 Welcome to the Bogleheads Chapter Series. This episode was jointly hosted by the pre- and early retirement and retired life-stage chapters and recorded January 10th, 2024. It features Jill Steinberg, Ph.D., presenting the topic, Finding Purpose in Retirement from Retiring to Rewiring. Bogleheads are investors who follow John Bogle's philosophy for attaining financial independence. This recording is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as personalized investment advice. So, Jill, why don't you tell us what you've been up to before you start your presentation? Okay. So, it's kind of a funny question. What have I been up to? At my age, there's the sad loss list and there's the everything else list. So, I think in the interest of my mood and this presentation, I'll go to the everything else list. So, I'll tell you a few things. I can't exactly remember when I did the last Boglehead. So, did you know that my research got published as a chapter in a book? Had I, was that completed yet? Congratulations. Thanks. Yeah, I feel really good about it because I was working with the University of Michigan, the Ross Business School. And the faculty there, two of them put out this book and Rutledge published it. And I'm the only chapter. It's called the aging consumer perspectives from psychology and economics. I'm the only chapter that doesn't deal with finances. You know, it's geared for business schools and minds quality of life. So that felt, that feels really good. And then I'm working with Boston University. I was working on and off with their alumni social association last 10 years. And we started a new initiative for to engage their alumni that are my age and my stage of life. So you know how alumni association she's go with early retirement mid career. Well, we're vital. We're alive. We're alumni. We're the ones with time. We want purpose. We started a whole initiative to engage people our age and stage and the first project I'm doing after there was a presentation I gave is I'm starting a mentoring program of retirees to retirees. So that's really exciting for me. And then I'll tell you something totally different than I didn't even know existed or could exist in my life. I have a dog, and I couldn't get a dog I felt till I retired. And I have this really loving dog, and he just gives so much love that I got him to be a pet assisted therapist dog. So we go into institutions, and he gives love for how people need it, including he helps kids that are afraid to read out loud they'll read to him. So it's just as an example, something I didn't even know existed. And I didn't start it to the last year so at 72 so it's, it's pretty cool what you can do in retirement. Is that a good enough beginning. And again, congrats on the chapter being published. Thank you. Thanks. So yeah that's plenty of talking because you're in for a lot of talking I've got a presentation tonight will take about 3537 minutes and then I have time for questions. I'll just start by saying I'm an emeritus professor and clinical psychologist, I'm 73 and I retired 16 years ago. Since retiring my research publications, teaching and consulting had primarily dealt with successful retirement. Okay, so I already messed up I was going to go to the next slide. And Jim, it's not going. I'm going to click again. Ah, okay. There we go so bear with me audience. Jim and I just worked out something for me to be in charge of my own slides and it's pretty temperamental. So I might have to give the control back to Jim. We'll see how it goes. Anyway, I think I told you that my research and consulting is dealt with successful retirement. So those who plan for retirement plan for their financial situation, and they tend to think about their life, kind of like a long weekend, like a garden. Yeah, I'll have time to read visit people, maybe bike ride travel. The research finds that retirement can start with a great honeymoon phase people are really glad to have time, but then typically retirement proceeds with a steep decline and happiness. As people wake up to okay I did that I did that. Now what, and they find something is really missing. And then that retirement usually stabilizes with as much happiness as people had while they were working. Depending on the survey so let's see. Yeah, it's not, it's not going. There we go. Okay, depending on the survey. At best 75% of people who are privileged enough to retire, even enjoy it, and up to 25% have difficulty adjusting 10% are not at all satisfied. Retirement satisfaction tends to decrease as people age. Hold on. And this is true regardless of the age the person retires having purpose. This is tricky. It's not doing its thing Jim. Okay. Having purpose is a major component in terms of successful retirement, and actually a significant component throughout life at any stage of life. And while developing the purpose in life is an ongoing process. The study show that purpose in life tends to drop with older age. So what I'm going to do tonight is give you let's see. Okay, a multifaceted evidence based presentation. The first part is, well, why purpose what's so important about purpose and then the bulk of it will be how do you find purpose. So I'd like you in your heads to be thinking about your life. How do you view your life. Does life feel meaningful with close relationships, purpose and physical activities, or are you feeling a bit of drift. Do you perceive yourself as stuck, or do you proactively think about reflect on what you'd like to do to make things better, and even know what you find purposeful and care about. Okay, why find purpose. There's an abundance of research on the importance of having a purpose for fiscal mental health and well being across the lifespan. However, the research suggests the reward of retiring may be the punishment of not mattering and purpose is powerful people who have a higher sense of purpose, which is defined as the extent to which they feel like they have. Okay, there we go. Meaningful goals and directions. Okay. Anyway, people that have purpose that feel like they have meaningful goals and direction tend to live longer, healthier and happier lives. So look at the long term studies of longitudinal where they use large samples and the same people over and over. They find that older people with a higher sense of purpose, for example, less at risk for neuro cognitive impairment, such as Alzheimer's disease, cardiovascular disease and stroke. Lack of purpose contributes at least as much to disease and death as do lifestyle factors such as tobacco use poor diet in activity and stress. You know, in the last 100 years, our longevity has increased about 30 years that's even with the recent dip during coven. Our society's institutions like our families are educational systems are health places are workplace housing, even our neighborhoods haven't been update to serve the needs of our aging population, which can impede our ability to find purpose. So I'll give you an example with employment. Employment can give you an avenue for social connection and identity. And when people retire, it changes the structure, such that it can lead to many losses, your sense of identity, your roles, your social connections, your purpose, your daily structure. And the research says there is a negative correlation between retirement and purpose and life. Your sense of purpose is malleable later in life. And that's why you're here. We're not doing the decline. So hopefully you learn stuff and leave tonight with things you're going to do right away. So even though there's an abundance of research on the importance of purpose, there's an abundance of it. There's not so much research on how to find purpose, which is why I put this presentation together for you. I'm going to tell you what exists in the literature of how to find purpose. Okay, so Now it stopped again. Let's see. Okay, what is purpose and life sorry audience it's definitely quirky and it throws me off from my presentation so thanks for bearing with me. So what is purpose purpose and life includes three characteristics, having a stable desirable goal. Giving something meaningful beyond yourself and making progress towards accomplishing the goal. Purpose and life can determine your goals and therefore influence decisions you make during the day, it's efficiency in action for your mind and your behaviors to give you an idea of how research assess purpose. I have some items from what a wider use scale. So, I have a sense of direction and purpose in my life. My daily activities often seem trivial and unimportant to me. I enjoy making plans for the future and working to make them a reality. Okay, so let's go to how do you find purpose. Let me check in with the people that can respond to me. Are you okay, and is my pace okay. Both are perfect. Okay, good. I'm still I'm an East Coast transplant and I go East Coast speed. Okay, how do you find purpose. So this might be the first time you really have had the opportunity that time and the resources to figure out and do what you want what has meaning for you. It's actually a paradoxical situation. For years, people yearn for more autonomy and time to shape their lives. And after retirement with plenty of time, individuals can feel lost, adrift, they experienced choice overload, and they have demands from their family and others that they never anticipated. But I assume you go ahead are already have a good framework for how to approach finding purpose, because you've been thinking about planning and implementing ways to save for your retirement. And you proactively chose to come to this presentation. So in terms of purpose, one way to start finding your purposes by thinking about what have you been successful at accomplishing. Like potential planning or your career, your relationships, maybe it's how you do your physical activities or maybe it's you've been able to continue learning. Consider what you feel successful at, and what has worked for you in that process, and what hasn't worked for you. So, the essence of the purpose literature is finding out and see if I can get there. I'll be the best slide, so I can get to it. Okay, no, we lost it. Okay. Here it is. The essence of the literature is how to apply your best self to things that matter most to you. Things that you deeply value that are bigger than yourself. If you want one take away from the whole lecture if you're going to take a picture of a slide. This is your slide. You're going to. It's easier said than done you're going to apply your best self to things that matter most to you that you really value that are bigger than yourself. It's a process. It involves how you find purpose. Therefore, you start with a purpose, not the purpose. So maybe tonight you'll leave and you think you know what from what she said, people in my life really matter. And you'll start to voting more of your time and energy, bringing your best self to people in your life. Or maybe you'll say you know what social justice really matters. I've been working so hard. I've never had the time I didn't make the time to focus on social justice maybe you'll leave tonight and bring your best self to help the LGBTQ community. Research gives multiple routes to find purpose. And you might find the direct route what I'm going to go over tonight with you life crafting as the one that's best for you to find your purpose, or perhaps you want to work on other parts of your life such that are known to increase purpose such as your social connections or maybe you'll do a combination. Taking charge of retirement starts with three I would say really big challenges. And the first one is you have to reshape your life because it's been governed so long by organizational requirements and external structures. You know, your daily routines when are you going to go to work when do you get to come home. What's work time, non work time, who you're going to connect with, and this doesn't just affect you, it affects the others in their life, all of a sudden you're free range person. And people can expect a lot of you, especially if you're women and domestic children stuff like that. And the second one so organizational requirements, you leave behind a goal context, and at this age you have a more limited future time perspective. The research suggests three main pathway that can lead to purpose and life. So the first pathway is called proactive because you the person seeks out various opportunities to learn about your purpose as you're doing here tonight. And life crafting that I'm going to teach you is in this first proactive category. The second one is social learning. You know you've heard of mentoring programs or why I'm going to start be you so you can learn from other people as you do in your community. And the third one is reactive development and all that means is, you can develop a sense of purpose, following a natural occurrence of event where you noticed you were feeling purpose. So all you have to do is pay attention and reflect. But get this, the research finds that individuals who report high levels of trying to explore and find their purpose in life tend to report greater negative affect and anxiety. Needless to say, it's not my goal to make you feel anxious. So that's why we're going to focus on concrete specific ways of how you can find your purpose so you can leave tonight with a concrete what next. Now what I'm going to do, I'm going to give you the framework, the foundation, all the tools that currently exist in the literature of how to find your purpose, but you have to go home and do the homework. If you're doing a class, I'd probably make it a full semester class, I would give you weekly homework so they could gradually introduce the concepts and build on them. You'd have an individualized homework, you come back in a week, and you'd have a group of other peers that you could talk to to figure out what's working, what's not not working what changes do I need, because it's when you're accountable to others you're more accountable to do it. We're not doing a class so this might be a bit daunting. However, you can rewatch this video you can talk to others, other bogal heads about a specific section or bring me back for a specific section. But you're going to get tonight. Finding purpose one oh one that covers a whole semester. Okay, some and start with some skills. Now the skills, the six skills I'm going to start with are evidence based, but not specifically for purpose. I tell you them, because I've been doing clinical work research teaching about finding success for over 30 years and these are the skills that people have needed and when you do life crafting that you'll need. So, first of all, you've got to be proactive. You see something you don't like you're trying to fix it. Hold on. You're proactive about looking for opportunities to be engaged in and contribute to society proactive. The next skill is being assertive. You go for what you want. What's important to you. Remember, I'm telling you their skills. That means that you can learn them. You can improve them. You can find out from mothers from books from classes. How do I learn to be proactive. How do I learn to be assertive. How do I learn to be analytic and reflective. How do I think about my life and my experiences to figure out what's working. What's not working. What do I want to change. The next skill is called grit. Grit is an extreme trait of self discipline and perseverance. Grit out predicts IQ for academic success. Controlling for education. Older people have more grit than younger people. Those over 65 have more than any other age group. And I tell you this because we have grit to change. You might think, yeah, my memory is not as great, my energy is not as great. That's probably true for this my age. However, we have the grit if you want to learn computer skills or the piano or how to play pickleball or new social skills. We have the grit to do it and the research to prove it. Okay, so let's go to life crafting. I'm going to tell you what it is and how you do it. Life crafting is a process of conscious efforts that use the individual make to create meaning in your life. The three areas are cognitive crafting, you're going to start thinking about your life and how you can view it with more meaning. You're going to look at your social support systems and use them more to manage your life challenges and to enhance your life. You're going to seek challenges in terms of facilitating purpose grow. Personal growth. When individuals feel that their lives are connected with something larger than themselves and you're going to hear me keep repeating that it's larger than yourself so it's not just you learning computer skills. Purpose involves contributing to others, something larger than yourself that has meaning. When individuals feel that their lives are connected with something larger than themselves, and they're making a significant contribution to society, they tend to praise their lives as full of purpose and meaning. Okay, this is a. Okay. Next. Ah, here we go. Let's take a look at this. This model of life crafting is the other really good slide I'm presenting. So it gives you the overview and the concepts and individual items that illustrate it if you're going to take a picture this is your other slide to remember or come back into the presentation. So you start with cognitive crafting, and that's person making the effort to redefine or reframe their life and such a matter that it in such a way that it provides meaning. So the two cognitive crafting strategies are positive thinking. So what I mean by that is you're going through something difficult, and you're looking for how can I get through this the best way I can. How can I contribute to the other people in my life that are going through this hill help can I help them. It's just being positive, but not Polly Anish. It's thinking, we're going, we got to get through this, the best we can. How can I make it better. And it's transcending your personal goals and thinking about how your life contributes to society. So I tell you I'm very much not a Polly Anish person. If you find I'm looking, you know, Jill, I can't, I can't think of anything positive in my life or how I'm contributing to others. I asked my partner I asked my friends, I don't even remember. I'm not doing it. Okay, if that's really true, then it's probably time you look at your life and see, can I make changes so it can be more. I can have a more positive life. The next category is, oops, there's cognitive crafting the next one's relational crafting. And that's seeking social support to further your, your purpose in life goals or enhance it and relationships, if they're mutually beneficial are the ones that have the most meanings. In fact, good relationships with others may be the single most important source of life satisfaction and emotional. Whoops, that's the answer. Oh, somebody's talking to him, you're not muted. It's in one year in retirement. Can someone help can be muted. Don't tell me that, but that's what they worry, can you help me. Yeah, I'm looking for there we go. Kim is now muted. Thank you. Thank you. Was that Miriam, whoever did it. Thank you very much. Okay. Kim might not appreciate it but I do. Okay, so I think I was on talent relationship crafting. Let's see. Oops, not challenge. We were on relationship crafting. Something happened here. I'll try and go back. Okay. Yes, we're there. Okay. What I was trying to say was good relationships with others may be the single most important source of life satisfaction and emotional well being across people of all ages and cultures. This is the Harvard study or the person Waldinger. It's the longest longitudinal study of the same people over time. It started in 1938, that's over 90, that's 90 years ago. And they started with 268 Harvard sophomores and some others, and you can see that's a very limited sample Harvard shop. Sophomores that's what they started with but they expanded their subjects to include blue collar workers, the children of the original people and women to. And what they found really surprised them. I don't know about you but it does not surprise me. Close relationships, more than money or fame are what keep people happy throughout their lives. So remember these are Harvard people throughout their lives, what was made you the happiest the relationships close close relationships that are better than the directors of long and happy lives, then social class IQ, or even genes. And Carsten sin is at Stanford, she's one of the biggest research on aging, and her research shows that strong social connections quality relationships are really matter in older age they matter all the time but definitely in older age. But you're going to see there's a big gender issue by retirement by retirement. Typically, don't have the social skills or structure necessary to have close friends. So I know I'm making a broad generalization, and it's in the literature it supports, unfortunately, that that's true. They have not figured out to put more than females, how to have close relationships and by this age don't even have this structure. And if they're in a heterosexual relationship, they tend to rely on their partner, and research that can be problematic. So the three relational crafting strategies are creating new relationships, improving your current ones, and use using social resource, your social resources better I see. I'm not on this one and I don't think I touched anything so we're still on relation. Look, see it's going goofy on me. We're still on relational crafting. So actually you know when I was doing a class for Boston University on successful retirement, they asked me to do the entire section on relationships because they could see the problems that were arising as they considered retirement and that was a group of only one person who retired everyone was still employed and it went even to age 20 and they were saying please, we want a whole section on it. Social support is so important maybe you've seen this new trend. They're called happy to chat benches. It started in the UK and it's moving to other countries. They're specially designed, bright benches. They're now lines on my screen I don't know what's happening here. And they're marked to get people to engage with one another, whether it's light chit chat or something deeper. Anything to help reduce the sense of isolation and loneliness. Okay, so now we really are going to go on to challenge crafting. People have an inherent need to grow and develop themselves. And that's at the core of most meaning baking strategies. People want to personal growth achievement and accomplishment, especially, including at this age, we don't want to be the national resource that's left behind. So let's go to how do we craft. Let me see how we're doing with time here. Okay, how do you craft. So what I'm going to share with you now are the seven areas that get addressed, and you'll see why it would be so good if we were in a class, and we could thoroughly go over each one of these. However, you'll have the information and either contact each other or maybe me and say, I mean, we'll help how can we do this. Okay, the first one is think about your values and your passions. What do you like to do. What kind of relationships would you like to have. How do you want to engage your mind. In terms of values and passions, if you look at the literature on transitions, when people go through big transitions, they find out they have a very bad illness or somebody close to them died, or they graduated from college or they had a child when they go through transitions, they tend to reevaluate and change their values. Sometimes anyway, the recent literature the 2023 literature on retirement says we don't change our values, we might tweak them. They're basically what we came to at this age and stage. I tell you that so you can use them as a basis for figuring out what purpose I want. So the first thing are your values and passions. The second one are your competencies and habits. Think of qualities you like about yourself and qualities you don't like about yourself. And if it's too hard to think about yourself you can't get distance. Think about other people you know, whether it's at a distance or close. What is it about them that you like. What is it about them, you don't admire to start thinking about these individual behaviors and habits or competencies you want. Think about your social life it's back to social life that might a lot of you might leave thinking she's, I never even thought that was important we never learned about that in school. It is very important for maintaining health and well being and your purpose. So think about when you're at your best self, what kind of friend or family member would you like to be and again if you can't think about yourself or that's not your skill. Think about someone in your life and it could be someone at a distance that you once knew through work, or it could be a family member it could be a kid. What is it about them that gets them to be likeable that people want to be with them that they want to be with others when you're at your best self, what kind of person do you want to be. Think about meaningful work or contributions. You know, what, what's important to you, how would you like to spend your time and your mind and your energy. Think about your work, maybe there's something loved about work that you miss or will miss, or maybe there's something you wish you could be remembered for or as a child something was really important that you couldn't follow through because she knew you had to make money to be a certain citizen. Those are the things what has meaning to you and what kind of contributions would you like to make. Think about your ideal future contrast it with if you make no changes, you will see that that's an important issue. If you think about okay I'm going to be like this forever, that can motivate you to make changes. Think about your goals and think about if then plans. So you start thinking she you know this is something I really want to do and I realized I'm going to have to when I retire leave it a place that's less expensive or warmer or closer to museums or whatever it is and all of a sudden your parents say wait a minute, wait a minute, we don't want you to move. You know we have grandchildren we want you here, or who knows what things are going to come up that you think I can't do it, try and anticipate before you start doing so you can figure out okay what to do if something is blocking me or making me reconsider. Lastly, make your commitments or goals accountable. When you tell others like your family your friends, me whoever that you're going to do something you're more likely to follow through. Oh, and you know my research that got published found something new all this planning all the things I've told you all true. And what I found that wasn't in the literature it's important to implement whoops. So, if you haven't retired the literature says implement something before you retire if you retired implement something today tonight. Think about it for tomorrow. And I don't mean way off tomorrow I mean tomorrow it's late for you guys I'm in California. It's important to implement things. I'm not talking about the right thing, or the best goal. I'm talking about getting in this process of doing something so you start evaluating and you start putting energy into things so you think oh and I retire, I wanted to learn about. I wanted to learn French. Try finding the class and doing it now it doesn't mean you're going to like French it doesn't mean it's what you're going to want to do but we're trying to get you involved in. What could I do I want to be involved you take a French class there are other people in the class. Ah, that's people. Ah, this is meaning maybe I can teach. You're starting to get in this process of involving all those areas I told you about. Oh, motivation to change matters. So if you're saying I want to change. Okay, you might need to start there if you want to have more purpose in your life. Okay, so what I'm going to do now is give you a mixture of information what the literature says are the best practices to establish goals, and some of what the research says is important at well being at our age which might give you ideas for purpose. So we're starting with social factors because we know that social relationships quality relationships are among the strongest predictors of sense of purpose in middle to older adults, mattering to others really does matter. You can feel like you belong. It can intrinsically motivate you to be with people that can have purpose, a bigger purpose and studies show to this kind of important things studies have shown that older adults value their family relationships, more than their friends. Okay, that's kind of a summary that isn't totally accurate. I said that older people value their relations family relationships more than the friends if you look deep into the literature people that are satisfied in their couple tend to evaluate friendships, more than their family people that have a partner tend to evaluate their family more than friends, people that are in the LGBTQ community tend to value their chosen family and on and on but bottom line the important thing that is true across all those examples is that people tend to value the relationships. They have had more than want to start new ones. Now, that's problematic, because at this age, as you know, people die, people move people divorce, we lose relationships. And I'm telling you it's important to have them. So if you're only going to focus on the one you have, and they're gone. How are you going to get new relationships or improve the newer ones. I want you to be sensitive to this because if you leave tonight and said, gee, she kind of kept going over and over the importance of relationships. I want to work on it and why it'd be sensitive that it's, it's hard across all ages and if people by our age are focusing on the relationships, they have rather than new ones. How are you going to find these relationships right. So be sensitive and be sensitive to people you know that are not in couples, because there's since the 80s, there's been this phenomena of going solo for across all ages, and including our age, one out of three baby boomers lives alone. And that means if you're not living alone now, you might be at some point, and you might need others in your life to help you through that or to make your life better. So I asked you to be sensitive to that issue. It says that volunteering has one of the strongest associations with increased purpose, and that's because volunteering can give you a role. It can give you a framework for daily life. It can give you ways to connect with others. It can give you ways to contribute and participate in society. In my research, the people that found good volunteer positions would definitely agree with you. And many people would say, I'm trying to find one that's satisfactory. Oftentimes, there are many available volunteer positions but they're not a satisfactory They're not at the level of responsibility that we're used to. And my subject said, networking is the best way to find good positions, ask others how they found theirs or what they're doing. And of course if you look at the literature women tend to volunteer in helping positions and men more administrative manager managers or mentoring positions. And they give you an example of a couple I interviewed Jim and Paula Ferris and when I use the name, whether it's just first or the whole name, every all my subjects gave me permission to use their name. So, in honor of Jim and Paula Ferris they were in their 90s when I met them. I met them 60 years before in Hollywood working on Tom and Jerry cartoons. Maybe you've heard of the Pharisees their daughter, directed little miss sunshine. Anyway, when they retired, they moved to Santa Cruz where I live over 30 years before being 90s and when they're 60s. They started our OSHA lifelong learners and in Santa Cruz. It's a grassroots, great organization of people like myself that have retired that have things to contribute want to learn from others we now have over 900 members. He was part of the original group starting it, and they started a film group in their home that met weekly, such that they'd show a film there'd be a discussion lasted over 25 years it lasted till the week before Jim died. So I'm telling you that as an example if you can't find good meaningful volunteer positions, maybe you could create great things like Jim and Paula did. And the research demonstrates that people of all ages show fluctuations in purposefulness from day to day, and about 40% of the variability in daily purpose is related to your social connections. You have a good day you feel like you had good connections, feel like you have more purpose and of course we're talking about positive quality if you have bad relationships and that's what's happening. You feel like you have a lot of purpose so that could be your area of working on. I'm going to switch now to another way, an indirect way to achieve purpose maybe have heard of Marty Seligman. He's at University of Pennsylvania maybe for the concept positive psychology or flourishing he's one of the biggest people in my field. He has a well being theory that has five elements and permit is the acronym. So he says, if you work in these five areas, you're going to feel good about your life. P stands for positive emotions, taking all things together, how happy or satisfied would you say you are. P is for engagement or interest. Oh, I love learning new things. So there are things that you can get involved in where are is for, again, back to relationships positive relationships they're people in my life who really care about me and I care about them. We spend time with each other and we're back to meaning belonging to and serving something that you believe is bigger than yourself. It's not just that you have a sense of meaning what's important. It's but the degree to which you actually belong to and serve things that are bigger than you. It's basically accomplishment. People think you know it's fun to do these things. When you feel an accomplishment, you can feel like you have purpose. Oh by the way Seligman has a great website with a lot of free resources for how to figure out well, what are my values what are my strengths, how could I apply them so you can go to his website. Let me give you a simple but good example doing COVID I did a lot of classes groups for University of Michigan, the business school and other places about connection lots of other things too but in one of my classes there was this medical doctor and she was young about 40. She wanted to quit being a doctor she said COVID ruin medicine and it ruined it for her and she was seriously just wanted to quit but didn't know what she would do and she starts thinking you know, I love flowers I've never had the time to garden maybe I could learn to garden. Maybe then I could pick my flowers and learn to do floral ranging, and then I could bring the hospital for all those six kids I work with. And the other thing she thought is you know I have a keyboard, it's pin in my office. Since my residency I've never opened the box and I've wanted to learn to play piano. Maybe I could actually learn piano or be in a class where I learned piano, and then I could go back to places where people are sick and play for them. So it's learning a new skill. It could be around other people, things that you value and doing something bigger than just yourself. When you figure out what you want to do what you want to implement. It's important to set goals. You do better if you set goals, rather than just say I'm going to do my best. You have a better outcome by setting goals. So let me tell you the acronym for setting goals are smart goals. Set goals to be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. So I'm going to give you an example of Arthur. So Arthur retired from Google when he was 47. He did not grow up wealthy he was fortunate enough to keep working with startups he's an engineer, and he ends up at Google in the first level of people and thanks to Arthur he were we, he's largely responsible for us having text messaging one of the important people. And so because of that, he was able to retire and people had always told him, if you have the chance to be with their young, take that chance. So he and his wife, also a professional took that chance to be with their young child. And what he was telling me he was concerned about retiring, because he loved his work at Google. When he was afraid that he would lose his friendships, and especially friends who like talking computers, then he has, he's a very informed person and he is good reason to worry that's what people often say, what do they miss about the work. He has social connections, and he cares deeply for his friendships, and Google is very different from academia in academia. I'm encouraged to work with my colleagues to do research with them to present with them to teach with them at Google, you're out. They don't want you to know their secrets. So even when I was presenting to Google, and Arthur was significant in my research, they weren't going to let them come but we found their work around because that because I insisted. Anyway, they even they recorded it and blasted it to all their satellites as I presented and then they wouldn't even put on YouTube. They want others to but they're very private about their information. So Arthur being Arthur, he's a very planful person. He thought, Okay, I'm going to put the conditions in place before I retire. I'm going to think about what my goals are with friendship. What tasks do I need to do what do I want a typical day to look like and he implements before he retires and he was also talking to me and he did that for his friendships. He did it for his tech skills. And I have spoken to him over the years with follow up. And originally when he was retiring he thought I will probably go back to work in five years. Now it's over 10 years ago. He has no desire to go back to work. He finds life meaningful. He can do projects that he actually can complete Google sometimes at the last minute would take them away from you so he was happy to have that kind of and he does computer projects that are meaningful for a large numbers of people not the same scale as people Google but still very meaningful and his friendships are better than ever. He's made it a priority to keep up his close friendships which he couldn't do as well when he worked, including his friends at Google, and his friends from the East Coast at MIT. His friendships are better and he loves volunteering with his wife in his child's school. So he found ways to have meaning in retirement. Oh, when you're doing your goals, it's better to focus on learning than performance. So for example if you leave here and you think, gee, I do need to work on making friends. It's better to think about learning about the process of making friends and saying I'm going to have three friends in the next month. Don't go for the numbers go for the process, the learning, or perhaps you're saying, yeah, I, it's time I do volunteer and contribute back. I'm going to have a position in the next way. You can start even tonight looking for what positions are available how you can do it or people you know that have been involved in volunteering. How did they do it. So I'll give you another example, Elliot Aaronson also a very eminent psychologist in the field maybe you've heard of the concept cognitive dissonance that's Elliot so I interviewed him in his 80s. He told me before he retired. When he was teaching and doing research he found out he was going blind, and it was very proactive so we learned to walk with a white cane. He got a seeing eye dog. He made his computer able to read to him so it could continue with this research, but he gave up his teaching because he couldn't see his students. And as we were doing this interview we decided to teach together, I would be his eyes. And from that experience. He remembered how much he liked teaching and he found new skills so at age eight, and it went back to teaching to. So, for those of you that have accomplished goals you probably noticed you've had this experience of in a way it's easier to accomplish a goal than maintain the status quo just think about losing weight, how many people actually lose weight and gain back how many people start physical activity and quit. It's easier to set a goal, reach the goal than it is to continue on the status quo. So this I'm making up, but I think it's a good idea. This is not evidence base when you reach your goal, tweak your goal. So you have something else to work towards whether it's weight, whether it's physical activity whether it's learning the computer whether it's, how much you're going to contribute on that volunteer position you have a goal, tweak it when you get there, so that you can keep your interest in the challenge. I'm going to give you an example of Leslie. Leslie retired in her 60s when I interviewed her. She's a very responsible person she had a very high position mental health. And she took a lower high position because she knew she was going to retire. She did all the things I'm telling you to plan for her retirement she knew exactly what she and her husband were going to do and boom, everything goes right before she retires. He dies, and her dog dies and Leslie did not have close friendships. She felt close to her children and they live far away. So what Leslie did instead of having long term goals. She reordered her thinking and thought okay, I got to get through the day. I'm going to plan each day, and she thought what's important to me what elements do I want my day. And she thought of five elements that every day she would want to figure out physical activity, social connection, meditation, creativity and for her that would be cooking or music and service to others. So people from my presentations or classes have found her way of approaching each day can be very helpful for you, and then you can tweak what the elements you want. And again approach goals are better than avoidance goals. So what I mean is, don't think that she I don't want to be bored I don't want to be lonely. Think about, okay, I want to work on finding a volunteer position, or making friends, think of something you can approach. That's a better goal, and you'll be more successful than thinking what you want to avoid. And so you know when you're discovering your purpose, people tend to say, Well, what do I like, and that can be useful, but asking yourself, what's important to you is actually better at finding purpose and maintaining it. It's bigger than you and can help you and things aren't going well. If you don't know what your interest or your passion is, try something, people do well at something, it can become a passion so maybe had no interest in photography, or writing stories or working with foster kids. Maybe you try something and you find, Wow, this is good at this, I like this, I want to do more of it I want to help people so just start trying things. Of course, the literature you know this that a lifestyle that involves physical activity. There's an abundance of literature that it's good for your physical mental health, I would suggest that you know how I tell you being accountable is good be do your physical activity with others or for others so then you're doing several things at the same time of those seven categories. I'm going to involve others maybe say okay, I'm going to get physically active, I'm going to involve my friends, or my neighbors, or other, I'm going to go to assisted living place, or maybe I'm going to do it with foster kids, I'm going to be the one that can take them out to play basketball or miniature golf or whatever walks, whatever it is, or with my dog they can walk with me, or maybe you'll even think a little bigger and you'll do a fundraiser for the foster care, or for somebody else so you'll get people to be active with you you'll be accountable to be helping them, and maybe you'll do it for even a bigger cause. It's better to have no calling than an unfulfilled calling. What I mean by that is to set a goal and not reach it is worse than having no goals. I want you to think about new things you want to do. And before you leave tonight think about okay, she keeps saying it what can I implement by tomorrow morning or by the end of tomorrow day or even tonight what can I start doing. Implement it doesn't have to be the right thing it's not the purpose. It's a purpose. And the. Okay, so remember I said a purpose not the purpose. People who are called saddest visors, they think things are good enough. They have better health and well being than people who are maximizers people that think I have to find the perfect volunteer position or the perfect list. They are not as happy or successful as the people that think I need to find something good enough. I already told you that about your ideal life. Last I just have two little things to end when you're having a new habit, say you're going to start flossing, typically can take one to two or three months to develop a new habit. So as you try these new things, give them time might want to tweak them you might want support from others, but keep at it for a while new habits don't develop quickly. I want to end with something that actually is not evidence based, but I consider it poignant and helpful. Bronnie where is a nurse to patients who are dying. And she writes about regrets from people who are dying, because that's who she's working with and that's what they're talking to her about. So I ask you before I tell you the number one regret of something that you'd want to think about is, is there anything I've always wanted to do and I don't want to run out of the resource resources or the time or the health to do it. What is that maybe you can do anyway the number one regret that she finds. Okay, punchline here if I can get to it. Oops, elements physical activity sorry. Okay, the number one regret is, I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself. Not the life of others expected of me, another this is probably the last slide you might want to copy. I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life of others expected me. And I Jill wish you the courage and support to live a life that has purpose for you. Thank you. So that's it how I do. Okay, 558. We've time for a few questions. And Jim, you can give me any feedback or tell me if people are still there and if they had any questions. Yeah, we had over 100 people are 99 people show up and few people have just recently dropped out but very good turnout for sure. Thank you. And we have somebody had made a comment that they're 57 self employed for 36 years in a field that they love but COVID has made the work vanished. And they have the work has not come back. They're in terrific financial shape but not ready to retire the university or sorry the universe has apparently decided it's retirement time. But what can I do, even another five or eight years would be nice. So I just maybe you could comment on that. Well, I guess my first comment is I'm sorry, because going through COVID for many of us, and still going through what has been a very difficult time. And the situation you're describing is not unusual. And if you look at the literature on successful retirement, being forced in retirement is not a good predictor of success. However, you just heard an entire lecture on the matter where you at your at you can find purpose and that's very good for your mental and physical health. So what I would do. First of all, if you want to you can go back to my other lecture but I think this is the one you need. Let's look for a purpose for you. And if I was talking with you I would start with those seven areas like what, what, what do you value what do you like doing you know what's important to you, let's find that and go through the seven areas. Okay, I'm going to try this or maybe it's just easy for you to go you know what I've worked so hard. I've learned my work. I don't really have that many close people in my life, and she just said if I'm in a heterosexual relationship. I don't have anything to just rely on my female partner. And, and you can look at my research on my website. It's problematic. So maybe we think, geez, that's really important. I don't even know how to start but I'm going to start looking at how do you make friendships. So these are very good books and do one of the best people in the field about the important of social connection was University Chicago. And he died in the last year so if anybody can think of his names if not if that's important to I'll get back to but go University of Chicago social connection it's unusual name it was an excellent book on loneliness but you might not be feeling lonely and that's not the point the point is about social connection. So you could start with anything here it doesn't have to be the right thing did I bring up anything to you that person that feels like okay, I could just, I just want to get in gear and start something. So I don't know. Jim, do you feel like that was helpful because I'm repeating. Yes, what I said, you do. Okay. Yeah, and we have another question from our doctor Steinberg. Do you think it's more difficult for Americans to deal with this issue because of the way our society work retirement and it's ties to money and position are set up versus a country like Japan, who has a purpose is part of the culture that I can answer that because I haven't read the research. If you ask my gut reaction. I think it's very difficult in this society to do well in retirement as I said, up to at best 75% of people enjoy the retirement and that's of the people that use it that are privileged enough to have the finances the health to even retire. So that's, that's a crappy statistic that's not that's barely a see. So we're not doing that well I don't know the statistics of Japan but when I read about that. When you have more community and thinking about the others they profess that gives you more a sense of purpose. It. So it sounds good to me, and I wish we would develop. Not we wouldn't be such an individualistic society because at the end of the day the end of the research is that's not what is what making people happy and healthy. So that it's my best guess. And we have another comment great talk. You mentioned that you're going to start a mentoring program. When do you plan to do that and how could one join a mentoring program. Right now, it's through Boston University if you're an alumni of BU, you can join it where we won't start it probably for about two months. It's, we just recently did a survey at my last presentation. And we have enough interest that people would want it that right now I am developing the retiree to retiree mentor program. The only other few I know in the whole country because I've scoured the research. It's a summary university if you've been a part of that. Oh, and to the Coast Guard, the Coast Guard just has a network where you can see who else retired but they don't do I'm going to train people to be mentors and and mentees how to be mentees and match them and start it. It's a very successful program at San Jose State University but that was student student. And if you look at the literature on mentoring. It's a very successful thing. So that's how if you're a BU alum, you've made it that way. And if not, I don't know where else in the rest of your life there's not much literature on retiree to retiree mentoring maybe Bogleheads could do something that focuses more financial or I am setting up the parameters for training right now so perhaps you live in a community where you'd like that and they'd ask me to consult on what we could do to start our own mentoring program. Anyway, that's how it's going and it's a very new thing and I'm proud of BU, because when they started working with me about 10 years ago, really the Alumni Association did not focus on our age and stage. And we were so successful at getting huge amounts of people to attend that they've now started this whole initiative for our age, we want to be involved, we want to be a resource. So Jim, how we do with time I could easily end I've talked a lot. And I don't know if people are okay if we end. We have a couple more comments and I'll just somebody commented about the literature you mentioned and maybe a suggested reading list maybe we could get together later like tomorrow next day and put a list together and then publish it with the chat notes that we are going to publish. And you asked that person, I don't know, just put it out and maybe they could respond. The whole thing is evidence based so was there something in particular you would like because if it was me and I was going to go to something to start from this, particularly that person that says what am I going to do with my life now. Go to Seligman, go to watch a Ted talk by Seligman on flourish, go to the University of Pennsylvania website. That's a quick easy it's you can do it tonight. He's excellent he's all evidence based on interventions to. If there's somebody in particular they want. If they could put it in the chat from all that I presented. What is it and if it's about successful retirement like I brought up issues with couples or planning or those kinds of things I illustrated people. And on my website, my retirement works calm. There's a section called research and it's not as up to date as my chapter but you don't need to buy this book unless you're interested in all aspects of the psychology and economics of the aging consumer. And a lot of what's in this chapter is on my website and all the resource resources are there so you could go there tonight. That's a really good start or you will let Jim know you want more and Jim will let me know. Okay, so very good. A lot of a lot of thank yous and a nice presentation. I just wanted to tell you these things. Fantastic insights and a number of people comment that they have a bunch of work to do now that you've told them, you know, so that's good.