Ending anything is one of the most difficult things to experience… even if you want it to end. Why? Because every ending gives rise to a new beginning, which is the unknown and the unknown is THE most terrifying emotion.

People choose abuse, poverty, and substandard healthcare because change is so difficult. We’ve all heard the phrase “The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.” Because we fear the unknown, uncharted waters, we continue a path with relationships which no longer serve us. Relationships with friends, healthcare providers, banks and financial professionals and even homes. This leads to the single biggest regret people have on their deathbed…not changing “something” when they had the chance.

So why is the “resistance to change” phenomena so common? Most of us never had to choose anything, ever, until we reached our retired-ish years.

Choice is so foreign to us that we would rather settle for...

Why do we look forward to retirement and when we get there, we are often unhappy, unfulfilled or underwhelmed?

One reason may be for the first time we are being asked to “choose” and not being told what we “should” do. 

I’m inviting you to entertain the likelihood that we have been sleepwalking…robotically moving through our lives ignoring what WE choose for our best possible self. We’ve all heard that we “should” all over ourselves every day…and it’s true.

From the time we are toddlers to retirement we are barraged with parents, teachers, family, friends and bosses telling us what we “should” do. We should be walking by this age.

We should be potty trained by this age.

We should go to school and be proficient in xyz by this age.

We should get A’s and B’s and we should go to college.

We should graduate from college and get a great “job”.

We should strive for advancement in...

You are counting the days and dollars to your big Freedom Day - the day you retire.

The truth is that most of us never really retire, we just move on to the second act of our lives. If you are a Boomer like me, you might be in retirement almost as long as you were in your career. This is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that you finally get to do what you want and not what others expect you to do. The curse is that you worry about outliving your money or giving it all back to Uncle Sam.

Few of us consider the Five Elements of Retirement, and money is only one of them. Not addressing all five may leave us unhappy, unfulfilled, insecure, and financially or physically unable to afford the bucket list we’ve been composing over the years.

Most of us have a preparedness plan for almost every aspect of our life - except retirement! We think that because we have completed an estate plan, we are good to go. Money and objects are only one element of our retirement planning,...