Retirement Isn’t the Finish Line—It’s the Next Chapter

For decades, retirement has been marketed as the finish line—a time to coast and relax. But what if that’s the wrong way to think about it? In this episode, Tony and Derek challenge the old idea of “retirement” and unpack how today’s retirees can turn uncertainty into opportunity.

They discuss the fears many people face—like outliving your money, losing purpose, or feeling unsure what’s next—and share how smart financial planning can replace anxiety with confidence. From dynamic planning strategies that adapt to market volatility, to redefining wealth as time, freedom, and experience, this conversation is packed with real-world insights from advisors who see it every day.

Whether you’re approaching retirement or already there, you’ll learn how to build a plan that works for your lifestyle—and your peace of mind.

Transcript

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For decades, retirement has been sold as the finish line. A moment of freedom. After years of working. And I'm going to coast into the sunset. But for many Americans today, the finish line feels like a cliff. The fear of outliving your money, losing purpose and not knowing what the next step is. Well, we need to look at retirement. It isn't a threat. It's actually our biggest opportunity. Hey, Tony. How's it going today, man? What's up man? What's up man? I mean, I've had a hot take before the show started. Yeah. Oh, maybe we'll talk about it. Maybe we won't. Maybe we'll make it in it's own little thing. But man is a good, good topic about a 6040 portfolio. Yeah, but. Anyway, we'll bring that one back. All right. Maybe we will. Maybe we will. But, hey, I, All right. You, you're headed off to, Disney this week? I am, I, my daughter, she's, five and a half, six, whatever. And, we sprung it on her last Saturday. Oh, really? Yeah. We had a little present box to show her, and now she's nice. She's in it, man. So. Yep. That's going to be a good time. We're going to Disney. They got some kind of, we're going to do that for a day, then go back another day for the evening. I got like a Mickey Minnie haunted not so haunted Halloween thing where. Yeah, yeah. Kids come back with, like, 5 pounds of candy. And I'm like, man, this is great. Yeah, maybe I don't need to buy, like, Halloween candy. I just bring back the stuff from Disney and hand it out. Now I'm just kidding. Now we're going to Sea World. And then a couple of days of leisure in there. Nice. So stay in a little development's got a kid splash pad. So kids loves splash pad. That's for sure. I might, I might get up in there, so who knows. All right. What are we talking about? Town. Yeah. So, so today we're talking about, kind of retirements and kind of the unknown, nature of it. You know, a lot of people and, you know, we see this every day kind of enter into retirement, and they look at it as kind of like, okay, we got here and, you know, we've made it to the finish line. But that just comes with a lot of, anxiety. And not often or it is often financially related. But, you know, I'd say also equally as so just kind of, figuring out what their life is going to to look like now that, that they don't have to work anymore. Yeah. It's crazy. You know, because, we've, you know, have several, clients have retired, you know, been in retirement and tell you I keep on saying it, but, man, it's the lack of time. They're like, how did I even do anything when I was working? Because I get it. I mean, like, you're working 40, 50 hours a week and you get a couple hours on the weekend to do what you want, and then you hit the reset button. Yep. Or the reset button is gone. What do you do next? Right. And, you know, and I think a lot of people, just get into retirement and, and some just kind of sit there for a minute. Right. And get used to not waking up and going to work and getting in your car and stuff like that. But I see a lot of people, you know, hobbies, clubs, you know, time to explore. Right? And I think it all just comes back from the past generations. Right? They were like, you were living longer, you know, more healthy. I think my grandparents died when they were like 50 or in their 50s or 60s. And, you know, just modern technology is making like there's like, hey, I'm going to retire and, and I'm and then it's over. Right, right. Like I work and I die. Well that's not the case. There's a long life after retirement for most and being you know and I can see that like, hey, I made all this money, but like, how in the heck am I going to pay my bills for the next 20 years? Because I'm not working. I'm not getting a paycheck anymore. Yep. Right. Well, that's why you built a nest egg to create the paycheck. You're still going to get one. But you as long as we're saving the right amount of money, that's what's going on. And that's why, you know, building a plan to account for inflation, longevity, market shifts, volatility, having a dynamic plan. You know like our software is dynamic right. We it builds simulations of good markets and bad markets mixing and matching reports. It's not a linear Excel spreadsheet type of software. Right. Right. It's it's got called dynamics in it. Right. Dynamic is a good word. It's a. Good word. It's got a lot of things that we can't quantify. You know a lot of people come in and say, hey Tony, like if first thing you see what I got going on here is okay, am I okay? I'm like, I'll tell you what, I built nearly 500 financial plans. I have no idea. I really don't because it's surprising. I'm like, man, I don't know if this person's going to be, you know, be well, but like, cause or like, man, they got plenty of money. And then we run the plan. It's like, oh man, you don't. Right. So it it it really is, a dynamic plan. And it's very hard to just take a look at a few numbers and say, yeah, this looks pretty good. Off you go. Because we don't do that. Yeah. Right. Yeah. This is actually good. Good question here. You know, so maybe, as you guys are listening, if you want to put it in the comments, if you want to email us, later on, but you know what? What is your biggest retirement fear? You know, if you're, if you're approaching retirement, maybe you're in retirement and have gone through it already. But yeah, let us know what what is your biggest fear and kind of what you did to Over Overcome? We'd love to hear about. Well, I'd love to hear it because it, it could create a new show for us. Yeah. Right. And something that we can address. So like that would be very, very helpful for us. So that's a, that's a good one. You know, beyond the numbers, hidden potential. Right. Wealth doesn't isn't wealth just isn't about money. It's about time, freedom experiences. So again, I hear it over and over. It's like I'm busy in retirement. Like, I don't know if I can do that, Tony. I don't know if I can come in for a few weeks. I got X, Y, and Z going on. I'm like, you're retired. And it's like, yeah, I know, man, this is crazy. I don't I didn't know I had I didn't know I was missing out on so much. So like, that's I hear that over and over and over again. Right. So, the thing is, is that maybe there's hidden potential in starting a new, like, having, career after retirement, whether you start your own business or consult or volunteer, this is these are all great ideas and but honestly, based on my experience, this happens infrequently. It doesn't happen like a lot of people say, I'm going to do some part, then they get about a month or two in and they're like, man, this is nice. Yeah, I ain't doing that. I you know, I get it. I see it very infrequent. And another thing I just want to kind of point out is, okay, like maybe you want to be an entrepreneur, start a business, things like that. That can be that can be a little scary because you need seed money to usually start a business. Right. And your seed money is your nest egg from retirement. So if you're thinking of doing that, you got to set some limitations. First talk to the financial planner. You know, talk to me. Talk to Derrick. Talk to your advisor. Have it built in as a simulation inside your plan, walking into retirement so that you can figure out the amount of money you can see your company, your business with without being a detriment to the rest of your retirement. Yeah, but then you've got to stick to that gun. Like, if if it's 50 grand or 100 grand, whatever the amount is, and you run out of money, you gotta you gotta hang it up. It you don't don't chase it because it'll, it could that could actually wreck your retirement. So you got to be careful. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, and I think, you know, I think Covid changed a lot of, kind of retirement. Activities, because, you know, before Covid, people going back to work or, you know, doing the quote unquote consulting thing, basically almost never happened. You know, it. And I think that was driven a lot by the, the companies, the employers, you know, it's, it sounds good, but, you know, they don't really want to pay, you know, the super high rates for, you know, part time employees. But when Covid did hit, and everyone was desperate for employees that that really opened up. You know, I know a lot of my clients, took advantage of, you know, going back to work, earning a part time salary. You know, it. The the consulting thing is, is actually what I do see more because they, the businesses can't find the quality help that you're about to vacate by retiring. Yeah. Hey, can you stay on for a few months and work half the time, but we'll pay you the same amount or whatever that, like. I've seen that actually quite a bit. Yeah. Because the employer is having a hard time filling seats. And they don't want you to leave yet until maybe they find somebody or get through a project or that's like hey, you in 10 to 25 hours a week or something like, and maybe people are. Yeah. Right. I have seen that. Yeah. You know, but most people are dying to get out of their current company. Yeah. For sure. And, you know, you know, beyond the numbers to another thing, I'll say, you know, it is you are entering the unknown. So it is, you know, scary to some degree. You know, the piece of advice that, actually, one of my clients told me about, was essentially have, you know, have at least three places that you can go. So whether that's, you know, babysitting and the golf course and Kiwanis or whatever the case is and each, you know, each spouse should have, you know, their own list as well, unless obviously if they're going together, that's great. But, you know, have something in your mind that that is going to help you, fill the time, especially early on, because like Tony mentioned already, you're kind of transitioning. You're kind of figuring it out as you go. And, you know, having something like that solidified in your mind, is going to help you transition just because you'll you'll have more of a sense of purpose if you have, you know, places to go and things to do. Yeah. I like I see a lot of people reconnecting with friends, family, going on trips, you know, things like that. But I like that like three places you can disappear too, you know, because you'll know they'll have some activities. Like, I know, golf is a big, you know, something I enjoy doing. So, you know, going to the golf course, going to country club, whatever it may be. There's people there. They have activities. Yeah. Not just, you know, other things outside of just golf. Right. So, like, that's always, a good place to go. But I like that, like three. Think about three places I like that. Yeah. So. All right, man, I think we touched a lot. And, you know, again, just it shouldn't I can understand it being fearful because you just don't know what you don't know. But we're, you know, let's kind of like, tales from the from the other side that we see every day, right? You know, from the trenches over here, we see it. And I have very few clients. Hey, man, I'm so bored. It is not that they're like, hey, I don't have enough time. I can't believe I didn't. I don't know what I was doing when I was working to do all this stuff. Like, it's that. That's how I hear that. Yeah, we hear it all the time. Yeah. So don't. The biggest fear is just like, making sure you got a workable plan. Make sure it's successful. Make sure it's it's battle tested for you know the things we talked about inflation volatility in the market, income. Unexpected stuff right. Yeah. You know like I, I would if the plan is successful we usually run that like Mac spend. I don't tell people to run out and go do that because you never know because that's what the built in, variances for market volatility. Right. Just live live continue to do what you want to do. And if there's you know a couple things that your a bucket list thing or two just right. We're always here to run it. But you know that's I always say I'm here is your personal CFO. Yep. Right. Yeah I'm just here to run ideas by. You don't need to listen to me, all right? But you know. But at least you'll get a different or maybe a different view and a different sense of what is possible. Yep. For sure. And, you know, I'd say, it's we we built our process around fixing these fears. Right. So, identifying what what your fears are is really the first step, you know, so if you're worried about outliving your money, you know, but let's build out a scenario in the plan that that shows you that you're not going to right now if you're, you know, afraid of market volatility, you know, really hone in on the bear market scenarios that that we run. If you want to make sure you have an emergency reserve for whatever may come along, you know, set that aside, remove it from, from the the spending in the plan, and then you'll always have that nest egg. So, you know, it's important, you know, to kind of identify those fears so you can confront them. And, you know, kind of move past that as you get into retirement. Exactly. Right there. Take us home by. All right. Well, thanks for listening this week, guys. You know, excellent topic as always. If you do have, some of your biggest fears, you know, whether you have not experienced those or maybe you've gone through it already, you know, we'd love to hear about it. Drop them in the comments here or email us, email us at info at WP connect. Com and we'll talk to you next week. The opinions expressed in the podcast. Are for general informational purposes only, and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any investment, legal, financial or tax strategy. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. Please consult a qualified professional about your individual needs.