The New Retirementality, Fifth Edition

CHAPTER 13Maslow Meets Retirement

Self-actualization is the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.

—Abraham Maslow

My friend Teddy gets up every day at 4 a.m. He's at the gym working out by 5:15. He then goes home and catches up on reading the papers online. Then he goes to one of his businesses for breakfast. Then he checks on his other businesses. Then he goes to play a round of golf (walking) then … I'm getting tired just reiterating this guy's schedule. Oh, by the way, Teddy is in his mid-70s, going on 45.

Teddy shares some very candid feedback with me from time to time about people his age. “Too many complainers. I don't like complaining, and I don't want to hear it!” is one sample. Another is an economic observation. Teddy winters on the east coast of Florida in an area that attracts wealthy retirees. “These people have all the money in the world and don't know how to spend it.” Teddy in years past also shared with me what I consider to be my absolute favorite thought on spending: “The only money that's really yours is the money you spend. Everything else goes to somebody else.” Touché.

I was recently on a speaking tour in Ireland and spent a half day with retirement planners learning about the issues they observed with their clients. At the top of their list were two items:

1. People wanting a real purpose in retirement; and
2. People being free to spend what they worked so hard to gain.

Ironic isn't it? We are all ...