Money and you

Shakespeare was creative enough in “As you like it” to invent the seven ages of man. Four is my limit, so here goes. The four ages of money are:

·        Teenager

·        Early adult

·        Mature adult

·        Retiree

So, by this I mean that a teenager coming to majority may have a simple attitude to money in that it comes from mum and dad; whilst the early adult worker will know that money has an earning side complementary to the spending side.

In later life, with aspirations and burdens, a person’s attitude to money will have evolved into a futuristic assessment of needs that may include debt reduction, saving for retirement, thoughts about a financial legacy and many other things. At retirement of course, as earnings diminish or evaporate, there will be a strong component of thinking about security in retirement.

These stages reveal, at least to me, that as we pass through the four phases of life, we will change our attitudes to money. If I simplify with three S words, as you pass through life you will think about how money relates to:

·      Security: how much will I need to retire on?

·      Spending: do I need to enhance/restrain my expenses?

·      Status: is the amount of money I have important to the world?

but in varying proportions. 

The challenge for ALL of us is to rethink our attitude to money as we reach and move into retirement, being careful to note that we may be operating off an out-of-date personal model of what money means to us.

One’s attitude to money is very personal and not to be dictated by others however, it is legitimate to ask: at this point in time am I operating off the correct emotional model for how I think about my money or do I need to refresh it?

Finally, who can help me to think this through?

Fear and retirement

Language has many pairs to offer that display contradictory but sometimes complementary feelings. For example:

·      Fear and hope

·      Gain and loss

·      Status quo and risk

What of these things? In the context of work and “afterwork” aka retirement, I think of the analogy of a house on a cold winter’s day – outside it’s cold and hostile, inside it’s warm and comfortable. There’s another pair to add to the list: comfortable and hostile.

For those contemplating retirement and not sure of their next move, perhaps they are inside the house and fear the outside. Why would they do that? It may be that in their minds, perhaps subconsciously, they fear the change from comfort to challenge. After all, despite all its difficulties, work can have an element of predictability that can feel safe: get up at the same time, travel to the same place, work with the same people on the same tasks, go home. 

But I say that outside the house of any worker in their 60s is a golden path that they can walk. That is to say that, in a biblical three score and ten sense, there may not be many years ahead for a healthy and productive life. Maybe 10, even 20, possibly 30 years? 

So, my argument is to get out and make use of those years, walk that golden path, yes it’s uncertain but it will bring many unexpected rewards.

They tell us that we fear loss much more than we love gain. That is probably true in general, but when it comes to retirement the loss you fear is only one possible future. There are others to be discovered for each individual; but you will never know what it’s like if you don’t try.

Friends in retirement

I think about how a traveller from Venus might regard our approach to retirement on planet earth. I think this Venusian would be concerned to observe such a large and abrupt discontinuity occurring in the life of a retired earthling who had moved from the workplace on a Friday afternoon to the homespace on the following Monday morning; and how we are not well trained to deal with this.

Let’s think about friendship in retirement, in the context of the two pairs below.

Work & Retirement

Duty  & Pleasure

I want to observe that if there is a stark barrier between work and retirement in the top row, there is no need for such a clear division between duty and pleasure in the bottom row: there is a place for a negotiation.

This negotiation is often very hard during a work life because time is then such a restricted commodity, but it is the opposite in retired life, where the bonds of time loosen themselves.  

Each can choose their balance between duty and pleasure. So in retirement you may decide to work for a charity or look after grandchildren. This will build commitment or duty. Or you may decide to lighten up on duty to give more time to pleasure, and this is where friends can be so important.

Then, in retirement, you can spend as much time as you wish with your friends, unlike when you worked and had trouble juggling commitments. And by the way, having a strong network of friends in retirement can so easily compensate for the high level of social interaction that you had in the workplace; that has now vanished on the Monday morning after.

So to return to our Venusian, let’s meet his concern by showing how Earthlings can maintain and build friendships in the move to and in retirement.

The hidden crisis of retirement: psychology at the end of work

How often have you asked people in their 60s about their retirement and heard them make statements like this:

·       “I am having fun at work”

·       “I don’t know what I’d do in retirement or where to start”

·       “Work stimulates my brain”

·       “I like to socialise with people at work”

·       “I’m not ready so I don’t think about it, I will think about it when the time comes”

This is the language that our society finds acceptable when talking about retirement, before it happens. But with this language we always stay at the surface, never thinking about how in fact each individual will experience retirement in their own unique way; and then retirement happens.

Suppose retirement comes as a shock: finding oneself at home with no workplace to attend, no incoming phone calls or emails, no busy and hectic schedule for the week; and no-one to talk to! This could be the sudden shock that some people (not all people) will face after a life-time of work.

Most people have worked for 40 years before they leave the workforce. When they talk about work they use the type of language mentioned above. It helps them to clarify the purpose and meaning of their lives.

But in retirement in order to discover YOUR meaning and purpose you may need professional help. It’s not just about money, although that may be important, but also how in quite different circumstances you think about the world. In responding to this everyone is different. Some may experience strong feelings of regret or confusion, others may more straightforwardly need some gentle help to unlock their potential and regain that control and mastery over their lives that they experienced during their careers.

64 PLUS offers an advisory service to help individuals to retire with confidence. This advisory service is a 4M process with four stages:

·       Missing

·       Meaning

·       Measuring

·       Mastering

The service would typically be delivered over the course of six one hour sessions, tailor-made for the client. The process does not involve any financial advice to the client.

Welcome

Watch this video to get an understanding of my approach to retirement coaching. Best to start from about the one minute and 20 seconds mark: it lasts around 20 minutes.