter. Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you make yours great.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:56 — 32.9MB)

Wise choices can help you to retire healthy

In this episode of our retirement podcast, we talk with Alan Castel, Ph.D.Alan Castel is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles where he studies learning, memory, and aging.  Alan joins us to discuss his new book Better with Age: The Psychology of Successful Aging. We discuss what people of all ages need to know about successful aging and what people can do now  – at just about any age – to prepare to retire healthy.

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Wise Quotes

On Structure

“Retirement can be a challenge. It can be a challenge both for the person retiring, for their spouse, for their family around them, because you lose a lot of the structure you had in your life. Even the small talk you might have had in the workplace, can almost protect you from loneliness. You can feel valued in your profession. When you take all of that away, you know, just playing golf every day is not going to solve the need for stimulation, being around other people.”

On Different Approaches to Retirement 

“Everyone approaches retirement differently. For example, the architect Frank Gehry, his work is really blossoming now and he’s doing amazing things. I don’t think he wants to retire, but he’s focusing on the projects that interest him the most, so he can be more selective. Maya Angelou shifted her career, spent more time writing, but also presenting and teaching. So these people certainly didn’t walk away from their profession. John Wooden, the famous basketball coach, on the other hand, didn’t retire kind of at the top of his game at age 65, having won another national championship. But then he transitioned into consulting, working with others, doing a lot of public speaking. But even at age 95 when I spoke to him, he said he missed the game, he said he loved to be involved in some way, as a consultant working with coaches.”

On Identity and Retirement

” … even though we might not think of our job as our identity, it can influence us in ways that we’re not familiar with. Once we transitioned out of that, we’re left with sometimes a big hole, and a lot of older adults might fear retirement for reasons that go beyond financial ones.”

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Bio

Alan Castel is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He studies learning, memory, and aging. He is interested in how younger and older adults can selectively remember important information.

He lectures internationally to people of all ages. His work has been featured in the New York Times and Time Magazine and has a new book entitled Better with Age: The Psychology of Successful Aging.

He received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, did a fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis, and has been on faculty at UCLA since 2006.

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For more on Alan Castel, PhD

Alan’s Book: Better with Age: The Psychology of Successful Aging 

Ted x: How We Learn as We Age

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Related Podcast Episodes You May Like

The Joy of Movement – Kelly McGonigal

Design Your Life and Get Unstuck – Dave Evans

Tiny Habits Can Lead to Big Changes – BJ Fogg

Retirement Planning Includes Getting Good at Getting Older – Rabbi Laura Geller

The Mind-Body Connection and The Rabbit Effect – Kelli Harding

If You Love Your Work, What Challenges Will You Face in Retirement? – Michelle Pannor Silver

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About Retirement Wisdom

We help people who are retiring from their primary career – and aren’t done yet – discover what’s next.

A long retirement is a terrible thing to waste. And a meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you make yours great

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:54 — 33.8MB)

 

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:28 — 27.9MB)

In this episode of our retirement podcast, we talk with Dorie Clark, about her latest book Entrepreneurial You. Dorie is a highly successful entrepreneur and she shares her story of transitioning from journalism and her observations on why entrepreneurship is an attractive option for some people as a Second Act Career.

How Can You Leverage Your Skillset as an Entrepreneur in your Second Act?

She gives us her take on what it takes to succeed and practical tips on where to start. If you’ve ever thought about starting your own business after your primary career, you’ll benefit from hearing Dorie’s story, her valuable advice and wisdom.

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Bio

Dorie Clark is a marketing strategy consultant, professional speaker, and frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review. Recognized as a “branding expert” by the Associated Press, Fortune, and Inc. magazine, she is the author of Entrepreneurial You (Harvard Business Review Press,), Reinventing You, and Stand Out, which was named the #1 Leadership Book of 2015 by Inc. magazine and one of the Top 10 Business Books of the Year by Forbes. It was also a Washington Post bestseller. Her books have been translated into Russian, Chinese, Arabic, French, Polish, Korean, and Thai.

Clark, whom the New York Times described as an “expert at self-reinvention and helping others make changes in their lives,” consults and speaks for a diverse range of clients, including Google, the World Bank, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Yale University.

A former presidential campaign spokeswoman, Clark is an adjunct professor of business administration at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and a Visiting Professor for IE Business School in Madrid, Spain. She has guest lectured at universities including Harvard Business School, the Harvard Kennedy School, Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, the University of California-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Georgetown, NYU, the MIT Sloan School of Management, and the University of Michigan.

Her work has been published in the Harvard Business Review Guide to Getting the Right Job and the Harvard Business Review Guide to Networking, and she is quoted frequently in the worldwide media, including NPR, the BBC, and MSNBC. She is also a regular commentator on Canada’s CTV and was named one of Inc. magazine’s “100 Great Leadership Speakers for Your Next Conference.”

A former New England Press Association award-winning journalist, Clark directed the environmental documentary film The Work of 1000, and was a producer for a multiple-Grammy-winning jazz album. 

At age 14, Clark entered Mary Baldwin College’s Program for the Exceptionally Gifted. At 18, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Smith College, and two years later received a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. You can download her Entrepreneurial You self-assessment at dorieclark.com/entrepreneur.

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Wise Quotes

On Paying Attention to The Market

“When it comes to challenges that entrepreneurs need to overcome, I think in a lot of ways it varies over time. The first one that you have to overcome, especially when you’re in that transitional mode, is the product-market fit. Meaning basically just figuring out, What is it I actually am selling? –  and Do people want it? It sounds so obvious in some ways, but it can really take a while. When I first started my consulting business, I actually, my original vision is that I was going to do political consulting. That was how I started… I had business cards made up, “Dorie Clark, Political Consultant” because I thought, “I can consult around,” I worked in campaigns so “I can consult around this. This will be great.” What often happens, if you are wise enough to listen, is that your market will sometimes tell you differently. They will tell you what they do want. When I first started my business I realized, “Oh, not a lot of political campaigns are hiring me, but a lot of non-profits and businesses are.” I wasn’t even expecting to get that kind of work, but people that I knew that were running organizations were saying, “Oh, you’re doing communications consulting? Can you work for me?” I needed the money so I was like, “Sure, okay.” And before long I had this marketing and communications consultancy rather than a political consultancy. I realized, “Oh, this is what the market wants. I should pay attention to that.”

 

On Entrepreneurial Pursuits in Retirement

“The things that I would be inclined to suggest would be perhaps for people to focus on things that allow for location independence because a lot of retirees are interested in traveling, or maybe they want to spend part of the year in a different location or be able to have flexibility to spend more time with kids, or grandkids, things like that. Location independence can be very valuable. That might imply things like maybe freelance writing or maybe having some kind of an online business that they’re doing that they can do from anywhere that has an internet connection. I think that another thing that retirees may have an advantage in is going back to coaching or consulting. They are people who presumably have been in the workforce for quite a while. They have strong networks of people. So they may have colleagues that could hire them for consulting contracts. Maybe former colleagues or something like that, who already know their good so it makes the sales process easier. They’ve accrued a lot of wisdom and so may have some real information to share with others in a coaching capacity.”

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For more on Dorie Clark:

Dorie’s Website

Dorie’s Entrepreneurial Self -Assessment

Dorie’s latest book:  Entrepreneurial You  and her courses

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Stick around for the brief Noteworthy segment on an article we think is worth your time

This week’s selection is Proof That the Most Successful Entrepreneurs Are Older Ones

By Kerry Hannon, Next Avenue

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About Retirement Wisdom

We help people who are retiring, but not done yet, discover what’s next.

A long retirement is a terrible thing to waste. And a meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Retire smarter. Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you make yours great.