Focus on what you gain

The next chapter in our lives is not about success and the corporate ladder. It’s about a change or a shift of mindset. We need to explore what gives us purpose and meaning

Michael F. Kay, Certified Financial Planner, and founder of Chapter X

I do not have a television, but I enjoy browsing the TV aisle in the hardware store. It feels like falling into a stream of colorful images that roll out like the waves on a beach. The random sequence of images on the screens - landscapes, animals, movie clips, food - is a show in itself, while the unmistakable scent of plastic, styrofoam, and new things fills the air. My ambivalence with the TV is the result of it being an omen in my early years. There are sweet memories, like staring at a black and white monoscope with my cousins in a late summer afternoon, waiting for the programs to begin. Sometimes, with a slice of bread spread with butter and dusted with sugar in our hands, we turned the TV on before 5 pm with the hope that, by mistake, broadcasting had begun ahead of time. It never happened.

Then, there was the dark side of television. The images of bodies lying on a street covered with a white bed sheet. By the position of the raised edges of the fabric, I could locate the head and the feet of a person hidden from view. With their stillness, these black and white images - a clock, a car with a door wide open, men standing by, the white stripe across the uniforms of the carabinieri - spoke volumes without words. Born right in the middle of one of the bloodiest times of modern history in Italy - later it became known as “the years of lead” -  my childhood was marked by a peculiar kind of instability. The events were far enough away not to threaten my sense of security but close enough to make me question the workings of the world I lived in. Inevitably, some pieces of the puzzle escaped my comprehension.

As an eight-year-old, I couldn’t grasp the meaning of what I saw, and I didn’t have the words to ask the fundamental question, why is it so? I remained silent even on the sunny spring morning when our ashen-faced primary teacher announced the Prime Minister’s kidnapping. My desk was in the center of a classroom with blue linoleum. I looked outside the window on my right-hand side. The branches of the tree with its brand new leaves brushed the glass. Moved by the wind, it seemed to me that they were slowly nodding at the news. In a few years, the black and white victims of terrorist attacks gave way to a colorful pinwheel of half-clad girls, top models, jackets with wide shoulders, yuppies, and voluminous hair-does. It was the onset of private TV with its trash shows that poisoned a nation and marked the first steps of Berlusconi’s rise to power. The same way I could not build a relationship with the bodies under the bed sheet, I couldn’t find a link between my oversized teenage body and the loose women imprisoned - so it seemed - in a world of endless fun behind the TV screen. It might as well be that these experiences shaped me to the point of determining my career choice.

When Michael F. Kay, talking from his studio in the woods in Massachusetts, suggested, with warmth and kindness, that we need to ask questions, I listened in delight. As a Certified Financial Planner, Michael is managing partner of the advisory firm Financial Life Focus, LLC in New Jersey, and the author of The Feel Rich Project and The Business of Life. In his career, he helps clients to make sense of their relationship with money and to design a life based on their values. Stemming from this experience, he launched Chapter X, a newly minted community, and a safe haven to explore the future of work and retirement.

What does Chapter X stand for and why did you decide to launch this community?

I am a financial planner and I’ve spent a life solving problems. Aging is no exception, it feels like an equation we need to solve, and hence the name of the community. I thought about aging as an equation that we need to solve and it’s better if we do it together. Typically, men are terrible in sharing thoughts, fears, and in talking about what lays beyond. The goal of Chapter X is to foster communication, connection, and meaningful tools and information. 

What was the a-ha moment that sparked the idea of Chapter X?

With my clients, I talk about retirement a lot. In particular, I try to help them to frame the question. People come to me and ask me if they have enough money to retire, and I answer, “I don’t know. How can I know if they have enough money if I don’t know what they want to do?” That’s how I realized that when we think about retirement, we fail to answer a fundamental question: what does retirement mean for me? What type of retirement am I looking forward to? When my clients say, I want to travel, I ask if they plan to hop on a bus and tour the state or if they intend to go on a luxury cruise on the other side of the world. It’s the answer you give to these questions that changes everything. You need to take your time. It takes about one year to put these thoughts together before you can visualize what you expect from your future.

How is reflecting on this topic changing your approach to aging?

When I talk about retirement with my clients, I talk a lot about Maslow’s pyramid of needs. After we cover safety and security - aka money - we need to explore what gives us purpose and meaning: a reason to live, to feel good about our lives. I’ve written for Forbes and Psychology Today about the emotional side of money. I am well aware that precise beliefs, behaviors, and habits determine our self-defined idea of success. For some it’s about fulfilling desires, for others, it’s more about security. Men, in general, are raised to be successful, to be the provider, to be in control. The next chapter in our lives is not about success and the corporate ladder. It’s about a change or shift of mindset. That’s why it is important to explore options we never thought we had. 

What are the most surprising things you are discovering about aging?

I came to realize how aging and retirement do not happen along a straight line. Covid-19 has accelerated this reflection. Because we do not go to the office every day, we have less structured time, and we have to create our routine by ourselves. All this makes me more aware of the ups and downs of this process.

You mentioned that “men have significant challenges in transitioning from work life to what lies beyond.” What is the feedback you are beginning to receive from your community?

I am surprised by how much need there is for these conversations. I receive messages upon messages that confirm that this is an unmet need. Men are waiting for permission to let their guard down. Chapter X is a safe space where we talk about these issues, how to “feel” about what may be a volcanic shift, when to retire, what conditions, and what to do next.

In one of your articles, you pointed out the difference between “retiring to and retiring from.” Can you explain the difference?

I overheard a couple of men talking while I was waiting in line for my coffee at Starbucks. They were talking about retirement, complaining about having given up their work and how bored they were with their lives. It’s a classic example of people who retire from their job. We need to ask a fundamental question: do we retire from or do we retire to? As this overheard conversation proves, the first case is less successful, because we retire without a sense of purpose. Vice-versa, retiring to implies creating a vision of what gives us meaning. Because the truth is that while we age, the idea of possession becomes less and less important and fulfillment needs to emerge from our values. We need to bring to light our meaning and purpose.

You wrote that “men are supposed to be risk-takers,” but self-consciousness is a barrier to a more experiential approach to life. How important it is to challenge the narrative about what it means to age in order to embrace this transition?

Retiring is not a straight line. I’m 66 and I plan to sell my business in a few years. Sometimes it feels good, sometimes I feel scared. All these mixed-feelings are a test pilot for the experience I am trying to understand: who I am if I am not my job. I am trying to find another way to be of service to others through speaking, teaching, writing, and listening. 

I am surprised by the comments I get from what I write, as people share their experiences. A few weeks ago, in the middle of the lock-down, I shared my gloom perspective and how I felt disconnected. Several people called and emailed me and I realized that by being open I am contributing to changing the narrative of what men are all about. We are brought up with the idea that men are about action and women are about feeling, but it’s time to break this pattern.

Over 25 million Americans over the age of 60 are economically insecure. Age is inversely correlated with the possibility to reverse a negative financial situation and this contributes to our fears. What is your take?

It highlights the fact that financial literacy is so low.  Because of the confusion between wants and needs, people go into debt. As a Certified Financial Planner, I help people to disassemble broken beliefs and to discover what people value enough to make changes in their life. It’s not binary; it’s a process.

We need to ask what is important for us - health, values, family, relationships, feeling safe in the environment - what wisdom and experience we want to pass down. Covid-19 has been the destroyer, the accelerator, and the illuminator. It casts a light on our need for human connection.

We’re dealing with a paradox here. While we keep invoking “change,” when change arrives we are unable to embrace it. Do you agree?

Transitions are hard. We lack self-awareness; change is a brainstorm from here to there. I often quote the “Parable of the Trapeze” by the author Danaan Parry. If you want to catch the next trapeze, you need to let go of the one you’re holding. It’s scary and there is a moment when you’re not holding onto anything. To develop a mindset for change - as Parry puts it - we need to move from the fear of transformation to the transformation of fear.

To borrow Truman Capote’s definition, aging has always been considered an “out there.” We are beginning to see growing awareness for this season of life. Do you think that, in the long term, a different approach to aging will translate into a different approach to life altogether?

We focus on what we have lost and not on what we gain. I just hope that men are willing to shed the hunter-gatherer mentality for which knowledge and experience are all that counts and acknowledge a more joyous, non-violent, non-aggressive attitude. We need to learn to welcome experiences, the willingness to share, talk, and, if you are stuck, to ask for help. It’s not about money, it’s about values and what you value in life.