I'm 59. If You’re Over 40, Watch This - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VUqrLlQZro

I'm 59 years old. And if you're in your 50s or even your late 40s, we're in what I call the youth of our senior years. And in today's video, I want to share with you some learnings from my journey, both as an individual and also as somebody that's been a financial advisor for 20 years. And the first one observation is, unfortunately, we're not going to be in the youth of our senior years forever. Unfortunately, eventually we're going to transition into the middle age of our senior years and then eventually the old age of our senior years. And at each of those stages, I want to look back and say I took full advantage of the years that I had in the youth of my senior years. And I want you to be able to do that as well as you approach these years. So let's talk about a few of the major learnings. And the first one is that my health is much more important than my wealth, my health and my time. Let's talk about health first. And while the lifespan for Americans continues to go up, unfortunately our health spans are not increasing. So we're living longer. But how long we have in life with a healthy life is relatively we don't have much time. The World Health Organization reports that the average American's health span. The time that we have until we have a major health issue, unfortunately, is just 66.1 years. That is just 13 months past when many of us are planning on retiring. In fact, I like to share with people, even if we're fortunate, even if we take care of our health, most of us are going to have a thousand weeks or less of healthy active time once we reach 60 years old. And that time is going to fly by in the blink of an eye. And so again, I want to look and I want to minimize any regrets. And one of the things that I've learned so I talked about the health, the time. You know, we're fortunate, we still have all of this time in front of us, and they're we want to take advantage of it. There's always ways to make more money, but there's no way to make more time. And a great example of this is one of the richest people in the world. Warren Buffett continues to work, and he should continue to work. He loves working and he whistles to work every day. But Warren's in his 90s, and I'd be willing to bet you that he would trade his fortune, most of it to anybody in their 50s if he could trade places with them, if they're healthy. And that just shows you the value of our time. And I want us all to be treating it that way and thinking through, you know, how can we be thoughtful and deliberate about how we spend our time? What are the things that we want to achieve? So we just don't go through this youth of our senior years on autopilot, but we have a game plan. And if you'd like help thinking through that, a great book was written by Bill Perkins. It's called Die with Zero. It's got a strange title, but one of the concepts in the book is coming up with what he calls not a bucket list, but a life bucket list. What are the things you want to do, the adventures, the trips, the things with friends and family that you want to do? And is there an age at which you become too old to do it? For instance, backpacking through Europe is probably something better done by a 50 year old than a 90 year old. So come up with this list. If you're married or you have a significant other, I highly suggest the two of you read it together and think through what are the things that you want to do. For instance, for me, I learned to surf in my 50s, and I'm super glad I learned in my 50s, because when you're learning and you're falling off the board, the wave is tumbling you and you need some flexibility. It gets harder to do that as our flexibility decreases. So what are the things like that and what are the things that you should do sooner rather than later? And what are some of the things that you might be able to do later that you can postpone so that you can do the other things that require your health and your vitality to do? Okay. The other really key thing as a financial Advisor for over 20 years that I've seen is the decision on when you retire is really important. Too many of us default and we autopilot on 65 because that's when most Americans retire. And it's also easy to default on a later age just so we can continue to save money. Right? Part of the culture in the United States is he with the most toys wins. And I think that's unfortunate because toys aren't what bring us happiness. Toys being, you know, boats and fancy cars, yeah, they're nice for a while, but it's really relationships. So how. What are you giving up to continue to work once you're financially capable to work? And this is not prescriptive. I'm not saying anybody should retire early. I just want people to be thoughtful and deliberate so they look back and they say, I retired at the right time for me. I'm glad I made the decision. I optimize on life as opposed to optimizing on my bank account. I've seen people optimize on their bank account, and unfortunately, that can lead to regret later in life. So what's the right thing for you to do? And if you're thinking about, you know, you'd like some thoughts on how you should think about when to retire, that's. That's something my life experience has given me. And the first one is just thinking through, as I said, you know, your health and your time and how valuable that is. And unfortunately, as we work, work tends to be stressful. And even if we don't feel it anymore after 20, 30, 40 years, the pressure of our job is constantly there, Right? It's always in the back of our minds. It's hard to disconnect. And that pressure and stress, it's very common for people once they retire to say, you know, a, I don't know how I ever had time to work, but B, I didn't realize how much pressure, how much stress I was under. The second one is relationships. Think about the relationships that are important in your life and how much more time we're gonna have with those people. If you still have young kids at home, how many more summers do you have with them? How many more barbecues do you have with them? How many more camping trips do you have with them until they're off and they lead their own life? And with elderly parents, if your parents are still alive, how many more Thanksgivings do we have with our elderly parents and being able to spend time with them and just valuing that. And yes, we can continue to work and do these other things, but sometimes, particularly spending time with elderly parents, Some folks might be saying, I want to spend more time with my elderly parents, but I just can't. So think through that. If you're financially able to, you know, maybe think about if you retired, could you do the things that you want to do with your adult parents? The other thing is adventures. You know, some adventures, like traveling, they take more time in order to be able to do them. One of the things that's on my bucket list is slow traveling the world and spending a month or two months on different continents and being able to feel like a local in a foreign land for me. And unfortunately, I can't take two months off of work. Right? So that's something I have to think about. What are the adventures that you're postponing because you continue to work. And then the last thing I want to talk about is oftentimes people will say, I don't retire because I don't know what else I want to do. And that's very common. Many of us, myself included, struggle with that. But I want to encourage you to really put thoughtful time into it because I think it's highly likely many of us will look back and say, I wish I had more time at this stage of my life to do whatever that new purpose is. Excuse the train coming here in the in the background. The noise will end here in a moment. And there's a great book before you leave, I want to share with you this book. It's a book that was written by Arthur Brooks. It's called From Strength to Strength that will help you think through what is your next, your next thing after your current job? How do you want to evolve your life? How do you get purpose in life? And if you found this video helpful, I know you'll enjoy this video up here where I appear, where I talk about enjoying your 50s and 60s more and seven things to stop doing in your 50s and 60s in order to enjoy life more. Thanks for watching this video and I'll see you in that one. Bye.