Transcript
Speaker: Retirement. That's what we're all aiming at, right? But exactly what does that mean? conjures up visions of endless days of golf, drinks with little umbrellas in them on a tropical beach, feet up reading a book.
Speaker: Is that what it's all about? I don't think so. Life would get pretty dull after a while without anything meaningful to do, don't you think? I'm Jackie Doucette, and I'm on a mission to discover exactly what life is like beyond retirement.
Speaker: Join me while I chat with people who've already done it, who've retired to something rather than from something. Let's find out together exactly what's waiting for us when we say goodbye to that nine to five.
Speaker: Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Beyond Retirement. I'm your host, Jackie Doucette, and today my guest is Jermaine E., the founder of AirLight, which is a fast, modern, emotionally intelligent way to create a legally binding will, health care directive, and durable power of attorney in under 30 minutes.
Speaker: But we'll be talking about way more than just creating legal documents. We're going to talk about making the most of the time that you have, creating a life that you're not trying to escape from, so you're not trading your present life for some promised future that you might not get.
Speaker: Jermaine, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you, Jackie, for having me. um For the listeners who are probably meeting you for the very first time, what is it that you really do, and why do you think that that's important to share with us?
Speaker: Well, I'm a strange 30-year-old. So I'm 34 now. But I've been part of this thing called Rotary Club since I was 20 years old. And so maybe a lot of your listeners may know Rotary for various, various different things. You know, one of Rotary's most famous projects is ending polio or attempting to end polio in the world.
Speaker: And so because I had the exposure to Rotary at a young age, I've always hung around people who were much older than I am or that than I was.
Speaker: And so it's always given me a different perspective of how I should approach life, the seasons of life, the things we should do in our 20s and 30s and 40s. And so I am currently on a mission to help people live with more clarity.
Speaker: And so that's how I came up with AirLite. And i do want to preface by saying AirLite is not available in most places currently. So even though you can go in and chat with our intelligent Faye, what we call our app assistant, but it's not available in most places, only in California. So you know the the goal of it is that if we can have conversations to find out what truly matters to you,
Speaker: We're able to live a life knowing what we have and knowing what is enough. And I think that's a great way to live.
Speaker: I think so, too. um what How do you define what is enough? Yeah, I think it's so different for everybody. And a lot of it is also informed by cultural differences.
Speaker: So for example, my family, we we are Malaysian Chinese, even though I was born in the US, but my parents were raised as Malaysian Chinese. And what that means is that our culture is much more communal.
Speaker: So we live in generational households. We live in communities where we know our neighbors oftentimes. And in i grew up in the United States. I grew up in California.
Speaker: And in this side of the world, we are much more individualistic, which also means that people are aging alone. You know, people are growing up thinking, you know what? I always find it fascinating that in some cultures, when you make it,
Speaker: whatever that means to you, it means bringing your family along. But in this Western hemisphere culture, it's like when you make it, you move into a bigger house, a gated community, you isolate yourself even more from the people that you grew up with.
Speaker: And so I think what is enough really differs to everybody. But I think what may be more important or what comes before that is to identify the voices that is influencing how you define what is enough.
Speaker: Is that you know simply by scrolling through Facebook and Instagram, by comparing he yourself to the unknown, the day of the world?
Speaker: and So in your in your bio that was sent to me, you say that you're obsessed with um how we spend our time, the work that we do, what we leave behind. And you're kind of alluding to this and what you just said, but where does that obsession come from, do you think? And and why is it important to recognize it?
Speaker: Yeah, so I watched my parents leave their home, Malaysia, in this... I i didn't watch them leave in the late 70s, but then they had me. And as I grow older, I come to understand that, you know, in...
Speaker: Let's say my, this is a thing where a lot of people struggle with, which is like in their twenties, they have this decision. Should I work really hard to build my career or should I see the world? Should I travel?
Speaker: Should I go backpack Europe? Because in the twenties is the only acceptable time in in most people's opinion to, you know, Sleep away in ah in a couch surfing stranger's couch or going backpack hostels to hostels.
Speaker: And in the 30s and 40s, you can still do that. But it's it's a different experience. and And there are things you can only do in your thirty s that would seem a little bit irresponsible or maybe there's health limitations that you can only do. And then in the 40s, 50s and beyond. and so And so this concept really came to me and I was having conversation with my parents about retirement.
Speaker: And what I realized is that and in the underlying subconscious, in the back of their head, far, far away that they never talk about is that they have this...
Speaker: uncertainty of I think what drove it was the slight fear of running out of money before you die.
Speaker: But it was never spoken. And what I realized was they it's not that they didn't have enough or they didn't have you know savings or things like that. It's that they didn't see how did the savings translate into a life fully lived post making money.
Speaker: And so I got very obsessed with this idea sometime during COVID. you know Like many during COVID, I started thinking about what mattered in my life and How do I want to spend time?
Speaker: And who do I want to spend time with? And so I made this conscious decision to move closer to my parents. We even got an office across from each other. And so we get to spend lunchtimes and go to the gym after work whenever I'm in town.
Speaker: And so, yeah, I got obsessed with this this concept of what is a life well designed and how do we carry that into the later stages of our lives?
Speaker: And how do you think we do that? what What can you suggest to people who are in the throes of retirement planning? And and you know if they want to find a way to better spend their their days, what do you suggest that they can do?
Speaker: Yeah, i'm not I won't sit here and act like I have the answers to it. you know Clearly i am I am growing into this. and But what what I do see are patterns.
Speaker: you know The people that I talk to throughout all these years of not only just being in Rotary, but I've worked in politics, which means I've i've gone door to door across the state of California, which has 40 million people.
Speaker: So it's kind of a reflection of many communities and countries even. And what I realized is, you know, the people who live with the most joy and and purpose and to keep their brain active are the people who have one thing in common, which is they do something for others in their day to day.
Speaker: And be it like something small, just you know standing in the corner of a street helping kids cross the crossroad to a little bit bigger, joining an organization, mentoring younger people and finding communities that they can share these ideas with.
Speaker: And a lot of it, I believe, is just feeling like you're listening to yourself in in what you have to offer and finding a place to land that offer.
Speaker: You know, all the knowledge and and lived experiences, having an outlet there seems to be a great way for a lot of people to find purpose. and And so i guess the answer is sometimes is to look inward, is to ask yourself the questions of,
Speaker: What would I do every day if money and recognition wasn't part of the equation? Or what would I do every day that brings me a little bit of joy?
Speaker: And oftentimes I realize that doesn't require going too far or spending too much or going too out of your way. It's just maybe being a little bit creative with how we find it.
Speaker: And that leads to my next question. you You talk about designing an ordinary day. And one of the things that I um do with my coaching clients is get them to write down their perfect average day. And I'm thinking that that's probably what you mean by an ordinary day. It's a day that you're that you think you would be happy living every day, not you know full of adventure and full of surprises, but just a ah day that could be your day going forward. Is that is that kind of what an ordinary day is?
Speaker: Yeah. I realized a lot of my friends, a lot of people around me were living for the weekends. yeah And I think when you have a job, when you have responsibilities as adults, living for a weekend is something you do. just You just do that because we look forward to the time where we can...
Speaker: not have to wake up at a certain time and i've never been one to live on the weekends and i never really understood why people do that but i'm also a strange kid you know i've i've never really had a real job i've always created mine not because i was so smart but because i was such a rebel that i couldn't get a real job that I was either always overqualified or underqualified for the things that I wanted to do.
Speaker: And so it was always too big of a risk for someone to hire me based on my resume. And so I always had to create my jobs. I've in my early 20s driven for Uber just to make money to have a startup. I've worked odd jobs holding up a camera, filming at film festivals of ah you know interviews and things like that.
Speaker: But I think... I've never really understood why um people lived for the weekend. And and so the the thing that stuck with a lot of my friends is I just asked them, hey, what what would happen on a Tuesday?
Speaker: On just a any Tuesday, just tell me one thing that you would end up the night thinking, that was a good day. And that that was the bar. Because I think sometimes… we I'll speak for myself. you know Sometimes i subconsciously compare myself to all my friends who are more successful, people who have a little bit more, people, you know, I'm i'm going on three trips a year and i look at my friends who are going on four trips a year thinking,
Speaker: ah is it isn't comparison a thief of joy and so and so that's how I would like to design my life and and I do that I do that every year i choose a few things that I tell myself if I did that not even to the maximum if I just did it if I showed up that would be pretty good
Speaker: And do you think that that is um kind of ah a prescription for getting through life and being content with who you are and where you are? Just kind of saying, hey, I've done it. I've done something. I i don't need to do everything. I don't need to keep up with Joe next door. i i just need to be myself and be happy with it.
Speaker: This may be a little bit of the stoicism and the Buddhist influence of my life, but I do try to journal on the ideas that I have. So I keep a running journal.
Speaker: and And one of the journal questions that actually, the three questions that I ask, even though they are simple and cliche, is what are you grateful for? but But not in a general way, in a deep very, very detailed way in that moment. What am I grateful for?
Speaker: And as the years go by, I think I've done this for about 10 years now. I realized that the through line is that the smaller the things that I'm grateful for, the more grounded I feel.
Speaker: And the more I try to find something big, ah it becomes a little bit off-putting. It becomes a little bit more difficult to feel where my ground is.
Speaker: I think, yeah, I think I struggle to answer your question because general advices are really not great. and so And so i I really don't like to give general advices.
Speaker: I do think that if you're able to Understand. i think this is this is something i I've done for years. Brene Brown had this concept of taking a small piece of paper and writing down the opinions, the names of opinions matter to you.
Speaker: And it has to be a small piece of paper. It can't be the entire you know Twitter or Facebook community, all the unknown anonymous comments in the world. It has to be a small piece of paper.
Speaker: And I think my paper had six names. I think it was my five family members and and my best friend. and And to keep that close to me all the time, because whenever I have a decision to make, I would just look at the paper and and reassure myself that the opinions, the people who have opinions matter, they'll support whatever I do.
Speaker: you know it So I stopped comparing myself and and trying to search for what it is that, you know what i I think I should have or to chase things that are maybe out of my my true needs.
Speaker: So then that's something that I think a lot of people struggle with is letting go of the opinions of other people because somewhere inside us, we all want people to like us and want people to think positively about us. So it sounds kind of um
Speaker: higher level to be able to say, I'm not going to care about the opinions of anybody but the people that are closest to me. How how do you how do you manage to hold on to that and and keep it um foremost, I guess, in your mind when when things get you down?
Speaker: i have I have a lot of bad days. And as you know, I'm i'm building a startup. Which means I have to build something that differentiates myself to stick out from what is socially or generally accepted.
Speaker: And because I'm building a startup in the legal space, you know i I do get friends who are attorneys, who are estate planning attorneys. well And on the surface, it looks like I am here to take their job. But in truth, I'm trying to elevate this conversation because many people who you know needs a trust can't afford it.
Speaker: And so i I would like to start this conversation just with the general public about topics of estate planning. But one thing that I did is that i constantly look at my calendar and and i make sure that I spend time with people who add to my energy instead of subtracts.
Speaker: And I think this is something more difficult as as we get older, at least as I get older. There are relationships in my life now that goes 25 years you know into my childhood. and And even though I know that this person is a little bit negative, this person is bringing their preconceived, their assumptions of their world into my life and their judgments,
Speaker: The only thing that I've told myself to do is just to reduce time spent with these people. I'll generalize this. These negative voices that take energy away from me.
Speaker: And I try to design my life and maybe design is a strong word, but i I choose to spend time with people. and And that includes family members.
Speaker: I'm very lucky. I have a very supportive family, but I can't say the same about my extended family. And so I have a huge extended family. You know my mom is 10 of 12 and my dad is five of seven, the fifth of seven kids.
Speaker: And so the only thing I can do, the only practical advice here is to look at the 48 hours you have seven times a week. And are you spending time with people who add energy?
Speaker: And at the risk of creating an echo chamber for yourself, you know, and sometimes too much positivity creates a disillusioned life. But you know, we only live once and I'd rather wake up every day with a smile and and walk down the street or have phone calls with people that make me feel more alive than I do um people who I know in their nature um with full empathy of the life that they're going through that may be difficult, that their circumstances, their traumas may have caused them to think a certain way.
Speaker: But I think I choose to just spend time with people that uplift me. I think that makes a lot of sense. it's You don't want to necessarily ban the other people from your life.
Speaker: Excuse me. But yeah, the year the backlash from being with the negative people all the time is going to be hard on you. And you want to limit that a little bit. what do you How do you separate the idea of having a busy life from the idea of having a meaningful life?
Speaker: My theme this year for myself is to say no more. ah I'll separate that. To say no more often. I am very bad at that.
Speaker: i I am a people pleaser. I do not like conflict. In fact I do not like conflict so much that it has cost me in business.
Speaker: Because i i once had an employee who I knew was not the right fit. But because I hired her, my ego was tied up in it. you know i I chose her out of the out of everybody. and And maybe three months in, I realized, oh, this this isn't working out.
Speaker: But I put off that conversation for a whole year. and And when the accountants came in and we realized things were off and you know I had to have that that conversation and i think what hurt me the most at that time was she was caught by surprise that I knew there was a problem because I never brought it up.
Speaker: I never gave her the chance to correct, to right the wrongs and and at the end of it it, it was bad for both of us. And I took your question in a very different direction.
Speaker: But I think, yeah.
Speaker: I'm sorry, what was your question again? ah How do you separate being busy or doing busy work from doing meaningful work? And you said that you said you you've you said no more often because being busy doesn't mean you're doing something important or something meaningful.
Speaker: Yes. And then I went on the tangent of being bad at conflict. So, yes, I do try to say i do. I am trying to say no more often. um I don't know if that's sort there's a solution because you know the the things that we often spend our time on are what is urgent and not what is important.
Speaker: And I do try to write down a list of what is important, what is urgent. And oftentimes the important things are the ones that make the biggest impact in our life. So perhaps this is advice to myself now that I should spend a little bit more time taking a look at what I did last week and see if I want to do the same the week following week.
Speaker: Should I just copy and paste my my calendar? Of course, and in different kinds of meetings and different things, or should I... intentionally reduce the things that are urgent as much as possible and and do more of what is important.
Speaker: And i think I think there's other things that we can do. For example, you know i I try to put my office next to my parents. And so I get to have lunch with them just out of convenience because that's what's important.
Speaker: But also to set myself up for success, I ah make it very convenient to do what is important.
Speaker: probably a good idea. If we could all just organize our lives that way, I think that would be great. it doesn't always happen like that. Yeah. and And I do understand that the privilege of it.
Speaker: You know, so one thing that i I should probably preface this, that my mom passed away suddenly in five months ago. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah. It's, it was, it was a shock. Yeah.
Speaker: But what came out of this, the reason why I'm still going full of gratitude is because about a year ago, I had this conversation with her, that same conversation about retirement and And I noticed that there were a lot of things that she was putting off. She raised four kids.
Speaker: I'm the oldest of four. And for 20 years of her life, she was a full-time mom. And she went back to work after that because she needed something to do. My little brother turned 21. Actually, he turned 18 and she went back to work.
Speaker: and And then work got busy and we as kids forgot to ask them, what were your dreams and what what did you enjoy doing before you had us and before work consumed off all of your lives?
Speaker: And one thing I realized was she loved dancing, something that she stopped doing and And at the later stage, she around 50, 58, she had gained a little bit of weight and she felt very insecure to go to dance classes. She felt insecure to go to the Zumba class at the gym.
Speaker: And so my brother and I, we we decided we would go to Zumba with her just to get her out of her comfort zone. And all it took is one class. We went to Zumba with her once. she can She can tell that we didn't belong there. and we just we we so We just stuck out so much. We were we were normally lifting weights.
Speaker: But what had happened was that after she went for the first time, she felt comfortable and she kept going back. and And it was a great workout and a joy that she had three times a week just going to Zumba classes.
Speaker: And one thing that we learned from these conversations with her was that she had always wanted to go to the place where they filmed the movie The Sound of Music in Salzburg in Austria.
Speaker: And the little girl that grew up in a small town in Malaysia, she's she never thought she could go. and And we questioned the assumption. Why not? you know, what why not fly over to Vienna and rent a car and take a road trip?
Speaker: And so in July of last year, we did that. we my My girlfriend, my dad, and my mom and i we flew into Vienna. okay And rented a car and drove across Austria.
Speaker: And we went to the place where Marie got married, the church where she got married. We sat outside the the house that the, I'm probably going to mess up your name, the Von something family. Von Trapp. Von Trapp family. There you go. I found a fan.
Speaker: Yeah. the Von Trapp family lived in we, eat the gazebo that the teenagers danced in, you know, so we went to all those places. And,
Speaker: Halfway through the day, she she looked at me and she said, this is my dream. I'm living in my dream. Because that teenage girl in Ipoh, small town Malaysia, just could not have imagined, you know, at 60, that she would be standing at the place where that little girl was watching in the movies on the TV screen.
Speaker: Oh, what a beautiful story. that That's a great memory to have of your mom. Eight days after that trip, she was hospitalized and then she passed. And, you know, I am so grateful for all the conversations I had with her.
Speaker: I think it was it's just a reminder for me that as my parents, as all of our the loved ones that we have are growing up for the first time, you know, my mom was turning 60 for the first time.
Speaker: And as I'm turning 34 for the first time, and i I think I took for granted for many years that she was always going to be around. And so I never thought to ask her, what does she want to do?
Speaker: And so in me, the the purpose of me going on more podcasts and and talking about these topics is I hope to inspire people to have these conversations with their loved ones.
Speaker: And, you know, maybe someone in your audience would send this episode to one of your adult kids and it would remind them. And if you're listening, have those conversations with your parents.
Speaker: You know, it doesn't have to be flying across the world to Austria. Oftentimes what I realize is that the things that we want the most cost the least. it It just means spending time doing something, something that we haven't done in a long time.
Speaker: And so, yeah, i'm I'm very grateful for this memory that I have of my mom. It's, I think it's the only reason why I'm able to keep going so quickly to carry on and to, you know, build air light in her honor.
Speaker: and That's a beautiful way to honor her, I think. And that leads kind of into ah what I was going to ask. I know you said that Air Light's only available in California right now, but would you like to talk a little bit about it and what what you're offering to people with it?
Speaker: Yeah, so estate planning is is tricky. It's tricky in many ways. ah Psychologically, a lot of people put it off. And I think for the right reasons, as I dug deeper into a estate planning, I realized the complexities of it.
Speaker: And so I will say just upfront, if you understand the difference between a will and a trust, you should probably talk to an attorney. I built this for the people who have been putting off this conversation.
Speaker: You know, that what I realized is that there's so much ego tied to estate planning. Because a lot of people that I've surveyed du didn't want to have this conversation with a total stranger about everything that is most private to their lives.
Speaker: And because of that, they put it off forever. And so the journey that I'm on is, well, for the US actually and for Canada, for all the provinces, every state, every province has a different set of rules.
Speaker: that has tax implications, that has guardianship implications and healthcare care arrangement implications. And so if you have been putting it off, i I welcome you to have a conversation with my well-trained agent.
Speaker: What makes us different from ChatGPT is we are not searching the web. But in in no time in the conversation you'll have with my app, ah by the way, it's also free to try. And if you don't export, you don't have to pay. So you get to just ask it silly questions or things that you've just been asking that you want to know. For example, you know, what would happen to XYZ if...
Speaker: if I want this or how should I write this? And you know was we'll will suggest the best practices because we're not giving legal advice. We'll give you all the things that we found in the probate code.
Speaker: and And that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to get people to start having a conversation. So eventually we'll build Spanish, we'll build Mandarin support, we'll build all the languages so that even families with less resources can start thinking about this.
Speaker: And our goal essentially is just to help people translate their wishes into a properly formatted legal piece of paper. And it's still on them to have these conversations with our app.
Speaker: And at a higher level, what I hope is when you have these conversations, whether it be with an app or with someone, that you gain some clarity. you know about what to do with your body and sometimes you know the the topic of death is tricky and what i realized is gen z is much more open to talking about death than the boomer and the millennial generation and so yeah i hope to make it a more casual way to have people thinking about this
Speaker: And so what's the, it's airlight.com. Is that where you find it? Yeah, it's spelled H-E-I-R-L-I-G-H-T, airlight. Okay. I'll make sure that that's in the show notes so people can go and take a look and see ah see what you're talking about and ask some questions, you know, see what they come up with. Because I guess even if they're not going to download it and use it themselves, they can get some information from it.
Speaker: Yeah, so so the thing is when you download, it'll ask you what state you're in. And depends on depending on when this episode comes out, the state may not be ready. And i am legal bills are my biggest expense. I am working with attorneys across eight states right now to to try to get it right.
Speaker: And also to not be sued because we are living in a litigious society. and so yes So I understand that I am poking at the bear by taking on estate planning. But I do think it's so necessary.
Speaker: um My parents both have their MBAs and they both are business owners. And even then they put off this conversation for a very long time. They both, ah we have a family trust set up because I was on this journey and I've learned all those things about it. And so, so we, we gone ahead and we used an attorney. And so I am not saying we're better than an attorney. In fact, we are not better than an attorney, but if you can afford an attorney, please go for an attorney. Yeah.
Speaker: So we've talked about a lot of things. I think the yeah the biggest takeaway is to have the important conversations with yourself, with your loved ones, so that you're all kind of on the same page about life in general and what you want out of your life. um Is there anything else you'd like to share with the with the listeners, Jermaine?
Speaker: Yeah, I've been sitting on two thoughts lately. One we've touched on, which is clarity is love in practical form.
Speaker: This is something that I've been thinking a lot about, and that's how I'm approaching my life is the more I can help people around me find clarity. That is, that is a love language in itself.
Speaker: And the second one that i I've also been thinking a lot about is that it's not that life is short. It's that we don't remember a lot of the details. And so when we do look back...
Speaker: We often feel that life has just passed us by. But if we start being more intentional about you know writing things down and planning ahead and thinking you know the the things that we want to do more intentionally, what we realize is that we do have a lot of time to do the things that we want to do that makes us feel fulfilled.
Speaker: And so I do that. i I try to write a diary. It doesn't always work, but it it's helped a lot now. Voice to text is really good. And so, yeah, so it's it's not that life is too short. It's that we forget a lot of the details in it.
Speaker: think that's actually quite insightful. I hadn't really thought about it that way, but that's true. I mean, we've all lived a lot of time, but we don't remember all of it.
Speaker: And as we get older, we yeah seem to remember less and less of it. Yeah, this is the first time I'm saying this outside of to my girlfriend. So depends on who this meet is reaches. So my my girlfriend is Ukrainian and her country is at war.
Speaker: And i keep a journal of every day that I spend with her. of what we did, places we went to, sometimes things we ate and a little bit of what we fought on.
Speaker: And now, all these days later, I'm able to look back and and think how much I've grown, but also how much life we've lived.
Speaker: and We've done 27 countries together. Wow. Yeah, it it was an intentional decision because someday we'll have kids and we're not able to travel as freely. and so And so on and the note of you know life, there's a lot of time as long as you're intentional about how you spend it.
Speaker: I think that's a good way to a good way to end this, unless you've got something else that's going to be mind-blowing as well. I think that's a perfect way to end. um no no Where can people find you?
Speaker: Where can people find you if they want to talk to you? I am E.E. Germain everywhere. So that's that's ah Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, everything. But if you just search me up, Germain, J-E-R-M-A-I-N-E, I'm named after Germain Jackson of the Jackson five ah So I'm Jermaine Everywhere and AeroLite is where you can find me. I'm pretty reachable.
Speaker: um And yeah, thank you for having me, Jackie. Oh, thank you, Jermaine. It's been a pleasure talking with you. i hope you have a great day.
Speaker: And that's it for this episode of Beyond Retirement. Thank you so much for hanging out with me. hope you enjoyed it. To check out the video interviews, please go to my YouTube channel at bit.ly forward slash beyond retirement. That's B-I-T dot L-Y forward slash beyond retirement. Be sure to subscribe so you won't miss any new episodes.
