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May 31, 2013 at 06:25 AM
I’ve talked, emailed, DM’ed and communicated via other methods with hundreds of retirement planning professionals. For the most part, being the fine fiduciaries they are, they all put their clients’ interests first. Yet, for all this altruism, they remain frustrated. While many of their clients understand the ease with which the path to a relaxing retirement can be attained and have the discipline to follow that path, there remain those recalcitrant clients who lack the confidence to believe they, too, can live the retirement of their dreams.
It is for these friends that I offer this Ode to a Retirement Investor (an excerpt from my next book and printed with the permission of its publisher):
You can accomplish almost anything, even the impossible. I bet you never thought you were all-powerful. In fact, if you’re like most people, you don’t. And that’s OK. Not everyone can invent a cure for polio, create the assembly line method of manufacturing or discover a way to reduce integrated circuits to the size of a fingernail. Really. It’s OK. We can get by with only a handful of people who believe they can accomplish the undoable. We’ll leave it to those folks to find a way to prevent cancer, to uncover a way to reduce energy costs and to invent the next iPad.
You don’t have to do any of those things.
“What you do have to do is the one thing only you can do something about: prepare yourself to retire comfortably. Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, ‘Haven’t I read where it’s impossible for the average person to retire? Haven’t I heard politicians speak of the coming retirement crisis? Haven’t I seen documentaries explaining why America’s private retirement system is nothing but a huge gamble?’
“That’s right. You have read, heard and seen all those things. And there are people today and will be in the future who should be retired but aren’t because they haven’t saved enough. When it comes to living a comfortable retirement, just because some people fail does not mean you must follow their lead. In fact, I can tell you there’s a better group of people to follow: those that have successfully navigated the savings waters and are now comfortably relaxing on the beach of their own personal retirement.
