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Feeling Lost After Leaving Your Job? Listen to this · Retire and Thrive

• 0:00
  So we're talking this week about your future and setting it up
• 0:03
  for success. So how do we do that, Dan?
• 0:05
  What's the first step? You know, we try to encourage
• 0:07
  them that let's make every day matter.
• 0:09
  So when we say prepare for impact, what does that mean?
• 0:12
  People look at retirement as like a destination, like I'm
• 0:15
  finally here, I've arrived and now I can do all the things that
• 0:18
  I never really had the chance to do.
• 0:20
  But at the end of the day, you know, we always tell people be
• 0:23
  intentional. What would be your advice to
• 0:25
  them? What is your one piece of advice
• 0:26
  to prepare for impact, say, this week?
• 0:28
  If you're asking this week if I am a year or so within
• 0:31
  retirement or I'm retired, welcome back to another edition
• 0:35
  of Retire and Thrive podcast where we help you live your life
• 0:39
  with purpose, wealth, and confidence.
• 0:41
  I'm Cami. This is Dan.
• 0:43
  We thank you so much for joining us this week for our latest
• 0:46
  edition of our podcast. Dan, how are you?
• 0:47
  Doing everything's good. That's good.
• 0:49
  Yeah, that's good. It's getting cold outside.
• 0:51
  It is, but what's new? We're used to it.
• 0:53
  Not too bad. We have some streaks of warm
• 0:55
  weather. I actually saw the Northern
• 0:56
  Lights last night. We live in Minnesota and much of
• 0:59
  the northern region saw the Northern Lights.
• 1:02
  Dan did not. I had to send him a picture.
• 1:03
  Yeah, it was awesome. The picture very bright.
• 1:06
  Yes, even saw the Reds. It's always nice to see the
• 1:08
  Reds. So we are talking all about
• 1:10
  retirement and what the next steps as we do.
• 1:12
  Maybe you're heading towards retirement or you're already in
• 1:15
  it. What do you need to know?
• 1:17
  Dan is the man who knows really everything.
• 1:20
  I asked him, he has a good answer.
• 1:22
  He really, really does. So we're talking this week about
• 1:25
  your future and setting it up for success and making a future
• 1:30
  that you're excited to wake up to.
• 1:33
  So how do we do that, Dan? What's the first step?
• 1:35
  Well, I think Cammy, we focus a lot on the dollars, right?
• 1:38
  And so a lot of this book was Social Security and when to take
• 1:42
  it and some of the different nuances and cash flow.
• 1:45
  You know, this last lesson, lesson 7 is really about being
• 1:48
  intentional once you do in fact retire.
• 1:51
  And I feel like when I, when I look at my 30 plus years and I
• 1:55
  look at the clients, I feel like a lot of people when they leave
• 1:59
  their employer, they retire, they lose part of that identity.
• 2:03
  And so I always look at it as it's like a new chapter for
• 2:06
  them. And I try to encourage them to
• 2:09
  embrace it simply because it is all new.
• 2:12
  It is kind of unknown. And so I think for a lot of
• 2:15
  people, that's kind of a scary feeling.
• 2:16
  But for, you know, the majority people, you know, we try to
• 2:20
  encourage them that let's make everyday matter and what that
• 2:23
  looks like. So when we say prepare for
• 2:25
  impact for those folks who are headed into retirement, what
• 2:29
  does that mean? I think when you talk about
• 2:32
  preparing for impact, what what I think about it is, is be
• 2:36
  intentional with your time, your resources.
• 2:39
  And often times what happens is people look at retirement as
• 2:42
  like a destination, like I'm finally here, I've arrived and
• 2:45
  now I can do all the things that I never really had the chance to
• 2:47
  do. And whether those are, you know,
• 2:50
  chores around the house or items that they want to get done.
• 2:54
  But at the end of the day, you know, we always tell people be
• 2:57
  intentional. You know, whether that's
• 2:59
  focusing specifically on lifestyle, whether it's your
• 3:02
  health or relationships or connecting with people that you
• 3:05
  hadn't connected with before. But often times people get to
• 3:10
  this destination, they retire away from their job, not
• 3:12
  necessarily towards something. And so I like to use that word
• 3:16
  intentional so that people really do understand that, you
• 3:19
  know, this is quite frankly, from my perspective, I'm not
• 3:22
  retired, but people that have retired, I mean, this is the
• 3:26
  stage that they've been waiting for their entire life.
• 3:29
  And I encourage people to embrace it.
• 3:31
  And maybe this is you, maybe it's someone that is just
• 3:34
  getting into retirement or say you are finally retired and you
• 3:37
  sit down at that kitchen table. Maybe you sit with your spouse
• 3:39
  and you look at some of your finances and you try to build
• 3:42
  some structure. So you're building this
• 3:44
  structure, but how do you do that without sitting there and
• 3:48
  stressing out and feeling restricted when you're looking
• 3:51
  at your finances? Yeah, that, that's a great
• 3:53
  question. And I totally agree that.
• 3:56
  I mean, I'm a structured person. I pretty much wake up the same
• 3:59
  time, seven days a week. I go through my routines.
• 4:02
  Definitely a creature of habit. And I think for retirees, again,
• 4:07
  as I mentioned, that whole thing changed.
• 4:08
  I mean, it's like everything got flipped on its head and all of a
• 4:11
  sudden you used to get up at the same time every day.
• 4:12
  You'd go to work, you'd get a paycheck, you do the same thing.
• 4:15
  You might meet friends for dinner on Thursday night,
• 4:16
  whatever it might look like. And all of a sudden everything's
• 4:20
  changed. And I know this might not be the
• 4:21
  best analogy, but I think about it when my oldest went to
• 4:25
  college her first year and we went to kind of the orientation
• 4:31
  and she just kind of realized that she can do what she wants,
• 4:36
  when she wants, how she wants. And there's really not a lot of
• 4:39
  accountability. And so if you've been a, if
• 4:41
  you've been an employee of a corporation and you've been AW2
• 4:44
  waged employee, you know, if your job starts at 8:00, you
• 4:47
  don't just haphazardly show up at 9:30 because you, you know,
• 4:51
  we're out too late the night before.
• 4:53
  And so once you hit that retirement, you have the freedom
• 4:57
  to really do what you want to do.
• 4:59
  And I look at freedom as a very positive thing.
• 5:03
  I mean, it gives people the freedom once they do in fact
• 5:06
  retire, forget about the financial side of this for a
• 5:09
  minute, but it gives them the chance to decide how they want
• 5:13
  to spend their time. So it's basically freedom of
• 5:16
  time that they maybe haven't had in the past.
• 5:18
  It also might be freedom of relationships, and those freedom
• 5:22
  of relationships might be who I choose to associate with and
• 5:26
  when. And then lastly, I think for
• 5:29
  retirees when they retire, probably most importantly, Camia
• 5:34
  can be freedom of purpose. And I think that's really kind
• 5:39
  of getting into the thrust of it.
• 5:41
  What is it that you want to do over the course of the next 1520
• 5:45
  years now that you're retired? Yeah.
• 5:46
  And when you think about purpose, you mentioned the word
• 5:49
  folks who are maybe retiring, maybe they had a really
• 5:52
  prestigious job, maybe they were the head of a company or
• 5:54
  something. And now they're headed into
• 5:56
  retirement. And this could apply to someone
• 5:57
  who even is still in the workforce changing a job.
• 6:00
  Maybe they change from a different a position where they
• 6:03
  had a lot of authority and now they've moved on to something
• 6:05
  else and they feel like maybe I've lost my purpose a little
• 6:08
  bit. I'm not getting the recognition
• 6:11
  that I'm used to. I'm now in retirement and I'm
• 6:13
  not leading all these people. What is it?
• 6:15
  What advice do you have for some of your clients who might feel
• 6:18
  that as they do head into retirement?
• 6:19
  It's like, oh, now I'm going to go play pickleball.
• 6:22
  I'm not going to work and leading all these people.
• 6:25
  Is my purpose still here? Right.
• 6:28
  Again, I think purpose means different things to different
• 6:30
  people and what I try to convey to people.
• 6:33
  And again, we we sometimes get kind of more into the psychology
• 6:36
  of this than than the financial side of it.
• 6:39
  But you know, we have a large employer here in town that we
• 6:43
  work with a lot of people that retire from this large
• 6:46
  organization. And we always tell people that
• 6:49
  your identity isn't tied to that employer.
• 6:51
  I mean, that is not who you are. You are a spouse, you are a
• 6:56
  grandparent, you are many, many, many things, but you are not
• 6:59
  that organization, regardless of who who the organization is.
• 7:03
  And often times that's how people feel.
• 7:06
  And, you know, I can tell stories after stories, but I had
• 7:10
  one here recently that had been with the same company for 35
• 7:13
  years. And when it was coming time to
• 7:16
  retire, she said, you know, I'm just not comfortable retirement
• 7:18
  because I don't know if they'll be able to function the same
• 7:21
  without me. And I looked at her and I said,
• 7:24
  you know, in all due respect, I think they'll be fine because
• 7:28
  they've been around for 55 years.
• 7:29
  And with you being with them 35 years, I get it.
• 7:32
  But I think she was just feeling more about that's part of her
• 7:37
  purpose, as you alluded to. So now that she's retired, you
• 7:41
  know, that's where we kind of peel back the onions.
• 7:43
  They do some research, find out what really you are passionate
• 7:45
  about. And often times, you know, we
• 7:48
  talked about finding your why and at that stage, which is the
• 7:53
  early stage of retirement, it's like, as I mentioned earlier,
• 7:58
  people have worked their entire life to get to that stage.
• 8:01
  And now that they're at that stage, let's embrace it and
• 8:04
  let's not just go through the motions, but let's figure out
• 8:07
  and be intentional what your Y is and go through an exercise
• 8:12
  and figure out what's important to you.
• 8:14
  Is it connections? Is it relationships?
• 8:17
  Is it joining organizations? Is it volunteering?
• 8:22
  My oldest daughter, her fifth grade teacher, is now retired.
• 8:26
  And I've seen him, you know, at a local healthcare facility.
• 8:29
  Every time I go in, he seems to be there.
• 8:31
  And it's purely volunteer. And every time I see him, I say,
• 8:33
  hi, Mr. Teacher, how you doing? And he's like, yeah, good.
• 8:36
  And I said, what? How often do you volunteer?
• 8:38
  And he's like three days a week. And he said, I absolutely love
• 8:39
  it. And that might be for him, but
• 8:41
  it might not be for someone else.
• 8:42
  Somebody else might want to be involved in some other type of
• 8:45
  volunteer, whether it's the Boys and Girls Club or some other
• 8:48
  organizations. So I think it's it's really kind
• 8:53
  of disconnecting that identity with that employer, but feeling
• 8:57
  somewhat purposeful that you're living this life that you've
• 9:01
  dreamed about and maybe doing some of those things that you've
• 9:04
  never had time to. And we've touched on this
• 9:07
  physical and mental health, how important is it for folks who
• 9:10
  are headed into retirement to keep that up to date and top
• 9:13
  notch? Yeah, that's, that's a big one.
• 9:18
  I am 3/4 of the way through a book.
• 9:21
  Guy was a doctor, Peter Attia. He wrote a book called Longevity
• 9:28
  and he was on 60 minutes and he talked specifically about living
• 9:34
  a purposeful life that is, is you know that you can live a
• 9:38
  long time. And he said generally people
• 9:40
  write at about age 75. That's when you really notice
• 9:43
  it. And, and so he's got some tools
• 9:46
  in his book. I'm not trying to promote his
• 9:47
  book for sure, but it was just everything from physical health
• 9:52
  to mental health to emotional health.
• 9:55
  And not only is that important, but I don't want to get into all
• 9:58
  of the statistics. But as we get older, obviously
• 10:01
  I'm a few years older than you, maybe double the, the, the point
• 10:06
  is, is that as we get older naturally, we start to lose
• 10:10
  things, whether it's our ability to lift heavy objects or whether
• 10:15
  it's our ability to run or whatever it might be.
• 10:17
  But we naturally start to lose muscle mass.
• 10:20
  And that was one of the things that really resonated with me is
• 10:23
  that as you get older and older and you start to lose muscle
• 10:27
  mass, your body naturally, I mean, I don't want this to come
• 10:30
  across like unpopular, but your body naturally starts to
• 10:33
  degenerate. And so it's important to stay
• 10:36
  active not only for your cardio health, but also stay active for
• 10:41
  your physical health. But stability.
• 10:44
  That was one thing. You know, I feel like I'm pretty
• 10:46
  active. I do a lot of different types of
• 10:49
  sporting things and I lift weights and I do cardio and all
• 10:51
  of that. But when I read the section on
• 10:53
  on ability to be, you know, to have stability and how important
• 10:57
  that is to prevent falling as people get older, actually did a
• 11:00
  little exercise and I realized I'm not nearly as stable as I
• 11:03
  thought. So you not to go down too, too
• 11:05
  deep of a path here, Cami, but physical health is, is really an
• 11:10
  important thing. And you know, there was a guy
• 11:13
  that I have quoted many, many times, his name is Jack Lalanne.
• 11:18
  The older, you know, generation would know this kind of the
• 11:22
  people that were maybe at the baby boom stage.
• 11:24
  But Jack Lalanne was was Mr. Olympian, I think back in the
• 11:28
  70s and just the epitome of health.
• 11:31
  And he was being interviewed by Arnold Schwarzenegger and he was
• 11:35
  like 90 or 91 years old. And Arnold just did this
• 11:38
  interview with him and he said, you know, what do you attribute
• 11:41
  your health to at 90 years old? And I'll never forget his
• 11:45
  comment. He said, you know, it's not just
• 11:47
  the things that I eat. It's not just the day-to-day
• 11:49
  activities. But he said, even at 90 years
• 11:53
  old, I still lift weights every single day to protect this
• 11:56
  skeletal, you know, muscles, the skeletal muscles protecting the
• 12:01
  bones. And he said, because as we get
• 12:04
  older, we continue to lose muscle mass and you need to
• 12:07
  protect your bones. So you're not to go too deep on
• 12:09
  you here, but physical health and mental health and emotional
• 12:12
  health are all very, very important.
• 12:15
  I do want to make one last quick comment too, as it pertains to
• 12:18
  the, the, the emotional or the mental health.
• 12:22
  One of the longest running studies at Harvard right now is
• 12:27
  the study on happiness. And if you went online and you
• 12:31
  Googled Harvard study unhappiness, it's a Ted talk by
• 12:35
  the current program manager. He's the third generation that's
• 12:40
  done this study. And I think it's every two to
• 12:43
  three years, they send out hundreds of questions.
• 12:45
  And these are all people who have graduated from Harvard.
• 12:48
  And so they did this study going back into the 30s and it's the
• 12:52
  same group of people. And Long story short, is the key
• 12:57
  to happiness, they found is the biggest key to happiness, I
• 13:01
  should say is connectivity is relationships.
• 13:05
  So despite, you know, social economic status, despite
• 13:10
  careers, despite positions in company, people being connected
• 13:15
  matters. That's.
• 13:16
  Interesting, I didn't realize. That yeah, that's what.
• 13:18
  They found. So it's kind of like that whole
• 13:21
  comment, you know, tell me who your seven friends are, and I'll
• 13:25
  tell you who you are. Yeah.
• 13:26
  And so. Huh.
• 13:28
  Very interesting. You know, in your position,
• 13:29
  you're kind of a, you know, a fitness guru here.
• 13:32
  You're a bit of a therapist. You're a life coach for people.
• 13:36
  You manage their finances and keep track of that.
• 13:39
  That's good. That's what you have a lot to
• 13:41
  manage. Go go easy on the fitness guru.
• 13:43
  It's a work in progress and I'm always working well you.
• 13:45
  Talk a good game, you talk a good game.
• 13:48
  But really when we're talking about the physical ability and,
• 13:50
  you know, maintaining your your physicality as you get older,
• 13:54
  the mental part is a big part of that because you have to
• 13:56
  discipline yourself and right, get yourself to get up and do
• 14:00
  it, even if it's going for a 20 minute walk.
• 14:02
  Yeah, yeah, it's important. So let's talk about preparing
• 14:05
  for impact. If you have one piece of advice
• 14:07
  for folks this week, it could be for folks headed into retirement
• 14:11
  already there, or maybe people that are younger and just
• 14:13
  watching because they're interested.
• 14:15
  What would be your advice to them?
• 14:16
  What is your one piece of advice to prepare for impact, say, this
• 14:19
  week? Yeah.
• 14:20
  So I probably have mentioned this on previous episodes.
• 14:24
  You know, at this level, we've we've talked about a lot of
• 14:26
  things and we're getting kind of towards the end of the book
• 14:28
  here. But for me, every year I meet
• 14:32
  with my three kids and we kind of do a one year goal based
• 14:34
  workshop. And I always believe start with
• 14:36
  the end in mind. And the end is if you lived your
• 14:40
  best year and you know, here we are in at towards the tail end
• 14:44
  of 2025. So I would say if you were to
• 14:47
  have your best 2026, what does that look like?
• 14:50
  And so I have them kind of go through that and they start
• 14:52
  writing it down and then we just kind of start breaking it up,
• 14:54
  You know, what are the top three?
• 14:56
  And out of those top three, what do you need to accomplish in
• 14:59
  the, you know, what has to happen for that, for that goal
• 15:01
  to become important or, or successful?
• 15:05
  So if we break it down narrowly, just down to what has to happen
• 15:09
  in the next week, I would say my biggest advice is people that
• 15:13
  are either approaching retirement or they actually are
• 15:15
  retired is take an hour, go somewhere quiet where you're not
• 15:19
  going to be interrupted and just write down some of the things
• 15:24
  that have been on your list. And I'm not referring to fix the
• 15:27
  door in the garage or some of these to do lists.
• 15:30
  I'm talking about what might be one thing that if you were able
• 15:34
  to accomplish in 2026 would give you a lot of satisfaction.
• 15:39
  And it could be anything. It could be I want to learn a
• 15:42
  second language or it could be, you know, I've always wanted to
• 15:45
  go, you know, snowboarding in the Swiss Alps or whatever it
• 15:50
  might be. And a lot of times it doesn't
• 15:51
  even have to be monetary. It could just be, you know what
• 15:54
  I feel like I've lost connection with maybe my uncle and I just,
• 15:58
  I'm going to make an intentional effort to fly out and see him or
• 16:01
  what Whatever is important to you.
• 16:03
  But all too often, Cammy, we we have these great ideas, but
• 16:09
  we're short on execution. You like structure.
• 16:12
  That's what I'm hearing from this.
• 16:13
  You like that structure and you like a plan to get there.
• 16:16
  But that's good advice because that's often how we have to get
• 16:19
  to our goals right, is by having a plan.
• 16:22
  Yeah. I mean, it's, it's kind of like,
• 16:24
  you know, the the way that I look at it is it's great to have
• 16:27
  ideas, but unless they're implemented, it doesn't doesn't
• 16:30
  really matter. So that that would be my one
• 16:32
  thing if you're asking this week, if I'm a year or so within
• 16:36
  retirement or I'm retired, I would go somewhere quiet and
• 16:39
  just write down all the things that would would give you joy
• 16:42
  and happiness in the next 12 months.
• 16:44
  And then read through those and find out what really is
• 16:46
  important to me. And then zero in on that.
• 16:49
  Yeah, some good advice there. Anything more that you'd like to
• 16:51
  add? I think that's about it for
• 16:54
  today, yeah. OK, well let's see, we have one
• 16:57
  episode left next week in the book.
• 17:00
  Excited for that. That'll be episode 24.
• 17:02
  I know it's, it still blows me away to think that we've done
• 17:06
  this 23 episodes and I just feel like it's a little bit surreal
• 17:10
  to me because I know when we started this thing out, it was
• 17:14
  kind of an unknown. And let's be completely honest,
• 17:19
  I've been on your network, your news station, you've come over,
• 17:24
  you've interviewed me, but you're very seasoned.
• 17:27
  So I, I, I, I just, I have to tell the viewers that when we
• 17:30
  first started this, I've never been in a podcast room where
• 17:35
  I've got a seasoned news anchor who, you know, no scripts here.
• 17:40
  It's just conversation. And I remember when I said to
• 17:44
  you, Cami, you know, doing what I've done for so long, there's
• 17:48
  not a lot of things that I get nervous about.
• 17:50
  But I did tell you, I said, Cami, I'm a little nervous.
• 17:52
  And you said, well, why are you nervous?
• 17:54
  And I said, I don't know how this is going to go and I don't
• 17:57
  know if you remember. What you told me, I probably was
• 17:58
  like, I'll just roll. With it you, you did say that,
• 18:00
  but you said you know what after a few episodes we'll be In Sync
• 18:04
  and I and I do feel like again a little bit surreal.
• 18:07
  I look back over these 23 episodes and I'm like, it just
• 18:11
  works. It just works.
• 18:13
  And, and, and again, I don't know if you remember couple,
• 18:15
  couple episodes ago, I got out an e-mail where somebody told me
• 18:18
  how it changed their life. And you know, we've got lots and
• 18:21
  lots and lots of subscribers, which thank you very much.
• 18:24
  It's it's, you know, just great gratitude.
• 18:27
  And it's again humbling to me to see this many subscribers.
• 18:31
  But truly the purpose was to make a difference.
• 18:32
  And I remember that was our first episode is what is really
• 18:35
  the purpose of this podcast? And I said if we can touch the
• 18:38
  lives of one or two or 20 or how many thousands of lives and we
• 18:42
  can change one thing that actually has a positive impact.
• 18:44
  I I feel like we've done a great job.
• 18:46
  Yeah. Maybe that is our why.
• 18:48
  You could be our why, yeah. Thanks so much for joining us
• 18:50
  again. You can subscribe to wherever
• 18:52
  you get your podcasts. We appreciate you following
• 18:54
  along with us. This week we will drop a new
• 18:57
  podcast 7 days from now. Thanks for joining us.
• 19:00
  Have a good day. Fortress Financial Group, LLC is
• 19:02
  a registered investment advisor. Advisory services are only
• 19:06
  offered to clients or prospective clients where
• 19:08
  Fortress and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt
• 19:11
  for licensure. The Opinion voiced in this
• 19:13
  material are for general information only and are not
• 19:15
  intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for
• 19:18
  any individual. All indexes are unmanaged and
• 19:20
  may not be invested into directly.
• 19:22
  Investing involves risk, including loss of principal.