by Joe Hearn | Mar 5, 2015 | Happiness, Health, Lifestyle Design
We put a lot of emphasis on saving enough money for retirement, and rightly so. Money is important, but as I’ve said time and again, retirement is more than a math problem. One negative side effect of our obsession with our “number” is that we forget (or never decided) what we wanted all that money for in the first place. With that in mind, here are 5 things that are more important than (or at least just as important as) money to a happy, fulfilling retirement.
1. Health. Emerson once said, “The first wealth is health.” You don’t need to be a millionaire to enjoy a nice walk on a beautiful day. Conversely, you can have millions, but if you’re constantly in pain or physically unable to do even simple things like walk up stairs or pick up your grandkids, then the options available to you during retirement will be small indeed.
2. Curiosity. Thomas Hobbes once said, “Curiosity is the lust of the mind.” Lust is an emotion or feeling of intense desire. Curiosity, therefore, is a lust to know “Why?” and “How?” It’s an intense desire to learn, explore and discover. It’s a passion to do and be. It’s an appetite for experiences and an interesting life. Money can’t buy that.
3. A willingness to act (a.k.a. Be intentional). Donald Miller once said, “If you happen to be sitting in the theater of your mind, watching through the camera lenses of your eyes and the story you’re watching isn’t very interesting, there’s something you can do about it. You can edit it. You can change it.” You are not a passenger on the plane of your life. You’re the pilot. Some initiative and a willingness to be proactive can often go a lot further than a few extra bucks in your bank account.
4. Relationships. David Rockefeller once said, “I am convinced that material things can contribute a lot to making one’s life pleasant, but, basically, if you do not have very good friends and relatives who matter to you, life will be really empty and sad and material things cease to be important.” I can’t add much to that.
5. Time. Carl Sandberg once said, “Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent.” Carnegie had more money than you. Kennedy had more power than you. Clark Gable (or Grace Kelly) was better looking than you. Elvis was more popular than you. Shackleton had a more adventurous life than you. Would you trade places with any of them? No, because they ran out of the one commodity that makes any of those things worthwhile: Time. Time is your most important asset, but you have less of it now than when you started reading this article. It is your only asset that never grows. Use it wisely.
~ Joe
Photo by Nick Kelly
by Joe Hearn | Feb 21, 2015 | Lifestyle Design, Misc.
Hi everyone. Sorry it’s been a bit since I’ve written. Two weeks ago today we had my extended family over for lunch at our house to celebrate my mom and brother’s birthdays. My 89 year-old grandpa was there, as he was most times when we had family get-togethers. You may remember him from this post when I wrote about the time we flew out to Chicago to see a Cubs game on the morning of September 11, 2001.
Anyway, everyone was over at our house for lunch and we spent several hours talking and laughing over a great meal. My grandpa was the most talkative of the bunch, sharing stories about high school, serving in World War II and traveling the U.S. on epic road trips with his wife and kids. He was sharp and funny and charming, just like he has always been. When he left I hugged him, kissed him on the forehead and walked him out to his car. That night he died peacefully in his sleep. You just never know when the last time you see a person is going to be the last time (in this life anyway) that you will ever see that person.
I’ve written about Time before and how it has a way of quietly opening doors of opportunity early in life. Then, just as quietly, it starts to close them. Each year Time closes 52 doors marked “Weekends,” one marked “Christmas” and one marked “Birthdays.” You make decisions that put you into a certain career or location and the doors that you didn’t choose get closed. Your physical abilities change and doors that were wide open in your 20s are now marked “Do Not Enter.” Your kids grow up and doors like “Bike Riding 101” and “Family Road Trip” quietly click shut. And yes, you lose a friend or a family member and the doors to those relationships close for good.
We can choose to be sad about those doors closing or we can constantly remind ourselves to make the most out of the time, opportunities and relationships that we still have so we won’t have any regrets when they’re gone. I certainly choose the latter and I know many of you feel the same way. Thanks for following along and for being a part of a great community of readers who want to live intentionally. Have a great weekend and I’ll get back to my normal writing schedule next week.
~ Joe
by Joe Hearn | Jan 22, 2015 | Lifestyle Design, Pursuits, Retirement
Success in just about anything can be boiled down to two things: 1) Knowing what works and 2) Doing what works. At Intentional Retirement I try to balance my writing between those two things. Sometimes I write about what it takes to have a secure, meaningful retirement. Sometimes I put those things into practice and then write about my experience.
Not surprisingly, I plan on doing more of that in 2015, but with a small twist. During the week I’ll continue to write about the nuts and bolts of a great retirement, but each Saturday I’ll write what I call a “Bucket List” post. It will be a short story about something fun or interesting that I’ve done (or am in the process of doing) from my Bucket List. I’ll include a “How To” with each article in case some of you want to try it out. I’ll post them on Saturday to give you a little weekend inspiration and also so you can feel free to pass over it or save it for later if you’ve had a busy week.
To make it fun, I thought I’d do a little giveaway with some of the posts. And by little, I mean I’ll be giving stuff away all year and it will include small things like books and big things like plane tickets. I’ll post more on the prizes and rules below.
I hope you follow along and enjoy the articles, but more than that I hope you’ll use them as inspiration for your own adventures. We’re not designed to just sit around and think about life or endlessly make plans for “Someday.” We’re designed to live life. The only way to make that happen—to make 2015 different and better than any other year—is to make plans and execute them. Knowing what works. Doing what works.
Bucket List Giveaway Rules
How do I enter? There are two primary ways to enter. First, you can follow one or more of the Intentional Retirement Social Media sites. For example, like us on Facebook and you’ll get one entry. Follow our Pinterest page and get another entry. Ditto for Twitter and Instagram. If you already follow us on one of those then you’re already entered in the giveaway (see how easy that was).
Second, you can tell your friends about the site and encourage them to sign up for our Free Retirement Toolkit. If someone you refer signs up for the Toolkit, I’ll give each of you 5 entries in the giveaway (note: if you’re already signed up then you’ve already got 5 entries). For example, get 10 of your friends to sign up and you get 50 entries and they each get 5. The only catch is that I need to know who to give credit to, so you just need to let me know. There are two easy ways to do that. You can CC (or BCC) joe@intentionalretirement.com on the email when you tell your friends about the site. Then if any of the people in that email sign up, I’ll give you the credit. You can also just have your friend respond to the “Welcome” email they get after signing up to let me know who referred them. Bottom line, just let me know who to credit.
Can I enter more than once? Yep. Every time you do the things described above you’ll get an additional entry (or entries). And no, you can’t “like-unlike-relike” or “subscribe-unsubscribe-resubscribe” to get multiple entries. All of the entries will be cataloged in a spreadsheet and maintained throughout the year. Winners will be randomly drawn from that spreadsheet, so the more entries you have, the greater your odds of winning something.
What are the prizes? The grand prize is $1,000 plane ticket on your airline of choice, anywhere you want to go. This will come in the form of a gift card on that airline, so you can use it for multiple tickets if you prefer. I’ll give that away on New Year’s Eve of 2015 so you can ring in the New Year by going somewhere awesome. Throughout the rest of the year I’ll be giving away books that I’m reading, books or guides that I’ve written, gear associated with certain Bucket List items and things I pick up on my travels.
Legal mumbo jumbo. Void where prohibited. No purchase necessary. See the official rules over here.
Five-second summary: Follow along throughout the year. Get your friends to do the same. Win cool stuff. Repeat.
As always, thanks for following along. I’m excited for 2015 and I hope you are too. Touch base if there’s ever anything I can do to help.
~ Joe
Photo by Ben Carr. Used under Creative Commons License.
by Joe Hearn | Jan 1, 2015 | Lifestyle Design
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” ~Annie Dillard
How was your 2014? If you’re like most, there was some good and some bad; some things fondly remembered and some best forgotten. Whatever kind of year you had, there is always something exciting about the possibility and promise of January 1st.
As I’ve written before, each year I spend a few days reflecting on the previous 12 months and planning for the coming year. Going through this exercise helps me to reflect on past successes, fix problems, set priorities and generally be more intentional during the year ahead. I usually use a simple, three step process: 1) Do a quick annual review (i.e. what went well and what didn’t go well), 2) Set specific goals, 3) Outline strategy and tactics.
The last few months of 2014 were so busy for me that I find myself working through this process today as my family and I relax around the house. I’m assuming some of you might be in the same boat, so I thought I’d post several links to past articles at Intentional Retirement that you might find helpful as you think about and plan for 2015. Thanks for following along and stay tuned for some fun new things at the site in the year ahead.
From the Archives:
by Joe Hearn | Dec 10, 2014 | Lifestyle Design, Retirement
Note: It’s launch day for The Ideal Retirement Design Guide! Only 250 are available in this initial run, so check it out in the Store if you’re interested or want more information.
Last month R.A. Montgomery died. You might remember him better as one of the creators of the hugely popular Choose Your Own Adventure children’s book series. For those not familiar with the series, you don’t read the books straight through. Instead, you read the first scene or episode and at the end of that episode you are presented with a choice. Depending on which choice you make, you turn ahead to a particular page where you discover the consequences of your choice, learn how the story progresses as a result and are then presented with another choice. This continues, giving each book multiple potential story lines and often 10-20 potential endings.
I think part of the reason that the books have sold more than 250 million copies is due to the fact that a) we like adventure and excitement, and b) we like to have some control in choosing our own destiny. Both of those tend to be true regardless of age. They are true when we’re 7 and they usually still hold true when we’re 70.
Imagine your retirement as a real-life Choose Your Own Adventure series. You will be bombarded with decisions—both leading up to and during retirement—that will determine your course. Some of those decisions will pertain to things like finances, but retirement is more than just a math problem. Often your decisions will deal with things like health, relationships, leisure, family, pursuits and where you decide to live. Those choices (along with your finances) will directly impact how happy and fulfilled you are during that phase of life.
To make the best decisions for you that will result in your ideal retirement, it’s probably a good idea to not just flip a coin every time you need to choose between A and B. It’s better to have a good understanding of yourself and what you want your life to look like. In other words, it’s good to have a plan. If you want some help with that, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I launched a new guide today called The Ideal Retirement Design Guide. You can read more about it here or check it out in our Store over here. There’s never any pressure to buy anything here at Intentional Retirement, but if you think it will be helpful to you it’s available.
Thanks for following along. Touch base if I can ever help.
Joe
Photo by Mike Baird. Used under Creative Commons License.
by Joe Hearn | Dec 4, 2014 | Lifestyle Design, Retirement
As promised, I wanted to give you more details about the upcoming availability of The Ideal Retirement Design Guide. I created the guide because after 20 years of researching, writing about and helping people plan for retirement, I kept seeing a recurring problem. What was the problem?
The problem?
Most people don’t have a plan for retirement. They don’t know what they want to do, how much it will cost or whether or not they are on track to save enough to pay for it. Not surprisingly, that creates a great deal of anxiety and uncertainty. And rightly so. If you are among the 88% of people who don’t have a written plan, your retirement will probably fall far short of what it could be.
The solution?
How do you solve that problem? You need a plan, of course, but retirement has a lot of moving parts and it gets complicated quickly. I tried to simplify the process by listing out each major area that you need to cover and then creating a module for each that discusses the issues involved and gives you worksheets, checklists and strategies to help you plan. The Ideal Retirement Design Guide is a 12 module, comprehensive program that will help you create a detailed plan for the retirement you’ve always dreamed about by focusing on one key area each week for 12 weeks.
What is included?
The guide has 12 modules that each cover a key area of your retirement. The first module is a 72-page lifestyle design guide that will help you think through and define the Who, What, Where, When and Why of your ideal retirement. The remaining modules cover areas like calculating how much you’ll need, creating a sustainable withdrawal strategy, maximizing Social Security benefits, long-term care, health care, estate planning, minimizing taxes and much more. To help you learn from real world examples, there are also 6 Q&A Case Studies with current retirees. In addition to all that there are 4 hours of audio interviews (and corresponding transcripts) with experts in areas like income planning, estate planning, long-term care, health care and retiree taxes. Finally, there will be several bonus resources like a free eBook that I wrote especially for the guide called 50 Essentials for Retirement Success.
When will it be ready?
The current plan is to make it live in our store at 8 a.m. Central time on Wednesday, December 10.
What will it cost?
If you hired someone to do this planning for you, it would cost thousands of dollars. Unfortunately, that’s probably why many of you don’t already have a plan. I wanted the price to be accessible to most people, but I spent so much time, effort and expense creating it that I can’t afford to give it away either. I settled on one simple price of $159, shipping included. If you buy more than one (Christmas is right around the corner) the price drops to $139 each. That’s less than what it would cost to spend an hour with any one of the experts interviewed (not to mention everything else that comes with the kit) and it’s a small price to pay to get your retirement plans on track. Having said all that, don’t feel any pressure to buy it. Most of what I write at Intentional Retirement is free and available to all. Yes, I have to cover the expenses of the site, so I also offer a few useful products designed to help you solve some of the most challenging problems you’ll face in retirement, but please don’t buy them unless a) you can afford it and b) you think it will be helpful for your situation.
Why order now?
A few reasons. First, I wasn’t sure what the demand would be, so I only created 250 of the kits. When they’re gone, the store page will stop taking orders. This isn’t a trick to create scarcity. The kits are expensive to produce and I wanted to make sure there was demand before ramping up production. I have no idea if they will sell fast or not, but there are a few thousand people on the waiting list, so if you want one I’d encourage you to order sooner rather than later.
Second, once the initial run sells out, the kit will be unavailable for a period of time while we process orders and interview customers to see what they liked and what we could improve. When I make it available again, I expect to raise the price. So order now if you want the lower price and if you want to put “Plan for retirement” on your New Year’s Resolution list.
Third, it’s Christmas! Give yourself or someone you care about the gift of an awesome retirement. Sure, they might get you an ugly sweater or 5 piece wrench set, but you can give them (or yourself) the confidence and peace of mind that comes with having a great plan for what should be one of the most rewarding periods of life. And remember, I’ll knock $20 off per kit if you order multiple copies.
One quick disclaimer: We’ll make every effort to get it to you before Christmas, but we’re a small operation and UPS and the Postal Service are shipping a few billion other packages this time of year, so don’t cross me off your Christmas Card list if unavoidable delays keep it from arriving by the 25th. Just in case, I’m having my designer create a gift card that you will be able to print from the site. The card will explain what the guide is and why you’re an awesome person for buying it for the people on your gift list. That way, if your order doesn’t arrive before you leave for Christmas at grandma’s house, you can print out the gift card to show the recipient what you got them and let them know that it will arrive shortly.
How can I order?
As I mentioned earlier, it will be available next Wednesday at 8 am Central. Just go to our Store page, click on The Ideal Retirement Design Guide product page and then click “Buy Now” to order. For your ordering peace of mind, our store is administered by 1ShoppingCart, one of the biggest names in ecommerce. When you click on the “Buy Now” button, you’ll be redirected to a secure product page where you can complete your order.
That’s all for now. Thanks for following along. We’ve got new readers/subscribers this week from quite a few different states, but also from as far away as Japan, so hello (or Kon’nichiwa as the case may be) to those of you who are new around here. Touch base if you have any questions or if there’s ever anything I can do for you.
Joe
Photo by Nick Kelly
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