Please Ask Yourself This One Question Before You Actually Retire Early

But I want you to think even bigger than that and I want you to dream big and I want you to be honest . So today I am going to talk to you about this question that is so important what is a successful early retirement ?

Because so many people have it wrong , and I'm gonna go through my framework and how I think through that today to invite yourself to think through okay , how can you make sure that you are truly getting the most out of what you've worked so hard for ?

Now , before we hop into today's episode , going over , the review of the week comes in from KHNLB assuming that's Long Beach , but just taking a guess there , and if you're the listener here and that going , all right , that's not Long Beach , that's somewhere else , let me know . And it says much thanks . Thank you , ari .

I appreciate all your efforts in providing your listeners with sound financial information . Keep up the good work . You are very welcome and glad that it has been helpful to you .

I'm always trying to think of new ways to come to you guys with content that resonates and , as always , you can , of course , submit a question to me on my website , earlyretirementpodcastcom . And that's once again earlyretirementpodcastcom .

Now , today's episode is an interesting one because I'm not gonna go through my traditional example of a Roth conversion strategy or an estate planning strategy or gifting or any of these things . I'm going through what I actually think is most important , which is how do you look back and go yep , I had a successful early retirement .

Here's the mindset that I have , and this information I'm sharing today is , in large part , from the clients that I have . They're saying Ari , here are the things that I wish I knew before I retired early .

If you can speak to the audience about these , I think that they'd feel a lot better , and so that's , quite frankly , where a lot of these episodes come prompted from .

Now , today , it's a little bit of an odd story , a very real story , but important , and the reason I'm going through this example today is because I want you to actually look back and do a little bit of homework in terms of just spending five minutes thinking about what is this dream retirement ?

And here's why no client ever has come to me and said Ari , my average return over my whole life was 8.392649% . That no one ever says . That no one ever says , ari , I'm so glad I did Roth conversions because I was able to spend more family time and travel more . Yes , we're able to add more tax-free dollars .

Yes , there's tremendous value from doing these things , but that's not the end goal , and sometimes , more than sometimes , oftentimes , it's really easy to go .

I want to implement this perfect tax strategy , I want to implement this perfect investment allocation , and then you don't go take that extra trip with family , you don't retire earlier from a job that was really stressful and taking away from your health , and so you never want the tax tail or the investment tail to wail the life dog .

A really bad joke , and my clients make fun of me for it , but it's very real . So some people will determine that a successful retirement is the right investment allocation . I don't think so . Others will say they have a perfect budget strategy . They've used their whole life and that's a successful retirement .

But the goal is not to continue budgeting unless you really love doing it , which most people don't . It's to maintain a standard of living and to look back and go . Yeah , I was able to do a whole lot . Whether it's charitable , giving retire early , all these different things with the money you've accumulated , other people go .

Is it collecting social security or implementing Roth conversions at the right time ? Now , all of these are important . All of these are , in large part , why I love doing what I do , but none of them are the most important thing , in my opinion , and that's what I want to talk about today , which is what is that perfect early retirement ?

How would you define it if you were to look back and go ? Yep , I did everything that I wanted to do , and so I am asking you spend a few minutes to think about this and trust me , I get it . It's tough . You know why . I know Because you are probably the person listening right now who is a good saver , a good investor , and you're like Ari .

I can keep working . It's not that I'm necessarily miserable , but if I could stop , I would , but I don't know if I can , and I don't want to stop too early and then look back and go . Oh , what if I'd worked six more months or another year , two years , and we start moving those goal posts back and back and back , and then all of a sudden you go .

Well , a lot of time has gone by and I never really stopped and paused and asked myself what is the real reason I'm not retiring . Is it financial ? If it's not financial , it actually makes it fairly simple Because you can go , got it . I don't have the finances to be able to do this .

But if it is truly just a financial reason , you're not retiring , ask yourself why . So stop procrastinating . I'm going to give you that tough love and go . Okay , if you were not allowed to keep working , what would you do ? And some people say , aria , I'm going to golf . And I say , great , what does golf look like ? And they go golf .

And then six weeks later , their back hurts and they go aria , I want it to golf . That's kind of what I put all my eggs in one basket . Now that I'm hurt , I don't know what on earth I'm going to do , and so it's not enough to just pick an activity , but to go . What would my successful lifestyle look like ?

That would really allow me to be fulfilled and happy ? Not just enough , and it's hard . I made it sound like , okay , just start thinking through it and then , all of a sudden , you'll get the answer that's not how it works , but what I don't want to have happen is that you go , wow , I did save and invest really really well .

You know , 20 , 30 years have gone by . Maybe you have a really successful business or you've had a really amazing career , you've grown your portfolio , you have financial dependence , but now what ? So that you can spend more time with family , take more vacations , things you want to purchase ?

So the real question to ask yourself is what's stopping you from doing any of those things today ? And for many clients I'm having this conversation with , that tends to be that aha moment where , well , yeah , I can do a lot of these things today , and maybe not entirely to the extent I desire to , but in large part , I can do a whole lot more .

And this is one of the many reasons I'm so grateful for my partner and my family is those contribute to the richness of life , and it just makes me think back to we had an email that we sent out to a ton of clients and it talked about moving the goalpost , which is essentially the average American .

If you ask them how much it takes to feel wealthy , they will say it's $2.2 million . Now , if you were to ask a group of millionaires how much it takes to feel wealthy , they'll say seven and a half million . And so it appears that point in which we feel wealthy depends a great deal on where you are today .

Of course , it's relative , and so Rockefeller was once asked how much money is enough , and he responded just a little bit more . If you think about it , if this was the case for Rockefeller , what hope do we have ? It seems likely that we'll always need just a little bit more , and that goes to the moving of goalposts is . I'm a soccer player .

I own a semi-professional soccer team , I play on it with my brother , I coach it , we love doing it , and there's nothing from stopping us , you know , go as high as we possibly want in terms of what our goals look like , other than the fact that we could just always put a little bit more money into the team , and whether that's developing players or uniforms

or whatever it is , we always want it to be better , and so , naturally , we are going to be working forever to the extent that we just want this team to be the best team ever , and we have to ask our skills .

Are we really trying to make this become the new Real Madrid of soccer or Barcelona If any of you guys are big soccer fans out there or is it no ? What's the real goal here ? Is it to spend time with each other and , you know , really enjoy coaching this together and do this . You know what's the real goal here . It's really easy to go .

Yep , we're just going to put a little bit more , and that little bit more is a concept that goes across everything from retirement to your day-to-day life , where it's just so easy to work a little bit more . Why , it's familiar , it's so easy to just go . You know what ?

Let's push that back one more week , because there's oftentimes not real repercussions from doing that , and the problem with never feeling comfortable is that sometimes it causes you to refrain from doing things that actually might make your life better . You actually might be more fulfilled .

So it's a simple question and I've kind of been beating around the bush here but what do you want ? Okay , you know what you want . How can we make that a reality sooner than later ?

And this is what's so interesting and why I love this planning aspect is I'm going to offer you some responses , because I know it's sometimes hard to think about them right off the bat , but sometimes it's true , the hardest thing is actually knowing what you want . I'm sure you've gone through life where people go what do you want for dinner ?

And you're like I don't know , but I want something tasty and it's hey , you just don't know . And dinner may be not the best example here .

But if you want to put it into retirement sense , which of course what I specialize in in early retirement , people say all right , I don't know why I'm hesitant to retire early , but I have just something in my stomach that tells me it's not the right time and we'll start to try to understand what that is . And for many people it's health insurance .

It's they have to come out of pocket , pay for health insurance . They don't know what that means to the longterm of their plan . For others it's I know I should be doing something tax wise and there's some tax tips I can do if I retire early , but I don't know what they are and I don't want to do it wrong . Now , that's on the financial side of things .

What about in the real life side of things ? And when I asked my clients , what are things you can do now or would want to do now if finances were aside . Some of them said awesome things that I want to share with you .

Some of them said , all right , I'd love to go to a big sporting event each year , and not just the traditional game , but a big playoff game , and that's something I want to start implementing . And maybe I can and they put that in a question mark here and I don't know if they can .

But the reality is , financially many people can , but just don't do it because they go well , what does this mean for my future retirement ?

Other people will say , ari , I had the best experience ever and I actually rented a cabana when I was in Cabo and I never would have done that traditionally because I just knew I was paying a high fee for a small piece of real estate for about an hour .

And they said , ari , I just loved it , I loved doing it , even though me , 20 years ago , never would have said it's okay for you to do so , even if you have the funds . Other people and this is for most it's really shifting from the saving mode to the spending mode and I tell everyone it's not as if you have to have it dialed in .

You don't flip this light switch and all of a sudden you are an amazing saver and now you're a great spender . But if you don't become a successful spender , you will not have a successful retirement . That is the reality . If you just keep saving and investing and you say you know what ? I'm not even fully , ari , living off of my social security .

I'm not even fully needing everything I could take from my portfolio , so I just keep reinvesting it . That's when I start to say , great , you might have 10 , 20 , 30 million dollars , but is that really what you want , or would you rather go wow .

I want to do all of these things because my energy and health are not going to last forever and I want to make sure . Yes , I'm always okay , but I also don't want to go and look back going , wow , I wish I would have done these things . Other people , a few other responses for you . It's I've always wanted to be a fun instructor .

It's I've worked a really stressful job . I've always wanted to go teach something that seems really fun . For some people it's whitewater river rafting , for others it's scuba diving , for others it's pottery . Just think about if you had to do a job and yes , I'm saying you have to do a job here , what sounds like a fun potential job .

And some people go all right , I want to retire early . I don't want to work for about a few years . Then maybe I do want to go do something . What would that something be if you were not paid ? But you have to do something , meaning you don't get to just go play golf .

I'm saying you have to go to work but you're not necessarily going to get paid for it , which I know is an odd concept . But you're going to work . What might be fulfilling ? And I have some people that are like Ari , I want to work at Starbucks .

I want to do a job where it looks like people are having fun , they're collaborating and at the end of the day , it's a simple task that would allow me to get through the day . I think I'd enjoy it and I think it'd be pretty good at it . Other people as hard . I'm definitely not working at Starbucks .

I am making sure that I'm spending as much time as possible with my family , because I don't know how long they have , and if that's you , wonderful . You can see here there is not a right or wrong , but a lot of people go all right , I don't even know where to start .

This next example comes from a client that's not a current client of mine , but a client of the firm who I've spoken with , and he said many years ago , my uncle left my family a small cabin and it's not nice , but it's the best thing ever that we've received from our family . It connects us all today .

So a lot of people would look at this A lot of advisors that I've spoken with , in fact they'd say why don't you sell that , invest that , and then , in the future , it could create all this more income ? That's not really the goal of financial planning , though . The goal is not just to invest more . It's not just to save more or have the best tax strategy .

It's truly to go . What does success mean to me ? How can I start thinking about these things ? What are things I can start doing today , not just always living for the future ? And so , yeah , I want you to stop procrastinating , and a lot of you are going already . I know I've already thought about some of these things .

I haven't totally thought through it in the light you're bringing up now , but I do need to think through this , because if I am two , three , four , five , 10 years out from an early retirement and a lot of you it's six months or a year or closer than that , and if you are that close , then I'm going to take a pretty good guess here and say , financially ,

you are looking pretty good , even if you're considering doing this in the next few years . You want to dial it in and absolutely go through a planning process that I talk about with either myself or someone in my firm , but do it with someone .

Have a professional work through this , and I've mentioned this in previous podcasts as well as with my current clients . We have someone on staff here who specializes in retirement lifestyle coaching . Not everyone needs that and I could call myself that , but I don't do that . The reality is I want to use numbers to get the most out of life for you .

So it's not just numbers I'm obsessed with , it's using those numbers to get the most out of life , and I do believe it's important to have these conversations with my clients . But I am not a professional in guiding you to understand how to get the most out of a fulfilling retirement when there is someone here on staff who does just that .

They focus on the lifestyle aspect . So I tell everyone there's so much information out there On 401Ks and Roth IRAs , there's less on creating a fulfilling retirement and how to create the most income and how to use your finances to do just that .

There's a phrase I throw around a lot called vacuum planning , and I see tremendous recommendations given by advisors and tax planners of all sorts that will say here's an amazing tax recommendation , here's an amazing investment recommendation , and it might be great , but if we don't know what it means in terms of the other aspects of your plan , then it's not so good

. Someone might say Ari , I'm going to implement Roth conversions and the reason for that is I'm going to lower tax bracket today . In the future I'll be in a much higher tax bracket , so it's a no brainer . I'm going to do that without understanding that you don't need to do Roth conversions .

You could spend more and be more than okay today , and in fact I'd rather you do that today , while you have your energy and health and maybe your parents only have so many more years and grandkids are at that perfect age , and I would rather see you not implement the best Roth conversion strategy ever , even if to an advisor like myself , it looks wonderful on

paper , because instead you're able to have more fun with your family . That is the goal of all of this , and so just don't want to get so lost in the numbers that we lose the real point of all of this , which how do you live a successful life ? You will not be here forever . Yes , that sounds dark . Neither will I .

My message to the world is I want you to know when you're in a position to be financially free . It doesn't mean you're going to stop working . Most people don't . Most people don't want to do nothing . They want to do something .

They want it to be fulfilling , and so ask yourself this is what does a perfect retirement look like for you , and what can you start doing today to start seeing ? Okay , is this something I'd really find fulfilling , whether it be volunteering , teaching something , starting a YouTube channel , what would really make you go ? Yep , time with family already .

That's enough traveling . I've worked so hard , it's time for some me time . Good , I want you to have me time . What does it really look like ? And really kind of disconnect . Maybe go for a long walk , go for a hike and go . What would this really look like for me ?

Because it's going to be different than your neighbor and your coworker , and you know that this isn't rocket science , but it's one thing to not be rocket science , another thing to go yep , I'm going to do the hard work and think through this , as opposed to working one more year because it's one more year of compound interest is one more year of not worrying

about what if markets go down . It is just easier to keep doing what is familiar , and I'm asking you to do the opposite , which I recognize is tough , and these are the things that I talked to my clients about , because I want you to get the most out of your life . So that's why I love doing all of this .

Of course , you are looking for a custom financial strategy it's what I love to do , and so you can see all of my information in the description to apply to work with myself or another member of my team .

If you have any questions about this or want to just submit a review for what you'd like me to discuss in a future episode , you can , of course , do so on my website , earlyretirementpodcastcom . See y'all next week . Thank you for listening to another episode of the Early Retirement Show .

If you have a question that you want answered in a future episode , you can always go to my website , earlyretirementpodcastcom . That's earlyretirementpodcastcom , and you can go ahead and submit a question that I'll look to answer in a future episode . Thank you all for listening .

Please do rate it , review it and share it with someone who you think would benefit from this information . If there's anyone out there that you know , I certainly appreciate it and I will see you all each week . Hey guys , it's me again . Please be smart about this . Nothing in this podcast should be construed as financial , tax or legal advice .

Consult with your tax preparer or financial advisor before taking any action . This podcast is for informational purposes only .