(upbeat music) Welcome to the Bogleheads Chapter Series. This episode was jointly hosted by the Pre and Early Retirement and Retired Life Stage Chapters and recorded November 10th, 2021. It features Jill Steinberg, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist and emeritus professor at San Jose State University. Her topic is titled Successful Retirement or Retiring or Rewiring and addresses non-financial aspects of retirement.

Bogleheads are investors who follow John Bogle's investing philosophy for attaining financial independence. This recording is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as personalized investment advice. It is my pleasure to introduce tonight's speaker, Jill Steinberg, PhD. Jill's an emeritus professor at San Jose State University and a licensed clinical psychologist.

She has published research, taught classes and given presentations on successful retirement to universities and professional organizations. Our interviewer tonight is Gauri, who is one of the co-coordinators of the Bogleheads Starting Out Life Stage Chapter and also the coordinator of the New York City Bogleheads Chapter. Okay, there we go.

Okay, we're already recording, right? So Gauri, I think we're ready to turn it over to you. - Fantastic, thanks so much, Carol. And thanks to the broader team for helping set this up. It's really phenomenal how the Bogleheads community helps so many others in the community and within itself.

And that's a great segue to have Jill here. It's such an honor and privilege. Your work is so, I think, beyond the normal Boglehead theme. That I think this audience will get a lot out of what you're about to cover. So, so many questions were submitted via the RSVPs.

So I'm gonna start, as Carol mentioned, with how they were chosen. The first question is, I'm 10 months retired and doing what I've always wanted, which is reading more and spending all my time with my wonderful wife. We're introverts and don't get out much. Should I expect to need a purpose at some point?

And the purpose is in quotes. - Okay, so if you'll let me, Gauri, I'd like to just answer this first question a little bit longer, so the audience can get an idea of the kind of information I know and how I think about a question. And I'm gonna, you'll see, I don't give advice.

I give the research information that addresses the question so that the person can be as informed as they can be in thinking it through decisions they wanna make. And because I don't know any of you. If I knew you and knew you well, then I feel like I could tailor my information more to you.

So maybe that'll happen later. But for right now, let me address it. So it sounds like not a very complicated question. It was very clear and thoughtful to the point, and it's actually very complicated. So I'm gonna tell you some of the dimensions that I look at when I think about it.

So the person's been retired and happily at home, reading. Will they need a purpose? First of all, let me congratulate them. The fact that they're home and they have a partner that they like being with, that's remarkable. And if you look at the literature, there's the longest term study on happiness is the Harvard study.

The thing that came out there, so it's over 80 years now, they've been following people and eventually they followed the wives. At first they didn't, and they were following heterosexual people or that's how they identified. Anyway, having a partner that you feel good about. They use marriage, I use partner because that's too limited.

Anyway, having a life partner that you feel good about is one of the best predictors of happiness. So congratulations on that, and congratulations that you created the money that you can have this experience or the resources. It is a privilege and amazing that some of us can do that.

So in terms of purpose, what I wanna say to you is there is a huge literature on the importance of purpose in someone's life in terms of their mental health, their physical health. The literature says you can predict better about how happy or how healthy a person's gonna be using purpose more than if they're abusing alcohol, if they're abusing cigarettes, how stressed they are.

That's how important it is. It's a huge literature. So given I don't know you, for all I know you're living your purpose, reading, learning, being with your wife might be how you identify purpose. It can come in many forms. So I'm gonna just tell you a couple other things that come up in my mind.

So there's a huge literature throughout life about social connection. So you have your partner and you'll see later, depending something that came up to me that was very interesting in the literature is how different things can be for men and women in retirement. But anyway, men tend not to be as good at forming relationships as women.

And there's a huge literature that that's important. And I wanna, oh, just two things. The literature I'm gonna tell you about is pre-COVID. So even though I'm up to date with the COVID statistics, this wasn't so much what's covered in COVID. If you wanna know about that, and I'll just give you the punchline to that is I just wrote an article.

People over 60 have been doing the best during COVID in terms of mental wellbeing. So we figure out how to have our connections, our purpose. Let me see if there's something else I was thinking about. Oh, the other thing I wanted to tell you, the research says that usually when people start retiring, there's kind of this honeymoon phase.

They're so happy to have time to think they're free to do what they want or away from a boss they didn't like, whatever it is. They're so happy that most people do well in the beginning. And then there's a major dip. The literature does not talk about when this happens.

So I can tell you experientially what I've observed, but the literature is consistent. Usually people are really glad. Then there's an absolute major dip when people wake up to, is this all there is? I've already gone to every restaurant or I've traveled everywhere. Now what? They wake up to that and then it usually stabilizes.

So most people are at least as happy in retirement as they were before, but about 25% of people have trouble adjusting and 10% at least just can't be happy. They have not figured it out. So is that good? Did I do okay with that one? - I think there's a lot of insight there and it almost implies one shouldn't wait until retirement to start exploring happiness, right?

One should. - Oh, totally. Like there's so much research already and it's accessible, digestible. It's not just academic. I mean, the self-help section is kind of infinite. So yeah, that was great. And I think it's a great segue into our next question, which is how far in advance of retirement is it helpful to start shifting to a retirement mindset with regard to goals, purpose, et cetera?

And the question asker says, I realize this will be highly individual, but hearing what's typical would be a helpful reference point. In terms of reference point, the reference here is financial. I know that your suggestions won't be financial necessarily, but the reference point they're citing is akin to when pre-retirees typically start shifting from equity to bonds or more conservative shifting ratio on the financial side.

- Would it be okay with you if I answered it instead of financial, if I answer it about thinking about your life, when you should start planning? That way? - Absolutely, yeah. - And let me also say, I was kind of stunned and amazed at how informed people are in your group.

It's really amazing that you're just way ahead of most people thinking about it. So in terms of planning, there is, again, no definite answer, but I'm gonna give you an example of somebody, two people to illustrate it. One person was a university professor. She said she started 10 years in advance of everything.

The people that I'm relaying information would say they're having a successful retirement and they were able to do it financially. So she would say it took her at least 10 years in advance. I wanna tell you about Arthur. When I use names, they're people's real names and they've all given me permission from the hundreds of people I've interviewed.

Anyway, Arthur retired from Google when he was 47. And I guess that's about eight years ago when I first interviewed him. And when he interviewed, when he retired, he was responsible largely as one of the main people. He was an early Googler and he was responsible for text messaging.

So he had the opportunity, should I retire or not? He wasn't planning on it. He didn't grow up wealthy, but two things made him wanna retire. One is people said to him, if you have the chance, if you have young children to spend time with them, do it. And that, he and his wife, who also was professional, they both decided to do it.

And in terms of planning, he knew this woman who was 103 years old, who retired when she was 50. And she told him, you better start planning in advance. You do not wanna wake up one day and kind of jump off a cliff. People don't like to be adrift.

It's a very bad feeling, plan in advance. And he listened to this woman and what he did, he started thinking about it years in advance before he retired, but two years in advance, he started getting very serious about his planning. And he started writing down three categories. One is projects he wanted to work on, goals he wanted to achieve, and his description of what he wanted a typical day to look like.

And he knew he better be concrete and specific and build in a routine. He had had a life that had a major schedule always, and he didn't wanna all of a sudden have no schedule. So that helped him. And now I wanna tell you about somebody else, Leslie. Leslie was very big in mental health in the state of California.

And by trying to retire, she took a less huge position, but still very big. And she planned with her husband all the things they were gonna do. So it was very good planning. But shortly before she retired, her husband died and then her dog died. And what she has told me, and this woman is amazing.

I only met her by interviewing her and have spoken to her many times. She actually can enjoy life. And it was such a shock. They were a tight couple that didn't really have other friends. So they didn't do that. And all of a sudden she was left by herself.

What do you do? But what she did, she shifted her planning from instead of thinking ahead months or days or years, she now plans her days based on what she called elements, things that are important to her. I would use the word maybe values. What do you want to have happen in your day?

And she uses these elements to determine how she's gonna do her day. Physical activity, social connection, meditation, creativity. And for her, that could be cooking or writing or a musical activity and service to others. And if you wanted to ever know more specifically, I can tell you what she does because it follows from her work.

But as this person who ran mental health in the state, she also started meditating many years before. So in retirement, one of the things she does is teaches other people meditation from people living in old age homes to lawyers, to people she mentors. So I don't have an exact answer for planning, but that gives you an idea because it's not in the literature.

And I will tell you what I know about, well, I'll tell you right now. Terms of planning, the literature is very, again, clear. One of the most important things if you wanna have a successful retirement is to plan. And people who plan figure out not just their money, how it's gonna be with their time, because that's a really big one.

Usually when people plan, they plan as if it's gonna be a weekend, a long weekend. Yay, I have free time. Those are the planners. They're not good planners, but the people are like, oh, I'll figure it out. I've always wanted to something. It just doesn't go that way. You could have up to 20 years of retirement.

So that's a long time. And by the way, retirement now is more an evolving process where we used to say it was an oxymoron that people worked during retirement. Now it's becoming more the new normal. And oftentimes it's defined purpose. But in terms of planning, you ask what's typical.

If you look at the literature from social security, about 22% of people spend six months before they retire dealing with it. Another 22% up to a year. The research has 38% of people don't plan at all. And most people are sorry when they retire that they didn't plan. The other thing is people plan for their own happiness.

But if you look at the literature on behavioral economics, people can't predict well, what will make them happy. Or for example, with retirement, 41% of people retire earlier than they said they were ever gonna retire. So I could give you more of that statistics, but I hope that gives the person an idea of how I think, oh, about planning.

And my research found something new that got published that is not in the literature. Planning is very important. And what I found and Arthur illustrated, implement things before you retire. In other words, if you think you might wanna take a class or you might wanna get an animal or whatever it is you wanna do, try something.

It doesn't matter whether that's what you like or not. It's the act of being actively engaged and trying to figure out. You wanna start trying that because like I said, it's evolving, you're gonna change. So, okay. - Yeah, well, thanks Jill. That makes perfect sense so that you're not newly testing something in retirement so that it's not the first time to adjust and make these kind of tweaks to make it work.

You've already tested it perhaps decades before, at least years before so that you're ready and you know what works or what doesn't work, right? So that you enter retirement with more familiarity. I think that's a great segue to our next question. You mentioned the importance of a few things, planning and community specifically.

So this question is in terms of building community and friendships in the real world, so many retirees seem to cling to Zoom. There simply seems to be fewer people available to build friendships with than I planned. Any suggestions? - First of all, I wanna tell you these questions are exactly right on.

You are bringing up the real issues that people live with in retirement. So I'm gonna say a big theory name, Karstensen is the person and so much literature on aging, retirement, successful, this and that, they quote Karstensen. And she has this theory called socio-emotional selectivity theory. And what she says in her theory, and there's a lot of research to support it, is that as people get older, their timeframe shifts.

We shift to how much time we have left and we shift to closer relationships and don't wanna make new friendships. So that doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but the questioner is exactly right. It's tough, people don't wanna do it. So they wanna focus on their close relationship. So say again, was the person saying, "How do you do it?" Or "Should I do it?" - Basically suggestions to broaden their community.

They expected to be able to meet others and connect with others more easily, but they're finding fewer people in retirement than they'd expected. And probably a comparison of Zoom. So they're finding that a lot of retirees to quote cling to Zoom. So I guess Zoom is its own community and then how to broaden the more typical physical community.

- Okay, I'm gonna have to make up some ideas based on my life and what people have told me they've done. There isn't an abundance of research, but I'm gonna tell this person something that's hard and interesting, which is I wanna tell them about pets and about going solo.

I don't know if you know this, but since the '80s, there's been this phenomena of people wanting to live alone. So right now, 28% of people in our country live alone. That is a more common way to live than the nuclear family. More people live alone than in a nuclear family.

It's only comparable to childless couples. They're the highest family structure. And the reason I'm saying this is people that live alone, one out of three boomers live alone. One out of three retirees live alone. And people are choosing it. It's not that they want, if they had a partner to die, but if the partner dies, people are choosing more to be on their own.

And what that is encouraging is people that live alone are more likely to go out and be involved in their community. So actually, it was very hard for people living alone during COVID because you'll see the literature on couples, good couples, it really helped people during COVID. And the people living alone were very attached to their community.

They're already giving and doing all these things. And during COVID, they couldn't do it. So why I'm bringing that up about one out of three people, they in non-COVID times, and who knows what it'll be as we hopefully emerge from this, they go out and meet people and want friends and want to contribute to things.

So there are people that even though the theory is we want to stay with whom we know and get closer, first of all, people are wanting to put time into it. And there are more people available now to do it. The other thing is for men, I would say definitely don't wait for retirement.

What the literature says, men at retirement have a hard time making friends or keeping people that they had at work. They have not developed the social structure or the skills to have friendships. And then they rely on their partner. So heterosexual or gay, one person is relying. And you'll see if we get to that question, that's tough on a couple.

So I actually, I'm an introvert and I have my long-term 50-year relationship friendships, but I made some friendships during retirement. And I'm a person who goes for my interests. So I like to learn. I've gone back to the university and I'm taking courses and I've met people in courses.

We are like-minded. And this is the same as the literature. If you're telling college students how to make friends, you try to do it based on your own interests. So say Yuri and I were in the same history class, at least we have that in common. I'm not taking a course I don't want in the hopes to meet Yuri, because, Yuri, because I wanna meet him or make friends.

I'm taking things that are interesting for me. So at least I'll get that need met. And then if we meet, it's possible, we'll have something to talk about and we have similar interests. And where I live, we have this thing called Osher Lifelong Learners. They're over 900 members. It's national, but it's very different all over.

So mine has over 900 members of people like us. And pre-COVID, we would meet in person. And we have over 50 interest groups. So it could be cooking. It could be speaking French. It could be social sciences. It could be investing. It could be taking hikes. I think you have nothing to lose to do something like that.

It doesn't cost you anything. We pay a little bit to be members and that just goes to college student scholarships. But they have classes. It's a very small commitment for a big payoff. And the other way I think you might meet people, and I like to try and do two things at once.

So let's meet your purpose and maybe you'll meet people. So maybe you find a way of volunteering, and that's a whole other issue. But there's something that feels valuable to you and you go for training for that. You could maybe meet like-minded people that way. But I wouldn't wait for retirement 'cause as you said, it's gonna be harder.

So you gotta give me just a little feedback since I'm answering such long. - Yeah, no, I think that was great. There was a lot there. I'll highlight a few things that resonated, I think with the earlier questions as well as upcoming questions. One is you can try out different things and see what resonates with you, right?

Meaning you, meaning the broader audience. So that whether it's taking classes or volunteering or meeting one's neighbors, these things have commonality by design, right? Like if you chose a class, other people in that class share that interest. And then going back to the earlier questioners, the crux of the question, if it implied feeling isolated, there may be other people who feel isolated and wanna meet other people too.

So that's a commonality. One doesn't need to feel alone in their isolation. That might sound odd, but there are many other people who feel isolated who are just as easily willing and able to connect. And all it takes is like a hello sometimes in a hallway or a pantry or a sidewalk or community space.

So those are things that at least resonated with me from your response, Jill, that if you try these things out before retirement, you can see what worked for you so that by the time you're in retirement, you're more practiced in meeting others and connecting with others and figuring out, okay, I tried this community or church or volunteering and that didn't work, but I can try this camera club or book club or whatever it is.

It sounds like there are many options available. Why don't we develop some of what you said with the next question? You spoke about men in retirement tendencies. Maybe if you can elaborate on that. This question is, do men or women have a different experience in retirement and what differences are there by gender?

And of course, some of this will be generalized, but Jill, you have so much data and interview-based experiences. Whatever you can present counts. - Okay, so I'll tell you this. And if you can help me remember later, it's kind of a sweet thing about pets, the importance of pets that in the COVID research, I found it more than before.

Anyway, men and women, yeah, they tend to have a very different experience. I'll start with some stuff about women. First of all, women are so focused on taking care of others. And you know how women get pushed out of careers to stay home with children. For women, they don't think about retirement as well financially, and they don't plan.

So women that end up as widows or single tend to have more issues, financial issues, be less wealthy than men. And that's a big issue because you need finances to make other choices. So women tend to end up economically insecure. And women in retirement, so again, these are generalizations, but you'll see they make sense.

And I can tell you the data. Women tend not to be as satisfied in retirement as men because the burdens of family life is that we tend to keep it. So here we're not just taking care of maybe children, and some people, we're so geared towards other, we're taking care of children.

Now we're taking care of our parents, our grandchildren, our sisters, our brothers. And it kind of goes on like that. If you look at the literature of who's taking care of whom during dementia, caretaker, it's the women, it doesn't stop. And women over 65 who have a partner tend to spend an hour more a day with domestic work than they ever did before from cooking and cleaning and stuff like that.

So the other thing is women tend to be so other-oriented that they continue with these responsibilities. And then we tend to volunteer more taking care of others. For men, a bigger issue is retiring from a job that the man felt really good about makes it more likely he's gonna have a hard time.

So women can do better leaving their jobs. I'll say a couple more things about men, but the thing about women in jobs, for many women, their jobs, if it's a good job or a good career, helps them feel good about themselves. It's outside all their domestic responsibilities. They can feel good about it and it can limit the time that they do domestic.

So a lot of times women, we don't know how to say no and other people know to ask us, will you take care of my kid? Will you drive my neighbor? Will you blah, blah, blah? And we say, yes, yes, yes. Where if we can say, I can't, I'm working, it's better.

You'll see, even being grandparents, there's some literature that women like being grandparents better when they work than when they retired. Not always, but that was a gender issue that came up. For men, I said the issue of it's harder adjustment if they really like their jobs. It's harder having friendships.

They, maybe they thought they had friends at work, but they didn't necessarily meet with them outside. They're not sure what to do. But the good thing for men is they tend to, in retirement, find better purpose. And we're not sure is that because they tend to take work longer or go back to work.

And here's like a male, female agenda. And usually you'll see my thing says, she, they. I try to not be so binary, but the literature is binary. It's she, he. So anyway, like if your husband is sick, woman, heterosexual woman, you are 50% more likely to retire. Reverse it, man, your wife is sick.

You're 50% less likely to retire. And if you have dementia, so we won't get too much into health issues 'cause that could take forever, but imagine you're going down this horrible path of dementia. Most women don't get informal care at home. They don't stay at home because who's gonna take care of the woman?

Is it their adult child? Who's gonna take care of the man? The wife. So that just gives you ideas of things that come up later in life in retirement that are different for men and women. - Okay. That's great to hear the, because you have so much factual evidence.

I think that really helps a lot of people. I'll jokingly highlight one thing you said, which is men have a harder time if they enjoyed their work. So maybe a takeaway there is guys should find a job they really dislike a few years before retiring. You touched on some things that lead into our next question, which is as a stay-at-home mom and raising the kids while my spouse worked a lot of hours, how can I transition to a new life experience where we're together 24/7?

And I'll add to the question, which is need folks be together 24/7, or can you talk about the alternatives, like volunteering with separate friends and separate, you know, separate pursuits. - Asking this question, it's so insightful. I actually hadn't realized how much problems couples could have in retirement. I thought it was gonna be, you know, people say, "Oh, I'm gonna this.

I can't wait to retire. We're gonna have all this time." It's not always like that. It's not so great. In the beginning of retirement, couples tend to have more tension. And a big reason is what this person brought up. You're used to your own space, whether it's your office or a stay-at-home person, that's their office, whether it was their kitchen or they have NPR on or whatever they do.

People revealed to me, and then the literature supports, space is a really big issue. And people have conflict over it. And some of the people that responded to me went to extreme lengths to get their husbands not just involved in other things, but involved outside of the house. So remember, this is pre-COVID.

One woman even built, is the word aviary? The, you know, where you have birds? And outside, aviary, outside of their house to even get them out of the house. So here's when you asked me what to do. First of all, if your partner is there now, maybe you could go read this section, not this minute, but of my research that is about couples.

So you both can be informed and say, "Wow, this could be difficult. We weren't thinking this way." Here's like a funny quote. When the CFO of Google retired, his name was Patrick Pichette, he said, upon giving his leaving notice, he said, "Tamara and I will be celebrating our 25th anniversary.

When our kids are asked by their friends about the success of the longevity of our marriage, they simply joke that Tamara and I have spent so little time together that it's really too early to tell if our marriage will in fact succeed." So that's kind of funny, tongue in cheek.

However, it's really what happens in the literature. Couples can have a really hard time in the beginning. And then if they make it through, they're in really the best shape. So when I think about this, if I was that woman, I'd be thinking about, I'm home alone now, what's really important to me?

Is it that I have a space? I got used to my kitchens, my own, and I know I'm saying gender things, but these things are really true and they do come up. I've had women say to me, more than men, "You know what? I like having NPR on." I've had women say, "I have my computer to myself all day." And all of a sudden he's saying, "Who are you writing to?

What are you doing?" So if these things are important to you, that you have your own space, then think about in advance, what do I not wanna lose? I like, for example, maybe taking my dog for a walk by myself, or I like spending time with my friends by myself.

You're gonna see if your life is like the literature, the man comes in and now he's dependent on you. He's just so excited to have time with you, and he doesn't have these other people, he wants to do these things with you. And by the way, people say they're gonna do all these leisurely things together.

I think it's over half, it's higher than over half, couples say it, but only like 24% of people do. So again, we don't necessarily predict how it's gonna be. But I would spend some time myself on saying, "What's really important?" And before you get in that situation, try and talk to your partner about it and say, "This is what the literature says.

What are you gonna want?" Because people are so not concrete, either to themselves or to each other. You'll read stories where people will say, "We were retired. I thought we were gonna move to New York City and walk around and explore New York." The other one says, "Retirement? I wanna be home and travel abroad." So they each thought they knew what they wanted, they never talked about it, and then they're very disappointed because now one's wanting to move, the other one's wanting to travel.

So the more you can get concrete in your head, "What is working for me? What would I like to see continue?" Maybe you say, "You know, I get up. When my partner goes to work, I have an hour to myself where I exercise or I call my kids or I read a book or whatever." You don't have that if two people are in the same space.

What is it? Try and think through concretely what it is. Once you're in that situation, people get their feelings hurt. "Oh, you don't want me around? Oh, is that what you're saying? Oh, I'm annoying you." If you say it in advance, people aren't in the middle of it and upset.

So as much as you can think it through, look at the litter and say, "Oh boy, the literature, it says this could happen. What could we do to make it better for us?" So does that seem helpful? - Yeah, that's absolutely helpful. And I think it aligns with a lot of the Boglehead work of building portfolios and figuring out withdrawal, you know, formulas and timing.

A lot of it revolves around how do you envision retirement? And so this is probably a thing, something that folks have already hopefully practiced, how do they envision retirement? And like you're saying, spouses can have very different visions of it, but as long as you talk about it in advance, you're not clashing as much when the time comes.

Something else that came to mind as you described it, just the value of time alone. So I think time alone, a personal space, and I think this doesn't come up in the typical financial conversations, right? We're focused on what our portfolio can generate and how to get there and all these things, but I don't know that enough folks are really playing out the physicality of sharing a space 24/7 or, you know, having a private space or sharing a space that used to feel private because someone else wasn't there.

So yeah, I think there was a lot of wisdom there. I'll just share this one comment. The comedian joked that when he goes on vacation, the whole family packs into the car and his vacation is when he closes his wife's door, the passenger side, walks around the back of the car and gets to the driver's side door.

That's his vacation. Once he sits in the car and closes the door, there's no peace of mind, you know, that would typically come vacation. So it was humorous how he presented it, but I think there's a lot of truth in that. Similar to a lot of what you mentioned, this next question, it appears to be from a widowed woman, but it could apply to, you know, still married or single woman or anyone who's transitioning from working full-time to retirement.

So I'll read it as it's presented. Any suggestions for a widowed woman who's likely retiring in the next year on adjusting to life without full-time work? - Well, gee, again, it's a hard and very insightful question. Women in heterosexual relationships tend to live longer. We can spend 15 to 20 years alone, typically.

And so there's the beginning and then it keeps going. So how to plan? I think all the things we've been talking about, what are your interests? What can you do before you retire that seem like something you might wanna do? So do you have a goal? Maybe you've never exercised and that's an interest and you wanna see if you want, don't wait, try now.

It doesn't matter if it works or not. And I would say friendships, which hopefully you have them because women are better at that. If you can rely on friendships and talking to them about what you do. And if we have time tonight or another time, I really think our best resources are each other.

I can tell you the literature, but there are probably other women here who have gone through this and that they can tell you, this is what I did. This worked, this didn't work, it changed. So if there are things that you thought you've wanted to learn, maybe you can go take a course at the university.

Maybe you could something, do art with a group of people that you try it. If you don't like it, you don't have to go back the second time. But things like our Osher Lifelong Learner, if you were here, I would say, definitely check it out because it's a very low commitment.

All you have to do is go and you can leave right in the middle of the meeting. It's just, there's 900 of us. So we're in all different situations. And if you took like a social interest group or when I was doing focus groups on retirement, you're bound to meet people, or then you see them again and you go, oh, hi, I saw you.

So whatever you've done in the rest of your life to make friends, to be involved, I would say, try doing it now. There's an enormous literature for everybody about the importance of exercise. So if I could encourage you to exercise, and I wanna tell you something that came out in the COVID literature about pets, how much pets helped people during COVID.

Cats and dogs are what they wrote about, and dogs even more than cats. First of all, any animal, it said it gave people an excuse both to have something to touch and to talk out loud. I have not reviewed this literature, but since I've thought about it, I don't even know if there is a literature.

I think people have a need to talk out loud. When I'm walking at the beach, I live in Santa Cruz. So I start my day unlike when I worked. When I worked, I was on the bus by 6.30 a.m. commuting. Now I am at the beach walking my dog.

Anyway, people just talk to you about random things. They just, "Oh, look at this." So I think having an animal, and what they say about dogs more than cats, dogs during COVID, but this could be generalizing, give you a routine. They make you go out where a cat does not make you have to exercise.

You don't have to with a dog, but it's preferred if you're gonna get a dog. And dogs make it more likely that you might interact with other people. So anyway, those are like, if you were wanting an animal, it might be a good time to start thinking about how you could get an animal.

But then you might go to a class about training your animal, and then there are other like-minded people. So that's, I would say, go with your interests. Try and find purpose. In retirement, women tend to volunteer more. When we volunteer, oh, I'll tell you about men too. When we volunteer, it's usually helping others.

Men tend to be administrators, and what men tend to like is mentoring. So widow, widower, if there's a situation where you could have ongoing mentoring of somebody that was in your field, or a child that the courts have pulled out of their home, people tend to like helping others.

And it's a chance to do it. I'd like to think more what else a woman could do other than everything that I've said before. So maybe it'll come to me now, or maybe I could write to her another time. - That sounds great. Well, thanks for those great suggestions.

There was a lot there, and I think it builds on a lot of the other things you said earlier. Al, also, for folks who are commenting in the chat, there's a lot of shared wisdom there within the community. You mentioned dog walking, Jill. Someone, I think, jokingly said, "My dog walks us." And I think a lot of us who, pre-retirement, just walking around your neighborhood, you see certain times a day, there are definitely dog walking sort of communities.

Like you see the same people, right? The same time of day, the same kind of dog walking route. So you become friends with these people sometimes, and that becomes your community. So again, it's practicing things well before retirement. The next question relates to what you just addressed, and I think you answered some of it.

I'll read it, but to not be redundant. I think it's still worth asking, but there's an aspect to it that maybe you can elaborate more on. So I'll read the question. "I've been a workaholic my whole life, "and fear the free time will kill me. "How should I adjust?" So I think practically and emotionally, you've given a lot of suggestions.

And again, the chat has very specific resources about volunteer groups and meetups. So how about, is there an emotional component that people need to transition to or towards if their time had been occupied, and now they have maybe volunteer or community things to fill it, but is there an emotional transition as well?

- Yeah, and let me tell you something. I just read an article that just came out very recently about discretionary time. It was really interesting. It's people in business, Wharton, but it's psychological is what they're saying. You know how when you work, most people are like, "I don't have enough time.

"It was a famine of time. "I feel stressed." Well, then the opposite they wanna look at, if you have too much time, how is that for you? And people don't feel productive. They feel bad. People don't wanna feel adrift. So this research says the best amount of discretionary time in a day, time when you can do just what you wanna do.

And for me, a lot of that is just reading and learning, but it's still, it's my time that I'm wanting it now. They say two hours a day. From zero to two, it goes up. From two to five hours, it's peak. So whether you have two hours or five hours, it doesn't get better.

And after five hours, it goes down. So that might help the person. I don't have research that says too much free time will kill you. But like you're saying, it's not a good idea. Loneliness might kill people. Not having a purpose might kill people. If you look at what correlates.

So what I would say for this person, if you could be thinking ahead, are there things I wanted to do? What could be my purpose? And there is a literature on how to find your purpose. And one, a myth is people should do what they're passionate about. Well, a lot of people don't have passions and never do.

And a lot of times when you start something new and you start doing well at it, it can become a passion. So try things. And the literature says people in retirement that try new things, they give it the label innovators, they are happier. So I would say for this person, very astute question.

It's too many hours in a day, let alone 20 years of it. Think concretely like Arthur did. What would I like a day to look like? What do I wanna put in there? Or as Leslie gave you an idea, think about your values. What's important to you? So you might, or from this, maybe you say, I'm not even sure.

I'm so geared towards working or taking care of others. I don't even know anymore what I want, which is unfortunately very true for many people. Many people don't reflect, they just do. I would say, well, Jill said, it's important to have friendships. Jill said, it's important to have purpose.

It's important to exercise. Maybe if you don't know what you want, you could at least take from the literature, I'm gonna start trying to fill my life with some of these things and see how it goes. And then you'll say, gee, I have no idea how to find a purpose or an interest.

Then you'll either email me or a Bogle head and say, what did you do? How did you find this? 'Cause you're gonna see there are no right and wrong answers where it's an evolving process and we're trying to learn from each other. - Yeah, and I think that you can overlay that to so many other aspects of life, right?

Like your favorite foods or favorite music or favorite cities. You need to visit and sample before you really know what resonates. And what you said hits home about some people not having a passion. There's a well-known author, Cal Newport. He's written "So Good They Can't Ignore You" and his more famous work is probably "Deep Work." And he cites as a myth, as you did, this idea of passion.

And so rather than, you know, it's almost cliche to advise people to pursue their passion in terms of career, he advises to develop something and then in becoming really good at it, you're more likely to excel at it and it can become a passion. I'm paraphrasing. He's much more in depth about the topic, but he tries to debunk this idea of pursue your passion because that's such a, it's a very appealing thought that, you know, a lot of people get that advice.

So the other thing that came to mind from what you said was regret minimization. So not just how you said, you know, are there things I wanted to do? You can also frame it as what will I regret not having tried, right? So that's one way. I think this next question aligns with what you were saying, which is this feeling that people feel they have more to give and it not being utilized.

So I'll read the question. How would you advise dealing with the sinking emotional feeling that by retiring all our hard-earned professional skills that are so helpful to so many people will be unused and wasted and all for naught? - Okay, let me tell you that that question could make me cry.

And the reason it can make me cry, it's again, very astute because it's not really just an individual issue. It's a societal issue. We are, I feel like we are some of the best resources of our country. When you look at the literature about aging, yeah, our memories go down, that is in the literature, but our emotional stability goes up, our knowledge goes up, and our expertise goes up.

It's clear in the literature. The literature shows older people in so many ways have more to contribute because of those factors, but we're not being utilized well. Even though if you look at the literature about work, over 50 is the only age category that seems to be increasing of people working more.

It's that over 50s is the biggest age group. But anyway, we do have more to give. And it's finding how could you give what would be of interest to me? Like I said, that piece, the literature says people find, oh, there's a word they use about when you mentor younger people or teach younger people and younger could be just newer in your field.

Generativity, that increases satisfaction. So we're finding, you'll ask people and they'll go, oh, I had a job my whole life, made money that, but now I'm teaching or now I'm working in a classroom. I've wanted to do this, I could never afford to do it. So are there things you wanna do either with your mind from your career or other ways?

I would say, find a way to try doing them. And I'll tell you, for me personally, oh, I'm gonna tell you two little things and then I'll tell you about me. There's a big literature on gratitude. So people that are more resilient and are gratitude, have gratitude, do better.

So if you could even in your day when things are funky or you're not sure what to do, if you focus on it, you'll probably feel better. And when you look at the literature about depression or wanting to feel better, and I know that, am I really a cognitive psychologist?

So I'm a clinical psychologist, but focus on cognitive behavioral. Anyway, people's thoughts affect how they feel. The one thing you can do that can up your mood quicker than anything else is do a kindness to somebody else. That is not woo-woo literature. There's a body of literature that says, being kind to others, you end up feeling better.

It can change race relationship. It can do all kinds of things. But anyway, I would encourage this person, think about it, you are valued. Even if other people don't quite get it now, try and figure what you could do. And when I retired, oh, I'll tell you this, it hasn't come up, but to me, actually, there's one thing that is consistent in the literature about whether you're gonna have a successful retirement or not, is whether you chose retirement or you got forced.

If you were forced in retirement, you're gonna feel less in control. All these bad things happen. So if you can choose your retirement, when you're gonna do it, how you're gonna do it, it's much more likely you're gonna plan, and if it's gonna go well, you'll implement things. But for me, if I was in the literature, you would say I chose retirement.

And I would say I was somewhere in between. I got tired of bad bosses. I had an amazing job, a career. Being a professor, being a clinical psychologist is so meaningful, it always was. And most of my career, I had bad bosses. As the literature says, most people do not like their bosses.

And at some point, I just decided I wasn't doing this anymore. And I started a program at the end of my career. I'm presenting internationally. It's going as well as my career ever did. And I was just tired of this, having bad bosses. Anyway, so I left. I already knew about me because as a university person, you have nine months on, you have the break.

You have, you know, like that. Whether it's a real break or not, whether you have to prepare, I had time off. And I already learned in the beginning. I couldn't do well with just all this time off. So I learned in advance, I better figure out what I'm gonna start doing.

So some of the things that I learned by reading, fortunately, I had already learned and I did. So it took me personally about two years till I got into the real swing of loving retirement, meaning I kept experimenting. I thought, well, I'm psychology. I'm learning piano in adulthood. Maybe I could help musicians do well.

So I started helping people with ukulele in Canada because that's how they're... Anyway, all these things I did, I'm getting used, but it's not working for me. It's okay. And I keep trying. But then it took about two years for me to say to myself, you know, I don't really know how people do retirement.

I'm gonna read about it 'cause I'm a researcher. I know how to do that. I took about a year to just read about the retirement literature and aging and how do people do it. And then I start thinking, well, why would I just ask myself? I'm gonna ask the people at this OSHA lifelong learner, right, where there are 900 people.

And I say, I'm gonna do these interviews. I'm gonna do focus groups. Within 20 minutes, over 200 people signed up. People wanna talk about their life or retirement. Well, then after I interviewed so many people, I thought this is such valuable information. I shouldn't just know this. Other people should know.

Why shouldn't we enjoy this time of life? So it takes time. I would say, don't let people tell you in their direct or indirect ways you're not valuable. The literature tells you, I'm telling you, we are more valuable in many ways than others. Even the science and engineering. So, you know, I presented at Google, so I was up on all the tech stuff.

People in science and engineering even are working longer. The median age is going up. One out of three people in tech are over 50. And that was as of 2010. I don't have, there isn't more current than that. So even though they get pressured to get out of tech 'cause people say your mind isn't as quick, or to get pressured to be managers whether they want to or not, they're staying in their jobs.

So a lot of this is myth. And that person, I just really hope that you could figure out what you wanna do. Now, the thing about volunteering, the literature says volunteering makes people feel happier and meaningful. What the literature doesn't say, and my experience is interviewing hundreds of people, is that they wanna volunteer.

And oftentimes they volunteer for the nonprofit they've always wanted to support and they get crappy positions. They don't get responsible positions volunteering like they had before. People don't take advantage of them. Don't quit, you know, ask other people, where are you getting good experiences? And they can tell you, well, I work for Red Cross, I'm working for the Seymour Center.

They will train you, they will use your time. So I encourage that person, be persistent, persistence works. - That's great. Jill, I want you to hold that thought. I'm just gonna comment quickly on time remaining. So as we approach a quarter after the hour, roughly at a quarter after we'll turn it over to the group for questions from the chat or questions, verbal questions for those who wanna present.

There are four more questions that I'm hoping we can get to in that time. So that'll roughly amount to two minutes or so per question, yep. - What I wanna say to you is I've been talking so much. I don't know, can your listeners take more? Like, can you do thumbs up, thumbs down and say, do you need a break?

You know, it's a lot of information from her. Can we assess how it's going? - I think, let's assume that the audience is enjoying it and those who are at capacity can always voluntarily exit. But I think the number of participants speaks for the amount of interest. It's pretty, I think it's pretty high.

I just wanna, despite my comment on time constraints, I'll comment two things came to mind, which is gratitude. As you said, the science clearly supports it. Gratitude journal is, you know, a very well-known way of people reinforcing what they feel appreciative of. And I think some of the research even says, you know, the neurons in your brain can, you can grow new neurons as a result of spending time consciously, actively thinking about gratitude.

So that's one. And then folks who study stoicism, even superficially familiar with stoicism, gratitude is a big part of it. One exercise is imagine you lost your sight or you lost a loved one today, and then you wake up tomorrow and you can see again, or your loved one is right there.

You can treat each day like a second life. So obviously we all take things for granted, but we needn't take things for granted as much as we do so often. So that's one. - This next question focuses on volunteering, but it almost flips on its head, the balancing of the desire to volunteer, which is here, but also wanting to possess one's time more carefully.

So I'll read the question. It's pretty self-explanatory, but I wanted to frame it that the person is interested in volunteering, but values their time that's now their own, but is still interested in volunteering, how to navigate that conflict. So again, I'll read it. I worked long hours at my job and always expected I'd jump into volunteering when I retired.

I've been retired for six weeks, but haven't agreed to any volunteer work yet, even though I feel strongly about some causes. Finally owning all my time has been intoxicating, and I feel miserly about donating any. Looking for insights about how to volunteer without feeling resentful. And again, Jill, I'll say roughly, we're gonna aim for turning it over to the group in about five minutes.

And we have three questions left that I think you have a lot to offer on. So a brief answer for this would allow more coverage. - This is a little hard brief, but I wanna congratulate that person. The word intoxicating, that it is so great. I find too many people say yes before they even retired.

They're on 20 million boards or they're doing this, their friends asking them, and then they regret it. They're as busy as they were, and it's not even more meaningful. They just yes to everything. So in some ways I think it's good to yes, but to take time and think and relish, to learn to reflect, to me, that's the essence.

It's a process. So that you are enjoying this for now is great. And I don't know if this person watched Brandon when you interviewed Brandon, but he was saying when you get involved in things, that was his name, right? Brandon. - Yeah, that's right. - Try things that are low commitment, low cost.

And I thought those were good words. So if you could try things where they say, you could just do this once a month, or you could try this to kind of transition in, and then you might find that's intoxicating or wow, now my mind is really fulfilled. Anyway, if you could try things where they're willing to train you and you can take small commitments at a time, that's what I would encourage you to do, not jump in.

Okay, it's a year. Maybe down the road you'll want that, but for now, learning about yourself and trying to figure this out, it's also more likely that you won't go back to work. And by the way, of people that do fully retire, 30% of them go back after six years.

They don't know how to do other things. And what I'm hearing is this person is saying, I'm enjoying it, what else? So think about what else, but I am not encouraging you to rush. - Well, it's very practical. It's very actionable. Take bite-size approaches. And that probably worked in a lot of people's day-to-day lives pre-retirement.

So it shouldn't be a foreign concept, I think, for a lot of people. I mentioned, hold that thought earlier. So I mentioned that because it ties into this next question perfectly. When you were commenting on misalignment of someone's capacity or capability versus the role they're given at a not-for-profit or other volunteer role.

So this question is, what is the best way to match my skills and interests with a not-for-profit that can use them? - I feel like I need help from the audience. What I can tell you from, there isn't a body of literature for that. There's literature on the best way to use your time is by finding your highest skills and what you like doing so that you can go to your own strengths.

So I would say, do that, and then start talking to other people. This is what I'm thinking. I like, do you know about retirement? The people that have told me they had the best retirement, other people told them, oh, I am working here. I've retired, and it's great. Or you could fumble like I did.

Try this, try that. And then I have created my own retirement by starting the retirement research. Then I created, I got convinced to do a website. Put it out. Don't just go scholarly. Two people read your scholarly stuff. Put it general. So I got a website and put my information because I wanted regular people to hear.

Well, then people start contacting me. Oh, can you this? Would you that? So I didn't want to sell myself. It unfolded, but I like reading so I can know I need to learn more about a topic and can involve my mind that way. With the nonprofits, I don't know if there's a list in your community of them.

There probably is a list, but it doesn't mean you're gonna get a good position. - I think your suggestion of asking folks that you know who may know of groups or organizations or other people where they're content, it sounds like, you know how people say referrals are so much more effective or increase the probability of an appropriate match.

That sounds like a natural. That suggestion of yours sounded great. I'm gonna combine the next two questions, Jill, and then just for folks to give a sense of timing, we'll take a break following Jill's response to these two questions, and then Carol will turn it over to Miriam and Alan for questions from the chat.

So that whole piece may take say five minutes or so if that works for folks. So Jill, the last two questions, and again, I'm combining them, seem to me a great summary of a lot of what you've been talking about and kind of culminates a lot of people's interest in what to do with all this information.

So I'll read the questions as they're presented. From your experience with patients, what things in a retired person's life tend to bring the most happiness? That's question one. And then two, I think we hear this a lot. People are kind of at a loss in a way to answer this when asked, but how do you spend your day?

I retired three weeks ago and would love to know how others spend time during retirement. So those are the last two. Jill, I wanna thank you for your time and insights and just sharing everything you do, your expertise and how well you share it so approachably and personably. So back to you.

- Do you want me, in terms of spending a day, how I spend a day, or are we gonna open it to the audience? How do people spend a day? - Let's start with you, but not necessarily you personally, in your research and interviews, how do people spend their day?

I think it might get chaotic if we turn it over to the audience. - Well, at some point I'd like that chaos because then you're gonna learn from each other what to do. But the happiness, I think, just to review, the theory says by being with other people, by exercising, having purpose, and connections, also internet connections because you wanna stay digitally attached or you can learn older people that are attached or that use the internet are happier because of what we do with it.

Keep reflecting, take time to think. I haven't done this before. What's working, what's not? Or if you don't even know how to reflect, which many people don't, what's she talking about? Ask me or ask someone else. How have you figured this out? And in terms of how people spend a day, it hasn't been my research or in the research typical, but as Arthur said, he does not like feeling adrift.

And many of us have had such scheduled lives that I would say some degree of schedule is a good thing. Flexibility is good. So you might not be like me. I like to know I'm gonna be taking a class or I like to know waking up and going to the beach for a walk.

I like to exercise, walk right away and see the ocean. I didn't grow up by the ocean. It's amazing. And when I worked, I just... So I know the things that matter to me. So I have a semi-structured life that changes and the people that I see that do best, even if they say they don't want structure, they are picking times to meet their friends or picking time to whatever it is, to go to the gym, to this and that.

And of course things got messed up during COVID, but I think it is not a bad idea to have some degree of schedule. And of course we have the luxury of flexibility. You don't like it, you can change it. But most people don't like waking up to, oh no, what am I gonna do?

It's oppressive. It's not, okay, in the beginning it's intoxicating, but then it's like, what about today? So if you know you like seeing your friends once a week, don't wait till they're too busy or once or whatever. Try and try these things out. Maybe you never saw your friends once a week.

Well, maybe you try something or you say, can we exercise together? Then you're doing two things at once. You're walking and you're... That's, you know, the other, the bad thing is, well, first of all, usually people in the beginning of retirement, travel goes up. You've waited for travel and you're gonna see there's a word like you're, you get tired.

Well, I forget that word, but you get tired of these things if you do it too much. If you eat out too much, if you travel too much, all of a sudden it's like, eh, that's what you're doing. You don't wanna do too much of it. But people like traveling.

And of course, like with COVID, you can't. Well, you can or you can't, I'm not. But that's usually in the beginning of retirement. That goes way up and spending on it. And what makes people happy in terms of spending is leisure. If you spend it on your leisure, whether it's walking somewhere or doing something, having an adventure, that kind of thing, and being with people.

Those two things together make it more likely. So I would suggest figure out a way to have people in your life and in your day, like Leslie picked elements of exercise, of creativity, of giving back to others, maybe time for gratitude. Any of these things, maybe you wanted to meditate.

If they sound good, maybe you'll gear it towards planned, or maybe you'll say these things are things I wish I would have done. I'm gonna start trying them out. - Excellent. That is invaluable advice. And we thank you and Jill, the way you said having people in your life, we're grateful to have you in the lives of the Boglehead community.

I'll just, I wanna address your comment about enjoying the chaos of having, hearing from the community and how they spend their day. So we can try to organize a separate call where there's more of an open forum, participatory and interactive for people to do exactly that for how they spend their days in retirement.

So we can try to develop that idea. With that, Jill, I wanna thank you again. If you wanna take a quick break, feel free, and I will turn it over to Carol for a recap of the rest of this meeting. And thanks to all for making this happen. - Okay, I'll be right back, thanks.

- Thank you very much, Jill. Right, first I'm gonna turn off. Go ahead, you can take a break. I'm gonna turn off the spotlight view. And then if the audience wants to get your gallery view back where you see little squares for everybody, just click on view in the upper right-hand corner and click on gallery, and you'll get your gallery view back.

So while we're taking a little break, I'm gonna talk about feedback. Just in general, the Boglehead's Life Stages groups, we would love to get your feedback on either specific things on this presentation as far as the format and the content, or just in general, what types of topics would you like to see as meetings in the future?

Feel free to give any kind of critical, we don't want just positive feedback. We would appreciate either just candid feedback about, like I said, the content or the format of either this presentation or some past ones or what you'd like to see in the future. And the way you can do that, you can go ahead and put it right in the chat.

As we said, after we save the chat, we're gonna remove the name, so your names won't be part of the record. I'm gonna post a little link in the chat, and this is the link to what we call the master thread for the pre-retirement, early retirement group, which is one of the groups that hosted this meeting.

If you go to that master thread, the first person that posted that, who's me, it's DFW Bogleheads, you can send a private Bogleheads message, I think they call them PMs, to give that feedback if we'd rather do it privately. So that's a couple of ways that you can give us feedback.

Let's see. And I guess we can, we're still recording. I guess, Jim, should we just keep recording until the point where we have a raised hand person, and then we'll stop at that point? Or we can stop right now, either way. - We can keep going. Some people have commented they like the questions on the video.

- Okay, so let's, we can keep it, but as soon as we have a person that has the raised hand, at that point, we start taking raised hand questions, then we'll stop. - I agree. - Okay, okay. So let me go ahead and go over a little bit about the format of what we're gonna do for the questions.

We do have a list of not all of the questions. We did cover maybe about half of the questions that were entered pre-submitted through the RSVP forms were directly asked through the interview process. We do have quite a few of those left that we could ask of Jill. And then also, there weren't very many.

There were just a couple questions asked in the chat window. Let's see, what else? Oh, and then thirdly, you're very welcome to do your Zoom raised hand, and everybody knows how to do that. At the very bottom of your screen, there's a little raised hand. I can just click on that.

And then I will call on you in the order that you raised your hand, and you could appear on camera and ask Jill the questions. So feel free to go ahead and do that while we're gearing up our questions. Miriam, were there any questions in the chat? - Yes, there were.

There were a few. And by the way, Jill, that was a wonderful presentation. It was absolutely delightful to listen to you. And in the chat, everybody said, "Just keep going, keep going." - Can I just say two things before more questions come? Would that be okay with you? - Yes, yes.

- First of all, maybe people are gonna leave, and I wanna make sure they know that you're gonna give them my email. So if they have questions, that they can contact me. And the other thing, when I was saying, I like the idea of chaos so we can learn from each other.

That's not exactly true. When I do classes or seminars on Zoom, I think 10 to 12 people are best. So if we wanna pilot anything where people wanna talk among themselves and ask these real questions of each other and have me facilitate it and give them prep work like TED Talks or reading, I think they should do to prepare.

I would rather it be like that 'cause you'll learn more from each other. Okay, thanks. Your turn. Thank you for humoring me. - Yeah, thank you. One question is, how well do people who never retire, who work until the end intentionally, how, I believe the question was for intentionally, they do not retire, they keep working.

How well do they do? - I have to look it up. I don't know the literature except that I know that more and more people continue to work. So some people continue to work because they love their work. Some people continue to work because they need the money. And some people don't know what else to do.

They can't find purpose. So they go back to work because they're pretty miserable and can't find their time. So I don't have, could that person say more like what their concerns are about, like, do they wanna just keep working and they think they shouldn't? Or what will they miss out on?

Can they give me some more dimensions to this question? I don't have a research answer. - Yes, we'll wait and see if they enter any more information into the chat. At that time, we can revisit the question. Alan, were there any more in the chat? - I have one myself.

I'm curious, we know that Scandinavian countries and citizens tend to have the highest happiness quotient. Is that the same for their retirees? Those countries that have a more robust social system and support, are their retirees more successful and happier as well when they're out of the workforce? - Oh boy, I think I once knew this.

And I should note from the COVID literature because there's this world happiness report that comes out every year. It's like a hundred pages long. And this one was on the 2021. So it was during COVID and people in certain countries were doing better. So I wish I knew the answer and I don't.

I would guess, yes, because of the social services and the way people value each other and the time. So I would guess, yes, I don't have a good answer. - There's another one, Miriam from Ed. - Is there another one? - No. - One question is on moving and downsizing when you retire.

And you mentioned about space being a really big thing. And what have you read about moving and downsizing to small spaces after you've had larger homes and you've raised your families and everything. What is going on when they retire and then they immediately move and they downsize and how does it affect them in the rest of their retirement?

- Wow, another really good question. And it's not in the literature because I try to review everything, but I will tell you what I know from the people I've interviewed. From the people I've interviewed, they say, if you're gonna move somewhere, a lot of people move to be near their children or the warm weather or something they're interested in science.

So a lot of people come to Santa Cruz, now they can, we're big on sciences here. They recommend go somewhere and rent first because you don't know if you're gonna like that area. You don't know within an area where you're gonna wanna be. So if you could possibly keep your home while you do this or experiment that way, the people that did that told me it worked better than their friends.

Their friends got stuck. They thought they were gonna like it. It's like you take a job, you don't know for X amount of time are you gonna like the people you work with and stuff. So I would say, again, the more research you do about it and whether people are happy or not, people are doing it, they downsize.

Their houses become oppressive. It becomes too hard in where I live in Santa Cruz. First of all, housing, I grew up really poor. So it's amazing that I ever retired, let alone here, but I grew up poor. I learned to do what you all are doing on my own and I'm a female and I'm 71, but in Santa Cruz now.

So the area around here, it's very hard to get a house that's one story. People are moving, wanna move here and they can't buy one stories. It's way more money because we need one stories maybe eventually rather than two stories. 'Cause at some point, maybe you can't do steps.

So why buy something that big with steps if eventually it might not work for you? So that's a great question. And I don't know, but people do it. Not everybody, but my experience is many of the people I interviewed do it. And I'll tell you, there's something in Santa Cruz that I had a terrible bias and I was very wrong.

We have a lot of mobile home parks and I guess I only knew about them from movies or something that they were funky, they're not. They, I see mobile home parks here that are absolutely lovely and can be supportive and can be safe. So I would say as much as you can question your thinking, be open, but I don't have a, you're giving me things to go research.

Thank you. - Alan, did you have any other questions from the chat? - Yes, there's one actually from Jim, I believe. Any evidence that the over 55 communities have a better retirement experience? - I read this stuff and I don't have an answer. I mean, I don't have a research answer.

I know people that I know, like I even started a COVID connection group, a connection community because the University of Michigan got me to do that during COVID. They hired me to start working with faculty. You know how one day you're in the classroom and the next day nobody's there 'cause of COVID.

They hired me to start working with faculty and staff and the ZAs, the TAs. But anyway, so I did one for my community here. I figured I owed it to my community and it's been profound. It was supposed to be three sessions and now they won't stop. So we've continued.

Some of them live in those over 55s and didn't used to and they love it. They feel safe. And having a good environment is also a predictor of how healthy you're gonna be and enjoy your life. If you have an environment where, they use this one dumb test where, this is one test.

If you thought you lost your wallet and somebody is gonna return it to you, do you feel safe in your environment? But anyway, I live in a place where you can walk safely. It's by the ocean. It's lovely. Environment affects how you feel. You can tell by people's zip code and stuff.

So the over 50s that I've heard experience from feel safe and it's quiet. That's very different than the people during COVID that weren't assisted living. That was one of the worst experience for everybody in the lockdown. If you look at the data and depression, it's been very rough for people in those kinds of situations even though before they liked it.

During COVID, it's been much harder. - Let me throw in. I just had dinner this evening with friends of ours, longtime friends that just moved from our area to a 55 plus community about six months ago and they've never been happier. Much more involved and doing new activities that they never thought they would be doing and they absolutely love it.

- And for the person that was asking about friendship or a widow, there are a community of people that with activities, you can maybe get to know and you can feel safer. When people are older, depending on the people, different things happen. - I'm sorry, after you, Carol. - Oh, I was just gonna remind the audience that you're welcome to use the, if you wanna ask a question, if you don't mind asking a question on camera, you can raise your hand.

Otherwise, we'll continue. I do have a few questions I wanna ask from the, that were originally submitted with the RSVP but we are gonna prioritize at this point any raised hand questions. But go ahead, Gary, what we can say. - So thanks, Carol. Three things, one point, Jill, since you were asking for real-time feedback, throughout the chat, people are saying they appreciate the non-financial content of this meeting.

So it's definitely welcome. And we've spoken about having a subsequent meeting with you if you're agreeable, and not just the highly interactive, you know, how people spend their time, but where you can talk about additional things that weren't covered here. So that's one. Two remaining, one is a question that I'll ask you and I wanted to cover.

Ed has a question in the chat. How do you contend with a sudden change in your retirement plans, like parents who are suffering from dementia? So that's one. And then my own question, Jill, if you wouldn't mind, you mentioned growing up, your childhood, you know, you commented on your childhood.

If you're comfortable, to what extent you can share how was growing up with your family, your journey to where you are now, what led you to do your research and how you came to specialize on this topic that you're sharing? - Okay. My childhood, if we talk about, I had a difficult childhood.

So with my nuclear family was difficult emotionally if somebody wants to know about that. But what I think is important for this is I grew up poor. My parents graduated eighth grade and 12th grade. How I knew to go to get a PhD and pursue my career, I studied that.

That became my dissertation. What made it more likely that women could make it as professionals. When I have questions, I study. And I think growing up poor, one of the things in the literature was people that had more employment experiences when they were young tended for women to be professionals more so.

And there were a lot of other factors, but my childhood, my dad died when I was 10. My dad was a gambler, blah, blah, these hard things. I had to earn money. So from eight or 10, I was earning money from babysitting to other things and then taking care of my mom and stuff.

So that helped me see I'm going to be working. I want to figure out how can I work in a way that I'm going to enjoy my life and get meaning. So it wasn't always the best at happy. I could read about happy while other people did it, but somehow I'm good at meaningful and figuring out what would work.

But also I was a woman, a girl, and I had to learn about investing myself. I didn't have a family that was going to tell, my nuclear family wasn't good at it. And I'm a very persistent person. And I learn and I ask other people and I find out, oh, you're doing it well.

What have you invested? Then I read and I study. So I managed to go from nothing, taking care of my mother to I am retired in California. And that is one of the things that correlates with people being happier, even though I don't usually talk about the financial part.

I have a pension. I think that's the appropriate word from working the university for 30 years. I get money every month. That security feeling in control adds to happiness, but it's a dinosaur. Many people don't have that anymore. But I was a big saver. I worked maybe too hard, maybe not 'cause I'm here, but I did all the diverse, I bought other properties.

I did rental as well as I worked at the university and I had a private practice. I worked too much or did I? I don't know, I'm here now. I retired at 57, I'm 71. But that tells you a little bit about my childhood. And the dementia thing just makes me kind of sick.

I've had it in my family. I took care of my brother from afar. If anyone ever needs to know about this, I hope you don't, but I even had to deal with getting him a guardian, a legal guardian and going to lawyers, a person that had never been to lawyers.

It's another state. It was so not fun, but I feel like I gifted my brother. He got to stay in his home. And if I wouldn't have fought the courts, he lost his executive functioning, but didn't know it. He was very good at finances. He never would have bounced a check and all of a sudden he's not paying his mortgage and stuff.

So I stepped in and it was very hard. I'm living afar. I had no experience with this and I had to do it. I just had to. And if you need to learn about that, ask me before you have to get into that situation 'cause so many people take advantage of old people or they would have taken all his money and put him in a home.

Anyway, this stuff about dementia. So I'm 71 and all my friends and I, our memories aren't that good. And then you go, is this my memory isn't that good or my memory isn't that good. So we're reading, we're learning. And I'm gonna say something incredibly heavy, but real that I wish people would think about.

Think about, it's your life. How do you want to end it? And what I'm saying is like in that group that I told you, there were seven women ages 60 to 87 through this COVID experience. One person during COVID got cancer, had all the best treatments at Stanford and nothing worked.

And she had a great relationship with her husband and her doctors and hospice and chose in my state, you can choose to end your life if you have six months less than six months to live. And if you can take the potion yourself, somebody gets it for you, but you have to be sound of mind.

That's a lot of criteria to be able if you want to end your life. And I right now, I'm very upset that if I were to get dementia, I don't have that option. Now, this might be too hard for people, but it's reality. You want to be thinking about these things and letting your family know.

So I'm actually considering starting to work on the law, which is something else I've never done, but it would be a fight for us because if you have dementia, it's not considered in the law that you can deal with it because I wouldn't be sound of mind. It's not six months, blah, blah, blah.

So all I can say to this person, asking about dementia is just a very hard, difficult thing. This might make you feel better. Hopefully you're in this category. With dementia, people that are more educated are less likely to get dementia. And it runs in families. Meaning if your mother luckily was above eighth grade, you're in good shape.

If she was below eighth grade, you're more likely to get dementia. And the recent studies are more likely, it's how well you did. It doesn't matter how much you did, how much schooling you did. Now they're saying it's quality. If you studied hard and did well, you're less likely to get dementia.

So hopefully that's a little comforting. - It is comforting, Jill. Thanks for sharing that. I want to build on Ed's question a bit more and some of what you just said. In terms of say genetics or your parents, things that are well beyond our control, we have little influence there, but there's so much written about and because you exhaustively digest the studies, as you've said, what have you found to be commonality supported by the science to avert dementia or delay dementia?

People talk about puzzles or their websites selling brain teasers, all these things. But I don't know that the science supports that, but I seem to see exercise as a recurring activity that it helps the brain, but I don't know what the science says more deeply or broadly. Maybe you can comment on that.

- Let me look and see if I know anything more because I do have a section on it and these games and stuff, there's no literature backing it up. Like people that even New York Times puzzles, they like it. That's great. You like it, do it. But it doesn't stave off necessarily dementia.

But what you said about exercise, that's a huge literature for mental health, for physical health, for longevity. The literature would say, don't smoke, don't drink excessively. Yeah, you can drink, okay, but you know, maybe you don't know, but you don't want to have a problem with these things. But the other really hard thing about dementia is you go to doctors and they start prescribing all these medications for you.

First of all, medications are usually tested in isolation. They're not tested with other drugs. So they're not necessarily... And I know literature, like if you need an antidepressant and it's a really good one, that's great. And it can help. I'm much more into cognitive exercise. There's so many things you could do for depression before most people do not need to take an antidepressant.

But these medications have side effects like some of the antidepressants that make it more likely you're going to have memory problems. So read about the medications you're going to take. Don't just take them because maybe it'll help one thing, but the side effects can be big. So I don't have a lot of literature.

It's not my area of expertise, neurocognitive. I just know some of it because that's the question people ask. And we tend to use the word neurocognitive now, not just dementia, because there are a lot of ways you can lose your memory. So let me, I don't think I have much more to say.

- I'm sorry, our time's running a little short. We're going to move on. Alan has a question. Lady Geek, we're going to call on you in just a second. I want to remind people, see what Lady Geek did. You don't have to turn your video on necessarily to ask a question.

Of course, you do have to turn your audio on. So don't be shy about asking a question with your raised hand. Alan, you go ahead and read the question in the chat, and then we'll take Lady Geek's question. - All righty. Tom had a question, a very good one.

Of the people you've interviewed, did you identify good strategies for introverts in adapting to retirement? - Oh, I think- I'm thinking, it's a good one. And I want to tell you, I'm an introvert. So it's a funny thing. I'm an introvert, but I do need my one-on-ones and more.

So that's, there's not a whole literature on it. I just want to tell those introverts, if you can find purpose and you can connect with people, at least sometimes, it's really important. And during COVID, the over 60s that had the social connections and then had people they could rely on, they did much better.

So, gee, I'll have to think more about it because most people, I think, from the little literature I know about introverts, and I've read a bunch, we're not, it's not so black and white. We're on a continuum. So if there is a way you can find to connect with other people, maybe you like reading and they like reading.

It is, the literature is clear about other people. And if you still want to just be an introvert and not relate to other people, can you at least get a pet? But I don't have the body of literature and I'd look it up for you. There's something that I want to tell you that I didn't make concrete, but Rory asked me that with the gratitude, there really is a big literature on gratitude.

And usually they say, when you go to bed, it's better to think about maybe three things you're grateful for rather than the things that didn't work well today. We tend to think of that. One time when I was in a really bad place in my life, I put myself on a, I made up a gratitude diet.

So every time during the day that my mind was going to that funky stuff, I tried to remember things I'm grateful for. And I am a grateful person, but when you get in that funk, it's hard to remember. Anyway, I would like to read more to see if I can tell more to the introverts, but I do believe there are ways they can be around people.

I would ask that person right now, have you ever enjoyed being around people? Is there anything you can do? Because as an introvert, I need a lot of recovery time, but that doesn't mean I don't need social time. I need it, but then I can't go back to back to back.

And like this to me as an introvert, I have a structured role. It's not as hard as being chatty. That's very hard for me. So I don't know, any introverts, do you have any help? - Okay, thank you for that answer. I'm gonna go ahead and take a Lady Geek's question.

We have about five more minutes left for questions. Then we're gonna save about five minutes to wrap up. Go ahead, Lady Geek, ask your question. - Let me get back to Ed's dementia first. My late husband had dementia as a result of a very stressful medical condition and the advice you've given I've heard, based on my experience, I would say to discount that advice on the causes, root causes of dementia and treatments with medications, please, instead, go see, in fact, my late husband, I was dealing with the Hospital University of Pennsylvania top in the country on neurological things.

My real-time experience, just see the physician, do not take advice on the internet on this. Serious meds, so please, that's why I raised my hand. Please, you are giving general advice, which is perfect, but not for dementia, please, just based on personal experience. See a physician and an expert in the neurological condition that, and it's long-term, you don't play with meds for psychological things.

You don't play with that. So, but anyway, so let me get back with that. I'm getting frustrated. If I had my video on, I'd be like waving my hands and flagging things. So, but anyway, I think what Ed is getting at is retirement plans. Yes, life sucks. Plans change.

Your parents, I'm dealing with another parent with a cognitive decline. It's getting very frustrating. You just have to roll with it and you have to make a decision. Can you afford them? And parents in dementia or somebody with dementia, are they safe to be at home? You go through this basic criteria with a social worker or somebody who, you cannot take care of them at home.

If they get physically incapacitated, you cannot do this at home. And you just have to, you just deal with it. Life change, life is not fair. That's, I'm a widow. I'm also living alone. And your advice on this, being solo is fantastic. I'm also a professional engineer. So, I'm independent, very independent.

So, I just want to say for retirement, if you plan what plans on paper, financial wise, oh, we can swing with mom and dad living at home. The emotional impact will be, it'll just roll you right over. So, I say life is not fair. Plan for it. And the best you can do is plan for it and then make a ton of different alternatives, talk and deal with that.

So, that's what I wanted to say, but it's mainly the medical thing that kind of hit me strong. That I say, sorry, you're an expert, but I do disagree on giving advice. - And I'm not sure what you disagree with, 'cause I agree with what you're saying. You've got to- - Yeah, I say you're giving general advice.

And I'm also the administrator on the forum. And I see a lot of people, they take your advice out of context. You're addressing a single person answer, which is great, but you have close to 100 people on this recording who are listening to that and may misunderstand or misinterpret.

"Oh, Jill said we should give you depression meds." No, no, no, no, that's... Yeah, so I want to make sure that people are clear that this is good advice, but do not act until you consult with the people involved, with a physician. - What I was trying to say, if a physician wants to give you, for example, depression drugs, read about it and be very informed, just like you are with your finances.

These drugs have side effects. So I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear. I'm trying to say be as informed with your health as you are with your finances. - Yeah, yeah. - Thank you. Okay, can we move on? We want to take one last question. We're going to let Henry ask his question, then we're going to have to, it's time to wrap up.

- Yeah, I want to pick up on what Lady Geek just said, that I'm about 10 years into retirement and it's hard to avoid what's called presentism, where you are sort of stuck where you are at the moment and you make, as you make your projections for the future.

And that's true for financial items, but it's also true for health. It's also true for how your life is going to play out. And so to the extent you can build in a decent amount of flexibility, and it's not just financial flexibility, it's also lifestyle, it's hard to project.

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