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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

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Speaker 1: Today's tip is about how to raise your chances of

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Speaker 1: saving for the future. We all know we are supposed

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Speaker 1: to be saving for retirement. This is also really hard

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Speaker 1: for a lot of people to do. There are current needs,

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Speaker 1: of course, and I know a lot of people are

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Speaker 1: experiencing tough financial times. But another problem. Retirement as a

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Speaker 1: concept is not always a compelling goal. It's the absence

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Speaker 1: of something, and it's also something that a very future

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Speaker 1: you will be experiencing. Some research involving brain scans has

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Speaker 1: found that people often think about their future selves in

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Speaker 1: the same way that they think about people. They just

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Speaker 1: vaguely know. You are not likely to make big sacrifices

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Speaker 1: for a near stranger. But other research has found that

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Speaker 1: when people see aged images of themselves, this distancing tendency disappears.

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Speaker 1: When we can vividly picture our future selves, we feel

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Speaker 1: a sense of connection to them. Now, I am not

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Speaker 1: recommending downloading one of those slightly sketchy photo apps that

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Speaker 1: allows you to figure out what future you will look like.

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Speaker 1: I mean, who knows where that information is going. However,

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Speaker 1: I do think that if you want to take care

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Speaker 1: of your future self, there is merit to the idea

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Speaker 1: of picturing your future self as vividly as possible. So

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Speaker 1: today try it out. Think of yourself and say twenty years,

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Speaker 1: or maybe thirty or forty years if you're a much

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Speaker 1: younger listener. Where are you waking up? What do you

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Speaker 1: do when we wake up? Where are you eating breakfast?

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Speaker 1: How are you spending your morning? What are you wearing?

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Speaker 1: Who else is there? What are you talking about? What

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Speaker 1: are you doing to entertain yourself? When you look at

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Speaker 1: your calendar for the day, what might be there? What

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Speaker 1: would you be excited about? And I suppose too, what

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Speaker 1: would your finances look like to enable all this? Maybe

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Speaker 1: you see yourself visiting a favorite place or spending time

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Speaker 1: on a hobby you enjoy. You see yourself running a

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Speaker 1: volunteer program that you've felt too busy to really invest in. Now.

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Speaker 1: This exercise has several upsides. One is that when your

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Speaker 1: future self becomes more vivid, you feel more compelled to

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Speaker 1: make choices that help your future self. That take out

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Speaker 1: dinner that you don't really care about can be foregone.

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Speaker 1: When you think about buying your future self a plane

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Speaker 1: ticket somewhere awesome. But and honestly, this is the better part.

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Speaker 1: I've also found that picturing future day to day life

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Speaker 1: can give you clues about what you might like to

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Speaker 1: put into your life now. Because while saving is great,

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Speaker 1: I have never actually been that big a fan of

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Speaker 1: the retirement concept. It's all about not doing something, not working,

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Speaker 1: and life can't be lived in the negative. Better to

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Speaker 1: figure out what you'd like to do with your time

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Speaker 1: when you have enough money not to have to work,

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Speaker 1: and then figure out how you might do some of

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Speaker 1: that stuff. Now you can move up the timeline. What

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Speaker 1: kind of work would you never want to retire from.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it's not possible to do all of that, but

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Speaker 1: maybe some of it's possible, and then you have the

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Speaker 1: best of both worlds. You're saving for the future and

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Speaker 1: living part of that future. Two. So today, take some

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Speaker 1: time to picture your second act. Picture your future self

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Speaker 1: so you want to take care of him or her,

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Speaker 1: and then figure out how to put some of that

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Speaker 1: future selves good life into practice right now. In the meantime,

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Speaker 1: this is Laura, Thanks for listening, and here's to making

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Speaker 1: the most of our time. M Hey, everybody, I'd love

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Speaker 1: to hear from you. You can send me your tips,

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Speaker 1: your questions, or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod. That's B the number four,

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Speaker 1: then Breakfast p o D. You can also shoot me

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Speaker 1: an email at Before Breakfast podcast. At i heeart media

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Speaker 1: dot com that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all

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Speaker 1: the letters. Thanks so much, I look forward to staying

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Speaker 1: in touch. Before Breakfast is a production of I heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i

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Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

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Speaker 1: your favorite shows.