Simple Isn't Easy: Carl Richards on Life and Retirement

Retirement Answer Man

Roger Whitney, CFP®, CIMA®, RMA, CPWA®

Education, Investmentmanagement, Saving, Self-improvement, Careerplanning, Retirement, Business, Lifeplanning, Investing, Retirementplanning, Financialplanning, Retirementpodcast

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 1 October 2025

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

SHOW NOTES

In this episode, Roger Whitney sits down with Carl Richards, a financial advisor-turned-artist, to talk about keeping retirement planning simple and meaningful. They dive into the idea of “elegant simplicity,” the importance of knowing your goals, and making decisions that actually work for you. Plus, hear inspiring stories from club members to help you rock your retirement!

OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE RETIREMENT ANSWER MAN

(00:00) The ultimate goal in building a retirement plan of record is elegant simplicity

CHAT WITH CARL RICHARDS

(02:00) Roger introduces Carl Richards.
(03:50) Carl started sketching to help explain complex financial concepts.
(07:33) Roger asks Carl about his new book coming out in October.
(11:00) Roger and Carl talk about the differences between simplistic and elegant simplicity in retirement planning.
(17:55) How do you decide when you have enough information to make a decision?
(22:19) There are many different types of decisions that need to be made- Decisions where you need a lot of research versus decisions where you already have all of the information.
(26:58) Writing makes decisions tangible versus rehashing them in your brain
(28:19) Carl talks about mimetic desire and figuring out what it is that you really want.
(39:45) Carl says he loves the idea of experiment design.
(41:40) Carl talks about living a life of meaning.
(46:50) There is a deep source of identity and purpose that comes from work. When you remove that, what do you replace it with?
(52:58) Carl talks about competing values.
(55:00) Roger talks about the Retirement Life Lab in the Rock Retirement Club

SMART SPRINT

(56:43) In the next seven days, review your retirement plan and look for ways to simplify it so it’s easier to manage.

CONCLUSION

(57:37) Roger says that what stuck out to him from the conversation is how difficult it can be to truly know what we want and how easy it is to just grab someone else’s goals, when what we really need is to slow down and take the time to define our own so we don’t end up living a life that doesn’t fit us.

REFERENCES

FOLLOW US ON SOCIALS!

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The ultimate goal in building a retirement plan of record is elegant simplicity.
0:08.7	Welcome to the show dedicated to helping you not just survive retirement, but to have the confidence to lean in and rock it.
0:17.1	Because you understand it.
0:19.7	And it makes sense to you.
0:21.5	That's important with your retirement plan of record.
0:24.1	My name is Roger Whitney and today we're going to have a special episode
0:27.9	where Carl Richards and I have a conversation with each other and club members.
0:34.5	We decided to do this in the club just to bring in other voices about
0:39.2	elegant simplicity, about decision making, about deciding what you want, which is extremely
0:47.4	difficult in life when we're setting goals. Carl is one of the good guys. He was a financial
0:54.0	advisor. He became an artist and did
0:56.9	sketches that simplified very complex issues or problems and had a column in the New York Times
1:05.5	for a while. He coaches and collaborates with advisors that are working on the art of advice.
1:13.9	Definitely beating the drum for making our profession better.
1:18.8	And so Carl has this new book coming out called Your Money.
1:21.2	They're reimagining wealth in simple sketches.
1:25.4	You can learn more about that at behaviorgap.com. Book comes out on October 21st.
1:30.7	I suggest you get it. These sketches are awesome. I purchased many of them. And we're going to have a
1:35.9	discussion about these topics. How do you make decisions? How do you decide what you want?
1:43.3	How do you get to elegant simplicity?
1:46.1	And it's not just going to be Carl and I talking.
1:48.0	It's going to be people like you.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Roger Whitney, CFP®, CIMA®, RMA, CPWA®, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Roger Whitney, CFP®, CIMA®, RMA, CPWA® and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.