Episode 901 Invest in Others - Interview with Roger Whitney the Retirement Answer Man – Part 2
[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining us on episode 901 of the inspired stewardship podcast.
[00:00:08] Roger Whitney: [00:00:08] Hey, I'm Roger Whitney. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling, having the ability to work for your future.
[00:00:22] As a key, having the ability to work for one more sec, having the ability. Having the ability to work for your future is key. And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Maderer
[00:00:45] realization in my mid forties of Roger, you got a decision maker. You could stay doing this for the next 20 years, have a good life, have lots of fun. Provide for your family. And. Not [00:01:00] have to have a lot of time. Freedom. What would your 65 or 70 year old self think of? And I was like,
[00:01:09] Scott Maderer: [00:01:09] welcome. Thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast.
[00:01:14] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
[00:01:35]In today's episode, I asked Roger about why and how you can balance your own needs and still serve others while living and planning for retirement. I also asked Roger to share how we can improve our communication around. And money. And Roger also shares what stewardship means to him. And lots more. One reason I like to bring you great interviews.
[00:01:59] Like the one you're going to [00:02:00] hear today is because of the power in learning from others. Another great way to learn from others is through reading books. But if you're like most people today, you find it hard to find the time to sit down and read. And that's why today's podcast is brought to you by audible.
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[00:02:45] Anyone who thinks retirement planning is boring. Clearly hasn't had a conversation with the retirement answer, man, and is not so alter ego. Roger Whitney, his fun, fresh perspective on money in life turns financial planning [00:03:00] from something people need to do to something they can't wait to do. Roger breaks with traditional financial planning in asserting that there is no quote magic number or accurate retirement calculator.
[00:03:13] There is just. And your financial planner, having the right conversations, finding confident answers to meaningful questions and setting your priorities according to how you want to live and keep living your life long after you stop.
[00:03:29]So last week, we were talking a lot about the number of retirement and how we can look at it ourselves and having that agile mindset about our own lives and what we're doing. And a lot of what we talked about on purpose was about us, focusing on ourselves. But I also think there's a danger sometimes with retirement planning or even present day thinking that can cause us to focus so much on just ourselves or our family or our needs.
[00:03:59] And what do [00:04:00] I want? So how do we also balance that with still the philosophy. Again, I believe is the right one, which is we should also serve and help and give and work with others and take care of the wider community and our neighbor as well.
[00:04:17] Roger Whitney: [00:04:17] So last week we talked about the Seesaw and straddling that.
[00:04:24] And so this Seesaw, you're doing the same thing. You're standing on the middle of the, teeter-totter trying to keep both ends balance. But this time, one end is serving your family and having your house in order. And the other end is serving others. There's definitely a lot of places where they happen concurrently.
[00:04:46] Sure.
[00:04:47]And I think the way to approach this, the way I think about it is that, if you think of the speech that you get, if you've ever been whitewater raft, Have you ever been in whitewater rafting? Scott? I have
[00:04:59] Scott Maderer: [00:04:59] not been [00:05:00] whitewater rafting. It's on my list, but I
[00:05:01] Roger Whitney: [00:05:01] haven't been okay. I've done it. I've done a lot of whitewater rafting, not by design.
[00:05:06] It just worked out that way. So usually you go to the outfitter and get your gear. They put you on a bus and they have to drive to where they're going to put you in though. Or the water, not the lake, the river raging. I
[00:05:19] Scott Maderer: [00:05:19] was going to say, if it's a whitewater, it'd be weird lake.
[00:05:24] Roger Whitney: [00:05:24] And during that drive, you get the speech, and the speech essentially in the boat. That's always option one. That's the best option. But the speech is essentially look, we're going to be on these waters. This is how you stay in the boat and et cetera. And it's about you staying in the boat first, before you grab somebody else.
[00:05:45]And then the other speeches. If you get thrown in the water, this is how you need to navigate yourself in the water. You need to sit back on your back. You have to have your feet up, try to navigate yourself, [00:06:00] just swim your butt back to the boat as quick as possible. If that doesn't seem possible, swim to the shore as quickly as quick as possible.
[00:06:08] What you don't do is sit there and wait for us to rescue you because I got this many other people in the boat. So essentially the speeches take responsibility for rescuing in yourself. And if we can help you out, we will. And so when I think of this, how do you balance and integrate serving your family, but serving your community, you have to take care of yourself first.
[00:06:37] You have to have your house in order to really serve the community, no different, they have lots of analogies here, the drowning person, they usually pull down their rescuer. If the rest of your doesn't know what they're doing, I was a
[00:06:49] Scott Maderer: [00:06:49] lifeguard. So I actually know that way.
[00:06:53] Roger Whitney: [00:06:53] So I think, and I struggle with this too, because it's easy just to focus on my house in order my house in order. But I [00:07:00] do think. The more, you're a good steward of having your house in order. The more you're actually able to help people right. In a more impactful way. So they go together. The danger is just like the teeter-totter.
[00:07:18] Some people sacrifice their own security and future. Giving their time, we think money, but giving their time and their money to everybody else because there's great need out there. Always, some people sacrifice themselves. So their teeter-totter is way out of whack. And then the flip side is some people are so concerned or focused on their house and getting that in order that they ignore it.
[00:07:48]Everything else. So trying to find that same kind of balance, it can even
[00:07:52] Scott Maderer: [00:07:52] happen in some ways within a family, again, it's the parent that sacrifices everything for their children, but [00:08:00] then now ends up with their own, that's the quote, sandwich generation where now all of a sudden they have to live with their kids because they've done nothing to prepare for their own future either.
[00:08:08] Roger Whitney: [00:08:08] Yeah. Yeah. There's a balance between letting people own their problem. Rather than you solving them. Yeah, that's a very good analogy. And I see that a lot in my practice. It comes from a good place, but it's destructive really for both people, right? Yeah. Yep.
[00:08:26] Scott Maderer: [00:08:26] So speaking of relationships and how that works and whether it's within a family or between others, I always find it.
[00:08:34] It's interesting if you go to the site that I shared last week and I'll share at the end of the episode and take a look at Roger's site, he has resources that I will say are. Typically what listed on a retirement focused website, like investing in relationships and communication and other things.
[00:08:52] So why in the world do you focus on relationships so much as part of the overall picture of retirement?
[00:08:59]Roger Whitney: [00:08:59] Retirement, [00:09:00] the it's not about retiring or surviving retire. It's about a week, we call it, how do you rock retirement? How do you create the best life that you can? And, if you think of retirement, that's really the phase where you've sewed and accumulated and built your wealth over decades.
[00:09:26] Retirement is that phase when you're reaping, when you're using your resources too. Create the representation of your life during retirement, which represent right, which is a representation of all your values that you have. And you're living out those values. People forget that. They forget that we're supposed to use these resources, and we're supposed to use those resources obviously to be able to eat and have a home.
[00:09:54] But we're also supposed to use those resources to create a life because you only get one shot at [00:10:00] it. And you're at the last third of life. It's a finite time. And if you retire at 60, say really your finite time is 10 to 15 years because that's when you're going to have enough energy and be healthy enough, God willing that you can actually go do things and relationships are, in every study I see are what make people have a great life.
[00:10:22] It's, a big component is having really good relationships. So it makes sense to focus. And
[00:10:30] Scott Maderer: [00:10:30] similarly you talk a lot about communication and how can people actually begin to improve their communication when be within their own family or with others about life, about money, about these sorts of, cause these are not easy topics to talk about.
[00:10:48] Roger Whitney: [00:10:48] They really are because usually one let's take a marriage. We'll use a marriage as an example because usually one. Spouse is the project manager for the finances, because there's [00:11:00] a delegation of duties because there's so much to do in a family. So it's easy to, and plus one usually has more interest in it than the other.
[00:11:06]And so the Hey that you have healthier conversations in my opinion, and this is from 30, almost 31 years ago, marriage I've tried every other way. The way that you have healthier conversations has a couple aspects to it. Number one is back to that iterative agile framework that we talked about last week is my secret to a good marriage.
[00:11:30] Scott, I'm going to share it with you. Here is I never want to have a big conversation with my wife. If I can avoid honey, we need to talk. I can avoid that. I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job. And the way that you avoid those conversations is by having lots of little [00:12:00] conversations that are beyond just simply, what do you want for dinner or where are we going this weekend?
[00:12:06] And the, and if you think about when you've got, you've gotten married and you can use this for friends and children as well, but when you get married, everything's roses and you're walking hand in hand and you're actually skipping because you're so happy that you've found this wonderful person, but what ends up happening as you are walking life together is we forget that each person, even in a marriage has their own internal life going on in there.
[00:12:37] And in the busy-ness of careers and children and everything else, it's easy to not check in on who that person is. And so if you can picture yourself, walking together with your spouse, it's very easy to start to walk slightly different directions varies very subtle, right. And if you don't have these little [00:13:00] conversations to check in, you start to get a little bit farther apart.
[00:13:06] Just a little by little, until something triggers it. And you have to have a big conversation because you're like, wait, I thought we wanted this. You want that? Who are you? And so by having these little conversations, you can continually have sometimes little uncomfortable conversations that can keep you walking hand in hand.
[00:13:30] And that's really the key of it. So if you. I'm trying to remember the book that I read this in. There's a difference between something that's painful and something that's harmful. So like sometimes, and I've had many of these moments and I have no doubt you have as well. Scott, where my wife or I have to address something with the other person.
[00:13:51] That's a minor issue. Maybe it's not super minor, but it's an. There's pain and having to do that, it's [00:14:00] uncomfortable. They might get mad. I feel like I just feels uncomfortable, so it's very easy to avoid that pain. That momentary pain, just like it's easy to avoid the dentist. And getting a root canal.
[00:14:12] Yeah. That's painful are
[00:14:14] Scott Maderer: [00:14:14] going to talking to a retirement planner.
[00:14:16] Roger Whitney: [00:14:16] Exactly. No, it's easy to avoid those little conversations, but like the dentist, a root canals on the short-term painful, but very beneficial to you. Whereas on the short term doing the pleasurable thing of ignoring the issue and just going out to dinner.
[00:14:34] Talking about something else is pleasurable in the moment, but is long-term harmful. And so the key for myself, and I'm not going to say I'm great. I'm the best at it is having these little conversations. So you're attuned and you're actually walking hand in hand. And then the next aspect of that, Scott is you have to do that, but you actually have to listen.
[00:14:56]You actually have to listen. And not just [00:15:00] simply wait to respond because you're trying to understand life from their perspective. So you can integrate that with your own. I'll use myself as an example, my wife and I are having these discussions about, do we stay here or do we move to Colorado? I'm like, let's move to Colorado.
[00:15:15] I know she loves it there. And she does, but she doesn't want it. And I have, so I want to, she doesn't want to, and we have these little conversations about it and I'm understanding her reasons. Not to her sister lives here. Her mother lives here, they're in their seventies and eighties and that's, she doesn't want to do anything while she has that period of time to be with them, which is perfectly valid.
[00:15:41] But by you have to tease those things out. So I understand from her perspective, cause I'm not trying to win. I'm trying to make sure that we get both of what we want. So right now what we're doing is spending a month or so in Colorado every year. So that's our compromise, but you have to have those little conversations because otherwise they just become resentments.
[00:16:00] [00:16:00] Right?
[00:16:00]Scott Maderer: [00:16:00] So one of the questions that I try to ask all of my guests, and last week you actually used the word stewardship, being a steward of our resources and my brand inspired stewardship. Yeah, that's one of the lenses, one of my values that I live my life with, but as I've learned, I started asking people for their definition of the word and I get it.
[00:16:21] Lots of different definitions. So as part of that, I like to explore this word. So how would you define the word stewardship and how has it impacted your life or your thing?
[00:16:33]Roger Whitney: [00:16:33] I had T I knew you were going to ask this question about stewardship. I knew this was coming and I intentionally did not look it up in the dictionary.
[00:16:42] Scott Maderer: [00:16:42] Good for you. Avoid the temptation.
[00:16:46]Roger Whitney: [00:16:46] What's become real to me is that life is short
[00:16:51]sometimes unexpectedly. But even a natural life. And the younger you are, the more time feels [00:17:00] infinite. It's easier to waste. Now that I'm 54, it doesn't feel so easy to waste. The way I think of stewardship is intentionally creating the best version of yourself over a period of time, which I have. A plaque here, I'm grabbing the plaque.
[00:17:24] I spent time thinking of my top 10 values. Okay. I spent some time thinking about this and I'll read a couple of them to you. Relationship with God quality relationships, adventure laughter freedom, service, fitness, continuous improvement, bravery, positive attitude. So the way I think of stewardship is. My being intentional in how I create my life, allocate my resources, both financial and non-financial to live [00:18:00] out these values.
[00:18:02] And at the end of my life, if I'm successful, I can look back and said, I used. This journey to actually live out those values and give them to the world and the best version I was able to.
[00:18:18]There's one. And this is I think, important in retirement because what ends up happening in retirement to bring it back to that from a steward perspective, most people that are successful, accumulators Sowers. Some of that just comes out of self-discipline. Some of it comes out of fear. Self-denial all the things that make you a good sower are not the things that make you a good Reaper.
[00:18:47]And it's easy without the right perspective to continue to act that way in retirement. In fact, there are a lot of triggers that encourage you to act that way, because if you [00:19:00] think about when you retire, It's a scary situation. You lose your superpower of your income, which is a lot of agency that you've probably earned for decades.
[00:19:12] So you have out suddenly you have no income, you're not saving anymore. You lose all your friendships and work and you lose a lot of your purpose. If you're not careful, all of those things make you a little fear. And it's very common because of how retirement planning is typically framed that we're so worried about being destitute.
[00:19:32] When we're 80, that we keep saving for our 90, we keep saving for that rainy day and denying ourselves, creating the experiences with our family and with friends and with the community. Until we get to an age, let's say it's 80 and realize, oh wow. We don't have to save for a rainy day anymore.
[00:19:54] We're going to be okay. And you actually end up overshooting and dying with too [00:20:00] much money. So I think being a good steward is about navigating that. So you can take advantage of when the sun shining and create those experiences and the impacts that you want while you're healthy and active enough to be able to do it.
[00:20:19] And not, and still be okay later on in life, because I don't think it's being a good steward dying with too much money. And it's like trying to land an airplane. I would imagine on an aircraft carrier, it's a constant adjustment and I think most people miss that. So I think being a good steward is trying to manage that.
[00:20:39] So you make the most of the only life here. Does that coincide with anything that you think about stewardship?
[00:20:46] Scott Maderer: [00:20:46] It does. There's obviously there's a lot of different ways to define it. I'll share, my definition is that being a good steward is recognizing that the resources that you've been blessed with, time, money, whatever energy skills are [00:21:00] not your orders in terms of ownership, but they're yours in terms of managing.
[00:21:04]You've been blessed with them and your job is to manage them in a way. That not just blesses you and your family, but also blesses the world and in some tangible way, and that doesn't necessarily mean giving away all your money does that doesn't necessarily, it, it doesn't mean you live in a cave and only come out on triple coupon Tuesdays, but it is.
[00:21:23] Managing those resources in a way that facilitates both taking care of yourself as well as taking care of others. So it's the Teeter totters that you've talked about. It is living on those Teeter totters all the time, because at the end of the day, what you've been given, isn't yours anyway, it's,
[00:21:39]Roger Whitney: [00:21:39] You have to have, I can tell you my my, my personal story on stewardship and how I pivoted really over the last seven years.
[00:21:47]For most of my life, I was just wanting to be able to feed my family. I wanted to be able to be successful enough to be able to feed my family and do things. And then we got to, and [00:22:00] I own a business and that's a different, whole different kind of journey than corporate the corporate world. And so in my mid forties, we had to hit the inflection point in our business where.
[00:22:12] Suddenly, I found myself with a lot of time and a lot of free cash flow. And I explain, I did lots of triathlons. I did adventure racing. I had a lot of time and money to be able to go to play a little bit. And I suddenly had this realization in my mid forties of Roger. You got a decision to make here because you could stay doing this for the next 20 years.
[00:22:39] Have a good life, have lots of fun, provide for your family and not have to have a lot of time freedom. And that would be cool. But what would your 65 or 70 year old self think of? And I was like, and [00:23:00] it came up and I just sorted through the thought of side and then it just kept haunting me and I had to lean into this.
[00:23:06] Yeah. So a lot of what drives me, Scott is I don't want my 70 year old self to say, okay, yeah, you had a lot of fun and he did some cool things, but what could you have done? And that started this whole adventure. We just had our seven year anniversary on the retirement answer, man podcast. So the podcast, and it started the adventure of creating the rock retirement club.
[00:23:33] All sorts of things. So in the book and in all this stuff, I'm working more than I ever have in my life financially. I don't need to, but it's constantly, this is what I'm supposed to be doing with my life. And so I think that was a stewardship question, right?
[00:23:54] Scott Maderer: [00:23:54] Yeah. I would agree with that a hundred percent.
[00:23:57]And the other thing is I think our definition changes at different [00:24:00] phases that are. Yes, and that's okay. That's not a bad thing.
[00:24:03]You can find out more about Roger and what he does over on his website@rogerwhitney.com. He's also active on Twitter as Roger underscore Whitney, or you can find his podcast anywhere. Great podcasts are found under the retirement answer, man. I'll have links to all of this over in the show notes as well.
[00:24:24]Roger, is there anything else you'd like to share with us?
[00:24:27] Roger Whitney: [00:24:27] You got one shot at it. Don't waste your life. You can do it.
[00:24:30]Scott Maderer: [00:24:30] thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoy this episode. Please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes rate.
[00:24:58] All one word [00:25:00] iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get everything episode as it comes out in your feed until next time, invest your time. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world. .