Listen Now:
The Smart Take:
What do retired Boomers say is the key to retirement happiness? Think about what you would say and then take a listen to learn this and more on the show.
Listen and learn as Kevin continues the podcast series, discussing the book What Retirees Want (WRW) by world-famous “Age Wave” expert Ken Dychtwald, Ph.D.
Have questions?
Need help making sure your investments and retirement plan are on track? Click to schedule a free 15-minute call with one of True Wealth’s CFP® Professionals.
Subscribe:
Click the below links to subscribe to the podcast with your favorite service. If you don’t see your podcast listed with your favorite service then let us know and we’ll add it!
The Host:
Kevin Kroskey – About – Contact
Intro:
Welcome back to another edition of Retire Smarter. I’m Walter Storholt here with Kevin Kroskey, President, Wealth Advisor at True Wealth Design serving you in Northeast Ohio, Southwest Florida, and the greater Pittsburgh area. But no matter where you are, you can find us online at truewealthdesign.com.
Kevin, great to be with you again this week. How are you, my friend?
Kevin Kroskey:
Walter, it’s always my pleasure, buddy. I’m doing great. I’m doing great. We just took a little coffee break before we started recording and saw the official announcement that Tom Brady is in fact retiring.
Walter Storholt:
Yes. He was, and then he wasn’t, then he was seriously thinking about it, and now it’s official, right?
Kevin Kroskey:
It’s official. So I wonder if Tom will be reading the book, “What Retirees Want” like we’ve been reviewing here. But maybe we can even reach out and see if we can get him on the show now that he’ll have some time affluence.
Walter Storholt:
Let’s do that. He’s done some media requests for various things before, so you never know. We can always put the feelers out there. So, a standing invitation to Tom Brady, come join the show anytime if you want to talk about retirement.
Kevin Kroskey:
There you go. I love it.
Walter Storholt:
Well, and that leads us off perfectly into what we’ll be doing today, continuing our series, talking about what retirees want. Kevin, we’ve had a good couple of shows in a row, breaking down this book that you’ve been reading through, getting your takeaways, things that you agree with, disagree with. And it seems to have taken your brain in lots of different directions, and it’s fun to hear where you take us. You want to give us a little recap of where we stand?
Kevin Kroskey:
Yeah, sure. So, the first episode in fact was really about the idea of longevity and how retirement has changed. We did a brief recap on just what retirement was and how it changed really over the last, say, 100 or so years. And really this new world of time affluence in retirement, as people are living longer and they’re wealthier and healthier. And really how are you going to fill up that time?
And then in the last episode, and I’m going to do … I don’t want to say a correction, but as I read further into the book, part of what I focused on last time, the authors actually did, I would say. I don’t know if I want to say correct, but they did mention it more strongly. But it was the idea about work and retirement. And what I focused on was how a lot of people expect that they’re going to continue to work longer than they do, but then they don’t. And the book really talks about, at least in certain parts, how boomers are going to change the world and pursue this new form of work in their encore career in retirement. And as we’ll talk about today, they actually go on later, and though they didn’t mention it at the time, they do state the same sort of stats that I quoted from the Employee Benefit Research Institute study about people not working as long as they think they are. So that did end up reconciling as I read deeper into the book.
But that’s where we’ve been. And then for today’s episode, we’re really going to focus on some key themes around time, health, and relationships.
Walter Storholt:
So, this is where we really start getting away from where talking about retirement so often centers around the dollars and cents. Now we’re really focusing on, at least in some ways, the softer part of the retirement discussion, with the time, health, and relationships being those central themes, as you just mentioned. So, looking forward to what you’ve got for us today. What was the first thing about this section of the book that jumped out to you?
Kevin Kroskey:
Yeah. Well, let me start it off with just reading a paragraph from the book to hopefully set the tone. And I don’t think I’ve read out loud like this since maybe high school, so this is-
Walter Storholt:
Well, you read to your kids, right?
Kevin Kroskey:
Yeah, I take that back. But Cat in the Hat’s a little bit different from reading something like this, I suppose.
Walter Storholt:
Okay. Do the book in the style of Cat in the Hat.
Kevin Kroskey:
I’m not that good. Well, I might need some additional training from you, buddy, to do that.
Walter Storholt:
All right. Maybe a future episode.
Kevin Kroskey:
But just to set the stage, retirement, it’s a transition. You think about going from work to non-work. Again, I always say it’s like the grass is greener, but any sort of transition evokes stress. There’s good stress and then there’s bad stress, and I think this passage gets to that.
And to quote from the book, “For the newly retired, organizing one’s time can be a real challenge. Most retirees want to stay busy, but not too busy. They want a balance of structure to avoid boredom, and non-structure to enjoy the freedom and spontaneity that retirement makes possible. One retiree shared the feeling,” and this is quoting the retiree, “‘It is a little scary because you’re so used to structure. For 35 years, I got up every day to go to work. And then suddenly you have to put your days together and figure out where you’re going to go and what you’re going to do. It’s a little scary until you find your niche and you find things that you like doing.'”
I think that part about it being a little scary, it’s very real. I’ve had a lot of experience over the years where people have done that. And you go through a honeymoon phase and then maybe even a little bit of boredom, maybe a little bit of isolation. Potentially even a little depression sets in until you really find your groove on the other side. And I’ve shared some of those stories over time and through many episodes. I always like to joke that when teachers retire, at least in the Northeast, they don’t realize that they’re retired until they start seeing the leaves change color. They just think they’re on extended summer break. If you have others, work is a really big part of their life, I always pick on the men here. Maybe they also have less well-developed social circles and interests outside of work. Those transitions tend to be more difficult for them. You can think of many, many people that went through those transitions and just had a difficult time. None of them really that I can think of … well, I was going to say none of them went back to work. A couple just came to mind that did un-retire and undid it and then maybe retired again later on down the road.
But the point being is everybody has a different path. I think it’s normal to have stress as you go into this big transition. Any life transition, for that matter. It’s going to impact you as an individual. It’s going to impact your relationship with your spouse, potentially with your children and other people that you care about. So, all these things. I think you just have to have a certain awareness going into it and being mindful of it.
Walter Storholt:
I think that’s really interesting to think about, the stress level of retirement. Because it seems like to me, Kevin, just observing my parents over the last couple of years, where it seemed like it was something that was unattainable for a while. And that caused its own type of stress. Then it became something that all of a sudden was attainable, but now it’s getting closer and that was a different type of stress, but still stress nonetheless. And now it’s … oh, we’re getting to be Cat in the Hat all of a sudden with some rhyming going on. And then the third transition now has been like, “Okay, now it’s even closer.” There’s this really cool level of excitement building in, but also even more stress with it getting closer. But also, relief as they actually started to put a plan together and saw that things were possible. But now they’re sort of changing their minds on things; “Can we accelerate the timeline?”
And so, it’s this real ebb and flow of stress, excitement. And now they’re starting to explore these exact questions. My dad was just telling me the other day, he’s having trouble focusing at work. Hopefully, his employer doesn’t listen to this show. It’s okay, he’s pretty much the boss, so he’s in control. But he is having this trouble. He’s still doing his work, but he’s having trouble keeping his mind grounded because he’s starting to dream about what he’s going to be doing. “What would my day be like today if it was two years from now and I was retired? What would I be doing?” And so, he’s starting to explore mentally what those things will look like and how he’ll stay busy and what he’ll get excited about. And it’s neat to see that, but I can see how it causes all of these different emotions.
Kevin Kroskey:
For sure. And I think those daydreams are probably pretty important. I mean, I’m anecdotally starting to see more columns being written, more papers being written about sort of a trial run for retirement, taking an extended time off if you can. If you have maybe six or eight weeks, it seems like extended paid time off and leave is becoming more common in our post-COVID … or hopefully. I’ll say post-COVID. Whether it’s post-COVID or not, you can debate me, but-
Walter Storholt:
For purposes of this discussion.
Kevin Kroskey:
Right. Let’s imagine and be positive I suppose. But taking that time and really seeing what it’s like, and not just having a vacation and staying busy in a different sense. The book I think does a good job of framing this idea of leisure. And it talks about special occasion leisure, which is really what we would more commonly consider a vacation, whether it’s down to a beach or traveling somewhere far, whatever the case may be. But something you’re probably going to plan out, put some money behind, and more of a destination, not a staycation sort of thing. And when you’re working and you do that, and then you come back, and you hit the ground running again and probably have to dig out from at least a little bit of a hole that you find yourself in once you do return to work.
But the other type of leisure that the book talks about is just more everyday leisure, which we don’t have much of when we’re working. In fact, it shows that people our age, while people that are in their mid-30s to mid-40s tend to have the least amount of everyday leisure. And that really increases quite a bit, obviously, as you age and kids get out of the home, become self-sufficient, and certainly in retirement as well when work is no longer there. So, if you’re ever feeling stressed out on a day, just know that it’ll get better in 20 years.
But when you think about everyday leisure, things like reading, exercising, socializing, hobbies. And Walt, you want to guess what the number one everyday leisure is for the average American retiree?
Walter Storholt:
Napping.
Kevin Kroskey:
Napping? Let me think about that real quick. Well, I don’t know if you want to distinguish napping from sleeping. I would definitely bet, though I don’t have the statistics to back it up at the moment, that sleeping is probably number one. But the waking leisure, if you will, is the old watching TV.
Walter Storholt:
Oh, okay. A real healthy thing. Real healthy.
Kevin Kroskey:
Coming in at an average of about 50 hours per week.
Walter Storholt:
Wow. That’s a lot, it seems like.
Kevin Kroskey:
That is a lot. Candidly it’s even more hours than what people our age have in terms of total leisure time available. And so-
Walter Storholt:
Wow. 50 hours of TV.
Kevin Kroskey:
That’s a lot. TV, I think, has certainly gotten better with all the Netflix and all these different niche programs that are out there. I personally like a lot of the shows that are not just entertaining, but really you can learn from as well. A lot of the biographies and real-life stories, nonfiction type content. But-
Walter Storholt:
There might be some napping overlapping with that TV watching stat. I’m just going to throw that out there based on the many years I’ve spent hanging out with my grandparents on extended trips.
Kevin Kroskey:
Yeah. Well, my wife always says, if I ask to go to a movie, she’s like, “Why? Do you want to go take a nap?” So I can relate.
Walter Storholt:
Yeah. I don’t bother taking Connie to the movies. I don’t think we’ve ever gone to a movie where she hasn’t fallen asleep in the theater.
Kevin Kroskey:
Yeah. But it seems like TV’s definitely a crutch for … it didn’t break it down if that TV watching pattern changes over time. I wouldn’t be surprised if it does ebb and flow. Maybe as you get older and more sedentary, it’s more there. Maybe early on, if you find yourself in a rut working through that transition, I would imagine TV watching is probably an easy rut to fall into. But I wouldn’t be surprised if that evolves over time.
But when you go ahead and dig a little deeper into the survey data for these retired boomers, their number one priority, far and above, is staying healthy or improving their health. Some other key ones: family, friendships, having fun, personal and spiritual growth, learning, entertainment. All those things are in there. And health is the one that certainly we have some control over certain aspects. Others, maybe not so. But that’s the wild card. If you don’t have it, that’s a very clear indication that retirement satisfaction or life satisfaction, no matter what age, is probably going to be majorly impacted.
So some certain things that I keep in mind; again, I think that the two types of leisure, it’s good framing. The special occasion stuff in retirement too. We have several clients that will take maybe an annual trip or so or more domestic travel. And then they’ll do the big trip maybe every few years. And the big trip is a big trip both in terms of time and money, oftentimes, and a lot of planning goes into it; learning about the location, maybe even trying to learn some of the language for the region that they’re going to, just so they can really get a lot out of the experience. And even though it’s maybe two or three years out, often that everyday leisure, that planning and what have you, gets into it. Or excuse me, the planning for the big trip, for the special travel, gets into more of the everyday leisure. So, we have some clients that have really put some passion into that. And sometimes you’ll see it also coupled with genealogy. Genealogy tends to be a big interest for many people, for many retirees. It’s one of the biggest special interests if you will. And sometimes you’ll see travel related to it as well.
But if we take a step back and just look at what retired boomers say are the most important ingredients to a happy retirement, in order; health, financial security, loving family and friends, purpose, and then trying new things. And when you think about this, to me it makes sense. And then when I thought about it for another moment, we’ve talked a lot over the several episodes and I’ve talked a lot about over the years about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and how you have those needs that are at the base of the pyramid, like your physiological needs, safety, security. And then, as you move up the pyramid, love and belongingness, esteem needs, and self-actualization. And a lot of those needs are met through work in some way, shape, or form. And even when work is out of the equation, those needs still persist. And then when I read this survey, I was like, “Oh my gosh, it maps pretty much perfectly to Maslow’s hierarchy.”
Walter Storholt:
Yeah, that’s spot on. That’s pretty impressive.
Kevin Kroskey:
Yeah, no, absolutely.
Walter Storholt:
So Maslow was onto something, it sounds like.
Kevin Kroskey:
Maslow was definitely onto something many, many decades ago. And it’s still there today. And I think the framework helps. We talked about all this stuff, that your parents … how their minds are going through. And that’s all normal and great, but sometimes it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Speaking from a financial standpoint for a moment, it’s quite common that clients or prospective clients will come into our office or have a call over Zoom, and they have all this stuff and they’ve done pretty well, but just the complexity of it and how it all needs to fit together and the pieces and parts into a strategic alignment can often be overwhelming.
And I would say the same thing could go for the non-financial. Having a Maslow hierarchy framework, if you will, could be a good tool to keep in mind as you go through and start having what I would call a non-financial plan for retirement, which I think is a good thing to have. And I’ll give a little prelude here, but a takeaway or an action item from the call today.
So, all these things are definitely important. One other tidbit on health, again, these are all boomers’ views, survey data, but boomers’ views on how to maintain health, no surprise, diet, and exercise. Very easily said, more difficult to actually do and stick to. Having interests that keep you active. Having good social connections, family, and friends. Staying productive in some form. Having a purpose, said another way. And then having a great doctor. So all those things-
Walter Storholt:
When all else fails, you can fall back on that one at least, right?
Kevin Kroskey:
Yeah. And the book does get into more of how healthcare is changing. And we’re not going to go into it on the show, but it’s pretty interesting, some of the programs that you’re seeing out there, whether it’s concierge medicine or different advances to help people age and things like that.
Walter Storholt:
It’s interesting to bring all that up, Kevin. Again, I just lean on my parents, just because they’re going through this process right now. And it’s neat to see this actually work out in their lives. Because if my dad, had it his way, they’d go live in a very remote location, or on an island up in Maine, or way off the beaten path and in a very quiet area that’s near nothing, got nothing around it. That would be his ideal location. But this Maslow’s need, or this ordering of priorities, health is obviously so high up on the list, he’s like, “We already see doctors so frequently, and that’s not going to improve, likely, in the future.” So one of the main things, is he wants to live pretty close to the main artery that can get them up and down to different doctor’s locations in the area of Maine where they want to retire. So automatically that’s had a big influence on exactly where they would choose. He’s like, “I don’t want to live 30 minutes off the main road, because then every day, to go see a doctor or do this or go grocery shopping or whatever, that’s just going to be too much.” And so you can see these needs for food, for health and those kinds of things, already influencing that decision in retirement. So it’s interesting to see how that all shapes up for people.
Kevin Kroskey:
Oh, for sure. We’ve spoken about … oh, it may have been a year or two years ago at this point. We went through a list of top retirement destinations. It was a magazine article, but there were actually some good metrics underpinning. It wasn’t just, I think, written for … I don’t know. I like data. So, it had some good data belying it. But yeah, that was certainly something that was there as well, healthcare. Where this time of year we’re down in Southwest Florida, and my wife likes the sight that she saw on a news report, how this area has the highest longevity of anywhere in the country. And it’s obviously not just because you live here, but one, a lot of people that do come down here tend to have more resources and have access to better healthcare and put better foods in their bodies and all those things.
And yeah, your parents are definitely thinking, I think, intelligently about the decisions that are ahead of them. And candidly, that’s what we’re going to get into more in the next podcast episode, too. Just talking about home specifically. Not necessarily in terms of geography, though that’s part of it, but we’ll be getting into whether you stay and age in place, or go to a retirement community, or some other things that are becoming more and more popular these days. But all of those options, it’s good to be intentional. It’s good to go out there and get educated about these things. It’s good to talk to people that have been down that path, what worked for them and what didn’t, and why. And people that you respect and feel like you could learn from. Hopefully, we can bring some value to that conversation as well.
But I think in general, just being very intentional about this. And one other thing that I think is really important and I want to make sure that I don’t forget is just mindset. For me personally, I believe this is something that’s really important. But I did come across another passage in the book that spoke about it as well. And I’ll read a brief passage here related to it. And it says, “It turns out that health is a matter of personal attitude, as well as individual responsibility. One of the keys to better health is a positive attitude toward oneself and the process of aging. A doctor, I’m not going to butcher the name, who was Chief Medical Officer at AARP Services Inc. told us, studies have shown that if you have a positive view of aging, you live seven and a half years longer and you’re 44% more likely to fully recover from a disability. These are correlations. They’re not causal relationships. But nonetheless, I think they’re important in telling. But those who view aging positively have a 55% lower risk of hospitalization and fewer [inaudible] at autopsy indicative of dementia.
And it goes on there and cites some other statistics about the cost of this. But mindset is so important. I always joke and say every day you wake up, you get to choose how you want to be. And I think that’s true. I personally believe I’m a positive person and try to take things that way. And again, whether it’s a retirement transition or some sort of life transition, you can find ways to make lemonade out of lemons and just try to keep moving on positively and getting the most out of life, and making a difference every day. Or you can choose the other way. But the other way, at least what the book just intimated, is probably going to result in less satisfaction, less happiness, more health issues, and who knows what else? Probably less friends. I certainly wouldn’t want to be around that grumpy mean person. But mindset, I don’t know how changeable it may be if you’re 60 years old and getting ready to retire. I would imagine it’s probably pretty well formed at that point. But nonetheless, I think the mindset is just incredibly important. And so, if the idea of old is at least a little bit older than you are, I like to say you’re probably in a pretty good spot. So just keep on keeping on with that positive mindset.
Walter Storholt:
Sort of like the look at your significant other, and are chuckling as your bodies are failing you and as you age and you have that positive mindset, or are you always complaining about the latest thing to pop up and ding you or nick you a little bit along the way? It’s easier said than done to have that positive attitude sometimes, Kevin, but something we could certainly all strive to do better, I would imagine.
Kevin Kroskey:
Oh, no, for sure. I’m grinning, not that you can see me, Walt, but I’m thinking of our community-
Walter Storholt:
I can hear it. I can hear it.
Kevin Kroskey:
Our community Facebook page. And I was told of the acronym BMW. Imagine what the B stands for, moaning and whining.
Walter Storholt:
Okay. Yes. Yes.
Kevin Kroskey:
And there’s a lot of that that goes on on these social media platforms and in our communities. But I hear about it third party, I don’t really engage. But yeah, I don’t know, one of our core tenets at our company is I just want positive people. One, if you don’t, it’s going to make the work environment not great. I had one of those people with me for some time before, and I swore I was never going to do it again. But it’s a mindset. I don’t know if you’re listening to this, I would have to imagine you probably want to learn and improve and become more educated. So, I would think that that’s going to positively correlate with having a more optimistic attitude. So maybe I’m talking to a certain selected audience already, but again, I think it’s just so important, every day, just being grateful for the things that we have, for the people that are in our lives, and not focusing on any sort of shortcomings, but having that positive reflection on a daily basis. It makes all those things that are important to us, whether we’re retired or still working, that much better.
Walter Storholt:
And it’s one thing to say all of these things though, and an entirely different thing to actually put it into practice and get a plan in place that helps you unlock all of these things. Because you can have great ideas for how you’re going to spend that time in retirement, but if you don’t have that plan in place, a little bit harder to then make everything executed in the end. So if you need some help with that, please do go to truewealthdesign.com. And you can find the ‘are we right for you’ button; click on that to schedule a 15-minute call with an experienced advisor on the True Wealth team. Again, that’s truewealthdesign.com. Or you can call 855-TWD-PLAN. That’s 855-TWD-PLAN. And we’ll put all that contact info in the description of today’s show so it’s easy for you to find.
Kevin, any final thoughts as we wrap up?
Kevin Kroskey:
Yeah. Just give me 30, 60 seconds here. So, a few tips or takeaways, or an action plan, if you will. So, just as we believe you should have a financial plan, I think it’s really good to have a non-financial retirement plan. Some questions and this may be something you want to hit the rewind button and just literally jot down; how are you going to spend your time? What are some of the leisure activities that you want to do, both the special occasion as well as the everyday? What will you do to maintain and improve your health? What will you do to maintain and improve your relationships and social engagement? Where will you find purpose? I would just write those out and literally spend some time, whether you write it out or type it out, and just thinking about it. Go into any sort of transition, expect some failure. But I think if you have that positive mindset that we just spoke about, you can look back and figure out, “Okay, hey, what worked? What didn’t? How am I going to move forward and make the next day, week, month, year even better?” But start there. Financial and non-financial plans are definitely important, and appropriate mindset is probably just as so.
Walter Storholt:
Very cool. I appreciate that, Kevin. And we’ll list those questions out for you in case you didn’t have the chance to write them down. We’ll list those out in the show notes as well for you so it’s easy for you to look at those and ponder a little bit further. Again, just check the show notes or the description section of whatever podcast app you’re using, or on the website, truewealthdesign.com. For Kevin Kroskey, I’m Walter Storholt, we’ll have another episode coming up for you in a few weeks. We’ll continue this series about what retirees want. We’ll be talking a little bit more about what retirees want in a home on the next episode. So be sure to come back and join us for that. Thanks for listening. We’ll talk to you next night on Retire Smarter.
Disclaimer:
Information provided is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment tax or legal advice. Information is obtained from sources that are deemed to be reliable, but their accurateness and completeness cannot be guaranteed. All performance references are historical and not an indication of future results. Benchmark indices are hypothetical and do not include any investment fees.
