Why The Retirement Model is Broken- Retire Later and Be Happier Now (Derek Coburn)
Derek Coburn watched his father's early dementia steal time he couldn't get back, so he built his life around being present with his kids. He takes them to concerts, fishing trips, and into his work instead of waiting until retirement to show up. His book "Let's Retire Retirement" argues the traditional model wastes the years when your family needs you most.
Chapters
People spend so much time focused on, will I have enough money to retire? And they think about where they're going to be at financially in retirement. They don't spend any time thinking about who do I want to retire with? Who do I want to spend time with? Derek Coburn is an entrepreneur, community builder, and author of Let's Retire Retirement. He built and sold a thriving financial advisory practice, co-founded Cadre, a premier network for top entrepreneurs, and now challenges the way we think about success and retirement, showing people how to design lives so rich they'll never want to retire from them. I would say, what do you want What do you want to do when you retire? And they would say, I want to travel the world with my spouse. And the couple, they're sitting right here in front of me. And I would say, wonderful. When was the last time you two went out on a date? And they would just look at each other. I want to be wherever my grandkids are. I was like, all right, how often are you home at dinner? Like with your kids right now? When is this going to happen? Why don't we start trying to do more of this now? I want to help people realize that they shouldn't opt into this idea where they're supposed to sacrifice their health, their happiness, their relationships in the name of saving a lot of money so that they can one day get back to do that. I want to show them that once they realize they'll probably want to be working longer than what currently thinking, that means they don't have to save as much. And then that means they have more money and more time they get to spend on the people and things that are most important to them right now. I share a story called A Tale of Two Tonys in my book about a guy who's 45. He meets with his financial advisor and his financial advisor says, what age do you want to retire? And he's like, I don't know. It's like, well, how about 65? Because that's the age that everyone else picks. And he's like, okay, that works for me. This is, by the way, this is how it usually goes. 65 was first deemed like the official retirement age in 1889. And when life expectancy was 65, So people are not thinking about it. They're just opting in. They're going along with it. And the financial advisor tells him that he has to save $2,400 a month, every single month, adjusted for inflation for the next 20 years in order to stop working. If you do the math, that's about 20% of what he's making. And that's a non-starter for most people. In this alternate universe, Tony's wife says to him, oh, you know, you said that you wanted to stop at 65, but you kind of like what you do and you like the people that you do it with. And even if you're not going to be doing that same work. I can't imagine that you're gonna just sit around the house and not do anything. He's like, you know what? You're right. She's like, I think you'll probably work until at least you're 75 years old. So Tony calls the financial advisor up and he says, you know what? Like, can we make the age 75 instead of 65? And, um, the number that Tony has to save on a monthly basis goes from $2,400 a month to—
Welcome to Money Stories, where we have meaningful conversations with founders about money, purpose, and what makes a truly rich life. Today I am joined by my dear friend Derek Cobern, founder of a community for entrepreneurs, Cadre, and author of a brand new book, Let's Retire Retirement. Phenomenal. We'll definitely get to that. Derek, welcome to the show.
Mike, so excited to be here, brother.
Yeah, man, I can't wait to dive in with you. We obviously have a lot of overlapping life philosophy and secretly been wanting you to be a guest on the show for a long time, so I'm stoked to dive in, brother.
Yeah, man, me too.
So let's start at the beginning. How did you grow up with money and how did that drive you to become an entrepreneur?
Yeah, so I would say I was the classic, you know, entrepreneur kid who had a lemonade stand when he was 10 years old and who had a comic book dealing business when he was 16 years old. I was cutting school to go to the comic book store, you know, the day the new comics came out to buy the good ones before anyone else could get to them. And I was traveling around getting the artists to sign the copies. I'd bring them back locally and sell them at comic book shows and just really, you know, had the space to be able to lean into that. And I enjoyed it. I probably wasn't fitting in super well in other areas of life. I played some sports, but, um, You know, my parents were around a lot. My dad, who was a big inspiration for the book that I just wrote and in my life in general, he turned down a big partnership gig at an accounting firm in Baltimore when I was a kid and set up shop in the home we had. He had an office in the basement. He put a door on two stools and was just always around, went to my sporting events, would drive me to the comic book shows on the weekend and you know, we weren't, we weren't poor, but we weren't rich either. We did the same vacation every single year. And so I think I had a pretty like uneventful, seemingly uneventful experience with money. It wasn't anything I think extreme in either direction as a kid.
But did your dad give up his big shot to kind of choose this life?
I think so. And, you know, I, I, I don't think that I appreciated the, the, the, what he went through or the impact it had on my life until after he passed away a couple years ago. So when I first started writing my book, he ultimately passed away in 2022, and I had started the book in 2017, put it down for a number of years, and then picked it back up again after he passed away. And part of the reason why I picked it back up again was I realized how wrong I was about the way he went about his retirement and thinking about retirement. He, he talked about retirement and I thought that he missed out on travel. I thought he missed out on experiencing life because he got diagnosed with dementia at 62 and ended up passing away at 71. But then we're like after his funeral with my family going through old photos, telling stories, and I was like, wait a minute, he went to, he went on all these amazing trips with my mom and with his kids. And oh, by the way, he was home with us. He was home working out of the house at a time when like like no one else was doing that. Like a lot of us are doing that now. We're working out of the house and we're around our kids now, but he did that at the time. And so I was able to reframe and, and able to relearn what maybe the lesson that I missed while he was alive and especially when I was a kid.
Yeah, I mean, that's, that's such an interesting story because so many people that come on this show, right, their, their dad was never around or money was a struggle or their dad was always hustling. It sounds like you kind of had the opposite experience. But maybe didn't totally appreciate it.
Yeah, you know, so I'll tell you a funny story involving a couple of our mutual friends. So Melanie and I, my wife and I went to a couples retreat with Philip McKernan, and we were doing an exercise where we had to draw a picture and write out what our childhood was like. And we were doing this exercise with Dan and Renee, Dan Martell and Renee Warren. And basically, like, my takeaway was that, like, my mom telling me how amazing I was and how much she loved me all the time fucked me up a little bit. And Dan was like, of course, like, that was your story and your mom said that to you. So for me, it was— I was getting this, this unconditional love at home. And then I was going out in the real world, like, what do you mean you don't like me? Like, what do you mean? Like, you don't, like, jive with what I'm doing right now? So I had to, to, to get comfortable with the idea that, like, not everyone was going to love me as much as my parents did.
I love it. I mean, this is something my wife and I talk about often, is that no matter how much we love our kids, we're still probably going to fuck them up somehow.
Totally, man.
So you're living proof unconditional love will ruin your children, right? So how, how does your entrepreneur path mature and what was driving you at that time?
Yeah, you know, I think that what drove me and it wasn't necessarily money related initially, but when I was— and I didn't even really have this realization until recently, during a meditation when I'm talking a couple of years ago, and I just was thinking back to being in the 7th grade at a new school. We had just moved to this new area, and I don't remember exactly what happened, but I found myself in a classroom full of kids chanting, who do we hate? We hate Derek. I found myself in and out of the principal's office with my parents, with the teachers, with the guidance counselors telling me that I wasn't going to be successful in life because I wasn't getting good grades. I mean, ironically, I was running a comic book business that was making like $3,000 to $4,000 a month in cash. I said one time, like, I think I'm making more money than everybody in this room, like, except for maybe my father. So I don't understand why you don't think I'm going to be successful. But I heard that message and I heard it frequently. And then I had all the girls telling me that they didn't want to be my, you know, girlfriend or date me. And, and I thought back and I'm like, you know what? My life, I think, just became one big giant, like, you don't think I can do something? Like, watch me. And I just think that that was my— that, that's— that was, that was how I dealt with the trauma at the time. Instead of, you know, maybe going awry, going off the deep end, getting angry, doing like who knows what, I just channeled it and I just said, I'm going to prove all these people wrong.
Yeah, another mutual friend, Nathan Barry, recently said, uh, entrepreneurship is a trauma response. And, and I think there's some, some truth to that. Really is, you're— you're— what I'm hearing is you're going down this path really to, to prove to the world that you're worth something.
Yeah, and I did it, you know, and I did it. And I, I, I have a lot of amazing people and a lot of amazing stuff in my life because of that. And, you know, like, I'm married to the love of my life, I've got incredible kids, I have more friends than most adults that I know, and I don't need to prove anybody wrong anymore. But yet I was finding myself and still do sometimes waking up a lot of days feeling like, who are we going to prove something to today? Right? And in order to prove somebody wrong, you need an adversary, right? So it's like I'm like manufacturing drama or issues. So it's my body's like, let's do this again. Like, we're so good at like proving people wrong and look at all the amazing shit that we have to show for it in our life. So like, when are we going to do it again? And I'm like, you know, I don't think that I knew what it felt like to have a calm central nervous system until I was 45 years old, maybe like 3, 4 years ago. And I'm really trying to lean into a place and I'm giving myself a lot of credit for what I've done over the last couple of years to where, you know, I can create, I can be not from a place of having to prove anything to anybody because I don't feel like I need to anymore. I just think that like my body and my habits and my tendencies were driven by that for so long that it's hard just to shake them overnight.
Well, take me back to those Proving Energy days. Yeah. What was your first taste of success?
What was that like? It was, it was the comic books, man. You know, it was, you know, I was, I was like young compared to all the other people that were doing that at the time. My mom loves telling the story about how she can't believe how she let me drive to Chicago and New York with these other comic book dealers at the time. And it was because I'd like just successfully and accurately convinced her that these guys were like complete dorks, right? And they were just not gonna get into any trouble and not cause any harm. I would buy up like 20, 30 copies of a comic book for like $2 locally. We would go to these big comic book shows and I would meet the artists. And because I was the 16-year-old or the 15-year-old kid, like, like they would, they would, they would do more for me than they would do for the adults. You know, I would get 30 copies signed. I'd bring 'em back and sell 'em for $20 a piece. And, you know, so I, I do remember, even though I share that, that I was being told at a younger age that I wasn't gonna be successful, I do remember feeling very confident that they were all wrong, that they were wrong at least about that part, that I wasn't gonna be successful by their metrics. But, but I knew that, that I was gonna be successful in my own way.
And how did that translate to business? What was your first real business?
Yeah, so I was hired to my first— well, my first real business, I'll say, was as an intern for a financial advisor at American Express Financial Advisors between my junior and senior year of college. And I was just really good at cold calling. And that was like, that was like the main factor that was going to determine whether you were successful or not in that industry. It didn't matter if you were smart, like they didn't have certified financial planning degrees back then in 1998, 1997. They didn't have you couldn't go to college and get a major in financial planning like you can now at some colleges. It was just like, you know, how much rejection can you tolerate before you break? And I was doing, I was making 500 phone calls a week for this financial advisor, and I was so good at it that like they had me give a talk to the other financial advisors who like, it was their job, it was their livelihood. They needed to make appointments and get new clients to pay their mortgage. And they, and I was giving them a pep talk. I was a junior in college, right? They offered me a job. I was able to, to kind of like just take off like my senior year of college because I knew that I could just slip into this, you know, opportunity no matter where I ended up. But, yeah, man, getting shot down by people during the day and getting shot down by girls at night when I was going out to all the bars and everything. And I just very quickly just developed like this, you know, this, this wall, this like the rejection doesn't bother me and I'm not taking it personally.
Yeah, it's interesting to trace the arc from you're never going to be successful. All these people telling you and you internalizing the story of watch me. Cold calling is sort of the ultimate way to do that.
Yeah, man.
Yeah.
I mean, it was— I mean, I knew once I started, I ended up starting my career with a different company, with MassMutual in 1998. And I just knew exactly how many dials I had to make in order to end up with a certain amount of revenue by the end of the year. Like I had that dialed in from a system standpoint. I knew I set lofty goals, I hit them, and it served me really well until, until it didn't. But it served me really well for a long time. Yeah.
Let's talk about it served you well until you didn't, because that's, that's the arc that most successful high performers go through, right? This, this trauma response to, I'll prove the world, watch me. Yep. You're, you're smiling and dialing. Been there myself. I know how hard that is. And, and you find the success that they told you you'd never have.
How did that feel? It felt good, man, you know. And I started dating, you know, I, I ended up, you know, I ended up becoming very good friends with a guy who played for the Baltimore Ravens at the time. And I was in Baltimore at this point in my career, and I was going out with, with, with the team like the year that they won the Super Bowl in 2000. And I was like party, I was like going to the best parties living, living it up, man. It was a lot of fun. I started working with some of them, but it ended up not sticking because I ended up also started working with attorneys. And as I got better at cold calling and better meeting different types of people, you're meeting attorneys and they're ready to get your advice about how to— how they should invest their money from day one. Whereas with the players, it was like a lot of energy had to go into convincing them why they shouldn't buy like their 6th car or why, you know, they should open up a brokerage account in the first place. And then I met Melanie, who eventually became my wife, and I lost a lot of the non-financial perks that came with that lifestyle. And so I sort of like drifted away from it a little bit. But that would— that felt really good. And I would say the reason I made the comment it felt good until it didn't is I think that goals ended up taking my business to a place that ended up causing me a lot of problems. I think I had— I woke up one day and I had 300 clients and I only liked working with like 25% of them. And I was looking around at my peers. I was qualifying for all these big fancy trips. I was on cruise ships in the middle of the Mediterranean, you know, going, bouncing from place to place. I was 10, 15 years younger than everybody else there, and they all had 2,000 clients, and they all didn't like working with the majority of them. And, and I just had to like take a step back and say, you know, how did I end up with all these people that I don't like working with? And, and One of the reasons was, oh, it's because I set goals to have X number of clients by the end of the year, X number of new assets under management, X number of new insurance policies sold. And I think subconsciously every year in September and October, I said, these goals are within reach and I'm gonna hit these goals. And I brought in people and I brought in, you know, certain clients that would help me clear those, you know, check those boxes. And then I ended up 5 years later with a whole lot of people like, that I didn't like working with and like we just didn't like jive all that effectively.
And when you were setting goals and systematically checking them off, what was the cost to you personally for kind of living this life that sounds like it was out of alignment with who you really are?
I am not sure that I have any regrets, you know, and, you know, I, I, I am preaching a ton of balance right now. And like in the book that I just came out with, like really preaching like that there's another way besides just opting into the money game that the majority of people are playing. And I, and I think that, that almost all of the really great, wonderful things that I have in my life right now are directly correlated with me working 80 hours per week when I was in my 20s. And so maybe I could have had more balance then, but like, what else was I going to do with my time? Like, I mean, I was just like, I didn't have the kids at that time. I didn't have the wife at that time. And so I, I'm not sure that, that I can, that I feel, that I feel bad about it or that it was that because I got out of it. I, we could talk about how I, how I transitioned away from these people that I didn't necessarily want to continue working with. But it was all good, good learning, good lessons and, and good experience. Yeah.
I mean, I think that there is a certain privilege to be able to preach balance when you've already reached a place of success and now you have the hindsight and the foresight to go, okay, what got me here won't get me where I want to go, right? But we don't want to rob anybody of the journey of on the come up. Yeah, like sometimes these lessons you have to learn yourself, but were there dark times or what caused you to make the, make the transition? Transition from, from hustling to finding this life of balance. Like, what did that look like? What was the catalyst to make a change?
Selling my practice, you know, and this was more recently. This was 5, 6 years ago after I'd set up some other businesses, but, you know, I, I won the game that most people are playing, and I didn't win it to the extent that other people have won it, but I won it enough to be able to say, I've got some money in the bank now. I'm going to take a step back and say, what game do I want to play now? And I think one existential question that I've pondered a lot lately is, is it even possible to play a different game without winning the primary game first, and I'm not sure that it is. It might be, but in my experience, I'm not sure how I would have gotten there without it.
Yeah, I actually love diving into this question a bit because, you know, for high performers, at least people that are wired the way we are, and we can, we can dive into the nature versus nurture argument, but for someone that's wired to drive hard, achieve goals, and seek that external validation, I do think there's some element of actually getting to the top of that mountain and looking out and going, oh shit, this is empty. Now what?
Yeah.
So what was that experience like for you?
I picked up a meditation practice over the past couple of years and, you know, I was on my back porch meditating one day and I was just on this screen porch. I was in this amazing house that we had just bought recently, an incredible relationship. you know, up until that point with my, with my wife, great relationship with my kids. Like, like I was, I was for the first time letting the 22-year-old version of me know like how proud I was of him, you know, because I was like, I accomplished, I think everything that I set out to accomplish when I was making all those cold calls, when I was grinding, when I was working as hard. And why wasn't I enjoying it more? Why wasn't I appreciating it more? And, um, And, and, you know, that was just, again, I think that the fact that I'm sitting here now with, with all of that appreciation and feeling like I'm in a much better place, it was in part sponsored by the fact that I had money in the bank account.
Right.
Because at least the way that I unwound a lot of this, the way I gave up a lot of my addictions, the way that I like tried to unwind this, I'm going to prove everybody wrong type of thinking all the time. You know, I'm not sure that a single dad that's working, you know, 8 to 6 every single day is able to spend the amount of time that I was able to spend to, to, you know, get myself to a different place. Yeah.
I mean, I definitely agree that one of the greatest gifts of going out and getting rich is then giving yourself the space to maybe unwind some of the things that made you get rich in the first place.
Right.
Totally, man. So what was that process like for you? Like, what are some of the beliefs or identities that you had to let go of to repattern into this place of peace?
Yeah. So, you know, it started off with my relationship with my wife and Melanie and I have been together like 21 years now. We've been married since 2008 and we had always just had like a really great relationship and, um, just were evolving really well together. And she, for just I'll give her like a nice little plug. She spent a few years recently, you know, taking on some, you know, giants in the NFL. You know, she worked for the Redskins for a long time and she was one of the ones who was primarily responsible for, you know, having Dan Snyder being forced to sell the team. And she was testifying in front of Congress. She was appearing on Fox and MSNBC and CNN and writing op-eds for the USA Today. And like our relationship was, you know, she was doing that and I was, you know, in my transition period with my dad passing away and was selling my practice. And, you know, I was always somebody that, that felt like I needed to have this intimacy with my wife in order to be the best version of me in other areas of my life. Like, as long as that was going well, that I was going to be the best dad I could be, the best business person I could be, the best friend I could be. And that started to slip for us a little bit. And, and I think that for me, it was this moment where I said, do I want to keep being the guy that says he needs to get this from his wife in order to be the best version of himself? And do I want to play that game that's getting harder and harder to play, right? Or do I want to try to work on myself and be the kind of man that doesn't need anything from her in order to be the best version of me? And that sounded really good. And again, I had the money in the bank and the space to be able to play around with this for a little bit. And then I said, where else am I telling a story that is similar to this, you know, so it's, oh, I'm having a glass of wine or an edible at night to relax. I need this in order to relax. I need nicotine in order to focus. I need, you know, whatever the case may be. And one big mistake I made was I kind of like tried to work on all of them at the same time and going cold turkey. And that was not smart in hindsight. And I would not recommend anybody doing that. But I, but it, I now am waking up and through meditation and through prayer and through working out and through eating better and sleeping really, really well. You know, I, I'm getting, I'm at this place more days than not where, where I feel really good for the sake of feeling really good and not because I am relying on anyone or anything to make it happen.
So you had the gift of space because you'd hit the financial success. But did the money make you happy?
I think so. I think it did. Like, what are these studies that we see where, like, you know, something like $75 grand or $125 grand and then like, like, I think those numbers need like an update. I think that having like a nice cushion certainly can allow you the space to not just like take a look at and unwinding like stuff that you're doing, but like just, you know, or stuff that you did that, that, that maybe you don't want to continue to do anymore. But, but invest in friendships. Just spend, you know, I spend more time with my kids than most parents I know. Right. And that's very intentional. You know, it's just very, you know, I like— I— my kids are 15 and 13 right now. They're going to be sophomore, a sophomore, and in the 8th grade. So I've got 3 and 5 years respectively for each of them left before they presumably are going to go off to college or leave the house or something. And I build my schedules and I build my days in a way that, you know, I'm around a lot. You know, I'm working out with my kids. You know, I'm very present. I'm driving them around. I'm doing a lot for them. And it's knowing that I've got the flexibility financially to do this, combined with the fact that I know that I'm going to be excited about working even harder and working more than I am now in 5 or 6 years once they're gone, right? Like, I'm getting a lot of opportunities to speak, coach, consult. You know, my, my pastor has a mantra which I adopted, which is I want to be more famous in my own home than I am anywhere else. And in order for me to be more famous in my own home than I am anywhere else, I need to be home. I need to be there more often. So the You know, I'm dating my wife again. Like, we're like, our relationship is incredible. We travel a lot. We go to a lot of concerts, a lot of live music experiences while I'm here and, you know, hanging out with you right now. One of the reasons I'm here hanging out with you right now and, and yeah, so I'm enjoying what I have and I could have more and I think I could have more stuff and I like, I think that I know you used to be like a big car guy and and you see people showing the watches and the jets and the cars and all of that. Like, I used to have cars hanging up like at my desk to inspire me and motivate me. And I think that they're wonderful tools for certain people at certain points in their career and in their life. And for me, flexibility is, is what I'm flexing right now, like flexibility with my time and my schedule and just being able to be around and just do whatever I want to do. And And I think that's because if I'm being really honest, it's because I've got some money in the bank that's allowed me to do that. So it makes me happy.
Yeah. So, so double-clicking on that a bit, what does wealth mean to you now?
My North Star, the number one thing that I think about right now in my life when I make a lot of my decisions is, will doing this or not doing this thing increase or decrease the likelihood that my kids will want to spend more time with me when they're adults? So for me, wealth would just be that, like, you know, we hear that, that when kids go off to college that we've spent 93% of the time that we're going to spend with them over the course of their life. And that is just like crazy to hear, right? And we hear, you know, my friend Jim Sheils talks about 18 summers, right? We have 18 summers to spend with our kids. And there are people, myself included, at different times that need to be reminded that we only had 18 summers. And if we lean into those 18 summers, there's going to be a lot more summers, right? Like we're going to— like the 93% figure for a lot of parents who aren't around, who don't have the kind of relationship with their kids that maybe other people have with their kids, like that's going to be 7% for them. Their kids aren't going to want to see them as much when they're adults because they didn't see them that much when they were kids. But because I'm as present as I am, I'm thinking, I'm hoping, I'm betting that that means that when they're 30 and 40 years old, that they're going to want to see me more often than maybe other 30 or 40-year-old kids are going to want to see their parents.
So it sounds like wealth for you is clawing back some of that percentage and maybe hoping it's 80% or, you know, some other lower percentage that you're going to have a lot more balance to spend with your kids as they're adults.
I think so. I think so. You know, and of course, like, I, I really just have a wonderful relationship with my wife. Like, we love each other a lot. And, you know, Esther Perel has famously said that most adults are going to fall in love 7 times, and the lucky ones will fall in love with the same person over and over again. And there is an element to my relationship with my wife that luck will play a role if we're still together in 30 years, because while we are very committed to each other and we love each other very much, we're not living for the other person. We're not going to sacrifice our happiness, our path, our journey for the other person. So part of it is we want to support each other and we want to keep leaning into this thing. But like, if one of us ever goes on another path and the other one doesn't want to follow, then maybe that doesn't end up sticking around. I don't think that's going to happen, and we don't want it to happen. Friends, you know, it's another thing that, uh, there was a big study done recently that showed how much time the average American spends with different people over the course of their life. And, you know, there's the alone time, there's the time with a spouse, there's a time with co-workers, there's time with friends, and The big takeaway when a lot of people were sharing this online— Sahil Bloom was the one that shared this study initially— it was, gosh, your alone time goes from like 100 minutes a day to 400 minutes a day by the— from the time you're 30 until you're 60. And we're going to be spending so much time by ourselves, we might as well get used to it. But my takeaway was like looking at the friends number, and it was like going from like 3 or 4 hours a day until we're 21 years old to like 15 minutes a day by the time we're 30, 40 years old and beyond. And, you know, you know, like I, I talk about how people spend so much time focused on, well, I have enough money to retire and they think about where they're going to be at financially in retirement. They don't spend any time thinking about who do I want to retire with, who do I want to spend time with? And so for me, it's a combination of a lot of things. It's, it's my kids, it's my wife, it's my friends, it's my health, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's a, it's a broad spectrum and it's one that's fluid and it's, and it's not driven primarily by money anymore.
Yeah. For me and the underpinnings of my philosophy, I call that building multidimensional wealth where money is the battery that allows us then to go out and create actual wealth. Yeah. And I know we're aligned on that concept. Let's dive in a bit to Let's Retire Retirement. This great book. And, you know, I love having friends who write really cool books so that I can recommend them. It's just such an honor and a privilege.
Thank you.
And yours is one that I actually recommend to my clients, to my friends, because it touches on a lot of things that I think are really important and primarily this concept of retirement. So, let's just jam a little bit on the philosophy of the book and what maybe got you there. Yeah.
So, you know, I've been a financial advisor for 27 years, sold my practice in 2019, but I still have my 50 clients or so that I've been working with for a long time, and I will continue to work with them, I think, for a bit. I just never understood, you know, why people would opt into this idea, this concept that we're supposed to do something that we don't like for 30 years in order to earn the right to sit around and do nothing at all after that for another 30 years. And people were making all kinds of sacrifices. I rarely had someone come into my office with their hand raised saying, I know I don't want to retire. I had to bring it up. We had to talk about it. I would humor them a little bit and I would say, what do you want to do when you retire? And they would say, I want to travel the world with my spouse. And the couple, they're sitting right here in front of me. And I would say, wonderful. When was the last time you two went out on a date? And they would just look at each other and maybe chuckle, maybe like get angry or upset. I want to, you know, I want to do— I want to be wherever my grandkids are. I was like, all right, how often are you home at dinner, like, with your kids right now? Or I'm going to play golf 5 days a week. And I would say, but you haven't been to the gym in 4 years and you just had your hip replaced. So when is this going to happen? Why don't we start trying to do more of this now instead of putting it off? And we're seeing that a lot of people, once they're getting there now, they're, they're not happy sitting on their front porch drinking lemonade. They want— they—
they're—
this unretirement movement is so showing that like 30% of people are retiring and they're like, wait a minute, this is not what they said it was going to be like, you know? And they're not going back to work because they need money. They're going back to work because they missed the contribution. They missed the connection. And so I want people to— I want to help people realize that, that they shouldn't opt into this idea where they're supposed to sacrifice their health, their happiness, their relationships, and put it off in the name of saving a lot of money so that they can one day get back to do that. I want to show them that once they realize they'll probably want to be working longer than what they're currently thinking, that, that means they don't have to save as much. And then that means they have more money and more time they get to spend on the people and things that are most important to them right now.
And how do you think about balance, right? Like, how do we take care of current self but still keep future self in mind? How does that reconcile for you?
Yeah, so Look, I think that my message and a lot of what I have to share can help a lot of people, but I'll double-click on the kids again, right? Like, our society expects parents to be working their hardest and earning their most amount of money during the years where their kids want them and need them the most, right? Or like being healthy, like playing golf. Like, why should I not play golf now when I could play later? I think that one of the gifts that I'm giving people, hopefully, with this book and with this message is the gift of helping them realize that they have more money than they thought they had. Sort of like where I had money in the bank and it allowed me to make different choices. I don't think people realize the financial impact it can have on their life immediately once they realize and think about that. They'll probably want to keep going beyond what they, what they maybe think right now. So I'll give you a quick example. I talk about it. I share a story called A Tale of Two Tonys in my book about a guy who's 45 and he makes $150,000 a year and he has $150,000 saved up for retirement. He meets with his financial advisor and his financial advisor says, what age do you want to retire? And he's like, I don't know. It's like, well, how about 65? Because that's the age that everyone else picks. And he's like, okay, that works for me. This is, by the way, this is how it usually goes. 65 was first deemed like the official retirement age in 1889. And when life expectancy was 65, that's why the German chancellor picked that number. So people are not thinking about it. They're just opting in. They're going along with it. And the financial advisor tells them that he has to save $2,400 a month, every single month, adjusted for inflation for the next 20 years in order to stop working. If you do the math, that's about 20% of what he's making. And that's a nonstarter for most people. And people are listening to this and you make more, add a zero. If you make less, like, like cut it in half, the math is going to be very, very similar. So in the book, I have a Sliding Doors moment, that movie with Gwyneth Paltrow where like her fate, like her life is determined on whether she catches a train or not. So in this, in the Sliding Doors alternate universe, Tony's wife says to him, oh, you know, you said that you wanted to stop at 65, but you kind of like what you do and you like the people that you do it with. And even if you're not going to be doing that same work, I can't imagine that you're going to just sit around the house and not do anything. He's like, you know what, you're right. She's like, I think you'll probably work until at least you're 75 years old. So Tony calls the financial advisor up and he says, you know what, like, can we make the age 75 instead of 65? And the number that Tony has to save on a monthly basis goes from $2,400 a month if he wants to stop working at 65 to $110 a month if he decides to work until he's 75. So it goes down by 96%. And if Tony decides he wants to work until he's 70, it goes down to $600. It's a 75% reduction. And the reason for this is in the first example, you have 10 less years of working, 10 less years of your money growing, and you need it to last for 30 years because I have him dying at 95. And in the second example, you have 10 extra years of working, 10 extra years of living off your income, 10 extra years of letting your money compound. And then you only need the money to last for 20 years. So we've all seen these articles about how we should have saved more when we were 22 years old to take advantage of compounding interest. And we feel kind of dumb for not doing it. Even if we did do it, I mean, hopefully we're all making a lot more money now than, than we were when we were 22 years old. But nobody's talking about how we get the same benefit except like magnitudes better because it's such a larger pool of money by just letting it sit in longer on the back end.
I mean, this is such an interesting— I mean, ultimately it's a math problem, right? What levers, what, what variables do I have available to me and how do I pull those? Where am I just accepting the default of this 65 thing? But the first thing is you better not hate what you do.
Yeah.
Because, because you're not going to work to— you're not going to want to work till you're 75 if you hate going to the office every day.
Yeah. You know, and I changed the language in my book a lot because initially it was fine. You have to find something that you love and that is your passion and your calling. And I've backed off that a lot, right? Like, I think that, um, I think that is absolutely imperative that you don't hate what you do, because if you hate what you do, the idea of doing nothing, it's gonna be better, right? I just don't think doing nothing for an extended period of time is going to produce lasting happiness for you. But doing something that you like, that you think is pretty good, or you're pretty good at it, you know, there are people whose passions are not necessarily tied to their work, right? Like their passion might be organizing. The neighborhood parties or the family trips or the, you know, get-togethers for all the, you know, college friends and having a job that you like. I tell a story about my brother-in-law as a friend. He's like a huge fish fan, right? He's a software engineer. He, he likes what he does. He doesn't love it, but he likes it. And they have a really flexible and wonderful vacation policy for him that allows him to see fish 35 times a year. Right. So for him, He doesn't hate it, but he gets to go to work, he gets to make money, he gets the flexibility to allow that to be able to free up the time and the space for him to live out his passion and do the thing that he wants to do. But you are like, I'm 100% agreement with you that like, let— I don't want anybody— if you hate what you do, I don't want you to do it like any longer than you have to.
Yeah, but foundationally, I think that number one, humans are really bad at knowing what we want. And in the case of your brother-in-law, It was just, it was just as simple as getting really clear on what lights you up.
Yeah, right.
And I think we do people a tremendous disservice by trying to necessarily tie our work to our passion. Yeah, right. Like, I love surfing. That doesn't mean I should be a surfboard shaper. Right, right. Like, like, that's a great way to ruin your hobby.
Yeah, man.
Just, just ask a fighter pilot, right? If you, if you love flying, go be an airline pilot and see you know, how quickly you hate it, right? So, so this, this societal myth that our passion has— our work has to light us up and be our passion, I think is, is really one that we sort of need to let go of.
I agree with you, man. You know, I heard it recently. I think it might have been Chip Conley, who, who is a great resource for like this unretirement movement. So he's basically all these people in their 50s and 60s that, that got there and they realized it's not what they thought it was going to be. He's saying, come to the Modern Elder Academy, or let's talk about, you know, like, what are we going to do next? And I was at one of his retreats and he said that to think in terms of— instead of thinking in terms of big P purpose, you think in terms of little p purposes. So what are like the, like the, the collective things that you enjoy doing? You don't necessarily have to commit to one thing and be like over-the-top excited about it, but what are like some of the maybe like 2, 3, 4 things like, like the kids and the wife and the friends and the fun and all of that. Like, that's kind of— that kind of feels good to me right now.
Yeah, I love that. Finding one massive purpose, I think, for people can be so overwhelming and sort of heavy, right? And you go, yeah, what's my purpose right now? Yeah. And I reserve the right to change my mind. I love that.
Yeah, man.
So there's a few other directions I want to go. You've brought your wife up a lot on this conversation and—
You're bringing it out of me. I haven't talked about her on many of the podcasts I've been doing.
So, well, she's— I like talking about her. She's an incredible lady and, you know, maybe I'm regretting not having her on instead of you. I mean, you're cool and all, but maybe she's the real star of the show here.
No doubt.
But, you know, you guys have a true partnership and I think that's such an incredible and unfortunately rare thing that we see, right? We get shoved into roles by society, masculine, feminine. You guys model something that, that not a lot of other couples do. Can you kind of dive into that and tell me how you think about marriage and partnership?
Yeah, we'd love to. You know, we are— we're very committed to each other. We're very committed to the process. We started going to therapy while we were engaged. It was, it was more of a— it was a need at that time. And the past 20 years of weekly couples therapy, which we've maintained, has been more of a luxury at times. It's been a luxury for the most part, more than a need. You know, we joke that like we go to therapy to learn how to better deal with the people that should go to therapy but don't go to therapy, right? Like, that's why we're going to therapy. And, um, you know, the, the last chapter of my book is called Investing in You, where I say hopefully I've helped you realize that you now have more time and more money that you can spend a little bit differently because you're going to be working longer. And I run down a list of different things, different ways to spend that money and time. And I mentioned that, you know, we've spent almost a quarter of a million dollars on couples therapy over the past 20 years. Right. And, you know, I, I could have a lot more money. Like, I don't want to put that into a calculator at like a 7% return to see like what it would be worth right now. But you know what? I'm showing up now as a 48-year-old, like, still madly in love with my wife. And our relationship is as strong as it's ever been. And now I get to create and do and be. And who knows what's going to come next from a place of having that partnership there, right? Because I think that is just an immense privilege, right? Like privilege is a word that a lot of people talk about in the context of politics, you know, like, yes, I'm a white male and I have a lot of privilege that comes along with that. But like, I think that my biggest privilege, right, is I get to wake up next to a woman that looks amazing to me that I love and like dearly. And she doesn't have whiskers, you know, she's like, we're, we have great conversations on a regular basis. Like I get to start my day with that. And most people don't, right? That is like an— like, that is like the ultimate privilege to me.
Yeah, it's, it's such an incredible privilege. It's a great word for, for this because, you know, also having a, a partner that truly lights me up is, I think, one of the greatest gifts of my, of my life. And I know you guys have worked hard at that. What does that look like for you beyond just the therapy? Like, like, what, what are the commitments that you've made that allows this partnership to flourish?
You know, I think that we've always had like a really nice— because we run Cadre together, you know, so we've been— we co-founded like this organization in 2011. We've been doing that together for almost 15 years. We have very complementary skill sets from a business standpoint. We are very good at repair. You know, we're very good at, you know, knowing when we're upsetting the other person and when to push, when to lean in, when to back off, when to maybe like say we're gonna table this conversation until we are gonna be with our therapist, right? Or, you know, and, and we just really like make time for ourselves. Like, we, we, we go— we, we do a lot of traveling with friends and with family, but like, we're here in Colorado now, just the two of us. We came out, we wanted to see some bands that we love. We saw the same band that we're here to see now in April, and we brought 14 people with us, right? And we did a little trip to Florida, and that was fun. But now we're still spending some time with our friends while we're here, but like, her and I are getting this time to connect with each other as well. So, um, so yeah, we just like, we just get along well. We communicate really well. We, we make up really well when we when we don't, when we don't see eye to eye on certain things. And, and, you know, I think I mentioned this to you earlier, like, I think that because I see her as a true partner, because she's my hero in a lot of respects, like, it just, it, she pushes me to be a better version of myself all the time just by being who she is, because she doesn't go along with my, you know, all my ideas. And she'll tell me that she thinks something's stupid if it's stupid. And like doesn't just tell me what I want to hear, but she'll also support me and lean in to, you know, be there for me if she knows something is important to me.
Yeah, I think that's— it's such a critical piece that, you know, sort of like retirement, we just take the default. And if you set that intentionality, it can be so dramatically life-changing, but it just, it takes that moment stopping and going, wait a minute, am I just accepting, you know, the societal story that I've been given, or can I really create something that works for me here?
I don't know about you, but I found myself saying this to a lot of my male entrepreneur friends a lot, and that is, you seem to be accepting a level of mediocrity in your marriage and in your relationship that you would never tolerate in your business. Like, like, why is that? Right? And more times than not, when I ask that question, it really lands, right? Like they haven't given it a lot of thought. To your point, it's just been, it's just been on autopilot. But, you know, like how, how everyone is so concerned with like best places to work awards and, you know, having A+ employees and having certain retention and then like, you know, like not, you know, connecting with their wife in a meaningful way for like weeks at a time. Like, I don't understand like the lack of urgency that in that part of your life that you have with your business.
That's so well said. And going back to the book, what are some of the other concepts that, you know, maybe are new frames for people that have been accepting the default? What are some of the other things that, that you hope people would take away?
So I think that a big part of this book and a lot of where I see my work going into the future is in the regret regret minimization business. I want to help people regret less things in the future than if they were to continue down a path that they're on, right? So one of these is when my boys were 10 and 7, my wife and I had this nice nighttime routine where we would take turns reading them a story, tucking them in, and lying with them until they fell asleep. And I found myself on most nights at this one point in time, wishing the experience would just speed up and hurry along. Like, like to saying to myself, gosh, like hurry up and fall asleep so I can go finish this email or hang out with my wife or watch this show on Netflix. Like, okay, he's 10 years old.
He's not going to want to lay with his dad for too much longer. Right.
And here I am, like hurrying it up and wishing it like to not last as long as it's lasting. And I tried willpower to lean in and make it, to appreciate it more. And that worked a little bit, but then I had this thought and the thought was, you know, if 25, 30 years from now there's a company that invented a time machine and they're offering me the opportunity to go back in time to have one night, one night with the 10-year-old version of my kid to snuggle with him, to lay with him, to read a story to him, how much would I pay for that? And I was like, I'd pay, I'd pay, I'd write a check for $50 grand without even thinking twice about it.
Right.
And so, you know, I call them like these $50,000 moments and like, where else am I having $50,000 moments that I am taking for granted in my life? And those snuggle days are gone. But like now I've got a gym in my house and like my 15-year-old and I, we work out together like 3, 4 times a week and he's not talking to me for 45 minutes of those 60 minutes. But, but I'm in the game, I'm available, I'm around. In fact, you know, fun little side story here. I found myself recently getting frustrated with how he's not helping me, like, break down the bars and the weights, you know, like, like we're alternating or he'll do a set of bench and we need to change the weight and I'm doing it. And I, and I want to say like, like, come on, like, can you help me out? Like, why am I doing this all by myself? And, and fortunately, I remembered that my primary goal was working out with him. Is that he wants to do it again in 2 days and that I'm going to leave like the parenting and the lessons, you know, and all of that for some other time. And I'm just going to fill the role of the personal trainer while we're working out together because I want him to keep coming back to that. And he does. And that's, that's what I've decided to do. And, you know, my youngest plays travel soccer and like there's a lot of driving with that. And so just being present with him in the car, you know, just talking to him. And again, it's like, you know, sometimes he doesn't want to talk, but I just want to be around and be available. And so So the $50,000 moment thing, I've shared that with a lot of people and that seems to, you know, have a good impact, you know, with a lot of the folks.
Yeah, it definitely resonates with me and it reminds me of, I'm going to butcher this, but a concept from Sam Harris about you never know when it's going to be the last time you do something, right? And that is just such a powerful reminder to stay in the present, right? Like, you never know the last time you're going to push your kid in the stroller or take him to the zoo or, you know, work out with them. You never know when that day is going to be. Yep. With that knowledge, how would you treat it differently?
Yeah, you know, I, um, I'm pretty sure that I correctly nailed the last time that I was going to pick up and carry my 13-year-old. It was, it was like a little over a year ago. He was tired, he passed out on the sofa. And my oldest son, because I talk about this with my kids, and my oldest son said to me while I was doing, he's like, do you think this is gonna be the last time that you carry him? And I think, and I think it was like I carried him up to bed and put him in bed, and I don't think I've done it ever again since. And look, you know, I am, I am more mindful about this kind of stuff than most people, and I'm never gonna feel like I've gotten my fill. Like, I'm always gonna wish I, and long for one more time. I'm not gonna dread on it. I'm not gonna be worried about it because there's gonna be new experiences that pop up. I went to, um, I took my oldest son to a baseball game couple nights ago, and he was leaning into opening up to me just about like some of the awkwardness that he's feeling, like being a 15-year-old and, you know, getting ready to start like another school year and a crush that he had at camp. And Mike, I was like fucking nervous, man. I was like nervous being in this conversation with him because I was like, this is like I'm like, this is like what I've been like, like planning for. This is what I've been hoping for. This is like, like all the time. And I've— he's leaning into it. He's talking to me now like, please don't fuck this up, man. Like, like, like, I want— like, like, he's coming to me for advice and he's asking me and he's telling me how he's feeling about things. It was like amazing. And so that was like the first time that's happened, and I think there'll be more times. Like, so, so yeah, it sucks when you have the last time, but then there's like these really nice, wonderful first time things that hopefully will take, take their place.
Well, you get a lot of amazing concepts and frameworks for, for people to ultimately be more present.
Yeah.
Is exactly, you know, what I'm hearing throughout these stories that you're sharing. What do you wish you could go back and tell yourself 10 or 15 years ago?
If I'm understanding that, tell me if I'm not getting this question right, but the way that I'm hearing is my answer would be that my dad's not gonna be around as long as I think he's gonna be around for. Because like when, when the shit was hitting the fan with my dad, Yeah, my kids were 3 and 1, so I was like in the throes of it, man. Like, you remember that time, I'm sure. And it, it was not entirely sure what was happening with him. Like, it wasn't super obvious that something was wrong with him. It wasn't manifesting as like your textbook Alzheimer's or dementia. And so, and we weren't living near him and, and it was like, he was 62 when he got diagnosed, you know? And so I think that that's, um, You know, I think that like I, you know, I wish I would have been a little bit more like present during that time. And it's helped to, for me, one of my, you know, like one of my big dreams in life, and I stopped short of calling it a goal because some of these things I can't control. But my dad's father died when I was 5 and I never had a relationship with my mom's father. So I never had a grandfather. And my two boys might have never had a relationship with Melanie's father. And then my dad got dementia when they were 3 and 1 respectively. So they have never had a grandfather. So I'm really, really hoping that I'm going to get the opportunity to like be like an amazing grandfather at some point.
That's beautiful, man. And I mean, it sounds like that, that advice for you 10 years ago is so foundational to your philosophy now with how you're raising your kids. Yeah, that presence. Yeah. And our mutual friend Philip McGurnan always says your greatest gift lies next to your deepest wound. Yeah. And it sounds like that really is what's driving a lot of the way you think about things. Yeah.
And, you know, like, I don't always show up the way that I want to show up for my kids, you know, but like, again, that repair element has, like, that I think works so well with Melanie and I. Shows up with them. And I think that my kids, my kids like would for sure tell you that they think I'm an amazing dad. And I think that I am a great dad. And, and they know how important it is to me. And I love letting them see like the life that I do. Part of the reason, the life that I, part of the reason why I wrote the book and I decided to kind of move forward with it was they were largely reaping the benefits of a lot of my hard work without ever seeing a lot of my hard work. And I wanted them to see me do something that was gonna be impactful, where they were going to win, I was going to win, they were gonna get to be along for the ride. Somebody sent me, I did a, for my book release party, uh, my friend Daniel Pink interviewed me. We had a fireside chat and my, a friend of mine took a picture of my two boys on the stage like 30 minutes afterwards, and they were sitting in the two chairs that Dan and I were in respectively. They were both fighting over who would get to be him, not me. But, you know, Ryan Holiday said something one time that really landed for me, which is that your kids are always going to see you. Your kids have seen you at your worst personally, regardless of whatever that is. They've seen you when you're at your worst in private. So you should really try to let them see you at your best in public. You should let them see you at your best professionally. And I think that like, that's another gift that I've been able to, to give them, which, which they have, I think, loved being a part of the whole journey and Cadre and the book and all of that.
And what a beautiful gift. Yeah, I think they're, they're certainly lucky to have you. Let's land it here.
What?
What's some unconventional parenting advice that you have for people? Sounds like you've thought through this a lot. You're deeply intentional as a father. What would you tell people that maybe might shift their mindset a little bit around parenting?
You know, I think that it is, you know, again, going back to planting seeds for our kids hanging out with us when they're older. Like, I think it is a parent's responsibility to go just out of their way to really try to understand and be interested in what your kids are interested in. You know, like, I think about music and parents since the, the beginning of time are just like, my kids are listening to this crap music. And, you know, and look, we very strategically have thought about how we want to integrate music into our relationship with our kids. And like, we let our kids listen to their stuff when they were younger, but then we would mix in stuff that we thought there was a likelihood that they might be into along with us, right? And, you know, we do family concerts together, bands that we all like. And we've seen Vampire Weekend twice together, and we've seen Arctic Monkeys. And, you know, I took them to see Kendrick Lamar and SZA on this recent tour. And part of the thinking is, like, in 20 years, maybe, maybe they marry somebody that is not, like, fitting in great with the rest of the family. Maybe there's some tension going on for whatever reason. But hey, I got 8 tickets to go see My morning jacket. Like, what are you guys doing? Right? And it can be a way to bring us together and unite us. My youngest son, you know, really great at soccer. He's playing travel soccer. He loves the screens when we're not paying attention to it. And we tried to do what we can to minimize that. And so we're encouraging him to, you know, like, we want you to be outside more. We took away and we limited the amount of time that he could be on it this summer. And to be honest with you, like, I wanted him to say, I'm going to go practice soccer. I'm going to go, like, you know, walk to my friend's house and we're going to do this thing or the other. He said, I want to fish. I've never fished in my life. Like, I don't know where this is coming from, but like, he— we bought him a fishing rod. And the last, like, week he's gone fishing like 5 times. And like my entire afternoon, like, I'm sitting at my computer. I keep like my schedule really wide open most afternoons because I just want my kids are not— most days they're not saying that they want to hang out with me. But if they say they want to hang out with me, I want to be there, you know? And so I'm driving him around and like, it's, it's kind of a pain in the butt. And I wish he wouldn't have chosen that. But you know what? Like, he's, he's not on his phone and he's out and he's trying something new and, and I'm able to like facilitate it and make it easy for him to do it. So let me, let me like, let me put a bow on this. So I think that like a lot of people that I know, they try to fit their kids into their schedule, right? And they, they, they they come home a half hour early and I've got time from 4:30 to 5, but my kid doesn't want to spend time with me. Like, he goes to his room. Or, and, and for me, like, I'll never forget a couple— I, like, 4 or 5 years ago when, when it was like 4 o'clock in the afternoon, I was getting ready to work out and my oldest son said, hey Dad, can we play Legos together? And I said, oh man, like, I'm sorry buddy, I'm getting ready to work out. Like, I haven't worked out like in 2 days and But maybe, maybe next time, or maybe later. I'm working, I'm like, man, I can never say that to my kid again. Like, if he— like, if he's telling me— he's like 12 years— like 12 years old at this time. So I just immediately changed my entire day, my entire schedule, and I said, I'm going to get done everything that has to be done in the morning before they get home from school. I'm going to leave the stuff that doesn't have to be done but be nice to have it done for later in the day. And most days he's probably not going to say that he wants to hang out with me, but But, but the days that he says he wants to, I want to be able to say yes no matter what he wants to do. And, and so I've always done that. And the more I said yes, the more he asked. And here we are 3 years later. And, you know, you know, he's opening up to me about like some stuff that's going on in his life, you know, at a baseball game. And I'm feeling like a nervous little schoolgirl about how I want to respond to him. So mission accomplished.
Nailed it. Yeah. Cool, man.
Yeah.
What a, what a, what a beautiful reflection. And, uh, I definitely know that it just takes me back to being more intentional about how I want to parent. I really appreciate the depth and the wisdom that you share around this, around this topic. It's a, it's a real gift to have you on.
Yeah, I appreciate being here. And I see you, man, you and Claire are doing an amazing job. And, um, you know, I think it's like the whole, like, you're the average of the 5 people that you spend the most time with, you know. I think that that applies to parents too. So hopefully you know, we'll, we'll, we'll be able to start, you know, and continue sharing like what's working and not working for us in that regard. Cause I think that, uh, like, you know, I want to, I want to continue to, to, to be more like you guys in the way that I raise my kids.
Appreciate it, brother. Well, where can people find you? Where can they check you out? Where can they get the book?
Yeah, man. Best place to go, just my website, derekoburn.com. There'll be links to different places to buy. You can get like a, like a really nice workbook that I put together. There if you like follow a couple of steps on that, on that website. But I don't have anything to sell right now. I just want this book to get out. I want the book to be a perennial seller. I think it can help a lot of people and would just love for, you know, for people to give it a try and see, you know, how it impacts their life and hopefully impacts the way they're able to show up for all the people they care about.
Cool, man. Well, to anybody listening, can confirm it's a great book. Definitely. Some great concepts in there. And man, thanks for coming on, sharing wisdom.
Love the chat, man. So good to be here with you, Mike.
Cheers, brother. Cheers.
