The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

A lot of the conversation on retirement runs one way: stay busy, stay productive. Dr. Denise Taylor thinks that could quietly cost some people their best years.

Denise is a Chartered Psychologist and later-life researcher in the UK. She spent 25 years coaching people through career transitions, then, at 61, went back to school herself, completing a professional doctorate on how people reconstruct meaning after full-time work. Her research subjects were all at least two years past retirement, deliberately, because the first two years tell you very little. What she found in them became the backbone of her new book, ThriveSpan: Walking Gently Into What Matters Now.

The extra years we have gained, she argues, arrive roughly between 60 and 80, while health usually still holds. Spending them duplicating the shape of your working life is a decision, and it’s not right for everyone. Her alternative is not reinvention, which she calls exhausting, but recalibration: a reset in which you subtract before you add.

She is also candid about her own path. Leaving a twenty-year marriage. Four days and four nights alone in nature with no food and no tent. A doctorate that started the October before COVID. Four acres of woodland that taught her, at last, how to stop moving fast.

We discuss why purpose does not have to be a cathedral, why she stopped dyeing her hair on principle, what her research says about curiosity and being of service, why you should imagine the future you do not want, and why saying no is the most underrated skill in later life.

Retirement is different for everyone and we have choices. Denise argues against a continue to work narrative, and she argues strongly. If you’re a listener who loves their work, or who needs the income, shear her as offering choice rather than a verdict.

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Bio

Dr. Denise Taylor is a Chartered Psychologist, later-life researcher, and widely published author whose work explores how we can live well as we age.

With more than 25 years’ experience supporting career and life transitions, she has written extensively on work, identity, ageing, and meaning in later life. Her work has been featured by the BBC, ITV, and national newspapers.

Her previous books include Career Coaching for Midlife and Beyond, Rethinking Retirement for Positive Ageing , and Find Work at 50+. Her doctoral research into meaning after full-time work won the Research by a Career Development Professional award in 2024.

ThriveSpan: Walking Gently Into What Matters Now offers a reflective, psychologically grounded approach to later life, integrating research, lived experience, and the restorative influence of nature.

Denise writes the Substack newsletter Ageing Reimagined and is a regular contributor to the i Paper.

She lives in Gloucestershire, where time spent in her woodland continues to inspire both her writing and her approach to later life.

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For More on Denise Taylor

Substack – https://ageingreimagined.substack.com/

ThriveSpan – https://denisetaylor.co.uk/thrivespan/

Website – https://denisetaylor.co.uk/

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Other Retirement Podcast Conversations You’ll Also Love

Inspired Retirement – Nathalie Martin

Re-Visioning Retirement – Susan Reid, PhD

Joyspan – Kerry Burnight, PhD

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Wise Quotes

On Recalibrating

“You don’t have to reinvent yourself. You can just slow down a bit…now time is more my own.”

On Purpose

“When I’m talking to people about purpose, they want this massive thing, like building a cathedral. You can have purpose just by smiling at somebody walking down the street.”

On Being

“If all you are is a human doing, then you’re not really thinking about who am I as a human being?”

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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 2 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.

Your money is ready for retirement. Are you?

Get started on Future You.

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What might happen if retirement gives you permission to become a beginner again?

After more than four decades in journalism, including a long career at The Wall Street Journal, Neil Lipschutz began an entirely different chapter—as a mystery novelist.

In this conversation, Neil discusses career identity, creative work and the importance of giving retirement some structure without locking yourself into a rigid plan. He also shares a powerful lesson from his own second act: enjoy the process of pursuing something meaningful without making your satisfaction dependent on how other people measure the outcome.

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Bio

Neal Lipschutz, a long-time journalist, was formerly a deputy editor-in-chief at The Wall Street Journal. He also previously served as WSJ’s ethics and standards editor. He also at one time was the top editor at Dow Jones Newswires. His short fiction has appeared in a number of publications. “Long Arm of the Past” is his second novel in the Scott Morgan series following his debut novel  “No Write Way to Die” in 2025.

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For More on Neal Lipschutz

Author Website

Long Arm of the Past (A Scott Morgan Mystery)

No Write Way to Die

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Other Retirement Podcast Conversations You’ll Love

How to Flourish…in Retirement – Daniel Coyle

Change Your Questions, Change Your Life…in Retirement – Marilee Adams, PhD

Mattering…in Retirement – Jennifer Breheny Wallace

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Wise Quotes

On Retiring External Validation

“Enjoy the process… and try to separate that from whether it was ultimately a success in some other person’s eyes.”

On Finding a New Center

“It’s such an opportunity to try something new, to find some new purpose, to find some new center around which to organize your life.”

On Idenity

“I felt like a human being before I had a career…I’m not sure I need a career to justify my identity now.”

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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 2 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.

 

 

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We have one spot left in both cohorts Designing Your New Life in Retirement small group program, beginning in September.

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Is your money better prepared for retirement than you are to live it? Take this free 5-minute assessment to highlight may need you attention to build the retirement you’ve earned.

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We spend a great deal of time thinking about how much we exercise. Esther Gokhale asks another question: How are we using our bodies during all the hours when we aren’t exercising?

Esther Gokhale, creator of the Gokhale Method, became interested in posture after experiencing a severe L5-S1 disc herniation while pregnant with her first child. Surgery was followed by another herniation, and she began searching more broadly for ways to change how she moved in everyday life.

In this conversation, Esther explains why she considers posture a missing pillar of wellness and why she believes ordinary activities (walking, sitting, standing, bending and even lying down) can become what she calls “life exercises.”

We explore why sitting itself may not (completely) deserve its terrible reputation, what she means by a “J-spine,” how walking mechanics affect the entire body, and what modern adults can learn from young children and populations whose traditional movement patterns have been preserved.

Most encouragingly for people in the second half of life, Esther argues that we should distinguish between what becomes common with age and what is necessarily natural. Her message is clear that our capacity for improvement often lasts much longer than we assume.

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Bio

Esther Gokhale (GO-clay) has been involved in integrative therapies all her life. As a young girl growing up in India, she helped her mother, a nurse, treat abandoned babies waiting to be adopted. This early interest in healing led her to study biochemistry at Harvard and Princeton and, later, acupuncture at the San Francisco School of Oriental Medicine.

After experiencing crippling back pain during her first pregnancy and unsuccessful back surgery, Esther Gokhale began her lifelong crusade to vanquish back pain. Her studies at the Aplomb® Institute in Paris and years of research in Brazil, India, Portugal and elsewhere led her to develop the Gokhale Method, a unique, systematic approach to help people find their bodies’ way back to pain-free living. Gokhale’s book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, has been translated into ten languages.

Esther Gokhale has taught at corporations such as Google & IDEO, presented at conferences including TEDx(Stanford), consulted for the trainers of the SF 49ers and several Stanford sports teams, and conducted workshops for physician groups at Stanford, Kaiser Permanente, Sutter Health, UCSF. The New York Times gave Esther the title “The Posture Guru of Silicon Valley. A Stanford clinical trial is currently studying the Gokhale Method.

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For More on Esther Gokhale

Website – Gokhale Method

2-minute Video Overview of the Gokhale Method 

8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back by Esther Gokhale

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Other Retirement Podcasts You May Like

The Joy of Movement – Kelly McGonigal

Eat Your Ice Cream – Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, PhD

Make Your Next Years Your Best Years – Harry Agress, MD

_____________________

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 2 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.

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Wise Quotes

On Posture

“Posture is very underrated as a pillar of wellness…Change the way you are living in your body….It’s sort of indispensable that we do life more skillfully because that’s where the big opportunities are.”

On Misconceptions on Aging

“Don’t…lower our standards and call things that are common natural.”

On Why Now?

“It’s never too late.”

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The views and opinions expressed by guests on The Retirement Wisdom Podcast are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of the host or Retirement Wisdom, LLC. The Retirement Wisdom Podcast covers the non-financial aspects of retirement. From time to time we may invite guests who discuss other aspects of retirement planning, solely for educational purposes. Listeners are advised to consult qualified financial and/or medical professionals on those matters.

Time for an Upgrade?

The honeymoon period doesn’t last forever in retirement.

The free Retirement Drift assessment takes five minutes. It’s not a report card. No right answers.

If you want to get started on working on the new Future You, that’s exactly what the Designing Your New Life in Retirement program is built for.

Six group sessions with 6 to 10 people doing the same, and a structured way to move from putting it off to designing.

The September cohort is enrolling now with two scheduling options.

Learn more here | Sign up here

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What would persuade a successful professional to trade seniority and compensation for beginner status, and six months of Police Academy training at 70? For John Fisher, the answer was not reinvention for its own sake. It was the chance to keep growing, serving, solving problems, and feeling fully engaged.

Before becoming a Ranger, John spent more than 20 years at Sony Pictures Television, including as supervising producer of The Young and the Restless, where he won six Emmy Awards. His earlier career included work with HBO and key roles in launching MTV, VH-1, MTV Europe, and The Comedy Channel.

His next chapter didn’t pop up overnight. It grew from volunteering. One opportunity led to another: EMT certification, a seasonal Ranger-Assistant role, ranger training, and eventually the Río Hondo Basic Police Academy. There, surrounded by much younger recruits, John became California’s oldest graduate of a basic Police Academy, class president and was voted Most Inspirational.

In this conversation, John explains how he handled the demands of the academy, why age brought advantages as well as limitations, and how three simple criteria (learning something new, helping people, and having fun) guided his choices. His story is dramatic, but his approach is accessible. Becoming a Ranger may not be your thing, but what small experiment might open your own unexpected next chapter?

John Fisher joins us from California.

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Bio

John Fisher is a Ranger with the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, a local park agency with extensive property in the Santa Monica Mountains. He joined the MRCA as a volunteer in 2024. After attending the Rio Hondo Basic Police Academy in 2025, Fisher completed field training and became a generalist ranger in 2026.

Prior to the MRCA, Fisher worked for Sony Pictures Television for over 20 years as a supervising producer for “The Young and the Restless,” where he won six Emmy Awards. Earlier, Fisher worked on the NBC Enterprises syndicated daytime program, “The John Walsh Show.” He spent 11 years with HBO as a production executive, where he supervised a wide range of programming, including “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,” “The Chris Rock Show,” “Reverb,” and “Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist.”

His experience encompasses key roles in launching MTV, VH-1, MTV Europe, and The Comedy Channel, as well as numerous producing and consulting credits for broadcast, pay cable, syndication, corporate, and home video projects.

A longtime member of the Television Academy, Fisher has served on the Daytime Peer Group Executive Committee and the Daytime Awards Committee. He has been involved with community and educational endeavors and has volunteered with his homeowners’ association, Syracuse University’s alumni advisory network, and Boston University’s Los Angeles program. An avid cyclist, he has been a member of several advocacy groups and a volunteer trail maintainer.

Additionally, he continues to volunteer with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Search and Rescue team based in Santa Clarita and as a civilian volunteer for the Los Angeles Police Department through his membership in the California Emergency Mobile Patrol (CEMP). Fisher also belongs to the Mountain Bike Unit in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and is a volunteer for the National Park Service and California State Parks.

A native of Baltimore, Fisher holds a master’s degree from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School and an undergraduate degree from Towson University.

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Other Retirement Podcast Conversations You’ll Love

The Third Act – Josh Sapan

Mattering…in Retirement – Jennifer Breheny Wallace

What If You Pivot Instead of Retiring? – Scott Siff

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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 2 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.

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Wise Quotes

On Trade Offs

“I am earning a fraction of what I earned before. I am way down in the food chain, and I love it.”

On Age Bias

“If somebody’s telling you you’re too old, find new friends. They’re just jealous.”

On Future You

“You have to figure out what kind of story you want to tell about this next phase of your life.”

Retirement can create an unexpected form of pressure. With more freedom and fewer work constraints, shouldn’t this be the moment when we finally perfect our health, routines, relationships, and long-delayed ambitions? Steve Kamb argues that this all-or-nothing mindset often produces an all-then-nothing result.

Steve is the founder of Nerd Fitness and author of How to Try Again. In this conversation, he explains why setbacks are not proof that we are failures; they are information about what to try differently. He shares lessons from the Museum of Failure, reframes treading water as a legitimate success during certain seasons, and makes the case that no one truly returns to square one. Every previous attempt leaves us knowledge and data we can use going forward. If we pay attention.

Steve also introduces his PACT framework – Pause, Accept, Change, Try – and explains why permission to start can be more powerful than waiting for confidence. Whether you want to rebuild fitness, develop a new interest, strengthen relationships, or design a more purposeful retirement, this episode offers a compassionate and practical way to begin again.

Steve Kamb joins us from Massachusetts.

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Time for an Upgrade?

The honeymoon period doesn’t last forever in retirement.

It dawns on you that there are more Wednesdays ahead than items on your Bucket List.

I’ve created a brief online tool to highlight the key areas that need your attention the most.

It’s based on what I’ve learned about my clients who thrive in retirement – and what they make sure to get right.

The free Retirement Drift assessment takes five minutes. It’s not a report card. No right answers.

Just where you stand today and a starting point for the retirement you really want to live.

Take the Free Retirement Drift Assessment →

“Something was missing and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Now I know.”

That’s from a podcast listener who took it last week.

If you want to get started on working on the new Future You, that’s exactly what the Designing Your New Life in Retirement program is built for.

Six group sessions with 6 to 10 people doing the same, and a structured way to move from putting it off to designing.

The September cohort is enrolling now with two scheduling options.

Learn more here | Sign up here

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Bio

Steve Kamb is the author of How to Try Again (St. Martin’s Press) and Level Up Your Life (Rodale). He’s also the founder of Nerd Fitness, a worldwide community of nerds leveling up their lives. Since 2009, he’s helped busy people get stronger, live healthier, and build heroic habits. He’s published a thousand articles backed by scientific research and full of nerdy references that have been read by tens of millions.

Kamb writes a weekly “Level Up with Steve Kamb” newsletter read by more than 100,000 super humans. He’s given talks at some of the world’s biggest companies and guest lectured at Vanderbilt University. He currently resides in Nashville, TN, where he plays golf decently and music poorly.

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For More on Steve Kamb

How to Try Again: An Approachable Guide to Navigating Chaos and Making Change THAT STICKS

Website

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Retirement Podcast Conversations You’ll Also Love

Self-Compassion – Dr. Kristin Neff

How to Begin – Michael Bungay Stanier

The Joy of Movement – Kelly McGonigal

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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 2 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.

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Wise Quotes

On Self Compassion

“It’s not how you succeed with discipline, but really how you fail with compassion.”

On Mindset

“An all or nothing mindset creates all then nothing results.”

On Action

“Action creates motivation, which creates self-efficacy, which creates more action…You don’t need a membership. You don’t need to make a big deal out of it. You can just put on your shoes and go do it.”

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The views and opinions expressed by guests on The Retirement Wisdom Podcast are solely those of the guests and do not reflect the opinion of the host or Retirement Wisdom, LLC. The Retirement Wisdom Podcast primarily covers the non-financial aspects of retirement. From time to time we may invite guests who discuss other aspects of retirement planning, solely for educational purposes. Listeners are advised to consult qualified financial and/or medical professionals on those matters. Consult your doctor before starting any exercise routine.