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You Planned for Retirement Financially. But Have You Planned How You’ll Live? · Retire and Thrive

• 0:00
  Welcome back to another episode of Retire and Thrive Podcast
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  where we help you build your life with purpose, wealth, and
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  confidence. Welcome back, Cody.
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  Thank you, glad to be back as always.
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  This is a fun little addition to to what I usually do on a daily
• 0:15
  basis. This isn't very typical for me
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  so this is this is fun. I appreciate you having me on.
• 0:19
  What do you do in a typical day if you don't do podcasts?
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  Boy do we have to go through that list A lot of different
• 0:23
  things and when the boss asks, you better have an answer.
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  But a lot of different things in in my favorite thing, obviously
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  meeting with clients. I do want to continue on the
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  five perspectives, but what's been kind of the main focus for
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  you in terms of, I mean we just wrapped up tax season, what
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  seems to be kind of on clients minds right now?
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  That's a good question. Tax season did just wrap up and
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  and again, I talk a lot about retirement being about taxes.
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  And so there's a whole bunch of conversations with our clients
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  now that they're getting reports back from their taxes saying how
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  much do I owe in or how much do I get back in the refund?
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  And what went well, kind of the success story.
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  Sometimes this is a new step for people is to take actually
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  implement strategy from a tax planning standpoint.
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  And so this is kind of the, the, the emotional or the feeling
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  side of things where now they're feeling what they did in 2025.
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  It's fun to hear the reactions because sometimes it's like, I
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  forgot I was going to have to pay a little bit more in taxes
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  or I wasn't anticipating that, that refund or whatever the case
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  may be. So it's a fun time to get back
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  together with our clients so they can kind of give us some of
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  that feedback and how they felt, But it also helps us reshape how
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  we work with that individual. Then moving forward from a tax
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  planning standpoint, because we can, we can do it for, we, we
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  can give advice based on the financials and, and, and really
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  say, Hey, this makes the most sense, but that doesn't mean
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  it's the easiest thing to do for the client.
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  So it's fun to kind of see that other end of it.
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  And now leaping into 2026 and how do we make sure we we
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  customize this to you so. So you're making minor
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  adjustments is what you're saying, typically on a year over
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  year basis, specifically centered around what happened in
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  their tax season? Yeah.
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  The the math is the math. And like I said, we can tell
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  them from a mathematical standpoint this makes sense, but
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  it doesn't mean it's always the best recommendation because
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  comfortability is a very big part of that too.
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  So we're seeing some of that rock comfortability or
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  uncomfortability right now. When people come back and say
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  here's my tax returns, I got surprised or I forgot or that
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  was great kind of thing. Yeah, good.
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  But well, thank you for sharing that.
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  Now we we know you are active on a day-to-day basis other than a
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  a podcast host. Yeah, thank you.
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  Thank you. But yeah, I wanted to talk a
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  little bit more about the five perspectives because again, I,
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  I, I read this, you know, this idea that you, you talk about a
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  lot of the five perspectives and it's not just, hey, financially,
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  do I have enough for retirement? It's what does retirement look
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  like? And, and a lot of it's the goofy
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  questions like what does Tuesday look like, right.
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  And that's, it's kind of fun framework to have also
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  identifying who I am and, and what I want to do and what's my
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  purpose after I'm no longer employed or, or running a
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  business or whatever the case. And the third perspective, which
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  I want to focus on a little bit here today is kind of trying to
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  do a little bit of an audit on yourself.
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  Now that we talk about taxes, right, doing an audit, but not
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  financially, but from an energy standpoint and saying, you know,
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  I've been working my whole life and I give a lot of energy to
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  that. How do I now figure out what is
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  going? What am I going to spend my
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  energy on in, in retirement? And, and how do I make sure I'm
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  doing the things I want to do and not just doing the things
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  maybe I had to do in the past and kind of prioritizing?
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  So I'm excited to kind of dive into that topic a little bit.
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  Yeah, I, I, I agree. I mean, that was the one of the
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  one of the five as you, as you indicated.
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  And I do notice this. And again, I'm not retired,
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  you're not retired. So a lot of times people are
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  like, well, how how do you come up with a podcast about
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  retirement when you're not retired?
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  But most of my information is looking through the lens of
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  people that have gone before me. And so, you know, when I, I
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  share this with the audience, it's, it's not my personal
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  experience necessarily, but it's, it's living vicariously
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  through these people that retired and sharing those share,
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  sharing those as you, as you mentioned, emotions, experiences
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  and so forth. And I think the energy audit is
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  real. And when I say real, it's like
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  when people are in their working years, their main focus is their
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  job and their family. And I tend to look at things,
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  you know, we all get the same 24 hours in a day.
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  And I tend to look at things as I break them up into one third,
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  one third, one third. In other words, I get 1/3 of my
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  day, IE roughly 8 hours a day to sleep.
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  I get 1/3 of my day that I'm going to be working and then I
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  get 1/3 of my day to do whatever I want to do, whether there's
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  recreation or whether it's whatever might be.
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  So I feel like 1/3 of that piece of your life once you retire is
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  now freed up. So if you've got 24 hours in a
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  day and used to have 8 hours to do what you want, now you've got
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  16 hours to do what you want. And so part of it, you know,
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  when we talk about the energy audit, it's like where do you
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  want to use your energy resources?
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  So that that's kind of what's in my head.
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  Yeah, it's interesting. It's funny you say, you know, a
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  third of your, your days spent in sleep mode, which is just
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  wild to kind of comprehend that a little bit.
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  Because you know, we talked about the, the 4000 weeks or the
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  1500 Tuesday's and all these different numbers.
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  And it's like, don't forget 1/3 of that you're sleeping or, or,
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  or healthy wise you should be sleeping.
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  And so now it cuts it even into a smaller time frame.
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  And it's like, gosh, I really need to make sure I'm using my
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  time wisely when I retire and quite frankly all the time.
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  But it's a different mindset, obviously, when you are retired.
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  And So what, what are you, what's fun about what we do?
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  And you have, like you said, more stories than I do because
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  you've been in the industry for longer.
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  But we're not retired, but we see people who are.
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  And that's why he gives us a lot of conviction around some of
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  these topics. It's not what are our
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  experiences, but what are we seeing first hand with, with
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  clients and friends and family and, and you name it, we see it
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  on a daily basis. So it can build conviction for
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  us to say, we've seen the good side and This is why you should
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  do it. We've also seen the bad side of
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  retirement where sometimes it's not as easy to think of these
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  things. And so that drives our, our
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  passion to say, or at least me and I know a lot you too, along
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  with other things, but helping people understand the value of,
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  of doing some of these ideas and, and strategies before you
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  retire. So you're prepared.
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  And so, you know, people, people talk about time flies when
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  you're having fun, right? And it's such a common phrase.
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  How do you kind of look back at your working years and say, hey,
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  my life is so different when I'm working.
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  How do I then predict what I enjoy in retirement that's going
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  to then fill my time and I know I'm going to have fun.
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  I mean, like we've talked about before, people love golfing.
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  You know, in the Midwest, we love golfing and I think around
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  the country, but you can't golf all the time in the Midwest.
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  And so, yeah, time flies when you're having fun doing that.
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  But how do you, how does going back and auditing your lifestyle
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  give you a little bit more perspective of what you can do
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  in retirement that is going to fill that bucket and and build
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  that excitement And kind of counterintuitive because we
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  don't want time to fly by, right?
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  Because it does all the time, but we want to do the things
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  that we love, which is going to make it enjoyable.
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  So kind of a full circle question, but.
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  Yeah, and I, I, I'm going to put a kind of back on you for a
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  minute because, you know, I remember being in your stage
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  and, you know, the, the, the stereotypical is that, you know,
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  you get married, you spend a couple years of just being
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  married and then you have a kid or two or three or five or
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  whatever it is. And then all sudden you get to
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  be in your early to mid 50s and these kids are gone.
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  And you look at your spouse and you're like, I have no idea
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  where we had time to do anything.
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  And so again, it's about where you want to allocate time, as we
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  talked about. But I think as it pertains to
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  the energy audit, you know what, what my suggestion is, is that
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  you look back and find out what excites you, what gives you
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  motivation. And you know, the, the, the the
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  late Jim Rohn, if if anybody is remembers Jim Rohn, he used to
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  make the comment, tell me the seven people you hang with and
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  I'll tell you who you are. And because like minded people
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  tend to hang together. So I think I would start with
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  that on the energy audit. It would be, you know, be very
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  intentional of who your friends are, obviously your family, your
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  family. But it's how you allocate that
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  time and who lifts you up and who doesn't, who gives you
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  energy and who doesn't give you energy.
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  And it doesn't necessarily even have to be people per say.
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  I was talking to a client the other day, not certainly giving
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  me energy. But his comment was, you know,
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  what I would like to do is once I retire, he says right down a
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  mile down the road from us through the woods, there's all
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  kind, there's a stream and he starts talking about how
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  beautiful it is. And he said, I just want a bird
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  watch. You know, for me, that doesn't
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  give me energy. But for him, he just kind of lit
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  up like a Christmas tree. And he's like, wow, I just just
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  the thought of being one with nature and so forth.
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  And again, I think when it comes to the energy audit, it's really
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  important to determine what gives you that energy, what
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  gives you that motivation. I think you and I can both
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  relate. I mean, there's certain people,
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  you know, specifically that you can hang with and you just leave
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  and you're just fired up. And I think it's important not
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  just from a relationship or from people, but also are there
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  things, be it bird watching or wood carving or just going for
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  walks. And again, I don't want to go
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  too deep here, Cody, but I, I look at retirement from the lens
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  of this is what people have worked their entire life for.
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  And once they get there, that is the time to do what you want,
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  when you want, how you want, and quite frankly, be selfish.
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  Yeah, and it's, it's so interesting and, and just fun to
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  hear the stories because everybody's so different.
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  I mean, you and I were talking about this yesterday or maybe
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  the other day before. But we get excited or we, we
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  build energy by communicating with people and, and talking
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  with people and hearing stories about people.
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  But there's a lot of people in this world who are complete
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  opposite and they get energy by being alone and, and reading and
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  building something in the in their house or whatever the case
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  may be. And so it's important to take a
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  look at your audit, not what other people are doing, but what
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  makes you happy. And everybody's so different.
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  And like I said, you and I are a little bit more lying, but it's
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  it's fun to really just take a step back and say not just
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  what's my financial audit, but but who am I and, and what do I
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  want to do now that I've got forever left to do what I want
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  to do? So I think that's really fun.
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  And yeah, bird watching is something I'm not a huge fan of,
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  but shout out to my dad, who knew you who, who you know, he
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  loves to stand in the kitchen and tell me every single bird
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  that comes into the backyard. I just nod my head and say
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  that's cool, but because that's not my thing.
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  But he loves it. And he does a lot of different
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  things too. But yeah, it's it's it's
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  important to figure out what gets you excited.
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  But on the other end, as you're in retirement and financially,
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  you can do the things you want to do.
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  What about the things you don't want to do?
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  I mean, that's part of the audit is, is saying what do I love,
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  but what do I hate and how do I kind of sift that out?
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  And so how do you do that and and prioritize thinking about
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  that? We have, we have a tool that
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  we've used as a pertains to that.
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  I'm just thinking right now, and I might butcher this here, but
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  it's, it's a delegate elevate or eliminate.
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  And obviously that's a work environment thing, which if it
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  doesn't give you energy, then then you delegate it or you
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  elevate it to someone else or you eliminate it.
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  And, and I think going into retirement really is no
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  different. Like it could be as simple as,
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  you know what, I always dread washing my car every other
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  Saturday. It's a drain.
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  Then go get a car wash, you know, just spend the $7.00 or
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  whatever it is and get a car wash.
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  So I think it's important and, and I'm not necessarily
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  suggesting, Cody, that people, you know, write everything down
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  that that gives them energy and, and, and write everything that
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  detracts them for or detaches them from energy.
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  But sometimes that can be helpful to like what gets you
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  excited. And as you just had mentioned, I
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  mean, different things for different people.
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  And for me, I get excited being around people and for, for for
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  others, as you mentioned, it's it's not necessarily that case.
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  And some people like big crowds, some people like more one on
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  ones. And so again, I think the whole
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  message here is really try to understand what gives you
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  energy. And people that retire may walk
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  into retirement and they might be into it for a month or two
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  months and they still don't know that answer.
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  But I think, you know, I've shared this with my kids many,
• 12:53
  many times. And I look at myself and I look
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  back in my life and I would say 90% of the time, if I go with
• 13:00
  what my gut is telling me, it's usually the right decision.
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  So in other words, if you are in in an environment and your gut
• 13:07
  is telling you I'm just not comfortable in this environment,
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  it's OK because at this stage, like I said, you don't really
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  have anything to prove to anybody.
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  So what I think about when we when we talk about the OR when
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  you mentioned the, the things that you don't like doing what
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  we, what we commonly come across as when people retire.
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  And again, there's two, there's two sides to every, every
• 13:31
  person. But I think of lawn care and I
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  think of snow removal and I think of landscaping.
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  And a lot of clients think of that same thing.
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  And it's fun. If you do an audit, you go
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  through and say, what do you love doing?
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  I love mowing the lawn, but it doesn't mean when you're 70, you
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  love doing it or, or you have the ability or, or want to spend
• 13:50
  the time doing it. And so it's 1 to get a lawn care
• 13:53
  company and pay them if I can afford it.
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  That saves a lot of time and energy and effort and do the
• 13:58
  things you want to do. And then again, a very common
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  conversation is do we go into a town home that maybe has an
• 14:03
  association that does it for me? I mean, there's a lot of stories
• 14:07
  of people who eventually get hurt doing something they
• 14:09
  shouldn't do. And it's a time suck and, and if
• 14:12
  you enjoy it, great. But if you don't, maybe you put
• 14:16
  that into the plan and say, can we afford to have snow removal
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  done for us, right? So I'm not slipping and falling
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  and getting hurt. I think that's just as important
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  as saying, what do I love doing? What should I offload?
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  Right. And so I think that's, that's a
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  fun thing to kind of think about that you never really had to
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  before, because as you said, when you're in your working
• 14:35
  years, you're just kind of grinding away and, and going
• 14:38
  home to your family and trying to make sure they're fed and,
• 14:40
  and then do the lawn care and, and do the laundry and, and do
• 14:43
  the house cleaning and do all this.
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  It's piles up, not always the most fun stuff.
• 14:47
  So I think the the audit it's huge.
• 14:50
  Yeah, for. For people who are about to
• 14:52
  retire. I, I want to say one last thing
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  before we wrap this up, Cody. And, and certainly if there's
• 14:56
  things you want to additional things you want to touch on too
• 14:58
  from your experiences. And again, I share with the
• 15:01
  audience, we don't work exclusively with retirees, but I
• 15:04
  would say that number is north of 70% either retired or very
• 15:07
  close to retirement. So, so we've seen a lot and, and
• 15:11
  again, kind of coming at this from the perspective of what,
• 15:14
  what I've observed. And then, you know, I was just a
• 15:16
  conference last month in Arizona.
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  Barron's does their annual RIA conference.
• 15:23
  And it was just a great, great conference.
• 15:25
  And so I learned a lot from industry trends and what's going
• 15:28
  on. And obviously we read trade
• 15:30
  publications, you get your CFP and you know, we, we, we do
• 15:33
  various continuing education things.
• 15:35
  But I just may not be the most popular thing to say, but I feel
• 15:40
  like sometimes in the financial advising world, we focus so much
• 15:46
  on the numbers and we forget how to live.
• 15:49
  And I think that is one of the things that does differentiate
• 15:52
  us. And, and I know you can tell
• 15:54
  story after story and I can as well about encouraging people
• 16:00
  not just to live that ideal lifestyle, but giving them the
• 16:02
  green light to say, you know what, it's OK to spend this
• 16:04
  money and take that trip or, you know, bring the grandkids or
• 16:07
  whatever it might be, or maybe it's a tangible, you know,
• 16:09
  camper, whatever. But I do believe that the
• 16:12
  industry tends to focus so much on the numbers and what's the
• 16:17
  probability and, you know, doing all the stress testing and
• 16:21
  portfolio analysis and all of this.
• 16:23
  And, you know, I, I brought this up the other day to a client.
• 16:27
  As I said, you know, we can get really, really granular and, and
• 16:29
  we do very, very heavy, deep financial planning.
• 16:32
  You do tax analysis, we do, we do all that stuff.
• 16:35
  And I always tell people that one of the biggest uncertainties
• 16:39
  in retirement isn't necessarily your rate of return or
• 16:42
  inflation, it's life expectancy. That's a big number.
• 16:47
  I mean, if, if you leave us at 75 versus leaving us at 95, I
• 16:51
  mean, that's, you know, 20 years swing.
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  And so I just, I just want to make the comment that, you know,
• 16:58
  if, if, if there's viewers out there that are retired or
• 17:03
  approach your retirement, don't forget to live.
• 17:06
  Yeah, and one of the fun things that we encourage people to do
• 17:10
  is just try something new, too. I mean, your time is limited
• 17:14
  when you're working now, you have a lot more time when you're
• 17:17
  retired, but it goes by quick. So try something new, do
• 17:21
  something different. Last night, for example, I I am
• 17:26
  not a handyman whatsoever at all.
• 17:29
  And people who know me know that my brother loves giving me grief
• 17:32
  for that. But.
• 17:33
  I appreciate you going publicly and telling us that.
• 17:36
  So I can't fix what you need fixed, but my wife and I bought
• 17:39
  an Ottoman the other day and it came in a big, old, big old box,
• 17:42
  cardboard box. And my, my one year old loves
• 17:46
  boxes. And so I was just like, you
• 17:48
  know, I was watching a program last night and I was, the girls
• 17:52
  were in bed. And so I was just like, you know
• 17:55
  what, I'm going to turn this box into a castle.
• 17:57
  And so I just spent an hour and a half building this goofy
• 18:01
  looking box into a goofy looking castle and the time flew by.
• 18:06
  It literally felt like 5 minutes.
• 18:07
  But it was just fun to try something new and it may catch
• 18:10
  on and you may enjoy doing something like that.
• 18:12
  And so now of course this morning I'm texting my wife
• 18:14
  saying is she enjoying it? Does she love it?
• 18:16
  Did she destroy it? And, and I'm sure it's going to
• 18:19
  go away just like that. But it was just fun.
• 18:20
  It was something new and, and you don't know what you might
• 18:24
  get the hang of too. So I think the energy audit is,
• 18:27
  is super important and good for me too, just to kind of think
• 18:29
  of. But it's good to step back and
• 18:32
  say, what do I enjoy doing? What do I not enjoy doing?
• 18:35
  And how do we tailor to those kind of things?
• 18:38
  So I appreciate you you having that kind of conversation in
• 18:41
  that book. So it's important for a lot of
• 18:43
  the viewers to maybe take 20 minutes and think about it.
• 18:45
  Yeah. I think that's, I think that's
• 18:47
  very, very good. And yeah, like you said, trying
• 18:49
  something new. And So what you kind of were
• 18:51
  saying is if it doesn't work out for you in the financial
• 18:53
  advisory world, you might go into the engineering world.
• 18:55
  Is that what you're saying? Yeah, no, I hope there's not
• 18:57
  much competition because I'm going to be in trouble, but
• 18:59
  yeah. Great.
• 19:01
  Anything else, Cody? That's it.
• 19:03
  I, I love this topic and I'm excited for next week too, where
• 19:06
  we talk a little bit more about the the 4th perspective.
• 19:08
  So I'm excited about that. Good.
• 19:10
  Well, thank you very much for tuning in to the Retire and
• 19:13
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• 19:16
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• 19:19
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