Episode 04: The Two Numbers Between You and Retirement Freedom

In this conversation, Brent and Rob explore the emotional and mathematical aspects of retirement planning. They discuss the importance of understanding one's relationship with money, the two critical numbers that determine financial freedom, and the emotional challenges faced when transitioning from a working life to retirement. The discussion emphasizes the need to evaluate spending habits, predict future expenses, and consider the trade-offs between income and health. Ultimately, the conversation encourages listeners to take control of their financial future while also prioritizing their well-being.

Topics we are covering in this episode:

• Stop worrying about money immediately.

• There's only two numbers between you and retirement freedom.

• Understanding your relationship with money is crucial.

• The spend rate is a more important question than income.

• You can always go back to work if you have to.

• What would you trade for 10 extra healthy years?

• All choices have a cost associated with them.

• You can generate income in other ways after retirement.

• Living your best life should be a priority.

• Do the math to find peace of mind.

Transcript:

Transcript Disclaimer - May contain the occasional confusing, inaccurate, or unintentionally funny transcription moment. It’s all part of the show.

Lena: What if the only thing between you and retirement freedom was two numbers? In this episode of Midlife Circus, Brent and Rob dig into what it really takes to step away, the math behind it, and the mindset it demands. Because figuring out enough isn't just about dollars. It's about fear, freedom, and finally trusting yourself. Let's get into it.

Brent: Rob, if someone dropped $5,000,000 in your lap today, what would you stop doing immediately? Stop doing immediately?

Rob: Yeah. I would stop worrying about money immediately. It was funny you asked that question, Brent. I wouldn't change my lifestyle at all. I, I think I've gotten to the place now where I'm very happy with the lives that I have, and that took a lot of years to get there.

And I think Cocodona actually helped me with that, is get to be very content and happy at my current stage of life. But in the back of my mind is always a little bit of a worry about money and whether or not I have enough, what it's going look like ten or fifteen years from now. I know the math well enough to know that $5,000,000 in my lap, especially if it's tax free, dollars 5,000,000, which I'm assuming it is. I'm just going to you didn't tell me it was tax Yeah. Yeah.

So $5,000,000 tax free. I would stop worrying about it. Probably wouldn't change my lifestyle at all, but I would stop worrying about whether or not I was going to be okay longer term.

Brent: So that brings us into today's conversation, which really the headline is there's only two numbers that are between you and retirement freedom, but then there's a big emotional component associated when you make the decision to go into a semi-retired or retired lifestyle. But one of the things that I've seen over the years, and especially when I was navigating my decision to retire was I was very hesitant to look at the math because I didn't want it to be not available to me in the sense of, can I retire?

Rob: You were scared that you were going to see something you didn't want to see.

Brent: Absolutely. And, you know, of course, more makes it look better, but it was one of those things like, please, please. And so I took a long time to actually dive into the math. So today we're going to talk about that. And before we jump into the math side of things, I think it's helpful to understand emotional component associated with money.

And to me, where I always like to start out with, when I talk to friends about this or colleagues about retirement, then we get into the math side. I said, well, let's back up first. And I always start out with a simple question and I'll ask it to you. And I don't think I've really put this in front of you before, so I'm curious to see how you're going to respond, is what was your relationship with money when you were growing up?

Rob: Yeah. Brent, this is a great question. It's actually a really important question and something that, I don't think a lot of people give credit to and spend enough time thinking about. The answer that we all have for this question is what was the relationship money? What's your first memory of where money became important?

The answer of that question shapes a lot of my decisions today and actually helps answer that question for you of what would I do with that if I had an extra 5,000,000 right? It really shaped the answer to that question and shapes all of my decisions. So growing up at times and quite a bit of my life as a young child, money was scarce. My dad worked as a teacher. He actually was a high school band director And there were periods of times where he didn't actually have a job doing that job.

And I can remember very vividly a period of time where we did not go to the grocery store very often for groceries. We went to a separate location and my dad came out with a box of food. Now the food had the box had a ton of food overflowing from it, at least it looked like it as a kid, but it wasn't a grocery store. And I asked, why aren't we going to the store? I think it was my mom that said, because we can't this week.

And so because of a period of time in my life where food became a little scarce or at least the feeling around food became scarce because money was somewhat scarce, it shaped a lot of my financial decisions to make sure that I wouldn't be at a place financially after I got married that I would run out of money, that I wouldn't have enough. So I have large savings account buffers. Those are the decisions that I've made to make sure that I won't be in a similar situation that my parents were. My parents were very proud. They're still very proud individuals.

We've never talked about this, but just a vivid memory that has shaped all of my financial decisions since I was probably in the fourth or fifth grade.

Brent: Thanks for sharing that. I can sense the emotion behind it. And when you go through something so traumatic and it's that simple food on the table, and when that's taken away or it's not available, it leaves a mark. When you think about back then and now it's helped you navigate a lot of your decisions today, I'm just curious before we dive into the true numbers of things, how did it actually impact the experiences that you went through as a child? Has it impacted your relationship with money that potentially could be limiting beliefs on an abundant lifestyle?

Meaning that money's going to come if you work hard, things like that. I'm just curious how you think about that.

Rob: Yeah. So it impacted the decisions that I made and we made as a as a household. So ensuring that we always had very sufficient savings and cash reserves, some money set aside for emergencies. I would say it somewhat reduced some of the spend that we would have normally had that people of my income range would have made. It was always trying to get extra money set aside just in case.

I still made some risky financial decisions, and it was more for fun. So I do think back to, you know, my twenties and thirties, some of the investments that I made that actually did and didn't pay off. And those, you know, were somewhat risky at times, but it was fun. I saw that as fun money, not as needed money. So I actually thought about that money a little bit different.

So it didn't change, some of the risk on that side, but just made me a little bit more conservative in overall assets, making sure that I never was going to put my wife and I in the same place that I felt as a kid, where it was always a worry.

Brent: It definitely shapes you. And I think well, it's good to hear though that you also explored different investment strategies and which I think it's important for us to highlight. And maybe you can talk because I do want to jump into the numbers and then we're going to step out of the numbers after that. Yeah. But let's talk about your background because that also potentially could have been an influence of the career that you chose and you spent over twenty-five years in the financial services space.

Why don't you share with the listeners about your background and the work that you've done? Because it's been very impactful so we can better understand as we get into the numbers and the psychology side of money.

Rob: So you mentioned over twenty-five years in the financial services industry, Brent, and I started as a entry level, brand new, learn how to do it financial advisor. And as a financial advisor, it was helping clients save for retirement, helping save helping them learn ways to save for paying for children's college education, reducing their income taxes, really just basic level and entry level financial planning for clients and for families. That, that career took me into a lot of different areas. So I became a branch manager. I became a regional manager, so I ran geographies of financial advisors.

I ended up becoming responsible for supervision of financial advisors both in a small geography as well as a large geography. So ensuring that they were compliant, meeting all the rules and regulations that came about, and even into a senior executive job where a lot of it was designed around how are we going to grow as an organization to help impact more clients' financial lives. And so my entire career, my entire professional career was in financial services with the outcome of helping people achieve their financial goals. And it was either directly working with clients or building processes and systems at a corporate level to help advisors do that significantly easier and better for their clients.

Brent: That's perfect framework for today's discussion because you've been there. And when I say been there is you've been on the personal side, which we're going to talk a lot about our own personal experiences of your own decision to retire. But then you've been on the other side of working with clients and helping them navigate this decision or decisions to their financial freedom. So when I say financial freedom, because that's what I hear from a lot of advertisements or all the big investment houses, they talk about your ticket to financial freedom. What does that mean to you?

Or how would you explain financial freedom to a client?

Rob: I would explain financial freedom as the point when work is optional and you can maintain either your current lifestyle or an adjusted lifestyle. It doesn't have to be your current lifestyle, but an adjusted lifestyle without generating income in its traditional sense. So the point where you have enough assets set aside in the future that you won't need to actually show up for the normal nine to five or the normal paycheck on a weekly or biweekly basis.

Brent: That's a great way to look at it. And that's the key theme of today's conversation is what is enough? So then you can make that decision. And so I find because I've worked with a number of different financial advisors for me personally, is each one has a different approach to navigating my different assets and so forth. What would you say?

Let's just dive into the number conversation because what we like to talk about and you've shared with me, and I actually really like your approach is you've always told me, and this is not just in preparation for this discussion today. You've been saying this to me for years. You only need to understand two numbers. And can you walk us through, A, why have you narrowed it down or distilled it down to something so simple? And then B, give us a few examples of when you say two numbers, just share with the numbers and just kind of the calculation side of it.

So how did you distill it down is the first part of the question, and then let's just talk about the math behind it.

Rob: Yeah. So I am a client actually now, and I've been a client of a financial advisor for a long time. So it's kind of funny. I've been in the financial industry, Brent, for twenty-five years and I outsource my own financial planning to somebody else. And I wanted an unbiased opinion in how to deal with my own money.

So somebody else to give me a perspective that I wouldn't bring to table myself. And the financial services industry can be very complex. There is a lot of complexities and nuances in it, but as a client, as a consumer, as an individual, there are really only a couple things that are in my control and I should be able to focus on and then turn the rest over to a professional to help me with or turn it over to a system or a tool online to manage the rest for me. And so really it came from a place of trying to simplify the choices that I was making, the choices that Tara and I were making with our own money, but also helped us set up a goal for ourselves of what we needed to get to. And then ultimately, when would we have enough and when is enough?

And so it's in its simplest context was me just really trying to simplify the world of financial services and boil it down to just a couple things I can remember and a couple things that I could focus on.

Brent: So you've said there's two numbers, Brent. I'm familiar with it. I plugged it into my own financial calculation. So why don't you just talk us through the two numbers and why these two numbers are the most important when you're starting to think about financial freedom or retirement?

Rob: The first number is what do you plan on spending on an annual basis? And it's as simple as that is when you decide to stop working, what will your spend rate be? And I think about spend rate on required expenses like mortgage, insurance, food, groceries. So the required things that you have to spend money on, utilities would fit in that area and then the discretionary expenses. So the fun things to spend money on like travel and clothes and entertainment and hobbies.

And, I know for me it's a lot of gear, so outdoor gear, and things like that. That's all discretionary expenses. I want to try to commence terror, but that's required. And it's nondiscretionary. We have to do this stuff, but it definitely fits in the discretionary category for us.

And that number is sometimes hard to calculate, especially as income, as you're working goes up. And so for Tara, and I, Brent, when we were, when we were both working, we had actually very sufficient income. We could save quite a bit of money and we really didn't pay attention to our expenses at all. We could spend what we wanted to as long as we saved a certain amount on a monthly basis. Whatever else came in, we were felt free to pretty much spend.

And knowing that having been an advisor, having worked with advisors, and having helped hundreds and thousands of people retire, the spend rate is actually a more important question because once you spend it, you can't get it back. We could always change our spend rate while we were working and save a little bit more money, but now that we're not, the spend rate becomes a really important number understand what distribution is going to be on an annual basis.

Brent: My own experience with this has been really challenging because I am like you. Like, my wife and I and our two kids, it was as we managed our money is like, here's what we need to put aside and the rest is just let's go have fun. I mean, yes, we have to take care of, as you said, there's the non-negotiables. So you got your mortgage and you have your utilities and your food and clothing and things like that. But then it's like, what kind of cool vacation can we do?

Or do we need to upgrade a car? Or whatever it might be was something that whatever's extra, let's just go for it. And it's a really interesting dynamic because money's coming in. Then there's this moment in time when the money's not coming in, in the way that it traditionally was. So whether you worked for somebody, you worked for yourself, you had an income stream coming in.

Now you may have income streams from different investments and things like that, but it was just purely that work for higher income. So it was like I'm getting from my employer. So when that went away, I actually struggled. It took me a while to get my arms around the spend and the future spend. Because in my situation, I've got two kids.

One's in college. One's going to go to college next year. So you factor in that. There's a bit of unknown, even though there's calculators and there's things that can help you through it. There's still unknowns because they may get some sort of academic award or they may get some sort of scholarship or some sort of grant that could come into play.

But I didn't necessarily plan for that. And then we had 529 plans, but how much is it going to cover? And then it comes down to the school. I mean, you have some schools that are twice as much as the other school. And of course, as a parent, you're like, I want to give my kid the greatest opportunity possible.

And then you start to say, Money doesn't count. But then you look at the big picture, you're like, Wow, that's really expensive. Getting to that number of expenditure, how would you advise people in the future state? Meaning, we're not just trying to say how much you're going to spend this year, in ten years, in fifteen years. And I know there's calculators, but how do you navigate that?

Because there's so many unknowns in life. So how do you protect against being over analytical, but being thoughtful enough that that number will, you know, be sound enough that it can give you, you know, a peace of mind?

Rob: The easiest way is just is to start making predictions on the predictable expenses. Right? And so we can get all this inflation and what taxes will be and all that stuff. A lot of that's all unknown. Right?

You talked about college and things like that. Those are all unknown options. Yep. Focus on what is known. And so starting with required expenses.

So those required things that you have to do on a monthly and annual basis, start with those expenses. They're pretty much fixed. Yeah. They're going to go up with inflation. Yes.

They're going to make changes, but just look at what they are today. The backside of this math that we'll talk about in a second should take care of the inflation and all those other issues. So you should only really have to do it at the beginning is look at the numbers as they are today, and we'll fix that on the back side, all those uncertainties with a little bit more conservative approach on the end. And so how Tara and I did it was we started with our required expenses, and then we started making estimates on what were the discretionary expenses on going to be on an annual basis. What will we consciously decide to do?

So while we didn't have kids college to worry about, our kind of big crutch was going out to eat on a regular basis, two or three or four times a week, and really consciously deciding, do we need that in our life? Do we need to keep working in order to have the ability to go out every other night, every three nights? There was a point in time when we had every waiter at a sushi restaurant on speed dial. Do we still need that in our lives? Do we want that in our lives or should we reduce that?

And then consciously making a choice that that would not be an expense that would continue at that same rate going forward as a discretionary expense. So then we made estimates on what we thought our discretionary expenses would be and are trying to live within that window. Now, when the beauties that I had was I had the ability also to say, let's live in that window for the year before I retire. So before I stepped into that semi-retirement, I tried to live that lifestyle and I would recommend that to anybody. So if you're going to spend, I'm just going to use round numbers today.

You're If going to spend a $100,000 during retirement between required expenses and discretionary expenses, try to do that for a period of time before you actually retire. See if that's a lifestyle that you can actually grow accustomed to and then do all the things that you want to do. If you are able to do that, it might also provide you the ability to save a little bit more money for retirement too. So if your plan is to live on a reduced lifestyle, spend the year a before you retire living on that reduced lifestyle and save the difference. That just increases the buffer that's available down the road for you to deal with the things like inflation and taxes and uncertainty.

You just bumped up your buffer a little bit more.

Brent: That's incredible. You'd shared that with me a while ago as well, why not try this while you still are employed or you still have a consistent income. And if it is a number that's reduced from your current spend, live on it. Because that's a telling sign. It might say that we can totally do this and a lot of people can.

Or, wow, why are we living such in an uncomfortable place when we don't have to? Maybe if we extend it three or four more years, we bump up that spending ability, and maybe that's our comfort zone. But if you have the ability to try it, it's going to give you a much more sense of the reality of your future state.

Rob: There's a lot that's going to change day one of retirement. And that's what really what this podcast is about. Right? In a lot of sense, Brent, is that day one of retirement, there's a lot of life changes that are going to take place. Maybe this is not one of the ones that has uncertainty around it.

That's how we thought of it. Was right, let's create some certainty around what we want to do financially. What are we going to spend financially during retirement before we get there and remove the uncertainty?

Brent: There is so much uncertainty. And from my own personal experience, it was a lot more than I anticipated. But then the financial equation, having comfort in the math behind it or just purely the projections was, okay, that's taken care of. And stop worrying about it, but there's other things that you can now focus your energy on. So we've talked about how much you're going to spend.

That's one number. That's the most critical number because that drives everything else. But what's the other number? So we started our conversation out to say there's two numbers that bring you towards financial freedom. So first number is how much you're going to spend.

So take us through the other half of the equation.

Rob: So the second half of the equation is how much do you need to have? Okay. How much do you need to have set aside to create that level of income? And Brent, I'm going to talk in broad generalities. This is not meant to be financial advice nor am I licensed to provide financial advice today.

I was years ago, but I'm not today. So these are really going to be broad generalizations. I'll say talk to a financial advisor. I still got that weird, you know, compliance hat on, Brennas, talk to an advisor. There is no guarantees in what I'm saying, all of that that fun stuff.

But the other number is how much do you need to have set aside? And what most advisors will tell you is the 4% rule. You can feel fairly confident withdrawing 4% of your assets on an annual basis and generally assume that you won't run out of money. Now there's a whole bunch of caveats to that, but in its general term, between three and a half and 4% withdrawal rate on your accounts is what almost every advisor uses today to determine if somebody has enough set aside to retire.

Brent: That's important. So I've heard that number over and over again, and I'm with you. There is a disclaimer there. We're not here to provide financial advice, but that is something that is a generally accepted rule of thumb. It's a benchmark.

And it's a starting place that I would hope most financial advisors steer you towards to say, let's just start out before we throw everything into these complex models, 3.5% to 4%. 3.5% is going to be a little bit more conservative. 4% is going to be right down the center. And I've seen advisors go higher than that and much lower than that. But as a general rule of thumb, if you say you've got a million dollars in savings and the 4% rule says you can withdraw $40,000 a year, right?

Rob: Correct. Yep. If you have a million dollars set aside for retirement, you should be able to withdraw around $40,000 per year.

Brent: So what was that experience for you as you went through it and you started to look at your annual spend, but you and Tara made the decision to work another year. And I wouldn't say you were emotional making those decisions. It was much more tactical. So can you describe why you guys chose to do a couple extensions over the last, let's say, five or six years where you're like, maybe let's just do one more year. What was the decisions to do that?

Because you clearly I remember in the earlier days, you're like, we have enough. Like based on the math, the 4% rule, working with my advisor, we feel like we're comfortable that I could step away from work. But then there was always these, but I am going to continue on for another year at least just because. So walk us through that because I think that's important for people to understand you made some critical decisions along the way, you and Tara, to extend.

Rob: Going back to your first question, I mean, Brent is asking me to think about early memories of money or how did things in my childhood around money impact my decisions? I did the math at 3% mentally, and so I even took a more conservative approach than most people would and say, I'm going to use 3% as the number. So if I have a million dollars in assets, I can't take out 40,000. I can only take out $30,000 in income for this year. And that math prompted me to continue to look at saying, don't have quite enough money.

I need to keep setting money aside. So that was part of the decision to keep working an extra year and that that felt I fell into that one more year, one more new year cycle. So that's I would say that the first answer to your question is my own kind of mindset around money and being always a little bit worried about money. The second one is money was good. I mean, money was good.

It I was able to have a very nice lifestyle. For a long time, I was I was willing to trade stress for money, and I'll assume additional stress for the additional income and the ability to set more money aside and to create a little bit more luxurious retirement. So every year, it you know, something would come around and they'd offer me more money to stay and I'd take it and accept the level of stress knowing that I was just setting more aside either as a buffer or to provide more opportunity for us to go do fun things during retirement. And it became an easy cycle to be in of, ah, it's one more year. Here's how much more money I'll make.

This is how much more money we can put in the bank. And here's how much nicer our retirement is going to feel and be and how much more comfortable we're going to be doing it. And it wasn't until a year before I left that I started to realize that that cycle may be having a different impact on me. And I think I was listening to a podcast and I think I'm pretty sure you and I talked about it, Brent. And it was a podcast that asked a question.

What would you trade for one to ten more healthy years in your life? And you have to trade it because you can't buy it, was the question. So what would you trade for ten extra healthy years because you can't buy health? So you start thinking of that the answer to that question, what would I give up? And so for years, for me, trading stress and added stress in every job promotion I got came with significantly more stress.

As much as I liked what I was doing, there was a level of stress that was there. I was trading it for income. Yet that stress, I came to realize, was going to have a negative impact on my life. Not this year, not next year, probably not the next five years, but fifteen years from now, I'm going to pay the price for that. And is it worth it?

Is that level of income worth the impact on my health fifteen years from now? Because I can't fix it by paying for it.

Brent: That's fascinating. You know, it's interesting as you describe that, there's two things I want to unpack here. The first is you had said the money was good and it's hard to turn down. And that's the reality. When you get to that stage in your career, and let's say the later stages of your career, most likely your income levels are a lot higher than they were ten or fifteen years ago.

And it's like this curve and you're at the top of the curve and you're like, wow, I'm walking away from big numbers, big opportunities. So there's a psychological component of that, but it's also very ego driven too. Because it's like, I earned my way here. Why would I walk away now? When you're at the higher income earning within your own company or your industry or whatever it might be.

So that's a challenge. But you brought in the second thing that we'll talk about is, okay, what is the trade off? So one more year, you can get a monetary gain. You can boost your ego by all means. And I and I say that in a polite kind way, but your title sometimes changes and you have more seniority and you might have a bigger team and you have bigger challenges.

And then there's this trade off. So talk a little bit about how did you navigate the high-income years knowing you were stepping away when you made that decision? And I understand we'll talk about life extension. You're like, well, what's this trade off? But how did you navigate that?

Because I think there's this common conversation that takes place with colleagues that will reach out to me knowing that the podcast that you and I are doing, they want to talk about their careers. And I hear it all the time. I'm just going to do this for one more year. How did you navigate it to say, I'm going to stop in one year? Like, I am.

Rob: Yeah. I how many years did I say that to you, Brent? Was it three or four years? I think I said one more years total. Years total.

Yeah. One more year, one more year. And at the end of that year is where I got, you know, within three or four months of that year, a promotion and a bump in income and actually quite a bit of financial incentives came my way. I said, it's only one more year. I could do one more year.

It's easy. I could do this for just one more year. And that cycle kept repeating itself. I was on that wheel and it was somewhat out of my control except for the decision to keep going. And there were some instances that happened not to me, but to people around me that helped me decide that it may not be worth that one more year.

And friends with some major physical accidents that prevented them from doing some of the things they love to do. So, traumatic brain injury happened in the last couple years of that working cycle. A neck injury, know your neck injury, Brent, impacted me a little bit in that area. Like, what if that could happen to me and do I need to keep working? There's a lot of stuff I want to do in my life after this.

And yes, I might get hurt after I stop working, but there's a lot of things I could do before then. And it wasn't until probably six months before I actually pulled the plug and made the decision to retire, and now I'm talking about semi-retirement because I'm getting back and doing something and hopefully finding purpose and meaning. But the decision to actually step away didn't happen until about six months from the date I actually, walked and left the previous organization. And so in those last six months leading up to it was some things that happened around me with friends and family and illness and injuries that caused me to decide that it the income wasn't worth the risk anymore. So going back to that, again, money equation and my view of risk, the income wasn't worth the risk of missing that enjoyment of what I had spent, you know, twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven years saving to get to.

Knowing I could always go back to work if I had to. That was the other thing here is I can always go back to work. I'm still young. I'm still, valuable, I think in the working space. And so I can always go back.

And so that decision came, six months before I left and it came actually pretty quick. It wasn't something where I stewed on it for a month or two. It was probably about a week or two weeks to say, you know what? I'm going to call it at the end of this one no matter how much money, they offer me to stay and they try to pay me to stay. And that's there's the ego hit, Brent.

I'm getting it right now. Right? Just by even talking about that. And it's not bad to have the ego hit because my ego was very positively influenced by a lot of the things that happened around me and because of leaders that saw value in what I was doing and were willing to pay me to keep doing it. I knew I could always go back if I wanted to or felt like I needed to, but the decision was to leave because of my worry that something worse might happen out of my control.

Brent: You know, it's interesting how you describe that. I was talking to a friend yesterday that's navigating decision right now. You know, he's trying to figure it out. And what I shared with him, I said, it's important to put a date out there on the calendar, say, I'm going to leave at this date. And hold yourself accountable to it.

Because what I told him, I mean, he's operating at a very high level in his career and he's done amazing things and he's one of the most senior leaders in his company. And I said, your company is going to come back to you and offer you something else. They're going to want to stick you around. It's hard to replace a senior leader that's operating at a high level for a long period of time. They're going to offer you something.

You have to be prepared to say no. And you need to make that decision before you inform them of your decision. Because the moment you play, well, if they double my income or my bonus or whatever it might be, I'll probably stick around. Well, then you're not ready to make the big decision. And what I like about how you described your own personal situation is you knew six months out you were going to depart and you held yourself to that.

You gave yourself a few cycles, which was a few more earning years, which I think probably gave you the comfort you needed, whether it's from your childhood trauma or whether it's just your knowledge that you gained in the industry, it's probably a combination of all the above. You gave yourself a bit of peace of mind, which I think is really important to do. And you're young enough that you could do that. But then you made the ultimate decision. And I remember having that conversation.

I said, They're going to come back to you. And they did.

Rob: They did.

Brent: Yeah. It's going to be title hype. It's going to be money hype. It's going to be all these things. And you have to be prepared to say, I'm done.

But what you also did, which I think is really impressive, is you gave yourself the ability to say, if I'm uncomfortable in this retired lifestyle, I can go back. This isn't a zero-sum game that we're talking about. You may not go back to exactly what you were doing before. That's hard to repeat, but you can do other things. You can generate an income in other ways.

It just maybe not the way that you were doing it. So I think that's an important aspect of this that you did not create this once I'm done, I'm done. Because that is so emotionally challenging to navigate to say, I'll never work again in my life. You don't need to say that. Like that doesn't Like you can say that, but I don't think it serves people well when they create this binary situation like working or not working.

Well, you're going to leave the career that you just built behind, but you may change it a bit if you decide to go back. You may alter it. You may leverage your experiences in a different way.

Rob: Absolutely. And I didn't I saw enough people in my career where they faded away in the last six months to a year before they retired, and I knew that wasn't who I wanted to be either, was to kind of slowly fade away. I worked my ass off up until the day I told, and actually even after the day I told, up until the day I left, that I was going to be stepping away. It ended up being a surprise to a lot of people. And, Brent, you and I had a lot of conversations in advance of what would I do if they offered me more to stay and they asked me to stay and all of those things.

And my choice was bigger than a financial decision. It was truly it had become a lifestyle decision and part of what went through my process. So six months out, if for some reason I want to go back, I want to have such a good taste in everybody's mouths when I left that it would be easy to go back to that job or easy to go back to that same company when I left. Right? So I was never going to burn a bridge or fade away where they didn't see value in what I was doing before I left.

I wanted to be kind of remembered as that guy that did a lot for us, did a ton for us, how could we get him back? Put the power in my control. It's also an ego hit where if you know they want you back, you're going to feel good when you're not going back still. So I still feel good when people say to me and old coworkers when I do have a chance to connect with one of them, it's like, oh, man. I wish you were still here doing x, y, or z.

That feels good. That's an ego hit. Definitely is an ego bump to me. And so my decision, and I would recommend anybody's decision, this is truly more than just a numbers decision. This is truly an emotional decision and getting your head around the emotional decision to retire and to stop working at least at your current occupation, it's tough.

And taking the time to get your head around it is going to be important. No one can always change your mind. There are tons of opportunities to generate revenue later in life and generate income later in life than there used

Brent: to be. I totally agree. Getting to a number or the two numbers we talked about takes a little time, that's mechanical. And it also helps you better understand what you need to do. Let's say you are short and you do want to spend this much on an annual basis and you're short by $50,000 let's say.

Okay. Then you can plug it into your system to say, well, what would it take to get to that level? And it might be three more years of working. Let the numbers help you pave a path forward. I think that's really important.

And I think a lot of people avoid the numbers. I did personally, because I just didn't want to know. I didn't want to have this void of, geez, I got to work five more years. And fortunately, I didn't have that scenario play out that way. But once I did the numbers, it was actually provided a sense of peace for me because it just lowered the pressure on me to say, Work, work, work, work, work, work.

It was like, wait a minute, do I have to continue in the same pace that I'm at? And the answer was no. That's the first part. I think that's like this 20% of the challenge that people face, but the 80% is the emotional aspect. And I find the emotional aspect hits people at all different stages of their personal wealth.

And I'm going to share a quick story. In my former company, I got to work with some very high net worth individuals. We're an investment firm and so I'm interacting with billionaires and people that have a significant amount of wealth. And I remember there's a handful of conversations I had with people that are billionaires. And what was very strange to me was having the conversation about what is enough.

And I can tell you that some of them, if they have, let's say $10,000,000,000 it's not enough.

Rob: You said billion, correct? $10,000,000,000

Brent: is And I've been in those conversations where it's part ego, it's part their childhood trauma, and it's not enough yet. And it's a really strange thing. These are conversations I've had where they look across their peer set and saying, well, they have this much more. And it wasn't, I want more money to buy another jet or another estate. It was more, I just need more in the bank.

So I'm just giving the magnitude like this doesn't hit These decisions don't hit people that are trying to save a million dollars. These are billion dollars too. So everybody has a different relationship with money. And I think part of this journey that we're on is understanding your relationship with money, but allowing certain simple equations that you outlined, Rob, a perfect example. Allow that to help you make an informed decision and use that to your advantage.

And then use it to say, you know what? I can make a change if I want to make a change, or I need to continue with what I'm doing. I'm really not quite comfortable yet. So everybody's going to go through it. But what we're encouraging is take the time to look at your numbers, determine if you have enough.

That's the goal of this discussion today. What is enough? And then work with it from there.

Rob: If you do the math and you don't have enough. Right? So let's say you go through these two simple equations and you don't have enough. You got four choices, Brent. You could either save more money, you could retire later, so you could reduce your expenses today and save a little bit more money to get there.

You could retire a little bit later, so you can postpone, you said, two or three or four extra years. You could retire on less, so spend less during retirement or something that I played around with for a number of years mentally was having a job during retirement. Right? So retiring young and having a job that would just pay the bills and I could let all of my savings just sit. So a job that would provide benefits and pay the bills and just let all of my investments sit and then eventually So reducing the stress by taking on a non stressful type of job was one of the options too.

So you got four options if you don't quite have enough, but you do want to make that decision or you do want to make the transition to retirement sooner. Going back to your friend though that that, has enough but is struggling with that decision, Brent, it's fear. And I felt it. I know you felt it. We talked about this as is what does that mean?

I know I built my identity on work for a long time. Twenty-six professional years in financial services. My identity was I was a senior executive at a financial services firm. The day that I retire, I'm not that anymore. What am I now?

And it was not something that I think I could have built before I retired as an identity not being a senior executive. Had to actually retire to get that identity. I had to step away to have that identity. I personally couldn't build it while I was working there, so I was so because I was so engrossed and so engaged and so focused on the work that I was doing, it consumed me and it became me. Not saying it was bad, but that's who I was.

It's not who I am today, and I'm very happy about that, but it took me stepping away to find out who I am today.

Brent: Thank you for sharing that. That's so helpful for me to hear you say that. So as we close out the conversation today, I'd like you to take us through a journey and really leave our listeners with something you shared with me and you've even mentioned it in our discussion today is what is the trade off? And I want you to describe how you approach the tradeoff. Another year gives me this much money, but what is that year potentially going to do for my own health, my own longevity?

What's the trade off? How do you want people to leave with that? The way you've always described to me is very impactful. Meaning that, hey, you could keep working in the grind and you can work eighty hours a week, but maybe that's taking away from something else down the road or even tomorrow. So talk us through that because I think it's a good way to close out today's conversation because that's the main point of this, is if once you figure out enough, then maybe there's something else that can be much more beneficial to your life and your longevity.

Rob: All of our choices have a cost associated with them. That's how I've thought about it, Brent. As And I mentioned the podcast, what would you trade for ten extra healthy years in your life, especially later in life, hit me really hard. And I wish I could remember which podcast I heard that on, but it really got me thinking. And while I was physically on the outside, I looked great.

I mean, I was I looked great. That's me. Don't Interesting. On, man. You look great.

We know. There's lot of people that will argue with that. I looked great. They'll say, take your shirt off. Just give me a second.

Take your shirt off. You don't look that great. But I was fit. On the outside, I looked great. You know, I looked like I had everything together.

I was fit. I did a lot of activities. My wife and I traveled a ton. We hiked mountains. Everything looked great on the outside.

Inside, I would tell you I was struggling. I was stressed out all the time. I wasn't sleeping as well as I should be or need to be. I was, you know, dosing up with tons of caffeine during the day to keep going. I wasn't present for friends the way that I wanted to be and I justified it that I can do it down the road or they're all too busy.

I wasn't maybe the best version of myself and some people can do that while they're working, I couldn't. I couldn't feel like I was the best version of myself while I was doing that work because I was so engaged and so entrenched in the work and so focused and so committed and receiving the rewards from doing really good work. And realizing that that level of stress that I was putting myself under, it was putting myself under, it wasn't the job, it wasn't the company doing it, it was a stress that I put on myself and doing the job well, I realized I won't get that back again. I won't get that health back. I won't get the heart rate down again.

I won't get the stress out of my life that's going to live with me forever. And I won't feel the impact of it because I can mask it in a lot of other areas. I can mask it to friends. I can mask it to other people. I can mask it to my spouse even.

I won't feel the impact of this until it's too late, and I can't fix it. I can't pay my way out of this problem later in life with my health, And I wanted to have that. I wanted to enjoy the life I had worked so hard to build and enjoy assets that we had, the product of all the work that I had been doing for a long time in my entire life, at least my professional life, I want to be able to enjoy it.

Brent: You know, got a phone call from a good friend of mine just last week and he shared with me that he has cancer. He thankfully it's at an earlier stage and I actually talked to him just yesterday and he had surgery and they think everything's, he's in a good spot. But what we were talking about is when you get that phone call or that diagnosis, do you want to be living your best life at that moment in time? Meaning you've been living your best life and the best version of yourself? Or do you want that to be the trigger that promotes you now to go live your best life.

Maybe it's too late. So it's just something that he and I were talking about because he was starting to navigate living his best life even prior to this. And he was getting off the career journeyman, and now he was starting to explore other things several months ago. And I'm like, are you proud that you've made that decision? Because now it even makes more sense.

You know? Thank you for sharing the way that you looked at it, and it's been important to me. So thank everybody for joining us today, and, we'll see you guys soon.

Lena: That's it for this episode of Midlife Circus. Visit midlifecircus.fm for show notes, transcripts, and all the latest happenings. And while you're there, be sure to sign up for our newsletter so you never miss an update. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss your next great act. Before we go, a quick reminder.

The opinions and stories shared here are just that, personal reflections and perspectives. We're not legal experts, medical professionals, or therapists. This show is for entertainment and inspiration only, so please seek the right professionals when you need guidance. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you under the big top next time. Midlife Circus is a Burning Matches Media production.