Helping Clients Dream Big and Find Their Purpose in Retirement with Patrick Randall & Jack Tomczyk — EP 030

Matthew Peck: Welcome, everyone, to another edition of the SHP Financials Retirement Roadmap Podcast. I’ll be your host today, Matthew Peck. And I’m joined by a very special guest. It’s not just one guest. It’s actually two guests. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to be joined by Team Pat. Now, you might wonder or think about, okay, who is Team Pat and what does that mean and why would we have that here? But wanted to bring on a group or a team of advisors that we have to kind of give you an idea, A, what the structure is here at SHP, that we’re not sort of a one-man band. I mean, the idea that you truly do need a full team behind you but then also to get into some of the non-financial considerations of retirement planning, like what are the types of questions that you should be asking yourself beyond sort of like the Xs and Os, right? I’m sorry. I’m in the middle of March Madness when this was recorded so I kind of have that in my mind. Go UConn. But that idea, right? I mean, you just have these numbers on the page but what do they mean to you and how do you see your own retirement?

And when should we start to ask these questions of yourself? When does SHP ask you these questions? And so, we’ll be sort of diving into that with, again, our guests. We have Pat Randall and Jack Tomczyk will make up again Team Pat. Pat’s been with us now for over five years and I think for many of our listeners or certainly for clients of Pat, he is a unique one. I would say that. But it’s a combination of street smart and book smart, I would say. Right? Is that kind of like a…

Patrick Randall: Kind of like a unicorn.

Matthew Peck: Right. Absolutely. I mean, just one in a million. One in a million, pretty much. And then we have Jack Tomczyk as well, who is the lead role in supporting Pat or Team Pat, I should say, too. And what’s great about Jack is that obviously to offer up here but also the fact that he works with past clients just as much as Pat does. And I was talking about the structure here in the sense that when we build plans for clients, we want to be there through thick and thin. Right? If we’re on vacation, great. You got to make sure that you have someone that can return that call end-to-end and deal with that issue, whatever that may be. And so, by having a team, by having more than one person looking at your plan and being aware of your plan just allows for that type of peace of mind that we like to do here or that we basically get up and every Monday through Friday, probably even say weekends too, a little pat in the back there.

Patrick Randall: The hard work.

Matthew Peck: But just that whole idea of letting people know that there are many hands make light work. And again, Pat and Jack are members of, again, Team Pat in that regard. All right. So, tell me about the non-financial considerations. I mean, first off, before we even get into what they are, like when do you first start to talk about that? Because I’m sure people come into a meeting expecting like, “Oh, he’s going to ask me about my savings.” So, how does that go?

Patrick Randall: Yeah. No, interesting. I would say as soon as possible, really. I mean, it would be nice if everyone came in and met us for the first initial conversation years in advance of retirement. But that’s just not the case. Some people come in and they’re going to retire next month or next year or they’re already retired. So, you still want to talk about these things, even if they’re already retired because people have different, as we’ll get into today, different thoughts, ideas, values, and beliefs as to how they want to spend their time and what retirement is. There are different situations, of course, but Jack and I, we talk about it in that initial conversation because a lot of advisors out there, they’ll focus like as Matt said, on the numbers, the data. And what we want to do is, yeah, that’s great, that’s important but retirement is a big phase of one’s life and we want to make sure that our clients, the families that we work with, are aware of a lot of the retirement issues they may face that are non-financial related as well as they optimize their time during retirement.

We’ve seen a lot of folks who they’re working 30, 40, 50 years and the saddest thing is that they are going to retire and they have no purpose anymore, no drive. They don’t know how they’re going to spend their time and so they’re kind of lost. And that’s not going to lead to a fulfilling retirement. And so, what we want to do by focusing on some of these non-financial areas is digging deeper and start to put some framework around clients’ retirement years and how they’re going to spend their time, what they’re going to do and how do they keep that same purpose, direction, growth mindset that they had during their working years and as it transitions through retirement. The only way to do that really is to start talking through a lot of those qualitative areas that I feel like a lot of financial planners out there have missed.

Matthew Peck: So, it’s all point. I mean so literally because just for folks that may or may not know about of our process, normally, we have our initial kind of meet and greet where sit down, have a cup of coffee get to know somebody, and make a call about whether or not collectively like, “Hey, is there a potential for a fit? Great. Let’s sit down a second time.” Okay. And then you kind of really get into the plan. So, you’re talking about those things during the first meeting? And then at what point? I mean, is it like the first thing you can ask somebody or is it a set question that you have to ask at some point during the meeting?

Patrick Randall: Yeah. I think it’s different for different people. I mean, some people come in and they’re ready to go. They already have it ready. “I want to do this, I want to do this, I want to do that,” and it’s like, “Well, hold on. I get that. I’m writing it down.” Other people, it just comes out naturally. And then for some leave in that initial conversation and then preparing for that second conversation. It’s more like, okay, because we’ve done this for a while, we kind of already have a good idea of the situation that people are prepared for from a financial standpoint. So, in the past, some of the things that I’ve done is leading into that next conversation. The second conversation is, “You know what? I want to challenge you to think bigger.” So, I think that a lot of folks during their working years that they’re so focused on work, building a family maybe, saving, saving, saving their heads down. I don’t think they really know what’s truly possible about their retirement years.

And so, a lot of times in that second conversation, we’re really diving into, well, what can be possible with a variety of various planning techniques. And so, I think it’s important early on to start to be aware of these things. And then as those meetings develop and a relationship grows, these things can change, too. So, it’s being cognizant and aware of these changes and then helping the client work through those changes in their retirement years, which we’ll go through further in this conversation, too.

Matthew Peck: Well, yeah, okay. So, what’s your kind of go-to to kind of kick-off, or maybe to ask it another way, what are the non-financial considerations?

Patrick Randall: There are so many of them, right? So, the thing is like, so what does retirement mean to you? So, I’ve heard other advisors ask that question. I know Joe Anderson, another advisor here, great guy. He asked that question directly often. And so, the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Jack, you remember dictionaries?

Jack Tomczyk: Yes. We still had them in school.

Matthew Peck: The book, right?

Jack Tomczyk: Yeah, absolutely.

Patrick Randall: Now, there’s something called the internet so you can pull it up on the internet. So, their definition is that retirement means a withdrawal from one’s position or occupation or from actively working life. So, that’s their definition. Now, our definition really is the way that we view it for our clients is it’s really your ability to do what you want when you want to do it with whom you want to do it. You’re not forced to work with a team. Although, I love our team. Great team, especially Jack.

Matthew Peck: Jack’s in this room. He’s listening. I hope he’s listening.

Patrick Randall: So, you don’t have bosses that you don’t like. Not in SHP.

Matthew Peck: Wait a second. Wait. Okay. Keep on going.

Patrick Randall: Right. Or if you have a business, you don’t have employees that you’re accountable for, right? So, you basically can choose what that life is but that’s good but it can also be bad if you don’t have a plan for it. And so, some of those considerations, I mean, that you want to pay attention to, are you emotionally ready for retirement? So, it’s a big change. You get up, you hit that alarm clock, you commute or on pre-COVID you commute. A lot of people may work from home now. You’re commuting to work. You do your 8 hours or so and you go home and you can be at home, then now it’s your nighttime. Then you do it repetitively over and over again. So, emotionally, what does that look like when you don’t have to do that anymore? It’s a big thing.

Matthew Peck: Well, I mean, one of the things that I’m curious kind of what type of answers that you guys get from your clients. But one of the things that because it continues to blow my mind is when you retire, like the calendar stops existing. I mean, we’ve since like the Industrial Revolution have been, sorry to get too geeky on you, but we use things like time, like manage time, kill time. I mean, time is such an important piece of what we do. And then you have structure to it. This is what you do on Monday, this is what you do Tuesday, etcetera. And we have clients that come back and are retired they’re like, “Oh, what day is today?” They only know because of their appointment. I mean, imagine not having a calendar. We have a calendar but the days no longer matter. I mean, every day is Saturday. That must be mind-blowing.

Patrick Randall: It’s true. Yep. It’s funny because you have some clients when they retire, they check off that honeydew list like the first few months, right? But there’s only so much stuff you can do around the house that you’ve been putting off for years and then what? I love about when folks are retired, they come in or, oh, we’re trying to get them in to continue the planning, they’re like, “I’m just so busy right now. I don’t even know how I did it. I don’t know how I worked all these years. I’m so busy,” right? So, it’s funny like that.

Matthew Peck: Well, I love that line, too. It’s like I’m more busy now than I was when I was working, which again, I mean, maybe as you were saying where our nose is to the grindstone right now. So, we don’t necessarily, I mean, we help people think about this but it’s almost like the plumber with the leaky pipes like I don’t know how often but, personally, you think about your own retirement. That’s like, “Wait, I can focus on that guy’s retirement.” But the other thing that the word that I came across the other day, which kind of helps describe this, is that we talk in terms of kind of our language is to make sure you have a good social portfolio. I’m not sure if you ever heard that term in the sense that, okay, you have to make sure you have a diversified portfolio. So, you have the stocks, bonds, annuities, etcetera, all the instruments that we use. But they also talk in terms of having a social portfolio, which is, okay, how is your social life? Is it family? Is it friends? Is it volunteering? Because you said that you talk about how you kind of help people through these things. So, if you don’t mind, do you have an example of someone that never thought of it, and then what’s the type of questions that you might be able to kind of help someone along so they can come up with a good answer?

Patrick Randall: Yeah. So, it’s more about so you have to dig into kind of like the person and if you have a couple they are working with, they might have two different ideas like the wife may want to be very active. She wants to be volunteering. She wants to maybe spend a lot of time with the grandkids and the husband might be okay with kind of just hanging out and watching a bunch of sports games on recording because you can record everything now, right? So, you ought to kind of understand both sides of it. And so, oftentimes as we go from like the initial conversation when you get to know them from a very general standpoint, you start diving deeper in the second or third conversation, fourth conversation. It really never stops because people’s lives change and their values or their goals may change. So, it’s really that whole challenge in them to think bigger. I have a story of a, she’s probably going to be watching this, but I did this and I challenged her to think bigger. And she came back to that second conversation with a list of all these things that she wanted to accomplish in retirement. I basically said, “If money wasn’t an issue or an option or an obstacle, what would you want this retirement to look like?”

Because she was about a year into her retirement. So, we didn’t meet her before retirement. She was with another financial planning firm. And when she came to that second conversation, she had about probably 10 to 12 things. And the interesting thing about those 10 to 12 things is they didn’t cost that much money. It was things like she want to spend her time doing crafts or visiting her son in another state and continuing to grow and learn throughout retirement. So, like, she’s a prime example and those 10 to 12 things, yeah, they’re not really stressing on the financial sense but you have to have your financial things in order in order to comfortably do those things with peace of mind. And so, on those 10 to 12 things, now that we’re working together, I am checking in, making sure that we are checking off those boxes.

Matthew Peck: Yeah. That must be so just rewarding and fulfilling at that point. And so, that’s fantastic. Okay. So, actually, I want to jump back to the first question about being emotionally ready. I read a study once where they talk about it’s like marriage and then retirement, right? I mean, just about these big steps that you make in your life and in retirement up there because it’s such an unknown. I mean, everything you just mentioned about, again, not having bosses, no longer having employees or that social peace day-to-day, I mean, that’s a huge change. I mean, how long on average, what, people work? 40 years. 50 years. Do you see what I mean? That’s a long time to get your habits and your routine. And then to suddenly have that gone, again, you have to be emotionally ready because it’s such a big, stressful change.

Patrick Randall: It takes a new level of thought. You’re recreating yourself in a sense because it sets a whole new stage of your life. It’s a new stage of your “career.” So, you may not be in your career that you spent your years during your primary, working years, but when you make that transition, the pages of your book are essentially unwritten, right? So, you have the opportunity as long as you’re working with a solid team like SHP to write those pages and make sure that you have a plan in place that is going to succeed and allows you to take those steps and to really live and dream rather than wondering and worrying.

Matthew Peck: Absolutely. And so, you mentioned, okay, so you talk about someone emotionally ready. So, again, they are spending more time living and dreaming, right? That’s better than worrying and wondering. Then what are some of the other non-financial considerations that you ask somebody at?

Jack Tomczyk: Yeah. And so, another thing that we like to think about is are you physically ready? Are you prepared for retirement? I mean, even if you’re mentally and emotionally prepared for retirement, if your body isn’t really up to the task, then it might not really make an easy transition for you. I mean, we live such a sedimentary life, and I think both these gentlemen will agree with me. We end up sitting around for so long every single day at our desk. Really, now we have all this free time. If we can’t really enjoy all the money that we’ve saved, then really, what was the point of saving it? You can’t buy your health per se. You can get maybe better treatment. You might be able to control the level of care but we don’t want to have to plan to that point where now we’re just, okay, let’s just see what we can do with what’s left. Are we really taking care of ourselves as we get ready for retirement?

Patrick Randall: Yeah. It’s a good point because, I mean, when you’re busy working, it might be tough to do all these various things from a health standpoint like the exercise or the eating right or the stress. But as you prepare for retirement, these things should be on your mind because once you get older, as I find out, your body doesn’t work the same way, right? And so, we have to be aware of this because if we want to, I mean, we spent all our time sacrificing throughout these years for a successful retirement. If we want to make the most of it, we have to be physically capable of doing that.

Matthew Peck: Well, I mean, and I know it’s old cliche but your health is your wealth but it really, truly is. And sadly, we actually lost a client recently who’s only 50 years old, just through cancer. And it’s very, very sad because here one day, gone the next, like it was that sort of sudden. And so, I mean, not that working out and all that stuff will obviously cure cancer by no means but more so just the idea of that taking care of your body and because that’s the part, too. I mean, we’ll talk about hobbies and travel for a little bit too but I taught a lot of our clients and say, “Oh, I’d love to travel,” and some of them just can’t anymore because of physical limitations or whatever it may be. So, I mean, being physically prepared for retirement is for everything. It could just be, again, travel but it also could be for golf or pickleball or whatever it may be depending on what they’re doing, which then gets them to number three. So, how people spend time? And so, did you specifically ask them in that kind of way like how would you spend your time? Is it very abrupt like that? Or is it just kind of, again, more comes up in conversation?

Patrick Randall: I would say both. I’d say both. Yeah.

Matthew Peck: Well, let me ask this, too. Sorry. So, you mentioned some people that come in and they know exactly what they want to do, right? And now let’s say if someone that comes in and doesn’t. Like, do you then just almost say, “All right. Well, do you like pickleball?” or how do you help that individual? Or is it just sometimes you just say, “You know what, that person just is more of a homebody and as long as they’re happy, they’re happy.”

Patrick Randall: Yes, both. It’s all about understand… Okay. So, there are many different kinds of people out there, right? So, not everybody is, “I want to be go, go, go, go, go,” right? So, you have to kind of really dig in and understand who is it that we’re sitting down with. So, take the time to communicate and understand kind of where they’ve been, where they are, where they want to go, and just understand, like I mentioned that husband and wife example, like the husband maybe fine being a homebody but the wife wants to be go, go, go. That’s an important piece of planning because, alright, well, maybe the wife does want to travel and maybe the husband can’t travel because of those physical limitations, well, that’s something that comes up in planning because, obviously, we want to make sure that they both are happy during their retirement years. And a big piece of that is just understanding the different aspects of their non-financial considerations throughout their specific retirement plan.

Matthew Peck: Yeah.

Patrick Randall: So, yeah, I say both.

Matthew Peck: That’s interesting. Yeah. Because I remember talking to a client once where I was like, “So, Steve,” or whatever, just I was like, “So, what do you want to do?” He said, “Nothing.” “Nothing?” “Like, nothing.” “Okay.” He’s like, “I’ve been doing and doing all my entire life and I just look forward to nothing.” Now, he’s been retired now for a year. I’ll be curious, as you said, if that changes but that was his answer. And so, obviously, we’re gregarious and try to be outgoing and try to learn more about a client and it’s just like, “Nothing, period, full stop.” He goes quiet for a little bit. “Like nothing?” “Nothing.” Okay. I don’t know what to do with that. So, I’m going to take him at his word and plan for him to do nothing.

Patrick Randall: We want to help you do nothing.

Matthew Peck: Right, exactly.

Patrick Randall: We’re here to help you achieve what you want to do.

Matthew Peck: So, you say there’s a couple of things that we haven’t gone through yet but just you talked about how these non-financial considerations to retirement planning, I guess, I want to stress that second part, too, which is how it informs the plan, how it informs the eventual investment recommendation. I mean, that’s what I try to convey to people is the fact that when I ask you these questions, I mean, yeah, I want to get to know you. I want to find out what makes you happy, of course, but also sort of professionally, it’s like, “Look, the more you know the person, the better your advice is.” And another thing I’ll say and, sorry, I’ll piggyback over to some of the other ones, I always joke around when, you know, like half joking like not joking type thing is…

Jack Tomczyk: You joke?

Matthew Peck: I try a little bit. I mean, well, if joking implies that the other person laughs, I’m not sure because I’m sure it’s like I’m speaking but if they laugh, then it’s a joke. I think it’s kind of, yeah, is the word I would use it. But we’ll show our planning software, right, and the platform and everything else. And I always tell people, I say, “Look, this is as much as it’s for you so you have your reporting and you have all your five worlds on this one dashboard,” but it’s just as much for me so that when the advice I’m giving to this client is the best quality advice that you can possibly ask for because I know you, I know the numbers, and now I’m giving you what I think is the best thing because now I know both of these areas, both financial and non-financial areas. So, I just think it’s just so key because it makes you a better advisor.

Patrick Randall: Yeah. I guess you can call it like going deep in the relationship. I mean, understanding, okay, not only them. We talked a lot of times talking about like our current clients say it’s a couple or an individual but we have to understand, okay, well, what about their parents? Are they still around? Do they require care? Because a lot of people can spend a lot of money in their retirement years taking care of one’s parents or their adult children, depending upon what the situation is. Or they have siblings that are in need of care, that may take up a lot of their time, too. And then, obviously, once you get into the financial stuff is all the legacy planning part of it that requires a lot of financial planning but it’s also qualitative in nature too to understand what are their wishes and what do they want to see for their kids or grandkids or future generations. So, that multigenerational planning definitely involves the non-financial stuff because you’re getting into the values and beliefs of the family as much as it does the financial stuff.

Matthew Peck: Yeah. Well, you mentioned legacy. So, would you consider that a non-financial consideration or a financial consideration?

Patrick Randall: I think I would consider both that.

Matthew Peck: Okay. All right. So, it kind of bridges between the two because we talked a little bit earlier kind of offline about questions like purpose or what a client’s real retirement goals. Now, is that kind of what you were referring to? I’ll go back to purpose in a second but when it comes to real retirement goals, is that kind of what you meant when you gave that example of the client with like the ten things?

Patrick Randall: Yeah.

Matthew Peck: Okay. All right. So, yes. So, walk me through those two things about like kind of real retirement goals and then purpose or some idea, examples of each, and some of the feedback that you’ve gotten as you have really, really dug deep and gotten to know the people?

Patrick Randall: Yeah. So, I mean, Jack and I, we have some clients who are that they’re very active, right? So, their active lifestyle will require as you talk about financial, non-financial, and how they kind of meet and coordinate, we have a client who loves to travel to different countries, ski different mountains, scuba dive, extremely active. And so, this person’s retirement is going to require a certain level of financial planning, the numbers, and data early on to make sure that he can comfortably continue to pursue these different things and so he can enjoy that at least the initial part of retirement while he is still active and mobile because that’s what he wants to do and so does his kids too. They want to be active just like him. I mean, if that individual retired and he has this drive to be very active and very social and get out there, and if he was just unable to do that and just kind of sitting around the house, he wouldn’t be that happy, right? So, to understand these different goals and then craft this whole entire comprehensive plan, all five areas of our planning process around, okay, not only understanding, okay, what are some of these non-financial goals? What are they going to cost us?

Matthew Peck: Right. Absolutely, because they do. It’s going to be non-financial but there is generally a price tag with them.

Patrick Randall: True. I mean, sitting around doing nothing doesn’t have a price tag. That costs nothing.

Matthew Peck: No, nothing. I mean, pretty much, you know.

Jack Tomczyk: Yeah, not much. Nothing.

Matthew Peck: Not that I’m aware of at least. Okay. Inflation at all, maybe. No, no.

Patrick Randall: Oh, yeah. I mean, you have your basic living costs, right? You still eat food.

Matthew Peck: True. Yeah, that’s true.

Patrick Randall: And then there are other people that they’re okay with, you know, some hobbies do cost money. Some volunteering activities cost money, right? So, we have other clients that they spend a lot of their time doing activities with their church and going overseas to volunteer at churches across the country, I mean, across the world. And yeah, I mean, it cost them their time but there’s also a financial component to volunteering at this capacity. So, there is that deep-rooted understanding the values and beliefs of the family that we’re working with to understand, now, how do you craft all this together?

Matthew Peck: Yeah. Well, and I think one thing that you also noted on, too, about some of volunteer work, I’m thinking about folks that we have plenty of them that continue to work or do consulting. I mean, I don’t know if it’s not scientific. I’m thinking of 50/50 but, I mean, a fair amount of my clients and I’m curious about your own, I know everyone’s but Team SHP is number one, of course, but just more personal experiences is that probably at least a quarter. We’ll still do something. Now, it might be something like a starter of a golf course or whatever that may be. I do have, although I’m sure I didn’t give his name but he hasn’t retired yet so he’s a client of mine. But his goal, I don’t know if his wife’s going to allow him to do it but he wants to be a black… So, my best one is, I have two actually I should say, he wants to be a blackjack dealer at Encore. That’s what he want to be. So, he has a very stressful job right now. And so, all he wants to do is be a part-time blackjack. I like that guy. You know what I mean? That’s what he wants to be. So, A, I’m just curious if how many people in general do continue to work in retirement, right? And what are some of the funky jobs that you’ve bumped into so far in your career?

Patrick Randall: So, on that client that you have, I guess, he’s the smartest client we have probably because rather than being across the table and playing blackjack, he’s dealing blackjack, right?

Matthew Peck: He’s on the house. He’s so good.

Jack Tomczyk: He knows what he’s doing.

Patrick Randall: Yeah. So, I mean, there are some fun ones out there. You have the, you know, “I want to put on the vest and work at Lowe’s and Home Depot to just get out of the house.” “I spend all my years working. So, like my wife and I, like we haven’t really been together all the time,” right? So, happy you have your own time, right?

Matthew Peck: Yes. I heard a little old line about that like, yeah, for… Oh, what was it again? I’m not going to be able to say it but it’s just like, “For better or for worse but not breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” was that line. You know what I mean?

Jack Tomczyk: It’s a good line.

Matthew Peck: Yeah. Because it’s, I mean, you have lived somewhat separate lives from your spouse and then suddenly it’s like and I’ve had both husband and wife feel like, “Yeah, he needs to get out of the house because he’s going to drive me nuts.” And so, then whether it’s the husband, the wife, they’ll go off and do whatever what a partner or spouse is will go off because the engine goes and they’re happier doing something. And it’s funny talking about like purpose and retirement goals, I mean, maybe it’s too broad brush to see happiness but, I mean, I’m sure that’s certainly what I want for all our clients.

Jack Tomczyk: Yeah. And another thing I think is important to mention too is as well when you reach retirement, you might look for occupation part-time or something like that. And you might be extremely passionate what you did for most of your life but there’s nothing stopping you from maybe something that you had to forego early on or maybe an occupation or field that you really wanted to kind of get into and explore and you never got the chance to. There’s nothing holding you back. Now, you have this financial plan in front of you and you say, “Well, the extra income won’t hurt but now that I don’t have these building a family, building a career to hold me back, I might be able to explore something that otherwise I had to forego early on whether that be baking or just working at a store,” that you enjoy what they do. You know, I always say that to people, “Hey, listen, you like shopping at Lululemon, like you like the clothes? Go get the employee discount there. And you might only have to work a couple of days a week to get it.” Things like that, you know, always good to consider.

Matthew Peck: Well, it’s funny you say that. Sorry to cut you off, Pat, but just because like the second store that I have and I’m not sure if she has officially done it yet but when she retired, she’s like, “All I want to be is working at ice cream place on the Cape.” That’s all she wants to do. She’s just like, “Everyone that’s in an ice cream place is happy and I’ve never seen an upset customer.” Yeah, I’m not sure if she’s actually taken that leap yet but that was her. That’s what she wants because everyone was happy on the Cape having ice cream.

Patrick Randall: Yep. What else I say is as Jack’s talking about Lululemon, I looked at his pants because Jack might be semi-retired now.

Matthew Peck: Jack’s thinking of it. Yeah. He’s already thinking of it.

Patrick Randall: He’s way out of the game. I’ve had very successful businesspeople as there’s one woman, for example, that I’ve been working with for about five years now and her big thing and she knew about this when we first sat down is that she really wants to work at a horse farm. And so, I mean, every time, maybe a few years away here but she’s starting to do that on the weekends to get our feet wet, you know, dirty.

Jack Tomczyk: Dirty feet. Yeah, right.

Patrick Randall: And so, figuring these things out while you’re working, I mean, even like we kind of call trying retirement out before you actually retire. We have some clients actually up in the Braintree office where the husband’s already retired but he did a year of working kind of part-time scaling it and sort of feel it, feel what it’s like.

Matthew Peck: Yeah, absolutely. Right. No, I mean, because I remember, just in my own, like in the life in the sense of like– I remember, let’s say you work a week and it’s just a crazy week and you’re putting 60, 70 hours in, right? And then suddenly, your next week is only 40 hours. And 40 hours is a regular workweek, but it feels like it’s part-time. It’s like, oh, my goodness, only six, eight hours a day. This is it? You know what I mean?

And so, I said my point about how you sort of need to scale down because you might find a level of working out, whether it’s work-work or whether it’s volunteer or whatever it may be, you just might find that nice, happy medium between kind of who you are as a person and what you need to keep you happy, as well as the fact that, okay, you don’t want to just work yourself to the bone or just stress yourself out, anyway, especially in retirement.

Patrick Randall: That’s right. You don’t need it. It’s not about the income or savings for retirement because you’re not saving for retirement anymore. You’re in it. It’s more about the passion and the purpose of it. And of course, the structure, too, because like you mentioned, if you boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then you stop, that was no structure. And so, having that structure, I mean, I think the most common response I get about kind of what does this thing look like for you is, I want to travel. Well, you can travel like every single day, right?

So, whether it’s like going for that morning walk or going out to meet with your previous colleagues or friends for coffee, having these social interactions in that structure to your day and kind of building it almost like you did for your career. Maybe not as almost hectic, I mean, you can if you want, but just having these different things, goals, purpose, direction behind your retirement years, we think is going to make you happier. And you can always change it if you’re writing your own book.

Matthew Peck: Yeah, right. Things change. It’s a whole new stage. But I mean, I think to your point of just a– and hopefully, people, if they have advisors that they’re being asked questions like this, I mean, it’s just more of the fact that it’s part of planning or should be part of planning, right? It’s not just numbers and stocks, bonds, mutual funds and annuities, and CDs and all of that type of stuff. It is also this higher level or deeper level of connection that’s necessary because it will just lead to a better life, a happier life, a more productive life.

And so, I guess, obviously, besides reaching out to SHP as a resource, what would you normally tell people? What are some helpful resources for listeners that may not have gone through Team Pat’s meetings?

Jack Tomczyk: Our regimen.

Patrick Randall: Our process, our own little process. So, yeah, what we’re going to do is we’re going to put together a checklist. For the folks listening here, that is going to be part of the show notes that you can log in. And we’ll have some of these questions that you should start asking yourself, no matter what age you are, like Jack’s already asking the questions about Lululemon, right? We want you to start asking these questions yourself. Even if you’re retired, there’s still long ways to go here as to how you want to structure your retirement year.

So, that retirement check, I mean, that non-financial considerations checklist will be great to go through and then talk through with your spouse, significant other, or even your kids or parents. You can get them all involved. And then also, if volunteering is a part of what you want to do, there’s a lot of good resources out there that we can include in the show notes as well as to what type of volunteer activities are there out there, whether they’re local or more national or global that you can have an impact on.

And even volunteers have to be an organization, it could be volunteering to help out a friend or family member on a routine basis, too, right? So, that’s why I say we challenge our clients to think bigger because there is now that you’re not focused on work, work, work, work, now, it’s so much bigger, so much possibility there.

Matthew Peck: Yeah. No, absolutely, I mean. And that’s why you are work, work, work. I mean that’s why that should be. Now, no one knows the exact why for every different strokes for different folks, right? The why is going to be different for everybody. But you need to start to consider, you need to find that why. With your advisor or with family or whatever that may be or with this checklist that Pat and Jack are referencing, it’s just steps that you need to take because I always, and sometimes I get this with clients, but it’s something maybe just my own office team in the world or in this field, but I’m constantly amazed at how much goes into financial planning, right?

Yeah, it’s not just the numbers. I mean, even if it was just the numbers, well, what numbers are you talking about? Are you talking about income tax level? Are you talking about cash flow? Are you talking about Social Security? Are you talking about Medicare? Are you talking about wills and all that stuff? I mean– and that’s why, God bless for all the do-it-yourselfers, I mean, God bless that there are plenty of people and I’ve met them and I’ve seen some of their spreadsheets and they’re just as impressive as our stuff, right?

But at the same time, I mean, having an advisor help you walk through the non-financial considerations is just such a big help because you find that purpose, you find that why. So, I’ll say, Pat, Jack, thank you so much for joining us and really answering questions or asking questions that people may or may not have actually had the time to consider. And so, these are the types of things that are sort of part of our DNA here at SHP because life is more than money, and certainly should be.

And so, ideally, you have an advisor or you are looking for one that can help walk you through this, find your purpose, find your why, and tie in the non-financial considerations to the financial considerations because it should be married and combined into one solid comprehensive plan. So, that being said, thank you so much for listening to the SHP Retirement Road Map. I’m your host, Matthew Peck. Again, thanks again for my guests and stay tuned next time.