THE FIVE BIGGEST RETIREMENT DANGERS THAT MONEY …...Riding a Rickety Roller Coaster Let’s take a minute to peek beneath the surface glitz and look at the real world of retirement

THE FIVE BIGGEST RETIREMENT DANGERS THAT MONEY CAN’T FIX

Dips, Curves, and Surprises That Can Take Retirement Offtrack

by Andy Raub, America’s Encore Coach

http://encorecurve.com

©2017 The Encore Coach All Rights Reserved.

“Dandy, you’re gonna scream like a little girl!”

THE FIVE BIGGEST RETIREMENT DANGERS THAT MONEY CAN’T FIX

I have never liked riding roller coasters. I prefer

to stay in control and know where I’m going next.

Unfortunately, my grandchildren love them. Several

years ago, my wife, Jean, and I took our two daughters

and their families to Disney World to celebrate our

anniversary. The biggest and baddest roller coaster–

type ride they could find was something called

Expedition Everest. The whole family lined up to ride,

but Jean and I stayed behind to guard all our stuff.

After everyone had finished the ride, the conversation

for the rest of the day was about how scary it had

been: all the vertical climbs, the sudden drops in the

dark, and especially the yeti monster that jumped out

to frighten everyone.

The next day, my intrepid youngest grandson, Kyle,

insisted on returning to the coaster and riding again.

Kyle was six years old and couldn’t convince any

other adults to join him for the second go-round, so I

volunteered. As we were standing in line awaiting our

fate, Kyle, with his vast experience, went into great

detail about what we were soon to encounter: the

dark climbs, the gut-wrenching dives, and, of course,

the leaping yeti creature. Finally, just before we were

strapped into the car, Kyle looked up at me and said,

“Dandy”—that’s my grandpa name—“you’re gonna

scream like a little girl.”

Guess what? I did.

Let me ask you a question. Does life ever make you

scream? You know the feeling: thrilling triumphs

followed by sudden falls in the dark. Then, just when



THE FIVE BIGGEST RETIREMENT DANGERS THAT MONEY CAN’T FIX 3

Some transitions come about because we choose them. Other changes seem to choose us.

you think things are back to normal, a monster jumps

out and scares you to death. Changes happen to all

of us, but sometimes it feels as though we’ve been

strapped into a giant roller coaster with no control

and no end in sight. Many of us feel as though we are

balanced precariously between what was and what

will be, and we’re not sure what will happen next.

For more than thirty-five years, I have worked as a

financial advisor and investment manager for families

and retirees. During this time, I’ve had the privilege

of helping hundreds of clients work their way through

all kinds of transitions, such as retirement, serious

illness, or the death of a loved one. Some transitions

come about because we choose them, which allows

us to build a plan and prepare. Other changes,

however, seem to choose us and offer no alternative.

Experience tells me we should all prepare for the

certainty of uncertainty. But how can we do that?

Retirement is one life change that almost everyone

looks forward to in one way or another. It is the one

transition that we have some control over in terms of

when it happens and what we want it to look like. For

many of us, retirement seems like a kind of nirvana, a

time when we can finally stop working, put our feet up,

and live on our own terms. For others, it is a dreaded

time when we must stop doing what we love and enter

a big unknown.

I have learned that the retirement experience can

be a lot like my experience at Disney World. I arrived

with a great expectation of sharing perfect leisure

with my loved ones in a perfect environment where

there is never even any trash in the streets. What I

encountered instead was an experience for which I




was unprepared and that scared me to death. Only

six-year-old Kyle gave me an accurate warning, and I

failed to listen.

The Retirement Amusement Park Ride

For most people, retirement planning can be framed

by two great fears, one about money and the second

about meaning. The money fear sounds like one of

these questions: “Will I run out of money?” and “Can

I sustain my income?” The second fear usually seems

to arise from a question about time. People often think,

“What am I going to do with all that free time?” But

underlying this question is the true fear: “Will I lose my

significance and purpose when I retire?” It is this final

question that we are going to focus on. It seems that

everywhere we turn, someone—our banker, financial

planner, broker, or well-meaning friend—is trying to

alleviate the money fear for us. But they—and we—are

often ignoring the meaning fear, and I believe this

concern is more important than the money issue and,

potentially, more complicated.

For most of our adult lives, various voices in the

retirement industry have promised us a perfect

environment for our later years. The investment and

financial planning sectors have told us that if we save

our money and have the right investment strategy,

then retirement will be worry free. The leisure industry

implores us to spend the rest of our lives relaxing

in the lap of luxury on some cruise or exotic resort.

Real estate experts tell us to downsize into a house

costing twice as much as the one we are leaving or to

let our cares disappear in a senior-oriented planned

community. This all sounds like a great theme-park




Boomers want to remain relevant and stay youthful and active during retirement.

existence, but no one warns us of the sudden twists

and turns of the roller coaster. In many ways, when

we strap ourselves in for an amusement ride without

taking a wise look at the path we’re about to travel, we

set ourselves up for frustration and disappointment—

and maybe even disaster. There are some real hazards

lurking for retirees who are neither ready nor realistic.

Riding a Rickety Roller Coaster

Let’s take a minute to peek beneath the surface

glitz and look at the real world of retirement. Most

new retirees now come from the baby boomer

generation. This generation has had an enormous

social impact during every life stage, and they expect

to continue making an impact throughout retirement.

As individuals, baby boomers are purposeful,

discerning, and want to be part of something bigger

than themselves. They want to remain relevant and

stay youthful and active during retirement. In short,

they have high expectations. For them, the retirement

ride will be a different journey than the pension-plan

relaxation their parents experienced.

Boomers have always challenged the status quo and

approached obstacles differently. They are one of the

largest, wealthiest, and most active segments of our

population. They are also the first generation that has

a large individual responsibility for their retirement

savings.

Setting the money issues aside, however, a boomer’s

expectation hides a potential retirement crisis as he or

she ages and tries to maintain an independent façade.

Increasing divorce rates, poor health, rising alcohol




and drug abuse, rising suicide rates, and increasing

isolation are all problems as we age. Combine these

problems with our ongoing need to feel like we matter

and have a purpose, and we have the makings of

retirement dangers that money cannot fix. Some of

these statistics may surprise you:

• Nearly 20 percent of adults over age sixty-five suffer

from depression, and depression is the single biggest

risk factor for rising suicide rates. Many medical

procedures associated with aging such as heart attack,

joint replacement, and macular degeneration are

known to be associated with increased depression,

not to mention the impact of grief.1

• Men older than sixty-five are four times more likely to

take their own lives than women, and men older than

seventy-five have the highest rate of suicide of any

other group. In fact, the suicide rate for men increased

by nearly 50 percent between 1999 and 2014, while

the rate for women rose by more than 60 percent. 2

• The rate of divorce for couples over age fifty

has increased so much in recent years that it has

prompted a new buzzword: “gray divorce.” From 1980

to 2008, divorce among men aged sixty-five and older

doubled, and it tripled among women age sixty-five

and older. During the past ten years, gray divorce has

increased significantly while divorce rates overall have

fallen.

20% of Seniors are Depressed

Age 65+ Divorce Rate Increase Over Last 30 Years

for Menfor Women

2x3x

1 National Institute of Health 2 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

MEN

75+years old

Highest Rate of Suicide




• Drug and alcohol abuse is increasing among retirees.

Alcohol or drug problems contribute to 6 to 11 percent

of elderly hospital admissions, 14 percent of elderly

emergency room admissions, and 20 percent of

elderly psychiatric hospital admissions. Widowers over

the age of 75 have the highest rate of alcoholism in

the U.S.

As you can see, retirement is not necessarily the

utopian existence that the advertisers lead us to

believe. Underneath the retirement façade, we often

find the bones of a rickety roller coaster that will sweep

us through unexpected twists and turns and might even

be ready to collapse as soon as we get on it!

How can we avoid these dangers? Like any great

endeavor, the potential hazards can be overcome if we

know what they are and how to deal with them. But we

have only one chance to get it right. Here are the top

five retirement dangers have nothing to do with money

and everything to do with life and happiness. If you

want to find satisfaction in retirement, keep reading.

Danger 1– The Decline Curve Will Make You Crash and Burn

Perhaps the biggest danger that retirees face is

the feeling of losing their significance—their sense

of identity and purpose—when they quit working. I

recently had lunch with a friend who had retired from

serving as the leader of a nonprofit foundation. When

I asked him how retirement was going, he talked for

a few minutes about playing golf and traveling. Then

he stopped and looked at me very seriously and

said, “Honestly, when I was working, I felt that I was

6–11% of all Elderly

HOSPITAL ADMISSIONS

20% of all Elderly

PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL ADMISSIONS

14% of all Elderly

ER ADMISSIONS




The feeling of losing our significance is at the heart of the “decline curve.”

somebody and that I was doing important work. Now,

I’m not sure who I am and what I’m supposed to do. I

feel as though I don’t really have a purpose anymore.”

We all need to feel that our lives have significance.

Most of us have naturally found part of that purpose

and identity in our work. When our careers end, our

purpose meters often feel empty. We realize that our

remaining time on earth is growing shorter, and we are

suddenly filled with fear that we will never accomplish

many of our dreams. This feeling can be devastating

and will throw our plans into turmoil.

This feeling of losing our significance is at the heart of

what I call the “decline curve.” It is the point in our life

when our future begins to feel smaller and less inviting,

and our past threatens to become more important

than our future. Look at the curve in the graph below.

Think of this curve as depicting your life history—your

Personal Progress Curve. In engineering, this curve is

often called a “sigmoid curve” and is used to measure

productivity over time.

The first part of the curve shows your early adult years

as you are getting your act together. The second part,

which slowly rises over time, is the time in your life in




“We remain young to the degree that our ambitions are greater than our memories.” - Dan Sullivan

which you are most productive and successful. Now

notice the top of the big curve, where it turns down-

ward and begins to decline. This is where many retir-

ees find themselves. They may have grown bored with

their jobs. They may be losing energy as they age. Or

they may be losing focus and the drive to compete. For

whatever reason, their life slowly goes into decline. This

is the point at which a person’s future begins to shrink.

As Dan Sullivan, the creator of The Strategic Coach®

program says, “We remain young to the degree that

our ambitions are greater than our memories.” If we

don’t pay attention to the decline curve, we might

find ourselves on that rickety roller coaster, suddenly

whizzing downward at breakneck speed. If we

are not ready for it and haven’t planned for it, the

decline curve can ruin all the fun we planned for our

retirement.

My book, The Encore Curve: Retire with a Life Plan

That Excites You, will show you how to avoid or delay

your decline curve by creating a new, upward sloping

curve called the Encore Curve. (See graph below.)

Encore Curve


https://www.amazon.com/Encore-Curve-Retire-Life-Excites/dp/1612548938/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492902469&sr=8-1&keywords=encore+curve

https://www.amazon.com/Encore-Curve-Retire-Life-Excites/dp/1612548938/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492902469&sr=8-1&keywords=encore+curve



As we age, our backpacks grow increasingly heavy.Yet we insist on dragging it around with us.

With an Encore Curve, retirement becomes a time to

repurpose life rather than retreat from it. A good life

plan will make the retirement adventure a lot more fun.

Danger 2 – The Loaded Backpack Will Weigh Down Your Future

Closely related to the decline curve is the concept of

the Loaded Backpack. To illustrate what I mean, allow

me to tell you about my father. He was born in 1911 in a

small Indiana farming community. He had what we now

know as dyslexia. As a result, he did not learn to read

until he was almost thirty years old. Even though he

had a brilliant engineering mind, he was told he was

dumb from an early age, and he wore that mental label

all his life. Living through the Great Depression and

suffering a number of personal and business setbacks

gradually added to his negative outlook. As he grew

older, he became a fearful, suspicious person who was

obsessed with various conspiracy theories.

It was as though he carried a backpack around with

him labeled with the words “I am not good enough,”

and it colored every aspect of his life. As a result, he

raised me with the same critical tone that he used on

himself. I was told I was never good enough and that

I needed to try harder. I now understand that this was

his way of trying to make me the best I could be so I

could escape his life of hardship. But I also know that

my personal self-talk and self-image is often negative,

even as an adult, because I still hear those “not good

enough” tapes playing in my head.

We all carry a backpack throughout our lives. Into that

backpack we throw all of our experiences: our great




We need to discover the wisdom from our experiences.

triumphs as well as our crushing disappointments,

regrets, and failures. As we age, our backpacks grow

increasingly heavy. Yet we insist on dragging all these

accumulated experiences around with us. But who

says we need to drag the entire heavy backpack into

our future?

For many of us, much of this stuff we drag around is

not fit to prepare us for living well in retirement. My

father dragged around a lot of lies and misinformation

about who he was. His past determined his future.

We don’t have to let that happen. Most of the

experiences we have thrown in our backpacks is just

past information, and dragging it around with us is a

fruitless venture because we can’t change the past.

What we need is the ability to discover the wisdom

that comes from our experiences. Wisdom will unstick

us from the quagmire of the past and move us forward.

I have seen many retirees ruin their retirement

because either they cannot let go of past regrets or

they continue trying to repeat past greatness. The

key to avoiding the decline curve in retirement and

creating a repurposed life is to take the backpack off

and sort through your past experiences to find the

wisdom that will carry you into the future. You are then

free to put the backpack, with all its remaining junk,

in the corner. You can always come back and reclaim

your biggest regrets and try to relive your greatest

triumphs, but you might find daily life a lot more

enjoyable without that encumbrance.

In The Encore Curve and its companion coaching

workshop, we can teach you how to sort through your

backpack, collect only the wisdom you need to take

with you into the future, and build new purpose and




excitement for your retirement life. You have a choice:

stay stuck in the past or use the lessons of the past to

create an exciting and fulfilling future.

Danger 3 The Habit Hole Will Swallow Your Dreams

A small river runs behind our vacation cabin in the

mountains of northern New Mexico. To most people, it

looks like a mountain stream, but it is called the Red

River. It flows with water collected from melting snow

and smaller, spring-fed streams high in the mountains.

As the snow melts at higher altitudes, the water makes

its way down in trickles, which flow into larger streams,

which finally flow into the river. I’ve always been struck

by how this process naturally repeats itself. Over the

years, the water has cut deep channels that it now

follows. It has no choice. It is following the path of

least resistance.

We do the same thing. We follow the path of least

resistance. We call these paths “habits,” and they

become as natural to us as the water flowing down the

mountain. The problem for most retirees is that when

we stop working, massive sets of habit patterns that

we have developed around our jobs simply disappear.

Think about all the habits and routines you have built

into your working life: when you get up, where you go,

what you read, what you think about, and with whom

you interact. When you retire, all these habits suddenly

vanish. In their place, you are left with a big void I call

a “Habit Hole.” Not being subject to the same routine

may sound great at first, but nature abhors a vacuum.

Your new Habit Hole will instantly begin to fill up with




other behaviors—ones that you may find temporarily

pleasing but that don’t help you feel significant. Maybe

you suddenly find a new affinity for daytime television,

check Facebook incessantly, or fritter away countless

hours with no mindful purpose or direction. Just as the

mountain snowmelt quickly forms new ruts in fresh

ground, so will these unplanned behaviors.

Several retirees have told me that after playing golf

every day for months, they became bored and quit

visiting the golf course even though they had nothing

else to do. One client admitted to me that she had

formed the habit of watching daytime news shows

and stock reports for over ten hours per day. The

habit had developed slowly as she recovered from

surgery. Now she was addicted, and it showed in her

outlook. In a period of months, she had transformed

from a vivacious, socially engaged woman to a fearful,

negative, and withdrawn human being.

There is nothing wrong with any of these relaxing

activities, but they can get out of control and become

part of a new routine of habits we never intended to

form. If we don’t take intentional action to fill our Habit

Holes, we will find ourselves following new paths of

least resistance—routines of unplanned behaviors

that eat away at our lives just as flowing water eats

away the soil and digs a riverbed. We will suddenly

find ourselves sliding down the decline curve, not

understanding how we got there. As a friend once

pointed out, the only difference between a rut and a

grave is the dirt in your face.

Daily Habits While Working

Habit Hole of Retirement

3 Stage names coined by Michael K. Stein in The Prosperous Retirement: Guide to the New Reality (Boulder: Emstco Press, 1998).




There are three stages to retirement: Go Go, Slow Go,

and No Go.3 In the Go-Go stage, we typically have

the energy, health, money, and motivation to be very

active. In the Slow-Go stage, age catches up with us

and causes us to slow down and cut back on activities.

In the final stage—No Go—health, energy, money, and

other things can grind us to a halt. The problem with

not having a clear life plan at the outset of retirement

is that you cannot recapture the Go-Go time. There

are no do-overs. If you let your Habit Hole slow you

down too much in the first years of retirement, you will

skip to the Slow-Go stage with no way to recover your

wasted Go-Go years. You will live the rest of retirement

in a state of regret.

Therefore, we must take great care how we fill that

Habit Hole after every major life transition. Periodic

review of our habit patterns will keep us energized

toward significance.

In the Encore Curve program, we will lead you through

a series of exercises to help you prepare for the Habit

Hole before retirement. If you are already retired, we

can also help you more clearly define what kind of

habits and routines you want in order to move forward,

which ones are holding you back, and how to build a

strategy for gradually making changes. Changing your

path of least resistance can take time, but you are

going to live that time anyway. So you might as well

make the best of it.

Danger 4 – The Inigo Montoya Conundrum: Your Answer Will Determine Your Future

One of my favorite movies is the 1987 classic The

Princess Bride. In this movie, actor Mandy Patinkin




Being rendered useless is not what you or I have in mind as we face retirement.

plays a character named Inigo Montoya whose whole

life is dedicated to finding and killing the six-fingered

man who murdered his father. Throughout the movie,

he confronts people with this now-famous line: “Hello.

My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father.

Prepare to die.”

At the end of the movie, however—after he has finally

succeeded in finding and killing the murderer—he

utters another unforgettable line that frames our

retirement question: “You know, it is very strange. I

have been in the revenge business so long. Now that

it is over, I don’t know what to do with the rest of

my life.”

For most retirees, Inigo’s question is actually a two-part

question: What am I going to do? And how am I going

to do it? The “what” question is the hardest—and

most-asked—question that retirees need to answer as

they move from a life of working to a life of retirement.

One of Merriam-Webster’s definition for retirement is

to be “taken out of service.” I doubt anyone wants to

be taken out of service. It would be nice to slow down

and relax a little, but being rendered useless is not

what you or I have in mind as we face retirement.

This whole idea of finding what you are going to do

next is complicated by the second question, the how.

Most of us have worked as employees or in arenas

where we have had a structure and system to support

us. But when we retire, most of our support structure

vanishes, much like our habits. The result is like

suddenly being forced to become an entrepreneur

when we have had no experience working for

ourselves. Most retirees are not ready for this type of

paradigm shift.




Planning a successful retirement requires a unique set of skills that most of us don’t possess.

Across the street from my office, a large apartment

complex is under construction. My office is on the

fourteenth floor, so I have a great view to supervise all

the activity. Before they started moving dirt, architects

and engineers drew up detailed plans for the project.

Then teams of experienced craftsmen and engineers

built the infrastructure and laid the foundation. After

that, other skilled workers built the walls, floors, and

finally, the roof. When the building is finished, the

completed project will look exactly like the original

plans, and everything will work as expected.

Now imagine tackling that apartment project by

yourself with no experience. Sure, you can fix a toilet

and repair a fence, but you wouldn’t know where to

start to design, develop, and construct a fifty-million-

dollar apartment complex all alone. Your retirement life

is no different. You may have an idea of what you want

it to look like, but do you really have any experience at

creating a new life out of nothing with minimal support

systems? You don’t know if your ideas will work, how

much time will be needed, what to do when you hit a

roadblock, or even if you will like the outcome.

Planning a successful retirement requires a unique

set of tools and skills that most of us don’t possess.

Without those skills, we are forced to learn on the

job. The result? Most people confess discovering

that what they thought they wanted in retirement

and the final reality don’t match up. What happens

when you start off in the wrong direction and then

second-guess yourself or have to backtrack? What

do you do when health issues, family complications,

and time constraints begin to eat away at your plans?

Transitioning to retirement takes a lot of work, and the

ever-looming decline curve reminds us we don’t have




Retirement can endanger your marriage.

time for many mid-course corrections. We don’t want

to waste those first few precious and most valuable

years of the Go-Go stage trying to figure retirement out.

Most of us would benefit from a coach or the

experience of someone who has already gone

through the process. We need a GPS of sorts to clearly

delineate our direction and warn us of detours and

course corrections. The Encore Curve program will

help you construct your own retirement GPS system

and show you how to use it to define your direction

and keep you on course. You don’t have to embark

on this journey alone. Right after Inigo made his

statement, he leaped on a horse and rode off with a

group of friends to help each other discover their next

stage of life. The retirement journey is too important to

go it alone.

Danger 5 – Retirement Will Endanger Your Relationships

The final danger I want to address is the decline or

termination of relationships as we age.

Retirement can endanger your marriage. If a couple

hasn’t addressed their marital issues prior to retiring,

they will find they must confront them after. No longer

able to retreat to work or raising a family, many

couples find they cannot resolve issues that they have

ignored for years. “Gray divorce” rates have been

steadily rising.

In my book, The Encore Curve, the main character

George announces to his wife, Linda, that he is facing

forced early retirement. One of her first reactions is

concern that he will have nothing to do and he will




Loneliness is associated with a higher risk of mortality.

encroach on her carefully designed life: “What are

going to do? You can’t just hang around the house and

bother me all day.”

Another example happened when my top-executive

friend John retired and could not turn off his CEO

mentality. As a result, he expected his wife to suddenly

set aside her life and become his executive assistant.

That approach did not end well. The many frustrations

they had with each other ruined retirement and,

ultimately, their marriage.

Think it won’t happen to you? Meet Char and Bill. Char

was a well-known realtor, and Bill was a successful

litigation attorney. They raised their kids, and then for

the next few years focused on their careers before

deciding to retire within a year of each other. Suddenly,

two very high-powered personalities were stuck living

together without the surrounding insulation of their

careers or child-raising. With their career masks gone,

they had to learn new skills to get along smoothly

while trying to jointly design the next phase of their

lives in retirement as a couple. They wished they had

done some of this important groundwork before retiring.

Marriage is not the only relationship danger we face

as we age. We humans were designed to live in

community and interact with each other. We have a

basic need to draw support from others and to give

back in return. As we age, we face an increasing

threat of isolation that can cause great harm. Mother

Teresa once remarked that loneliness is the leprosy

of modern society. According to a 2012 study in

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,

both social isolation and loneliness are associated with

a higher risk of mortality in adults aged fifty-two and




When we retire, our connections often vanish into the Habit Hole.

older.4 This study also concluded that illnesses and

conditions such as chronic lung disease, arthritis,

impaired mobility, and depression were associated

with social isolation as people age.5

While women are more likely to maintain stronger

relationships longer than men, loneliness is still at

epidemic stages. Nearly half of adults ages sixty to

eighty report significant loneliness.6 This danger

multiplies when we retire. Many of our closest

relationships are built around our coworkers and

colleagues. When we retire, these connections often

vanish into the Habit Hole. Then as we age, many of

our remaining closest friends begin to move away,

become ill, or die, leaving us alone.

As most of us know, it is not easy to make new friends

or maintain old relationships. It takes work. Meeting

people by approaching a group where we don’t know

anyone can be difficult even for the most gregarious

personalities. Maintaining existing relationships in a

changing world also requires focused attention. This

upkeep is especially difficult as we age and if we are

not naturally outgoing people.

In the Encore Curve program, we teach a process

that will help you think through relationship strategies

as part of creating your plan for your transition.

Recognize this danger early and build a plan to foster

relationships. Then you will have a good chance

of avoiding the loneliness that comes from the

relationship reset, and you will have the opportunity

4 Steptoe et al., “Social Isolation, Loneliness, and All-Cause Mortality in Older Men and Women,” doi: 10.1073/pnas.1219686110 5 A Place for Mom, “Elderly Depression: Symptoms & Care,” aplaceformom.com/senior-care-resources/articles/elderly-depression 6 Singh et al., “Loneliness, Depression and Sociability in Old Age,” Industrial Psychiatry Journal 18, no. 1 (2009): 51–55, doi:10.4103/0972-6748.57861.




When we talk about the non-money side of retirement, time and direction become even more critical.

to build meaningful connections with the people that

matter most.

Summary

As I have explained these five dangers, you may have

noticed a couple overarching themes. The first theme

is time, and the second is direction. When I advise

my clients about investing and financial planning, we

always talk about time and direction. Time can be the

best friend or the worst enemy of a financial plan. If

you start saving early and let the magic of compound

interest work for you over longer periods of time, then

you can cut your risk and reduce your needed rate

of return. Direction is a second critical element in

financial planning. Clear goals will tell you how much

money you need and when you can arrive at that point.

(Read the in-depth discussion about these concepts in

my book, The Encore Curve.)

When we start talking about the non-money side of

retirement, time and clear direction become even

more critical. Remember that retirement has three

phases: Go Go, Slow Go, and No Go. Most of us won’t

have the privilege of determining when these stages

change. We may feel good and full of energy now,

but aging will eventually slow us down. All our plans

for active retirement can go out the window with one

accident or diagnosis.

That’s why it is critical to have a clear direction and a

well thought out plan before retiring or as soon as you

can. We simply cannot afford to waste the first few

precious years of retirement stuck in the Habit Hole

and surfing down the decline curve.

Avoid the decline curve by creating a plan to finish well.




Is retirement going to be your encore where you’ve saved your best act for last?

My wife and I recently went to a Don Henley concert.

Don Henley is one of the founders of The Eagles,

the great rock band whose songs made up the

background music for many baby boomers’ lives.

Henley and his band played a lot of the old Eagles

classics and covered some songs by other artists. At

the end of the concert, when he walked off the stage,

the crowd was on its feet cheering for more. As all

great artists do, Don and the band came back out for

an encore and performed their most popular song:

“Hotel California.” Don saved his best for last, and the

crowd loved it.

So let me ask you a question. Is your retirement going

to be your encore where you’ve saved your best act

for last? Will you finish well? Or are you just going to

walk off stage too early and allow yourself to slowly

decline, lose your zest for life, and fade away? It’s your

choice, and I want to help you make the right decision.

Other than money concerns, most retirees’ biggest

fear is that they will stop living and start dying. They

fear they will lose the identity they had in their career

and simply fade into insignificance. My passion is to

help you design a retirement that will give you new

purpose, renewed energy, and leave your audience

begging for more. That’s why I created the Encore

Curve program and wrote my book, The Encore Curve:

Retire with a Life Plan That Excites You. The book is

an easy read, and my coaching workshop will give you

practical tools for designing your own Encore Curve

future. Together, we’ll make sure you save your best

for last.

Read the book and then go to EncoreCurve.com to

sign up for my coaching workshop. I hope it changes

your life.




About Andy

FIVE BIG RETIREMENT DANGERS THAT MONEY CAN’T FIX 22

For more than three decades, Andy Raub has helped

countless individuals plan for their retirement and manage

their investments. He founded Raub Capital Management,

a top advisory firm, to focus on retirement planning. As

an early Baby Boomer, Andy understands the fears most

retirees now face and created The Encore Curve program

to help them reset their life goals and reorganize their

money so they can live with renewed purpose.

Andy, known as “America’s Encore Coach,” is a sought-

after speaker on personal finance and life-planning topics,

as well as a popular Bible teacher. He holds a BS in

Psychology and an MBA in Finance from the University of

North Texas and has attended Dallas Theological Seminary.

Andy is also a church elder and has served on numerous

non-profit boards. He lives in Dallas, Texas, with his wife,

Jean, and is called “Dad” by their two grown daughters

and “Dandy” by four teenage grandchildren.

Visit EncoreCurve.com to learn about how to discover your

Encore future with Andy’s new book, workshops, and more!

I want to make sure that people avoid wasting their healthiest post-work years searching for an answer they can have right now.

Helping others accomplish this purposeful living is my own Encore Curve, the way I want to spend my future.



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THE FIVE BIGGEST RETIREMENT DANGERS THAT MONEY …...Riding a Rickety Roller Coaster Let’s take a minute to peek beneath the surface glitz and look at the real world of retirement