Elizabeth Parsons (00:00):

What’s hard at first is this idea of moving from reactor to creator. Because you’re in an intense career, you are creative, but you’re entering the creativity at a different point in the picture, right. The content’s coming, and maybe you are being creative in how you deal with that content, but suddenly you’ve got to create the content of your life and that’s a completely new enterprise for most people we work with. And it’s scary until you can get your hands in the clay and feel confident about having a process.

[Music Playing]

Stephanie McCullough (00:42):

Hey, dear listeners, we need to let you know that Kevin and Stephanie offer investment advice through Private Advisor Group, which is a federally registered investment advisor. The opinions voiced in this podcast are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations to any individual. To determine which strategies or investments may be suitable for you. Consult the appropriate qualified professional prior to making a decision. Now, let’s get on with the show.

Stephanie McCullough (01:17):

This is Take Back Retirement, the show that’s redefining retirement for women. Retirement is an old-fashioned cultural concept. We want to reclaim the word so you can make it your own. I’m Stephanie McCullough, financial planner and founder of Sofia Financial, where our mission is to reduce women’s money stress and empower them to make wise holistic decisions so they can get back to living their best lives.

Kevin Gaines is my longtime colleague with deep knowledge in the technical stuff: investments, taxes, retirement plan rules. He’s a little bit giggy and quantitative, I’m a little bit touchy-feely and qualitative. Together, through conversations and interviews, we aim to give you the information and motivation you need to move forward with confidence. We’re so glad you’re here.

Stephanie McCullough (02:06):

Coming to you semi-live from the beautiful Westlakes Office Park in suburban Philadelphia this Stephanie McCullough and Kevin Gaines of Sofia Financial and American Financial Management Group. Say hello, Kevin.

Kevin Gaines (02:19):

Hello, Kevin.

Stephanie McCullough (02:20):

Today, we get to speak with Elizabeth Zelinka Parsons. Elizabeth has a very interesting, specific researched and practical approach to this idea of quote-unqoute “retirement.” Elizabeth founded a company called Encoraco, a coaching and consulting company dedicated to helping high-achieving entrepreneurs, professionals, and executives create a plan for life after they “retire” from their current careers.

Stephanie McCullough (02:52):

Elizabeth and her team have supported hundreds of founders, lawyers, doctors and executives in preparing for and navigating the transition from an intense career to their next chapter. Her first book, Encore: A High Achiever’s Guide to Thriving in Retirement, will be released in February 2025.

Stephanie McCullough (03:11):

Elizabeth is also a lawyer, speaker, and consultant. Let’s dive into our conversation with Elizabeth. Elizabeth Parsons, welcome to Take Back Retirement.

Elizabeth Parsons (03:25):

Well, thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to be here with you all.

Stephanie McCullough (03:28):

I think you’re like a super expert in this stuff, right. Can you tell us briefly how you came to be doing what you do now?

Elizabeth Parsons (03:35):

Absolutely. It’s a little bit of a winding story, but I’ll try to keep it both short but hit the high points. So, I entered my legal practice, you know sort of in my mid-20s like most people, and very ambitious, you know and very driven and landed at a very large international firm and had the 80-hour a week job and all the rest that came with it.

Elizabeth Parsons (03:57):

And then, you know 10 years later, I had two small kids and a life that I could literally no longer manage. So, I made a hard decision then to leave that version of my legal career and move away from Washington, D.C. where I was practicing to sort of a smaller, less intense city, which was Tucson, Arizona. And all of this was, at the time a tough decision, but I was excited and I thought I was ready, you know.

Elizabeth Parsons (04:25):

I had enough financial wherewithal at that moment in time that I could imagine that I had a little bit of a bridge to a future. So, I really thought in my mind, the way I explained this to people was, “I’m front-ending my retirement. I mean, that’s all I’m doing. I’m just going to sort of borrow against the future in both the sense of money and time, because now is when I need the time and I can always make more money later.”

Elizabeth Parsons (04:50):

So, I had this idea of retirement as the sort of framework for how I was going to approach this, this new chapter until I decided that I was ready to work again. Well, all of that was fun for about three months, and of course I was busy settling my family in and all the rest of it.

Elizabeth Parsons (05:10):

And then I swear to you, I woke up one day and felt an increasing sense of unease, sort of like, I don’t know who I am anymore. And it’s not that I wasn’t loving being a full-time mom. I mean, I was, but I had had this incredibly intense, intellectually stimulating all in career that just literally went away overnight.

Elizabeth Parsons (05:35):

And what I was fully unprepared for was the loss of identity that I experienced and the incredible disruption to the structure of my life that I had not planned for. And so, I really found myself feeling lost for the first time in my life and inexplicably so. I could not make sense of it. I thought, “This is so bizarre. I mean, why am I lost?”

Elizabeth Parsons (05:59):

And it took me probably several years of reading in the areas of you know  psychology and well-being and all kinds of stuff I would’ve never really paid attention to as a lawyer, to start to knit together some of the things that I had done to my life unintentionally when I kind of base jumped out of it with no big plan other than, “Oh, I’m going to move and live a more sane life,” whatever that means.

Elizabeth Parsons (06:26):

So, long story short, I eventually, obviously I did work through all of this and had a great deal of insight as a result of it. And I, you know when the 2008 collapse happened in law, well, in the markets generally, I thought of so many people that we’re going to be forced out of the pathways they were on and I sat down and codified the work I had done on myself to sort of rebuild. So, that was really, 2008 is when it started and I began piloting programs in 2009 and got great feedback.

Elizabeth Parsons (07:00):

And that all started to evolve when several big organizations reached out and said, “Can we support people retiring? Because it’s all the same stuff.” And so, as anything, I think as many things that work in the world, we create them when we’re trying to solve our own problem. So, yeah, that’s where that came from.

Stephanie McCullough (07:18):

Yeah! And I think that the popular cultural idea of retirement is, “Oh, this joyful time.” But you talk about the things we actually lose when we leave, especially people with an intense career. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Elizabeth Parsons (07:30):

Absolutely. Setting aside my own experience, which of course occurred much earlier in my life, as in an age, I was only in my mid-30s, but most of my clients are mid-fifties to mid-sixties just depends and they’re very aware on the one hand that they’re ready to shift down, you know.

Elizabeth Parsons (07:50):

They’re a little tired of, you know, after three or four decades of intensity, they’re ready to slow down. But they all express this sense of … they all use the word bittersweet. It’s sort of like they sort of know they ought to be looking forward to a future where they’ve got more control over their lives and all the rest. But they are struggling to say goodbye to this old friend, right that has driven, or really defined, I should say, the way they live and it’s so familiar, it’s so what you’re used to.

Elizabeth Parsons (08:26):

It’s, I mean — And in many cases, at least with the kinds of professionals I work with, it has become a part of a full identity. And so, without sort of taking a minute to really think about what that means and how do you bridge that forward, it can almost feel like the death of yourself.

Elizabeth Parsons (08:45):

And people don’t quite know what words to put around it, but the whole reason they’re coming to work with us is they’re like, “Look, I’ve got the money thing handled, but I don’t know what’s about to happen to me or my life or my marriage. [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah, right]”

Kevin Gaines (09:00):

So, when people come to you, where are they in this process normally? Are they starting to make the shift and realize, “Let me think this through with somebody?” Or is it, “Oh, I made the jump and now I realize what the hell did I do?”

Elizabeth Parsons (09:16):

Yeah, great question. I would say 90% of people are in that former category where they’re , they know it’s coming, and it could be coming for any number of reasons. It could be they are ready to elect into it or their spouse will retire in two years, and therefore they ought to also.

Elizabeth Parsons (09:34):

But increasingly, you know, as I’m sure you all are aware, a lot of, especially professional services organizations are tapping people to retire earlier than was traditional, because the talent war sort of mandates it. They got to make space for these younger people coming up and it’s not that you’re washed up at 60, it’s just that the firm needs space, right.

Elizabeth Parsons (09:58):

So, if people know that’s coming, they think to themselves like, “I can already feel how unsettling this is going to be. And I think I need help coming up with a game plan for my life or what I want to do next, because I still have gas in the tank, I’m not done.”

Elizabeth Parsons (10:14):

Now, every now and then, someone comes having retired and they’re struggling, six months in, they’re like, “I have no confidence. I have no idea what to do. I’m trolling LinkedIn looking for jobs. I mean, this is a nightmare.” And so, we say, “Alright, let’s back up and let’s get you oriented on a path where you feel empowered about how you’re going to move forward,” but it’s mostly people getting ready.

Stephanie McCullough (10:38):

So, you talked about in the book (which you were kind enough to share a preview copy of with me, which I appreciate), the loss of identity, but also community and structure and purpose. These are all very big parts of life that kind of contribute to our own contentment.

Elizabeth Parsons (10:57):

Absolutely. Absolutely. One of the interesting things that I uncovered in you know a lot of the research I did was how we all have these motivational properties as part of our overall psychology that sort of help us organize the way we operate in the world you know and we want community, and we want a sense of competence, we want a sense of cohesion and work gives us those things.

Elizabeth Parsons (11:26):

I mean, when we are in a professional context, it’s like we know where we’re going every day when we wake up, we know what we’re going to do when we get there, we are a member of a group, that’s a very important thing to us as social creatures, human beings.

Elizabeth Parsons (11:41):

And what I think people don’t always appreciate is that the disruption of all three of those things, without any thought as to how you will begin to build new sources for them, it can be incredibly disruptive to your identity and your sense of belonging somewhere.

Elizabeth Parsons (12:00):

And you suddenly aren’t doing the things you feel competent at, your routines and patterns are all disrupted. You feel, in a sense, like you’ve been kicked out of your family in a way and a lot of people express that to us. They know it’s time to go, but they also, it’s hard to say goodbye to these people where they spend almost more time with these folks, even in their own family, and have for a long, long time.

Stephanie McCullough (12:27):

Right. Right. So, like what you talk about having a positive and empowered transition, and it’s not about the money, right, it’s how else are you going to craft a fulfilling life.

Elizabeth Parsons (12:38):

Exactly. Exactly. And it’s also heavily influenced I think that question by a person’s life circumstances. I mean, what’s interesting is that at this age, our lives are just by definition a lot more complicated than they were when we were 22 and maybe that was the last time you were standing on the edge of such a giant change.

Elizabeth Parsons (13:02):

But we often tell people think of this, not so much like a retirement, but another graduation. You’re just graduating out of this phase of working life where you had a lot less say over what you do, how you do it, when you do it, with whom you do it. Think of it as graduating into a new chapter of a great deal of freedom, really. It’s a lot of blue sky.

Elizabeth Parsons (13:27):

However, we, we as humans at this point, also have a lot of responsibilities. We have usually family relationships. We may still have parents we’re caring for, or young adults that need us. We probably have a partner in life, a spouse, we may have extended family we have to think about, there are all kinds of things like that that have to be factored into what you are thinking about with your future.

Elizabeth Parsons (13:52):

So, it’s both, I think it’s a time of great possibility, but with every client, we’ve also got to drill down on the realities of life because some of these things are, they are what they are and they have to be considered as part of the picture.

Kevin Gaines (14:09):

You are having these conversations. How often is it about, I guess, accepting that your life is now less complex and versus trying to replace that complexity with a bunch of new relationships and a bunch of new activities so that you still maintain this hectic schedule versus, for lack of a better phrase, downshift?

Elizabeth Parsons (14:33):

Yeah. Yeah. It’s such a great question because I think often people both express a desire to be less hectic and frenetic, but they’re terrified of that at the same time.

Stephanie McCullough (14:45):

Right. Because that’s what keeps you going and keeps you … right?

Elizabeth Parsons (14:48):

Well, and that’s how they understand themselves. It’s like, I am a master reactor, right. I show up, things are flying into my inbox all day. I knock them back out, and it happens the next day again and so, what’s hard at first is this idea of moving from reactor to creator.

Elizabeth Parsons (15:06):

Because you’re in an intense career, you are creative, but you’re entering the creativity at a different point in the picture, right. The content’s coming, and maybe you are being creative in how you deal with that content, but suddenly you’ve got to create the content of your life. And that’s a completely new enterprise for most people we work with. And it’s scary until you can get your hands in the clay and feel confident about having a process to do that [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah] and then it’s fun.

Elizabeth Parsons (15:41):

And to Kevin’s question about how do we help people think about this so that they still have this engaged, stimulating, enjoyable, interesting life, but it’s not all frantic and hectic. We use, another funny enough, another art analogy, but we talk about creating a mosaic and designing a mosaic.

Elizabeth Parsons (16:02):

So, usually a career is monolithic. It’s this huge thing, right, that’s the arch. It’s sort of the scaffolding or architecture of life. And I think any of us who’ve lived in a career space like that have felt that sensation of, “I have to tuck around the edges of that architecture, everything else, my family, my hobbies, if I even have any, the way I care for myself physically, my travel,” whatever it is.

Stephanie McCullough (16:29):

Volunteering, whatever it has to be fit around the big thing.

Elizabeth Parsons (16:32):

That’s right [Stephanie McCullough overcross: hm hm]. And so, it’s sort of this novel idea all of a sudden that, you know, “Wait a minute, there’s a lot in your life that you’ve already got, right but you just need to rethink the scaffolding,” because the career thing, the big thing in the middle is going away, and you need to reorient and rearrange and reprioritize some of these other things.

Elizabeth Parsons (16:58):

So, usually what we help people do is first look at that, right. So, it’s like, “Let’s look at what this really looks like when you aren’t having to jam all these things around the edges and what does that picture look like?”

Elizabeth Parsons (17:11):

And there are pieces of it you’d also like to set aside and let go and say goodbye to or are there pieces of it that have been very dormant that you want to reactivate, or things that have been small that can now take up more space because you’ve always wanted to, but never had time?

Elizabeth Parsons (17:26):

Well, that alone is a fresh way of thinking for most people, because they’re used to time scarcity. That’s the way they think about life. And suddenly, time abundance means, “Well, no, I’m the one choosing where I put and invest my time.” But then we, we look at, okay, once we’ve got that picture somewhat in focus, what’s now theoretically going to be missing.

Elizabeth Parsons (17:49):

Are you missing intellectual stimulation? Are you missing really smart collaborators? Are you missing time out of the home? I mean, what are the things that when you see this new partial mosaic come together that you need to add to make it as ideal as you can imagine and then you got to recognize you’re going to keep iterating and living your way to the answer, right.

Elizabeth Parsons (18:12):

It’s not like you just know instantly, but you, the minute people have some pathways and directions and structure to begin experimenting with, this whole thing gets way more manageable and actually fun [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah]. Because what’s the downside?

Elizabeth Parsons (18:27):

You try things, you experiment, maybe that works, maybe that doesn’t, okay, that’s fine, right. You’re in this new world where you don’t have to get it right the first time. You can just experiment, try things and enjoy that process.

Stephanie McCullough (18:44):

So, I like that idea of what might be missing, right. If somebody wants to spend a lot of time gardening and they want to take a painting or maybe go back to playing the piano or whatever, maybe they’re going to be missing the interaction with other people, is that kind of an example?

Elizabeth Parsons (19:00):

Yes, exactly. So, we may help somebody uncover that one of their favorite aspects of their career, for example, has been, let’s say, mentoring some of their younger colleagues and that’s a fairly common thing.

Elizabeth Parsons (19:16):

And what they realize is they don’t necessarily care to continue a pathway that pulls their technical skillset forward, but they will really, really miss working with people who are 15 to 20 years behind them and helping them develop into the professionals they want to be.

Elizabeth Parsons (19:37):

And so, okay, well then maybe, well, let’s think about places where you can find those folks and you can engage with them in that way. I mean, maybe it’s something as formal as becoming an executive coach, but on the other hand, maybe it’s mentoring startups at a university, or and all of that starts — that’s where we get creative with people and start pulling the threads that we’ve learned about them.

Elizabeth Parsons (20:02):

I mean, if they’re entrepreneurial and love business, yes, then maybe mentoring startups is like a really fun, interesting thing to go and explore. But that’s an example you know, where I always start with the premise, let’s imagine the best possible outcome, right. Let’s do that. Let’s not start settling and assuming we can’t have things, let’s think expansively [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah] and go for it.

Stephanie McCullough (20:28):

So, on the flip side of that, imagining the best possible outcome, you also point out that it’s important to actually grieve this loss and change and I don’t think that’s something that gets talked about very much.

Elizabeth Parsons (20:39):

Yes. I really agree there. In fact, one of the things that typically resonates with our clients when they sort of come and work with us, and they’re in the privacy of our conversations, they can finally sort of admit, this is sad and everyone around them is popping the champagne cork and they’re assuming that this is nothing but a happy moment.

Elizabeth Parsons (21:06):

And they feel a little sheepish about admitting like, “Actually no, I mean, I’m sort of sad.” And therefore, it also feels a little lonely because they don’t necessarily feel like they can express that, certainly not to their colleagues. Everybody asks them over and over and over again, “What are you going to do? What are you going to do? What are you going to do?”

Elizabeth Parsons (21:29):

It’s exhausting if you don’t have the perfect canned answer and you’re not fully excited about the future, right. So, we do tell people, recognize that you are going to probably grieve this, and that’s a completely appropriate thing to do. It’s a normal thing to do.

Elizabeth Parsons (21:47):

And even if you can only you know share that with a few of your closest you know family members or friends, just share it because it’s a normal thing that everybody goes through. I mean and having worked now with hundreds and hundreds of people going through this, I mean, I can just tell you it is the rare person that doesn’t have an element of this grief, even if they can’t wait to get out, it’s like, “Wow, this is the end of a big chapter in my life.”

Kevin Gaines (22:16):

So, in working with your clients, I mean, a lot of it, it sounds like, is a lot of it is understanding their time, their importance, if you will, their contributions or how much is devoted to, I guess you would call it the auxiliary relationships, the socialness you know, having the water cooler clutch or, I mean, let’s face a lot of us, me included, you know joke about having a work spouse, those type of relationships.

Stephanie McCullough (22:46):

To be clear, I am not the work spouse, Kevin. There’s another person here.

Kevin Gaines (22:52):

And to make sure it’s even more clear, my wife has a work spouse as well. So, it’s completely open.

Elizabeth Parsons (22:59):

Absolutely. No tons of our clients talk about that. It’s a total phenomenon, and you raise an excellent point, and we do spend a ton of time talking about it, because even the literature out there tells us there’s a fabulous book called Aging Well if you haven’t read it by George Vaillant.

Elizabeth Parsons (23:17):

And that was this Harvard logic longitudinal study. They followed a cohort of people for decades. And the thing that comes out of that research so powerfully is that having vibrant, rich, varied relationships is the single strongest indicator of aging well and living a long, vibrant, robust life.

Elizabeth Parsons (23:40):

And so, we tell people, “Listen, it’s probably been hard to nurture every relationship you truly care about while you’ve been managing, like let’s call it middle life and career.” Because I mean, most of our clients will tell us, “This is all I could barely do to do my job the way I needed to do it, and then spend time with my family. I mean, my friendships, while I care about them, there was just very little time to invest. And I feel funny now that I’m just going to sort of pop up out of nowhere and wave my hand at all these people and say, I’m back. Let’s hang out.”

Elizabeth Parsons (24:17):

And we remind people though, that everybody’s been in that same situation. So, as funny as it sounds, we tell people that they really ought to do some version of a friend inventory and think about that very intentionally and we do some of that facilitation with them live.

Elizabeth Parsons (24:37):

But things like, first of all, are there relationships from your working life clients or colleagues or collaborators that you’d like to continue to invest in? I mean, that’s not off the table. And sometimes people don’t think of it that way until we say to them, “But why not?” I mean, and what about people who retired three or four years ago that you’re now sort of joining the freedom they have?

Elizabeth Parsons (25:02):

Maybe there are people you still want to connect with, but beyond that, don’t disregard the old friendships that maybe have gone a little dormant, because many, many people tell us later, the best thing they ever did was make this list of old friends and acquaintances and former colleagues, or whatever it is, and just proactively reach out to them.

Elizabeth Parsons (25:25):

They just marvel at how effective it is to be the proactive one, and then how rewarding it is to be met with nothing but appreciation. Like, “I’m so glad you reached out and oh my gosh, let’s pick it up,” because everybody’s in the same boat. I mean, they’re all emerging from this phase of life where I think we all feel like we’re as time starved at all times,so, but you were spot on with that.

Elizabeth Parsons (25:51):

I mean, we talk about investing in your physical wellbeing, but very much a relationship world. And what does it look like when it’s ideal? Who’s there, how you know are you a person who likes to have lots and lots of friends? Do you just like to go deep with a few? I mean, we help people really think about it because it’s such a rich, rich vein of mind as you move forward.

Stephanie McCullough (26:12):

And it requires a little planning and care, right. You can’t just assume that those relationships are going to spring up out of nowhere.

Elizabeth Parsons (26:21):

That’s right. Exactly. And I think it’s often hard really to make brand new friends at the stage of life. We don’t have all the natural pathways, you know, we’re not sort of engaging with our young kids’ other parents or kids sporting events or in school-

Stephanie McCullough (26:39):

Yeah. Classmates when you were in school.

Elizabeth Parsons (26:41):

Exactly. Or work [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah]. The other big opportunity people have, and we always talk to people about looking for those double and triple bottom lines but here’s a great example. Somebody may say, “Look, I love to hike. I haven’t been able to do that nearly enough in my life, but I really want to activate that.”

Elizabeth Parsons (26:58):

Okay, great. Well, why not go find a hiking club and you’re going to be meeting people with a shared interest. You’re going to be getting physical activity, you’re going to be creating opportunities to connect travel to that activity.

Elizabeth Parsons (27:13):

In other words, this is one of those things that not just, it isn’t just physically good for you, but it feeds your social world and it connects to other opportunities that you’ve expressed you want to pursue in this new chapter.

Elizabeth Parsons (27:26):

So, we really tell people to look for those multiple bottom-line opportunities because they’re so rich with promise, really and again, experiment because it’s okay if it doesn’t work out, right, you just don’t do it [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah]. Don’t do it again.

Stephanie McCullough (27:42):

You don’t like it. Don’t show up next time.

Elizabeth Parsons (27:44):

That’s right. Exactly.

Stephanie McCullough (27:46):

I love that you really dived deep in the book about identity and how it’s tied to work. But then the part that I hadn’t thought about so much is kind of these two parts of identity, the existential and the categorical. Could you tell us about that?

Elizabeth Parsons (28:02):

Absolutely. So, that piece of sort of research from — there are ton of resources in the world of psychology that talk about this, but it really informs the way that we work with people on this identity aspect of our program and what we do, we work with them and facilitate them through six different exercises that really help them connect with their existential identity. In other words, the aspects of themselves that are so enduring and so baked into who we are that we almost forget they exist, you know. We don’t notice them because we are them, right.

Elizabeth Parsons (28:42):

And so, it helps reaffirm for people that even though this categorical aspect of your identity, this career or profession you belong to, maybe it’s this firm or company that you’ve been with forever, even though those are going away, you still have an identity and this identity has been with you your whole life and it’s going to continue on and it’s very reassuring for people.

Elizabeth Parsons (29:08):

And the flip side of that work, which is so valuable to us as facilitators, is we get to know people in a very authentic way very quickly. So, that when we get creative with them, we can actually add real value to who they are and to their plans based on who they are as opposed to you know, “Oh, here’s plan 16 off the shelf,” that is not how we work.

Elizabeth Parsons (29:31):

It’s much more about what makes you tick and what are you, you know most animated by, what do you care about the most? What are the things you’re trying to live into more? Those are the things we’re looking for.

Elizabeth Parsons (29:44):

But the categorical identity is still important to us as human beings and these are the — you can think of it as all the places that we belong in our minds, right. We belong to categories. We may be a mother, or we may be an American, or we may be a person who lives in this city or this sort of professional.

Elizabeth Parsons (30:05):

And when those things go away, I mean, what you can recognize once you understand the vocabulary is that, “Oh, we can leave categories behind and then join new ones.” And they are additive to our overall identity, but they are the whole, that’s not the whole story of who we are.

Elizabeth Parsons (30:23):

And it sounds a little obvious when you say it all this way, but it really is helpful for people. And we don’t really talk about these terms in the room with people, we just put, we just bring them through the experience of connecting with parts of their existential identity and it’s always reassuring [Stephanie McCullough overcross: hm hm].

Elizabeth Parsons (30:42):

And it’s fun to watch because I think that people often lose touch with some of these things and forget that that is actually a huge aspect of how they like to be in the world. I mean, we focus on very positive parts of personality. So, anyway, it’s just fun to help people discover those things in a fresh way.

Stephanie McCullough (31:01):

And it might be that I was creative in my work, and I was a connector in my work and I–  but I kind of associate that all with work when in reality those pieces of me are still there. Is that what you’re kind of saying?

Elizabeth Parsons (31:16):

Precisely. So, yes and we try to find themes that connect across work and personal life, because you’re exactly right. I mean, there were, there were things that people do in their working lives that really are their sort of core genius and it’s almost never the technical work. It’s what they bring to the work that’s uniquely theirs and it shows up everywhere in their lives.

Elizabeth Parsons (31:38):

Once you sort of start peeling back these themes for them and it’s like, “Oh, you’re right. Oh my gosh, that’s what I do. I do that everywhere.” Right! And it’s like, all you’ve got to do is now think, what are the new fun ways you’re going to keep doing that?

Elizabeth Parsons (31:51):

Like that part of you doesn’t have to just stop, but everybody’s got tunnel vision coming out of an intense career. So, part of this is about you know we laugh and call it shaking the snow globe, but you’ve got to shake it all up again and have this you know, see it all with fresh eyes.

Stephanie McCullough (32:10):

I like that. And so, you wrote this book for people to kind of do it on their own, but how helpful is it to have another person walking you through the process? Somebody with the perspective and with the fresh eyes?

Elizabeth Parsons (32:22):

I personally think it’s really invaluable, even if it’s just a friend or your partner [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Right] but somebody to help you get out of your picture. I think, I’d love– there’s a quote that I like to say, it’s on my website, I think, but it’s like, “You can’t see the picture when you’re in the picture.”

Elizabeth Parsons (32:40):

And so, the book is about sharing some of what I think are some fresh concepts around preparing for something like this inflection point and reminding everybody, it’s not just about what you have in your savings account and there’s a huge amount of opportunity ahead if you see it that way. But working with somebody to help you uncover all of this, I think is very powerful. Because we have our own tunnel vision, our own assumptions, and we’re locked into our own limited thinking and we aren’t even aware of that.

Elizabeth Parsons (33:15):

And I mean, especially just sharing when I work with other … and I’m a lawyer, so I say this with a little bit of self-deprecation, but we lawyers love to lawyer everything to death and I laugh with my lawyer, we will get a great exciting, like really juicy idea and I see this person immediately start giving me the 15 reasons it’s never going to work.

Elizabeth Parsons (33:36):

I’m like, “Whoa, you’re lawyering your idea to death right now,” and it’s cute because they’ll stop doing that and just worry about the next step. That’s all you got to figure out then it becomes fun and energizing. But I think if you’re doing this by yourself, it’s very easy to talk, your mind will talk you right out of every good idea [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah].

Kevin Gaines (34:00):

You point this out in the beginning of the book, the whole idea of retirement is actually a very new concept in the terms of human evolution.

Kevin Gaines (34:08):

We’re really only talking what, 150 years that you could even talk about pensions and even then, it wasn’t designed really because, “Oh, we want to be nice to people who are advancing in their years.” It was for an entirely different reason. Correct?

Elizabeth Parsons (34:23):

Absolutely. It’s a point, as you said, I’ve made in the book, and I make it when I speak to groups because I think that retirement holds a mythology in people’s minds and in our society that it is almost like a rite of passage somehow that we as human beings are going to live through.

Elizabeth Parsons (34:44):

And I think when it’s far away, we don’t think about the substance and whether there’s any substance there. We just hold it out there as like the finish line of some type that it’s suddenly on the other side of it, it’s going to be great. We just don’t think about what that really means.

Elizabeth Parsons (34:58):

But yes, the truth is, I mean, retirement was designed fully as a political tool and the funniest fact to me is that when the Social Security Act was passed, the average life expectancy of the working male at that time was 58 and they — the benefits age at 65. I mean, what does that tell you, right?

Elizabeth Parsons (35:21):

Retirement is a – is not a substantive concept and that’s the main thing I want people to understand. It is just a word and it now connotes that we are wrapping up some significant career experience, but it should really be thought of more as a graduation into something and that then prompts the question into what, right? Into what?

Elizabeth Parsons (35:47):

And that is what I think’s missing when you just think of retirement in the more traditional ways that we’ve been talked to about it. It’s like it’s the finish line instead of the starting line [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yea, yeah].

Kevin Gaines (36:01):

Speaking of finish line, little known fact when social security first came, was first evolved, it was a lump sum payment and the first person to get the lump sum … and it only lasted a couple years before they went to the monthly check. The first recipient contributed a grand total of 5 cents basically filed at the end of the first day and it was active and his lump sum distribution was, and I’m not making this up, 17 cents.

Elizabeth Parsons (36:32):

That is fantastic. What a great story. I’ve not seen that and that is hilarious, right.

Stephanie McCullough (36:40):

So, one last concept I wanted to ask about, because it really intrigued me. You talk about the need to kind of design new structures in your life, new routines and habits, but also metrics for success. Can you dive into that a little bit?

Elizabeth Parsons (36:56):

Yes. So, I love that you raised this because it is a mindset shift that we really do highlight for our clients. And I think, in working life, we are all measured by externalities in general, right. We’re measured by the approval we get from our superiors and our colleagues, maybe our clients, we are sort of congratulated with awards and recognition. We’re paid, we get bonuses, but whatever it’s-

Stephanie McCullough (37:28):

Promotions.

Elizabeth Parsons (37:29):

Yeah, promotions. It’s all external feedback and other people telling us you’re doing the job well or you need to do better, or whatever it is. And so, this idea that success is a third-party exercise is very hard to set down for most of our clients. It is very challenging.

Elizabeth Parsons (37:51):

So, for example, if somebody expresses the goal to me of, I may say to them, “If you could do absolutely anything in this next decade and you’re going to knock it out of the park by whatever your definition is, what would you do? You know.”

Elizabeth Parsons (38:05):

And somebody will say, “Well, I’d like to write a book.” Okay, well let’s talk about what the steps are to start that process. But then immediately it’s all about, “But what if I don’t get it published? And what if no one reads it? And what if, what if, what if?” And it’s all about what they want, these third-party validations that this was worth doing.

Elizabeth Parsons (38:24):

And what I say to them is the truth is you’ve checked the success box. Like good for you right, you did it, it’s done. This is the part of your life where you get to decide whether what you are doing is enhancing your life experience or not. That’s all that matters.

Elizabeth Parsons (38:43):

Like the peanut gallery really doesn’t matter that much anymore, it’s about you. And if you are enjoying process of what you’re doing or you’re making a contribution to somebody, you’re being useful in the world, even just your own family, I mean, that’s where it’s at now, right.

Elizabeth Parsons (38:59):

You’ve got to source these things internally. You’ve got to source them from yourself and you have to stay connected to that question, “What is it that’s going to make my life meaningful to me in this chapter?” That’s the juicy part. That’s the freedom part.

Elizabeth Parsons (39:15):

So, it is really important for people and I’m sure this evolves as people begin living into these ideas, but we always ask them in the room, “How are you going to measure your sense that you are on the right path? And if you put yourself out two years, how do you know you’ve lived a spectacular two years? Tell me how you’re going to know.”

Stephanie McCullough (39:37):

So, is there anything we’ve missed, Elizabeth, that you wanted to make sure we cover?

Elizabeth Parsons (39:42):

No, I don’t think so. I mean, the last thing I’d say, and we leave everyone with this and you’ll see it’s strongly emphasized at the end of the book, but whatever you go do, just go enjoy the ride. I mean, honestly, you worked really hard and you, if you are at a place financially where you have the luxury of saying, “Gosh, I have so many choices ahead, what do I go do?” Just enjoy it.

Elizabeth Parsons (40:05):

Enjoy the process of figuring it out because you really don’t have a minute to lose and it was, it’s hard work to get to a moment like that in life. So, that’s what we hope for everybody is just that they take these steps forward in a way that feels enriching and enjoyable. That’s what we hope for everybody we work with.

Stephanie McCullough (40:26):

I love it. So, how can people find more about you and your work and the book?

Elizabeth Parsons (40:30):

Ah! Well, thanks for asking. You can certainly find me at LinkedIn if you search Elizabeth Zelinka Parsons and that will lead you to any of my websites and which also have author pages. But on encoraco.com is probably the site that speaks about this work the most for individuals.

Elizabeth Parsons (40:50):

We offer group programs as well as one-on-one programming, just depending on what’s right for people. So, any of those spots you’ll be able to connect with the book or material that might be helpful.

Stephanie McCullough (41:02):

Awesome. Thank you so much for being with us and sharing your wisdom.

Kevin Gaines (41:06):

Thank you.

Elizabeth Parsons (41:06):

Oh! It was a total pleasure to speak with you both. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Stephanie McCullough (41:13):

Alright, Kevin, once again, Elizabeth’s someone we could have talked to for many hours, so we tried to restrain ourselves and keep it to some key points. What is your principal takeaway from that?

Kevin Gaines (41:25):

Well, it’s always fun as we’re doing these interviews, you and I both do this. We take notes during the interview, but I always love it when I see they say something, “Oh my gosh, that’s a great point.” And as I’m looking down to write it or starting to look up, you’re doing the exact same thing. It’s like okay.

Stephanie McCullough (41:42):

Both taking notes at the same place.

Kevin Gaines (41:43):

Yes. And I noticed it today when she was talking about shifting your life from a professional life, from being a reactor to now you’re a creator.

Stephanie McCullough (41:57):

Yeah. I love that.

Kevin Gaines (41:57):

And I think it’s a great point that it’s a really tough mind shift that you’re making.

Stephanie McCullough (42:05):

And even if you were creating in work, now you’re creating a whole life, right. It’s broader or it’s a bigger chalkboard.

Kevin Gaines (42:13):

Well, I mean, chances are, if you’re creating at work, it’s because there’s a problem that needs to be solved. Because even if you’re a creator at work, a lot of times it’s in reaction to a problem or a project or a thought or something but there was some sort of inspiration that sent you down this path [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Right] but in retirement, you’re literally creating out of nothing.

Stephanie McCullough (42:42):

Yeah. Yeah. There’s so many possibilities and I like when she talks about having an expansionary mindset about it. I think it’s interesting the idea of needing to grieve and that it’s not culturally okay to be sad about retirement because it’s supposed to be this happy time. So, finding some safe people to express your worries or misgivings or sadness about the things you’re leaving behind is a healthy and useful piece.

Kevin Gaines (43:12):

And Stephanie, getting back to that whole reactor, shifting to creator, it was something she said at the end of the interview, which was, “You now define your success [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah].” It’s not what other people think [Stephanie McCullough overcross: hm hm], this is you. If you have a spouse, okay, maybe there is somebody else to define the success, but this is it.

Stephanie McCullough (43:33):

Yeah. You could decide what you’re optimizing for, right. Did I get enough time in the garden this week? Did I have enough trips? Did I have enough new recipes, I tried? Whatever it might be. And it doesn’t have to be numbers in the metrics when she talks about kind of what is the measure of success.

Stephanie McCullough (43:52):

But it is interesting because in the working world, even if you are your own boss, your success is defined by what other people think of you, what they pay for your services, how many clients you have, right, that kind of external validation. So, shifting to the internal, that would be a big switch.

Stephanie McCullough (44:13):

So, we will have the link in the show notes to pre-order the book, if that’s of interest to you. We’re so grateful that Elizabeth could join us on this podcast. Thanks so much for being with us. We’ll talk to you next time. It’s goodbye from me.

Kevin Gaines (44:25):

And it’s goodbye from her.

[Music Playing]

Stephanie McCullough (44:29):

Be sure to subscribe to the show and please share it with your friends. Show notes and more information available at takebackretirement.com. Huge thanks for the original music by the one and only Raymond Loewy through New Math in New York. See you next time.

Voiceover (44:43):

Investment advice offered through Private Advisor Group, LLC, a registered Investment Advisor. Private Advisor Group, American Financial Management Group, and Sofia Financial are separate entities. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual security. To determine which investments may be appropriate for you, consult your financial advisor prior to investing. This information is not intended to be substitute for individualized tax advice. Please consult your tax advisor regarding your specific situation.