transcript
Speech-to-text transcription can look a little quirky. Please excuse any grammar or spelling errors.
Episode #504 - What Should I Consider When Transferring Investment Accounts?
Roger: It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor. Would you be? Could you be? Won't you be my neighbor?
Don't touch that dial. This is not a children's show.
This is the Retirement Answer Man show, and we're dedicated to helping you not just survive retirement but have the confidence because you're leaning in and doing the work to rock retirement. Nichole has forbidden me from singing on the show, but how can you not sing Fred Rogers.
Today in our Bring It On segment, Mark Ross is going to hang out and we're going to talk about how you build your social network or make friends later in life.
It's not as easy as it used to be, right? We're sort of setting our ways and we have a smaller world. Sometimes we're going to talk about that. In addition to that, we’re going to answer some of your financial questions on how to rock retirement, starting with Ronnie's question on transferring assets away from an advisor that he is leaving. He has a few questions on the logistics of that and some things he should think about. We'll answer that in addition to some of your other financial questions.
Before we get started, I actually made a friend last week, which isn't something that happens every week. I meet lots of people that are nice, especially in emails, in meetups in the club, etc. But I actually met a person who is open to maybe hanging out and having some coffee. His name is Josh. He literally is a neighbor. He lives down the street. We met as I was walking Sherlock, and I've seen him for a number of years, and we've always said pleasantries, etc. But we actually stopped and had a conversation and discovered that we both like to hike.
We like to go hiking. We like backpacking. I told him I was into rucking. He was sort of into that. I'm reading a book on Lewis and Clark. He's read that book and knew the title. So, we actually exchanged phone numbers and are going to go on a hike next month. How exciting is that? This stuff doesn't happen every day.
In this case, Sherlock facilitated this because it got me out in public to slowly build those relationships. So, I am so excited. I have a new friend, Josh. With that, let's move on and answer some of your financial questions.
LISTENER QUESTIONS
Now it's time to answer your questions. If you have a question for the show, you can go to rogerwhitney.me. You can type in a question, you can leave an audio question, and we will do our best to help you take a baby step to Rock retirement. We have a lot of audio questions today, so let's start with the question from Ronnie.
WHAT SHOULD RONNIE CONSIDER WHEN TRANSFERRING INVESTMENT ACCOUNTS?
Ronnie: Hey Roger, this is Ronnie.
I've been listening to your podcast for a year and have enjoyed the learning experience. I just turned 60, and my wife will turn 60 next year. We both work and are looking to retire in three to five years. We have been using a financial advisor and have always wondered what services we were really getting for the cost.
After listening to a recent podcast, we were introduced to J. L. Collins and his book, The Simple Path to Wealth. Your podcast and J. L. Collins book has helped us to understand that we were paying for our lack of understanding and our fear of the unknown. After becoming more educated, we have decided to discontinue our relationship with the financial advisor and transfer our assets to a low-cost mutual fund company.
We understand that we can transfer all assets in kind. but we are not completely sure about the impact of transferring short-term mutual funds to a low-cost total stock market fund.
Two questions. Will selling the short-term funds cause an undesirable tax impact or other negative impacts, and are there other issues that we should consider when going through this process?
Thanks, and look forward to hearing from you.
Roger: That's a great question, Ronnie, and congratulations on your journey and evaluating the financial advisor that you're working with and realize that one, you're not sure what you're paying for and or the services that they are providing don't really match the season of life that you're in or the issues that you're trying to solve for.
Unfortunately, this industry is in a transition from always focusing on investments and market updates, and when it does get to retirement planning, especially, which I do think is a subcategory from an advice standpoint, it goes an inch deep most of the, and gets back to the investment. So, I applaud you for becoming more educated. You have an understanding, and it sounds like you feel like you have a lot more agency. So, you're not as worried about the unknown or the least that you can manage through that. I affirm that.
Oftentimes, even in my practice, we just had recently where a client and I disengaged from each other, and we had worked together for four years after the death of her husband, who I knew, and over those four years, her sons were always in on the meetings and we had walked the journey of closing out her spouse's estate and then her finding her sea legs as a financial manager along with her sons and the sons were always in the meeting. We had a very adult conversation. It didn't seem like there's enough work for me to do relative to the fees that they were paying given the framework that we have developed or had developed as well as the support she had with her sons who were very savvy and very sharp, I know because I’ve walked life with them.
So, we had a big adult conversation about it, and it just totally made sense. There are seasons for things, just like in my personal life when I've always used coaches, at least for the last 10, 15 years. I've not kept the same coach the entire time, there are seasons for me paying coaches, which is probably equivalent to what someone might pay an advisor, and that's an adult thing, and that's totally cool.
Now, to your question, will selling short-term mutual funds and moving them to the other firm and then putting it into a total stock market have an impact? What impact is going to be from a tax perspective? I'm not quite sure what you mean by short term mutual funds, Ronnie, but if you do sell them, there will presumably be either a capital gain or a capital loss depending on the price relative to where you bought them, and that would include any reinvestment of dividends and capital gains. So, you would want to at least know what that is if you're going to sell these short-term mutual funds. Just realize the tax impact and that should be very clear just by logging into the investment account and looking at the funds and seeing where they're at. They're at a loss or a profit position, and then you can compare that to any other expected capital gains or losses throughout the year, or for this year, because those can offset if you have losses somewhere else, those can offset the gains of these short-term mutual funds. But there could be a tax consequence there, and it's definitely not a game changer, but it's something that you would want to know. Then, essentially, it sounds like you would transfer the cash over to the mutual fund provider that you mentioned, and then invest that in total market funds.
My question, as I hear this, is short term mutual funds sound like maybe short term bond funds or money market mutual fund or something like that is I would be more concerned outside the tax consequences, how did you decide that that money should be dedicated to a total market fund that's at a low expense? I think having any kind of investment where you're controlling expenses makes total sense. The bigger decision is, what role does this money play in your trajectory to retire within three or five years?
Simply lowering costs is a good step in helping your financial trajectory. But now is the time, especially if you're going to sell these short term funds to really step back, slow down a little bit and build a retirement plan of record to determine how to allocate not just the proceeds from the sale of these short term funds, but also to how to allocate all of your assets as well as the cashflow that you have between now and retirement in terms of savings and really have a tight retirement plan of record that is feasible and that you're working on building resiliency in so you can glide into retirement with a lot more confidence.
Simply going from a short term high cost fund to a total market low cost fund, yeah, that controls costs, but it doesn't address, is that the right place for that money given the trajectory that you're on and you're in a sweet spot right now, Ronnie, to build that retirement plan of record, and start to pivot from an accumulation mindset of just grow, grow, grow to the decumulation season of life that you're about to enter. So, in addition to maybe lowering costs because you're not using an advisor and lowering costs from the mutual fund, now's the time to start to pivot your thinking and create a retirement plan of record.
Now to your second question, are there other issues I should consider in going through this process? When you're transferring from funds from one investment company to another investment company, and we'll assume these are mutual funds or stocks or bonds, there is a protocol that everybody has agreed to in the industry, which is called the ACAT system, and it's a pull system, meaning that the new firm that you're going to, you fill out your account paperwork there. Then you fill out a transfer form at the new firm, usually you have to give them the account statement, and then they will submit the transfer paperwork to pull the assets, all of the individual positions that you have in funds and stocks and bonds and whatever, plus whatever cash, pull it to the new account.
Both firms will do this behind the scenes, and they have a protocol on the timeline that they have to do it, pinging back and forth, so it'll all happen electronically, and it will pull all the positions. It will also pull all the cost basis, not just the initial time to say you bought the mutual fund, but any subsequent purchases, whether they were reinvestments of dividends and capital gains, etc.
So that's the process. In that process, you might have a random dividend or some other thing that might hit the old firm. There is also a process within this protocol that once all the assets are transferred, if there's any residual balances at the old investment account, there's usually a 60- or 90-day process where the new firm will ping just to pull over that residual part. So that should work pretty smoothly.
Where you can have a hiccup or two is that there may be some individual positions within your current account or accounts that might not transfer over. 90 plus percent of all assets, especially 100 percent of all stocks and bonds typically will just move over, but there could be some proprietary funds in the old account, especially, usually these will be used by advisors more than individuals, that the advisor might have put you in, or you might have agreed to go in, that don't transfer over.
If that's the case, what will happen in this transfer process is those positions will just stay there, and then you'll either have to keep them there or sell them or move them to someplace that will accept them. So that can be one of the wrinkles in this process.
In theory, you should never have to talk to your advisor again. You could literally just transfer the assets and he'll find out, or she will find out when the ACAT forms hit, that is done. It's happened to me; it's happened to others. I would suggest not doing that unless you have a toxic relationship with an advisor. I think it's worth a conversation just to let them know what's happening, because they could actually be your ally in this if they're adults.
Now, that's a big qualification, if they're adults, some people have a very scarcity focused mindset and they may battle for your account, they may whine, you don't have to put up with that. But, if they're adults, they may actually be an ally in this process. Now, what are some other things that you can consider?
One is, make sure that things will transfer. I would suggest, while you have these old accounts or access to the online portal or however you access the accounts online, that I would download this year's statements and last year's year end statement and just put those as electronic files in your computer because once you close these accounts out, you're not going to have access to that portal, which means you'll have to call the investment firm and have somebody administratively maybe get you some of these documents. So, you might as well get them now just in case you need them.
I would make sure all your address and phone numbers are up to date because at the end of the year, when they're doing their tax forms, like 1099s, et cetera, you want to make sure that those go to the right place, so you don't have to call and deal with a person. If you have done planning with the advisor, I would ask them for a copy. Of any of the most recent planning documents, whether it's a actual retirement plan, a full blown plan, or perhaps an allocation plan that they put together, I would ask them for the most up to date framework from a planning perspective so you have that. You can at least understand why things were built the way they were as you develop your process, your retirement plan of record, you can at least understand why things are the way they are so you can start to pivot to create your own plan.
A mature advisor will do this. I consider myself a mature advisor most of the time, but the example I was referring to previously, once we agree that, yes, we are no longer going to do business together and walk life together, we set targets to update all of our planning documents and make sure that we help shepherd the transition from accounts.
In this case, they were at Schwab, so we're just taking ourselves off of Schwab. We updated the allocation study. We updated the cash flow plan and gave that to them and let them know that, hey, if you have any random questions, just give us a call. We'll help you just as if you were a client.
That is, I think, a mature way of doing this, but you'll have to gauge who you're engaged with. So, I wish you the best of luck, Ronnie, and hopefully that answers your question.
CLARIFYING THE 401K CATCH-UP PROVISION FOR HIGH INCOME EARNERS
Our next question comes from Sherry related to the catch-up contributions in a 401k. And some of the changes and rules related to what tax category those 401k contributions can go into.
Sherry: Hi Roger, this is Sherry in Southwest Missouri. I have been listening for a few years and love the added Bring It On segment to help me balance financial and non-financial.
Today I have an educational Roth question. My employer added a Roth option to our Safe Harbor plan, and I believe I must contribute my catch-up contribution next year to Roth due to the Secure 2. 0 Act and my income above 145, 000. Is this true and would this be based off of modified adjust gross or just gross?
Second, can you explain how a co-mingled account works with pre-taxed and post taxed money regarding interest? What happens when rolling over money after I retire?
Thanks for everything you do Roger.
Roger: Well, great question Sherry So let's take this in pieces first.
Let's talk about the 401k catch up provision. So, for those of you that are catching up, this provision states that if you are 50 and over and you participate in a 401k, you're allowed to put more into a 401k plan in order to, well, catch up your savings. So, for 2023, the contribution for an elective 401k or 403b is 22, 500, but if you're over age 50, you can do an extra 7, 500. So that's this catch-up provision that Sherry's referring to.
The Secure 2. 0 Act that the government passed had a provision that said if you make over a certain amount of money, in this case 145, 000, that that catch up contribution that you make has to go into a Roth bucket. So rather than be pretax, it would be taxable in the year that you made the contribution. and would go into the Roth category of 401ks. There's been a lot of confusion about this rule of when it's going to take effect.
Well, luckily, recently, notice 2023-62 clarified these rules related to the catch-up provision and whether it has to go into a Roth category or not and when that had to take effect.
So, Sherry, we have a delay in the implementation of this provision of the Secure 2.0 Act until 2026. So that means when you make a catch-up contribution, it will go into the pretax bucket as it always has. Now, during this window, if your company chooses to, they can still allow you to make it as a Roth contribution just like you could before, but it's not going to be a requirement under Secure 2.0 Act as it currently sets until 2026.
Now to your second question, which is this co-mingling of pretax contributions, monies that you've contributed to your 401k, and didn't pay tax on it, and that would also include perhaps company matches, which generally comes in in a pretax fashion, and money that is contributed after tax in the form of, say, a Roth provision within your 401k.
In many cases, most cases, even in my own plan, when you log into your 401k account, it's going to show you just the overall balance of your investments, pretax, tax free, etc. Not really delineating the tax treatment of it, and when you select an asset allocation or your investment choices, almost all of the time you're choosing one investment allocation for all of the funds, regardless of what tax bucket you're in.
So, your question is, well, when I roll over this money to an IRA, assuming you do that when you retire, well, how does that work?
Well, the way it would work, Sherry, is when you're going to take a distribution from your 401k, the plan, the 401k plan provider, is keeping track of what monies are in what tax bucket, pretax in this case, or Roth in this case. So even though you may not see it in there, they are doing that accounting in the background, and when you choose to roll over money to say an I R A and you have a mix of after-tax Roth type assets and pre-tax assets, what you're going to need to do is actually set up a traditional IRA and a Roth IRA and it will execute two different distributions or direct rollovers. The pre-tax money will go into your traditional IRA and the Roth category of your 401k would go into the Roth IRA. So that accounting would happen when you did your rollover once you retired.
This is one reason, especially if you're under 59 and a half, that it is a good idea, even if you can't contribute in a traditional way to a Roth IRA, that you want to have a Roth IRA opened up and at least convert a dollar or two into that Roth IRA, which will begin that five year clock for the five year rule, because if you have never had a Roth account, and then you open up a brand new Roth account and roll over that Roth portion of your 401k, you'll reset the clock when it comes to the five year rule, and we did a whole month long series on that if you want to go deep dive into that.
This is a good idea. I actually have to do this for myself. I think I mentioned that a week or two ago, have I been contributing to Roth 401k? I forgot to open up a Roth IRA. It's easy to forget, right? I'm like a cobbler with no shoes.
So, it's good to at least have a Roth IRA opened up with a dollar in it so you can build that five-year clock.
Sherry, I hope that helps you on your journey.
CLARIFYING THE FIVE-YEAR RULE WITH EACH CONVERSION
Our next question is another Roth question, and when we talk about things that tend to spur more questions, we'll get through some of these since we just recently covered Roth more in depth.
This comes from Denise.
She says,
"I'm a big fan of your podcast, member of the Rock Retirement Club. I have played the series on Roth multiple times while driving to make sure I remember everything you said.
One of my concerns was the five-year rule as I didn't know before that I could open a Roth account, although our income is above the Roth contribution limit. Once I learned that I could open an account, I just put a dollar into it as a conversion, and now I've started the clock."
Denise wants to know if I could clarify the five-year rule as it applies with each conversion.
So, a Roth conversion, you can refer back to last month's episode on that.
"What happens when I do a Roth conversion and how does that interact with the five-year rule?"
So, you're right, Denise, and your deeper question is each Roth conversion has its own five year rule that you'll follow, assuming that you're going to be taking money out in some way, unless you've hit the golden rule, which is a qualified withdrawal.
To hit the golden rule, you have to have at least one dollar in a Roth IRA for over five years and be over 59 and a half.
If you've hit both of these rules when you're looking at taking money out, you don't have to worry about the individual five-year rules for Roth conversions. In going through the series last month, as well as creating a massive mind map around the five-year rules that we use internally, we were going to build a resource out of this, Denise, and at the end of the day, we realized that rarely will anybody ever have to encounter this unless they're considering doing strategic Roth withdrawals early in retirement and have done conversions.
So, unless that fits you, which is a very, very, very small percentage of people, you don't have to worry about most of this stuff. Focus on at least having a dollar in a Roth IRA, and if your withdrawals are going to be over 59 and a half, and you've had it in the dollar in there for at least five years, you don't have to worry about any of this stuff.
If you are doing multiple withdrawals and you're going to take out money, either before the individual five-year rule or before 59 and a half, then you can start to dive deeper into this stuff. But that's going to be a very small set of people.
So, Denise, as long as you hit that golden rule, then you shouldn't have to worry about it.
CAPITOL GAIN STRATEGIES FOR DOWNSIZING YOUR PRIMARY RESIDENCE
Our next question comes from Jeff related to downsizing a primary residence and the capital gains tax that could be applied to the primary residence.
Jeff says,
"My wife. and I bought our house in 1998. We plan to retire in three to four years. I'm 59, my wife is 57. When we retire, we are going to downsize to a single living ranch style house.
We bought the house for 230, 000. Now our neighborhood homes are selling for 750, 000, and we have more than a 500, 000 gain, or value in the house, and we will be required to pay capital gains tax on the amount over that 500, 000 limit. If so, what are the strategies to reduce or eliminate that capital gains tax?"
That's a good question, Jeff. Let's think through this.
First off, in your situation, let's put this in perspective. You're only going to have a taxable gain of 20, 000 that's subject to long term capital gains rates, which could be at 20%. But depending on your income, when you decide to do this downsizing, it could be taxed as low as zero because the capital gains tax rate is tied to your taxable income.
So potentially you could have zero capital gains tax depending on what your income looks like in the year that you do this.
Another thing that you want to make sure that you consider, and it can be very easy, Jeff, when you've owned a house as long as you have to not do this, but you can add improvements, expenses for improvements to the cost basis of your home.
So as an example, for us, we have a house and when we moved in initially, we put in a pool. The pool cost us 60, 000, probably less than that, 50, 000. Well, that 50, 000 expense is added to my cost basis when it comes to calculating the capital gains tax. In addition, if you replace windows or you do some other things, and I don't know the exact rules off the top of my head, but a lot of those capital improvements can be added to the cost basis of the house, which could potentially bring you down below that ceiling of 500, 000 as a tax-free event.
Now you could potentially do installment sales and do some things like that, but that can maybe overcomplicate it and add a little bit of risk to it. During the year that you do this downsizing, assume you're going to have long term capital gains you could also actively try to harvest losses whether that's in mutual funds or other investments to try to offset some of that gain.
I think if you start to and you already are it sounds like which is great start to do some tax planning now, and perhaps this is something that influences how you draw money from your investments after retirement to either try to keep your income low so you can get the 0 percent capital gains tax treatment because your income is low enough. This is the time to start to do some of that planning. You might be a little early, but the fact that you're thinking about it, you can start to strategize a little bit.
When you're doing that though, Jeff, I want to suggest that you quantify the potential savings that you're looking at in doing any type of tax strategy, whether it's trying to keep your income low or doing tax loss harvesting. In this case, you're looking at long-term capital gains on essentially 20, 000. If you have some expenses that you can add to your cost basis, you could do away with that.
We have to remember how much meat is on the steak. Is it worth all the effort? There's a better phrase for that, but make sure it's worth all your effort because it's very easy if we lose that perspective to start to do more complicated things that don't really have that big of an impact on our overall financial plan.
WILL CLAIMING A PERSONAL SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFIT EARLY AFFECT A SPOUSAL BENEFIT?
All right, our next question is an audio question, and this is related to spousal Social Security from Mark.
Mark: Hi, Roger.
This is Mark, a listener for the past two and a half years.
Thank you for the wonderful work you do for your listeners on rocking retirement. My question is on Social Security spousal benefits, a topic I know you have addressed several times in the past.
I retired last May. My wife and I are both 63 years old and my wife's social security benefits are about one quarter the value of mine as she was a full-time mother and now grandmother being her primary occupation. My wife began drawing her benefits six months ago and I will begin drawing mine at age 65.
With her drawing the benefit at age 62 and a half, we understand that she has, in effect, deemed her spousal benefit when I begin to receive mine. Our question is whether her spousal benefit will be calculated at the age of 62 and a half, or about 34 percent of my full retirement age benefit, or whether it will be upon her age of 65 when she begins receiving the spousal benefit, or about 42 percent of my full retirement age benefit.
In speaking with the IRS, the agent said her spousal benefit will be calculated at age 65 and that claiming her personal benefit earlier will not impact the amount of her spousal benefit. I recognize an agent opinion is not binding and the IRS documents we have received are not easily understandable.
We are hoping for your understanding of this can help us settle the question. Thank you very much.
Roger: Great question, Mark, and very well-articulated, I want to let you know. So, let's talk about Social Security spousal benefits. When one spouse has a higher record than the others, and which I want to actually go through your situation specifically.
When your spouse claims her benefit at 62 and a half, that's going to be the reduced benefit that she would receive based on her record, and that number will actually never change. It is locked in there. You'll just have the inflation adjustment as it always would. When you file for your social security at age 65, you said, then what will happen is she'll file as well and she will receive her benefit, plus the spousal benefit. that is calculated at the time you file since you're the higher earner at this point or the higher benefit at this point. She'll receive actually two benefits, but you don't really see it that way. She'll receive her reduced benefit and then she'll receive the spousal benefit portion on top of that calculated based on when you file.
In this case it's going to be 65. So, the spousal benefit will be reduced as well as her benefit will be reduced and together, that's going to be her benefit in addition to the one that you get. So, her spousal benefit will be calculated when you file, not when she files and together, they're not going to equal 50 percent of yours because she claimed hers earlier.
Then ultimately, assuming that you pass away first, she will step into whatever is the highest benefit, and that would be your benefit. So hopefully that made sense, but the short answer is her spousal benefits calculated when you file, not when she files.
So that's it for questions today. If you have a question that you want us to answer, you can go to askroger.me and we'll do our best to help you take a baby step in your journey to rock retirement.
But for now, let's move to our Bring It On segment and talk with Mark about how to build that social network and make friends in Retirement.
BRING IT ON WITH MARK ROSS
Now it's time to turn our attention to the non-financial domain of our journey to rocking retirement, specifically relationships, and today, Mark Ross, retirement coach, and I are going to talk about how you actually meet people.
Mark Ross: Big topic for many of us, unless you're really super extroverted. So, all you folks out there who are just naturally that way, congratulations, but many of us just aren't.
This idea of moving into retirement and in today's world, it's a little interesting that we have, especially since the COVID era, so many virtual arrangements for work and relationships. But even so, in the in person, of course, around the water cooler kind of thing, that's such an important part, and we all know that, but it's one thing to know it, one thing to experience it.
When we move away from our work that we've done for a long time, we move into the season of retirement, it takes a lot of effort to meet new people, make relationships, meaningful relationships. That's what I'd like to talk about today a little bit more.
Roger: It is really hard. I mean, I feel like I have a ton of relationships, but they're all virtual.
All the meetups we do in the Rock Retirement Club. I feel like I have a lot of great relationships there, but I rarely am in the same room with them, all of my clients the same way. You and I, who are really good friends, see each other rarely, a couple times a year maybe.
I don't interact, I don't play in traffic enough to meet people, and then when you do, they're either not interested, or they're busy, or they're not the right person, or you're not the right person.
It can be a mess, it's scary.
Mark Ross: I remember conversations over the last few years, Roger, where you've admitted that, I know a lot of people and I have some really close friends, virtually. We see each other on occasion like you and I do, but what about locally, right?
I'm that way too. In my former work life, I went to a place of work every day where there were people, and I worked there for a long time, so I had a work family, and when I moved away from that, I knew that I would need new relationships, so I started building a bridge with different communities that interested me that I could move into in this new space, but it takes a lot of work to do that.
Most of my close relationships now still are virtual, even though I've met many of these people. Maybe you're like this. I've known people for 8 years now that I've never ever met in person. Isn't that something? I mean, one day I want to.
What do I do about local relationships? So, I have a church, I know people there, I've known them for a long time, but there's some other things that I'm doing to experiment with meeting new people, because I'm really into that.
Roger: So, what do you do, I mean, if you're gregarious, some people just have a knack for it, right? They come in and they're just able to have a conversation. How do you approach that in a way that's comfortable for you? I imagine that I have to be at a place where I'm going to bump into people and even have the opportunity, right? That's number one.
Number two, I have to somehow initiate conversation at a surface level.
Number three, I have to tease out whether that someone is, hey, maybe they might be interesting to me. And then how do you make the transition to interacting again with that person, and how do you extract yourself when you realize they're not the right person?
It's just a mess.
Mark Ross: We have a friend in common, and I won't name names, but he says there are certain relationships where I can take it for three days. I could be with that person. It'd be awesome. Then I have some that I could be with for three hours. There's some, if I make it three minutes, that's doing good. So, you're right, because sometimes it's just not the right fit.
For the local staff, if there's an area of interest, a club, a hobby, an organization, a cause where you just want to go and participate. That's one level of entry into that arena of meeting new people. Probably a more productive way to do it is to experiment with some short stints for volunteerism for an area that you believe in a cause.
I know in Houston they have the Houston Rodeo, that's not really a cause, but it's gigantic and there are people who have volunteered for years, and that's a whole big family, hundreds of people that they know, some of them personally. Then there's some where I haven't experimented with this yet, but I know that I mentioned before I'm into skateboarding and part of me says, go online, see if there's any local skateboard clubs for long boards, not short boards, but long boards because of short boards get kind of radical.
I'm afraid if I do that. See, here's the fear. I'm afraid if I do that, I might find one and then I know this great place where I ride. But if I tell him about it, everybody will start showing up there and they may kick us out. It's the perfect place. I don't know. It's kind of an aside, but that's one way to do it.
Another thing I've done is started an encore career where it forces me to meet new people because I'm really that way, I would rather be forced into something and invited into something rather than me just initiating it.
That's just my personality because I would say I'm a borderline introvert extrovert.
Roger: Okay. Okay. I do think this is the value of sports. The value of book clubs or Bible studies or volunteering is that you're going there to do something or participate, and the interaction just happens naturally so you can observe everybody around you and it's an organic way of bumping into people, right?
You can still get value if you end up not bumping into anybody because you're reading the book or doing the volunteering. I think softball is back to when I used to play softball, right? You just naturally meet people you don't know, right? On your team and other teams. It's just taking the effort to get out there and do something.
That's so hard.
Mark Ross: It's also, if you think about, depending on the kind of work that you've doing or that you've done, it's like, how did you make connections then? How did you network then? How did you meet new people then? You had to go to breakfast conferences, places where people met for a common purpose, and this is really not a whole lot different than that, except it's your choice now.
Roger: Yeah, I think extended education at universities, just taking a course.
Mark Ross: Big time.
Roger: Everything you're going to have a common interest that binds you in some way to everybody else there.
Mark Ross: I remember hitting kind of a flat spot where I was a little bit bored with what I was doing, and my boss at that time invited me to participate in a executive MBA program with him locally.
I thought, oh, that sounds like a lot of work, but it was one of the best things I ever did because it exposed me to a whole new world of people that I never would have met to this day. That was 10, 12 years ago, and I still remember some of those folks and I still stay in touch with a couple of them because it was through a common area of interest that we met.
It was a hybrid of meeting online, but then we'd meet in person too on Saturdays and I go, wow, again, it's a structured way of meeting people.
Roger: So, the question is, what's the one thing you're going to do today to try to play in traffic, as they say, so you can start to build community?
Mark Ross: Yeah. Are you asking me or you asking us?
Roger: No, I think that's the call to action.
True. Take one little step and it leads to the next and the next and the next.
TODAY'S SMART SPRINT SEGMENT
On your marks, get set.
and we're off to take a baby step we can take in the next seven days to not just rock retirement, but rock life.
Okay, in the next seven days, let's take stock in our social network, our social capital, as a social scientist would say, and our social capital, you know, I refer to it in the money sense of social security and things like that, but it's traditional meaning is your network of people that you know, and obviously your spouse and your family are included in there, your friends, but also your neighborhood, your community.
Take some stock in your social network and maybe identify where you could be a little bit more proactive in refreshing that network and keeping it vibrant.
CONCLUSION
As always, it's great to hang out with you every week on the show. This show is dedicated to focusing on your journey and helping you take baby steps, and we want to try to do that as honestly and with as much humility as we can focused on you taking action.
We don't talk about products for money. We don't act like we know it all.
We're working on this. I use this in my practice to sharpen my saw in what I do and working with clients and teaching in the club. We want to keep this focused on you because I do believe that you can rock retirement regardless of what's happened in the past and what you're dealing with now. It's all about identifying where you have power and grabbing that agency to figure out the pathway that's right for you.
We're all in on helping you do that. So, let's go.
The opinions voiced in this podcast are for general information only, and not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance references are historical and do not guarantee future results. All indices are unmanaged and cannot be invested in directly. Make sure you consult your legal tax or financial advisor before making any decisions.