Steps to a Secure Retirement Whether You Have Money or Not

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

Good day to everyone. I'm Joe Casciani, your host for the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Our conversations are all about aging well and doing what it takes mentally and physically to live longer and healthier. Our guests share insights and recommendations about successful aging, stories of perseverance, and inspiration about our future. On this podcast today, we are excited to have as our guest Ken Lapp, the author of a new video series on successful retirements Ken shares his insights for a safe, financially secure, and enjoyable retirement regardless of your savings. We'll be discussing his newly developed 7-part video series that also explores the psychological aspects of retirement, finding your personal power, methods to deal with ageism, and effective ways to guard against fraud and internet scams. I'm happy to report that Ken is offering a 35% discount for his video series to our listeners. This is a significant reduction off his usual price of $157 offered to listeners of this podcast. We'll get to more of those details a little later on. First, a quick update on our guest. Ken Lapp is a certified life coach specializing in having a good retirement with little or no savings. Although his new video course, Retire on Social Security, thoroughly discusses the financial issues, a great deal of the course is about mindset, increasing self-esteem, how to feel good about your life and your world no matter what is going on around you, and overcoming the psychological issues most people confront when they retire, whether they have money or not. Ken, welcome to our program.

Thank you, Joe. Very happy to be here.

Great. Glad to have you with us. I'm looking forward to our conversation. Yeah, I always open by asking our guests to share a little bit about the journey that brought you to where you are today. Hmm.

Yeah. Okay. Yes. And that could be a long story, but I'll make it very short. I was severely depressed for many years in my adult life due to an unfortunate childhood, but I got out of that depression and truly out, and I have a great life now, and I know how I did it. You know, I know how I got out of many years of many unhappy years and to the life that I have right now.

Sure.

And a lot of that is about, uh, mindset. It's about learning to be positive, increasing your self-esteem, and looking on the positive side of things. And I, during some of those, uh, unhappy years, I learned a lot about how to live on very little money. And then, and I, I should say that that the main thing that helped me get out of this long-term severe depression was meditation. I started meditating in 1998, I think it was, and I've been meditating ever since. And from meditation, I learned to be more aware of myself and my world and other people. And that awareness is what helped me understand that I can change my life and that my life is up to me.

So yeah, yeah, that's a significant journey to describe, um, like that. You had a successful business, uh, over the years. That's right, as a web developer and helping people to grow their brands online.

That's right.

Um, at some point you decided to move out of that work and—

Well, when I retired, you know, I—

Sorry. Okay. Yeah.

I, I, I did, uh, develop a successful business, like you say, making websites and helping them get to the top of Google so they get lots of traffic. And, and I was very good at it. I enjoyed it. And so I, I learned something about the transition that successful people can have. Even if you have money, even if you're very successful, retirement, going into retirement is a major change of life. You know, the rules of life are all different. So no matter how much money you have or how successful you are, uh, how great your career has been, there are significant, uh, issues that need to be addressed.

Sure, sure. Some significant issues to wrestle with and learn about oneself, right? Learn about our own strengths. And we'll talk more about our personal power, what those gifts are.

So I wanted to— when I retired, I wanted to do something more meaningful, I felt, you know. And I felt I had some knowledge that I gained from all those years of meditation that could help other people. So, uh, yeah.

So how are you spending your time these days? I, I know you spent a long, um, long time putting the courses together. Do you do anything other than focus on this course development?

You know, um, I still do meditation, of course, and, and I am, uh, it's had such a wonderful impact on my life that I'm very dedicated to it for my own good. And also, I, you know, I still have some of my old SEO, my old website customers because they became very good friends. And it was funny, I had coffee with one of them the other day and he literally begged me not to leave him. He said, don't retire, you know, because a lot of my customers either get all or most of their business from the website. And some of these people are not technical at all. So anyway, I do that a little bit, but mostly my life is consumed with a mission. You know, I've decided that I'm— one of the things I talk about in my course is that everybody needs to have meaning in their life. They need to have a life purpose that is greater than themselves, just themselves and their immediate family. And we get to choose that life purpose. You know, that's one of the great things about being human, having freedom of choice, is we get to choose our life purpose. So the purpose that I've chosen is to help as many people as I can understand that they can choose, they can literally choose to be happy. And they can literally choose to feel good about themselves and their world. And as well, they can make their lives any way that they want it to be. And those two things, you know, my entire video course is every point. I, you know, I mentioned so many points in that course, but every point is about those two things.

Yeah, good to hear you say that. I, I agree 100% about choosing the road we want to go down, choosing the role we want to play. I call it writing a new script, especially after a major life event. Yes, we're no longer defined by who we were yesterday or a year ago, and now we are creating a new character for ourselves. So very similar to what you're talking about. So in a way, you have kind of dual careers, still doing a little bit of the old SEO work, but also focusing on that course. And you said when you retired you wanted to do something more meaningful, um, so you created this online video course. What, what were your goals, Ken? What would you say your goals were to, you know, when you were finished, what would you hope to have accomplished?

Well, uh, the online course I was thinking would be something that would apply, or at least would have the potential to reach a great many people because it's not that expensive. And, you know, people can divide the payments if they want to. And it talks about, you know, some people can learn life experience just by hearing about others' life experience.. And so I thought that would be the first step that I should take to communicate my message, you know, my two big messages. And then of course, you know, I did become certified as a life coach, and I've been doing that for a little while now, a couple years, and enjoying it. And so people can go deeper if they have issues, if they have problems they want to overcome, or goals that they want to achieve, you know, I believe that I can help them do that. So that's basically it.

Yeah, yeah. So let's talk about the courses. I've looked at the first video, and you have 7 videos. What— let's just say, what do the viewers learn by going through this series?

The first video talks about the financial aspects of retiring, whether you have money or not. You know, I've been seeing so many articles, like just the other day I saw an article in Forbes that said something like half of Americans have no, nothing saved for retirement. And I imagine that people are afraid, you know, what are they going to do?, when they can't work anymore or when they just really don't want to. So I spent almost 2 years, uh, researching that course. And I found that there are 4 different ways that thousands of people are doing it right now that are retiring on, you know, like the average Social Security check in June 2021. Was $1,509. So there are ways that people can retire on that much income per month or even less and have a very good life. So I did the research and I talk about— I was lucky to find out a lot of insider information, but part of— so I talk about those 4 ways and I can tell you those 4 ways if you like.

Sure, sure.

Uh, okay, well, the first one is to just— there's, there's simple basic concepts. The first one is to just move to a smaller city in America. And, uh, I talk about a study that was done by a company called Go Banking Rates, and they looked at the top 143, the, the largest 143 cities in the United States, and compared the livability, the cost of rent, the cost of living, all these kinds of things to find if there is actually places, small cities that you can live on just your Social Security. And, and they published an article that shows the top 20 cities. So I talk about the first 7 cities. Okay. But I should mention that every bit of research that I've put in my entire course, and there's a lot of it, you know, I just, it's not just filled with blather and platitudes, you know, there's concrete research. Every bit of research there, I have a document called links to screenshots so that anybody can look at the article, look at the place that I found that research and read the entire article for themselves if they wish. So that's one of the ways. Another way is to do what is called home sharing. But we have to be very careful because there is a type of home sharing where a younger person is hired to do everything for a person that just can't do anything for themself. And I mean anything. And that's not what we're talking about here. You know, there— I was so happy to find a website that talks about a home sharing system. Yeah, they have other— there's organizations actually all the world, but there is many organizations across the United States and Canada, and they have links to those on this website. And home— this home sharing is just about an older person who has a big house and an extra room and is happy to share it with somebody who, you know, in return for some light chores, you know, and reduced rent or sometimes free rent.

Sure.

You know, so that's the second way. Another way is to live in your RV on the road full time. Now, it may sound a little bit radical, but there are groups of people who band together. And they look like, you know, I've done, I've seen their website, and I show their website in the course. And they look very friendly. And there's pictures of them sitting around the campfire all together, you know, and they welcome anybody and everybody. So that might be kind of fun.

There was a movie about about that, right? A couple of years ago, Nomadland.

That's right, exactly. Yeah. And the last way is to move to a country overseas. And that can be a really, uh, an interesting and, and fun way to live. Uh, of course, it, it might cost a little money to get there, but there are resources. Uh, I found a book by a woman who has spent 20 years living in different countries all the world. And she's very good because she talks about the prices of taxis, of cell phones, and how to find a maid. And she talks about all the gritty details of all— in all these different places. And she describes these places, she calls it warts and all. So the positives and the negatives. But There's a lot of countries where you can live really well, $1,500 a month, or sometimes as low as $800 a month. You know, it's really surprising.

Sure. Yeah. So, for very practical, down-to-earth strategies—

That's right.

—for living on fairly limited income, Social Security income. And one thing I'd like to highlight, Ken, and I agree, you point out the links and the kind of the references for so much of your information. You know, we used to use the expression people who walk the talk, and I think you've walked the talk because you have not only the, the bottom line, but you have all the backup information for what you've learned, and you share that in your video course. I, I did view a couple of the courses and just good content, but also good solid background supportive information. Yeah.

Thank you, Joe. Yeah. And the research that I use, you know, it's from credible sources like the Harvard Medical School website and this kind of thing, you know. So I tried to make it as credible as possible. Sure. So that's the first course. That's the first video.

Sorry, first video. Yeah. And then you talk about the psychological aspects of retirement, as you already touched on. Yeah, some of the significant changes that each of us goes through when we shift from full-time employment to what's now. Yeah, now what's next here?

Yeah, so, well, I think you have, uh, mastered that concept, uh, and, and I think I have too, uh, because, well, there's two groups, of course. There's the people that enjoyed the career they were working in and people that didn't. Didn't like their job at all. And I think both you and I were in the group that enjoyed it. And the way to be successful in your transition to retirement for that first group is to just keep active in your field and do what you can, do what you feel like. Maybe if you can't work for money, then volunteer or be a consultant or be a mentor.. And the other group of people, people that didn't like their job, those people, well, I get into the Course, but you have to keep active, you know, because otherwise you're in danger. You know, I don't want to talk, I don't want to be too negative, but if you didn't like your job and all of a sudden you're retired, then things can get very negative. And And so there are specific ways. You have to take action, you know, you have to keep doing different things. So yeah, so that's— Yeah, that's good to put—

Yeah, I think that's very important to put a spotlight on that. We have to take the initiative and look for some ways to not only to provide some meaningful activity, but some sense of purpose and something that offers that kind of cognitive stimulation and social interaction. It doesn't even have to be social. It could be a solo pursuit, I think, but something that really offers that kind of cognitive challenge, right, and continued stimulation. We can't wait for somebody to knock on the door and say, here I am. We have to go out and find it, right? We have to— maybe a new career, maybe going back to school for another degree, maybe learning a new language. That's right.

Instrument, whatever, right? A lot of schools will let you audit classes for free. They're happy to have you sit in, and you can learn something you wanted to learn all your life for free. You can meet young people. As long as you don't want to take the tests, uh, or get credits, they'll be happy to have you. So there's, there's many things you can do.

I'm just looking at the notes. Um, you have a video on Personal Power. What's that about?

Yeah, I'm happy. I was happy to include that video in my course because I, you know, due to my childhood, I, you know, it may sound funny for some people to hear me say this, but I really was afraid of everything and everybody for a long, long time, for most of my life.. And so I couldn't stand up for myself. I couldn't defend myself. And so, you know, I was bullied and dominated. And so I talk about how I found my personal power so that anybody watching the video can learn to stand up for themselves in a way that is completely nonviolent, you know. People that have no personal power become victims of anybody and everybody around them. And so some people who've been dominated have been dominated by violent, loud, and aggressive people. And so they're scared. They don't want— they're scared of their personal power because they don't want to treat anybody else that way. So I talk about how I found my personal power and how I learned to stand up for myself without any violence, without any conflict even. You know, you can, you can, you can be your own person and live your own life and feel good about yourself and what you're doing without even disturbing anybody else. But you have to be prepared. You know, we had so many— let me say this one statement that I like— so many of the greatest joys in life can only be appreciated when we're calm and relaxed. And we can only be calm and relaxed when we feel strong, when we feel confident that we can handle whatever life is going to bring us. No problem. We're not afraid of the future. We're not afraid of other people. We're not afraid of what might happen. So then we can be calm and relaxed and enjoy the simple pleasures. We can enjoy the great beauties in life. And so, uh, that's part of the great reason to find your personal power. I call it the eye of the tiger.

Yeah, so, uh, good. That's good. That's a great description, Ken. You know, there's the whole notion of feeling victimized and not wanting to stand up and defend ourselves. And as you say, it's done by being assertive without, you know, taking advantage of other people, without, you know, it's not necessarily a zero-sum game for you to gain, somebody else has to lose.

That's not it at all, right? That's right, exactly.

Having that ego strength and feeling that you respect yourself and you respect others equally, and they're no better than you no matter how wealthy they are or how successful they are. We all have the same value. Right? You all have the same worth.

Yes. And I think so many people in our society, you know, I don't usually like to talk in too broad a sense, you know, but still, I think there is a feeling in society of general powerlessness. You know, people feel that they don't have control of their lives. And That's completely unnecessary. You know, we can take control of our lives. And that's the way, you know, to change the world. I guess I should say it this way. To save the world, we have to save ourselves first. And so when we're strong, when we're powerful, when we have enough good feeling about ourselves and enough resources, then we can start to reach out to other people around us and see what help they need. And then we can gradually influence greater and greater numbers of people around us. I believe that's the way to change the world.

Yeah, no, I agree, I agree. You have so much content in these videos, and the total is what, 7 hours?

Is that what, uh, no, it's 7 videos for a total of 4 and a half hours. 4 and a half hours, okay. Yeah, okay. But But of course, very few people watch them, but watch it all at one sitting. Sure. And that's fine, you know, you can, you can remember, you know, every slide is numbered so you can remember where you were and just, just go back and pick up where you left off. Yeah, right, right.

So let's see then, the other videos, you have one on ageism and how to defend ourselves against the kind of stereotypes where older people are sometimes put into certain categories, and unfair and inaccurate, incorrect. Exactly. You have a whole section on that.

Yes, and I guess I would just say quickly a couple things. And one is that the first place we need to look for prejudice against older people is in ourselves. True. I noticed that, you know, when I was starting to do this course, I started to look at my own thoughts about retired people, and I asked myself, do I really approach every older person with the attitude that they are unique, special, active, strong, and a wonderful person? You know, and so If I don't, then it's my fault because most people become what you expect them to be. Sure. What you think they are. So the other thing I would say about ageism is that if you're ever confronted by it, you know, sometimes even our family members will do things like talk about you being not able to manage your finances or not being interested or something. So we have to watch that kind of thing and jump in in a gentle but nice way. Sure. And even sometimes strangers can do that to you. And when the first thing to do when that happens is absolutely nothing. We have to not react. Then they'll see that their attitudes, their ageism has absolutely nothing to do with you.

Yeah. Yeah, we have to be careful against having other people press our buttons. That's how I describe it. Yeah.

And in that video, in that same video, I also talk about ways that anybody— effective things that anybody can do to protect their freedom if somebody, even a relative, even— doesn't matter who, but if anybody is trying to put you into a nursing home when you don't want to go and you don't think you need to be in a nursing home. Maybe they're trying to access your inheritance or whatever. I don't know what the situation might be. Me, but I know that there are a lot of people that are in nursing homes that don't think they should be there and don't want to be there and could be living well independently on their own if they only knew how. Sure. So that's, that's a great deal about what my course is about, how to live well independently. And that includes steps like the DPOA, as you said, the power of attorney. Yeah.

For your estate and for healthcare. That's right.

And also often, well, you know, I talk about the 6 capacities, decision-making capacities that most of these judgments are made on. And maybe if you did have an assessment that you didn't pass, maybe you can talk to another doctor or another lawyer because you know, the grounds for this kind of thing are not really well established. And so if you can, if you've talked to one doctor and you didn't pass the grade for competence in that decision-making area, then maybe you can go back and improve your decision-making ability in that area and get another assessment. Yeah.

So again, you're blending a lot of your research, a lot of your own training and background, and a lot of your strategies and tips, recommendations for people to progress through their senior years in a positive, safe, kind of protective way, not being vulnerable and protecting yourself, protecting your rights, protecting your own decision-making. And very useful information. I could see that.

Very useful information. You know, Joe, I have to say here, and I say repeatedly in my course, that I'm not a doctor and I'm not a lawyer. And so I always encourage people to talk to their own specialist, their own lawyer, their, their own doctor. But still, it helps, I think, anybody in any situation to go into it with some education of their own. So I think that would help anybody. Yeah.

So just quickly, your final course, I think, is on fraud and internet scams, how to protect yourselves.

Any quick tips for people? Oh, absolutely. You know, again, I'm not a security expert, that kind of thing, but the thing is I had this internet business for over 20 years and I was working on the internet every day and I never got hacked or scammed. So there are a couple things that I would mention to people quickly. You know, and of course, the video, the last video goes into a lot of potential tips, but a couple of things I would say. The first thing I would say is never click a link or open an attachment in an email from somebody that, or in an email that you're not absolutely sure is safe. You know, like I've received emails that say that they're from Ken Lapp, and of course they weren't, you know, they weren't from me.

Yeah, you didn't send it to yourself.

That's right. So, uh, it's hackers that are using my name. And so even if it's from a friend, if they haven't written something in the body of the email that you know that they wrote, don't click any link in the email and, and never open attachment. That's, that's the most important thing. And, and even if it was a bona fide email and they say to you a few days or a couple weeks later, why didn't you respond? You can say, well, you know, I'm sorry, it's just so important, you know, I just— next time, please write a few words at least in the body of the email so I know it was really for you.

Sure, good advice. So what happens when you click on those links, those nefarious links?

What do they— Yeah, that's the key. That's a wonderful question, Joe. And what happens is that Even if it's an attachment that you might think is safe, like an image, a photo, a JPEG, you know, if your listeners know what that is, they can even put code malware or viruses in a JPEG, in a photograph. Okay, so what happens is that that virus or that malware is instantly without your knowledge downloaded into your computer. And it means that that person, that hacker, can now log into your computer and copy your files, can use your email to send another bad link with viruses in it to your friends and family. They can just do anything they want. They can even shut down your computer and put up a sign that says, if you don't send $500 to this, to this email address, we'll never let you use your computer again, you know, ransomware. Ransomware, sure. Yeah, yeah. So anything can happen.

Yeah, that's the bad stuff that goes on out there, right? Yeah, yeah.

Do we have time for one more? Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, please. Okay, well, the other thing I would say is about passwords. Don't, don't use the word password. In your passwords. And don't use— Give it in all caps. Yeah, yeah, that's right, in any form. And don't use the names of your children or your pets or anything like that, because that kind of thing is very easy for criminals to guess. The best way to make a password is to have a file on your computer that is called absolutely nothing like passwords. It might be called my personal diary or pictures of friends or whatever, you know, but you know that file has your passwords in it. And when you go to a website and they ask you to make a password, go make, open a text file like Notepad or even Microsoft Word, whatever text file you're using and just make a long string of gobbledygook, upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and sometimes even characters like an ampersand or the percent or exclamation mark or anything like that. A long, long string. And use that as your password and put that in your password file before you insert it into the website and tell them that's your password. Then next time you go to that website and you need the password, just open your password password file, copy that gobbledygook and insert it. But the second important step about that is to have a password system that only you know, and that you never type in an email to anybody, or you never type it into a document that is saved on your computer. And your password system might be something like, well, the first 2 and the last 5 characters of this long string of gobbledygook are not actually part of my password, you see. And so if you use— oh, I see. And so when you, when you go to that website and you want to put in, you want to input the password there, you open up your password file, you go to where that website is listed, and you just copy the middle characters. You don't copy the first 2 and the last 4 characters. First and last characters, sure. And then, and you use different bogus characters at the, at the front and the back of every— I mean, you have to be consistent, otherwise you'll forget. Yeah, of course. Always use whatever you decide, always use the first 2 and the last, always use your password system. And what I do is I type the words password system after a password that I've done that with. Wow. Wow. Yeah.

So good tips, good advice. And sounds like, um, again, just a sampling of what, what you're offering in, in this last, uh, last video. Um, yeah. And I know you also offer some complimentary health coaching, Ken. Um, you're a certified health coach and Why did you decide to do this?

Well, yeah, health, health can be anything physical, mental, spiritual, any kind of health. I just, you know, I guess the first reason is that I think I've already mentioned that retiring is a major change of life and, and no matter who you are and what your life situation, uh, if you're retiring you're going to have issues. And the way to confront them is to be prepared and to do it in advance. And, you know, that's the best way. But anyway, if you have problems, then sometimes it's easier to talk to somebody who's already been through so many problems and knows how to confront them. Also, you know, people that have goals. You know, I have goals, and I've made a life purpose that is important to me. And so if other people have done that, if they have goals that they want to accomplish, sometimes there are— well, not sometimes, all the time— there are obstacles we have to overcome. So sometimes it helps to have an objective ear to listen and someone to believe in you.

Yes, yeah, sounding board, somebody to listen without judgment and maybe offer some other, some other ways to view the problem, to view the challenge.

Yes, sometimes I do that if necessary, but usually it's best, I found, to ask questions so that the client can discover their own solutions. Right. Usually, usually that's the best way.

Right, right, right. Yeah, those are the best solutions too when we come up with our own. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So, um, just quickly then, how do, how do people access your course? What's your, what's your web address? And tell us about the cost. And we have a discount of 30%, 35%, I think. 35% discount.

Yeah, well, they can just go to my website. It's kenlappgloballifeskills.com. And of course, Lapp has two Ps, you know, Peter, L-A-P-P, like in Peter Peter, I always have to say. So kenlappgloballifeskills.com. And the course, the video course is accessible. Actually, on the video course page of that website, people can see a short excerpt from every one of the videos in the course. You know, I wanted to have a way that people could see what the course is like before they decide to take it. Okay, sure. And so there's a short excerpt from every video in the course, and also there's a 6-minute short video that's kind of an intro to the course. And on that page, there's a link that says "Enroll Now," and they can just, they just click that link. It takes them to another website where the video course is hosted, and they can, and for your listeners exclusively, they can input the coupon code. And I haven't discussed this with you. I hope you don't mind. No, no. But the coupon code would just be a simple JOE35.

So J-O-E-3-5, uppercase, or doesn't matter? Doesn't matter. Okay, JOE35. So the listeners to this podcast, listen to— who listen to the recording will have this code, and they can go to your website, kenlappgloballifeskills.com, put in the code and get that discount.

They get good deal. 35% off the price of $157, which amounts to about a $55 saving. Good deal. That's a good deal.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks very much for that. Is there anything— what would you like our listeners to take away from this conversation? What one thing stands out in your mind?

Ah, very good. Yes. Well, I think As you know, I guess we already talked about it a little bit, but it bears repeating. My most important message is that people can actually choose to be happy. If you know how, you can choose to have a good life, feel good about yourself and your world. And also that people can, really can, make their lives any way they want it. So, I mean, some people have more severe limitations than others, but generally, you know, like, we can't control other people, right? We can't control what other people do, but we can control how we react to what they do and what we think about what they do and what we do as a result and how we feel about what they do and how we feel about ourselves. So I think those two messages would be what I want to leave people.

Good advice. Good advice. Yeah, we cannot control what happens, but we can control our reaction to it, right?

That's right, exactly. Good. Well, thanks.

It looks like we're out of time for today, Ken, but before we wrap up, I just want to remind our listeners to visit my website, livingto100.club. To sign up for the email list and to download a free copy of my 9 Tips to Make Living Longer Enjoyable. While you're on the website, be sure to peruse the library of blogs and podcasts. And finally, if you're interested, reach out to me to schedule a presentation for your group in person or online. I think there's real value in helping older adults feel inspired about their future, and that's what I love to talk about. So thanks very much for being a guest on our show today. And just to repeat your website again, kenlappgloballifeskills.com. Great, thank you, Joe.

Very happy to be here. I enjoyed the conversation.

Great, me too. And thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. Hope to see you next time. Take care.

It's time to rethink, renew, and reimagine retirement. Hey everybody, Jared Sylvester here, host of Retire Repurposed. Now this podcast is about the non-financial parts of retirement, which many times can be even more challenging than the financial. We believe retirement is not the end, rather the beginning of what could be the most impactful, purposeful, and fulfilling season of a person's life. So don't retire, become repurposed. To listen now, search Retire Repurposed on your favorite podcast platform, Senior Resource, or Life Audio.