The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

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Paul Conti’s grandmother didn’t have much money. When she couldn’t afford to buy things for people, she bought yarn instead, and knitted blankets and socks for whoever needed them. Decades later, Paul is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and the author of What’s Going Right. And he’s come to believe his grandmother understood something his training missed.

For a long time, human motivation was explained by two drives: assertion (making our mark on the world) and pleasure. But that model can’t explain altruism. Paul argues there’s a third drive that should govern the other two: the generative drive, our built-in urge to make the world better. It can be as big as a trip around the globe or as small as a nicer garden. When it leads, assertion and pleasure stay in balance. When it doesn’t, you can look successful from the outside and feel miserable inside.

For people leaving demanding careers, that’s not an abstract idea. Many spent decades led by assertion. Retirement, Paul Conti says, is a branch point where life can get better or harder, and which way it goes depends a lot on whether we take charge of our mental health.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• Why “good mental health is consistent with simplicity”
• The life narrative Paul Conti wrote as he neared 60, and what it gave him
• Why your inner critic can’t take a day off, and a better approach: compassionate curiosity
• The difference between false humility & real humility, and how the real kind leads to gratitude
• How you can live with a youthful spirt at any stage of life
• His vision for when we’ll ask “How’s your mental health?” as easily as we ask “How’s your health?”

Dr. Paul Conti joins us from Portland, Oregon.

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Bio

Dr. Paul Conti is a psychiatrist, author, and educator who combines neuroscience, trauma expertise, and practical psychology to help individuals and leaders better understand themselves and build healthier, more resilient lives. He’s the author of the new book What’s Going Right: A Powerful New Method for Optimizing Your Mental Health.

He is a graduate of Stanford University School of Medicine. He completed his training at Stanford and at Harvard, where he served as chief resident. He then worked in private practice while serving on the medical faculty at Harvard. He moved to Portland,
Oregon, in 2007 and was named one of the state's best physicians during his first full year of practice. Lady Gaga wrote the foreword for his first book, Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic, which was also endorsed by Kim Kardashian, Tommy Hilfiger, and others and has been translated into nineteen languages. His four-episode guest series on the Huberman Lab podcast has been accessed by tens of millions of people worldwide. Dr. Conti is the founder and president of Pacific Premier Group, PC, a team of highly skilled professionals who provide brain-based consulting and clinical mental health care around the world.

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For More on Dr. Paul Conti

What’s Going Right: A Powerful New Method for Optimizing Your Mental Health

Pacific Premier Group, PC

Website

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Other Retirement Podcast Conversations You’ll Also Love

Self-Compassion – Dr. Kristin Neff

Shift – Ethan Kross

The Good Life – Marc Schulz, PhD

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Wise Quotes

On Retirement & Mental Health

“The challenge is to take control of one’s mental health, but that’s also the opportunity. There are mental health challenges that come to us at every phase of life, and I think around retirement, it’s a particular branch point where things can go better or things can become more difficult, So, the idea of taking control at that stage of life, I think is so important because it sets the stage for the person to then be able to live a good, long, healthy life. Less stress, more enjoyment…and as we enter retirement, the idea is that we can construct a sense of self and a narrative of life that we feel good about. Not because we’re pretending or trying to make things feel good, because anyone who makes it to retirement in this day and age has a lot to feel good about, a lot to feel proud of. So we want to construct a narrative that says, “Okay, how is it that I got here? What is it that I have? What’s my state of health? What are my obligations, and what are my wishes?” And the idea is shine the light everywhere: on one’s mental health, one’s finances, and then the combination of the two. I think that’s how we see people living really good lives in retirement.”

On the Generative Drive

“Historically, people have believed to have just two drives. One was called aggression and we could call that assertion….We want to make ourselves felt in the world and see the impact of what we do. So there was that and pleasure seeking. Now, this got to be very misunderstood because if that were really true of humans, that we’re seeking pleasure and we want make our presence felt in the world, there’d be no altruism… There is so clearly another drive in us and a drive that governs all else. And that is the generative drive, the drive within all of us to make the world a better place. They could be big, like, “I want to travel around the world,” or it could be, “I want the garden in the yard to look better,” or “I want to do something nice for somebody next door.” It’s all generative. This is in us, and we see it is where our happiness comes from.”

On Compassionate Curiosity

“The biggest problem in mental health is that we look away from our problems. And why do people do that? Why do people say, “I don’t want to go there.” They know that’s where, where they need to look, but they want to look away from it. And it’s because when we don’t understand, we’re afraid of what we’re going to find. Human beings want to understand…If you’re driving your car and there’s a strange sound coming from the engine, the thing we don’t want to do is, pretend it’s not there. That’s how we end up broken down on the side of the road. So the idea is I can look at whatever’s going on inside of me. I can bring compassionate curiosity to my own problems instead of bringing whatever inner critic we’ve internalized. We can bring a very harsh and fearful set of judgments when we’re looking at ourselves, and that’s not how we solve our problems. If there’s a mechanism of understanding, which is part of what I very much wanted to provide in the book, this is saying you can look at yourself, There’s nothing to be scared of here. They’re just things to go look at, and if you go look at them and you bring compassionate curiosity, they get better.”

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 2 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

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

Is it time to work on how you’ll live your retirement?

Join our next small group coaching program starting in January.

Very early registration discount ends on November 15th.

Limited to 10 participants.

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When was the last time you did something just for fun? Not to accomplish something or check something off your list. Just because you really enjoyed it. For many successful people, that’s a surprisingly difficult question to answer.

Over the years, we’ve learned how to work hard, achieve goals, and be useful to others. But somewhere along the way, we may have forgotten how to have fun. And when retirement arrives, having more time doesn’t necessarily mean having more fun.

My guest today is Monika Jansen, a fun coach, who helps people rediscover joy and make more room for enjoyable experiences in their everyday lives. Retirement gives us more freedom to choose how we spend our time. But rediscovering fun may require letting go of habits we’ve spent a lifetime developing. Retirement isn’t just an opportunity to do more things. It’s an opportunity to rewrite the rules that have governed how we invest our time.

We explore how we lose our sense of fun in our working years, why play and fun matter, and how to bring more joy into everyday life.

Monika Jansen joins us from Colorado.

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For More on Monika Jansen

The Fun Coach

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Other Retirement Podcast Connversations You’ll Also Love

The Power of Fun – Catherine Price

The Fun Habit – Mike Rucker, PhD

Don’t Wait Until Retirement to Find Your New Thing – Charles Chumley

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Wise Quotes

On Doing It Now

“But you always think, ‘I’ll have time for that, I’ll have time for that. Make time for it today.”

On Small Moments vs. Big Events

“The small moments in life are what make life. It’s not the three-week bucket list trip to Italy. That’s wonderful, but that’s three weeks in your life, whereas we’re living in the every day.”

On Saying No

“What I would say is, ‘Oh, thank you so much for thinking about me, but not right now.'”

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 2 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

Could your retirement planning use more imagination?

Registration for our next Design Your New Life in Retirement small group program is now open.

Very Early Registration discount ends November 15th. Limited to 10 participants.

Learn more| Sign up today

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The skills that helped you succeed professionally – critical thinking, analysis, judgment and efficiency – may not be the ones to help you create what comes next. Psychologist and researcher Cassandra Vieten, author of Imagine That: Transform How You Think, Feel, and Live with the Science of Imagination, joins us to explore imagination as a practical skill for navigating transitions.

Cassandra explains why imagination often becomes flattened as we grow older, how to reframe uncertainty to create possibility, and how intentionally imagining alternatives can help us escape habitual ways of thinking.

We discuss the stories we tell ourselves about retirement, Cassandra’s VISTA framework, a powerful future-self exercise, the relationship between mindfulness and imagination, and simple practices for bringing curiosity and possibility back into everyday life. I especially like the way she describes her book: A user’s guide to your imagination.

Cassandra Vieten joins us from San Diego.

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Bio

Cassandra Vieten, PhD is the author of the new book Imagine That: Transform How You Think, Feel, and Live with the Science of Imagination. She is the Clinical Professor and Director of the Center for Mindfulness at the Centers for Integrative Health in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. She is also Director of Research at the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination and Clinical Psychology Director at the Psychedelics and Health Research Initiative at UCSD. She is Senior Advisor of the John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation where she served as Executive Director from 2019-2023, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, where she served as President from 2013-2019. Her research has focused on spirituality and health, transformative experiences and practices, the development of mindfulness-based interventions for emotional well-being, and development of media technologies to inspire awe.

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For More on Cassandra Vieten

Imagine That: Transform How You Think, Feel, and Live with the Science of Imagination

Website

Take this quiz to learn more abour your own unique imagination profile

and help scientists learn more about how imagination works.

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Other Retirement Podcast Conversations You’ll Also Love

The Future You – Brian David Johnson

The Inspired Retirement – Nathalie Martin

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Wise Quotes

On Reframing Uncertainity

“The thinking mind really likes certainty and categories and competence…and the imagination actually loves uncertainty because uncertainty equals possibility.”

On Tapping into Your Imagination

“Could you spend some time every day purposely giving that analytic mind a break…and let this other aspect of your mind run wild? It takes some practice. Silence your judging mind for a while. Don’t edit right away.”

On The Power of a Beginner’s Mind

“Instead of staying in your little tiny bubble of what you do know, you could be an adventurer. You could be an explorer and say, ‘I want to have a sense of curiosity about what I don’t know.’

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 2 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

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Being financially prepared for retirement doesn’t necessarily mean you’re ready for retirement. Dr. Gregory Charlop argues that a complete retirement plan should address another set of assets: the health and lifestyle side of retirement planning, and your ability to remain engaged with life with vitality.

In this conversation, we explore the connection between longevity and retirement planning, including why work can disguise gaps in our social lives and sense of purpose, why strength becomes increasingly important with age, what to know about wearables and health metrics, the role of protein later in life, and why people need to become more proactive consumers of healthcare.

But the larger message is refreshingly simple: don’t pursue longevity merely to accumulate more years. Build the health and relationships that allow you to do meaningful things with them.

Dr. Gregory Charlop joins us from suburban Atlanta, Georgia.

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Bio

Dr. Gregory Charlop is a UCLA and Stanford-trained, triple-board-certified physician and a leading expert in longevity and performance. Dr. Greg is a sought-after international keynote conference speaker and the keynote speaker at the Barron’s 100 Hall of Fame. He is a featured guest at the Milken Institute and regularly appears on major media outlets, including FOX Business, ABC, NBC, CBS, and Forbes. Known for his common-sense approach to health, he authored four influential books on wellness, healthy homes, and burnout.

As the nation’s first Fractional Chief Wellness Officer (CWO) for family offices, Dr. Greg works closely with select ultra-high-net-worth individuals, providing personalized strategies to enhance nutrition, sleep, exercise, happiness, and peak performance. His signature Family Wellness Assessment service includes personal visits to client homes, vacation residences, or yachts, where he meticulously evaluates home safety, lifestyle habits, and family goals to create customized wellness roadmaps. Dr. Charlop collaborates with family offices on the health and lifestyle side of retirement planning.

Dr. Greg is a proponent of the Bitcoin Lifestyle. As a featured speaker at the Plan ₿ Forum and Max and Stacy Bitcoin Golf Invitational in El Salvador, he helps Bitcoin leaders with customized longevity, resilience, and lifestyle solutions.

After spending two decades navigating the high-pressure, life-and-death environment of the operating room and consulting executives in the boardroom, Dr. Greg launched Corsica Military Solutions™. Leveraging his expertise in stress management, resilience, and burnout prevention, he brings high-performance wellness strategies directly to military leaders, drone operators, and cyber warfare specialists.

With experience in the life-or-death worlds of medicine and national defense, Dr. Gregory Charlop is one of the nation’s leading experts on decision-making. His medical-grade decision framework supports the military, defense industry, and family offices. Dr. Greg also founded the Corsica Conference, a TED-style event for intellectually curious leaders committed to wellness and lifelong growth. His charitable projects include a program to encourage girls to play sports and the Women’s Sports Forum.

Outside work, he enjoys traveling, learning Spanish and French with his daughters, listening to audiobooks, exploring coffee shops, and spending time with his pup, Dash.

Dr. Gregory Charlop, MD, DipABLM, developed the field of Retirement Medicine™ for executives, dentists, athletes, and founders.

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For More on Dr. Gregory Charlop

Website

Buckhead Longevity

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Other Retirement Podcast Conversations You’ll Also Love

Take Charge of Your Health – Lucy McBride MD

Eat Your Ice Cream – Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, PhD

How to Stay Sharp in Retirement – Dr. Majid Fotuhi

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Mentioned in this Podcast

Die With Zero by Bill Perkins

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Wise Quotes

On Retirement Readiness

“People spend an enormous amount of time making sure they have enough money to retire. But do you have the health to do what you want to do? Do you have friends you want to spend time with? Do you know what you’re going to do?”

On Longevity and Living Well

“The point isn’t simply to live longer. It’s to be healthy enough, strong enough, and engaged enough to enjoy the years you have.”

On Procrastination

“The biggest tragedy is to have stuff you want to do, stuff that you could do, but you chose not to do it because you decided to do it later. And then that later didn’t come…If you over-save and then you die with money in the bank, what that means is you worked for free…Do the stuff you want to do now. Don’t push that off until later, because that later may not come.”

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 2 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

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

Retirement planning usually focuses on one big question: Do you have enough to retire? Daniel Goldie knows that’s not the whole story.

A former professional tennis player who transitioned into another successful career as a financial advisor in 1991, Goldie knows something about leaving one identity behind and building another. In his new book, The Retirement Answer: The Six Key Decisions Every Retiree Needs to Make, he draws on decades of client experience to examine the six key decisions that shape retirement.

In this conversation, Daniel and Joe discuss why it helps to retire to something rather than simply from work, why accomplished savers can struggle to give themselves permission to spend, and what couples should talk through before retirement arrives.

Daniel also raises a provocative question: as your remaining time becomes increasingly valuable, when does trading more of it for money stop making sense?

Daniel Goldie joins us from Palo Alto, California.

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Bio

Daniel Goldie is the author of the new book The Retirement Answer: Six Key Decisions Every Retiree Needs to Make.

Daniel is a Senior Wealth Advisor with Focus Partners Wealth, one of the largest fiduciary advisory firms in the United States. He holds a BA in economics from Stanford University and an MBA from U.C. Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. He is a CFA® charterholder and a Certified Financial Planner™ and has been frequently recognized by Barron’s as one of the nation’s top financial advisors.

Goldie co-authored The Prudent Investor’s Guide to Beating Wall Street at Its Own Game and The Investment Answer. He began his investment career in 1991 after retiring from the ATP Tour, where he was a Wimbledon quarterfinalist and won four professional titles. A former NCAA men’s singles champion for Stanford, he has been inducted into the Intercollegiate, Northern California, and Stanford Sports Halls of Fame.

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For More on Daniel Goldie

The Retirement Answer: Six Key Decisions Every Retiree Needs to Make

Website

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Other Podcast Conversations You’ll Also Love

Spend More, Worry Less: The Forever Paycheck – Jean Chatzky

What If Retirement Is the Wrong Goal? – John Coleman

Retiring: Creating a Life That Works for You – Teresa Amabile

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Wise Quotes

On Preparing for Both Sides of Retirement

“The financial ones are actually, believe it or not, easier. They’re quantifiable. Everyone thinks about retirement that way.

They don’t always think about the non-financial aspects.”

On Setting a Direction

“It’s important to retire to something rather than retiring from something. You’ve got to have an objective.”

On the Value of Your Time

“As you get older and your life expectancy is shortening, the value of your time is going up.”

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 2 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

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

We’re looking for a few lifelong learners to join us in a new free monthly discussion group

Learn more and sign up here

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Clients tell me that no matter how much they were looking forward to retirement, there comes a moment when they feel that something’s missing. After a demanding corporate career, Charles Chumley discovered that the hardest thing about retirement wasn’t giving up a title. It was losing the built-in structure of having somewhere to be and someone needing him to be there.

An unlikely new pursuit helped him find his footing: building elaborate sandcastles.

In this conversation, Charles shares what mornings on the beach taught him about identity, failure, creativity, and impermanence. He also explains why clarity about your next chapter is more likely to come from doing than through endless thinking, and why people approaching retirement should begin testing new interests before they leave full-time work.

We also discuss his book Every Grain Is Real: What the Sand Teaches, how the question “What do you do?” changes after you retire, and why he believes you should start trying something new before you’re ready.

Charles Chumley joins us from Greece.

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Bio

Charles E. Chumley spent three decades in corporate America before retiring to find out what the sand had to say. Since then he has been kneeling on two beaches, Playa del Carmen, Mexico and Gulf Shores, Alabama, building sandcastles before anyone else arrives and paying closer attention than he planned to. The result is Every Grain Is Real: What the Sand Teaches, a memoir in forty-four chapters that is funny in the right places, honest throughout, and ends on a beach at dawn with everything the tide could not take.

Chuck is also the creator of the Paintbrush series, children’s books following Paintbrush the cat through pickleball courts, Kung-Fu masters, wise grandmothers, and America’s 250th birthday. The series has nothing to do with sandcastles and everything to do with the same belief that got Chuck to the beach every morning: that showing up and trying something new is always worth it.

He lives in Roswell, Georgia with his wife Pam, who is quieter and funnier than he is. All author royalties from Every Grain Is Real are donated to Family Promise, which helps families experiencing homelessness.

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For More on Charles Chumley

Every Grain Is Real: What the Sand Teaches

Website

Free Resources – Three short guides on lessons learned you can use

Sandcastles

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Other Retirement Podcast Conversations You’ll Love

The Art of the Interesting – Lorraine Besser, PhD

Two Grannies on the Road – Beth Sobiloff & Marcia Rothwell

Purpose Driven Retirement – Jet Vertz

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Wise Quotes

On Creating

“What I had to learn…is that I need to make something. I don’t have to manage it or evaluate things, but actually make something, and that could just be making a difference somewhere.”

On “So, What Do You Do?”

“I think ultimately people are not asking, ‘What’s your employment status?’ when they say, ‘What do you do?’ They’re really asking, ‘What’s something interesting about you?’”

On Experimenting Your Way Forward

“Learning what that thing will be for you arrives more from doing something rather than just…sitting…thinking about what you’ll do with your life…Don’t wait for the transition to find a thing. Start it before you leave so that you can have some test runs or test drives going in parallel to the existing life.”

For decades, the message is clear: save, invest, and build your retirement nest egg. Then retirement arrives, and suddenly you are expected to reverse course. For many people, watching the balance decline feels wrong, dangerous, or even irresponsible.

Jean Chatzky believes the solution is both financial and behavioral. In this conversation, she discusses her new book The Forever Paycheck: The New Retirement Strategy to Spend More, Worry Less, and Never Run Out of Money. Jean explains how structuring part of your retirement assets as a dependable monthly paycheck may make it easier to spend, reduce anxiety, and enjoy the life you worked to fund. She shares research suggesting that retirees with pension-like income spend more than those with a similar amount, and tells the moving story of watching her own mother resist touching principal for two decades.

Jean Chatzky also offers a balanced, consumer-minded look at annuities: where guarantees may help, why putting all of your assets into one is unwise, how much might be appropriate, and which questions to ask.

The conversation closes where good retirement planning should perhaps begin: with the life the money is meant to support. Jean discusses envisioning retirement, road-testing new pursuits, considering phased retirement, and solving the surprisingly concrete challenge of what to do with your hard earned freedom.

In this episode, you’ll learn

• Why spending can feel emotionally harder than saving, even for financially secure retirees
• What research reveals about guaranteed income and actual retiree spending
• How Jean Chatzky plans to combine an annuity with other investments in her own retirement
• Which expenses a retirement paycheck might reasonably cover
• What to compare before purchasing an annuity
• Why a phased retirement can reduce both financial and identity risk
• How to begin designing the time, relationships, learning, and purpose that retirement will offer

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Bio

Jean Chatzky is the author of The Forever Paycheck: The New Retirement Strategy to Spend More, Worry Less, and Never Run Out of Money. She is a regular contributor to The Oprah Winfrey Show, the financial editor for NBC’s Today show, a contributing editor for Money and Time, and a columnist for The New York Daily News. She hosts a daily national radio program on Oprah and Friends, XM, and is the author of four books, including the bestseller Pay It Down!

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For More on Jean Chatzky

The Forever Paycheck: The New Retirement Strategy to Spend More, Worry Less, and Never Run Out of Money

Website

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Other Retirement Podcast Conversations You’ll Love

The Retirement Savings Time Bomb – Ed Slott

Mattering…in Retirement – Jennifer Breheny Wallace

Shifting From Saving to Spending in Retirement – Richard Sheffield

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Wise Quotes

On Shifting to Spending

“Flipping the switch to spending is highly uncomfortable…If you’ve been saving for a life that you have wanted to live, not allowing yourself to live it, it feels like we need a different solution…My hope is that this strategy will enable people to stop worrying as much, to start spending more of what they’ve worked so hard to save.”

On Annuitizing

“I’m going to take about a third of my money, what I need to cover my fixed expenses, but also the things that I really don’t want to do without.”

On a Forever Paycheck

“People who had paychecks spent double in many cases because they knew that those paychecks were going to continue to come.”

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 2 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

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

Is optimism something you’re born with, or something you can learn? John Trauth, author of Maintaining Optimism While Aging, believes that the way we process events plays an important role in how we navigate aging, setbacks, and major life transitions.

In this conversation, John shares lessons from Positive Psychology, his own experiences with adversity, and a useful framework for examining negative events using 3 questions from Martin Seligiman’s work on Learned Optimism: Is this permanent? Is it pervasive? And how much of it is personal?

Leaving work to retire comes with losses; the structure that organizes your day, the community that surrounds you, and a sense of purpose that has grown over decades.

John explains why anticipating those losses, and deliberately planning to replace them, can make the transition to retirement more successful. He also makes an interesting case for planning ahead for some of the realities of aging: not as an exercise in pessimism, but as a way to reduce uncertainty and free yourself to concentrate on living now.

John Trauth joins us from Sausalito, California.

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Bio

John Trauth, MBA is a management consultant based in San Francisco and the author of Maintaining Optimism While Aging. He was born in New York, graduated from Colgate University with majors in Economics and Psychology, and proceeded to earn his MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth, majoring in marketing, finance and corporate social responsibility. He has worked for large management consulting firms in both Boston and San Francisco. For the last 10 years, he has run his own consulting practice specializing in strategic planning.

He and his wife Astrid lived in France in the mid-1990’s, is fluent in French, and now resides in Sausalito, California. He is co-author, with Alan Bernstein, of “Your Retirement, Your Way,” which achieved the #1 position in Amazon’s “retirement book” category , and later was rated by Consumer Reports as one of the 15 best books on retirement. John and Alan gave keynotes and seminars around the country, counseling people on planning strategically for their retirement.

In writing Maintaining Optimism While Aging, John collaborated again with Alan who provided his perspectives, guidance, and experience as a renowned New York City psychotherapist working with people in major life transitions.

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For More on John Trauth

Maintaining Optimism While Aging

Website

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Other Retirement Podcast Episodes You’ll Also Love

Breaking the Age Code – Dr. Becca Levy

Thinking Better to Live Better – Dr. Woo-kyoung Ahn

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

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Wise Quotes

On Optimism

“Some people grow up in bad circumstances but still are optimistic. So, it’s really not baked into your personality as much as it is baked into your thought process. And if you can change your thought process, you can basically change whether or not you’re optimistic, pessimistic or in the middle.”

On Metacognition

“If you can really think about thinking, really embrace metacognition and understand why you think the way you do, then you can change how you think. But if you don’t know the why, you can’t change the how.”

On Optimism & Adversity

“When you’re hit with some of these things, there’s a natural tendency to feel a sense of helplessness. That’s very normal. You need to go through that. It’s like when someone close to you dies. You’ve got to grieve. You got to go through that. It doesn’t mean it has to last forever. You’re going to get through it, but you need, mentally to process that, and to be able to then pick yourself up and move forward.”

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 2 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

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

Who are you when your role at work changes? Psychologist and author Marisa Franco, PhD rejoins us to discuss her new book Worth: The New Science of Self-Esteem and Attachment. We explore self-worth, identity, relationships, and the challenge of becoming someone new. She explains why our sense of worth often becomes attached to achievement and professional identity, and why major transitions such as retirement can shake that foundation. Marisa Franco offers a different approach: develop a sense of worth that isn’t dependent on remaining who you’ve always been.

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Bio

An enlightening psychologist, New York Times bestselling author, and TED speaker, Dr. Marisa G. Franco is known for digesting and communicating science in ways that resonate deeply enough with people to change their lives.

Dr. Franco works as a professor at The University of Maryland and authored the New York Times bestseller Platonic: How The Science of Attachment Can Help You Make – and Keep – Friendsand her new book Worth: The New Science of Self-Esteem and Attachment. She writes about relationships for Psychology Today and has been a featured connection expert for major publications like The New York Times, The Telegraph, and Vice.

Dr. Franco speaks on how to build relationships with yourself and others at corporations, government agencies, non-profits, and universities across the country, including Harper Collins Publishers, Cisco, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and The Department of State.

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For More on Marisa G. Franco, PhD

Worth: The New Science of Self-Esteem and Attachment

Website

Her first visit with us on her book Platonic about making friends as an adult

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Open to another take on worth?

(Highly recommend)

Taylor Mali – What Teachers Make (3 minute video)

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Other Retirement Podcast Conversations You’ll Love

Self-Compassion – Dr. Kristin Neff

Shift – Ethan Kross

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Wise Quotes

On Contingent Worth

“We’re very much taught to have a contingent sense of self-worth: I am worthy if… I’m worthy if I have this job. I’m worthy if I’m in this relationship. I’m worthy if I have this financial stability perhaps. And so that contingent self-worth means that when we don’t have those things, we no longer feel worthy. What I am proposing is a non-contingent sense of self-worth—a sense of self-worth that is there no matter who you are, no matter what happens to you.”

On Identity & Reinvention

“What I counterintuitively suggest is to allow yourself to not know yourself. You can allow your sense of self to be fluid in each moment, and you don’t have to be who you’ve always been, but you can still have high regard for yourself. Whoever I am in each moment is okay.”

On Possibility Within Loss

“If you were to see this loss as an offering in some way, what would make this an offering? Is this giving you more time to spend with your friends? Is it taking you out of a workplace that maybe wasn’t working for you? Is it allowing you more time to engage in an interest or passion that you’ve always wanted to engage in?”

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 2 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

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

What does it really mean to take charge of your health? Lucy McBride MD, believes it involves much more than tracking your numbers. Good health is also about understanding the less measurable parts: what’s happening in your life, your relationships, stress, habits, emotional patterns, and your history.

Dr. Lucy McBride, a primary care physician and author of Beyond the Prescription: A Doctor’s Guide to Taking Charge of Your Health, joins us to discuss how to become a more informed, proactive annd empowered partner in your own healthcare.

We discuss the difference between control and agency, why your bio contains important health data, the “patient personality” each of us brings into the doctor’s office, when health tracking helps (and when it doesn’t) and why the transition to retirement can make structure, movement, social connection, and daily routines even more important.

Lucy McBride, MD joins us from Washington DC.

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Bio

Dr. Lucy McBride is a board-certified internist who has practiced primary care medicine in Washington, DC, for over two decades. She is a native Washingtonian who attended the National Cathedral School before earning her undergraduate degree from Princeton University. She graduated with honors from Harvard Medical School and earned a Master’s Degree in Pharmacology as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Cambridge, U.K. She completed her internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Dr. McBride has become a nationally recognized voice in healthcare transformation and patient empowerment. She believes that health is not a checklist or an outcome, but rather a lifelong process that requires awareness, acceptance, and agency over what you can change.

She is the author of Beyond the Prescription: A Doctor’s Guide to Taking Charge of Your Health (Simon & Schuster, August 2026), which offers a five-step framework for patients to reclaim agency over their health. The book has been praised for bridging the gap between conventional medicine and holistic wellness, refusing false binaries and empowering patients to make informed
decisions.

She writes the widely-read medical newsletter Are You Okay?, which reaches over 39,000 subscribers weekly with evidence-based guidance on navigating mental and physical health in tandem. She also hosts the top-rated podcast Beyond the Prescription. Dr. McBride’s work has been published in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and USA Today. She is a frequent media commentator, appearing on NPR, CNN, MSNBC, Morning Joe, and PBS NewsHour, where she provides evidence-based medical advice and advocates for a more comprehensive approach to healthcare.

Her mission extends beyond individual patient care to transforming the healthcare system itself. She believes that empowering individual patients creates systemic change—and that primary care relationships, enhanced by technology but centered on human connection, are the foundation of sustainable healthcare transformation.

Dr. McBride lives in Washington, DC with her husband and three children.

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For More on Lucy McBride

Beyond the Prescription: A Doctor’s Guide to Taking Charge of Your Health

Beyond the Prescription Podcast

You can learn more about Dr. McBride here.

You can subscribe to her free newsletter here.

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Other Retirement Podcasts You’ll Love

Eat Your Ice Cream – Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, PhD

What Matters Most – Diane Button

Inside The Healthcare Heist – Jordan Grumet, MD

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Wise Quotes

On Agency

“People often don’t realize how much agency they have over their health…When we stop fighting unwinnable battles, we then open up brain space, time, energy to then fight the battles we want to be fighting. That’s the birthplace of agency.”

On Your Story & Your Health

“We love collecting data. Cholesterol levels, blood pressure, body mass index, right? All the things we can measure in a test tube. But it turns out the most important data is actually something only you have access to. It’s your biography. Your biographic data matters, I would argue, even more than your biometric data, and your biographic data informs your biometric data.”

On Self-Compassion

“When I was able to connect the dots between her story, which is very relevant, those biographic pieces of data from when she was a kid, and her blood sugar readings, her blood sugar readings that go up when she’s stress eating and she’s not taking care of herself, that’s me handing power to the patient. That’s me saying, “Look, you have more agency than you think.” It’s not that understanding the relationship between childhood traumas and your diabetes, the knowledge alone isn’t enough, but it’s to say that there’s no GLP-1, there’s no shot, there’s no medication that’s going to practice self-compassion for you and for you to make peace with your body and to, and to feed your body the way it wants to be fed.”

On Taking Charge

“The idea of being the CEO of Your Health is being someone who can understand at its core where you have agency and where you do not, and knowing the difference. It sounds a lot like the Serenity Prayer, right? It’s basically the wisdom to understand where you can execute in your life, habit changes, relationship changes, whether the relationships to food or alcohol or other people or your retirement, and where you have to cede control, like you’re aging, you have a genetic predisposition to a disease you don’t like, you have medical conditions that you’d rather not have. Because it turns out that the best CEOs in the world are people who don’t try to control everything. They also don’t outsource everything to somebody else. They know the difference between where they have control and where they don’t, and then they ask for help. My book is essentially a guide to making sense of your health in a more nuanced way because you do have more control than you think.”

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 2 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

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

Listen in to these highlights from four of our best recent conversations on things likely on your mind in planning for retirement: purpose, identity, curiosity – and experimenting your way into a fulfilling next chapter.

They can spark ideas for what’s next for you. Want to go deeper?

Listen to any of the full conversations:

What If Retirement Is the Wrong Goal? – John Coleman

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

Letting Go to Become Who You Truly Are – Deborah Santana

How to Flourish…in Retirement – Daniel Coyle

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Guest Bios

John Coleman is the author of Good Money: Six Steps to Building a Financial Life with Purpose. He is the author of five books, and he or his work have been highlighted in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, the LA Times, Christianity Today, Forbes, and the Harvard Business Review, among other publications.

Marilee Adams, PhD is the Founder and CEO of the Inquiry Institute, and author of Change Your Questions, Change Your Life, now in it’s 5th edition and it has been translated into 26 languages.. She is an award-winning author, executive coach, and leadership consultant whose work has shaped how leaders think, communicate, and make decisions for more than four decades.

Deborah Santana is the author ofLoving the Fire: Choosing Me, Finding Freedom. Her work has been featured by Vogue, Oprah, and NPR, among other national and literary outlets. She is the founder of the Do A Little Foundation, which supports women and girls in the areas of health, education, and happiness. Her work explores identity, social justice, spirituality, and the power of collective voice.

Daniel Coyle is the New York Times best-selling author of nine books, including Flourish: The Art of Building Meaning, Joy, and Fulfillment, The Culture Code and The Talent Code, Winner (with Tyler Hamilton) of the 2012 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Prize, he is a contributing editor for Outside magazine, he also works a special advisor to the Cleveland Guardians. Coyle lives in Cleveland, Ohio during the school year and in Homer, Alaska, during the summer with his wife Jen, and their four daughters.

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Other Retirement Podcast Episodes You May Like

Best of 2026 – Part One

Best of 2025 – Part Two

What If I? Best of 2025 – Part 1

The Very Best of 2024

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Time to take stock of what needs your attention planning for the non-financial side of retirement?

Take this free 5-minute assessment.

It’s not a report card. It’s a tool to help pinpoint what matters most to you in the years ahead.

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Catch up to your money. It’s often ready for retirement before you are.

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What helps wellbeing endure as our lives change?

Matt Bloom has spent much of his career studying human flourishing. In this conversation, he brings his insights into retirement and combines it with lessons from his own transition from professor to writer, volunteer and what he calls a “wise elder.”

We discuss why wellbeing is built through small daily practices, how adopting a new identity can change your behavior, why many need to become more intentional about friendship after leaving work, and how volunteering and shared-interest communities can create both connection and meaning.

Matt also explains how older adults can become “guardians and shepherds” of relationships and shares Map Your Days, a simple practice that takes five minutes a night and that, in 27 years of teaching MBAs and executives, he says has never failed to teach someone something they didn’t know about their own life.

Matt Bloom joins us from Colorado.

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Bio

Matt Bloom is the author of Lasting Wellbeing: Science-Based Practices for Tranquility, Authenticity, Meaning, and Joy. He is a writer, speaker, entrepreneur, and emeritus professor of management at the University of Notre Dame. Bloom holds advanced degrees in psychology from Cornell University (PhD) and the University of Kansas (MA), and is an award-winning teacher who earned top honors for courses he taught to undergraduates, MBA students, and corporate executives. At Notre Dame, Matt taught classes on innovation and design thinking, organizational change and leadership.

As a professor in the Mendoza College of Business, Matt studied well-being for nearly three decades where he led the WorkWell research project. Initially, he and his team of ten researchers focused on the well-being of people in the helping and healing professions: international aid workers, global health professionals, educators, clergy and ministry workers, physicians, and other healthcare professionals, among others. He later broadened his focus to include both well-being at work and in life more generally. The team also launched a first-of-its-kind mobile application to capture daily experiences from several hundred research subjects.

Prior to becoming a professor, Matt was a financial advisor at Shearson Lehman Hutton, a consultant at Arthur Young, a psychiatric orderly at The Kansas Institute, and a paramedic for the Douglas County (KS) Emergency Medical Service.

Some of Matt’s favorite wise well-being practices:

• Extended backcountry hiking (5+ days). And, yes, there are no showers or bathrooms
• Baking hearth bread using natural leavens, mild sourdough starters
• Scuba diving on coral reefs and wrecks in the Caribbean
• Catch-and-release fly fishing on small mountain streams
• Poetry reading using a process he adapted from lectio divina
• Reading novels. Among his favorite authors are Marilynne Robinson, Richard Ford, Richard Rosso and Abraham Verghese

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For More on Matt Bloom

Lasting Wellbeing: Science-Based Practices for Tranquility, Authenticity, Meaning, and Joy

Website

Ritual app: Download for iOS or Android, or start at https://www.ritual.io/.

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More Retirement Podcast Conversations You’ll Love

How to Flourish…in Retirement – Daniel Coyle

Retiring: Creating a Life That Works for You – Teresa Amabile

The Good Life – Marc Schulz, PhD

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Wise Quotes

On the Value of Small Steps

“Our wellbeing rises and falls mostly as a result of little things that we do day by day…We live our values mostly in the little things that we do.”

On Relationships

“Quality matters more than quantity.”

On Elderhood

“We can really be the guardians and shepherds of family relationships.”

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 2 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Bio

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

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

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

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

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

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

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For More on Denise Taylor

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

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

Website – https://denisetaylor.co.uk/

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Other Retirement Podcast Conversations You’ll Also Love

Inspired Retirement – Nathalie Martin

Re-Visioning Retirement – Susan Reid, PhD

Joyspan – Kerry Burnight, PhD

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Wise Quotes

On Recalibrating

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

On Purpose

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

On Being

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

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 2 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

Your money is ready for retirement. Are you?

Get started on Future You.

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

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

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

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Bio

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

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For More on Neal Lipschutz

Author Website

Long Arm of the Past (A Scott Morgan Mystery)

No Write Way to Die

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Other Retirement Podcast Conversations You’ll Love

How to Flourish…in Retirement – Daniel Coyle

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

Mattering…in Retirement – Jennifer Breheny Wallace

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Wise Quotes

On Retiring External Validation

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

On Finding a New Center

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

On Idenity

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

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 2 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

Are You the One?

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

Is now the time to start working on what you’ll be retiring to?

Learn more here | Sign up here

Prepare for Takeoff:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Bio

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

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

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

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For More on Esther Gokhale

Website – Gokhale Method

2-minute Video Overview of the Gokhale Method

8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back by Esther Gokhale

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Other Retirement Podcasts You May Like

The Joy of Movement – Kelly McGonigal

Eat Your Ice Cream – Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, PhD

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

_____________________

About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 2 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

__________________________

Wise Quotes

On Posture

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

On Misconceptions on Aging

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

On Why Now?

“It’s never too late.”

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

Time for an Upgrade?

The honeymoon period doesn’t last forever in retirement.

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

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

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

The September cohort is enrolling now with two scheduling options.

Learn more here | Sign up here

_____________________________

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

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

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

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

John Fisher joins us from California.

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Bio

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Other Retirement Podcast Conversations You’ll Love

The Third Act – Josh Sapan

Mattering…in Retirement – Jennifer Breheny Wallace

What If You Pivot Instead of Retiring? – Scott Siff

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 2 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

_____________________________________________

Wise Quotes

On Trade Offs

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

On Age Bias

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

On Future You

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

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

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

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

Steve Kamb joins us from Massachusetts.

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Time for an Upgrade?

The honeymoon period doesn’t last forever in retirement.

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

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

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

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

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

Take the Free Retirement Drift Assessment →

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

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

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

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

The September cohort is enrolling now with two scheduling options.

Learn more here | Sign up here

__________________

Bio

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

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

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For More on Steve Kamb

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

Website

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Retirement Podcast Conversations You’ll Also Love

Self-Compassion – Dr. Kristin Neff

How to Begin – Michael Bungay Stanier

The Joy of Movement – Kelly McGonigal

_______________________

About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 2 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

________________

Wise Quotes

On Self Compassion

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

On Mindset

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

On Action

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

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

How clear are you about what you’re retiring to?

Our next group program starts in September and is limited to 10 people.

The Early Registration discount ends on July 31st.

Learn more here.

Reserve your spot today.

________________________

We spend years letting our pace be set for us, by employers and the calendar. Then retirement arrives and, for the first time, the tempo is ours to choose. In this conversation, science journalist Elizabeth Svoboda, author of The Art of Pacing, argues that most of us get can stuck oscillating between two extremes — the perpetual sprint and complete disengagement — and that the real skill is learning to move across a range of paces with intention.

Elizabeth shares interesting and useful ideas, including “rigid flexibility” (from an Olympic runner), smart circadian-rhythm energy management, the freedom that “selective mediocrity” can create, and how identity can get intertwined with the pace we keep. It’s a conversation about doing less of what drains you, so you have more for what matters most.

Elizabeth Svoboda joins us from California.

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Bio

Elizabeth Svoboda is the author of The Art of Pacing: A Guide to Balancing Short-Term Demands with Long-Term Thriving. She is an award-winning science writer and contributor to Scientific American, Discover, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, and other publications. Elizabeth is a winner of the Evert Clark/Seth Payne Award for Young Science Writers, and her work has been anthologized in the Best American Science and Nature Writing series. She lives in San Jose, California, with her husband and young sons.

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For More on Elizabeth Svoboda

The Art of Pacing: A Guide to Balancing Short-Term Demands with Long-Term Thriving

Website

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How Ready are You for Your New Life in Retirement?

Take this free 5-minute assessment to identify which areas may need your attention:

Not retired yet, but I want to design a meaningful life

I’m in retirement, but maybe I could use an upgrade

_______________________

Retirement Podcast Conversations You’ll Also Love

How to Flourish…in Retirement – Daniel Coyle

Happier Hour – Cassie Holmes, PhD

Will You Flourish or Languish? – Corey Keyes

Taming The Molecule of More – Michael Long

_______________________

About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 2 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

_________________________

Wise Quotes

On Reassessing Your Pace

“So much of our identities tend to be wrapped up in the pace we keep. As you’re contemplating retirement or just embarking on it, it’s a good time for a big-picture pace reassessment.”

On Flourishing

“Set a pace that is right for you and that leads you toward personally flourishing.”

On Selective Mediocrity

“You have to avoid over-extracting your own resources. By conserving energy on less essential things, you have more energy to devote to the things that matter most.”

It takes decades to save & invest enough to be able to retire.

But most people find that when the time comes, they’re unsure about what’s next.

That part doesn’t take decades, unless you keep putting it off.

Join our next small group program in September and Design Your New Life in Retirement.

Two 1 on 1 sessions. 6 interactive group sessions. A new direction.

Learn more and sign up today.

Early registration ends July 31st. Limited to 10 participants.

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What does it really take to design a meaningful life after full-time work?

In this special “Best of” episode of The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, you’ll hear brief but useful insights from guests who challenge the old story of retirement as a finish line, a reward, or a long vacation.

You’ll hear different perspectives on the the shift from “role to soul”, the emotional side of transition, how to build a life portfolio, why mattering may be as important as money, how connection shapes happiness, why your brain can keep growing, and how creativity can become a surprisingly powerful health habit that can enhance longevity.

This episode offers a powerful reminder: retirement isn’t about stepping back. It’s an opportunity to step more fully into life with the courage to keep growing and contributing in new ways.

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Want to go deeper on any of these conversations?

How to Live a Meaningful Life – Dave Evans

Navigating the In-Between – Monique Rhodes

What Do You Want Out of Life…in Retirement ? – Valerie Tiberius

Design a Phased Retirement – Anna Rappaport

Mattering…in Retirement – Jennifer Breheny Wallace

Love & Happiness…in Retirement – Sonja Lyubomirsky

Eat Your Ice Cream – Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, PhD

How to Stay Sharp in Retirement – Dr. Majid Fotuhi

Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Save Lives – Daisy Fancourt

_________________________

How Ready are You for Your New Life in Retirement?

Take this free 5-minute assessment to identify which areas may need your attention:

Not retired yet, but I want to design a meaningful life

In retirement, but maybe I could use an upgrade

_________________________

Other Retirement Podcast Conversations You’ll Also Love

Best of 2025 – Part Two

What If I? Best of 2025 – Part 1

The Very Best of 2024

___________________________

About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 2 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

You’ve been asked: “So, what are you going to do all day?”

You have an answer. But privately, you admit it’ll cover 2 to 3 hours a day.

You deserve a better, richer retirement.

Join our next Design Your New Life in Retirement small group program in September.

Learn more and sign up today.

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Dr. Jordan Grumet has crafted three books mapping the terrain between money, mortality, and meaning. His new book, The Healthcare Heist, opens with a story he rarely tells.

That experience became the seed of a much bigger argument: that insurers, pharmaceutical companies, private equity and venture capital firms, and electronic medical records companies all have their “hands in the cookie jar,” extracting value from a system that’s supposed to serve two primary stakeholders: the patient who needs care and the doctor who gives it.

Jordan calls out the “intimacy gap” where today patients disclose everything to their doctors, while doctors are trained to disclose nothing back. He makes a provocative case that it can be closed through storytelling. He also shares practical and valuable advice you can use: concrete steps for your next doctor’s visit and the healthcare-literacy gaps that trip up many people heading into retirement.

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Bio

Jordan Grumet, MD is a hospice physician who has spent his career at the intersection of medicine, money, and meaning. He’s the author of Taking Stock: A Hospice Doctor’s Advice on Financial Independence, Building Wealth, and Living a Regret-Free Life and The Purpose Code: How to Unlock Meaning, Maximize Happiness, and Leave a Lasting Legacy. His latest book, The Healthcare Heist, argues that patients and doctors are the only two parties with both the incentive and the ability to fix a broken healthcare system — and makes the case for shared storytelling as the tool to do it. Jordan earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and his medical degree from Northwestern University.

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For More on Jordan Grumet, MD

The Healthcare Heist:How Physicians and Patients Can Unite to Transform Healthcare

The Purpose Code – Dr. Jordan Grumet

Taking Stock – Dr. Jordan Grumet

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Other Podcast Episodes You’ll Also Love

Eat Your Ice Cream – Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, PhD

What Matters Most – Diane Button

___________________________

About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms.

About Your Podcast Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 2 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

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Wise Quotes

On Our Healthcare System

“It made me realize how many other groups are leveraging our healthcare system to extract money out of it…We have a failing medical system… so corporatized… you have all these hands in the cookie jar, grabbing all the money out. And none of it’s really improving medicine…Most people… don’t realize that they’re being pickpocketed at every single step.”

On Medical Malpractice

“Less than one in 10 cases that are filed actually show medical malpractice.”

On the Power, and Promise, of Storytelling

“Stories changed the world.”