The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

Time to Reinvent? Early Bird Registration is Now Open for the September Design Your New Life in Retirement Program – Learn More ________________________ Let’s face it. Retirement isn’t for everyone – especially a “traditional retirement.” An increasing number of people are choosing to work longer or to reinvent themselves and create their own new path forward. Mark Walton joins us to discuss his new book Unretired: How Highly Effective People Live Happily Ever After. You’ll be interested in the learning about the three paths he found people are pursuing as more fulfilling alternatives to a traditional retirement. One of them may be an intriguing option for you. Mark Walton joins us from California. ________________________ Bio Mark S. Walton is a Peabody award-winning journalist and business author, Fortune 100 management consultant, and Chairman of the Center for Leadership Communication, a global executive education and communication enterprise with a focus on leadership and exceptional achievement at every stage of life. He is additionally Founder and Chairman of the Second Half Institute at the University of California, the nation’s first university-based program to focus on personal leadership and career development in midlife and beyond. In addition to his most recent book, “UNRETIRED: How HIghly Effective People Live Happily Ever After” Mark is the author of “Boundless Potential: Transform Your Brain, Unleash Your Talents, Reinvent Your Work in Midlife and Beyond” was the focus of a national PBS TV special of the same name, and “Generating Buy-In: Mastering the Language of Leadership,” published by the American Management Association and selected by Business Week as one of the Top 30 business books of the year. He has been a Professor of Leadership in the U.S. Navy’s Advanced Management Program, at Toyota University, and at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where he taught leadership skills and strategies at the Senior Executive Institute and in the MBA and Executive MBA programs at the nationally top-ranked Kenan-Flagler Graduate Business School. As Chairman of the Center for Leadership Communication, Mark has taught extensively in corporate universities and management development programs nationwide, and has worked individually with CEO’s, Division Presidents and a wide range of other senior executives and professionals at many of the world’s leading organizations, including: Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Dow Chemical Company, Duke Energy Corporation, General Electric Corporation, GlaxoSmithKline, NASA, and the United States Navy and Marine Corps. Earlier in his career, Mark was an internationally-recognized network television news anchorman, correspondent and analyst, specializing in political leadership and national affairs. A founding correspondent of Cable News Network (CNN), he served as CNN’s first Chief White House Correspondent and, later, as CNN’s Senior Correspondent, traveling the nation and world from CNN headquarters in Atlanta. The book ‘CNN: The Inside Story’ characterizes him as “one of a small group of renegades who changed the face of TV News.” While at CNN, Mark was a recipient of broadcast journalism’s premier honor, the coveted Peabody Award, for his role as Correspondent in CNN’s live coverage, from Moscow, of the failed Soviet coup in 1991 and the subsequent fall of Communism. His reporting and writing have also been honored with The National Headliner Award, Ohio State Journalism Award, Cable Ace Award, the Gold Medal of the New York TV and Film Festival and the Silver Gavel of the American Bar Association. ________________________ For More on Mark S. Walton Unretired: How Highly Effective People Live Happily Ever After Boundless Potential: Transform Your Brain, Unleash Your Talents, Reinvent Your Work in Midlife and Beyond The Second Half Institute ________________________ Podcast Episode You May Like The Unretirement Life – Richard Eisenberg Live Life in Crescendo – Cynthia Covey Haller Independence Day – Steve Lopez How to Build a Non-Profit Encore Career – Betsy Werley ____________________________ Mentioned in This Podcast Conversation Serena Williams’s Next Challenge? The Rest of Her Life. ____________________________ Wise Quotes On Identity & Retirement “The number one kind of loss or consequence is this abstract thing called personal identity. There’s a loss of personal identity – and it’s not abstract at all. If you’ve worked for decades to become someone, it merges with who you are on all levels. And some people will say that’s a negative, you shouldn’t become that engaged and involved in your work that the rest of you disappears. But for people who are successful, people who are highly effective, there really is no alternative and I certainly have experienced that. I’m sure you have. I don’t see anything wrong with it. The problem is that if the day after you leave that career you become in your own eyes a has been, you’re in a lot of trouble. And that is a consequence. That’s the biggest downfall of all to retirement –  for people who are successful and who are electing to retire.” On Purpose & Retirement “The other’s a loss of daily structure. And I’ve seen this often in the areas where I’ve lived, where I’ve met people who’ve been retired for a while, and it’s not their fault that they don’t know what day it is, but they have nothing to hang their day on. They’ve lost their sense of purpose. And the other one, and I’m sure you’ve seen it as well, is a loss of friends and social network. These are the consequences of retirement. A lot is said about and written about in all the retirement books about that you can replace the kinds of people you’ve gotten to know over the last 20, 30 years, people you’ve worked with. But in reality, that turns out not to be true. Once you’re outside of an organizational structure or outside of the kind of a structure that you work in with, you’re connected to a lot of people. It’s very difficult, if not impossible, to recoup. So that should be part of the black box warning. Watch out. This is coming your way. Will you be able to deal with it? And for most people, it’s a very, very difficult journey.” On Fascination  – and Reivention “I speak of it as a building block, the number one building block of an unretirement plan. That’s a term I invented because everybody talks about retirement plans. Well, what’s an unretirement plan? And the building block that I found consistently in the people I’ve interviewed is that they’re fascinated by something. They have always been, they may have put it aside, but then when they spend some time or take or experiment with things that that truly instinctively draw them forward, they find that it has an enormous power behind it. And I found that when you put your fascination to work, the result is this wonderful psychological state that’s called flow, which is this sense of immersion that we’ve all had hopefully at some point, if not many in our careers. Immersion, which leads to producing results which are discontinuous with what we might expect. So building block number one of an unretirement plan is to revisit what fascinates us and to say, Well, why am I not pursuing that if I have not been? How do I do that? Experimenting with that, putting that to work, will create flow. And success is a natural outgrowth of flow.” __________________________ 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 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 1.2 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.  

Aging may be on your mind this week. And it’s an often overlooked aspect of planning for retirement. Coleen T. Murphy, a leading scholar of aging, and the author of How We Age: The Science of Longevity, details how recent research on model systems, combined with breakthroughs in genomic methods, have allowed scientists to probe the molecular mechanisms of longevity and aging, This research is helping us understand the fundamental biological rules that govern aging – and it may be bringing us closer to extending healthspans and slowing the effects of aging. She joins us here in Princeton, New Jersey. __________________________ Bio Coleen T. Murphy is professor of genomics and molecular biology at Princeton University. She is director of Princeton’s Glenn Foundation for Research on Aging and director of the Simons Collaboration on Plasticity in the Aging Brain. She is director of the Paul F. Glenn Laboratories For Aging Research at Princeton. Murphy completed a B.S. with honors in biochemical and biophysical sciences at the University of Houston and earned a Ph.D. at Stanford University. She was awarded a graduate fellowship at Howard Hughes Medical Institute and completed her postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Francisco. ___________________________ For More on Coleen T. Murphy How We Age: The Science of Longevity ___________________________ Podcast Episodes You May Like Why We Remember – Charan Ranganath How Not to Age – Dr. Michael Greger The Mindful Body – Ellen Langer ___________________________ Wise Quotes On Why We Age “I think if the better question is why wouldn’t we age? Like in the entire universe, entropy is at work. So things fall apart and unless you put in energy to repair them, those things will fall apart. So we’re no different, but just we’re better at repairing all of our cells and tissues and everything else when we’re young, right? My kids, if they get a cut, it heals up in like two days. And if I do, it doesn’t. So we see those repair processes decline with age. And so that’s really why we age because the amount that our body’s put into repair actually gets overwhelmed at some point.” On Cognitive Aging “So, by studying processes that change with age, my lab is extremely interested in cognitive aging. So we want to make that extend as long as possible. Even if it didn’t extend lifespan, if we found a mechanism to maintain your cognitive function as long as possible, that would be super valuable for all of us. And so, that’s what we’re talking about when we’re talking about healthspan. A lot of these age -related diseases that we care about in humans and then we understand the molecular mechanisms so that we can find ways to extend that in humans as well…Can we actually extend the you know the time of normal cognitive function? And it turns out we’ve been able to uncover pathways that do control that. So I’m really excited about some work that we did where we you know we found some we found a genetic pathway where if we flipped on just one protein made it more active in one neuron of the cell. Admittedly they have hardly any neurons – they have only 302. But this particular neuron is one that’s really important for regulating their memory and we turn that on a super old worm and it rescued their memory. Nobody really cares until you show it in a mouse. And so we collaborated with friends of ours at UCSF and they put in into the hippocampus so the brain of the two -year -old mice. So that’s like a 75 to 80 year old person. They put in the same activated protein in these it. rescue their memory. So that shows that we can use these pathways to find something in worms and apply it to mammals. And by the way, that protein is exactly the same in mice and humans. So that gives us sort of a way into this problem where we could start to address it pharmaceutically. So that’s an example. I don’t think it’s the only way. I think there’s going to be lots of ways that we can slow down cognitive aging, but that’s one example from my lab.” _____________________________ 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 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 1.2 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.      

What challenges could derail men’s retirements?  Journalist and associate professor Dawn Fallik joins us to discuss what she learned in the research for her article in Kiplinger Why So Many Men are Bad at Retirement. And we explore what men can learn from women that may save men’s retirements. Dawn Fallik joins us from Philadelphia. __________________________ Bio Dawn Fallik is an award-winning reporter specializing in database analysis, feature writing and medical coverage. She has 20 years of daily reporting experience at for The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Associated Press and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She spent a month in India covering the tsunami, investigated medical errors and went to the prom at age 26. This year she was nominated and served on the 2022 Pulitzer Prize jury. Although she left full-time reporting for full-time teaching, Fallik continues to cover medical issues for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, AARP Magazine and Neurology Today. She has worked on the multimedia desks at the Wall Street Journal and The Philadelphia Inquirer. She spent six years writing for The Wall Street Journal’s medical desk, and live blogged two Olympics and multiple television shows for the WSJ’s culture site SpeakEasy. She’s interviewed Tim Gunn, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and Judy Blume. She has witnessed executions, investigated abusive priests and covered rent-a-cow companies. But she believes there’s nothing more fun than a good weather story. In September 2007, she started as a full-time assistant professor at The University of Delaware. She took over as journalism director in 2009 and eventually grew the minor to 250 students. From 2012-2015 she served on the Board of Directors for the DART Society, which works with journalists who cover trauma and violence. Since the age of 18, Dawn has lived in 12 cities, eight states and two countries. __________________________ For More on Dawn Fallik Website __________________________ Mentioned in This Podcast Episode Men’s Sheds What to do about lonely older men? Put them to work.  The Washington Post ___________________________ Podcast Episodes You May Like Independence Day – Steve Lopez Retire Happy – Dr. Catherine Sanderson Why Retirement is About Much More Than Money – Ted Kaufman & Bruce Hiland If You Love Your Work, Will You Hate Retirement? – Michelle Pannor Silver __________________________ Wise Quotes On What You’re Retiring To “So I think that, that for men in particular, thinking about just even planting that seed earlier, and starting to think about retirement in a positive way, would be a big change and gets you into that positive path of mind. That sounds very woo, but if you think about retirement as a positive thing and not about how much you’re going to miss work, that’s going to be a big change. And I think a lot of people when they plan for retirement, they’re just thinking about the money aspect, like I have to put so much away. And that’s sort of such a distant future thing. It’s not really a personal plan where you’re not just saying I’m going to travel, but I always wanted to go to Greece, and start like having concrete plans that you want to put in place, so that when you do retire, you’re already making plans for the future. You’ve already got things in place that you can look forward to.” On What Men Can Learn From Women “…something like 50% of men over 60 described themselves as lonely. They’re so tied to work, that’s where their social connections are. So how do you start establishing life outside of work before you’re done with work? Maybe that’s joining a bowling league, or if you’re part of a church or a synagogue, becoming more involved with those activities. You start making those outside connections beforehand. I’ve worked many places now, and I still have friends from almost every place that I have worked. Because, and they’re almost all female friends, we make the effort to continue to reach out and say Hey what are you up to, whether it’s on Facebook or in real life here in Philadelphia. And then the other thing that I’ve found that has been really important is that if somebody reaches out to you and they invite you to do something and you can’t do it, or you’re just not interested in that activity, use the No, but. I can’t go to your daughter’s ballet recital. But how about next week we go grab whatever. You’re showing that person that you are interested in moving that friendship forward so that the effort isn’t all on one side. And that isn’t an issue just for people in retirement, that’s across the board right now. It’s figuring out how to create those social connections and keep them going. And it does require effort from both sides. The other thing that was the main obstacle was that, also a little surprising from my end, just because I hadn’t thought about it, is that it’s a joke that men don’t go to the doctor. But that has real consequences. Women grow up and we go to the doctor every year. We go to the gynecologist every year starting very young. And so we establish that routine, that check-in.” On Diversification “The other thing that I found, and this came out of a different story, was thinking about activities that you can do s if you’re retired. Could you be an adjunct professor, so that you are sharing your knowledge with younger generations? It keeps you involved and also keeps you connected with a younger community. Look at groups like Meetup. You’ll see Meetup has a number of different activities, not just for men, but for people over 50. There’s a group by me that goes out salsa dancing, and it’s men and women over the age of 50. So just find different ways that you can try something new. And you know what, if you try it once and it’s not for you? That’s fine. But that way you have different opportunities. And then think about where could you volunteer? What is a cause you’re passionate about? Maybe it’s a political group. Maybe it’s pet rescue. There’s a lot of animal rescue groups. Maybe it’s something like Habitat for Humanity where you’re going and maybe you have those skills. Maybe you always wanted to learn how to tile a bathroom. But again, you have a sense of purpose. You’re helping somebody else, and then again, you’re being with those same people on a regular basis.” ___________________________ 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 1.2 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.  

Exploring the phases of retirement transition, the podcast delves into navigating life challenges, embracing a crescendo mentality, utilizing imagination and storytelling in retirement planning, and mastering the transition process with the Designing Your Life approach.

  It’s easy to fall into a rut. What could taking up a new pursuit or a new challenge do for you? Today’s guest, Joe Simonetta is living a diverse, interesting and fulfilling life. Last year he decided to take on a new challenge at 80. He decided to compete in a triathlon. Not only was it his first triathlon, it was his first race – of any kind. And he won the gold medal in his 80-84 age division at the U.S. National Senior Games. His story may inspire you to take on a new pursuit or challenge. Joe Simonetta joins us from Sarasota, Florida. ___________________ Bio Joseph R. Simonetta holds a Master of Divinity degree from Harvard Divinity School where he studied ethics, global environmental problems, world religions, cosmology, and evolutionary biology. He also studied at Yale Divinity School. He holds a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Colorado. He also studied architecture at the University of Southern California. He holds a B.S. in Business Logistics from Penn State University. As a young man, disturbed at the extraordinary amount of unrelenting suffering in the world, he vowed to himself to do something to alleviate it. He went on to live a very unusual life. He has been an Army officer, professional athlete, entrepreneur and businessman, architectural designer, real estate developer, home builder, environmental activist, author, TEDx speaker, senior editor of the World Business Academy, and twice a nominee for the U.S. Congress. Intermittently, he wrote a mix of fiction and nonfiction books about humanity and the state of the world. He is married to Susana Rojas Simonetta. They have a son, Russell, born on Earth Day, and a daughter, Fiorella. He enjoys spending time with his family and training for and competing in triathlons. In the 2023 U.S. National Senior Games triathlon in Pittsburgh, he won the gold medal in his 80-84 age division. __________________________ For More on Joseph R. Simonetta Website  Be Healthy. Be Kind. Respect the Environment.: What We Do to Others, We Do to Ourselves Gingerbread Horse Rocket and The Melon Ball Express: A Story About a Little Boy Who Changed the World Tedx Talk __________________________ Podcast Episodes You May Like Live Life in Crescendo – Cynthia Covey Haller The Fourth Quarter – Allen Hunt Will You Flourish or Languish? – Corey Keyes The Mindful Body – Ellen Langer ___________________________ Wise Quotes On Seven Words to Live By “The three simple rules for living: be healthy, be kind, respect the environment. I have to put in context, and Arthur Schopenhauer observed that all truth passes through three levels. First, it’s ridicule, second, it’s violently opposed, third, it’s accepted as being self -evident. Such a truth has emerged in our lifetime. It informs us that we exist as a tiny fragment of an immensely larger interlocking pole, which all the parts are interconnected and depend upon each other for survival. Simply put, everything’s connected to everything else. We exist not separately, but in communion with all other living things. Life’s an interrelated, interdependent phenomenon. Everything’s in relationship. It’s the nature of universe, it’s the nature of the reality in which we exist. Like it or not, reality has behavioral demands. That is, if you want to stick around, if you want to live, if you want to continue on the journey, those behavioral demands can be summarized in seven words. Be healthy, be kind, respect the environment. Each one of us is like a cell in the body of humanity. The health of all of us taken together in terms of the health of humanity and the health of our civilization.” On Updating Beliefs “The question is, how do we reduce ignorance and suffering, expand knowledge and justice? Einstein observed that we can’t solve our problems from the same level of thinking which they originated.So it begs the question, what level of thinking are we at? What level of thinking do we need to get to? How do we get there? Well, it’s not easy to get to the next level of thinking. Many people are operating out of primitive, hardwired instincts and emotions associated with the primitive origins of our brain. At the same time, many people are operating out of deeply embedded, antiquated, divisive, and dysfunctional supernatural beliefs that are the products of the infancy of our intelligence. And these primitive instincts and emotions, which are a biological reality, and this antiquated, divisive, and dysfunctional supernatural beliefs, which are human fabrications, are a lethal combination of behaviors that are not overcome easily. But they must be overcome if we’re going to sustain humanity, advance our civilization, and succeed as a species. So our social and political attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs must rise to higher levels. So they’re not static. They’re dynamic. And we are an evolving species. We’re a young species, as one explores that whole area, which is interesting, evolutionary biology. And we understand just how young we are. And we begin to understand why we do what we do.” _____________________________ 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 1.2 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.

  Retirement offers the opportunity to pursue new interests, hobbies and pursuits. But getting retirement right takes practice. How do you start? Mary Jo Hoffman shares her story of how a daily photography practice on her daily walks with her dog evolved, culminating in her new book STILL:The Art of Noticing. Mary Jo Hoffman joins us from Minnesota. __________________________ Bio Mary Jo Hoffman is the author of STILL:The Art of Noticing.  An aeronautical engineer-turned-artist, since beginning her artistic practice and founding the blog, STILL, she and her project have been featured in Martha Stewart Living and Better Homes & Gardens, among other publications, and she has collaborated with West Elm, Target, the United States Botanic Garden, and the Scottish National Opera She is renowned for her unique and personal engagement with the natural world around her, primarily in North America’s Great Lakes bioregion and the iconic scrubland of Mediterranean France. Best known for her multi-year, ongoing project, “STILL,” she captures and posts one photo every day, on a white background, of a natural object found near her, whether leaves, flowers, seedpods, twigs, insects, or animals. “STILL” images reflect Hoffman’s profound admiration for nature’s subtle, seasonal expressions. Her photography encourages viewers to pause and contemplate one thing at a time, to be still, if only for a moment, in a world of distracted hurrying from one thing to another. The project is an endorsement of the power of dailiness, and an invitation to re-see the too-often overlooked “infraordinary,” that surrounds us–those sights, sounds, and subtle changes that we think of as common and familiar, but which can come alive with delightful possibility when paid attention to. Hoffman lives in Shoreview, Minnesota, on Turtle Lake, with her husband, Steve, a food writer and author, and her aging and indulged puggle, Jack, with whom she takes walks as often as possible, in woods and fields, and along lakeside trails, on the hunt for that day’s STILL blog subject. __________________________ For More on Mary Jo Hoffman STILL Blog STILL:The Art of Noticing _________________________ Podcast Episodes You May Like Retirement Rookies – Stephen & Karen Kreider Yoder Edit Your Life – Elisabeth Sharp McKetta Living for Pleasure – Emily Austin, PhD Best of 2024 – Part One _________________________ Wise Quotes On Practicing Retirement “…think about practicing for retirement. Put those pieces in place with the community, the hobbies, the interests, whatever you want to do. Start early enough to have those in place when you retire so that you don’t just one day walk out the door, and then you don’t know what to do with yourself. That struck a chord with me. So we are in France, the kids are in school, it’s the first free time in my adult life and I say to my, my husband who’s a tax preparer, but who also had creative ambitions. He was wanted always wanted to be a writer. I said, let’s practice for retirement. We have we have six hours a day between parent drop off and parent pickup. Let’s practice for retirement. So that was 2012. So 12 years ago what happened is I started a photo. So I came up with a project for myself is called a photo a day for one year. So it was a one year project to do a photo a day, which then resulted in this book that I just came out with.” On Daily Practice “If you’ve never done anything like a 100-day challenge. I have a 30-day challenge. I think 30 days is too short. I did a one year challenge that turned into a 12 year challenge. I highly recommend them. That’s why  I call it the sneaky superpower of daily –  of having a daily practice. The other one of the other things that that totally surprised me  was something an idea I call placefulness, which is it is this a really deep and nuanced knowledge and connection to my place.” On Activities with Multiple Benefits “You can call it intuitive wisdom. Whatever it is, I do think I stumbled into something very, very rewarding. Dumb luck or not, I think it highlights one of those key points about finding activities where you can get those multiple benefits from. You don’t need six things. You can find one that can give you two, three, four, five [benefits]. We’re talking about just being intentional. And then also we’re talking a little bit about narrowing down the things that you’re going to put your energy or your attention into to three, four or five things and not scattering your attention or your energy like confetti.” ___________________________ 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 1.2 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.

Is it possible to get healthier as you get older? Dr. Michael Greger knows how and why that’s possible. He visits with us to discuss his new book How Not to Age: The Scientific Approach to Getting Healthier as You Get Older. Dr. Greger joins us from Maryland. _________________________ Michael Greger, M.D. FACLM is a physician, New York Times best-selling author, and internationally recognized professional speaker on a number of important public health issues. Dr. Greger has lectured at the Conference on World Affairs, the National Institutes of Health, and the International Bird Flu Summit, among countless other symposia and institutions; testified before Congress; has appeared on shows such as The Colbert Report; and was invited as an expert witness in defense of Oprah Winfrey at the infamous “meat defamation” trial. In 2017, he was honored with the American College of Lifestyle Medicine with its Lifestyle Medicine Trailblazer Award. Dr. Greger’s most recent scientific publications in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Critical Reviews in Microbiology, Family and Community Health, and the International Journal of Food Safety, Nutrition, and Public Health explore the public health implications of industrialized animal agriculture. Dr. Greger is also licensed as a general practitioner specializing in clinical nutrition and is a founding member and Fellow of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. He was featured on the Healthy Living Channel promoting his latest nutrition DVDs and honored to teach part of Dr. T. Colin Campbell’s esteemed nutrition course at Cornell University. Dr. Greger’s nutrition work can be found at NutritionFacts.org, which is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit charity. Four of his books — How Not to Die, The How Not to Die Cookbook, How Not to Diet, and How Not to Age — became instant New York Times Best Sellers. He is also the author of Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching and Carbophobia: The Scary Truth Behind America’s Low Carb Craze. Dr. Greger is a graduate of the Cornell University School of Agriculture and the Tufts University School of Medicine. Dr. Greger is proud to be a Council of Directors member of the global voice for lifestyle as medicine, the True Health Initiative (THI). This is a growing coalition of more than 360 world experts representing 35 countries. It is an unprecedented assembly that includes physicians, university Deans, former Surgeon Generals, Olympic athletes, chefs, environmental professionals and a diverse group of nutritionists. Together they offer clarity over confusion and support the foundational principles of healthy eating and healthy living. All speaking fees and proceeds Dr. Greger receives from the sale of his books and DVDs are donated to charity. ___________________________ For More on Michael Greger, M.D. How Not to Age: The Scientific Approach to Getting Healthier as You Get Older How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease NutritionFacts.org The Daily Dozen ___________________________ Mentioned in This Podcast Episode The Game Changers Movie ___________________________ Podcast Episodes You May Like From Cravings to Control – Revamp Your Habits – Dr. Jud Brewer The Mindful Body – Ellen Langer Upgrade Your Sleep – Dr. Raj Dasgupta ___________________________ Wise Quotes On What Motivates Him “NutritionFacts.org is a free nonprofit science-based public service providing daily updates on latest in nutrition research via bite-sized videos, about 2000 videos on the every aspect of healthy eating with new videos and articles uploaded to every day. And the latest in evidence-based nutrition. What a concept. No ads, no corporate sponsorship, not selling anything. Just put it up as a public service. Nutrition facts.org actually put it up as a really as tribute to my grandmother, which is how I got involved in the first place. I was just a kid when my grandma was sent home in a wheelchair to die. She had end-state heart disease, already had so many bypass surgeries. She basically run out of plumbing at some point, could find a wheelchair crushing chest pain. Her life was over at age 65. Then she heard about this guy, Nathan Pritikin, one of our early lifestyle medicine pioneers.   And what happened next is actually detailed in Pritikin’s biography. They talk about Francis Greger, my grandmother. They wheeled her in and she walked out. Though she was given her medical death sense at age 65, thanks to a healthy diet, was able to enjoy another 31 years on this planet until age 96 to continue to enjoy six grandkids, including me. That’s why I went into medicine. That’s why I practiced lifestyle medicine, why I started nutrition facts.org, why I wrote the book, how Not to Die, why all the proceeds from all the sales of my books are donated directly to charity. I just want to do for everyone’s family what Pritikin did for my family.   On Aging “Well, it turns out that age is a significant risk factor for many of our chronic disease killers. Not just Alzheimer’s, but also heart disease and stroke, etc. So instead of just playing whack-a-mole, by treating each of these diseases separately, by slowing down aging, we may be able to slow down the occurrence of all these diseases. If all of cancer was eliminated tomorrow, it would really only add a few years to the average lifespan. In terms of lifespan, eating a burger appears to cut one’s life as short as smoking two cigarettes. So if it wouldn’t even occur to us to light up before and after lunch, maybe we should choose the bean burrito instead. If you didn’t die of a heart attack is because you died of cancer a month before. If you hadn’t died of cancer, you would have just dropped dead of a heart attack. So that’s why it’s important to slow the aging process, to slow the appearance of these age -related diseases across the board. On Lifestyle Choices According to studies of identical twins, only about 25% of the difference in lifespan between individuals is due to genetics, so for what we can do over the majority, we may have some control. We can turn to the Blue Zones, these areas of exceptional longevity around the world where they may have up to 10 times the rate of those reaching triple digits. And what do they share in common? They have healthy lifestyle behaviors such as daily exercise and not smoking. But the most important component appears to be their diet. And so the series of Blue Zone dietary guidelines that have been recommended, basically they center the diets are on whole plant foods. And so they are minimizing the intake of processed foods, meat, dairy, sugar, eggs, and salt, while maximizing fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, which are beans, peas, chickpeas and lentils, nuts and seeds and spices, mushrooms, basically real foods that grows out of the ground. These are our healthiest choices.”     ___________________________ 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 1.2 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.

You’re wise to be planning for your retirement. But the best-laid plans can be turned upside down in an instant. Sarah Cart joins us to share her experience and her new book On My Way Back to You: One Couple’s Journey through Catastrophic Illness to Healing and Hope. Sarah Cart joins us from Massachusetts. _________________________ Bio Sarah Cart was raised and educated in New York and New England. As a freelancer, she wrote for multiple local publications while she and her husband, Ben, raised four sons in northeastern Ohio. Upon becoming empty nesters, the two moved to the Florida Keys, but they returned every summer to the Pennsylvania Poconos, where each had lifelong family connections. Then came Covid. The pandemic, combined with Ben’s health issues, necessitated their sheltering in place in Florida for the entirety of 2020. In the wake of Ben’s undergoing miraculous lifesaving measures, they have been afforded the unanticipated gift of a future and, more than ever before, relish time spent with family and friends. Sarah Cart’s On My Way Back to You is a first-hand account of the rollercoaster world of lifesaving transplants and the unimaginable challenges Sarah faced as she struggled to manage her husband’s devastating illness and to save his life, their marriage, and her sanity. Throughout her 42-year marriage, writer Sarah Cart has enjoyed a life of “gloriously controlled chaos,” as she and her husband, Ben, a successful entrepreneur and seasoned outdoorsman, embarked on numerous adventures with their four active sons. Then the unthinkable happened. In suspenseful and heartrending detail, Cart shares how Ben developed an incurable autoimmune condition that was manageable and under control one minute and threatened to kill him the next, landing him in the ICU as the Covid pandemic closed the world down. Thrust into the role of nurse and caregiver, Sarah joined the ranks of 39 million Americans who champion and care for an ailing loved one. In addition to confronting doubts, fears, and endless setbacks, aggravations, and red tape, she also had to consent to daunting procedures on Ben’s behalf. Too, there were the months-long Covid-era restrictions on hospital visitations and the post-surgery snafus with home healthcare personnel. Thank goodness for the heartfelt communiques with family and friends, all of which reflect the faith, fortitude, grit, and grace that sustained her. ________________________ For More on Sarah Cart On My Way Back to You: One Couple’s Journey through Catastrophic Illness to Healing and Hope ________________________ Podcast Episodes You May Like Ride or Die – Jarie Bolander The Self-Healing Mind – Gregory Scott Brown, M.D. Planning for Family Caregiving – Danielle Miura, CFP _________________________ Wise Quotes On Perfection vs. Good Enough “Perfection is not always a good thing. I never perfected being a perfectionist, but I like to know that things are done well and right and the way they’re supposed to be and the very sobering idea that if we had known before Ben went into the hospital that he had a broken hip, which is the kind of thing I mean, I was his caregiver, how could I not know that? That’s unforgivable. But if we’d known it, he wouldn’t have been a candidate for transplant. That just blows my mind. Not all the examples are that huge, but well, another one is he probably wouldn’t have been a candidate for transplant if it hadn’t been the COVID pandemic.” On Gratitude “Over the course of Ben’s being in the hospital, I had taken to sending emails to family and friends on a regular basis to keep everybody on the same page. And I had all those emails, and in the beginning, every single one of them was a part of the original outline of the book, just because they told the story, and all I really needed to do was kind of link them together. But then people pointed out that I needed to tell a little bit more of the story at the beginning and a little bit more of the story at the end. And it just, it was a way for me to figure out where we’d been and to realize, I mean, I think I was pretty grateful every step of the way, but to realize the magnitude of gratitude that was appropriate for where we ended up.” On Caregiving “And so my advice would be, be kind to yourself, be forgiving of yourself, you’re not going to get this right. There’s not an answer sheet for that. this, and you’re not going to get graded. You’re going to get through it. What I used to tell people, a year ago, I would say, Oh, you’re stronger than you think. And I believe that, but I think the more helpful thing is to say: You’re going to get through this – because that doesn’t put the pressure on Oh, I have to be strong. You don’t have to be strong, you just need to put one step in one foot in front of the other and move forward if you can, sideways if you have to, backwards if you get pushed. But just keep trying. Break it down into manageable pieces. And if the pieces that you’ve broken it down into don’t feel manageable, pick them up one at a time and break them down to something smaller. It sounds so much easier than it might feel in the moment.” __________________________ 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 1.2 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.

There are a lot of variables to consider in planning for retirement. A big one is longevity. We don’t know how long we’ll live, but we should plan for a long life. But there’s more to consider than just our lifespan. Rejoining us is Maddy Dychtwald, co-founder of Age Wave, to discuss her new book Ageless Aging: A Woman’s Guide to Increasing Healthspan, Brainspan, and Lifespan, a guide to living better longer by proactively attending to your healthspan, your brainspan and your wealthspan. Maddy Dychtwald joins us from California. _________________________ Bio Recognized by Forbes as one of the top fifty female futurists globally, for nearly 40 years, Maddy Dychtwald has been deeply involved in exploring all aspects of the age wave and how it’s fundamentally transforming our lives and the world at-large. This has led her to become an award-winning author, acclaimed public speaker, and thought leader on longevity and aging, health, wellness, and the new retirement. Maddy co-founded Age Wave, the world’s leader in understanding and addressing the far-reaching impacts of longevity and our aging population. The Age Wave team has worked with more than half of the Fortune 500 in industries ranging from healthcare and medical technology to financial services and consumer products. With women at the forefront of the longevity revolution, Maddy has dug deep into their specific longevity-related wants, needs, challenges and opportunities. As a researcher and social scientist, she has led numerous acclaimed studies, including the landmark Women, Money and Power sponsored by Allianz and Women and Financial Wellness: Beyond the Bottom Line for Bank of America Merrill Lynch. In addition, she has been involved in more than 25 thought leadership research studies worldwide on longevity, aging, retirement, health and wellness, family and social connections, purpose, caregiving, finances, and leisure, which have cumulatively garnered more than twenty billion media impressions. As a blogger and member of The Wall Street Journal’s Expert Panel, Maddy’s posts on leadership, wealth management, and financial planning have topped the most-read lists. Her insights and research have been featured in prominent media outlets, including Bloomberg Businessweek, Forbes, Newsweek, Time, Fox Business News, CNBC, and NPR. Maddy has written four books, including the award-winning Cycles: How We Will Live, Work, and Buy, Influence: How Women’s Soaring Economic Power Will Transform Our World for the Better, and the children’s/young readers’ book Gideon’s Dream: A Tale of New Beginnings. Her highly anticipated new book, Ageless Aging: A Woman’s Guide to Increasing Healthspan, Brainspan, and Lifespan, (Mayo Clinic Press, May 2024) will provide an insider’s guide to living better longer, covering everything from fitness and nutrition to hormones and ageism, from sleep to purpose, from navigating the healthcare system to the role of finances. Over the years, Maddy has herself become part of the age wave and has experimented personally with how to increase her own healthspan, brainspan, and lifespan. She is a co-founder of the non-profit Women Against Alzheimer’s and serves as a board member of the non-profit BrightFocus Foundation, which funds cutting-edge research to cure diseases of the brain and eye. She is also a lead partner for Portfolia in the Active Aging and Longevity 2 Fund. She is also a lead partner for Portfolia, a collaborative women-focused investment platform in their “Active Aging & Longevity Fund 2. Maddy and her husband Ken were awarded the prestigious Esalen Prize for their outstanding contributions to advancing the human potential of long-lived men and women worldwide. An empty-nester, she is highly involved with her adult children and her granddog. ____________________________ For More on Maddy Dychtwald Ageless Aging: A Woman’s Guide to Increasing Healthspan, Brainspan, and Lifespan Age Wave ____________________________ Podcast Episodes You May Like Breaking the Age Code – Dr. Becca Levy Advice for Successful Career Women Transitioning to Retirement – Helen Dennis From Cravings to Control – Revamp Your Habits – Dr. Jud Brewer The Wisdom and Wonder of Uncertainty – Maggie Jackson ____________________________ Wise Quotes On Ageless Aging & Agency “There are three things that come to mind. First is that we are the CEOs of our own healthcare and our health and our wellbeing, including our brain health. Knowing that we have agency over our health and wellbeing and that it’s never too late to take steps and even just starting somewhere with changing your diet or your exercise or your sleep, it’s really powerful medicine. 90% of our health and well-being is really within our control. And so we ought to know that and take action where possible. Second is that it’s not just about one thing, like sleep or what you eat or your exercise. Those things are the basics and super important. But it’s about a bouquet of different ingredients that all work together to create a more ageless kind of aging. And the good news about that is you can start anywhere and you can pull one lever. And by pulling that lever, you’re going to start feeling better, which is going to motivate you to try more. That to me is good news. And third is, and I didn’t really talk about this with you too much, Joe, but I think the idea of having joy in your life can really add life to the years that we have, no matter how long or short our lifespans might be. One of the pieces of research that I learned along the way was from Dr. Becca Levy at Yale. She did a longitudinal study in the middle of the US. And what she found was that when people felt more positive about aging and their own aging in particular, it could add up to seven and a half years to their lives. And that’s like flipping a switch in your brain to tell yourself on a daily basis: Aging, it’s a gift. It’s a real gift, and we ought to take advantage of it. So that’s why I wrote Ageless Aging, to give people the tools and the information that they need so that they can live better longer.” On Purpose “There’s different ways that we can get a sense of purpose as we get older. The number one way is to continue working in some way, shape, or form. That’s something that I interviewed Dr. Linda Fried, who’s head of the Columbia School of Public Health about. She is their Dean, and she’s also an amazing physician and expert on aging. She told me that often times she would suggest to her patients: you ought to work longer. To spend the last 30 years of your life without a sense of work or purpose is not good for your health. You lose your vitality, your energy, your willingness to go on in life, and that is not something that you want to have happen. So work is one solution, but there are other ones too, like volunteering. Volunteering your time serves a lot of great purposes because when you give, it actually gives back. And there’s been studies that show that giving is a really amazing force of nature that can help you to live better longer. By the way, from the Age Wave studies that we’ve done, one of the things that we found was that adopting a pet was one of the number one things that people were willing to do. add more purpose to their lives.” On Exercise “And I do think there is one silver bullet. And that is something that I’m kind of obsessed with personally. And it’s a little different than I actually thought it was. If you talk to the brain health experts, they all say the one thing you have to do is exercise. And it’s definitely true. But it’s not just about cardio. It’s about your balance. It’s about your posture. It’s about believe it or not, your ability to relax. That one was a cool one for me. And most importantly, it’s about building muscle strength. Because as we get older, like literally beginning in your 30s, we begin to lose muscle mass. It’s called by a fancy name; sarcopenia. But it really means a loss of muscle mass. And some of the scientists that I talked to were in agreement on the fact that they believe that muscle mass should be the new vital sign with equal importance to our heart rate and our blood pressure and our weight. So that’s how important building muscle mass is.” ___________________________ 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 1.2 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.      

Experts like Stew Friedman, Christina Wallace, and Dr. Jud Brewer share insights on balancing work and personal life, building a portfolio life, and transforming habits. Topics include downsizing for a brighter future, navigating career transitions, and emotionally intelligent retirement planning.