In today's episode, I'm going to go over four things that you need to make sure you are thinking through if you want to have a successful early retirement. And I'm going to give them to you right now. Number one is not having a financial plan. Now that goes without saying, but you don't want to retire early and then be kicking yourself later going, hey, why didn't I work six more months or one more year or two more years or five more years or whatever it is so you can retire with confidence. And you know it by now, but there's two people out there, people that retire early, people that retire early with confidence. And I have a few people that I'm working with right now in their 70s who retired early, but they didn't retire early successfully. I mean, they weren't able to spend what they wanted to spend and they wish they'd worked a little longer. And trust me, you only want to retire once. That's number one. Number two is start prioritizing your health today. Most people wait until they retire and I get it. Some of you are going, hey, I'd love to do that, but my job just doesn't allow me to do that with work and family and this and that, I can't do it. And I'll say, what if you took a job that paid a whole lot less,

but still showed you were on track? Would you do it? And they're like, maybe I just don't have time to even think through that. I'll say, let's explore that. So whatever you need to do to start prioritizing your health, good luck quantifying that throughout retirement. I can tell you right now my clients that are

retired just told me I wish I would have prioritized my health earlier. So that's number two.

Number three, and this is a very common one that people overlook, is not asking for help.

Too many people go, I'm going to go at this retirement and I'm going to do it my way.

And they don't ask a friend or a coworker or someone they look up to

why they retired and especially what made it successful. So whether it's listening to podcasts

or people talk about it or simply asking people you care about very closely and saying,

hey, is it important to you that I retire? I have a client and I'll give you this story later,

but I have one client that talked about they want to redate their spouse again because it's just been so long since they've done the traditional date nights and they want to just get to know them better. And I love that. And too many people, in my opinion, go through life and they're simply, and it's just from what my clients tell me, are simply in that traditional path of, I'm just going to keep working because I've been told to work or I've been working for 30, 40 years and the concept of not working just seems really, really weird. Okay. So that's number three. And the number four, and in my opinion, this is the biggest. And all of these four points I'm going to go through in more detail. But I know a lot of you are busy people. So I want to give you the answer right away in case this is all you're listening for. That's okay with me.

Number four, and this is, like I said, the really big one, in my opinion, is moving the goalposts back. Too many people say, yep, once I have 500,000, I'm going to retire. Once I have a million, two million, and five million and it's a concept because we're all hardwired to have goals and say i want to reach

x amount which is to retire. Once I have a million, two million, five million, and it's a concept because we're all

hardwired to have goals and say I want to reach X amount, which I get, and I'm okay with that. I focus on goal planning, so I like it, but I need to make sure you're not simply saying, yep, I'm going to wait for that next bonus. One more year, yep, just six more months and I'm going retire and then you don't and you wait six more months then you go well markets aren't exactly

where i want and you wait six

more months. Then you go, well, markets aren't exactly where I want, and, you know, this tax thing's not going to really align. So let me just keep going. And you keep going. And then later, it's five years, and you go, hey, why didn't I prioritize my health? Because I know you guys don't speak with people like I am all day every day and a lot of the conversations I have are not rosy and what I mean by that

is none of us know how long any of us are going to live but then there's people like I am all day, every day, and a lot of the conversations I have are not rosy.

And what I mean by that is none of us know how long any of us are going to live, but then there's the health today. And some people come to me, and they can't wait to travel and do all this fun stuff. They get hit with a really scary health event, and it's not fun, but that's the reality. And we need to plan for it. And I don't want them saving and saving and saving and having five, 10 million bucks in their 70s going,

why didn't I? That's the reality and we need to plan for it. And I don't want them saving and saving and saving and having five, 10 million bucks in

their 70s going, why didn't I consider retiring earlier?

Why didn't I at least plan to see what I'm on track for?

Now, sometimes I like a listener submitted this question and I really like that they submitted

it.

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