#143: The Archaic Concept of Retirement: How it Requires Us to Think Differently About the Second Half of Life

Show Notes

The global pandemic brought remote work to our attention, and as a result, people are becoming less and less willing to adhere to the traditional career path or workday. Between the great resignation and the quiet quitting trend, more people are rethinking their jobs, careers, and entrepreneurship. 

We invite you to listen in as co-hosts Lori Vajda and Nola Boea share why more individuals are building their career portfolios by starting their own companies and turning their knowledge, experience, and interests into multiple streams of income. But that’s not all; many are choosing to create lifestyle businesses that allow them to earn a living while still enjoying life.

Thanks for listening! Let’s stay connected!

If you enjoyed this show, subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen. That way, you’ll never miss an inspiring, motivating episode. 

Want more helpful tools, tips, and inspiration delivered to your inbox? Sign up  for “News You Can Use” at Sticky Brand Lab

We love hearing your feedback! Leave or voice your message here

If you haven’t already, please connect with us on Facebook! 

Would you like to be a featured guest or have your question, comment, or review mentioned? Ask Muse!

Business success strategies are in the works. Come have a listen!

In This Episode, You’ll Learn 

• Is a lifestyle business the right career solution for you?
• This is quickly becoming an option for people who want to turn their skills and hobbies into businesses 
• How and why we need to shift our thinking and take a holistic approach to personalizing a career path and life journey

Key points Lori and Nola are sharing in this episode:

(04:28:13) Why working for retirement is so antiquated, unhealthy and not applicable to today’s way of life

(07:17:21) This new retirement trend is one we think doesn’t make sense and should be “fired”

(10:22:75) What really needs a paradigm shift is our conscious, unconscious, and biased views of work, leisure, and life

(11:42:85) From passive and active income streams to entrepreneurial side businesses, these are all parts of designing a personalized or customized career, business, and lifestyle

(12:58:46) How more employees over the age of 45 are being forced to leave their positions before they are ready

(20:15:06) S.L.A.P. the Strategic Life Action Plan you can use to design a career and/or business that fits your lifestyle.

Resources 

Sign up for “News You Can Use” at Sticky Brand Lab

You can subscribe to Lori and Nola's show (we love you and want to make it easy) on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
​
ConvertKit: Our #1 Favorite Email Marketing Platform   (This is an affiliate link)

Transcript

[00:00:00] Nola: Increased longevity has allowed we humans to enjoy several extra decades of healthy and active lives. Yet most people, and even most companies, haven't caught up with the consequences. If you're like most professionals, work is more of a means to an end, so to speak. You work, whether for yourself or for someone else, to pay for food, housing, vacations and such, all the while saving money for your retirement.

But what if, rather than waiting until some arbitrary time in the future to truly enjoy life, you reframed your career and entrepreneurial outlook and took a more holistic approach? Stay tuned, friend, because in today's episode, we're delivering a loving "slap" of reality and turning the way we think about our careers, leisure, and life on its head. Now, instead of thinking about and planning for retirement, you plan the steps that allow you to retire and start anew throughout your life journey.

[00:00:54] Lori: Welcome to Sticky Brand Lab, where we bridge the gap between knowledge and action by providing you with helpful information, tips, and tools from entrepreneurs and other experts, so you can quickly and easily jumpstart your side business. We're your hosts. I'm Lori Vida, and this is my co-host, Nola Boea. Hi Nola.

[00:01:13] Nola: Hey Lori.

[00:01:14] Lori: Nola, are you familiar with the psychologist, Carl Jung?

[00:01:17] Nola: I was back in Psych 101. What do you ask?

[00:01:22] Lori: Well, he once said, "The shoe that fits one person pinches another. There's no recipe for living that suits all cases." And I thought that quote was really appropriate given today's topic for two reasons. The first is Jung's viewpoint really echoes our beliefs. That there's no one right solution, direction or strategy for creating a career or even a business that suits a person's unique individuality and their lifestyle. In fact, we believe that you can and should really personalize your journey.

And I think the second reason it resonates particularly with me is because I believe that life is really fluid. Yes, you can somewhat plan your path, but the reality is. That every season of life and every stage has predictable and unpredictable events, circumstances, and opportunities that will require a person to make a pivot.

[00:02:22] Nola: Agreed. Life is definitely fluid. You can plot out your life, but you definitely have to hold that loosely. But before we can really talk about how and why we need to shift our thinking and take a holistic approach to personalizing a career path and life journey, I think we need to explain to our listeners why we think this topic is so important.

[00:02:44] Lori: I agree.

[00:02:45] Nola: You see, a lot of people still view work as a means to an end. You may be doing work you love and even doing work that's good for the world, but that concept of retirement gives that an artificial end date.

[00:02:58] Lori: Yes.

[00:02:58] Nola: Because here's how it goes: one day when you've reached a certain age and accumulated a certain amount of money to no longer have to work, that's when you're officially supposed to be able to enjoy the remainder of your life. And we think that is bogus.

[00:03:13] Lori: Agreed!

[00:03:14] Nola: So today, listener, Lori and I are going to cover three topics. First, we're going to shed light on this archaic concept of retirement and why you should think differently about the second half of your vibrant life. Number two, we're going to expose a retirement planning trend that just isn't working. And number three, we're going to delve into how taking a holistic approach allows you to design a lifestyle that brings you joy, purpose, and fulfillment. You don't have to wait until that artificial end date because you are starting that right now. How does that sound?

[00:03:46] Lori: I think it sounds great. I'm going to start, listener, with painting a picture, a context of what we're talking about. If you think about the journey from a very broad perspective, there tends to be three distinct phases.

There's childhood to young adulthood, which is often characterized by education. Then you get into your adulthood, you start working, you climb the career track, the corporate ladder so to speak. And then the third phase is you are supposed to move into this end stage where this date You retire, you live a life of leisure and pleasure, and you're supposed to enjoy the remainder of your life.

Now, 60 years ago, when retirement or the concept that we think of today was introduced in the US, that meant approximately five to 10 years of additional life. The reality, though, today, is that people can live two, three, four decades of potentially active, healthy lifestyle. So, what Nola and I are saying is, what if education, work and leisure weren't three distinct phases of your life, but rather combined in all stages and all seasons of life. So, if you look through your career journey or your life journey from that lens, retirement as we currently understand it would be very antiquated. And in our opinion, it needs to be retired.

[00:05:21] Nola: Exactly. We need to retire retirement.

[00:05:26] Lori: And when you consider all of what we've just mentioned, it makes sense that working for retirement is so outdated and not applicable. Not only today, this time in our life, but even going into the future.

[00:05:41] Nola: And you know what? It's not just us. I think people are starting to catch on because in a collaborative study done by three companies, Edward Jones, Age Wave, and the Harris Poll, that study of 11,000 people that were surveyed found that the majority now view retirement as a new chapter of life. So, it's not like the end of life, it's just a new chapter. While only a quarter of them still think of it as the traditional time for rest and relaxation. Also in that study, 59% of people who are retired or about to retire said the ideal mix of work and leisure in retirement does include some work. And that's how we feel.

[00:06:19] Lori: I think if I understand you correctly, Nola. A paradigm shift is happening, but what's also happening is people are trying to fit an old model into a new situation. When you consider the word retirement comes from the word retire, which means to step away, retirement is to leave one's job and cease actively working.

So, according to the data that you just shared, if almost 60% of those surveyed said that the ideal situation is a mix of work and leisure, then technically, you're no longer going for retirement. So to me, this paradigm shift and this survey really supports what we're talking about. Which is that people should think about and plan the steps that will allow them to retire, meaning to leave one's current job or current career track to embrace a different one, throughout life. So, it's not a major event. You're planning accordingly.

[00:07:25] Nola: Absolutely. Now, I know I said, retire retirement, but I feel like I should state a disclaimer here. Because listener, we're not saying do not have a retirement savings. Savings is always good, especially when we're talking about how fluid life is and how unexpected things can happen and how you want to plot out what you really want to do. Savings is always good.

With that said, an alternative to the traditional lifelong saving for that retirement date is a new retirement trend we believe doesn't really make sense. And that is the ideal of FIRE, which is an acronym for financial independence, retire early. And we feel that FIRE needs to be fired. Because

[00:08:08] Lori: Yes, it does.

[00:08:09] Nola: Yeah. Because it's a well-meaning but misguided solution that millennials came up with to counter the idea of waiting until retirement to enjoy life. And I certainly get that. This idea is a combination of saving aggressively investing aggressively and living super frugally so that you can achieve financial freedom quickly so that you are able to retire early.

[00:08:34] Lori: Now, I can agree with the principle of FIRE. I mean, the underlying philosophy is one that I like and also support. I think you want to save, you want to invest, and you want to live frugally so that you can enjoy life. And by frugal, I mean, rather than spend money on owning things, you're spending your money on experiences, education, re-education, a variety of things that are practical for you to enjoy life. So, if the principles are there, I'm assuming the problem here that you're talking about, Nola, isn't about working hard and saving money solely for the purpose of getting a jumpstart on the remainder of your life versus waiting until you're what, 65 or 70 to enjoy it, as the old retirement standpoint is. So, what is the issue for you?

[00:09:27] Nola: If you think about it, whether you're retiring early or late, the whole point is you're deferring joy to an end date. And especially with FIRE, when people take that to an extreme, research shows they face significant challenges such as burnout and mental health concerns and physical and emotional issues, because it's almost not sustainable when they work all the time and they deprive themselves of everything for this end date. Now that end date certainly may be sooner than 65, but the whole point here is the philosophy of enjoying the journey.

[00:10:01] Lori: I love that. Because when you think about it, whether it's the traditional retirement or FIRE, the millennial solution, the definition is still the same. You're supposed to leave work in order to enjoy life. So, if that is not the solution, is retirement something then that we want but can never comfortably attain, or is it something we attain but we really don't want?

[00:10:31] Nola: That's a clever question. And I'm not sure exactly of the solution, but I don't think retirement is or ever has been the best answer. And it's not just my belief. There's research that shows that today people living such long lives, the vast majority of retirees live at or near the poverty level. And as you and I've discussed before, the reason we're so passionate about this topic is because the answer isn't a rigid trade-off between productivity and leisure.

[00:11:01] Lori: So, what you're saying is that what really needs retirement is our conscious, unconscious, and biased views of work, leisure, and life. That our view is so narrow at this point that we can't even begin to envision a productive, prosperous, and pleasurable journey on the old method. We really need to rethink this, or as we've been talking about, make a paradigm shift.

[00:11:31] Nola: Absolutely. You want to start envisioning that productive, prosperous and pleasurable life journey. You're not deferring it, it's a journey. Our whole focus on having multiple streams of income, having passive and active streams, the entrepreneurial side businesses, all those things that we've been talking about, these are all parts of designing your life. And that's what we're getting at.

[00:11:55] Lori: What's really fascinating to me about the topic is, we're really kind of being futurists, if you will. We're seeing the trend; we know there's ample data to support what we're talking about.

It reminds me of a story that this family was making Thanksgiving dinner. The daughter was going to host and she cut off the turkey wings and she cut off the turkey legs and she puts it in the pan and her mom comes over and helps her and says, mom, why did you cut off the legs and the wings before you put the turkey in the pan? And she said, that's how my mom always did it. So let's ask grandma. So they ask grandma and grandma says. Because I didn't have a pan big enough to do it.

[00:12:43] Nola: That's a great example of doing what's always been done without really questioning if it's even useful anymore.

[00:12:48] Lori: Exactly. You mentioned poverty level. To expand on that idea, I recently I read an article that was titled, If You're Over 50, Chances Are the Decision to Leave a Job Won't Be Yours. And in the article, this was done by ProPublica and the Urban Institute, and they cited data analysis that showed more than half of older U.S. workers, this is really crazy, but half being those in their mid to upper forties, are forced out of long-term positions before they choose to retire. They frequently suffer irreparable financial harm because they're tapping into their savings and their investments while they're looking for more work.

[00:13:36] Nola: That's so sad, but unfortunately, it's not surprising. And in my opinion, it's a good idea to have a side business, frankly. But what's more, even though that age discrimination you talked about is illegal, that same study also reported that 13% of workers who enter their fifties holding long held positions, they tend to unexpectedly retire under conditions that suggest they were actually forced out.

And for those who are still in their working years, consider this. Technology, it has changed the way we work, the way we communicate. And I think it's fair to say this trajectory will continue well into the future. And while technology probably won't take most of our jobs, we'll definitely change them. So, listener, you may be asking yourself, why are you depressing me? What is the solution?

[00:14:27] Lori: I don't mean to laugh at the fact that it's depressing, but you're really setting up, almost like a neon sign that says, here's the warning sign. We're yelling here, pay attention. Things are happening that really say this method that we've imagined retirement to be isn't working.

[00:14:49] Nola: Exactly. And the implications we're talking about really are that the skills that you and I will need to succeed, whether in traditional employment or as entrepreneurs, they're changing and they'll continue to change often in ways we can't even imagine. So, what solution is there? Just stay fresh and factor that lifelong learning into your future.

[00:15:09] Lori: This reminds me, after graduate school, I got a job working in my field. But I went on to continue getting more education. And for me, I followed a coaching track. So, I got certification in coaching and I started my entrepreneurship as a dating coach. During that time, I was learning to write for the web because I put my business on there. Social media was in its infancy. Blogging was really big. It was all about digital content. And I leaned into it. I learned as I went, there was no education. It was all right on the cusp. And because of that, it opened doors. So pretty soon, I was writing not only digital, but I was also writing print. Writing opened up copywriting opportunities. Opened up branding. It opened up the door to so much that when I did make a career shift, it was to pilot social media for a Fortune 100 company.

So, what I think we're both saying here is that there's a limit to what you can plan for. What we know to be true now, traditional practices are going to change. They've been changing. Technology is about opening up those opportunities. And that's what gives us choices. We can either flow into the unknown or we can deny that change is happening and believe that we have the capacity to control every aspect of our future. But you and I are saying, no, listener, that's not the case. Instead, do what I think of as what you, Nola, often refer to as being open to those God winks, paying attention to the signs, being aware on an intuitive level. Things are changing. What do I need to be curious about? What do I need to lean into?

[00:17:05] Nola: Absolutely. And what you had mentioned is a great segue to what we're about to talk about. That is, enjoy life as the journey and not as an end date. The whole idea is being open to what life will present to you.
So, while we might have a plan for our retirement, this whole conversation always has me thinking back to a colleague that I used to work with. He and his wife really had a major plan for their retirement. He had been working for decades he'd been saving up and they had these grand plans to travel the world, even do around the world cruise. They were working for it. It was only a decade or decade and a half away. Well, she survived a battle with cancer. He survived a heart attack and a triple bypass surgery. And they rethought their future plans and they decided, you know what? Life is not guaranteed. Let's live that dream now. So now, every year, he takes maybe a month or so off as vacation, and they have gone on cruises to many different countries. They've gone to countries I've never heard of, and they really are living that dream now because they chose not to defer it to some end date that is not guaranteed.

[00:18:20] Lori: Your story reminds me of a colleague that I worked with, she and her husband. So, she had a traditional private therapy practice, but she followed this creative idea that she had. She took a house she redesigned it and built it out to be a multidisciplinary wellness center. So there were mental health professionals that had private offices in there. She also included massage. She was looking for an acupuncturist.

And so while she was building that out as her side business or expanding out multiple streams of income, her husband worked in the nonprofit field. But his area of interest was developing apps for nonprofits to use. So he was doing that on the side. And over the course of time, more people were contracting him to develop platforms for their particular needs. He actually transitioned out of traditional work and set up his side business, which became his full-time business.

But what was really fascinating is that he would take on a new project and he would build in space to take off, whether that was a couple of days before the next project started or a week for a staycation. And then in between those, he built in longer time off, maybe a month, and he would go work from a different location or they would do some kind of international travel. The point was that he structured his life so that it had built in time for downtime, for more learning, for creative pursuits.

And that's how Nola and I came up with this acronym called SLAP. Because America needs a wakeup call, and we're lovingly referring to SLAP as the Strategic Life Action Plan. And for those who are willing to reconsider the traditional way of planning your career and planning your life out, we've got an exercise to help get you started rethinking this way of planning for your future and your career and really making a paradigm shift.

So you can start wherever you are. What season or stage of life are you currently in? And from that standpoint, we want you to think about, what might the next season or stage of life look like. So, let me give you an example. If you're in your mid to late forties, early fifties, be thinking about what life might look like 10 years from now. If you've been in a long-term career, do you want to continue doing what you're doing? Should you be considering starting a new business? Do you have kids who are in school but might be finishing up high school in 10 years? So you would be an empty nester.

So, this whole idea that Nola and I are talking about is, when you're developing your strategic plan, you're looking at where you are right now and where you want to be in the future and mapping that gap out so you can see what opportunities are available to you starting today. Now, Nola, can you give listeners more of an idea of what this loving SLAP might look like?

[00:21:50] Nola: SLAP. Sure. So, like you had said, here's where we're at and now pick a year and start daydreaming. This is how I see life 10 years from now, if there were no limits. The idea is to connect the dots and figure out what you can do between then and now to realize that vision. Do keep in mind, again, life is fluid. You can make a plan, but sometimes life will present opportunities that are beyond your own imagination. And if you have your blinders on, you might miss those. So hold your plan loosely.

I'm going to read some questions to you. And these will be available on our website under the resources section. As I present these, these are basically in major categories of life.

So, the first section to think about is, what will your relationships look like in 10 years? What will life look like without kids living at home? Or when will you start caring for aging parents? Will you be newly single? Will you be newly partnered? What do those relationships look like?

[00:22:58] Lori: Absolutely. If you don't have kids, but you have a partner that has some health issues, for example, 10 years from now, that person could still be doing very well, but they could also have a change. So when you're envisioning 10 years, you can think about, well, what if they're sick at that point? What will life need to look like for me in order to care for them? And if they're doing well, what will life need to look like for me in order to enjoy life with a partner who I care about, but may have some health challenges?

[00:23:34] Nola: Another bucket is your career. And that could be your job, it could be your side business. But the whole idea is, can you imagine doing what you're doing right now, 10 years from now? How would you like that picture to evolve and change? What skills do you need to move in a new direction? Would you like to start a side business by then? Would this business be related to your career? Would you be turning your hobby into an income stream? Or if you already have a side business, how would you like it to grow or change?

Another bucket is your finances. Where are your finances now and where would you like them to be in 10 years in order to achieve your goals and to make that dream a reality? Do you have a mix of active and passive income? And how will that ratio of active and passive be different in 10 years?

Sidebar related to this. I had a friend many years ago who in her mid-fifties knew that in 10 years she would be retiring because her boss was retiring and their roles were connected. And so, she purchased a fourplex, put it on a 10-year loan, put renters in there to pay for the mortgage, knowing that by the time 10 years was up and she no longer had that paycheck, she would have a pension from her job, but she knew that she would have this other passive income stream to take over that paycheck. So that was a plan she put in place 10 years early.

Another bucket is health and wellness. Do you have any goals or dreams for your health and wellness and what can you put in place for that?

A major bucket that Lori and I want to emphasize is literally your bucket list. Those are by definition, things that you want to do or experience before you kick the bucket. And our point is, do not wait until that arbitrary retirement date. Take that list and factor those things along in your journey. What experiences do you want to check off in the next decade? And can you get creative to do some of those things earlier than later? For example, can you extend a business trip so that you can get in some leisure travel along the way? It might not be that trip around the world, but it is something. So the whole idea is, what actions must you take right away or very soon in order to realize that 10-year vision? And again, it's enjoying the journey along the way.

[00:26:03] Lori: Yeah, I think the important part here is that we recognize that life evolves. Stages happen. You are single. You might be in a committed relationship. You might want to have a family. You might want to invest in real estate. And technology continues to take us forward in ways that we can't even imagine. And you want to be ready for that. So there's some moments on the journey that you need more flexibility. There's some things where you're going to want to go all in. You're motivated to get ahead in your career and you want to really focus on that.

So, when you're thinking on your 10-year plan, what Nola and I are saying is, the 10-year kind of gives you a big picture to work toward. When you reverse engineer that to where you are now, you have to look at between where I am now and where I envision going. What is the next small step? That gets me to answer all of the overarching buckets as she referred to that I can do now to implement things. You know, you and I have this saying small steps, big effects. That's really what we're talking about. We're talking about making incremental steps towards your overarching goal, reevaluating that on a yearly basis so that you can check where you are moving to, and know that you're creating something that currently is a paradigm that doesn't exist. There are people doing it, but they're not really doing it.

So even for you and I. We're doing that right now. You and I have the Sticky Brand Lab podcast. We also have a vertical business model that we're implementing right now. You work a full-time job. Sticky Brand, our podcast, this vertical, are all part of your side business. I have multiple side businesses that I do. So, while we're living this moment, because we see all the signs saying things are changing how do you plan to evolve with them so that you don't become stale? So that you get out of life all that you want to put into it?

We're just saying retirement isn't a destination. Life is a journey. Plan for the ups and downs, the flow of it, the seasons and stages of it. Rethink the way you think about life. And there's lots of evidence to support that living life, according to those blue zones, which we're going to talk a lot more about, going into the future, and give you more guidance and structure. At this point, Nola and I wanted to get you rethinking some model of living life that totally doesn't exist now, and will really be taking shape as we move forward.

But what we're saying is, be an early adopter. And if you're not an early adopter, at least be someone who's early aware that things are changing and put the feelers out there and find the method that works best for you. Because you got a lot of life to live.

[00:29:19] Nola: Very good. You will. Whooo. Well, listener, we hope that the concepts and ideas we presented here today have piqued your interest, curiosity, and willingness to give your own needs the top priority both now. And in the near future. And along those lines, we hope today's episode inspires you to rethink retirement by starting your side business and empowers you to become a first-time entrepreneur in the second half of your vibrant life. Be sure to stick around to the very end of this podcast for a little fun.

[00:29:47] Lori: If you found the information we've shared helpful and want more tips, tools, and inspiration delivered to your inbox, sign up for news. You can use over on our website, stickybrandlab.com and remember, small steps, big effects.

[OUT-TAKE]

[00:30:04] Nola: But what if, rather than waiting until some arbitrary time in the future to enjoy all the blah, blah, blah,

[00:30:15] Lori: Well, you want to start right from the,
​
[00:30:17] Nola: I do want to start right from the beginning. Great.