Before You Retire: 5 Questions Every High Achiever Must Answer | The Second Shift Blueprint

Aaron Milledge: Monday comes early. This chapter closes. A new door opens. This is the second ship. You build exactly the life you were supposed to build. So why does it feel like something's missing? Today's episode is different. No guests. It's just the two of us. conversation framework that you and I have been developing for people navigating major life transitions. It's called the Second Shift Blueprint and whether our listeners download it or not, by the end of this episode, I think that folks will have questions that they need to start the most important conversation of their transitions. Yeah, I'm excited. Let's go. So let's start at the beginning, the genesis of this, right? our conversations so far with Second Shift guests have largely been on folks that have navigated this and have answered these questions. They've built something in their first shift, if you will, and they've managed to move to the next chapter, the next season of their life. They've carried that purpose, that intentionality, that value, that success with them without being anchored to the previous identity. And I think that you and I would both agree that that is not the, that's not the common denominator that we see. It's a struggle of how do you get there from here? Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, I think that a lot of people do struggle with that and struggle to kind of identify timing and figuring out how to make it all work. I think our guests have all ⁓ successfully managed it, ⁓ but in different ways. Right? Not all of them had the same process and not all of them ended up in the same place. And so I think it's interesting to kind of discuss some things that may still be common amongst them, even though everybody out there, all of our listeners probably have different stories. Yeah, absolutely. And so, you you and I have distilled these conversations not only with Second Shift, guests, but also with clients in real life scenarios and in real life challenging ⁓ situations. we've distilled it down into five conversations and we'll go through them in order and hit the high level. But just for the listeners sort of understanding the five conversations are really the timeline, the identity, the money, the time and the support. And the blueprint is designed to, I guess, be the sherpa, the guide, if you will, ⁓ for families, for couples. I mean, I think even for individuals to lean into their support system of ⁓ how to navigate the transition to the second shift and not lose ⁓ any of that purpose or mission or value as they look forward to the next chapter. Yeah, and ⁓ we on the blueprint, the blueprint has some rules. Why does it have rules? Why does it need rules? I think that that you and I, if we just if we continue this conversation, we would we would realize that guardrails need to be in place, right? We could we would wander aimlessly. And so the rules are there for for everybody's safety, but also to to structure things, I think almost from ⁓ a very pragmatic, ⁓ non-judgmental, unbiased third party. These are the guardrails. This is how we establish the environment. This is how we establish everybody getting on the same page and talking through things that matter without wandering off ⁓ onto paths that are not adjacent to the second shift conversation or that probably are best handled in separate conversation, right? We don't want to get into areas where we don't need to be outside of the framework of the second ship blueprint. Yeah, you know, and part of why I asked it that way is, we'll read the rules here in a second so you all know what we're talking about. ⁓ I think one of the surprising, maybe, challenges that we see is that lots of people as they approach transitions in life haven't had the conversations with the others in their life that are going to be the most impacted. So lots of times we were thinking in our mind because it's always on our mind. whether it's working our way through a hard shift or like in a hospital or whatever the equivalent is in your line of practice. ⁓ we're constantly thinking, okay, well, second shift is top of mind, but we forget to have that conversation with our spouse or significant other and their timeline, their feelings about it may be very different, surprisingly different than yours. you know, so lots of times as couples get together and start having these conversations, it can become emotional and challenging and, you know, That's not necessarily a bad thing. just informs that there's things that need to be addressed and teased out. even in our podcast, we always have to keep reminding ourselves to, well, how does our guest stories, how did they affect the people behind the scenes? Right. ⁓ And because it's easy to disregard that, think. Yeah, I think that's important for just to acknowledge that for a lot of high achievers, I think that your biggest critic, maybe your biggest advocate is yourself, right? Like we do a lot of this dialogue in our own heads and I think it's easy, like you said, kind of assuming that the other person, the relationship is on the same page. Well, they've never been in, they've never been led into the page to begin with. So yeah, so the rules, ⁓ It's, you know, we call them out and it's, it is rule number one. Um, and they're agreements, right? We're going to agree, uh, to these if we're not going to, you know, there's no enforcer here that's going to break kneecaps if we don't follow rules. Um, but you know, number one is we're on the same side. This is a us versus the problem, not me versus you. Uh, number two is no fixing during first answers. Each person gets unripped at airtime. Number three, tension equals information. If something gets hot, we note it and keep going. And number four is we can pause without punishment. If either of us needs a break, we take one. We throw out some phrases to kind of help steer that because I think that in the heat of the moment, it's not easy to say, okay, let's table this and come back. We also recognize that if things get heated or tense, you may have landed on something real, right? It's not a failure. It's a feature of where the work actually begins. Yeah, I especially like rule number three, you and you just addressed it a little bit there, you know, tension equals information. If something gets hot, we note it and keep going. It means you don't have to solve all the tension. right off the bat. You get through the blueprint, you get through the other questions, which I think may actually resolve some of the tensions that were coming out. And if not, then that's when you can dive deeper and see if you can get on the same page. So let's dive in to the conversations. I'll kind of frame them as broad talking points. We'll go from there and then maybe you and I will work through our own second shift of Blueprint. This episode will be our own second shift. So- If we get tense, we'll just move on. We'll just move on. We'll table it. Yeah. So- The first is the timeline conversation. And you alluded to it of maybe one person's ready, maybe one person has a date in mind, maybe the other person doesn't have a clue of what's going on. ⁓ The question is, when do you each think this transition should happen and why? And I think that you and I have seen it, one partner in the relationship is ready, maybe the other isn't. Nobody knows they're on different pages. If they're on the same page, they can have vastly different interpretations of the data. ⁓ Sometimes the conversations happen. Sometimes they don't happen or happen badly, right? Half sentences over dinner don't count. And so I think what I've seen is people aren't confused about what they want. Most of time, they're stuck on how to talk about it. Yeah. Yeah. I see it all the time when I'm ⁓ interviewing both spouses at the same time of my planning clients. It's, you know, it's the... side look and really? That's when you wanted to retire? And the other spouse saying, so I think it does happen a lot that we don't know necessarily the people that we should know the best. We often don't know what they're thinking. And that's just because we don't take the time to communicate it. And so this is prompting that. So let's talk about the specifics that I think that that I think from a timeline conversation, because to your point, the sideways glances in real life client conversations, they happen all the time. They happen more than we would like to think or admit. And I think most of it can be attributed to timeline or the misunderstanding of the timing of such things. And so we call out in the blueprint, Fidelity Investments. So, you know, 45 % of couples disagree on timing. You know, I would say most don't know they disagree. Right. ⁓ the other, I guess, pattern is the one more year, right. Perpetually delaying because the psychological math never, never feels right. And I, I want to land here because, ⁓ you know, something that you and you and I have talked about as far as, as, as some costs, as far as, ⁓ giving up an identity. ⁓ because, you know, well, if I just hang on one more year of the title next year, next year, we'll feel better. Yeah, no, that happens all the time. And I think that comes from not defining some of the other questions that we have, especially, you know, what is actually our goal. And until you can, in fact, I would put all these questions, maybe before we even get, have you dive into each of these questions, you guys, or people need to define what their, if they have a mission statement or create a mission statement for their retirement, you know, what is it that, you know, What is the overriding thing that's gonna make you find meaning and joy in your retirement? ⁓ And then the whole one more year thing, maybe instead of shifting that goalpost and saying, okay, well, we're gonna move it back a little bit because our goalposts keep shifting. Once you realize that you're there, you can pull the trigger. I think that that's important because again, back to the guests that we've interviewed, the value alignment and purpose alignment has been seamless. so, somewhere along the way, intentionally or unintentionally, ⁓ they have recognized that their second shift is aligned from a values perspective to their first shift, or it solves a value-based problem, recognizing that ⁓ they're burning themselves out on the first ship. It's affecting family life. so kind of reframing, okay, what's actually important to me and, setting that as to your point, the kind of the mission statement. And so I think that, you know, timelines. Aren't really about readiness. If people think it's about readiness, like, you're financially ready. I'm mentally ready. I don't know that it's, it's so much about readiness. I would say it's more about fear, right? Understanding kind of what each partner is, is afraid of is, is, is key. ⁓ waiting too long, missing the window, moving too fast, regretting it. Talking about that and working through that reveals more than any date on a calendar. And so we can pick a couple of these conversation prompts to highlight. I'm curious, you what would you lead with? Or I guess in your experience, either clients or personally, Where would you start? Where would you start? You I'm just reading through them. As I'm doing so, we should probably, you know, we were going to say this at the end, but we should probably tell people at the beginning where to find the blueprint. So, you know, if they want to download it, they can follow along with what we're talking about. You can go to the SecondShiftPodcast.com and you'll see a link to download the SecondShift Blueprint. Yeah. I mean, for me, I think the first one's important. And the first one says, when you realistically imagine this transition happening, and not just in a few years, don't say a few. You got to be more, say the actual timeframe. It's going to be six months. It's going to be one year. It's going to be three years or whatever it is. Because that's a goal. A few is a... but it's not specific enough to be helpful. And what I think a lot of people will be surprised at is that both partners want to retire. They have that in mind. One might be six months and the other one might be four years. And so trying to get that, get on the same page with that is very important, I think. So, I think that that I would agree that naming the timeline is important. And I think the counter to that, you know, that's a ditch on one side of the road of like this, you know, it's six months and 17 days from now. The ditch on the other side of road for me at least is, know, what are you afraid of? What happened if we move too fast? Right? Like I'm a planner and I'm an analyzer and you get into this ⁓ paralysis. ⁓ that if we go too fast, what if this happens, what if this happens? And you can actually end up, you derailing the whole plan by trying to focus on a problem that really isn't a problem, right? Like it's, ⁓ this is a fear of moving too fast, but what is that? What about moving too fast is actually causing the tension or the stress? So that prompt stands out to me personally because it forces me to admit that, if we move too fast, maybe I an opportunity. or maybe I'm not ready to do this, or maybe we get into another topic like identity. Maybe I'm not ready to surrender the title. Yeah, I think it would be interesting if you have one partner that says six months and the other partner says four years. That leads into those questions. So you're asking, you know, Cause one partner's maybe afraid of waiting too long. The other partner's afraid of moving too fast. And then you can really dive in and try and explore why that is. And if you can kind of get on the same wavelength. So the whole goal of conversation one is engaging both partners in the relationship of, know, to top of mind, you know, for the non-transitioning partner, what changes for you if this transition happens on my preferred timeline? ⁓ What would you need to feel ready even if your timeline is different from mine? So we're acknowledging that timelines may be different. We're working through those prompts to surface the true, I guess, the root causes of ⁓ the uncertainty or the trepidation about moving too fast or too slow. And then we're digging into that. and asking the non-transition partner, okay, well, what does your life look like? What does your reality look like if things happen on my timeline as a transitioning partner? And what can I give you as a transitioning partner for you to feel ready? How can we align on the timeline given all the information presented? Yeah. And I like on the blueprint that it talks about, ultimately it's not a it comes down to not being a single date, but it ⁓ gives a working window. So you have, I think once you compromise between the two partners, you create your window and rather than just, okay, three years, maybe it's sometime between three and four years, something like that. Yeah. And I think that's great, a working window. then the element that is most frightening to me is the sharing the thing I'm protecting by wanting this timeline, right? Because I think that implicitly. we are forced to confront ourselves and maybe surface some selfish kind of desires of, this is what I want by this timeline. Okay, well, that may be completely misaligned to what your partner needs or what's actually purposeful or value driven. It may be ego. And I think that for high achievers, that question and writing it down especially, it carries a lot of weight. There's a lot of load bearing that that question does in that section. Yeah, definitely. All right, let's move on to section conversation two. This is identity. And you know, this is one of the main themes of our podcast is, where you're leaving a high impact career. You're not just leaving the job. You're putting a lot of effort, a lot of what's you over time behind, or it feels that way. And that's why I think a lot of people put it off because they're not ready for that. the conversation or so the question is, who are you without this career and who do you want to become? I like both of that. are both parts of that question is not just what are you leaving behind, but what are you turning into? You know, it's forward looking. It's not just I'm giving something up. You don't want to just think of it that way. What are you what are you gaining by it? Yeah. The insight I think is, you know, it says it all right. Transitions are easier when you're running towards something meaningful, not simply escaping something painful. And we've heard that time and time again. It's one thing to pull the ejection handles and just get rid of out of the situation. It's a, it's another, ⁓ completely to find, ⁓ the goal, the purpose in the future and move towards that. Like that's the, that's what's worth exploring. ⁓ The fact that we've provided some common identity shifts, a builder entrepreneur shifts towards starting something new. You retain that element of the identity, this is your opportunity to, one, align with your partner or the people involved in this transition, and two, maybe the first part of your first shift, you realize that... you have new purpose, P or little P, you have different values that have changed over time, but you still recognize that intrinsically you're a builder and entrepreneur. So how can you leverage that, maintain that identity without tying it to the previous career or the previous title? Yeah, I think that's a great insight. know, and on the, on the physician side, it's you're a healer. Who was it? I think it was Dr. Anderson that talked about that. If I remember right, but you know, you're a healer as a physician. Are there ways that you can be a healer in whatever your next ⁓ shift is? And the first conversation prompt on here says what parts of your current career brings you genuine meaning? And usually that meaning is not necessarily tied to the actual work. In other words, there are ways you can create that same ⁓ joy and meaning, ⁓ outside of your job or your career, you just have to be creative. And, and, and I think that's why a lot of people are afraid of retiring or aren't happy in retirement is because, you know, they feel like they're losing their meaning and, and because they haven't planned well to figure out how to carry that forward or replace it with something as meaningful. Yeah. I mean, it's difficult to answer, you know, who am I now? when for decades you've answered with your title or your specialty, right? That's, how, and from a, from a partner perspective, you know, that partner spouse has, has had part of their identity tied to the other's title specialty, know? And so their, their, their identity again is, is, is playing multiple parts here, both from the transitioning partner and the non-transition partner. And I think that, when we call it out, the identity I'm leaving behind, the identity I'm moving toward, the part of my current identity I want to keep, those are questions that are intentionally asked of both partners. Yeah. Because the interplay here is something that often gets overlooked. Yeah, for sure. I mean, we often, we very often don't think about how the other partner identifies with our, our personal identity. So yeah, very good, very good point. So. Conversation three. where the, you know, I think that we would feel most comfortable in is around the money. What does enough look like for our household? You know, we say it explicitly, this is not a budgeting exercise. This is a values conversation. Absolutely. know, and that's, you know, we've talked about this and I think we talked about this with the last episode with my brother, Steve is, ⁓ you know, true wealth or wealth or, you know, however you want to define it or call it is not just about money. You know, money is a tool to help you, ⁓ help you get there to control your time and to be able to add meaning and value to your life. But you have to define what that is. And, ⁓ you know, you'll, think a lot of people, when they actually get right down and, and write, write it down or verbalize it, they realize that you don't need that much money to accomplish your values. But if money is your value, then you can never have enough. And so you're always moving the goalpost. And so. You can't get off the treadmill. I think that the question that goes deeper than that digs into that, right? It gets so hard. I love this. Is your sense of security based on the money we have? or on our ability to earn more if needed, right? Because I think that when you hang up that human capital and you move away from it, that creates ⁓ an anxiety that sometimes is difficult to overcome when you just, mean, you and I have seen it, we present rigorous, beautifully closed form solution financial plans in black and white, right? The numbers don't lie, but the... behavioral finance, the emotions, the psychology behind it, it's hard to disregard the fact that you are leaving your human capital behind and you're moving away from the ability sometimes to earn more if you need it. Yeah. No, and that's definitely, and I felt that myself even transitioning to financial planning from being a physician, you know, the easy button is just work more shifts, you know, as an ER physician anyway. ⁓ So if there's any kind of financial stress, you just work more shifts and you earn more money. When that's no longer there, I think a lot of people approach retirement with that anxiety of what if, you know, what if something catastrophic happens and I can't overcome it by just working more shifts. And even when the financial plan, you know, the Monte Carlo analysis is a hundred percent and they have plenty of money and there's really almost zero chance that things are going to go bad. It's still difficult for some. Yeah. And I think, you know, from just to see these conversations and I go back to kind of what your, your, your brother mentioned, because, know, this is your brother had, you know, he jumped headfirst into, into ⁓ a specialty that was far from what he was working in, right? He taught himself SEO. taught himself more, you know, he's, he's making a bet on television ads. But he mentioned that, you he, went through the rigor of our financial plan is even sticking to it. Right. Like this is a, this is an ongoing thing. And so, you know, when we, when we initially see this conversation, it's, it's with, with, with real ⁓ information that, that couples should have, right? Do we know our actual annual household spend the, you know, the real number, right? Again, we're not budgeting. just do understand the, the cashflow situation, you know, how we model where financial looks like without the primary income. Again, maybe to alleviate the concern over lean behind an income ability. And in all these questions allow us to get to kind of the heart of it, right? At the individual level, what is the definition of enough? Knowing all of the quantified elements, can I now say, well, this is enough. And I don't need to say dollar amount, but I need to say, okay, well, It's enough that we have a fallback plan or it's enough that, okay, I see that there is, you know, a continued ability to earn if needed. Yeah. We just, continue to dig down. I think that that's what a lot of people, especially when they're presented a financial plan or retirement plan, forget is the flexibility that's still built into the plan. You know, cause, cause we give them a snapshot in time. ⁓ and, but. We also have to remember that if the market goes bad, you can spend less and, if things are going great, you can spend more. And, know, just like we do during our regular life, ⁓ you know, we adjust and we adapt and we move forward. you know, and that's part of it. doesn't end in retirement. still have to, there's still adjustments and surprises and, you know. good surprises and bad surprises that you just have to deal with. But having, creating those guardrails and knowing, okay, what would be our worst case scenario versus what would be our best case scenario? I think being able to define that from a financial perspective can bring a lot, can help do a lot to ease that anxiety. I think, mean, you the nail on the head with, it's dynamic, it's living, right? It's not a one time and done. It is adapting to the current situation, it's updating based off of assumptions that may be proven valid or invalid. it allows, you know, the snapshot that's initially given, I think can allow you to answer the question, you know, well, maybe what is the financial milestone that would make me feel ready? What does that look like? know, financial plan may answer that, but leaving it there, your point is spot on. Like you have to deal with the good and bad in retirement, just as you did. and deal with the good and bad in your working years. Yeah, absolutely. All right, number four conversation. Number four is what do you expect daily life to look like after this transition? Now, this is something that I think a lot of people don't think about. know, they just, it's like, I can't wait to retire. I'm going to retire, I'm going to retire. And then when they retire, it's like, okay, I'm retired. Now, what do I do? And by the way, my spouse is, who hasn't been used to seeing me for so many hours a day and has their own life that they've grown accustomed to, I'm in the way. So I think this is maybe one of the most important in terms of actual happiness with day-to-day happiness. This conversation has to happen. 100%. We say it, right? The most dangerous assumption is that your partner shares your vision, right? This is an exercise in managing expectations. And the prompt that I love is like, hey, what would a typical Tuesday look like after this change? If you haven't thought through that, I mean, that answers a lot of questions that you just brought up. It's like, ⁓ man, I am like, I'm going to be consistently underfoot. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Yeah. No, I mean, I've met, you know, in our profession also, financial planners. We have conversations with people, but certainly people that I just know in my social circle. It's interesting how much friction ⁓ retirement causes among couples. ⁓ Because honestly, the person who... ⁓ I mean, there's different scenarios, right? Where one person retires early and the other one is still working or where the other one was maybe not working, but had their own agenda and routine that the ⁓ working partner had no idea about. And so it's like, okay, well, yeah, Tuesday, we're going to go golfing. And no, I'm not going to go golfing. have such and such and such that I do on Tuesdays. so, yeah, just understanding your partner's schedule just at that very level is would save some some conflict. The level is important. And I see that, again, the side eye in the client meetings when, what do want to do in retirement? ⁓ we want to travel. No, no, no. What do you want to do on Tuesday? And then they go through and it's just sort of eye-opening and it's like, well, gosh, I have these broad ideas of spending more time with grandkids or traveling or whatever, but the vast majority of time is going to be spent in not those pursuits. you're absolutely right that we don't spend enough time talking through that and sort of understanding what that reality looks like. Yeah, and I think a lot of people also as they approach that, they assume that their spouse will like the same things that they like. You know, like, yeah, every Tuesday we're going to go golfing. Well, I don't like to golf. Yeah. You know, I've got something, you know, and so I really, think sorting that out ahead of time, just, you know, I It's always worked before because you've had your different lives kind of living concurrently in the same house, but now you've got to blend those and it can be a challenge. Yeah. I think the blueprint, you know, I think to its credit does a good job. we, when we, when we structure conversations and we get down into, writing it down, think there's a, there, there, you there's power behind writing something out because I, know, I, as I see this playing out, specifically bringing to the forefront what I'm most looking forward to about the change in daily life. This isn't the change in retirement. This is daily life. ⁓ Nobody thinks about that. And the second is what I'm most worried about. And I think that's ⁓ a difficult, ⁓ I mean, there's a lot of reflection that needs to go into that, but it's that tension or uncertainty that needs to be surfaced by both sides. right? And then discussed to resolve. Yeah. One of the conversation prompts I really like it's it says, what does together time look like in this new structure? But on the flip side of that, what is separate time look like in this structure? Because, you know, if you've, if you're used to having a lot of separate time, you may not want as much together time as you think you do. And, and, and you have to protect that individual separate time, maybe just as much as the together time. and be sure that both of those components of your daily life are working for each of you. And the other prompt says, do you imagine I'll be doing while you're pursuing this? And have you asked me what I imagine? Yeah. So don't assume. Don't assume. That's right. And I think that sort of is a natural lead into the last conversation of support, right? As we've had these conversations, we're sort of building this foundational ⁓ support structure for the partners. Now the blueprint ⁓ kind of expands that with the menu, which is kind of a list of common needs that each partner can circle. Things like emotional reassurance, flexibility with responsibilities. ⁓ You pick your top three and then you share. Well, you've worked through these conversations, hopefully in a manner that not only has revealed information about each other, but probably has revealed information about you so that when you get to the support, you can answer honestly and build these support systems and structures that actually match to reality, not just what you sort of imagined before you began the exercise. Yeah, one of the conversation prompts on this one that I really like, and it's labeled as for the non-transitioning partner, but it's what do I need to feel like a partner in this, not just a spectator? Yeah. Super important. I mean, because now both of your lives are changing dramatically. It can't just be one side dictating. So I think that was really important. I think that I'm just thinking, that like that's, that's, that's heavy, right? Because again, it, it brings out vulnerability to acknowledge that. And then you have to, as, the transitioning partner who's presumably leaving a high identity, high achieving career, like you have to shed that hubris to accept the fact that somebody is, that's, I mean, you're tied to the hip in this transition has come to you and said, this is, this is my, you know, what I need to feel like on the value added value valued partner in this, not just to, you know, like it says a spectator, you know, cheering you on in the sidelines. And the other thing is the other one I like is how will we know if this isn't working and what will we do? You know, and again, if we're talking about what we talked about with the money transition and being flexible. applies here as well. Right. So, so we have a plan going into it. It may not be the right plan, but we won't know that until we actually get into it. And so defining that ahead of time is least defining how you're going to handle that ahead of time will save pain down the road. I think it's just saying, okay, you know, let's, let's, and to me that implies you're going to have more than one conversation, right? This isn't the end. This is the beginning where, where as you're going through, first month, first year, first two or three years out, let's revisit this and see where we're at and see what we need to do to adjust it. ⁓ I will leave this. This may, of all of the written answers, this may be the best that we've included is the kind of support that actually doesn't help. Because I know in my own world, I have solved all the problems. I have developed the support that will be the most helpful. Like I've done this. Like this is what I do. But allowing that, especially the non-transitioning partner to call that out and the transitioning partner to say like, gosh, you know, maybe I've never felt like I've needed support. I've just sort of like, you know, solved it on my own. Or maybe never, you know, had the... I guess my internal reckoning to ask myself that of what does support look like for both parties? ⁓ I really, I'd love that question for a variety of reasons. It's a powerful question. Yeah, for sure. So we've done this, Brian, you and I have executed the blueprint. Well done. We get to an alignment snapshot. What is the purpose of the alignment snapshot? ⁓ You know, I think the main thing is once you have these conversations that the first thing that we talk about is when's the next conversation. You know, so again, that underlines the fact that this is the start of conversations, not the end. know, so I think sometimes you have to start the conversations and then go off. on your own and think about the answers and then come back again. And I think that that's really what the alignment is all about is, you know, let's pose some of these questions, let's think about it, and then let's come back and see if we can become aligned now, now that we understand each other's kind of, you know, personal experience or approach to this. Let's see if we can bring it together. The snapshot isn't a test, right? That's why we called it a snapshot. It shows you where you're aligned, where you're not, so you can stop guessing, start talking, and have the next conversation. All right. Should we talk about the optional SecondShift strategy call? Yeah, absolutely. Do want to introduce that? Yeah. So just to recap, everything we've talked about today is in a free guide, right? It's our SecondShift blueprint. It's got all five conversations, the prompts, the alignment snapshot, and some tools that we didn't have time to cover. ⁓ You can download it at SecondShiftpodcast.com. It's freely available. So the link, click on it and it's yours. It's a PDF, it's designed to be done with you and your partner in one or two sessions. And if you feel like you need further help, we are here available as well. So you can actually schedule a ⁓ strategy call with us and ⁓ we can just kind of review some of the things that you have come up with and ⁓ give our two cents about where would be a good direction that might help you to move forward from there. Yeah, no, no pitch, no pressure. It's a diagnostic conversation, um, to help you figure it out. Maybe the questions that you should be asking that the blueprint didn't cover specifically for, for your situation. I, know, I think the biggest takeaway is that the blueprint, it won't give you the answers, right? But it will give you the questions. And, and sometimes that's, that's really all you need to get unstuck and move forward. Absolutely. I hope you find it useful. I hope you give us feedback on it. Um, you know, if there's, uh, things that we left out, we'd love to know it. you know, this is, can adapt this document as well that we really want it to be helpful and useful and meaningful for those people who are going through this transition, you know, cause it's not easy and everybody has, they're starting from a different spot and ⁓ has different situations that they have to address. so anyway, hopefully it's a useful tool for you. All right, well, thanks again for listening. We hope you're finding the content of this podcast to be helpful as you contemplate your own second shifts. Please remember to like this episode, subscribe to the channel and tell your friends about us. We'll see you next time. The work you did mattered. What's next? Thank you for listening to the Second Shift. If this conversation landed with you, please download our free guide called the Second Shift Blueprint. Five questions you and your partner should discuss before any major transition. Get it at SecondShiftPodcast.com. That's number two, ndshiftpodcast.com. And if you're approaching a transition and want to talk through the financial strategy, we offer a complimentary 30-minute Second Shift audit. Details are at SecondShiftPodcast.com slash audit. Join us next week for another great episode. And remember, your life and identity doesn't end with retirement. It's just entering its second shift. 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