transcript
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Episode #514 - My Retirement Planner Said No to A Report Request. What Should I Do?
Roger: Oh yeah, I like this one.
"If I want to be inspired to take steps forward, then I'll attend an event. If I want to improve, then I'll engage in a process and stick with it."
-John Maxwell.
Hey there, Roger Whitney here.
Welcome to the Retirement Answer Man show. The show is dedicated to helping you not just survive retirement, but to have the confidence. Because you're doing the work to lean in and really rock retirement. Love that quote from John Maxwell, listening to a show like this or reading a book or an article can inspire us to do things a little bit differently or to lean into our lives. But if you really want to accomplish it, you have to find a process, a framework that you can adapt for your own situation and actually stick with it. The sticking with it part, they're both important. I love that, and that's what we try to help provide here.
I'm a little foggy today. I'm just coming out of a sinus infection. I used to get these at least once a year and I hadn't had one in a while. I think this is because I ran a little bit too hard over the last week or two and I got back from a couple trips and just crashed and then I think my immune system was down or something. I'm a little foggy.
Today on the show, we're going to answer some of your questions on portfolio analysis, on financial training, rule of 55, some long-term care funding, and a few other questions, including a correction on an answer I gave a couple of weeks ago. I want to make sure I set the record straight. Then in our mindset segment, I want to talk a little bit more about protocols. What they are and how you might use them to dial in your process so you can stick with it a little bit better. So rather than talk about all this stuff, why don't we actually get to it?
LISTENER QUESTIONS
So, let's get to some of your questions. I love answering your questions so we can help you take a little baby step on the road to rocking retirement. If you have a question about the show. You can go to askroger.me and type in your question or leave an audio question. You can even just send a message and say hi.
ADDING TO MY PARTIAL ANSWER TO A QUESTION IN EPISODE 512
A of couple weeks ago, Patrick asked a question regarding capital gains on the sale of a house. In this case, his wife passed away in 2013, so we want to help Patrick take a correct step here. This was episode, I think, 512 that I answered this question. I gave a partial answer, so I wanted to make sure we set the record straight to help Patrick on his way.
Patrick's wife died in 2013, and the house was in both of their names.
"If I sell the house as part of downsizing in the next 10 years, what will I have to consider as my capital gains liability? My house was purchased in 1992 for 250, 000 and has a market value of 750, 000. I have about 75, 000 in capital improvements during the lifespan of the house so our total cost basis was 325, 000."
so in answering the question, we answered what the exempt amount on capital gains when you sell a house. But what I didn't address, and I must have been on autopilot, maybe the sinus infection was coming in. Who knows? I didn't talk about the step up in basis related to the death of his spouse, and we had a couple listeners and friends point this out, which I love because I definitely am fallible, and so I always want to set the record straight.
So, Patrick, in addition to that exemption portion, in terms of what you should consider, when your spouse died, they will get a step up in basis, meaning that 325, 000 basis will have either a full step up in basis or a partial depending on what state you live in.
In your case, you say you live in California, so I believe that you get the full step up to the value of the house at your spouse's death. So as an example, let's say your total cost basis is 325, 000 and your spouse passed away in 2013 and let's assume that the house was worth 500, 000 at that time. Depending on what state you live in, you'll get a step up in basis up to 500, 000, not the original 325, 000, or if it's not a community proper state, half of that amount.
The logic behind that is when you're doing the estate for, in this case, your wife, the value of the property at her death is calculated as part of the value of her estate and that resets either all or part of the cost basis that you get to use going forward. So, I wanted to make sure we included that amount in that.
My suggestion would be as you're going through this is that you get a CPA or a tax expert to help you walk through when you actually do this. Even if you do your taxes on your own, sometimes even just for a year, it's good to have someone that is working directly with all the facts set of your situation to think through some of these loopholes.
So, I wanted to make sure I corrected the record. I want to thank my friends that told me about it because I just keep going sometimes and it's easy to miss things. I appreciate that.
WHAT TO DO WHEN MY ADVISOR TOLD ME "NO" TO A REPORT
All right. Our next question comes from Laura.
Laura says,
"My husband and I have been working with a retirement advisor for 13 and 5 years respectively. Same person.
Recently, I asked for an analysis of my assets to determine how I'm doing, if I'm withdrawing too much, not enough, etc. Our advisor said, no, this was not possible, and that the compliance department would consider this a violation since the analysis I was requesting was on only one member of the portfolio and we are considered a jointly held portfolio.
I didn't think I was asking for anything exotic, simply feedback and information, and all of my assets are listed separately from my husband's assets, and I assumed it would be simple to run an analysis. It just seems odd to me that analysis of my assets is not possible and would be a compliance violation.
Am I missing something here? Many thanks for all you do."
This is an interesting situation, Laura, so let's break this down to see how you can get what you're looking for.
So, you asked for analysis of how your assets are doing to determine whether you are withdrawing too much or not enough. And you wanted it done on assets, accounts, essentially, that are in your name, right?
Your IRA or your after-tax brokerage account, etc. That seems like a simple request. Now, what it sounds like your situation is, and I'm making some assumptions here, Laura, based on the details that you gave, is that you and your husband have been working with the same advisor, and they somehow have you grouped as a joint household, which is very normal.
You say it's a retirement advisor, so I'm assuming there's some retirement plan of record of all of the assets of Laura and your spouse, and the goals of Laura and your spouse, and how that plan's supposed to work in a joint.
Now, when you come and say, I want to know how, well, I'm doing, I'm Laura, I want to know how I am doing withdrawal wise relative to my assets, from a planning perspective, that does create some complication. I don't know why the compliance department would have an issue with that, because you are a separate person from your spouse, and he from you. That is 101, and they treat you as a separate client when you have an IRA or an individual investment account.
Usually, the householding is done just as a convenience sake for statements, etc. I used to be a chief compliance officer of an advisory firm and I never would have encountered something like this. Back when I worked in the traditional investment firms, you know, major wire houses like a Merrill Lynch or Smith Barney or something like this, compliance departments in that world are definitely much more restrictive in what advisors can do. A little bit more public school-ish in that there's a lot of bright lines that they have to stay within. That might be your situation here. But it seems perfectly reasonable to me from a compliance perspective, if Laura has accounts, and Laura wants to know how her retirement planning is being done, that that could be accommodated from a compliance perspective.
Now, how do you actually do that?
Well, in order to do that, Laura would need to have her own retirement plan. Your spouse would need to have their own retirement plan, which would include "these are Laura's goals". Now, those goals could include what Laura is contributing to the household to help pay for the base great life and to travel. Et cetera. Laura could also have her own goals within that plan. Then here are Laura's resources, her social capital, social security, et cetera, and then her financial capital. Then an analysis could be done on does Laura's resources support her goals, which represent what she contributes to the household. Then the same would be done for the other spouse.
Usually this is done, and I've done it, when you're dealing with couples that got married later in life and they brought their own assets. To the marriage and they want to keep them separate because they're used to being separate because there's, you know, my wife and I, we got married when we were 23, right? We had nothing. So, it's all for one, one for all. But usually later in life, if you're bringing your net worth and someone else is bringing theirs, you want to have some separation because you're used to managing your life.
Usually this is where that's done, where in that situation, you essentially create two retirement plans.
Here's Laura's. She has these goals which represent her contributions to the household, expenses, and travel, etc. It may include goals that are her own, maybe prior children that she wants to gift to, etc., that the other spouse isn't participating in. So those types of plans can be created very easily, and I'm not quite sure, even from a compliance perspective, why the advisor could not do that for you. Maybe they don't want to do that for you. From a compliance perspective it doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe I'm missing something here. Somebody can email me if they want.
So, my suggestion, Laura, would be to say, "Look, these are my individual accounts. They have my name on them, not my spouse's. I want to go through building a retirement plan of record that shows the amount that I contribute to this household with my resources so I can understand, am I withdrawing too much of my resources or not enough?"
That is perfectly reasonable, and I'm not sure why the advisor can't do it if the accounts are in your separate name, and if they say they still can't, then maybe you're with the wrong advisor or maybe the advisor's at the wrong firm where they're so restrictive to give you this type of analysis.
ON SWITCHING PLANS IN MEDICARES OPEN ENROLLMENT
Our next question is really a comment from Joan, and it says,
"It is open enrollment for Medicare. Have you done an episode on choosing between Medicare and Advantage plan and traditional Medigap insurance? I've had an Advantage plan for four years and I'm happy with it, but many of my friends are encouraging me to switch to traditional Medicare and add a Medigap policy on top of it. It feels sort of like gambling and either way you're going to win or lose.
Love the podcast. Thank you for all your great teaching and encouragement."
Great question, Joan. We'll put a link to an episode that we had with Danielle Roberts from Boomer Benefits talking about traditional Medicare, where you typically would add a Medigap policy, and an Advantage plan and we'll put a link to that in our 6-Shot Saturday email. That'll give me a chance to let me tell everyone that if you're not on our weekly email, and you like the podcast, you're going to love the email, because that's where we share links to past episodes, resources that we mentioned, et cetera and you can sign up for that at rogerwhitney.com right there on the righthand side.
So, we'll put a link to our last series on Medicare that we had with Danielle Roberts.
Now to your question, you are currently on an Advantage plan and have been for four years. Once you're on an Advantage plan, it can be very difficult or problematic to switch to traditional Medicare with Medigap policy.
So, I would be very careful with that. My suggestion would be if you really want to analyze this, I will actually contact Boomer Benefits. They're based here in Fort Worth. They work nationwide. There are only two states that they don't work in. New York is one of them. I forgot the other one. Go to them, tell them what you have, and let them help walk through this to see if there's a reason or an advantage to switch.
The reason I would say is to contact Boomer Benefits is one is, in my experience, and I've known them for over a decade and have referred to them internally. That's what we use when we have a client going through Medicare, and I feel very confident because they'll help you look for the potholes. In my experience, they're not going to guide you down their sales cycle. They're going to help you make a good decision.
So, if you want an independent, at least professional look, I recommend Boomer benefits and there are others like them that would do that and they're available nationwide. I would not take recommendations from your friends, whether it's investment recommendations, planning recommendations. Maybe they are sparking you to be motivated to do this, but I would go through a process, and even in referral to advisors. Are they qualified to know your situation and what the benefits and disadvantages might be for you specifically? Your friends probably aren't. They probably had a good experience and equate that everybody else will.
This might be a good spark to review it with fresh eyes, and I think that's wonderful. In this case, I would suggest Boomer Benefits to talk through it because you said it's working. Maybe there's an opportunity to optimize it or improve it, but I would go through that in an organized way.
It's always good to do that as a good housekeeping from a process standpoint anyway, Joan. So good luck to you, and we'll have links to those episodes so you can hear some of the differences.
WHAT TRAINING SOMEONE SHOULD PURSUE TO IMPROVE THEIR FINANCIAL EDUCATION?
Our next question comes from Tim.
Tim says,
"I've been researching the meaning of all the initials after your name. Many of the certifications have prerequisites of three years of financial service experience.
Question. I'm retiring at the end of December. What training or certification should I pursue first if I want to become smarter about managing my retirement income and investments?"
That's a great question, Tim. Back when I taught the Certified Financial Planning curriculum, the retirement portion at the University of Texas, I had a lot of nonprofessionals, people like you, go through the CFP® curriculum.
With the intent of just becoming better informed to manage their own financial life. That actually really surprised me. It would almost 50/50, maybe not quite, then actual professionals trying to get the CFP® designation.
So, you are able to do that too, Tim, and the nice thing about the CFP® designation, training we'll call it, because you don't ever have to have the designation to go through the training. You can go through all the courses and just never sit for the exam. The upside of that is you're going to have a fairly comprehensive survey of the different areas that a financial planner would think about at some level. It's going to be insurance, it's going to be estate planning, it's going to be investment management, it's going to be retirement planning, it's going to be taxation.
If you go through all the modules of a CFP® curriculum, you're going to get a good survey of all that. It's not going to make you an expert in it, but it's going to help you ask better questions and see risks and opportunities a little bit easier.
That said, it can get a little bit industry-ish, so a lot of it might not be as practical for you, but it definitely would give you that nice survey.
So, you can actually go do the CFP® curriculum and never sit for the exam and never be qualified to have the marks after your name, professional sense, but give you some of that survey. So that would be one answer.
I would also say, Tim, is the retirement master class within the ROC Retirement Club is, I think, very thorough in a methodology and process that you could follow and adapt for your own uses.
So, you could also, that essentially is the process and the tools that I use in my own practice, and the meetups we have where we teach about them. are me dealing with the exact same things from a decision-making process. So, I am confident enough to say, I think that is very comprehensive for actually doing this without all the other detail of say a CFP® curriculum.
I feel pretty strong in saying that. So that would be a recommendation. We open up enrollment three times a year. I think the next one's February, I think it's cheaper than taking the CFP® as well, but the CFP® would be one. I think what we do in the Rock Retirement Club would be one. If you want to get really technical, I think Retirement Research or Wade Fowles Group, they have a community.
But I think you're smart in that you're looking for quality education that's done for education sake and not simply to go sell you something else. I think that's a great way to get an education. The advantage of going to say to a university is that you're getting education. You're not just going through workshops to try to get meetings with you. I think there's a big distinction when it comes to retirement planning.
So, Tim, those would be the two things that I would recommend just off the top of my head.
THE ISSUES THAT COME WITH TRYING TO DIE WITH ZERO
Our next question comes from Mark, who wants to decumulate.
"Hello, Roger. Please talk about retirement without kids and wanting to die broke, also tapping equity from home as tax efficient source of income.
Thanks!"
Tim, that's a great suggestion. We may pivot Retirement Plan Live to something like that. We haven't got a lot of candidates that are late in marriage life. I haven't reviewed them yet, but we may pivot that. So, Nichole probably, oh, don't say that publicly, but I'm thinking about it. That's a great question.
Dying broke, and I think there's a book called dying with zero. I've never read it, but I've navigated working with clients that have done it. I'll check out the book at some point. It is a different type of retirement. Very rarely do I see people that want to die with big legacy goals. They're like, whatever is left over, yes, that's fine.
But dying broke has its own particular set of issues that are a little complicated. We don't know the terminal date, right? We don't know exactly when someone's going to die and what their needs are going to be throughout their retirement span. So, if you think of it, the visual, I always see in my head, as I'm thinking about this issue, Mark is landing a airplane on an aircraft carrier, the aircraft carriers, you getting to dead with zero money, right?
Well, that aircraft carrier is in the ocean, right? It's moving forward and backwards and sideways based on the world and your health and all sorts of things. So that's a very dynamic environment right there. You don't know exactly where that terminal date is, and you're flying in, spending your money and living your life.
And while you're up in the air trying to get to dying with zero, and you have winds that are pushing you forward and pushing you backwards and pushing you sideways and down and up. As you're getting closer to whatever terminal date that is that we don't know, those winds and waves are constantly changing and storms can come in, great conditions can come in, and you don't want to undershoot, then you went broke before you died, but then you don't want to overshoot because then you'll have too much money at the end. It's a very kinetic environment. It takes a lot of agility, just like all kinds of planning in my view.
Yes, incorporating the home because you don't have any kids, you want to die broke. That can be a valuable resource to allow you to enhance your life. in order to live more of the life that you want, assuming you have goals that have dollar signs attached to them. Obviously, we know you have HELOCs, you have reverse mortgages, et cetera, but the planning aspects of it become a little bit more complicated.
So, we will definitely do this as a deeper topic going forward, Mark. Whether we do it this January as the Retirement Plan Live, I haven't decided yet. I have to figure out whether the late marriage one is going to fit, at least for this year. But that is something that we'll go a little bit deeper. If you haven't read Die Broke, that is a book that talks about that concept to some extent.
So that might be something to check out between now and then.
RULES WHEN YOU RETURN TO WORK
Our next question comes from Chris and the rule of 55 and returning back to work.
Chris says,
"We retired early at age 55. My wife has been asked to return to the school district she retired from on a part time basis to substitute for a principal on leave.
She will not access any employee benefits such as insurance, pension contributions, etc. She will also not contribute to the 403b plan we have made rule of 55 withdrawals from. Would this part time employment jeopardize her ability to make additional rule of 55 withdrawals? My research so far points out returning to work with another employer would not impact on your rule withdrawals, but I have not found any reference to this situation.
Thanks for your help."
It's a great question, Chris, and there's a lot of gray areas here, and working for the former employer can indeed impede the ability to make additional Rule of 55 withdrawals while still re employed. You will need to know how her return to work will be classified and if she would be eligible to resume making contributions.
Not whether she does or not, whether she is eligible to make contributions or not. The first document you'd want to go to there is the Summary Plan Description. That's going to give you the Summary, well, Plan Description, and it may not address your wife's situation. And if it does not, then I would suggest you reach out to HR or the Benefits Department which manages the 403b to ask about this specific situation.
Obviously, if she doesn't need to make Rule of 55 withdrawals while she's re employed, because her income is going to make up that difference, then it's sort of a moot point. Then when she re retires, the Rule of 55 would still be in place. This is one of those things, and there are a lot of these areas, Chris, in general, then everybody, that are very gray.
It takes asking all those second, third, fourth questions, it forces you to have to be a researcher of sorts because they're not things that people deal with every day and there may not be a crystal clear answer that they give you even if you talk to the HR department or the manager and you have to keep pressing because that's their job is to manage these situations.
So even if they don't give you an answer or say they don't know, it's going to be your job to be an advocate to say, "Well, I have to know, you have to tell me this. They can do research. That's their job to know how these regulations work.
ON SECURING LONG TERM CARE INSURANCE
Our next question comes from Bob on resources for funding long-term care.
"Hi,
I had listened to an old podcast where you referenced a type of annuity that is used for long term care where you pay an upfront premium with the death benefit is not the purpose. Can you please point me in the right direction to get more information?
Great podcasts. Many thanks."
Hey, Bob, we've had. I believe in two monthly themes on long term care.
I can't recall when the last one was. I think we're a little bit due to go ahead and have another one. But when you're looking at securing, we'll call it insurance, specifically for the long-term care benefit, you have traditional long term care insurance, and then you have hybrid life insurance, which is essentially permanent life insurance that has an added benefit of a multiplier of some sort that can be used for long term care. Now there are annuities, but those are the two main ones, hybrid life insurance, so not necessarily an annuity, and traditional long-term care. There likely may be some annuity based with long term care benefits related to it.
My suggestion and how you find that, one is you can listen to one of those month-long themes and we'll have a link to episode numbers in our 6-Shot Saturday email, where we have Steve Cain who is an industry expert walk through the logic of each of those. In our Rock Retirement Club, we have them periodically to actually go through examples of illustrations that we can pick apart to group think the advantages and disadvantages of them.
I would suggest if you're going to go to someone to help navigate this, like a broker, I would go to a broker, not a captive agent. The difference is a captive agent works for one or maybe two companies. A broker has access to a lot of different companies and types of policies.
LTCI partners, which is where Steve Cain works is one of those type of navigators where they can do an initial assessment to see even if you qualify and show you these different types of policies, but at the end of the day, you definitely have to do your own research on what might be a good fit for you, but we'll have links to those episodes.
ARE THE RULES DIFFERENT FOR A 457b ACCOUNT?
The next question comes from Sherry related to Roth accounts.
Sherry says,
"I have a 457 Roth account through my employer. I also have a personal Roth account I started about five years ago. Are the rules different for 457 Roth?"
Sherry, yes, they are. The rules are different for every type of account, every combination of 401k, 403b, 457b, or IRA with pretax or Roth or after-tax assets. It's really confusing, and to make it worse, 457b's come in two different flavors. One is a governmental organization and one for non-governmental nonprofits, and their rules can be made very specific to each employer. So, you're going to have to spend some time reading the summary plan description.
There's that term again, which is an official document that describes the extensive plan details or any related documents to understand the rules of your 457b because they will be different than your IRA, more than likely.
In addition, this is where the human resources department or the benefits department are the ones that are charged with managing all the specifics of the plan and should be leaned upon and also held to a standard where they answer the question even though from a bureaucratic standpoint they might not want to at the beginning.
So, this gives an opportunity because we've done this twice now, Sherry, to talk about When we're interacting with our human resources department, or wherever the assets are held at, be it a Merrill Lynch or a Charles Schwab or a Fidelity.
A number of years ago, I was on a committee working with one of these large custodians, what they call a custodian, and our committee worked directly with the head of service at one of these large public custodians. to help improve their systems to serve, in their case, advisors, or the contingency that they served, or constituency that they served. It's a massive thing that they do. To be in a service center, to be on that other end of the 800 number, is not a career job for most people, and they are charged with having to remember a massive number of regulations and details on a large variety of subjects. So, when you call and talk to someone, they're not going to be the “expert” in it. It's important that we ask the second and the third and the fourth question, if necessary, to get very specific in the question and what you're asking and getting specific answers because they're dealing with a lot of data and it's not necessarily their expertise. That's the basis of bureaucracy. It's just the nature of it.
So as an example, our firm, when we have a request to a custodian, say Charles Schwab, we follow up on every single request. Oftentimes I have one I'm dealing with right now where I'm having to intercede to get on the phone to get to the right person because oftentimes, we'll call a separate time and get a different answer.
I'm sure we've all had that experience in big corporations, so it's up to us or you to really hold their feet to the fire and get specifics. It's going to be hard and you may have to go up the ladder a little bit, especially when you're dealing with taxes and something where you're trying to make a decision.
It's just the nature of bureaucracies and we have to be our own advocate and learn to ask those questions behind the questions and hold their feet to the fire in a kind, respectful way, so you can get what you need as best you can. It's a hard thing to do, I understand.
Nichole asked me to remind you that we have transcripts for all shows available under the episode notes at rogerwhitney.com. You know who does those transcripts? Spencer Whitney, my son. Yo, Spencer, you're writing me saying hi to you, buddy.
We run the show through an AI. It gets all my bumbling’s and Spencer goes there and cleans it up, so I sound a little bit smarter and not so stuttery. So, we have transcripts if you want to get a specific link that we talked about, etc. So, you can check that out.
With that, let's move on and talk about mindset in the Bring It On segment.
BRING IT ON
Now it's time to bring it on and work on the non-financial pillars of rocking retirement.
Today we're going to talk about mindset and I'm actually calling an audible. I was going to talk about protocols today and I'm actually going to pivot and we're going to do that next week. Sorry about that, but hey, it's Thanksgiving week. This is coming out the day before Thanksgiving.
I was talking with my brother-in-law this morning. We have a weekly meeting Sunday when I'm recording this and chatting with you, and he brought up something that I thought was very appropriate for this week. So, I want to talk about this from a mindset standpoint.
He had heard, and I think it was on the Huberman podcast of the two things you need for happiness. Who knew there were only two things, huh? The two things that you need for happiness are agency, and agency is your ability to have influence over the direction of your life, your ability to do something about your life, to take a positive step forward.
When we lack agency, it's like you're sitting on your heels, the wind's blowing you, you're on your heels and you have no power to control anything. You're just being acted upon. That's having the lack of agency. You're just being acted upon. You're a victim of the world and whatever circumstance.
Having agency is when you start to lean forward on your toes a little bit. and are able to do something to move towards where you want to go. So, imagine you're standing near the ocean and you're getting blown backwards and you're just flying, flailing all over.
Actually, a better one would be imagining you're in the ocean and you get smacked and thrown under the water by a wave. Yeah, I think this works better. And you don't know which way is up and you're just getting tossed and termed. That's lack of agency. You're just getting acted upon by the forces of the wave.
Agency is when you start to make a decision to swim, or to stabilize, or to move with the intent of getting to the surface.
Now, you may not even know where the surface is, but you made a decision, and you found a little micro thing that you can do to improve your situation. So that's the difference between lack of agency and agency. If we don't have an agency, if we're just in that wash tub of a wave, it's hard to be happy.
Retirement can feel that way, right, with the world and wars and economics and everything else. You can feel like you're in that washtub. So, we need an agency to be happy. And then the other thing that we need to be happy is gratitude. You know, we always hear about gratitude, do a gratitude journal. That stuff is true.
Being grateful for what you have. It's not always easy when life throws something at you.
A good example here. Last week, I got an email from a client. The email said, got the worst news possible. My spouse died in an accident Saturday. Hard to have agency when you lost a spouse unexpectedly. Even this person has a lot to be grateful for. It's going to be hard to see it for a while, but it's there. Your job and my job are to constantly work towards finding our agency and finding things to be grateful for.
So, this person obviously is going to find it hard to be grateful for anything right now, and it's going to be hard to feel like there's no agency in their life right now.
They're in that wave that's just knocked them silly, and they don't know which way is up sideways or whatever. I want you to take a moment, say a prayer for them, for sure, but remind yourself. It doesn't make any of this easy. Just knowing this stuff doesn't make it easy. Sometimes it's easier than others and when it's not easy is when you need it the most.
So, I pray for this person to find it and I want you to think about agency and gratitude. Great week to be grateful. There's a lot to be grateful for regardless of what's happening in life. Now let's go set a smart sprint.
TODAY'S SMART SPRINT SEGMENT
On your marks, get set,
and we're off to set a baby step you can take in the next seven days to not just rock retirement, but rock life.
All right, you know what it's going to be. Thanksgiving. Two things, two things. Take a moment, write down five things you're grateful for. Step two, write down five things that you can do, little baby, baby steps that give you agency in your life.
Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
CONCLUSION
I am definitely grateful to you, as always, for walking this journey with me and sharing your wisdom and asking your questions and making me sharpen my saw. It's changed my life. I hope I've had a positive impact on your life. I'm definitely grateful for that.
The agency that I am taking this week is Wednesday at noon. I have nothing scheduled for the rest of the week. I'm excited about that. It's unusual for me, and I'm going to do my best not to work and to cultivate a life that's worth living.
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.