The Truth About Retirement | Gregg Lunceford

As people live longer and stay healthier for more years, retirement is being redefined. What was once seen as a relatively short closing chapter can now stretch across decades, raising deeper questions about identity, purpose and how to spend our time well. Wealth adviser Gregg Lunceford has spent years studying this transition and the gap between leaving work and living well afterwards. He argues that traditional ideas of retirement, focused mainly on financial security, miss the psychological and social role that work plays in our lives. The challenge now is not simply knowing when to stop working, but how to shape a fulfilling life beyond it.

Gregg Lunceford is a wealth advisor and researcher focused on how people navigate the transition into retirement. A Managing Director at Mesirow, he works with individuals over 50 to plan not just financially, but psychologically and socially for life beyond full-time work. Author of Exit from Work, he examines what he calls the “third age”: a potentially rich, 20-year phase shaped by reinvention, meaning, and a rethinking of what it means to live well.

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Transcript

Gregg Lunceford: 0:00

Gen X and Gen Z. They're not afraid to start a computer company out of a garage. They have seen entrepreneurs and social media influencers, and so they think about the ideal self way more than the person going into retirement right now has thought about it early in life.

Peter Bowes: 0:25

Hello again. Welcome to the Live Long Podcast, where we explore the art and science of living long and well. And as we live longer, healthier lives, the traditional model of retirement is being tested. And in some cases, it is breaking down. Increasingly, it's not the financial side that proves the most challenging, but the question of how to live well in the years that follow. Even those of us who think that we are prepared can struggle with the loss of identity, purpose and daily structure that work provides. Gregg Lunceford has spent years studying what he calls the phenomenon of retirement, the gap between being ready to stop working and being ready to live well afterwards. In his book Exit from Work, he explores the idea of the Third Age, a chapter between middle age and later life, potentially spanning several decades, defined not by decline but by reinvention, purpose and possibility. Gregg, it's great to meet you.

Gregg Lunceford: 1:28

Wonderful to meet you as well. Thanks for the invitation.

Peter Bowes: 1:31

It's my pleasure. And I'm just wondering, what is it, do you think that most people miss about retirement until it actually hits them?

Gregg Lunceford: 1:40

I think people miss how wonderful retirement can be if you plan for it. I think historically, when you look at retirement, retirement was something that people were forced into. I am still a little bit surprised, and I've learned in my research that not everyone views retirement as a positive experience. And I think that's why we have to reset and explain what it is and how it has changed. And the thing that I'm trying to get everyone to understand is retirement or the Third Age, as you mentioned, which we'll talk about, is probably the best stage of life you'll ever have if you structure it correctly.

Peter Bowes: 2:19

Yeah, it's interesting you phrase it like that. Some people I've spoken to actually dread retirement because they pretty much think, well, that's the end. It's over.

Gregg Lunceford: 2:28

Absolutely. And I know that comes as a surprise, especially for people who are still engaged in work, because they go, wow, I wish I could have a day off. Or I had the freedom that you have during the day. What I've come to learn is that most people, or many people, I should say, do envy the freedom that people have to structure their day or do different things, but don't envy people who are in full retirement because of the things that they will lose going into it, such as identity and friendships and purpose and things of that nature. So I think it's time to really have a conversation about how you prepare for it. I'm in financial services and for many years our industry has looked at it through the lens of it's an economic choice. through my research, which I started to do as I started to realize that there was something still unsettled in a lot of people, even when we showed them that they financially could do it. And I tried to go and find out what the other factors are that are important here. And that's what leads us to where we are today. but what we've come to learn is that a lot of people, uh, can financially afford to do something and they can figure out how to fill their day, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're doing something fulfilling during their day. And if you're not doing those things that are fulfilling during the day, your ability to thrive is, is lessened.

Peter Bowes: 3:52

Well, I want to dive into all of that with you just before we do that. Your bio is in the show notes for this podcast, but I was just wondering if you could encapsulate for me, your life's work as a wealth advisor, and particularly how you've focused on this issue, this issue of retirement, and why you feel so clearly passionate about it.

Gregg Lunceford: 4:12

Yeah. Actually, I identify what we call in academia a problem of practice as a practitioner. So I've spent over 30 years in the financial services industry with various assignments and corporate and investment banking and wealth management over the last 20 years. When I was earlier in my career in wealth management, we ran into the real estate crisis of 2008 and went into the Great Recession. And I had a number of people coming to my office for consultations regarding retirement planning, and they were fortunate. I called them fortunate because we had 11% unemployment, and they were being given an exit package that paid them a premium by their employer if they would leave. And what I was told, and many of us were told when we came into the industry, is that retirement was mostly economic choice. If a person could afford to retire, they would retire. They would exit out. And I think to some of the marketing that I saw on television by competitors in the industry, not that I'm picking on any competitor. I'm just trying to point out this is what the mindset was. I remember this one commercial that used to drive that now drives me a little crazy. It didn't bother me at the time because I didn't understand the phenomenon, but it's a bunch of people walking down the street and you may have seen it, and they have a thought bubble over their head. And in that thought bubble is a dollar amount, as if, you know, if I ever hit this dollar amount, then I'm never going to work again. And it was just saying that everyone had a different dollar amount in their head. And why don't you come in and talk to your advisor? But that's how much we thought it was largely driven by economic, economic ability. what I started to notice when people came into my office in 2008, 2009, 2010 with these great packages where they had hit that number. And as a matter of fact, it was an offer beyond what they ever anticipated. They were still hesitant to leave. And so I started to wonder why the sales cycle was long. because here you are with this, all the things you need to take this immediate action and you're requesting not only a second meeting, but a third meeting, a fourth meeting. And they were getting redundant because we were going through the same cash flow analysis to prove that they were there. And so I said to my company at the time, there's something we don't understand. These cycles are extremely long. You would anticipate that they would be done fairly quickly, especially the environment we're in. And with what I got as feedback was, well, I we can't develop a product around if something's so emotional. And so what I asked for was additional time to go. I rolled in a PhD program, which I was accepted to, and I studied for four years. What are the things that people experience? Go through, agonize over, in terms of retirement? And the thing that I noticed is even though there was a lot of academic literature out there, retirement for the most part was studied through the lens of gerontology. So it really wasn't you thriving. It was really of the it was talking about the aging process, not you reinventing yourself or the things that people were most afraid of. And so what I came to learn and through my research is a lot of this behavior that I was experiencing was just because people didn't know what to do next or how to do it next. It's not that they didn't appreciate that they had set themselves up financially well, but when you kind of look at it, they, unlike people in the 20th century who had short longevity are given this package and say, good luck. and by the way, you're going to be doing whatever you're doing for the 20 or 30 years, which is much different than your grandfather did. And for a lot of people, this is overwhelming.

Peter Bowes: 8:01

So essentially what you're saying is it isn't about the money. There are much bigger forces at play when you retire.

Gregg Lunceford: 8:07

When I look at the factors that trigger retirement decision, don't get me wrong, money is still the dominant factor, but it's less dominant than it once was, a century ago, before it was, can I afford to leave? And retirement systems were really put in in place to keep, elderly people from going into poverty so that there was a good reason for that. now, although it's still a large factor, it is not a single factor the way it once was. And there are these other factors that I think people are unaware of that are critically important to being able to thrive at this stage.

Peter Bowes: 8:48

So leaving money aside, acknowledging that it is important, but leaving it aside, what are the key issues that people struggle with when retirement suddenly confronts them? And I think we should also probably talk about the option to retire whether we do it or not, because there are, I think, a growing number of people who say retirement isn't for me.

Gregg Lunceford: 9:09

Well, for some people, retirement is great. They can't wait to exit out. They, you know, a life of leisure is great for a lot of people. That is not the case. And I think that's where we're we're starting off focusing. I think it starts by understanding what is work and the value of work. And I think it's not until the end of a career that people start to really start thinking about the non-financial benefit of work. When we come into the workplace in our early careers, it's really for an exchange of value. We have bills to pay. An employer says, I'll pay you money if you do these things for me. So all we really think about most of our careers is we're getting from work is this exchange of financial resources. It's not until the tail end of the career that most people start to realize that there are three really good things to come from work that are non-financial. The first one is socialization. The ability to have people that we interact with every day, whether the experiences are always positive or negative. Social interaction is very important for persons, to thrive for their well-being. And even if you have colleagues you don't particularly enjoy, they give you something to laugh about or talk about when you're not in the office. So you come home for dinner and you go, you know what happened again today? How many times? But it gives you it gives you something to talk about or something to laugh about. If someone just keeps doing something that's funny. But, I'm fortunate enough I have developed a number of great friendships throughout my, my career. I hope you have as well. You think about it, we spent more time at work than we spend anywhere else in our day, in our work day. So how can you disconnect from something like that without having some, some things that, that you don't miss or don't enjoy. The second one is, we need things that cause us to, feel positive and aspire to every day. And we need psychological successes and even, no matter how you feel about your job, there are times in the day that you just feel really good when someone affirms that you do a good job, that you are a good professional, that you are of value, that you did make a difference. And that comes from work. Regardless of the role you play, someone values what you do every day in this work ecosystem that you work in. and then the third thing, that is very valuable about work is a structuring time. you know, we don't always want to get up when the alarm clock goes off, but work causes us to have to be somewhere, show up, be accountable for something. And we know what we're going to do during our day. Oftentimes when I see people who get lost is due to the boredom that they experience during the day because they don't know how to structure time. And so I think it's not until the end when we start to exit out or after the exit has occurred, we realize that there's something wrong. And even though we may have the financial wherewithal to do it, you never plan for these three other things.

Peter Bowes: 12:16

And we could possibly also add to the list identity. I think when you're working, whatever the job is, you have an identity, you have a self-worth that is attached to the job. And quite literally, when you leave many jobs these days, you hand back the ID card that you've used to get into the building. And that's just a little bit of hardware, but it's gone. And your identity is is built into that. And all of a sudden, and this is quite brutal, but all of a sudden you've had an identity and now you're nobody.

Gregg Lunceford: 12:48

Absolutely. And that's what I mean by that psychological success. The identity break is what. What is the hardest part is that now you used to get accolades or you used to be be known and work identity comes in three ways. work identity. the first one is your association with a certain profession. So everybody in your community knows you as doctor so and so or the, the teacher or, or, you know, the accountant or the engineer. And the moment you leave that profession, you start to ask yourself, am I still that person? You know, everybody referred to me as that. That's who they knew me as. The moment I stopped practice. Am I still that person? And that could be really hard, especially if you were in a role that got a lot of attention. When you walked in the room, everybody stood up or everyone noticed who you are. They recognized that you were in command and all of a sudden you give an order. Nobody responds. For a lot of people, that's very, very hard. The second way that a work identity occurs is affiliation with a brand. Even if you had the number one position or the last position in an organization, if you if you derived your identity through being associated with a brand, they knew you because you were an employee at Google or Nike or you name whatever fantastic brand, you're out there and you're no longer associated with that institution. Do you now feel as though that you're a lesser of or will have less value in the community? So that's another way that work identity forms. And then there's also just being known for a skill set, not just because you are in a certain have a certain title, but because people know you as a good leader or as a good speaker or things like that. When you start breaking away from, people recognizing you and asking you to do things as a manager, that's hard as well on the identity and these are the things that, if people don't learn how to replace, caused them to slip into things like cognitive decline and things of that nature.

Peter Bowes: 15:02

So having identified the many pitfalls associated with retirement to try to avoid them. How do you advise people to prepare? At what stage in your life do you begin thinking about what it'll be like when you don't have the job that you've been used to?

Gregg Lunceford: 15:19

So, Peter, I'm going to ask you a question and just to start this off

Peter Bowes: 15:23

Please do.

Gregg Lunceford: 15:24

What is your earliest memory of someone asking you? What did you want to be? What you want it to be when you grew up?

Peter Bowes: 15:31

It was probably as a young child.

Gregg Lunceford: 15:33

As a young child.

Peter Bowes: 15:34

Yeah, that conversation happens throughout your childhood and you clearly you don't you don't know. And certainly in my case, I, I didn't know and actually settle on my chosen career until I was in my early 20s and had already tried one particular type of career and decided that even though I liked it, there was something else I'd prefer to do.

Gregg Lunceford: 15:53

Absolutely. So the point I asked that question because early on in life, there is someone always making us think about what it is that next thing we're going to do, and they're helping us build this identity. So, you know, a five year old, you're eating dinner at Christmas or whatever, and your aunts and uncles are asking you the question and you're like, I'm only five. And then you get to high school and you get assigned to guidance counselor, and you get to college or trade school or whatever, and you get more counseling there. And then you get into a career and maybe someone assigns you a mentor. But when you start to get towards the tail end of middle age, let's say you get in your 50s or whatever, people stop asking the question. and, you know, so how is this fair when a whole career you've been guided and people have made you have some type of intentionality about happens next. But what happens is because we assume that people are no longer going to be in work environments because maybe other people, just like my industry says, hey, it's an economic choice. And by the time you hit a certain age, you should be able to afford to leave because you're going to get all these wonderful things such as pensions and Social Security, which don't exist the same way anymore. But they go there are some, there are some, there's a, there's an off ramp for you somewhere. So you'll probably take it. People stop asking you or how, how to invest in yourself. And for a lot of people, the retirement transition is the first independent career decision they've ever made. And that's what makes it so frightening, is because no one's asked me to think about it or force me to think about it. No one is helping me think about it. And depending on what your role is and where you are, what you do, it may be an irreversible decision. I mean, as soon as you you go into retirement, if you don't like it, it's not like you can come back and say, hey, can you give me my old role back? if you're fortunate, you can. But in most cases, that role has been assigned to someone else. And so for a lot of people, this is extremely scary. And so what has to happen to answer your question, before you make this exit, you need to start envisioning what your retirement identity will be. And you, just like your high school counselor, had to envision what it is you would do as a profession. And then your mentor had you envision where you want to go within your career, whatever. You have to do that on your own.

Peter Bowes: 19:01

Exactly. You need you need to take the initiative yourself.

Gregg Lunceford: 19:04

You need to take the initiative yourself as as well as if you have a difficult, if you have difficulty with it, recognize what resources you have to get, whether it's a career coach or something like that to guide you through this.

Peter Bowes: 19:20

This is the Live Long podcast. Our guest is Gregg Lunceford, a wealth advisor and researcher and author of Exit from Work. So the question that a lot of people struggle with is, what will I do? I've heard it time and time again when people are talking about retiring, they'll say, well, how do how will I fill the hours of my day? Because I've devoted most of my waking hours to working.

Gregg Lunceford: 19:45

Absolutely. And so you have to think through this. And so what I ask people try to help people understand is how we got here, right? And, psychology we talk about this thing is there's the ideal self. that's who you ideally want to be. And there's the odd self. The ought self is who you ought to be. and the ideal self, sometimes gets taken over by the ought self. The ought self is who you become, who you are. Your identity becomes because of things people told you you ought to do. So that high school guidance counselor, that mentor coach told you what you ought to do. you ought to pick a career that allows you to do something responsible that, you know, is highly regarded in your community. So you can have a certain stature. Certain thing like that. and so a lot of people find themselves at this stage, and then they recognize that what they've satisfied that most of their career is doing the things that they ought to do and not the thing that they ideally wanted to do. And this is where I give millennial and Gen Z folks a lot of credit. for people who were boomers, especially early boomers, there was a lot of pressure to do what society said to do, whereas Gen X and Gen Z, they're not afraid to start a computer company out of a garage. Right? They have seen entrepreneurs and social media influencers. And so they think about the ideal self way more than the the person who probably is going into retirement right now has thought about it early in life. And so what has to happen is you have to develop this protean skill set. And what protein skill set causes you to do is think about what is success for you versus going this traditional track down, this being, this art, pursuing this art self where people are telling you what you're supposed to do. And so what I find is when I have this conversation with people, and I don't represent myself as a counselor at all, I'm just a wealth advisor that just is very nerdy and decided to become an academic and study something. But there are definitely people who are trained to help you get through this, that are that are great counselors. But what, what you really need to do now is to aspire to, to, to, to be what you want to do. And so when I sit down and I talk to people who have, you know, done all kinds of things in life, they are telling me what they ideally want to do is something so counter to what their their career has been or what their life has been. And, you know, I get people who are chiefs of staff in hospitals that say, I want to write mystery novels or people who, have argued cases before the Supreme Court. They go, you know, I want to start a rock band out of my garage because that's probably what they really wanted to do with their when they were 18, but they weren't encouraged to do it. And so now the great thing about the Third Age, which we'll talk about a little bit, is that it is this period of time where you now live longer, so you're no longer going from middle age to old age. You're actually going to middle age to this undefined place that no one has ever been before. and 21st century retirees are getting there because people are living longer, we have longer, we have greater longevity. So then you go from the third age to the to, to your, to your old age. And so the third age is this 20 year bonus where you get to make up the things that you ideally didn't get to do. And I would argue this is your best time in life because you're wiser than you've ever been before. In most cases, you fulfilled all your obligations to other people. So all you have to think about is what makes you feel happy and fulfilled. And now you need to self-actualize and figure out what that will look like and work towards that identity. And it may take you a couple of years to figure it out, but I think you should figure this out before you pull the trigger and exit.

Peter Bowes: 23:53

Well, I think you've touched on it. And this podcast is all about longevity, living longer, living as well as we can for as long as we can. We talk about Healthspan enjoying the best of health for as long as we can. And if we achieve that, as you say, quite rightly, it it throws open this additional space in terms of years that we can do some of those things that we aspire to do when we were younger. But the reality of life didn't allow. Alone. I often see people beginning to think about this now earlier in life. And I think one way that people do it is by slowly beginning to develop those additional interests alongside their working life, so that it doesn't all come as a shock that you get to the age of whatever it is, 65 or 67, and then you start to think about doing these, these new, exciting things. If you could meld them into your life before then. Do you agree with this? It would make the transition easier.

Gregg Lunceford: 24:52

Absolutely. And I think this is a cultural thing. There's some societies that do it better than us and Japanese society. They have this thing called decompression in work. So basically, just like we climb a corporate ladder, what they do is work is structured, so they de-escalate. And so as you get towards the tail end of your class of your career, you now start to decompress and take less responsibilities. And that's their way of allowing you to have some free time to think about how to develop this next identity versus you fully being exited out of the door in a way that you may be, be, be offended by, or feel as though you're being thrown out to pasture. It's their way of rewarding you and giving you the option of, of doing it on your own terms. And what I find from my research is some people, most people don't really want to go into retirement the way it was done by their grandparents. And what they really want is to be able to restructure life on their own terms. And for some people, that may mean fully exiting the workforce of some other people, it may be becoming entrepreneurs or doing some type of contract work on a seasonal or part time basis in a way that they are de-escalating from work, but they're maintaining the identity and they slowly let it go for another identity on their own terms.

Peter Bowes: 26:15

And I think just the term of stopping working perhaps is a bit old fashioned because you're just going to change your lifestyle. And what you used to call work isn't your work anymore, but you're working on other things, new, exciting things that don't necessarily. If you've got your finances in order and you're reasonably well off and you've got a pension for your retirement years, you don't necessarily need to continue to earn money. It's all about doing things that give you mental and physical satisfaction.

Gregg Lunceford: 26:45

Absolutely. And then also understanding what your power and your ability is because for some people, they go, I think I'm going to be okay in retirement, but I just want to not quite so sure I want to let it all go yet. a lot of people need to redefine themselves and understand the amount of negotiating power that they have. And this is where I think it gets tricky. there are a number of institutions that could probably use you on your redefined terms. they're never going to come to you. Your employer is never going to come to you and say, hey, you ever think about working seasonally? They're worried about the risk because of where policy is, of them being sued for ageism. Right. However, if you come and you say, this is what I'm thinking, and most importantly, I think you have to say this is how I add value. This is why this is a value to you. We're not doing anything just because I want it. We're doing this because I think it's the best thing for the institution. So I think about a couple people that I interviewed in my studies and one. he was very comfortable taking the risk because he was the chief human resources officer for his company. So he probably had a little leg up on most people in terms of knowing how to have this conversation. But he basically went to his CEO and his board and said, look, the best thing for the company is that we build a succession plan. and I'm willing to help you initiate that. I want to be able to help pick my successor, and for that, I'm willing to give you give that successor all of my direct reports. If you let me groom them over 2 to 3 years, say what I would like in exchange is and we can adjust my salary. But what I'd like in exchange is I would like to go down to three days a week, and then the fourth day of the week. What I would like to happen is we as a company give to a number of nonprofit institutions. I would like for to be able to volunteer one day to one day a week with the institution that we do nonprofit giving to, and that way they get a free executive for one day. And then the fifth day, I just want a day off. So this is allowing him to take three days to gradually reduce his and readjust his work identity is allowing him one day to see if he wants to, work in a different capacity in semi-retirement or to volunteer because everybody we say, oh, once you retire, you need to volunteer every day. Everybody doesn't enjoy that. So he gets one day to figure that out, and then he gets one day to figure out how he enjoys leisure and how comfortable he is on a day with nothing assigned to him. He has the ability to structure his day to replace the structure that he would get from work. And so he did this for a couple of years, and then he left. And I think of another person who is general counsel for the firm I worked for, and he went to two days a week and he did. So I think there's a healthy thing that there's something healthy about that. But you have to be comfortable negotiating this because you can understand from a policy standpoint and a legal standpoint why your employer would not approach you with this. But there are a lot of institutions that would love to retain your historical knowledge, as well as your ability to work with younger people and mentor them into the culture. And a number of the things that you bring. So I think in terms of retirement, because the stigma has been there for so many years that you're getting pushed out to pasture. People forget or don't take time to inventory what their power is and what they have to offer to negotiate something that would work well for all.

Peter Bowes: 30:38

Greg, you are brimming with ideas as to how people can spend this third chapter of their lives. I'm just wondering how ageism in society is working against a lot of these ideas that you're suggesting, that there are built in ideas about people who have passed retirement age that to be, again, fairly blunt about it, have passed their best and are no longer particularly useful to society. And sadly, that view still prevails in some quarters.

Gregg Lunceford: 31:09

It does. And I think our policy kind of continues it. When retirement systems were put in place, you know, a lot of people go, my employer thinks so great of me. They're doing all these things. When retirement systems were first put in place. I mean, pension systems, things of that nature. It was really a negotiation between management and labor, and it wasn't the most positive negotiation. But basically we were in a manufacturing society. And so companies wanted people who could do physical work very quickly, who could swing the ax the fastest and to get the most hits during the day. and so there was a management favored younger employees. unions were trying to make sure that employees who were in the system for a long period of time and gave a lot of their life were rewarded on the back end because they were going to ailments. And so that's where you started getting things like, protected class begins at age 40. Now think about it. We now live according to the IRS actuarial table to 90. So why is 40 still a protected class. You're basically saying, anybody over 40 doesn't have value. And we don't do physical labor the way we once did. We actually do more in terms of services using intellectual capital. And so we have this still this stigma that when you get beyond a certain stage in your career that, you know, it's time to push you out. Whereas, one, that policy should have been reset a long time ago. And number two, it's not true. There are people who have done great things later in life. you know, Colonel Sanders, started his franchise in the 70s. And when they when they broke out and became successful. Benjamin Franklin signed the Declaration of Independence in his 80s. you look at how many people were still extending their careers in terms of performers who still go out every night and get on stage and do their thing. We have so much we can offer for an extended period of time, especially if we engage in things that you talk about with your with what your guess in terms of health and wellness. It's up to us to understand that we are the ones who will dispel this whole myth about ageism, right? But we have to take care of ourselves to be able to do it and keep the fight going.

Peter Bowes: 33:30

I perhaps shouldn't go down the road of asking the question, should we have politicians in their 80s running the country?

Gregg Lunceford: 33:39

You know what I what I've learned is, is better to talk about age. I mean, better to talk and put things in the context of stage than in age, right? There is more important to look at what stage a person is. You can have someone who is in their 80s that is very strong and very sharp and capable of doing a lot of a lot of things for a long period of time. So I look at the things that someone like a Ruth Bader Ginsburg accomplished in her late stages versus some others that that we see today. And I would say, you could be at the same age at 80 and be in cognitive decline. So it's really, we have to examine our stage, the stage we're in. And some people will progress to late stages maybe a couple decades earlier than someone else. And I think to get beyond ageism, we need to be fair and stop pegging people to a certain age and let everyone speak for themselves based on what their individual attributes are at any stage in life.

Peter Bowes: 34:44

Yeah, I tend to agree with you. It should there shouldn't be any boundaries, but it should be the individual in terms of what that individual can offer at any age in life. I just want to ask you, Greg, having dived into this subject in a tremendous amount of detail, this is more of a personal question. How do you see the decades in front of you, and how are you thinking about your own career/longevity, and how you will fill your third chapter as a as a financial guy, do you have aspirations for a rock band in your garage or something like that.

Gregg Lunceford: 35:18

You know what the fun thing about what I'm doing is? I'm writing, researching and practicing and learning about the person I'm becoming. and so what I have learned is, there are boundaryless possibilities here. And so I don't think about exit. I think about who it is I want to be. what are the things that are most important to me in terms of legacy and career accomplishment? And I will do it as long as I'm having fun at it. And right now, I don't have an age pegged to it. I have a stage when I get to the stage, it's not fun. That's when I will stop. But for right now, that can go indefinitely.

Peter Bowes: 36:01

I think that's a great philosophy. Your book is called exit from Work. There's much more detail in terms of the conversation that we've just been having. There it is. I'll put a link to it in the show notes for this episode. Greg, I want to thank you. Some really fascinating insights, I think, into how we especially we should prepare for that stage in our lives and then how we can enjoy it to the fullest extent. Greg, thank you so much for your time.

Gregg Lunceford: 36:26

Thank you Peter. I've enjoyed our conversation. Take care.

Peter Bowes: 36:29

The Life Long Podcast is a Healthspan Media production. I'm Peter Bowes. You can contact me through our website, Livelongpodcast.com, where you'll also find show notes for this episode.

DISCLAIMER: 36:40

This podcast is for informational, educational, and entertainment purposes only. We do not offer medical advice. If you have health concerns of any kind or you are considering adopting a new diet or exercise regime, you should first consult your doctor.