Ep. 290 – The Four Phases Of Retirement

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In this Episode of the Secure Your Retirement Podcast, Radon and Murs discuss the fascinating journey of transitioning into retirement with special guest Dr. Ridley Moynes, author of The Four Phases of Retirement. This episode dives deep into the emotional, mental, and financial aspects of retirement, addressing the critical question: “Is retirement only about money, or is there more to finding purpose in retirement?” Dr. Moynes shares the framework he developed after years of research and over 150 interviews, breaking down the stages of retirement that retirees commonly face. Whether you are planning retirement or already retired, this episode will equip you with insights to navigate these stages and achieve peace of mind.

Listen in to learn about the emotional challenges many retirees encounter and how identifying your purpose can lead to fulfillment in this stage of life. Discover how the “Four Phases of Retirement” framework can help you plan for retirement beyond just finances and transition smoothly into a meaningful and joyful retirement life.

In this episode, find out:

·      What the Four Phases of Retirement are and how they apply to your journey.

·      Why emotional preparation is as important as financial planning steps.

·      How to avoid feeling lost and overcome the challenges of retirement.

·      The importance of finding purpose and creating a sense of fulfillment after retirement.

·      Practical tips for retiring comfortably and planning retirement with confidence.

Tweetable Quotes:

1.    “Retirement isn’t just about leaving work; it’s about finding a renewed purpose that makes you excited to get up each morning.” – Radon Stancil

2.    “The happiest retirees are those who commit to service—whether it’s mentoring, volunteering, or being the best grandparent they can be.” – Murs Tariq

Resources:

If you are in or nearing retirement and you want to gain clarity on what questions you should be asking, learn what the biggest retirement myths are, and identify what you can do to achieve peace of mind for your retirement, get started today by requesting our complimentary video course, Four Steps to Secure Your Retirement!

To access the course, simply visit POMWealth.net/podcast.

Here’s the full transcript:

Radon Stancil :	Welcome to Secure Your Retirement. We are very happy to have a special guest today. I actually heard about him and heard him being interviewed about a book that he’s wrote that fits so perfectly with what we do, and I just wanted to make sure that we could maybe have him come on and talk to you as well. But it’s Riley Moines and he is the author of the book, the Four Phases of Retirement. And so thank you very much, Riley for coming on and talking with us today.
Dr. Riley Moyne…:	My pleasure. I’m happy to be here. Thanks for the opportunity to share it.
Radon Stancil :	Yeah, so I’ll tell you what intrigued me so much Ri. And the reason why I wanted to have you on is I’ve been doing this for 24 years now, and I have pretty much the whole entire time worked with individuals that are about 10 years out from retirement into and then through retirement. And when I saw this, the four phases of retirement, and I heard you talk about those phases, I said, man, I see that all the time, these four phases. And sometimes we’re talking to people. I always think about it and say one of the most emotional hurdles is to go from a decades of work to now I’m not going to work. And then how is that going to play out? And I just thought the way you explained it, I’ve lived it and lived it with my clients and I just thought, man, this is so good. So could you do this first, just before we go in and start breaking it down, could you give us a little bit of background about you and then what made you write this book so we kind of understand who we’re talking to?
Dr. Riley Moyne…:	Right, right. Well, I spent a number of years as you were doing as a financial advisor, a wealth manager. I did a lot of retirement preparation with my clients as well. But I have to say that it didn’t hit me until I stepped back from the day-to-Day operations of our business. And I experienced these four phases, but I didn’t know about them at the time I was technically retired, I guess you’d say I was busy enough. I didn’t really feel that I was doing anything that was particularly Meaningful or significant or important. And I really began to try to figure out what was going on. And it was a very personal kind of a quest.
	I read the research and of course, as you know very well, most of the research relates to preparation for retirement from a financial point of view or from an estate point of view, wills, powers of attorney, all that kind of stuff, investment portfolios and balances and so on. And they’re all critically important, but it just wasn’t what I was looking for. So I decided then my background is in some research, and so I decided, well, I better talk to people and see if they can help me. And I was directed to a number of people who I was told had kind of figured out retirement, whatever that means. And so I approached them and I had a series of questions that I put to them. I always finished up by, my final question was always, how do you squeeze all the juice out of retirement?
	And so one thing led to another, and so people that I interviewed would say, well, you should talk to, so-and-so and so-and-So went on for over three years, well over 150, closer to 200 interviews. And then I had this massive information that I had to try to make sense of. That was the next challenge. My background before I became involved in financial services was as a teacher. And one of the things I had learned early on as a teacher is that if you could help kids, people, students of whatever age kind of make sense of something, if you could provide some sort of a framework within which things made more sense than they might’ve otherwise, that was really helpful and it was always helpful to me. And so I then started to look for what kind of patterns, what kind of big picture framework could there be that would help make sense of this? And that’s how the four phases evolved. And as I then kind of fuel tested them, does this make sense? I went back to a number of the interviewees, does this make sense? Overwhelmingly, they said, absolutely. And as I began to apply it certainly to my own situation and others that I interviewed, it always seems to make big time sense for them.
Radon Stancil :	Hold on one second. Murs, we don’t hear you for some reason. So I’ve got MRA, we’re in different locations today, and so I’m going to have to go ahead and we’ll kind of get this started and see where his sound comes in here in a second. But the thing that I wanted to ask is that now we got this baseline, you’re basically saying, okay, I’ve built this parameter and I guess at this point, let’s just try to go through those phases and start to talk a little bit about that and how would you transition then if you were going from a work life, i mean, where does the first phase start, I guess? Where does it hit us?
Dr. Riley Moyne…:	Well, ideally, as you indicated that you are working with clients who are maybe 10 years from retirement, ideally they would start to think about these things and they might even be aware of the four phases well in advance of retiring because that would give them a tremendous heads up and a significant head start in kind of making sense of things. But assuming that we don’t get the four phases until we get to retirement, the phase one is what I call the retirement, sorry, the vacation phase. That’s just what it’s like. You’re on vacation every now and then and you get up when you want. You do what you want, when you want, where you want, if you want no set routine. We love the fact that there’s no routine for a while because our lives have been dominated by a routine. So we really value that period of time, which generally tends to last between one and two years.
	In my experience, for me it was just about dead on two years. But some people go through phase one more quickly and others of course take longer. It’s a time for a bucket list checking off whether these bucket lists have been written down or whether they’re just in our heads that we all know that there are some things we want to do when we finally retire and now we’ve finally got a chance to do it. So it often involves new golf clubs or a new sailboat perhaps, or a new sports car. It often involves a warm weather retreat perhaps for people who can get away from it after they finish work. And the interesting thing about phase one is that for most retirees, phase one is in their view, the ideal retirement along the beach with a loved one. It’s having a glass of wine, it’s the cruising, it’s all of that stuff.
	And it’s wonderful as long as it lasts, and then you’ve worked hard for 20, 30, 40, 50 years perhaps, and now it’s kind of me time and it’s all about me. And it’s a wonderful time as we step back from our day-to-day activities. And I found that at about two years for most people, all of a sudden too much of a good thing can also can almost be too much. You can only play so much golf, for example. You can only garden so much, or you can only do whatever it is that you love to do so much. And then we start to ask ourselves, well, is that all there is to retirement? I thought it was supposed to be doing what I want when I want, and now I’m bored stiff. And at that point, we kind of move from phase one, the vacation phase into phase two, which is what I call the phase where we feel lost and we feel lost.
	Many people kind of assume that retirement is going to be a kind of a coast that we’ve worked hard all our lives, whether inside the home or outside the home. And there are challenges and there are routines, but we have this sense that when we retire, it’s going to be easy sailing. And in fact, retirement has been documented as one of life’s top 10 traumas. It’s right up there with divorce, with death of a spouse, with moving to a new city or a new country, perhaps it’s up there with a new job. It is a stress producing event in our lives, and we don’t often deal with it in just that way. So in phase two, I’ve documented that there are five significant, almost unavoidable losses that are directly related to retirement. So first of all, we lose our structure. And although we didn’t necessarily always love the fact that we were governed by a structure, we find that after a couple of years of no structure, something deep inside us wants and needs a long-term structure.
	So we miss that structure. That’s the first thing that we miss. We miss or we lose our identity at this phase because many of us males I think in particular, although certainly not exclusively identify with the work that they do, they take it seriously. They want to do the best they can, but when we walk away from that, a piece of us is lost. We also lose some of the relationships that we might have developed over a 40 or 50 year working career. Some of those people that maybe began as work colleagues become really good friends. And when we step away from it, we tend to lose a significant part of that as well. And we lose a sense of purpose again. We take our work seriously in most cases, and as we step away again, another part of us is lost. And finally, the fifth loss that I’ve associated directly with retirement is for some people, a loss of a sense of power. Because over a period of time, we can maybe accept some responsibility for personnel or for budgeting and when we step away, but when we step away from that, we’re just a guy or a gal in the street and nobody cares. And so we suffer these, as I say, five significant losses almost inevitable that are directly related to retirement. And in phase two, it gets worse.
	It gets worse because we have to address what I call the three Ds, significant losses that are not directly related to retirement, but more to a time of life. But interestingly, that time of life tends to overlap with retirement. So we suffer, for example, some physical decline, and that silky smooth golf swing that we used to have isn’t quite so silky smooth anymore. So there’s that kind of physical decline. There’s mental decline where lose our keys more often or can’t find the remote or we forget things. So there’s that kind of decline as well. Then there’s depression. The world famous Mayo Clinic has documented that when you retire, there’s a 40% likelihood that you will demonstrate aspects of clinical depression. And then there’s divorce where rates of divorce in North America have skyrocketed for people over 50. It has doubled since 1990, and for folks over 65, it has troubled tripled since 1990.
	And another fact that is an amazing fact that’s tied in with all of this is that the highest rate of suicide in North America today is men over 75. So this phase two, this feeling lost, feeling lost, and these three Ds are really a significant time of light, and we don’t see these things coming, but we lose all five of these losses at essentially the same time because they’re directly related to retirement. And it’s kind of like BA and it can be traumatic. And the result is that we just feel like we’re reeling, we’re lost, and it’s a very, very traumatic time of life. Fortunately, at some point, most of us say to ourselves or a significant other, Hey, I can’t go on like this. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life feeling like this. And in a sense that’s a good thing because it allows us to move forward as a sidelight, but as a significant sidelight.
	Whereas in 1950, average life expectancy in North America was 68 years, and we could anticipate about three years of retirement. Now, it is quite likely that baby boomers will live one third of their lives up to upwards of 30 years in retirement. And so it becomes more and more significant that we find things in retirement that are Meaningful and significant to us. So at some point, as I say, most of us say, I can’t go on this. I’ve got a long way to go and I’ve got to do something. And that’s when we start to move into phase three, which is what I call the phase of trial and error. We’ve kind of reached the low point and we begin to, well, that’s when the rehab begins, if I can put it that way. So in phase three, we start to ask ourselves questions like, what’s going to make me want to get up in the morning again?
	What can I do that’s going to make my life significant? How can I contribute? That kind of thing. And when we start asking those questions, that’s a good thing because we start to think about options. But what I’ve also discovered in phase three is when I emphasize trial and error. So the things that we might try to break us out of our lethargy and our depression in phase two are likely not going to work the first time. So I use examples in my workshops of several situations that I went through in phase three where I tried things, they failed miserably, and you got to try something else. And I tried other things and they went miserably. And I use the example of having served on a condo board for a couple of years. Usually people smile when I say that, and I say that I did that until I got tired of being yelled at.
	And so that didn’t work out so well for the longest time, and I could just go on and on with so many things that people try and that don’t work. But it’s really critical in phase three that you keep at it because the alternative is if you beat your head against the wall and you finally give up in phase three, what’s going to happen? You’re going to slip back into phase two, and there’s a greater likelihood of becoming a sad statistic at that point. So I calculate that. Not everybody, I believe, based on the research that I’ve done, only about 60 to 65% of retirees break through to phase four. But those who do are some of the happiest people that you will ever lay eyes on. These are people who are basically, they can’t wait for the sun to rise in the morning. They’ve got so many things that they want to get done.
	And the underlying feature that I’ve discovered in phase four, the underlying feature that separates phase four people from almost every other phase is a commitment to service to others. It’s just that simple. If people undertake providing service to others, whether it’s on a voluntary basis, whether it’s on a part-time, working basis, it doesn’t matter. We feel good when we start to provide service to others. So there’s a group then that breaks through, but there’s work involved. And again, I associate retirement as a time when many people make an assumption that it’s going to be easy sailing and it’s not. We need to ask ourselves, I think two or three critical questions to break through to phase four. We need to ask ourselves, what is my purpose here? Why am I here?
	How can I squeeze all the juice out of retirement? We need to ask those questions and we need to identify what I call our unique ability. Our unique ability is not something that is necessarily unique to us and no one else in the world, but it’s really noting what are the things that or thing or things that you love to do and that you know do superbly well? I find people don’t think about this generally, but it’s an important thing to know as you consider phase four. The second thing that we need to use and strategies that I use in our workshop, what are some of the highlights of your life? Identify just five, five wins, victories, breakthroughs. Call them what you want. You could do 50 if you wanted to, but in our workshops, just do five. And then we look for common themes.
	What is the connection between what you do really well and what you love to do and successes? And what people often don’t see is that there is a connection because what you do really well and what you love to do has often led to success in the past. And it will again, if you allow it to perhaps in an entirely different venue, in a different way of life, but the things you love to do and do really well and have led to success in the past will lead to success again in the future. So you need to think about what those things are, and you need to set aside or set yourself on a path to achieve those things. And what I have found is that people who do are, as I say, the happiest people you will ever lay eyes on. In a nutshell, those are the four phases.
Murs Tariq:	Well, that’s great. Can we hear me now, guys?
Radon Stancil :	Yep, we got you.
Murs Tariq:	Yeah. Okay, good. So you can tell Ray and I have been doing this podcast long enough. If I have a question, he probably has the same question and he’s able to step right in when technology fails us. That was my question. What are the four phases? And if I could Riley sum it up, phase one is what everyone thinks retirement should be, right? Let’s go travel, let’s go do the things that we’ve been putting off.
	But what you’re saying is it doesn’t, it’s not a lifelong phase. And eventually we do get bored of that and we start to question ourselves. And that’s where issues could come up in phase two of, well, how is the rest of my life going to play out and what is my, or starting to feel that loss of I was this in my career and now I’m not this, I don’t have this power that I used to have. I don’t feel the sense of purpose that I had to go get up and do my job and make my company better or make the people around me better. And then so if you make it out of that phase, then you got phase three, which is well, or I guess the only way out of that phase is to go start questioning, well, what do I want my life to be and what is my new sense of purpose now that I’m not tied to a nine to five type of deal? And
Dr. Riley Moyne…:	You can rely on past successes to guide you in that regard
Murs Tariq:	Too.
Dr. Riley Moyne…:	It’s not necessarily a blank slate for most people. I find that it’s not, but yeah, it doesn’t have to be.
Murs Tariq:	And then phase four is you’ve thought it through, you’ve figured it out, and a lot of times it’s the happiness that most people think retirement should be, but you associate it with the idea of helping others or finding that purpose, whether it’s helping others outside of family, or could it be as simple as feeling that value needed of just being like a grandparent to raising children and all that stuff?
Dr. Riley Moyne…:	Absolutely. They’ll be the best grandparent that you can be to mentor a kid, to volunteer perhaps on a condo board, perhaps volunteer to all kinds of charities. They need help desperately, and they’re looking for people who have got expertise and have had success in the past. They just fall all over themselves when someone like that shows up and volunteers to offer or sorry, volunteers to help them.
Murs Tariq:	Right. Yeah. So my question to you Ri, is it seems like it would be so nice to make the phases work for us, and if we knew what we’re getting into before we actually retired. Way too often, we will ask someone, what do you want out of retirement? What are you going to do when you retire? And the common response is, I’m too busy to think about that now. I’ll figure it out when I get there.
	And from what I’m hearing, maybe we should start figuring out before we get there so that we can make the transition as smooth as possible. The other one hear, which you did touch on is you could have one spouse that travels a lot or works a certain schedule and the other maybe not so much. And then once they both retire, they’re having to figure out how to live together again all day every day versus the jobs keeping them busy and their interaction being limited throughout the weeks. So it sounds like you’ve got these workshops that you keep mentioning is the workshop to help people understand the four phases and then also how to maybe streamline them and make them work to their benefit the best way possible and maybe shorten that phase number two?
Dr. Riley Moyne…:	Absolutely. It is, first of all to introduce the four phases so that people have that framework, which I have found people find really helpful. I certainly did because I make better sense of things when I can see a framework. That’s the first thing. But the second thing is to help them work through with some of the strategies that I’ve outlined to help them to consider things that they may not have considered before. What is their unique ability? What do they love to do and what do they do really well? And look at past successes, all of that kind of thing we think. I think I hope it’s helpful to people. I would love to raise that percentage of people who get to phase four from what I believe to be about 60 or 65 to a much higher level, if at all possible.
Radon Stancil :	So in your book, I’m just curious about this one. I see the point here. You talk about the Life Legacy letter. Could you just describe that for us a little bit?
Dr. Riley Moyne…:	Yeah, sure. The Life Legacy Letter is a strategy that some people, I included have found extremely helpful. I think most of us would agree when we go back beyond just probably a couple of generations, most of us know very little about our family. And to the extent that that may be important to you, I suggest that people consider that Life Legacy Letter, which can be a form of family history. It can be memoirs, it can be whatever you want it to be. But what I’ve attempted to do in the Life Legacy Letter that I continue to work on is to provide some suggestions, some failures that I’ve encountered that maybe my grandchildren or your children, great-grandchildren perhaps could learn from. Maybe to help them to identify some of the things that are their great strengths. Because again, we often don’t think about that. So it can take many different formats, and it can be in a written format, it can be in a video format, audio format, or a combination of all of them. But I have found that for a lot of people for whom that kind of family history is of some significance, it can be a very satisfying thing to leave behind as a legacy when we pass on.
Radon Stancil :	Very nice. Well, you’ve shared a lot and you’ve got the book that you wrote, the Four Phases of Retirement. I have bought a bunch of those books and they’re on their way. And I’ll just tell you this, if you’re listening and you’re thinking you’d like to get a copy, we are happy to give you a copy as a gift. So if you reach out to us here at the office, we would make sure that you can get a copy if you would like. And we are going to try to work to see if we can’t orchestrate a workshop with you Ri, to maybe go into this in more detail. So this is, like I tell you, we hear this all the time and it’s just so nice to have somebody just walk you through. I think what’s also very unique is that you’re doing this not only from this idea of working in financial services, but also living it. So you’ve lived through those phases yourself, and I think that makes it super
Dr. Riley Moyne…:	Powerful. Yeah, I just had not identified them at that time.
Radon Stancil :	Yeah. Well, thank you very much. We appreciate you coming on and talking with us.
Dr. Riley Moyne…:	My pleasure. My pleasure. Thanks a lot.