How to Not Fail at Retirement with Author Mike Drak

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Welcome everyone to the Retirement Power Hour. My name is Joe Allaria and this is episode 23 In just a bit. I'm gonna be joined by Mike. Dr. Mike and I are going to be talking about longevity, lifestyle by design, designing the life you want in retirement. So I'll share more about Mike and more about our discussion in just a bit. But first, don't forget, go to retirement power hour podcast.com because you can ask your own questions and we'll answer them here on the show. Just like this question here from Holly. Holly says, I am trying to get information on social security spousal benefits, and I just watched your episode 12. Excellent presentation. Thank you, Holly for that. My husband is 73 and began taking social security benefits at full retirement age. I am now 66 and eligible for my own full retirement benefit, but a financial advisor, hmm, recommended filing for the spousal benefit until switching to my own higher benefit at age 70.

Speaker 1 (00:58):

Do we need to both be born before 1953 to have this option? If you can answer, that would be so helpful, since it is very difficult to get an appointment with Social Security Administration. Well, that is true, Holly. We understand how difficult that is. So you've come to the right place and we do have an answer to your question. And then unfortunately you received bad advice on this. So the strategy your advisor referred to is called a restricted filing application. So that would mean that when you go to file, you are filing a restricted application to say, social security, I am not filing for my benefit, I'm filing for my spousal. I am restricting my benefit and I'm accepting my spousal benefit. That's called a restricted filing application. Well, to do that, you have to be born 1953 or earlier. So since you were born in, as you mentioned 1956, you cannot file a restricted application.

Speaker 1 (01:54):

So again, when you file social security is going to tell you which benefit that you're entitled to is higher. They're gonna give you the highest benefit, whichever is higher, and make you start taking that benefit. So it sounds like you got some bad advice. You have to be careful out there. I mean, it's so hard to get good information on Social Security. So hopefully that helped. And I'm sorry, it probably wasn't the answer you were looking for, Holly, but thank you for your question. Thank you for writing in. And if you are listening, again, go to retirement power hour podcast.com, submit your question, we'll answer it here on the show. We'll get back to you with that answer as well right away. And you can also request your free retirement analysis if you're within five to 10 years of retirement, maybe you have a lot of questions and maybe you need some advice and some guidance and direction, because that really is what we do here on the show.

Speaker 1 (02:38):

We educate for free and give you a lot of resources. And I'm also a partner at Carson Allaria Wealth Management, where we work directly with individuals like you in helping them set themselves up for retirement and structure their investments the right way, structure their retirement withdrawal plan, the right way to minimize taxes, to make sure it lasts throughout the rest of their life. So get that free retirement analysis, see if we may be a good fit to work together. And what we'll do in that is to point out the areas that we may wanna address and prioritize for you. So you'll walk out of that with at least a few things that will help you. Okay. With that, I wanna talk about my interview with Mike Drak. And Mike is a public speaker. He is an author, he's a retirement lifestyle designer and really a retirement expert.

Speaker 1 (03:23):

He has become that in this retirement space and more on the lifestyle side, not so much the financial strategy side of things, but Mike's mission in life at this point is to help other people as they transition to retirement, because as we talk in the interview, he failed miserably in his own words at retirement the first time around when he tried. So he went through a period where he learned a whole lot about how to live a successful life in retirement, not talking financially, but how to be fulfilled and how to get your needs met. And he has since become a go-to resource for folks that are retiring, getting close to retiring, and has helped them transition into a healthy retirement phase of life. And again, we're gonna be talking about Mike's book, longevity Lifestyle by Design, redefining What Retirement Can Be with That. Hope you enjoy this interview with Mike, Dr. Enjoy. Alright, and Mike, welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (04:20):

Thank you. It's a pleasure being here, Joe. Well,

Speaker 1 (04:23):

Mike, this is probably the at least third episode that we've done to talk about designing your retirement. And as you can see, I, I've got a long way to go until I retire, but I get to have these very interesting conversations with folks about this topic. And you have a, a wonderful book, A Longevity Lifestyle by Design. So I wanna talk about that a little bit. You've sort of, you know, I don't, I don't know you personally, but I've seen you several places across the retirement landscape and retirement industry. So you've kind of built this reputation as a retirement expert. I don't know if you realize that or not, but, uh, <laugh>, you certainly have. So thank so thank you for coming on the show.

Speaker 2 (05:02):

I have to laugh about it, Joe, is because really when I, I first retired, I was forced into retirement. I was packaged off from my banking job. I failed miserably at retirement. And it was embarrassing because I spent so many years in the banking industry. I helped so many people save for their retirement. And yet when I went through the process, it was brutal. I just, you know, I made a lot of mistakes 'cause I thought retirement was a money issue, and I believe that, you know, the more money you had, the better your retirement would be. And I found out that that wasn't true. And yeah, I, I went through the mill, I

Speaker 1 (05:41):

Did catch that in your book and I wanted to talk more about it. But before we jump into all that, you know, when I look you up online, I see retirement, lifestyle designer, author, retirement coach. So I, I thought, you know, first of all, I don't know if you consider yourself retired or working it, it seems like you do a lot of different things. So I was curious if you could share a little bit about what you do today.

Speaker 2 (06:04):

Okay. I'm not retired. And when I'm referred to as retired, when I go into the bank and a teller will read on the screen, retired employee, it just kind of rubs me the wrong way because, uh, I'm anything but, you know, I'm still involved in different things. I set goals for myself. I do different types of work that I find interesting. But no, I don't work for the bank anymore. I don't have a primary career anymore. It's part-time work and it's work that I choose to do. And what I find fascinating is, is that I'm doing things I never did before. I was never a writer. I was never a public speaker. As a matter of fact, I had a great fear of public speaking. I had to go to Toastmasters and try to, uh, learn how to get past that fear. And that was a hard process too. And, uh, so everything's new for me and I'm trying out all kinds of new things and no, life is pretty good, but it was a struggle getting there for

Speaker 1 (07:01):

Sure. I agree with you. 'cause again, when I looked at all you do, I, I said surely Mike doesn't consider himself retired. He is doing a lot of different things. But tell us about, tell us more about your background. You were in banking in the Toronto area, and you got forced into retirement, I guess was, would be a good way of, would you agree? Is that a, is that the right way of saying that?

Speaker 2 (07:22):

Uh, a forced or surprised, that might be a better word. I was at a stage in my life where I wasn't enjoying working at the bank anymore. The stress was starting to get to, to me, the demands, the sales goals and everything, and the banking kind of, the philosophy changed. They were really focused on making as much money as as possible for the bank. And I was more concerned about the customers and helping them as much as I could. So there was a conflict that was starting to get to me. And so I was already planning to leave. As a matter of fact, I already told a couple people, I said, you know what? I'm getting tired of this. Uh, I'm gonna leave. And I was, I think 58 at the time, 59 mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And sure enough, one day my boss calls me and he says, I like to go over to profit plan with you.

Speaker 2 (08:06):

And I said, sure. You know, I was in his office and he goes, you know what, maybe we should go to the boardroom till we can have more room. We can spread out the papers. But my boss had this big office, right? And there's all kinds of room, there's a side table. And as we're walking up to the boardroom, I'll never forget, my spider sense kind of went off and I said, could you be packaging me up? And sure enough, I I walked into the boardroom. There was this young lady sitting, uh, at the table. She was young enough to be my daughter <laugh>.

Speaker 2 (08:36):

And, and then the process started and I was sitting there and they were talking about all these things. I wasn't really paying attention because I was so excited. I couldn't believe that they were going to package me off. And I was gonna get a severance check when I was planning on leaving anyways. And so at the end of the presentation, they said to me, are you okay? And I said to 'em, wow, you know, I'm a little, you know, excited. My heart's pounding a little bit. Well this is a big surprise for me. You kind of pulled it on me. And they said, well, maybe you should go home and take it easy for the rest of the day. And I said, you know, and that's probably a good idea. So as soon as I got in the car, I phoned my wife and I said, essa, we hit the lottery <laugh>. And life was wonderful for a period of time for maybe a couple weeks to a month. And then retirement shock hit me suddenly one day. You know, it was really rough for a period of time. And I was surprised that happened.

Speaker 1 (09:34):

And, and that's, I guess when you say you, you failed at retirement, it's not, it's not that you, you know, like we think in the financial world that you ran out of money, right? Uh, or, you know, you ended up homeless is, that's not what you mean, right? It

Speaker 2 (09:47):

Was no, it had nothing to do with money. It's funny, during my presentations, I have this picture of me sitting on a couch and I'll never forget it. This is what went down. I think it was a Monday morning, uh, around nine o'clock in the morning. I'm sitting on this couch and I'm trying to find something interesting to watch on tv. And I have one of these big screen TVs. I think I got 500 plus stations on the silly thing. I'm flicking through the stations trying to find something interesting to watch. And I couldn't. And I was just miserable. And I was lonely because my wife was still working. Most of my friends were still working. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And I was just sitting there not knowing what to do, being miserable, isolating myself. I didn't wanna see people, I didn't wanna do things that I used to love to do, like, you know, ride my bike or go out fishing or golfing and things like that. I didn't know what was happening to me. And what really frustrated me was that no one could understand what I was going through. And I didn't understand it either. Everyone thought, how could Mike be unhappy because he doesn't have to work anymore. That was their thing. That wasn't what was happening to me. There was all these other things, these non-financial things, you know, hitting me all the time. And I had to figure my way through it.

Speaker 1 (11:04):

Your, uh, image of sitting on the couch flipping through the channels, it was like, it reminded me of when I was a kid. And you'd have to stay home sick from school. And, you know, all there is is daytime television and yeah, you're pretty miserable. 'cause it's like, I feel terrible. I can't do anything. There's nothing good on tv <laugh>.

Speaker 2 (11:22):

Yeah. There's nothing to, you know, kind of, you know, occupy my mind, right. Or help me get through, you know, the way I was feeling. And it's hard. And you know, there's no emails coming in, there's no phone calls coming in. You're isolated and yeah, you're very unhappy and you're miserable because of it.

Speaker 1 (11:41):

What was the turning point for you? You, you spent some time in that place. If you want to share, you don't have to share, but how long you kind of spent in that space. But then at some point there must have been an event, a turning point. Something must have triggered a change.

Speaker 2 (11:57):

Well, one I did was I worked my way through it and I worked, this is what happened. I, I, you know, I knew I had a problem and I've seen it before. My father suffered from retirement shock for about a year. I had a good friend die from it. He ended up drinking himself to death and isolating himself 'cause he couldn't handle the transition. And you read all the time about stories. I've read 'em from financial planners where, you know, a mother or a father would commit suicide because they couldn't handle the stress and anxiety. And again, it had nothing to do with money. So I wanted to find an answer for it. I couldn't find it anywhere. So I went and got my hands on every retirement book. Uh, I could, and I read 'em all. And I was frustrated because all they did was deal with the money side of retirement.

Speaker 2 (12:43):

No one talked about this dark side of retirement. And since then I've read research that says up to one in three retirees will, will experience retirement shock. Hmm. And that, that just boggled my mind. It's the same odds of catching shingles when you're older. Yeah. One in three. And yet it's something we don't talk about. There's a vaccine for shingles. Mm-Hmm. But there's no vaccine for retirement shock. So I kept searching, I read the research, I got into reading work from people like, uh, Maslow hierarchy of Needs and things like that. And I finally figured out why I was going that way. And it was because my fundamental needs weren't being satisfied anymore. So we have needs for like safety, financial security, we have socialization needs. We have a need for purpose. We have a need for structure and routine. And what I learned was most of these needs used to be satisfied through the work I used to do.

Speaker 2 (13:46):

I didn't understand it. I didn't know if that's how it worked. And you know, even though I might not have liked some parts of my work, there were other parts that were really helpful for me in terms of, uh, wellbeing. And it is the same thing. It's like how important it is to hang around other coworkers or deal with customers and be able to talk about last night's football game and things like that. Yeah. You need these social aspects, right? Sure. And you need a lot of that when you retire. So, you know, when I, I I figured that out. I said, okay, that makes sense. So now I had to find a new source of purpose so I could satisfy these needs again. 'cause they never go away.

Speaker 1 (14:27):

You kind of took a, I don't know if I, physiological is maybe not the right word, but you went back to Maslow and, and kind of found this is what a human being needs really. And I'll say not at just in retirement really at any phase of life. And you recognized that your job or career was kind of checking a lot of those boxes and then you got out, you dropped the job and Yeah, I think most people think, Hey great, I don't have to work anymore. I can do whatever I want. This is fantastic. But you don't think about, Hey, if I don't have a reason to get out of bed at, you know, six o'clock or get my day started at at eight o'clock and nothing's really pulling me out of bed, then I can easily start to slip into why would I even get out of bed? You know, and maybe I'm sleeping in until 10, 10 30, 11, I don't know. And then you get up and you still have nothing to do. So you really start to slide down that slippery slope and structure as well. We take for granted, I have a eight o'clock meeting, I've gotta go to a lunch at 11. I've gotta be back by one. Sort of take that for granted. But when it's not there, it starts to erase that purpose or the feeling of accomplishment, the feeling of someone needs you for something.

Speaker 2 (15:40):

You lose all of that. So you lose meaning, you lose a sense of achievement and accomplishment. You lose a, uh, a feeling of being relevant and contributing to things like that, which you used to do at work. And these are all important things. And the only difference between individuals is the priority of these needs. Yes. So one person might have a stronger need for a comfort and safety. One might be a, a grower that needs to go out and learn and do and experience new things. Another type is a giver. You know, these are people that have to find ways to help others and give back to the community. And we saw a lot of examples of this during the pandemic when these people have put up their hand and volunteered maybe work at the hospitals or food banks or even help out their elderly neighbors who were too scared to go in the grocery store for fear of, uh, getting the virus they would offer and say, Hey, I'll help you out now.

Speaker 2 (16:36):

And these are all fundamental needs that are driving 'em. But the, the risk of retirement, you hit the nail on the head was a lot of these people, when they lose the structure, they're sleeping into 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock and then they get up and they have a cup of coffee and read the morning paper and that gets them the 12 o'clock. And at 12 o'clock they say, okay, I'm gonna watch the business news and see how the market is doing and have lunch. And that takes a couple hours. And then I'll, and may

Speaker 1 (17:06):

I, may I interject and say that that activity is not one that we encourage because whatever type of news you watch, you're probably not gonna finish watching and feel better. Whether it's financial news, business news. I've never, I don't think turned the news off. It's like, boy, things are going great, aren't they <laugh>?

Speaker 2 (17:23):

Oh yeah, no, I'm, I'm really trying to filter the amount of news that I bring into my life because like you said, most of it's bad or even watch the market, it just gets you a little anxious, especially these days with inflation. But you see the pattern is okay, so they watch that they still haven't got off the couch. Right? And then all of a sudden, oh wow, it's late afternoon, I'm gonna watch whatever on TV again and I'm gonna plan my evening around some of the evening shows. So between eating and sitting on the couch and watching TV and being on social media, that's their life. And retirement and a sedentary life is gonna kill you. It's gonna accelerate age related decline. And a lot of people fall into that trap. And that's why finding a new source of purpose is so important to get you out there. And that, that's why I'm a big fan of working part-time in retirement. Provide it, you do work that you enjoy doing. It can be paid or volunteer, it doesn't really matter. Right.

Speaker 1 (18:23):

We also encourage our clients to do the same because if it is paid work, it actually is a huge boost to your financial plan. Even if you make a fraction of what you made during your career, it helps much more than I think most people think it would. If I make a, a fifth of what I made in my career and maybe work one, two days a week, you know, let's say you make 20 or 30,000, that's 30,000 more that you, that you have 30,000 less that you have to pull out and 30,000 more that stays in the portfolio that continues to compound over, you know, year after year for hopefully decades. So that's a, a very good financial strategy, but it's also a good mental emotional psychological strategy because one pattern, and we've hit on it, that need for relevancy, I've seen people that continue to work part-time or you know, they're semi-retired.

Speaker 1 (19:18):

They have that sense of, hey, someone still needs me for something and I'm engaged and I, I have some level of structure, but I found that two, three day work week, maybe, maybe two day work week or kind of as needed has been a very good model for the clients that I've witnessed that are going through, even if it's not the work that they absolutely wake up and aspire to do. But if they have just a few more days to do the things that energize them, they're more than happy to spend a couple days a week in their area of expertise maybe making money, you know, or volunteering maybe, you know, doing something like that as well. But that seems to be a nice balance.

Speaker 2 (19:59):

Well, yeah. And you know, it gets them out of the house, it gets them in front of other people, it gets them active, it engages their mind. Right. You know? Yeah. Say if you're doing work that maybe you need to use a computer while, you know, it keeps you sharp because if you're not using it, you're gonna lose it quickly. Yeah. And there's so many physical and mental benefits to working, doing some, uh, type of work in, in retirement. Yeah. And like you said, the, you know, the, the bonus, the icing on the cake is reducing longevity risk. So I view any extra money I make now, it's my fun money. And so I spend it on my adventures. Or I might go to Italy or I'll go fly fishing up north, or I'll take my kids on a trip somewhere and it really enhances my, the quality of my retirement. Right. So work is good for you, but you gotta do work that you enjoy to do. Right? Sure. You don't, you don't wanna do something you hate.

Speaker 1 (20:56):

Right. And I would say it's, it is very ironic because going back to what we were just discussing, when folks retire and they're not engaged, they feel like they're not relevant. That's right. That's actually the stage in your life. You're probably the wisest you've ever been. You've acquired the most knowledge you've, you've ever had and you have a lot to give and a lot to offer the world actually. And you, you have things. Yes. Okay. Let's just say, let's go by the stereotypes here. Maybe there's some technology advancements that you haven't kept up with, but there's other skills that you have that the younger generation does not have. And you have in that, those areas, you know, even more to offer. So it's very ironic and, and it's that, that folks would, and I understand why it happens, but that they would retire and be at home and feel like no one needs me. I'm, I can't offer anything to the world when in fact you probably could never offer more to the world than at the time that you have retired or reached the end of your career. 'cause you've acquired all that wisdom.

Speaker 2 (21:55):

I agree. And you know, one of the, the great things we can do is serve as mentors for younger people.

Speaker 1 (22:01):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (22:01):

And people are catching onto it. And we're seeing more and more of that. And we can learn a lot from younger people too, because when I started out, I needed to create a website. I didn't have a clue how to do it. So I found someone, a younger person to help me with that. I didn't know how to market on social media like a product or a service. So I had to learn to do that. And I learned, so, you know, you're, you're picking up these new skills and, and what we need to do is make it easier for people. Yes. And, and the good thing about it is we're seeing a lot of universities and colleges create these new retirement transition programs. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So what happens is, is that, you know, you enroll and the goal is at the end of the program, you're going to be able to define new purpose for yourself. So either it may be you start a new business for yourself or you can find a way to volunteer and give back to the community, things like that. And so it's really good because they know a lot of people are struggling with finding new purpose. Right.

Speaker 1 (23:01):

That's a good thing. I think, and I, I would say this and my final point I would sort of leave y'all with is that purpose is really something, again, it's not just for retirement. And what probably happens is that although work can check off a lot of those boxes for our needs, it is a temporary fix and maybe even a distraction from your ultimate purpose in life. So even though I'm, you know, still working in my career, some might say younger, some might say older, but even though I'm a bit younger than someone who's retired, I still can go through that exercise and think about what is my purpose? Because I'm not guaranteed retirement, to be honest. Nobody is. And so if I just wait until that point, it may, it may not come now. I believe it will, I'm an optimistic person, but it may not come. So we can really all go through that exercise and think about our purpose. And it gets really deep really quick. And as I start to have conversations with clients about these things that we both realize that pretty quickly in the conversation, this is, this is deep conversation, but oh,

Speaker 2 (24:06):

It's, yes.

Speaker 1 (24:07):

If we don't think about these things, then we're just going through retirement with distractions or going through our working career with distractions that don't mean much to us. So I say do it, go through the exercise, give it some deep thought. What is my purpose? If you find that thing, then I think you'll easily be able to plug in and and check off all those boxes. But Mike, you know, I wanted to plug your book and, you know, let the audience know that you've got a lot of great material out. And the book was the primary basis for some of the questions and things that we talked about. Longevity, lifestyle, by design. Tell us where our listeners can go to learn more about your book to purchase it.

Speaker 2 (24:48):

Okay, so there's two places you can get it. You can go on Amazon and order it through them. But what I suggest people do, and this is part of my purpose, is they can go and download it for free, uh, by going to the booming encore.com website. My purpose was to help as many people transition to a successful re retirement as I could. I didn't want them to end up in retirement help like I did. And so I had some con contributors help me write the book and we're giving away for free to help as many people as we can. So that's what makes me feel good. And it's like, you too, Joe, like the business you're doing right now, you're in the business of helping others, right? Helping them save for retirement, helping them transition to a great retirement, things like that. Sure. So, you know, we're both givers, right?

Speaker 1 (25:39):

Absolutely. That's awesome. Uh, and that kind of proves why you do what you do, that you truly do wanna help people. You're offering your book for free. We talked before we started airing it. That's a lot of time. You, you've put a lot of time and you've written multiple books, right? And so there's others. I think one of them Retirement Heaven or Hell is that, that's another one of your books. So I think you've got three now working on the fourth. Do I have that right?

Speaker 2 (26:01):

That's right.

Speaker 1 (26:03):

Alright, so that's awesome. So go check out, you go download it for free at Booming Encore can do that. And Mike, we also found a nice worksheet that folks can download. We'll put a link to it in our show notes, but it is the Longevity Lifestyle by Design Worksheet. And it's something that they can use as they read through the book and they could fill the boxes out, list their priorities, their ratings, different ideas. So it's a very good resource. Well, this is something we could talk about all day long. I, I love the new ideas and some of the, the things that we've been hitting on, but I again, encourage everyone, go to booming Encore, download Longevity Lifestyle by Design. And you can just Google Mike, Dr. Did I say that right Mike?

Speaker 2 (26:46):

You did. You did.

Speaker 1 (26:48):

You could just Google, Mike, Dr. And you're gonna see him pop up everywhere with a lot of great resources. Mike, thanks so much for joining us. I thought it was a great interview. Maybe if you're willing, we'd love to have you back at some point in the future and talk some more about this.

Speaker 2 (27:01):

Great Joe. I I, I'd love to do that. I had a great time today.

Speaker 1 (27:05):

Alright, well thanks to Mike and thank you for everyone for listening today. We again remind you, go to retirement power hour podcast.com. You can listen to all of our past shows. You can also request your free complimentary retirement analysis where we will tell you, can you retire when you want? How do you pull money out of your accounts? How do you pay less in taxes? All of those financial things that can set you up and put you in a great place to then design the rest of your retirement the way that you wish to get you the maximum fulfillment. So again, thanks for listening to this episode of The Retirement Power Hour, where we help listeners invest wiser and retire better. With that, we will see you next time. Take care.

Speaker 3 (27:47):

Thank you for listening to the Retirement Power Hour podcast. All material discussed on this podcast is for educational purposes only. It should not be construed as individual tax, legal, or investment advice. Investing involves risk of loss and investors should be prepared to bear potential losses. Past performance may not be indicative of future results. Joe Allaria is an investment advisor representative of Carson Allaria Wealth Management, a registered investment advisory firm. Information discussed on this podcast may be derived from third parties that are believed to be reliable, but Carson Allaria Wealth Management does not control or guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of such information and disclaims all liability for damages resulting from such sources. Any references to third parties are provided as a convenience and do not constitute an endorsement.