
The Retirement Wisdom Podcast
Retire Smarter
Latest episodes

May 19, 2025 • 23min
Grandmapreneur – Connie Inukai
Retirement is what you make of it. Do you have a second-act story as an entrepreneur in you? Connie Inukai, author of Retirement: Dream Big, Take Action, Make Money: 10 Amazing Second Act Entrepreneurs Tell Their Story, shares her experience in her second act as an inventor and “Grandmapreneur.”
Connie Inukai joins us from Maryland.
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Bio
As a serial “Grandmapreneur®”, Connie Inukai speaks to retirees or soon-to-be retirees on the benefits of pursuing entrepreneurship in retirement.
Retired from teaching Technical Writing at the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University for four decades, Connie Inukai became an award-winning inventor at the age of 68. Featured in Entrepreneur magazine, “6 Reasons to Pursue Entrepreneurship in Retirement,” Connie encourages Baby Boomers to have an active retirement through business or social entrepreneurship.
She is the creator of Write Your Selfie®, where she inspires people to write their life stories in a fun and easy-to-read format so grandchildren and future generations will enjoy turning the pages to learn about their ancestry and life lessons. She is passionate about working with dementia sufferers and their families to preserve the memoirs of this “invisible” population.
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For More on Connie Inukai
Retirement: Dream Big, Take Action, Make Money: 10 Amazing Second Act Entrepreneurs Tell Their Story
Website – Grandmapreneur: Inspiring Invention, Ideas, and Impact
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Mentioned in this Podcast Conversation
SCORE Mentoring Program
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Podcast Conversations You May Like
The Heart of Grandfatherhood – Ted Page
Is Semi-Retirement the Best of Both Worlds? – Liz Weston
Unretired – Mark S. Walton
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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 also 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 twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider has 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.
Connect on LinkedIn
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Wise Quotes
On Being a Second Act Entrepreneur
“SCORE is very helpful because when I started, when I retired, I was 68 years old and then I was fumbling around with my invention. I knew nothing about anything, but I did learn how to invent a product and I went to SCORE because I had no idea what to do and they’re very good with newbies and I think they didn’t expect a newbie to be my age, but I think I’m older than my SCORE mentor, but he was wonderful and the first thing he did was he told me to write a business plan. Most people who write business plans just use a template and copy it and do nothing with it, but he inspired me, so I wrote a business plan that would actually lead me on my path to my business. I actually have two businesses and now a third business. I have one that I want to be a speaker because I gave a TEDx talk, another for Tip and Split, which is my invention. And the business plan shows how I’m going to develop it.And my third one is for, my third business plan is how I’m going to develop my third product, which is called Write Your Selfie. So I actually used my SCORE mentor to help me write my business plans…If you hire a mentor, they’re very expensive. SCORE is free. So, they’re not doing it for money. They’re doing it because they want to help you.”
The Benefits of Second Act Entrepreneurship
“The main reasons are, first of all, it keeps you mentally active to have a business. And it keeps you physically active. And it keeps you socially active. There are six things, six reasons why it’s good to start a business. The main thing is it keeps you young.”
On Shark Tank – and Why It’s Never Too Late
“So I took an Amtrak to audition for Shark Tank. Now, if that isn’t dreaming big, I don’t know what is. The reason I went there is because I thought this is my time. Because Shark Tank is more than the product, it’s about the person’s story behind the product, and I’m going to compete. There were about 1,000 people pitching, and I assumed I was the oldest one there. I thought, Yay me!, and why not? All I can do is have a good time, meet a lot of people, and have the time of my life. I’ll tell you the hardest thing about the pitch was, I had to stand in line for two hours waiting for a wristband, and I can’t stand up that long. So I bought a folding stool, and I thought, what does every great inventor do? They solve a problem. If I can’t stand up, I was afraid to sit down on the ground because I knew I wouldn’t be able to get back up. So I thought, okay, let me find a solution. So I went on Amazon and I found this great folding stool. And it was actually a great idea. It wasn’t my invention. A lot of people thought that was my invention. No, that’s just something I used. So people think small, no, think big. Because at this age, we’ve been through so much. We’ve had successes, we’ve had failures, we’ve had everything in between. We have nothing to lose. So why not go for it? I’m 77 and I’m still planning my next invention. I have two more in my head that I’m going to do and they’re going to be great. Is it ever too late? I think that’s old-fashioned. That’s the way people used to look at retirement, that you’re too old and we we can put ourselves on a shelf. Nobody’s putting me on a shelf. Okay, so I think that if you think you’re too old to do something, well don’t talk to me about that. I would encourage you to talk to anybody except me about that.”

May 12, 2025 • 40min
The Stress Paradox – Sharon Bergquist, MD
Is stress bad for you? Yes, but so is too little stress. Sharon Bergquist, MD, author of The Stress Paradox: Why You Need Stress to Live Longer, Healthier, and Happier, shares her research on how good stress, in the right amount and at the right time, can enhance your well-being and longevity.
Dr. Sharon Bergquist joins us from Atlanta.
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Bio
Sharon Horesh Bergquist, MD, is the author of The Stress Paradox: Why You Need Stress to Live Longer, Healthier, and Happier. She is an award-winning physician, innovative healthcare leader, and visionary researcher renowned for spearheading a science-based approach to applying lifestyle as medicine. She has helped lead numerous clinical trials, including the Emory Healthy Aging Study and the NIH-funded Emory Healthy Brain Study. Dr. Bergquist is widely published in peer-reviewed journals and has contributed to over 200 news segments, including Good Morning America, CNN, ABC News, The Wall Street Journal, and NPR. She hosts The Whole Health Cure podcast and her popular Ted-Ed video on how stress affects the body has been viewed over six million times. She received her degrees from Yale College and Harvard Medical School.
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For More on Sharon Bergquist, MD
The Stress Paradox: Why You Need Stress to Live Longer, Healthier, and Happier
Website
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Podcast Conversations You May Like
Tiny Experiments – Anne-Laure Le Cunff
Shift – Ethan Kross
From Cravings to Control – Revamp Your Habits – Dr. Jud Brewer
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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 also 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 twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider has 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.
Connect on LinkedIn
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On Good Stress and Bad Stress
“You can tell a lot about the difference between good stress and bad stress by looking at studies on retirement because there’s such a discrepancy between the studies, some showing that some people live longer and live better when they retire and some people actually do better if they work past retirement age. And when you look at the difference, it really comes down to the nature of their job. If people are working in jobs that are joyful, purposeful, very reward driven, they tend to do better working past retirement age. And people who feel chronically stressed, overwhelmed by their work, there’s no joy, low reward, they tend to do better to retire. And that begins to tell you a lot about good stress and bad stress.”
On Stress
“So essentially, good stressors are stressors that are mild to moderate. In terms of intensity, they are generally brief or intermittent, where you are exposed to the stress and then there’s a period of recovery. And their nature is that they’re aligned with your belief system, they’re meaningful, they contribute to a greater good. And the bad stressors that are harmful, in nature, they’re more intense. They can be very overwhelming. Their duration is usually chronic, it goes on continuously. And generally, they’re the ones that drain you, there’s not as much of a sense of purpose or reward. And they leave you feeling exhausted and burnt out.”
On the Benefits of Good Stress
“We have this natural ability to heal our bodies, to regenerate. And good stress is the mechanism that signals our body to activate these healing systems. The benefits of good stress I think are really having come to light in mainstream because we focus a lot on how we need to reduce our exposure to things that are harming our health. So in our Western environment we know that processed foods, sedentary, loneliness, chronic stress are all factors that are chipping away at our health and there’s tremendous focus on reducing these exposures. What we don’t talk enough about is that we have the ability build health to counter the effects of these harmful stressors in our lives. And that’s what good stressors are trying to do. So I think of it as building a bank account. So these harmful stressors are withdrawing money out of your bank account. And the good stressors are making deposits because they’re repairing the damage. They’re helping you build reserve and resilience.And that in turn helps reduce your risk of disease. It also slows your aging process. So those are the fundamental benefits. And so much of disease and the aging process is rooted in decline in our repair and regenerative systems. And that results in cellular damage. So we have this ability to kind of slow that process with aging to slow what happens to these repair mechanisms from the exposure that are occurring from our daily life and live such a happier and longer life.”
The Five Good Stressors
“The five key stressors that we know that can activate our repair and regenerative systems and help us live longer and disease-free are plant chemicals that mildly stress our cells, exposure to brief intervals of high intensity activity, thermal stress from heat and cold, fasting stress, reducing incoming nutrients in a pattern that aligns with our circadian biology and good mental and emotional challenges that help us thrive.”

May 5, 2025 • 38min
The Heart of Grandfatherhood – Ted Page
Ted Page, founder of the blog Good Grampa, has a new book Good Grandpa: Stories from the Heart of Grandfatherhood coming out on Grandparent’s Day. We catch up on what he’s learned from others about grandfatherhood today and his own experiences as a grandfather.
Ted Page rejoins us from Vermont.
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Bio
Ted Page is a storyteller and performer. His nonfiction stories have appeared in Boston Magazine and the Boston Globe Magazine, and his comedy screen credits include work with John Cleese and Florence Henderson. His blog for grandfathers –GoodGrandpa.com—has been featured in The New York Times. Ted’s book of true family stories, The Willoughby Chronicles, was published in 2017. Ted is a founding partner of Captains of Industry, a leading boutique marketing consultancy, and a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He lives in New England and has a bunch of grandchildren.
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For More on Ted Page
Pre-order Good Grandpa: Stories from the Heart of Grandfatherhood
Blog: GoodGrandpa.com – Nurturing the Next Generation
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Missed Ted Page’s first visit?
Listen here
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Podcast Conversations You May Like
The Long Distance Grandparent – Kerry Byrne PhD
The Mindful Grandparent – Dr. Shirley Showalter
TALK: The Science of Conversation – Alison Wood Brooks
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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 also 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 twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider has 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.
Connect on LinkedIn
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Wise Quotes
On the Evolution of Grandfathers
“That story begins about 30,000 years ago, and it was when early Paleolithic humans were on the rise, and scientists believe that a shift started to take place where the very earliest grandparents started peering on the scene. Now these were grandparents in their over the late 20s, but life at the time has been described as, you know, brutish and short. People just didn’t live very long. And all of a sudden, there was the grandparents gradually appearing on the scene. And they were able to teach, for example, you know, how do you plant seeds? So to have the better chance of a successful crop. As one example, I’m sure there was all kinds of things like hunting and so forth. And they were the first ones who were being there for their grandkids and instilling the wisdom required to help lead a successful life. So that was the genesis of this. And this is all that was from an article in Scientific American. But that got me thinking about my own grandfather, and I was fortunate to have one grandfather who had this huge influence on me, called him Gramp. And I knew him in the 1970s when I helped him and my grandmother clean the rental cottages on the family’s farm in Vermont, and the number of lessons I learned from him just through being there.”
On Today’s Grandfathers
“That sense of distance from being a grandparent is changing. You know what, I think if you were an involved parent, as I was, like a really involved dad, you’re more likely to be an involved grandfather as hopefully I am. But I think the biggest difference was, and again, I can’t say this is universal. My wife points out that her dad was different with our grandkids. My grandmother would never miss a family gathering without saying how much she loved her grandkids, loved, loved, loved her grandkids and how much it meant to her. My grandpa, well, we’re not doing that. Never once did I hear him say, Teddy, I love you. But my grandpa, as well as my father and a lot of the dads, the grandfathers that I spoke with, showing your love was by working.”
On Forever Letters
“A guy reached out to me. His name is Bob Halperin. He was a former director of the MIT School of Executive Education, very bright guy. And he reached out after reading the story in the blog. And he said he was doing something that these days is called a forever letter. In ancient Jewish traditions, going back to the time of the Bible, it was called the ethical will. So it was the practice of writing a letter that would only be read by future generations. And he had a letter written to him by his grandfather, a grandfather that he never met. But this grandfather had big influence on him because of what he wrote.” He took an ancient tradition and he updated it to the time of email. And he’s writing dozens of emails, and he gave the email address to his kids, and he says, I want you to give these to the grandkids at certain ages.”

Apr 28, 2025 • 27min
Detach: Ditch Your Baggage – Dr. Bob Rosen
Join Dr. Bob Rosen, a renowned psychologist and author, as he explores the transformative power of detaching from unhealthy attachments. He delves into how retirement can spark personal growth and the significance of embracing uncertainty in our ever-changing world. Bob shares insights on confronting emotional baggage and redefining fulfillment through love and gratitude. With compelling stories and practical strategies, listeners are encouraged to embrace change and create a joyful retirement experience.

Apr 21, 2025 • 30min
Retirement Regrets – Noah Sheidlower
What retirement regrets lie ahead? You can learn a lot from other people’s experiences and avoid some retirement regrets that have derailed others. Our guest, Noah Sheidlower of Business Insider, joins us to discuss what he learned from a recent series on retirement regrets he and his colleagues reported.
Noah Sheidlower joins us from New York.
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Bio
Noah Sheidlower is an economy reporter with Business Insider. He joined in June 2023 and covers retirement, immigration, and employment trends.
Noah led a 17-story retirement series on regrets older Americans have about their lives and worked on a video about what six older Americans would tell their younger selves. He led an eight-month story about how eight families benefited from basic income initiatives. He has also reported extensively on how Americans have navigated unemployment, what compels Americans to move, and how mass deportations could impact the economy. He has appeared on SiriusXM Business Radio and CBS News to discuss his reporting.
Before joining Business Insider, Noah received his Bachelor’s in Sociology and English from Columbia University. Noah has covered the restaurant industry, transportation, retail, and markets for CNBC, NBC News, CNN, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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Podcast Conversations You May Like
The Good Life – Marc Schulz
Retiring: Creating a Life That Works for You – Teresa Amabile
The New Happy – Stephanie Harrison
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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 also 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 twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider has 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.
Connect on LinkedIn
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Wise Quotes
On Meaning & Purpose
“…we heard from a lot of people who kept mentioning meaning and purpose. This is something that we have heard many, many times from people saying, even though I retired, even though I stopped my 9 to 5 job, I still have found purpose, whether it was volunteering, whether it was going back to work part time, whether it was finding some kind of project in the home. We heard from a lot of people who said that they have worked on interior decorating projects or have built homes completely anew. And then we heard from a lot of people who said that focusing on health was a big one. You don’t even want to know how many 80 and 90 year olds I talked to who said I go to the gym every day. They make the trek to go to the gym, run a mile around the track every day. So definitely there were plenty of silver linings.”
On Professional Regrets
“We heard a lot of professional regrets. We heard from people who said, I did not maintain my professional connections enough. So I had a layoff when I was 60. I couldn’t quite retire. And well, my resume is not updated. My skill sets aren’t up to date. What do I do? And that’s another thing that I heavily report on it is older Americans in the workforce. And we’ve noticed from a lot of people saying I’ve applied to 500, a thousand jobs.”
On Happiness in Retirement
“…people who said that they worked very low paying jobs throughout their career and have not a lot of money in their retirement and are actually very content, probably a lot happier than most people in retirement. And that was just shocking for me to hear at least seeing that my grandparents, my grandparents had very successful careers and they said, well, my friends who weren’t as successful during their careers are nowhere near as happy as I am.”
On Purpose in Retirement
“…purpose seemed to be a guiding principle for a lot of these people. Obviously not everyone was equipped to retire, but for the people who were lucky enough to have the financial resources to have successful retirements, one of the main things that they preached was I discovered my purpose. I found meaning, and it wasn’t in ways that you would potentially expect. It was a lot of people saying, Well, I’m poor and I’m relying on Social Security, but my purpose is caring for my dog or seeing my grandchildren. We talked to people who said my purpose was going back to work. We talked to a woman who worked and ran a winery for much of her career and then was like Well, I can’t do this anymore. It’s too taxing on me. So, I’m going to be my village’s trustee. And so, people taking more of those types of civic positions. We heard from people who said, Well, I’m not going to retire. I’m just going to keep working and working and working. We talked to somebody who’s 87 and is still going to business meetings in Boston and is still putting on suits and ties to go talk to people and have coffee chats. And he was saying, Well, my brain’s a muscle. I don’t need my brain to atrophy. I don’t need to be sitting and withering away.”

Apr 17, 2025 • 20min
Holistic Retirement Planning – Lane Martinsen
This podcast covers the non-financial aspects of planning for retirement. But make no mistake – you have to get your money right. Lane Martinsen is the author of 5W Retirement Blueprint: Maximize your Retirement Income through Holistic Planning, which describes his approach of holistic retirement planning.
Lane Martinsen joins us from Arizona.
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Bio
Lane G. Martinsen is a Certified Financial Fiduciary®, an Investment Advisor Representative, and a Retirement Income Certified Professional (RICP®).
Lane is the Principal of Martinsen Wealth Management, LLC located in Tempe, Arizona. Lane is an Ed Slott Elite IRA Advisor and a member of the National Ethics Association (NEA). Lane has a diverse background within the financial services industry that first started in 1988. In addition to serving his own clients, Lane has trained and mentored hundreds of other financial advisors from all parts of the country.
Lane id the author of 5W Retirement Blueprint: Maximize your Retirement Income through Holistic Planning and of the Amazon bestselling book The Holistic Retirement Planning Revolution. He’s also the host of the popular educational YouTube channel The Financial Fast Lane.
Lane and his wife Tara met in college and recently celebrated their 31st anniversary. They have 5 children and 6 grandchildren. In 2010 (before any grandchildren were born) they fulfilled a dream to live with their kids in a foreign country. Lane and his family lived near the beach at Playa Conchal in beautiful Costa Rica for one year 2010-2011. During this time they formed many treasured memories and were able to provide humanitarian services to the local Tico people that they grew to love deeply.
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For More on Lane Martinsen
5W Retirement Blueprint: Maximize your Retirement Income through Holistic Planning
The Financial Fast Lane You Tube Channel
Martinsen Wealth Management
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Podcast Conversations You May Like
Retiring: Creating a Life That Works for You – Teresa Amabile
How to Retire – Christine Benz
The Key Decisions for Retirement Success – Wade Pfau
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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 also 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 twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider has 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.
Connect on LinkedIn
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Wise Quotes
On Holistic Retirement Planning
“Holistic planning is not traditional. Most Financial Planning is kind of transactional in nature and it’s specific to a certain transaction or a certain goal. But when you when it comes to retirement planning and we’re going to plan for decades, right? The quality of the planning becomes much more important and holistic planning is taking in all the aspects. So it’s certainly much more than investing right? You’re looking at the tax implications over time, healthcare, and will my money run out? The five W’s are the five key areas of wealth management so it’s it includes investment planning, it includes income planning, tax planning, health care planning and legacy or estate planning. So there’s a kind of the five big areas and you can’t really neglect any of those. So if you’re leaving one or two of those off, you really don’t have a complete plan.”
On Risk and Holistic Retirement Planning
“A lot of times people don’t understand sequence of returns risk for one. And a big reason for that is because they’ve never had to deal with it. All during their working years, there is no sequence of returns risk. It’s only as they get close to retirement and then in those retirement years. And people don’t really know how that works and what is the risk. And so that’s one big area where we like to educate them. You really can manage it well when you have a strategy to do so, but if you don’t have that strategy. then there’s more risk than you should take. Inflation, of course, losing buying power every year is something you have to account for. And a lot of times people aren’t really thinking through that. RMDs that kick in and can cause additional taxation. We call them tax triggers. It’s like you kind of think you kind of know what the tax brackets are and then, Oh, wait a minute. Now I have some extra tax on this or my Medicare goes up. And so there’s little surprises like that. We like to shine a light on and make sure we’re not doing things that cause our money to be depleted prematurely.”
On Market Volatility
“We don’t ever like to make predictions. But one prediction I can make is that there will be volatility in the markets. There always is. It’s in the nature of the markets and you just you’ve got the timeframes and you’ve got the right strategies. It’s nothing to be feared. Lack of preparation is something to be feared.”
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Apr 14, 2025 • 26min
Empty Nester – Dr. Rachel Glik
Retirement is a big transition. And for some, there’s another to navigate: becoming an empty nester. Dr. Rachel Glik, author of A Soulful Marriage: Healing Your Relationship With Responsibility, Growth, Priority, and Purpose, sees it as an opportunity to reset, recalibrate and strengthen a marriage.
Dr. Rachel Glik joins us from St. Louis.
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Bio
Dr. Rachel Glik is the author of A Soulful Marriage: Healing Your Relationship With Responsibility, Growth, Priority, and Purpose. She is a licensed professional counselor with a doctorate in counseling and a Masters in Industrial/Organizational Psychology.
Known for her compassionate yet challenging approach, she has counseled individuals, couples and families in private practice for over 30 years. Dr. Glik gets to the heart of what we deal with every day… and that is our relationship with ourselves and with each other.
She passionately strives to empower her clients to connect to their truest self, which forms the foundation for the niche she has carved in strengthening relationships.
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For More On Dr. Rachel Glik
A Soulful Marriage: Healing Your Relationship With Responsibility, Growth, Priority, and Purpose
Website
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Podcast Conversations You May Like
The Go-Giver Marriage – Ana Gabriel Mann
Shift – Ethan Kross
Live Life in Crescendo – Cynthia Covey Haller
_____________________
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 also 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 twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider has 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.
Connect on LinkedIn
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Wise Quotes
On Friction
“When they get scared because their conflict or emptiness or disconnection has reached such a level and they they everything they’ve tried just keeps them stuck. And so the friction, one of the first things I tell couples which you just said something like Oh, we have conflict is that it’s actually a good sign. It’s not a bad sign. It depends on how you handle the friction and the conflict but we’re the premise is that we’re here to grow and that’s what keeps the true spark is an element of being invested in your partner’s growth and true care and respect for them as a human being. You aren’t just trying to get your needs met but you really care about their betterment, and your own betterment, and your closeness betterment.”
On Wisdom
“It’s not this is tearing us apart. It’s bringing us together. This is a big opportunity and it strikes me that well I know for a fact that we are looking for wisdom these days as the promise of technology and and stuff is not answering all the questions that we’re asking. There’s so much wisdom and ancient wisdom that’s been helping people for thousands of years. Why not tap into that? And it’s really practical too is what I have found.”
On Ego and Soul
” I love the work of Daniel Kahneman who wrote Thinking Fast and Slow. And I actually learned about the book through my Kabbalah teachers. And it really emulates the same or mirrors the same idea that we learn in ancient wisdom that we have two systems, we have the ego and the soul. And the more we’re aware of those two and work to negotiate the the relationship between the two.And the ego is the one that’s going to want to have fast relief. It’s it’s survival oriented, so of course it’s not to judge ourselves for having it though. It’s inherent and it’s a good thing, but as we convert from that voice to the soul’s voice which has a bigger picture perspective.Then that’s when we start to have freedom.And it’s hard. It will always be hard. It will never it’ll get harder. The tests have to be there.It’s inherent in the design of the universe that we have to put in effort. So if we conquer one level of empowerment or self-mastery, then it will it will get another one.”

Apr 7, 2025 • 38min
Shift – Ethan Kross
You’re working on your physical fitness, but how about your emotional fitness? Dr. Ethan Kross visits with us to discuss his new book Shift: Managing Your Emotions — So They Don’t Manage You.
Ethan Kross joins us from Michigan.
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Bio
Ethan Kross, PhD, is one of the world’s leading experts on emotion regulation. An award-winning professor in the University of Michigan’s top-ranked Department of Psychology and its Ross School of Business, he is the director of the Emotion & Self Control Laboratory. Ethan has participated in policy discussions at the White House, spoken at TED and SXSW, and consulted with some of the world’s top executives and organizations. He has been interviewed on CBS Evening News, Good Morning America, Anderson Cooper Full Circle, and NPR’s Morning Edition. His pioneering research has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New England Journal of Medicine, and Science. He completed his BA at the University of Pennsylvania and his PhD at Columbia University.
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For More on Ethan Kross
Shift: Managing Your Emotions–So They Don’t Manage You
Website
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Podcast Conversations You May Like
Thinking Better to Live Better – Dr. Woo-kyoung Ahn
Self-Compassion – Dr. Kristin Neff
The Mindful Body – Ellen Langer
Happier Hour – Cassie Holmes, PhD
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Mentioned in This Podcast Episode
Chatter & Your Inner Voice – Ethan Kross
WOOP – Gabriele Oettingen
Implementation Intentions – Peter Gollwitzer
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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 also 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 twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider has 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.
Connect on LinkedIn
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Wise Quotes
On Emotions
“Emotions are responses to things that happen in the world or in our minds that we judge to be meaningful. And when we perceive meaningful things, it activates a loosely coordinated response within our minds and our bodies that is designed to help us manage the situations we find ourselves in. So just to make that concrete, if my view of what is right versus wrong is violated, and there’s an opportunity for me to fix a situation, I’m going to experience anger. Anger is an emotion that motivates me to approach, get in there and try to fix the situation. If there’s a threat on the horizon that is important to me, I’m going to experience some anxiety. I’m going to have a fight or flight response that’s going to motivate me to zoom in really carefully on the situation so I can plan for it. Those are emotions. And when they’re experiencing the right proportions, not too intensely or too long, they’re vital tools that we have that we use to navigate the world. The big problem, of course, is that sometimes those emotions are triggered out of proportion. And when that happens, that can be a big problem. And that’s what my book Shift is all about, how to manage emotions in those circumstances.”
On Purpose & Meaning
“Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist living during World War II and just experienced massive loss, lost his family, his livelihood, his career. yet he was able to muster through the atrocities of World War II and concentration camps by finding meaning and purpose in his daily life. And his book always really stood with me, stuck with me, because it was an illustration that as bad as times can get, and hopefully they’re not too bad for you who are listening, but if they are, there’s always the possibility of finding meaning and purpose in life. And so I think thinking about that, being flexible and how we construct meaning and purpose is really useful. Lots of us find meaning and purpose from our jobs if we’re lucky, but we can also find meaning and purpose in our families and in our communities. And so I think taking the time, if your retirement is one where you truly are stepping away entirely from a vocation that is to find your life, think about where else you can find meaning in your life and then dive in to those spaces. Because those will provide a kind of compass that steers you through the next phase of your life. Thank you. Well, we evolve the capacity to experience negative emotions for a reason. They help us manage situations that are important to us.”
On Perspective
“Well, the best way to sum up perspective is as follows. I think many of us have the intuition or understanding that we have the ability to change the way we think, to change the way we feel. We can focus on the bright side, we can adopt a more objective stance. The problem is that it can be really hard to do that when you’re in the heat in the moment. It’s often easier said than done. What perspective does is that perspective shifters are tools we can use to step back and focus on our circumstances from a different point of view that often makes it a lot easier for us to change the way we think, to change the way we feel. One example of a perspective shifter something I call linguistic distancing. So trying to think through in a situation, give yourself advice using our own name and you. All right, Ethan, what do you think you should really do here? What that does when you refer to yourself using your own name and you, it shifts your perspective. It gets you to relate to yourself like you’re relating to someone else. And why is that useful? Well, it’s a lot easier to give advice to other people than it is to take our own advice as we often know. And so that’s one example of a perspective shifter. And this is a very useful category of tools because sometimes you have to stare a problem in the face. You can’t get time away from it, which we know can often help people with their emotions.”

Mar 31, 2025 • 29min
The Art of a Balanced Life in Retirement – Dr. Marybeth Crane
After a successful, demanding, and high-stress career, how do you shift gears to a new, more balanced life in an early retirement? Marybeth Crane shares her story and insights.
Dr. Marybeth Crane joins us from Texas.
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Bio
Dr. Marybeth Crane is a retired board-certified podiatric foot and ankle surgeon. She specialized in sports medicine in private practice for over twenty-five years and successfully built a multi-million-dollar private practice from humble beginnings. In her spare time, she completed more than twenty marathons, a dozen or so Half-Ironmans, and two Full Ironman Triathlons.
She’s the author of the book Drop the S: Recovering from Superwoman Syndrome. She believes that exercise is the most powerful drug physicians can prescribe and that choosing a healthy lifestyle will help combat the aging process.
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For More on Dr. Marybeth Crane
Drop the S: Recovering From Superwoman Syndrome
Website
Blog
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Podcast Conversations You May Like
The Power of Reinvention – Joanne Lipman
Strategic Quitting – Julia Keller
Is It Time to Break Up with Busy? – Yvonne Tally
______________________________
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 also 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 twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider has 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.
Connect on LinkedIn
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On Identity in Retirement
“I actually found that’s a real thing. My husband was very concerned because I’ve been Dr. Crane for 30 years. And now all of a sudden, I’m Marybeth. And I will tell you that probably for the first six months to a year, it was hard to meet someone new and say, Hi, I’m Dr. Crane. No, it’s a Hi, I’m Marybeth. And I would have to change it because I didn’t want to sound like some arrogant jerk. Oh, by the way, I’m a doctor. So it’s a real thing. But you also start to think about who is Marybeth versus Dr. Crane, because Dr. Crane was like a different entity. In fact, my husband would tell me when I came home, could you turn the doctor off? Because I was running the practice and my name’s first on the door, it’s my way of the highway kind of thing. And you’d come home, and now you’re a team. And I’m not the captain of the team necessarily every day. So in retirement, you start to actually be more your authentic self.”
On Structure in Retirement
“You learn to figure out what your priorities are for getting through your day – the things that you want to get accomplished, the things you can get accomplished, the things you really don’t feel like getting accomplished, and maybe can take off the to do list, versus you’re running a company you have a strict schedule that you’re going hour to hour to hour. In my case, every 15 minutes there was a different person in my room, and whether you wanted to do it or not, they were there whether it was a good day or a bad day, they were still there. So, flexibility is probably the best thing, but the more you get to decide what’s important, your priorities definitely change. I feel like I was running a marathon as a sprint. When I was practicing, you’re just going, going, going. And we have an entire generation that glorifies the grind – the more you grind, the more money you make, the better off your life is. Well, that’s not what it is. It’s really, can I fulfill the things that I can do out there that somebody else can’t, can I do the things I want to do, and not what I have to do?”
On Purpose
“If I can help just one person, then that’s my purpose. If you think that your purpose is to play golf every day, I would tell you no. But there is a purpose to that too, because you’re out there, you’re having fun with other people or other couples, you’re enjoying the outside, and you’re delving into their retirement, because most of them are retired or thinking about being retired. And you’re helping them get through those those building blocks to what does the rest of your life look like?”

Mar 27, 2025 • 25min
Spring Training (for the Rest of Your Life) – John Kaag
In today’s complex, fast-paced world, what can we learn from philosophers? John Kaag thinks we can learn a lot. He’s created an audiobook Spring Training (for the Rest of Your Life), discussing his ideas highlighting Thoreau, Emerson and William James. He’s also the co-founder of Rebind, an AI company transforming classic literature into interactive, guided experiences. Rebind pairs books with original interactive commentary from some of today’s greatest thinkers who serve as expert guides, featuring conversations, personal anecdotes, historical context, and reflections. Rebind was named to Fast Company’s prestigious list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies of 2025 and was a TIME Magazine “Best Invention of 2024.”
John Kaag joins us from Massachusetts.
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Bio
John Kaag is a distinguished philosopher and author, widely recognized for his deep knowledge of Henry David Thoreau’s classic Walden. He has authored several books, including American Philosophy: A Love Story and Hiking with Nietzsche, both of which were New York Times and NPR Best Books of the Year. In 2023, he published Henry at Work, a thorough examination of Thoreau’s philosophy as it relates to post-pandemic work habits. Kaag has contributed to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Harper’s Magazine, bringing timeless philosophical insights to a wider audience.
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For More on John Kaag
Spring Training (for the Rest of Your Life)
Rebind
Try Rebind – Discount offer
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Podcast Episodes You May Like
Living for Pleasure – Emily Austin, PhD
The Art of the Interesting – Lorraine Besser, PhD
An Artful Life – John P. Weiss
_________________________
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 also 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 twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider has 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.
Connect on LinkedIn
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Wise Quotes
On Philosophers – and AI
“I think it’s interesting. I think that when it comes to the perennial questions of philosophy, like why am I here? What is the good life? Why is life worth living? These questions typically are answered in very personal settings, between friends, between family members, between, I teach at UMass Lowell, so my classes are relatively small within a classroom setting. But I think what’s interesting is that when like lots of readers and lots of thinkers don’t have the chance to interact with others in a sort of active way. My mother was one of these individuals. She retired when she was 68, and she lived until she was 76. And during that time, she spent quite a bit of time online, reading online, but she really missed human companionship. And what’s interesting with this time of AI and artificial intelligence is that we have the ability to scale one-on-one tutoring interactions. Many people have talked about the use of Chat GPT and asking Chat GPT questions and getting responses. But what I find really interesting is that we have the chance to use AI to dynamically distribute original human comments and commentary into conversation.”
On William James, Action and Emotion
“William James…was the founder of empirical psychology at Harvard, the founder of American Pragmatism, which is one of the two major philosophies that was born in the United States in the 19th century. William James, in his empirical studies of psychology, discovered that there’s a real relationship between action and emotion. And we often times think that we’re happy and therefore we smile. But William James, and it’s it’s termed the James-Lange theory of emotions instead of saying that we smile because we’re happy. James said the other way around. He said, we are happy because we smile. So anybody who’s been down in the dumps and gone for a walk and felt better or anyone who’s even tried a little bit of yoga, sort of the beginning sun salutation, where you point your hands up to the ceiling and point your chin up to the ceiling. Looking up has this transformative power on our emotional landscape. And James was the first to discover this. It’s going back to my mother. She declined very precipitously when she could no longer walk and her emotional state sort of declined very rapidly as well.”
On Habits
“William James was pretty smart about habits. He said, following the ancient Greek Aristotle, that habits form ourselves. So if you think about who you are as a person, you are sort of defined by what you do in a habitual way, and your body actually takes the shape of the habits that we participate in. James, however, unlike Aristotle, was interested more in our ability to break habits, to unfix the beliefs that might have been given to us by our conventions, our society, our histories, and trying to overcome those. For James that was the task of life. If we think about cases where we reach our limits, or our habitual limits in life, and then overcome them and explore possibility, risk, uncertainty, what philosophers call indeterminacy, the sort of shakiness where the universe is not what we just expect, those are chances for us to both risk and lose something in some cases, but also to test ourselves and to discover who we are beyond the sort of normal constraints of everyday life. And James was interested in both thinking about life as a risk, but also as a reward, and both of those are equally ours when we explore them at the limits. And and I found that to be pretty instructive when I was reading James or rereading James for the umpteenth time and thinking about my mom being like, oh, man, I wish she could still get around. And what is interesting is that James suggests that even when our mobility and our actions are inhibited, we still have the ability to do small actions. And those small actions do matter for our emotions and for how we’re feeling. So I take that as pretty interesting.”
On Rebind
“[On Rebind] you get to go read Walden with me or you’ll be able to read The Tale of Two Cities with Margaret Atwood or Salman Rushdie doing Candide. And you’re basically getting a one-on-one masterclass with an expert about a classic book. And you get to ask any questions that you want and you’ll get pretty good answers. And thankfully, they’re originally and authentically sourced from the commentary that we’ve gotten. There are 13 books up on the site. There’ll be 27 by the fall. Well, I’ve learned that it takes that AI has this. a very, very bad rap that it is not particularly popular and people are very suspicious. And people don’t mind interacting with a generic AI bot if they’re dealing in insurance, if they’re insurance agencies or maybe they’re pharmaceutical companies, they just wanna get answers about their drugs or something. But they don’t want to hear a generic AI bot wax eloquent about great books or poetry or things that we really care about. And that’s where the authenticity really matters. And I had to convince these authors, John Banville who won the Booker Prize, Marlon James who won the Booker Prize, Atwood, Rushdie, Elaine Pagels who gave us the gospel or gave us commentary on the Gospels.I really had to convince these participants and commentators that we weren’t pirating anything and that we were distributing their words know, useful in authentic ways. So that was one thing. The second thing is that people like to talk about books. There are 50 million people involved in Bible study, and we’re going to put out the Bible this spring in this form. There are five million people in book clubs, and people like to hear other people’s thoughts about reading. And that’s something that I’m hopeful about in terms of turning this into a genuine group reading experience.”