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<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN: <\/strong>I\u2019m chatting now with Craig Lawrence, financial planner at BDO Wealth Advisors. Craig, appreciate the early morning time. Retirement \u2013 the recent piece you put out is on the next big story in personal finance. In many senses, the purpose of personal finance is ultimately retirement. There are a lot of moving parts but you\u2019re saying it really is sort of the key point to it and in many cases we\u2019re not quite ready.<\/p>\n<p><strong>CRAIG LAWRENCE: <\/strong>Yes. Good morning, Simon, yes. I think a good point. The point of financial planning is ultimately to get to a great retirement. But the idea of what that actually means is changing. It\u2019s not merely about the money anymore. Data and research show that people are looking more to what happens to their identity. That loss of purpose. What do you do when you get up in the morning when you retire? What am I doing with my time?<\/p>\n<p>These seem to be more pressing issues for retirees than just the money anymore.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN: <\/strong>That\u2019s actually a great point, because the old clich\u00e9 is you sit on your stoep and watch the ocean or you play golf \u2013 and both of those sound like great fun for about the first month, perhaps. And then, I take your point, it\u2019s the purpose, the meaning. Potentially you\u2019re going to spend decades watching that ocean. You\u2019re going to tire of it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>CRAIG LAWRENCE: <\/strong>Absolutely. So the data is showing that that honeymoon phase lasts for probably about six months or so. And then afterwards the questions start. It\u2019s like: Is this all there is to it? Is this what I\u2019m going to be doing for the rest of my life?<\/p>\n<p>If you start asking those questions, you\u2019re moving into an awareness of the next phase, which is this deep sense of loss. You\u2019ve lost the identity. Lots of people in high-powered jobs don\u2019t get asked anymore about their opinion, and that really is coming to bear in emotional issues with retirees.<\/p>\n<p>Hopefully you catch this way before you retire and are not faced with it at some day, because it\u2019s quite a sudden break \u2013 when you\u2019ve been working for 30 or 40 years and one day you\u2019re just sitting at home doing nothing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN: <\/strong>It comes to the point \u2013 and I\u2019ve made it often \u2014 wealth advisors are becoming more and more [sort of] psychologists in many senses. To your point, it is more about that money than it is around having those conversations.<\/p>\n<p>You needn\u2019t just stare at the ocean; you need, I suppose, to realise it and engage. There\u2019s the old clich\u00e9: \u2018Make a plan\u2019.<\/p>\n<p><strong>CRAIG LAWRENCE: <\/strong>Make a plan, absolutely. And the idea of the psychologist \u2013 be very careful about not going down the route and telling financial planners that they are psychologists. But the idea around financial planning, coaching, is probably decades old in South Africa already. It\u2019s marrying traditional life coaching with financial planning.<\/p>\n<p>So having these conversations is absolutely important \u2013 again, moving away from just the money. Money is important; you can\u2019t retire without it. So we\u2019re not saying, disregard that, but we\u2019re seeing the effects of emotional instability in retirement being more detrimental to your health than things like obesity, drug abuse, alcoholism. It\u2019s quite serious.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN: <\/strong>Actually I hadn\u2019t thought of that. It\u2019s that sort of a sense of self-worth \u2013 or potentially lack thereof in this particular case \u2013 and is of course what matters. I always make the point that the key thing is that personal finance is personal, and retirement is going to be personal as well. This is not going to be a one-size-fits-all. Someone might want to tour the world. Another person might want to go and work for an NGO. You\u2019ve got to find what works for you and for your partner in retirement at the same time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>CRAIG LAWRENCE: <\/strong>Yes. It\u2019s been a problem, I think, with what we would probably term \u2018institutionalised retirement\u2019 where the company that you\u2019re working for says, you\u2019ve got to go at 60 or 65. There is no guidance around what you\u2019re going to do afterwards. It\u2019s that clean break. There\u2019s no transition. That causes a lot of the problems.<\/p>\n<p>So we\u2019ve funded some excellent research done by the UCT Liberty Institute, where they\u2019ve now purported to see the rise of a grey zone in our economy. The traditional plan [for] retirement planning was that you go into a learning phase and an earning phase \u2013 and then you retire.<\/p>\n<p>What the data is showing is that there is a phase in between earning and retirement, where individuals are moving into a time of trial and error and reinvention. That\u2019s what\u2019s making the difference to successful retirement planning. It\u2019s having the ability to do other things while creating those new career patterns for yourself as you lead into whatever that time is going to be. So it doesn\u2019t have to be when someone tells you you\u2019ve got to go at 65. You do it now on your own terms.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN: <\/strong>Yes, I like that \u2013 trial and error, reinvention. It\u2019s a completely new space for us. If your savings are good, you don\u2019t have to worry about the money in retirement and it is just sort of casting around to see what\u2019s going to grab your attention, what is going to work for you, and what sticks.<\/p>\n<p>Again, it\u2019s different for everyone, but you\u2019ve got to sort of go through that process to have a fulfilling retirement.<\/p>\n<p><strong>CRAIG LAWRENCE: <\/strong>Yes, absolutely. The empirical data and even the anecdotal evidence suggest that this is why we consider it the next best thing. The next best thing in retirement planning is often the most neglected part.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN: <\/strong>Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>CRAIG LAWRENCE: <\/strong>I think that there\u2019s going to be a rise in this as the awareness increases. And, as you mentioned, financial planners are becoming a little more savvy in the coaching space. They\u2019re going to [have to] build their skills to have these conversations with retirees.<\/p>\n<p>Two things are probably going to happen. You need to have the skill set in the financial planning profession to help the retirees with these conversations because for traditional financial planners it\u2019s not an area we naturally move towards.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN: <\/strong>Yes. I get your point on that. Absolutely. But I like the concept. We have to do more than just play golf or stare at the ocean. I love the ocean, but even I would get bored with it at some point, perhaps.<\/p>\n<p>Craig Lawrence, financial planner at BDO Wealth Advisors, I appreciate the early morning.<\/p>\n<div id=\"message-list_1762503674.883009\" class=\"c-virtual_list__item\" tabindex=\"0\" role=\"listitem\" aria-label=\"Desiree. Listen to the full MoneywebNOW podcast every weekday morning [ here (link)]. At 10:21 AM.\" aria-setsize=\"-1\" data-qa=\"virtual-list-item\" data-item-key=\"1762503674.883009\">\n<div class=\"c-message_kit__background p-message_pane_message__message c-message_kit__message\" role=\"presentation\" data-qa=\"message_container\" data-qa-unprocessed=\"false\" data-qa-placeholder=\"false\">\n<div class=\"c-message_kit__hover\" role=\"document\" aria-roledescription=\"message\" data-qa-hover=\"true\">\n<div class=\"c-message_kit__actions c-message_kit__actions--above\">\n<div class=\"c-message_kit__gutter\">\n<div class=\"c-message_kit__gutter__right\" role=\"presentation\" data-qa=\"message_content\">\n<div class=\"c-message_kit__blocks c-message_kit__blocks--rich_text\">\n<div class=\"c-message__message_blocks c-message__message_blocks--rich_text\" data-qa=\"message-text\">\n<div class=\"p-block_kit_renderer\" data-qa=\"block-kit-renderer\">\n<div class=\"p-block_kit_renderer__block_wrapper p-block_kit_renderer__block_wrapper--first\">\n<div class=\"p-rich_text_block\" dir=\"auto\">\n<div class=\"p-rich_text_section\">Listen to the full MoneywebNOW podcast every weekday morning\u00a0here.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><script data-cfasync=\"false\">\n !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n 'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n fbq('init', '779812924991616');\n fbq('track', 'PageView');\n <\/script>#Retirement #planning #money #meaning<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You can also listen to this po… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[1563,27,592,208],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}