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The CU2.0 Podcast
This podcast explores contemporary, critical thinking and issues impacting the nation's credit unions. What do they need to be doing to not just survive but prosper?
The CU2.0 Podcast
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 365 Derek Coburn on Let's Retire Retirement
When will you retire?
What years of your life should be the ones where you work the longest, hardest hours?
On the show today is Derek Coburn, author of Let's Retire Retirement: How to Enjoy Life to the Fullest—Now and Later, a book that very probably will rock your mind because it challenges key beliefs that most of us share about retirement.
For instance: at what age will you retire?
Probably your answer is 65, that’s the number that jumps off most lips. But Coburn says probably you won’t and he adds the zinger that other ages may well work much better for you.
Like what? How about 75? Or 70?
And fact is more Americans are working longer- indeed the fastest growing age cohort in the workplace is Americans aged 75 and older!
Surveys also say that approaching 25% of Americans age 65 and higher are now working.
And Ciburn believes that number will only increase as many American seniors are today healthier, more active than were Americans of the same age a generation ago.
A bonus: retire later in life and you need far less retirement savings. You’ll hear actual numbers in the show - and it will blow your mind.
As for what years you should work longest and hardest? Coburn argues that it’s when your kids are home and for many that means working less in your thirties and forties.
Is that catastrophic for your retirement savings? No, because you will be working later in life you need less retirement savings. QED.
In the show, mention is made of an app. Death Clock AI. Here’s a link to the Washington Post story about it.
In the show Coburn mentions CU 2.0 founder/CEO Kirk Drake and Resistance Wine. I’ve drunk it, it’s good.
Coburn says he wears an Oura ring. Here’s the link
In the show also there’s mention of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a brilliant psychologist who documented the phenomenon he called flow where work is highly focused and we are happiest.
Welcome to the CU2.0 podcast.
SPEAKER_02:Hi, and welcome to the CU2.0 podcast with big new ideas about credit unions and conversations about innovative technology with credit union and fintech leaders. This podcast is brought to you by Quillo, the real-time loan syndication network for credit unions, and by your host, longtime credit union and financial technology journalist, Robert McGarvey. And now, the CU 2.0 podcast with Robert McGarvey.
SPEAKER_00:When will you retire? When? What years of your life should be the ones where you work the longest, hardest hours? It's two questions, two big questions. And on the show today is Derek Colburn, author of Let's Retire Retirement, How to Enjoy Life to the Fullest Now and Later. It's a book that very probably will rock your mind because it challenges key beliefs that most of us share about retirement. For instance, at what age will you retire? Probably your answer is 65. That's the number that jumps off most lips. But Coburn says, probably you won't. He adds to the zinger that other ages may well work much better for you. Like what? How about 75 or 70? And fact is, more Americans are working longer. Indeed, the fastest growing age cohort in the workplace is Americans age 75 and older. Another fact is the full retirement age for Social Security now is no longer 65. In fact, it's 67. Surveys also say that approaching 25% of Americans age 65 and higher are now working. And Coburn believes that number will only increase as many American seniors are today healthier, more active than were Americans of the same age a generation ago. A bonus, retire later in life and you will need far less retirement savings. You'll hear actual numbers in the show, and the numbers will blow your mind. As for what years you should work longest and hardest, well, Colburn argues that it's when your kids are at home. For many, that means working less in your 30s and 40s. Is that catastrophic for your retirement savings? No, because you will be working later in life. You'll need less retirement savings. QED. In the show, Mention is made of an app, Death Clock AI. In the show notes, there's a link to the Washington Post story about it. In the show, Colburn mentions CU2.0 founder and CEO Kirk Drake and Resistance Wine. There's a link to Resistance Wine in the show notes. I've drunk it. It's good. Colburn says he wears an aura ring. There's a link in the show notes. In the show also, there's mention of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a brilliant psychologist who documented the phenomenon he called flow, where work is highly focused and we are happiest. We do our best work in flow. It's magical. state listen up i want to talk about in the book you have two intertwined unusual ideas revolutionary ideas if you will
SPEAKER_03:okay thanks
SPEAKER_00:number one you're working the hardest and longest in the years of your life when you shouldn't be that's very very it's like huh what And number two, you think you're going to retire at 65, but probably you won't. And they're intertwined, of course. And just out of curiosity, I looked this morning, what's the full retirement age in Social Security now? 67. It's not 65 anymore. And it's creeping up. And I heard you say on that show that Denmark has just raised its retirement age to 75. I suspect we'll do similar to get the social security accounts to balance.
SPEAKER_03:And I think I mean, I think it's the fair thing to do. Like, I try not to get too political. Right. But I mean, the majority of people that put money into Social Security get more out of it than they put in. And I think just in general, this idea that, like, I'm going to sit around and do nothing for 25 or 30 years, not contribute at all and get a paycheck for it. You know, I think it's just selfish. And I also don't think that it's going to make those people as happy as they would be if they were instead trying to find ways that they could contribute. in a meaningful way. And it doesn't have to be what they're doing now. It could be doing something different. Um, but I, I don't think, I think we're seeing that the data shows that for a lot of people sitting on their front porch, drinking lemonade for 30 years straight, it's not, you know, not unlocking extended periods of bliss for them.
SPEAKER_00:No, I just, the other day I talked with a guy who was telling me taking an Uber with, and the driver was a retired oil industry executive. who certainly had made a lot of money. Oil industry pays very well. And he was doing it not for the money, but just to get out and about and talk with people. It's like, so people are doing strange things. Yeah. Because how many people, I know one guy, one guy who said, geez, I can't wait until I retire and I'll play golf every day. He plays golf every day. He likes golf. He still likes golf. Everybody else who's done that after about a week, they say, this is boring. I
SPEAKER_03:can make an argument too, man, that just even though it's what's normal, right? It's the idea of putting off your health and your key relationships and vacations and having just a more enjoyable experience in our human suits in the name of working really hard to save a lot of money by a certain age is a strange way to live too.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:It's just become more commonplace. It's just more acceptable that people will do it.
SPEAKER_00:Well, yes. And the point you make is that most of us are programmed to zero in on this target. Oh, I will retire at 65. And yet a lot of us don't. I understand why that target exists. And it's not bad to have a target, but we all have the same target. And that doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense. And I'll tell you one thing that's true. I have a number of friends who are college professors, university professors. Go back 20 years ago, the retirement age in most departments, unofficial, you weren't forced to with 65. Most of them now are hanging on until they're 75. It's just crept up on people.
SPEAKER_03:Can work harder and make more money if they want to, or they can also dial it back if they want to. What is the alignment there?
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's a mix. And I'd say the fintech executives certainly have some significant control over their schedule.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:The credit union executive might have less control over their schedule. But the credit union executives, particularly the senior ones, have an interesting problem where bigger credit unions, a very common retirement tool is a SERP, a Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan. which is almost always geared for retiring at 65. And if you want to work longer, well, this doesn't work in terms of SERP. If you want to retire earlier, no, can't do it, man. And you'll get that SERP in many cases when you're 45. So there are a lot of people sitting there with SERPs and, you know, if they hear this show, their heads will explode. Yep. Why in your book do you say that people are working the longest and hardest in the wrong decades of their lives?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I mean, look, I think they are. I mean, the way that I would even personalize it for me and for other people is that we're working. Society expects us to work our hardest and have our most productive earning years at a time when our kids probably need us and want us the most. You know, for me, I have a 15 and a 12 year old and they're going to be out of the house in three and five years respectively. And so the way that I live my life is sort of a microcosm of what I'm talking about in regards to retirement, where I'm not pedal to the metal right now. I'm very intentionally... taking on a lighter schedule so that I can spend a couple hours every single day with each of my boys. And that is sort of sponsored by, that's the language I like using. It's almost like somebody's writing a check to me. It's sponsored by me knowing that when my youngest is out of the house in five years, that I'm going to be taking on more work, looking to contribute more value and likely be earning even more money than I am right now. And so for me, that's when I will look to ramp up the speaking opportunity. opportunities when I'll look to ramp up maybe the coaching and the consulting. But for now, you know, my kids want to hang out with me. And that's not what you hear from a lot of 15 and 12 year olds. And I think it's because of the amount of time that I invest and how I prioritize my relationship with them. A
SPEAKER_00:lot of executives, and I'm sure you've talked with them, have at best a passing relationship with their adolescent children. They rarely do anything with the kids. Well, that's pretty normal. In five years, how old will you be? I'll
SPEAKER_03:be 53. I'm 48 now.
SPEAKER_00:So at 53, you
SPEAKER_03:think you're going to have the energy to work much harder. plan before, that means you don't have to save as much right now, which means you have more money and more time that you get to spend on the people and things that are most important to you right now. And a big, you know, a big part of, you know, that that menu is going to be things like self care, like getting better sleep and working out more and eating better. And I think that in society, we put such an emphasis on the long term benefits, you should sleep well, you should work out because of how great you're going to feel or how much better you're going to feel 20 years from now compared to if you don't. But we don't spend enough time talking about how much better we're going to feel 20 hours from now if we prioritize these things. And so for me, if I'm making the time to go to the gym now because I know I'm going to be working longer and I don't have to save as much, unlike the person who feels like they're running up against the clock and they don't have time to work out as much, they don't have time to sleep as much because they need to save. They need to have a certain number by a certain age in order to retire. Because I get to do these things, I'm just going to have more energy now. And I'm going to continue to have more energy because having it now is going to be easier to maintain, I think, 5, 10, 20 years from now.
SPEAKER_00:Take me through the math, which is really compelling. How much you have to save? You have a couple of cases in your book. How much you have to save if you're going to retire at 65, 70, and 75? And the numbers just explode. You go, wow.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's really mind-blowing for someone that hasn't done the math, and that's most people. So the way that I highlight the example, the comparison, if you will, is through a story I share called A Tale of Two Tonys. And Tony is a 45-year-old executive who's making$150,000 a year, and he has$150,000 saved up in retirement accounts. And he meets with his financial advisor, tells the financial advisor that he's going to retire at 65 because that's the age everyone else is picking, and the financial advisor agrees that that's the age that everyone else is picking. And the advisor tells him that in order to make this happen, he's going to have to save about$2,400 a month adjusted for inflation every single month for the next 20 years in order to stop working. And so if you do the quick math,$2,400 a month spread over a year is close to$30,000, which is almost 20% of what he's making, which is a non-starter for most people. I mean, look, it means that you're probably... saving more than you're actually spending right now when you back out taxes. And so Tony begins to feel defeated. He feels like he can't go on the vacations that he wants to go on. He needs to skip the family dinners. He needs to be at the office longer and eat more fast food. And he ends up getting there, but there's a big cost to that. And the example that I give in the book is this alternate reality, this sliding doors example from the movie Sliding Doors where it's a it's a movie with Gwyneth Paltrow where her her future hinges on whether or not she catches this train or not and she doesn't really know the importance or the significance of it but I have Tony's wife say to him in this alternate reality well why do you want to retire at 65 you know you you sort of like what you do and you like the people you do it with and even if you don't do that you've got all these other interests and I just can't imagine that you're ever going to sit around and not do anything and he says you know what you're right so he calls the financial advisor and he says you know, we just had this meeting where I told you I want to retire at 65. What if we make it 75? So the financial advisor comes back to him and he tells him this second example is the amount that he needs to save goes down from$2,400 a month to$110 per month. It goes down by 96%. And even if, you know, Tony would have said, I'll work until I'm 70 instead of 75. The number goes down to$600. It's a 75% reduction in the amount that he has to save by just recognizing and agreeing to work an extra five years longer. And the reason for this is I've got Tony dying at 95 in both examples. In the first example, he has 10 less years of working, 10 less years of saving and having that money compound. And then he needs an amount of money that's going to last for 30 years from 65 to 95. In the second example, he's 10 extra years of working, 10 extra years of letting his money and his investments grow. And then he only needs an amount of money that will last for 20 years instead of 30 years. We've all seen the articles. We've all seen how people have said to us, oh, you should save more when you're 23 years old and take advantage of compounding interest. And then we all feel sort of dumb because we didn't do it. Or even if we did do it, we're making a lot less in all likelihood when we were 23 than we are now. But really, no one's talking about how we can achieve the same type of results and get the same types of benefits by letting that money just sit for an extra five or 10 years longer on the back end. And that's the math that I'm really trying to help a lot of people understand.
SPEAKER_00:Do they understand it when you go over it that way?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, the numbers seem to be compelling. You can't argue with math. And the math is like it goes from 2400 to a restaurant, a cheap restaurant meal.
SPEAKER_03:It's crazy, right?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:My book has only been out now for two weeks and I've already received four or five messages from people, including one from a documentary producer. This guy does documentaries on Netflix and he had been toying with a book deal and he messaged me and he said, look, I've never bought a finance book before. And I know that your book's not a finance book, but I thought it was a finance book when I bought it. And I went from feeling like I didn't have the time to justify writing a book to you making me feel like I did. You calmed my anxiety. You made me realize that I have a lot more time than I thought I had. And I just finished my outline and I'm talking with publishers right now about taking the next step forward. And so that's obviously really gratifying for me to hear. And I think and I hope and I expect that there are going to be a lot more stories like that going forward.
SPEAKER_00:And even if You have to leave your present job at 65, which is the case in some cases. In credit union land, an executive can always get a job in another credit union if you're an experienced executive.
SPEAKER_03:Are most credit unions having people take a forced retirement at 65?
SPEAKER_00:That's often built into the CERP plan.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I tell this with attorneys also. Well, I have a sneaky suspicion and I'm already starting to see it. And that is because the workforce coming up behind the people that are going to be retiring over the next 10 years is a smaller number than what it is now. I think that a lot of the companies that currently have these mandatory retirements are going to start getting a little bit more flexible with them, especially if you're someone that has the skills, the knowledge, the experience, and you want to continue to do it. I think that there's going to be a number of companies, whether credit unions or not, that are going to be happy to have you. And if you're good at what you do, you're going to be able to do it on your terms. You're going to see a lot of arrangements with people that are going to say, look, I don't want to work summers or I'll work Monday to Thursday and I'll be available for these five hours every single day for you, but I don't want you calling me or talking to me after that. I don't want to be bothered on weekends. I want to have a few months off. And I think whatever combination works for you, I think that companies are going to be Now, how do you
SPEAKER_00:talk with people about how they might estimate their life expectancy?
SPEAKER_03:Well, you know, this is the first year in a long time that life expectancy has gone down. But I think that you need to really take a closer look at the stats and see how they apply to you. So they're going down because a lot of people are dying when they're younger. The COVID had a big impact on that for some people. Life expectancy, it's funny, when retirement was really first created, this was in 18 And they were setting up the first social plan for older workers as a way to help them bridge the gap between their working years and when they would pass away. And they picked 65 as the age in 1889 for when people would start receiving these benefits. because you guessed it, that was the age that people were expected to live until. So 65 was, hey, we'll start giving you money at 65 because we know most of you are gonna be dead by then. They increased it to 70 a few years later, but FDR decided in 1935 with the Social Security Plan, Social Security Act and getting that set up that 65 was the right number and life expectancy at that time was about 71. And what's interesting is going back to around that time and shortly thereafter, If you were going to retire, you would be getting a third of your income from Social Security. You'd be getting a third of your income from a pension plan or a SERP or something like that. And you only had to come up with a third of your remaining need. And it only had to last for about six or seven years in all likelihood because of life expectancy. So now life expectancy in the aggregate is pushing 80. But if you make it to 65, then you're looking at like 86 for men and 88 for women. And I think I think that sort of like furthering the gap, and I'm a big fan of this, like I hinted at it earlier, take maybe some of the money that you now, after hearing the Tony example, to where now you don't feel like you have to save as much and you have a little bit more that you can spend, invest that proactively into your health. Make sure that you're exercising more. Make sure that you're sleeping better. And I think that people that have a little bit of money to throw at their health are going to probably be able to live until 95, 100 years old without much trouble and without really like a dramatic dip in terms of their quality of life. When I say lived in 95 or 100, I'm not talking like you've got these 10 to 15 miserable years where you're old and decrepit and you're extending that. I'm talking about improving the quality of your health span, not just your lifespan.
SPEAKER_00:And if listeners want to estimate how long to live, I can recommend an app called Death Clock AI.
SPEAKER_01:Oh,
SPEAKER_00:great. It's free. It asks you a bunch of questions within five minutes or so. It comes back with, it tells you the exact day you're going to die. It's just a year.
SPEAKER_03:And what sort of inputs or variables does that have?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, it asks you predictable questions about your health.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, got it. Cool.
SPEAKER_00:A little bit about family history. I think many people will tell you the best indicator of your life expectancy is if you're male, it's your father's. How old was your father when he died? How old was your grandfather when he died? If you're a woman, it's usually the maternal side. It asks that kind of stuff. It got a really nice write-up in the New York Times or the Washington Post, which is why I downloaded it. Well,
SPEAKER_03:I'll tell you, you know, my father, my father got dementia when he was 63 and he passed away at 71. And I, you know, rightly so, I'm a little terrified about that for myself, but also him getting dementia was the catalyst for me. Like, like there's, there's a lot of what I talk about in this book and why living for the moment and living for right now sort of stems from that, but also like for me to really kind of dig into my health. And so, you know, I like, Like, while genetics could play a factor, I'm throwing good money and good resources at a lot of the preventative stuff to, you know, like my father, for example, like had, you know, a certain gene where he couldn't, he couldn't like break down toxins in his body where, and I don't have that gene, but my father didn't know he had that gene. And that really accelerated his condition, if you will. And so, you know, I am later this week, I'm actually There's a company called Preneuvo, and they do whole body MRI scans. And so this is not covered by insurance. And the cost is gone. It's expensive, but it's gone down dramatically over the last couple of years. They've really been able to scale this. When it first came out, it was about$4,000, and now it's about$2,000. But the quick overview here is that I'm getting a full body brain limb MRI where they're going to detect anything that might be off with me physically or otherwise. It's not covered by insurance, but for me, it's$2,000 just to check a box to make sure that there's nothing that's brewing that would catch me off guard or throw me off by surprise.
SPEAKER_00:One of the wealthiest people I've known, retired at 50, is working in financial services in manhattan made a lot of money he retired at 50 because his father had died at 51. and uh and he figured he didn't have long to live so he wound up living until he was about 72. he really had made a lot of money so he was doing fine uh and through through through the rest of his life and he got very active in didn't go back to work but he got very active uh Served on a lot of boards of nonprofits of organizations that he approved of. Very involved in the Catholic Church. Very involved in the college he went to. And so a very busy guy. And mainly doing good stuff. But it was all volitional. He didn't feel he had to do any of it. He did what he chose to do. And had a great life. That's great. So sometimes you can actually retire early if you plan accordingly. I think he worked like a dog until he was 50.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And for me, again, it's just like being present for my kids, being able to prioritize the relationship that I have with my wife and my friends and my health and just really leaning into all of it. I guess I could. I mean, look, I had a wealth management practice that I was able to sell to a private equity company. I had an exit and I've got some cash and I probably don't have enough cash to never have to work again, but I've got enough cash. that I can coast for a little bit here. And for me, I think I see people that have won the game that most people are playing, this money game, and they've got the possessions and the cars or the jets or the clothes or the beach homes. And I think that all of those things can be great. And I'm not opposed to them. And I even think that they can be very inspiring for the right people at the right time. But I think that for me, where I'm at now is I think that flexibility with my time and freedom with my time is the flex. It's the thing. Wealth for me is I get to pick my kids up from school every single day. I have a 15-year-old, and we have a gym in our house, and we work out together. three to four times a week together for an hour at a time. And 45 of those 60 minutes, he's not saying much to me. But the other 10 to 15 minutes, I'm there, and we're having good conversations, and we're talking about music, and we're talking about sports. And look, I don't really know a whole lot of– dads with 15 year olds who, who can say the same that, that, that I can say in terms of like, I think my kid actually enjoys spending time with me and same with my younger ones. So I think, look, if you can, if you can have it all great, you know what I mean? Like, I think that's incredible. I think for most people in order to, in order to save a certain amount of money to be able to stop at 65 and have your money last for 30 years, because I think 95 is the age you don't want to, you don't want to like go, you don't want to estimate passing away your life expectancy at like 82 and then you're running out of money at 82 and you're still kind of kicking and going strong. So I think you need to have it in the 90, 95 range at a minimum for most people. But yeah, I just, you know, I think a lot of people are just making sacrifices. They're sacrificing their health, they're sacrificing their happiness, they're sacrificing their key relationships in the name of saving a certain amount of money by a certain age to be able to experience all these things that they're sacrificing when they get there. And I think for a lot of people, this idea, this retirement, what they arrive to is not what they were sold. It's not what they thought it was going to be. And you've got a big unretirement movement right now. Up to about 30% of people that have retired are going back to work. And it's not because they need the money. It's because they missed the connection. They missed the contribution. They missed being able to have a purpose bigger than themselves.
SPEAKER_00:How do you... suggest to a person that they get started on this? In other words, person hears this, they read your book, they say, geez, it sounds interesting. Maybe this would work for me. Then what? When you
SPEAKER_03:say
SPEAKER_00:started on this,
SPEAKER_03:what do you mean
SPEAKER_00:by that? Begin to implement what you're talking about. Begin to implement this plan.
SPEAKER_03:So look, I think what I've done, there are other books, including mine, where we talk about We remind our readers, we remind the audience that they're gonna really miss Their kids, they're going to really regret not having spent more time with them while they're in the house. If they don't do it, they're going to regret neglecting their relationship with their significant other. They're going to regret like everybody, their health, everybody understands that they should be doing this more, but, but no one has really effectively that I've seen addressed the big problem. elephant in the room, which is how can I afford to do this? I know I should be home more. I would like to be home more. I would like to be leaning into vacations and all of these things, but I've got bills to pay and I have to save a certain amount so I can stop doing this for the rest of my life. What I have hopefully done for a lot of people reading this via the two Tonys example and other examples in the book is I've removed money as the barrier. I've said I've now Now allows you to take money out of the equation. Now you have more money and more time than you previously thought you had. Now, like the first thing that I'm giving you is a little bit of space. I'm giving you a little bit of space. I'm letting you catch your breath. I'm letting you have a little bit less stress so that now you can see where should I be investing more of my time or more of my money. more of this time and more of this money that I have that I didn't think I had prior to hearing what you just shared with me.
SPEAKER_00:And I do think that many companies, this wouldn't be true for a CEO, but many companies would say to a senior executive, oh, you want to reduce your hours? That would be okay. Let's see how we could do that. But then some complications kick in. So, oh, geez, you're going to lose your health plan or whatever. Yep. But those are fixable problems.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think so, because you can still get health insurance up to 30 hours a week, I think, right?
SPEAKER_00:Something like that. Even if with Obamacare, you can still get it anyway in almost all states. To
SPEAKER_03:kind of add to your question about where to start, I have a belief, and it's what's happened with me. It's how this book was born. My belief is that the very best person for any of us to be getting advice from, for any one person to be getting advice from, is... the highest and best version of themselves. So right now, I think the majority of people are carrying just a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety. They're sleep deprived. They have brain fog. They're caught up in what's going on in the geopolitical climate. And now it's like, okay, I've got some work issues or some money issues or some health issues. And how should I spend my time? And I think that most people are just so far removed moved from the highest and best version of themselves that they're almost like not qualified to be making these big picture decisions at this point. And so I think for a lot of people, What I would recommend is, especially if you're working really hard now and you feel like you're making sacrifices in the name of being able to retire and stop at a certain point in time, to just take a step back and maybe for the next couple of weeks, you just really try to prioritize sleeping well, eating well, and allow this version of yourself that's a little bit more well-rested, that has a little bit more energy to show up and And then think about, okay, what is my next best move? Because for me, I wear a device called an Oura Ring. And it tracks your sleep and your steps and your heart rate and all of this. There's other brands. There's a Whoop bracelet. There's an Apple Watch. There's a lot of companies that do this. And I think it's a really important thing for most people to be looking to get their data to access data. what they're doing and what they could potentially do to improve it. And so for me, I've had it for seven years. And the first four years I had it, you would get a sleep score. You get a sleep score every single night. And my sleep score was never higher than a 70. Wow. Wow. Yeah, it was just really... But if you would have asked me, are you sleeping well? I would have said, yeah, I feel fine. I feel good. But I didn't know. I didn't know... what it would be like to actually sleep really, really well. And I said, I'm going to make this a goal for myself. I want to wake up in the morning and I want to see if I can get to a place where I feel amazing. And so long story short, I went from a 68 out of 100 to a 77 to an 82. And now on most nights, my sleep score and the corresponding way I feel when I wake up is between an 85 and a 95. And the way that I feel now most mornings when I wake up, I didn't know that feeling was on the menu a couple of years ago. And I bring this up for a couple of reasons. One is when I sleep well, I make better choices at 9 a.m. And those better choices at 9 a.m. lead to better choices at 11 a.m. And I'm more likely to eat something that's good for me for lunch. I'm more likely to not skip the workout. I'm more likely to be more calm and more patient with my kids and my wife and the relationships that I have if I've slept well. And so for me, that's what I really want to prioritize and focus on. But but the other thing is I just really want the sleep component here to, to, um, highlight how I, I now I'm like a different person showing up than the person that I was a few years ago, uh, with the way that I choose to spend my time, the way that I choose to lead my life.
SPEAKER_00:I personally wear a Fitbit, which I got, I've had one device or another for 15 years. And, uh, And I got it to do step counting. And then one day I noticed that, hey, it gives me this sleep score. And I've become addicted to my sleep score, which often is over 80, although I've never gotten a 90, I have to admit. So it's good data. It's useful data. And it correlates with how I feel and how energetic I am, too. So you see, well, there's something to this sleep score thing.
SPEAKER_03:There's a lot of different One thing that I share with a lot of people that they're like, oh, yeah, I'm eating 30 minutes before bed and they stop doing that and their sleep improves dramatically. And then the other big one is using mouth tape or a chin strap to where you are reminding your body that it's better for it to breathe in and out through its nose and not the mouth.
SPEAKER_00:As you say these things, I remember. In movies and TVs from the 50s, people would have a nightcap just before they went to bed, some kind of alcoholic drink. And I absolutely agree with you. Alcohol messes my sleep score dramatically.
SPEAKER_03:And I will tell you, you know, I might be... not doing it justice. I might be oversimplifying it here, but for me, because I, look, I had a glass or two of wine almost every single night for 20 years. And it was just a way to unwind and a way for me to just like have a ritual with my wife. It was nice. But I think for me, unlocking this new feeling when I wake up in the morning. And just, I'm telling you, if you don't wake up in the morning and feel absolutely incredible, then it's worth pursuing that feeling. And for me, that feeling feels better than the feeling I get from having a buzz after having a glass or two of wine. So it becomes less about willpower for me and more just like my body, my mind, just knowing like why... Why are you going to have a glass of wine tonight? Because if you do that, you're going to ruin that feeling that you're going to have tomorrow morning. And you like that feeling way more than you like the feeling that you're going to get from having this glass of wine.
SPEAKER_00:Now, why do you tell people, and I think you do this, that they need to have more fun in their lives?
SPEAKER_03:Because I just don't think that people are really... prioritizing fun. I go as far as to suggest that I believe that we're in the midst of a fun recession right now. I think 99% of adults, based on my informal survey and seeing some other data out there, are not even coming close to having an appropriate amount of fun on a People for 5, 10, 15 years, you know, when what do you do for fun? And, you know, most people, they sort of look at me and they pause and they have to think and they get back to me with something like we went out to dinner with this other couple a month and a half ago and we talked about our kids or our job or like, who knows? Right. But but like I like I just think that. People think that the world is going crazy right now and people are stressed and people have all these concerns. what if our bodies, our minds, our souls are making things harder for us when we're at work, when we're doing the work, when we're trying to improve in other areas of my life, because we're never showing them a good time. We're never letting ourselves experience the bliss that we felt when we were kids. Again, my kids, they wake up most days. And it's like, what am I doing for fun today? How am I going to have fun? How much fun can I have? Who can I have fun with? And at some point, it just went away for a lot of people. And I understand that this might be triggering. And my only reason for bringing it up is that I just want people to just enjoy themselves in this life, maybe more than what they're currently doing right now. And I've got suggestions for what I think can be like lot of fun and what people should maybe consider doing um but yeah so i don't know if you if you have different views or different experiences but but for me i just it just i just see so many people that have just like have just said like yeah i they have a really good reason for why they can't and aren't having more fun on a regular basis
SPEAKER_00:and as as you're talking i'm thinking Fun is where you find it, too. So I was asking myself, when did I last have fun? Well, my answer is last night. I helped feed 400 people at a soup kitchen. And it felt fun, rewarding, a little disturbing. But to see such misery, because it's Phoenix in the summer and these are miserable people.
SPEAKER_03:Look, I think that there are– I talk about charitable giving also and why I think that's really important and why we should be doing more of that. And I do, though, want to just– respond to that, to your fun last night, which A, I think that's amazing. B, I tell a story in the book about a friend of mine who, when I'm sharing this idea of a fun recession with her, she's like, yeah, I've been really trying to incorporate more fun into my work. And I'm like, that's great. And that's not what I'm talking about. I do think that we can find fun in other areas of our life, but I also think that we should be leaning into trying to have fun for the There's a term called collective effervescence. Collective effervescence has been known to be the conditions needed for our bodies to experience the most bliss that they can experience at any given time. And the two conditions required for this are, one, being in a flow state, forgetting about time, forgetting about where you are, and two, having a shared or pooled or collective energy that is piggybacking off of Everyone who is there. So for that reason, I'm suggesting that live music and stand up comedy are the two best ways that we can access fun as human beings. So this is not to say that I don't want you to keep volunteering. And serving other people. And certainly, I don't want you to not continue to enjoy that. Keep doing that. And also, let's sprinkle in some fun just for the sake of having fun where we're not checking other boxes. We're not doing it for a certain reason. We're just doing it because it just fills up our heart and our soul. And we just love being there. And that's the whole reason why we're doing it.
SPEAKER_00:Hear this. First guy who's mentioned Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to me in a long time. I interviewed him at least a dozen times when Flo was a really hot book, hot topic. Great guy. And you can go into Flo, according to him, doing almost anything.
SPEAKER_02:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Bowling, sure. Why not? It's working, whatever. Soup Kitchen, was I in Flo? No, I wasn't. I have to admit.
SPEAKER_03:Again, I'm not knocking it, man. I think that's
SPEAKER_00:amazing. No, no, no. I hear you. I hear you. Now, you go to an astonishing number of live music events. What was the number?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, man. I went to over 25 last year. I went to one last night where I'm talking to you the day after Father's Day here. And I had my boys go to a band that I love as my Father's Day presence. And, yeah, I mean, I've seen Pearl Jam live. Something like 48 times. I've got some other bands that I love quite a bit. You know, my wife and I last year went to, while the kids were at sleepaway camp for a few years, we went and saw Taylor Swift in Amsterdam and Pearl Jam in Barcelona. So we did a nice... six-day European vacation, saw a couple of music shows. But look, I don't want anybody to feel like they need to do anything that elaborate. If somebody's listening to this and they feel like that, yeah, maybe I've been letting the fun in my life slip a little bit and I should get it back, let's start small. If you haven't been to the gym in four or five years, I wouldn't recommend you sign up for a half marathon next weekend. I would recommend that you just dip your toe in and start getting the energy and the physicality back into your life. And so, like, are there any, you know, fun... restaurants or bars in your hometown that have cover bands or are there stand up comedy joints? And and that would probably be a good place, I think, for a lot of people to start. Like I know, you know, Kirk Drake has like, you know, his winery and he brings bands in and there's just in the summertime. There's just so many places. I don't think that it needs to be anything over the top. I would just encourage people to explore and look into maybe there are, you know, just different ways for them to find great music, great comedy. Look, sports is something that some people ask about, like sports. What about sports? It sounds like sports could be on that list. And certainly sports can capture some of what I'm talking about. But the other problem with sports is that there's a 50% chance that you're not going to be happy at the end of a sporting event if your team loses, right? So I've never gone to a Pearl Jam concert and had the lead guitarist strike out four times and make an error in the field, right? So, so there's just, um, uh, I'm, I'm really setting myself up to, to not have to lose in most likely scenario, uh, with, uh, with a concert or a standup comedian.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I, I, a year ago, I took a bunch of my relatives from New Jersey. We're visiting me in Phoenix and the Yankees happened to be playing the Diamondbacks. I bought tickets. And I had a really good time, but I didn't care which team won.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's great.
SPEAKER_00:My relatives did. And the Yankees happened to win. They were happy. But I was indifferent. I was just enjoying the whole thing. It was a good game, too. Aaron Judge hit a home run. It was wonderful.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, that's amazing.
SPEAKER_00:It
SPEAKER_03:doesn't always have to be that. But I think that also in order to experience the peak, peak, peak bliss– that it might have to be like a team that you're invested in and them winning like the Super Bowl or the World Series or something like that. Because when I talk about this collective effervescence and I'm talking about this shared energy, you go to see a musician. It can be any musician. It can be big or small, arena, whatever you want to call it. But they're playing a song that has a couple of lyrics in it that you have– sung at the top of your lungs while you're driving, uh, you know, a dozen times and there's 5,000 other people there that have had the same experience. And then you're all singing that together at once. It is just, uh, it just produces a feeling in your body. That's just really hard to describe. That's really, I think, hard to, hard to obtain, you know, um, you know, if you are, uh, you know, doing, doing other things. So I Look, I'm not here to judge anybody's type of fun. I'm here for the people that need it and are open to it, just here to nudge them a little bit and give them permission to maybe allow themselves to have a little bit more enjoyment and a little bit more fun in their lives.
SPEAKER_00:I think I got what I wanted. This has been good. Anything you want to say that you were dying to say that I didn't ask you about?
SPEAKER_03:I would just say that I think what I'm most proud of, I think, with this book is... I wrote a book that just has a lot of information in it that is just way more than I could ever cover in a 45- or 60-minute conversation with somebody. And so even though we touched on a number of key points, and I think you did a really, really great job of preparing and asking me some really– wonderful questions. I've loved our conversation. There's still just a lot that we didn't even bring up that I think could also be helpful to people. And so right now, I don't really have anything to sell. I wrote this book as a way to really share a lot of my 25, 30 years of experience with as many people as possible to help free them from you know, maybe like the game that they're playing that isn't working out for them. And so, you know, anybody that enjoyed our conversation that feels compelled or inspired to maybe want to lean in more than just grabbing my book and digging in and letting me know what they think about it would be the best thing they could do for me.
SPEAKER_00:Before we go, think hard about how you can help support this podcast so we can do more interviews with more thoughtful leaders in the credit union world. What we're trying to figure out here in these podcasts is what's next for credit unions. What can they do to really, really, really make a difference in the financial scene? Can't all be mega banks, can it? It's my hope it won't all be mega banks. It'll always be a place for credit unions. That's what we're discussing here. So figure out how you can help. Get in touch with me. This is rjmcgarvey at gmail.com. Robert McGarvey again. That's rjmcgarvey at gmail.com. Get in touch. We'll figure out a way that you can help. We need your support. We want your support. We thank you for your support. The CU2.0 Podcast.