Shownotes
Get ready to flip the script on retirement with Wendy Green and Ida Abbott!
This episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone pondering the big retirement question: when is the right time to pull the plug on the daily grind? The conversation flows like a good cup of coffee as they explore the emotional and practical sides of retirement.
Ida, a seasoned pro in mentoring and talent management, shares that retirement isn’t just a financial decision; it’s a life design challenge. She guides us through her unique design principles that help you figure out how to create a fulfilling post-work life. From empathy to prototyping your future, Ida's approach is all about helping you uncover what truly matters to you. Plus, they dive into the importance of community and connection during this transition.
Whether you’re just starting to think about retirement or you’re already in the thick of it, this episode is your friendly reminder that retirement can be a magical time of reinvention and joy. So, tune in, take notes, and get ready to design a retirement that’s as fabulous as you are!
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You can email me with questions or comments at [email protected]
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Wendy Green is a Certified Life Coach, working with people going through the
sometimes uncomfortable life transition from full-time work to “what’s next.”
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Transcripts
Foreign.
Speaker A:So, hello.
Speaker A:Hey Boomer listeners.
Speaker A:My name is Wendy Green, and this is the ninth episode of hey Boomers.
Speaker A:So I have a question for you.
Speaker A:When is the right time to retire?
Speaker A:Or is there a right time to retire?
Speaker A:Or what if you're already retired, Is it too late to start making a plan and figure out what you want to do with your life and maybe, you know, add some interest to it?
Speaker A:So we're going to be talking about that.
Speaker A:We're going to be answering those questions and other questions as I have this conversation with my guest today, Ida Abbott.
Speaker A:Hey Boomer is a place that I envision as a place to start conversations, to build a sense of community around mutual interests, around recognizing that we have some differences and appreciating the things that we have in common and building this sense of community.
Speaker A:So what do I mean by community?
Speaker A:I see a community as a place where individuals come together to care, share, and take responsibility for themselves and for each other and to have these meaningful conversations as we're talking today and going out in the future.
Speaker A:So I am excited about facilitating the building of these conversations.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:So my guest today, Ida Abbott, is someone that I've known since probably before middle school.
Speaker A:We all lived together.
Speaker A:Well, not together.
Speaker A:We all lived in the same neighborhood.
Speaker A:I was actually friends with her sister Judy, and Ida was, you know, this older sister who we all thought was very smart, and she's, you know, moving on into other things.
Speaker A:And I actually found out that she her first summer job was with my dad, which was pretty cool.
Speaker A:But it was fun to reconnect with her.
Speaker A:A few years ago through Judy, and I found out that she is now living in California and has been working as an attorney.
Speaker A:So let me bring her on, and I'm going to do her formal introduction.
Speaker A:Hi, Ida.
Speaker B:Hi, Wendy.
Speaker A:It's good to see you.
Speaker B:Thanks.
Speaker B:Great to be here.
Speaker A:So Ida has focused on the power of mentoring relationships to guide, support, and transform professional careers from the beginning of practice through retirement.
Speaker A:She has long been a leader in the field of talent management, particularly mentoring, sponsorship, and the advancement of women in leadership.
Speaker A:Her current work focusing on preparing professionals and their firms for retirement is reflected in her recent book, Retirement by Design.
Speaker A:Is that showing up?
Speaker B:Correct.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:In recognition of her lifetime contributions to the legal profession over more than four decades as a lawyer and consultant, Ida has been elected a fellow of both the American Bar foundation and the College of Law Practice Management.
Speaker A:She was co founder of the Hastings Leadership Academy for Women and the Professional Development Consortium, and is currently vice chair of The National Legal Mentoring Consortium, board member of the Institute of Legal Talent and Leadership, on the editorial board of Modern Legal Practice, and an advisor to the Diversity Lab.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:Busy.
Speaker A:Ida is a sought after speaker and the author of several seminal books including the Lawyer's Guide to Mentoring and Sponsoring Women.
Speaker A:What Men need to Know Today, though, we are going to talk about retirement and her retirement book.
Speaker A:It was interesting when we picked this topic to realize that I had also done some retirement coaching as a coach.
Speaker A:And so we have some similar interests in this, even though neither one of us is looking at retirement any time in the next, I don't know, year or so.
Speaker A:Anyway, maybe she is.
Speaker A:But I wanted to ask, to start the conversation, is now a good time.
Speaker B:To retire for some people?
Speaker B:You know, I mean, the thing about retirement is you really have to decide for yourself and people.
Speaker B:Everybody's in, in a different situation.
Speaker B:And right now, you know, it's been.
Speaker B:Retirement is always kind of taking a leap into the void, you know, into the unknown.
Speaker B:And we are more accustomed right now to the unknown than most of us ever expected to be.
Speaker B:Probably the biggest concern that people always have doesn't matter who they are, is whether they'll be able to outlive their savings.
Speaker B:So financial security is always out there.
Speaker B:That's kind of the overall background against which all these other decisions are made.
Speaker B:And so some people are really more worried now than they were.
Speaker B:Some people have lost jobs and are kind of going into retirement because they don't have a choice that happens even without a pandemic and a lockdown.
Speaker B:So for some people this is not a good time because the uncertainty of leaving the work that you have when you still have it is keeping people in their jobs.
Speaker B:And justifiably so, you know, you want to at least know, have some knowledge of what you can plan for.
Speaker B:So, you know, I will say if what you were planning to do is retire and travel, now might not be a very good time.
Speaker B:You may want to stick around a little bit longer.
Speaker B:But if you had other plans and you feel that financially, you know, you're going to be able to manage, even if it means dropping down in your standard of living a little bit.
Speaker B:And we've all had the practice of what it would mean without daily structure and interaction and stuff, that's kind of a hard way to learn.
Speaker B:But may or may not in this situation that we're living through right now, which is so unusual, so unique, really is making people think about it in different ways.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So you mentioned the financial side of it and that is the part that I think most of us think about when we're planning for retirement, making sure that we have that nest egg.
Speaker A:But your book is so much broader than that, and it really looks at lifestyle and planning.
Speaker A:Can you give us just a brief overview of why you saw that as so important to focus on?
Speaker B:Well, sure.
Speaker B:To begin with, I would never be in a position.
Speaker B:I don't have the expertise.
Speaker A:To give.
Speaker B:Anybody financial advice or talk about financial planning for retirement.
Speaker B:It's not what I know, it's not what I do.
Speaker B:But in the work that I've been doing for a long time, and now that many of my clients and many of my friends have been retiring or thinking about retiring, what I see is the kinds of things they worry about have more to do with what am I going to do for the next 20, 30, maybe 40 years.
Speaker B:And some people have decided to retire much younger.
Speaker B:We have different lives, different patterns in life today.
Speaker B:Used to be you worked, you know, you went to school, and then you worked for a long time.
Speaker B:You had a family, you settled, you got yourself, you know, a savings account, and you did what you needed to do for that kind of security.
Speaker B:And then you retired.
Speaker B:And you retired usually around 60, 65.
Speaker B:And maybe you played golf and then, you know, watched.
Speaker B:Watched movies or something, and then you sat on the porch and waited to die.
Speaker B:And, you know, life is very different today.
Speaker B:People are living much, much longer.
Speaker B:If you're 60 years old today, you have about a 50% chance of living into, you know, to be 100.
Speaker B:So longevity is one thing, and it's not just more years, it's healthier years.
Speaker B:People are between what we can do medically and what people know about exercise and nutrition and taking care of themselves.
Speaker B:We live much.
Speaker B:We can live on average.
Speaker B:Obviously not everybody, but we can live on average much longer.
Speaker B:So you've got a lot of time ahead of you, and people are stopping work early, going back to work later.
Speaker B:There's a wonderful book called the Hundred Year Life, and it talks about how everything is really up for grabs.
Speaker B:And it may be that instead of focusing on your education, starting around 17, 18, in terms of education for a career or for, you know, if you have a liberal arts background, whether it's career specific or just to give you the grounding for working for a long, long time, you may travel, you may start a nonprofit, or you may work, you know, start a tech company and then decide to go back to school later in your 20s or, you know, and then start a new career.
Speaker B:People have multiple careers today.
Speaker B:So it's not like when I started and you went from high school to college college, if you were going to go to graduate school, you did that or you went and got a job and that was your career for years and years and you might switch within that field.
Speaker B:But most of us had a path and it was, you know, there were some guidelines, you knew what to expect and today everything is up for grabs.
Speaker B:Imagine graduating high school today or graduating college and not knowing what kind of job you would have or whether you'd be able to support yourself.
Speaker B:And you know, so there are too many questions and too many options in a sense.
Speaker B:And at the same time, no guidelines, no specific paths and no financial security because Everybody, if you're 25 years old, I don't know that you can count on Social Security to live on.
Speaker B:And most people couldn't live on Social Security alone today.
Speaker B:Although financially I think we have incredibly high numbers of people who are dependent on that for their, for their income.
Speaker B:So because there is so much going on and so many possibilities, it's really hard to think about what you're going to do to fill up that time.
Speaker B:If you've got a hundred year life.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:We think about it in a different way.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So the design principles that you talk about in the book Retirement by Design.
Speaker A:So because you've raised so many questions now, your book kind of walks you through how to think about those questions.
Speaker A:So can you talk a little bit about the design principles and help us understand how that works in this?
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:And the book is not so much a textbook on how to retire.
Speaker B:What it is, is it's almost like a self coaching guide.
Speaker B:It's the kind of questions that a coach would ask you to think about and it tells you the sorts of the areas you should be considering.
Speaker B:But the answers really have to be your own.
Speaker B:And most of us don't take the time to really think deeply about what we would like to do and how we want to do it.
Speaker B:And because this is so amorphous, we need to think about it in a more open ended way because the possibilities are so great, they could change.
Speaker B:And we also want to be adaptable.
Speaker B:And typically we learn or some of us are naturally linear thinkers.
Speaker B:And so we set a goal, we want to have a happy retirement and we put a couple of things down there and then we say we're going from A to B to C to D. We set out our action items and then we get there and it's not that way.
Speaker B:When you're dealing with a very long stretch of time with many possibilities and a lot of things.
Speaker B:And of course, the older you get, the more unknowns pop up, you know, the more surprises there are that are that you can't necessarily plan for, but there are a lot of things you can anticipate.
Speaker B:So the principles of design thinking come out of product design.
Speaker B:And when does these, these people, it was a company called Ideo and a number of other design companies.
Speaker B:What they do is they start in a different place.
Speaker B:They start, there are five steps, basically.
Speaker B:And so what we've done is adapt them to life planning.
Speaker B:And the steps are empathy.
Speaker B:It's looking at the user and not thinking.
Speaker B:As an expert, if I were solving this problem, I would solve it by this, that and the other.
Speaker B:And knowing what I know, this is the correct answer.
Speaker B:So let's plan to get there.
Speaker B:Instead, you look at the user and you say, what would be best for the user?
Speaker B:What does the user want and need?
Speaker B:What would make that person the most, would make them comfortable and happy?
Speaker B:And when you're talking about retirement, of course the user is you.
Speaker B:So this is in a way, self empathy.
Speaker B:The second step is called definition.
Speaker B:And by doing that, once you have a good sense of who you are and what kinds of things are important to you, you can start saying, where would they fit into a retirement plan?
Speaker B:And start mapping out some possibilities and kind of, you know, this is where you can use your imagination and draw pictures and start imagining where your happiness might lie and then starting to brainstorm.
Speaker B:We call this ideation.
Speaker B:And this is really, you know, kind of fun if you like this sort of thing and you start saying, well, if this is what I want, how could I make that happen?
Speaker B:And there may be many, many ways of doing it.
Speaker B:And, you know, this is also starting to ask people questions.
Speaker B:It's asking, it's trying things out.
Speaker B:If you think that what would make you happy is volunteering at a petting zoo and working with kids and, you know, can you get a job doing that as a volunteer for a little while?
Speaker B:And this is where we call it prototyping, which is the next step.
Speaker B:You start thinking and doing your research and then coming in and trying it out.
Speaker B:And after a month or two months, what you may find is that you absolutely love this, you love the animals, the kids, or it may just drive you crazy.
Speaker B:It's not nearly as much fun as you thought it was going to be.
Speaker B:It doesn't give you the sense of purpose that you hoped it would give you.
Speaker B:If you're prototyping and you treat this as kind of an experiment.
Speaker B:It's a way of seeing what works and what doesn't.
Speaker B:We then move into the last step, which is evaluating or testing, and you say, if it didn't, excuse me, if it didn't live up to my expectations, can I change it?
Speaker B:Do I want to change this and just adapt it in some way or do I want to just forget it and move on to something else?
Speaker B:So in my, in this planning process that I suggest, you use a big empty calendar and a lot of post its and you move them around until you find the things that makes most sense for you, the timing that makes the most sense.
Speaker B:You can see that you've got 17 things on Wednesday and nothing on Tuesday and you're exhausted every Thursday, you know, every Thursday.
Speaker B:So how can you move that around to make it, to make yourself more comfortable and not so exhausted?
Speaker B:Because you know, there's another group of people.
Speaker B:There are the people who don't know what they want to do.
Speaker B:And so this gives them a technique for trying things out and testing them and exploring and find out what they can.
Speaker B:But there's the other group that has a million interests and I mean we all know, at least I know a lot of people who will say to me, I thought I was going to be bored.
Speaker B:I am so busy, I'm busier now than I've ever been.
Speaker B:And for them, many of them, the problem is that they get overwhelmed and they, you know, they stopped working in part because they were working so hard and they needed a rest and they had a few weeks rest and now they're back at it and they're just as, as tired as they were before.
Speaker B:So, you know, keeping it flexible, keeping it adaptable and keeping your eyes open to the many possibilities that are out there.
Speaker B:And yet having a little discipline to keep that under control is all very important.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And what you're talking about, I think you recommend in your book, if you can start planning out several years, then some of this prototyping and experimenting makes, makes it easier to do that maybe.
Speaker A:But I know a lot of people also who are already retired and still going through that.
Speaker A:You know, I think it's a never ending process.
Speaker A:In some ways we are a work in progress.
Speaker B:But you know, if you, you can treat it as something that is a problem and God, I'm never going to get it right and that's treated as an adventure.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So much of this is the approach you bring to it.
Speaker B:And so a lot of the early Exercises I propose is, you know, have to do with your attitudes and the kinds of things you worry about, the things that the mental images you have.
Speaker B:You know, people, a lot of people don't retire because they see retired people as useless.
Speaker B:You know, I learned a lot about ageism in the process of getting moving into this area.
Speaker B:But, you know, you can also use it as.
Speaker B:See it as an opportunity to finally do the things you wanted to do all along or you never realized you wanted or put aside because you never had time for.
Speaker B:And now you do.
Speaker B:I mean, this is really a time to do the things you want.
Speaker B:You have more control in some ways than you ever had before.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I love that you talk about a personal advisory team.
Speaker A:Can you explain to me what you mean by that?
Speaker B:Well, first of all, one of the principles in design thinking is collaboration.
Speaker B:And what it does is recognize that whenever you're designing something, the more ideas that go into it, the more people who can contribute.
Speaker B:Before you start, you know, trying to winnow away this, the chaff and get to the really good stuff, the more people there are who can help you, the better the final product.
Speaker B:And the same thing is true when you're planning something about your life, because there's no reason for you to do this alone.
Speaker B:And a lot of the people I work with are professionals who their whole careers have focused on being the person, the expert, the one who's giving answers, not questions and not asking questions and being independent and thinking, especially with lawyers who are my primary clients.
Speaker B:But this book is, by the way, not for lawyers or any particular group.
Speaker B:It's for anybody.
Speaker B:But professionals tend to have this sense of need to be in control and independent and autonomous.
Speaker B:And recognizing that you don't have all the answers is tough, but it makes the process easier.
Speaker B:We all need input from other people.
Speaker B:And so it might be people, I mean, the smartest people to contact, those who have already retired and can give you some advice about, you know, what did they go through.
Speaker B:You treat them.
Speaker B:This is almost like a peer mentoring group.
Speaker B:You treat them as sources of information who can help you, mentors who can tell you, this was really hard for me.
Speaker B:I don't know if it will be for you, but this is how I dealt with it.
Speaker B:This is what was such a great surprise.
Speaker B:It might be your financial planner.
Speaker B:I mean, you really need to do financial planning before you get into this or at the same time, because you don't want to be making decisions without knowing what your financial situation is.
Speaker B:So that is step one.
Speaker B:I don't give you that advice.
Speaker B:Other than.
Speaker B:My advice is go and get a financial planner.
Speaker B:There are some exercises and some basic budgeting methods, things like that that I provide, but that's not the same as.
Speaker B:As knowing what you're going to be able to depend on going forward.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:Oh, go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So taking that just a step further, though, with this personal advisory team, as I was reading the book, I was thinking, you know, for me, it's helpful to have what I would say is like an accountability partner or accountability team.
Speaker A:And so I'm wondering if.
Speaker A:If you think it would be useful to get a few people together that are going through the book at the same time and discussing the different options and the designs that you're coming up with.
Speaker A:And I just feel like that would be useful.
Speaker A:But what do you think?
Speaker B:I would encourage you to do it.
Speaker B:I always encourage people to do that.
Speaker B:That's part of the way this book was designed.
Speaker B:You can use it with an individual coach.
Speaker B:You can always hire a coach and do it that way.
Speaker B:But in fact, the book just came out in March just before we couldn't do any, couldn't go anywhere.
Speaker B:And I was able to get a few programs in before that, some public programs and firm programs.
Speaker B:And I was working with a group in Los Angeles.
Speaker B:They were the first group, and they got the books before they actually came out.
Speaker B:And so we were able to see them and there were about 40 people in the room.
Speaker B:And a couple of came up to me afterwards and said they were doing exactly what you said, know each other beforehand.
Speaker B:But they had decided that they would work independently and every month get together to compare notes and see they were going to do.
Speaker B:They were going to decide, you know, what to focus on and then get together.
Speaker B:And I was thrilled because, yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker B:If the more you think about this by yourself and you know, for people who are very, very private, it's not easy to do, but you can be private in the book and then talk to somebody about the things that eventually you'll feel safe.
Speaker B:You know, gradually you will become.
Speaker B:Feel more safe talking about them with someone else when you realize other people are going through the same thing and having the same challenges.
Speaker B:And so that's a very worthwhile thing to do.
Speaker B:Yeah, I would invite as many people as you think can give you help.
Speaker B:Sometimes it's just somebody who thinks really creatively and they may give you ideas.
Speaker B:There's not a chance you're going to do any of them.
Speaker B:But at Least they can spark a little imagination.
Speaker B:I think a lot of people suffer from a lack of imagination, especially when we have to deal with ourselves.
Speaker A:Well, yeah, and one thing we learn in coaching is about these self limiting beliefs.
Speaker A:And so, right, if we're sitting there trying to think up, what are we going to do?
Speaker A:We're going to have these ideas that are only this wide.
Speaker A:And so I love, yeah.
Speaker A:Talking to other people.
Speaker B:And some of the exercises are geared to reframing, which is what you're, you know, how do you do that?
Speaker B:I can't do this.
Speaker B:Well, how do you switch that?
Speaker B:I could do this if, you know, I can do this.
Speaker B:And it's not a hard thing to do, but somebody has to remind you to do it because we all live with those self limiting ideas in our minds or images that are based on our knowledge but don't represent everything out there or all the kinds of experiences that people have.
Speaker B:And you know, there are a lot of very tough things that happen when you retire and some of them are, you know, are dangerous.
Speaker B:A lot of people become very, very isolated, but they don't have to be.
Speaker B:You don't have to be, but you have to be willing to recognize, you have to make some effort.
Speaker B:It doesn't have to be tough and it doesn't have to be a huge amount of effort, but you have to do something.
Speaker B:And so, you know, what I've tried to do is help people figure out if I'm alone, you know, because I don't have an office to go to anymore.
Speaker B:Not that any of us do anymore.
Speaker B:Those who work from home have an edge there, but you know, I'm not.
Speaker B:And in fact, look at the trial period that we've had now.
Speaker B:I mean, anybody who is, you know, sitting at home, whether you're hard at work or you're looking for something to do, you have a moment to think about what have I learned about myself and the things that are important to me and not important to me while I've been through this.
Speaker B:And for some people, one of the things they miss the most is not having other people around them.
Speaker B:And you know, even the people who are annoying and you know, the people who make you want to stay in bed and not go to work, not go to the office every day, at least you're interacting with them.
Speaker B:There's some social connection, there's somebody you might go to lunch with and a lot of people are missing that more than anything.
Speaker B:And if you know that, if you know now that that's really important to you, you can set things up so that when you retire you aren't alone.
Speaker B:And that's especially true for people who are single, you know, and who are living alone and living through all of this.
Speaker B:And so finding ways to stay connected, to be connected, to make new friends, new connections is there.
Speaker B:You know, this is an important time to do that, to recognize that level of self awareness and what you can do about it.
Speaker A:So something that we talked about at one point was a lot of times you said you coach people starting to think about retirement and you say, but what about your spouse?
Speaker A:What is your spouse thinking about it?
Speaker A:What if their spouse isn't thinking about it?
Speaker A:I mean, is there a way to kind of get them engaged?
Speaker B:Well, if they're not, you better get them engaged.
Speaker B:You know, I mean, this is a pretty serious step with very serious and long term repercussions.
Speaker B:So, you know, there, if you are married, there are at least two of you involved in this decision.
Speaker B:It does surprise me a little communication some couples have about this.
Speaker B:And sometimes it's because there's only one person with a job, you know, working outside.
Speaker B:And they're reluctant, they're afraid.
Speaker B:Sometimes it's that there are two people, both of them working and one wants to retire and one doesn't.
Speaker B:And in fact I had, when I first, my first clients included two women who were both very high powered professionals.
Speaker B:And one of them had a husband who had retired and was pushing her to retire because he wanted to go do things and he had a lot of plans and she didn't want to.
Speaker B:She was at the peak of her career, she was loving what she did, she felt successful and everything was just where she wanted it.
Speaker B:And she was having to deal with the pressure at home of somebody who already had retired and wanted a companion, wanted somebody around like he was.
Speaker B:And the other woman was the primary wage earner in her family.
Speaker B:Her husband had given up his career and stayed home to raise the kids.
Speaker B:And the last child was leaving for college and so she had saved enough money for college and she was exhausted and decided it was time.
Speaker B:And he was pushing her to stay at work because he was worried about their standard of living and what would happen if suddenly there was and she was making a lot of money.
Speaker B:So what was going to happen now without that income?
Speaker B:And so, you know, having having both of those at the same time gives you quite a perspective about how differently people approach things.
Speaker B:And the problem was in both cases they were avoiding conversations that really needed to be, needed to be had about because it Wasn't.
Speaker B:It didn't have to be an either or.
Speaker B:But, you know, they couldn't even.
Speaker B:They hadn't even reached the point where they could talk about possibilities and how to make it work, even if one stayed in her job or one left job.
Speaker B:And until you have that conversation, you really aren't going to get anywhere.
Speaker B:You know, it's.
Speaker B:It's kind of.
Speaker B:For some couples, it's a negotiation.
Speaker B:It's always a negotiation, but it's.
Speaker B:It's how hard or easy the negotiation is going to be.
Speaker B:And a lot of people are thinking more about their own situation, their own fears.
Speaker B:What's this going to mean for me?
Speaker B:You know, I had another.
Speaker B:It wasn't a client, but I took a class on life changes and stuff like that a few years back.
Speaker B:And one of the instructors gave an example that I couldn't believe because he was a coach.
Speaker B:And he talked about the fact that he was.
Speaker B:He worked from home and did all of his coaching, either virtually or in an office that they had set up at home.
Speaker B:And his wife, who had never been around the house, was retiring.
Speaker B:And he was really worried about what this was going to do to him and his career.
Speaker B:And nobody, you know, we weren't.
Speaker B:We were just.
Speaker B:This was giving an example of the impact of changes or something.
Speaker B:And we weren't supposed to ask questions, but before we left, I could not help myself, but.
Speaker B:And ask, well, what about your wife?
Speaker B:This is for her a life change.
Speaker B:You're having a change in the circumstances while you continue your career, but what about that?
Speaker B:And he looked at me, he said, this is not what we're here to discuss.
Speaker B:And I realized he probably had not had that conversation.
Speaker B:He was so concerned about what this was going to do to him.
Speaker B:And yet retirement is one of the most difficult transitions you have in life.
Speaker B:And, you know, for somebody who was sensitive in helping other people, the situation at home hadn't reached him in terms of the importance of having that conversation and being more concerned about what the impact was going to be on her.
Speaker B:Because this was.
Speaker B:Or she was the one really going through the major change.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think it's in one of the top 10, right?
Speaker A:In the top 10 life.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:When we.
Speaker B:We should also.
Speaker B:I just realized we hadn't talked about another thing, which is retirement doesn't mean you have to give up everything either.
Speaker A:Well, I was going to ask you about that.
Speaker A:Do you like the word retirement or have you heard other phrases?
Speaker A:Because so many of us are still active well into our 90s hundreds.
Speaker B:Well, that's right.
Speaker B:And there are a lot of words out there.
Speaker B:They're all horrible except one.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I mean, there's rewire, rejuvenate, recharge, recreate, or next step, next step, next stage, next act.
Speaker B:There.
Speaker B:There's nothing wrong with the words.
Speaker B:They're fine.
Speaker B:It's just that they're hackneyed.
Speaker B:And you know, what they don't really do is give us a sense of the possibilities that are there.
Speaker B:And my favorite is what I just recently learned was the Spanish word for retirement, which is jubelacion.
Speaker B:And it's the same in English, jubilation.
Speaker B:It is a time of freedom, a time to rejoice.
Speaker B:And, you know, to me, that's.
Speaker B:That's a much better word.
Speaker B:You know, it's not always a happy occasion for everybody when it.
Speaker B:When it happens, especially now when a lot of people are being pushed to retire or even before this, where they're pushed to retire by employers or employment circumstances.
Speaker B:But, you know, the idea of seeing this as a time when you really do have choices, more choices than you realize for some people, more choices than they would like, probably.
Speaker B:But it isn't a time we think of it in terms of loss because we're losing our career, we're giving up this.
Speaker B:And retirement, of course, means withdrawal.
Speaker B:If you look at some dictionaries, they're really horrible definitions that have to do with giving up, withdrawing, usually because you stop working.
Speaker B:Most of us don't stop working.
Speaker B:We change what we do.
Speaker B:We, you know, some of it's not for pay.
Speaker B:We may volunteer, volunteer work, but that's legitimate work.
Speaker B:That's hard work sometimes.
Speaker B:We're seeing so much of that now, but it's.
Speaker B:It's not a tired time to give up and to, you know, to think about yourself as having nothing.
Speaker B:Now is really a time of plenty.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And you, I think at the beginning of our conversation, Ida, you were talking about.
Speaker A:A lot of people see this as a time of not being useful anymore, but there was a term that you used in the book about eulogy, virtues, and I think that applies a lot to, you know, finding a purpose, feeling useful.
Speaker A:So do you want to expand on that a little bit?
Speaker B:I'd be happy to, but I also see a comment about golf and.
Speaker B:And I think that's pretty funny because somebody also about just if people don't see it, that some people just retire, play golf and watch movies.
Speaker B:That's my comment.
Speaker B:And he just came in out of the.
Speaker B:Off the golf course and said, but some of us love to play golf?
Speaker B:Well, of course.
Speaker B:And if that's what you want to do, that's fabulous.
Speaker B:But I have a friend who told me that one of her clients had.
Speaker B:That was his plan, to play golf.
Speaker B:And they moved to a golf course community and everything else.
Speaker B:And the first six.
Speaker B:Six weeks it did nothing but rain, and he had nothing else to do.
Speaker B:So anyway, I say if that's what you want to do, it's great.
Speaker B:It has all the good things you need.
Speaker B:You're outdoors, you're exercising, you're with other people.
Speaker A:And the truth is, her husband is also very involved in a lot of other things.
Speaker A:So he's not just playing golf.
Speaker B:That was funny.
Speaker B:Nothing wrong with it.
Speaker B:But it's.
Speaker B:It's, you know, it's.
Speaker B:It's the other.
Speaker B:The other days.
Speaker B:What else?
Speaker B:And for some people, not doing much of anything is okay.
Speaker B:But going back to your question about the virtues, I think one of the things that.
Speaker B:That brought that on was the.
Speaker B:And this was a quote from David Brooks, that the eulogy, the resume virtues are the things that get us ahead in our work and in our career.
Speaker B:It's what your credentials are.
Speaker B:It's where you went to school, who you know, how important you are, the positions you hold, because they're going to make you feel important and give you the connections to get ahead in your job.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:I mean, it's focused on things like that.
Speaker B:And certainly there are times in your life where those are really, really important.
Speaker B:But there also comes a time in your life where you think of the eulogy, virtues, and those are the virtues.
Speaker B:Those are, what do you want to be remembered for when people eulogize you at your funeral.
Speaker B:And that's more about the kind of person you are.
Speaker B:And it doesn't mean that the two are incompatible.
Speaker B:There are a lot of people who live by their values and their resume.
Speaker B:You know, the resume tells you what they've done in terms of the positions they've held, but the values they have lived, their values.
Speaker B:And there's not a disconnect there.
Speaker B:But there are a lot of people who have spent their lives doing things because they're expected to do them.
Speaker B:Either expected to do them by other people or, you know, they put pressure on themselves to do certain things because this is what you should be doing, what I should be doing or should have done.
Speaker B:And retirement is a time when you can start looking at both and saying, which ones?
Speaker B:How do I reconcile these?
Speaker B:If I've been living according to my values, it's not that hard.
Speaker B:But for A lot of people who started out feeling for just as, for example, feeling very idealistic and really spent three decades or four decades in the rough and tumble business world where a lot of those values were pushed aside or they weren't given the full expression that they should have been.
Speaker B:Now is the time when you can change that.
Speaker B:And that's where these eulogy values come in.
Speaker B:So now's the time to reconcile them, to balance them, or to just move into those more important things and do and choose to give them the priority that you may not have been able to give them or thought about giving them before.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I don't know if you see Elizabeth's comment here that it, it is hard to, you know, experiment in some ways and getting some other things done for now is good.
Speaker A:But yeah, so that's part of the book.
Speaker A:And there were so many other parts of the book that we weren't able to get to today.
Speaker A:You talked about the finances, but health, legal, medical arrangements, all of those kinds of things that we need to think about.
Speaker A:I highly recommend it and I highly recommend finding somebody else to kind of work through it with you because I think it's a great conversation starter and inspiring you to think about things.
Speaker A:So thank you for writing this.
Speaker A:That was.
Speaker B:Oh, thank you.
Speaker B:Thank you for, you know, pushing it and for encouraging people to buy it and read it.
Speaker A:Yeah, no, I think it's awesome.
Speaker B:Put your comments on Amazon, by the way.
Speaker B:You know, it looks kind of.
Speaker A:Oh, okay, yes, right.
Speaker A:You can go to Amazon and get it.
Speaker A:You can also go to idaabbott.com and get it.
Speaker B:In fact, I can put that up any bookseller.
Speaker B:You know, people have questions.
Speaker B:I'm happy to answer questions privately and stuff, too.
Speaker A:And I was going to say, I think some people have taken the time to share comments and, you know, refer this to other people if they have questions after they listen to this broadcast and they want to leave comments.
Speaker A:You know, I'm happy to answer them or forward them on to Ida if you'd like to do that.
Speaker A:Let me just tell you about our guest for next week.
Speaker A:She's amazing.
Speaker A:Her name is Glennis Redmond.
Speaker A:She's truly a gift to know.
Speaker A:She is a poet and she was the poet laureate at the Peace center, which is here in Greenville, a big performing arts center.
Speaker A:But she didn't begin her career as a poet.
Speaker A:She started in social work and then she developed fibromyalgia.
Speaker A:And through the pain of recovering from that, she left social work and started writing and became a poet.
Speaker A:And a published poet and was.
Speaker A:I mean, really had this big following.
Speaker A:And then this past year, she developed multiple myeloma.
Speaker A:And she has had a hellacious year, but is in doing much better, is, you know, recovering.
Speaker A:And her story is about how going through this pain and these illnesses in her life has.
Speaker A:Has helped her and encouraged her to dig deeper and find meaning through her poetry.
Speaker A:And it.
Speaker A:You know, the Buddhist saying that says pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.
Speaker A:She lives that.
Speaker A:And so, I mean, just to hear her speak, her.
Speaker A:Her tone, her cadence is fabulous.
Speaker A:It's a gift.
Speaker A:And I think her story is going to be amazingly inspiring.
Speaker A:So I hope you all will join us for that.
Speaker A:I really appreciate all of you for being here today, for being part of the hey Boomer community.
Speaker A:Ida, thank you so much.
Speaker A:This.
Speaker A:This has been a great conversation.
Speaker B:Well, thank you for having me.
Speaker B:It's wonderful to see you again.
Speaker A:You too.
Speaker A:And I hope and I know you've been seeing some of these comments, so my mom says hi.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker A:Hey Boomer audience.
Speaker A:We.
Speaker A:I will see you all next week.
Speaker B:Bye.
Speaker B:Bye.
Speaker A:Bye.
