Remember the 1981 comedy movie, The History of the World – Part I, starring Mel Brooks? In it, Brooks plays Moses and in one scene we see him coming down from Mount Sinai with three stone tablets. He then says something like, “God has given us these 15…” [He loses grip on one tablet and it smashes and breaks] “Oy, 10 commandments for all of us to obey.”

Recently, the town I live in experienced a little flooding. I stood there watching the water and it rose a bit, but not much. A reporter asked me a question about what I thought might happen with hurricane Florence coming through and I talked with her for a minute. But she immediately latched on to and reported on the evening news with video the part where I suggested Florence could imminently hurt businesses, which was completely out of context. That’s an example of this fake news problem and I actually found out firsthand how it starts and then gets spread around.

Early on in my career, as I prepared to go on vacation, a gentleman said to me, “Just remember, when you’re thinking about vacation and planning for it, take half the clothes and twice the money.” I know you’ve heard that one before, but stay with me. Even when you carefully plan your vacation and expect it to go one way, it almost always works out another way. You either take too many clothes, don’t bring enough money, or a combination of both.

Every couple of years, I get a certain dreaded phone call from somebody I know who’s in someplace warm when it’s cold here in the north and they say, “I just bought a house. I’m really excited and we’re going to move here.” I immediately respond by asking, “Have you ever lived there before?” Inevitably, the person on the other end answers, “No, but it’s a great place!”

I had a client who was a pilot that was forced to retire at age 60. At his retirement party, he had to go out to get some provisions at the store. He drove to the store, parked, turned the keys to shut the car off, and had a heart attack and died. It was shocking for everyone, and obviously a very severe reaction to retirement. However, we almost saw it coming based on the difficult time he had being forced in to retirement.

Do you have the cash? I’m not talking about c-a-s-h. I am talking about K-A-S-H. In particular, I’m asking if you have this as your retirement mode.

The latest happiness studies say that once you’re over the age of 50, you’re going to be happier. There’s many theories as to why that is, but nothing definitive. However, something else happens when we reach this age as well, and it’s where people start to define what wealthy is.

You might remember the show where Carl Reiner interviewed Mel Brooks as the 2000-year-old man. It was funny listening to him talk from a perspective of being that old. While it’s certainly not as many years, it is sort of like what baby boomers, or those turning 60, are looking at as far as life expectancy. Medical science, depending on who you listen to, has us now living to age 120 to 160, so longevity is now one of the biggest challenges facing those who are retiring today. Now I know that age range sounds outrageous, but if it’s true, how do you approach this?

The late, great, George Carlin had this funny routine where he said, “Have you ever noticed that their stuff is s*** and your s*** is stuff”. When we start looking at things in our life that we’ve accumulated, we need to be honest with ourselves: a lot of it is just plain junk.

Retirement is a big life change for everybody. It’s important to try to get clear about it, and I recently came across an article that had three simple questions to ask yourself about what retirement is going to look like for you.