Today Ray talks with Geoff Boyer, a financial advisor, and George Mowrer, a retirement coach, about when and how to plan for your short and long-term future. Geoff points out that by planning your future around not only your bucket list but also buckets of money, we can plan for both the long-term and the short-term. George suggests that people consider three questions to help us determine what we value most, what is most important to us, so we can focus any time we do have around those things. Their combined advice sets the tone for people to plan financially as well as around our values to build the future they want.
Transcription:
Intro 00:03
Welcome to Changing the Rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best lives and advice on how you can achieve that too! Join us with your lively host, Ray Lowe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world.
Geoff Boyer00:19
Hello, everybody, and welcome to our podcasting studio here in Willow Street, Pennsylvania. And I'm sitting here with my engineer Luke Cagno. And I've got two magnificent gush, they are two of the luckiest people in the world. And before I let them talk, let me define what the luckiest people in the world are all about so that you can focus in on why they are who they are. So, the luckiest people in the world are people who figure out what they want their lives to be like, they actually design them to their own terms, and then they step in and live them under their own terms. And people who do that tend to be happier, they tend to have a sense of direction. It's not an easy thing to do. But one of the things that you're going to find from today is it takes some planning to do that. And we're going to focus a little bit on visions and planning. So today, I have my two guests, Jeff Boyer. Jeff is a longtime friend, which means he's almost as old as I am. And Jeff has been in the financial advising business for a long time. And he's also been in the banking business, he started a couple of community banks, and he's still active there. And although he has sold his financial planning business, he's still active as an advisor in an advisory role there. So he's a perfect person to talk to us about where the money's gonna come from to do what we want. Our second guest is George Mauer. Okay. And George is a certified retirement coach at Nextgen Retirement Coaching, and he focuses on the non-financial areas of life. Okay, so I'm going to start out and pose a problem with a story. And then you guys are going to come in and tell us how we solve this problem. So welcome to changing the rules. So years ago, I'm a competitive swimmer, I still am, and I went down to our National Senior Games Championships, they happened to be in Birmingham, Alabama, and I did my swimming thing. And I'm wandering around afterward, talking to people, and I meet this guy, and he's carrying six medals around with him, five of them gold and one silver. The silver one is the important thing. And I later found out that John won his six medals in the 100- 104 age group. And at age 103, John's medals were in the shotput, the discus, the hammer throw, the javelin, and he launched one crummy event to 101 year old. So there's more than one in the age group, okay. And this caused me a great deal of concern because I started thinking, well, what if I'm lucky enough to live to be 100 years old? And more and more people are starting to do that today? Well, if that happens, what do I want my life to look like? Am I going to be like John here out having fun with his friends? Or am I going to be sitting in a wheelchair in a nursing home because I don't take care of myself. And the next thing is, if you retire at age 65, which is still kind of a normal way of thinking about things, and you live to be 100, that's 35 years. And what are you going to do with your life? I think it's easy to waste it. I think it's easy not to have enough money to do what you want to do. So now we got to get to the plan. So, Jeff, I'm going to put you on hold for a minute. Let's start with George over here. George, talk to us about the meaning of life and what do we do?
George Mowrer04:09
Oh, wow. Well, thank you for that wonderful introduction. I would say, I mean, the thing that I get pumped and excited about is that, as you said, we could have as much as a third of our life ahead of us in our retirement years. So, a third if you even think 30 years, that's 1500 weeks to do whatever we want to do. And you know, I think, you know, my friend Jeff here, we were talking before, he had a wedding this past weekend, there was so much planning that went into one day of that wedding, and I'm thinking people do not do that kind of planning for their retirement as much as that went into that one day. So, you know, again, the planning is, as you kind of alluded to, is the key.
Geoff Boyer04:59
Well, let me post something here. Because when I got out of business school, we were all told to do 25 and 30-year plans. Well, people don't do that anymore. You know, and the biggest complaint I get about planning is people say I had a plan. And then we had COVID. And my plan was out the window. So why did I bother planning in the first place? And yet, if you don't plan, you're going to waste time, you're going to waste your life, you're not going to have the resources to do what you want. So how do we cope with that?
George Mowrer05:31
I mean, I'm not sure a 30-year plan, I think more than a plan is to have a vision for what that next chapter of your life is going to be. I love the idea of sort of 10 years at a time, you know because we have our health and our health is going to change over the years. That's one of the considerations. So I don't have a 30-year plan, but I have a plan. And I live my life that way. And I do feel like one of the luckiest guys in the world.
Geoff Boyer05:59
Okay, so let's bring Jeff in here for a minute. So, Jeff, we have George here, and he's got a 10-year plan. How do we structure the money to deal with that plan? And let me pose something here. I know, I had a bucket list when I retired, and I went through that bucket list pretty fast. And every time I checked something off the bucket list, three new things came on. And where does the money come from? Because if you're retired and on a fixed income, how do you cope with those things? And if you live in an ever-expanding life, what do you do? So talk to us, tell us the secrets of life? Well, thank you, Ray, I think you put a keyword there, and the word was bucket. But I would say rather than bucket list, I would say buckets of money. If you take if you want to plan and you have to plan or you're not going to get where you want to go. A bucket that has cash in it, a bucket of short-term investments, a bucket of long-term investments, with greater risk can help you get through any COVID situation where the markets go down and people are concerned. If you're dealing from cash, you're not playing with your investments, you're not taking money from a declining bucket. But rather that bucket is going through the valley and back up the mountain. You know, in the future, at least that's what history tells us has been done and does consistently. Okay, I want to come back to you with another thing. But let's go back to Georgia and throw another thing into the woodwork here. That's the wrong word. But whatever it is, I mean. So, George, we're thinking that maybe we'll live 30 years. What if we don't? We don't know, we have no idea how long we're gonna live., right? Okay, so how do you plan? How do you plan for the long term and the short term here and the contingencies both ways?
George Mowrer08:09
I mean, from my thinking, the most important thing to do is figure out what is most important for you right now. And it's not necessarily a financial thing. It's what do you value? What do you value most? And in kind of building around those, what is most important for you, and from there plan. And the plan may be financially driven, it may not be, it might be serving. There's things that you value, that for you to live the best life that you can you're living into those things.
Geoff Boyer08:40
Okay, when you coach somebody or talk to somebody, how do you determine or how do you get them to understand what their values really are? Because I suspect a lot of people don't think consciously about this.
George Mowrer08:52
Yeah, good question. I think when I'm working with somebody, I want them to figure out what they value and what they want to value or what they long to value as they move forward. And I take them through a three-question exercise. And light bulbs go on when I do this. The first question I'll ask them is what do you want your ideal retirement to look like? What's a typical day? What's a typical week? What's the perfect retirement looks like? And then they can name like I would you know, golfing and traveling and visiting friends and blah, blah, blah. The second question I ask is okay, you go to the doctor, and the doctor tells you you have five years to live? Now, what does your perfect retirement look like? And that usually takes people back but now they have five years to deal with. So then they can relook at that. Often their vision for their retirement at that point is not quite as crazy as the unlimited one but it still is fairly consistent with that. And then the third question, and this is one gets them, is you go to the doctor and the doctor says, oops, I made a mistake, you have 48 hours to live. And so it's no longer a matter of what you're going to do with that last 48 hours. Now it's a time of reflecting on what are your regrets. What do you wish you did? What are the things you'd love to do one more time, and all of a sudden out of that conversation, values, and what really is important begin to emerge from that? And then those values become the foundation, whether you have five years, 10 years, or 30 years ahead of you.
Geoff Boyer10:34
Okay, getting back to Jeff here. Because somewhere around here, whatever our life is going to be, we have to know that we have enough money to be able to do it. Okay. And one of the things I think that we have to do also is allow for contingency. So what if we only have 48 hours left to live? And what if we have this pile of money left over? You know, what's the plan for handling that too? But the question I really want you to ask is, how many financial advisors get into this kind of conversation about truly, what is it that you want your money for? What do you want to be able to do with it? And how do you do that? I think more today than in the past, financial planners are looking at some of these issues as to what's the point of the money. And, you know, in our practice, you know,my meetings are usually two hours long. One hour for finances and one hour for what are you doing with the rest of your life, and then trying to integrate the two of them. To an extent, it depends on how much money you have and what your aspirations are. If you have lots of money, it makes it easier, obviously. But if you have lesser money, you've also got to throw in how much of it do I want to leave children or charities? Or whatever? Or do I want to spend it all? And it comes down to building a plan, it comes down to saying this is where I am, this is where I want to go. What are the strategies that we're going to use to get me there? Okay, let's stay with Jeff here for a minute. And let's bring values in the equation. One of the things that George brought up as he started talking a little bit about what are your values and especially if you start thinking about a long life, and then a lesser long life, and then maybe a very short life, I think your values come into play. So how many people really understand their values, from your perspective? I think most people would say that they do. But I'm not sure they really do. Because, as you said, values change as times change. We used to always think that people would grow their assets, and then spend their assets down on a given line. But in reality, we've learned that people spend more, let's say in their 60s to 70s, their go-go years, to their 70s, the 80s when they spend less in their slow-go years, to the last part where they spend more because of health issues in their no-go years. So go-go, slow-go and no-go. Okay, I think I might be able to focus in on that a little bit. All right. So we got some interesting ways of thinking about things. And let me toss out another idea that's come up occasionally. And this idea of practice retirement before you retire. So how do you know what you want to do? You know, here's one of the problems, most of us face something that we call Cliff retirement, I guess that's a good word for it. You know, here you are, you work like a dog, you're slaving for other people or maybe slaving for yourself or your clients or whatever it is, and you hit this magic year or whatever it is. And you leap off the retirement cliff, and you have nothing to do. How do you how do we deal with that? How do we plan for it? So which one are we gonna start, raise your hand here. I had a client who was in that situation. And when I met him, I asked him what his goal was for retirement. He said, I'm going to sit down on the porch and put my feet up, I'm going to watch the neighbors go to work and mow the lawn and all this kind of stuff. And I'm just going to enjoy myself. And I said, okay. I said, when will I be meeting your wife? Because if you do, that statistics tell us that within seven years, she's going to be our client. And it's a hard thing to say but it's very true. You have to have an idea of what's important to you. What do you want to do? I met a guy the other day who seeds envelopes for charity. He puts five bucks and leaves it on a park bench to see who will pick it up, read the note on it and add to it or take it. This is something he's wanted to do; he's very wealthy. But he does it because he wants to help others and help teach them to add a little bit to the pile and eventually give it away. The whole idea is, that's his purpose. Okay, go ahead.
George Mowrer15:29
I mean, what I would add to it is, I think if suddenly someone finds themselves retired, it happens very quickly, I think initially, people love it. There's this perception of retirement as being a perpetual vacation, they're like, finally I have no routine in my life, and I can go golf, and I can travel and do all that. But that goes, six months, maybe a year, and then all of a sudden, reality starts setting in where all of a sudden, like routine, they longed for routine, and the routine is gone. Routine, identity, relationships, purpose, those things start, purpose less and less starts showing up. And then that's when the reality starts hitting that, oh, I need to do something about this.
Geoff Boyer16:15
What about the trap of getting into retirement, getting busy, and then finding out all these things that you're busy with don't have the meaning that you want them to have? When do you find out that's true? And how do you fix it? And how many people do this and whatever?
George Mowrer16:41
I mean, that's where planning comes into play. I love working with people even before retirement or that initial period after retirement has started because without the plan, you will start going down a path where you're just wasting a bunch of time. Eventually, you may start volunteering and doing things that give you purpose and meaning. But I'd much rather not waste that time and help people move right into it.
Geoff Boyer17:07
Okay. All right. Words of wisdom. So here we are, when do we start trying to get this plan together in a practical sense? So, Jeff, you're with your financial planning clients over here, when do you get them to start saying, you gotta meet George, or you got to meet somebody like George because you got to start thinking globally about what you really want to do. And then how do you know? How do you know what you really want to do? I think that if you take it to the financial side when you start working, is when you start looking at what am I trying to build? And how am I going to build it? And how much am I going to put aside for me 50 years from now, because time is your greatest ally, by far. The retirement side, I think for most of our clients, happened in their early 50s. Some of whom said I want to be retired by 55, some of whom said I'm going to work till 65-75, whatever. But in each case, it was okay, how do we partition? How do we define? How do we do a lot of what George is doing? You know, I think probably more after the fact, when the person has retired. Cliff, if you will, to use that word, retirement is an awfully dangerous thing. It doesn't work for most people. I mean, when I decided to sell my practice, it wasn't to stop working. It was to transition and focus on a bunch of things that I had not had time to do before. If a person can define those things that are important to them, and then start building that schedule if you will, that calendar that says what am I doing the first week of retirement? What am I doing a year from now? In that same week, so to speak, it's going to be very different.
Ray Loewe19:07
Okay, so transition planning is what you're talking about here. Let's get rid of this word retirement. I really don't like it. And you know, the pure definition if you look it up in the dictionary, retirement means to take out of use. And I hope I don't get taken out of use.
Geoff Boyer19:27
Could I use another word? It's called retirement. It's taking a look at where you are, what you've learned over your career, transitioning it into another direction, and refiring what works for you and what works for others. You know, let's get back to George's questions because I really think this is the key and I think if we could get somebody to seriously ask these three questions. What were they again, give them to us and give the thoughts behind it.
George Mowrer19:58
Yeah, so I mean, the first one is what's the perfect retirement look like for you? Then the second one's if you only have five years to live now, what does the perfect retirement look like for you? And then third one is, you only have 48 hours. You're not going to live any retirement, what do you regret? What are your regrets? What do you wished you did one more time? And that's where the values start emerging out. And a plan can then start. So for me, Ray, the values, that's the foundation of the plan. That's the beginning. From there, then it's like, so when you're not at work, what's important for you? That's the values, that's what that answers. When you're not at work, who are you? That's an identity kind of a thing. So who do you want to be in this next chapter of your life? I don't like the word retirement either. That's why I use next chapter. You know, and if you want to do those things, what kind of health do you need, because we may live to be 95 but we may not be very active. You know, our go-go years could be short. Health is a big deal, relationships are a big deal. And the financial obviously is a big deal.
Geoff Boyer21:11
Okay, so let me try and sum up what I think I learned from both of you. So what I got out of Jeff, you're gonna laugh at this? Go-go, slow-go, and no, go. Yep.
Ray Loewe21:21
All right. I think they're critical concepts. And if people understood them, then they would understand some elements of what we're going to face in the future. Do you want to add to that at all, or any comments on that?
Geoff Boyer21:36
I think you know, obviously, if you're a very active person, you're going to have a longer go-go period, unless you have a health issue. But I'm reminded of my 100-year-old grandmother who told me that at three o'clock every afternoon, she and two of her friends in their late 90s used to go down to the health care facility to visit the old people. Point being at 100 years of age, she still didn't consider herself old. Well, it is a frame of mind, isn't it? It is absolutely.
Ray Loewe22:11
And it's a frame of mind that's easier if you're financially prepared and if you have a plan of what you want your life to look like, I think that's what we're saying here. And George, what do you want to sum up with? I mean, you know, we've got these three time periods to ask questions for. And I think if more people did that, they'd have a better idea of what's really important to them. So what other comments do you have to make?
George Mowrer22:38
I mean, to me, it's about you have 1500 weeks ahead of you in your life in these retirement years, and how best to those. At 168 hours a day, how best to use those living in a way where you are getting life out of that. And I get really pumped about that time to do whatever we want to do. I get pretty, pretty excited as you can tell.
Geoff Boyer23:06
Okay, so I think this is a good place to kind of end this podcast, and I'd like to leave two caveats. I think we all need two kinds of people in our life, maybe you can find them in one person, but probably not. I think you need a George to help you explore what's really important to you without thinking about the money. But then I think the second thing that you really have to do is once you have that plan in place, once you have that vision in place of what you want, and how it might change, then you need to put the money piece in because a lot of what you're going to want to do is going to require money. And you have to take into account if things change, how is that money piece going to change? And that's where your financial advisor like Jeff Boyer comes into play. All right. Let's sum up and hopefully, we haven't solved any problems for people, but we've raised a lot of questions. All right. So join us next week when we'll have another exciting guest and who knows what problem we'll take on at that point. And Luke, would you sign us off?
Outro 24:19
Thank you for listening to Changing the Rules. Join us next week for more conversation, our special guest and to hear more from the luckiest guy in the world.