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How to retire well and well off |
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"Everybody has an excuse: 'I've got a little pain my back, and I can't exercise,'" LaLanne mocks. "There may be 10 exercises you can't do, but there's 100 you can do. Get in the pool! If your spine is screwed up, you can still work your legs and your arms, can't you? You've got 640 muscles in your body, and every one of them is different. I'm not as strong as I was when I was 21, but I'm going pretty damn good for 93. That's what counts."
Rettick found he couldn't keep his commitment to the health club, so he installed a small gym in his house, walking the treadmill 30 minutes every other day, and lifting weights on the alternate days. "Everybody has to find his optimal time to work out. You just have to find out what it is you're willing to do, and make a commitment to follow through. No matter how far down you are physically, exercise can immediately improve your life."
3. Think positive -- you can reverse the aging process
The most important commitment to getting your body or your bank account in shape, the authors say, is to replace the "I can't" mind-set with a positive attitude. In Step 3 LaLanne and Rettick address the defeat of negative self-worth and depression, and encourage social connections and keeping an active mind.
"Our big message is that it's never too late, no matter what age, to control your health and your wealth," Rettick says. "We also want to see you get excited about the better person you can become, both from the physical side and the financial side. You just have to make small changes." No matter how bad you're dug in financially, he says, you can dig out, as Rettick did in the early 1990s when he was two mortgage payments behind and saddled with mounting credit card debt. Then he remembered the positive thinking books that inspired him as a young man: "Think and Grow Rich," by Napoleon Hill, "Psycho-Cybernetics," by Maxwell Maltz, and Denis Waitley's tapes on the psychology of winning.
"To maintain good physical health," LaLanne says, "the correct mental attitude has to go along with it."
4. Plan ahead -- peace of mind and financial security is worth it.
Peace of mind equals quality of life, says Rettick. "If you don't pay attention daily to your body, you won't live long. If you don't pay attention to your finances, your money won't last long. And if you don't do either, you're at the mercy of charity." This step covers the basics of investing, and points a finger at financial sharks.
Rettick became interested in financial services and retirees after watching his own family struggle in the 1980s. First, his maternal grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and over the course of seven years lost not only her mental and physical capacities, but also her finances, and ended up living with a relative. Then in 1986, both of Rettick's paternal grandparents became ill and entered a nursing home. His grandmother lived only two years, but his grandfather, "being a tough old German," spent 12 years in private care.
"I learned firsthand how without proper planning you lose everything. You become a prisoner of the state, almost. That just really got under my skin, and I developed a passion for helping people avoid this process. Because with the proper steps, you don't have to go through this. Now I tell people how to avoid paying unnecessary taxes, how to avoid probate, how to stretch assets to last an entire lifetime."
5. Insure your future -- for long-term care
"In my speeches to seminars or groups, I'll say, 'We depend on insurance for a lot of things in our life. How many of you have life insurance?'" Rettick says. "A good amount of hands go up. 'How many have automobile insurance?' All their hands go up. 'How many of you have homeowners insurance?' All their hands go up. Then I'll say, 'All right, how many of you have something will affect one of every two of you, which is long-term care insurance?' And only three or four hands go up. It's interesting how we insure the things that have a low likelihood of happening, but don't insure the one thing that has a high likelihood of happening. People don't want to think about ending up somewhere like assisted living or a nursing home. But almost half of those Americans who are married and reach age 60 will live to age 95.
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