The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

Are you graduating from the grind in 2026? You could go it alone and wing it. But here’s what one participant said about our small group coaching program: “It was fantastic! I got to work with other people and share ideas with others on what retirement could be. It gave me clarity and confidence.” New groups are starting on January 22 & 23. Let’s go. Learn more Join us “Challenged me to get out of the starting blocks and far down the path of really thinking about this next phase of my life in very different ways. I now feel like I have a solid road map.” “I wish I’d taken this program earlier.” _____________________________ What if everything you’ve planned for financially in retirement still leaves you feeling completely lost? Today’s guest knows this paradox intimately. Dan Haylett built his career as a financial planner, helping people achieve financial independence. But what he discovered shocked him: when money stops being the problem in retirement, and that’s when the real problems show up. Dan is a retirement transition specialist helping people navigate the psychological side of retirement that no financial plan can solve. He’s learned that people plan meticulously for financial independence but rarely prepare for psychological independence. The result? Three devastating losses hit early: loss of structure, loss of relevance, and loss of identity. In this conversation, Dan shares his framework for retirement well-being built on five human pillars that have nothing to do with your bank account. He challenges what you think you know about retirement as a “reward” and shows you why the most successful retirements aren’t built on bucket lists and endless travel, but on something far simpler and more profound. If you’ve ever wondered who you are when no one needs your output anymore, this episode will change how you see the next chapter of your life. Dan Haylett joins us from the UK. ______________________ Bio Dan Haylett, who’s the author of The Retirement You Didn’t See Coming: a guide to the human side of retirement nobody warns you about. Dan is a financial planner and head of growth for TFP Financial Planning based in the UK. Dan focuses on financial planning, retirement planning, and life planning for people 50+. He also hosts a podcast called Humans vs. Retirement on the behavioral aspects of retirement. Prior to joining TFP, Dan held a number of positions in asset management. ______________________ For More on Dan Haylett The Retirement You Didn’t See Coming TFP Financial Planning Humans vs Retirement ______________________ Podcast Conversations You May Like How to Prepare Mentally for Life After Work – Joseph Maugeri Retiring: Creating a Life That Works for You – Teresa Amabile What Are The Keys To A Successful Retirement? Fritz Gilbert ______________________ About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time. About Retirement Wisdom I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident. Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms. About Your Podcast Host Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University. In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy. ___________________________ Wise Quotes On Structure in Retirement “So the biggest surprise for me is this. Money stops being the problem. And that’s when the real problems show up, right? So I think that’s kind of the biggest surprise for me. People expect relief. Instead, they probably feel quite disorientated. They’ve planned for financial independence, but not necessarily psychological independence. And so I think the three big shocks or surprises, I think, tend to hit quite early. You get this loss of structure. So there’s kind of no diary or no default rhythm. People get this loss of relevance. Nobody needs you at 9 a.m. anymore. And this loss of identity that job title that once explained you to the world has quietly disappeared. So I think that to me is probably the three big,money stops being the problem. And then the real problems of loss, particularly structure, relevance and identity, really start to take hold. I think one of the things that I really want to reframe when it comes to structure, structure doesn’t disappear in retirement. I think it just stops being imposed on us. For decades, work has  spoon-fed you your structure to a degree, right? Work gave us a reason to get up, a place to be, people to see, and problems to solve. And I think if you remove that overnight, your brain will just panic. And I think the mistake that people try to make, or sorry, the mistake people make is trying to recreate work this kind of same hours, same busyness, just without the meaning. And instead, what I encourage people to do is to build what I would describe as kind of light scaffolding, I suppose, something like that, not rigid schedules, just kind of what I would describe as anchors.” On Identity “The question is, who are you when no one needs your output? Let that breathe for a second. Who are you when no one needs your output? And then you start widening identity whilst you’re still working, right? Develop interests that don’t pay you. Spend time with people who don’t care what you do. And I think really importantly, notice what gives you energy outside of kind of performance and status. Because I do think if your entire sense of self is wrapped up in your role in your job, retirement will feel less like freedom and kind of more like redundancy, right? It’s that kind of instant, you’ve lost this thing and you didn’t want to lose it. So I do think it’s a massive challenge because it’s been, you know, our identity that we’ve had has given us so much, has given us status, has given us structure, it’s given us a sense of self-worth. It’s given us many things that provide us with joy and happiness. And, you know, for the first time, we’re free probably to explore with a really decent chunk of wisdom who we actually are as a person. I think the first question you ask is, what’s your name? Hopefully, if you want to kind of start building a bit of a rapport and bond with someone. And maybe the second question is, what do you do? And as we’ve just explored, you would typically answer that question with, I am a ___________. Or on a lot of occasions, someone still gives you a business card or now modern day, it’s like a QR code, right? That kind of gives you a little thing. But, if you give a business card and on that business card, it will have your name. And underneath your name, it will have your job title. It’s kind of, here you are. This is what I do. This is who I am. And my challenge I do to people, I say, well, if you didn’t have a business card, what would you give out or what would you say? And actually, let’s create a business card. Let’s think about what your business card would say. And you can be creative, you can be funny, you can be jovial, you can be serious, you can be whatever you want. But what if your business card said free to explore or, you know, just make up something creative? I’ve got a client who on his business card wrote, trying to play the top 100 golf courses in England before I die, right? That kind of thing. It’s kind of like, that was one of his missions. And you can have multiple business cards, multiple things that you want. So it’s just trying to kind of frame this thing where I think people will, because what I do see, Joe, which I think is actually quite sad, is when people hang on to past identities.”

Are you ready to graduate from the grind in 2026? Then here’s your most important project: Future You. Join our small group coaching program and design your new life after work. Learn more “Eye opening and provocative.” “Challenged me to get out of the starting blocks and far down the path of really thinking about this next phase of my life in very different ways. I now feel like I have a solid road map.” “I wish I’d taken this program earlier.” __________________________ Start the new year right with new habits. FREE 3 session program – 3 Fridays in January at Noon Eastern January 2, 9 and 16 Sign up here ____________________________ Thank you for joining us and listening this year. This special year-end Best Of episode is a collection of valuable insights from our recent guests. If you missed Part One, you can find it here ____________________________ Listen in to full conversations: Harry Agress Kerry Burnight Nathalie Martin Ken Stern Joseph Magueri Christine Platt Michael Long Carl Landau Francine Toder Diane Button ________________________ You May Also Like The Very Best of 2024 – Retirement Wisdom Best of 2023 – Part Three _________________________ About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time. About Retirement Wisdom I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident. Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms. About Your Podcast Host Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University. In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

Are you ready to graduate from the grind in 2026? Then here’s your most important project: Future You. Learn more “Eye opening and provocative.” “Challenged me to get out of the starting blocks and far down the path of really thinking about this next phase of my life in very different ways. I now feel like I have a solid road map.” “I wish I’d taken this program earlier.” __________________________ Start the new year right with new habits. FREE 3 session program – 3 Fridays in January at Noon Eastern January 2, 9 and 16 Sign up here __________________________ What if the most creative chapter of your life hasn’t happened yet? Today’s conversation is about second acts that arrive not quietly—but boldly. Kim Gottlieb-Walker published her debut novel at age 78 after a 50-year career as a photographer. She also leads the Vintage Writers, a lively weekly Zoom group of women authors over 70. Joining her is Roselyn Teukolsky, a former math and computer science educator who retired and now writes fiction. This conversation explores creative courage, identity shifts, the power of starting something new – and the value of community. Kim Gottlieb-Walker and Roselyn Teukolsky join us from California. _________________________ Planning for retirement? Check out our recommended Best Books for Retirement _________________________ Bios Kim Gottlieb-Walker’s  career as a photographer covered a wide range of subjects, from classic rock and roll, reggae, and politics in the ‘60s and ‘70s to major motion pictures and television shows. Now in her late 70s, she has reinvented herself as a novelist. While still at UCLA (where she  received a BA in Motion Picture production) and shortly thereafter, she shot for underground LA newspapers and magazines including Crawdaddy, the Staff, and Music World. She  also shot the stills for John Carpenter’s Halloween, The Fog, Christine and Escape from New York and worked at Paramount Pictures for nine years as the production photographer for Cheers, and five years for Family Ties. For three decades she  was an elected representative for still photographers on the National Executive Board of IATSE Local 600, the International Cinematographers Guild. Her coffee-table photo books Bob Marley and the Golden Age of Reggae and On Set with John Carpenter were published by Titan Press (UK) distributed by Random House (USA) and both are now in multiple printing. They have editions in Japanese, Russian and French. She’s  had gallery shows in London, Los Angeles and New York. Her novels are  Lenswoman in Love – a novel of the 1960s & ‘70s (her debut) and the not-yet published historical novel Caterina by Moonlight, about a girl growing up in renaissance Florence in the late 15th century. Her short story “Summer of Love – 1967” appears in the multi-award-winning anthology Feisty Deeds. Former math and computer science teacher, Roselyn Teukolsky, is the author of A Reluctant Spy, an unconventional spy thriller, and The Fourth Woman, a cautionary tale about online dating. Teukolsky has long been intrigued by the dilemmas faced by smart women in male-dominated settings. Working as a computer science teacher has given her the familiarity to create an authentic female protagonist, a brilliant computer scientist, who, in the latest novel, must ward off a ransomware attack and an online-dating predator. Teukolsky has a B.Sc. in Math and Chemistry from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and an M.S. in Math Education from Cornell. She is the author of the Barron’s review book for AP Computer Science, which is currently in its 12th edition. Roselyn’s favorite pastime is tournament bridge. She wrote How to Play Bridge with Your Spouse … and Survive (Master Point Press) in 2002. She lives in Pasadena, CA, with her husband, Saul Teukolsky. ________________________ Have a Question You’d Like Answered on the Podcast? Click here to leave a voice message or email me at [email protected] _________________________ For More on Kim Gottlieb-Walker  Lenswoman in Love www.Lenswoman.com for an overview of her photographic history www.TheRenaissanceWoman.net www.KimGottliebWalker.com – her author website. — For More on Roselyn Teukolsky A Reluctant Spy The Fourth Woman _________________________ Podcast Conversations You May Like Why Retirement Was Just the Beginning – Neal Lipschutz A Creative Pursuit with an Intergenerational Assist – Neil & Michelle McLaughlin Edit Your Life – Elisabeth Sharp McKetta __________________________ About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time. About Retirement Wisdom I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident. Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms. About Your Podcast Host Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University. In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy. ___________________________ Wise Quotes On a Writing Community “One of the things I’ve loved best about this recreation of my life is the number of people it’s brought into my life because the writers are a very supportive community. And it keeps your brain alive. There’s so much you have to learn with the learning curve of writing a book that it keeps your brain cells going. It stimulates them. I think there are many people out there who, after having had very active careers that are now retired and are feeling at lost ends. Every person has met interesting people during their lives, has had things happen to them, have had tragedies, have had happiness. Everybody has experiences in them that they might want to communicate. And writing, even though it seems like a very solitary occupation, it gives you a chance to put all of your life experience out into the world and to then connect with other people, other writers, to get the support that you need and to learn all of the different aspects of it. So it’s a very satisfying way to spend your retirement. Oh, well, it’s an amazing group of women. They’re all over 70. They’ve all reinvented themselves as writers. Some were writers beforehand, but most have reinvented themselves. And they cover all different kinds of writing of every genre. There’s self-help, there’s romance, there’s mystery, there’s historical fiction, and they’re all very talented, alert, wonderful women. And we meet every Tuesday on Zoom and commiserate and celebrate and give advice. And it has been the most wonderful support group. So we’re not isolated in retirement. We have interactions with people who have similar goals and similar challenges. It’s a tremendous support group.” – Kim Gottlieb-Walker On Age as an Asset ” It is never too late to reinvent yourself. It’s totally within your reach. You don’t have to depend on anyone else. All you have to do is sit down and let your ideas flow. And I wouldn’t worry about ageism because now that we’re in an age where you can self-publish, it doesn’t matter how old you are. And the fact that we have had such rich lives and so many experiences informs the writing and gives the writing depth and gives it reality because it’s based on our real experiences. No matter what you’re writing, you’re bringing your life experiences into it, which is incredibly valuable. So don’t worry about ageism. Don’t worry about the publisher. Just get it out on paper. Do it yourself.” – Kim Gottlieb-Walker On Starting to Write “A lot of my friends have said to me, Oh, they would love to write a book. They would love to write a book. They’re going to write a book. But the point is, if you don’t sit down every day at the same time, backside in the desk, it doesn’t happen. It just doesn’t. Even if you sit and do nothing. I would ask, what are you going to do in the next 10 years? And I say, I don’t know what I’m going to do. And I say, Well, why not write in the next 10 years?” – Roselyn Teukolsky

Start the new year right with new habits. FREE 3 session program – 3 Fridays in January at Noon Eastern. Sign up here. __________________________ Are you ready to graduate from the grind? Then here’s your most important project: Future You. Learn more. ______________________ You’ve spent decades building a career, mastering a craft, and maybe even raising a family. But what happens when the ‘work’ stops? Do you stop creating? Or do you finally have the freedom to chase the ideas that used to visit you only in daydreams? Today, we’re joined by a father-daughter duo who turned a foggy night’s inspiration into a historical fantasy trilogy. Neil McLaughlin, a veteran of commercial real estate, and his daughter Michelle, his editor and collaborator, talk about their journey writing The Witch Hunt series and the first book Torment of the Bloodlines together. We dive into how skills from a 50-year business career can transfer to novel writing, and the surprising health benefits he discovered of the ‘author life. Whether you’re aspiring to write a book or just curious about a new adventure in your second act, this conversation includes a lot of valuable tips on reinventing yourself in retirement. ________________________ Bios Neil McLaughlin has enjoyed storytelling and writing short stories and poetry since childhood. He wrote his first book, The Witch-Hunt, in retirement after a 5 decades long career in commercial real estate. Neil is passionate about sharing his journey which serves as inspiring proof that retirement can be an opportunity to explore passions, share wisdom, and contribute meaningfully to culture and knowledge. Neil and his wife Linda enjoy spending time with their children and grandchildren, travel, wine, murder mysteries, live theatre, books and boating on Lake Ontario. Michelle McLaughlin, with over 20 years of business and corporate experience, brings a wealth of knowledge and strategic insight to every project. She passionately manages the book marketing for her father Neil’s writing business. Combining her expertise in marketing and her deep appreciation for literature, she expertly promotes Neil’s work, helping to expand its reach and impact. Dedicated to blending professional acumen with family values, she thrives at the intersection of creativity, business, and community connection. ____________________________ For More on Neil and Michelle McLaughlin  The Witch Hunt (website) The Witch-Hunt (Torment of the Bloodlines Book 1) on Amazon ____________________________ Podcast Episodes You May Like Why Retirement Was Just the Beginning – Neal Lipschutz The Art of the Interesting – Lorraine Besser, PhD Edit Your Life – Elisabeth Sharp McKetta ____________________________ About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time. About Retirement Wisdom I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident. Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms. About Your Podcast Host Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University. In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy. ___________________________ On the Origin Story “It started late one night about three years ago. I was staring out the window and it was a foggy evening. And I wondered, we’re all asleep at night. And I was wondering, what happens at night? The coyotes are howling and no one is walking about. What really is going on? So I imagined in my own mind a short story evolving… I had something. Maybe four or five pages. And I showed it to Michelle. And she said, Jeez, Dad, it’s kind of an interesting story. Have you ever considered writing it into a novel? And I thought, well, I never gave it any thought. But now that you mention it, it might be a good idea.” – Neil On Intergenerational Collaboration “So this isn’t the first time we had worked together. We did work together professionally in commercial real estate, but this was the first time we had worked together on a creative project, more of a passion project. And what really struck me was how much we both loved writing and creativity. My dad had written things, as I mentioned, I have written things, but we’d never worked on something collaboratively together. So this to me was really surprising because it was so much fun.  And had I known it would be this much fun, I would have suggested something sooner. The work in this case is the fun. And another point in a professional setting, especially in real estate, my dad was the mentor and I was the mentee. Whereas this was new, this is new for both of us. The editing process, the literary world is a new discovery, which is fun equally on both sides. No one is the expert in this case. We’re learning together, which I found was really refreshing.” – Michelle On Transferable Skills “I found the process of writing a novel to be very similar to what I did for a living for about 50 years. Earlier on, as we were getting ready to build something, we would hire an architect, we would hire designers and planners and tradesmen. And I found myself ironically finding the same in script writers and editors and influencers that came to the party as well. And I found that writing a novel and building a building were very, very similar. And one of the characteristics in real estate development is the attitude of patience.” – Neil 

“You are what you repeatedly do.” Start the New Year strong. Join my FREE 3 session Tiny Habits program.  Register here _________________________ What’s your most important project in 2026? Future You. Don’t wing it. Design it. Learn more here. _________________________ What happens when a financial columnist and CFP® professional suddenly becomes her mother’s caregiver? Beth Pinsker discovered that her expertise couldn’t prepare her for the relentless tenacity required to navigate Medicare mazes, fight for proper care, and manage the details of her mother’s financial life. In My Mother’s Money , a comprehensive practical and detailed resource, she shares the street-smart lessons that only come from boots-on-the-ground caregiving experience. In this conversation, you’ll learn: Why financial caregiving requires perseverance to advocate effectively for your loved ones The critical difference between big-picture finances and knowing the granular details that matter How Medicare decisions made at age 65 can create enormous consequences for caregivers years later Why humanizing your loved one to healthcare providers changes the quality of care they recei Why “stuff” is such a complicated issue and how to prepare your own estate realistically _________________________ Bio Beth Pinsker is a financial-planning columnist at MarketWatch and has been a  Certified Financial Planner™ since 2018. She won a SABEW Best in Business award in 2023 for commentary for a series of columns about caring for her mother. She turned those into a book, “My Mother’s Money: A Guide to Financial Caregiving” (Crown Currency, November 2025). Beth was previously the launch Money Editor for Buy Side from WSJ, providing advice and service on anything having to do with how people handle their money. Prior to that, she was a personal finance columnist and editor at Reuters for eight years. She covered all aspects of financial planning and decision-making, such as retirement strategies, selecting employee benefits, and saving money. In 2018, she was part of a team that won a Front Page award for Live Online Video from the Newswomen’s Club of New York. Beth worked at Fidelity during the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, where she was an Editorial Director handling coverage of taxes and wealth strategies. She also was the editor of Walletpop.com, a personal finance website owned by AOL that launched in 2008 in the midst of the Great Recession and focused on frugality, budgeting and finding the best deals. Beth spent the first part of her career as a film critic and entertainment business reporter, writing for many publications, such as Entertainment Weekly, The Dallas Morning News, The Independent Film & Video Monthly, Variety and the New York Times. She had brief stints at “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” and was an intern for “Late Night with David Letterman.” Beth has a B.A. in English from Harvard University. She is the mother of two humans and one dog and lives in Brooklyn. ______________________ For More on Beth Pinsker My Mother’s Money: A Guide to Financial Caregiving Website MarketWatch columns ______________________ Podcast Conversations You May Like Is Your House in Order? – Adam Zuckerman What Matters Most – Diane Button ______________________ I’m Just Asking for a Friend Retirement brings so many tough questions. Share your question to be answered in an upcoming retirement podcast episode. Click here to leave a voice message or send me an email at [email protected] _____________________________ About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time. About Retirement Wisdom I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident. Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms. About Your Podcast Host Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University. In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy. _______________________ Wise Quotes On Becoming a Financial Caregiver “I think what really matters when you’re trying to be a financial caregiver is that you pay attention to the details. Some people, most people in fact, never have the conversation with anybody that they’re caring for, their parents, aunt, uncle, whatever. Nobody knows how much money anybody has. Nobody knows what they’re spending their money on. Everybody keeps that information private. But even if you do step into the conversation, like my Mom and I stepped into it a little bit – big picture stuff. Can you afford two houses? No, we’re going to sell one. So you can’t have a summer place anymore kind of thing. When should Dad stop driving? Big picture stuff. But nobody ever gets down to the little stuff that you have to do when you fully take over for somebody. Like when I had to step in and take care of my Mom’s bills, it got down to such nitty gritty like, do you pay your electric bill on an automated schedule? Or how do you pay it otherwise? Do you mail in a check? Like nobody talks about that kind of stuff. But that is absolutely essential when you are a financial caregiver.” On Advocacy “One of the biggest things I did with my Mom and any care setting she was in was try to humanize her for the caregivers. They needed to see her as a person who was functional.  Now, because they all they saw was a little frail old lady who was out of it most of the time, they just assumed she had cognitive decline or dementia and they weren’t trying to get her back to any sort of baseline. And so what I did was primarily showed them like, Oh, isn’t this funny? I saw this video I took two weeks ago on my phone of my Mom playing Scrabble with us. You know my Mom was fine. And then she wasn’t and they just thought that she was always like she was in the hospital. And so to fight for services and fight for what you what you need out of them with an with a person who’s sick and aging is to constantly humanize them so that people in the medical industry want to help them.” On What To Do First “You need to make sure that you have the proper documents to help somebody. We are all legal adults and nobody can help us with certain things unless they have the proper authorization.  That’s a durable power of attorney, a healthcare proxy and some kind of will or trust for after the person dies plus beneficiary designations. You need to secure the person’s phone because so much today is run,  through our phones and if you don’t have the passcode, you’re going to hit a brick wall of no – and the brick wall of no is unmovable. So you need to secure that phone. You need two factor authentication. You need to know what banking apps, and you need to just know what’s in a person’s phone. Those are the two main important things. But the last thing is even more consequential. You need to know what the person wants. Their wishes matter. Having a conversation about what they want and what you’re able to do is absolutely essential both for your mental health, your wellbeing and for how much money you can spend on any particular thing. You just have to know what page everybody’s on.”