Start Living Like You’re Retired Now with Derek Coburn

We do such a terrible job as humans of predicting what our future selves are going to want or enjoy. And I see so many people, they come into a financial advisor's office and the advisor says, we're going to, we're going to assume 3% inflation. We're going to assume this tax rate. We're going to assume this rate of return. They're assuming 8 things, including what age they're going to die, to confidently arrive at an amount that someone has to save. And then these people, Center their entire lives around saving that amount, when in reality, the likelihood of them actually predicting all of these things correctly is akin to them nailing like an 18-parlay on FanDuel. Like, they're, they're going to be wrong about all of it, but yet they're marching around, they're ignoring their kids, they're not dating their spouse, they're not going to the gym, they're not sleeping well in the name of having a certain amount of money by a certain age. And when they get there, They're going to find out that it's not what they thought it was going to be, and they're going to wish they could have done things differently.

Derrick, welcome to The Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. I'm excited to chat about your book, Let's Retire Retirement. My first question today has to do with your father. He served as the blueprint not only for the book but also for your life in a lot of ways. Talk to us a little bit about the impact that he's had on you.

Nick, super excited to be here, man. Thanks for having me. Yeah, so my father worked, was a CPA, and was diagnosed with dementia at the age of 62. This is going back to about 2013. And he lived with it for 9 years and passed away in 2022. And I had started writing the book in 2017, and I was under the impression that my father, because of this diagnosis, because of this condition, was going to miss out on a lot of the benefits of a traditional retirement. But as I was going through the family photos at the funeral around the time of his passing, and we were all sharing stories, I was reminded that actually, that was not the case and that my father, in ways that I had not really appreciated or realized, did what you suggested. And that was really kind of lay out a blueprint for my life, for the book, for a lot of the wisdom that I'm able to pass on to others. So, he was, you know, he turned down the partnership role at a big CPA firm to work out of the house. You know, he put a door on a couple of stools and worked in the basement. This was before You know, people worked from home. He really didn't ever miss any of my sporting activities or events. He did a lot of traveling. And I think that my father ultimately was probably never going to have a traditional retirement, even though he talked about it. And so, yeah, it was really, really meaningful for me. And I think also another big takeaway that I have embodied and appreciated is that That relationships don't have to stop just because someone is gone. So, my relationship with my father, what I'm able to learn from him and take on into my life just continues to evolve. Even though he has not been in the physical form for a couple of years now, I continue to get good nuggets of wisdom and learnings from him.

And now, you're sharing those takeaways with thousands of people. Years after he's gone, which is pretty special. Now I have a few things that I'd like to unpack from what you just said there. So to summarize, your father turned down some bigger kind of like work responsibilities in order to be more present with his family.

Yeah.

So your perspective is that that's a positive thing, and my perspective is that's a positive thing as well, but So many young professionals in the audience, and I'm one of them, we struggle with this balance of how do you go out there and achieve more and live a big life and impact as many people as possible, but remain present with your family at the same time?

Yeah.

And the root of my question is this. In the book Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, there's a line that sticks in my head like glue. where he says, throughout all of human history, most people just carried buckets of water.

Hmm.

And what he meant by that is their names are lost in the sands of time and they didn't do anything meaningful. And, and that kind of irks me. Like, I wanna be a name that goes out there and conquers civilizations or whatever. Like, I have that primal instinct in me, but I also recognize what you're talking about, which is the fact that I have a 10-month-old son at home. And I want to be as present as humanly possible for him and for my wife. So, how do you balance? How do you reconcile those 2 things at the same time?

Yeah, great question. Look, I think that I had a fireside chat with Daniel Pink for my book release party, and he had asked a question, or someone in the audience had asked a question that was similar, like, what should I tell my 20-something kids? You know, like, how can they take on your advice? And I think that A lot of what I talk about in the book preaches balance, preaches integration, but also, I think a lot of the amazing stuff that I have in my life, including my wealth and including my flexibility, is directly correlated with the fact that I was working 80-hour weeks in my 20s. Look, I was having a good time too, but if there's any demographic that, that I would feel comfortable, like, just ignoring a lot of what I have to say right now, it's the demographic that is single, that's building a business, that's just making some mistakes, that's learning, because that's going to ultimately create a lot of flexibility for you in the future. I think that getting married and having a kid introduces a perspective change. In my 27 years of being a financial advisor, there's nothing like starting a family to get somebody serious about managing their money, right? Like, I would meet single people and they would have businesses, but at the end of the day, there wasn't like a responsibility, other people that you were responsible for to drive and dictate your actions. And so, look, man, even in your position, I think that I probably overdialed the amount of time I was at home when my kids were like, up until they were like 2 or 3 years old. I probably could have worked a little bit more. Because once they get to be in the 5, 10, 15 range, you really want to be around. And I say 15 because now this is the age where they're starting to not want to hang out with me as much. And so, look, I think I have a mantra, which is, I want to live my life like I'm going to live another 100 years, and I want to live my life like I'm going to die tomorrow. You mentioned that being one of your favorite quotes from my book. And sometimes people need to hear the first part of that message, and sometimes people need to hear the second part of that message. And sometimes One person needs to hear the first part in January, and they need to hear the second part in July. So, everyone's different. And look, I feel like I'm in the regret reduction management business right now. And I just think that society wants us to spend a lot of our time and energy making money during the years when our kids and our families want us the most. And I think that there's a better way to go about doing both of those things.

I could literally listen to you talk all day because you reinforce a lot of the beliefs that I have that I think are counterintuitive to society. And I'm always spending my time trying to justify them to other people.

Thanks, man.

There's no great return on my time invested trying to convince other people of this, but I'll just send them copies of your book moving forward. I like, I like something that you said. It was kind of subtle, but it's like there's this demographic of people who should probably ignore what you're talking about. And I think back to my early 20s, and I used to tell people 40 hours a week. I remember my first part-time job because I was like you. I was working 80 hours a week. I was also having a ton of fun at the same time.

Yeah.

I think I shared with you last time we spoke that in my 20s, I traveled to 25 different countries. There were weeks where I had bottle service on the weekends 4 weeks in a row. Like, I lived it up at the same time as working my tail off. So now I can afford to maybe lean into my family a little bit more. But I like also what you said, which is that you could have dialed that back a little bit. That's a message that most people wouldn't say, is spend a little bit less time with your kids between 1 and 3, or maybe 1 and 5, and a little bit more time with them as they get older. Can you tell everybody the mantra that your pastor Mark shared with you? Because—

Yeah, and, and it's one that I've adopted, which is I want to be more famous in my own home than I am anywhere else. And In order for that to happen, you have to be home. And so I'm getting a lot of, you know, speaking inquiries about, you know, uh, talking to groups. And, and some I'm saying yes if it lines up and it makes sense. And I love speaking, and I, I think I'm pretty good at it, and I'd like to do it more. But like, my kids are 15 and 13 right now, so they're going to be home for another 3 and 5 years respectively. And so I, I really am leaning into the flexibility that I've built into my life right now and the reason that I'm spending significant amounts of time with them compared to most people that I know, it's like in the back of my mind, it's like a microcosm of my overall message about retirement. It's that I know that in 5 years, when my youngest goes off to school, that I'm going to be ready to work like 60 hours a week again. I'm going to be ready to speak more. I'm going to be ready to—

Yeah.

to travel more. And so, it's like this time I'm spending with them is sponsored by the knowing that I'm going to have like that income coming in 4 or 5 years from now.

Yes. It's a beautiful way to think about it. What are the ways that you spend time with your kids today? Like, what's the primary activity where the 2 or 3 of you are all together?

Yeah. I mean, look, it evolves a lot. With my oldest son, we have a gym in the house, and so, we are Lifting weights together 3 or 4 times a week. And this is a really wonderful habit for a lot of reasons, as you can imagine. But, you know, doing— working out, doing something together. But it's also like, it's an hour with a 15-year-old. Like, this is an age that, like, most 15-year-olds are not super excited about, like, hanging out with their dad. But, like, it's an— and he's not talking to me for 45 of those 60 minutes. But, like, When he does talk, like, we're like, I'm like, we're having like a fun conversation about music or about a girl or about like a class or— and I find myself, the hardest part about that time with him, I don't know if I've ever shared this with anyone, is I find myself like, like I want him to help me break down the bars. I want him to like, I'll find myself like taking off his weight, putting on my weight. And part of me wants to say like, Can you help me? Can you like help me out with this? Because he's like texting or changing the song again. And I have to remind myself that like my number one goal in spending this time with him is for him to want to do it again 2 days from now. And, and that as soon as I start feeling like I need to instill life lessons, you know, on him about pitching in and helping out, it's the second that he's probably like, you know, I'm gonna just work out with my friends so I don't have to hear this. So I now am like happily like playing the role of personal trainer and doing like a little bit more because I, I want to get invited back.

Hmm. Yeah, it actually really stuck out to me in the book when you referenced working out with your son, or maybe I saw it on social media somewhere, but where you talked about you're there for an hour, 45 minutes, maybe 55 minutes, you're not communicating with him at all, but it's the time spent with him and it's that last 5 or 15 minutes where you actually get to interact. Those are the memories you'll carry for the rest of your life. And that relationship that you're building with him, the depth that you're building with him, is what will form the foundation of the relationship you have for the rest of your life. So, so cool that you're willing to shrug off, you know, breaking down the weights in exchange for an increase in likelihood that he'll want to do it with you again in 2 days. By the way, that, that same advice probably extends really well into a marital relationship as well. Yeah, not having to be right, but wanting to have a productive or, or healthy relationship with your spouse 2 days from now is probably more important than— oh yeah, picking the smallest little detail.

Yeah, and I'll say too, man, you know, the, the majority of the parents that I know that tell me that their relationship with their kid could be better or it's not good, almost all of them try to fit them into their schedules at a certain time. Like, I come home at 5 o'clock and I'm available and I say, look, I've got 45 minutes, what are we going to do? And the reality is, especially as kids are getting older, like, they're not gonna— they're not gonna slide into your calendar. Like, you just have to be available. And so, look, I see a lot of people, a lot of influencers, um, flaunting the stuff and the things. They're flexing the jets and the cars and the watches. And look, and I've got some of those. I don't have a jet, but I've got a nice car. I've got some nice watches. And, and there was times in my life where like that was very motivating and inspiring to me, but I'm also recognizing and appreciating that flexibility might be the ultimate flex. Like, free time is such a flex where yesterday my youngest son wanted to go fishing. He's exploring different areas of the neighborhood that he's never been to before, and I had to spend like an hour and 15 minutes driving around trying to find him. But I'm happy to do it because like he's having fun with friends and I'm allowing him. It's not like I have to pick you up at this time and you have to be done. I'm available and I'm around and I'm getting at-bats. And that is wonderful in terms of like how my relationship with them continues to evolve.

Flexibility is the ultimate flex.

Yeah.

I like that a lot. Yeah, one of the first books that had a big impact on me was The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss.

Yep.

In that book, he says that, uh, time and mobility, those are the, like, desires of the new rich. That's what they seek— time and mobility, not the flashy cars and everything else. And the funny thing is that when you establish boundaries for more time and mobility, more money is usually a byproduct of it. It's like the less that you hunt it, the more of it probably comes to you anyway.

You got it, man, for sure.

I think the lesson you're teaching is amazing, is that, you know, there's this hustle culture in the United States which is like, okay, you graduate college with a ton of debt, then you work a job you hate for 30 or 40 years, only to realize that by the time you retire, you're not physically fit to do the travel that you envisioned yourself doing anyway. You can't endure the layovers or the change in diet, and so you just do nothing for the next 30 years, and that's also miserable. And like, what a horrible way to live.

Yeah.

I can't understand why so many people subscribe to that.

Yeah. I mean, it's just baked into our society, right? It's just a mindset and the buy-in, even just at a macro level, the buy-in to retirement is like, I'm supposed to be happier in the future than I am right now.

You had another small line in the book that had kind of like stuck in my brain, which is that most people assume that they would enjoy doing nothing. Which is just almost never the case. I mean, nobody enjoys doing nothing.

Yeah, look, if you hate what you do right now, I'm sure the idea of not doing it any longer sounds incredible, and you probably will enjoy it more than something you hate. But I, but I know it's backed by science, it's backed by my experience, that like, you know, sitting around for months on end is not the key to unlocking endless happiness, right? Like, you have to have meaning and purpose in your life. I have an entire chapter in my book called Happiness Versus Meaning where, where like we just dig into, uh, what are your priorities? What are you solving for? Like there was a study done with 2 groups of people. Group 1 were people that were solving for personal happiness. Like they were waking up every day saying, what can I do today to make myself happy? Group 2 was, was in the game for purpose and meaning beyond themselves. And You know, the TL;DR is that Group 1 here had an experience where they were living their life and it was, it was causing real trouble inside of them. It was causing a reaction in their body that was similar to a body's response when it's dealing with chronic adversity, like the loss of a job or the loss of a loved one. Their inflammation was going up. They were more likely to get sick, get diseases, and die. Group 2 had the opposite response. Their inflammation was— was quite low. Their immunity was great. And so, like, at the end of the day, if you want to be happy, don't directly pursue happiness. Try to find purpose. Try to find meaning. It can change over time. And that's likely going to be the recipe for not only happiness but living longer and making the world a better place.

Yeah. Last— 2 nights ago, 2 nights ago, I attended a wedding. It was a Sunday wedding. And I was seated next to this guy. I'd never met him before. And we started talking about, okay, what do I do? What does he do? And he found— he thought it was cool that I was in the book industry, asked me about a couple of authors that we had worked with. And then he started telling me about what he did. He's in real estate wholesaling, like, you know, flipping papers basically. And he had built this really big business. He has 20 people that work for him. But I asked him, does it bring you a lot of joy to do the work? And he said no. And I thought, well, you're a young guy, you know. And he was talking to me about The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma, which is a story about somebody who regrets working too much. And I thought, why don't you do something that brings you joy? He was jacked. So, I was like, I bet fitness brings you a lot of joy. And he said, yeah, you know, I probably will exit my business in a few years now that I'm thinking about it because it doesn't bring me a lot of joy. So, I actually recommended your book to him. Wow.

Oh, thanks, man.

Uh, he's buying a copy, and I, I will follow up and make sure that he reads it and have a conversation with him about it, because I hate to see people who have all of this potential to make a big impact and do something that they love but waste it on an industry that prioritizes money but doesn't actually bring them any joy.

Yeah, for sure, man.

Yeah, there's so many people out there like that. Uh, okay, there's another thing that I love from the beginning of your book The math was mind-blowing here, and maybe you can reference it, or maybe you got to pull out the book to reference it, but you share a story in the book where somebody extends their working years from 65 to 75.

Yep.

And then therefore, they reduce the need, or they reduce the amount that they need to save for retirement by 93%.

Can you—

the math isn't mathing for most people who probably just heard that, so break that down for us.

Yeah. So, I call it A Tale of Two Tonys, and I have a hypothetical made-up guy named Tony who's married with kids. He's 45. He makes $150,000 a year, and he has $150,000 saved up for retirement. His financial advisor tells him if he wants to retire at 65, he picks that age because that's the age everyone else picks, um, he's going to have to save $2,400 a month every single month and adjust it for inflation for the next 20 years in order to stop working. He immediately feels like he's behind and doesn't know how he'll ever catch up. 20%, saving 20% of what you're making is a nonstarter for most people. And so, he is leaning into less sleep, less time at the gym, less family dinners. We can't go on vacation. And he's just focused on playing this money game that everyone else is playing. His wife reminds him in an alternate Sliding Doors reality where he gets to Um, you know, uh, have, have an interaction that changes how he feels about the bigger picture, uh, that he likes what he does and he likes the people he works with. And even if he's not at the same company or running the same business, um, he's not going to ever be happy probably sitting around doing nothing. You're probably going to work until you're 75, hon. He goes, you're right. Um, I'm gonna— he calls up the financial advisor and says, can you adjust me on my plan to show me working until I'm 75? And the number goes from $24 $2,400 a month down to $110 per month, which is a 96% reduction in what he has to save. And even if he says he'll work until he's 70, until he's 75, the number goes from $2,400 to $600 a month. So, it goes down by 75%. And the reason for this is in the first scenario, he has 10 less years of working, 10 less years of being able to save, 10 less years of his money compounding.

Yeah.

And he needs the entire amount that he saves to last for 30 years because in both scenarios, I have him dying at 95. In the second scenario, it's 10 additional years of working, 10 additional years of saving, 10 additional years of the money compounding, and then he only needs that amount of money to last for 20 years. So, we see these articles, we see people tell us like, save when you're 22 to take advantage of compounding interest, and we feel like, An idiot because we didn't do it. But even if we did it, hopefully we're making a lot more now than we were when we were 22 years old. But nobody ever talks about how we can achieve the same benefits except like magnitudes more by taking advantage of compounding interest from leaving it from by letting the money like grow longer on the back end. Yeah, yeah.

Especially because nobody wants to sit there and do nothing. You know, it's like why not? work a little bit more, enjoy your time. I think you even give some scenarios where people decide to work less hours but for a longer period of time, so they enjoy more of the present moment. They're just extending their working life a little bit.

Yeah.

I mean, I think a lot about my parents are, are approaching 65, and the idea of doing nothing is just not attractive to them. It's probably because I send them books all the time to kind of help them think a little bit differently, but it's like Yeah, lucky them. I can't imagine just sitting on the beach sipping piña coladas or whatever every day as like the ideal version of my reality.

It's also just very selfish. I do think that like going back to like the happiness meaning thing, I sort of feel like biology, right? Like our mind, our body, our soul, when we want to continue to contribute and when that energy is flowing through us, They're all working harder to keep us around longer. When we say we're done and we're going to give up, I think that they probably start checking out. Like, we don't need to keep you around much longer. You know, you're not going to keep the— do anything to keep the species going. We're not going to spend all of our energy keeping you around longer if you're not going to make any contributions to the world.

Yeah. Very good point too. It is selfish. I talked with Sharon Lechter, the co-author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, a long time ago. And I asked her why she was still writing, and she said, well, I don't have to work, but there's more work to do. Yeah. And so that's, you know, it's a little bit of an altruistic perspective on it, but it's also a little selfish too when you realize that by doing good work, it feels better. It feeds the ego more than sitting on the beach doing nothing does anyway.

For sure. No doubt.

Um, it was, uh, now I had heard this before, but But I want to highlight it on the podcast that the concept of retirement is barely 100 years old. And when the concept of retirement was designed, it was designed when the average life expectancy was like 70 or something, right?

Yep. Yeah. Actually, the first time we sort of recognized retirement anywhere is in 1889 in Germany. The chancellor at the time, Otto von Bismarck, was setting up the first-ever social plan for older workers, and they picked the age of 65 because that was the age people were expected to live until. That was, that was life expectancy. It wasn't until a few years later that they pushed it to 70 so that it would go a little bit beyond life expectancy. But fast forward to the mid-1930s when FDR is putting Social Security in place and they're rolling with 65 because they think that's a good number, and life expectancy is still in the low 70s. Even if you were approaching it at the time the way that we approach it now, you would have gotten a third of your needed income from Social Security. You would have got a third of your needed income from a pension plan, which really don't exist anymore. And then you would only have to come up with the third on your own to supplement those two, and you would only need it to last for like 6 or 7 years. And so, nowadays, if you Depending on who you talk to, most advisors, most retirement plans, most, you know, organizations like law firms or governments that have mandatory retirement age, they still use 65 even though life expectancy is in the 80s now and actually like creeps into the high 80s, low 90s if you make it past 65. So look, retirement was never meant to be like this thing where you just sat around and did nothing. And even Social Security Um, one of the main reasons why it was put into place was to solve an unemployment crisis. There were a lot of younger workers at the time who wanted to start working and get jobs, but there was no availability because the older men were not giving up their job. And I know that we're like toeing the line here between like an unhealthy obsession with work, and that's not what I'm preaching. But, but these men, like these people, did not want to just sit around and do nothing. They wanted to hang on for dear life. And Social Security was a bit of a way to help them exit out gracefully, to make room for the younger workers and avoid that continued unemployment crisis.

What are your thoughts on the future of Social Security?

Look, um, you know, the— when the first, um, the first person that put money into Social Security, her name was Ida May, and in, uh, January of 1940, She drew her first Social Security check for $22.50, $22 and change. She was a retired legal secretary, and she had been contributing for about 5 years. So, um, she ended up, um, living until 100 years old. She had put a total amount into the system. She had put a total amount in of about $25. She took out about $23,000 over the next 30 years of her life. So we like literally had the very first person to ever take money out took out more than 100x what they put in. Um, it shouldn't be that surprising that it's failing. And while I don't like getting too political here, I do feel like that it would be a win-win-win across the board for everyone if a politician in the near future was able just to say to anybody like under the age of 50 or 45, like, just don't plan on it, or we're going to put it out to 75. Because again, there's too many people that are like, I need— I deserve this, I earn it, I want the government to give me money to not have to do anything. But what we can do is we can help change people's mindsets and maybe help to encourage them to lean into work that they might enjoy more. And, and, and because of that, they'll do it longer and they won't need to rely on money from the government to make themselves happy.

Yeah, I am taking that advice. So I will not rely on the government to pay me in the future. Yeah, if the government does, a great little bonus, but not something that I'll rely on, not something that I want to be reliant on. And yeah, you know, with— and I don't have all the math in front of me, but I just know that the United States is an aging population and the silver tsunami of people retiring and starting to lean on the government is is happening and the average family size is going down and there are less young people working and contributing. So it seems like it's all going to blow up and there's going to be a mess anyway.

Potentially, yeah. I mean, like, when you also factor in that, like, there's not as many people coming up in the workforce behind these people, right? And one of the main things that keeps the stock market propped up, um, is all of the contributions into the retirement plans that just happen automatically on a monthly basis. So You factor in like the older generation, the boomers that are leaving the workforce, not as many people coming into play. Throw in AI likely taking over a lot of these jobs, and all of a sudden what has historically been this pretty reliable inflow into the stock market by paycheck reduction that might be going away, you know, over the next decade or so, that you've got another thing to add to your list of things that might be blowing up in the near future.

You just brought up AI, so I'd like to ask a question or two about AI. I hadn't thought about any questions related to it, but I'm curious to hear your perspective. So have you ever seen the movie WALL-E? I think that's what it is.

Yeah.

Where in the beginning nobody has a job and they're all fat and they're just being pushed around by robots and eating and, and entertaining on screens all day. It's like, as AI continues to take over monotonous work, and the average person is either forced to level up or rely on the government, maybe with some type of universal basic income, it seems to me like leaning into work that's meaningful is going to become more and more important than ever. So like, what types of work will be relevant and meaningful for people over time? Do you have any thoughts related to that?

Yeah, I do, you know, and I think that the AI crunch is gonna happen sooner than people are thinking. I live close to DC, and there's a lot of people in DC that have lost their, their job recently because of the government. And I sort of feel like it might be a blessing in disguise as a bit of a test run for what's coming with AI. So I think that, that we might have to deal with this sooner rather than later. I think UBI is probably the way to make sure that we don't end up with a bunch of people that don't have any money. But I also think that like a lot of people are really underestimating the potential of human beings to figure a way out of of stuff. And I joke in my book, but it's like I'm half joking and also half serious that one idea for a business could be like Rent a Granddad. I never had a grandfather. There's a lot of older people in nursing homes that are lonely, that have great stories to share. There's a lot of kids that don't have grandparents. And of course, this would have to be supervised, but you could pair them up to tell stories in a meaningful way. I think I heard Gary Vaynerchuk recently say that there are— there's an app now, or it's coming, where you can like pay people to go on walks with you to talk about like certain topics or subject matters, right? I think that like, um, as we learn more about food, right, and, um, uh, uh, what, what's good and what's healthy for us, like, I think that there's a very strong likelihood that there could be somebody that gets— that makes $100,000 a year cooking dinners for 6 homes in their neighborhood 5 days a week, right? Like, they just have a passion for cooking. They're good at it. They're able to do it on a smaller scale. So I think that there's going to be a lot of opportunities. I'm betting on human creativity. I'm betting on the fact that we're all going to have access to AI to help us think through a lot of this stuff. And, and maybe, just maybe, it'll be a gift in the form of people being able to stop doing all this work that they don't enjoy, that doesn't make them happy, and lean into things that currently you can't make money on right now. But maybe people will be willing to pay a guy $200 to come over and play a guitar in their backyard for 2 hours while they have people over for cocktails in a way that maybe that business model doesn't exist right now.

Yeah. I saw a post recently where A woman was talking about the fact that gyms are kind of dystopian and that we used to work out in the fields and have all types of manual labor and you did things with your hands. And now that we all sit behind computer screens, we work out in gyms and the weights serve no other function other than to be moved. And by the way, objectively, I think that's a great thing. I mean, I'm in the gym all the time. Like, I love gyms. But will there be versions of that for socialization? And for the atrophying brain that doesn't have to be used to be creative anymore. And like, will there be these social spaces like you talk about paying somebody to go for a walk or rent a granddad? So I'm sure that we will figure it out. And I love the positive view on AI. I think that the book industry is going to continue to grow, the personal development book industry, because as time gets freed up and people stop doing work that they hate, they become a little bit more introspective. Yeah. And I mean, when COVID happened and people were furloughed or laid off, I think a lot of people had time to breathe and realize they hated what they were doing, and the book industry saw a really big spike. So I love the fact that you're writing about this subject and talking about it. I think that as people spend more time on screens, it's important for authors like you to continue building your personal brand and sharing lessons like this and challenging the status quo. So Thank you for the conversation today, Derek. I, I really enjoyed it.

Yeah, I love it. I loved our time together, Nick. Appreciate your support and, uh, loved, uh, love chatting with you as well.

Where can people go if they want to grab a copy of the book?

Uh, my website's a good place, derekcobern.com. And I'm spending my time on social media these days, mostly on, uh, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Okay, awesome. Final question for you. If Let's Retire Retirement was deleted, And all of the interviews and the social media content related to it was deleted, but you could leave the world with just one message from the book. What would that be?

Hmm. I would say, if I'm not going to say anything that I've said already, this is a good question, man. What do I want to say? I think that it would be very valuable for everybody to question why they are doing the things that they are doing. I think that retirement, just like going to school and getting good grades and studying hard and going to buying, buying the home in the suburbs and living the American dream, these are, these are things that people are not questioning. The majority of people that are saving for retirement have not thought about it very hard. I'll highlight a chapter where I talk about all the assumptions that go into figuring out what you need to save for retirement. And I piggyback on a great book. I don't know if you've ever read this book, but it's called Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert. He's a Harvard professor. came out 15 years ago, and he's never written another book. And I keep checking to see if he writes another book because this book was so good. And it essentially talks about how we do such a terrible job as humans of predicting what our future selves are going to want or enjoy. And I see so many people, they come into a financial advisor's office, and the advisor says, we're going to assume 3% inflation, we're going to assume this tax rate, we're going to assume this rate of return, this They're assuming 8 things, including what age they're going to die, to confidently arrive at an amount that someone has to save. And then these people center their entire lives around saving that amount, when in reality, the likelihood of them actually predicting all of these things correctly is akin to them nailing like an 18-parlay on FanDuel. Like, they're, they're going to be wrong about all of it, but yet they're marching around, they're ignoring their kids, they're not dating their spouse, they're not going to the gym, They're not sleeping well in the name of having a certain amount of money by a certain age. And when they get there, they're gonna find out that it's not what they thought it was going to be, and they're gonna wish they could have done things differently.

Hmm, that's a mic drop moment. Great way to end the show. Thank you again, Derek.

Thanks, brother. Appreciate you, Nick.