Latest / The Checkpoint Podcast: Questions / Episode 14 | What actually happens when you retire?
Transcript
- speaker-0: Good. Okay. ⁓ all right, Adele. So today's question, I'm gonna ask it and then I'll answer it first, just so it can give you some time to think about your answer. Cool? Yep. Okay, so today's question is what happens when you retire? What happens when you retire? All right. So for me, that is a really hard question to answer. Only because it's not like I've never thought about retiring or not working or anything like that. It's just that I can't picture myself like not doing anything. I think I've ⁓ I've been working for so long and run my own business, you know, it'll be 18 years ⁓ at the end of this year, that I've always just been doing something. And, you know, even when I'm out on holidays, I have a laptop. I can do work. Now it's not like I'm putting the holiday at risk or making the holiday worse because I'm stopping plans and doing work. It's just me going, hey, ⁓ I'm at, I'm at a theme park. I'm doing this. Is it okay if I do the work when I get back to the hotel? And almost always it's been that, yep, that's not a problem. If it's been something super urgent, I've got people that I can call and get them to fix the problem. But more often than not, ⁓ I've not had to do that. So the thought of me not doing anything at all. like on a beach somewhere for any period of time just seems so foreign. Seems so I I can't actually get beyond that because I'd I'd get itchy feet. So when I retire, and this isn't like the be all and it all answer for me. so what happens when I retire? I'll be working is probably the answer that I'll have. Honestly. What do you think? speaker-1: I think it's funny that you said, I can't imagine when I retire not doing anything. Like you associate not working with not doing anything. speaker-0: I associate not working with not doing anything. speaker-1: How you said it. Yeah. I can't imagine not doing anything. And going on holidays without a laptop for you feels abnormal. Absolutely. For me, that is totally normal. To to actually have to interrupt my day. Yeah. And even think about work on holidays is the opposite to me. So I think of retirement more again, not as stopping, as like a process to doing less and less work. So maybe going from like full time to part time. Then part time to either project work or a lot of people do volunteering. speaker-0: ⁓ yeah, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. speaker-1: Almost like ⁓ it doesn't go from all to nothing. It's like right, it's a slow sort of wind down or a chance to do other fun stuff that isn't working. speaker-0: Yeah, that's good point. I do like the volunteering aspect. Cause I d I do know a lot of people and I and I think it's also ⁓ influenced my answer. Like I I know some people that are well beyond retirement age. And I I think it's just because, you know, I I I'm in that sort of small business space. There are people that ⁓ volunteer for some of these businesses and they are you know, some of them are well past 70, some are even going on to 80 and they're still doing something. They're either consulting or they're volunteering. ⁓ or they're doing something like out of the house, or doing something that's still kind of, you know, keeping their brains ticking over. And speaker-1: Which is not a bad thing. I think I know a few people that are older as well that still work. Some of them it's a financial decision. Some of them, as you said, it's a social decision. They want the few days out like ⁓ working in a shop or just being around other people or socializing so that every day of the week isn't the same. Wake up, stay home, you know, whatever your normal daily routine would look like without work. ⁓ And some of them, like I said, I know, then take up volunteering. So there's a day a week or two days a week that they go out and they're still interacting with other people, but they're doing it for something that isn't necessarily gener generating money, but at least it makes them feel like they're contributing or they're helping in some way. speaker-0: Okay. So let's get a bit more specific then. So let's say you're seventy five. What are you doing? Like what's a what's a typical week of you at seventy five? Like where are you living? What are you doing? Yeah. speaker-1: I I don't wanna be working at seventy five. I wanna be sitting at home, drinking coffee, having grandkids come over to play, going out for lunches, if and when I'm not on holidays, overseas, travelling somewhere. That to me is what I would like to be doing at seventy five. The idea of still working feels like it would be a chore at seventy five that I would not still wanna be doing. Because I don't necessarily yeah, choose to work just for the joy of it. I would buy seventy five choosing to, you know, hang out with friends and family and relax for the joy of it instead. speaker-0: Working is a chore. I've just written that down. So let's just okay, so let's just say, let's just say, for example, that in between now and seventy-five, you discovered something that you love doing, whether it be tarot or marketing or digital stuff or something that is maybe a couple of steps beyond that that you enjoyed doing, that you wouldn't consider at work and for whatever reason you get you're getting paid for it and you're like, this is kind of cool. Would you do you think you'd still be doing that at seventy five? speaker-1: Yeah. If it was if it was a joy, then it wouldn't feel like a chore. So if I went into something more spiritual and people came over or still wanted me to do readings or wanted something like that that didn't feel like it was work, that would be I I think that's where the lines blur a bit differently. Whereas if you are someone who works in an office nine to five and it's about turning up at a certain time, meeting certain KPIs, having that that sort of structure around it. I would not want that kind of structure around still having to do something at seventy five. Whereas if it was integrated with my life, that would be different. speaker-0: Yeah, you know what? I I think I think you're gonna find something. I I've just been sort of thinking about ⁓ what it is that you've done before. And it's always especially in the corporate environment where realistically the only thing that you have in in terms of a a sense of accomplishment is y either your workmates or your like your immediate bosses and if you're lucky, maybe even higher ups of recognizing that you're doing a good job. Whereas If you're doing something at a small business level, whether it be marketing or just end-to-end stuff that we were talking about before, you're you're dealing with the person directly. And especially if you go down the spiritual route, you're then helping them live a better life, a more fulfilling life. You're helping them find guidance or balance or whatever it is. And the feeling that you have from that versus the feeling from, say, your manager going, Hey, Adele, that was a really good job you did with that copy. You know, we had X amount of opens more than the previous one. You're just gonna be like, ⁓ okay, thanks, I guess. Where if it's other people messaging you and saying, Hey, what you told me to do like really, really helped. And as a result, I'm now doing this. I reckon you might find ⁓ you'll you you know, once you sort of start to get the first couple of people through where you've suggested something and they've gone, Hey, you told me to do this and I've done that and like as a result, like everything has changed and it's awesome. Thank you. You might. speaker-1: See, you sound like you would still like to be working all the way through because then you would be contributing to other people's lives in a positive way. speaker-0: Think you're right. Yeah, ⁓ yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. speaker-1: Totally different from someone who is purely working to pay the bills, not working in something that brings them that kind of passion or joy. Yeah. It it depends what stage of your life and career you're at and how you identify work. Is it something purely to pay the bills or is it part of your lifestyle and who you are? Then I think it totally changes the answer. speaker-0: Yeah. It it's almost the equivalent question is you know, the people ask forever. Like if you won the lotto, would you still work? And a lot of the times people are like, you know, if it's a syndicate, pretty much the entire company goes, Nope, we're not gonna work, bad luck. But if you're a small business owner, and depending on what it is that you do, a lot of the times people are like, Yeah, probably. Like I'd still whether it's millions of millions, it's not like you're just gonna suddenly leave and then go. You know, I I think there's a ⁓ There's also a sense of not ownership, but you know, if you've if you've been helping these people for so long, you simply can't just unplug and then jet off overseas. You're invested, yeah. speaker-1: Yeah. You're invested in them, in their lives for sure. speaker-0: Yeah, I don't know. If I'm 75, I can't, like I said, it's really hard. I I'm super visual. I I just can't picture myself just, you know. I I could I could picture myself in a house somewhere. Sure, grandkids and stuff like that. But I actually picture myself in a part of the house that's like detached and doing work and doing something like this. Yeah, it's just I don't know. I I just and I think look, ⁓ it might be the same with my dad. Like my dad is ⁓ he's well, he's 70. three-ish now. And so he still does a lot of stuff. ⁓ for him, his decision to do that though is more physical in terms of he's seen people that ⁓ that retire and then they get into that sedentary life instead of you know getting up and working eight hours a day. ⁓ you know he was a factory worker, so it was quite physical. ⁓ but he's seen people that have retired and they just, you know, they do kind of like what you said lunches, coffees. ⁓ but obviously they add Netflix and eating food and then not really exercising. ⁓ and then they they go downhill quickly and their health gets affected and it's you know, it's ⁓ I'm not gonna say that they die quicker, but it's not long until, you know, they're in a a not good position and then they're having to ask people for help and you know, like when especially when you're that age, trying to get back into a position of health and fitness is real difficult. speaker-1: Yeah, whereas ⁓ for my mum, she came out of a quite ⁓ high level corporate job. So that was very demanding ⁓ for a long time. So when she went to retire, she did that path of sort of initially scaling back at the same place to less days. Then she took a break for a little while, got bored, and then started working at a company that was sort of supporting community. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Stuff like that. So working much lower stress, closer to home, you know, just to have that little bit of keeping her mind active. Yeah. And then when she decided she'd, you know, had her time at that, then she volunteered at schools and was helping at schools. So she kind of phased it so that it wasn't like this complete shock of speaker-0: Okay. That's kind of cool. Yep. speaker-1: you know, using your brain the whole time, being out with people the whole time, all the rest of it. It was more that sort of scaled approach of, right, go down to sort of less hours. Yep. Yep. What have you. So I think it's and it like she also has I think it is, as you said, about your network and your friendship groups and how active you are outside of work. So people that work full time and don't have as much On the side of that would find it harder to go from working to retirement. Like that would be quite a shock to the speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. It it's interesting because that what you just said leads into another question that I had recorded a video on. ⁓ and it all relates. It was ⁓ where is it? ⁓ da da da what's ⁓ okay. The question was how do I make friends at this stage of life? Yeah. And it's almost that thing that you just said where, you know, li if you are an employee and you retire or you quit or you get made redundant or whatever it is, a lot of your ⁓ well basically your entire work life slash part of your social life stems from, you know, whether you work at a quite a largish company and, you know, you you end up retaining some friends that you may have worked at a previous job, but normally the majority of your friends are kind of who you work with for the most part. And so when they get stripped or you leave, you know, I think most people like to think to themselves, ⁓ you know, when I when I finish up with work, we'll still keep in touch. But really that's the case. You know, you're out of say 10 friends, you might be lucky to keep in touch with maybe one or two out of work. ⁓ and that's a that becomes a difficult thing too, where it's like, well, there's no more job. You're going to retire. Like, who are you going to hang out with? You know, if you don't retire with a group of people, the other people are still working and they're like, well, you know, you're retired. You should be you know, you should be on a cruise somewhere. Instead, you're you're calling you're calling us going, what's going on? And ⁓ I do know of some people that have done that where They've retired or they've they've been made redundant and they still can't quite shift that whole I'm not doing anything, so they keep calling back at work just to see what's going on. 'Cause they feel like they're getting left out. Which they are, but you know speaker-1: I also think you and I've spoken about this before. There's a lot of women's networking out there. Yeah. And women seem to socialize a lot more ⁓ and organize those kind of catch-ups a lot more. ⁓ you know, outside of work hours. Yeah. There's also kind of different things like at our age and stage we might know mums and dads from our kids' activities or, you know, those kind of things. And all of those relationships, as you said, there's the same as work once. You might keep one or two. It's all those like, well, where do you meet new people if you're not going to activities, you're not going to work, you're not doing any of that stuff. It's like, ⁓ okay. speaker-0: Yeah. It's a it's a it's a weird one 'cause it's ⁓ I think when I answered the question, it's I I I don't think you go into any anything with a with the scope to make friends. It you you just do that, you know, or you're you're thrust into it because your kids want to do something or your partner wants to do something. And and as a result, like sure, you might make a friend here or there, ⁓ but it's not like you're out there going, Hey, I'm new, someone be friends with me sort of thing. ⁓ and and so the thought of having to make friends is a bit weird when, at least for me anyway, I've never been that person to want to make friends. You know, it just it just kinda happens, you know what I mean? I've never ⁓ ev even when I've been in a position that ⁓ I don't know anyone, it's it's not like I do that and then I I have this sort of energy that says, Someone please talk to me. I'm awkward in this corner by myself, you know, I feel strange. So I speaker-1: Talker. Can you imagine people that are a little bit more shy as well? Yeah. How much harder that would be to overcome in an environment where you actually do really want to meet people. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. More so. Well maybe that's why I don't want to meet people properly because if I talk too much, they'll just walk off. Just say, that guy over there in the hat. Yeah, he just talks too much. Don't worry about it. So retirement. Okay. That's not so bad. Yeah. I I still I still can't I can't picture it. I I can, I can sort of do it, but it always involves me talking to somebody ⁓ or me doing something. the volunteering aspect I think It's funny 'cause I've never really thought about it ⁓ in that capacity, but it's it seems like it'd make sense, you know. speaker-1: From what I hear, a lot of people don't have time to do things like volunteer until they've stopped working. So there's a lot of people who go, ⁓ I really should be donating blood every month. They don't do it. Yeah. Or, you know, I'd really like to give to this cause and go out and do it. And then there's the people that always wanted to start their own brewery or something like that seems you know, far fetched, that maybe then they have the time to do. speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But even still, like that's that's the part there where ⁓ I start counting ⁓ I start counting days I I start counting years, which I shouldn't, I know, but it it's just, you know, you do the automatic math and it's like, you know, if you if you do want to start something new at sixty, it's like, well, how long is it gonna take for this to you know, how much how much is it gonna cost? How long is it gonna take? You know, do you wanna go back into that sort of stress sort of feeling again? ⁓ It's funny, it just made it just made me think then, where I I think ⁓ the the whole retirement thing for me is almost a a feeling of not having stress, which I think stresses me out when there's no stress. speaker-1: Whereas I think of people in an office environment that get towards late fifties and they'll take a job intentionally for that to be their last job. Yep. And then the you know, they may not love it anymore, there might be restructures, they may, you know, have totally lost the joy for it, but they're hanging in there 'cause to try and start again, it's you know, three, four years to go before you want to retire is not what they want to be doing either. So it's a whole like mindset at that time to be going, ⁓ hold on, I've just got to stick this out for X amount of years and then I'm free. Yeah. ⁓ and the other difference is like I love to travel. Yeah. So for me, it's time to travel like until I'm like too old, like not too old, but is in healthy wise to be traveling. Whereas for you, you associate going traveling with I'm still taking my laptop. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, I'm still taking I I I just I don't know. I'm just so used to it. I'm so used to that. I I think that that sounds like such a sad way to kind of live the the last parts of your say your professional life is to is to try and get a job that you don't want to do in the hopes that it will pay you X amount because your super needs to be topped up. ⁓ absolutely. And just showing up every morning and doing the same thing. It would it's like I I couldn't I couldn't think of anything worse, honestly. I'd rather just quit. speaker-1: It's gotta be realistic for a lot of people though. There are a lot of people that don't work for the joy of it. They work because it's something they're good at that they fell into. If you stay at a company that long, obviously pay-wise you've gone up. Starting again might be a lot more effort. ⁓ yeah. ⁓ and not pay as well. So it's like, I'll just stick with this. It makes more sense, you know, particularly bigger companies with the perks and all the rest of it. So you can get stuck in that cycle of. I'll get long service leave if I stay here a bit longer and then my payout will be better for my super and then I'll be able to enjoy my retirement more. Absolutely. It's strategic thinking for setting yourself up. speaker-0: Yeah, I know I know a lot of people that do that in hindsight now. Like I I have heard ⁓ of of people doing that and you catch up with them because, you know, that's kind of an excuse to catch up with people when they shift jobs is because, ⁓ hey, if we work together at place A and you're now working at place B and I get sick of place A, I might want to work at place B as well. So I'll catch up. And then and they'll they'll say that. They'll say, Well, if I if I stay here for five years and they'll promote me and then, you know, if I get to this level, ⁓ and you know, it's funny because a lot of A lot of times, especially in the tech space, people will get a job in a hope that they'll get acquired because there'll be a payout involved and they'll get a a ton of money after that. And, you know, a lot of the times they can then look for another job in a similar, you know, in a similar organization. And if they get, you know, if they get ⁓ made redundant, they get paid out again. So it it that's quite good money as well. But it's ⁓ you know, to to dedicate that much time of a day to do something that, you know, you might enjoy or you might not. It's just I don't know if I can do it. And I haven't. And I've tried. ⁓ but it's yeah, it's it's just strange. But I couldn't speaker-1: You're potentially the anomaly too. I don't know. Yeah, man, maybe that's just different people that we've met in our respective career paths. I think there is so much of society that is working in jobs that they fell into, that were good at, that have worked their way up, that suits their lifestyle, pays their bills, is convenient, and it's work. Whereas your work life is ⁓ is a mold of who you are as a person, which is maybe that's because you've got your own business, maybe it's because you enjoy what you do. Who knows? I think for a lot of people there's a much bigger segregation between the two. Yeah. And as you said, then when they go to retire, it's literally close one door. What does what does this part of me look like? I don't know, I haven't spent as much time on that because I spent years five days a week over there and then spending my weekends driving my kids to their stuff and now they've left and yeah I don't want to spend all my time in the garden and watching Netflix. Yeah. So I think it's different. Your very integrated work life and personal identity. Whereas I think a lot more are just getting by and just functioning very separately as work me. speaker-0: Yeah, I think you're right. Mm. All right. Before we wrap it up, what did your ⁓ what did your mum do for like the time that she wasn't working? You said she spent s she she finished up for a bit and then she did basically nothing for a little while. What did you speaker-1: Yeah, I think she took a break when she came out of management. ⁓ so that was twenty years being a senior director. So, you know, I think she thought and I think that timed with having grandkids, she was like, ⁓ this is great. Yeah, yeah. Spend time with grandkids, ⁓ you know, whatever have you, I can do lunches, I can just relax. And then I think when you're used to using your mind that much, as you said, to stop using it and, you know, just relax the whole time, part of you just gets a bit I'm not stimulated enough. I'm not, you know, I'm getting a bit bored. Yeah. ⁓ so then she did. She looked at something that was more convenient, less stress, you know, three days a week helping out. So still using her mind and her skills, but without the stress. She volunteered at a program that uses sort of directors to ⁓ go into not-for-profit places and help them set up their structures and their so for her she went in and sort of helped some of those organizations set up their HR policies and procedures and those kind of things. Yep. and then when she kind of tapered off that then she went into some underprivileged schools and sat in classrooms and and helped with the kids and stuff like that. So it was almost like all those little things that you you think about doing when you are working and that you don't have time to do. Yeah. When you do have time you go, I can go and do this now. I can go and, you know, help out there and, you know. speaker-0: Yeah. And the cool thing is if it doesn't work out, you know it's just bounce anyway. Sometimes you think to yourself, I should do that. I should help these people. And you go and do that and realize, wait, this is not what I thought it was going to be. Exactly. I'm going to do something else. speaker-1: Because Yeah. And it's a bit easier to leave if you're volunteering than if you're you've just started there and you're trying to go, ⁓ how many years it just will look right on my C V so totally different scenario. But yeah, definitely. speaker-0: Yeah. Okay. I think that's it. So to wrap it up to wrap it up, what reti what happens when I retire? Actually give me one word. What happens when you retire? What's one word? speaker-1: See the word for me is relax. speaker-0: Relax, okay. Mine's work. I don't know, it's fun. Actually, I actually sorry, no, no, I I lie. If it wasn't going to be work, the word would be fun because I I still find work fun. Relaxing, I I don't know, maybe not so much fun. But we'll see how we go.