Win the Retirement Game – Now Available

When people first dream of their retirement, their thoughts are of having the time to do all the things they want to do. But eventually, many discover that a secret to a fulfilling life in retirement is doing things for others. Our guest shares his experience and stories of others who volunteer their time to help other people, in ways both big and small. As it turns out, the small things often turn out to be big things.

Brad Aronson joins us from Philadelphia.

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Bio

Brad Aronson is the author of Humankind: Changing the World One Small Act at a Time. He invests in start-up tech companies, and is passionate about serving at-risk youth. He serves on the boards of mentoring program Big Brothers Big Sisters and Hopeworks, a nonprofit that provides tech training and jobs to urban youth. He teaches entrepreneurship to inner city teens, and has every student start their own company, which has led to many adventures in business.

Previously, he founded a tech company in his bedroom that was eventually purchased by Microsoft. He also co-authored Advertising on the Internet (John Wiley). Brad lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with his wife and their son.

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For More on Brad Aronson

Humankind: Changing the World One Small Act at a Time

Website

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Are You Living Gratefully? – Kristi Nelson

The Gift of Gratitude – Glenn Fox

The Mind-Body Connection and The Rabbit Effect – Kelli Harding

Tiny Habits Can Lead to Big Changes – BJ Fogg

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Blog Post You May Like

Find the Volunteer Opportunity That’s Right for You

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Mentioned in This Podcast Episode

Volunteer Match

A Good News website

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Wise Quotes

On Seeing the Positive

“…a kid is driving with his grandfather and the kid says Oh my goodness, we have another red light! And the grandfather says how come you’re always complaining about the red lights and you never celebrate the green ones? And it made me think I don’t celebrate the green lights. And I feel like as a society, we often bond over complaints: The weather stinks. The Phillies are having a bad season. Whatever it is, that’s a way that we bond. If instead we looked at the positive our lives would be so much better. A key example is gratitude journals. There’s scientific research that if every day you write down three things that you’re grateful for in a book, you will be happier. Science has proven this again and again. And that’s because taking the time to remember and thinking about what we’re grateful for, obviously it’s going to help us be happier. Because we’re like many people naturally looking at the negative and on the news. We just see the negative all the time. And that’s why I love going to good news websites online because I want to celebrate the best of humanity, not just the things that are going on that are disasters.”

On Volunteering

“First it’s a wonderful thing to do as a volunteer and work with other volunteers. It gives you purpose. It’s exciting. It’s engaging and I think the first thing I’d say is have patience. I hear from a lot of people: Oh, I reached out to a nonprofit. They didn’t call me back. Most nonprofits are stretched extremely thin, but there’s many of them, so you can reach out to a few. And and be patient and be persistent. Don’t give up. I’d also say a lot of times I hear people think that their skills aren’t translatable. So I’ve talked to people who said I’d love to mentor and be a Big Brother or a Big Sister, but I don’t know how I will relate to the kids because I have such a different upbringing. I’m deeply involved with Big Brothers & Big Sisters. You need to have love and you need to encourage them. Just try it. If you’re going to be there for someone ,you can you can be there for someone because what they need is love. And what they need is someone who’s going to pay attention, who’s going to care, who’s going to be enthusiastic about what they’re doing, be real with them and give them real advice. Start small because you don’t know if you’re actually going to enjoy it until you start.”

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About Retirement Wisdom

Take charge of your future.

Your life in retirement will be multidimensional, and so your planning should be as well.

Schedule a call to find how how the Designing Your Life process (developed by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans at Stanford) can help you unlock a new direction – on your own terms.

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Giving thanks is probably on your mind this week if you’re here in the US. And there’s a lot to be grateful for. There’s science behind gratitude and how it can enhance your health and well-being. Dr. Glenn Fox from the University of Southern California joins us to chat about the research on gratitude and how to apply it in your daily life. We also touch base on how gratitude plays a role in high performance and what he’s learned from his work with entrepreneurs and Navy SEALS.

We discuss:

The Science of Gratitude

• How gratitude is defined
• The benefits of gratitude
• What gets in the way of gratitude
• Why gratitude is a positive emotion and also a skill
• The practices he uses in his daily life to apply the research on gratitude
• How to start a gratitude practice

Entrepreneurship

• How gratitude plays a role in high-performance among entrepreneurs
• What to consider before becoming an entrepreneur

• And…what he learned from being in Back to the Future 3 way back in the day

Glenn joins us from California.

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Bio

Dr. Glenn Fox is a faculty member at the University of Southern California’s Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, in the Marshall School of Business. His current projects focus on neural systems for emotion regulation, high stakes training, and developing entrepreneurial mindset skills in founders and business leaders.

Glenn received his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from USC, where he focused on the neural correlates of gratitude, empathy, and neuroplasticity. Following graduate school, he started a company, Ph.D. Insight L.L.C., which focused on providing data science consulting for small businesses and early-stage startups. Prior to joining Marshall as a faculty member, Glenn led the Performance Science Institute at USC where he worked with the United States Marine Corps, Army Research Laboratories, Seattle Seahawks, and numerous Olympic athletes and Fortune 500 companies to examine the role of mindset in business and high stakes pursuits.

Currently, Glenn is the Director and Founder of the USC Found Well Initiative which aims to understand and promote entrepreneurial mindset in founders and business leaders. He also serves as a Principal Investigator at the USC Sensorimotor Assessment and Rehabilitation Training in Virtual Reality Center (SMART-VR) and a fellow of the Brain and Creativity Institute.

Outside of USC, Glenn serves as the Chief Science Officer of the C4 Foundation, which serves to strengthen and protect Navy SEAL families. Glenn is also currently on the advisory board of the Flow Research Collective, where he works with Steven Kotler on projects related to gratitude, flow, and high performance. He consults regularly with companies and media outlets on topics ranging from small business management, gratitude, and high performance.

Glenn is an avid maker and restorer of things old and metal. He lives in LA with his wife and son.

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For More on Dr. Glenn Fox

What Can the Brain Reveal About Gratitude?

Practicing Gratitude Can Have Profound Health Benefits

The C4 Foundation

Follow on Twitter @glennrfox

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Wise Quotes

On Gratitude

“Gratitude is a word we hear thrown around a lot, and I think that’s a good thing. And we only begin to understand gratitude more. The more we begin to look for it. And as you start to look and observe gratitude, you realize that it’s so much more than what people talk about. We hear the word gratitude, and we think about it as a synonym for happiness, a lot of the time, but this limits what I think gratitude really is – and what it really can do for people. It’s more than happiness. It’s more than just getting something nice. It is a framework. It’s part of our moral compass for how we keep track of our relationships to others. It’s part of our deepest motivational circuits.”

On Paying Attention

“I think it’s as simple as paying attention. So there are ways to nudge ourselves to feel grateful – leave your gratitude journal on your desk so that when you go to work, you’ve got to move your gratitude journal. Or put it by a side of your bed, so every time you go to bed, you’ll have to move your gratitude journal and turn on your light and say ‘Oh, I better fill this thing out right now.’ So little nudges like that I think can make a big difference – and soon you’re starting to pay attention. So I really think the biggest hurdle, honestly is just not treating it like a skill, treating it like a trait that you’re born with, or you have, or you don’t, and that’s completely false. So treating it as a skill to be developed and then designing ways so that we pay attention is the best way. We lose gratitude when we’re not paying attention to what’s around us – when we’re not paying attention to the present moment. And we all do this. I say, we intentionally, I’m not saying this is me. I’m right there with you. That’s when I notice it personally it’s like: ‘Oh, if I designed my life to practice this a little better, I get more of it.’ So really, it’s as simple as paying attention. But the ramifications of that are pretty profound in terms of setting our life around our mental health and mental recovery and mental flourishing.”

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Are You Living Gratefully? – Kristi Nelson

Retire Happy – Dr. Catherine Sanderson

Chatter & Your Inner Voice – Ethan Kross

The Mind-Body Connection and The Rabbit Effect – Kelli Harding

Will You Be an Entrepreneur in Your Second Act Career? – Dorie Clark

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About Retirement Wisdom

Are you ready to graduate from the world of full-time work? You haven’t worked this hard for so long to have a mediocre post-career life.

`It’s your time. Make it your best time.

Take the first step toward your new life.

Work one-on-one with our Certified Designing Your Life Coach to explore alternative visions of your future and develop the new pathway that’s right for you.

Or may you learn best in a group – our new small group Designing Your Life program starts in mid-January.

Schedule a free call to discuss our programs and what’s right for you.

The benefits of gratitude are plentiful. Yet there’s a tendency to take things for granted, even what matters most. How can gratefulness be cultivated without the painful experience of a wake-up call? Our guest, Kristi Nelson, author of the new book Wake Up Grateful, shares her wisdom on how to develop the mindset and practices to be grateful in our day to day lives.

Kristi and I discuss:

• The mission of her organization A Network for Grateful Living
• The distinction between gratitude and gratefulness – and why it matters
• The role gratefulness has played in her life
• Why gratefulness is especially important now
• How being grateful can help relationships
• Why Thanksgiving can be a springboard to gratefulness year-round
• Her new book: Wake Up Grateful: The Transformative Practice of Taking Nothing for Granted
• What one thing you can start to do if you want to be more grateful in your life

Kristi joins us from Massachusetts.

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Bio

Kristi Nelson is the Executive Director of A Network for Grateful Living (gratefulness.org).  She’s also the author of a new book Wake Up Grateful: The Transformative Practice of Taking Nothing for Granted.

Kristi has spent most of her adult life in non-profit leadership, fundraising, and organizational development. In a wide variety of roles, she has helped to lead, fund, and strengthen organizations committed to progressive social and spiritual change.

In 2001, Kristi founded a values-based fundraising consulting and training, and leadership coaching business, and in this capacity worked with organizations such as the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Spirit in Action, Wisdom 2.0, and The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society. During this time, she was also founding Director of the Soul of Money Institute with Lynne Twist, Director of Development at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, and Director of Development and Community Relations for the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society.

Kristi received her BA from UMass/Amherst, a graduate certificate in Business and Sociology from Boston College, and her Master’s in Public Administration (MPA) with a concentration in Leadership Studies, from Harvard University.

Kristi is a stage IV cancer survivor who feels blessed to work with her beloved colleagues in sharing the gifts of gratefulness with people around the world. She lives in Western MA with her family, and gives thanks every day to be surrounded by the glories of the natural world and a vibrant, loving community.

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Wise Quotes

On Gratitude versus Gratefulness

“And I’ve done some pretty deep dives into the exploration because we love feeling gratitude. It’s a fantastic feeling and we love inciting gratitude and other people helping other people feel grateful and yet gratitude tends to be conditional it’s fleeting. It’s transactional. Often we wait for somebody to do something for us or for something to happen. As we said from the outset it’s something that is ephemeral and difficult for us to put our hands around. How do I get more gratitude inducing experiences? And it ends up being a little bit like the pursuit of happiness. I think in that way it’s elusive. And it feels out there gratefulness, as I was saying before, is something that we can cultivate as a practice, very similar to mindfulness. And it’s a beautiful way to weave together more moments of gratitude. And to learn how to find those experiences of gratitude and to uplift them and to deepen ourselves into them more often. So it’s not about being grateful for everything, but gratefulness as the ability to be grateful in every moment. And that’s something that we can learn.”

On What’s Essential 

“So this has been a really tough year. I think it’s taught us what’s essential and helped us come home to that question of How do we value and really live into what is essential for us? Because we don’t take the next moment for granted. We say: This is the moment that’s mine. This is the day that’s mine. This is the life I’m living. How do I live gratefully into what is most important to me right here right now, and not count on anything else, because that’s the way we live a regret-free life. That’s really the way to live without regrets and not put anything off. And so I think that’s really come home to roost – as what’s essential. And I think the lessons are continuing to unfold.”

On Gratefulness as an Action

“I will say that it’s not just feeling grateful. It’s being grateful. It’s an active verb. It’s like love. You can feel a lot of love. You can feel a lot of gratitude, but until you express it, it doesn’t necessarily transform your relationships. And so the invitation is to live it out loud. Don’t take the people in your life for granted. One of the things I say is that when we take things for granted, they become lifeless. They become literally kind of dead to us. We get into a trance. We sleepwalk. We walk past people who are miracles in our lives, and we don’t appreciate them. And we take a drive that we’ve taken off and in our lives.  And we don’t appreciate it because we’re asleep to it. And yet somebody who takes that same drive and goes by these trees and on this road might say, Wow, this is extraordinary! …But I think [with] the people who become invisible to us in some way, what we have to do is to be really awakened – and then actively express all of the appreciation that we feel. And one of the things that I’ve really experimented with is: Is it possible to really be too grateful for the people who we appreciate and whose presence in our lives matters deeply to us.? And I kind of have not found the threshold. I’ll just tell you there’s a huge amount of capacity for us to express appreciation.”

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For More on Kristi Nelson

Wake Up Grateful: The Transformative Practice of Taking Nothing for Granted on Amazon

A Network for Grateful Living

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

The Mind-Body Connection and The Rabbit Effect – Kelli Harding

Are You Ready for The New Long Life? – Andrew Scott

Is It Time to Break Up with Busy? – Yvonne Tally

Tiny Habits Can Lead to Big Changes – BJ Fogg

Why Settle for Happiness in Your Retirement? – Emily Esfahani Smith

How Seniors Are Saving the World With Activism – Thelma Reese

Not Exactly Retired – David Jarmul

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About Retirement Wisdom

We help people who are retiring from their primary career – and aren’t done yet – discover what’s next.

A long retirement is a terrible thing to waste. And a meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you make yours great.

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Retire smarter. Explore retirementwisdom.com

We all have that inner voice in our heads. In his book Chatter, psychologist Ethan Kross shares insights from his research lab at the University of Michigan on how our self-talk impacts our lives, our attitudes, our health, and our relationships. Chatter includes a range of valuable tools we can use to control our inner critic and tap into our “inner coach.”

We discuss:

• His work at the Emotion & Self Control Lab at the University of Michigan.
• What he learned about introspection from his father.
• Stats on our inner voice and how often we talk with ourselves.
• How chatter and negative self-talk impact people.
• How our inner critic and inner coach work.
• What happens when we bring our other relationships in the conversation, with things like venting.
• How people planning for retirement can best deal with uncertainty and fear.
• Tools he finds useful in managing our inner critic and accessing our inner coach.

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Bio

Ethan Kross is one of the world’s leading experts on controlling the conscious mind. An award-winning professor and bestselling author in the University of Michigan’s top-ranked Psychology Department and its Ross School of Business, he studies how the conversations people have with themselves impact their health, performance, decisions, and relationships.

Ethan was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated magna cum laude. After earning his Ph.D. in Psychology from Columbia University, Ethan completed a post-doctoral fellowship in social-affective neuroscience to learn about the neural systems that support self-control. He moved to the University of Michigan in 2008, where he founded the Emotion & Self Control Laboratory.

Ethan’s research has been published in Science, The New England Journal of Medicine, and The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, among other peer-reviewed journals. He has participated in policy discussions at the White House and has been interviewed on CBS Evening News, Good Morning America, Anderson Cooper Full Circle, and NPR’s Morning Edition. His pioneering research has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Harvard Business Review, USA Today, The Economist, The Atlantic, Forbes, and Time.

Ethan is the author of the National Bestseller CHATTER: The Voice in Our Head, Why it Matters and How to Harness It, which was chosen as one of the best new books of the year by the Washington Post, CNN and USA Today and the Winning Winter 2021 selection for Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain and Dan Pink’s Next Big Idea Book Club. CHATTER  is scheduled to be translated into over 35 languages.

Ethan lives in Ann Arbor with his wife and two daughters.

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Wise Quotes

On Our Inner Voice

“…we do spend a significant amount of time in this world of words in our head. And sometimes those conversations we have with ourselves can be the source of a lot of joy. Like when you’re savoring, you’re going over, what happened like a positive experience that might’ve happened to you, or you’re imagining an accolade you might receive in the future. But we also spend a lot of time talking to ourselves in ways that can be really disparaging and make us feel upset. And that really captures this conundrum of self-talk. We have this inner voice that on the one hand can be this, this great source of wisdom and self-confidence and a wonderful coach. But on the other hand, we also have this inner voice that could turn into a really harsh critic…”

On Chatter versus Negative Self-Talk

“I think of negative self-talk and, in particular, I want to make a distinction between negative self-talk and chatter. And I want to make a distinction between them for the following reasons. Sometimes we say negative things to ourselves which can cause us to feel bad… That’s, I would argue, not a problem. It’s not a problem because negative emotions in small doses are actually quite adaptive. It’s useful. You know, when I screw up, when I say something bad to someone else at work, and I feel a little bit of guilt and remorse about doing that, I replay that conversation of my screw up in my head. That’s giving me information that I can learn from. That’s a learnable moment.”

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For More on Ethan Kross, PhD

Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It

Website

How well do you know your inner voice? Take this quiz and find out.

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Podcast Episodes You May Be Interested In

Tiny Habits Can Lead to Big Changes – BJ Fogg

The Mind-Body Connection and The Rabbit Effect – Kelli Harding

Design Your Life and Get Unstuck – Dave Evans

Lifelong Learning – Michelle Weise

Life’s Big Decisions – Adrian Camilleri

How Can You Be Better with Age? – Alan Castel

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About Retirement Wisdom

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If you’re planning for retirement, you’re focusing on covering all your bases. But how about your happiness? When you’re able to retire, will you be prepared to retire happy? Professor Catherine Sanderson joins us for a conversation about research from the field of positive psychology on happiness, and her practical recommendations on how to enhance your well-being.

We discuss:

• How she become interested in positive psychology and in the study of happiness
• How our Mindsets influence us
• What predicts happiness
• If Eyerores can become Tiggers
• If money buys happiness
• Why linking happiness to external events isn’t wise
• How we think about aging influences how we actually age
• How she applies the research on optimism and happiness in her daily life
• What gets in the way of happiness that we should avoid
• Practical tips to enhance your happiness

Dr. Sanderson joins us from Amherst, Massachusetts.

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Bio

Catherine A. Sanderson is the Poler Family Professor and chair of psychology at Amherst College.

She received a bachelor’s degree in psychology, with a specialization in Health and Development, from Stanford University, and received both masters and doctoral degrees in psychology from Princeton University.  Her research has received grant funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Health. Professor Sanderson has published over 25 journal articles and book chapters in addition to four college textbooks, middle school and high school health textbooks, as well as the Introduction to Psychology course for The Great Courses. In 2012, she was named one of the country’s top 300 professors by the Princeton Review.

Professor Sanderson has written trade books on parenting as well as how mindset influences happiness, health, and even how long we live (The Positive Shift). Her latest trade book, published in North America as Why We Act: Turning Bystanders Into Moral Rebels (Harvard University Press) and internationally as The Bystander Effect: The Psychology of Courage and Inaction (HarperCollins), examines why good people so often stay silent or do nothing in the face of wrongdoing. For a preview of the topics addressed in this book, watch Catherine’s TEDx talk on the Psychology of Inaction, which describes the factors that contribute to inaction and provides strategies we all can use to help people act, even when those around them are not.

Professor Sanderson speaks regularly for public and corporate audiences on topics such as the science of happiness, the power of emotional intelligence, the art of aging well, and the psychology of courage and inaction. These talks have been featured in numerous mainstream media outlets, including The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, USA Today, The Atlantic, CNN, and CBS Sunday Morning with Jane Pauley. She also writes a weekly blog for Psychology Today – Norms Matter – that examines the power of social influence on virtually all aspects of our lives.

Catherine lives with her husband, Bart Hollander, and three children – Andrew, Robert, and Caroline – in Hadley, Massachusetts.

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For More on Dr. Catherine Sanderson

Website

The Positive Shift: Mastering Mindset to Improve Happiness, Health, and Longevity

One Day University:

The Science of Happiness

The Art of Aging 

(Subscription required. Currently offering a Two Week Free Trial)

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Wise Quotes

On What Predicts Happiness

“So about 50% of our happiness seems to be built in – in terms of our genes. And this means that some people have a genetic predisposition to feeling happier. Now it’s not as simple as a happiness gene. There seems to be a constellation of different genes that predispose somebody to being, in part, more resilient when things don’t go well, but also probably predisposed to seeing the bright side, finding that silver lining, no matter what happens. And so about 50% of our happiness in fact is determined by our genes. But thinking about it positively, that also means that about 50% of our happiness is not influenced by our genes. And that’s the part that I care about the most. And what the research says is that in fact, about 50% of our happiness is determined by things that we do. So this could be something as simple as exercising, spending time in nature, giving to other people and building good relationships. So there are things that we can all do in our daily lives that also predict happiness.”

On Money, Time & Happiness

“I really find this research fascinating, and what this research is really illustrating is that it’s not so much how much money you have, but it’s really how you choose to spend your time. And that people who make choices that are saying I’m going to spend money to save some time, actually experience higher levels of happiness. And that often I think is kind of counterintuitive. So I grew up in a family that was not particularly well off. You know, my parents were highly conscious of what we were spending and they both came from families historically in their own lives that had really struggled with money. So we made lots of choices that were ‘all right, we’re going to have a sort of bad layover ‘ that’s not very pleasant when we went on vacation. So we go on vacation, but we were going to do it in this sort of cheaper way. And what this research is now showing, very strongly, is that people who make choices that are saving themselves time actually are experiencing higher levels of happiness. So, okay, we’re going to take the more expensive flight, but we’re going to have 10 more hours in Paris, We’re not going to spend six hours in the Amsterdam airport or whatever. It’s not how much money you have, but kind of how do we spend that money? That’s very, very strongly predictive of increased happiness.”

On External Events & Happiness

“So I think that the challenge is that people often think I will be happy when…and the when varies. So it could be, I’ll be happy when I get married. I’ll be happy when I have a child, I’ll be happy when I retire. I’ll be happy when I buy a house. We often think of happiness being around the corner, instead of happiness being something that we can actually control in our own lives. So what the research shows is that for some people, retirement actually can be really hard because they might lose a sense of a social network. They might lose the sense of colleagues at the office. They might lose a sense of purpose and their success in terms of producing things in a way. And I think the lessons from positive psychology really tell us is that we actually control what  retirement is for ourselves.”

On How to Retire Successfully

“And what do we know about how to successfully retire? Well, [it’s] basically the things that predict happiness throughout our lives: having meaning building relationships, choosing how you allocate your time. So people who retire, and retire effectively, actually find ways of creating meaning and building relationships in retirement. So that could be saying, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to retire from my job, but I’m going to continue to consult, or I’m going to do volunteer, work in my community. I’m going to do things that give me meaning, that I haven’t had the time to do earlier in life. And this is going to be really meaningful for some people that could be writing a book, for some people that could be gardening, for some people that could be tutoring or mentoring or consulting with non-profit organizations – using the skills that you developed in your professional life as a way of giving back to younger colleagues or in your community – or in other sorts of volunteer organizations that you care about.”

On the Importance of Relationships

“It’s also really important for people in retirement to make sure they are actively building relationships. That could be maintaining relationships with former colleagues, but it could also be establishing new relationships with friends, with neighbors, with family members. And it doesn’t matter who those relationships are with. What matters is that we know relationships are a tremendously important aspect of our lives and building and maintaining good relationships in retirement may require a little bit of extra effort because you don’t just go to the office and see everybody. In some ways, of course, we’ve all had to work on developing those kinds of skills during the Coronavirus pandemic, in which many people couldn’t go to the office and see people or many people couldn’t go to school and see people or in other environments. So in a sense, the Coronavirus pandemic has given us a chance to practice how do I develop skills in terms of maintaining and building relationships with people, even when I can’t actually see them and interact with them in my day-to-day life. ”

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Chatter & Your Inner Voice – Ethan Kross

The Mind-Body Connection and The Rabbit Effect – Kelli Harding

Successful Aging – Daniel Levitin

Why Settle for Happiness in Your Retirement? – Emily Esfahani Smith

How Can You Be Better with Age? – Alan Castel

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About Retirement Wisdom

You haven’t worked this hard for so long to have a mediocre post-career life.

It’s your time. Make your new life special.

Work one-on-one with our Certified Designing Your Life Coach to explore alternative visions of your future and develop the pathway that’s right for you.

Take the first step toward your next life.

Our New Small Group Designing Your Life program starts in January. Schedule a free call to discuss our programs and what’s right for you. It’s your time. Make it your best time.

With the challenges of everyday life, it’s easy to lose sight of the value of fun. Science journalist Catherine Price joins us to discuss her new book The Power of Fun and why fun and play are important parts of a fulfilling life. Listen in to how you can have more fun in retirement and the benefits you may not expect.

We discuss:

• The backstory that inspired her to write her new book The Power of Fun
• What gets in the way of fun for adults
• The three main components of fun (you’ll want to know to have fun in retirement)
• How fun is good for you – including ways that may surprise you
• How you can tell the difference between True Fun and Fake Fun
• How she’s brought more Play into her life
• How to have a healthier Screen-Life Balance
• How to find new interests, passions, and hobbies
• The value of trying new things
• Preventing perfectionism from getting in the way of trying something new things
• The main messages she wants people to take away from The Power of Fun

Catherine Price joins us from Philadelphia.

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Bio

Hailed in The New York Times as “the Marie Kondo of brains,” Catherine Price is an award-winning science journalist, speaker, and author of How to Break Up With Your Phone: The 30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life (Ten Speed Press), among other books. Her newest book, The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again (Dial Press) will be released in December 2021. As a speaker, consultant and workshop leader, Catherine helps individuals and organizations create healthier personal and professional relationships with their phones (and other devices), and establish best practices to encourage creativity, productivity and mental health. In other words, she helps people scroll less, live more, and have fun.

How to Break Up With Your Phone has been published in 30 countries and featured in scores of high-profile media outlets around the world, including NPR, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, Time Magazine, Wired, Vox, Refinery29, BBC World News Service, and many others. A New York Times article about Catherine and her 30-day program titled ” Do Not Disturb: How I Ditched My Phone and Unbroke My Brain,” went viral, receiving more than 2 million hits in less than a week.

Catherine is also the creator and founder of Screen/Life Balance, which is dedicated to helping people learn how to scroll less and live more. Screen/Life Balance is part of Catherine’s continued mission to create evidence-backed resources to help people around the world design lives in which they control their technology, rather than the other way around—with the ultimate goal of increasing happiness, productivity, creativity, health and wellbeing.

Catherine speaks, consults, and leads workshops on how individuals and corporations can set better boundaries with — and best practices for — their devices in order to maximize creativity and productivity, improve mental health and brain function, reduce burnout, spend more time doing the things that actually matter to them…and have more fun! Her engagements can be customized based on audience size and area of interest, but they are always compelling and actionable, chock-full of what Catherine calls “science-backed self-help.”

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For More on Catherine Price

Pre-order The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again (December 21, 2021)

The Power of Fun Website with a free quiz and resources

How to Break Up with Your Phone: The 30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life

Wise Quotes

On What Gets in the Way of Fun

“We just at some point start to believe that fun is childish and it’s something kids do, but it’s not really that important to adults. It shouldn’t be at the priority on the top of our priority list because we think it’s frivolous, so it ends up at the bottom. We think that as responsible adults and citizens and members of society, we need to focus on the important things. We have this zero-sum approach to our lives where we think that if we were to pay attention to fun and enjoyment, it must mean that we’re not paying attention to the other things. But it always reminds me of that bumper sticker that you sometimes see that says If You’re Not Outraged, You’re Not Paying Attention and I always think: Well, I am paying attention I just would prefer not to be outraged all the time. And if I’m constantly outraged and anxious and focusing on the negative or even just focusing on my responsibilities, I’m going to be somewhat depleted.”

The Benefits of Fun

“And it’s very important to focus on fun so that we can fill up our tanks. What I was really excited to discover in my research was that fun doesn’t just feel good – it actually is good for us. It’s deeply good for us both mentally and physically – and it actually gives us the resilience and the energy we need to do everything else in our lives. But I think that that’s one of the misunderstandings and the misconceptions that get in the way of adults having fun. Plus we take ourselves too seriously. We lose the ability to be playful. We think we have to be perfect or perform all the time instead of just letting ourselves go a bit.”

On Attention 

“Being able to be fully present is absolutely essential for fun – and I would argue for having a well-lived life in general. When our attention is divided and we’re not fully present, then we are not actually experiencing our present experiences. We’re not going to remember those things. The biggest takeaway I had from How to Break Up with Your Phone was that our lives are what we pay attention to. For just that reason, if you’re not paying attention to something it might as well just not have happened and you can see that even at this moment right now you know I’m paying attention to my conversation with you right now. Whatever’s happening on the street outside or whatever else is happening and in this room like or even just feelings or smells or whatever, none of that exists because I’m not paying attention to it. So that really led me to become much more intentional about how to spend my own attention. When I realized that fun was something I should prioritize, and once I started to put my attention towards fun, I really started to notice very big differences in how I felt in my everyday life and how resilient and just happy I felt.”

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Retire Happy – Dr. Catherine Sanderson

Design Your Life and Get Unstuck – Dave Evans

The Joy of Movement – Kelly McGonigal

Tiny Habits Can Lead to Big Changes – BJ Fogg

Smarter Tomorrow – Elizabeth Ricker

Learning is a Lifetime Sport – Tom Vanderbilt

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About Retirement Wisdom

Retirement is about much more than money. You haven’t worked this hard for so long to have a mediocre post-career life.

It’s your time. Make it your best time.

Take the first step toward your new life.

Work one-on-one with our Certified Designing Your Life Coach to explore alternative visions of your future and develop the new pathway that’s right for you.

Or maybe you learn best in a group – our new five-session small group Designing Your Life program starts in mid-January.

Schedule a free call to discuss our programs and what’s right for you.

Browse all four seasons of our podcast here.

Do you want to retire happy? One trap in retirement planning is to think of retirement as one thing, a singular phase of life. It’s not. Things evolve and change. Dr. Riley Moynes has developed a useful framework of the Four Phases of Retirement that can help you plan for a satisfying retirement. And you’ll want to hear what phase most retirees get stuck in – and how to progress to the fourth phase where the happiest retirees live.

Riley Moynes joins us from Ontario.

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Bio

Dr Riley Moines is the author of  The Four Phases of Retirement: What to Expect When You’re Retiring. During his varied career Dr. Riley Moynes has worked as an administrator, advisor, author, consultant, educator, entrepreneur, mentor, publisher, and researcher. He waltzed through Phase One of his retirement, struggled through Phase Two,  tried a dozen ventures in Phase Three and now in Phase Four helps entrepreneurs polish, package, and publish their unique stories in their niche markets.

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For More on Dr. Riley Moynes

The Four Phases of Retirement: What to Expect When You’re Retiring

Website: thefourphases.com

TEDx: The Four Phases of Retirement

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

When Will You Flip the Switch? – Dr. Barbara O’Neill

What Are The Keys To A Successful Retirement? Fritz Gilbert

Why Retirement is About Much More Than Money – Ted Kaufman & Bruce Hiland

Do Your Retirement Strategies Account for 6 Stages? – Ted Carr

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Wise Quotes

On Phase 4 Retirement

“…only about 50 to 60% of retirees break through to Phase Four. Not everyone gets there. But those who are able to break through to Phase Four are some of the happiest, most productive, satisfied, and gratified people t I have ever met. Phase Four is when we rewire and find something new that really, really hits us and that we just squeeze all the juice out.”

On Planning Ahead for Retirement

“…be thinking ahead of what are some of their strengths, what are some of the things that they love to do and to be considering ways, well before they retire, that they might be able to apply those things when they do retire. And so to be able to have kind of a network that they might have built up or to look at some at some possibilities in advance, I think is extremely helpful.”

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About Retirement Wisdom

Take charge of your future.

Schedule a call to find how how the Designing Your Life process (developed by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans at Stanford) can help you unlock a new direction – on your own terms.

How well prepared are you for the non-financial side of retirement? Take our free quiz and see what you should be preparing for in your retirement planning.