This is an episode of Crosstalk, where Alligator Curt and The Coach get to talk about the important goals in the No Regrets Retirement Action Plan.
The following is an EXTREMELY ROUGH rendition of our conversation. For a better experience, watch the video. When you do so, you may click on the Transcript button at the bottom of your screen, and it will scroll along with the video. You may also turn on Captions.
For you dyed-in-the-wool readers who are determined to read rather than watch, we have provided a text version below. As we said, it is quite rough. Read it at your own risk. (You have been warned!)
We have bolded the key points. Enjoy!
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TRANSCRIPT
CURT: Welcome to this episode of Your Best Retirement. I’m Curt. Coach, are you there?
COACH: good morning Curt good to see you
CURT: good to see you we'll see how this take goes coach your best retirement is an initiative that you and I launched several months ago now. YBR offers a community of like minded individuals who seek to maximize their relevance in the time that's granted to them by God
that's kind of a formal statement but that's why we're here that's where we are with this thing
we do not seek to to impart knowledge or information as much as to see results among people who participate in this thing
coach and as you recall one of the one of the letters that I wrote on this thing in our weekly substack newsletter that goes out it was one called retire does not mean stop right we start with that we have we have lots that we that we can offer just to have meeting and purposefulness for ourselves and relevance for other people
coach you and are building towards something called the the no regrets retirement action plan
when do we plan to introduce to that to these people
COACH: right hey thanks Curt you know folks are living at least 20 years longer than their grandparents or great grandparents did and the health their health seems to fall along with them as well so that's why this is so doggone important
and hey everybody this is the first time we've tried one of these cross talk things where both alligator Curt and I are on the screen at the same time I hope it's not hope it's not too overwhelming
PERMA
but it all it all starts with this thing called PERMA curt if you can throw up the the the slide on that work that's a new thing too folks you're going to see something out here and there and there it is now
this is a piece of paper that you're actually going to get to fill out when we do our workshop but what it is it's 5 psychological transitions you have to make in order to move from the your world of work that you've been a part of for the last 45 or 50 years to the world of retirement and I want to go through these very quickly the first one talks about positive emotion I've turned that into what we call physical activity
Remember you used to have a routine honey get up get your vitamins brush your teeth suit up and get out the door to go and and take on the world well now you might not have to get up you might have to not take on the world and in fact I've had times when I've been invited friends to a casual fast food lunch I call them about 10:00 and wanna meet at 11:30 said well I don't know if I could get together that soon because I'm not out of my pajamas yet so that's why
CURT: I know people exactly like that
COACH: yeah so that is I mean that's a big switch from having to have your lunch pail and suited up you know and go out there and tackle it
the next thing is that goes along with that is engagement now you know back in the days when we're when we're working full time we had engagement both up down and sideways up we had to figure out what management wanted you know they would tell us what we had to do what their expectations were
and then we had to dribble that on down to the customers whose whose needs were really trying to meet
so how you going to replace that when you're retired that you don't have bosses anymore other than your wife of course and and you and you don't have customers
yeah so you have to have an intentional plan for replacing those things I think you really do and so
that takes us to relationships you know we've got those folks that were in the bunker with this I mean that we literally went to war with right we went to battle with every day and sometimes we've did we've done this with these same individuals for 20 years
you know we've had Christmas parties together you know we've shared birthdays all that all that other kind of stuff in the work setting because we had that common battleground that and that common purpose we shared well once we no longer have that common purpose what happens to the those relationships
and I appreciate Curt here in a minute that you're going to talk about the socialization factor and what do you do with that when all of a sudden that population is dwindled
CURT: I have found that to be a critical part of my retirement plan coach
COACH: there we go and meet meaning you know you felt like at the end of the day in the work world there was purpose to it you know I helped the customer solve the solve a problem I moved the companies purposes forward
and for me the the biggest one is accomplishment I always enjoyed in the world of work I always always enjoyed when I finally put my head on the pillow and I was totally exhausted to just read read remember in my mind all the things that have been accomplished that day how we moved forward and how we actually made other people's lives better
ohh my gosh you know when you're retired well what was the accomplishment today ohh my gosh I'm still in my pajamas from you know from 8:00 this morning so in this workshop Curt we do hope that our subscribers will get a sense about how am I going to make that transition and make my retirement just as relevant maybe even more relevant and more successful than my career was
back to you Sir and it may last as long or longer on the career of that we recently had as you point out that's a huge change just in the last 20 or 30 years that's been a huge change in that
Socialization
CURT: so coach from what you said the big thing to me one of the big things to me in in retirement and I've been retired officially from my day job for about 10 years now and I'm doing other things instead of doing it the side hustles
big thing has been socialization how do I how do I reestablish or reacquire the social context that was so important to me when I was working I was working it was easy
Daily Huddle
it was one area in my life that I had a a buddy that I worked with we have the same job title in different locations we each managed about 100 and some people he knew how to do it and I didn't and we had a daily huddle everyday
Boyd and I would would get together for about 15 minutes and we talked through what the challenges are for the day you know how do I write the policy on such and such for all these people and he would help coach me through that stuff but that's socialization
was a very tight knit bond that that had forged with us well once I departed how do I do that you know I have friends in and my rolodex file rolodex listen to me yeah I have friends in my contacts list in my contact list who have been
Keep up with Lunch
there was one guy who's been a friend of mine for over 50 years not at work but but a friend of mine socially and and he and I used to have one the other regularly talk and and keep that and I I just realized in writing this last newsletter that I put out we put these things out every week that I haven't seen the guy in a year
so I put it on my To Do List this week call what's his name and arrange for lunch
we need to keep we need to have a plan for keeping those social contacts active and I got to tell you I don't have a capacity for a lot I have probably 5 people on my list and I wanna make sure I keep in contact with his socialization
it's just adds meeting and and it adds their purpose to my relationship here
coach told me about you used the term a few weeks ago and time buckets yeah yeah as opposed to your bucket list what is the time bucket what's that concept about
Time Buckets
COACH: well and and it ties right into what you said about socialization or you know you used to see that these folks every day and then when you try to reignite the the the relationship
you say well you know you used to know about their kids and what they were doing how's your kids doing in school and they'll say high school or college you know the last time you knew they were like a sophomore in college high school and now they're in Graduate School
so the time buckets is an area that that really resonated with me you know Curt everybody out there watching this your life boils down to the sum of your experiences now that's SUM the some of your experiences and most of us wait too long in the spirit of that delayed gratification to have those experiences
Die With Zero
you know there's a guy that has a very popular book out his named Bill Perkins and he has a book out called Die With Zero I like to talk call it die when you get to 0 but he wants us to consider having these meaningful experiences when they occur because they're never going to pass this way again
a good example he gives is you know taking your kids to Disney World when they're 20 if it's not going to have the same effect or outcome it does when they're 10
now he's not suggesting that you go deeply into debt to do that you know at that time but he does say you can get the same bang for the buck you can still get the same result in those relationships
Rattlesnake on a Stick
you just take the kids and and their friends to the you know to the County Fair and treat everybody to rattlesnake on a stick you know appetizer or something like that you know that's a moment they're never going to be a dad had a fried rattlesnake on a stick
CURT: you know I should probably try them I've actually never done that
COACH: but you already have with your story but the whole idea that that the kids and your family they get to see your value system along the way and you're able to impart a little bit of that on them so that later on in life they will turn to you in a moment and you'll have a chance to to do a little bit more with them if you didn't have that experience at all then that opportunity is wasted
CURT: so it gives you a platform to build on later on that's what you're saying right now
COACH: I'm some you can't see me out there and I'm looking to see what what happened to my hat OK I'm going to put on my coaches hat because yeah because here it goes OK I'm back to their bases do I look gorgeous and then you look
CURT: you look just like I expected you to look in that good job
The Coach’s Hat
COACH: OK so here's the story now it's unlike me but in this case it's so applicable I'm going to use a sports analogy to to to describe these time buckets
now it is different from your from your bucket list to incorporate your bucket list in the respective time bucket let me tell you what I mean
0-25
so from the time you're you're 0 to 25 years of age you know that's what I call pre- season you're you're just kind of you're feeling your way who am I what is it I want to do have it become with my life
25-35
but then about 25 along with those student loans that have just kicked in being paid back for the next for the rest of your life from 25 to about 35 life starts keeping score now during that time you know you you get yourself into a marriage or or two and you also get a kid or two and you all of a sudden have gotten yourself encumbered with a 30 year mortgage and a credit card bill a credit card balance that no matter how much you pay on it it never seems to go down can you relate to that a little bit during that time frame
CURT: I've read stories about people like that yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
35-50
COACH: we'll leave it at that and then and then you're you're 35 to 50 and ohh my gosh who can even remember who can even remember how that time went by you went for being a soccer dad or mom to put a kid or two into college and then ohh and by the way you become kind of a principal caregiver to your elderly parents
and the other thing that you'll notice is you start to witness folks pass away that have been in your life and have been supportive of you and thought the best of you from day one and you've always known them
and now they're all no longer there as a as a resource either so then you finally get over that hill and it gets to be about
55-65
you're about 55 and this is what Perkins calls the go go years he says hey look you know go hike Pikes Peak go raft down the Grand Canyon you know take your family on a on a fun vacation while you're still able to get up and get around this is don't miss this opportunity
say ohh you know I'll wait a little longer you may not actually be physically retired from your work yet but you have probably accumulated a little bit more time off
and don't miss this opportunity because the people you're doing this with your friends and your loved one they're going through their own time bucket as well and so things that are relevant to them now
you know if the opportunity won't be there later like like they say you can go home but you can never go back
65-75
then Perkins talks about alright so we reached this 65 to 75 year time bucket and he doesn't call these the go go years because these the slow go years and I'm sort of in that time bucket myself I
can relate and I did in the podcast earlier that hey I'm still able to get everybody together and we all shipped off and and went down to Florida to a water park called volcano Bay and
and I was only too happy to stand on the shore and watch my grandson and even my son get launched out of a volcano and then they they splashed down they splashed down in the river about 20 seconds later
and I was happy to say no thank you a lot of fun good job and my little granddaughter and I were only too happy to float down what they called the Lacey the lazy river
so so I you know you wanna do these things but your body just you know your your 20 year old mind tells your 75 year old body that you want to do this but you usually think better of it and thinking and
75+
Speaking of 75 after you these time buckets curt they don't have a specific start date and end date but they do start and they do end
when you get to be about 75 or so you want to start having folks come come your way you know you wanna host the BBQ you wanna have the picnic you know you want to have the family get together you know on on your terms your your ability to run out there and and jump and and all that stuff that that that window in
that train has left the station and so that's how it goes I wanted to quote what what Perkins said so forgive me for reading this but but I felt this really resonates with most of our subscribers here's what he said
complete your bucket list in the appropriate time bucket more yeah complete your bucket list in the appropriate time bucket but more importantly do all you can with your means when the opportunity comes help your kids when they need it most and that goes double for the grandkids gives generously to causes you care about while you still can and while you can still be involved in how it is used remember no one could be generous once they are dead
CURT: said wisdom that's a good quote coach
COACH: so it's like I I I can't get back to you Curt what what are your thoughts about us going as we go forward here
Curious List
CURT: you know coach the the time buckets is really a useful concept to understand you know most of most of the things we do involve getting the vocabulary right because
once we got the words to describe it then the mental processes kick in and we can understand where we are and how we manage that
one thing that's really appealed to me is something we call the curious list which is a concept you introduced to me and as I reflected on this you know that curious list is is really important
the curious list is a simple list of things that I'm interested in or that I want to chase that I want to soup and it doesn't mean that I have to actually engage in the activity
Mountain climbing and sky diving
for example something on the curious list could be climbing a mountain I don't have to actually climb a fourteener in Colorado to be interested in people who do climb fourteeners in Colorado I can read about it
I can learn about it who does such things who are remarkable people who have done that but also has that led them to and and decide if that fits for you right and the and the size of a fist and it doesn't mean
it doesn't mean that I can that I have to jump out of an airplane if I'm merely interested in skydiving I can read about it I can see what are the military applications where did it come from who was the first guy that thought I bet I could do that
Moffat Tunnel
it's a curious list I saw that demonstrated to me before I have the words for it when my dad passed away now he's been gone for about 40 years now but
the last day that I that I saw him on his farm here in Kansas he showed me a map that he had gotten from the US Geological Survey of the east both the Front Range of Colorado the Rocky Mountains and he showed me the Moffat tunnel
now he used to drive a truck in Colorado back depression era and the Moffat tunnel was completed about that time and that was a tunnel underneath the continental divide to allow traffic to go from the east side to the West side ground traffic he showed me that because he had always been interested in the Moffett well you know back in the day and that was mid 1980s to get them a USGS map of the Moffat tunnel to a small town in rural Kansas
COACH: where there is no Google it you didn't have no Amazon
CURT: and you didn't go to the local backwood store and and ask what they what they had he had he had to go to the city library climbed the steps to the library browse through the books talk to the librarian and find a book with an address in the bag for a place in Washington DC where he could mail a check for $10 and wait for the map to show up previously
because he was interested in it and the day the last day of his life when I went down to see him on the farm as a coincidence he said you know what the Moffat tunnel is I said well I think it's something about railroad or traffic or somebody
says yeah right I'll let me show you a map and he was intensely interested in the Moffat tunnel on this map
Welding
you know he was also interested in welding as as a farmer in his retirement years he enrolled in a class at the high school summer class for adults and welding that the shop teacher taught
now had been welding all of his adult life he just never really knew how to do it but he thought I'll bet there's a technique I could probably …
COACH: he picked up sewing
Sewing
CURT: he got Mom’s sewing machine out and he started making bags he needed bags for tools his his 3/8 drive socket set
you know sockets are always unmanageable in the in the parts drawer in the toolbox so he sewed up a very long tube of fabric with a zipper on it to keep the sockets in
and after he died I found a note stuffed inside that thing because the zipper was in brightly colored fabric unlike the rest of the fabric of this thing
and his note on the inside of his handwritten and he said the zipper is Peach if you want to know
No Regrets Retirement Plan
COACH: and heard that the the the point that when I shared the curious list with you the first time was you guys t
his is a list that you can make it's a brainstorm list that you really never had the time you never had the time or the resources to think about this before and and now you can and not that
again appreciate you're not gonna do them all but it gets it out there we say OK which one of these things do I wanna tackle
which brings me to the no regrets retirement action plan Curt going forward here's our plan to all you wonderful subscribers out there
Workshop
it's going to take a little bit because we don't know how to do this electronically yet but our goal is to hold a workshop where you all come in and and we require you to do a deeper dive into your retirement
what do you really want to accomplish in this amount of time ever how much it is that has been granted to you by God and we're going to actually have you codify that means write down some thoughts and Some plans
and we're going to require you to to drill a little deeper to think a little harder about things that you probably haven't considered before but are certainly going to be something that you're going to have to consider before you leave this just this planet so
we encourage you all what we've done here this morning is we've just kind of brought you up to speed to what's happened in the last three or four months in your best retirement plan newsletter
and kind of equip you to go forward now to start thinking with us what what what is this legacy that I want to be sure and leave
and it's not about the money it's about the values it's about what's important and that you want that can have generational rewards when you do it and that's about all for my piece of it here
Curt I just want people to be encouraged to share this with other people and go with this going forward because this workshop is going to be out of sight you're going to actually walk away with an outline of a plan of what you're going to accomplish in the time you have left they have
Conclusion
CURT: no regrets retirement action plan is what we're building towards coach I think that's a good that's a good overview of that good information today this has been a very enjoyable time as I expected it would be listening to you pontificate on these things as usual
because this is very near and dear to your heart as it is to mine so thanks all for joining us today
if you want to e-mail us use YBRcoaches@gmail.com that's YBRcoaches@gmail.com and of course you can follow us on substack: yourbestretirement.substack.com where this thing comes to you
thanks for joining this time stay tuned for next time see you Coach have a good day
COACH: yeah see you next week bye
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