00:00:00 Rita Black

Have you ever thought once I retire, then I’ll finally relax, travel, find my purpose, and become that calm, organized, wildly fulfilled version of myself from the retirement brochures? Yeah. Retirement is a transition. And transitions bring up all the usual suspects. The inner critic with her shoulds the. The inner rebel with her. I’ve worked hard. I don’t want structure and that deeper question so many of us quietly face. Who am I now? So whether you’re retired, almost retired, empty nesting, or simply entering a new chapter of your life, today’s conversation with Wendy Leggett is going to be important for you. So take a breath, pull up a chair, and come on in. Did you know that our struggle with weight doesn’t start with the food on your plate or get fixed in the gym? 80% Of our weight struggle is mental. That’s right. The key to unlocking long term weight release and management begins in your mind. Hi there. I’m Rita Black. I’m a clinical hypnotherapist, weight loss expert, best selling author, and the creator of the Shift Weight mastery process. And not only have I helped thousands of people over the past 20 years achieve long term weight mastery, I am also a former weight struggler, carb addict and binge eater. And after two decades of failed diets and fad weight loss programs, I lost £40 with the help of hypnosis. Not only did I release all that weight, I have kept it off for 25 years. Enter the Thin Thinking podcast, where you too will learn how to remove the mental roadblocks that keep you struggling. I’ll give you the Thin Thinking tools, skills and insights to help you develop the mindset you need not only to achieve your ideal weight, but to stay there long term and live your best life. Sound good? Let’s get started. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back. It’s nice to see you here. Please come on in and get cozy. Here we are in the middle of May. If you’re listening to this, when it drops, and I feel like we’re heading into the tidal wave of the social season, right? Weddings, graduations, and also for a lot of people, retirement. I am not doing any of these things personally. I just see it going on around me and frankly I’m like, oh gosh, I’m kind of glad I don’t have to go to a graduation this year. My son will be graduating from college next year, so I’m going to just save up all my enthusiasm for then. I can’t believe that. I really cannot believe that. My son, however, is turning 21. This year. And that is another thing. I just oh, okay, let’s not even talk about it. I’m going to bury my head in the sand. But here, here’s an interesting little factoid. Did you know that 11,000 people are retiring daily here in the United States? Like whoa, that’s kind of crazy. And what my special guest tells me, it’s called a phenomena. And maybe you know the name of this phenomena. It’s called Peak 65, which I will be talking about among many fascinating things about navigating the inner world of, of considering or being in retirement with the amazing Wendy Leggett. Wendy Leggett is a professional certified coach and owner of Conflict Retirement Coaching LLC specializing in non financial retirement life planning. With 25 years of corporate sales leadership experience, she guides clients through a fulfilling retirement transition focusing on well being, identity, purpose, connectedness and positive aging. Wendy holds advanced credentials from the Retirement Project, Retirement Life Plan and Positive Intelligence and is a contributor to the Retirement Collective. Welcome Wende. Welcome Wende. Thank you so much for being here today. I, I really and my audience really enjoyed your last time you came on. So welcome back.

00:04:42 Wendy Leggett

Oh fun, fun, fun. I’m really happy to be here and I love your audience and love the opportunity to chat with you.

00:04:48 Rita Black

So yeah, I’ve really been looking forward to this. So those, it was a couple of years you and I were chatting and trying to figure out when you came on last.

00:04:59 Wendy Leggett

Yeah.

00:04:59 Rita Black

So I, in that time we have added many people to our than thinking community. So for those who don’t know, the fabulous Wendy, tell us a little about you and how you came to be what you do specifically how you help people and how you came into this most fascinating work that you do.

00:05:23 Wendy Leggett

Oh wow. Well that’s quite a preamble. So we’ll see if I live up to live up to it. So I’m Wendy Leggett. I’m a professional certified coach and I specialize in, in retirement life planning and I’m the owner of Conflux Retirement Coaching. So a lot of times people say okay, retirement life planning, so that’s my finances and things. No, a life coach. We really focus on the non financial and so we look at things like identity, purpose, connection, mindset, structure. We’ll get into all of that a little bit more, a little bit later. But, but the, the point behind it is that oftentimes people think well if I have my financial house in order then why do I need, you know, why do I need anything more than that? Because I’m set to go and so that’s what I want to really explore with you, is that we bring our whole selves into every experience, not just our pocketbooks, not just our portfolios. And so, so that’s what is very gratifying. And that’s the work that I do. And how I came to that work was my background career wise is in corporate sales leadership. So for 20 plus years I worked at a lot of different corporations from Fortune 50 to fashion to franchises and loved the work for a number of reasons. I really enjoyed leading my teams and helping elevate their capabilities. I love connecting with clients and bringing that value added proposition, the win win to them. And I really was geared to having processes that would help me meet and exceed their service and sales figures. So that was my trajectory and loved it no matter what the product was. I love the process and I love the elements that I just shared. In my last position position though, which I was enjoying so much, the owners were very creative and so it had that beautiful blend of achieving things and creating things and we were really humming along and I think that was probably the kiss of death because the company became very ready to be sold. You know, we were doing so well and gosh darn them, but they went and sold it. So in came then the new owner and very quickly it was very clear to me that he had a really different approach to the market, to the clients that I had worked so hard with my teams to really foster and develop and to my team members. And so I don’t know if you’ve had that kind of situation where you’re just in a situation where it’s so out of alignment with your values and what’s important to you and what feels good and what feels meaningful. But problem solver that I was, I kept trying to figure out a way to bridge the gap. So I stayed way longer than I should have. He was very happy with me, but I became more and more unhappy. So I set that point where I needed to make a decision, you know, do I continue with this, seeing that it’s really eating away at me, you know, it’s soul sucking. And so the energy wasn’t there and that and the same engagement wasn’t there. Do I stay on that trajectory or do I now face the music and say, okay, I’m at that pain point, I really need to make a change. So I started exploring different opportunities and went down different pathways, experimenting before I landed on coaching. And coaching wasn’t part of my world. Aside from sports coaching, I’d have consultants that I work with, but never coach. And then when I started exploring, it was like, wow, I can go back to school and I can become a coach. And so that’s what I did. And so that in and of itself was because I hadn’t been in school for a long time. And so going back and gaining my certification in just as a life coach and then going further into more detail and more credentials around retirement life planning was, you know, in and of itself, really a big step for me. So I shared a whole lot there. I’ll stop and see what that.

00:09:43 Rita Black

Well, no, it’s fascinating, your trajectory. And I, I think it ties into our conversation today because I think there’s just these times where you feel out of alignment with something and you have to make those hard choices. And I think retirement brings up quite a, a lot of hard questions for people. And, you know, we’re g. We’re going to dive into that. But before we do, I mean, I want to start with something we were chatting about before. And then I was like, okay, Wendy, I just have to turn on record because I could tell that we were just going to have a conversation without the record on, because it’s really fascinating. Tell us about the, the research. And at what you call the Peak 65, I found that maybe some of our listeners know about this, but I certainly didn’t.

00:10:38 Wendy Leggett

Yeah. Yeah. So right now in the United States, over 4 million people are reaching the age of 65 every year. So 11,000 people every day in the US are hitting 65. That’s where the term peak 65 comes from. And it’s projected to continue through 2027 and then still stay at a high level, but not quite as high. And so what that brings up is this idea that, wow, there’s all this societal pressure and messaging around that, that set point of 65 that oftentimes we really equate with retirement. And so, you know, adding to that then is eligibility around Medicare and eligibility around Social Security. And so as you’re mentioning these hard decisions that we come up against, oftentimes I have people coming to me that say, well, I’m at this age, so I should be retiring. I had one client that said he was 72, and he said I should have retired at 65 so that I could enjoy the fruits of my labor, but he couldn’t afford to. But he had that strong messaging and that for him, scarcity mindset around 65 was the number. And now I’m way over it. I’ve expired. So that’s. That’s what that Peak 65 is all about.

00:12:04 Rita Black

Yeah. And which brings me to what we wanted to talk about was, you know, in, in my work and on the podcast we talk about our inner critic and our inner rebel with regards to weight management and what you were just saying about this man who was 72 and said I should have, but I couldn’t afford to. Sounds like a lot of self shaming around the fact that you, you know, don’t. Aren’t able to afford to retire. Which I think a lot of people, I Wonder, of those 11,000 people a day who are retiring, how many of them can afford to or, you know, or have had to really question that?

00:12:51 Wendy Leggett

Yeah, yeah. And that’s. I, I don’t have anything more deep or granular, but what comes up and I’ll speak to this specific client and I hope that this resonates and love your feedback. But what came up with this particular client? When we started working together and a financial advisor had wrecked referred him to me, the one who said to him, well, you can’t afford to retire. And so we started digging into it and you’re mentioning the shaming piece and there’s also this piece about oftentimes coming from a scarcity versus an abundant mindset for this gentleman. As we dug into it more and I, I really started to, you know, deconstruct what his life was looking like. So he had this beautiful home that he had raised his children in that he was now living in on his own, that he could have sold, he could downsize and that financially would have brought in, you know, probably that cushion that he needed. He had a very expensive hobby he did like remote control cars or something and really, really dug into it. A very expensive hobby that he could choose to not continue with. And that would have probably given him then the supplemental money to be able to do some of the other things. But in our conversation, when I said to him, well, so you could choose to sell your home, oh no, I love that home. Or what is it about that home? So we dug into that and what is it about that, that hobby that you have? And so through the conversation, I won’t take us through all of it, but there was this awareness, this growing awareness about being maybe not aware of what he had in his life. He was looking at what he didn’t have, which was that ability to retire because of what was black and white on the financial forms. But he lost sight of what he did have in his life. And when we really said, you know, you’re at choice Here and he loved that home. Then he was able to really start to foster this growth, gratitude around what he had and a recognition of what was in his life and that he was that choice and so then taking accountability for those decisions. So what does that bring up for you, if anything?

00:15:15 Rita Black

Well, I think that brings up this idea of you were able to help him reframe how he saw himself. You know, I think seeing yourself at choice is a huge. Just, you know, being of choice, but, but actually seeing yourself because I, I know that conversation with the financial person. I think we all do. You know, like where they’re like looking at the numbers.

00:15:45 Wendy Leggett

And.

00:15:50 Rita Black

I’ve spent some time listening to Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. They help me sleep at night.

00:15:57 Wendy Leggett

Oh, wow.

00:15:59 Rita Black

I fall asleep to them. I know people fall asleep to hypnosis and meditation. I fall asleep to financial. I just think they’re so sure of themselves in, in their world.

00:16:14 Wendy Leggett

That it.

00:16:15 Rita Black

Calms me down and I, I go to sleep. But no, but, yeah, I, I think that, that you are help. Able to help him reframe a number of things that allowed him to shift from shame to gratitude, which is huge. And I. Yeah. Tell us more what you see from your perspective, because you see so many people coming into this and when they’re opening up their hearts to you and their conversations with you. Is it. Am I doing this right? Because they have this inner critic that’s like saying it should be like this and it should look like this and you got to do this and you got to do that and all the expectations that we kind of get through osmosis, you know.

00:17:05 Wendy Leggett

Yeah, yeah. I mean, there’s all of that plus like the comparison game, you know, when they start to see what other people have done. So it almost becomes like there’s a competition to doing retirement perfectly or retirement meetings certain expectations that will you take your career and everything you’ve accomplished and now you’re going to replace it with that one big thing, that finding purpose. And it’s going to make this huge impact on yourself and others and so putting so much pressure around that too. So that inner critic really telegraphs all that messaging that you should be retiring at a certain age and it should look like these things. And if not, then there’s something the matter with you. And so then you need to stay stuck and not move forward and just continue to try to figure it all out on your own because that’s just what you should be doing. There’s just a lot of, of that judgment of ourselves. And I Found with clients too, too. Because we don’t talk that much about the non financial piece. The focus is on having that financial house in order that they feel that there’s something wrong with them, that they missed out on something if they’re not then able to navigate these difficult emotions that you’ve raised around identity or around feelings of purpose and things. And so there’s that, that shaming piece as well.

00:18:35 Rita Black

Yeah, it, it’s interesting because we, you know, what we’re talking about is somewhat like there’s this mythology, right of you retire and the unicorn pulls up, you get on the unicorn and float off into the sunset into vacation or not vacations, travel and grandchildren and you know, working for a non profit. I was, you know, doing work and all these things that we make, we just have been spoon fed since we were young and, and you know, going into the workforce and thinking, oh this is what you’re getting your pension for your 401k. And this is what this is all about. And I feel like it’s the same as like weight management. When we get to our ideal weight, there’s this idea that you know, it, the unicorn pulls up and you, you know, get on the unicorn and you go off into the sunset happily ever after. But there’s a whole other world to navigate with your identity and with yourself when you achieve maintenance. That this is why a lot of people hit maintenance or they hit their ideal weight and then they gain the weight back. I’m wondering if for retirement they get here and then. So what I’m hearing from you Wendy, is there’s a couple of things. There’s like should I retire? And then if I do retire and I know what you help people a lot with is once they retire or as they’re heading into retirement, how do they define themselves and how do they do this in a way that’s proactive versus that, you know, because it sounds like they’re very alone with this. Because it. People may not talk about this with their friends because there’s this shame.

00:20:27 Wendy Leggett

Yeah, well, I mean you bring, there’s so much there that you just brought up. There’s just so much. One of the things is that oftentimes we look at the role models in our life or the societal messaging and so then we learn that retirement is that holy grail. It’s the thing that you want, it’s the finish line, it’s the trophy. And so it really becomes that destination rather than an exploration. So there’s that piece of it. There’s also the piece that oftentimes we put on ourselves, you know, such strong parameters around what you should be doing then after you’ve left Christmas career, and that it again, needs to be just as important and as substantial. And that it’s something that, that speaks volumes. And so it puts such a big pressure on people. So there’s, there’s that piece of it as well also. And you touched upon it this, the unicorn vision. And so I find that people tend to have one be on one end of the spectrum or the other, that they’re on that idealistic end of the spectrum where it is that leisure and travel and that brochure envisioning of retirement. And that’s what everybody seems to talk about, and that’s what we kind of gear ourselves toward. Or on the other end of the spectrum, pessimism and looking at things that I’m aging and I’m declining, and I no longer have these options and that one foot into the grave. And so the work that I do really is then centered on bringing people back to the middle with what I call realistic optimism. So, yes, there is this dark side to retirement. There is loss. There is work to be done, just like you’re mentioning, someone reaches their goal weight, but that doesn’t mean the work is done. The focus still needs to be there. The commitment still needs to be there. It’s not a matter that now everything will, will, like you said, go off into the sunset with a unicorn. And it’s the same with retirement, that life still goes on. So we will have these ups and downs. We’ll have these situations where we need to pivot. It’s still work. And so if we just leave it up to chance and have a. A retirement by default instead of design and just buy into what society says, as it should look like, then we’re abdicating choice and we’re no longer taking agency to design it the way that suits us, that fits our vision. But if we don’t even have that vision, and that’s what I help people start to do, is envision what is it that you want for yourself. Maybe you aren’t yet there. And that’s okay. We’re just taking steps. But we want to have a vision of where we want to be moving so that we continue to move in that direction and we thrive and grow and expand. So I answered a lot.

00:23:29 Rita Black

You did a great job well staying on that. How does the inner critic hinder people in like, like, let’s say in your work, right? Somebody comes to you and they’re like, I don’t even know what I want to do. I feel so overwhelmed by choices. And also, I. I find, like, with especially women, we say no to ourselves a lot. Right? Like, we’ll say we like, no, I don’t deserve that, or it not deserves a bad word, but, oh, I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t start a business or I couldn’t. I couldn’t take that trip by myself because my husband doesn’t want to go. Or, you know, like, do you. Where do you hear the inner critic coming up for people when they. They do make that decision to retire?

00:24:27 Wendy Leggett

Yeah, I mean, all of that and more. A really big piece of it is that identity piece, that there’s a saying, if you are what you do, who are you when you don’t? And oftentimes our work and our lives are so intertwined, and it makes sense in a way because we’ve been gearing ourselves since we were in school to get that career, and we’ve been spending years and years and years and then to unravel that all in a blink of an eye. It’s understandable. That would be very destabilizing, very unmoring. But that inner critic could be saying, but you should know what to do next. You, you have reached a level of competence or expertise, so you should be on that trajectory. But this is new territory, you know, I mean, retirement is a whole new milestone that people, because we haven’t given it attention, besides the financials, people don’t have some of these anchors and some of these pathways. So that’s a big piece of it. Also with the inner critic, I wanted to make note that you carry these limiting beliefs like you were mentioning. You know, I don’t think I could do that. And so we have that fixed mindset that Carol Dweck talks about that we feel like we’re fixed bodies and that we, that we’re static, that we can’t, we can’t change. And if we can shift into that growth mindset and start to look at the possibilities and recognize what are those limiting beliefs that are holding us back, that that inner critic is chirping so loudly about and dismantle them. You know, so you haven’t started a business yet, you know, keeping the door open and looking at the possibilities, that’s where the inner critic gets in our way. Because they say that everything is defined, and we, it, It’s. It’s so directed and it’s so, so black and white, and we want to, you know, loosen that up a bit and see that. Let’s step into things and really experiment. Oftentimes people jump right into the new beginning in their retirement and they make full on commitments to start a business or to be on a number of boards or to volunteer full time or take care of grandkids time. And what I really ask of people is that we just slow it down a little bit. Because if you jump full in and then you figure out oh that’s not where I want to be, then you have to extract yourself or feel resigned or feel remorseful or resentful. So let’s just take those steps in because those steps, even though we love to get to the finish line, those steps along the way are going to give us more and more information that we’re on the right track for us. We’re meeting ourselves where we stand and what’s most important and aligned with our values and what feels meaningful to us. So that’s how we. Quiet. The inner critic is saying, I know you’re trying to help me and you’re trying to limit things and make it easier in black and white for me, but I’m okay, I’m open to, to exploring and learning by quote unquote failure. And all those other things kind of.

00:27:49 Rita Black

Live in the, what we call the gray right between black and white, good and bad.

00:27:54 Wendy Leggett

Yes,.

00:27:56 Rita Black

That’s so great. And do people find then something, you know, when people give themselves that time to explore without that expectation or self judgment, do they often find themselves going down a road or exploring something that they never even thought they would explore?

00:28:20 Wendy Leggett

Yes, that. Or things that are, you know, like career adjacent, let’s say or you know, whatever it is but, but by doing small experiments and that’s part of the process that I get involved with people. We’re just putting a toe in, we’re just saying I want to just research it just a little bit and see if I still pass go or if now I get the red signal. And so this way then we start to say okay, we got a red signal there. But what about that idea had some glimmers for us? What was it that kind of lit you up a little? And what can we look at? What’s another pathway way to, to continue on that direction but just shifting it a little bit. So I’m saying that not very articulately but, but it is the idea that instead of holding so tight to something that we’re loosening that grip. And by doing that it does allow them the possibilities and it does allow the creativity which is oftentimes not what we had available to us in career. You know, oftentimes in career we were going down a certain path and we didn’t necessarily have the agency or autonomy or opportunity to shift and pivot, but we do in retirement. We also have the opportunity to create that balance that is so elusive in career. We’re always told about having work life balance, but that’s a tough one. Oftentimes when we’re in career, in retirement, though, if we continue on that path and those habits, then we can go again all into one thing, rather than saying, you know what, I can volunteer, but it doesn’t need to be full time and I can take care of grandkids, but it doesn’t need to be full time and I want to advance my spirituality or I want to travel more, or I want to learn a new language or I want to be on a board, whatever it is. But we’re not going all in. Like, maybe we did as much in career, but if we don’t step into those opportunities, then they’re missed opportunities. And that’s what I really explore with people is let’s slow it down a little and let’s really see what’s going to resonate for you. So there is a process I take people through. We talk first about the transition. Transitions are huge. You know, just as you’re sharing with people that are releasing weight, they’re transitioning into a different way of being or looking at things or looking at themselves. So we have to understand the elements of a transition. And this is information and research brought to us by William Bridges and Bruce Feiler. And maybe you’re acquainted with it, that every transition has three elements to it. It has an ending, it has a neutral zone, and it has a new beginning. And oftentimes people don’t recognize, excuse me, that every transition is made up of those three elements. They look at just the external change that I’m changing from having certain weight to now this different weight or career in, into retirement. And that externally we see that, but internally, what’s happening beneath the surface. And so that’s what we delve into when we talk about a transition. Not a change because that’s external, but the internal changes that take place, that constitutes a transition. And it starts with the ending. And oftentimes people, when they leave career and go into retirement, they jump again right into that new beginning. So they haven’t had closure, they haven’t had rituals. They haven’t seen what they need to let go of so that they can move forward without that weight. Pulling them back and that can be literal or, you know, like when you’re talking about people that are releasing weight, you know, an ending to that part, you know, what were the habits and patterns that don’t serve me any longer in letting them go. It’s the same with, as we move into retirement, not carrying with us the busyness factor that we had from work that so many of my clients initially do. Not carrying some of those expectations around achievement, having an ending to them. And then this neutral zone is also called the messy middle. And that’s where we do start to deal with things like feeling stuck, feeling overwhelmed, feeling anxious, feeling excited, any number of cascades, emotions that we have. All of those are signals. They’re not good or bad. They’re just telling us something needs more attention. That’s where a lot of the work that I do is before we then go into that new beginning and, and really start to craft, then what are those next, those next steps that will feel meaningful or resonant with what’s important to us.

00:33:22 Rita Black

So, yeah, thank you for highlighting that. That’s, that’s very important. And I think I, I, I agree that you, there is a lot to let go of there and this idea of yourself and it is very similar to weight release. I know you were going to talk a little bit about the rebel. Let’s talk a little bit about the brochure life and the, and nothing wrong with the brochure life because it, yeah, was hatched for a reason. Because I think a lot of people want to see the world and want to, you know, live, you know, live the good life when they retire. Not, not the good life per se, but the explorer. I have a friend who, she’s not retired, but she is my age, she’s 61. And she sent me a, she said, we have got to do this. And she sent a, a Mediterranean cruise around the island of Croatia. And she’s just, you can see that she’s sitting at work, like, salivating over this, you know, trip, and that’s her mindset. And I can see so much of, so many of us, you know, can get so excited about these adventures.

00:34:39 Wendy Leggett

Yes.

00:34:42 Rita Black

So I’d like to hear about that as well as the rebel in the, the idea, the pessimism and the, you know, this sort of the resignation about, around, you know, that, you know, I’m getting older and, you know, not much left for me, which.

00:35:01 Wendy Leggett

Yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Well, what comes up for me with the brochure life and things is it’s almost like a Kid in a candy store. And you know, at first it’s like, oh my goodness, I can have this and I can have this and I can have this. But if we have too much of it, then it’s, we get sick. You know, if we have too much of it, then we stop really getting excited about it. Then it becomes same old, same old. It becomes, then shifting into a retirement. It can become Groundhog Day. And so if we’re not aware and intentional even about the travel, people can just be checking it off instead of really savoring it and stepping into it and making the most of it. And so it gets again back to balance and it gets back to, you know, peppering in some of those, those brochure moments, the things that the rebel says, yeah, you can have all of this, but that’s not necessarily real life and, or sustainable. It might be for some, but for the majority to continuously have endless weekends, leisure, travel, it does start. Start to wear on people. It does start. I’ve had a lot of clients say I’ve traveled enough now. And so they got that out of their system. And that’s, that’s okay too, because there are seasons to retirement. There can be that season of adventure and that season of rest and that season of exploring and that season of giving. And so we don’t. It’s not a one and done. We can, but we want to be mindful about what’s filling and fulfilling for us and not just staying busy. So. So that’s a piece of it. And I think the piece too. So that rebel just saying, you know, go all in is oftentimes when we go all in, then we fall all out. And so we want to just be recognizing that there’s this abundance of time. Time is still precious and we want to value it. So really prioritizing and thinking about what, what are the most important things. If my time horizon was limited, what would be those things that really bubble up for me that are most important and that tends to be around family that does include some travel. And then people really talk a lot about giving back and how they might be making an impact on the world or contributing in ways that they hadn’t had time for? The pessimistic people piece. And I think one of the studies that really highlights this the most is that the average retiree watches up to 40 hours of TV a week. And so they’ve been replaced a full time job with a full time job of watching TV and watching someone else’s life play out rather than their own or Some other scenario. And so that’s where then we’re abdicating this really unique and wonderful time in life by then stepping away from it and disconnecting. There is that epidemic of loneliness that we hear about in our country and this looms large for people that are in retirement. There is that pessimistic side. We see that there can be an increase in alcohol or drug use, an increase in divorce rate. And so we don’t want to be part of those statistics. And the way to not be is to be going in with our eyes wide open and recognize that it’s not. Life isn’t going to just come up roses for us. We need to plant the seeds, we need to water the plants, we need to then appreciate the fragrance of the roses. That was a little metaphor there that I haven’t used before.

00:38:44 Rita Black

Well done.

00:38:47 Wendy Leggett

Where am I going with this one? Okay.

00:38:51 Rita Black

Yeah. So do people come? I’m kind of curious. Is your average client somebody who is thinking about retirement and you know, has reservations and you know, or is just like looking for help, transitioning, making that transition, making that decision and transitioning? Or is it somebody who’s gotten into retirement and then is like, oh my God, what am I doing with my life? I have like, ah, I’m overwhelmed or I’m anxious or whatever. Which is.

00:39:26 Wendy Leggett

I have one. I have both, actually. Yeah. And so people always ask, you know, how much time ahead should I be planning for retirement from the non financial and the sweet spot based on, you know, all the studies and I’m part of organizations. So the sweet spot anecdotally is like one to three years before I’ve had clients that are much, they have a bigger Runway than that because they own businesses or because they’re very planful and they want to see what’s in store for them. Having that Runway benefits us in a number of ways because it does quiet that loud voice that’s saying, oh, what are you going to do? Putting all that pressure with, you know, what am I going to do now in retirement? And people who don’t think about it ahead oftentimes fill up their dance cards and stay very, very busy. I had one client who came to me after retiring that said I’m more stressed out and over taxed than I was when I was working and at least I was getting paid, you know, so that’s. But by stepping back and what we did in her case is look, okay, what’s on that calendar and does it belong? You know, does it, what, what need does it fill and and because you’re filling a need, feeling a need to fill up that time, what is that masking? You know, I didn’t say it exactly that way, but there were things in her life that really needed attention and that filling up the time was a district for her. But getting back to your question, so for those that haven’t yet retired, this really allows us then to have that Runway to start to see, okay, envision myself without the work. How do I feel about my identity? What is my perspective? I’m no longer going to be in contact with people the same way that I was at work. So who’s in my community? Who am I connected with? What is my day going to look like in my weeks and months ahead? Having that structure that’s so important, so it gives us a chance to do that rather than being in the retirement situation and now overwhelmed with all of it and not maybe feeling like we can take it step by step. But then I also have clients, like, I’ve had some who’ve been retired for two months and they’re already raising their hand and saying, okay, this is not working. And I’ve had clients who’ve been retired for 12 years and feeling like there’s been maybe for them a slow erosion is what I see. But just an acceptance, a resignation, and then a wake up call like, no, no, there’s still a lot of living left to do. I want more. And I think that with this peak 65 and more and more people at that retirement age, there is more pressure on society, society to start to shift the narrative and more opportunities for people that are coming to the surface that, that demographic, the baby boomer and now the Gen X’s are saying we want more. And so we’re going to make sure there’s avenues to have more. And that’s, that’s a good thing for everyone. So, yeah, yeah, very cool.

00:42:37 Rita Black

I, I know you have five essential steps, I think, or maybe I’m saying this wrong, but I’d love for you to walk our audience through the five.

00:42:50 Wendy Leggett

Oh, yeah, no, that’s, that’s perfect. So just to give a little context to it. So if I speak about a financial house being in order and then the foundation beneath it, and that if we don’t have a strong foundation, then no matter what we built, it’s going to have cracks and fractures and possibly collapse. So the foundational piece are these internal pieces, the things that really, that we need to help bolster us up and give us the strength and the staying power and the sustainability as we move forward and they’re really, in some ways no different than any juncture in life, but they become especially important in retirement because we’re losing so many other factors, and so we need to find avenues to replace them. So there are more than five, but the five that I think are the top priority and that I focus on along with others with my clients are mindset. And I’ll go into each in a little more detail. Mindset, identity, connection, purpose and structure. So when we talk about mindset, and you and I have, you know, touched upon that already, is that perspective of, you know, are you looking at the possibilities? Are you keeping that open, spacious approach to things, or is it that anti aging mindset that we’re really resisting and we’re pushing things away and we don’t want to. We feel like there’s something bad about aging and so really shifting that perspective. And I’ve had clients who say, you know, I’m too old for this now, or it’s too late for me now. And so shifting that mindset and saying, well, I haven’t done that yet, or I haven’t stepped into that opportunity yet, but having that openness rather than shutting ourselves down. Shall I go into the next one or do you have a question?

00:44:44 Rita Black

No, no, I’m, I’m right there with you. I, I think that that sounds so true with regards to mindset.

00:44:54 Wendy Leggett

Mindset’s almost like the biggest one, right? It’s almost the showstopper that if we, if we, that internal voice, that inner critic starts to shut us down, then we’re going to not be able to maybe pivot. We’re not going to be able to maybe look at possibilities. We’re going to have a more narrow view. And when clients work with me and we open the lens and that aperture, then they start to see, oh, there’s a world of things out there that I want to step into. I so often have clients say, I have no hobbies, I have no interests. Well, it oftentimes it’s just gotten really buried because there’s, you know, there wasn’t time for it or there wasn’t given to it. And so if we can start to see, it’s just our, our voice that’s telling us that, the inner voice that’s chirping at us. But is it true? Is it, is it, is it absolute or are there other possibilities?

00:45:51 Rita Black

That’s interesting too. I, I think we get, we don’t realize how steeped we are in when we think of retirement by our parents, experience by you know, how retirement was modeled around us. And like, what you’re saying is that we’re in a new era now where that old idea of just even you and I were talking about how back in that day retirement was, you know, you retired because your body was tired because you worked at this job, at maybe a factory or, or you were using your body so much. Farmer, you know, in, in the, you were saying the Depression era was like when the idea of retirement was hatched or the. Maybe I’m saying Social Security began. And I was saying that the, that the retirement came about from unions because a lot of union workers were where their bodies were worn out by the time they were 16, 62. But now nowadays, so many of us do not use our bodies in our work. And yeah, we were saying how, how this is the best time because our minds are. We have wisdom and we have that life experience to bring to the table. So mindset sitting in that and looking at that and breaking out of those role models and that old idea, cultural idea, or modeling from our parents and even maybe from people who we saw retire around us.

00:47:38 Wendy Leggett

Yes, yeah, yeah. And that, you know, I’m a retirement life coach, but I don’t advocate that everyone should retire at a certain age. I just advocate that when you make that decision, if you’re seeing the signals and you allow yourself to look at what else is possible and if you’re ready from a financial standpoint and really looking at, well, you know, like that one client, do you. Maybe you do really have the money. If you kind of look at what your priorities are and reset things, but regardless that you then really are then making the decision. So taking agency, not letting society say, because you’re a certain age, then you should be retiring, but instead, instead saying, how do I feel? Do I still feel engaged? Do I still feel inspired? Do I still feel the energy in the work that I’m doing? No, I don’t. Okay, is. Are there things I can do to change that? No, I can’t. You know, so looking at the different pathways, but when you come to that decision to retire, then I say let’s not advocate. Let’s not abdicate all our opportunities. Let’s step into what’s next, fully prepared, fully engaged, understanding what we’re bringing with us into retirement and what we’re retiring to, rather than just what we’re retiring from. Because so often we’re looking at what they’re getting away from and they’re not really crafting what they want to move into. And very important Point that we also bring a whole host of strengths, capabilities, passions, interests with us. And so often people think about that they’re starting from scratch, not starting from strength, that they’re having to find this whole new identity instead of evolving the one that they have. So let’s build off of that. But oftentimes we just look at that next thing, that shiny object, or that we have to make this big change because now we’re retired. No, let’s build off of what we have. So that gives us that Runway. Yeah. So the mindset piece, I think, is critically important and that leads into identity. And we touched upon this too. So often people just can’t see themselves beyond the work. It’s become so critically important to them. And so we work on seeing where we can translate some, some of those skills and passions and interests that that gave us that sense of accomplishment, gave us that engagement, gave us that, that meaning. And how can that we translate that? Not necessarily doing the same thing, in fact, most cases not. But we can find other ways to translate it. And so that helps with, with identity. And again, not finding a new identity. I feel strongly about that. It’s easy involving our identity because at the core, we’re the person who we are. And so we’re not going to discount that. We’re going to build off of that Connection is one of the third areas that I want to really hone in on. And I think this one is really overlooked because we just think, you know, in work, when you think about your work, when I think of mine, there’s so many people I, you know, in contact with every day via in person and on zoom and on phone calls and through emails and things. And when we leave work, you leave so much of that behind. And we might think, oh, I’m going to stay in contact with everybody. It’s not going to change. But the reality is we don’t have that shared goal anymore. Or maybe we just don’t have that easy way of being in contact. And so we lose that. And so what happens? Because that friendship building muscle has atrophied for a lot of people. They haven’t exercised it. Then they feel like, I can’t start over, I can’t. But we’re not needing to start over again. We look at what do we value in a friend, and so then we’re open to those kinds of people and gravitate toward them. We can kind of reinvigorate relationships that we let go because we didn’t have time. People understand, I always say, you know, make that list of people you’ve not been in contact with and reach out. And it’s like, no, I haven’t talked to them for so long. I said, well, on the reverse, if you got a phone call from them, would you say, nah, I haven’t talked to you for so long, sorry, and hang up? No, you would welcome the call and so be that person that, that puts that first foot in. But if we don’t, then we tend to feel as though our worlds are narrowing, that we don’t have that sense of belonging and community. And so it is on us to take those little steps. And it can be little steps, but it is a commitment to connecting with people and starting to expand. And each of us is different. You know, if we think about that scale of being an introvert or an ambivert or an extrovert, you know, different people need different, different people in their world. But we all are, we’re social beings. So there’s, we need to be true to ourselves and stay connected in ways that feel good to us. So that’s in the area of connection. Before I go into the next two, any thoughts you want to share?

00:53:00 Rita Black

No, I mean I, I think we did touch upon identity and I, you articulated it so well. I, I, I really do believe in the connection piece just because I, I, I think when people also share their experiences of what’s going on with them, something happens in the subconscious mind when you’re just talking to somebody on a zoom call or like, let’s say you’re in a community. I know within our community, when we’re in our membership, members will share their story and another member is going to hear something similar in their story for themselves and, and they don’t feel alone in that because so often we’re stuck in our own self speak and our own self abusive critic can, you know, gnaw away at us, especially if we are lonely or in our own world. It gives you a different perspective to hear similar people in similar situations. It allows you to, so it’s not just that, but it’s, and that intimacy factor, that ability to, to show up for somebody and, and be in a I hear you situation, to be heard because we often don’t even hear our own selves. We shut ourselves down internally.

00:54:24 Wendy Leggett

That, that opens my mind up so much because so many of my clients, when they come to me, they do feel like they’re a party of one in their, the difficult emotions that they’re feeling around their, their retirement or their ambivalence around it. Or the inertia around it or any number of things. And just in that first conversation with me, invariably people are going to say, I feel so much calmer now, or I feel so much more hopeful now, or I don’t feel as despondent now. And so that’s what you’re sharing with the community as well, is that by being able to. Able to just voice it and then get feedback from people or hear others and say, okay, I’m not that party of one. I am. I am normal. I didn’t miss that day in school, you know, that I. That that’s. I’m not that outlier. And we need to feel that, that level of comfort. It doesn’t mean that we are going to walk the same path as other people, but we recognize that we’re not off, you know, in some Siberia or off in some path that doesn’t even exist. So.

00:55:29 Rita Black

Yeah, And I love the idea of reaching out to people that you haven’t reached out to in years.

00:55:35 Wendy Leggett

Yeah. I had one client and I. No one had ever said it this way, that you can’t. He held so tightly to this. You can’t make new, old friends. Wrong. He’s not. He’s not wrong. But it kind of. He held him in his trap, you know, it just kept him stuck. It was that inner critic that said, well, if they’re not old friends, then there are no friends. And so being able to loosen that up and recognize that’s. That that is true. And it can be both, and it doesn’t have to be either. Or that if they’re not. Yeah. And so just opening our mind and looking at avenues and that opened up a whole. A whole nother pathway for him. And then the fourth area is purpose. And you know, that invariably is going to come on any list. But I really want to open our minds up to the idea that we’re not finding that one thing, we’re not finding purpose, but we’re shifting it into an action, into a verb and feeling purposeful. And so Richard Leiter does a lot of work around this, and he talks about purpose with a capital P and purpose with a lowercase P, P. And that we can have lots of lowercase P’s, and yet they become kind of the unsung heroes because we’re oftentimes just looking for that one thing. And yet life can be very gratifying and meaningful when we have a lot of things that bring us that joy and bring us meaning and bring us purpose. So even reading a book can feel purposeful. Reaching out to a new neighbor can feel purposeful. Going to the gym, taking a class, any number of things can. So let’s look for feeling purposeful rather than finding purpose and having it a one and done. Does that bring anything to your mind? Before I go to the last. No.

00:57:29 Rita Black

I, I, I love that, I love that idea and I’m, I’m willing just to sit with it. I think. I, I mean just correlating that with weight mastery, I, I think often people feel like they have to be,.

00:57:47 Wendy Leggett

Have.

00:57:48 Rita Black

All this motivation to get going rather than just taking little micro steps of little things that they’re doing. You know, making healthier choices. You know, exercise doesn’t have to look like going to the gym and working out for an hour and a half a day. It could be a simple walking around the block. And I, I love, I mean it’s different than what you’re talking about, which is, but, but it’s really the people who stick with weight management and the things in weight management that continue to keep them in that long term, permanent weight mastery journey is that they have found those particular pillars of things that bring, that they can do again and again because they enjoy them or, and they, they, you know, and it feels doable. Rather than this big idea of being good on a diet, you know, finding the perfect plan, the perfect diet, way forward, it’s really more, many, many little things that then they’re able to repeat over and over and over again and it becomes who they are. And that is, you know, a little,.

00:58:57 Wendy Leggett

That’s so much more sustainable. And it also can, can help us navigate through the ups and downs of life. Because if we’re all in on something and we lose that something for some reason and we haven’t really shored ourselves up to have some of these foundational pieces that, the little stepping stones that, that took us down the path, then we fall off the edge. You know, like when Covid happened and some of my clients, you know, fortunately I was working with clients, so we were able to maneuver that and say, okay, your travel plans have been thwarted, but that doesn’t mean all bets are off. What else is possible? You know, so then set up the beach chairs in the backyard, you know, go and explore your area outside and you know, take that traveler’s mindset into your own locale and see what there is, you know, in itself a healthy and safe space. So yet if we don’t have that opportunity to look at what else is possible and that gets into, you know, other things that we talked about, but it, it leads into purpose. If we are all in on something, then potentially we’re going to be all out as well. And that just doesn’t serve us as well as, not as sustainable as having these stepping stones in place. So. And then the last one is structure and that’s a. I wrote a blog on the paradox of, or the oxymoron of structured freedom because it seems like they’re opposite. And yet so many people go into retirement thinking freedom. You know, that’s the thing, that’s the thing they’re so looking forward to. But it’s a double edged sword and it can really work against us. Everyone’s different, but we tend to want to have some structure in our lives. Some people are more flexible than others. But if we have no guardrails, if we have no boundaries, then as one client of mine said, he felt lost in the desert because there was just, you know, it was just too big. Too big. So this way we want to really be looking at our lives and what’s again that good balance for us. I have a really great exercise I kick off with clients where we step into what’s that day in retirement, what’s that week in retirement going to look like? So that we really start to envision, put ourselves in that shoes. And invariably through that exercise people start to see, wow, there’s a lot of holes there that they then have a propensity to fill with stuff. Or there’s this Groundhog Day or when the honeymoon wears out and the to do list and the bucket list has kind of gotten checked off, then what? And so we want to really be able to look at what feels good to you, what’s going to keep you getting up in the morning and motivated and feeling purposeful and connected and, and building that into, to our day to day. So that’s the, the fifth piece I wanted to mention as well.

01:02:02 Rita Black

Yeah, I think that’s incredibly important. And I think too when people think broadly of retirement, they think of freedom and sleeping in and being able to stay up and party and.

01:02:15 Wendy Leggett

Yeah, and there’s nothing the matter with that either. We can bookend our day, but what’s going to happen in the middle, you know?

01:02:21 Rita Black

Yes, and I, I can see that’s very similar to weight mastery as well, because I think we, when we think about what’s our day and even our day as somebody who has released weight, like what will I be? You know, like, how am I becoming that person who wakes up in the morning and the day of somebody who is living Life at their ideal weight. Often, if, you know, I remember when I struggled and I, I would think about that future me, that life looked a lot different than my current life. And so having to use vision at work sounds like you’d use a lot of vision work.

01:03:02 Wendy Leggett

Yeah.

01:03:03 Rita Black

To see, oh, what’s a day look like? What’s a week look like? I can see how it’d be so helpful for their minds just to get comfortable and, and to explore because you don’t know what you don’t know.

01:03:17 Wendy Leggett

Yeah. And it really, I mean, it’s a, it’s a different life experience when we think about, you know, when we were young, we’re going to school. Why are we going to school? So we can learn, so we can get a job. So then we get that job. I mean, so our lives have been geared for that for years and years and decades and decades. It’s understandable. It’s very destabilizing and unmooring to not know now what. And so then you fill it with things. But if we can envision it and start to, you know, see ourselves in it, then we can start to really craft one and have that, what I call that retirement by design, not default, when that we’re creating for ourselves.

01:03:59 Rita Black

Right, you’re creating. And so it’s offensive versus defensive retirement.

01:04:06 Wendy Leggett

Yes. Yeah. And it’s the inner coach, the. That’s leading us, not the inner critic or the inner rebel.

01:04:12 Rita Black

Love it. Love it. Well, Wendy, tell us about. Wendy has an amazing freebie for, for anybody who’s interested. Please tell us about it.

01:04:23 Wendy Leggett

Yeah, well, I developed an email series. It’s called the Great Retirement Illusion, Five Myths Worth Breaking. Because so often we do carry in these societal messages with us and we just don’t even think about it. But they’re what’s narrating our view of what that retirement experience is going to be like. So this helps bring them to the surface, which I hope our conversation today has as well, and helps dispel them. So that’s the bonus. And it leads then to an invitation to have a session with me called the Retirement Insights Assessment. And I really stepped through these five factors we talked about and five more so someone can start to really see, okay, what’s lining up for me and where are there some holes and where are some of the things I feel really good about and what needs more attention? And so whether they choose to then work with me further or not, it still gives them some of those insights. And I feel strongly, Rita, that when we have awareness, then we can Take that awareness and move into intentionality. Use those insights to then move into action. But it needs to start with that awareness. And that’s what that assessment does. I love it.

01:05:42 Rita Black

I love it. Well, that sounds amazing. So please take Wendy up on her offer. I will put the link in the show notes and I will, I look forward to checking it out myself. Wendy, thank you so much. I’m going to have to have you back again because as we were talking and you know, we’re, we’re. This was a great conversation. I realized there’s a whole other conversation I want to have with you about retirement when you’re as a couple. You know, like when one person retires ahead of the other person. So we’ll have to come back and circle back around, around that one because I think that’s a, a great topic of conversation. Do you ever, I’m just curious. Do you ever work with couples too?

01:06:27 Wendy Leggett

Yes, I do. Yeah. And it’s, it definitely a lot of what I’ve talked about individually, you know, is, is needed and then we need to obviously come together and, and, and see where there’s synergy and where there’s questions and expectations and, and, and things that haven’t been expressed. So, yeah, I would love to do that because that’s, and that’s prevalent for so many. So it’s an important area that again, we don’t want to overlook because oftentimes I had one client who said that she and her husband are having a lot of friction after she retired. And it turned out that she took that high powered career and that approach to managing different teams and she focused it all on her husband. So she was managing her husband and it was a non starter. That was just like, no, that’s, that’s not working. So that’s hilarious.

01:07:23 Rita Black

I had, I had a friend with the opposite. Her husband was the executive producer of a very big TV show here in Los Angeles and he retired and began producing her. And she was like, nip, not gonna happen.

01:07:41 Wendy Leggett

That does not work. And then there was my mom who said when my dad retired, she said, well, I don’t get to retire though. I’m still cooking dinners, I’m still cleaning. Right. And so we need to have a recognition of that as well, you know, so that we can rebalance what’s going on in the relationship. Yeah.

01:08:00 Rita Black

All right, Wendy. Well, wonderful, wonderful. Thank you so much. And we will have you back.

01:08:05 Wendy Leggett

Yeah, my pleasure. Always so great to talk to you and get to speak to your listeners. I appreciate it.

01:08:10 Rita Black

Wow. Thank you, Wendy. For all of your sharing. I just found that so helpful for myself and I hope you listeners, I hope you found that helpful too no matter where you are in your life. And don’t forget Wendy has that special bonus and the link is in the show notes called Retirement Myths and How to Break Them and please go grab that. I definitely will be signing up for that as well. So have an amazing week and remember that the key, and probably the only key to unlocking the door of the weight struggle is inside you. So keep listening and find it and you know you’re going to find me here next week. So I will see you then. You want to dive deeper into the mindset of long term weight release? Head on over to www.shiftweightmastery.com that’s www shiftweightmastery.com where you will find numerous tools and resources to help you unlock your mind for permanent weight release tips, strategies and more. And be sure to check check the show notes to learn more about my book From Fat to Thin Unlock youk Mind for Permanent Weight Loss.