A lot of what we do here is psychology, it really is, and we can get the facts right, but if we make an emotional mistake, it can upset the apple cart. Welcome to Keenan Retirement, a show dedicated to helping you thrive before and during your retirement years. If you are looking to grow and protect your wealth and want to make the second half of your life the best half, then listen in. As well as advisor Bill Keenan and his host sort through the key issues that you need to know in a lively and candid way.
Hello everybody and welcome back to Keenan Retirement. I'm your co-host Steve Sandusky and with me as always is my good friend and colleague Bill Keenan. Hey Bill, how are things in Kansas City today? We're doing great in Kansas City this holiday season.
Steve, the weather has turned. We're dealing with some freezing weather, but at that time of year. I was just talking to a client of mine this morning and he's out in California and he said that it's that time of year he wears a sweater to the office. And I said, oh, well, how cold is it going?
I don't get down into the 60s when I leave the office at the end of the day. Right. Yeah, I don't feel sorry for those folks out there to you. Not at all.
Not at all. No, but I said, well, what I tell myself here in Wisconsin is I like the Four Seasons. I've lived in the Midwest all my life except for a brief period up in Northern California back in the late 80s, early 90s and definitely enjoy the Four Seasons. It always gives you something to look for too, because in the summer you're ready for the fall and the change of colors and then the fall, you're like, oh, the first snowfall is always fun.
And then you've got Christmas and you've got the fireplace going. And so that's fun. But then come about mid-January. We're like, OK, spring can't get here soon enough.
Yeah, mid-January. Yeah, about 30 days in, right? Right. So, well, we have the house all decorated up.
Carissa does a great job with that. So I feel very fortunate. One day I leave for work and we're normalized and I get home that night and it's pretty much complete. So I'm grateful for that, Steve.
Yeah, I mean, that's a nice thing about the holidays here and decorating the house and it's really beautiful change of scenery and to get into the spirit of the season. So do you have any other traditions that you do around this time of the year? We're fortunate enough to have a facility here in town called the Kansas City Rep. And they put on some really nice live performances, but they do a fantastic job of putting on Charles Dickens, a Christmas Carol.
It's a fabulous presentation. You know, Steve, why do we go back to movies that we've already seen before? You ever ask yourself that? Why would you go to a movie or a play that you've already seen many times before?
Yeah, well, I'm with you right there. We do that a lot. In fact, it's funny. We've got a handful of movies, things like The Proposal is one of them in particular that we can just watch over and over again.
And we know how it ends. We know all the lines, but it's still just good, good fun. We say we've forgotten enough about it to make it interesting, still, but we're familiar with the way it makes us feel and the message that we're getting to want to go experience that again. So that's what going to see a Christmas Carol does for me.
It's a great storyline. Most people probably remember it, but if you're in Kansas City and you're able to go, I would highly recommend that. Well, actually, well, today, Bill, I think we're going to talk about some of our favorite quotes, some of our insights as it relates to the holiday season and things that we typically like to think about this time of year. And yeah, so I think we'll have some fun with this one.
We will. We did this once on retirement quotes on a podcast earlier in the year. So I thought this would be fun. Yeah, for sure.
So Bill, let me start by asking you a question. Oh, no. I run off the bat. I'm not even warmed up yet.
No, I'm hitting a cold here, buddy. Okay. Very good. Okay.
So have you ever worked on or completed a jigsaw puzzle? Yes. Yeah. Okay.
It's been a while. It's been a while. I'll admit probably 15 years or so. All right.
So what would you say is the most important piece in a puzzle? My mindset instantly went to the last piece because it would be finished. Okay. But then I went over to maybe the first piece because that's the starting point.
But really, for some reason, I'm thinking the answer might be the second piece. That's where it starts to form. And I'm probably way overthinking this. I'm just even quizzing me so much.
I'm trying to talk about what you're making here. You have an excellent analytical mind, Bill. There's no question about that. And certainly the first piece, the second piece, the last piece are certainly important pieces.
But think about this. What about the picture on the box lid? That might possibly be the most important piece of a jigsaw puzzle. Maybe I'm cheating a little bit because that's not technically a piece of the puzzle.
So maybe I'm changing the rules of the game or a little bit. But the point I want to make is that when you put a puzzle together, it really helps to have a picture of what that finished puzzle looks like. And I think that's very similar to what we do here in the financial planning process, the investing process that I know Bill when you work with a new client and just ongoing conversations with existing clients. You're always asking questions because you really want to get a good understanding of what your client is trying to accomplish, what success looks like to them, what's important to them, what's meaningful to them.
And when you have that picture and you help your client really clarify what that looks like, that once you have that, then you can do a much better job helping them realize what that picture is that they have just identified. So I think that's something important to think about here is we're at the end of 2016 and we're looking forward to 2017 is to really get clarity about what it is we're trying to do in our life, what we're trying to accomplish, what we're trying to be. And then you'll finish the year strong and move into 2017 with real good clarity about what is going to make 2017 a good, important, meaningful year for us. I love that.
As you know, Steve, I'm a practicing financial advisor and I just came out of a meeting with some folks who were just on the cusp of retirement just in the next few weeks. And it brought to mind the way that we look at goals when you're just starting out, you might have some broad goals that are opaque and really kind of a white swath of what you might want things to look like as you work toward being independent at some point. But as you get down to your retirement years, pre-retirement, the transition into retirement, and even for all our listeners and clients that have been retired for some time, now the goals have to be pretty granular. It's what do we need every month in our bank account after taxes to meet our obligations?
What do we need in our accounts for travel? What do we need to allocate for our medical expenses? What do we think it's going to be? And then what could the worst case be?
What about other issues outside of the box that we're not thinking of? Those are all very important financial issues that we have to be specific on and have in an updated plan. But what I'm seeing too, the clients that we work with have all gotten to a point in my opinion of being pretty squared away on their relationship with money. We talked about this topic of money quotes.
Money quotes. There's a lot of funny money quotes out there because people have such a difficult time getting right with their relationship with money. Well, Bill, for this person that you were just talking to today, did you say that they're new clients? Yes, they're just signing on as new clients and having to go through all of the different steps to get a plan set up so that they can be confident as they move forward.
Okay, so let me ask you this question. And this is going to tie in, I think, a little bit from maybe an earlier conversation that we had when we had Mitch Anthony on the podcast. And so the question is, is this couple that you just talked to that's becoming a new client that is retiring? Would you say that they are retiring from something or are they retiring to something?
In this particular case, they are ready to move into the next phase of life, which was going to include travel. They have a couple of residences around the country, really, really neat. Seeing grandkids and being immersed in a couple of different environments, they are retiring to that ideal. What I get to see here too is it's not black and white.
I get to see people evolve. I get to see them retire, but yet take a couple of years to get in the rhythm of retirement. What we don't like to see is the extreme cases where people maybe go into isolation and they stay out of social environments and they get into a situation where it may not be good. Most of our clients that we are seeing are pretty well adjusted and they get out into this retired rhythm and they really thrive.
It is really fun to see it. Yeah, well, that's awesome. You mentioned there that sometimes it might take people a year or two years to really get into the rhythm of retirement. What I found, and I'm sure you found this as well, is that there may be a decompression stage.
Initially, if you go from full-time work for a 30, 40-year career, particularly one company, that if you just, your last day of work is a Friday and then, oh my gosh, I'm now home 24 hours a day, that there is a period of adjustment there and people might cycle in and out of work or part-time work or just feeling their way. That is all fine. That's normal and it's to be expected. That's part of the fun of retirement is figuring out what exactly is the right rhythm for you.
Maybe you and I have talked about this before as well, but there's three questions that I think are kind of fun for people to think about when they're thinking about retiring. The first question is, do I have enough? The second question is, have I had enough? The third question is, do I have enough to do?
I think for our listeners, as you think about retirement, those are three great questions to really focus on. First one, do I have enough? So do I have enough money to retire? Second, have I had enough of what I've been doing and I'm ready for a new change?
And then third, do I have enough to keep me busy in those retirement years? So I think those three really just encapsulate a lot about what retirement means and how people need to be thinking about it and framing it going forward. The first one that you mentioned, do I have enough? I would almost say that's the easiest of the three if I had to rank them because as long as someone's done the work and figured out what they need to live on, and we have an extensive way of coaching people through that so they get it right.
We don't want to find out six months after someone's retired that they really had missed, evaluated what they needed to live on. Once we figure that out, number two is going to be the second easiest to figure out, have I had enough? In doing this for 25 years, almost, a lot of people have trouble and it's not clear. It is something that's creating anxiety thinking about should I, should I, should I, should I?
A mental tennis match that goes on about this major decision. I've seen it happen so many times that I know when it's clear as long as the first question is answered, and then we get into that third question, which a lot of people discount, we get a lot of feedback on our podcast. If I talk to a lot of people that listen in, both clients and friends of the firm, I like getting positive feedback, but I also like getting negative feedback. When I say negative, I don't necessarily mean it's negative, I just mean that it's different experiences, different opinions.
I had one client call up and say, hey, I work 45 years, I don't necessarily need some other job or something to go to. I've earned my right to be retired and I'm going to sleep until eight o'clock in the morning instead of getting up at 4.30, and when I get up at eight, I'm going to do what I want to do. You guys are talking about how people have to work in retirement or we're not saying they have to work, but we just kind of think some people like to. That's all we're saying.
My dad was like that. He retired early at like 58 or 59, and he never worked another day in his life, and he was still alive today, thankfully, and doing well. He spends his day kind of buttering around and watching CNBC and that sort of thing. So he finds a way to stay busy.
I think the numbers actually show that approximately one third of people who retire, they do fall into that category where they really don't do active work again. They find ways to stay busy, but they don't do paid work or volunteer work. They're fine. We're not here to tell people how they should retire.
We're here to just help educate people on what people's experiences are in retirement and give some insights on what we think people should be thinking about as they approach retirement so that they can have the happiest retirement possible. That's right. We always say that money doesn't buy happiness. That could be one of our first quotes today.
But what I always like to come back to is without being able to cover your core expenses, I believe that it's very difficult to have happiness, peace of mind, lack of anxiety and that kind of thing. I really do think in this world we live in, you have to have some level of financial security in almost every case. So we have, productively, you know that? Well, Bill, that reminds me of a commercial from Lexus about money not buying happiness.
It goes something like people who say money doesn't buy happiness, just aren't spending it, right? Yes, I think you've said that before. And you know, Mark Twain has a good one. And it's interesting because I think a lot of people misquote a quote or a verse actually that says the love of money is the root of all evil.
And I think some people get it wrong and say money is the root of all evil. Right. And it's the love of money is the root of all evil. But Mark Twain has a different take on it.
And he says, the lack of money is the root of all evil. Yeah, that one's true. But again, I think he goes back to having your basis covered and just being able to put your head on the pillow at night knowing that your business is in order and that you're able to rest knowing that things are okay. There's so many people including myself when I was growing up and going through college and it took me a long time to have that.
And Steve, I remember the day still very clearly when I realized that I could go to a coffee shop and not have to budget for that coffee. To be able to sit in a coffee shop, this was back before Starbucks got going based on the way the pricing is going there. I think I'm back to the old days now, but no, but I remember that what it was like to have to budget for my coffee. I try not to forget that because I think that we're very fortunate a lot of us here to be able to have some of the at least baseline financial security that we do.
And it's all the product of hard work, living within means, having some discipline and some character around it, this stuff doesn't happen overnight. Well, speaking of hard work, I got a quote here from Jay Paul Getty of Getty Oil fame. And he said, my formula for success is rise early, work late and strike oil. Oh, very nice.
Okay. If we could decide to do that, I bet some of our listeners would do it. That's right. Yeah, we can all do the first two.
I don't know about the third one. Yes, I love it. Well, how about this? Money, those who don't have enough of it are only aware of what it can buy them.
When you finally have enough of it, you become aware, acutely aware of all the things that it cannot buy, the really important things. That's from a gentleman named F. Paul Wilson, but that really spoke to me when we were putting together our talk here. Yeah, well, so what did that mean to you, Bill?
I believe that money makes you more of what you already were. So if you were a jerk, you're a bigger jerk. If you're loving and gracious, you're more loving and gracious. If you're capable or you're at that point in life where you have the responsibility to be able to handle these things, what cannot money buy?
Well, we know it can't buy health. I mean, Steve Jobs is a good example of that. It can't buy relationships. I mean, it might be able to buy surface level relationships.
It's confusing. It's so confusing. That's why we started our episode off by saying folks have a difficult time getting right with money. We talked in our prior episodes about people feeling guilty about spending money, about people feeling guilty about having accumulated resources.
And then we talked about people overspending. And Steve, I always say that it starts with the little things. You're going to laugh at me, but I think I'm from this generation. I'm from your generation.
You know what drives me crazy around the house? What's that? Water bottles that are left half empty. Oh, I'm on board with you on that one.
Are you? All right. While I'm on it, I'm just going to keep it rolling. Okay.
Lights that are left on. Are you on board with that one too? Absolutely. Okay.
These things are, they seem like little things, but to me, in my generation, it's like, if I'm going to pay for that water bottle, and you can figure out how much it costs to buy them from Walmart or wherever in 24 packs, and they're probably 20 cents a piece or something or less. But when I see a half drink of water bottle, I go, that's wasteful or the lights on. That's wasteful. And I always say, if we don't respect the small things in life, you're not going to be interested with bigger things.
You're not going to be capable of handling the bigger things in life that could be attracted to us. So I think that's a big part of what I see in my practice. There are people that are on this side of a lot of those issues. I've said, you got to take care of the little things first so you can graduate to the bigger things.
And that's, again, also what happens with lottery winners we see. I mean, no amount of money can fix it if you're not ready to handle it and you're not capable of handling it. So someone could get $100 million dropped in their lap via an inheritance, a sports contract, or a lottery and look up and within 36 months it's gone. How is that even possible?
You couldn't even imagine how it's possible, but it's possible. It happens all the time. So you ask me what money you can buy and what you can't buy. And there's both sides of the coin to it right there.
Well, a couple of things I want to add to what you just said there. One is I think that's such an important point about taking care of the little things that if you're not paying attention to the little things, then how could anyone ever be trusted with the big things. And in a service business, like financial advisor, I mean, it's pretty much a service business. And I would encourage all the listeners to pay attention to the little things related to not just the financial advisor you're working with, whether that's bill or perhaps someone else.
But other service providers that you work with pay attention to the little things because if your service provider is focused on the little things and getting those things right, then that should give you a lot more confidence that if you can trust them with the little things, you can probably trust them with the big things. So I think that's an important point. And then the other thing I want to mention is I think this is also a great time of the year. It's always a good time of the year for this, but particularly around the holidays here with Thanksgiving and Christmas and the years is to be grateful and thankful for what you have.
And there's a quote that says, if you're not happy with what you have, you'll never be happy with what you want. And so I just think that that's a nice thing to be thinking about this time of year is just being grateful for what we have and not worrying about what we don't have. That's right. We attract more of what we are.
Steve, have you heard about the reticular activating system in our brains? I wrote my doctoral dissertation on that. Really? I don't believe you.
You're smart and I believe you on that. Okay, good. Well, it's funny because I think about this all the time. A lot of what we do here is psychology.
It really is. We can get the facts right, but if we make an emotional mistake, it can upset the apple cart. And I say we as in our clients and us on the journey together over a lifetime of financial planning. But the reticular activating system is the part of our brain that decides what it's going to weed out or not see.
And then the part that decides what we are going to see. But if you ever bought a new car and all of a sudden you see your car and your color everywhere. Everyone's got it. Yeah, sure.
That's right. Now, I don't think they all just bought it the day you bought yours, but that is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. There's another exercise that I have folks do at times where I say, all right, look around the room and take note of everything blue. And then I say, shut your eyes.
Now, with your eyes closed, tell me everything in the room that was red. And no one can do it. They might remember just a couple things, but it's just a real simple little example of we get what we look for. If you focus on things that are negative, negative things will grow.
If you focus on things that are positive, positive things will grow. It's just like planning a rose bush in sfertile soil or planning something that is poisonous. The fertile soil will grow either. So I choose to plant things in my fertile soil, try to at least most of the time, that are positive, not to deny that bad things are going on in the world and those kind of things, but to try to have a vision.
Well, Bill, as you were talking about, would you call it the reticular activating system? Yes. Okay. This is, you're talking about that.
It reminded me of that Simon and Garfunkel song where they said, a man sees what he wants to see in disregard to the rest. Exactly. Yeah. It's exactly right.
And my contention is it's a very real phenomenon, right? Well, you also may remember as you were talking about that exercise, you have people say, hey, look at everything that's blue in the room. I don't know if you remember, there was a video that went viral. Maybe we'll try and link to this on the show notes page where they ask you to watch this video and count how many times this group of people in the video are passing a basketball around.
So you see maybe 10, 15 people in the video and they're passing a basketball around. And so you have to count how many different times it gets passed around or how many different basketballs are in there or something like that. And so everyone is focused on that. But while they're focused on that, something really outrageous is also happening.
And then after the fact, I don't want to give away too much. Does that ring a bell to you? I know exactly what you're talking about. In fact, I'm visualizing it now because I was one of the ones that didn't see what you're talking about for us.
We'll see if we can get that in the show notes page at keenonretirement.com. Well, hey, Bill, I think we're getting ready to wrap here. Is there anything that you want to finish up with here on today's show? This was the first full year of the Keenon retirement podcast.
It's hard to believe. I think we put out maybe 30 episodes, Steve. And we have had such tremendous feedback. We hope everyone can enjoy this holiday season, really relax and take a moment to reflect back on the things they're grateful for, like you mentioned.
And of course, and always making sure that we're taking care of our financial house, making sure that we're engaged in that process. I think those things set the stage here as we close 2016 for a really productive 2017. I'm just grateful to have all of our friends and clients here at King Wealth. I'm grateful for you too, Steve.
You're such a well respected and such a professional in the financial services industry. For me to have you as my co-host, it's a real honor and a privilege. And I get a lot of great feedback about you. I need to tell you that more.
But everybody I talk to that listens to says they really love your co-hosts. And asking, okay, stop, Bill, stop, stop. You're making me blush. I'm sorry.
Every so often, I got to give you a little bit of a break. I truly appreciate that. And you know how much I appreciate you as well. This is a labor of love here doing the show and working with you and spending time with Chris as well.
So this is a lot of fun and very much appreciate you having me be part of this. And I also want to encourage all the listeners to tell your friends and colleagues about the Keenan retirement podcast. We'd love it if you would send them to the website, KeenanRetirement.com. You can also look up at the podcast on your app.
So whether you have an iPhone or an Android phone, there should be a podcast out there and you can just look up the name Keenan retirement or look up Bill Keenan. You should be able to find it, subscribe to it, tell everyone around about it. And we're looking forward to a great 2017. Yes, we are here to a great 2017 Steve.
Thanks Bill. Dr. Sun. The opinions expressed in this podcast are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security.
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