Retirement Isnt That for Old People

welcome

to the future

[Music]

my name is michelle silver i think

now is a good time for us to rethink

retirement

how did you imagine spending the last

few chapters

of your life we are living

in remarkable times on average

we’re living longer now than we have

in all of human history yet

we tend not to spend much time thinking

about the implications of living a

longer life

now looking around the room i imagine

that some of you are in

early stages of your careers you might

be thinking

do i really need to think about

retirement

now and my answer

is yes whether you love the idea

or you hate the word retirement or you

haven’t spent much time

thinking about it your perceptions

about retirement and aging have an

impact

on how you treat mature adults

and on how you will plan your careers

and ultimately on how you will embrace

your own aging right now

there are intense intergenerational

tensions that come up when we talk about

retirement

because of my work people often confront

me to say

you know if so and so would just retire

our organization would be so much better

off

and on the other hand i hear from mature

workers who

feel unheard undervalued

or who question the motivation

or the desire for work-life balance

among the younger generation

recently i watched a funny show

where the host described retirement as

like a typewriter

and translation for those of you who

might have had a typewriter like me in

your life

the idea is that for the younger

generation

retirement is obscure

it’s obsolete it’s something that

they’re being burdened by from the older

generation from

and the idea is

that we really ought to not

have retirement be something that the

younger generation of workers

is burdened by and retirement also

shouldn’t be a vehicle for exiling

mature workers so

i want to share some history and some

strategies

about retirement because ultimately

it’s going to be up to you to decide

whether and how you plan and

advocate for your retirement

i have to tell you when i first went to

make this slide i typed the word

retirement

and this image popped up and i thought

wow is that what we’re supposed to think

of when we think of

retirement an old man slightly hunched

over with a cane

and it’s funny because when you look to

ads or

media images of retirement typically

you get a nice airbrushed photo like

this one

of a couple on the beach and here

the idea of retirement is fantastic

no work income still arriving

and all the time in the world

the problem is that both of these ideas

are a bit out of date

so consider that for most of human

history

life expectancy has been around 35 years

old

and now global

life expectancy is over 70 years old

in less than 200 years

we have more than doubled our life

expectancy

now living longer has implications

for every aspect of life and society

for one living longer means that you’d

better take

extra good care of your teeth

living longer also has implications for

the ways that we structure

our working lives now consider that

original

retirement plans were designed to kick

in

when the average worker was dead

take the united states for example in

1935

social security was instituted for

eligible workers

when they turned 65. now at that point

life expectancy was 61.

so that the average worker was

already dead by the time he reached

retirement

now fast forward to the 1970s and there

was a convergence where

the average worker could expect to die

right around the time that he retired

now the average man can expect to live

an additional 15 years and for women

it’s more like 20 years

now another point to consider is that

original

retirement plans were designed

around the model of men’s work

experiences

and yet women tend to have different

work experiences from men

women are more likely at all stages in

the life course to

be caregivers they’re more likely to

work

part-time to enter the workforce later

to exit earlier to have lower

salaries and to have lower pensions if

they receive any pension

for their work and yet

in 99 of the world women

live longer than men

now around the world there’s a range of

different types of

retirement plans and different ages of

eligibility

but regardless of where you live

it’s in all of our interests to see that

women

have equitable access to education

and employment opportunities and

equitable salaries

and equitable pensions and workplace

protections

now that it’s 2020 it’s a good

time to think and to rethink

retirement so that we can provide

greater assistance to people whose

health has declined

to a point that working no longer works

and it’s a good time for us to create

more sensitive

and sophisticated ways to capture

mature workers knowledge and to retain

and retrain and to support mature

workers

to the extent that the interest in

continuing to work

is mutually beneficial

so now i want to share some strategies

with you

based on hundreds of interviews i’ve

done with people

about retirement and i want to share

some

specific examples from people who’ve

retired from

a range of different types of work

and the first strategy is that

preparation for retirement should

start early and often

and the first example that i want to

share

is alan allen was a doctor

who had married twice and he had five

children

two in his first marriage and three in

his second

allen claimed that his financial

obligations as a provider for his family

had prevented him from preparing for

retirement

mentally and his drive to stay focused

at work also got in the way

unfortunately alan worked

past his prime and was forced into

retirement

when he was in his 70s and his medical

license was revoked

and he was at a point where he had no

personal savings

alan’s story underscores the importance

of financial planning

and of taking the time and making the

mental space

to create a financial safety net

for yourself and another

one of the most important takeaways is

not just to prepare financially but to

prepare emotionally

for retirement don’t be afraid

to focus on what makes you curious

and on what brings you joy

elizabeth was a ceo who had

always thrived on being busy maybe some

of you can relate to that

her work had always brought her a sense

of purpose and she explained that when

she went through big work transitions

what helped her was focusing on

what sparked joy now

i’m not going to give you a marie condo

lesson in how to fold

but i will echo her advice

of simplifying organizing

and asking yourself what sparks joy

these ideas are important not just

to the rooms in your house but to your

finances

to your relationships and to your work

transitions the

third strategy that i want to share with

you is to practice

practicing is not just something that we

must do as kids

practicing is something that we must do

at all stages in life in order to

develop

skills and habits elite

athletes know better than anyone about

the importance of practicing

they must possess incredible

physical and mental energy

as well as the ability to focus on

a singular goal and to practice

in order to achieve that goal

alison was an olympic gymnast whose body

was left

wracked with pain and in her retirement

she had to adapt to the loss of

community

and companionship as she adapted to

retirement’s autonomy

and independence and what helped her

was practicing something new

as she adapted and took on new work

roles she explained

that practicing was something that

helped her

to get comfortable practicing was

something

that helped her get good

and the final strategy that i want to

share with you

is to recognize that work organizations

can create and shape

our identities for some people work is

more than a source of income work can

become

a source of personal identity

for some people who’ve always taken

their work seriously

or who feel like they were taken

seriously

because of the work they did retirement

can feel a lot like losing your

grounding

bob had worked for over five decades in

the private sector

and when i interviewed him in his

retirement he described

talking about his work and when he

talked about his work

he explained his heart was literally

fluttering

thinking about his work in his

retirement

he was constantly looking for some sort

of sign

that he was still needed and still

desirable for

some people for people whose work and

personal identities are closely

intertwined

retirement can feel a lot like

heartbreak

especially when it feels like there’s no

chance of getting your foot back in the

door

now i’m hoping that most of you have

never seen a pink slip before

it’s that piece of paper that lets you

know you’re being laid off

unfortunately evidence suggests

that many people who enter

into retirement do so and are forced to

do so

before they have a chance to choose

retirement

i’ve interviewed people who’ve described

feeling that

they’ve reached an expiration date based

on assumptions

that they were no longer capable of

being productive or creative

it’s important that we recognize that

we can’t always control the directions

that work organizations move in

but we can control the assumptions that

we make

about people and ultimately about

ourselves

based on traits like age

so this is my image of the future

where intergenerational work

environments

flourish where we invest

time and resources in personal

retirement savings strategies

and career transitions at all stages

where we are respectful of the

environment

and less wasteful and where we are

sustainable

in our working lives where exercise and

healthy movement are built

into our work environments so that we

are

healthy enough to work for as long

as we want to so

now i’m hoping that retirement feels

a little bit less like an old man

hunched over with a cane

and a bit less like a typewriter

and even a bit less like a day on the

beach

now that more of us are more likely to

make it

into later stages of adulthood

i’m hoping that you will take some time

to imagine how you will spend the last

few chapters

of your life thank you

you