Retirement

Retiring by 40 (RB40) has become a thrilling goal for many younger people, who see it as the ultimate life success. In contrast, older adults, often retiring by 60 (RB60) due to company age limits or layoffs, view retirement as the end of the road. The stark difference in these perspectives is rooted in varying mindsets, financial freedom, and personal values about work and impact.

Chip’s Note: Colleen has one of the finest minds I know and ever since her successful career as a corporate strategist, she’s focused her attention on how to help people to retire…or rejuvenate well.

There’s a romantic vision that “growing old” together after a full career is a beautiful notice.

On average, the financial odds are stacked against women. I’m not telling most women something they don’t know. Both men and women are affected by the number of retirement years growing in the past half-century. The average number of years Americans spend in retirement has risen from 13 in 1970 to nearly 20 by 2010.

After reading the New York Times guest opinion column titled “For the Good of the Country, Older Americans Should Work More and Take Less,” (https://bit.ly/47IkIv2) I found myself pondering how we have reached a situation where the solution seems evident, yet there is a lack of political willpower to implement it.

The average retirement age in the U.S. is starting to resemble a U-curve. In 1900, it was 76 years old (I know! Surprising, right?). It didn't settle into age 65 until 1970, and then there was a precipitous drop such that, by 1990, it had dropped to 57. The retirement age grew after that point, rising to 60 in 2000 and nearly 62 in 2020. This upward trend continues, as the average age at which employed Americans say they'll retire is now 66.

Why do we vastly underestimate how much life we still have ahead of us? Part of it is due to our misreading of the longevity data. If we hear that American men have an average lifespan of 76 years old, we think that means we’ll die in less than a dozen years if we’re 65 today. And, yet, a man who’s reached 65 had added nearly 8 years to his life expectancy compared to when he was a newborn (so chances are he’ll live to 84) just because he’s averted many of the life risks of youth and early adulthood.

Reading this article in The Atlantic got me thinking. Maybe understanding the future of work is less about studying Gen Z’s fetish for remote work or Millennials’ desire to be digital nomads. What if a window into the future of work could be understanding the motivations of those who are semi-retired? Maybe understanding how they’re curating their lives can help workers of any age.

MIT’s AgeLab’s Joe Coughlin wrote this interesting Forbes article about the idea that men tend to see retirement as the final chapter while women see it as a fresh start (this post will focus exclusively on heterosexual relationships since that was the focus of MIT’s study).

For me, building a new course is sort of like being Willy Wonka. I get to create something sort of magical. We excel in aggregating exciting ideas from all over the world that you would likely never have found on your own, and packaging it up with a pretty bow and a fun group of travelers from around the world. Imaginations are ignited, folks get unstuck and start to make life decisions with clarity, courage and excitement.