How to Manage Your Retirement Like You are the Chief Executive of Your Own Company

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Here's our host, Dr. Joseph Casciani.

Well, hello to everyone joining us today on our podcast. You're listening to the Living to 100 Club, and I'm your host, Joseph Casciani. If you're looking for inspiration about your future and staying positive when hit with setbacks, you're in the right place. We're here to help you get the best out of all the years we are given, regardless of what obstacles come our way. From my articles and podcasts to our club membership, I want to invite you to join our community and stay uplifted about aging and keep a positive mindset in all you do. Our guest today for this podcast is Terry Mulhern, a retirement income certified professional. Terry is the author of Retirement: Congratulations, You've Been Promoted to CEO and a companion workbook. The message in his book is that pre-retirees' retirement planning should parallel what a chief executive does in running his or her own company. Using experts and outside resources and taking a comprehensive view of the many sides of a successful business. This sounds like the perfect analogy for running a successful retirement. Gary, welcome to our show.

Hey, thanks for having me.

Great. Yeah. So I always like to begin by asking our guests to, you know, give us a little snapshot of, you know, the journey that took you to where you are today.

Yeah, sure. I started my college career at John Carroll University up in Cleveland, Ohio, and I graduated with a finance degree. Really wanted to go to Wall Street, but then realized that 3.0 from John Carroll doesn't get you to Wall Street like a Harvard 4.0 does. So I started my career in banking as a financial analyst. Worked with a number of banks, moved up my career and headed up a retail finance department, the whole retail finance division for a regional bank. Then moved, decided that I wanted to get back into marketing and not purely into finance because when I graduated high school, I was accepted into the Pittsburgh Institute of Art. I was also accepted into John Carroll, and I was in this dilemma. Do I want to be an artist, or do I want to be a finance guy? I switched my career into marketing and moved into a different financial service company into a marketing role with MBNA for 7 years. At that point in time, I got my MBA with a concentration in finance and marketing. My marketing career did very well. So I moved up through the careers, became VP of marketing, eventually became chief marketing officer for a couple companies, became chief operating officer for a tech company. But over that time, my brother had a financial planning practice, which I dabbled in with him and doing more of the back office analytics. And he was kind of the face to the client, but I did some of the backend. Portfolio analysis, software, and doing that type of work. I came at a point in my career where the average CMO, I think, lasts maybe 18 months as a career. Decided that I reached a point in my career it was time to do something that I wanted to do, something I was passionate about. I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I was never very passionate enough about one thing until I kind of found retirement planning. And it gave me this perfect combination of working with people, helping people, a sense of satisfaction, and it utilized my strengths. And the financial analysis, the data analytics all plays a part in that. Running kind of your own retirement practice, you have to know a little bit about marketing in there as well, trying to get some customers through the door. So it kind of brought it all together. So there's a certain time in my career, several years ago, where the right time happened. I met the right person with the right opportunity and, you know, made the leap forward to do something on my own.

Sure, sure. So all of these different paths eventually lead us to something that we're really comfortable with and good at, you know, we have strengths. So It takes a while to kind of go down different hallways to see what works for us. So yeah, so you're in the retirement planning field, that's your specialty, and you actually have the RICP certificate, Retirement Income Certified Professional. So tell me about your practice, what type of clients, typical ages, what their concerns are.

Yeah, so let me tell a little bit about the RICP. So most folks are familiar with the CFP, Certified Financial Planner. Most of those folks are concentrating on wealth accumulation, right? This is the buildup savings. The RICP is kind of like the sister designation that says we're gonna focus on the second half of life and not just the front half of wealth accumulation, and growing wealth. So in that, we focus on how do you structure a portfolio for retirement? How do you optimize that? How do you withdraw it appropriately from a tax perspective? How do you deal with Medicare? How do you deal with different housing opportunities? There's different age-based housing opportunities for folks, and what's the differences and pros and cons of those? So, the RICP has probably 70% of what a CFP does, but it really concentrates on how you build an optimal retirement portfolio, then how you draw it down appropriately so that it lasts your lifetime. And then if you have enough, build a legacy, right? How you leave something to your kids, your grandkids, and all that factors in there with wills and trusts and all that may come into that part of the equation. So that's where I decided to focus in on because, you know, my wife's an eye doctor and she deals a lot with the medical side of the profession. You know, people who have medical issues with their eyes are almost older folks. It's just a reality. And I think we both kind of work— love working with those folks. And but really the people I work with the most are between that 40 and 50, 40, 55 is probably where the core of the people who I start with, because those are the folks who are just starting to think about it, right? They're getting to that point in their life like, well, retirement's gonna happen eventually, I should really check in where I am. And there's also a certain amount of time that we have to make adjustments. And to get them on the path they want to be on. So I'd say a vast— if there was like the bell-shaped curve, that 50-year-old would be right in the middle of that bell-shaped curve. But it's a big curve. And I'll definitely have people in their 20s and 30s who are really thinking about retirement early and planning ahead and make sure they're saving well, make sure they're investing properly. As well as somebody who didn't think about retirement until 2 years before it and said, "Hey, I just want to know where I am." Then you're kind of telling, "This is where you are. This is what it's going to look like. There's not a lot I can do, but I can help protect your portfolio and set it up properly now that you're moving into a different stage in your life where it's a little bit more protected, less in the market." Setting up a portfolio for the the right age and risk tolerance that you have. So my demographic is pretty wide, but there is a concentration where people, I think it kind of clicks at some point in those 40s, 50s, where they start thinking about it.

Around the 50 or so age group. So is it more of a consolidation of some of their earlier plans and you're kind of reviewing their plans and their portfolio all of the— I mean, we'll talk more about what all the different parts are, but it sounds like something of a consolidation.

Yeah, it's bringing it all together into one plan. And a lot of times that has to do with couples as well. So generally, if you have a spouse, you plan to retire together. So we bring all that data together into our retirement planning software. So both spouses, one may have a pension plan, one may have a 401, an IRA, some life insurance. Where does it all land? And we kind of bring it together into one plan for the household. And the one thing that I tell people is, I was listening to a TED Talk a while back about how we put a man on the moon. And they'd mapped out a flight pattern from launch pad to the spot on the moon where they were supposed to land. And they were basically on that trajectory 5% of the time. The other 95% of the time they're doing course corrections, right? And I try to tell people that's retirement planning. No matter what we get on paper today, we're going to get back together next year and we're probably going to have to make some course corrections. Something's going to happen. The job change, interest rate changes, the stock market changes. Tax laws change, but it's not one of those things that you do it, you set it, and it's done. You're always doing those course corrections. So I try to get that analogy across that whatever we're done today, it's not done.

Yeah, yeah, that's a great analogy. I mean, that would hit home for a lot of people, I'm sure. It makes sense. So I'd like to ask you about your book. I love the title. I wonder how you came up with the title. Retirement. Congratulations, you have been promoted to CEO. Yeah, tell us about that.

Yeah, so I have a team, about 15 folks on my team who work for me, and majority of those folks are coming from a lot of time the banking industry or another firm. And I have a presentation I give to them, which is, congratulations, you've been promoted as CEO. And it just talks to them about now that they're on my team, they're independent advisors, they're 100% responsible for their business. And these are the top 8 things, 10 things that CEOs do that are successful that you need to start doing today. So I'd walk them through that presentation as their kind of first introduction to Joining my team. And the book follows that same structure of CEOs take care of their health. They take care of their mental health. They read a ton. You probably have read how much people read, the top CEOs, how many books they read a year. They stay on top of things. They stay mentally sharp. They're very athletic. They go to the gym. They ride bikes. They run. They do something to keep their physical health there because they know it's all interrelated. And then they surround themselves with the best people. The CEO is not balancing the books of the company. The CEO is not running HR. The CEO is not managing the warehouse, but his job is to find the best of the best to join his team. And the The whole theory behind the book came as an epiphany one day. I'm like, this is what I should be talking to my clients about. This is how you should be managing your retirement the same exact way. And let's not just focus on your financial side. Let's focus on treat it as a business because you're going to be working for this business 20 or 30 years once you retire. So if you start treating it as a business now, regardless of what age you are, So if it's a business, you're going to find the best people. You're going to read your statements when they come in the mail. You're not going to throw your money in some target date fund, just hope it does well, if it was a business. So it's all about changing the mindset of what people have been taught forever of set it and forget it. And let's just hope it works out when I turn 65.

It's a very colorful way to kind of visualize the retirement plans. I can see that that resonates with people that, well, gee, I do need to read a lot. I do need to be— develop more expertise in some area, at least so I can make some informed decisions about it. And it's not a simple, you know, one path route here. We have to incorporate a lot of these ideas and plans. I can see where that almost like running your own business, you're running your own retirement. Makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, it's like, it's Terry Mulhern's Retirement LLC, right? Yeah, yeah. You know, let's run it like a business. Let's treat it like a business. Let's track it. Let's have metrics and let's fire people who aren't doing a good job. And that's probably the one thing that people don't do. Now, one of my favorite stories is that a lot of people have an advisor of some sort And I'll ask them, "Tell me about your advisor, how you picked them and how they're doing." And they'll give me good stories. "This is an advisor my parents had. My Uncle Bob uses them too. Super friendly. He calls me back. We sit down once a year." It gives me everything but anything about their portfolio. It's all about the service they're getting. And only one time in my career, I had a 70-year-old woman say, mention, wouldn't even mention his name, just sent me a spreadsheet. And she kept track quarter by quarter of the S&P, the Dow Jones, and her portfolio by quarter. And she just sent me the spreadsheet and she goes, "This is how he's doing." And there was like this little bump in the road somewhere along the way. And she was like, "Oh, that's when I fired that guy." "I brought on a new advisor, and this is how he's doing. He's doing a fantastic job. I keep him all day long." But nobody thinks it in that term of it's about their outcome, not just the service. And it was just amazing. She wouldn't even give me his name, nothing, just said, "I just look at the spreadsheet and this is how I judge how he's doing." And I just love that philosophy of managing it. By the numbers.

Yeah. Well, it puts the retiree in the driver's seat, right? I mean, they are making the decisions. They're pulling the strings and sometimes they need to part company with their advisors, right?

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah, we run into it all the time and they're like, well, what am I supposed to tell my advisor that I'm leaving him? I'm like, well, you have two choices. You have to call them and tell them and give them the bad news. Or wait till he gets the transfer paperwork, then he's going to call you. But eventually you're going to have to have that hard conversation either way.

Yeah. So you have the book and you also have a companion workbook that helps people kind of work out some questionnaires and some schedules and charts. Tell us about the companion.

The companion workbook is designed chapter by chapter to get them to write things down. Nothing happens unless it's written down, right? We've all read books and there have been great books, but until you write some type of action plan, something you're going to do, create a to-do list, it just doesn't get done. So, that planner is one of what am I going to do? And a big part of the book is putting together your team. Who is on your retirement team? Which doctor is it? Is it a personal trainer? Is it a psychologist? Is it this financial planner, a family member? Whoever that is, you have to build your team. As your CEO, this is your board. This is the team you're putting together. So, part of it is making sure they really understand that they need a team, document who that team is, And then maybe find someone to play quarterback of who's gonna corral all the cats, right? And get them together and pick somebody to help them bring all that, those team members together. So, it's a combination of documenting your team and to put together small action items for yourself to move your plan along the line, chapter by chapter.

Yeah, so you mentioned all these different specialties, the financial person, and bankers, but you mentioned also the medical and mental health and how do they come into the picture of our retirement plan? I mean, you're talking about really holistic, comprehensive self-care, I guess.

Yeah, it's for me, I just want them to know it's important, right? No, it's important. Put somebody on your team, work with somebody on those, those things. You know, have a doctor you trust with— know that exercise is important, know that eating healthy is important. So it's all part of it. And I just want them to think about it. And I want them to write something down, write a name, write a step, write that I'm going to walk 1 mile a day. Now give me something in that category so they know it's a part of your mindset as you're building your plan.

Yeah, not typically part of a retirement plan, right? But it makes sense because you are looking at really more of an umbrella approach for this individual to make sure he or she has all of these pieces to the puzzle. It's not just a single direction.

Yeah, I just want them to think holistically, and I may not be able to help them much in those categories, but I can get them to think about it. I can get them to, you know, get trust in a doctor, I can get them to think about maybe finding a personal trainer or doing some exercise and bring that into the mix. So, you know, that's the whole point of that, that section of the book. You know, I'm, I'm no expert in that, that section. That's why, you know, there's a lot of experts that I bring in those sections, but it's important. And that's more important than the money. That's why the money comes third. You know, if you don't have the mental health and physical health to enjoy the money, it's not important.

Yeah, but it's really also a confirmation, affirmation that all of these elements are necessary for a successful retirement, to live longer and to live happier and wealthier and healthier. So, it's all part of the retirement long-term plan. That's our goal, right? Yeah.

That's exactly it.

Yeah. So, um, what are the concerns when you talk with your clients? So what, what are their, what's their thinking like in their 50s? And they're looking ahead, are they seeing themselves as working until 60? Are they thinking about retiring? What, what's their, what are their primary concerns?

Well, there's one question that I ask almost everybody at the start. Our first meeting just to get a gauge of how comfortable they are. And that question is, is how comfortable are you with your retirement readiness on a scale from 0 to 10? I just want to gauge where they think they are and how they feel. And I am overwhelmingly surprised by the numbers of 2s, 1s, 1.5. These are people in their 50s that are giving me these really, really low numbers. I do a lot of work in the education space, so both professors and K-12. So my nonprofit, Educational Retirement Advisors, did a national survey and asked that question to the folks. And 70% of the respondents gave themselves an F on retirement readiness. And that's just unacceptable, especially in that industry where they have a a good pension plan. They just have to do a little bit above and beyond to supplement that. They're not in the private sector where they have to build their own 401 and do all that. So I was just appalled when I was doing it one-on-one, the number of one-halves, the ones that I got. So we did the national survey to figure out, am I just getting selective folks who are scoring low? But no, it's not. It's, you know, for at least that industry in that group, you know, it's like over 60% that said, you know, gave themselves a 6 or below.

So what's missing? I mean, what's your sense of what, what they feel is missing?

Well, there's, there's a couple of things I think is missing. I think in that space, they just, they got a pension plan. So they really just don't think about it. And they confuse a pension plan with a retirement plan. That's like confusing a transmission with a car. Transmission's a core part of it, you need a transmission, but it's not a car. And I think they get this false sense of security because they have their pension plan. And they— no ways from Merrill Lynch is calling K through 12 teachers to try to be their retirement planner. So they're an underserved community because they have a pension plan. So they don't have a ton of assets that a Merrill Lynch person's going to be calling them to try to take over their millions of dollars in their 401. So I think it's a combination of things. It's the pension plans, false sense of security. It's an underserved market. And there's no one in there giving them the advice, guidance, and the planning that they really need.

Sure. Yeah, I can see that. So how do you help them, or how do people fix these gaps, or what strategies do you recommend to them to kind of fill out their plan?

So it's a multi-step process. So it always begins on where are you today. Right? So we use retirement planning software by RetireReady. It's called TRAC. It's a great software, especially for public employees because it has the pension plans built into it. But the big step is figuring out where you are. Most people haven't put it all together yet. They figure out where we are, figure out what path we're on, what rate of savings are we doing, and what type of rate of return are we getting? People really miss the difference between rate of return and their ability to retire on time. I give people an example where 3 people with the exact same plan, same age, join the same retirement plan and they contribute the same amount. One person averages a 4% return over their lifetime and they run out of money at age 84. At 6%, they have enough to last their lifetime and pass on $1.2 million to their kids. That's the difference between 4% and 6%. If you get an 8% return, now you have $12 million at the end of your lifetime to give to your kids. So getting them to understand that that return that they get over a very, very long period of time is critically important, just as important, if not more important, than the amount that you put in. So that's where the 70-year-old with her spreadsheet knew exactly what needed to get done. That's where we try to focus on. So when we look at their portfolio, we look at what path you're on, what's your rate of returns in your portfolios today? When do you want to retire? And given the path you're on, can you get there? And if not, What changes do we need to make today? It could be just portfolio allocations are wrong. If you're sitting on a couple million dollars in CDs, that's going to earn you maybe 50 basis points today and inflation's at 5, you may not have the money you need when you want to retire. So it's portfolio analysis is another software that we use purely for portfolios to optimize those and then bring it all together. And seeing how we can optimize that plan for them. How do we customize it, optimize it, make it the best it can for them? And sometimes it's, you know, we do need to save a little bit more than we have been. And many folks, it's— you can't solve it day one, but over a course of 5 years, if they get raises each year, we just put a little bit more in this year, a little bit more next year, a little bit more the year after, we're going to get you up to the the level of savings you need to get to without, you know, an immense amount of pain. Um, because a lot of times you can't solve it day one, but over a period of time we can. So we work with them on building that plan out and having a strategy to get them back on track.

And a lot of this will come from that initial software package that people can fill out, complete. You get a good assessment done and you can see what's strong, what needs some attention, where to tweak it. Good.

Yeah, the other great thing is that once you have an advisor who has a software package like that, once you have it all in there, you can do a lot of what-ifs, right? What if I retired at 60? What if I retired at 63? What if I save $400 a month? What if I save $200 a month? What if I get this rate of return? You know, you can do a lot of what-ifs. And sometimes we'll produce 3 plans for folks. Good, better, best, right?

Sure.

You know, I want to retire age 60, but this is what it looks like. But 63 looks like this and 65 looks like this. And then we'll give them all 3 plans that they know the differences between all those.

And periodically you review these, I take it, probably a few times a year. You help them review it.

Yeah. At a very minimum, it's once a year. It really depends on what's happening with them personally. As you get very close to retirement, we do a lot more work. It's really time to rebalance your portfolio, take risk out of your portfolio. You might be rolling over your 401. You might be putting some money into principal-protected accounts and might be doing quite a bit. So we may meet with folks as they get close to retirement more frequently, or stuff happens in their life. It says, okay, we need to get back together before annual review because Now my son's decided to go to MIT. I gotta figure out how am I gonna pay for that? And we need to rejigger our plan. So it's very minimum once a year just to make sure we're on track. There's not a lot of changes, but it's really individually dependent on what's happening in their life.

Yeah, well, like you said, it's that course correcting that's always going on, that 95% of our, course is always going to need to be adjusted. So probably as closer you get to the target, the more frequent it is too, right?

Yeah, exactly. That's when you, you start rebalancing your portfolio, reducing your risk as you get close to retirement. And we try to rebalance as we get closer.

So I'm sure you're aware of, you know, as we're living longer these days, there are more people that are not wanting to retire. I mean, the traditional retirement used to be maybe early '60s, '65. But that's not so hard and fast anymore. People are living longer. They don't want to retire, or if they do give up their job, maybe their full-time position, they're wanting to shift into something part-time. What's your thinking on that? Are you in favor of people working indefinitely, or do you recommend retirement?

I'm 100% for it if for those who want it for any reason at all. There's a number of reasons. So I had 3 professors from Ohio State back to back to back who all worked in research, right? So you go there, you meet with them, they're with their spouse, and they were all 3 in their 70s. And their wife's sitting there going, "He's retiring next year." And he's going, "No, I'm not." And she goes, "Yeah, you're retiring next year." And he's going, "No." I don't go to work. I just go do research. I get to travel to 6 conferences a year around the world. And they all pointed to the same professor who was like 80. Well, so-and-so is 80 and he's not retired. So, I don't have to retire at age 71. So, you love what you do. It keeps your mind active. We build it into many plans where yes, you're officially retired here. But we're loading in some additional income into your plan, assuming you're gonna do something part-time, you know, something you like, something you love to generate a little bit more income. And for many folks, it's something they really, really wanna do. But some folks, it's kind of necessary because of where they are financially, that they're gonna have to work a little something to supplement their plan, so.

Are you seeing more of that these recent years?

Oh, I definitely see it more in this recent years. Yeah, definitely folks who say, "Yeah, I really don't love what I do right now. I'm happy to retire, but I know it's financially not feasible. I'm happy making less, doing something I love to do, supplementing my retirement for X number of years." So I definitely see it quite often.

Sure. Yeah. And sometimes it's It's nice to have that supplementary income, and sometimes it's essential to have that extra income, right? I can see that. But a lot of it, of course, from my perspective, is that we also need that sense of purpose and, you know, meaningful activity that we, we, we like to engage in. Otherwise, we sit around without any particular goals or structure, yet we tend to lose that sense of worth and importance because we're not feeling like we're making a contribution. So the financial part is, is really a big piece of it, but it's also that intention to stay engaged, what I call engagement. Yeah.

Yeah, which I'm sure you're more well-versed than I am on the topic of that shock value of working 40 hours a week, walking out of the office and not having anything to do. For days on end. And that's a pretty big shock to the system. And my personal story, it took my dad almost 10 years to retire. He said he retired, but he still worked 30 hours a week. And then eventually he worked 20 hours a week. And then eventually he did fully retire. But it's hard. When you put your life into something, just to turn it off and say, now what? There's only so much golf you can play.

Well, we're tied to our careers. Our identity is based around all of that sense of contribution and dedication and professionalism. And sometimes when we lose that, we begin to wonder, how do I define myself now? What's my new definition? What's my new identity? So, that's part of this process too. And I think you're going to see more of that down the road.

Yeah, I see some of it on the religious side too, where they're going to spend more time with their church and their faith and doing volunteer work, just to stay active, to keep their mind active, to do what they love to do. I've been seeing that quite a bit for those folks where the money is not as important, but the mission, the purpose, and having that mission and purpose in their life is important.

Sure. Yeah. Good conversation. Uh, Terry, let me ask you, just about out of time, but I wonder what you hope our listeners take away from our conversation today.

It's simple. Become the CEO of your retirement. Take charge. Think about it holistically. Surround yourself with the best people. Fire those folks who aren't doing a good job. Don't be afraid to fire somebody. Who's not doing the job you want them to do. And that could be the doctor that you don't think is doing the right thing, the personal trainer, your financial advisor, whoever that may be. Don't be afraid to make a change because it's your company that you're running and it's your responsibility to surround yourself with the best people possible.

That's some great advice. Great advice. Thanks. Thanks.

You're welcome.

So, uh, yeah, we're out of time, but before we wrap up I just want to remind our listeners about a few items. I'm pleased to announce a new co-sponsor for our podcast with the program A Mighty Good Time. Are you looking for ways to stay engaged and stay active? Check out amightygoodtime.com. A Mighty Good Time is one-stop shop for events and activities for those 50 and over, free to search and free to post. Amightygoodtime.com. Also, be sure to visit our website and see the option to work with Dr. Joe— that's me— for one-on-one conversations about managing setbacks, overcoming a negative outlook, and getting back to feeling engaged and motivated again. Visit the Work with Dr. Joe page on our website and see the options available. You can also pick up a copy of my book on Amazon, Living Longer Is the New Normal. I think that whatever age you're at, inspiration and a positive mindset can be put to good use. That's my message in the book and something that our guests today, I think, would, would also affirm. Be sure to sign up for our email list for announcements and newsletters with reliable information and resources about moving forward. Thanks so much, Terry, for being a guest on our program. For those who might want to contact you, how can they do that?

The best way to contact me is visit my website, which is retirement-ceo.com. On the site, you can order the book, order the workbook, but you can click a link and just book an appointment with me. My calendar is on there. Book an appointment with me at any time.

Okay. And you can consult with people out of state, or are you restricted by your license?

Nope. I can— I have clients across the country.

Great, great, great. Okay, so retirement-ceo.com. And again, your book is Retirement: Congratulations, You've Been Promoted to CEO. Okay, yeah, well, thanks again, Kerry. I appreciate your being a guest on our program.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, you're welcome. And thanks to everyone for listening to this episode. Hope to see you next time.

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