Speaker 1: O Getay listeners. Hey, so I'm going to preface this
Speaker 1: is my little disclaimer. This is my little disclaimer for
Speaker 1: this episode. So I'm just sharing my thoughts. This is
Speaker 1: not as none of my episodes are really directive or
Speaker 1: instructional or prescriptive.
Speaker 2: But this.
Speaker 1: Is just my take what I'm about to share on retirement. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you've read the title, so you know what it's about.
Speaker 1: And I don't think it's advice that anyone should follow.
Speaker 1: But I get asked more and more as I'm heading
Speaker 1: towards what is I guess typically retirement age, people ask
Speaker 1: me about retirement and I actually I'm recording this on
Speaker 1: a Saturday. I sat this morning with a lady that
Speaker 1: I've been mentoring and coaching for in some way, shape
Speaker 1: or form actually for over thirty years, and these days
Speaker 1: I still see her once a week and her and
Speaker 1: I sit down and chat. And anyway, she asked me
Speaker 1: today if I'm going to retire. She didn't mean it
Speaker 1: in the next ten minutes, but she go she said
Speaker 1: to me, are you going to retire? So I assume
Speaker 1: she was talking about sometime in the next five to
Speaker 1: ten years. And the truth is, I'm not going to retire.
Speaker 1: The truth is, well, let me restate that I have
Speaker 1: no intention to retire. Who knows what the future brings,
Speaker 1: But I want to explain to you what I see
Speaker 1: as the pros and cons of retirement. I'm really fascinated.
Speaker 1: This is not an anti work or an anti retirement conversation.
Speaker 1: This is a This is like I said, it's an
Speaker 1: opinion piece. It's a personal kind of take on something
Speaker 1: which I think there is. I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of my information and kind of what's the word folklore,
Speaker 1: Probably not, but there's almost like this cultural belief or
Speaker 1: idea that we're all heading towards this this beautiful time
Speaker 1: of our life where life gets better, where we stop
Speaker 1: doing this horrible thing called work. So we step out
Speaker 1: of work and works bad, and we step into this
Speaker 1: non work phase of our life called retirement and retirement
Speaker 1: as good work is bad, retirement is good, and we
Speaker 1: get excited about that and we you know, we're looking
Speaker 1: forward to the golden years where we'll kick back and
Speaker 1: we'll relax and we'll probably spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: just having fun and fucking frolicking and in the sun
Speaker 1: and traveling around Australia or wherever you live, and you know,
Speaker 1: just living the life, just living the life of fun
Speaker 1: and joy and and look for some people that might
Speaker 1: be the case. My observation, again just my observation, my experience,
Speaker 1: my insight, that is not often the case. In fact,
Speaker 1: my anecdotal evidence seems says to me that more often
Speaker 1: than not, when people stop working, it has more of
Speaker 1: a negative than a positive impact. Over the There might
Speaker 1: be a short bump, a short kind of positive, but
Speaker 1: more often than not, I would say, more than fifty
Speaker 1: percent of the time, there is some significant, if not minor,
Speaker 1: to significant negative consequence, be it physical, emotional, mental, psychological, sociological,
Speaker 1: some kind of negative hit. Not with everyone, Not with everyone.
Speaker 1: Some people step out of work and into this fucking
Speaker 1: amazing phase of their life where it gets better and
Speaker 1: they get better and all of that. And that's definitely possible.
Speaker 1: But I have seen a lot of my friends and
Speaker 1: my parents of my friends retire over the years. My
Speaker 1: dad is one of those people. And again this is
Speaker 1: just observation and experience. But my dad retired I think
Speaker 1: at sixty four or five. He was running multimillion dollar
Speaker 1: shopping centers, probably billion dollar shopping centers, these days and
Speaker 1: you know so, and when he retired, he was sharp
Speaker 1: as attack, he was fit, he was healthy, he was
Speaker 1: solving problems every day, he was having meetings every day.
Speaker 1: He had purpose, he had focus, he had responsibilities, he
Speaker 1: was creating new things. He was using his brain, and
Speaker 1: he was physically, mentally, emotionally and socially stimulated, making reasonably
Speaker 1: good all of those things. And he was part of
Speaker 1: than part of something bigger than himself, all of those things.
Speaker 1: And then on a Friday he retired. Then on a Monday,
Speaker 1: his biggest focus was, you know, what he would do
Speaker 1: around the house. So he never went and played golf.
Speaker 1: He never, you know, became a gray nomad traversing the bloody,
Speaker 1: big brown landscape that is Australia. He didn't take up
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of hobbies. He didn't go and volunteer.
Speaker 1: And again, I love my dad, and my dad's still
Speaker 1: God bless him, still kicking and still around. But I
Speaker 1: think that for Ron there was probably there was a decline,
Speaker 1: and I think he probably aged a few years in
Speaker 1: the first year, maybe four or five years. And I
Speaker 1: you know, that's just from the outside looking, and that
Speaker 1: was my experience because all of a sudden, he didn't
Speaker 1: need to be anywhere at any time. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: he went from a lot of responsibilities to not many.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, he went from being needed and
Speaker 1: to be in certain places and solving certain kinds of
Speaker 1: problems and having high level conversations and being creative and
Speaker 1: being part of a team, and being stimulated and having
Speaker 1: a focus and using his brain in a way that
Speaker 1: kept his cognitive function at a high level, and all
Speaker 1: of that stopped on a Friday. Because you retire, and
Speaker 1: you retire, and then life gets better, and truly for
Speaker 1: some people it does, of course, But I think that
Speaker 1: I think that's saying that retirement is arbitrarily good or
Speaker 1: for that matter, arbitrarily bad. It is like saying that
Speaker 1: drugs are good or bad. It depends. It depends on
Speaker 1: how that works. It depends on the dose. It depends
Speaker 1: on whether or not where we're doing we're taking the
Speaker 1: right drug for the right issue, and we're taking the
Speaker 1: right dose and we're doing it in the right way.
Speaker 1: And it also depends when we come back to retirement.
Speaker 1: It depends what we're retiring from. For me, a good
Speaker 1: or a bad retirement depends on what psychological, emotional, physiological,
Speaker 1: and social impact that retirement has on the individual. And
Speaker 1: also I guess what it is they're coming out of, Like,
Speaker 1: what is the job that you are now not doing?
Speaker 1: What is the work, what is the environment? What is
Speaker 1: the thing that you've been in the middle of for
Speaker 1: the last probably not the last forty five years, because
Speaker 1: you probably had different jobs, but in the last year
Speaker 1: or two or three or four or five of your
Speaker 1: work life, what you were in the middle of. Was
Speaker 1: it good? Was it bad? Did you enjoy it? Did
Speaker 1: you hate it? Now, if somebody's stepping out of a
Speaker 1: job that they hated, that they didn't they they dreaded
Speaker 1: going to, or it was a bad culture or a
Speaker 1: bad environment, or they didn't feel valued or loved or needed,
Speaker 1: or it was bad on.
Speaker 3: Their physiology, it fucked up their back, or it gave
Speaker 3: them a headachere, well, then, of course, of course, then
Speaker 3: get the fuck out of that, Get the fuck out
Speaker 3: of that. Maybe retirement is a much better option than that,
Speaker 3: or maybe there's something other than a shit job or retirement.
Speaker 1: Maybe. So the funny thing is with you know, because
Speaker 1: I'm sixty one now and I'm I'm still doing my PhD.
Speaker 1: I'm just entering my sixth year of that, so five
Speaker 1: years down. Hopefully i'll be done in about six months,
Speaker 1: depending on a few things. So I'm still starting, I'm
Speaker 1: still learning, I'm still doing corporate speaking. I'm still doing
Speaker 1: seven podcasts a day. I'm still meeting people. Nearly every
Speaker 1: morning of my life, I sit with somebody who needs
Speaker 1: a bit of help. I choose to do that. I'm
Speaker 1: privileged to do that. I'm still at the gym seven
Speaker 1: days a week, and nearly every time i'm at the gym,
Speaker 1: there's somebody there that needs help that I'm working with
Speaker 1: or and I'm not saying any this to sound good,
Speaker 1: but I'm busy as fuck right and a lot of
Speaker 1: people go, you're a workholicord. A lot of people would say, oh,
Speaker 1: you've got no balance and all of these things. And
Speaker 1: I understand looking through their window. No criticism on my
Speaker 1: part here, but looking through their window, I understand why
Speaker 1: they think that. I understand why they feel that. I
Speaker 1: think so for me, when I do the things that
Speaker 1: I do, I literally feel like even right now, so
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here talking about something that I find interesting
Speaker 1: and curious and something I want to unpack. I've never
Speaker 1: done this topic before as a standalone podcast, but I
Speaker 1: wanted to share it with you. And I find this
Speaker 1: particular pattern of thought or this idea or this kind
Speaker 1: of you know, me just sitting here in the moment,
Speaker 1: trying to unpack what I'm thinking in a way that's
Speaker 1: going to resonate with you. But to me, like, technically,
Speaker 1: right now, I'm working because I'm doing a podcast, and
Speaker 1: I'm partnered with Nova on the Nova Network, and I've
Speaker 1: got to produce seven shows a week. This is one
Speaker 1: of the seven, and in essence, I'm being paid to
Speaker 1: do this. But right now, in the moment, nothing, nothing
Speaker 1: feels like work to me. Right now, I'm just in
Speaker 1: the middle of this curious, interesting thought bubble that I'm
Speaker 1: clumsily trying to unpack with you and for you to
Speaker 1: give you some insight into, for better or worse, the
Speaker 1: inner workings of my fucking mind. Who wants to know?
Speaker 1: But right now, I'm doing my job, or part of
Speaker 1: my job. When I do a radio interview, which I
Speaker 1: do quite a few, I'm doing my job. I'm not
Speaker 1: being paid for that, but that's part of what I do.
Speaker 1: When I go and do a corporate gig, when I
Speaker 1: do a keynote gig, a keynote presentation, whether i'm when
Speaker 1: I do a half day workshop, when I do a
Speaker 1: full day program with a company, I don't think, oh fuck,
Speaker 1: I've got to go and work with you know, like
Speaker 1: this week, I've got to do a some record this
Speaker 1: Saturday night and Wednesday, I've got to do a two
Speaker 1: hour I think it is a two hour workshop with AGL.
Speaker 1: And my feeling about that, my emotion around that is excitement.
Speaker 1: I'm like, Awesome, I get to hang out with a
Speaker 1: room full of people. I get to talk about the
Speaker 1: shit that I'm excited about. I want to inspire and
Speaker 1: educate and inform people. I'll probably meet one or two
Speaker 1: really cool people. I'll get paid pretty well to do that.
Speaker 1: And I'm literally doing something that gives me energy. It
Speaker 1: gives me energy. It's part of my purpose, it's part
Speaker 1: of my focus. There's nothing about what I do that
Speaker 1: feels like, oh God, I'm going to work because there
Speaker 1: seems to be some unwritten kind of understanding that works.
Speaker 1: A thing. We've got to tolerate. We've got to tolerate work.
Speaker 1: One day we can retire. We've got to tolerate work
Speaker 1: so that we can get to the weekend. We've got
Speaker 1: to tolerate work so we can have four weeks holiday
Speaker 1: a year. But ah, fuck, we just grind through it.
Speaker 1: Imagine if we shifted that. Imagine if we could find
Speaker 1: a way to do something that is just something that
Speaker 1: we want to do, or something we're excited about or
Speaker 1: passionate about, or something that we're good at. Right, something
Speaker 1: that doesn't feel like in inverted comma is going to work.
Speaker 1: That's my life. And yes, I did lots of things
Speaker 1: that felt like work. And by the way, I'm not
Speaker 1: saying I'm great, I've figured it all out. I'm saying
Speaker 1: we don't need to go to work like this fucking
Speaker 1: heavy psychological and emotional anchor just weighing us down. And no,
Speaker 1: most of us can't just switch out of the thing
Speaker 1: we don't want to do into the thing that we
Speaker 1: do want to do in five minutes. It's a process.
Speaker 1: But the idea of doing something that doesn't feel like work,
Speaker 1: because I fucking love it, because I'm meeting people, I'm connecting,
Speaker 1: I'm learning new things, Like even on this podcast, I
Speaker 1: get to meet people that in their fields are fucking incredible.
Speaker 1: They're thought leaders, they're scientific leaders, they're creatives and other
Speaker 1: people that nobody's ever heard of who are just as
Speaker 1: fucking impressive. You know, the other day, I spoke to DeAndre,
Speaker 1: who spent four and a bit years in prison for
Speaker 1: selling coke. And while he was in prison, he did
Speaker 1: three quarters of a business degree or something else degree
Speaker 1: he told me on the show. I forget, but similar
Speaker 1: maybe it was building a construction degree. And then he
Speaker 1: came out and then he did a degree in excise
Speaker 1: science and he duckst his course. And he's got three
Speaker 1: kids and a missus I would say wife, but not
Speaker 1: wife yet a lovely fiance, I should say, and he's
Speaker 1: building his own business. And he's like, what great dude.
Speaker 1: I loved meeting him. Yesterday as I'm recording this. Yesterday,
Speaker 1: I spoke to Heston Russell, the guy that got fucking
Speaker 1: savaged by the ABC. You know, this unbelievable human who
Speaker 1: spent over ten thousand hours in combat, combat hours more
Speaker 1: than ten thousand, This fucking leader, this mind blowing, courageous,
Speaker 1: fucking interesting dude that I get to. I would never
Speaker 1: talk to him, but I get to talk to him
Speaker 1: because I created this job. By the way, nobody gave
Speaker 1: me this job, So don't go yeah, but you're lucky. No,
Speaker 1: I remember, you know the story. I created this job.
Speaker 1: I started a podcast. I had no listeners. I got
Speaker 1: a few listeners. That show didn't work. I started another
Speaker 1: show that didn't work. I started another show that didn't work.
Speaker 1: And this was the was it the fourth or third?
Speaker 1: I think it was the fourth version the You Project.
Speaker 1: And I hate to bang on and be repetitious, but yeah,
Speaker 1: the first six on episodes, I lost money, right, But yeah,
Speaker 1: sometimes you've got to do the thing that's hard to
Speaker 1: get to the thing that's good. But even though those
Speaker 1: times when I wasn't making money and it was hard,
Speaker 1: I was still enjoying it because I was learning and
Speaker 1: growing and evolving. But nobody said to me, hey, Craig,
Speaker 1: we've got an opportunity for you to become a corporate speaker.
Speaker 1: We've got an opportunity for you to start a podcast.
Speaker 1: We've got Even when I worked in radio, even when
Speaker 1: I wrote for the Herald Son, even when I wrote
Speaker 1: my book, I got more discouragement than encouragement about writing
Speaker 1: a book because you probably won't get it published, because
Speaker 1: you're not a writer, and I'm like, well, how many
Speaker 1: books have you written? Fuck all, Well, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: I'll write a book and I'll see what happens. I'll
Speaker 1: work like a motherfucker, and I'll see if I can
Speaker 1: learn about publishing and editing and distribution. I'll see if
Speaker 1: I can learn about how the science of books and
Speaker 1: the process of book writing and publishing and branding and
Speaker 1: marketing and selling works. I'll see if I can learn that.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, so the idea that you know
Speaker 1: we are at the mercy of fate or destiny, that
Speaker 1: you know we just end up where we end up.
Speaker 1: Certainly we are influenced by things. Certainly there are things
Speaker 1: that are out of control. And certainly you and I
Speaker 1: had no control over where we were born or who
Speaker 1: we grew up around, or what we grew up around.
Speaker 1: But you know, this idea that work has to be
Speaker 1: something that we suffer through for fucking forty five years
Speaker 1: and then we try to escape when we're forty five.
Speaker 1: There's lots of research, and if I have time, I'll
Speaker 1: share some of it with you before we wind up.
Speaker 1: But this idea that retirement is a great thing. It's
Speaker 1: a culturally ingrained It's almost like this thought bubble that
Speaker 1: we grow up believing that that retirement is some kind
Speaker 1: of trophy or reward or thing that we get after
Speaker 1: having endured all this hardship. And the underlying thought is,
Speaker 1: the underlying thought is that work is something that we
Speaker 1: need to get out of as soon as possible. And
Speaker 1: I think when you think of work as a negative thing,
Speaker 1: or if work is a negative thing for you, it's
Speaker 1: not a good experience. You don't like what you do,
Speaker 1: you don't like the people you work with, or you
Speaker 1: don't like the environment, or you don't like the lack
Speaker 1: of income or whatever, then I understand that. But we
Speaker 1: all have the ability to be able to make tiny
Speaker 1: changes day to day, take tiny steps forward day to day,
Speaker 1: and over time reinvent ourselves. Of course, it won't be quick, easy,
Speaker 1: funnel painless. Of course.
Speaker 2: It will be hard, of course, of course, but that's
Speaker 2: no reason to at thirty five or forty you put
Speaker 2: our fucking hands under our knees and go, oh, well,
Speaker 2: this is me.
Speaker 1: This is me I had recently on the show, who
Speaker 1: is now at fifty three, she's doing her PhD. I'm
Speaker 1: not suggesting anyone needs to do this. But at forty three,
Speaker 1: she wanted to enroll in. She wanted to enroll in university.
Speaker 1: She'd never been to university. At forty three, she didn't
Speaker 1: even have enough money to pay for the application. Her
Speaker 1: girlfriend needed to pay the sixty or seventy bucks just
Speaker 1: though she could apply. She was living in poverty with
Speaker 1: three kids, single mum like not making ends meet. She
Speaker 1: figured out what she figured out a way. I can
Speaker 1: tell you when she's not going to be retiring anytime soon,
Speaker 1: because she's doing what she loves and she's found her thing.
Speaker 1: Having said that, am I saying retirement is bad. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that. I'm saying for some people. It is
Speaker 1: bad for some people, depending on what you're coming out of.
Speaker 1: This is my big asterisk, depending on what you were
Speaker 1: coming out of and what you were going into. To
Speaker 1: assume that once you stop work your life gets better
Speaker 1: and you're happier is probably not the best assumption. I
Speaker 1: was going to say something harsher than that. We humans
Speaker 1: working or not, we need to be occupied. We need
Speaker 1: some kind of focus, some kind of purpose. We need stimulation.
Speaker 1: We weren't built to sit on the couch. We can
Speaker 1: sit on the couch, but it is self destruction. One
Speaker 1: oh one. We were built to have a purpose bigger
Speaker 1: than us. We were built to have connection. We were
Speaker 1: built to use our brain and our mind and our body.
Speaker 1: We were used. We were built to interact. Like there's
Speaker 1: this underlying and prevalent idea in our culture that if
Speaker 1: you love to work, there's something wrong with you, or
Speaker 1: like you have some kind of unhealthy addiction or problem.
Speaker 1: And I get criticized as a percentage. It's a very
Speaker 1: small percentage, but I interact with a lot of people,
Speaker 1: so it still adds up to be in quite a
Speaker 1: few people. And they don't attack me, but it's like
Speaker 1: they're critical of how much I work and basically tell
Speaker 1: me that I don't have work life balance, Like there's
Speaker 1: no you don't have any balance. I'm like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: so let's say i'm there's one hundred and sixty eight
Speaker 1: hours in a week. So let's say i'm working. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm working forty hours like regular for let's go thirty
Speaker 1: five hours, thirty five hours, and thirty five hours I'm working.
Speaker 1: There's one hundred and sixty odd hours in a week.
Speaker 1: One hundred and sixty eight minus thirty five is one
Speaker 1: thirty three. That means I'd be working for thirty five
Speaker 1: and not working for one thirty three. Of course, there's
Speaker 1: sleep in there and all of that. And people would go, yep,
Speaker 1: that's good, that's good, and they're saying that's a good
Speaker 1: model based on the number of hours that I just
Speaker 1: rolled out. Thirty five. That's good, that's sensible. That gives
Speaker 1: you an opportunity for work life balance. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: what about this? What about sixty hours? No, that's ridiculous,
Speaker 1: that's too much, that's bad for you. Is it based
Speaker 1: on what? Well, well, it's a lot of hours. Cool,
Speaker 1: So is it about the well, even at sixty I'm
Speaker 1: still not working one hundred and eight hours a week.
Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting you work sixty. By the way, there's
Speaker 1: a point coming. Okay, Well, what if I'm working thirty
Speaker 1: five hours but I don't like my job. What if
Speaker 1: I'm doing thirty five hours but I don't like the
Speaker 1: culture or the environment or the company the organization that
Speaker 1: I work for, or the people that I work around.
Speaker 1: What if that place and that job and those people
Speaker 1: are toxic for me? What if they stress me? What
Speaker 1: if I wake up on Monday morning, and even though
Speaker 1: I only work seven hours a day, five days a week,
Speaker 1: but I wake up on Monday morning exhausted because I
Speaker 1: couldn't fucking sleep Sunday night, because I'm so anxious and
Speaker 1: I'm so dreading this place that I've got to go
Speaker 1: to because I can only work thirty five hours a
Speaker 1: week because I need work life balance because everyone told
Speaker 1: me so. Now I'm spending thirty five hours a week.
Speaker 1: Is there a chance? Is there a chance that that
Speaker 1: is more destructive and toxic and stupid than doing sixty
Speaker 1: hours a week of something that gives me joy, of
Speaker 1: something that fulfills me, of something that energizes me of,
Speaker 1: something that helps me grow and learn and evolve, and
Speaker 1: something that gives me connection, something that helps me develop
Speaker 1: skill and keep my brain working and operating at an
Speaker 1: ideal level. Something that puts me in the middle of
Speaker 1: helping other people and inspiration and fun. Thing that allows
Speaker 1: me to travel into state and to more than twenty countries,
Speaker 1: which I've done, to talk to people all around the world.
Speaker 1: Something that allows me to share my passion and interest
Speaker 1: and curiosity. Oh no, you should work thirty five It's
Speaker 1: a fucking stupid argument, and it's based on arbitrary numbers
Speaker 1: with no consideration of the impact of the work, the
Speaker 1: impact of what the person's doing. Let me tell you
Speaker 1: unequivocally that ten hours of something that you hate is
Speaker 1: worse for your health than fifty hours of something you love.
Speaker 1: You are better to do something that you love, even
Speaker 1: if it's by the way. I would rather do something
Speaker 1: that I love for one tenth of the money, as
Speaker 1: long as I can live, I'd much rather that. As
Speaker 1: many of you know, and I don't say this to
Speaker 1: sound good bad, this is just the truth of my life.
Speaker 1: At least twenty percent of the work that I do
Speaker 1: I do for free because I can, because my paid
Speaker 1: work is quite well paid. And I'm constantly being this
Speaker 1: is not an invitation to reach out with respect, because
Speaker 1: I get in on data with shit. But there are
Speaker 1: some people that and some not for profits and some
Speaker 1: you know, some organizations that I make a decision and
Speaker 1: I go, you know what, it's this is going to
Speaker 1: take this much energy and time and focus, and this
Speaker 1: is a good investment of me. And I think me
Speaker 1: investing my time and energy and skill and knowledge and
Speaker 1: love and emotion into this person or this group or
Speaker 1: this organization. I think it's a good investment and I
Speaker 1: might be able to help them. That's why I do
Speaker 1: it right. But when I'm doing that stuff, which is unpaid,
Speaker 1: I am I am getting just as much joy, just
Speaker 1: as much joy. And so if you are coming out
Speaker 1: out of work and into retirement, again not a bad thing.
Speaker 1: It depends what you're going to. If you're coming out
Speaker 1: of work and then you're coming in something where you
Speaker 1: have connection and you have purpose and you can still
Speaker 1: learn and grow and evolve and you have joy, and
Speaker 1: you can stay physically and mentally emotionally in shape or
Speaker 1: maybe even improve, then retirement could be fucking spectacular for you.
Speaker 1: But we need to think about what it is we're
Speaker 1: going to. Don't just buy into this ideology of work
Speaker 1: is bad retirement is good because it just doesn't stack up.
Speaker 1: I did a little bit of research before I'm going
Speaker 1: to whip through some of this. So the Journal of
Speaker 1: Epidemiology and Community Health, which is quite a big journal,
Speaker 1: found that retirement was associated with a twenty to forty
Speaker 1: percent deeps increase in physical activity for many people. In
Speaker 1: other words, when they retire, up to four in ten
Speaker 1: people move less or the implications of that well, reduced
Speaker 1: activity increases the risk of cardiovascular disease diabetes OBC, and
Speaker 1: all of the issues surrounding that or potential issues surrounding that.
Speaker 1: Another study published in Health Economics in twenty seventeen showed
Speaker 1: that people who retire earlier than normal have a thirteen
Speaker 1: percent higher chance of dying. Cognitive decline. The Journal of
Speaker 1: Economic Perspectives demonstrated that individuals who retire show faster to
Speaker 1: cognitive decline compared with those who keep working. Okay, so
Speaker 1: if we've got people the same age, one group keeps working,
Speaker 1: one group's retires, then there's in other words, their brain
Speaker 1: stops working as well. And that makes sense, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: Now that's not to say everyone who retires is going
Speaker 1: to have more cognitive decline than everyone who keeps working.
Speaker 1: Of course, like I said, if you're going to retire, cool, retire,
Speaker 1: but retire well, retire with a plan, Retire with some intention,
Speaker 1: with some process, so that you don't wake up a
Speaker 1: year after retirement and you're fucked. What about depression? The
Speaker 1: American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry discover that retirement can lead
Speaker 1: to an increase in depression, particularly for people who come
Speaker 1: out of a job where their identity was really intertwined
Speaker 1: with the work that they did, and also specifically for
Speaker 1: people who go from an environment and a situation where
Speaker 1: there was a lot of socializing or socialization to a
Speaker 1: new paradigm where the socialization has disappeared, if not diminished.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about social health. So research in Social Science
Speaker 1: and Medicine, which is another journal, found that retirees report
Speaker 1: twenty five percent less social interactions. So this of itself
Speaker 1: is not necessarily terrible, but there can be consequences to
Speaker 1: that disconnection, isolation, loneliness, and so on. What about longevity.
Speaker 1: This is interesting workers who this is the National Bureau
Speaker 1: of Economic Research. Workers who retire at seventy live significantly
Speaker 1: longer than those retiring earlier than seventy, largely due to
Speaker 1: continued engagement and purposeful activities. Again, like I'm saying, doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you've got to keep working. It means either keep
Speaker 1: working doing something where you're stimulated and using your brain
Speaker 1: and socializing and having connection and having a purpose and
Speaker 1: focus and moving your body. Either that that's my suggestion,
Speaker 1: or retire into something similar where you've still got all
Speaker 1: of those factors that impact your level of wellness. There's
Speaker 1: a whole lot more, in fact that I don't have
Speaker 1: time to share. But look, I think I just wanted
Speaker 1: to share with you my thoughts around this because I
Speaker 1: know a lot of you. I know we have a
Speaker 1: lot of listeners around My biggest demographic is forty to fifty.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think late thirties to fifty, but we
Speaker 1: also have quite a lot of listeners over fifty. And
Speaker 1: it's I think the question is not will I or
Speaker 1: when I retire, but if I'm going to retire, when
Speaker 1: will that be? What will that look like? Is the
Speaker 1: store that I've been told the truth? Is my life
Speaker 1: going to necessarily get better when I stop working? And
Speaker 1: I know when I pump it out like this and
Speaker 1: I explain it like this, it seems obvious. But nonetheless
Speaker 1: there seems to be a lot of ignorance and kind
Speaker 1: of presumptuousness or assumptions around this that I'm doing this
Speaker 1: thing that I need to do because I need to
Speaker 1: make money, and this is the way that it works.
Speaker 1: And you work for this many years and then you
Speaker 1: get to this number, this arbitrary number, and the number
Speaker 1: differs from place to place, but typically it's somewhere in
Speaker 1: the sixty five or sixty and boom, Now you're going
Speaker 1: to retire. I am going to say, just quickly, I
Speaker 1: went to a wedding, my best mate's kids wedding lovely
Speaker 1: Laura and Vin and Tony, two of my mates. We're
Speaker 1: at the wedding and we're talking to them. Are retired.
Speaker 1: Now I'm going to say, both Tony and Vinn have
Speaker 1: retired and did it great. And they did it great
Speaker 1: because they get up every day and they've got stuff
Speaker 1: to do. They've got people to connect with, they've got
Speaker 1: they've got projects on the go, they've got habits and
Speaker 1: behaviors and an operating system, for want of a better term,
Speaker 1: that keeps them physically and mentally and emotionally and socially
Speaker 1: up and about. So retire, don't retire, retire now, retire soon,
Speaker 1: retire fucking way down the track. Whatever you do, but
Speaker 1: do it consciously and question the status quo, question the
Speaker 1: collective mindset that work is something that we need to
Speaker 1: get out of as soon as possible. Make sure you've
Speaker 1: got yourself financially okay, and then get the fuck out
Speaker 1: of there and make sure when you retire, that you've
Speaker 1: got you know this and that in place, and all
Speaker 1: those things are good ideas and sound advice, but the
Speaker 1: underl e kind of prevalent idea that you need to
Speaker 1: get out of it as soon as possible because then
Speaker 1: you can kind of start living. When you put that
Speaker 1: under the magnifying glass, it really doesn't hold up. See
Speaker 1: you next time,