How to Squeeze All the Juice Out of Retirement | Riley Moynes | TED

71,178 views

2022-11-04 ・ TED


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How to Squeeze All the Juice Out of Retirement | Riley Moynes | TED

71,178 views ・ 2022-11-04

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:04
Everyone says you have to get ready to retire financially.
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And of course you do.
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But what they don't tell you
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is that you also have to get ready psychologically.
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Who knew?
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But it's important for a couple of reasons.
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First, 10,000 North Americans will retire today
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and every day for the next 10 to 15 years.
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This is a retirement tsunami.
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And when these folks come crashing onto the beach,
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a lot of them are going to feel like fish out of water,
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without a clue as to what to expect.
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Secondly, it's important because there is a very good chance
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that you will live one third of your life in retirement.
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So it's important that you have a heads up
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to the fact that there will be significant psychological changes
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and challenges that come with it.
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I belong to a walking group that meets early three mornings a week.
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Our primary goal is to put 10,000 steps on our Fitbits,
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and then we go for coffee and cinnamon buns more importantly.
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(Laughter and applause)
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So we've gotten the habit of, as we walk,
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we've gotten the habit of choosing a topic for discussion.
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And one day the topic was,
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how do you squeeze all the juice out of retirement?
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How's that for seven o'clock in the morning?
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(Laughter)
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So we walk and we talk, and the next day we go on to the next topic.
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But the question stayed with me
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because I was really having some challenges with retirement.
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I was busy enough,
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but I really didn't feel that I was doing very much
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that was significant or important.
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I was really struggling.
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I thought I had a pretty good idea of what success looked like
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in a working career,
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but when it came to retirement, it was fuzzier for me.
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So I decided to dig deeper.
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And what I discovered was that much of the material on retirement
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focuses on the financial and/or the estate side of things.
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And of course, they're both important,
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but just not what I was looking for.
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So I interviewed dozens and dozens of retirees
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and I asked them the question:
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how do you squeeze all the juice out of retirement?
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What I discovered was that there is a framework
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that can help make sense of it all.
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And that's what I want to share with you today.
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You see, there are four distinct phases
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that most of us move through in retirement.
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And as you'll see, it's not always a smooth ride.
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In the next few minutes,
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you’ll recognize which phase you’re in, if you’re retired.
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And if you’re not,
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you'll have a better idea of what to expect when that time comes.
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And best of all, you'll know that there is a phase four.
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The most gratifying, satisfying of the four phases,
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and that's where you can squeeze all the juice out of retirement.
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Phase one is the vacation phase, and that's just what it's like.
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You wake up when you want, you do what you want all day.
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And the best part is that there is no set routine.
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For most people, phase one represents their view of an ideal retirement.
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Relaxing, fun in the sun, freedom, baby.
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(Laughter)
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And for most folks, phase one lasts for about a year or so.
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And then strangely, it begins to lose its luster.
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We begin to feel a bit bored.
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We actually miss our routine.
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Something in us seems to need one.
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And we ask ourselves,
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"Is that all there is to retirement?"
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Now when these thoughts and feelings start to bubble up,
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you have already moved into phase two.
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Phase two is when we feel loss and we feel lost.
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Phase two is when we lose the big five,
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significant losses all associated with retirement.
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We lose that routine.
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We lose a sense of identity.
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We lose many of the relationships that we had established at work.
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We lose a sense of purpose,
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and for some people, there's a loss of power.
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Now we don't see these things coming.
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We didn’t see these losses coming, and because they happen all at once,
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it’s like, poof, gone.
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It's traumatic.
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Phase two is also when we come face-to-face with the three Ds:
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divorce,
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depression
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and decline, both physical and mental.
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The result of all of this
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is that we can feel like we've been hit by a bus.
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You see, before we can appreciate and enjoy some of the positive aspects
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associated with phase three and four,
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you are going to, in phase two, feel fear,
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anxiety and quite even depression.
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That's just the way it is.
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So buckle up, get ready.
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Fortunately, at some point, most of us say to ourselves,
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"Hey, I can't go on like this.
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I don't want to spend the rest of my life,
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perhaps 30 years, feeling like this."
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And when we do, we've turned a corner to phase three.
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Phase three is a time of trial and error.
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In phase three, we ask ourselves,
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“How can I make my life meaningful again?
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How can I contribute?”
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The answer often is to do things that you love to do and do really well.
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But phase three can also deliver some disappointment and failure.
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For example,
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I spent a couple of years serving on a condo board
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until I finally got tired of being yelled at.
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(Laughter)
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You see, one year the board decided that we were going to plant daffodils
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rather than the traditional daisies,
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(Laughter)
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and we got yelled at.
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Go figure.
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I thought about law school,
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thinking perhaps of becoming a paralegal.
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And then I completed a program on dispute resolution.
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It all went nowhere.
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I love to write.
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So I created a program called Getting Started on Your Memoirs.
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That program has met with "limited success."
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(Laughter)
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It's been a rocky road for me, too.
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And I told you to buckle up.
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(Laughter)
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Now, I know all this can sound bad.
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But it's really important to keep trying and experimenting
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with different activities that'll make you want to get up in the morning again,
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because if you don't,
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there's a real good chance of slipping back into phase two,
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feeling like you've been hit by a bus,
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and that is not a happy prospect.
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Not everyone breaks through to phase four.
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But those who do are some of the happiest people
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I have ever met.
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Phase four is a time to reinvent and rewire.
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But phase four involves answering some tough questions, too.
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Like what's the purpose here?
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What's my mission?
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How can I squeeze all the juice out of retirement?
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You see, it's important that we find activities
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that are meaningful to us
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and that give us a sense of accomplishment.
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And my experience is that it almost always involves service to others.
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Maybe it's helping a charity that you care about.
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Maybe you'll be like the old coots.
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Yeah, these folks took a booth in the local farmers market
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and were prepared to give their advice
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based on their vast years of experience
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to anyone who came by.
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Or maybe you'll be like my friend Bill.
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I met Bill a few years ago in a 55-plus activity group.
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In the summer, we golf together
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and walk together and bicycle together,
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and in the winter we curl.
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But Bill had this idea that we should exercise our brains as well.
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He believed that there was a tremendous pool
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of expertise and experience in our group.
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And so he approached a number of folks
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and asked if they would volunteer to teach some of the things
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that they love to do to others.
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And almost invariably they agreed.
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Bill himself taught two sessions,
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one on iPads and one on iPhones.
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Because we were smart enough to know
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that a number of our members had been given these things
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as gifts at Christmas by their children
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and that they barely knew how to turn them on.
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(Laughter)
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The first year we offered nine programs
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and there were 200 folks signed up.
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The next year, that number expanded to 45 programs
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with over 700 folks participating.
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And the following year we offered over 90 programs
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and had 2,100 registrations.
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Amazing.
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(Applause)
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That was Bill.
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Our members taught us to play bridge and mahjong.
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They taught us to paint.
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They taught us to repair our bicycles.
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We tutored and mentored local school kids.
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We set up English as a second language programs for newcomers.
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We had book clubs, we had film clubs,
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we even had a few golf clubs.
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Exhausting, but exhilarating.
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That's what's possible in phase four.
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And do you remember the five losses
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that we talked about in phase two?
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Loss of our routine and identity and relationships
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and purpose and power.
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In phase four, these are all recovered.
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It is magic to see.
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Magic.
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So I urge you to enjoy your vacation in phase one.
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(Laughter)
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Be prepared for the losses in phase two.
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Experiment and try as many different things as you can
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in phase three.
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And squeeze all the juice out of retirement
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in phase four.
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(Applause)
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