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Episode #508 - Wisdom For Our Children: Career and Retirement

Martin Luther King Jr.: "What I'm saying to you this morning, my friends. Even if it falls your lot to be a street sweeper. Go on out and sweep streets like Michelangelo painted his pictures. Sweep streets like Handel and Beethoven composed music. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and Earth will have to pause and say, here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well."

Roger: Welcome to the Retirement Answer Man show, Roger Whitney here. This is the show dedicated to helping you not just survive retirement but have the confidence because you're being the best dang, whatever you are and you're going to lean in rock retirement. 

I was a little self-conscious about starting an episode with Martin Luther King. He was such an incredible man and communicator and leader, but today's segment on our theme of wisdom from our children, or for our children, is on career and retirement. 

Two things that are going to take up the majority of our life, and when I think of wisdom, this speech comes to mind, this was given at New Covenant Baptist Church, Chicago, Illinois, April 9th, 1967. I was like four months old. Such an amazing man and leader. Today we're going to share wisdom to our younger self or to our children about career and advice so they can be the best dang whatever they're supposed to be and walk that journey. In addition to that, we're going to answer your retirement questions on charitable giving, using CDs for retirement investing, how do you merge finances when you are getting married later in life, and a few more, so why wait? Let's get started here. 

Oh, we have one reason to wait. I wanted to remind you to go to livewithroger.com or click the link in our 6-Shot Saturday email because on October 26th and then another one on the 28th, that's a Thursday and Saturday, I'm going to host a live session online where we're going to walk through the four pillars that I believe you should have in place To have a great retirement plan and then in addition to that I'm going to invite you to consider joining the rock retirement club where we give you all the tools and the training to put those pillars into place so you can do that at livewithroger.com

Now, let's get on to your questions.

LISTENER QUESTIONS

Before we get to the installment on career and retirement advice, let's get to your questions on retirement. If you have a question for the show, you can go to askroger.me. You can type in a question, leave an audio question, and we'll do our best to help you on the show take a baby step towards rocking retirement.

CAN YOU TRANSFER APPRECIATED ASSETS IN KIND TO A CHARITABLE GIVING TRUST?

Our first question comes from Joe related to charitable giving. 

Joe, thank you so much. You shared two or three paragraphs about your financial life. You use Roger isms with your wife, which is so cool for me, and I don't know about for her, but thank you for the affirmations on what we're doing here. It fuels me. It fuels the whole team. So, thank you so much for that. Now, let's get to your question. 

You say, 

"My question today concerns tax efficiency of funding a charitable giving trust. My wife and I established a charitable giving trust at a major brokerage house. How should we fund it? What are the tax consequences?

I recognize that you are not a tax or legal expert and will dig deeper on my own."

Thank you for the disclaimer because I am definitely not a tax or legal advisor, and then you have some sub questions here, and why don't we just answer the sub questions first and then we'll frame this. 

First question is, can we transfer appreciated assets, in kind, from my pretax retirement plans?

So that would be a 401k or an IRA, assets that you've never paid any taxes on. Can you transfer those in kind to a charitable giving trust? Because it's during your lifetime, the way that this would end up being accomplished, Joe, is you would take a distribution from your pretax assets. It doesn't really matter whether they're appreciated or not, because none of the assets have been taxed in any way.

You would take a distribution from your IRA or your 401k, so that would be taxable income for that year, and then you could give that money or asset to the charitable giving trust. and then receive a charitable deduction in that year. It's not going to offset one by one though. So, you could do that, but you're not going to get any benefit of having some appreciated assets because every dollar that comes out of the retirement plan from a pretax plan is going to be taxable.

Then you ask, can we sell pretax assets within a pretax account and then transfer the funds to the charitable giving trust? 

Yes, you can, but it would still follow through as a distribution from your IRA and then a gift, and that's the key part here because that makes it taxable income to you. 

Your next question is, or should we give after tax funds from our after-tax brokerage account or savings account, or should we go the pretax route?

My first thought here, Joe, Captain Joe, retired, is that it might have had the cart before the horse in terms of setting up a charitable giving trust. If the objective is to be, have charitable intent and give to organizations that you care about, that's the objective.

Next, you want to set the strategy, and there are many different strategies to accomplish the intent of giving to organizations you care about, and then you get to the tactics. Is it a charitable giving trust or is it some other vehicle? The fact that you established a charitable giving trust at a brokerage firm prior to having answers to the questions that you pose makes me feel like we put the cart before the horse a little bit.

So what are ways that you can accomplish your charitable intent? I'm not going to go through an exhaustive list, but here are some that come to mind. 

One is there are donor advised funds, which are very simple to set up where you can give any assets to a donor advised fund and then have it distribute out funds to charities each year and typically you would fund those with highly appreciated after tax assets. So, you bought Apple in a brokerage account, let's say 20 years ago, and you put in a hundred dollars and now it's worth half a million dollars. So, you have this huge capital gain in your brokerage account. If you gifted the 500, 000 dollars’ worth of Apple, you won't have to pay tax on the capital gains. So, giving after tax highly appreciated assets is usually something that is a good source from a tax efficiency standpoint when you're funding, whether it's charitable giving trust or a donor advised fund, which is essentially a simplified version, a mass version where you don't have to go through all the legal paperwork. So definitely after tax highly appreciated assets are things to look at from a tax efficiency standpoint. 

Another option is once you get to age 70 and a half, you can do what are called qualified charitable distributions. This is a special rule within the code that says when you reach 70 and a half, if you give up to 100, 000 currently gets indexed per year and it goes directly from the IRA or pretax account directly to a qualified charity, that will satisfy your required minimum distributions and you'll have no tax on that transaction.

So that allows you to give to charity up to 100, 000 without having to take a distribution from your IRA and realize taxable income and it will offset your required minimum distributions for that particular year. That is a way of satisfying your charitable intent without having to set up trust and figure out how to fund it, etc.

Some more advanced planning is doing charitable remainder trusts, which allow you or your heirs in this case, to receive income for the life of, let's say the heirs or yourself. And then when they pass, the remainder goes to charity. We're actually working on a case right now where we're having someone set up a charitable trust that is the beneficiary of an IRA in a remainder trust, and then the children receive income during their life, and then ultimately it goes to charity. That's a more complex plan that maybe we can get into the future.

To answer your specific questions, Joe, it's always best to contribute after-tax assets and highly appreciated assets to a trust because you're going to get the tax benefit from that contribution and not have to pay those capital gains.

The low hanging fruit when you're dealing with pretax assets, IRA assets, is to do qualified charitable distributions and currently you can do that at age 70 and a half up to 100, 000 a year. This is definitely a deeper topic, but I would try to think in an organized fashion of what is the most efficient asset to take before establishing any particular vehicle, because there's a lot of cost and friction in doing that.

HOW CDS WORK AND WHEN TO USE THEM?

Our next question comes from Daniel. 

"Hoorah! Roger, I was wondering if you think making a CD is a good way of investing for the future and for retirement?"

So based on your question, Daniel, is a good way of investing for the future and for retirement, I'm going to assume that you are a number of years from the future and from retirement. It's more of an accumulation mindset. Let's set the stage here to address this question on CDs. 

A CD is going to act very much like a bond, treasury bond, a corporate bond, in that it's going to have a stated maturity of their promise of when they're going to give you your money back. If you put in 100, 000, that maturity date, they're saying, we will give you your 100, 000 back, Daniel.

Then secondly, they're going to have interest that they're going to pay you. prior to that maturity date. That's their way of rewarding you for essentially letting them use your money. They're borrowing your money to go do whatever banks do. And in the case of a CD, you have protection, FDIC up to the limits.

So, it's very focused on getting the return of your money and earning some interest along the way. So that's one extreme, a very safe investment in the short term because you have clarity of when you're going to get your money back and you know exactly what interest rate, they promise to pay you. But there's the long term, the risk, so that's the benefit in the short term, the long term, the risk with a CD or a bond is that they are not very good hedges against inflation.

They're great for certainty on the short end, but they're very poor at growing at more than interest rates to keep the purchasing power of the dollar that you're investing. So that 100, 000 today, for example, 10, 20 years from now isn't going to buy you the same goods, right? Because the cost of coffee and cars and everything else go up.

So, with a CD, as an example, it's good for shorter-term needs where you need certainty that you're going to get your money back. You don't want to lose the money, but as you get farther out on the time horizon spectrum, there can actually be a big risk there in that it's not going to grow near as much to help you fund your retirement.

Now let's go to the opposite extreme, Daniel, of let's say you buy something that mimics the S&P 500 index, so it's all stocks. The situation is reversed. On the short term there's a lot of risk, right? We know that stocks go up, they go down, they can go down, down, down and you don't have any certainty of what it's going to be valued at today, tomorrow, or really anytime. On the short term, that can be really scary, especially if you need the money. But on the long term, meaning 10 plus years, stocks become a lot less risky in terms of their volatility and the odds are skewed in your favor to get returns typically much higher than a bond or a CD. They are a much better inflation hedge.

I heard the professor Jeremy Siegel say stocks for the long term, which Stocks for the Long Run is his book, I've heard him say in a speech that stocks are the perfect inflation hedge given enough time. So, for you, Daniel, when you're thinking, is this good for me? It's a question of what is the purpose of the money?

If the purpose of the money is, hey, this is shorter term money that I think I'm going to need in the next five years or so, either because I'm going to retire, or I need to buy something. You're going to lean much more towards the CD category. If it's monies that you are saving for an unknown future, let's say like my son, who is saving for retirement, then CDs likely are not a good investment, even though the rates are pretty attractive right now, because they're not a very good inflation hedge, and that's the biggest risk when you're in the accumulation phase.

That's one reason why asset allocation usually is more bond centric for shorter time periods and more equity centric for longer periods of time. So, a lot of it has to do with the time frame and what the purpose is. So, if you're young Daniel, I would say no, but as you, if you're getting, let's say you're in your fifties and you're getting closer, then maybe you start to build up some safe money in the form of CDs in this case, because your timeframes are starting to compress.

So hopefully that gives you at least some context to think through this. 

HOW TO MANAGE FINANCES WHEN MARRYING LATER IN LIFE?

So, our next question comes from Rina related to marriage later in life. 

Rita says, 

"Hey Roger. I am 50 years old and have been divorced for 14 years as a single mom. My children, all thanks to God's guiding, are all starting off successfully in their lives. I've had a fiancé for 10 years. We are both now empty nesters and each of us financially stable with similar beliefs on money planning and retirement. We're going to finally get married in October 2024. Our plan is to keep everything separated, but to join a specific amount of funds once a month for joint expenses, home, food, travel, etc. We will sell our individual homes and we both plan to work until we are 60. I've been searching for tips on this new path before our lives merge. We decided that our children, he has two, I have three, will inherit all of our savings after death based on what we each have grown separately and are planning to meet with an attorney to help with this.

Any advice on how to make the right decisions for us and our future as we join? Thank you, Rina."

Great question, Rina. Your question gives me an opportunity to let you know that in January for our retirement plan live case study we're going to focus on someone or a couple getting married later in life, very much a situation like yours.

So, when we come out with the flag that says hey Do you want to be a subject for this retirement plan live case study of someone getting married in life? So, we can think through these issues. I encourage you to sign up and you and I can have a chat to see if maybe you could be the subject, we’ll be doing that here in the next month or so. This will be a case study for January. 

I'm excited about that because that's a very common scenario that I've had to navigate in my practice with clients that are getting married later in life. I've seen it done a lot of different ways, Rina, so I can't unpack all of this here today, but the way that you're doing it is a good first step in bringing it together.

Keeping everything separate, establishing a joint account. and talking through how much each of you are going to contribute to that joint account to cover the entirety of the household expenses. I've had instances where it's 50 50, where it's 60 40, where it's 70 30, based on the wealth that's being brought and the spirit of everybody and where they're at in their journey in terms of bringing their lives together.

You're not making decisions that have to last forever here, so I think this is a great first place to start in terms of keeping all of your assets separated. As you progress in this matrimony and merging of your lives, there are going to be a lot of wrinkles that come up. Well, what happens if one of your kids, Rina, has the opportunity to go to grad school and they need assistance or what are you going to do when all of the kids come on vacation? You have three and he has two, but maybe only one of his come and all three of yours come. How do you reconcile a lot of these extraordinary things that come into play? It's just better to have open discussions and lots of little conversations where you don't have to figure it out, but you're being transparent with each other as you think about these things, right?

Another common consideration, Rina, is what happens if one spouse passes early? Generally, both spouses, they say if I pass early, I want to make sure there's enough money there for my spouse, my surviving spouse. Yes, they have their own funds, but if they need some of my funds to make sure they can be okay from a standard of living standpoint, I want that to happen. I also don't want to disinherit my kids. Those are general considerations that have to be talked about. And we're going to address a lot of that as we go through this case study. 

You have instances of kids getting disinherited or spouses being left without resources because someone predeceases. You can have misunderstandings around who's paying for what, especially when it comes to the children. There's a lot of wrinkles there. And luckily, you're getting married in October 2024, so we'll go through this case study, which will map along with a theme to think through all of this in an organized way, Rina.

I'm excited for you. It sounds like you've navigated this well to get the children launched so you two can have an empty nest hood together, and I'm excited to hear how that journey goes and perhaps we can chat during retirement plan live.

WHEN ARE HSAS NOT WORTH THE TRIPLE TAX ADVANTAGE?

Our next question comes from Jane related to HRAs and HSAs.

Jane: Hey Roger, thank you so much for offering your show. It's been a north star to me as I attempt to be the CFO for my family. 

My question to you is, when are healthcare savings accounts, or specifically HRAs, really not worth that triple tax advantage? If you look at the fact that they take fees at the front end, and then in my situation, they only offer proprietary funds in order to invest in. Is there really a financial advantage?

I would do the math on that, and I guess you could, but also, I am struggling with the paperwork involved in trying to prove that I deserve my money. And trying to prove that I've had financial expenditures. And it's not just the financial expenditure that I have to prove. I have to prove that the insurance company did what they were supposed to do. So, I'm really managing two companies in all of this and trying to get my reimbursement. 

So, with that, I just don't see me going through and jumping through these hoops when I'm 80. What do you think? I am struggling because obviously there's so much upside to an HSA/HRA, but I'm feeling the downside here.

Roger: Oh Jane, what a great question and yeah, the downside of paperwork. My wife and I often talk about this because we have plans to do the ACA, unrelated to HSA accounts, and just her navigating health insurance with the special medicine she has and everything else. It's like a full-time job. I can hear her downstairs just cussing up a storm at times when she's trying to get a hold of the insurance company.

I empathize. I can relate to what you're talking about. 

Second, just random observation. You're not attempting to be the CFO for your family. I would argue that you are being the CFO for your family. Truth be told, we're always just attempting and trying to be things. People that are CFOs have imposter syndrome. Retirement podcasters and retirement planners have imposter syndrome. We're not just trying. You're doing it and it's just messy. That's all. 

So, as we're talking about your question, we want to make sure we understand what you're dealing with here, Jane. So, let's talk about HRA verse HSAs.

Let's start with the HRA. That is a health reimbursement arrangement. That's a structure between an employee and employer. So, it's an employer plan. It's almost always funded by the employer, and then has employer specific limitations on what the funds can be spent on. It's all plan specific on whether and how much of the funds can be rolled over year by year. They typically are not portable, meaning that if you retire or you leave the employer, the money doesn't go with you because it's employer money.

There can be a lot of strings attached to this. So, let's address the HRA. So that money is likely going to disappear when you retire. If it's an HRA and its employer money, if you're paying front end fees and you have poor choices in terms of the fund options that's all annoying and not necessarily unusual with employer plans, but the good thing is this isn't money that you're contributing. This is a free benefit that they're just not being very diligent on controlling fees, at least in the way you described it. That's annoying, but again, it's not your money.

Since this is money that you are likely going to lose if you leave the employer. It's employer money that you either use it or lose it. One good way to extract that money is just to find some consistent health care expenses that you can use for reimbursement and avoid trying to get reimbursed for some of the more problematic things where you start to go down this paperwork trail.

So that would be one way to approach it. Perhaps they can only put enough in to cover those non-arguing types of expenses and talk to your colleagues at work about how they make this account work for them. Maybe you can find dental expenses or over-the-counter products that trigger less paperwork headaches or medical visit expenses where insurance was involved.

Now let's switch to whether it's an HSA or a health savings account. These accounts you're eligible to set up if you are using a high deductible insurance plan, and generally they'll say HSA eligible or compliant in the plan description. In this type of plan, the employer or the employee can fund the plan subject to the limitations of annual contributions, and it's not the employer that can dictate what kind of expenses are reimbursed and which ones aren't.

Those are dictated by the government, and that's actually a fairly liberal definition of what can be reimbursed from an HSA account. These can be funded by your money or the employer money.

The nice thing about an HSA account is that all of these unspent funds can roll over year after year, and when you retire or when you leave employers, that HSA account is your health savings account. It's not actually attached to the employer like an HRA account. So just like an IRA, you can have an HSA. I have mine at Fidelity, but you can have it at Charles Schwab. You could have it at various places. It's not attached to the employer, and you get the tax deduction going in. That money will grow tax free. If you take it out for qualified medical expenses, as determined by the government, not your company, that will come out as tax free. 

The HSA has a lot of advantages in that currently there's no limitation on the time of when you can submit a reimbursement, meaning that if you have a medical event in 2023, you keep the paperwork and you pay cash for it, you could get reimbursed for that 10 years from now. Meaning you could allow that money to grow and the bar for getting reimbursed is much more of a self-reporting than going through the administrative hassle of an HRA.

In terms of fees with an HSA, there are definitely HSA accounts that have higher fees than others. But the nice thing with an HSA, even if you have one that's related to the insurance company selected at your employer, it doesn't mean you cannot open up an HSA at a Fidelity or somewhere else and roll over the HSA funds at whatever health savings account you have to an outside HSA plan.

The HSA has portability, whereas the HRA is going to be much more specific, bespoke to the employer that you're working with. So hopefully that gives you some perspective to execute your CFO duties excellently for your family. With that, let's move on and talk about career and retirement wisdom.

WISDOM FOR OUR CHILDREN WITH NICHOLE MILLS

So, this installment of Wisdom for Your Children is going to be around career and retirement. What do we wish our younger self would have known or our children would have known, and to help me share some of that wisdom is rock star Nichole Mills. How are you, Nichole? 

Nichole: I'm so happy to be here. It's been a minute.

Roger: When was the last time you were on the show? 

Nichole: I think it was the end of summer 2020. 

Roger: Was that long ago? 

Nichole: It's been a while. 

Roger: Yeah. You're so busy. 

Nichole: Well, it got difficult. Bring It On, and then four different coaches and stuff. Logistics are hard, man. 

Roger: You manage it all, you know. But we got you on today, which makes me happy, and just so you know. Nichole had a birthday a week or so ago. 

Nichole: I did. I don't know when this one is going to air, so it could have been more than a week. 

Roger: About a week and a half ago. Yeah, it's a big birthday. What birthday was it? 20? You finally turned 20 or 30? 

Nichole: I turned double 20. I turned 40. 

Roger: Do you feel different?

Nichole: No, not really. We did have a party and it was so much fun. All my college friends came and one of the things that really has been sitting with me since then, as an adult, I feel like a lot of times when you're with your friends, it's purpose driven. Somebody is having a baby or getting a divorce or some kind of big life thing, and it was just so fun to just be silly and dance and have a good time with my friends.

Like, we need more of that. I need to be more conscientious about having just those silly times with them.

Roger: Then she already shared this with me, by the way, but the next day, she felt old because she was sore from all the dancing. 

Nichole: That's right. Jumping on concrete is maybe not so great. 

Roger: Well, I'm glad to be able to hang out with you.

What's funny is this is how our conversations are all actually we have more focused conversations when we do this, I think. 

Nichole: Staying on task. You mean? Yes, I think so. We don't get quite as many tangents. 

Roger: Yes. Okay. So, let's get on task today. We're talking about wisdom on career and retirement, and since I am the host, I'm going to start off with my wisdom, as much as I have anyway, and then we're going to share some that came from you, a lot of listeners and a lot of members of the Rock Retirement Club. If we don't share every single one, we get, it's because there was a lot because you guys are so wise. 

Nichole: Yes. Thank you so much, everyone. 

Roger: We will have a resource that Nichole found out about when I mentioned it on the podcast that we'll put together and curate all of it and put it together in a PDF that we'll send out in 6-Shot Saturday.

All right. 

Roger's Wisdom on Career. 

Nichole: Dun, dun, dun! 

Roger: Career is very interesting. Do what you say you're going to do. Right? That's a good first step. That's very basic. Right? Do what you say you're going to do. I like to think in five-year increments. You don't have to figure a life out all at once. There's too much over the horizon that you can't see.

Nichole: Can I interrupt and ask you a question? 

Roger: Always. 

Nichole: Okay. So, when you were 20 or 22, what was your planned career? 

Roger: Right out of college, my planned career was to go to China and be working international business. 

Nichole: So obviously we're not in China now. 

Roger: We are not, and what happened, what derailed that was I met a girl, and her name was Shauna, which last week was our 33rd anniversary.

Nichole: Congratulations. 

Roger: Thank you, and she had no interest in going to China, and so I didn't. Changed my life. Best thing that ever happened. That's why I got to Texas, too. You and I never would have met, but for that. 

Nichole: That would have been terrible for me. 

Roger: Another thing to thank Shauna for. Thank you, Shauna. 

So those five-year increments are important. My first job was as a negotiate real estate leases for Radio Shack and got bored with that. A buddy of mine was a stockbroker and like, okay, that sounds fun. I had no clue what I wanted to do. So, I did that and did pretty well at it, but then started to say, this isn't who I want to be. I don't want to be around all these people. This isn't what I was meant to do.

Then I started to do the CFP curriculum. I just meandered my way, always trying to figure out where I want to go next and trying to make decisions for Roger, three to five years from now. That's why I started my CFP. That's why I say think in five-year increments. 

You're always going to be asking the questions, what do I want to be when I grow up? That doesn't change if you're listening in your 70s. I'm guessing you have these questions. What do I want to be? Who do I want to be? That will never go away. You'll never be exonerated from that. 

Build career capital. This is a Cal Newport phrase. 

Nichole: I was going to say, what do you mean by career capital? 

Roger: So career capital, I'm paraphrasing from Cal Newport's work, which is, don't worry about pursuing a passion, have forward motion, and you build career capital by displaying competency, always doing what you say you're going to do, building your reputation as a team member, not so much as a worker, but as a team member, and you're going to build your network in your profession or in the world, and then you're going to build more competency through certifications.

The idea of is you're building this capital of being respected in your domain, or at least in the world of doing what you're going to say you're going to do. Always trying to learn, being a solution-oriented person.

When you're early in life, in your 20s, and even into your 30s, it’s all about just showing up and doing a kick butt job, even if it's not your perfect job. And over time you build this, what's called career capital and Cal Newport talks about this really well, that you can spend to get a job that you really want or to gain time freedom because you're so valuable, but you have to build that capital. It takes a long time to build that reputation and competency that you can use to spend, to give you something else that is more important to you. We all got to put in the work initially to build that reputation. So that's what that concept means. Does that make sense? 

Nichole: Yes. 

Roger: Yeah, and then you can become like me.

You can work with awesome people all over the country and serve clients all over the country and work out of your house. 

Nichole: The ultimate goal. Actually, not for everyone. I know a lot of people are going into the office still. 

Roger: You have a lot of career capital that you've built just in our relationship, right?

Nichole: I like to think so. Yeah. 

Roger: Yeah. Build boundaries around work and life. is another thing I would tell anybody that's younger. 

Kevin Liles and I were talking about this, of my generation was work, work, work, sacrifice your family, and have quote unquote quality time with your kids rather than quantity. I think your generation, Nichole, and younger, definitely better with boundaries to make sure that it's not all about work.

Nichole: I would agree with that. 

Roger: Yeah. Yeah, I think I'm better about boundaries with you than you are with you, many times. Everybody that works with us, I'm usually the one trying to say, hey, stop, go. Go do whatever you have to do. 

Now, the next one would be, and this is one who our friend Rajib, is a master at, and I've talked about this forever, I need to get Rajib on the show, he would be good, he was going to come to the Roundup and speak, but then he couldn't, because he had family obligations, is cultivate an authentic network, make friends, not networking, as in sort of the stereotypical, but cultivate a network as you interact with professionals and coworkers, and then move on to another job.

Nurture those and keep those. Don't let them fall away. I always was very poor about that. Rajib is a master at this. As a result, he has a lot of career capital and a very vibrant network of people that he's known for 20, 30 years in the professional world that he loves, that's authentic. So, he always can find a position and get presented opportunities because of those two things together.

So be a little intentional about that. 

People are more accessible than you think when you're younger and you look up at the people that you want to emulate or that your virtual mentors, they're usually pretty open to having a conversation with a random email. I get emailed a lot by younger advisors and I usually will have a conversation with them.

I'm mentoring someone right now through the FinServ network or FinServ foundation. Most people are accessible that you think might not be if you approach them in a kind spirit. 

Find a mentor, find a mentor, find a mentor, whether they're virtual and they don't even know you that you're their mentor or they're your mentor, and find a cohort of people that are focused on the same things.

Those are my last things. How was that? 

Nichole: I think that was really good. I was waiting to hear everything you had to say because I did have a question for you. What do you think about finding a career where you feel like your values are reflected in the career? If I remember my first job was at a research firm that was New York based, it was an investment research firm, and looking around at all these people climbing the ladder, they were putting in 12, 15-hour days. They were talking about how they had new babies, but they never saw the kids awake. They got home after the kid had gone to sleep, you know, that kind of very intense environment.

I knew at the time I was like, well, I have a family and I kind of want to see them during the day, so it felt like, oh, how am I going to move forward here? Like, is climbing the ladder in this environment really what I want? So I think probably finding a workplace where your values are compatible with the career values is pretty key.

Roger: I had maybe eight years where I was in an environment where they were not people that you want to be around.

They're not going to lead you down healthy behaviors as a human. Uh huh. So, I was thinking of values in that sense. I was too naive and interested in money at that time. Shauna hated that whole phase of my life. 

What you're talking about is actually talked about in one of Cal Newport's books, who I definitely think is the person to go to for career wisdom, which is what you just talked about. 

Don't say, I am passionate about this and go try to pursue that. Think five years forward. What do I want my life to look like? Career life balance, etc. If you want to have a family and you want to be home for the kids and have time, freedom, etc. It probably doesn't make sense to go to med school or law school.

He would argue, I think that what he does in the book So Good They Can't Ignore You that just figure out what the structure that you want your life to be and then find careers that match to give you that work backwards from there. Yeah. I think that's a much healthier way to do it and not something that I ever saw.

Nichole: No, they don't mention that when you're selecting college majors really.

Roger: No, no. You just sort of meander your way, which is how everybody does it. So, you're not alone in that, but I like that structure. So, I'm glad you brought that up. All right, should we go to retirement? 

Nichole: Yes. Let's talk about retirement.

Roger: I just answered a question the other day. Roger, you said you were never going to retire. What'd you mean by that? I answered that just last week, I think, on the show. 

I think my wisdom on retirement, and this comes from, I'm not retired. I have no plans to retire. Nichole's always worried about that. So, my view comes from walking this journey with lots of people, thousands of people, I guess now.

Advice is don't think about, and in general, don't think in binary terms, working retired, think in dimmer switch terms. There's lots of in between. Most people approach the concept of retirement, and this was the story of my mother and the story of a lot of our parents, I think for sure, we approach it as we're going to scale this mountain and sacrifice our life so we can enjoy life in retirement, or enjoy this later, or be more authentic to ourselves later. 

Don't think of it as an epic journey where you have to sacrifice your life right now. I would suggest that you look at it much more like a journey of discovery where you're getting as much of everything as you can. Does that make sense?

Am I explaining that well? 

Nichole: I think so. 

Roger: We all have to make sacrifices, but that's never going to go away. But don't sacrifice your life right now because you want to retire and think that that's when you can be happy. That's when you can read or pursue hobbies because it doesn't work that way. Tomorrow is not promised to anyone, and it's just not a healthy way to live in my judgment. 

Create a life you don't want to retire from. You may have to sacrifice early to build career capital. So, you can design a life where you're doing things that you enjoy, but you still have lots of time freedom.

Nichole. So, you have three boys.

Nichole: I do. 

Roger: The oldest is 11? 

Nichole: Yes. He'll be 12 in January. 

Roger: You work at a house. One of them is playing behind you somewhere. You can take them to school. Do you work? 

Nichole: Yes!

Roger: That's an important question. 

Nichole: We're working all the time. 

Roger: Good. Okay. We'll keep paying. We'll keep paying then. Do you work hard? 

Nichole: Yes. 

Roger: Do you have time freedom to go do things you want to do with Clay and the kids?

Nichole: Yes, I do. 

Roger: Could you ever imagine retiring from this? Please say no. 

Nichole: No. 

Roger: Okay. It can be done. It can be done. You can have the best of all worlds. 

The little secret for those of you that are younger is just because you leave work doesn't mean that you stop wanting to have projects and to strive to be a better person and to use your skills. That never goes away. Happy people have projects, and healthy people have projects. So, why do you think you're going to retire and suddenly just travel? 

It's never like the brochures. Retirement is definitely not a panacea it's made out to be most of the time. That's my wisdom, for now. Resources. Read, read, read, read, read, read, read.

A pivotal book for me career wise? Was Linchpin by Seth Godin, which basically makes the artist the argument to be an artist regardless of what you do. I don't get excited about meeting people. 

Nichole: I remember you being very excited.

Roger: I was very excited about meeting Seth. He was taller than I expected. That's the first thing I said to him, but that book talks about cultivating "I'm always an artist", which is just always working on your craft. That's why we started with an excerpt from Martin Luther King's speech talking about street sweeper being the best damn street sweeper you can be. That kind of mentality can serve you for life.

Next is all of Cal Newport's books. All of them. Amazing books. 7 Habits for Highly Effective People, 4 Hour Work Week, and our friend Nancy Jo recommends Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and David Evans. 

She said,

"Their wisdom and practical exercises helped me uncover the insights I needed to create balance and joy in my approach to this one life from a work perspective."

So, thanks, Nancy, for that. 

With that, let's share some of the wisdom that many of you and our seers share when it comes to thinking about career and retirement. 

Actually, before we start, I have one more. Roger, bonus wisdom. This is actually my best piece of advice to myself when I remind myself.

Nichole: Career or retirement or both?

Roger: Yes. 

You play by your own rules. Plenty of people to tell you what to do, the ten best ways to do this or that. All of that is BS. Nobody knows what they're doing. We're all just trying to figure it out as we go along. There is no "right way". There's only your way. You have to remind yourself of that, cause everything's pulling you to what should be done.

Forget that. Just do you. It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. 

Nichole: Amen. 

Roger: Word. Word to your mother. 

Nichole: Word to your mother. Okay. So now are we moving on? Are we ready? 

Roger: Unless I think of something else you can go. 

Nichole: Okay. Well, you can interrupt me at any time with words of wisdom. Okay, so we asked what younger people should know about retirement specifically and some of your amazing answers.

We had one from Mark who said, 

"It's not about money as much as it is positioning yourself for the freedom to choose how and where to invest your time."

Roger: Mark is definitely wise. That's Mark Ross. Retirement coach. So he knows what he's talking about. I like that one. Mark's always wise.

Nichole: Now Susan said,

"I am never going to retire is only a plan until you're disabled and unable to work so quit saying I’m never going to retire and plan for it."

Roger: That's a good one because it's easy to say that when you're young, I'm never going to retire, Roger says I’m never going to retire, right? Doesn't mean I don't plan to be financially independent as much as you can be Right?

You can't use it as a cop out. We both know, Susan, life does hit you in different ways. So, you have to still do the right things from a stewardship standpoint. Good advice, Susan, and I'm working on that financial independence because life does throw you curveballs. 

Nichole: Harvey says,

"Everyone has different goals for retirement. Be prepared to pivot if your reality changes."

I really like that. 

Roger: Why do you like that? 

Nichole: I think that my adulthood has taught me that you can have a plan, but the best laid plans can often have unexpected changes. I intended to live in Austin forever, and then my husband got offered that job. We moved to DFW and I met you. So, my whole life worked out completely differently than my plan up until that point. 

So, I like the pivot if reality changes and he says, 

"Prepare for long term care should your health falter. On the flip side be prepared for longevity should you be blessed with a long life."

Roger: Very good. Very good. We do walk with a lot of wise people. 

Nichole: Yes. I also really like this one from Jean. Jean is also very wise. 

She says, 

"Retirement is the continuation of the life that you have led up to that point. It is not a magic doorway you pass through where everything starts fresh.

If you've led an angry, stressful life, your retirement will be unpleasant. You may be that old person shouting at the clouds. If you've lived your life humbly, with gratitude, finding joy even in difficult circumstances, your retirement will be your life's reward."

Roger: That was wise. 

Nichole: You won't get like a new personality just because you've retired.

Roger: Yelling at clouds that just cracked me up. A lot of that is, I think intention is one of the worst words, the worst of the words intention, like I intend to spend more time on this hobby.

Or to save for retirement, or to get healthy, or whatever it is. It gives you 80 percent of the feel good because you're telling yourself you're going to do something, without ever actually doing it. It can actually rob you of your life, because you're always intending to be more grateful, or to not be so angry.

Well, do it. 

I intend to call my kids whenever I have that feeling, I just call them, or text them. Just do it. 

Nichole: Like Nike says. 

Roger: Yeah, trademark Nike. Better say that. 

Nichole: Okay, our next one is from Lisa. 

"Many people fear retirement because they don't have hobbies, interests, or relationships outside of their workplace.

The finances in retirement aren't the problem. They just can't imagine what they'll do once they retire. Invest time in your younger years, trying new things and meeting new people, so that you can zoom in on what excites you and brings joy, and allow for those interests and relationships to change as you move into new phases of life."

Roger: Very good, and this goes back to the boundaries of work that we talked about earlier, right? If you don't have boundaries, your entire social network and interest is your work. This is one thing I moan about all the time, talking about intentions. 

Nichole: Uh oh. 

Roger: Uh oh. I don't have any local friends. I don't have any hobbies.

When I close down at 4, I have a shut off complete at 4 p. m. Sometimes I'm just sort of meandering because I haven't cultivated it. It's hard to sit in that. 

Nichole: Hobby. You are a dog owner. You walk Sherlock. You ride your bike. I mean, some of your hobbies are solo hobbies. Maybe you need more friend hobbies.

Roger: Well, I did meet Josh, so that was good. 

But the point is, if you're beginning this journey of building those boundaries, you're going to have to sit, because I've experienced it, where I'm supposed to pursue my hobbies or people, but the boat hasn't really got moving forward yet, and it's uncomfortable, and you got to fight through that, I guess is the point I was trying to make.

Nichole: All right, the last one I have. Well, not the last one. We got so many. Everyone was very generous with their wisdom, but the last one we'll share today. 

Roger: Well, I have a few audio ones too. I didn't tell you. 

Nichole: Oh, you do. Okay. So, the last one I will read to you today is from Reba. It says everyone defines retirement differently.

"Technically I'm retired, yet I have a full-time teaching job that I love because I get to hopefully have some influence on the next generation of business leaders. Like your career where you have a plan, you need a plan for saving for retirement. Small steps started early can result in very large gains.

But ultimately, remember how you define retirement and what makes you happy can and probably will be very different for the next person."

Roger: Wonderful. Okay. Well, I just have two. I have two audios on retirement that I wanted to play. The first one is from Sue. 

Sue: My name is Sue. I have been retired for three years, and this is in response to the question, what would you tell your younger self?

I would tell my younger self about retirement, A, that it's fabulous. B, it is worth every cent you save to have a great life later on. C, I would tell my younger self to continue to enjoy the simple things in life. When you can enjoy the simple things in life, then the big things, travel, the new purchases, they're special.

When you live life every day, at a very high level. You always need greater and bigger and better to satiate that desire for, oh, this is exciting. When you live simply, big things do come along. You really appreciate it. 

I love my simple life and I love being retired. Thanks, Roger. 

Roger: Sue does not sound like she's yelling angrily at clouds.

Nichole: She is not. She's singing to her clouds. She's so happy. 

Roger: This is one reason, Nichole, why I don't outwardly appreciate you too often, because I want it to be special when I do. So just so you know that. 

Nichole: Thank you for that. 

Roger: Thank you, Sue. Okay, we got one more from Ken. 

Ken: Hey Roger, my name is Ken, and I retired a couple years ago, moved out to Phoenix.

The advice that I would give to my children or anyone else thinking about retirement is that you almost have to look at retirement like you're an entrepreneur starting a business. All the different things that you do when you start a business are the same as in retirement. You have to look at all the different things that you want to get into and get started with and take the initiative and be organized around them to really begin to do those things and turn them into major activities for yourself as you get into retirement.

So that's really the way I've looked at it. I've got four or five things that I really wanted to do, which I never had time for before, and I am making a big effort. to do those in an organized and structured way and really enjoying my time in retirement so far. 

Thank you. 

Roger: Oh, we love project management, Ken.

So good for you that you're doing this in an organized way, so you don't let these things slip through the cracks. 

Nichole: Maybe that's what you need to do. We need an Asana board with your hobbies and friends and that will help you get organized. 

Roger: All right, let's go set a smart sprint. 

TODAY'S SMART SPRINT SEGMENT

On your marks, get set,

and we're off to set a little baby step you can take in the next seven days to not just rock retirement, but rock life. 

So, in the next seven days, I want you to choose one thing that you do. It could be doing the dishes. It could be mowing the yard. It could be quilting. It could be your job. And I want you to start to reframe it.

How would you do it if you were an artist? How would you do it intentionally at a whole other level? So, you can start to cultivate your artistic nature.

CONCLUSION

Well, thanks for hanging out with us today and talking about career and wisdom. Next week, oh, this is going to be a touchy one, Nichole. 

We're going to be talking about wisdom on family and friends. That could be interesting. Hopefully, Nichole, you can hang out with us again soon. 

Nichole: Sure, I'd love to. 







Roger: 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. Any decisions.