Podcasts Archive - Page 18 of 71 - Retirement Wisdom

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Who can benefit from your life story? What do you want your children and grandchildren to remember about you? The concept of legacy is being redefined and goes beyond financial assets to value hard earned life lessons and wisdom. Dr. Jandi Kelly, of A Talk to Remember, shares her insights on life purpose and ways to share your life story and wisdom across generations.

Dr. Jandi Kelly joins us from Bend, Oregon.

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Bio

Dr. Jandi Kelly is the founder of A Talk to Remember, a boutique production company that helps families and organizations capture their legacies in documentary films and oral history projects. For the past fifteen years, Jandi has worked as a university researcher, instructor, and administrator at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Michigan. She received her Ph.D. in higher education from the University of Michigan and her academic scholarship focuses on the topics of teaching and learning, life purpose, and identity development. Her research has been featured in The Journal of Higher Education and other publications. Jandi and her family live in Bend, Oregon, where she serves on the board of trustees for an independent K-12 experiential learning school.

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For More on Dr. Jandi Kelly

A Talk to Remember 

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

A Round of Golf with My Father – William Damon

The Vintage Years – Dr. Francine Toder

The New Age of Aging – Maddy Dychtwald

Inward Traveler – Francine Toder PhD

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Wise Quotes

On Life Purpose

“…it’s helpful to actually define what we mean by life purpose…One of the definitions that I really appreciate is how our talents that we enjoy using intersect with the need in the world or our community that we find to be personally meaningful. And what I really like about that definition is that unlike some specific personal goals that we may have, it extends beyond aims of personal meaning to a desire that we want to make a difference in the world. And so therefore, it’s self transcendent in nature. What the research demonstrates is that having a sense of purpose is associated with a host of benefits across the lifespan as well as later in life. When we think about how life purpose can be beneficial throughout our lives, one of the most overarching benefits is that it really helps us live with greater intentionality in how we spend our days and to remain true to ourselves while benefiting the greater good. And so, in a way, we can think about purpose as a guide that takes us in the right direction. And I know that you had one of your earlier conversations was with Bill Damon out of Stanford, the renowned developmental psychologist, and he likens purpose to an ultimate concern or a final answer to the question of why. So why am I doing this? Why am I striving to accomplish this end? And in that way, purpose is the reason behind our immediate goals, and it’s a motive that drives most of our daily behaviors.”

On Storytelling 

“…when we think about the contributions that we want to make through our stories, we not only have an ability to really impact youth when it comes to the wisdom that we’re passing on, but we also see as we tell our stories that our lives have purpose….And with that, when we think about the stories that we have and when we are afforded time, especially later in life, to really do an inventory of our life, we have an ability to carry our life lessons and experiences with us. And not only do we bring them with us, but they provide a rich opportunity for learning about how we might want to build a rewarding future and repeat some of the things that worked well in the past and maybe take a different path than where we may have misstepped in the past…75% of retirees across the US, as well as 83% of adult children have indicated that their memories, values and life lessons are the most important elements of their legacies that they want to pass on to loved ones. And it makes sense because in the long run, we can’t keep the money with us. It comes and it goes, and at the end of the day, it isn’t our house, it isn’t our property that is going to matter the most to us it’s our relationships and our values are what are really at the core of what matters.”

On Celebrating Life Together

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article that one of adult children’s greatest regrets is that only one in three adults know the stories behind their parents’ accomplishments. And it’s something that I’m sure we’ve all heard, and when I talk to folks about what I do, I can’t tell you how many times I hear, I wish I just had five more minutes with my Mom, or I wish I would’ve asked Dad that question. And so I think that seeing that just sense of peace and relief that my parents’ story was down was definitely one of the greatest outcomes. And then also another thing that’s documented again and again in the literature is just the benefits of sharing our personal stories to strengthening our interpersonal relationships. So it’s not only a benefit for when we’re gone, but while we’re still here and how we can celebrate our lives together.”

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About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how The Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one – on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host 

Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1 million downloads. Business Insider has recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

Early Registration for our 2nd Design Your New Life in Retirement small group program of 2024 is now open

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Aging in place? Downsizing? Decluttering? Moving? These topics can give pause to those of us of a certain age. Syndicated columnist and author Marni Jameson reframes those terms with an alternative choice: rightsizing. So forget downsizing. Instead focus on what is the right size home for your lifestyle going forward. And Marni Jameson expands the menu of options to include upsizing, same-sizing and bright-sizing as you consider where to live next.

Marni Jameson joins us from Florida.

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Bio

Marni Jameson is the author of Rightsize Today to Create Your Best Life Tomorrow: A Motivational Guide for Those Seeking Their Ideal Home Later in Life. Marni is a nationally syndicated home-design columnist, award-winning journalist, speaker, and frequent TV guest. Her humorous and helpful column, “At Home with Marni Jameson,” appears weekly in two dozen papers nationwide, reaching several million readers and more through social media and her blog. Her fans include readers who have been following the author’s home adventures for two decades. She has been featured on such primetime shows as NBC Nightly News and Martha Stewart Living. As one reviewer wrote, “Think Erma Bombeck meets Rachael Ray in one humble yet helpful package.” She is the author of seven books, including Downsizing the Family Home: What to Save, What to Let Go, a #1 Amazon bestseller that won numerous awards.

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For More on Marni Jameson

Rightsize Today to Create Your Best Life Tomorrow: A Motivational Guide for Those Seeking Their Ideal Home Later in Life by Marni Jameson

At Home with Marni Jameson

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Keep the Memories, Lose the Stuff – Matt Paxton

Where to Retire – Silvia Ascarelli

Where Will You Live Next? – Ryan Frederick

Thriving in Place – Lisa Cini

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Retiring soon? Visit our recommended Best Books on Retirement

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Wise Quotes

On Rightsizing

“It’s really about what do you need in your life going forward. I like to define right-sizing as moving to or creating a home that is the perfect physical, emotional, social and financial fit. So I think about four puzzle pieces, the physical…the emotional… the social and  it’s got to be financially comfortable for you, obviously, or that’s not going to work. So all that has to click. What happens is that people get to the sort of freedom threshold, their late fifties, early sixties where they are no longer commuting to a job. They may have bought the house they live in because it was near their work or near their kids’ schools or the schools they wanted their kids to attend. And fast forward 20, 30 years we’re about where you are and the kids are out of the house. The schools don’t really matter to you anymore or at all, and you are working remotely or you’re retired or you’re planning to retire or you can work from anywhere. And so why are you living in this house that has five bedrooms and you still have your kids’ Cub Scout uniforms in the attic? I mean, this is nuts. So really start envisioning what would you do. What would it look like? What would your house be like? Do you want more bedrooms so you can have the grandkids stay with you? Do you want fewer because nobody’s coming anymore? You want to lock and go travel?”

On Challenges in Rightsizing

“The biggest obstacles I hear people have are it’s just too much trouble. I have too much furniture, or there are too many memories here. And this sort of complacency kicks in this inertia and people get weighed down by stuff. It makes me sad that their stuff would be preventing them from living their best life in the best place for them. But you look to a point, you need to learn how to let go and just keep evolving and stop living in the past and live for now and the future because darling, that’s all we’ve got.”

On Upsizing & Same Sizing

“The variety of ways to right size include is not limited to smaller, I had a couple…that had a beautiful house on the lake where they raised their kids and they had a lot of parties, but it was too big. After the kids left, they sold that house and bought two, they bought a small lock-up and go house in Florida where they’re from, and they bought another small house in Wisconsin where their first grandbaby was going to be born. So they now have two houses for the price of one. It’s worked beautifully for them. Others have upsized. They just really wanted that bigger house. They always lived a little too tight. The grandkids are coming. It’s actually a third of people who buy a house after age 55 upsize. Half, either same size or upsize. So that’s why it’s rightsizing. It’s not about downsizing, it’s really, really about what you need, what you can afford, and what’s a good fit.”

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About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how The Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one – on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host 

Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1 million downloads. Business Insider has recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

 

 

Today’s Building Blocks: Lifelong Learning & Fun  – Are you ready to age adventurously?  If you’re making plans to travel this year, why not combine it with a learning adventure? Road Scholar is a not-for-profit organization providing educational travel programs primarily geared toward older adults with an impressive range of options to explore the world. Kelsey Knoedler Perri and Kerry Bennett join us to discuss how Road Scholar can help you combine travel, learning and fun in 2024.

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Retiring? See our Best Books on Retirement

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Bios

Kelsey Knoedler Perri is the Public Relations Director at Road Scholar, the nonprofit world leader in educational travel for older adults. She has worked in travel and tourism throughout her career and has been with Road Scholar since 2016. There she has developed her skills in and knowledge of communicating with and marketing to adults over 50 who #AgeAdventurously. She has special expertise in digital communications, social media, and public relations. She holds an MFA in creative writing and lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

Kerry Bennett is a retired marketing professional from Northern Arizona University who lives in Flagstaff, AZ. Since retiring, she has become an avid traveler, volunteer, and lifelong learner. She has been on seven learning adventures around the world with Road Scholar, including her most recent: a service program on Chincoteague Island, Virginia. She also volunteers for Road Scholar as an Ambassador, helping spread the word about the organization’s mission through in-person presentations and events.

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For More on Road Scholar

Website

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Mentioned in this Podcast Episode

Live Life in Crescendo – Cynthia Covey Haller

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Learning is a Lifetime Sport – Tom Vanderbilt

The Power of Fun – Catherine Price

Lifelong Learning – Michelle Weise

The Fun Habit – Mike Rucker, PhD

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Wise Quotes

On Learning Adventures

“Our mission always has been and always will be education. So everything we do is about learning. But now our programs are more a mix of classroom learning and experiential learning. So not just lectures in a lecture hall, you’re staying in a hotel room, you’re not staying in a dorm anymore, which is nice. And so we’ve evolved into being more of an educational travel organization…When you travel with Road Scholar, you’re really getting what you pay for and you’re going to be there to learn. You’re not there to sit on a beach and read a book or to go shopping. You’re there to learn. And that’s really what it comes down to. But we also offer financial aid. We offer caregiver grants for full-time, family caregivers. We have a scholarship for retired educators. So that’s also part of our whole nonprofit thing.”

On Solo Travelers

“30% of our travelers each year go solo. We have seen that trending upwards. We’ve seen more solo travelers in general over the past 10 years and 80% of those solo travelers are women.  [We] see a mix of couples, solo travelers, friends who are traveling with other friends, siblings traveling together, parents with their adult children, also people who came as solo travelers on a pass trip and then they met somebody on a trip and then they went a trip together again.And I started to hear more anecdotally that there were a lot of married women who were traveling with us without their husbands. And I just thought that was really interesting. So I want[ed] to get down to some actual data on that. So I did a study and we looked at both data that we had in our system as well as doing a survey. And what we found was that at least 60% of our solo travelers are married people who travel without their spouse on World Scholar programs. I was really surprised by that. It was more than even I expected. And so we surveyed them and the number one reason that they said that they travel without their spouse is because their spouse is just not interested in travel. So that’s really interesting. So I think what we’re seeing as far as a trend is these married folks traveling solo, we’re definitely seeing more interest from women to travel in general, but also to travel solo.”

 

On Intergenerational Trips

 

“We’ve been doing our intergenerational program since 1985, so I think we were kind of a little ahead of our time. Family travel is popular where you’re traveling with kids and parents, maybe even grandparents. But our grandparent and grandchild programs I think are what’s really unique that sometimes in the industry is called referred to as Skip Gen. And so those are just really special. When I first started working at Road Scholar, I was like, that is the coolest thing ever. I come from a family of 14 grandkids on each side of my family and I never really had a one-on-one experience, especially travel experience with my grandparents. And I just think that would’ve been just the coolest thing ever to be able to share something like that with just my grandparents. So what we’re seeing as far as they’ve definitely become more popular over the past 10 years. We’ve been seeing the interest increasing over the past 10 years and they’re really special experiences. It’s about 10% of what we offer, but when we have 80 to 100. 000 travelers a year, 10% is still a lot.”

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About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how The Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one – on your own terms.

 

About Your Podcast Host 

Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1 million downloads. Business Insider has recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

Today’s Building Block: Work (yes, work…) What makes transitions so hard to navigate?  Herminia Ibarra, a thought leader on leadership and career development and author of Working Identity, shares her insights on creating new options as you prepare for your transition to retirement.

Herminia Ibarra joins us from London.

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Comments? Leave a voice message here

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Bio

Herminia Ibarra is the Charles Handy Professor of Organisational Behaviour at London Business School. Prior to joining LBS, she served on the INSEAD and Harvard Business School faculties.

An authority on leadership and career development, Thinkers 50 ranks Herminia among the top management thinkers in the world.

She is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network, a judge for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award, a Fellow of the British Academy, and the 2018 recipient of the Academy of Management’s Scholar-Practitioner Award for her research’s contribution to management practice.

Herminia is a member of the London Business School governing body. She chaired the Harvard Business School Visiting Committee, which reports to the university’s board of overseers, from 2012 to 2016, having been a member since 2009, and served on the INSEAD board of directors.

A native of Cuba, Herminia received her MA and PhD from Yale University, where she was a National Science Fellow.

A second and updated edition of her groundbreaking book Working Identity was recently published by Harvard Business Review Press.

Whether as a daydream or a spoken desire, nearly all of us have entertained the notion of reinventing ourselves. Feeling unfulfilled, burned out, or just plain unhappy with what we’re doing, we long to make that leap into the unknown. In this powerful book, Herminia presents a new model for career reinvention that flies in the face of everything we’ve learned from ‘career experts’. While common wisdom holds that we must first know what we want to do before we can act, Ibarra argues that this advice is backward. Knowing, she says, is the result of doing and experimenting.

Based on her in-depth research on professionals and managers in transition, Ibarra outlines an active process of career reinvention that leverages three ways of ‘working identity’: experimenting with new professional activities, interacting in new networks of people, and making sense of what is happening to us in light of emerging possibilities. Through engrossing stories, Ibarra reveals a set of guidelines that all successful reinventions share. She explores specific ways that hopeful career changers of any background can.

A call to the dreamer in each of us, Working Identity explores the process for crafting a more fulfilling future.

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For More on Herminia Ibarra

Website

Working Identity by Herminia Ibarra

Articles

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Check out our Best Books on Retirement

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Mentioned in This Podcast Episode

The HBR Guide to Designing Your Retirement

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

The Portfolio Life – Christina Wallace 

Are You Ready for The New Long Life? – Andrew Scott

Retire Happy – Dr. Catherine Sanderson

Why Retirement is About Much More Than Money – Ted Kaufman & Bruce Hiland

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Wise Quotes 

On Transitions

“Transitions necessarily imply a loss of a sense of identity, a loss of something that has been meaningful and valuable. You’re moving away from someone you’ve been, but the future you isn’t clear yet, or the future destination or the next role isn’t clear yet. So you’re kind of hanging in limbo and that’s very uncomfortable. We live in a world in which certainty is valued, know who you are and the nature of this process and part of what makes it productive is questioning who you are, but that’s necessarily uncomfortable. So that’s number one. Number two is more specific, particularly today and particularly at mid-career and beyond. These transitions tend to be what I call in my academic jargon under-institutionalized. And what that means is they are not structured. It is not like an MBA job market. It is not like when you want to make partner in a law firm, you know what steps to take. The destination’s often unclear. You don’t know how long it’s going to take. Job search processes today are longer. Companies are taking longer to vet people. So it’s kind of open-ended, How long is it going to be? Where am I going? You’re not going through it necessarily with other people. So it’s hard to benchmark how am I doing? There’s lots of different steps you could take. So say you are an insurance executive and you want to be an entrepreneur to create a wine business. What are the steps? Well, it’s not fixed. It’s not like go to law school, join a firm. There’s lots of different pathways to that. So there’s a lot of uncertainty and ambiguity and openendedness in the process. And we as human beings struggle with that.”

On New Options

“The opportunity is that lots of paths open. Nobody is asking people to simply hang up the boots at age 65 and go play golf. Fewer people are doing a conventional retirement. That creates the challenge of choosing, crafting, and creating because you’re going to have to create your own. So often in our careers we get moved along by our occupation, our profession, our company. Now you have to invent your own. There’s lots of options open. Do you take on another role? Do you create a portfolio of roles? Do you work part of the time and save part of the time for leisure or do you stay, remain in working but more under your own control? There’s lots and lots of options open.”

On Her Possible Selves Exercise

“It’s called the Possible Selves exercise. And I think it is by far the most successful exercise I ever do with my students and participants. And it’s a very simple exercise. Anybody can try it at home. You take out a piece of paper or your iPad and you list as many ideas as you possibly can for who you might become in the future, including things you want, including things a lot about, including things that you maybe have a bit of curiosity about, including things you don’t want but are being thrown at you, including what other people want. But it really generates a portfolio. And there’s two ways in which that is helpful and interesting. The one is, it’s freeing. It allows you to be what we are as humans, divergent, not necessarily consistent, and it allows you to make the most out of the questions.”

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About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how The Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one – on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host 

Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1 million downloads. Business Insider has recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

 

Feedback or suggestions for this retirement podcast?  Leave a voice message here

Today’s Building Block: Wellness

What does an emotionally intelligent retirement look like? In this 4th edition of the Retirement Roundtable, two of our favorite previous guests, Kate Schroeder & Nick Wignall, return to discuss the questions to ask yourself now to be well prepared for the emotional aspects of the transition to retirement.

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Bios

Kate Schroeder is a psychotherapist in private practice. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor, Nationally Certified Counselor, and owner of Transformation Counseling, LLC.

With over 25 years in the mental health field, her clinical background includes experience as a school counselor, mental health therapist in an urban university’s counseling center, individual, couples, group, and family therapist, and clinical researcher. Within these settings, Kate has provided individual, group and family counseling for clients experiencing difficulties in areas including depression and anxiety, adjustment and transitional concerns, C-PTSD, acculturation and multicultural issues, family and childhood conflicts, interpersonal relationships, grief and trauma, eating disorders, LGBTQ issues, self-efficacy, career exploration and various other interpersonal conflicts. Kate also holds certification as a massage therapist, physical trainer and physical education teacher. In addition to her private practice, she also teaches graduate courses to counselors in training.

Kate joins us again from St Louis.

Nick Wignall is a licensed clinical psychologist who is Board-certified in behavioral and cognitive psychology. He’s the founder of the popular newsletter, The Friendly Mind, with practical, evidence-based advice for emotional health and wellbeing. The newsletter is read by 50,000+ people each week and his writing has been featured in media outlets like NBC, Business Insider, Inc Magazine, Aeon and Medium. Nick is the author of Find Your Therapy: A Practical Guide to Finding Quality Therapy, .a guide to learning about the most important factors in choosing a therapist and how to go about finding a good one, either for yourself or someone you love. He did his doctoral training in clinical psychology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, including research in human genetics and psychopharmacology. Prior to that, Nick earned his Masters in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s in English Literature from the University of Dallas.

Nick joins us again form Albuquerque, New Mexico.

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For More on Kate Schroder & Nick Wignall

Kate Schroeder

Nick Wignall

First Visits to the Podcast:

The Emotional Side of Retiring – Kate Schroeder

Coping Strategies & Moving Forward – Nick Wignall & Verla Fortier

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Retiring? Check our recommendations on the Best Books About Retirement

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Mentioned in This Podcast Episode

Source: Our World in Data   Who do we spend time with across our lifetime?

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

The Self-Healing Mind – Gregory Scott Brown, M.D.

The Portfolio Life – Christina Wallace

Chatter & Your Inner Voice – Ethan Kross

Edit Your Life – Elisabeth Sharp McKetta

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Other Retirement Roundtable podcast episodes

Michelle Pannor Silver Ted Kaufman, and Bruce Hiland 

Fritz Gilbert, Dr. Barbara O’Neill, and Mark Shaiken

Melissa Davey, Richard Haiduck and Thelma Reese

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Wise Quotes from This Retirement Roundtable

On Exploring Who You Are

“So much research out there now shows that adjusting to retirement has its own set of difficulty and challenges for many, many people, especially for a lot of people who’ve identified a lot with their work and they’ve gotten a lot of accolades and self-esteem and identification from the work that they do. They often struggle in some cases more than many other people because work was such a big part of their environment. There’s been a big huge association between work and mental health. And so it really underscores the necessity of having conversations like this because we have to think, when we think about retirement without a doubt, we have to just like people start saving financially for retirement very early on, beginning that early preparation and exploration of your emotional self and who you are as a person and what brings you meaning is really going to be the key to be able to find balance and integrate long before it comes time to actually hang up your keys and move into that retirement place. So my biggest emphasis for folks who are in this part of their life is that if you haven’t already, there is definitely a necessity for you to begin exploring who you are. And I’m not talking about the who you are in terms of your work….But I’m talking about those deeper places of learning who you are, about what brings you deep meaning, what gives you purpose, what kinds of people do you like to interact with. And I’m not saying you tolerate, I’m saying what feeds you. And so the years leading up to retirement are incredibly pivotal for increasing this, I believe pretty essential to begin asking yourself questions like: What do I want out of my life? What do I want out of this next part of my life? …So I think starting early to learn about this emotional part of who you are is critical. If someone wants to successfully retire, you’ve got to begin the exploration now.”                  Kate Schroeder

On Wisdom

“…I remind myself all the time, it’s not what you know about yourself that’s going to get you anywhere in life or not. It’s what we don’t know that keeps us from getting there. That’s the piece we have to work on. And so to me, emotionally intelligent people are willing to do that. They’re willing to feel a little something along the way and understand that life is up and down. And in the process of discovering myself, that’s going to be part of the learning is making room for all of those feelings. And really the last thing I’ll say about this is I think it’s so crucial to help people learn. We talk about meaning and purpose that comes to us through the form of our feelings over time. What we have to do is also make sure that we have a strong connection to our bodies and who we are, because our bodies are going to be the conduit for so much wisdom and information about what feeds us and what doesn’t.”        Kate Schroeder

On Labelling Emotions 

” …a very small, but powerful, habit I think people can build to start to improve emotional awareness and intelligence is to notice that urge to intellectualize, to avoid the actual emotion by using a concept or an idea and instead say it like a 6-year-old, how would a little kid describe how I’m feeling right now? And just say that maybe it’s to someone else, you’re in a conversation or maybe just in your own self-talk, when you’re reflecting on how you’re feeling, use language that’s plain and direct when it comes to your feelings and your emotions rather than these kind of convoluted, overly conceptual intellectualization. And that’s one way I think to start to get, it’s a cheesy word, but in touch with what you’re feeling, which is the the doorway to emotional intelligence and understanding yourself on that level a lot better.”     – Nick Wignall

On Identity

“…there’s this old saying, and we’re all athletes here, but in sports and people would say the best offense is a good defense. But I think when it comes to coming out of retirement and these questions of identity and purpose and loss, really, I think you can flip that to pretty good effect, which is the best defense is a good offense. And what I mean by that is I think a lot of people get stuck trying to cope with loss, trying to mitigate the effects of a lot, like: Oh my God, I was this a partner, a VP in this big company. I had so much prestige and influence and respect and all that, and how do I deal with the loss of that? And I’m not saying that’s not an important question, but there’s a sense of proportionality where if all your time and energy is going to mitigating and coping with one particular loss in one aspect of your identity, there’s opportunity costs there. That’s all time and energy that could be put toward. What can I build? What can I bring in? What new aspects of my identity can I uncover or construct? Or whatever kind of metaphor you want to use. My guess is that most people would be far better off channeling more of their energy in that direction rather than putting it all into playing defense and coping with a particular loss…The overall mindset is like, this is who I am, and now it’s gone and I’m a shell of myself now because of that. No, that was one part of who you were at this stage of life. There are almost an infinite number of possibilities going forward, and that sounds nice. You’re listening to this, you’re like, yeah, yeah, okay, that sounds nice. But to really think about that, what would that mean if I saw myself as full of potential options going forward?”    – Nick Wignall

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About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how The Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host 

Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1 million downloads. Business Insider has recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.


The views and opinions expressed by guests on The Retirement Wisdom Podcast are solely those of the guests and do not reflect the opinion of the host or Retirement Wisdom, LLC. The Retirement Wisdom Podcast primarily covers the non-financial aspects of retirement. From time to time we may invite guests who discuss other aspects of retirement planning, solely for educational purposes. Listeners are advised to consult qualified financial, psychological  and/or medical professionals on those matters.