Podcasts Archive - Page 6 of 77 - Retirement Wisdom

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What’s next?

Make time to design it.

Early registration is now open for our next Design Your New Life in Retirement group program.

The Very Early Bird discount ends on July 31st.

Learn more here.

Register here.

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What comes after a long, successful career at the top of your field? More and more, people are redefining retirement—saying No Thanks to a traditional retirement and instead exploring new pursuits. And for some, it’s a chance to dive into something they’ve always yearned to do.

In today’s conversation, meet Neal Lipschutz. Stepping away from a distinguished career, he discovered a surprising new purpose—writing fiction. With his debut novel No Write Way to Die just released, Neal shares the lessons he’s learning in a second act.

What might your second act look like? Like Neal, you may discover a path that draws on your skills in a new way- and brings unexpected joy.

Neal Lipschutz joins us from Ridgewood, New Jersey.

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Bio

Neal Lipschutz, a long-time journalist, was formerly a deputy editor-in-chief at The Wall Street Journal. He also previously served as WSJ’s ethics and standards editor. He also at one time was the top editor at Dow Jones Newswires. His short fiction has appeared in a number of publications. “No Write Way to Die” is his first novel and the first in a series of mysteries.

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For More on Neal Lipschutz

No Write Way to Die

This debut thriller from award-winning journalist Neal Lipschutz, former deputy editor in chief of the Wall Street Journal, combines a gripping, good old-fashioned murder mystery with the ethical consideration of just how far a person should go to protect their family.”

From Headlines to Whodunits

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Podcast Conversations You May Like

The Vintage Years – Dr. Francine Toder

Edit Your Life – Elisabeth Sharp McKetta

Retiring: Creating a Life That Works for You – Teresa Amabile

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

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 1.6 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.

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Wise Quotes

On the Transition to Retirement

“The transition – it’s a big one. One of the things I really liked about my plan to go directly from a full-time work in journalism for a big company to being on my own and trying something that no one was asking me to do, was that I didn’t know I would be devoted to the process. And I knew that I would be devoting every day that wasn’t taken up with something else to doing this. So in other words, I believe that for a lot of people contemplating or just entering retirement, at least it would be for me, but I imagine for others as well, there’s that uncertainty about, Okay, I know what I’m doing tomorrow, but what about the next day? What about the next day? And for me, that problem was solved. On any given day, if I don’t have anything else planned, I’m putting in five or six hours of writing or editing or revising, or now trying to do some promotional work for the book now that it’s published. So it’s not that elongated day, but it is a different kind of work too. And as I said, to me at least, there’s some comfort in knowing what I’ll be doing tomorrow and that it’s something I’m looking forward to doing.”

On Taking on a Different Kind of Work

“I know that there is no traditional retirement, but one thinks of the sort of old fashioned notion of a traditional retirement of going from working full time to a period of time that are almost entirely made up of leisure type pursuits. I knew that wasn’t for me, at least not now. So I thought that looking at it as going from one type of work to another type of work was meaningful for me and I think helped in the transition. Obviously, going from an important role at a big news organization to something where I’m pretty much on my own with a laptop, where I said not exactly anybody cares in a sense if I work that day or don’t work that day. But knowing that it’s something I wanted to do for a long time and saying it’s not “retirement.” It’s switching from having worked a certain way for decades to a different kind of work in a different setting.”

On a Second Act

“The first thing I would say is absolutely go for it…people are generally living longer and hopefully healthier. So, if you’ve got the wherewithal and you can do it, I think a second act different from what you did much of your career is really worth pursuing. I think whatever it is, whatever you choose, whatever makes sense to you, I think could be extremely rewarding…if there are skill sets that you develop in the working world that with maybe a little bit or maybe a big twist can serve you in that second act, it seems to me that’s a kind of a step up, right?”

What’s next for you?

Early registration is now open for our next Design Your New Life in Retirement group program. Join us.

The Very Early Bird discount ends on July 31st. Learn more here.

Register here.

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Retirement is about so much more than money.

But where do you begin to build the life you want after you leave full-time work?

Here’s what we’ve discussed with our interesting expert guests:

  • The critical choice you’ll want to make – now – about the years ahead
  • Why retirement is really about creating a new life structure
  • How to use retirement as a catalyst to edit your life
  • The four steps in a reinvention roadmap
  • Why happiness requires knowledge and skill
  • What longitudinal research reveals as the keys to a long and satisfying life
  • How creating a Portfolio Life can open up new possibilities in retirement
  • How your beliefs can affect your longevity

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Want to explore any of these ideas further?

Dive into any of the full podcast conversations here:

Cynthia Covey Haller

Teresa Amabile

Elisabeth Sharp McKetta

Joanne Lipman

Arthur C. Brooks

Marc Schulz

Christina Wallace

Becca Levy

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Explore our Best Books on Retirement

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

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 1.6 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.

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Wise Quotes

On Reinvention 

“One of the ways to start actually, and I just wrote a piece in The New York Times about this [is] the idea of thinking about your possible selves. Now that’s a psychological term, but essentially what it means is to imagine what you might be, what you could be, and to go beyond the daydream to take some sort of action on possible selves. So that means if, let’s say I’m pivoting in a career, take a course or shadow someone, or do an informational interview. Don’t just like sit with it and cogitate. You’ve got to  get out of your own brain.”

– Joanne Lipman

On Purpose & Meaning

“Purpose or meaning actually requires challenge and trauma and hardship and pain – and actually requires unhappiness paradoxically. So these are kind of complicated phenomena, but altogether, everybody can get better at getting happy if you’ve got the knowledge and skills.”

– Arthur Brooks

On Relationships

“The finding that we talk about most in our book, The Good Life, is that it’s very clear across this 86 years of research, and hundreds of papers, that the most important predictor of health and happiness throughout the lifespan is the quality of our relationships with others. How connected we are, how much we can rely on other support, and how much we’re able to do that are really key predictors of how happy we’ll be and how healthy we will be. And it’s all kinds of relationships. It’s not just the person who you may have been lucky enough to spend a good portion of your time with. So it’s not just our marital partners or our intimate partners, it’s friends, neighbors, people we work with, people in our communities, it’s all types of relationships that matter.”

– Marc Schulz

On Creating a Portfolio Life

“And so it can be hard in that transition because not only have you lost the routine of what do I do with my day, you’ve also lost the community of here’s who I talk to on a regular basis – and then you’ve lost this identity. How do I describe myself? Who am I when I get out of bed? And as terrifying as it is to go through that transition and losing all three things at the same time, it’s a huge opportunity because for so many people at that cusp of retirement, they’re thinking, I’m not dead yet. I’ve got a whole life ahead of me. I still have something to offer. And, very likely, I saw a lot of things I’m really curious about that I haven’t had space for. So rather than replacing one thing for another, the opportunity here is to really think about your portfolio, literally like your financial portfolio, and you map out what do I need for this chapter? Do I need a community that will challenge me and push me to grow? Do I need that community to be in person versus one that might be online or over zoom? So you start mapping out what you need. And honestly, a lot of times you don’t know what you need until you don’t have it. So sitting in that really awkwardness of those first few weeks or months and saying, oh, I hate this. Why? What are you missing? And then after you map out what you need, you have that same opportunity to say, okay, well what do I want? What comes next? What are the things that I am interested in or parts of my Venn diagram that I haven’t been able to make use of in a while? And then you just sort of, it’s a little bit like a mashup, a mix tape.”

– Christina Wallace

Who will you become in your retirement?

Registration is now open for the next two Design Your New Life in Retirement Groups.

Very Early Bird discount available for a limited time. Take the first step toward Future You today.

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Retirement is not an end — it’s an open canvas. In this episode, Harry Agress, MD, author of Next Years Best Years: Taking Your Retirement to the Next Level, joins us to explore how retirement can become one of the most dynamic, creative, and fulfilling phases of your life. A retired radiologist and passionate photographer, Dr. Agress shares lessons from his own retirement journey — from trying an improv class with 20-somethings to donating his art to hospitals — and offers you practical insights to help you shape a retirement that’s vibrant, purpose-driven, and truly your own.

You’ll discover:

  • How self-reflection and worksheets helped Dr. Agress navigate the transition into retirement

  • Why embracing “The Four Freedoms” can unlock a new mindset

  • The surprising benefits of trying new things — even improv!

  • A simple but powerful idea: the 8-minute phone call that can rekindle relationships

  • Why pursuing purpose — especially in service to others — fuels a more meaningful retirement

Whether you’re preparing for retirement or already in it, Dr. Agress offers a compelling vision of how to make your next chapter the best one yet.

Harry Agress, MD joins us from New York.

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Bio – Harry Agress, MD

Following a 36-year medical career in the field of Radiology, Dr. Agress has been retired for 10 years. He is an experienced teacher and nationally recognized lecturer who takes great joy in passing on what he has learned and experienced both in medicine and in retirement.

He has been profiled in The Wall Street Journal, appeared on NBC’s “The Today Show,” lectured at the 92nd St Y (NYC) and been featured and America’s Top Doctors.

He is a Clinical Professor at Columbia University (NYC) and continues to voluntarily teach medical residents both at Columbia and Weill Cornell Medical Centers.

In his new book, Next Years Best Years, Taking Your Retirement to the Next Level, Dr. Agress dives into the many exploits and research that he and others have discovered as they create a new post-career way of living; embracing the emotional, personal and practical side of one of the most unique opportunities of our lives.

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For More on Harry Agress, MD:

Next Years Best Years: Taking Your Retirement to the Next Level

A Retired Physician Pursues a New Self Portrait in Photography

Q&A with photographer Dr. Harry Agress

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Related Podcast Episodes You May Like:

The Vintage Years – Dr. Francine Toder

Independence Day – Steve Lopez

Retiring: Creating a Life That Works for You – Teresa Amabile

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

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 1.6 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.

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Wise Quotes

On the Transition to Retirement

“It is not a particularly simple transition unless you’ve worked on a lot of these issues before you retired, which I highly recommend. It is a time when actually it is a combination of being very happy, stress is down and everything else. But there’s a grieving process that I think a lot of people have to go through. And you just have to sort of accept it for a while that you have lost something. You have lost your career. You’ve lost some of your friendships on a daily basis and there are ways to to move on past that.”

On The Four Freedoms of Retirement

“One of the things that does make it easier is what I like to call The Four Freedoms, which is basically taking charge of your fears and anxieties about this new stage in your life and transferring it into freedoms. One of the  the first one is fear of failure – and we don’t have to worry about this anymore! We’re not at work anymore. You can go try all kinds of things. I decided I wanted to try improv. I did it with a group where I was three times older than the average kid in this thing and you know it was intimidating for a little bit, but I really wanted to try it. And it turned out to be fine. But at the end when they’re all signing up for the next semester. I’m out of there and I thought I liked it, I felt good I tried it. One of the good things about improv is you don’t have to memorize lines and then and one of the big points is nobody else cares you know at this stage of our life no one cares if you don’t sing well no one cares. If you don’t write well and you just have this amazing freedom where failure just does not exist. Nobody cares so do  things that you always wanted to. I think this is another great freedom – at this time you don’t have to worry about what other people think.”

On Self-Reflection

“One of the things you can do to help this along is think about the things you did in childhood that you really loved. And think about the things, what would you have done if you hadn’t done your career? Because the other big point I’d like to make is that this is a very dynamic process that can last for 25% of your life. This can go on for 20 or more years. So it’s not like, boom, this is just a one-time event. You’re gonna change, and I certainly did, in and out of the time that goes by in retirement. So I think it’s always a good idea to refresh, no matter what stage you’re at.”

Retiring? You could wing it…but that’s not you.

Be intentional about your future.

Registration is now open for the next two Design Your New Life in Retirement Groups.

Very Early Bird discount available for a limited time. Take the first step toward Future You today.

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What if  I told you the activities you dismiss as “just hobbies” were much more than just fun – and could be one of the most powerful tools for building resilience and maintaining mental sharpness as we age? Ashley Merryman reveals groundbreaking findings that challenge how we think about leisure time and its profound impact on our long-term health. From doctors now prescribing hobbies as medicine to studies finding that singing in a chorus creates instant social bonds, the science behind recreational activities is remarkable.

Merryman shares fascinating research demonstrating that even modest engagement—like cooking something special twice a week—can deliver measurable cognitive benefits. Whether you’re looking to boost your brain health, combat isolation, or to find more meaning in your free time, this conversation will change how you view your pastimes. Discover why hobbies aren’t just fun—they’re good for you, in more ways than we think.

Ashley Merryman joins us from Washington, DC.

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Bio

Ashley Merryman is a two-time New York Times bestselling author who is a frequent contributor to US News and World Report. She who recently wrote a guest column for YOLO, a US News newsletter for retirees and those thinking about retirement on the science of hobbies – finding that hobbies are a key to a healthier, happier life.

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For More on Ashley Merryman

Your Hobby May Be the Secret to a Happier, Healthier Life

Website

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Podcast Conversations You May Like

Learning is a Lifetime Sport – Tom Vanderbilt

Inward Traveler – Francine Toder PhD

Live Life in Crescendo – Cynthia Covey Haller

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Mentioned in This Podcast Conversation

Serious Leisure

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

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 1.6 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.

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Wise Quotes

On the Benefits of Hobbies

“The research is very clear. There have been studies, large scale studies, 20,000 people in 15 European countries, 90,000 people in another 15 or 16 countries, and they are consistently finding that hobbies lead to lower likelihood of depression, lower anxiety, better well-being, better physical health, better overall life satisfaction.”

On Hobbies & Your Brain

“So we’ve got these huge benefits in terms of cognition, well-being, psychology, but researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas decided, Well, let’s see if we can find this in brain scanning. So they did a really interesting experiment with seniors, taking a class either in digital photography, quilting, or some combination of both, and then they had a comparison group which was just doing social stuff. So they would meet every week, and each group were all together, they were spending about 13 to 15 hours a week, so it was a pretty substantial amount of time. For the class, it was about a two-hour class, and then they would practice what they learned. In this social comparison group, they didn’t learn anything, but they would, you know, have a weak theme. Okay, this week, we’re going to talk about travel. So people will just tell us about their stories, about where they’ve been, where they want to go, that kind of thing. Next week, let’s sit down and watch a movie. So mostly focused on social, not learning. And what they found was that both groups within 14 weeks actually showed improvement in their brain development. And the language that the researchers used was that it literally resulted in a more youth-like area of production and functioning of the brain. The difference, though, between those two groups is that high challenge group, the group that was actively learning. You saw this pattern in at least five different areas of the brain. The social group only saw that pattern in one part of the brain. So there was some progress but not nearly as much in that active learning, pushing yourself to figure out how to do something, taking in newer information. But both of them had some progress and they actually saw the same improvement in brain function a year later. So, the stories in terms of, Oh well, after 25, your brain is an inevitable decline, is absolutely wrong, and one of the fastest ways to do that is just to learn a new hobby.”

On Singing as a Hobby

“Research has actually shown that even perfect strangers, while you’re singing, you’re breathing. and even your heart rate, start getting in sync with the conductor so you’re literally having this joint physiological and emotional experience going along with everyone. Maybe it’s beautiful. maybe you all screw up and have a collective laugh. because Oh wow that was really not what you were looking for but you have this joint shared purpose and this joint shared emotional experience that’s very unique to singing.”

 

 

Volunteering offers a multitude of benefits. And if you end up retiring sooner than you plan to, it can offer a bridge to what you may decide to do next. Yet, it’s easy to take on more than you’re ready for too soon. You’ll want to learn to set boundaries up front to protect your time and flexibility. Lisa Lewis shares her experiences and lessons learned about volunteering with boundaries.

Lisa Lewis joins us from Tampa, Florida.

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Bio

Dr. Lisa T. Lewis is the Belief System (B.S.) Boss® and Founder of the Belief System (B.S.) Boss® Institute. Through her transformative Belief System training, she empowers individuals to successfully reengineer their belief systems to transform life’s obstacles into possibilities. As an ordained clergy member, award-winning author, TEDx speaker, senior manager, and certified John Maxwell Team Coach, Teacher, Speaker, and Trainer, she brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to her practice, inspiring personal and professional growth in her clients.

She formerly served as the Chief Budget and Financial Management Officer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (OMAO) for both the Aircraft Operations Center (AOC) in Lakeland, Florida and the Commissioned Personnel Center (CPC) in Silver Spring, Maryland.  The AOC is best known for the ‘Hurricane Hunters,’ a group of aircraft used for hurricane reconnaissance. They fly through hurricanes to help forecasters and scientists gather operational and research data. The crews also conduct other research projects, including ocean wind studies, winter storm research, thunderstorm research, coastal erosion, and air chemistry flights.

Her thirty-six-year federal career began as a stay-in-school student, Clerk-Typist with General Services Administration. Although she studied Business Administration at Barton College, she found her federal niche when she was introduced to federal budgeting and finance in 1991. Since then, she has become the “Olivia Pope” of federal budgeting and finance.  She has enjoyed working at a few cabinet-level agencies: the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services with the U.S. Surgeon General and National Institutes of Health, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Homeland Security.

Aside from her recent retirement from Federal service, a few little-known facts about Lisa are that she holds several professional certifications, has authored/published several books, has completed her first TEDx Talk, has an honorary Doctor of Divinity, and is an ordained Elder in the Christian faith.

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For More on Lisa Lewis 

LinkedIn

Website

Amazon

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Podcast Conversations You May Like

Grace in Motion – Susan Hartzler

Your Identity Beyond Your Job Title – Laverne McKinnon

The Mutual Benefits of Intergenerational Volunteering – Atalaya Sergi

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

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 1.6 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.

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Wise Quotes

On The Benefits of Volunteering 

“The joys of volunteering. for me have been, it helps me not think about myself. And it helps me to be a part of the solution of whatever area I’m involved in. I encourage people who talk about wanting to volunteer, but they’re not exactly sure how they want to do it, to think about what comes up in their mind as a problem area. And they can be part of the solution. Any problem area that you can think about, for the most part, there is an area in which you can volunteer to help be part of the solution to solve that problem.”

On Volunteering with Boundaries

Because to go from someone who works a 40 hour work week, and I work far more hours in that every week, but to go from a stressful intense work week to zero. is quite a transition. So I definitely understand the emphasis on ensuring you have something else to do when you retire. Volunteering went into turbo speed. So the volunteering  I was doing, I had to manage expectations that I had a little more time on my and hands, but I was able to engage a little bit differently, showing up in person more often than what I was able to when I was working full time. But I was being clear, I’m not trading in 40 hours of a  work week for 40 hours of volunteering. I’m not doing that. So that is, I think the challenge and the pitfalls are one and the same is managing expectations in your time. Because if you want to do something else with the next chapter of your life, and it’s not volunteering 100% of the time, that is the challenge, is making sure that folks know, I’m not the person to call at the 11th hour.”

On Mentoring

“I am excited and thrilled that a number of people that I have been able to mentor and manage at different points that were interested in advancing their career, all of them now, 36 years later, are in leadership roles. They’re hiring individuals. They’re running their own offices and doing amazing work. So that’s exciting.”

On Do’s and Don’ts

Do volunteer first and foremost. Go to the internet and use AI to type in things that you enjoy doing and how you can volunteer in those areas. And it will bring back a barrage of places that you may not even thought of where you can volunteer. And call the organizations because trust me, everyone is looking for volunteers. And talk with whoever is responsible for bringing in new volunteers and see whether or not there’s an alignment with what you believe, how you want to serve. And if that’s the case, go for it.

Don’t go all in. I know that’s crazy. It may sound a little backward but don’t go all in in the beginning because when you’re volunteering, this has to be mutually beneficial. Don’t over commit initially, try it on for size. And if it’s working well and it’s a good fit, then go all in. Take baby steps and don’t over commit. That’s the worst thing you could do is to over commit and then not be able to see the assignment through a project through to completion.”

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