#231 – What Makes A Good Life?

Wes Moss [00:00:49]:
And it hit me because it happened sometimes. If I were to gotten this advice from two separate folks over the course of one month and then the next month, I may not have thought about it, but it just ha. Just so happened I ended up getting these two pieces of advice I’m just about to share back to back. One was on a Monday and the next was on a Tuesday. So let’s talk about what, what I was told. And I look, I talk to people every day about how retirement’s going or planning for retirement. Maybe I’m going to get ready to retire. But a lot of conversations.

Wes Moss [00:01:23]:
I’ve been in the investment planning retirement business for over two decades. Well over two decades. So some of my earlier folks that were planning starting in their 40s or early 50s are well into retirement and have been so for many years. I talk to folks about this every day. And yes, of course, we spend some time talking about money. What’s your income look like? What’s your portfolio income look like? How much growth have you seen over the past year? Over the years, cumulatively, what are our projections moving forward? And then how does all this look towards your overall financial plan? How does it look towards your spending plan? How does it work towards the set of goals that we’re trying to accomplish in the future? What do you want to do and can we pay for it? So that’s the financial fitness part of the conversation, which, by the way, we’re going to get back to after I talk about this story. How is the financial side of this big equation working towards the goal of complete freedom from work? If that’s something you want. But then the conversation goes to something very different.

Wes Moss [00:02:35]:
We start talking about all the things that families or couples or whether you’re single or married, you start talking about all the things that you love doing because that’s part of the goal of retirement Planning travel. Okay, Wes, we just got back from a two week trip in Portugal and we went to the Azores. The Azores. I don’t even know how the Azores islands, which is a five hour plane ride from Portugal, went back to Portugal with the Lagos to Lisbon. And then this year we’re going to next May, we’re going to go to Glacier national park, we’re going to Montana, we’re going to Idaho. Because those are the goals that we’re trying to pay for. Autonomy, adventure. Golf.

Wes Moss [00:03:14]:
I hear a lot about golf. Some people love it. And it takes up a huge chunk of time of mind share. It’s core pursuit. It’s a super activity. Philanthropy. Hey, I’m going to join the conservancy or I’m working with the conservancy. Socialization.

Wes Moss [00:03:32]:
We talk about where your people are, where’s your tribe, are they here in Atlanta or are they back on the coast where you might spend part of the time, part of your time? Tennis, volunteering. What are we doing at church? What are we doing at a charity organization? How much? What does that take up when it comes to time? And then what’s that community look like? Neighborhood. What’s the neighborhood look like? Neighborhood involvement, you name it. And I would say that’s the most fun part of retirement planning. Conversations about all the things that we’re planning on doing when we’re not spending 80% of our free time working. And then maybe the third area that comes up after money, after super activities, core pursuits. What we’re having fun with in life and what makes for. We’ll get to this in a minute too.

Wes Moss [00:04:27]:
What makes for a great day? What makes for a good life. So then we get to what’s next? Life advice. Sometimes people ask me for life advice and then sometimes I’ll get some life advice. And here’s the advice I got this week from Beth. Wes, retirement is overrated. You should probably never stop working. From Mike the next day. Wes, I gotta tell you, retirement is amazing.

Wes Moss [00:05:05]:
Everything I dreamed of and more. And you know what? I think you should probably do it. You’ve probably saved a bunch. You’ve been a good planner for a long time. You should probably do it as soon as you can. This is real life. This is real time advice. This week.

Wes Moss [00:05:23]:
It doesn’t matter when you’re listening to this podcast, because this is real advice. This is real time advice. I just got this week. Beth says one thing. Mike says the complete opposite. And by the way, they both have ample money for retirement in retirement and they’re Both several years into retirement. They both have plenty of income to do whatever they want to do. Now, maybe not to buy a $10 million yacht and three houses, but they have plenty of savings, they have plenty of assets, income and paid off houses.

Wes Moss [00:05:58]:
Sounds a little bit like the financial traits of the happy retiree. Check, check and check for both Beth and Mike. Now, what makes this hard to decipher for me as I got this advice back to back is that they’re both right. Mike said, I think I was 65 west if I can remember when I stopped working and I would have liked to have done it at age 55. My buddies out here, I play golf with, a lot of them retired in their mid-50s and they’ve never looked back. They’ve never regretted it for a day, not being back at work. And Mike said, hey, I’m the same. So Mike’s right.

Wes Moss [00:06:45]:
Mike is right because it’s his life. That’s how he feels. But Beth is also right. She’s a worker. She’s a really good worker. She was a dynamo in her industry, health care industry. She earned a bunch, Beth saved a bunch, she invested a bunch. And she loved the work that she did in her, let’s call it, big corporate, sales oriented type job.

Wes Moss [00:07:13]:
She did it for almost 50 years now. She admittedly didn’t have a whole lot of time for all those core pursuits Wes that you talk about, those super hobbies. I don’t have 10 hobbies. And like Beth, a lot of people don’t because they work so much. They get to retirement and it takes a while for a lot of people to replace that productivity, thirst or the human need to create or make a difference or change the world again. Another thing we’re going to cover today is I’m going to lay out the three things that in my mind make for a great day. And productivity is one of the three things on that list. So these two very different pieces of advice, they’re both right.

Wes Moss [00:08:05]:
And I think why this struck me so much is that I can really relate to both. So in one respect, everything about work or working gives me the productivity positive impact. I feel like I need. And I’m not so sure I can ever move away from that, at least completely. I don’t know if I can ever completely get away from that. So I’m a little like Beth. And I might want to work as one of my core pursuits or one of the things that I want to do, not have to do, but we just want to do maybe, maybe forever. But I’m also a lot like Mike.

Wes Moss [00:08:45]:
I love to travel with my family. I love to travel with my friends for golf, snowboarding, skiing. I love my core pursuits. I love my, my super activities. And I still have a long list of new core pursuits that I want to dive into and do even more of. I think I might even want to learn to sail. Sail, sail. Not just be on a sailboat or help someone else sail, but actually captain a boat.

Wes Moss [00:09:13]:
Maybe I’ll learn it this summer. Maybe that’ll end up on my list of super activities. So it’s interesting to me that both Mike and Beth and I don’t know if you’re a Mike or a Beth tuning into the Retire Sooner podcast here, but they’re both right. So what links them together? Even though they said very different things, they both need heavy doses of fulfillment. And I think the unifying theme for both of them and the cornerstone of a good life, again according to Dr. Wendy Suzuki, professor of neuroscience and psychology at NYU, is some sort of fulfillment. But still, Mike and Beth are going to get that from probably very different places over time. We recently here on the show had Riley Moines, author of the Four Phases of Retirement, and he reminds us about those four phases.

Wes Moss [00:10:16]:
The first one, the vacation phase. The second one, the loss phase. Wait, I don’t have. I don’t have these corporations. I’m losing work. The experimental phase, and then finally the reward phase, which we’re all trying to get to where all retirees want to be when they finally find that list of super activities, core pursuits, passions that truly bring them joy and purpose and connection. Mike found it really quickly and wishes that he had done it even sooner. And some people do.

Wes Moss [00:10:52]:
Beth, I think she’s still working on it a little bit, and maybe part of her retirement life map, her plan will be to keep working in some capacity. And almost anybody will tell you that it gets really hard to get a job or really work as you get into your 70s. And I get that, but that’s not necessarily true. If you still want it and you still have a passion for it, you could still work until you’re 80, 90. Buffett is still going to McDonald’s for breakfast, drinking his Cherry Coke, going to the office every single day. I don’t know how old he is, but I know he’s well into his 90s. But what we also, I think, know for sure is that journey to the reward phase that Riley Moynez points out talks about in his book or the good life phase. It’s going to take some time.

Wes Moss [00:11:46]:
It’s going to take some thought, maybe some prayer to find a place that gives you the fulfillment that you’re really looking for in the next stage, in the next act. Now, on a practical note, I will thank Mary, who’s a Retire Sooner podcast listener, who sent in and I love this life map that Mary sent in this week. I don’t know what podcast we talked about it, probably the Harvard one, the Retire Without Regrets episode. But she sent me a life map and it looks a lot like some of the other ones that I’ve done, just at least visually where she is, a picture of the United States and different places that she wants to go, where she wants to live. A section for what she wants to learn piano. She wants to learn Spanish. She’s a little smiley face and a little word bubble that says hola, which I thought was cute. Learn pickle ball, maybe question mark.

Wes Moss [00:12:44]:
Hobbies. Gardening. I love her little picture of gardening. Hiking, volunteering with church, tutoring the conservancy, join a book club, join a hiking club, health. She’s got a little yoga, picture cardio. She even had a little dumbbell she drew for weights. She got a heart and the people she loves are listed around the heart. I love how she does that.

Wes Moss [00:13:12]:
Husband, sister, nieces, parents, nephews, grandkids. She got a little smiley face for her friends and then a cool little map which maybe looks like she’s from Pennsylvania. I don’t know for sure. Kind of near the southeast corner, which there’s something about this Mary. That’s where I’m from. So it’s a real life, practical way, Harvard approved exercise that can start having your brain and your subconscious thinking towards the things you actually want to do because you’re putting them down on paper. I’m a huge fan of colored pencils. So just a white piece of paper and draw out some of your own icons and that will tattoo in your brain and you can’t help but subconsciously think about it and have a higher likelihood of having all of those things that you know you really want to do come to fruition over time.

Wes Moss [00:14:14]:
The Harvard study calls it intentionality. They call it agency or the control taking control of what you’re really going to do over the course of the next several years as you go from work to some sort of phase of retirement. Beth is right and Mike is right and I see myself in both of them. If you’ve ever done a Jane Fonda workout or if you remember as a kid Rocky running the steps and if Michael Keeaton is still Mr. Mom to you. And guess what? It’s officially time to do some retirement planning. It’s Wes Moss from Money Matters. Weren’t those the good old days? Well, with a little bit of retirement planning, there are plenty of good days ahead.

Wes Moss [00:15:00]:
Schedule an appointment with our team today@yourwealth.com that’s y o u r your wealth dot com. I think the other reason that this story was sparked inside of me to tell you here on the Retire Sooner podcast is that I also saw a very cool interview this week with an NYU professor, a neuroscience and psychology professor who’s done a whole lot of work around life satisfaction, life purpose. And she’s trying to answer the question just what, as a human, what makes for a good life? Now she goes back to what I think is a hard platitudinal word, if that’s a word, which is just find something you’re very passionate about. Okay, we know that. Find fulfillment. Okay, we know that, too. Those words are easier said than done. They take a little work to get to.

Wes Moss [00:15:57]:
And I believe in practical steps to be able to make these things happen or pull these things out of your own soul or your spirit or your brain. And that’s why I love this retirement life map that you can draw out. But again, so Suzuki goes back and talks about how we need to find these things that may take some time, as the four stages of retirement might take you some stages to get there. But she points out that that could be given to your community. It doesn’t have to be what you do for a living. It can be given to your community, given to your family. And we all need to continue to find forever, not just at work, some sort of aspiration, something that inspires awe in you. And that awe, again, as a neuroscientist, she starts talking about, what does it do, that awe of the things that really do fulfill us.

Wes Moss [00:16:56]:
It releases dopamine in your brain, and it creates a sense of happiness and fulfillment. How do we get there? Well, even the good doctor says you need the money to do it. You need the financial piece. You have to be able to financially do. So I think we cover that a lot here. I’ll retire sooner. Her next two are kind of interesting. And again, I can’t disagree with any of this.

Wes Moss [00:17:25]:
But her second point is that you have to manage stress. Hmm. You have to be able to manage and regulate your overall stress levels. And you’ve got to be able to manage all the societal pressures that are greater today than they were yesterday and a year ago. And 10 years ago and 100 years ago. Now, maybe a lot of life is easier than 100 years ago, but the way we’re impacted and hit like a shotgun every single day of stress pellets is unique to the times that we live in. We are bombarded by technology, bombarded by media, bombarded by social media, which has clearly just ratcheted up the anxiety that we have to live with. And a neuroscientist that solved for what makes for a good life.

Wes Moss [00:18:19]:
Besides the financial piece, her next prescription is to learn how to manage that stress and reduce your own anxiety. So once we see the signposts of what works, gets us worked up and what leads us to anxiety, those are the signposts that we need to learn to avoid again, better help our stress levels. Conversely, in this, maybe in the same light, we need to understand the signposts that spark joy in us as well. So once we recognize what brings us joy, maybe that’s your core pursuits, maybe it’s your super activities. I bet you on a retirement life map, if you’ve got 20 or 30 things, there are a bunch of signposts in there that are the very things that do bring you that joy, that do bring you that fulfillment. And we need to pay attention to them to create this positive cycle. And once we recognize what brings us that joy, that’s what we got to pay attention to. And those are the signposts that we do want to repeat, the ones that bring us joy.

Wes Moss [00:19:31]:
Now, as a follow up to Dr. Suzuki’s ideas on what makes for a good life, being at financial peace, managing stress, and then hanging on to joy, in this interview she did with Annabelle Spring from a giant global bank, where Spring, a banker, asked 11,000 people in a giant survey, how do they look at quality of life? What is quality of life to you? And as a banker, they thought a couple of things very different than the neuroscientists. They thought, well, maybe it will be per capita income, maybe it’s going to be consumption levels, maybe it’s income levels, maybe it’s living standards, maybe everyone in Switzerland is super happy because everyone there is rich. But the answers came back in a much less objective, number crunching way. They came back very subjective. And the 11,000 people said, Here are our top three. Quality of life boils down to what? One, physical health, two, mental wellness, and three, financial fitness. And I think it’s hard to argue that those are the three critical components to a good life and they’re all correlated.

Wes Moss [00:20:50]:
This is interesting from the survey. The People who are financially fit have a 30% higher perception of their quality of life. Also, the financially fit are 20% more likely than the average to be physically fit and the financially fit are two times or 100% more likely to be above the standard for average mental wellness. So the financially fit are also more physically and mentally fit as well. Kind of reminds me of that age old question. I wrote a book or two about it. Does money buy happiness? Well, it sure seems to, at least in some degree. But I, but I also think it’s more accurate to say, and this is where my research has come in over the years, a certain threshold of money or financial security that leads to higher levels of mental and physical wellness.

Wes Moss [00:21:49]:
We call it the happy retiree. The good news, and my research shows that that financial checkpoint, it’s not as outlandishly unattainable as most people think. My research says the financial level that retirees seem to need to get TO is about $750,000 in liquid retirement savings. With all the inflation on top of the inflation we’ve seen in the last couple of years, let’s call it a million dollars, a paid off home and at least three streams of income. And I’m not saying this is easy. It’s not a lay down and it’s not as though everybody can do it, but it’s possible here in America. So what makes for a great day? The neuroscientist and the CEO trying to figure out quality of life, they suggest this. Ask yourself, what makes for a great day for you? What makes a great day? Think about it.

Wes Moss [00:22:47]:
What is it that you do in any given day that makes you look back, think about this, makes you look back and say, that was a, that was a great day, that was a great trip, that was a great night, honey, I had a really good day. Now that’s going to be very different, maybe completely different for everyone. But here’s an example, here’s what I wrote down. For me, it’s some combination of the following. And not every day has this, and not every day is a great day. But the great days have these ones. Some level of productivity. For some reason, if I go for more than a day or two without some sort of productivity or progress or improvement in, I guess really for me it doesn’t matter.

Wes Moss [00:23:35]:
Any category. It could be client work, investment work, music, progress, radio, podcasting, writing, fitness even, I feel not so great. So for me, until this changes, I don’t know if it ever will. I just need some level of productivity. I think a lot of us do. Number two, community. So for me, spending significant time with my community, that’s time with my family, time with my wife, time with my boys, time with my parents and my in laws, my friends, my colleagues, even producer Mallory here in the studio sometimes makes for a great day. Not always.

Wes Moss [00:24:20]:
Whether it’s a family dinner, coaching, cheering at a game, a game I’m coaching, game I’m watching, or a pro sporting event, playing golf, playing pickleball in a group, connecting with clients, being with my tribe, it gives me a ton of energy, it gives me a ton of purpose. Again, it’s essential to a great day. Now for number three. I almost listed food, but that’s an honorable mention. I have a better day when I have a great meal or make a great meal of food that I love but that doesn’t make the top three. So what was number three? Simply fun. I think a truly great day, it’s just not complete without some element of fun. Something that brings a sense of lightness.

Wes Moss [00:25:11]:
Can be playing music, listening to music, enjoying a great meal, catching up on your favorite show. By the way, Yellowstone Season 5 Part 2 is amazing. Or just a walk with a dog outside, at least for me. And I don’t think this is that unique. Any sort of moment or having at least some of these moments of enjoyment during any given day makes the day feel more well rounded and more fulfilling. Have you ever had a day where you said, man, that day was just too much fun? What’s the common thread throughout all that? It’s probably connection and fulfillment. I just. Fulfillment’s a tougher word because it’s so different for everyone and it’s hard to find it because it isn’t necessarily just one thing.

Wes Moss [00:26:06]:
I think it’s a combination of a lot of these things. Sometimes when I work out of the house and everyone’s at school and it’s just me and it’s a quiet day for me that’s a little bit energy depleting. I don’t necessarily feel like that’s a great day. Our brains evolve specifically. Again this was advice from Dr. Suzuki, the Neuro scientists. Not just that’s not, not me is that our brains evolved to connect with other humans from a neuroscience perspective, in person mostly. Now audio back and forth can work, but our brains are wired to connect for something as simple as being able to appreciate the gestures, the mannerisms of when we’re just talking to each other.

Wes Moss [00:26:58]:
Yeah, I think in person always wins. Audio I think gets us partially there. So phone is pretty good. Zoom is pretty good. But face to face for humans is the key. So here, I think, is the bottom line. Mike and Beth were both right. I love the exercise that I did because Dr.

Wes Moss [00:27:18]:
Suzuki told me to do so. But Mike and Beth are both right. They both need heavy doses of fulfillment and I think community, that’s the cornerstone to a good life in retirement. And sure, they get them different places. Sure, it doesn’t happen right away. Now maybe for Mike it did. Beth, it’s taking a little more time. She’s going through those four phases of retirement, but she’s going to get to the reward phase.

Wes Moss [00:27:48]:
She’s going to find her super activities. She’s going to find, I have a feeling, a heavy dose of volunteering. And for her, that’s work, which is she’s so good at. And I don’t think she’ll ever be able to replace it with just playing pickleball, just playing golf. For some people, that works. For a lot of people, it doesn’t. She’ll find her super activity. She’ll find her core pursuits.

Wes Moss [00:28:15]:
But for all of us, and this is why there’s whole books about it, it takes a little work, takes a little effort. And if you’re working on it, like so many of us are, I hope you keep listening to the Retire Sooner podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in.

Mallory [00:28:34]:
Hey y’all, this is Mallory with the Retire Sooner team. Please be sure to rate and subscribe to this podcast and share it with a friend. If you have any questions, you can find us@westmoss.com that’s W E S. You can also follow us on Instagram and YouTube. You’ll find us under the handle Retire Sooner Podcast. And now for our show’s disclosure. This information is provided to you as a resource for informational purposes only and is not to be viewed as investment advice or recommendations. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal.

Mallory [00:29:04]:
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Mallory [00:29:49]:
This information is not intended to and should not form a primary basis for any investment decision that you may make. Always consult your own legal tax or investment advisor before making any investment tax, state or financial planning considerations or decisions. The information contained here is strictly an opinion and it is not known whether the strategies will be successful. The views and opinions expressed are for educational purposes only as of the date of production and may change without notice at any time based on numerous factors such as market and other conditions.