when people say, what do you do?
I like to have an answer.
I don't like the word I'm retired because I do things.
And I think I do things that mean a lot to me and mean a lot to other people.
And I enjoy having that option.
So I call myself an on corepreneur.
It's having.
my hand in different things.
Some of it for a fee, some of it's for free, some of it's just for me.
But it's not the same pressure as someone who is an entrepreneur
that has to make payroll that has tremendous financial pressure on them.
So the growth mindset, I mean, it's ideal for all of us at any age and
stage, but especially, I think we've all been in places with maybe it's
not money, maybe it's something else, but we like, we figure we're stuck.
It's never going to change.
It's like, there's no way out of this.
It's like you, you almost resign yourself to.
waking up in the morning, slugging out another day and
it's never going to be different.
We just hope it leads somewhere.
And there's no vision in that.
But a growth mindset can start with a vision like, what do I really want?
if you're still working for money to reach FI, try to make the best of it.
Try to enjoy it as much as you can.
It may be one of those professions where, man, it's just like,
can I just make it to the end?
Because it's so demanding.
And even then, just try to look at the bright side.
As long as you got to be there, you're helping people and you're reaching
FI, it's just going to take some time.
Don't miss out on today just because you're trying to reach FI.
Hello, and welcome back to catching up to FI.
I'm Bill Yount with my cohost, Becky Heptig.
And today we're talking about the soft sides of retirement.
Again, we have a special guest that Becky knows personally, and she's
going to introduce our friend today.
So today we're talking to Mark Ross.
Mark Ross is a retired executive and a rewired encorepreneur.
Mark, I love that you give us this whole new vocabulary here.
A rewired encorepreneur who is pursuing the life work and relationships
that matter most in the second half.
Mark is the owner of Next thing group LLC.
He's an artist, a landscape architect, a certified professional life and
leadership coach credentialed with the international coaching Federation and
hold several other related certifications.
Mark also serves as a team host with the rock retirement club and strategic
coach with the real life process.
As a business coach, Mark supports leaders, entrepreneurs,
and business owners.
He works with folks who appreciate the value of having a quote, thought
partner or coach as they navigate transitions in their life and work.
Mark retired in 2015 from a 30 year career with primarily one employer.
Mark and I met each other about two and a half years ago at Roger
Whitney's Rock Retirement Roundup in Fort Worth, where Mark engages the
community as one of the RRC coaches.
And the really cool thing is Stephen and I sat on the couch out in the lobby of
the hotel one day and started chatting and getting to know each other and
found out our paths had crossed in so many ways, including our life at Texas
A& M University where that's actually where Steven and I met and Mark and
Steven's career in Houston actually crossed paths several times, even though
they never physically met each other.
So that was really interesting.
So today Bill and I want to dive into the ideas of how to plan for and navigate the
changes that come with the next season of life that all of us in the Catching Up
to FI community have on the near horizon.
We want to help our listeners prepare today.
And make tomorrow great.
Mark Ross, welcome to catching up to FI.
Thank you, Becky.
Thank you, Bill.
And it's love this invitation.
I love what y'all are doing.
Ooh, it's so good.
Well,
Well, thank you very much.
And it's nice of you to come on.
I'm nowhere near.
Well, I guess I'm near, but a little far from the transitions you're talking about.
You've achieved this transition.
You're retired.
Becky's achieved this transition.
She's retired.
I'm financially, a handful of years away from this.
And in the next couple of years, I need to figure out what my purpose,
meaning, identity and passions are that transition me into the future.
And to rocking retirement as you guys are already doing.
That's right.
So Mark, let's start out by just give us a little bit of your background.
Just tell us a little bit about who is Mark Ross.
Sure.
I, I grew up in Houston, Texas, and I remember as a kid, I had an affinity
toward visual things like the arts.
And my grandmother was a horticulturalist, a hobbyist.
My dad was a building engineer and I just, I grew up around that kind of stuff
Shape things, build things and all that.
So when college came around, I thought, what do I want to do?
My dad says, go into business.
He said, what do you want to do?
I said, be an artist.
He said, no, let's get serious.
And, and actually that was good advice.
I didn't go into business.
I went into landscape architecture, which married all those things I was
used to as a kid and started a career where we owned a business, my brother
and I, it was I won't go into all that, but it was really a great experience.
And then something happened.
I got married.
And I felt this heavy weight of responsibility to get a
job that felt somewhat stable.
So I did.
I went back to my alma mater and asked for some help.
And they pointed me in a direction and I joined the Houston Park System.
And planned to stay there a year.
I thought government would be way too slow.
And it ended up being total, complete chaos and, I deal well with chaos, but
it was a love hate relationship at times.
So I never planned this, but 30 years later I was able to retire from there.
It was never mapped out or planned that way.
That's the background there is landscape architecture, married, have
a family glad I took the path I did.
and glad where I am right now with some different choices.
Awesome.
there any unique financial elements to your growth and upbringing?
Did you get it right from the beginning or did it take a while to figure it out?
Right.
I mean, right.
I grew up fortunately with a work ethic.
My parents said, here's what you do.
If you want something, you, you got to work for it and here's how
you save and here's how you give.
But I don't remember any talk at home about finances, about Personal finance.
I don't think it was neglected.
It just wasn't a thing then.
So I was in adulthood, middle years before I even thought about retirement.
What is that?
Because I like to work.
But there were days when I started looking around saying, man, some of
these people are stacking up some Benjamins, as they say, and and I have
this career where, it wasn't super, super high paying at the time, but they
had this thing called a pension, which.
I really didn't think about too much at all until one day when
I started thinking about it.
It started to come together in my fifties.
So I really was in my fifties before I started thinking about how can I reach
a point where I could have more freedom.
I didn't know what the term at that time was.
Fi, financial independence.
But because I didn't really want to retire, retire.
But yeah, I didn't grow up thinking about that kind of stuff.
It just, it just kind of sort of happened.
There's more to the story, but I'll stop there.
Well, you mentioned a pension and a lot of us don't have one now.
And how much of an impact did that have on your retirement?
I mean, what percentage of your present income is that?
And how much did you have to save in addition?
and were you a natural saver through?
out your career, or did that start later too?
Because you succumbed to lifestyle inflation, much like I did.
I don't know if that's the case or not.
Pension for me.
Has played a huge part again.
I didn't appreciate what I had at the time.
It was growing.
Approximately covers about 65 percent of our expenses and it wasn't until I
was in my 50s early 50s that I really started to think about personal finance.
And when might I be able to retire?
I had no help.
There weren't that many books out there at that time.
There weren't podcasts like we have now.
There weren't friends that talk about this kind of stuff.
So I was kind of in the, well, I was in the dark.
I just, I didn't know.
And actually when I retired from my position, I wasn't a
hundred percent confident at all.
I had worked with a financial planner.
a fee.
And he told me, yeah, if you could leave at this age and earn some gap income
until you turn 65, then you can turn on Medicare and all that kind of stuff.
And, I was just like, it went like this.
Wah, wah, wah.
I thought, I don't even know what you're talking
The peanuts version of financial literacy.
exactly, exactly.
So no, I was, I have to say, I was diligent, I'm smart,
but I was also ignorant.
And I just didn't have the surrounding like you offer and Becky and so
many others to become savvy and not just knowledge, but application.
So I kind of, sort of.
Tripped into retirement as such and I was convinced I didn't have
enough money when I left my career.
I was just at a point where on paper it was nonsense to leave, but in my
heart I go, if I'm ever going to try something new, now's the time to do it.
I didn't jump into that.
I eased into that.
And I had enough confidence that there was enough money.
To bridge the gap, but I still didn't have what we call in the rock retirement
club, a plan of record that I had one, but I didn't realize how weak it really was.
So did your retirement, I'm sorry, did your pension start when you retired?
It did, which turned on an income stream, and I also had when I say
I, my wife and I, we pretty much a one income earner family by choice.
So we didn't have that, that double income.
We had one income with kids, not a double income without kids.
So, there were times where it was pretty constrained
for a while, but the pension started upon my retirement, which is really
what allowed me to step into that space.
And the money we had saved and invested became the gap income that we needed
to make the difference each year.
and I have to say, that was December of 2015.
And now it's February of 2024.
I can't believe it's been that long.
and I had tremendous trepidation in the beginning.
and I have to admit, I still had some noticeable trepidation the first few years
because whenever I get a paycheck once a month through this pension, I would
pinch myself and say, is this really real?
Can I really trust this?
And, I don't really worry about it anymore.
I think about it.
I don't dismiss that anything can happen.
So I have a backup plan for that because I've learned a ton.
About personal finance post retirement rather than pre retirement.
Gotcha.
So,
too late to
well, no, no, it's not.
So, so you did have a pension, but it didn't cover everything.
But it gave you a little bit of confidence.
So I'm going to circle back a little bit.
You said that you left employment, even though it didn't make sense
on paper, because you had other things you wanted to do and felt.
If you were ever going to try it, you needed to do it then.
But you planned on having other sources of income, is that right?
Well,
where enough of it would come from for a while But the financial planner I
worked with told me yeah, you probably ought to plan on making 50k a year or
something like that until you turn 65 and That was like, it was really bad advice.
It really was.
It was a misalignment with who I selected to help me at that time.
Be careful who you work with.
Another thing you talk about that Becky mentioned in The introduction, and
you've alluded to this already, where you said you rewired instead of retired.
And it sounds like you don't like the term retired.
To me, it sounds like you never really retired.
I'll have to say, y'all in the beginning, some of my friends who
would say, Oh, you like retirement.
And, and I would get defensive, even though I'm a pretty.
Passive guy on the surface and I'm sure it showed on my face But it's like to
me that was a fighting word because retire The way I'm a literalist when it
comes to certain words and that meant retirements to withdraw To rock your life
away not rock your life into something new and so it's a hang up I had I don't
I don't doesn't bother me much anymore.
Someone says hey, are you retired ago working?
It's stuff I enjoy in my retirement season.
I play along with whoever's asking me that question, but I don't like
the word, and I think a lot of people that are retired don't necessarily
like the word, a better way to put it is job optional or financially
independent or recreational employment.
So I do have a business that makes money, but that word you mentioned
earlier, Becky on corepreneur.
It's like I finally reached a place where I go, who am I now in this season?
what's my identity.
I know who I am as a person, but when people say, what do you do?
I like to have an answer.
I don't like the word I'm retired because I do things.
And I think I do things that mean a lot to me and mean a lot to other people.
And I enjoy having that option.
So I call myself an on corepreneur.
It's having.
my hand in different things.
Some of it for a fee, some of it's for free, some of it's just for me.
But it's not the same pressure as someone who is an entrepreneur
that has to make payroll that has tremendous financial pressure on them.
It's it's everything.
All the pressure I have on me is put upon me by myself.
And so, it's kind of like being an entrepreneur without the same kind of
pressures and it's all self imposed.
I like what you said.
You said, I do it for, it's like the three F's.
I do it for free.
I do it.
Well, not really the three F's, but I do it for me.
And what was the third one?
Well, it's, it's the 3 things.
Some of it's for a fee, some of it's for free and some of it's just for me.
And so that's, that's the combination because I have that
option and I don't really on the fee part, it's not to pay for.
Living expenses for family operations.
I'm operations, meaning day to day operations, not like physical.
but there's things that I get to do and people I get to meet in places I get to
go because of the work that I've chosen to do that otherwise wouldn't be happening.
And I buy stuff that I want to buy with that extra money that I make,
like art, and I just replaced a bicycle because the wheel wouldn't work.
I said, okay, I'm not being wasteful, but I go, I ain't going to mess with this.
I'm just replacing the bicycle.
I'm not going to fart around with this wheel for six
months trying to get it right.
I'm just going to replace the bicycle.
Things like that I can do because I've chosen to have some human capital.
Still at this time.
So that's a long winded way to say retirement's wonderful.
It's a privilege not as a world population.
It's a rare thing.
But it is, it is a skill set both for the money side of the meaning side.
Thankful for communities like this,
So what amount, I mean, it sounds like it's just play money or icing on the
cake, your current retirement income.
Do you use that to cover the 40 percent or are you drawing down your portfolio?
Drawing down the portfolio.
I don't use it for any what I would say needs or wants other
than some luxuries Really, a lot of it I put back into myself.
I join educational opportunities.
I go travel to be with people that are doing interesting things.
that's really it.
And I'll have to say this that.
And listeners that have experienced this understand it, that there's a
lot of things we can do voluntarily and if you have the freedom to do
it, and there's also certain things that you're going to do a certain
way if you're getting paid for it.
So it keeps me disciplined for the coaching practice that I
have to continuing my education, my skillset, my learning.
when I show up to serve clients, whether they're private client or in the club
where I work as a facilitator I show up a certain way with a certain skill
set that that's with ongoing learning because it helps me continue to grow
and learn and develop and it serves the others well with excellence.
Otherwise, my human nature would be, oh, halfway is good enough, it's so when
I'm getting paid for something, I bring a different part of who I am to it.
And I, I love that challenge.
And I also know that it's a trade off at times because I hear other
people talking about, I just went to Bali for three weeks.
Well, I'd have to make some special arrangements to go to Bali for
three weeks and just blow off everything I've committed to and
in a good way in a right way.
But I know that I can see, I don't have a need to go to Bali right now.
But if I said, if I want to go somewhere for three weeks, I know I
could make the arrangements to do it.
It's not that hard to do.
Mark, I wanted to, Maybe turn this and look at a different side of it.
There are probably people in our audience that are waking up late, like Bill and I
did looking at their finances going, Oh my gosh, now what, I've created this mess.
Now, what do I do with it?
And they look at their numbers and they may be discouraged.
Thinking I'm going to have to work until I'm 70 or 75.
I can't, or maybe I can't ever retire.
There was a day when I thought, we're not ever going to be able to retire.
So the fact that you have become an on corepreneur that you rewired you.
did a redo, and you've recharged literally what you love to do.
You, you moved from what you had to do to what you love to do.
Even though you're not using that income for daily operations, do you think that it
would be possible for someone to follow a similar path that you did thinking, Okay.
I still need to bring in income, but maybe I don't have to do it in
the grind that I'm doing right now.
Maybe I do not have to grind for 20 more years.
I can rewire and look more at what I'm passionate about,
but still bring in income.
Oh, I believe that's very possible.
And, for a lot of us in our fifties, give or take, it's like it becomes a
necessity to figure out new ways to generate income for a variety of reasons.
I was a member of a community for a while called career pivot, and
it was full of people in their 50 ish age range, different places
in life, but there's one common.
that they wanted more time, freedom, more flexibility.
having to find new employment.
Some of them were looking at the option of changing what they
were doing to be more flexible.
But they were all on their own individual journeys and they were finding new ways to
do work either by necessity or by choice.
So one of the reasons I've read why numbers are so high for people in
their fifties and sixties becoming entrepreneurs is because they can't find
a job, so they have to create something.
Some kind of gig economy assignment, self assignment.
But no, I think in, in the rock retirement world, we call that pre retirement.
You can say, okay, I'm gonna do something to earn some gap
income, which was really my path.
I said, I need to do something to earn gap income.
What I didn't know if I had known better at the time was I didn't
need to earn as much to cover operations as I thought I did.
So it put a lot of undue pressure on me.
Those first three years in retirement.
So I didn't really consider myself retired as much as trying something
new with some pressure on top.
But yeah, I think people, the better we understand ourselves and our
skill set and our interest in our opportunities, the more of a chance
we have to do this kind of thing.
And I think it is.
ironically easier when we no longer have the opportunity to work
where we were working, perhaps.
Maybe we were laid off.
Maybe we were resourced out.
Maybe we, who knows, but then you don't have a choice.
You got to get after it.
And those who are well paid and, but they're just like, Oh, it's just
becoming, which is what happened to me.
It was becoming harder and harder to 24 seven responsibility of operations.
The politics involved the expectations, the uncertainty.
It's like, it was wearing me down.
And that's why I said, you know what, I'm going to take a
chance and try something new.
And it's not going to pay nearly as much, but who knows what will happen.
And for me, it was like, I'm not saying it was all easy, but
it was the best choice for me.
So yes, I think that that opportunity is there.
you transitioned into coaching.
It sounds like prior to retirement, you pre planned for this.
Did you take courses?
Did you get certified?
And then tell us a little about your coaching practice.
Who do you coach?
What do you coach?
Is it financial coaching?
how did that transition come about and how much joy do you feel in
doing something completely different?
Yeah and this involves a little bit of quick high level story in my early 50s.
I started having this sense of unrest.
Like, I want to do something new, but I feel kind of stuck.
I wonder what I could do.
I've been doing this for so long.
It's all management.
And when you're in leadership and management, you got to get results
through your team, through others.
And sometimes you lose touch with yourself.
Like, what can I do myself with my own hands or my own mind where I'm completely
responsible for that kind of skillset.
And I started thinking about what could I do?
And I talked to some people and they all smart people who own
businesses, companies and all that.
They all told me the same thing.
It's good that you're starting this when you're a little bit younger.
To move in this direction.
It's good that you're not waiting till you're 65 or 70 to to start
marching in this direction.
So I thought, what do I really like to do that I might want to do more of?
And, and it dawned on me that I really enjoyed helping people
and projects move forward.
And I liked, the conversations that would foster that kind of progress.
And I didn't have a name for it.
And a friend of mine was an executive coach.
And I didn't know what that was.
I didn't know what it meant.
But he had lunch with me one day and I asked him about his work
and he explained what he did.
And I told him what I was wrestling with.
And I said, Can you help me?
He said, Well, let me give you this book.
I have it out my car.
He went and got it.
It's called Don't Retire, Rewire, and it was all that stories about
people just like me who were wrestling with this midlife kind of stuff in
their 50s and what they went through to figure out what to do next.
And it boiled down to understanding what drives you, and we call this
today needs and values, or at least needs, but I call them drivers.
No matter what you do, where you are, what you, what you're going about,
if you know what these drivers are, and I know what mine are because I
figured it out, it'll help you make better decisions about everything else.
So I I got to a place where I met someone else, Dan Miller
who recently passed sadly.
And he wrote the book 48 days to the work and life you love.
And I sent in an application for him to coach me.
And I was astonished that he said, sure, because he likes to work
with people at that time who were working through these issues.
So anyway, that was my first exposure to real coaching.
He helped me figure out I'm not stuck.
There are new possibilities.
And here's everyone listening, lean in now.
He introduced me to his world of other people that have made all
the difference to me since that time, because that was a seedbed
of opportunity to begin to connect.
So I joined a mastermind group that he initiated.
And I've been in that for 10 years now.
But here I joined that two years before I retired.
So I was building a bridge into this new world before I left that world.
So I would have new community new connections and the starting point,
I just had a starting place and that was get some coach training.
So I won't go into all the detail of how that progressed,
but that was my starting place.
And I will say I learned one thing pretty quickly that the folks that
were maintaining all the grounds in the esplanades and the boulevards
and the lawns that I would see as I drove back from my temporary office
at Starbucks every day were making a whole lot more money than I was
when I started my coaching practice.
And it made me wonder what in the heck am I, what am I doing?
I'm spending money, not making money.
But I stuck with it over time, and now it's working out great.
Well, I'd like to know, is it entrepreneurs that
want to start a business?
You said projects.
Yeah so the kind of, I initially thought I'd work with.
people who were retiring that just wanted to organize their
time and do something important.
And then, it didn't take me long to figure out that most of the people
that were retiring were retiring.
they didn't want to think about doing something new or exciting other than
they thought they wanted to travel.
And count their money, which is great, but that's, I couldn't
make much of a dent in that.
So over time, what I've, what I've discovered is I have a variety
of people I like to work with.
Usually there's one common theme.
They're in some kind of big transition, either it's forced
on them or it's self imposed.
And they appreciate having a growth mindset and a thought partner with a skill
set, in this case, professional coaching, to help them think through the answers
they already have, but it helps to have someone help you think through that.
So I help them navigate change.
I help them turn the ship.
I help them gain some ground.
I help them build momentum.
And we can all try to do that by ourselves, but I've had a coach.
Since my first coach, Dan, for the last 10 years, I've always
had a coach for one reason or another, and I just, I need that.
It's, it's, coaching isn't therapy, but it can be therapeutic.
It's not consulting, but it can be consultative.
It's it's just a great place to get some routine help along the way.
But not everybody, not everybody appreciates that or wants
it, and that's, that's good.
So you've definitely benefited from having a coach and then, but it
sounds like that's what you have turned around and done is you have
become a coach for other people.
I love that.
That reminds me of something that I as my children were coming into
young adulthood, I would always tell them, find somebody smarter than you.
There's always someone around you that's smarter than you are.
So.
Take advantage of that.
and I didn't call it coaching, but basically, surround yourself with
people that you can learn from.
And that sounds like what you've done on both sides of the picture of your life.
That's really, that's really interesting.
I usually work with, with clients that are smarter than I am, but, but
the beauty about coaching is I don't have to be smarter than they are.
I just need to be skilled in my skill set to help them turn the ship.
So yeah, it, it has involved some people, some clients that are leaving
their career and they, they want some help crossing the river, so to speak.
They, it's just, they've been really plowing the ground for
a long time and it's scary.
To stop what you're doing and start something new and they've worked
with enough consultants and help over the years where they go, Oh,
this would be valuable to have someone help me think this through.
And kind of lock arms as we move through this together.
I don't tell them how to do it, but I can show them what has worked with
me, with other clients and so forth.
So it's kind of a, at times it can be kind of a consultative coaching relationship
where I have some experience and they appreciate that aspect of it as well,
but I don't, I don't give them formulas.
I don't have a formula.
I have a process.
You talked about masterminds, too.
And, it's something I've been circumferentially involved in.
I understand the value of it.
But tell us a little bit about that, because we're actually catching up to
FI thinking about starting a mastermind for people that are waking up in shock.
And you'd help navigating the initial and mid phases of catching up to
fi tell us about value you've seen in masterminds and how it relates
to or is different from coaching.
Yeah, the Mastermind, it, it depends on how a certain
Mastermind defines themselves.
And they're, they're kind of masterminds where people join for a pretty, I wouldn't
say immediate, but a not too distant in the future return on investment.
It may be for business purposes to up their game, and this is a collection
of people who are doing the same thing.
Someone leads it, and you can learn together and grow.
You share connections and contacts and content.
and lock arms along the way.
That, that's one kind, the kind that that I've been a part of is different
kinds of people doing business, different kinds of businesses, a variety.
It's also about doing life together building relationships, sharing
information that can help each other and what their goals are helping us find ways
to hold ourselves accountable without.
Someone being responsible for holding us accountable, but I would say , be
sure you understand what the intention of the mastermind is and there, there
are some pretty low cost masterminds and you remember you get what you pay for.
And there is some.
Like, way out there, expensive masterminds and some others in between.
But know what you want and why you want it before you join is what I'd say.
And for what you just described, Bill, it seems like, man, whether it's the
rock retirement club or catching up to fi or go down the list of other
options that are available today.
If I had had something like that, when I was struggling with, do I have enough
money, who's this financial planner?
Can he really help me see the right one?
Let me talk to my wife about this.
Let me talk to my friends about this.
Let me talk to my pastors about this.
They weren't in the same place.
So, people that have this common interest, like catching up to FI, it's
like, wow, this is like a goldmine.
It's just like, Has a lot of potential there.
Do
out.
There are templates for how, how do you organize or how you can organize
a mastermind and, and maybe not adopt it, but adapt it for your use.
But when you're clear on what you want to provide and foster
in this mastermind, putting it together is not nearly as onerous.
I know I've benefited from just surrounding myself with like
minded people in different areas of my life, not just my money.
But yeah, that's always great.
So yeah.
want to ask you a question and I don't think you mind talking about your age, but
I know since we were at Texas A& M at the same time that we are about the same age.
So you've been at this FI thing for a while now.
So how has that worked out?
Because you talked about the unrest you had in your fifties, but if you don't
mind telling us how old you are now.
Oh, yeah.
I just turned 59 in November of the year I retired and I psychologically, I don't
know what it was, but I thought, I want to leave this part of my work in my fifties.
So I did when I was 59 and 3 months or something like that, 59 and 2 months.
Now I'm 67
But 59 and a half is the where you're supposed to retire.
Well, I knew about that and the value of that and in my employment,
you had to be 55 to touch some of that 457 money at that time.
Unfortunately, I didn't need it right away.
This is a quick story.
Well, it may make some people mad.
I don't know if I should tell it.
Oh, tell
okay, listen,
Oh, absolutely.
We love stories.
Yeah, look for things that happen in your life.
And you don't think much about them at the time, but over time you look back
and go, wow, that was so fortunate.
And so when I started that job that I had for the 30 years, remember
I was going to do it for a year.
Cause I thought I'd be bored, but it was chaos.
So I wasn't bored.
I was challenged.
By the way, it was always chaos, but at different levels, but
I never got bored with it.
But my boss at that time, after I interviewed, he called me and said, Hey.
If you can start three days later or earlier than you had planned to
come in, we have this program where you can get paid for all your sick
and vacation time when you leave.
And I'm thinking, okay, here's what I heard.
We need you here three days earlier.
I didn't know what he was talking about.
What is sick and vacation time later?
I'm not staying there more than a year.
I said, sure, no problem.
So when I left, I actually got paid.
An extra paycheck for a year for all my second vacation time,
which I didn't use a ton of that.
So I got a lump sum payment that really paid for 2 years of gap money
when I left, but I had no idea.
I mean, I had no idea what that was when I said, yes, so.
Looking back, and I can name other things that have happened along the way
that helped me with reaching fi that like someone says my my dad said why
don't you start contributing to that
457 plan beyond your pension, I go Whatever.
I can't afford that.
It's like $25 minimum a month or a paycheck.
And I remember telling my wife about it.
She said, we can't afford that, that's $25 of Every two weeks and I go yeah,
but we can't afford not to so I pushed the button and and so when I left there,
again, I wasn't gonna stay there very long, but when I left there, there was
another $70,000 from just I mean, I upped it over time, but the point in saying
that is that put some here, put some there have some kind of system and it.
Time goes fast and if you're getting started later, you have less time, but
tomorrow you'll have even less time.
The day after that, you'll have less time.
Just start, just do something, just something, it adds up over time.
Absolutely.
So I'm 67.
Can't believe it.
Well, we were the same age, but I just had a birthday.
So now I'm 68.
I know you did.
Yes.
Happy birthday again.
you.
Oh my goodness.
So Mark I have heard you talk in the past because I've heard you on Roger's podcast
and then at the Rock Retirement Roundup where you talk a lot about mindset.
And I think that's something that's really important for our late starting audience.
Because part of what happens when you do wake up, I know Bill and I experienced
this, is you've really, you've really, You feel like you've screwed up badly
and you are full of regret and shame and all these negative emotions.
And so a mindset shift is something that almost every one of us has to experience.
And you've talked a lot about mindset and I love this.
And the ones I can remember, I think there's probably more, but the ones that
I can remember were growth, abundance versus scarcity, and a learner's mindset.
Can you take us through that?
Yeah, let's start with and there's no sequence or magic to any of those the
order of those, but which is the first one
The growth mindset.
Yeah.
Okay.
So the growth mindset, there's a wonderful resource.
It's a book written by Dr.
Carol Dweck, D W E C K.
And it's talks about a.
Mindset either being a growth mindset or a fixed mindset.
And a growth mindset is one where what am I learning from what I'm doing right now?
I've maybe I've made some mistakes or maybe it hasn't worked
out, but what am I learning?
And it kind of takes the edge off the fear.
The fixed mindset is that, well, I can't do that.
Or it has to be this way.
Or, I don't see how that could ever happen.
It's, it's, we're, we're fixed in our mind.
We don't allow ourselves to think beyond the obvious.
So the growth mindset, I mean, it's ideal for all of us at any age and
stage, but especially, I think we've all been in places with maybe it's
not money, maybe it's something else, but we like, we figure we're stuck.
It's never going to change.
It's like, there's no way out of this.
It's like you, you almost resign yourself to.
waking up in the morning, slugging out another day and
it's never going to be different.
We just hope it leads somewhere.
And there's no vision in that.
But a growth mindset can start with a vision like, what do I really want?
If you can get to that place, I don't, it doesn't matter about the age,
maybe in your fifties or sixties or I know some people in their seventies
ago, I'll never be able to retire.
And some of them are high income earners.
They just had a high consumption lifestyle, but it's like,
what do you really want?
What's important?
Write that out in present tense, like five years from now, 10 years
from now, what's a day look like?
What's my life look like?
what's going on?
Who am I at that time?
Who's around me?
What does my home look like?
Where am I living?
What am I driving?
It's not a prosperity kind of thing, if you can allow yourself to dream the
possible dream, like what could it be?
Just have a vision.
That's leans toward growth mindset.
And it, and really another way to say this, it's like, what are
we telling ourselves every day?
What story are we believing?
What are we saying in our head?
And it just watch yourself talk for.
The next hour, and it, what are you telling yourself?
Because many times when we're discouraged, we just tell a downward story and it
becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
On the other hand, if we see some hope and possibility, when there's
a plan, when there's a vision, there's some hope and we start seeing
things that reticular activator.
If you're searching for a red car, you're noticing red cars.
If you're searching for some hope.
You start seeing some hope.
And I didn't tell another part about us reaching FI plan for, for just in
case for a windfall, this was never on our radar quick story, but it helped
us with the FI achievement is that because of some circumstances, which
was never on our radar, we received a little bit of an inheritance.
It wasn't like gigantic, but it was enough to make a big difference, a
little amount that made a big difference.
So when you have a plan for a windfall of money, let's say you have a
gap of a need in your FI plan for X and you go, I wonder what could
fill that X I'm working hard toward everything I can to make that happen.
But what would happen if that X showed up in an unexpected way?
What, what would our vision really look like?
It makes it almost, it almost gamifies it.
Well, before we leave growth I actually have with me here a handout that you
did at rock retirement about the four strategies to nurture a growth mindset.
So if you don't mind, let me, can I refresh your memory
about those specific things?
And you can comment if you'd like.
So the first one was to prioritize self care.
Yeah,
And I think you were talking about that with the self talk, probably.
is.
And it goes beyond that.
That's a great reminder.
Becky is that one of the things Dan Miller, my coach asked me when we first
met is what's your self care like?
I thought self care.
What do you mean?
He says, do you exercise?
Do you walk?
Do you have some kind of activity that you enjoy that?
Get you into shape.
I said, I said, yeah, I do.
Cause I was active and still am.
And he said, well, that's the first thing.
The way we think often is connected to the way we feel and the way we feel
is connected to what's our self care.
Do we get enough sleep?
Do we eat?
well enough.
Do we have some kind of activity that's physical, that's recreational,
that helps us because it stirs the body up, the mind up.
And so watch yourself care.
It's easy to get discouraged and to begin to just ignore.
We all know this.
Do I need to say more?
Take care of yourself.
Right.
Yeah, we just had a before your episode.
We had an episode with Dr Bobby and he talks all of and you must know
him from our retirement club and he went on a deep dive into self care.
And I found it very valuable.
I've been not so good with this.
And I think a lot of late starters.
Aren't so good with this.
We succumb to stress.
We succumb to sort of that scarcity mindset of, Oh, it is what it is.
I can't make any difference in this.
I'm just going to have to accept where I'm at.
And I'm still working on this.
I do not have it all together.
I think Becky and you are doing really well with it.
And why wait till your sixties to catch up?
To health span and self care.
You've got to do this as a pre retirement daily life.
Integral part of your life.
It.
It gets overlooked.
We focus on the numbers.
We don't focus on as Dr.
Bobby says, health span and lifespan.
And if you don't, and we talk about our financial lifespan, that's got
to last us till 95 these days, right?
But what did he say?
You lose 3 percent of your muscle mass.
And I remember this one.
And
it was depressing,
Well, I see all these thin old people that have lost the physical ability to
do things that they might want to do.
And he talks about how to pre plan for that so that you can lift your
luggage into the overhead compartment.
You can play with your grandkids, get down on the floor and get up again.
I
Yes, that's right.
I've learned a ton from Dr.
Bobby about everyday little habits that make a big difference over time.
It just, I, I wasn't aware of the 3 percent until when you said that, Bill,
I thought, oh yeah, that's right, 3%.
And,
and we're a long way from 30, aren't we ? Mm-Hmm.
know, I know, and, and hey, we notice this more.
in our sixties than I did in my fifties.
And congrats that you're even thinking about it, Bill, that just when I
was obviously working my full time career, it was hard to squeeze it in.
And now I have more time and it's part of my job every day just to stay healthy.
I just I used to feel, believe it or not, I used to feel a little bit guilty that
can I really go out in the middle of the day and do something that might be fun
and healthy and all that kind of stuff.
Now it's goes like, I'm looking at today.
It's got some beautiful.
I say, I can't wait till this afternoon.
I'm headed out.
It's like, but it's part of my job every day to take care of myself.
Mm-Hmm.
I like thinking of it like a job.
And that's.
A really good think of it.
It's part of your job.
It's a part time job through life and it remains.
So now you talk also about embracing new challenges with the learner mindset.
And you've talked to us about how you did that.
How do we encourage our audience to embrace a learner curious mindset?
It seems like curiosity breeds longevity.
That's a great way to put it.
So sometimes we're in the middle of trying to catch up to fi and it becomes, it
could become all consuming understandably.
And there is a lot of hard work and it's a journey, but then we
think we get to phi and then we can really do what we want to do.
And then the question is, what do you really want to do?
So it, as much as possible, it helps to start figuring that stuff out unless
you really think you already know.
Which sometimes you do, but a lot of times you think you do, then
you realize you really don't, but is to start being curious.
Now, look at the money side and work hard toward that.
But it also takes some work and intentionality to think about the
softer side of things, which is just as important because in some ways
it's easier to make the money add up.
Then to start figuring out the other stuff, you don't, you
don't have to have a late start.
Maybe, maybe it's a late start with the money piece.
It doesn't have to be a late start with the meaning piece and people I
hear a lot in the club talk about.
What's my purpose?
What's the capital P purpose?
And I think a lot of times we over complicate it and the learner's mindset
is that what am I curious about?
What interests me?
And, and then it's like, how can I help other people too?
Usually I'll summarize it.
The purpose stuff shows up when we're doing things to help other people
and the, and the meaning stuff, the learning and the curious stuff for
me is what I do when I help people.
It's like I do some stuff for me.
That's just fun art.
But if nobody was going to see it or enjoy it, I don't know if I'd even do it.
It wouldn't be very meaningful because it wouldn't be very purposeful to them.
But being curious is not easy for everyone.
I'm telling you, it's just not because we don't feel the permission to do it.
But maybe today, when you hear this, you can give yourself some permission
to be curious about something that interests you and just start exploring it.
And a lot of this stuff that we need to figure out in this, in the
second half of life, it's like, it's just a series of experiments.
we want to know beforehand.
Will this, will this succeed?
Who knows?
Try it.
Becky's talking about taking up some paintings, some watercolor, try
it for 30 days, 60 days, 90 days.
Give yourself some time and see what happens.
And it's what you discover along the way that makes the big difference.
Well, I just found out that, Becky's transitioning into a lot of potential
hobbies and one of them she's looking at is I don't know if it's called
this, but hip hop for geriatrics.
I love it.
I, yeah.
I have, there's a dance studio here in the little town I live in.
And I decided I'm going to go see what they have to offer and try it out.
And one of the classes was adult hip hop.
So, that's yet to be seen how this is going to turn out, but yeah, we'll see.
Are you going to take Steven with
Oh no,
hop?
no, no, no.
Oh, you've got to drag him along.
My wife and I tried to learn to dance before our wedding.
It was almost impossible.
And we had to give it up because she wanted to lead.
And
I have the same problem.
that was and that was actually sort of enigmatic for our life is now
we're a team, but she likes to lead.
Oh my goodness.
Oh, I, Mark, I love, The comment that you just made about give yourself
permission, struggled with that for a very long time, and I hope people
hear that because now it's, it's, I mean, just recently within the last
few months, I have discovered that I wish I had done that a long time ago.
I've given myself permission.
I was telling Bill before we started recording last night, I finished the
first fiction novel that I have sat down and read in years and it's because.
And you know reading is always talked about as a virtue.
people talk about how many books Warren Buffett reads and so on and so forth.
And it's always talked about as a virtue.
And I realized that.
I felt guilty every time I sat down with a book because there was always something
else I should be doing rather than looking at it as what it's doing for me.
And so yes, I finally and I felt like I kind of had to force myself to give myself
permission to sit down and read a book.
And I'm like, wow, the world didn't end,
You know?
And, I wish I had realized some of this sooner.
So thank you for saying that.
I love that.
Sure.
Well, we've been circling around something that you and your rock retirement
club and Roger Whitney talk about.
And this would be a good way to summarize the episode, I think, and you refer to it.
As the eight pillars of retirement, there's financial ones and non
financial ones, and we sort of scattered them throughout the show today.
But there's a few more we may have not talked about.
Can you take us through?
And they're not labeled as you might suspect when you talk about
financial, for example, take us through what those are so that people
have a framework to think about.
Okay, what are the eight things I should be focusing on for retirement?
That's a great way to summarize it.
and we have those pillars in the club because it keeps us organized
in our thinking and the content.
That's presented in the questions that are asked that the first one
in the financial side is vision like Giving yourself permission to really
think about what do you really want?
What could life be like at the very best forget about how much it costs.
Just you're each unique who are listening to this, and if you are married or have
a partner, it's not, it's not just you, but if it was just you, what would it be?
And then y'all can compare notes.
But what's the vision?
What could life be like?
What would a day look like?
A week, a month, a year, a season?
And then you move into, okay, well, let's test it.
Let's look up some money.
What's feasible.
Let's look at our resources and how feasible is this vision of ours?
And it may fall flat.
It made me, Oh, Oh, this vision is going to cost 10 million and we have a million.
That's okay.
Whatever.
It's just, it's just the first pass.
So that's, how feasible is this?
So you see, it's a back and forth thing until you find an adjustment
of something that's going to work.
The next is, let's say the plan is feasible.
We got enough money.
We think we have enough money, but let's test it.
Let's see how resilient this plan is.
And there's software that that we use in the club.
That you plug in the numbers, push the buttons and it does
all the calculations for you.
In an oversimplified way, it'll begin to.
Okay, let's see how resilient is this plan if the market goes
down and I'm depending on that.
If my if we have a health incident that we didn't have covered.
If we don't have this piece of the plan, how resilient?
So what's, what's the percentage of possibility this could work?
And maybe it's a, Oh, 50%.
Well, let's make some adjustments.
Maybe it's 75.
Now let's make a few more jobs.
Maybe it's 80%.
If I live to, what if I didn't live to a hundred?
What if it was 95?
you play with the numbers and again, all this is software.
You just move the dials and it tells you.
So you could probably stop right there.
Once you have a resilient plan of record.
And by the way, that's just a moment in time, throughout the years ahead,
at least once a year, you just peek in and see how is this going?
is it really still feasible and resilient things happen, and then if
you're an optimizer, that's the 4th pillar is like, What if I waited till
66 and seven months instead of 66 and four months to claim social security?
What if I waited till 70?
What if I did this?
What if I did that?
It's like people who are really into spreadsheets and having spreadsheets
for their spreadsheets It's like, and be careful about this because Roger
Whitney, the owner of the club always says that the more we try to optimize,
it's really just trying to control and convince ourselves that we have
complete certainty and that's impossible.
It just doesn't happen.
Three things were never exonerated from uncertainty, pain, and work.
If you think about that deeply enough, you'll see it's true.
There's never a perfect plan, but that's the financial side.
You can have a vision.
Is it feasible is resilient.
And if you really want to optimize and turn those dials just for fun, go ahead.
Now, the non financial side, you have health and energy or health and wellness.
That's about, if you have all the money, you know what you want to do with your
time, but you don't have the health to do it doesn't get you very far.
So we have an aspect in there talking about what does that mean?
Functional health, functional is about dr bobby in the club says, if you want
to Pick up a bowling ball and bowl.
You better do the work that it's gonna give you the strength
to do that when you're 80.
If you still want to be bowling or 90 or whatever.
So we talk all about that is health and wellness, self care.
There's the mindset.
How do we think about our life?
Are we growth mindset?
Thinking, well, curious.
Let's experiment.
Let's learn.
What can we, what are we learning about ourselves?
What, what could we experiment with next?
What's really working?
What gives us energy?
What doesn't give us energy rather than I'm stuck.
It's not going to get any better.
There's no hope here.
It's not going to get just accept it.
Just manage expectations.
Low, low, low that way we won't be disappointed.
And then there's the passion and work pillar talking about things.
Passion just means what are we?
Sometimes we think passion brings all the joy, but what passion
is sometimes just hard work.
It's like, what am I?
I'm passionate about if I'm a bodybuilder, I'm passionate about building my body,
but it's a lot of pain in that process.
So passion is.
If you look at that definition, it can have some pain involved in it because
you care so much about something.
A lot of people in retirement, and I'm, I know I may sound like I'm droning
on, but here's really important.
They say, I'll never work again.
Well, guess what?
If you're financially independent and you consider yourself retired,
if you really examine how you live your life, unless you're sitting
in a chair curled up in the corner, you're always working at something.
You just don't maybe want to call it work.
But if you want a certain outcome, you got to work toward it.
So we're all working.
Just admit it.
Some of us still need to get paid for work or want to get paid for work,
but we're always working at something.
So we like to talk about that in the club in the and the last one is relationships.
So you have health and longevity.
Our health and energy, you have a mindset, you have passion and work.
And then the last one is relationships.
Wow.
that's at the heart of all this.
Nobody wants to be lonely.
And as we age, it takes a lot of intentionality sometimes
in certain seasons of life to.
To build these relationships, whether you're single or have a large family
community around all these things that are going on in the season of
life, the relationships are what, that's where the real gold is.
you may reach F.
I.
You may have some health, but if you don't have some healthy
relationships, we all know this.
Life grows pretty thin after a while.
So those are the eight pillars, big chunk of financial and then the non financial.
And they really go hand in glove.
But I will say that almost everyone says I got to get the
money right and you're right.
You got to get it right enough, right enough.
Start working if you're catching up to FI with that piece, start working
on the non financial piece as well.
A little at a time.
And I'm going to say one more thing that no one's asked about,
but I have perspective on this.
Now, if you're still working for money to reach FI, try to make the best of it.
Try to enjoy it as much as you can.
It may be one of those professions where, man, it's just like,
can I just make it to the end?
Because it's so demanding.
And even then, just try to look at the bright side.
As long as you got to be there, you're helping people and you're reaching
FI, it's just going to take some time.
Don't miss out on today just because you're trying to reach FI.
Don't miss out on today.
That may be the title of the episode.
And that's a great way to round it out today.
Becky, do you have any final questions for Mark?
no, I think we've pretty much covered everything that, that I wanted to,
and Mark, this has been really great.
You brought up a lot of things for people to think about, and I hope
that they've heard it, and I hope they take the time to really process this.
There's some nuggets in here, like, watch yourself talk.
that's something that you you've, you've got that voice in your head
all the time and those of us that are starting late can really have some
negative self talk sometimes and, and give yourself permission and, and
there's just been so much in here.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for spending the time to chat with us today.
You're welcome.
And hey, by the way, I'm still sorting through all this stuff.
I'm still figuring it out.
I just learned how to enjoy the process more now.
Well, looking at a painting of yours behind your end,
you obviously are talented.
You say that there's, you went smaller because you didn't have
enough storage space, which I
That's right.
I thought you start big and actually I started big.
Now I work smaller because you got to store the stuff somewhere until
somebody wants it or you decide to make it into a frisbee, you know?
do you take classes?
Because it looks like there's an abstract nature to the work behind you today.
I'm, I'm always learning, always studying, always learning from others.
Yeah.
and Mark, one of the things that I've heard that you said you did
that, that I just wanted to bring up was something about a longboard.
Yeah I ride long skateboard, so I have a 5 footer and a 6 footer.
It's called land surfing, but I gotta, I gotta be transparent.
My wife had 1 of those freak accidents.
You know why?
Everybody tells you when you're younger, don't fall.
And when you're younger, you go, why would you fall?
Well, she slipped off a curb, broke her ankle about six weeks ago.
So ever since then I said, I just, I don't think it'd be smart for me to go
ride my, because if you fall, if I fall, I cannot afford to break anything at
this point, one of us has to be well.
So, but I still ride my bikes.
I have a smaller bike and a larger bike, and I wear a helmet.
But I've put the skateboards, I think about that every third day ago.
When am I going to ride that again?
Not yet.
So yeah, but I do, I, I love that.
Well, yeah, fear encroaches into our lives as we age, and the
fear of falling is very real.
I see it every day.
Falls, falls, falls.
And that's why you've got to stay fit.
People don't realize that a hip fracture in an osteoporotic older
lady has a mortality of a year.
Yeah.
So, these avoiding a fall, staying fit mentally and physically
are incredibly important.
We haven't talked about the numbers today.
We'll talk some more about numbers later.
But thank you, Mark, for getting our minds straight.
Thanks for the invitation.
All right, we'll see you guys next time on Catching Up to FI.
All right, Becky, that was a great episode.
Really enjoyed talking to Mark with you, and it's a great way to come
to a close on your tenure as a co host with me of Catching Up to Fi.
Yes.
this is the last regular episode that I'll be the co host on.
I know that we talked oh, probably a month or so ago about me stepping down.
So today is actually the last episode that I'll be on as a regular co host.
And I just want to say, Bill, how much I have enjoyed this, how much I've
appreciated the work and the effort that you put into getting this off
the ground, because it wouldn't have happened if it had been up to me and
it's been a wild ride and it's been fun.
And I just want to let everybody in the community know how much
I love them and support them.
I pray for you.
And I will still be around.
I'm going to be in the Facebook group and I will probably still
be doing my weekly money minute.
And so, this is not goodbye.
It's just farewell for now.
Yeah, it's as the Germans say, Auf Wiedersehen.
Beck you'll be around.
She's become one of my best friends.
This would not have gotten off the ground if I didn't have a partner
in crime and accountability partner.
It had been a dream of mine for years, but I was too scared to do it by myself.
Quite honestly, and just like we've talked about in many episodes it's
the relationships that make it happen.
And there's a lot of solo host podcasts out there, but honestly, I like it
when there's more than one host.
I like the perspective.
I like the conversational nature of it.
And Becky, I am forever grateful to you.
You just had a birthday and you're moving on to a different season in some ways.
We may have talked about it before, but you're going to
be busier than ever, right?
What you got planned?
Well, I have to be careful that I don't like fill every minute
immediately with new things, but I am excited about some of the new things.
They've been on the back burner for a long time.
I am going to spend more time with family and I'm going to try some new endeavors.
I don't even know why this has cropped up, but I've recently discovered that
I have a desire to Possibly try my hand at painting and as part of my exercise
routine, I haven't tried it yet but I'm going to try going to this little dance
studio that's here in town and see what they have available for senior citizens.
And I, I saw there's a line dancing class.
I know I could do that.
And there was also an adult hip hop class.
So it sounds crazy, but I'm going to see what it's all about.
So lots of new things.
All right, not break dancing
No, no, not breakdancing, but hip hop.
Hey, that sounds fun to me.
Well As you all know, we're transitioning to a new co host jackie
cummins koski is Joining us here.
We're recording episodes with her in march that will start airing in april.
So you know, we're excited.
Jackie's got, you know, great credentials.
She's a CFP.
She's a author.
Two times over.
She's been in the five community a long time and is a very
active member of our community.
She's a moderator in our community.
She's an expert.
There are so many things that I'm a I'm a little intimidated,
quite honestly, but it's going to be absolutely great to move on.
It's we're not going away.
We're only going to grow with your help.
And now Jackie's going to be adding her spice to the show.
I am so excited for Jackie and for the Catching Up to Fi community.
Things are going to be awesome.
I mean, things will be different.
Seasons of our life change.
We're all old enough to know that.
So this is a new season for Catching Up to Fi and I'm very excited about
it because the combination of you and Jackie, I think is going to be amazing.
And I literally can't wait to see where Catching Up to FI goes from here, because
I think it is going to be new and fresh and energized and it's going to be great.
I'm so excited.
For our audience to experience Jackie, because they're going to love it.
Yeah.
I mean, we're, we're actually recording with Mr.
Money Mustache, Carl and Mindy Jensen these pillars.
Of the five communities.
So, you know, we're going to have great stories.
We're going to have great mindset.
And, you know, Jackie and I may even start, you know, a mastermind group
to help at a different level, our community and niche it down to those
that are interested in going on a journey with us to help them at a
different level reach their goals, their dreams and their financial milestones.
I think that's great.
It'll be exciting and fun and, and terrifying all at the same time.
Yeah, anything new.
I've gotten kind of comfortable and the podcast needs to grow.
It's been, it's been organically growing, but there's more work to do, obviously.
There is, there is.
Well, I, I again, just want to tell everybody how much I have appreciated
the support that you've given me.
And the people I've met, the community that has formed, and I just want
everybody to know how much I love you.
And I also want you to really hear this.
You can do it.
This is possible.
I know you may be sitting in a place right now where you feel like there's no
hope, but I don't want you to stay there.
don't stay stuck.
There's lots of us out here.
for you, supporting you, praying for you, encouraging you.
So you can do it and just keep listening.
Becky, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
And I thank you on behalf of the entire community for all that you've given us.
We'll see you next time on Catchy Up to FI as a guest co host or another guest.
That's right.
Hey, it could happen, right?
All
All right.
We'll, we'll find you out there.
Take care, Becky.
Bye bye.