Transcript
Speaker: Made on Zencastr. Hello and welcome to Rest and Recreation, the work-life balance podcast from Abysida. I'm your host, Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abysida.
Speaker: Today, I'm going to be finding out how to have a great retirement from Milan Schwarzkopf, the author of Living Your Best Third Act. As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, rest and recreation is made on Zencastr.
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Speaker: As with every episode of Rest and Recreation, we won't be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think. Today's rest and recreation guest, who I met on matchmaker.fm, is Milan Schwarzkopf, the author of How to Live Your Best Third Act.
Speaker: Milan is based in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. I've never been to Prague. Perhaps I should go. When I do, I will make my travel arrangements with the Ultimate Travel Club, because that is where I can access trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, holidays, and all sorts of other travel-related purchases.
Speaker: You can do the same thing, if you're member. So, there is a link and a discount code in the description. Now that I've paid some bills, it is time to make a podcast.
Speaker: Hello, Milan. Hello, it's my pleasure to be here. It's a privilege for us to have you here. Thank you very much for being available. I'm looking forward to what I'm sure is going to be a very interesting conversation about retirement. I think it's one of things we all look forward to in many different ways. But please, could we start by you telling us a little bit about you and how you came to be interested in retirement?
Speaker: Yes, with pleasure. I worked for decades as a project manager, both employee and freelancer, leading large, complex international and global IT projects.
Speaker: Responsibility for huge budgets and large numbers of people led to me not sleeping well at night and being overstressed. In later years I asked myself, why am I doing this?
Speaker: How long can I withstand this? How long do I want to withstand this? Is this job still providing meaning, my why, as it did many years before?
Speaker: What will happen if my health deteriorates? Will I be able to live decently from the state pension? For many years I suspected the stressful work and a reliance on the state of social security pension would not provide me with enough security for a decent retirement.
Speaker: Also I knew if I did not prepare in advance, my health, relationships, lifestyle and fu fulfillment would deteriorate in a retirement too. For these reasons, I have been purposefully preparing myself for decades for retirement, which I am currently in. I'm thinking Milan's in the Czech Republic.
Speaker: and I'm here in the United Kingdom. And yet I imagine, well, I'm pretty sure actually that there are lots of people in all sorts of countries all over the world who could look at their own lives and say exactly the same sort of things about how they're earning a living and their concerns about their retirement.
Speaker: Which means, I suppose, why don't, well, why do we make such a bad job of of preparing for retirement? That's a very good question. ah We have all been preparing the first 20, 25 years of our life for future ah job.
Speaker: We have been studying, improving our qualification. Then we have spent the second part of our life, which I'll call the second act, working, establishing families, raising children, possibly ah building a house.
Speaker: But with the present status of modern medicine, if you escape some um dangerous illnesses, you can expect reasonably to live until 90, not depending on the genetics of your body.
Speaker: If you retire, for instance, in 65, you have at least 25 years in front of you in the retirement and nearly nobody is preparing. Maybe people think it is not urgent, but I believe it is very important.
Speaker: This period of life, which I call the third act, may be the best part of your life if you plan it well and manage it well.
Speaker: And it can be the worst part of your life if you don't. And we can all see examples of such people around us. yes i totally agree with you retirement in the united kingdom is not something that we've had for a very long time just over a hundred years really since pensions were introduced and when they were introduced they were the aim was that it would help to get people out of the workforce we'd end up with people who were not completely healthy leaving the workforce because they would be financially secure.
Speaker: And the expectation was that they weren't going to live very long. When you say that if you retire at what is the conventional retirement sort of age range around about 65 in the UK, you could have 25 years of retirement.
Speaker: That is a very long period of time. And to spend 25 years just basically deteriorating until it all comes to an end is not something that is very appealing you've got to make well you've got to make those years count and i really like what you said about you know you can they can be the best years of your life If you've got things in place that make sure that your income is secure, safe, that you are healthy, you have a healthy lifestyle, you have good relationships, everything is moving in the right direction, or you can end up in the situation where you are worried about whether you can heat your home or eat a meal if you haven't got things planned in the right sort of way.
Speaker: or if there aren't the resources available for you to have both. There's an element of of this that is very frightening, but also another part of it, which is very exciting as well.
Speaker: Yes, sure, I agree. ah Most people are afraid they won't sustain financially for retirement. It was my case as well. So I was preparing for retirement maybe 20 years in advance from the financial point of view.
Speaker: I've intentionally put some money aside, invested them with the help of a professional portfolio manager. And even when preparing for retirement this way, when I retired, it was not an easy task at all.
Speaker: There is... There is a known ah ah list of life ah stressful factors and going to retirement is in the top 10 number. I can quite imagine, yes.
Speaker: So first task, which I got myself when retired, I decided to improve my health, which was damaged by high stress from the work. And I had to learn how to do that. I have much read many books, watched many webinars.
Speaker: Then I decided I should improve my relationships, which were also not good. So I again had to learn how to do that. I read many books. I became a certified coach as well.
Speaker: ah Good news is that although financial preparation for retirement, in my view, takes at least 15 to 20 years, Improving your health, improving your relationships can be started anytime. It's never too late.
Speaker: You can always do the first, maybe simple steps and improve on that. And the last pillar for retirement preparation, in my view, is life purpose. And which this is not an easy task at all because the more we had our life purpose based on work, which was my case as well,
Speaker: the harder it is to find to your new life purpose for retirement not based on work anymore. So again, I was thinking about how to do that, studying many resources and I have developed some approach how to rediscover your your new life purpose for retirement, which I am describing in my book as well.
Speaker: It's very poignant to hear you talk about life purpose and the difficulties that are involved in trying to create a new life purpose after you have retired.
Speaker: I have worked in environments where I was working alongside older colleagues. who were putting in lots of hours at work and then came to the stage where they were of retirement age.
Speaker: And at the time your employer in the UK could tell you, you've reached retirement age, you must now retire. That's not the same nowadays. But I remember two people in particular who worked long hours, committed to their employer, who told you now have to retire, and both of them were dead within us within a year, 18 months of their retirement.
Speaker: What had transpired that they didn't have a purpose beyond their job, they didn't have relationships that were strong or that they enjoyed either with their partners or with friends.
Speaker: And although the money may have been there, the other things went and the lack of relationships, the lack of a purpose seemed to contribute towards a very rapid decline in their health and unfortunate premature demise.
Speaker: what you've just explained brings that back and it does make me feel as if we should all do our bit to try and make sure that those 25 years, potentially 25 years or more are actually well spent.
Speaker: But it's always intriguing for me when someone decides to sort of do some changes to their life and investigate how that can happen. And they gather, they do all the research, they gather all sorts of things, they improve themselves and put themselves in a much stronger position.
Speaker: But what made you decide to then create a book out of it and then indeed create a business out of it as well? So when I was transforming to retirement, I was not originally much successful there. I was not happy at all.
Speaker: I started to read many books on this topic. I basically was trying to buy on Amazon any book ah which relates to retirement or retirement preparation, watching many webinars. And after about two, two and a half years, I discovered my knowledge is so broad that it's not described anywhere else in this complexity.
Speaker: So I decided originally to create a course. Then I have met one man who persuaded me to write a book and hire him as a book writing coach, which I did.
Speaker: So after several months of cooperation with him, i have written my book, which is basically, which is called Living Your Best Third Act, How to Be Healthy, Wealthy and Happy in Your Retirement.
Speaker: Don't make the mistakes most people do. And it is basically about the retirement preparation in four basic pillars. Financial, health, social and relationships, and last but not least, finding your new life purpose for retirement.
Speaker: The book was published in March last year. It became a number one bestseller on Amazon in July last year. It's published in March 2024. Yeah. yeah It sounds like it's the sort of book that you were looking for when you were thinking, I've retired, it's not quite what I expected.
Speaker: You read lots and lots of books, but it sounds like you've written the one book that if it it had had existed, would have answered a lot of the questions that you had. That's correct, yes. So the four things, it's, it's, are you saying that you need 20 years to really plan financially for your retirement? So anyone who's approaching 40 should really be thinking about how they're going to plan their finances for their retirement. is ah It's pretty fair. I would say once you reach an age when you can afford to put some money aside, you should first realize the importance of retirement preparation and start putting some money aside and invest investing them, possibly with the help of a professional.
Speaker: Have this goal in your mind and increase investing for your retirement. How much should you be investing? Or when you say when you can afford to, can you define a little bit what what that means when you can afford to invest?
Speaker: Because it sounds to me as if the earlier that we start, the better. For yourself, for example, when did you decide that it was something that you could afford to do?
Speaker: It's highly individual. In my case, I was saving for my retirement nearly for 30 years. And you were doing that all ah as investment self-managed investments with your advisor. You weren't investing in a pension fund.
Speaker: ah I would not... It's again pretty much country dependent. Investing in a pension fund may be advantageous to some amount, pretty low amount in my country.
Speaker: So I would say he was investing in other instruments. and with the help of a professional portfolio manager. I have selected an independent, really independent, it means paid, portfolio manager Then, it's more than 25 years ago, and I am with them until to today.
Speaker: And they are really very expertly investing my money, mainly diversifying my portfolio into different countries, different currencies, different investment assets, which can hardly be done individually. It must be done, in my view, by a professional portfolio manager.
Speaker: Yes, when you are considering any type of investment, it is always advisable to get independent financial advice and to make sure that you are kept up to date as well with your investments, how they are working, what they are doing and be involved in the decision making process.
Speaker: at least once a year setting the strategy for your next year's investments. So always speak to an independent financial advisor when considering financial investments of any type.
Speaker: It's really good advice Milan that that you've got there that you have to look at what the pensions provision is where you are living where you intend to retire to and work out what it is that you are going to need in terms of finances and then work with an independent financial adviser have a strategy for making that happen and of course i suppose it's also wise to point out that the value of investments can go down as well as up and that's why you need to have regular meetings with your advisors so that they can keep you up to date and you have the opportunity to make the decisions about where your money is going to go
Speaker: Yes, sure. With all investments, you must always consider at least three variables. The risk, the expected return, and the liquidity.
Speaker: So again, it can first, it can be hardly decided by an individual who doesn't have all the tools and all the market information. And second, this changes during your life. If you are young or in your midlife, you can afford somewhat higher risk in exchange of higher return.
Speaker: But as you approach your retirement, you will gradually prefer higher security and not that high return. And that, I suppose, is because when you're younger and you're investing, if your investments go down in value, you have the time to recover the value.
Speaker: When you're approaching retirement, you need more security because you won't have the time to recoup any losses. It's all really good advice, Milan. I really do appreciate it. But again, for each individual person, they need to individual, independent, personal financial advice on any anything to do with finance.
Speaker: On health, it's like the biggest fear, I suppose, for lots of people is to not have a healthy retirement and to go from illness to illness or have a a chronic long-term condition.
Speaker: What sort of things do you advise people to do in terms of planning health around their retirement? From the health chapter, the good news is... that the present scientific knowledge is good enough.
Speaker: We don't need basically in no new research, no new Nobel Prizes. We know how to behave to be healthy. It's only to be willing to get the knowledge, to read, to educate yourself and follow the advice, which is generally agreed what you should do.
Speaker: i have some I will give freebie for your listeners, some 10 commandments or steps to follow. And I have but pretty much detailed chapter on this topic.
Speaker: Again, the good news is if you follow the advice, you maximally increase the probability for being healthy during your retirement and before. And if you are not healthy, you can always increase your health if you follow that good advice.
Speaker: It's very true, very true. And thank you very much. for that We'll put a link in the description to that list of advice. It's really very important. I suppose we should never take our health for granted.
Speaker: and should always be thinking about the actions that we take and the necessary the potential health issues that we might be creating for ourselves. it's ah But it's it's very interesting to say the advice, the information is there.
Speaker: for many people we either don't look for it don't take it when it's offered and think that we all know best we're all indestructible it is not quite the case at at all really the other thing that is really interesting about what this your book is the the section on being fulfilled finding a purpose and for your retirement i think it's pretty pretty clear that you've found your purpose in retirement is helping other people to retire successfully but what sort of advice do you have for people to find something that can be a purpose when lots of people
Speaker: have used their work as their purpose or raising of children who have then, as they as parents approach retirement, their children start to be going off to college, university, wherever, and and becoming independent. So that isn't quite the same sort of purpose that you may have had when they were younger.
Speaker: What of advice do you have for people around finding their purpose in retirement? I would like first to stress the importance of of finding your purpose. We have spent in im in our midlife 10 to 14 hours a day in work.
Speaker: Imagine you now have this time for yourself and your spouse. You may be thinking you will be enjoying your grandchildren. You will be traveling.
Speaker: You will be nourishing your hobbies. But you have 10 to 14 hours a day for yourself. So all these activities will not fill full of your time.
Speaker: And not mentioning if you are able to stand with your spouse 14 hours a day or 24 hours a day. yeah
Speaker: so I'm sure you've got no problems in that area with Mrs. Vlatskov. Not anymore.
Speaker: In comparison with health and relationships, which are pretty well-described scientific ah roots, you can simply ah read the advice and apply it.
Speaker: Finding a purpose is not described well, and many authors approach that from different views. So I have tried to develop a system which I'm not sure if it is good or bad.
Speaker: Simply, I have tried something and I have written a chapter ah in my book about this. There are some procedures, some homework. ah So people may...
Speaker: But this is the process that worked for you. Yes. But I'm not saying it is a universal truth. In comparison with health, it's basically a generally agreed universal truth, what I have summarized in my book.
Speaker: Purpose is one of the possible approaches. It may work for many people. It may not work partially for others. But generally I would say only reading a about purpose is not enough. I would definitely recommend working on this task with a good coach.
Speaker: Not be alone for this. Find a good coach or mentor. So what I suppose as part of that is that we shouldn't make assumptions about what it is that we should be doing in terms of purpose and how we're going to fill those 14, well up to 14 hours a day I suppose.
Speaker: What we do need sometimes when we're making those types of decisions is some type of support in the decision-making process. Great. Yeah. A coach, a mentor, but also there are various different tools available as well, which can help you identify your interests, which,
Speaker: when i think about it it's like when you've got your career going regardless of what job you're doing you are involved with people you are involved with a purpose with a fulfilling objectives regardless of the type of work that you're doing and very often when you are in a working environment you're working with people who also have interests away from work and your interests can become their interests and their interests can become yours we take on the interests the opinions the ways of behaving are the ways of talking of the people that we spend the most time with if you're no longer going to be spending time with those people you then have the challenge i suppose of working out whether
Speaker: The things that you used to do when you were with those people, your work colleagues, are still the things that you want to do after you've retired. When you no longer have the day-to-day contact with those people, help how much of what you've been doing has actually been you?
Speaker: Definitely. You have actually opened the chapter of social and relationships. You should improve your relationships ah both with your spouse, with your friends, with your close circles and distant relationships as well.
Speaker: You should be meeting many people, you should involved in many communities. You should not be close in your social bubble. You should be discussing with people people who have who don't have the same opinions as you.
Speaker: It is very healthy. Yes. And it is very important. And it is also known that the somewhere around 80% of your satisfaction comes from your relationships.
Speaker: So this chapter is very important during your life and during your retirement as well. Yes, I agree with you. I agree with you. So, there's all of these different aspects to preparing to be retired and to be retired, what's the sort of summary of the whole sort of book?
Speaker: what How would you summarize the message of the book? I would say several sentences. First, be aware you are preparing for 20 to 30, maybe 40 years of your life in the third act.
Speaker: Have the moment of retirement to well calculated. Realize that retirement isn't just about money. Think about suitable housing.
Speaker: Think about a suitable retirement mobility solution. To what extent do you want to contribute to the financial security of your children? Simply increase your qualifications.
Speaker: Define what measure of physical, mental, social, lifestyle and financial fitness would you like to have in your retirement years. And think what you are doing about it today.
Speaker: Take special care of yourself as no one else will. You are responsible for your health. Your doctors, your hospital, your health insurance policy, none of them can do even one hundredth as much as you can.
Speaker: Choose what information to let in. Choose the people around you. Continue learning and network building. Create a more complete plan. Have a vision, discipline and consistency.
Speaker: Read, educate yourself, have a coach. Learn to make short-term sacrifices for long-term benefits. Have discipline. Create new habits.
Speaker: Daily habits create destiny. You are responsible. You can choose to change your mind. You can decide to change your approach. My book and coaching should help.
Speaker: At the end, I would like to use some quotes. For instance, Bill Gates. People overestimate what they can do in a year, but tend to underestimate what they can achieve in 10 years.
Speaker: And Michael J. Cammie. Those who do not think about the future cannot have one. Thank you. Thank you very much, Milan. It is very interesting, certainly very thought-provoking. You have definitely made me think about retirement and planning for it. So thank you very much for helping me make such an interesting episode of Rest and Recreation.
Speaker: Thank you. I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida. In this episode of Rest and Recreation, I have been having a conversation with Milan Schwarzkopf, author of How to Live Your Best Third Act.
Speaker: You can find out more information about both of us at abbasida.co.uk. There is a link in the description. I must remember to thank the team at matchmaker.fm for introducing me to Milan Schwarzkopf.
Speaker: If you are a podcaster looking for interesting guests, or if you, like Milan, have something very interesting to say, matchmaker.fm is where matches of great hosts and great guests are made.
Speaker: There is a link to matchmaker.fm and an offer code in the description. If you've listened to Rest On Recreation on your smartphone, you may want to know that 3.0 has the UK's fastest 5G network with unlimited data, so listening on 3.0 means you can wave goodbye to buffering.
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Speaker: Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think. Until the next episode of Rest and Recreation, thank you for listening and goodbye.
