#218 – Retire Sooner Pajama Party with Kerry Hannon

Wes Moss [00:01:34]:
I’m gonna let you think about this in the back of your mind. The first question I was gonna ask you is this. Give me five pajama jobs that people can do. We’re gonna start with that, but not quite, because I wanna go back to something slightly more serious. And I think of you recently have been talking about this Gallup poll that shows that Americans are working a little bit longer. And I’m sitting here thinking, we’re the retire student podcast. I’m thinking you’re going the wrong way. People are working longer, not shorter.

Wes Moss [00:02:05]:
But again, it’s that. That’s totally okay, because you think of maybe this next phase in a really positive way. How can continue to work help your overall financial plan, help your overall socialization. And you’ve done so much work with, you have so many great books about helping people that are 50 plus, really, I think 60 plus figure out their place in the workplace. Maybe it’s a second act career. So let’s start with the thought around. Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen people working a little bit longer. What do you think that’s all about?

Kerry Hannon [00:02:44]:
Well, Wes, I think there’s a couple of big trends going on here, but one factor is that people are finally starting to get it, that in fact, they, you know, trying to support three decades of financial living in retirement is kind of a daunting task, especially if they’re, they’ve late getting to the game or they worked for an employer that didn’t have an employer provided retirement plan. That makes it really super hard. So the ability in today’s world, and one of the big trends that I wrote about in my book and control at 50 plus Washington that came out of the pandemic was remote work, which used to be, oh, well, isn’t this a nice thing? And you’d beg your boss to be able to stay and work from your home office. It became something quite accepted and sort of the genie was out of the bottle. Yeah. Companies want people to do hybrid stuff these days, but if you can work remotely for someone who has retired or wants to continue working on their own terms, remote work is a real, a real panacea for all of this because you can keep earning, but you have that flexibility. And when you ask people what they really love about their jobs, they’ll often tell you it’s flexibility. That’s what they really want.

Kerry Hannon [00:04:00]:
They want to feel in control.

Wes Moss [00:04:02]:
Yeah, autonomy is. It’s funny, we were, before I walked into the studio today, one of my colleagues looked at my, I’ve got these two big double screens, you know, the wide screens, and I have two of them, and they’ve been set up for years, and I’ve used them for many, many years. And then I guess it was because of COVID I was mostly just on my laptop, which is this little tiny screen, and I’m still, I never went back. I’ve got these two big screens in my office, and then I still do everything on just the one little, not only is it one screen, but it’s a really little screen. And I think that’s why over the last couple of years, my eyes have gotten so bad. I’ve had to start where I’ve had to take my readers from one and a quarter to one. I think I have to go to one and a half now, pretty soon. But so a lot of things Covid, that period of time changed a lot.

Wes Moss [00:04:54]:
One, you’re saying people were introduced to a broader variety of remote. I so agree that if you can find something, we call this the retirement gray zone, where America tends to think of retirement is a cold turkey, black or white. Hey, I’m working now. I’m not working. The reality, to your point, you’ve got so many decades to fund for so many Americans, it really helps to have that interim period, maybe it’s a two year, three year, five year period where they’re working less or more flexible, more autonomy. So then I’ll circle back to pajama jobs. I love examples because I do. I think it’s hard for families that I’ve worked with over the years.

Wes Moss [00:05:41]:
When they get to the 60, 65 and they would like to work, it’s not always that easy for them to find what that is. So I’d love to kind of just talk through some, just some things you’ve seen where people have been able to figure out these more flexible jobs. What do they look like?

Kerry Hannon [00:05:57]:
Maybe.

Wes Moss [00:05:57]:
What are some examples of that?

Kerry Hannon [00:06:00]:
Yeah, I think remote work and working, you know, as I call them, pajama jobs is something that generally comes out of the kind of work you were doing previously. So it’s often through a relationship with a company, an employer you worked with, or a colleague who is somewhere else who you found work with that knows you. So that there’s this sort of rapport there. Like, for example, for me, I’m a writer, right? And I interview people and all of these things. We were just talking about how great Zoom is the thing is, or being able to do video interviews and things that you could never do before now. This technology is so great that I can do my entire job mostly without having to leave my home office if I choose to. As a writer now, I like to get out and meet people, and I think a lot of us do like that human interaction. So you try to build that into it.

Kerry Hannon [00:06:53]:
But, so if you have a skill, like, these are mostly white collar jobs, right? I mean, it’s going to be stuff that you can do that’s a knowledge based work. So writing, if you’re accounting, bookkeeping, if you even graphic designing or writing fundraising pitches, or all kinds of. It can be so many different fields, the medical field, doing insurance business. So it’s stuff like, what field have you been in? And how can you pivot to finding work within that sweet spot that you already have many of the skills that you don’t need to be in house asking somebody for help, but you actually know how to do the job.

Wes Moss [00:07:35]:
How often is it for people you’ve written about and interviewed over the years, how often is it part of the plan? And they’re at 62, and they say, you know, I think I’ve saved enough, but I don’t want to start tapping into my funds, so maybe I can downshift and do some sort of other job. How often are you seeing people make that part of the plan, or are they having to react to up, I’m no longer part of this company, and I’ve got to, got to go find something else that’s maybe part time.

Kerry Hannon [00:08:05]:
Yeah, that is a really great question, Wes. I think what happens is it kind of depends on how you feel at your work at that time. If you’ve saved appropriately and you are just simply burned out and you don’t see yourself seeking and striving for that next promotion, that next all of that, you’re over it. Know, then sometimes people do want to take that pause and step away, kind of do some of those things they put on the back burner to have that work, balance that balance to their life. And then they start thinking, okay, I’m ready. I’m re energized. I’m ready to re enter the workplace. So I don’t think it’s necessarily a decision they’ve made upfront.

Kerry Hannon [00:08:45]:
Many people, they kind of step away, and then they come after a period of time, say, you know what? I’m a little bored. Whether if they don’t have any great hobby or purpose or they’ve gotten involved in a volunteer opportunity and traveling, you know, they’ve kind of run their, you know, passport through a lot of checkpoints. So I just think that that happens. There are the other people that are very thoughtful about it. Like, they actually, they’ve saved enough to retire early, but frankly, they love what they do. They absolutely love their work. So they think about, okay, so I do want to have more balance in my life. How can I do that? And they do start thinking ahead.

Kerry Hannon [00:09:21]:
They start finding where they, most employers still don’t have a phased retirement, any formal program, although they’re.

Wes Moss [00:09:28]:
That’s true.

Kerry Hannon [00:09:29]:
There’s starting to think about it.

Wes Moss [00:09:31]:
Yeah. That’s a really interesting point that I don’t know if, I don’t know why I’ve never thought about this, but you’re right. The companies don’t almost at all do that. It’s fascinating that if you think about thousands or millions of companies in the United States, very few do you ever hear of any sort of phasing out? Well, I guess you can, right? If you’re a doctor, you go five days and now you’re down to three days and down to two days. So I guess it’s possible in some professions, but companies in general don’t really have a phase out path for most jobs, do they?

Kerry Hannon [00:10:09]:
Yeah, and I think there’s a reason for that because it’s expensive. Right. And if you make a formal policy, then you have to offer it to everyone. And so they tend to cherry pick the people they want to keep around because they don’t want to lose that expertise and that experience. And frankly, Wes, moving forward, employers, they are not going to have much of a choice about this because with fewer younger workers coming up to sheer population growth, we are not seeing a lot of young people there. You know, there are more people turning 65 this year than ever in history. And so the fact is they’re going to need these older workers, their knowledge, to stay on the job longer because they’re simply not going to have, you know, it’s an aging global population. It’s not just in the US that, you know, more people are over 65 than under 16.

Kerry Hannon [00:10:58]:
So through the. We’re going to see more of this. But it is starting. But I think this gives workers a lot a real chit. You know, they’ve got a little something they can play with here that if an employer wants to keep them on, they can negotiate for. Okay, these hours I want to, you know, these are the days I can work. Or maybe it’s. These are the months I want to work.

Kerry Hannon [00:11:19]:
You know, let’s do this. So I think it does give us some, some bargaining chips here, but it’s just getting started.

Wes Moss [00:11:27]:
You know, it was before. It was probably right before COVID I did a video. I think it was the five reasons people choose to retire, because there’s got to be a catalyst. It’s. It’s a, usually I see a little bit, there’s one or two things that tip people over to say, okay, now I’m done, or now I’m ready to go. And ironically, one of them, and it does make sense, but it’s interesting that one of them was traffic. So if you look back and you see the average commute times that are 45 minutes each way in pretty much any big metro, right? So LA is well known to be the worst. DC, where you are, is really tough.

Wes Moss [00:12:07]:
Atlanta is awful when it comes to traffic. From 03:00 p.m. to 07:00 p.m. and people get stuck in traffic, and they’ll have 40, 5100 ten minute commutes all the time. And I’ve seen people that be the kind of final strawberry people are like, I just can’t do this anymore. And then they go to, then they start thinking, well, can I do remote or hybridization? It was a lot harder back before COVID and now that really has gotten easier. So maybe to your point, that’s one of the reasons people are saying I’m okay to work a little bit longer.

Kerry Hannon [00:12:40]:
Yeah, I think it’s easier than ever to extend your working life with what we talked about, that autonomy, that flexibility in a way that’s going to work for everybody. And so I think that’s really important to remember. And you’re absolutely right. I mean, that commute, my goodness, that is a great reason not to do it. Other, the other big factor, and you, you write about this is health, right? Either your personal health. A lot of people say they are going to work longer, but they don’t. They say they’re going to work till 66, right, or whatever, but they do. The most people leave around 62 because of their own health issue.

Kerry Hannon [00:13:14]:
That, that makes it hard to continue working or someone they’re caring for an aging family member and because of remote work, if it’s your own health issue. And that commute was really a drag and making it really hard. Well, isn’t this brilliant? Because it can really solve that problem of being able to continue to work without the commute. The other thing I’ll say, wes, quickly, is that, like, for example, my husband just, quote, retired, but he’s actually going to continue working. He does documentary editing and so forth, but, so he stepped away from his full time.

Wes Moss [00:13:47]:
So he’s a filmmaker. Yeah, he’s an editor. He’s in the film industry.

Kerry Hannon [00:13:51]:
Yeah. So he’s going to step away from his full time thing, but I, he’s going to continue doing projects, he said. And I’m like, don’t use that word. Retire around me. You know, have you ever read anything I wrote? You know, and he’s like, well, you know, but for him, but for him, it was, the impetus to do it is he had finished a series that had just ended. It was a good stopping point. He’s 70 years old, so he worked longer than, than the people who many of your listeners are, maybe, but, but he, he did it. Cause he absolutely loves it.

Kerry Hannon [00:14:18]:
But he also started seeing people around him with his really good friends with serious health issues who are unable to do those things. They had said they were going to do. They wanted to travel, they wanted to do this. He goes, you know what I want to do? I’m healthy. I want to be able to go do some of these things. So I’m like, yeah, absolutely. Get it. You know, I think that’s a big reason to step away, is if you can, if you saved, go do what you want to do.

Kerry Hannon [00:14:40]:
Who knows what the next chapter is.

Wes Moss [00:14:44]:
If you’ve ever done a Jane Fonda workout or if you remember as a kid rocky running the steps. And if Michael keaton is still Mister mom to you, then guess what? It’s officially time to do some retirement planning. It’s Wes moss from money matters. Weren’t those the good old days? Well, with a little bit of retirement planning, there are plenty of good days ahead. Schedule an appointment with our team today@yourwealth.com. dot. That’s your. Yourwealth.com dot.

Wes Moss [00:15:16]:
So I think about this thought around the mental shift of now starting to use your money. We spent a lot of time here. We’ve had a lot of different episodes, really talking about distribution, the 4% plus rule, weighing different withdrawal rates, because it’s very scary to, even if you have plenty of money, whether, let’s say, the average happy retiree, our research shows, has about a million and a quarter of liquid assets. But it doesn’t matter. I’ve seen many a family has 3 million or 5 million or 10 million, and it almost doesn’t matter how much you have saved. It’s still, there’s still trepidation in saying, okay, no more income’s coming in, wage income, because I’m done. And now I’ve had to start living on these assets. That’s kind of a scary proposition for anyone.

Wes Moss [00:16:10]:
And I I know that you’ve, you’ve talked about this, and, and some sort of other work can help bridge that gap, the, the distribution phase of, of not being nervous, pulling from your money.

Kerry Hannon [00:16:21]:
It’s, you know, you’re right, Wes. It’s a, it’s a psychological safety net. You know, you, it’s just, it’s really nice. If you continue to earn something, it just can be that buffer. It can, it can help you, you know, not have to dip into those retirement accounts more than you absolutely have to or, you know, gives you that mad money to go, some things that you want to do without worrying, and, and you may even be able to continue to save more if you choose to. So I think there’s some real positive things of that having that little cushion that. Yeah, and because that. You’re absolutely right.

Kerry Hannon [00:16:52]:
People just are terrified about taking the money out because we’re so hardwired to save. We’re just told, save, save, save, save, save. And then nobody’s really helping us figure out a how to take it out. And, like, which accounts do we take from? It’s like this amazingly terrifying experience, and you have no crystal ball to how long are you gonna live? So, you know, the 4%, whatever. But for everybody, it’s different. And your spending habits are. It’s really. And so I, like, I remember with my husband, I’m like, okay, great.

Kerry Hannon [00:17:22]:
You can step away from your full time thing, but you better figure out how you’re paying yourself. Because what I meant is, you know, which accounts. You figure out which accounts, you know. But so luckily, and I advise everyone, work with a financial advisor to help you figure this out because it really can be quite tricky.

Wes Moss [00:17:38]:
We think of it as, how do you max out what you can take out without running out?

Kerry Hannon [00:17:44]:
I love it. Yeah.

Wes Moss [00:17:45]:
And the other big part of that, too, is tax planning. Right. So it’s, it’s not only is it where your assets are located between different accounts really matters on your overall effective tax rate, which can be managed pretty effectively when you’re in retirement, if you’re being smart about how you’re distributing the money back for the spending that you need. I guess my other question is, what is the workplace like now? If you’re 60 plus, and I know you’ve written a little bit about working with younger folks, I think in my mind, what would it, if I were 60 and I had a 30 year old boss, I don’t know how I could handle that. I think that would be really. That would be really tough.

Kerry Hannon [00:18:27]:
Yeah. I don’t know. I think you would check your ego at the door. I think you can do it. I think you can do it. My. The thing I love about the inner generation, the multi generational workplace, we’ve got, like, five generations in the workplace now, and it’s really great. I mean, there is so much we can all learn from each other and.

Kerry Hannon [00:18:45]:
But it comes down to. There are two basic things. It comes down to respect for the other person that they’re in that job for a reason, and communication. Right. How are we going to communicate? Because each of the generations likes to communicate differently. And I will say, and just a quick note to your first question, like talking about 60 plus in the workplace, ageism is alive and well. Remote work kind of can help a little bit. There because you’re not standing, it’s not a visual.

Kerry Hannon [00:19:13]:
You’re right next to somebody who’s so much younger. But I’m going to say quickly, in my situation, I started a full time position at Yahoo finance two years ago from, I’d been running my own business, which I still do as well. But this is fantastic. The, my, the manager I report to is to probably, I never even asked her her age, but she’s roughly two decades younger than me. Right. And we don’t talk about this, but the fact is I have never, I, first, I’ve never been so energized by my work again because I’ve been writing about work and jobs and retirement for years. And she brings to it this new lens, this new way of looking at, this way of looking at it that, where I’d gotten a bit jaded, I’m like totally excited and energized. And she’s so smart.

Kerry Hannon [00:19:56]:
So it’s really been, I never expected that. But the one, what is it?

Wes Moss [00:20:01]:
What is it like, what would tell me that’s interesting. What’s the perspective? So she would be, I guess, that we’ve got, in the workforce, we’ve got Gen Z, millennials, Gen X, boomers. Is there another one? What’s the, is there a fifth one?

Kerry Hannon [00:20:15]:
Well, we got, well, we got some younger. Well, I don’t think boomers, there’s nobody above boomers. I don’t think. Still going, are there? I’m not sure.

Wes Moss [00:20:22]:
Yeah, I think boomers is probably the top of the category.

Kerry Hannon [00:20:24]:
Yeah, I would say so. But, but so what do they think?

Wes Moss [00:20:27]:
What are, what are these 20 somethings or 30 early thirties? What, how do they look at the workforce differently than the boomer generation? I’m Gen X. What’s it, I love to hear that.

Kerry Hannon [00:20:39]:
I just think they’re not, the communication is a bit different. Like, I remember when I started. And so she’s, I’m saying she’s Gen X, right? I think I’m boomer.

Wes Moss [00:20:50]:
But we’re, she could be a millennial. Millennials can be up to like 40 years old now, I think.

Kerry Hannon [00:20:55]:
Yeah. So the thing is, the first thing is with communication, I would send after they hired me, I would send emails, texts, phone calls, no response. I’m like, well, what the hell did they hire me for? And then all of a sudden I realized that she only communicated with, you know, her team via slack, which I had never worked on slack. I didn’t even know what it was particularly. I’d written about it probably, but I had never used it. But instead of me complaining or acting like a, I just figured it out and I started how to do it and I started using it and it was instant communication. But that’s on me because I didn’t ask her, I didn’t say, how do you like to communicate? That’s a simple question. So I think everyone bears some responsibility.

Kerry Hannon [00:21:38]:
And in technology, they always say someone who’s older is not going to be as adept with the technology as somebody who’s younger. And it’s frustrating. And for me, they say, Carrie, guess what? We work in Google Docs. I’m like, well, that’s great. I work in word. And they’re like, well, no, we’re not going to do word. I’m like, I’ll just file it to you and work. No, no, you’re going to work in Google Docs.

Kerry Hannon [00:22:00]:
Instead of freaking out, I called a friend of mine, Mark Miller, who works for Reuters, and I’m like, I knew he had switched over. I’m like, tell me you love Google Docs. How does it work? And he’s like, screen share. Then he gave me a quick tutorial. He’s about my age. We did a quick tutorial and he goes, and Carrie, if you can’t figure it out, just google it.

Wes Moss [00:22:18]:
So you just made, which is a really good point, is that the leap for someone who is, let’s say, hasn’t used? There is this prevailing thought. It’s like if you already don’t know a technology, that you for some reason get stuck in your current tech and you can’t learn the new one. And to your point, that’s not a good, first of all, it’s a very low barrier to overcome moving from word to Google Docs or moving from text to slack. I mean, this is not crazy rocket science, and I think it’s intimidating for some folks, but it’s certainly not. So now let’s go to the next iteration of hey, there’s no excuse not to know how to use AI chat. GPT perplexity. There’s so many of them now. Is that the next leap that the baby boomer needs to embrace?

Kerry Hannon [00:23:12]:
I think to a certain degree, and I think, wes, you really talk about this a lot, too. It’s this word curiosity, right? It’s, you need to, if you want to stay in the workplace at whatever it is, whether it’s part time work, contract work, whatever it is, if you want to be part of the workforce, you need to be up to date with whatever the technology is in the field that you’re working in it is just non negotiable. And it’s so easy these days to, if cha chibutee do it, just do it. You know, be curious about how it works. Don’t say, oh, I don’t know how that, you know, just try it. It’s so, like, it’s so easy to get information these days about how to do new things that it’s. And again, another trend that came out of the pandemic was that learning, you know, online and virtual learning absolutely exploded the ability to learn almost anything online without having to go to a bricks and mortar place, without having to get a degree, you know, four year degree or any kind of masters. You can pick up cherry pick skills, you can just learn one thing and, and it’s really quite a revolution.

Kerry Hannon [00:24:19]:
And I think that if you’re curious about life and about learning, you’re going to be able to keep on working, but you have to. It comes down to your mindset.

Wes Moss [00:24:29]:
Let’s go back to the millennials for a second. Let’s, again, let’s say you’re my boss. Let’s say I’m 60 and my boss is 30. Besides the communication difference. So let’s say they want to communicate on slack versus text. What is their thought around the workplace? How do they differ from a baby boomer and how you see work and your job and your career versus how do they see it?

Kerry Hannon [00:24:52]:
You know, I think they have a better grip on a work life balance than we do. They do. I honestly do. I think, not that their work ethic is strong as well, but I think they’re really much better at drawing that line in the sand and saying, you know, I’m off now. I’m not responding to this, these messages. I mean, me, I’m up at five, I’m sending people and I’m like, nobody’s going to be looking at their slack here, you know, but the thing is, I’m awake, so I think everybody else should be. So. But, but I think also just, I think they’re better at it than we are.

Kerry Hannon [00:25:24]:
I think there may be a little bit more, and this is just an over a general comment, less willing to go see the long term. There’s more job jumping within the younger cohort than there is in the boomer. Boomers tend to be much that when we have our whole careers tended to be stick with it a little bit longer with employers, they jump jobs more quickly. They’re moving to the next thing. They, they don’t always like we. I feel like an old timer, when I say stuff like, we really were willing to do really crummy jobs to keep moving up the ladder, you know, it’s like, I remember being a fact checker, you know, it’s like you did it, you did the dirty work so that you could get a chance to get that next step. Today, I think there’s a little more expectation that they’re going to move up faster, and in order to do that and get more money in order to do that, they change jobs. This can work, right? I’m not saying it doesn’t, but so I just think there may be a different outlook, but I think the most important one is, is this work life balance, and maybe they’re onto something there and they’re also saving at much younger ages.

Kerry Hannon [00:26:35]:
And part of it is, I think, because of the, there’s more employer 401 ks were really just starting.

Wes Moss [00:26:41]:
Yeah, they basically were just starting in the eighties. Yeah. Early nineties.

Kerry Hannon [00:26:44]:
And nobody told us what to do. And if you were lucky, you know, you figured it out, but now there’s much more education on it and employers are now, this auto enrollment stuff is amazing because instead of procrastination, people are automatically, until getting put in their retirement. Is it? You know, I just think it gets people started. And once you start saving, you keep saving.

Wes Moss [00:27:07]:
It’s like working out. Once you start running, it’s easier to keep running.

Kerry Hannon [00:27:10]:
Yeah.

Wes Moss [00:27:11]:
I want to ask about men versus women in the workplace as we’re, let’s say 55 plus 60, trying to figure out that next phase or another second act career. But maybe we just start out with two. The advantages. So we think of, you’ve talked about ageism. It exists, however, the perspective that you have, too, on why older workers are so valuable, and you talk about this, they’re really team we’re in, and that’s really productive. They’re less likely to be looking to hop jobs if they’re in this final phase of working. There’s maybe a little less ego, a little bit more willing to work, but I think one of the fears that I’ve always had, and I think one of the barriers is the thought that, oh, well, I’ve been in the workforce for a long time and my salary has just incrementally continued to go up. So I’m kind of expensive relative to someone who is willing to do my same job for 30, 40, 50% less.

Wes Moss [00:28:14]:
Is that not an issue or is that kind of a myth that I still hold in my head?

Kerry Hannon [00:28:19]:
You know, I think it’s, it can be an issue for sure. But I do think it can be costly for an employer to have to pay to ramp somebody up in order to train them for what they need. So, for example, I often, we know, relate back to my experience at Yahoo. Finances. I absolutely love working there, but I think they hired me because I could get the job done now like I needed. No training, no ramping up, nothing. Zero. So it was, and I think a lot of employers right now that were coming out of a tight labor market, they really want to find people who can step in and do the job with the skills they need today.

Kerry Hannon [00:29:00]:
And that’s a real advantage for an older worker and their pay. So, yes, now I don’t think that, you know, it doesn’t have to be more expensive. And you can also negotiate for all kinds of things around the corner, like more vacation or, you know, play with your benefits a little bit. There are ways that you can feel whole without having to have that big salary bump as you move up because we’ve often, yeah, you do plateau, but you also plateau in terms of your energy level and enthusiasm for your work if you’re not seeking a new opportunity. And wes, one of the most important things for someone who’s older in the workplace is what we were just talking about, this learning thing, because if you’re not learning, learning new things is what keeps you excited about your job, you know? And so even in my position, I’ve written about retirement and working jobs for years. I would never write about Social Security and Medicare because, oh my gosh, so confusing. If you make any mistakes, everyone’s all over you.

Wes Moss [00:29:59]:
But in this job sidebar, so true. I used to take calls on my radio show about Social Security and you could get 99% of it correct, but there’s always some nuance and immediately I would get emails. Well, one thing you didn’t say, you failed to mention you didn’t or it really. And at some point, you’re right, I used to be intimidated about writing about Social Security just because if you don’t get it perfect, you immediately get ten comments or emails about what you missed, let alone if you were to get something a little bit wrong.

Kerry Hannon [00:30:34]:
Yeah.

Wes Moss [00:30:35]:
So it took me a long time to kind of restart. I just published something about it.

Kerry Hannon [00:30:39]:
It’s so heated, you know, and even now more so than ever. But the thing is, I’ve had to write about, that’s my, that’s what I write about for them a lot now. So I’ve had to become an expert in this area and it has been so great intellectually because I’ve had to learn new things, you know, and so that’s kept the job kind of the adrenaline up, a little excitement in it. And I’ve had to meet new people, new sources, new experts that now I get invited to conferences and I talked. I’m like, ah, amazing. Like a whole new set of people.

Wes Moss [00:31:07]:
Are you intimidated, by the way? So we could talk about Social Security for just a second, too? Do you feel great about it now that you’ve been doing this for a couple of years and you’ve kind of been forced to?

Kerry Hannon [00:31:15]:
Oh, yeah, no, it’s fantastic. I have no regrets at all. I’m actually delighted because, you know, it is so important that people understand that. And, you know, with my work and I’m sure with yours that, you know, I have this mission statement that everything I do, I want to be able to make a positive impact in somebody’s life from a financial standpoint, whether it’s, you know, their work and their job or making good financial and investment decisions and giving them that encouragement and that confidence. And so Social Security, we are all dealing with this at some point in our lives. It’s a big issue of our day. So I’m really glad I know more about it than I ever did, and I’ve embraced it.

Wes Moss [00:31:52]:
With 11,000 plus people turning 65 every day, it’s staggering. Staggering to even think about that number. Yeah. And then I also think about, well, five years ago, it was 10,000 people a day. I was just thinking that not only are 11,000 people a day turning 65, there are also 10,000 people a day turning 70, because that was the big group five years ago.

Kerry Hannon [00:32:14]:
Yeah.

Wes Moss [00:32:15]:
So it’s a massive shift. If you start to think about the demographics of America and the work of the aging workforce. We’ve been talking about that huge baby boomer number for so many years, we still say turning 65, but there are 10,000 people a day turning to 71, 72, et cetera. So my point is we need more people that are confident speaking on Social Security than ever because there’s more people seeking that advice. So I think it’s great that you’re doing that. Be Lawrence Kotlikoff. Right. Gotta be.

Wes Moss [00:32:46]:
He can’t be the only guy that talks about Social Security. What, what is kind of your favorite thing?

Kerry Hannon [00:32:50]:
You think he’s not afraid to say what he thinks, and that’s what I love.

Wes Moss [00:32:54]:
He’s amazing.

Kerry Hannon [00:32:55]:
But, you know, one thing I wanted that I thought we would have fun talking about, too, is this whole idea of staying in the workplace a little longer, even if you’ve saved appropriately to retire early, is this idea of entrepreneurship. And, yes, I think it is huge for this demographic, for it is a great way that you can for many, whether you’re giving back and starting a nonprofit of some kind, whether you’re starting a business and a hobby, something you’ve been passionate about for years and that you haven’t had time to do it, whether you’re starting a business with your kid or with your nephew or with your, you know, intergenerational new businesses. But studies have shown that workers entrepreneurs, the older entrepreneurs, are more successful than younger entrepreneurs because of all those things. Wes, you said at the beginning there we were talking about, you have this sort of gravitas in the workplace. You have confidence, you know things that you have experience. You’re not, you know, you stay the course. You have a network. You know how to market things.

Kerry Hannon [00:33:57]:
You know yourself. You know what you’re good at, what you’re not good at, and you know how to delegate. Like today, with virtual work, you don’t have to have a whole team of people working for you in an office. You can, with contract work, exploded after the pandemic. You can find yourself a bookkeeper who’s going to helicopter in once a month and someone do your social media for you. It’s brilliant.

Wes Moss [00:34:22]:
Pretty recently, I guess, I’ve seen, as I look at the economy, and I’ve seen, I think we’re pretty clearly going into a new productivity boom similar to what happened in the late nineties with, with the advent of the web, the Internet, and the interconnectivity of what it did for almost every company. And now we’ve got this advent of artificial intelligence and what that can do for so many different industries. So I think we’re going into somewhat of a new productivity boom. But I’ve also seen the rise in business applications to start businesses. And I wonder if some of that was sparked by the pandemic or some of it is. Maybe what you’re talking about is that you’ve got a lot of experience. What kind of ventures have you been seeing people start?

Kerry Hannon [00:35:09]:
Yeah, well, I definitely, this was a big trend, big surge coming out of the pandemic for all age groups, but, but older, older workers in particular, over, I’d say over 50 in particular. And just a reason for that. One driver was really. It’s hard for us to remember, I must say right now, how frightening the pandemic was when we were locked down and it was scary and you didn’t know what the heck was going on. And people had a chance to do that soul searching, that inner MRI and say, you know, wow, is this what it’s all about? Like, is this what I really want to be doing? And, and they gave themselves permission to take that leap to try something new. And I think that’s been a real seed of the entrepreneurship, the new applications you’re seeing today. I think a lot of that is stemming from that, that people saw that, you know, it’s precious that, that life, and we’ve all lost people during that time to Covid, and honestly, it jet setted it. But it had been happening before.

Kerry Hannon [00:36:07]:
I wrote a book I never told to get rich. And, and I meant that in a way that, yes, of course I want everyone to get rich financially, but it’s also a way to get rich in an, in a way that’s emotional, that’s in well being. That by doing work you love and starting a business that you’ve always wanted to do, it is so rewarding. And you don’t, you know, it’s easier than ever to do this. You don’t have to have a million dollars to launch your own business today. You can start quite small with baby steps and then see it grow. Give it a chance to breathe and grow.

Wes Moss [00:36:40]:
Yeah. Do you see, from a practical standpoint, let’s say somebody in the back of their head for a long time has thought, I’d love to have my own business. How do people get off the starting block where they end up? They still haven’t done it. Is there any sort of catalyst or tool or suggestion that you would have to help people take the next step to figure out their entrepreneurial journey or. I love the idea of hobby income. I think we’ve written about hobby income. Once in a while, a hobby will turn into something that you can have some sort of profit on. But is there, have you seen any sort of particular steps that get people to kind of beyond square one when it comes to starting their own business?

Kerry Hannon [00:37:25]:
Yeah, I think you really, you know, you have to be honest. You have to say, you know, why me? You know, why now? Why this business? You know, because there’s so many businesses out there. Why? What do you have that’s going to make it that’s different than what somebody else has? So it’s really, if you’re interested in starting your own business, you really have to just, you know, all of the entrepreneurs I’ve interviewed over the years, years. I started off with a book called what’s next? Which people who did something for 20 years and shifted to do something completely different. They all did different businesses, but there is a common core, and they took their time. There were, like, no rash moves. They got their financial house and orders so that they, you know, they paid down debts. They were lean and mean so that they didn’t, because they, you know, you’re not going to be able to pay yourself out of your business for the first couple of years.

Kerry Hannon [00:38:13]:
And so they added the skills or the certifications they needed. So they talked to people in those fields to see where the holes were, where they might fit in to, you know, and they really, you know, it usually took about five years to make that pivot so it doesn’t happen over.

Wes Moss [00:38:27]:
Wow. It took that long. It took that long for people to kind of manifest.

Kerry Hannon [00:38:32]:
Yeah. You start off with, literally, you’re working your main job, maybe, and you start off doing it on the side. You start at, you know, moonlighting or, you know, going and job shadowing people who are in these fields. Anything you can do to really, because, you know, I have a woman, I know who, she took early retirement. She was from a law firm. She was a lobbyist here in Washington, and she loved to garden. And she’s like, ah, I’m going to start a landscaping business. You know, and she’s a fantastic gardener.

Kerry Hannon [00:39:00]:
But when she and she had clients, because we’re all like, yeah, you’re fabulous. But when she got out in the garden, she realized she hated it. Like, she was so miserable because it was her hobby. It was something that was the respite from the craziness of Washington lobbying. And so she quickly got her act together and stopped, you know, and when it. So you really do need that time to make sure and it’s okay to make mistakes. The other thing is, people think it’s forever. Gosh, no.

Kerry Hannon [00:39:26]:
I mean, this is like, it’s like a patchwork quilt. You might do something for a while. When I went back to that what’s next? Book. After a few years, I redid it as a paperback. A third of them had moved on to something else. So keep it in mind that people get caught up. It’s not your linear career. Yeah.

Kerry Hannon [00:39:41]:
If you’re starting a business, fabulous. And if you have a younger partner going in, even better, because that gives it a chance to keep going, but you’re doing it for different reasons. I think.

Wes Moss [00:39:52]:
I do love the idea around curiosity that not only do we have to continue to have that, but so many Americans, and we’re a big telecom town in Atlanta. Bell south was here. And then of course that was at and t big business in the southeast. And I think about folks that work either have worked or have just retired from a big telecom company. There’s a lot of longevity there. Utility companies, telecom companies. You’ll see people work for 30, 35 still to this day, 40 years at the same company. And it’s hard for them to make a big shift because they’ve been with a company for a long time.

Wes Moss [00:40:32]:
But the hard thing about that is that it’s hard to keep learning and doing something new. And that’s why I see people get kind of downtrodden after a lot of years at the same company because it’s hard for them to keep doing something new and learning something new. So your point about curiosity and sparking that within is such a big part of the formula, the recipe, to find something for another three or five or seven years after your primary career. I think your point around making it something you’re learning new is just such an important point.

Kerry Hannon [00:41:07]:
Yeah. Because when you learn something new, your whole brain shifts. Everything about you start seeing things differently. And it’s really, you could be learning about glassblowing. It doesn’t matter what it is, it just shifts your brain cells and it shifts the way you start and it builds resilience. Right. You go from being a beginner to being an expert. Wow.

Kerry Hannon [00:41:27]:
It’s amazing. Then you have to go back to be a beginner again. And this sort of rhythm of life is a really important lesson. The other thing I should say is when we’re talking about entrepreneurship, we’re not talking about starting Uber. We’re talking about micro businesses. Right. We’re talking about things that, you know, a mother and daughter starting one hot cookie in Youngstown, Ohio, they started by making cookies in their kitchen. We’re talking about, you know, people who are doing things on a small scale that have the opportunity to get bigger.

Wes Moss [00:41:55]:
And if you think about retirement planning, a few thousand dollars a month can be a really important extra cash flow.

Kerry Hannon [00:42:04]:
Absolutely. And again, and you don’t. If you’re careful and you’ve planned a bit and you are financially fit, you can do this without going into debt and all sorts of getting yourself in trouble and having those contract workers is lovely because then you can build a team to help you and support you without all this overhead. So I encourage people to give it. You know, if that’s something they’ve always wanted to, why not? But going back to that other point is you don’t get trapped. That it. Oh, you made this decision and it’s forever. It’s not forever.

Kerry Hannon [00:42:35]:
It’s, you’re not going to spend 30 years doing it, you know, because you’re going to shift.

Wes Moss [00:42:39]:
You’re going to move unless it’s one hot cookie, and that can turn into a big business.

Kerry Hannon [00:42:43]:
And it has. Now they, they have a great online business. They’ve got standalone shops in Ohio. I mean, they might go into franchising. I mean, but they started just mom and daughter, and this was, they’re just lovely. And, but there’s, you know, or a woman who, she started, it’s a wine, it’s an urban winery kind of cafe in young Santa. She retired from the military. She started this little cafe, but it’s grown and it’s a nice business for her.

Kerry Hannon [00:43:09]:
She left with, or, I mean, I love this story about a guy. This isn’t an entrepreneurship thing, but in a way, he retired from the military and he had mandatory retirement, and he was a captain in the navy. Big, you know, really could land carrier jets. I don’t know. He was amazing. He could have gone to work for the defense department or flying commercial aircraft. He ran away with the Big Apple circus because he absolutely loved the circus from the time he was a little kid. And he would go with his dad in Baltimore, and then whenever he was deployed or stationed for the military, he would find a circus.

Kerry Hannon [00:43:43]:
He got circus magazines, and so he ran away. He was the company manager. He is a company manager at the Big Apple circus, moving a troop up and down the east coast. His wife was a nurse. She became the wardrobe designer. And, you know, I’m like, don, what does this have to do with your skills from the military? And he’s like, because I always tell people, you’re just redeploying your skills. You’re not reinventing yourself. He’s like, terry, it’s all, he’s.

Kerry Hannon [00:44:06]:
The military and the circus aren’t that different. And he said, the fact is, the fact is, all those leadership things, all those qualities that I had to use in my position in the military, I just transferred them. It’s logistics. It’s managing people. It’s, you know, getting things done on time. It’s project management. So anyway, I just. Or, yeah, I can tell.

Kerry Hannon [00:44:26]:
Another quick one, is this guy you lost?

Wes Moss [00:44:28]:
Yes. I love these. I love.

Kerry Hannon [00:44:29]:
He lost his job because of ageism. He calls it ageism. I don’t know. He was a top sales guy, did great, but he couldn’t get back in. He couldn’t find another job. So he’s. This was fairly recently. He was a really terrific sailor.

Kerry Hannon [00:44:41]:
He loves to sail since he was a kid, so he got frustrated. Oh, wait.

Wes Moss [00:44:44]:
Hold on, hold on, hold on. So he’s a sales guy, but he’s also a sailor.

Kerry Hannon [00:44:48]:
Good point.

Wes Moss [00:44:49]:
You’re trying to pun me here. I’m listening.

Kerry Hannon [00:44:53]:
Yeah, good ears. So anyway, he decided he got fed up with the job search. He went to Longbow Key, Florida, to teach sailing for the spring, and he’s out on this boat with the CEO he’s been given private lessons to all week, and he’s telling his guy his story. And the guy said, well, you know what? We’re looking for a project manager at my company in New Jersey. And he said, you should apply. And the guy’s like, why should I apply? I don’t know. I don’t have anything credentialed to be a project manager anywhere. And he goes, you’ve just been sailing with me the last week, getting from a to b to this.

Kerry Hannon [00:45:28]:
He said, you’ve shown me that you know exactly how to manage a project. And the fact of the matter is, people don’t often see these inner skills they have in their hobbies that translate to the work world. And so, in fact, he did go interview for this job. He got the job. Okay. He knew the CEO. But it’s been fantastic. He got those certifications.

Kerry Hannon [00:45:45]:
He’s been promoted twice. You know, it was a good win.

Wes Moss [00:45:49]:
So he doesn’t miss sailing because my takeaway doesn’t.

Kerry Hannon [00:45:52]:
Poppy.

Wes Moss [00:45:52]:
Now, I guess he can afford it even easier. Easier to afford the takeaway from that story, though, too, is that it’s never too late to learn how to sail. Carrie.

Kerry Hannon [00:46:04]:
Yeah. Oh, like it.

Wes Moss [00:46:06]:
Like, it’s never too. And again, for somebody, that. That has been. One of the evasive things in my world is that I’ve sailed a lot because my wife’s family is. They’re. They’re sailors, and they sail. They grew up sailing. They sail.

Wes Moss [00:46:20]:
They all have their own sailboats. Some are little, some are big. And I’ve always. I’ve been a passenger sailing so many times. I’ve probably gone sailing 50 times in the last 15 years or something. So I’ve done a lot of day sales, but I have never captained the boat. But I have this thought that at some point in my life, and I guess you can take. And I hadn’t really ever thought about this, but you can take sailing lessons and just learn.

Wes Moss [00:46:50]:
And I’d love to do that. I don’t know if I’ll do it this summer when it’ll happen. But that’s on my list of, I’m very curious to be able to sail my own boat as opposed to go on a sail.

Kerry Hannon [00:47:02]:
Yeah.

Wes Moss [00:47:03]:
Complete sidebar, Carrie.

Kerry Hannon [00:47:05]:
I know. I love that. But that’s what all about working jobs is, too. And everything we do in our life, it’s being curious and being, and you know, that open, being open to trying new ways of doing things because we all get stuck in. We want to replicate. I was like, you get stuck in a moment. I think that was a YouTube show, you two song. But you get stuck.

Kerry Hannon [00:47:24]:
You want to replicate. You know, you’re paralyzed because this is what I’ve always done. I don’t know, but, but all of these things that you’ve done, these skills, you can pivot those out to doing other things if you like, give yourself permission and also give yourself permission to fail. Okay. It’s not going to be, it’s not, every day is going to be rosy. You got to, like, be realistic. But, but it, the joy comes from trying. And I know that sounds really woo woo, but it’s so true.

Wes Moss [00:47:50]:
All right, well, if I get seasick in the middle of my sailing lesson, I will continue to prevail. How about purpose, play and happiness and longevity? This is something I think you’ve talked about and written about a little bit, but kind of this purpose and play and enjoying work. I’d love to kind of hear your thoughts on that.

Kerry Hannon [00:48:07]:
Yeah. I think particularly as we get older and we want to find work with meaning. But I do actually think younger generations want the same thing. They want work with meaning. Like, there’s something in the human spirit that we want to feel like we’re making an impact in the world, that there’s some. But as we get older, I think there’s a stronger urge to want to give back and to do something that you really feel is outside of yourself and living beyond yourself. And so a big opportunity at this stage in life is to use some of these skills that we’ve kind of honed over these years and repurpose them to doing this kind of thing, to finding purpose with. There’s like, you know, several kinds of purpose.

Kerry Hannon [00:48:48]:
They’re going to be a small purpose where you’re just, you know, doing acts of volunteering and things like that, which is really important to do, or there’s bigger things, you know, if you’re launching a bigger initiative in order to find a way to give back. So I think purpose in having purpose and having a reason to get up in the morning and feeling relevant is just good for your health. I mean, there’s no question about it. And working is good for your mental health because it’s use it or lose it. You’re still solving problems but having something in your soul that has this purpose, you can’t measure that in a way that I could explain it that say, oh, you got to do that. But it definitely study after study shows that it absolutely contributes to our wellness.

Wes Moss [00:49:27]:
So you’re an advocate, even if you don’t need to financially, you’re an advocate to really just work as long as you can for the most part. Would you, would you agree with that?

Kerry Hannon [00:49:39]:
Do, but only in the, if you have the opportunity, do it on your terms, do it on things that are going to turn you on. And when you’re excited about your work and you, that translates into the quality of the work you’re doing and the impact you have on other people. I mean, it shows, it carries through. But that enthusiasm also helps with your network and your human engagement. We all need that social network. So that’s one thing people miss when they step away from the workplace is that connection, that human connection. So, you know, there are ways to seek it out and do it. But often work is a nice avenue for doing that because it makes us feel good about ourselves because we’re rewarded for our expertise and our, and that sort of thing.

Kerry Hannon [00:50:21]:
But we also give back to others. Like, it’s really fun to help younger people figure out the ropes, right? I mean, there’s something really great about, about sort of mentoring and the reverse mentoring both ways, but the Robert De.

Wes Moss [00:50:37]:
Niro, don’t you love that?

Kerry Hannon [00:50:39]:
Where do you think you’ll be in ten years? And he’s like at 80? I don’t, you know, but that’s a great, it’s a fun example of that. But it happens. And I just think there’s, there’s a lot of fun in that, you know.

Wes Moss [00:50:52]:
As I kind of connect the dots here, it’s almost as though if you can get to a point where you have work on your terms and it’s got purpose and you’ve got, it sparks your curiosity. That’s a huge bargaining chip when it comes to the retire sooner lifestyle. The way I look at it is that it is if you’re able to get into that next phase totally on your terms. To me, that is part of the retire sooner formula. So I’m going to leave it with this. Today. You’ve written, I would say at least a dozen books. Has it been a dozen?

Kerry Hannon [00:51:25]:
Yeah, a little over a dozen.

Wes Moss [00:51:26]:
Let’s say it’s a dozen. A baker’s dozen. What is your favorite book that you’ve written that you would steer people at our audience to take a look at?

Kerry Hannon [00:51:35]:
Yeah. Like, turn it back on you. It’s so hard because we love all our books. Right? They all. They all have.

Wes Moss [00:51:41]:
No, I don’t love all mine. I have a few that I think are terrible.

Kerry Hannon [00:51:44]:
I do love mine, but I will say the most recent book, I like in control a great deal because I think it’s really great information.

Wes Moss [00:51:52]:
In control.

Kerry Hannon [00:51:53]:
In control at 50 plus. How to succeed in the new world of work. It talks a lot, all these things. Entrepreneurship, you know, women in entrepreneurship. It talks about learning and contract work, remote work. But. But I also love that book I referred to earlier. My what’s next book was really magical for me because I spent.

Kerry Hannon [00:52:12]:
I was. I spent three and a half years traveling around the country, meeting people who had made these big pivots in their life. And most of them were boomers, and they were. They were seeking meaning and questing and giving back, and oh, my God, I didn’t want to do what they did, but I wanted to be like them. I mean, I was so inspired by their. Their, um, their vision and their belief in themselves. And so I think it’s really important. Uh, and that’s a message I try to get through with all my books is, you know, no one can create this path for you but yourself.

Kerry Hannon [00:52:43]:
But. And so at the heart of it, you got to believe what that. That you can do it and that you have something to offer.

Wes Moss [00:52:50]:
All right, we’re going to wrap it up. So, Carrie, thank you so much for being here. I’ve been a big fan of your work for a lot of years, so I’m glad we found you. So God bless Zoom for you being able to come on and it’s been great to be able to meet you and talk through. You have such a deep knowledge base. I love these stories, too. I love. Some of these stories are great, too.

Kerry Hannon [00:53:09]:
Good, super fun. I appreciate you reaching out to me because you know what I mean? Your work is fabulous. And the thing is, it’s just the more voices we get out there, I think people just educating people and giving them the chutzpah to keep moving.

Kerry Hannon [00:53:23]:
Hey, y’all, this is Mallory with the retire sooner team. Please be sure to rate and subscribe to this podcast and share it with a friend. If you have any questions, you can find us@wesmoss.com that’s wesmoss.com. you can also follow us on Instagram and YouTube. You’ll find us under the handle Retire Sooner podcast. And now for our show’s disclosure. This information is provided to you as a resource for informational purposes only and is not to be viewed as investment advice or recommendations. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal.

Kerry Hannon [00:53:53]:
There is no guaranteed offer that investment return, yield or performance will be achieved. Stock prices fluctuate, sometimes rapidly and dramatically, due to factors affecting individual companies, particular industries or sectors, or general market conditions for stocks paying dividends. Dividends are not guaranteed and can increase, decrease or be eliminated without notice. Fixed income securities involve interest rate, credit inflation and reinvestment risks and possible loss of principal. As interest rates rise, the value of fixed income securities falls. Past performance is not indicative of future results. When considering any investment vehicle, this information is being presented without consideration of the investment objectives, risk tolerance, or financial circumstances of any specific investor and might not be suitable for all investors. Investment decisions should not be based solely on information contained here.

Kerry Hannon [00:54:38]:
This information is not intended to and should not form a primary basis for any investment decision that you may make. Always consult your own legal, tax or investment advisor before making any investment tax, estate or financial planning considerations or decisions. The information contained here is strictly an opinion and it is not known whether the strategies will be successful. The views and opinions expressed are for educational purposes only as of the date of production and may change without notice at any time. Based on numerous factors such as market and other conditions.