How To Find Your New Identity in Retirement with Dr. Lindsey Mitchell | Retirement Planning in Your 60’s and Financial Freedom

 

Troy Sharpe here, CEO of Oak Harvest Financial Group. And today, we’re with Dr. Lindsay Mitchell, and we’re going to talk about the psychology of retirement, focusing specifically on finding your new identity when you transition into retirement. You could possibly be retired right now and still be struggling with that identity. When we talk about financial planning, a lot of times on this channel, our Oak Harvest Retirement Process process focuses on risk management, generating income tax planning, health care and estate planning. That’s the financial side of Oak Harvest Retirement Process. But there’s this whole other element, this whole other side, which is the psychological side, the sociological side, the understanding who we are and trying to get the greatest purpose and fulfillment in retirement.

So, Dr. Lindsay Mitchell, I want to thank you very much for coming on to the channel today. Thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to be here. Excellent. So we’re actually going to start today with a question from Scott Solomonson. And so, Scott, I hope I’m pronouncing your name correctly here, but I was going through some of the comments and really kind of caught my attention. I knew we were filming this segment, so I wanted to focus on your question today, because I believe it’s something that a lot of our viewers definitely have in common with you. So Scott says, “I’m in my mid 50’s and completely enjoy my physically demanding career of landscaping. I want to work as long as I can because I really, really enjoy it. Stress is “really, really”, so he absolutely– Scott, you do definitely enjoy this. Currently on debt free and the business keeps growing.

I’m just concerned I will be bored about 10:00 a.m. on the very first day of retirement after I read the paper, go for a walk and finish reading the newspaper. I know I will need to reinvent myself because I put my heart and soul into my career.” Scott, you’re not alone. This is something very, very, very common. Lindsay, hearing that— Super powerful. Yeah, right. What was your first reaction when you– I sent you this email in advance. But when you read it for the very first time, where did your mind go? Where does your brain go? I said, “man, I want to be Scott when I need to retire.” No, I shook my head. I hear this a lot, right?

I’m not going to know who I am. I’ve literally been getting up, going to work, finding my purpose through my job. So what’s next? Whether you enjoy working or don’t enjoy working, everyone has that issue. But then when you really– really, really enjoy it, that’s even harder. We never walk away– in our whole human journey– we never walk away from things when we’re happy. Any life transition is usually– it comes to an end in some way. We’re told you can’t stay in high school for another six years, right? We’re pushed. Whereas with this, he’s happy, he’s content, he’s enjoying it. And so to change something when you’re happy. Probably retirement is the only time where we really see people making a drastic change when they’re still content. If that makes sense. And one thing I’d ask you, Scott, and hopefully you’re watching the video here…

As a business owner myself, what is it that you really, really enjoy? Is it the physical demanding nature of the job? And it kind of says that in the question. Or is it more of if you’re running a growing business, obviously, there’s a lot of responsibility from a CEO standpoint. So, one thing I would want to know is, is it the CEO part of being the job, the strategic planning, the hiring, the marketing, the going to get new territories and new deals, let’s say, or is it just being in the sun and hands in the dirt and just, you know, really, really enjoying doing the work? Does that— what do you think? Having people really look almost at their job description, these are my job duties, these are my job responsibilities. Because so many times in our jobs–I love my job, but I hate aspects of my job.

So when we’re looking at something like Scott is looking at, what are my responsibilities that fuel my soul? What are the things I could probably do without and how can I either restructure that job? So maybe it’s just I’m the consultant that goes out and gets new business, if that’s what I love. I love looking at, you know, finding new people. I like my hands in the dirt. Well, I’m just going to go visit all the job sites once a week. Can I tailor it or I’m still keeping the things that I love? Or if you’re working a job where you’re not able to do that. The part of my job I love is being outside. What can I do that can still translate that? Can I volunteer from the Community Garden Center or can I go work at Home Depot once a week or–? So looking at what we love about our job, what we wish we could get rid of.

That’s the beauty of retirement. You have the ability to finally have a job where you don’t have other duties as assigned because you don’t have to do that. And so I think finding the beauty in “I have a chance to structure it the way I want to”. What comes to my mind is congruence is a very big word around here. So on the radio, on these YouTube videos, basically all the marketing that we do, we talk about Oak Harvest Retirement Process, having a risk management and investment strategy and income plan and a tax plan. But when a client comes in or a prospective client comes in to see us, it’s very important that their experience on that appointment process and the plan that we put together for them is exactly what they’ve heard when they listen to me, wherever they hear me speak. It’s congruence.

It’s very, very important in regards to running a business, but also to fulfilling the responsibilities and the promises that you make the people. I’m hearing the same thing from you in the sense of that we need to– maybe congruence isn’t the exact word– but it’s identifying what gave us fulfillment on an emotional level. Same concept, right? Yeah. What filled our soul? What drove us during those working years? And how can we translate that into different hobbies, activities, pursuits in retirement? I think that’s what you’re saying. You know, we’re not losing our purpose just because we’re retiring. And I think there’s a little bit– I mean, if you think about it, it’s the one thing that we’re probably committed to the most is our job. Maybe not even spouses. You can be divorced, kids leave. But our career, even if it’s working with different companies– this has been our identity, who we are for 4 decades, 5 decades. How does somebody do that? How does somebody find this?

You know, we’re lost in retirement. We have to re-find this identity. Right. How does somebody begin that soul searching process? I think slowing it down a little bit and making it very personal. How you retire is not going to be how your friend retired, how your coworker retired, how your parent retired. I think it has to be very personal. Any time we do anything personal that’s difficult is hard, because what do we do when we have a conflict or a struggle? We talk to people. So now everybody’s got an opinion. This is how I did it. This is how you shouldn’t do it. This is the mistake that I made.

Well, now I have all this feedback and I’ve lost finding my purpose. So I think quiet is a little bit better. Have your support system of people that you trust, you know, financially. Who can I talk to? “Hey, I’m thinking about completely quitting and being done with my job. Can I afford it?” “Hey, I’m thinking I might be a consultant. Is that okay?” So finding the people that you trust– spouse, friend, financial person, psychologist– and really having a very personal conversation with them and yourself, and really keeping everybody else out of it because otherwise I think we can get very overwhelmed. And then we start saying we need to make the right decision instead of I’ve got a ton of possibilities. Scott’s worked hard enough. He said he is debt free. He’s actually constructed his life where he can make any decision he wants.

There’s not a bad one in the bunch, but we start zoning in. What’s the perfect decision? No, what’s the first decision? We can change it. We can alter it. Maybe he says, I’m done. I’m going to go play on the golf course. Well, then he golfs for a month and he’s like, I hate golf. I don’t want to do that anymore. Well we slow down again and we decide again. I think there’s sometimes a little bit of a struggle as we can’t identify ourselves and then re-identify ourselves and then re-identify ourselves. We allow ourselves as human beings to come up with new identities along the way. Why should retirement be any different? So first is really kind of slow down. Make it personal. Make it personal. Make it private. Make it private. You’re not asking the plumber who’s coming over. You’re not taking a walk.

I had a gentleman, a good guy who came in and worked with us for several appointments. He was very indecisive, which isn’t a bad thing, being indecisive. It’s typically I would imagine it’s because you want to continuously grab more information. But one of the things he told me, he said, “Troy, I’m talking to a whole bunch of different firms. And I just want you to know that everywhere I go, I’m talking to people about what they’re doing with their retirement.” Yeah. He said, “so I talk to the people when I’m walking my dog and I go to the grocery store.” He said, “I talked to the handyman that came over.” And my initial reaction was, well, you’re probably getting a lot of different opinions from people who really probably aren’t providing a ton of value with those opinions.

Everyone has an opinion. Oh, God, yes. So when someone’s trying to find their identity in retirement, it’s important to keep it private in your circle and personal. It’s got to be personal. And because everyone’s financial situation is different. Families that have values are different. You know, people value time so differently. I think when we’re struggling, we reach out, which I like. But we’ve got to reach out to the right people. We can’t just cast this wide net because now we’ve got all this information. I’m struggling and I don’t know how to cipher through it all. And now, my identity and my making that decision– because I’m just copying your identity– well, that’s kind of not the purpose. It’s not who you are. It’s like I’m copying you, but I’ve lost what made it work for me.

So I think it has to be personal. Just ask the right questions. I think, financially, what’s the move for me? So what do I need to make sure that what I value is taken care of? And then what do I enjoy? What do I not enjoy? And not being afraid to make a mistake, I think, is the biggest thing especially if you have people looking out for you. I might make a mistake, but I’m not going to blow through my money. I’m not going to invest in the wrong thing. By mistake, I mean, maybe I sleep till 1PM and then I’m like, “oh, man, I really need to get some structure and some routine”. But as long as you have a good support system, I think being afraid to make a mistake is probably going to paralyze you the most. Pick a path. Make sure you’ve got those 2 or 3 supports that say, “hey, keep going.” Or maybe your client comes in, “I mean, you really don’t seem happy, what’s going on?” “Well, I don’t have a purpose. I’m sleeping all day.” “Okay. Let’s restructure this and figure it out.”

And there’s the financial side of retirement, which is what we focus on. Our job is to help people answer the big questions. You know, do you have enough? Can you retire? How long will the money last? How do you pay less tax? And if something happens to one spouse, will the other spouse be okay? Once you have that financial plan in place, now it’s really about how do you– Well, there’s tons of emotions involved with that. But once that’s in place, how do you then enjoy the rest of your life? You have a purpose driven retirement. And what you said a few minutes ago, it’s okay once you retire to invent yourself, but then maybe reinvent yourself, and reinvent yourself. It’s not necessarily so black and white where you can’t retire until you figure out— Who you want to be? Who you are? What you’re going to do every single day for the rest of your life? It’s okay to tinker, to explore– Well, also, your needs are going to change. So when you first retire, let’s say I’m working 60 hours a week. I’m a big commuter. I don’t get to see my family, and I retire.

Maybe I will take 6 months to see my family, to sleep in, to recharge my battery, to take a breath, to do all the things around the house I never had time to do. Well, now, 6 months later, I feel rested. The house is great. I saw my grandkids. I checked those boxes. Now, what? The time during that period– let’s call it a transition period to really think about and then do some deep soul searching. And that’s where I think the soul searching probably comes in. It’s like, almost like a gap year in college. Oh, I love that. I like that a lot. I should take a retirement gap year. I love that. Yeah. So, I mean, that’s really– And allow yourself that time, I think– Have grace with yourself and patience. Just like you would be asking, like you said, someone that just got out of college, we would expect that graduate to find their forever job. No. What do we say? Get a job. Get some money in your pocket. Start figuring out what you like and what you don’t like.

We don’t say, okay, the job you pick now, you’re going to have it forever. So we don’t treat ourselves with that same kindness with communities that are retiring. There’s this weird kind of unspoken pressure that we have to kind of figure it out. And I think we do ourselves a disservice in kind of rushing that process. Thinking personally, my own life, when I finished college, I didn’t really know who I was or what I wanted to even do with my life until probably I was 26 or 27. I spent 3 years after college taking care of my grandfather. He had 2 aortic aneurysms. My grandparents raised me and I saw what not having a financial plan, not having a tax plan, not having a health care plan, not having an income plan, not having any type of investment strategy that coordinates all of those various pieces together. I saw what it did, not just the financial side of things. They were devastated financially, but the emotional toll that it took on my grandmother was one of the most painful things that I’ve ever been through in my life, because I was helpless. There was nothing I could do to alleviate that burden, that stress, that fear of the uncertainty of the unknown from her shoulders. That’s crazy.

So without that experience, I most certainly would not be doing what I’m doing today. You’re not you talking to me. Absolutely not. But I did it. I had to go through that. Let’s call that my gap year after college, because I have a finance degree. And as soon as I graduated, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. But there was this kind of path laid out for me with personal experience. And without having that personal experience, I would not be doing what I’m doing today. So again— And we look at that as like, good for you for allowing yourself to grow. Yeah. But somebody does that at 65 or more. Like, what are they doing? I’m giving myself time to grow. So I think we can use that philosophy to treat ourselves with grace and kindness that I don’t have all the answers. I’d want to make movement. But I just have to kind of land here, slow it down, keep it personal. I mean, for you, personal experience that shaped your whole career. Yeah. And we treat youth with kindness. We treat collegiate graduates with kindness.

Go find yourself. But for some reason, in the older years, you’re supposed to know because you’re the expert. I’m the expert in my office, but I’m not an expert, you know, sitting at home trying to figure it out. So I think that grace and kindness with ourselves, spouses, friends, you know, allowing people to figure it out. And there’s this other element of fear mixed into the picture when it comes to the financial side of things, making sure that you have enough and you can retire, you won’t run out of money and you’ll have enough later for health care. When you intertwine those fears into this Decision-Making process, it almost becomes an opportunity to create justification for maybe not retiring or rationalizing certain behaviors and actions, because you’re taking these emotions and this huge, monumental, life changing event, and all of this– the confluence of all of these various feelings, behaviors, events, everything happening all at once. Human beings hate change. It’s why I have a job.

So when I tell you that, “hey, it’s time for a change, I will use all the evidence I can to not.” And so I think that’s like trusting the financial person that says you have enough. But now I’d much rather argue with you that I don’t have enough. Then to hear you say like you can actually go do whatever you want to do– that is terrifying. Just because it’s good news doesn’t mean that it can’t promote fear. For you, “I’m delivering you great news! You can do whatever you want.” And they’re like, “holy whoop, this is stressful.” That’s part of it, too. Just because it’s good doesn’t mean that it’s not hard, doesn’t mean that it takes time, that it takes that soul searching. We always, you know, at my age, all I hear is 401k retirement. Now, I finally did it. Now, you’re like, you can go do whatever you want. Well, that’s terrifying, and I’m not interested in that.

That’s the part 2 of the trust and the fear. Good news doesn’t mean that it’s going to be easy because there’s not a blueprint on how to do it right. Well, what would you say to someone who’s really— they’re in retirement and they’ve been doing the soul searching for a year or 2 years. They feel like they’re kind of stuck in the mud, and they can’t figure out their identity, who they are, what they want to do. What advice would you give to that person? Pick one. Just make a decision, doesn’t have to be the right decision. It doesn’t have to be the forever decision. Move. Someone, for example, in my world that struggles with depression— “I can’t get out of bed. I can’t do this.” Just do something.

Get out the door and do something. You’ll feel better. You’ll get more confident. And then the snowball kind of goes. Same thing. Whenever we’re stuck, we’re more than likely trying to pick the perfect choice. We’re afraid, and it’s vulnerable to say “this is what I’m choosing to do.” Then a year later, “no, I don’t do that anymore. I’m doing this.” What a judgment. No matter how old you are, your fear of being judged. I would say make a decision. Don’t get wrapped up in the perfect decision.

Allow yourself the confidence to know that you can course correct at any time. So if you’re stuck. Pick one. Even if you pick it out of a hat, write down the five things you were thinking. Pick one and go do it. Say for 30 days, I’m going to do this, I’m going to reevaluate. Sometimes action can help us get out of our thoughts, can get us out of our fear and out of our unknown. Because if we look at five things and we’re not sure which one, we’ll go try all five. Now, they’re not unknown anymore, and we can make a more educated decision. And you have time. You’re retired Exactly! Now, so you got plenty of time.

You said the keyword there: vulnerable. Here in Houston, I’m sure you’re aware, Bernard Brown. Oh, yes. Rock star. Yeah, absolutely. But she talks about how vulnerability is really a strength, or it takes courage to be vulnerable. Immediately, what I started thinking about there was when I decided I wanted to do this YouTube channel. I was afraid. I was afraid of the comments, of making mistakes, of what people would say and think. That fear held me back from doing it for about a year. But what I started to do was I started to tell people that I was going to do the channel. By telling people what I was doing was creating a mechanism of accountability. I love that. I knew I had to do the channel because I had told all these people I’m going to start doing it. Right.

Ultimately, I just had faith in myself and the belief that I had something of value to provide to people. Because year after year after year, sitting with thousands of clients or prospective clients and understanding who they are and what their big fears are, even though everyone’s different, their situation is the same. Being able to relay that experience, I feel like I’ve lived through my 60s, 70s and 80s thousands of times and retired thousands and thousands of times. Man, you’re going to have it nailed. I better. But being able to share that was ultimately what I said. You know what? I need to get outside of myself and really think about others here and can I provide value? And I absolutely believe that I can provide value. So that was the motivating factor for me. But just a little background on one kind of being afraid and then being courageous within that vulnerability and at the same time keeping a focus on providing contributions and value and deposit to others.

People think “if I’m vulnerable, that equates to weakness or unpreparedness.” But no, I’m very prepared for retirement and I very much know what I can do. I’m just not sure what I want to do. We tend to think in this very black and white world. Can I be strong and vulnerable at the same time? Can I be prepared and uncertain at the same time? Yeah, sure. I’m very prepared. You’re telling me I got all the money in the bank. Like Scott here is, I’m good to go, but I’m vulnerable that I’m unsure. Allowing both of those feelings to be okay will probably eliminate some of the fear.

Because when we boxed ourselves in into “I have to be 100% certain”, well, we’re going to be 98% certain for the rest of our life. I think that vulnerability you have something to offer and yet it’s a little terrifying. There’s a little bit of self-doubt, but I also have evidence that I have value to give. When we allow both of those polarizing feelings to be true, I think we get ourselves in this beautiful place of soul searching. Because we get stuck when we’re like, well, I’m not in that box. 100% will be in both boxes and let’s give it for a spin and see what happens. You’ve got to see retirement is some fun. It’s a good problem to have, but it can be fun and terrifying, kind of both at the same time. And the answers don’t have to be black and white necessarily.

Just like most things in life— Live in the gray! –It’s okay to have some gray. Let’s kind of summarize some of these big things here. I like the first one. I think it was for the most part, get quiet, right? To find the words. Yeah, tune out the noise. We talk about this a ton when it comes to investing in the stock market. Clients even want to turn on CNBC and then FOX News or MSNBC or CNN, and then they go to this website, that website, and they get all inundated with all of these different opinions. And none of those opinions affect them personally. It’s not personal. It’s not personal. You know, it’s noise. So one of the things to– So, quiet and make it personal kind of go hand in hand. Yup. So, quiet. Make it personal. And what was the next one here? Allow yourself to course correct. It doesn’t have to be permanent. It can be a temporary decision.

Quiet the noise, make it personal, then just create movement. Make a choice and then reevaluate. If that was going to be my plan, I would say for 60 days, quiet the noise, soul search, make it personal, make a decision and then reevaluate. “Oh, I really like this. I’m really happy. This is great. I’m going to do it for another 60 days.” “Okay, now, for 3 months, I haven’t been as active. I’m ready to make a change.” Okay!

Now, we quiet the noise again. We soul search again. We make a choice again, and then we reevaluate. I think if you kind of live in that loop and you continue to make changes and allow those things to happen, you will end up in a place that makes you really happy in retirement. And it’s okay to be vulnerable. Oh my gosh. Absolutely. You have to be. And it’s okay to make mistakes. And it’s okay to– it’s important, I would say– to have grace with yourself and patience with you. Treat yourself with a lot of kindness. And I really like the gap here. I do, too. I love that.

Every time, we should take a gap year. Take the gap year. You don’t have to figure it out right away. And you shouldn’t, because more than likely, what you’re going to do is you’re going to make a very fast, uninformed decision motivated by other people, and then you’re going to get stuck again. You’re going to be unhappy. And if you work this hard to create this beautiful time for yourself, you at least deserve to be happy. So I think if you don’t, not only will you either not make a decision, you’re probably going to make the wrong one. If the kid is not ready to go to college, that means a gap year. It’s a retirement gap. It’s brilliant.

A lot of times the worst decision you can make is no decision, whatsoever. You know, again, along this same theme of it’s okay to make a mistake. Just start moving. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I hope you enjoyed the conversation with Dr. Lindsey Mitchell today. Don’t worry. This is not the last time we’re going to have Lindsay on the channel. We are looking forward to a series of videos here where we’re really going to try to connect you to not just the financial side of retirement, but again, the psychological side of retirement. How do we get purpose? How do we find what’s important to us? Who we are? And that’s all Oak Harvest Retirement Process. It’s really bringing it all front and center.

So if you enjoyed this conversation, make sure to hit that subscribe button. If you hit hat bell icon, you know the routine by now. I would love to hear your comments down below, your feedback, any questions that you have. Just like Scott here, we pulled from the comment section. You’re not alone, so let us make it personal. Yeah. Yeah. Pulling his fears. It’s got again. Thank you very much for posting this, because— We’re vulnerable! It was very vulnerable of you as well. It gave us an entire topic and conversation. And hopefully, this has been very helpful to the rest of you watching this video. So I want to thank you very much, and I look forward to seeing you on the next video.