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Retirement Wisdom helps you balance your retirement planning by attending to how you invest your most valuable asset – your time. No other podcasts cover the non-financial side of retirement planning as in-depth as our retirement podcast. Here’s a recap of what we learned in the 3rd month of our 4th season of The Retirement Wisdom Podcast talking with: Chad Willardson on why it’s wise to plan holistically for retirement Dr. Krystal Culler on why your planning should include cultivating brain health Chris Mamula on an update of his lessons learned after retiring early at 41 Wendy Marx on reinventing yourself and how to build a new personal brand ___________________________ You can listen to the full conversations here: Plan Holistically for Retirement – Chad Willardson Practices for Brain Health – Dr. Krystal Culler Lessons Learned in Early Retirement – Chris Mamula How’s Your Personal Brand? – Wendy Marx ___________________________ 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 our Designing Your New Life coaching programs can help you make yours great. ______________________________________ Explore retirementwisdom.com  

Are you well-prepared for the transition to retirement and the life you want to lead? It’s one of life’s major transitions and it takes much more than money. Our guest, Mike Drak, shares his insights from his personal experience with his retirement transition and his recently released book Retirement Heaven or Hell. We discuss: The lessons from his retirement transition What’s changed about retirement since he retired in 2014 The different stages of retirement How someone can get to Retirement Heaven and stay out of Retirement Hell How people find purpose in retirement What the pandemic taught him about retirement How people can foster new social connections and find their new tribe in retirement His advice on planning for a great retirement Mike joins us from Toronto. _________________________ Bio After a thirty-eight-year career within the financial services industry, Mike Drak experienced what he has now termed “retirement shock”. As a result, Mike spent the next 6 years doing research about retirement which resulted in his best-selling book “Victory Lap Retirement” based on his realization that full stop retirement doesn’t work for most people. He most recently released “Retirement Heaven or Hell: Which Will You Choose?” which shares some of Mike’s personal experiences in retirement and highlights how people can design and transition to their own unique retirement lifestyle. This book also outlines the valuable retirement lessons learned from the pandemic and introduces nine retirement principles that can support creating a long, healthy, and fulfilling life. __________________________ Wise Quotes On Purpose & Attitude “The biggest one for me was finding purpose, finding a sufficient purpose in retirement, so I wouldn’t get bored and I wouldn’t get frustrated, and I had a good reason to get out of bed in the morning. That took a lot of time. That was probably one of the most important ones, but there are other ones too that are equally important. If you think about the importance of relationships, that’s the key factor in focusing on your health, because without having good health, it doesn’t matter how much money you have, you’re not going to enjoy yourself in retirement. And having a good attitude is so important. It all comes down to how you look at retirement and what you think about it. If you think retirement is going to be great, odds are, it will be. But if you look at it as a terrible period, when you’re going to get old and it’s going to suck, well, guess what? So those are important things that I had difficulty with myself.” On Planning for a Long Retirement “People…think when you retire, you’re going to be the same person for 30 years. You’re not. You’re going to keep continuing to change and you’re going to keep becoming a different person over time. And it’s important to understand that and to know what kind of person you want to become because that’s where you’re going. And it’s still becoming someone different than you are before you retire. So you want to be able to sit down and say, okay, this is the kind of person I want to become. This is the lifestyle I want that person to enjoy and start putting those things in place because you’re setting yourself up for a 30-year payoff. And you got to do it right. And it’s, that’s why I say it takes a lot of planning, proper planning.” _________________________ For More on Mike Drak Retirement Heaven or Hell Victory Lap Retirement _________________________ Podcast Episodes You May Be Interested In The Skill Set for Life’s Transitions – Bruce Feiler From Finance to Becoming an Author – James Hockenberry Believe In Yourself & Try Something New – Carol Cooke Some Kind of Heaven – Lance Oppenheim Who Will Take Care of You When You Are Older? – Joy Loverde Successful Aging – Daniel Levitin ___________________________ About Retirement Wisdom What’s next? The pen is in your hands to write your next chapters. But where do you start? Start here. Our coaching process, with a Certified Designing Your Life coach, helps you create your new narrative. Build a roadmap to your future, driven by what matters most. It’s time. Design Your New Life. ______________________________ Explore retirementwisdom.com  

We all have that inner voice in our heads. In his book Chatter, psychologist Ethan Kross shares insights from his research lab at the University of Michigan on how our self-talk impacts our lives, our attitudes, our health, and our relationships. Chatter includes a range of valuable tools we can use to control our inner critic and tap into our “inner coach.” We discuss: His work at the Emotion & Self Control Lab at the University of Michigan. What he learned about introspection from his father. Stats on our inner voice and how often we talk with ourselves. How chatter and negative self-talk impact people. How our inner critic and inner coach work. What happens when we bring our other relationships in the conversation, with things like venting. How people planning for retirement can best deal with uncertainty and fear. Tools he finds useful in managing our inner critic and accessing our inner coach. Ethan Kross joins us from Michigan. _________________________ Bio Ethan Kross is one of the world’s leading experts on controlling the conscious mind. An award-winning professor and bestselling author in the University of Michigan’s top-ranked Psychology Department and its Ross School of Business, he studies how the conversations people have with themselves impact their health, performance, decisions, and relationships. Ethan was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated magna cum laude. After earning his Ph.D. in Psychology from Columbia University, Ethan completed a post-doctoral fellowship in social-affective neuroscience to learn about the neural systems that support self-control. He moved to the University of Michigan in 2008, where he founded the Emotion & Self Control Laboratory. Ethan’s research has been published in Science, The New England Journal of Medicine, and The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, among other peer-reviewed journals. He has participated in policy discussions at the White House and has been interviewed on CBS Evening News, Good Morning America, Anderson Cooper Full Circle, and NPR’s Morning Edition. His pioneering research has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Harvard Business Review, USA Today, The Economist, The Atlantic, Forbes, and Time. Ethan is the author of the National Bestseller CHATTER: The Voice in Our Head, Why it Matters and How to Harness It, which was chosen as one of the best new books of the year by the Washington Post, CNN and USA Today and the Winning Winter 2021 selection for Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain and Dan Pink’s Next Big Idea Book Club. CHATTER  is scheduled to be translated into over 35 languages. Ethan lives in Ann Arbor with his wife and two daughters. __________________________ Wise Quotes On Our Inner Voice “…we do spend a significant amount of time in this world of words in our head. And sometimes those conversations we have with ourselves can be the source of a lot of joy. Like when you’re savoring, you’re going over, what happened like a positive experience that might’ve happened to you, or you’re imagining an accolade you might receive in the future. But we also spend a lot of time talking to ourselves in ways that can be really disparaging and make us feel upset. And that really captures this conundrum of self-talk. We have this inner voice that on the one hand can be this, this great source of wisdom and self-confidence and a wonderful coach. But on the other hand, we also have this inner voice that could turn into a really harsh critic…” On Chatter versus Negative Self-Talk “I think of negative self-talk and, in particular, I want to make a distinction between negative self-talk and chatter. And I want to make a distinction between them for the following reasons. Sometimes we say negative things to ourselves which can cause us to feel bad… That’s, I would argue, not a problem. It’s not a problem because negative emotions in small doses are actually quite adaptive. It’s useful. You know, when I screw up, when I say something bad to someone else at work, and I feel a little bit of guilt and remorse about doing that, I replay that conversation of my screw up in my head. That’s giving me information that I can learn from. That’s a learnable moment.” __________________________ For More on Ethan Kross, PhD Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It Website How well do you know your inner voice? Take this quiz and find out. __________________________ Podcast Episodes You May Be Interested In Tiny Habits Can Lead to Big Changes – BJ Fogg The Mind-Body Connection and The Rabbit Effect – Kelli Harding Design Your Life and Get Unstuck – Dave Evans Lifelong Learning – Michelle Weise Life’s Big Decisions – Adrian Camilleri How Can You Be Better with Age? – Alan Castel ___________________________ About Retirement Wisdom What’s next? The pen is in your hands to write your next chapters. But where do you start? Our coaching process helps you create your new narrative. Build a roadmap to your future, driven by what matters most. It’s time. Start here. Design Your New Life. ______________________________ Explore retirementwisdom.com        

Do you have an encore career in you? An interest you’ve always wanted to pursue, if only you had the time? Maybe you’ve dreamed of becoming an author in your second career. Our guest, Jim Hockenberry, retired from a successful corporate career at 55 and did just that, writing not one book, but three. He’s the author of an award-winning historical fiction trilogy. Jim joins us from Princeton, New Jersey. ________________________ Bio James Hockenberry, of Princeton, NJ, grew up in Bronxville, just outside of NYC. Bronxville is featured in a chapter of his first thriller, Over Here. James has authored an award-winning “World War One Intrigue Series”. The historical fiction series interweaves three of his long-time passions: history, literature, and his German-American roots. He has lectured locally on World War One, including at the State Library in Trenton and the Princeton Present Day Club. A career financial executive, with degrees from Lafayette College and Columbia University, he began as a CPA with Ernst & Young. After moving to W. R. Grace, they transferred him to their European Headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland where he lived for 15 years. He returned to the US, put his financial career behind him, and began to research history and write thrillers. For the last fifteen years, he has run the Princeton Chapter of the Financial Network Group (FENG) with over 2,200 members. ________________________ Wise Quotes On Becoming an Author as a Second Act “Well, let me just say first, it’s not really a question of how I did it, but why it took so long. I had a successful and rewarding business career coming out of graduate school and that took me to age 55. At that point, I was financially secure and I wanted to adjust my life and balance priorities. I had always wanted to write a book. So I made the change from a financial executive to a writer and I never looked back. So I never really walked away from my financial career. What I would rather say is it reached a natural conclusion and I moved in a different direction. One of your guests in the past (Dr. Barbara O’Neill) has talked about the term, FIND – F-I-N-D – Financial Independence, New Directions – and that’s what I’ve done. But I like to use the term re-tire (re- dash- tire). What I mean by that is you put four new tires on your car, and drive off to your future life.” On Networking “And I would say if there’s a motto for networking, it’s ‘What goes around, comes around.’  Somebody helps somebody, and they help somebody else, and that person might help me back. And for me, it’s a way of giving back on what I call skills of life that I have learned. Which is interesting because I brought some of those skills back into my author gig. Some of them might be personal branding. It’s very important for an executive to be able to do that. And if I learned one thing it was this: the only thing you can control is how you feel about things. If you go into a pitch to an agent, or if you go into an interview, and you’ve got a bad attitude, you’re not going to go anywhere. Writing is a people business. Finance is a people business. You’ve got to have a good attitude – and that’s really important how you shape it.” On Trying New Things “I’ve got friends coming out of corporate America who are bored. They never had another interest. They can’t find anything to do. It’s really funny to me, very sad. I’ve always had new ideas to pursue. Another thing is you got to embrace new things, learn new skills. I don’t care what that is – if it’s woodworking, if it’s painting, or if it’s gardening, which my mother loves to do in her later age. For me, it was writing books. And so what you’ve got to do is you got to experiment. You’ve got to test things…The other thing that I think is very important,  I’ve learned this again through FENG, is you’ve got to reach out to other people. They can help you. So for example, if you’re not sure where you want to go, talk to your friends, to your spouse.  You know me, you know my interests, where do you think I should go? Oh, because you’re like such and such and such. You might want to do this… I don’t care what it is, but other people can help you. It’s a matter of listening and accepting their advice. You don’t have to take it, but I have found other people could be 10 many times more perceptive about where I should go than I am myself. So reach out to others. And the other thing I tell people is, get out the door, do things. I don’t care what it is. When you get out the door, things happen. You can never know what that might be, who you might meet, who you might talk to. And it’s so invaluable. You never know who can help you. And that’s important. So just go out, find things.” ________________________ For More On James Hockenberry Website James Hockenberry’s Author page on Amazon ________________________ Other Podcast Episodes You May Like Is It Time for Your Encore Career? – Ruth Wooden What Will You Do When Work Becomes Optional? – Stan Corey When Will You Flip the Switch? – Dr. Barbara O’Neill Who Will You Be in Retirement? – David Ekerdt I’m Not Done. Are You? – Patti Temple Rocks With the Freedom to Retire, Where Will You Plant Your New Tree? – Don Ezra __________________________ About Retirement Wisdom Your story doesn’t end when you retire. The pen is in your hands to write your next chapters. But where to start? Our coaching process helps you create your new narrative. Build a roadmap to your future, driven by what matters most. It’s time. Start here. Design Your New Life. ______________________________ Explore retirementwisdom.com  

Could an Encore Career be in your future? How do you transition to a second career with purpose? Our guest, Ruth Wooden, is in her encore career – and it led her to create a program to help others build their own encore careers. Ruth joins us from Hawaii. _________________________ Bio Ruth Wooden retired in 2011 from her career in communications in both the commercial and nonprofit sectors. In retirement, she went back to grad school and received an MA in religious studies from Union Theological Seminary in New York City. That experience led her to design a non-degree class for adults 55 plus – the Encore Transition Program – which combines discernment about aging and spirituality and experiential social justice opportunities in the nonprofit, religious or public sectors. Ruth Wooden’s career encompassed 30 years of experience in marketing and advertising, including serving for 12 years as President and Chief Executive Officer of The Advertising Council, the leading producer of public service communications programs in the United States. She also served as President of Public Agenda, which was founded in 1975 by former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and social scientist Daniel Yankelovich to help citizens better understand critical policy issues and to help the nation’s leaders better understand the public’s point of view. Before serving as Public Agenda’s President, she was Senior Counselor at the international communications firm, Porter Novelli and she also served as the volunteer coordinator of the “Madison Avenue” advertising team for the Presidential Campaign of Senator Bill Bradley. Ruth Wooden also served as the Board Chair of Encore.org, the leading voice in research and advocacy for building a movement to tap the skills and experiences of those in midlife and beyond. _________________________ Wise Quotes On Purpose “This was the one and that really clued us into service or community activism as a definer of the Encore stage, the Encore ethic, the Encore movement. It isn’t just about what you do in your Encore stage. Say at 60 or after retirement, it’s about purpose. That’s endemic to the definition in our view. There are lots of things we all do. I like to read and walk on the beach and play with my nieces and nephews and whatever, but purpose is inextricably linked to the idea of the Encore movement.” On Seminal Moments “If you arrive at 65, let’s just use 65, and you’re in reasonably good health and you feel reconciled to having a good ending to your work life. Then I think people do turn to, you know what’s right in line with Erik Erikson’s developmental stage model. It’s what he calls the longevity stage. But then he talks about the generativity stage. What do you generate at this time? And in history, most of that generativity work has been a legacy with your family, whether it’s a financial legacy or storytelling, but now there are a few more years of that legacy moment. And so people do turn to thinking about what’s next. For a lot of people, it’s a continuation of what they were doing, but they go deeper. I teach this class at Union called the Encore Transition Program. We can talk about our Encore transition phase because it is a seminal transition moment. It’s like getting married or [other] big moments like becoming an empty nester. These are seminal life moments where things change. So what I’ve noticed is that for a lot of people, their world, in some ways, gets narrower, but deeper. A number of people find themselves deeply engaged with their families or deeply engaged with a small group of friends. They don’t have as many acquaintances anymore and they also get more engaged in their community and with more one-on-one kinds of things. They’re not so likely to be writing the operational plan for a protest, but they might join it. It tends to be a little bit more individual. So I like to think of it for a lot of people, it’s a conscious choice to be somewhat narrower, but deeper.” On Networking “So one big thing that we run up against is how to navigate new networks. New pathways are big because people generally come out of one set of networks and they want to get into another. So how do you do that? That’s where we use Marcy [Alboher’s] book The Encore Career Handbook to talk about how to present yourself into new networks. Don’t be afraid to network. The other thing is people are a little timid about trying [new] things. And I tell them that one of the things that we’re doing in this class is to find the clues for our own personal space. And one way we do that is to find out what doesn’t work. So we really want to encourage people to take little steps, make some choices, try something. If you think you’ve always wanted to volunteer with kids, give it a try. You may hate it, but you’ll know. Don’t be afraid to try something. Don’t expect it to be perfect. Manage your expectations.” __________________________ For More on Ruth Wooden Encore Transition Program – Union Theological Seminary ___________________________ Podcast Episodes You May Like The Skill Set for Life’s Transitions – Bruce Feiler Advice for Successful Career Women Transitioning to Retirement – Helen Dennis Successful Aging – Daniel Levitin How to Build a Non-Profit Encore Career – Betsy Werley Are You Ready for The New Long Life? – Andrew Scott How’s Your Network? – Kelly Hoey ___________________________ About Retirement Wisdom Retiring can seem like an end, but it’s really the beginning – of your next chapters. But where do you start? Our coaching process helps you design a new life on your own terms. Build a roadmap to your future. One that’s driven by what matters most. Retirement Wisdom. Design Your New Life. ______________________________ Explore retirementwisdom.com    

What happens when unforeseen events thwart your plans? Will you have the positive attitude, resilience, and perseverance you’ll need to overcome adversity? Our guest today is Carol Cooke, AM, a Canadian-born Australian cyclist, swimmer, and rower and the author of Finding Your Inner Gold. Her compelling and inspiring story is one of perseverance and overcoming adversity by adapting with a positive attitude – and openness to pivoting to something new. Carol joins us from Australia. _________________________ Bio After 41 years of training, 2 countries, 3 sports, and one devastating diagnosis, Carol Cooke’s dream of winning a gold medal came true at 51. This is her story. Carol was born and bred in Toronto, Canada where she fulfilled a life-long dream of following in the footsteps of her family and served as a member of the Toronto Police Force in Canada for fourteen years.  She had it all – an exciting and fulfilling career that also saw her working in the undercover drug squad. But life was about to change dramatically, for better and worse. Carol fell in love with an Australian, married and moved halfway around the world, and settled in Melbourne.  After competing in Hobart at the Masters Swimming Nationals in 1998, she awoke one morning with disturbing balance problems and double vision. After an array of tests, she was bluntly told, “you have MS – go home and get your affairs in order before you become incapacitated”.  She was understandably devastated and the rest of the day was a blur.  Having only been married for three years and with no immediate family around, her thoughts revolved around how she was going to cope with this unpredictable disease. Fortunately, Carol found the determination and spirit to defy what the doctor had told her. Carol was a national level swimmer in Canada while she was growing up and with an unstoppable nature and a passion for sport, Carol took up competitive rowing in December of 2006, made the Australian Rowing Team in 2008 and 2009 where she competed at the World Rowing Championships, coming away with a 6th place. She has held a scholarship at the Victorian Institute of Sport since 2007 and in 2011 took up the sport of para-cycling in the trike class. Carol was named on the Australian para-cycling team to compete in Denmark at the Para-cycling World Road Championships in 2011. She won two silver medals and in 2012 was named in the Australian Team for the London Paralympics. At the Paralympics, Carol beat the men to win a gold medal in the mixed T1-T2 road time trial. At the end of 2012, Carol was ranked number one in the world in the Female T2 category and in 2013 became dual World Champion, winning both the Time Trial and the Road Race.  In 2014 she backed up her World Champion status and again was ranked number one in the world.  In 2015 Carol retained her World Championship Title in the Road Time Trial and won silver in the Road Race.  Also this year she was made a Member of the Order of Australia for her contribution to sport and philanthropy. In 2016 Carol was named on the Australian Paralympic team for Rio and came away with 2 gold medals in the Road Time Trial and Road Race.  In 2017 Carol once again became a dual World Champion, retaining her #1 ranking, and to cap off an amazing year was awarded the top award at the Victorian Institute of Sport – The Award of Excellence.  She continued to race with another 2 World Championships in 2019. Although living with the never-ending symptoms of MS, Carol has the strength and courage to get up each day with a positive and motivated attitude.  She has learned to live for today and not worry about what may or may not happen in the future. Carol supports others living with MS to fulfill their dreams through her initiative, the 24 Hour Mega Swim. Since its inception in 2001, the event has raised over $11 million and has provided more than 1000 Go for Gold Scholarships in the areas of employment, education, travel, the arts, sport, and music. Carol loves speaking with audiences about her life and passions and love empowering people to “Find their Inner Gold”. Carol believes that “nothing is impossible if we dare to face our fears and believe in ourselves” and believes “the greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.” _________________________ Wise Quotes On the Importance of a Positive Attitude “At first, it was really hard to be positive. And I guess I’ve been lucky growing up because of the way I was raised that things can be really bad. This change was horrible in my life and it was a terrible change, but I’ve always been taught to look for just a sliver of that silver lining and try and work on that. And I think the more that we can find, even the smallest iota of positive out of a negative, then it just changes your whole mental wellbeing and starts you on a path of, well, I’m not going to look at the negative. I want to look at what’s good in life. And I guess I’ve seen so many people go down that negative hole and I didn’t want to be like that. And I wanted to be positive and I wanted to try and prove, I guess it’s like waving a red flag to a bull. I wanted to try and prove that first neurologist was wrong. When he said I couldn’t do sport again. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t do that. It was like being a child again. And my Mom saying, ‘Well, think outside that square, somebody is telling you, you can’t do something. So think outside that square and try and prove that you can.’ And I guess what has got me through a lot is just that pigheadedness and stubbornness. Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do. I’m going to prove to you that I can.” Believing in Yourself “…it’s really important to have support around you for any dream or goal and people who believe in you. But the one thing is you have to believe in yourself and what you want to accomplish. And as long as you believe in yourself, then other people will believe in you as well. And that’s really important, … because a lot of older people, think, well, I’m at the end of my life. So what do I have to dream about? Oh my God, nowadays, you’ve got lots to dream about – but you have to believe that you’d be able to do it or accomplish it. or believe, Just believe in yourself. And I think a lot of older people have lost that drive have lost that belief. ” On the Power of New “I think as we get older, we become more fearful and we become fearful of trying something new. We become fearful when somebody puts us down and I’ve learned that you just have to overcome that fear. And the more you try, the more resilience you actually build up. And it’s amazing if you just forget about the fear and just do. The other night at a speaking gig, I said, ‘just try.’ And an older gentleman came up to me after and he goes, ‘No, that’s wrong. You [don’t try] –  you just have to do.’  Don’t worry about what other people think. Just do it. And I left everybody with a challenge is to try something new and it doesn’t have to be involved with sports. It could be, as I said to them, singing outside of the shower – because we all sound really good in the shower, but outside of the shower, we might not. But just do something different. Even if it’s trying to food that you have always looked at and gone, I’m not quite sure about that.  But just try a new thing because you never know how you might like it – and you might be very good at it. It doesn’t matter if you’re good at it. The more you try and the more you get over that fear, the more resilient you become. And it’s amazing what can happen if you just give it a chance.” ____________________________ Learn More About Carol Cooke Website Finding Yor Inner Gold _____________________________ Other Podcast Episodes You May Like We’re All Ageing. Are You Up for a Bolder Approach? – Carl Honoré Why Building Resilience is Vital in Midlife and Beyond – Jan Zacharjasz How to Make Healthy Lifestyle Choices – Alan Carpenter I’m Not Done. Are You? – Patti Temple Rocks The Skill Set for Life’s Transitions – Bruce Feiler ___________________________ About Retirement Wisdom The concept of traditional retirement is obsolete. It doesn’t work for most people today. However, it is an important catalyst for the beginning of a new phase of life. But often what’s next isn’t clear. Many people don’t know what they want their new life to look like. And even if you have some ideas about your future, it can be hard to figure out exactly how to get there from where you are now. You need a sound process – and a guide you can trust. The solution is Retirement Wisdom. Our Life Design coach can help you transition to tomorrow, using a proven three-phase approach that helps you imagine new possibilities, evaluate alternative pathways, and create an actionable roadmap to your ideal lifestyle. Interested? Schedule a free call with Joe Casey to learn more about our coaching programs.    

Is planning for successful aging part of your retirement planning? We’ve had the pleasure of talking with a number of experts who can help you be prepared to live well across your lifespan. This mini-episode highlights key points you’ll want to think about and include in your planning. You can listen to the full conversations here: Alan Castel  Helen Dennis  Anna Dixon  Daniel Levitin  __________________________ Retirement is a major life change, and it can be hard to know what to do next. You’ve worked hard your entire career. Now that you’ll have time and freedom in retirement, why not start doing the things you’ve always wanted? Our coaching program will help you design a new vision of your unique future – one that includes the things you want in life but never had time for before. We’ll work with you to define success on your own terms – so that when it’s time to retire, you’re well prepared to live the life you’ve saved and invested for. We help you design the life and/or the second career you want. Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you. _________________________ Explore retirementwisdom.com

Lifelong learning is an essential element of a satisfying retirement. And lifelong learning is an increasingly vital part of a successful career, including a second career. Our special guest, Dr. Michelle Weise, explains how longer lifespans are changing the nature of careers and education, and why lifelong learning is important for individuals and employers. _________________________ Bio Dr. Michelle R. Weise is the author of Long-Life Learning: Preparing for Jobs that Don’t Even Exist Yet. Thinkers50 named her one of 30 management and leadership thinkers in the world to watch in 2021. She is a senior advisor at Imaginable Futures, a venture of The Omidyar Group. Dr. Weise’s work over the last decade has concentrated on preparing working-age adults for the jobs of today and tomorrow. She was the chief innovation officer of Strada Education Network as well as Southern New Hampshire University. With Clayton Christensen, she coauthored Hire Education: Mastery, Modularization, and the Workforce Revolution (2014) while leading the higher education practice at Christensen’s Institute for Disruptive Innovation. Dr. Weise also advises BrightHive, a data collaboration platform, the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP), the SkillUp Coalition, Strategic Education Inc.’s HIRE board, MIT SOLVE, Village Capital, Western Governors University Teachers College, Clayton Christensen Institute Social Capital R&D Project, and World Education’s Personal and Workplace Success Skills Library. She has also served as a commissioner for Massachusetts Governor Baker’s Commission on Digital Innovation and Lifelong Learning, Harvard University’s Task Force on Skills and Employability, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Commission on the Future of Undergraduate Education. Her commentaries on redesigning higher education and developing more innovative workforce and talent pipeline strategies have been featured in The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Harvard Business Review and on PBS Newshour. ​Michelle is a former Fulbright Scholar and graduate of Harvard and Stanford. __________________________ Wise Quotes On Longevity “…basically since the 1840s, every year we’ve added on an average of three months to our lifespans. And there’s no sign that that’s actually stopping or lessening over time. I think we do have an interesting phenomenon here with the pandemic that is kind of shaping our mortality rates, obviously in this century, in this year, in this decade. But for the most part, we know that our lifespans have been extending. And then there are different kinds of futurists and experts on aging and longevity who are proposing that the first people to live to be a hundred and years old have already been born. So if we just take this concept of a hundred-year life or 150 year work-life, even if we don’t maybe fully buy into it, or want to buy into it because we don’t want to live 150 years, that’s still a very helpful mental model for us to think about how do we actually thrive in this future, where we are already seeing that a lot of working-age adults are staying in the workforce for far longer than they had ever anticipated well into their sixties and seventies.   On Preparing for an Extended Worklife “We see that early baby boomers are experiencing 12 job changes on average by the time they retire. So even if we just extend a little bit in terms of thinking about an extended work-life, whether it’s 60, 80, or a hundred years, it’s not actually that difficult for us to extrapolate and think, ‘Oh, we could possibly face maybe 20 or 30 job changes by the time we retire’ – and how in the world are we going to do that when navigating one [job change] is so difficult. And so the way that I think about a way to visualize this idea of long-life learning is really the future of work and the future of education are going to become inextricably tied. So as we think about thriving in a world of work, we’re going to have to make more continuous returns to learning. It’s hard for us to imagine that even a two-year degree or a four-year degree can last us for that 80 or 100-year work life. And so we need those continuous returns to learning to be much more seamless. If you imagine a Cloverleaf exchange on a freeway or a highway, and you’re taking that loop off-ramp, you’re getting exactly the kind of skilling or re-skilling or retooling that you need. And then seamlessly reentering that highway, that workforce highway. It needs to feel like that right now, when we think about entertaining a job change. We don’t know who to call, where to go, what learning pathway to trust. How do I know an employer will understand what this credential means? None of that is transparent and easily navigable today. So how do we envision a world in which long-life learning becomes more seamless, like taking one of those Cloverleaf overpasses?” ___________________ For More on Dr. Michele Wiese Long-Life Learning: Preparing for Jobs that Don’t Even Exist Yet _______________________ Podcast Episodes You May Be Interested In Learning is a Lifetime Sport – Tom Vanderbilt Are You Ready for The New Long Life? – Andrew Scott Are You Thinking About Going Back to School in Retirement? – Nell Painter _______________________ About Retirement Wisdom Retiring feels like an end but is a beginning – of your next chapter. It’s a time for new beginnings and opportunities you may not have even considered yet Retirement Wisdom helps you design a new vision, and new path on your own terms by unlocking what really matters most in life to you now so that you can create your ideal future. It’s time to design the retirement and/or the second career you want. Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you. _________________________ Explore retirementwisdom.com  

Healthy choices create a healthy lifestyle, but how can you consistently make the best choices? Having solid information is a good start, but it’s not enough. By making some simple, targeted adjustments, it is easier than you think to create healthy habits that will last. Our guest, Alan Carpenter, shares his personal experience, insights, and advice on how he learned to make the right healthy lifestyle choices – and how you can too. Alan joins us from Colorado. __________________________ Bio Like many of you, Alan Carpenter was living a good life. But that almost ended on June 16, 2013 when he suffered a life-threatening accident. In spite of the pain and ensuing incapacitation, the accident turned out to be a blessing in disguise. While recuperating from his injuries, Alan realized that he had taken his life for granted—especially his health and well-being. To learn how to rejuvenate his health and well-being, he spent more than six years combing the scientific and medical literature. He synthesized what he found into nine simple, evidence-based, practical healthy lifestyle choices. His newly published book, Choose Better, Live Better, presents the scientific case that making healthy lifestyle choices can rejuvenate your life. Alan urges you to embrace these healthy lifestyle choices and incorporate them into your daily life. When you do, you’ll enjoy greater life energy, you’ll have a wider network of support relationships, and you’ll live with purpose—among many other desirable outcomes. Plus, you’ll greatly reduce your risk of debilitating chronic diseases including Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, and type 2 diabetes. Alan uses his knowledge and life experiences to help people increase their Quality of Lifespan. In other words, helping others live better and longer. To that end, Alan offers keynotes, breakout sessions, and trainings to bring his critically important message to the world. Alan is also a veteran long-distance hiker and cyclist. Since embarking on his first long-distance hike at age 62, he’s logged 17,300 miles of long-distance adventures. They include hiking the John Muir Trail (twice), the Colorado Trail (twice), the Pacific Crest Trail, the Appalachian Trail, and half of the Continental Divide Trail. He also bicycled the cross-country Pacific Coast, Southern Tier, and Northern Tier Routes. Alan attributes his continued ability to complete these physically and mentally demanding trips to the healthy choices he’s incorporated into his daily life. __________________________ Wise Quotes On Key Healthy Choices “What I call cultivate social connections, until maybe about 20 years ago, the medical community was pretty much clueless about this, but it’s a huge deal. And the evidence is really solid on this. In fact, there are people that think this is the biggest deal of all, what I call social connection. And then under the category of the spirit, I would say the big one is to cultivate a positive mental attitude in that umbrella. I see three key items and they would be optimism, gratitude, and forgiveness. And just think about that for a minute. Wouldn’t you rather be around people who are positive, upbeat can-do, and grateful for what they have in life? And are willing to forgive themselves and other people for boo-boos in their lives? Of course, life would be so much more wonderful if everybody lived that way.” On Finding Purpose “I think for many people, it’s some event in their life that really turns their life upside down for a while. For me, it was almost getting killed while I was hiking the Pacific Crest Trail and coming home. And just coming to terms with that, that was a big deal. And I talked to other people who have had these really just traumatic injuries and illnesses. And it’s the same story over and over. When these folks get home from the hospital, they’re down and out. And finally, they realize I’m going to find the good in my situation. And then I’m going to do something. And psychologists have developed a term for this. They call it post-traumatic growth. Yes. I’m not making this up. So I think, uh, for those of us that have had some really profound life experience that can really lead to developing a sense of purpose, but I suspect for other people too, that it can be more mundane activities that for some reason, turn the switch enough that they say, You know, I really want to do this because that’s really important to me. I’m going to take action. I’m going to figure it out and I’m going to do it.” ____________________________ For More on Alan Carpenter, PhD Website Choose Better, Live Better: Nine Healthy Choices that Nurture Body, Mind, and Spirit _____________________________ Podcast Episodes You May Like Take Charge of Your Well-Being – John La Puma, MD Who Will Take Care of You When You Are Older? – Joy Loverde Successful Aging – Daniel Levitin Practices for Brain Health – Dr. Krystal Culler The Joy of Movement – Kelly McGonigal Listen to Your Inner Voice. It Could be Your Wake-Up Call – Richard Losciale ____________________________ About Retirement Wisdom You’re retiring, but you’re not done yet. What’s next? Retirement today can last 20 years or more. It’s a big deal and it pays to plan for it in advance. We help people design their next chapters in life – and they can be the best chapters of all. We’ll help you plan how to live your retirement on your own terms with freedom, opportunity, and without fear of uncertainty.  We help you design the retirement and/or the second career you want. Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you. _________________________ Explore retirementwisdom.com

Does your retirement planning account for caregiving? Will you be a caregiver?m Who will be your caregivers? We talk with expert Joy Loverde about what you should include in your retirement planning. _________________________ Bio Joy Loverde has a reputation for being a path carver and visionary. Joy is the author of the Who Will Take Care Of Me When I’m Old? and the best-seller, The Complete Eldercare Planner. The American Medical Association says, “It’s the best book we’ve seen.” With over 30 years experience as a media spokesperson, Joy’s appearances include the TODAY Show, Good Morning America, CBS Early Show, ABC News, Fox News, National Public Radio, SiriusXM, and others. During her career, she has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, TIME, Money, New York Times, U.S. News & World Report, Reuters, Reader’s Digest, Family Circle, Psychology Today, Good Housekeeping, among others. USA TODAY ran a four-part series on Joy’s eldercare programs. Joy specializes in keynotes for family members and professionals including employers, women’s groups, centers for healthy aging, associations, law firms, financial institutions, alumni associations, senior housing, health care providers, and retreat centers and others. A seasoned on-camera professional, product endorsements include GoodFeet, Estate Inventory Services, Age Without Borders, Energizer Battery Company, Boomer Living, American Senior’s Housing Association, and a host of other products and services. With a focus on the mature-market population, Joy serves as a marketing and media consultant to senior housing, HR professionals, attorneys, financial planners, clergy, and other members of the fast-growing eldercare industry. Joy’s work has taken her to every corner of the world where she has personally interacted with thousands of family members and professionals in the field of aging. She also loves connecting with you on social media. Wife, mom, grandmother, Cubs fan, Joy was caregiver to her parents, is married to family-law attorney, David V. Schultz, is grandmother of 10, and resides in Chicago. __________________________ Wise Quotes On Thinking Like a Strategist “Well, first of all, people don’t know what thinking like a strategist is. So what I like to do is just break open that can of worms by saying critical thinking is really the practice of changing your perspective.  If you just continue to think the way you always have, it might just keep you in that little box and nothing will really change in your life. So the idea about thinking critically just breaks that wide open. So here’s how I do it. I talk to people who are very different than me, different cultures, different careers. And I ask them questions that scare me because they will have a whole different idea about things that might pertain to aging. That is quite scary. So I talk to people who are different. I also talk to people who are young and people who are old. And one of my favorite advisors is my eight-year-old granddaughter. And I ask her this question all the time. I say, what would you do if you were me? So that is what I mean by thinking strategically.” On Caregiving “If you’re going to be a caregiver, the number one rule is to get a financial planner for yourself because the expenses of being a caregiver can be quite emotional. So if we find out that mom or dad is running out of money, most caregivers, because they’re so loving and wonderful, start to dip into their own pockets and they start shelling out money and really jeopardizing their own retirement. So the number one thing that people need to do, if they anticipate being a caregiver, is to get a financial planner. Find out how much money you have, find out what your parents have or the person you’re caring for. And then go from there, do not go into this blindly when it comes to financial planning. As far as I’m concerned, this is one of the most rewarding jobs there is. And I wrote in my first book, it’s a responsibility that is difficult at best, and yet the rewards are priceless. No one comes away from the experience the same as when they started. And as we go to our elders and we listen to them, we may not realize it in the moment, but we will receive riches in return. I honor caregivers every day in my life.” On Intergenerational Relationships “People know by the time they reach their later years, that the world is fraught with problems. And that if we back up and we take ourselves out of the picture, then how are we helping the next generations? It’s just really important for us to be a part of the solution and not think that playing golf 24/7 and sitting poolside is the way to go. People regret not staying involved.” ___________________________ For More On Joy Loverde Who Will Take Care of Me When I’m Old? Website __________________________ Podcast Episodes You May Like Life’s Big Decisions – Adrian Camilleri Retirement Planning Includes Getting Good at Getting Older – Rabbi Laura Geller Some Kind of Heaven – Lance Oppenheim Advice for Successful Career Women Transitioning to Retirement – Helen Dennis Successful Aging – Daniel Levitin When Will You Flip the Switch? – Dr. Barbara O’Neill ___________________________ 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. We help you design the life and/or the second career you want. Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you. _________________________ Explore retirementwisdom.com

Some key life decisions can have consequences that reverberate for years. And as you plan for retirement, there are big decisions ahead. What lessons can we learn from emerging research on how to make big decisions? Our guest, Dr. Adrian Camilleri, has engaged 657 Americans (from 20 and 80) on the ten big life decisions they’ve made so far. _________________________ Bio Dr. Adrian Camilleri is a senior lecturer in marketing at the University of Technology Sydney. He holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology, a Master’s degree in organizational psychology, and a Ph.D. in psychology, all from the University of New South Wales. He completed postdoctoral training in management and marketing at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. Adrian is an expert in the fields of cognitive, organisational, and consumer psychology. __________________________ Wise Quotes On Big Career-Related Decisions “One of the categories of big decisions that I focused on was career-related decisions. And so these involve questions like starting a new job, quitting a job, starting a business, closing down a business, joining the military, leaving the military, and then retirement. And so when important results from the interviews that I conducted was to look at how these different categories of big life decisions changed between those of different age groups… So leaving a  position is also often a very big life decision…And obviously, these career-related decisions culminate in what’s usually the final career-related decision. Quite a number of people. who are about the age of 60, in my survey, had actually decided to retire.  So retirement is certainly one of life’s biggest decisions for those who have managed to the point where they’re considering concluding their working career. More than half of those above the age of 60 years old had mentioned explicitly retirement as one of their biggest life decisions…So, when we look at lifestyle satisfaction, those who had already retired, who made that big decision, rated high on life satisfaction compared to those who are not [retired]. Now again, I put the sort of caveat on correlation data. So it could be that those who are already happy with their life are much more likely to retire. But there’s something to be looked at there because I have seen all the research suggesting that those who retire, many of them end up kind of feeling aimless and bored, even unhappy.” On Self Development Decisions “And what we see is that self-development type decisions don’t frequently make it onto the list of biggest life decisions, but they do tend to increase over time. So those who are in their sixties and seventies tend to be making more self-development decisions than those who are younger. And as I have mentioned, these self-development decisions tend to be ones that are evaluated more positively. Another follow-up question that I asked participants was how much time did you spend thinking about the decision before you made it? And there’s a nice contrast here between self-destructive and self-development decisions. So those who are making these self-destructive decisions such as committing a crime, taking drugs or something like that, were often thought about for seconds, perhaps minutes. In contrast, self-development decisions were often thought about for months, if not years. And we can think about these self-development decisions in terms of the more positive ones, like pursuing your religion or philosophy or engaging a new hobby or learning a new skill. But certainly reading through the stories that I was presented within these survey results, there were a number of people who were of age 60 and older, who had big life decisions related to seeking treatment. So whether they were deciding to get an operation or to do with cataracts, or arthritis or whether to get a knee replacement or not ” ___________________________ For More on Dr. Adrian Camilleri  The Conversation.com: I asked hundreds of people about their biggest life decisions. Here’s what I learned Psychology Today: How to Make a Good “Big” Decision ___________________________ Podcast Episodes You May Like The Skill Set for Life’s Transitions – Bruce Feiler Retired, But Not Done Yet – Dr. Cynthia Barnett Design Your Life and Get Unstuck – Dave Evans With the Freedom to Retire, Where Will You Plant Your New Tree? – Don Ezra Why People Make a Career Change with Purpose Top of Mind – Chris Farrell How Life Hacks Can Help Make Your Retirement the Best Time of Your Life – Sam Horn ___________________________ 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. We help you design the life and/or the second career you want. Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you. _________________________ Explore retirementwisdom.com    

                              Retirement Wisdom’s Joe Casey will be a special guest host at  Wade Pfau’s Retirement Researcher Webinar  April 8th at 2:00 PM Eastern | Register Today _________________________ What was your career plan when you were graduating from college? You probably didn’t leave college equipped with the skills to make a career change midlife. So if you’re considering a second career, a career change at 50 or a career change at 60, our guest today has valuable information you’ll want to hear. If you have family members, colleagues, or neighbors who ask you for career advice, you’ll find this conversation very helpful. _________________________ Bio Mark Herschberg is the author of The Career Toolkit, Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You. From tracking criminals and terrorists on the dark web to creating marketplaces and new authentication systems, Mark has spent his career launching and developing new ventures at startups and Fortune 500s and in academia. He helped to start the Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program, dubbed MIT’s “career success accelerator,” where he teaches annually. At MIT, he received a B.S. in physics, a B.S. in electrical engineering & computer science, and a M.Eng. in electrical engineering & computer science, focusing on cryptography. At Harvard Business School, Mark helped create a platform used to teach finance at prominent business schools. He also works with many non-profits, including Techie Youth and Plant A Million Corals. He was one of the top-ranked ballroom dancers in the country and now lives in New York City, where he is known for his social gatherings, including his annual Halloween party, as well as his diverse cufflink collection. _________________________ Wise Quotes On Career Changes Midlife “This is my third recession and I’m only mid-career. So I, I very much see and understand what they’re going through. In fact, during the great recession, I helped teach at a program sponsored by New York’s Economic Development Council, in which we were taking people who lost not simply their job, but their career. Their entire career was getting displaced and not coming back post-recession. And New York said to us: We can’t have them sitting on the sidelines. These are capable people. How do we get them back to work? We looked at where the jobs were being created and the nature of those jobs, typically the people being displaced were coming from large corporations. So certainly coming out of 2008, 2009, lots of financial services, lots of big companies where you had multiple layers of bureaucracy. The jobs being created were in tiny companies in startups, in companies, less than 50 people, sometimes less than 20 people. The biggest change was trying to get people to see those jobs and feel comfortable in those jobs. It wasn’t so much a domain skill challenge. It’s not that. If you’ve been at big corporations, your whole life, look at these small companies and then recognize that cultural difference. So if you’re in a big company of 30,000 people, you’re used to having the pre-meeting to plan the meeting, to coordinate the meeting for the meeting to discuss something. So at six months later, decisions made when you’re at these tiny 20 person startups, and you say, Hey, I have an idea. So you turn around in your chair and you’re talking to the boss, who’s sitting three feet from you in another chair because there are no offices here.  And the boss says, okay, that sounds great. Well, that was the meeting. Those were the six months condensed to a six-minute conversation and understanding these cultural differences, how the businesses operate, that you can move fast and break things, which is very different from these big traditional corporations. That was the biggest challenge. And so to people who are saying, I need to find something different. It’s not just the same job with a different company. Look at different types of companies and understand it’s not just going to be the mechanics of the role, but understand the cultural differences. And if you can set yourself up to succeed in that, both recognizing how you’ll operate, but also how you sell yourself into working in those networks, in those types of organizations and cultures, then you can have a very successful career and find a lot of options.” On Career Planning “Eisenhower famously said: Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. And we have to recognize a career plan is not simply a plan you make and now you’re stuck to it. Forevermore, all of us in our jobs have been planning. If you think about any project you’ve worked on, could you ever have gone to your boss and said, Hey, listen, boss, I know we’re going to work on this for six months. We’re not going to bother with a project plan. We’re just going to kind of wing it. That sounds good to you because your boss is going to say No way! You have to create a plan. I want to know where this is going. What are the risks? What are the opportunities? How might this unfold? Now we also know when you’re doing this six-month project or a year-long or however long project, it’s never going to work exactly. As you expected, things go over budget over time. Something was harder. Occasionally something’s easier. But when you have that plan, you can start to say, Well, we’re going to now vary the plan. We’re going to update the plan. We’re off the plan. But maybe that’s a good thing because we realize that plan was wrong. But you created that plan in the first place. Your career is a lot bigger than a six-month project. You need to create that plan, but much like the plans, we have for our projects, you’re not set in stone. If it’s not working, you can throw it out. You can create a new plan and the act of planning itself of thinking about what are the risks, what are the opportunities? Where are the things I need to focus on? Where are the areas that are less important now, as things change now, as things come up, as you’ve thought through it.” On Networking “You want a large network. You also like a broad network, too many people think, well, I’m in Medicine. So I only need to know people in Medicine. In fact, you want to meet people in other areas because the diversity, it adds to your network leads to new opportunities that you might not have gotten otherwise. Because remember when you’re connected to someone you’re connected to everyone they know. And you never know when you need to get into a new area where you don’t have yourself, a deep bench, or maybe it just turns out this person, their cousin happens to also be in medicine and it circles back to how it can help you. But the biggest mistake people make is they just think, Well, I’m just going to add connections and they don’t foster that relationship. I always talk about how adding someone on LinkedIn and saying that they are now in your network. It’s like swiping right on Tinder and saying this person’s now your significant other. We all know you can’t just swipe right. And say, now I have a girlfriend, now I have a wife, right? You have to build that relationship. And the same is true for our professional relationships. So that instant connection that gang, the business card or adding on LinkedIn, that’s step one. That’s a swipe, right? What you want to do is invest in building that relationship. Now you may not have done that in the past, but you can start doing that today. And it doesn’t take that long. Even a few months of starting to build up that relationship. Now that network is warmed up. So when you need help down the road, whether finding a job, finding a candidate, finding a supplier, a partner, just getting information, that network has been warmed up and now you can go to it. And you’re not reaching out to someone you haven’t talked to in 20 years. It’s someone you last spoke to three months ago. So start today, reach back out to people. It’s a great time. Now, as we’re getting out of the pandemic, reach out and say, Hey, glad we’re getting through this. How are you doing? What’s coming up for you? How can I be of help? And even if you’re not working, even if you don’t have a job, we can all be of help to other people. So reach out connect, say, how have you been? What are you looking forward to? How can I be helpful to you and warm up those networks?” __________________________ For More on Mark Herschberg The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You (in my opinion, this is an excellent graduation gift to consider ____________________ Podcast Episodes You May Like How’s Your Network? – Kelly Hoey How to Future Proof Your Career – Jeff Gothelf How to Build a Portfolio Career – Kate Schaefers Design Your Life and Get Unstuck – Dave Evans I’m Not Done. Are You? – Patti Temple Rocks Best of The Retirement Wisdom Podcast – On Second Acts _________________________ 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. We help you design the life and/or the second career you want. Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you. _________________________ Explore retirementwisdom.com  

Retirement’s about much more than money. Your planning should be, too. Joe Casey, Retirement Wisdom, will be the special guest host of a Free Webinar at Retirement Researcher.com Learn more & sign up: https://buff.ly/3m54yEM April 8 at 2:00 PM ET #RetirementPlanning ____________________________ We help you balance your retirement planning. No other podcasts cover this side of retirement planning in-depth. Here’s a recap of what we learned in the second month of our 4th season of The Retirement Wisdom Podcast: Barbara O’Neill, A Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Rutgers University and author of Flipping the Switch: Your Guide to Happiness and Financial Security in Later Life. J. Kelly Hoey author of Build Your Dream Network. Lance Oppenheim, a filmmaker from South Florida, on his first feature film: Some Kind of Heaven ___________________________ You can listen to the full conversations here: When Will You Flip the Switch? – Dr. Barbara O’Neill How’s Your Network? – Kelly Hoey Some Kind of Heaven – Lance Oppenheim ___________________________ 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 our Designing Your Life® coaching programs can help you make yours great. ______________________________________ Explore retirementwisdom.com  

What are your images of retirement? How do you picture yourself enjoying your hard-earned freedom? It’ll take savvy holistic planning to achieve your vision. It starts with holistic financial planning, but it includes planning for the non-financial aspects as well. Trusted advisors can be valuable assets in your holistic planning for retirement. Our guest is Chad Willardson, President, and Founder of Pacific Capital.  I talk with Chad about his observations on retirement planning and: Why he founded Pacific Capital Why he does what he does What key differences he sees between people who are successful in retirement and those who struggle Common mistakes to avoid in planning for retirement What surprises his clients most about life in retirement The challenges entrepreneurs face in planning for retirement What people should look for in a financial advisor Key takeaways from his book Stress Free Money – and a preview of his upcoming second book Chad joins us from Southern California. __________________________ Bio Chad Willardson is the President and Founder of Pacific Capital and is a Certified Financial Fiduciary®, Accredited Wealth Management Advisor and Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor. Before founding Pacific Capital, he spent 9 years at Merrill Lynch, where he ranked in the top 2% of over 16,000 Financial Advisors nationally. Chad is the author of the Best Selling Book: Stress Free Money: Overcome These Seven Obstacles to Find Financial Freedom. Chad is passionate about financial education and believes that with the right tools and resources, people can be empowered to make smart money decisions. He loves to help people organize their financial life, clarify their goals, and make decisions that lead them to a successful and fulfilling life. A native of Orange County, CA, Chad and his wife of 17 years live in Corona, CA with their five children. _________________________ Wise Quotes On Purpose & Meaning in Retirement “People who are successful in retirement have a lot of meaning and purpose. They don’t just stop cold turkey. Most of them have other ideas or pursuits, whether it’s hobbies, businesses, charitable giving, charitable time, and spending time with their grandchildren in a productive way. I feel like the people who actually retire to something rather than retire from something are much more successful. It’s one thing to say, I’m going to stop work at age 60. It’s another thing to say between age 60 and 70 here are my 10 big goals or the big things on my bucket list that I really want to focus on. And I’ve seen people really, really thrive after they stopped their primary career and even explore new opportunities that they never thought they could do, like starting a business with a grandson or learning how to do something new, like getting into cycling or getting into art or traveling with your family. There are so many things that I’ve seen people do in retirement. That shows me that you really need to have a game plan. It’s it could be a 10,000 days journey. And to, to just simply think, well, I don’t have to do anything anymore, you’re kind of setting yourself up for failure.” On Priorities in Retirement “I think people, once they get to retirement, they realize that there were a lot of things they weren’t doing often enough, like self-care and taking care of their health. I’ve seen many people just work themselves so hard, work so many hours, with so much extra stress, that they’re finally able to really take better care of themselves. And relax and do things that are more fulfilling than doing something just for a paycheck. It’s definitely on the unfortunate side, but I think the healthcare costs are typically a negative surprise. It costs more than they expect on the positive side. And I feel like people are busier than they would ever have dreamed of. My parents, when I talk to them, they have a full schedule. And to me it’s sometimes it’s like Well, how do you have a full schedule? You’re totally retired. But when you go through their activity list on their calendar, they’ve got so many things that they’ve planned and committed. And they’re excited about that. They’re just doing a lot more than they ever thought they would.” On An Exit Strategy for Entrepreneurs “I think entrepreneurs often assume that there’ll be able to work until they are done and just easily decide and pick up and leave. But most entrepreneurs actually don’t make it to that point. There could be many reasons. It could be something that happens in their industry. If you look at COVID, many businesses have adjusted or had to be closed because of the extended restrictions on the ability to stay open. So there are a lot of things that people just don’t realize it’s not as cut and dry when your paycheck depends on you. So you’ve got to really have a plan, not only for your business and your business succession or your exit strategy but also personally, when you’re going to stop working and begin to live a retired lifestyle if you will, it’s a lot of different things to plan for. If you’re an entrepreneur, I’d say my advice for those crafting an exit strategy is to engage with professionals who have helped others transition before. So there’s no reason to try to do everything by yourself, definitely work with a team of professionals who’ve helped other people execute their own exit strategies, because there are a lot of things you don’t think of –  especially if it’s your first time selling a business or retiring. There’s going to be a lot of things that come up that you just hadn’t prepared for. And if you can seek great professional counsel beforehand, you’ll have more of a sense and you’ll have more confidence as you’re making those big decisions.” ___________________________ For More on Chad Willardson Pacific Capital Stress Free Money: Overcome These Seven Obstacles to Find Financial Freedom ____________________________ Podcast Episodes You May Like When Will You Flip the Switch? – Dr. Barbara O’Neill What Are The Keys To A Successful Retirement? Fritz Gilbert What’s Your Exit Strategy? – Ashley Micciche Are You Ready to Follow Your Own Path in Retirement? – Bob Lowry If You Love Your Work, What Challenges Will You Face in Retirement? – Michelle Pannor Silver Who Will You Be in Retirement? – David Ekerdt ______________________________ 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. We help you design the life and/or the second career you want. Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you. _________________________ Explore retirementwisdom.com  

Creating a second act in mid-life and beyond takes reinvention. But our guest today tells us it’s only part of the story. Wendy Marx, author of Thriving at 50+: The 7 Principles to Reinvent & Rebrand Yourself, notes that it’s wise to also update and upgrade your personal brand. We discuss with Wendy: The biggest challenges that people 50 + face today The story behind how her book came about What it takes to reinvent yourself in a mid-career or second career context The ways people cultivate the mindset necessary for reinvention How people find a new purpose What a personal brand is – and why it’s so important today for those of us who are 50+ Her stories of people’s reinvention and rebranding Wendy’s personal story of how she reinvented and rebranded yourself Her advice on how to reinvent yourself Wendy Marx joins us from Connecticut. _________________________ Bio Wendy Marx is an award-winning public relations and marketing communications executive who helps B2B companies and executives become well-known brands. Her ability to take SMBs from “Anonymity to the New York Times”™ has driven the growth of Marx Communications. Her book, “Thriving at 50 Plus” draws on over 30 years of experience, and her own career reinvention (times 5!). She’s helped hundreds of people go from anonymity to influential thought leaders For the last 20+ years, she has served as president of Marx Communications, which has helped numerous companies become industry icons. Her firms’ PR efforts have directly led to companies inking major partnership deals with Dow Jones, The NASDAQ and other major organizations, and spurred their being acquired. Among her achievements, Wendy planned and executed the original public relations strategy that helped fuel the spectacular growth of Peppers and Rogers Group, the world’s preeminent customer relationship firm. Her technology and business articles have appeared in the New York Times, Information Week, and Computerworld and she has written advertorials for Fortune and Forbes on technology subjects. She blogs on public relations and marketing leadership issues for Fast Company. She is a cum laude graduate of Brandeis University, holds an MBA from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. ___________________________ Wise Quotes On Reinvention “Realize that you don’t reinvent yourself by snapping your fingers and going, I’m going to reinvent. It’s actually a time-consuming process. It’s not just a straight upward trajectory. And in the process of writing my book, I interviewed many, many people who had successfully reinvented and rebranded themselves. And based on that, I developed a framework that I call my seven principles. And that includes everything from having a Growth Mindset, to being uncomfortable, a willingness to learn, finding your purpose, storytelling, personal branding, and social media and mentoring. And by following those steps, you can truly have a successful reinvention and rebranding.” On Why You Shouldn’t Go it Alone “One is that if you’re stuck like that, it’s often helpful. When I actually did this myself to hire a coach, somebody who can, I like to say, give you a Swift kick on the behind so that you’re able to start checking yourself a little bit and making some changes. If you don’t want to hire a coach, another thing is to be part of a support group where you’re with other people who are contending with some of the same challenges you are, and you can mutually help each other. Also doing some volunteer work. Often times you start doing something and that ends up changing you. What psychologists and researchers have found is that just sitting on the couch and musing about your life and ruminating and wondering What can I do? What did I do wrong? doesn’t get you anywhere. You need to take action.” On Storytelling “Storytelling is a powerful tool. If it’s done correctly, it’s another way of getting people to engage with you. If you simply reel off some facts, most of the time, the facts are not interesting.  But if you weave together your life story into a story that has a natural arc to it, people are going to want to engage with you. That’s why we love to read books. We love to read especially non-fiction books that are written more like fiction. We love movies because they all have a natural story arc. And in this case, you’re the hero of your story.” _______________________ For More on Wendy Marx Thriving at 50+ Follow on Twitter: @wendymarx Contact: wendy@thrivingat50plus.com _______________________ Podcast Episodes You May Like How to Future Proof Your Career – Jeff Gothelf How’s Your Network? – Kelly Hoey How to Build a Portfolio Career – Kate Schaefers Advice for Successful Career Women Transitioning to Retirement – Helen Dennis I’m Not Done. Are You? – Patti Temple Rocks How to Build a Non-Profit Encore Career – Betsy Werley ___________________________ 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. We help you design the life and/or the second career you want. Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you. _________________________ Explore retirementwisdom.com    

What can you learn about Early Retirement and the FIRE movement from someone who retired at 41 over three years ago? We catch up with Chris Mamula, of  Can I Retire Yet.com. We first talked with Chris two years ago on his emerging lessons learned, how his early retirement lifestyle is evolving, and his recommendations for listeners who are considering an early retirement plan. He’s written a book since we last spoke (Choose FI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence) and he shares his thoughts on why preparing for the non-financial side of early retirement is important. ________________________ We discuss with Chris: His story of deciding to retire at 41 What his life is like now 3+years later What he knows now that he wishes he knew then What he’s learned about priorities, uncertainty, and change The pros and cons of semi-retirement as an option How the FIRE movement is evolving in the pandemic His book Choose FI – and the experience of writing it. Advice on an early retirement plan Chris joins us from Utah. ______________________ Wise Quotes On Life in Early Retirement  “Day-to-day life, it really couldn’t be any different. So we were living in this small town in Pennsylvania. Now we live in a ski town in Utah. Back then I was working a 40 plus hour week with a commute a half hour each way. Now, I still do some work. I write the blog and I’ve written a book since I left. So, I do some work, but it’s really all on my schedule because we live in a ski town. So in the winter, we ski four or five, sometimes six days a week.  And in the summer I’m out hiking, mountain biking, doing things kind of every day. And, my family and I, we kind of fit work in around life. Whereas before I felt like we were just kind of always trying to squeeze life in wherever we could around our work schedules. So, from that perspective, it’s, it really couldn’t be much different.” On What He Knows Now That He Wish He Knew Then “I was certainly writing about the softer side of retirement, like purpose and meaning and structure, and all these things that we’re talking about. But I kind of wish I would’ve spent even more time on that part because I think the financial part gets a lot of the emphasis in retirement planning. There’s a lot of stuff you can’t know as far as like future market returns and interest rates and inflation and all that stuff. But you know, you can kind of play in and have contingencies. But, I just found that there’s just not a lot of information [about the softer side of retirement] I think it’s very individual for everybody on how you’re going to adapt and adjust and find purpose and meaning – and find that structure. Everybody’s a little bit different and I wish I would have focused maybe even a little bit more on that – or at least maybe had a little more grace for myself, as far as like having a little bit less expectations for retirement and just kind of going with the flow a little bit more.” On Risks and Mitigation in an Early Retirement Plan “I think a lot of times you can mitigate those risks. And another strategy that I kind of use is just taking little bite-sized steps…on something like retirement, which is so overwhelming. And so,  doing something like semi-retiring and doing something like my wife dropping down to part-time work. We still made some massive changes. I let my license go. I’m not a physical therapist anymore. We moved across the country. Those are…kind of one-way decisions. But we also gave ourselves a lot of Slack and leeway,  just by making more moderate and gradual changes in other areas. I mentioned how I love being in the mountains and I rock climb and I’d done high-altitude mountaineering and I’m a skier. And I think people look at that as this high-risk thing. But I think when you’re doing those types of activities, it really teaches you risk management and risk mitigation. And there’s a quote I love: “Getting to the top is optional and getting down is mandatory.” And it kind of just reinforces that whole idea of risk management and remembering what is most important – and what things can you not afford to lose. And then you can mitigate those risks – and you know the Mountain is always there. You can always go back to it, but your life? You only get one time.” ___________________________ Bio Chris Mamula regularly writes about financial independence while expanding the conversation around what retirement is and can be at CanIRetireYet.com. His articles have been featured on MarketWatch, DoughRoller, and Business Insider. He achieved financial independence and retired from his physical therapy career in 2017, at the age of 41. In addition to writing, he now focuses on being a dedicated husband, stay-at-home dad, and dirtbag/ski-bum depending on the season at his home in the mountains of Utah. ____________________________ For More on Chris Mamula Website Chris’ Book: Choose FI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence Our first conversation with Chris Mamula ____________________ Podcast Episodes You May Like The Skill Set for Life’s Transitions – Bruce Feiler What Are The Keys To A Successful Retirement? Fritz Gilbert When Will You Flip the Switch? – Dr. Barbara O’Neill How to Retire Early and Live Your Life Fully – Leif Dahleen With the Freedom to Retire, Where Will You Plant Your New Tree? – Don Ezra Design Your Life and Get Unstuck – Dave Evans ___________________________ 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. We help you design the life and/or the second career you want. Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you. _________________________ Explore retirementwisdom.com    

How do you maintain cognitive health as you age? Our guest today is Dr. Krystal Culler and she shares a range of useful practices for brain health and staying sharp. We discuss with Dr. Culler: How she became interested in Gerontology and Health & Wellness How she defines brain health The misconceptions she sees people having about brain health The relative importance of lifestyle factors versus genetics in cognitive health What people should do to foster brain health The role habits play in cognitive health What we should know about neuroplasticity and lifelong learning A book that’s had a big impact on her Where people should start in cultivating better brain health Dr. Culler joins us from Ohio. _________________________ Bio Dr. Krystal Culler is a Doctor of Behavioral Health with a background in the behavioral sciences (psychology of aging, gerontology, and sociology). She is a Senior Atlantic Fellow with the Global Brain Health Institute, where she was the first scholar from the United States to complete her residency training at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland on dementia prevention and the social determinants of brain health. She has an unwavering commitment to promote brain health equity to individuals of all ages and the communities she serves. Dr. Culler is the Founder & Creative Director of the Virtual Brain Health Center. Krystal has spent nearly 5 years in Executive-level positions with health non-profit organizations and has 15 years of experience working with individuals with brain health concerns, their families, and advocacy organizations. Under her leadership, the centers have received 4 international and national awards from leading organizations in the aging care sector for innovation in brain health programming and community impact including honors from the International Council on Active Aging, Mather Lifeways Institute on Aging, the American Society on Aging and the Southern Gerontological Society on Aging. Additionally, she has been recognized through the receipt of 4 personal leadership awards for her contributions to the field including the Global Brain Health Leaders Award (2019) from the Alzheimer’s Association, Alzheimer’s Society, and Global Brain Health Institute, and Crain’s Cleveland Business 40 Under Forty (2017).  _______________________ Wise Quotes On Lifestyle versus Genetic Factors “One of the most fascinating things about our field is how fast things are growing. So usually we were saying it is about 70% lifestyle and 10% genetics. And Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s new book was just released early this year. And the research is actually slanting a little bit more where now 90% of our lifestyle is in our hands and it’s 10% genetics. So I like to think that’s really empowering for us to know that there are variables that we are able to control own [rather than] inherit, but for the most part, there are many things that we are able to manage and think about in a mindful way to move us forward on our personal brain health and wellness journey, all across our lives.” On How to Cultivate Brain Health “We have different reports that have come out over the years that pinpoint about 15 different factors. And the Lancet report shows that when we look at these different lifestyle factors and we talk about dementia, risk reduction across the world, we can prevent about 40% of those cases. And what we tend to think about kind of categorizing these factors. If we were to think about them in terms of your brain, your body, and your environment with your brain, you want as much education as early in life as you can. You want to stay stimulated, protect your brain, minimize stress or ongoing chronic stress sleep well, minimize depression, or if you’re having a low mood and it’s ongoing, reach out for help. And monitor your hearing loss and protect your ears from loud noises and exposure. And if you’re thinking about it, your brain moves down to your body.” On Neuroplasticity “I like to think most people should know that neuroplasticity is our brain’s ability to adapt and change. And it’s been one of the largest myths of aging that, that is solely reserved for young children and the youth. Neuroplasticity occurs all throughout our life, really up until we are no longer here. Do we have the ability to grow and build new neurons? It’s an ongoing process for us. So we are not stuck with the brains we have. I feel that we are very lucky for this ability for us as humans, we’re constantly reorganizing information throughout our lives so we can make new connections, adjustments, and changes. So if we’re really thinking about lifelong learning and we are seeking out high-quality, lifelong learning programs, you’re looking for three core principles. You want something that’s new, something that’s novel, and something that’s an appropriate level of challenge for you. I know that might sound counterintuitive, but it is because all of us are so different. So we want to engage in tasks and exercises, where we were to visualize a ramp and we’re at the bottom. We have to keep climbing that ramp all throughout our lives and so tasks that we may have enjoyed when we were younger and that we can revisit and do eat more easily, serve a purpose that may help us relax or unwind. So if you play music, that is fantastic. You may want to try a new instrument to really stretch your brain. If you like to crochet or knit, it would be a new pattern or trying a completely different medium, sand the same thing for artists. It would be trying something outside of your wheelhouse. And you’ve got to just keep pushing that ball up the ramp. Basically, if you were going for a physical workout, you’re trying to make your own brain sweat. And so that ramp for all of us is very individualized because we have been exposed and engaged to many different things, but being a lifelong learner is really what it sounds like. We can do it through formal opportunities or informal opportunities, but we want to just keep making our brains stretch and sweat so they’re more flexible. And we can engage in neuro-plasticity throughout our lives.” ________________________________ For More on Dr. Krystal Culler Website ___________________________ Podcast Episodes You May Be Interested In Successful Aging – Daniel Levitin Can You Grow Younger? – Marta Zaraska How Can You Be Better with Age? – Alan Castel Is Working Into Retirement Good for Your Brain? – Dawn Carr Tiny Habits Can Lead to Big Changes – BJ Fogg The Mind-Body Connection and The Rabbit Effect – Kelli Harding _________________________ About Retirement Wisdom We hope you enjoy this retirement podcast. We help people who are retiring but 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. We help you design the life and/or the second career you want. Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you. _________________________ Explore retirementwisdom.com          

About 5% of older adults live in retirement communities in the United States. What’s life like behind the gates of retirement communities? Filmmaker Lance Oppenheim looks at life in The Villages, a retirement community in Florida with 130,000 residents, in his new documentary Some Kind of Heaven. We discuss: How he came up with the idea for the film How he selected the four main characters The arc of the stories that unfolded in the documentary His thoughts on what the film says about aging in America today The lessons younger generations can take away from the film The level of intergenerational relationships he observed One of his earlier short films – The Happiest Guy in the World What’s next for him Lance Oppenheim joins us from Los Angeles. _________________________ Bio Lance Oppenheim is a filmmaker from South Florida. Lance was a 2019 Sundance Ignite Fellow, named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film 2019,” and is the youngest contributor to The New York Times Op-Docs. He was featured on Variety’s “Power of Young Hollywood” list in 2020. He graduated from Harvard University’s Visual and Environmental Studies program in 2019. His first feature, SOME KIND OF HEAVEN, premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. The film was produced by Darren Aronofsky, The New York Times (the paper’s first feature film production), and the Los Angeles Media Fund. It will be distributed by Magnolia Pictures in 2021. _________________________ Wise Quotes On Grower Older “…when you’re in a world like The Villages that does have this radiant optimism – and sometimes it does feel a little bit manufactured –  this kind of artificial construction, the way people were spending their time. I very much connected and empathized with the stories of folks who found themselves at odds with the ethos of the community. And I found that to be relatable if you’re in a place where everyone is having the best time of their lives and you’re not having the best time of your life, but you’re constantly being told that you need to be having the best time of your life. And you have this ticking clock in the back of your head, that’s telling you ‘I only have maybe 20, 30, more years of life to live’ that will do something to you. And that’s a really distressing and stressful and confusing feeling. And that was something ultimately that I wanted to make a film about. It was not a movie that was more concerned with statistics or information. I wanted to make something that was far more expressive about this kind of existential condition that I was interested in and saw quite a bit of throughout my time there.” On What Attracts People to Retirement Communities “I think we all have our own ways of living inside of bubbles, whether it be people my age [or older adults]. I live in a total bubble in many different ways. The people I spend my time with, the articles I read online, the things I do in my digital life is not dissimilar from the ways in which residents of The Villages choose to unplug –  and live in a place where everyone has more or less imaginative beliefs, ideas and ways of living. I think I also relate to and I understand why it’s so wildly popular. There really aren’t a lot of places like The Villages that exist that do give you that many opportunities to just kind of find yourself again and be whoever you want to be.” On Intergenerational Relationships “We haven’t figured out how to more naturally allow for these kinds of relationships to blossom between those who are younger and those who are older. It’s a shame that I think in some ways, the reason that we have places like The Villages, and the reason why they’re so popular, is because we don’t have any alternatives where elderly folks can go where they don’t feel invisible. I think that was a common theme that I was hearing from so many people who felt like they were no longer interested in appearing invisible to people who had more or less ageist viewpoints on who they were. So it’s a shame. And it’s obvious there are some very interesting kinds of phenomenons that are happening now. And I’ve heard about experiments, social experiments, where college campuses are creating little spaces now for elderly residents and to try and foster those kinds of intergenerational relationships. And I think that’s really fascinating. And I would be curious to see how that works.” _________________________ For More on Lance Oppenheim & Some Kind Of Heaven Lance Oppenheim’s Website Some Kind of Heaven Website Some Kind of Heaven Trailer The Happiest Guy in the World (10-minute short film – The New York Times Op-Docs) Heaven on Earth? A New Documentary Looks at Life in The Villages – Next Avenue ________________________ Podcast Episodes You May Like Are You Ready for The New Long Life? – Andrew Scott What Can You Do to Age Better? – Anna Dixon With the Freedom to Retire, Where Will You Plant Your New Tree? – Don Ezra Are You in the Driver’s Seat? – Cindy Cox-Roman Retirement Planning Includes Getting Good at Getting Older – Rabbi Laura Geller What Do You Really Want to Do?- Melissa Davey Do Your Retirement Strategies Account for 6 Stages & Community? – Ted Carr Can You Grow Younger? – Marta Zaraska ________________________ 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. ______________________________________ Explore retirementwisdom.com             __________________________    

Join our Free Webinar on March 4th: Design Your Next Phase It’s been a year since the pandemic began. How have your networking relationships evolved? Is it time to rethink how you approach networking? Our guest is J. Kelly Hoey, the author of Build Your Dream Network, and she encourages people to think of networking differently. It’s not about networking events, it’s about cultivating the right relationships. If you’re looking to build a second career, Kelly Hoey’s networking tips will change your mindset and your approach to networking. __________________________ We discuss: Her journey from a legal career in Toronto and New York to what she’s  doing today How economic downturns created opportunities How we should think differently about networking – beyond networking events The most important word to remember about networking Where specificity can give you an edge The Do’s & Don’ts of networking approaches – from the receiver’s point of view The advantages introverts bring to networking that they may not realize How she thinks of the social media platforms she uses What can be learned from networking in the pandemic How to leverage your network in creating a second career _________________________ Bio Kelly Hoey is obsessed with changing the way we understand and approach networking. She’s the author of Build Your Dream Network: Forging Powerful Connections In A Hyper-Connected World (Tarcher Perigee/Penguin Random House), a modern, practical guide to the necessary (and frequently dreaded) task of networking. Kelly has worked with top companies, brands and conferences. She’s appeared on CNBC’s Power Pitch, co-created and moderated the “Meet The Innovators” speaker series at Apple, and contributed to publications such as The New York Times, Forbes.com, Fast Company, and Inc. Kelly’s insights have been featured in Real Simple, Working Mother, Good Morning America, AARP, Vogue.com, Brit & Co, The Muse, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, CBC Radio, Monster.com, AARP, The Ladders, Parade, Business Insider and many more, as an authority on networking. A former attorney and active participant in New York’s startup community, Kelly has been lauded from Forbes (“1 of 5 Women Changing the World of VC/Entrepreneurship”) to Fast Company (“1 of the 25 Smartest Women On Twitter”) to Business Insider (“1 of the 100 Most Influential Tech Women On Twitter”) and Inc. (“1 of the 10 Most Well-Connected People in New York City’s Startup Scene”). EBW 2020 included her on their list of the “100 Most Influential Global Leaders Empowering Women Worldwide”. __________________________ Wise Quotes On Why It’s Not About Networking Events “I think what people need to think about networking is you need to ditch the schmooze. You need to ditch the notion. When you need something like a job lead or a career lead, you need to think about it more in the sense of How do I interact with people every day? And well before the events of 2020, things we were doing every day – we’re texting and tweeting and maybe posting on Facebook, maybe we’re sending a birthday note or an anniversary wish. All that is part of your networking arsenal if you’re someone who has been or had been in the workforce a long time. When I think about your networking, how have you shown up every day for your colleagues and co-workers? Were you a good mentor? Were you someone who was a good project manager? All of those activities to me are part of our networking reputation – and network building – that we have done throughout our lives. So for the listeners who may be thinking about a change or some evolution in their career, this is where I’d say sit back and think about how you’ve been showing up for your network every single day.” On Generosity “Well, I think there’s this underlying notion with networking: Give before you get. And I think there is this notion that people hold on with sort of an outdated version of networking reciprocity you feel as transactional in the sense of, Oh, Joe has made an introduction for me. I must make an introduction for him. And that’s sort of a very linear way of thinking – rather than thinking about networking in a much more kind of bigger picture than a one-off situation. And so generosity for me is how we respect people. It is how we show other people we are grateful for what they’ve done for us. It is how we can extend our thanks. It’s how we can create a stronger relationship.” On Wide or Deep Networks “Women’s networks have been more narrow and deep in the sense of it might not be as big, but there’s a greater depth in terms of the investment of time that women have spent getting to know people. And what you’ve seen over the course of the pandemic is that the women’s networks, the narrow deep ones,  have been what we’ve really needed in terms of people to turn to, to help us with the stress and the strain and shoulder the worries. And where we’ve actually seen decreases in networks has been in those sort of shallower [ones], the relationships with less depth. And so a lot of men have experienced network shrinkage because of those more casual relationships. We haven’t had the environment to reinforce those. So it kind of behooves all of us going forward to really think about that dynamic – and how and where you’re finding ways to nurture and grow both of those types of networks. Because you need both of those to have a strong network. You need both of those types of dynamics to have the right sort of composition of people around your career, your ambitions, your career transitions and your dreams.” __________________________ For More on Kelly Hoey Kelly’s book: Build Your Dream Network: Forging Powerful Relationships in a Hyper-Connected World Kelly can be found (frequently) online: Website: https://jkellyhoey.co/ BYDN Podcast: https://apple.co/2klTSGM BYDN Course + Community: https://www.buildyourdreamnetwork.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/jkhoey Clubhouse: @jkhoey LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellyhoey/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jkellyhoey/ _________________________ Podcast Episodes You Might Like How to Future Proof Your Career – Jeff Gothelf How to Build a Portfolio Career – Kate Schaefers Design Your Life and Get Unstuck – Dave Evans How to Build a Non-Profit Encore Career – Betsy Werley A Second Act after The Law – Mark Shaiken Navigating An Unexpected Career Change – Maggie Craddock __________________________ 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. ______________________________________ Explore retirementwisdom.com

  Is it time to discover What’s Next after your primary career comes to an end? Is there something you always wanted to do? Is there a problem or challenge that your skills and experience could help solve? Is there something calling you? This mini-episode of our retirement podcast highlights three stories of people who are making a difference – in new ways. Cynthia Barnett found her career in education coming to an end prematurely. She spotted an important problem. Girls were not entering educational pathways that would prepare them for careers in high-growth fields in science, technology, engineering, and math. Deciding that she was retired, but not done yet, she dove in and created an award-winning program to inspire young women to consider and prepare for STEM careers. Melissa Davey was an executive in health care when a chance encounter led her to conversations that inspired her to retire – and follow her dream to become a filmmaker. Steve Javie was at the top of his game as an NBA referee when a chronic injury curtailed his career. A period of intensive self-reflection, conversations, and discernment lead him to become an ordained Deacon. Their experiences underscore how valuable an open-mind can be. What could you discover? __________________________ Listen to our full conversations – and their advice: Retired, But Not Done Yet – Dr. Cynthia Barnett What Do You Really Want to Do?- Melissa Davey From the NBA Hardwood to the Altar – Steve Javie ___________________________ You May Also Be Interested In: Design Your Life and Get Unstuck – Dave Evans How to Build a Portfolio Career – Kate Schaefers _____________________________ Interested in designing a second-act career that’s right for you? Check out our one-on-one coaching program based on the principles of Design Thinking. Schedule a free call to learn more about our new upcoming six-week Group Coaching program starting in March.