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“Learning something new means you have to abandon, for a little while at least, the familiar and comforting. I happen to like this feeling. I remind myself that tomorrow, I will be someone who didn’t exist yesterday.” -Nick Stone
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Someone recently asked why I would start a blog and podcast at age seventy. My response: “Why not?”
After transferring my dental practice to a younger practitioner over nine years ago, I have continued to do Locum Tenens contract dentistry. Over the last nine and one-half years I worked in sixteen different dental practices from periods of several days to several years. This part-time work schedule allowed a gradual glide path from full-time practice to part-time practice. Approximately three years ago I decided to slowly decrease my working days.
As time spent in the dental office diminished and my free time increased, I began to more seriously consider my “purpose” in life. After the end of a long career of helping others, how could I continue to be of service? And did I want to continue to be of service?
I’ve always been interested in finance, and have been a DIY (do-it-yourself) investor for approximately fifty years. With this in mind, I started exploring options in the field of finance. The gold standard in financial planning has traditionally been the CFP™ (certified financial planner) designation. The CFP™ designation requires the successful completion of a CFP Board registered program, a bachelor’s degree from an accredited university, passing the CFP exam, 6000 hours of professional experience in financial planning, and you must sign an ethics declaration. Although all of these requirements seem very daunting, they were all obtainable. The greatest obstacle and biggest roadblock was the work requirement. I had no desire to go back to work full-time, much less work for 6000 hours as part of the CFP™ certification.
After I evaluated the CFP certification process and realized that the CFP™ designation was not what I was looking for, I continued to look at different options and stumbled upon the CRPC™ (Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor) designation.
Even though several of the requirements were similar, the biggest difference was no work obligation was required to complete the charter designation. Several months later, after many hours of study and the successful completion of the final exam, I received my CRPC™ designation.
This is the point where someone would ask the question: why spend the time and money required to obtain a CRPC™ designation when you don’t plan to monetize it?
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CRPC™ Designation
I felt very comfortable in my knowledge of finance and in my ability to help others. The obtainment of the CRPC™ designation satisfied two requirements. Taking the necessary coursework and passing exams needed to obtain the CRPC™ designation provided additional knowledge in a focused area of retirement planning and personal finance. The CRPC™ designation is a signal of advanced knowledge and education and signified that I had followed the necessary steps to gain this knowledge.
My initial concept was to use the CRPC™ designation as a springboard to giving Retirement readiness presentations to professional groups. I had begun preparatory steps for this endeavor when my daughter suggested I create a blog.
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Website, Blog, and Podcast Hosting Services
I think it’s important to interject here that I had no idea how to create and publish a blog, no idea which hosting service to use, or how the process of creating, editing, and publishing a blog was accomplished. I was very fortunate that my daughter and son-in-law have extensive social media and publishing experience. My daughter provided much-needed help. With the aid of her recommendations, I was able to fast-track the creation of my website. My first blog post went live on July 22, 2022, and Retiring With Enough was now a living thing!
My first podcast was published two months later on September 26, 2022. My daughter and son-in-law provided information on the nuts and bolts of podcast setup and publishing.
Anyone creating a blog or a podcast should contract someone with extensive experience in this unique area. Having someone who can provide guidance and needed information was a definite benefit in my blog and podcast projects. Numerous website hosting services and consultants have the resources necessary to provide assistance during the initial stages of design and implementation.
This is not a project that I would have tackled alone. I am computer fluent, but my expertise ends in website design, and I had no previous experience with blog and podcast setup.
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Blog and Podcast Concept
As with any new business (See: THE CHALLENGES OF SELF-EMPLOYMENT: MYTH OR REALITY?), I had to start with a concept or idea. I started by narrowing down the subjects important for pre-retirees. Then I began to group these subjects into general headings. I eventually realized that these ideas could be combined into three general headings: subjects related to work and the cessation of work, money, and how the free time of retirement days will be spent.
After more thought another thing became clear. Most concerns centered on a “scarcity” mentality (most pre-retirees want to know that their basic needs in retirement will always be satisfied.) Pre-retirees, before they retired, wanted to know with some certainty if they had “enough.” Combining the different elements formed a cohesive unit that became Retiring With Enough!
People approaching retirement want to know if they’ve worked enough, have enough money, and they’ll have enough to do in retirement. Most people tend to be proficient in one or two areas of retirement planning, but generally not all three. The concept of the Retiring With Enough three-legged stool fosters the understanding that proficiency in one or two areas of retirement planning does not create long-term stability without incorporating the second and third leg of the stool. A three-legged stool with one or two legs missing is not stable.
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Blog and Podcast Content
After the initial setup of blog and podcast hosting, my next step was the creation of content. I’ve always enjoyed writing and creating a Blog and Podcast involves a great deal of writing and editing. Larger blog and podcast services have staffers to handle content writing, editing, and production. I am a business of one! The creation of a blog or podcast takes anywhere from twelve to eighteen hours for research, content outline, writing, editing, graphics, layout, and publishing. Most of these services can be outsourced, but I choose to handle all of them. Being hands-on has allowed me to learn about blog and podcast hosting services, blog creation, editing, and publication. In conjunction with the blog, I learned how to combine different visual media to create blog and podcast title pages. Podcasting has taught recording techniques, audio manipulation, editing, splitting, splicing, audio merging, and podcast setup and publication.
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Blog and Podcast Ideas
Listeners often ask how I formulate blog and podcast ideas. I try to find subject matter that I find interesting, or that I am personally interested in pursuing. Ideas come from articles that I read, programs that I view, or just something that piques my interest. Often listener questions become the basis for a new blog and podcast (I am especially attuned to listener questions because if one person has a question it is usually something that many others are also questioning.) Once I establish an idea or topic it is placed in an online folder for future use. At any given moment I normally have between thirty and fifty topics queued.
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Editing, Recording, and Publishing a Blog and Podcast
The part of the blog and podcast creation that I most enjoy starts after I create the content. I find that the content creation is the most technically difficult, time-consuming, and labor-intensive part of the creative process. This is the hardest work for me to accomplish. Once the words are on paper (digital paper) the more enjoyable artistic part of the process can commence. This is where I develop the needed artwork, and do the editing of the blog. The blog is normally created first, and the blog becomes the guide for the podcast recording. I use editing software to correct spelling and grammatical errors. Once the blog is edited it moves to the blog hosting site where it is formatted and combined with article-specific artwork to form the final draft. The draft sits in a queue until the blog is published at a later date.
The technique used to create the podcast is an edit while recording style. I edit and re-record as needed until the podcast master audio is completed. This recording is then merged with the introductory music and Podcast overview on the front end, and disclaimer and accessory information on the back end. This master audio is then loaded into the podcast hosting website and queued for future publication. Interviewing a guest is harder as editing consists primarily of cutting and splicing. The are no re-record to edit options when doing live interviews. Once a podcast is queued for publication I listen to the whole podcast to verify the audio quality, sound, and volume. All this for one blog and one podcast!
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Analysis
The Retiring With Enough Blog and Podcast have been fun and interesting projects. To say this project has been a “piece of cake” would be a lie. It’s been a lot of work, to say the least! My early blogs and podcasts are a testament to my lack of experience, and I have often considered re-publishing and re-recording early episodes. After careful consideration, my thoughts remain with leaving the episodes in their original state.
My reward to date has been the fact that I have found a way to continue to help others and provide help over a much larger service area (worldwide.) Over the last year and a half, a new community of listeners has been created that spans forty countries and almost 700 cities. The feedback that I have received, both positive and constructive, has encouraged me to continue pushing forward. Each blog and podcast attempts to improve incrementally.
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Final Thoughts
I never imagined that at this period in my life, I would hold a CRPC™ designation and be the creator of the Retiring With Enough blog and podcast. Thanks to the nudge by my daughter and son-in-law, this huge undertaking was initiated. I was able to accomplish this huge task by dividing one huge task into smaller and more manageable pieces. I’m trying to eat a whole pie by eating it a piece at a time (See: BUILDING A RETIREMENT PIE: ONE SLICE AT A TIME.) A huge undertaking can usually be divided into smaller and more manageable segments.
One of the great things about being retired is that retirement provides the opportunity to explore different goals and hobbies without the pressure and financial worries of earlier years. Since my podcast is not monetized, there is no financial pressure to produce a certain type of content, no sponsors to satisfy, and no mountains to climb. I can provide the information that listeners request and that I feel is relevant and important, period!
The only pressure to create and publish is self-imposed and originates from a lifetime as a Type A personality.
The Retiring With Enough blog and podcast, in addition to providing timely and useful information, have the additional function of providing “Purpose” at the beginning of the second ten years of my retirement. The blog and podcast generate a feeling of relevance and usefulness.
The Retiring With Enough project has been both challenging and rewarding. It’s hard to “put yourself out there,” especially in today’s hypercritical social media environment. Even though it’s supposed to be a “fun” project, the little voices that tell you you’re going to fail or be ridiculed never go away. The mountain seems too tall. The tasks seem insurmountable.
With a little faith and a lot of hard work, almost any task can be accomplished. My early blogs and podcasts were redone numerous times until they were the best effort that I could produce at the time. Are they perfect yet? NO! They are still a work in progress.
Another great thing about retirement is that each person has the option to minimize or ignore what others think or say and instead pursue a passion from inception to completion. The Retiring With Enough blog and podcast were conceived about two years ago and have prospered during the first two years of change and growth.
Anyone already retired or approaching retirement has the option to pursue their dreams. All the things you wanted to do during your life, the places you wanted to go, and the bucket list items are all still out there. One only needs the courage and fortitude to make them a reality!
My question to you would be: What are you waiting for? Every day is precious, and after you spend that day it’s gone forever. “Carpe Diem!”
I”m trying to seize every day and you should too!
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