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Transcription of interview with Diane Lang on August 20, 2012.
Douglas Goldstein, CFP®, Financial Planner & Investment Advisor
Diane Lang is a therapist and psychologist.
She has written Creating Balance and Finding Happiness, as well as Baby Steps: The Path
from Motherhood to Career.
Douglas Goldstein, financial planner & investment advisor, interviewed Lang on Arutz Sheva Radio.
Douglas Goldstein: How do you help older people to plan their retirement psychologically?
Diane Lang: There are a few issues that people deal with when they hit their greatest and
last stage of life, which is retirement, or the “end of life phase,” as they call
it.
There are three main concerns.
The first one is financial, which is definitely not my specialty.
The second one is health worries.
People who are retiring are known to spend a lot of money on their healthcare, between
Medicare and Medicaid and then having supplemental health insurance.
What happens is we can prevent a lot of that.
The third concern is, “What am I going to do with the rest of my life?
My purpose and my identity was either my job, or if I was a stay-at-home mom, it was my
kids and now I’m going to the empty nest.
What am I going to do?
Am I going to feel challenged?
Am I going to feel satisfied with my life?
Am I going to even have the same relationship with my spouse or partner?”
When you work, we know that working full-time now could be 60 hours plus, because we’re
never really off anymore between texting, email, cell phones and we also have a larger
commute.
Most people travel here in the States at least an hour each way due to the mileage or due
to traffic, so now you have all this time that was spent at work, spent at home, and
the kids are gone.
What are we even going to talk about?
Are we going to have anything in common?
These are the real fears that people have about retiring.
I don’t cover the financial issues, but I deal with a little bit about the health
worries and also how do I handle my new identity and purpose going into my next phase?
Again, you want to start with this years before you retire.
You don’t want to retire, whether you retire at 60.
65 or 70, and say, “Okay, now what do I do?”
You want to deal with this at least five years beforehand.
I deal with people who are going to retire, and we start work together sometimes 5 to
10 years beforehand so that we can have a lot of preventative and they can work themselves
into their next phase of life and already feel secure to know that, “This is what
I’m going to do.
I feel healthy.
I feel good.”
And when they work with you, they probably do the same thing with retirement, setting
up their 401s and IRAs so that they feel prepared when they retire and move on to their next
phase.
Douglas Goldstein: This reminds me of a conversation that I had not so long ago with a couple.
The husband was well into his seventies and working quite vigorously.
They were very wealthy, so I suggested that they could consider retiring.
The wife looked at me in shock, and she said, “Douglas, I married him for better or for
worse!
But not for lunch!”
Diane Lang: It’s true.
There’s a really big fear of, “What are we going to have in common?
What are we going to talk about?”
You go through a honeymoon stage when you retire.
You decide, “We retired, let’s go on vacation, let’s go travel,” but after that, what
do you do?
One of the big concerns is socialization because a lot of times, your socialization is involved
in your work.
You have a lot of work friends, you go out afterwards with your work friends, your co-workers,
but now what are you going to do if you take that whole part of your life out?
Your socialization might be gone, your identity, your purpose and now, “What do I do?”
It’s a big, big fear.
So even if you’re financially secure, you have other things to consider.
Douglas Goldstein: What are a couple of ideas you can tell someone for how he should begin
to envision his retirement or actually take steps so that it will be successful?
Diane Lang: One of the things I always say is, talk to your partner and spouse a few
years before retirement to make sure that you have the same vision.
I had a couple where the husband came in and said, “I can’t wait until we retire.
We’re going to go travel.
I’m going to sell the house.
We’re going to get an RV and see the whole United States.”
The wife was like, “What are you talking about?
I don’t even want to retire yet.
I don’t want to travel.”
They weren’t on the same page.
So I always suggest to do some type of vision board where you need to write down what your
vision is of retirement, you make pictures, you draw it, or whatever you want to do, to
make sure the vision is the same.
Also, a lot of people’s vision for retirement is not full retirement.
Being that I teach college, I see a lot of people retire from their tenure position but
still continue teaching as an adjunct because they love teaching, or they still continue
writing books.
Thinking about, “Am I fully going to retire from my position now, or am I going to go
into part time, or am I going to retire from one position but yet I still want to have
a different position, but maybe now I want it to be non-profit.
Maybe I want to start my own business, and is this something that my spouse and partner
really is on board with?” because if you’re not with the same vision that’s going to
cause problems.
Really trying to figure that out is the first step if you’re married and have a partnership
while retiring.
If you’re single, that might be different, but for couples retiring, that’s definitely
something you want to really work on way before you retire, so that’s why you can plan on
having the same type of retirement and the same type of activities when you retire.
Douglas Goldstein: When you mentioned that you are an adjunct professor, this reminds
me of my grandmother, who in her eighties went back to Queens College to do a degree
in Italian.
Diane Lang: I had a student a few years ago who came back for his degree because he said
he always wanted to get it, and it was a dream of his and he was in his 70s.
All the kids loved him.
He was the cutest.
Everybody would stay around and help him carry his books and go to lunch with him.
It was such a good experience, and we were all so proud of him when he graduated.
Douglas Goldstein: A lot of times I talk to people who are in some form or another a therapist
or a psychologist, where they talk about the importance of communication, and I’m beginning
to worry that that’s like a word that we throw around.
It sounds so easy to say to someone who has been married for 15, 20 or 30 years, “Maybe
you’re not communicating well with your spouse,” or one spouse feels that he or
she is not communicating well with the other, yet they have no history of doing this.
How do people start to have this conversation?
Diane Lang: There are a lot of people who have that lack of communication in their relationships
and you have to think about why.
Some people are very fearful, they’re afraid of rejection, they don’t know how to express
their ideas, they’re holding onto past baggage where they were hurt when they expressed themselves,
but what we do know is if you have a lack of communication in your life, you’re always
going to feel stressed and unbalanced because you’re always going into situations where
you’ve internalized how you felt.
So if you’re going to a job that you’re unhappy about, where you’ve never talked
to your boss or supervisor to get your raise, or to get the proper review, you’re going
to go into work unhappy and the same with your relationship.
If you go home everyday and you’re not expressing how you feel and you’re holding onto anger,
it’s going to turn into jealousy, resentment, depression, so you really want to open up.
One of the most important things we know for the family is to have that communication at
dinner time.
We’re not always so concerned about the food.
We want healthy food, but if once a week you’re going to bring in a pizza and everybody is
going to sit around the dinner table without technology and actually communicate with each
other and do more than yes or no questions, you’re going to have a better relationship.
It’s really important again years before you retire, and for any marriage at any time
frame of your life, to really have that communication and discuss what’s going on and just remember
these two things.
The number one factor for depression is isolation and withdrawal, so that’s why we worry about
seniors when they retire, or moms when they became stay-at-home, or if you move to a new
area because you become isolated.
The number one factor of happiness is socialization, and not only do you need that from outside
sources, whether it is friends and family, but you need that from your spouse.
People who are married tend to be happier as long as they’re in a good marriage.
If you’re in a horrible marriage, that’s a different situation, but people who are
in a good marriage tend to be much happier because you have that support and that socialization.
It’s great to retire with your partner or your spouse, but you really want to have that
open line of communication, and if you’re having a problem again doing it, I do suggest
therapy, not because I’m a therapist, because therapy doesn’t work for everybody, but
it’s a nice way to open up and be able to express yourself with a mediator and a non-judgmental
person in the middle that can help you express how you’re feeling and help you become more
expressive.
Communication is the number one factor you need in a relationship for it to work.
It’s very important that you do that.
Douglas Goldstein: Let’s say that you’re married 20-30 years, and you say, “I’ve
really got to speak with my wife about what we’re going to do next,” but you just
can’t find the words.
What would be the words you would suggest?
Diane Lang: Honestly, I don’t know if there’s a right or wrong way to approach it.
A few things: one is to watch your tone.
You never want to come in sounding defensive or angry.
You don’t want to come across like you’re blaming someone.
Always discuss the problem, not the person, so if you come in and you’re worried about
retirement, even if it’s financial or health, or what are we going to do with our lives,
you want to come in with a good tone and good attitude because emotions are really too contagious.
So if you come in very stressed out, your spouse is going to see this and become immediately
defensive and back themselves up: “What’s going on here?”
You want to come in with a smile.
You want to come in and communicate with a good tone of voice and a good attitude, again
discussing the problem, not the person, and always expressing using I. “I feel this
way because I’m worried about our retirement because we haven’t spent a lot of time together.
Maybe we could sit down and discuss this,” and doing it in a very calm environment, maybe
while you’re having dinner or sitting outside at the park, not coming in an aggressive attitude.
You could also talk about some fun things, “What are we going to do when we retire?”
“Maybe go on vacation.”
“What’s your idea of a vacation?”
“What kind of volunteer work could we do together that could really help others?”
One of the biggest things we promote in retirement is volunteering because every time we pay
it forward, do a random act of kindness, we get a boost of happiness, and if you could
do that as a couple, you get to spend more quality time together, and you get to help
others as helping yourself, so maybe you could discuss that, or maybe discuss, “Are we
going to get to see the kids more often, the grandkids, maybe get a summer house or a second
house near them?”
Bring up some fun things, just keep it very calm, and keep it open and again don’t blame
the person.
Just bring up the problem or the issue that you would like to discuss and watch your tone
of voice and your non-verbals.
Douglas Goldstein, CFP®, is the director of Profile Investment Services and the host
of the Goldstein on Gelt radio show (Monday nights at 7:00 PM on www.israelnationalradio.com.
He is a licensed financial professional both in the U.S. and Israel.
Securities offered through Portfolio Resources Group, Inc., Member FINRA, SIPC, MSRB, NFA,
SIFMA.
Accounts carried by National Financial Services LLC.
Member NYSE/SIPC, a Fidelity Investments company.
His book Building Wealth in Israel is available in bookstores, on the web, or can be ordered
at: www.profile-financial.com (02) 624-2788 or (03) 524-0942.
Disclaimer: This document is a transcription and/or an educational article.
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