In this week’s episode of Retire in Texas, Darryl Lyons, CEO and Co-Founder of PAX Financial Group, breaks down five common retirement outcomes – some inspiring, some sobering – and shares how intentional planning and mindset shifts can help you pivot toward a more meaningful future.
Drawing on a decades-old survey of 90-year-old women who shared what they would’ve done differently in life, Darryl explores how those insights can shape our retirement journey. From nightmare scenarios to dream retirements, he provides real-life examples, biblical context, and actionable advice to help you evaluate your own path.
Key highlights of the episode include:
- The “four retirements” model, plus a bonus fifth, and how to tell which one you’re headed for.
- Why relationships matter just as much as money when it comes to long-term well-being.
- How to avoid becoming a financial burden to family or the system.
- What legacy planning really means – and how to start one even with modest resources.
- The surprising health benefits of feeling connected to a larger community.
Whether you’re preparing for retirement or already living it, this episode offers practical and heartfelt wisdom for navigating the road ahead with clarity and purpose.
For more insights and to connect with a PAX Financial Group advisor, visit http://www.PAXFinancialGroup.com.
If this episode sparked some reflection, don’t forget to share it with a friend!
Transcript:
Hey, this is Darryl Lyons, CEO and Co-Founder of PAX Financial Group. And you’re listening to Retire in Texas. This information is general in nature. It’s not intended to provide specific investment, tax, or legal advice. Visit PAXFinancialGroup.com for more information. So, there’s this Fast Company Magazine study that I always, always, always for like 30 years, I’ve been thinking about this study, and it’s a group of ninety-year-old women, and they asked a group of ninety-year-old women, if you do anything different in life, what would you do different?
And these women said they would take more risk, stop and smell the roses, and do something that would outlive them. I thought that was pretty cool framework, right? For what life should look like. And why not take wisdom from people who’ve been around? So, I was thinking about that survey, and I thought, as I was was kind of navigating through some retirement content.
There are really four different situations that you could run in when you retire – often pivot. There are four different scenarios. And so, I want to lay out each of those scenarios and then when I lay them out, I want to give you an idea. If you think this is your situation or could be your situation.
So, the first scenario is a nightmare retirement. This is no money. This is no work. This is no relationships, no friends or family. And I was talking with somebody the other day, and they have a 28-year-old child who is really struggling because that young adult, this young adult, lost their mom. And so really going through a lot of depression and, you know, turning to video games and isolation and just paralyzed, life has just paralyzed them.
And I actually get that life happens. Substance abuse, anxiety, deep depression, insecurity. That’s just tough and bad decisions too. Like just a lot of bad decisions. And I hate to see that people die with the music still left in them. So, I don’t want anyone to have a nightmare retirement. I don’t think any of us do, but that’s happening a lot out there.
No money, no work. Can’t work, right? Can’t work either mentally or physically and no friends or family. You know, if you think about it, the prodigal son, in fact, what’s defined as prodigal. This is pretty interesting. I think prodigal is defined as spending money a resources freely or recklessly and wasting extravagantly.
So, when we think about the story of the prodigal son, we don’t often attach an economic thesis behind it. But the reality is, is the prodigal son went off and wasted their money. And so that could be coupled with the circumstances putting somebody in a nightmare retirement situation. So, here’s my idea. So, every situation, I want to give you an idea.
I know this sounds like it’s like a duh kind of thing, but church actually works for this kind of stuff. And a lot of times we think that church is overrated. And there’s a bunch of hypocrites. I think I’ve gone through that stage in my life where I’ve wrestled with the efficacy of a steeple type of church.
But now I’ve gotten to the place where I just realize this is just a bunch of people. It’s more like a hospital, and all of us are sick to some degree, or maybe sick and after being around, I just really recognize that there’s just a lot of people there that are far from perfect. But that’s the best place to go if you’re in a prodigal situation.
So that’s my idea for you. If you’re in that situation or if you think you’re in that situation, find a church community and find one yesterday. The second situation that you could be if you’re retiring is the burden retirement. No money can’t work. But you do have family, maybe friends. And so here you are. You’re a burden.
Now, the nightmare retirement. You’re a burden too, you’re burden to the state and the system and Medicaid. And so, you’re subject to whatever you get and how you get it, you’re a burden to the state. But in this specific, you know, we call it a burden retirement. You’re in the second situation, you’re burden to your family.
And I don’t think anybody really wants that either. And usually not all the time. Usually, it’s the wife. What are the six words in every man’s obituary? He is survived by his wife. And so, here’s my idea for those that are concerned about a burden retirement. I was talking to somebody just the other day about this. They’re like, I’m going to take my Social Security at 62, really think deeply about taking it at 70, because your widow will need money.
And there’s a much higher benefit payout for a widow when the retiree, the Social Security recipient, took it at age 70. Every single situation is different. But I want you to think about your surviving spouse when you take Social Security. So that’s the second situation a burden retirement. The third situation is normal retirement, normal. No money. You can work.
You can go to Walmart. And let’s say you have relationships in that scenario. Oftentimes somebody could blame the markets. Yeah. The market fell and I lost all my money. But the reality is if you really take inventory, you just didn’t save when you had the opportunity. I mean, even when you’re broke, you should be saving.
You just extended yourself. And you always lived beyond the paycheck. And right now, what’s most important is your ability to. If you’re in this, I hate to say it’s normal. America, if you’re in this normal situation, is your health, it is taking care of your health and making sure that you can still put a shovel in the ground, or you can still type, or you can still think, you can still invest too.
Let’s suppose that your normal retirement 62, you’re talking about 30 years of life. You can still squirrel money away. So, if you are working. I know you can blame the markets for what may have happened in the past, which was likely mostly, if we’re honest, every time I would say every time I’ve talked to somebody and they blame the markets, it was what they did when the markets were going up and down.
That was really the problem. But you can still invest now, my idea for this group of people, and I want to be careful with this. I’ve been doing this since 1999, and I’ve only had one person do a reverse mortgage, only one. And I’ve helped thousands of people. But your house is still an asset that has value typically.
So, if you’re a homeowner, there are ways to take cash out of that house. Just be very careful. I would actually work with a financial advisor before I work directly with a reverse mortgage salesman. Because they’re going to just try to close the deal. And oftentimes it could be to your detriment. So, working with a financial advisor or somebody that can walk alongside objectively in that transaction, but your house does have equity and sometimes in a worst-case scenario, that’s a place you have to go.
Okay. The fourth, as you would imagine, the fourth is the best scenario. This is when you pivot the fourth situation. This is the dream retirement. You got money. You can work if you want, and you have relationships. I mean, in a certain sense you’re kind of rich. This is when you’re rich. And I guess there’s two ways to be rich.
One is to have a lot of money, and two is to not need a lot of money. If we’re really honest with ourselves, we kind of like two even better. One, I guess it could be fun, but what if you have a lot of money and you need it? All right, so I like number two.
Now, my idea for this group of people, the dream retirement people that are pivoting is, work with your advisor and see if you’ve got more than enough. Even if it’s 10,000 more than enough, even whatever it is. 5,000 more than enough. Your advisor can wrestle with these numbers. And so, then you take, this is a what I think is a really cool strategy.
You carve out some of that money and you put it in a different type of investment account that has maybe it’s a little bit more aggressive. And that’s your legacy bucket. That’s what you’re leaving to the next generation. An inheritance is what you leave to someone. But legacy is what you leave in someone. And so, the intent is to be very intentional about how you leave money to that next generation.
And so I think it’s awesome if you’re pivoting, if you’re in this next group that is a part of this dream retirement group to squirrel a little money aside for that next generation, because you can be a little bit more aggressive, because if you’ve got a 30 year time horizon or 20, you can afford to be aggressive, you can afford to weather the ups and down.
So, make sure that you are intentional about that legacy bucket. Now, as I was thinking here, there’s actually a fifth group. So this is your bonus group. And this is the rich dude. This is the guy who I know I can see his face right now because I know who he is. And he’s a super rich dude.
Like super, super rich. He doesn’t listen to my podcast. I don’t think he does. If he does, then I don’t know what to say about that. This is just who you are. If you listen, I don’t know. I would say this. I don’t know this person personally. I’ll say it that much, but I know of him, and I’ve seen him, and I know he has a lot of money.
A lot of money. Like Scrooge McDuck. Remember that Scrooge McDuck with these piles of gold coins? That kind of money, but no relationships. And so, what I would suggest to that person is, you know, you don’t want to, you don’t want your relationships to be contingent on somebody writing you a check. But I think there is an opportunity because you definitely can get people’s attention with money.
There’s no doubt about that. There is an opportunity to actually sit down and be courageously vulnerable with people. And I think that’s often what’s missing when, you know, there was this old saying I heard when I was younger that I don’t believe this to be true, but I can see where it comes from. The old saying that says millionaires seldom smile, millionaires seldom smile.
So, you know, if you’re a Scrooge McDuck, then being courageously vulnerable with those people in the community that you are giving, let’s say you’re doing, you’re giving while you’re living, you’re charitably inclined and you’re giving. So, you’re getting a chance to be in front of people. Being courageously vulnerable with those people will be the bridge to relationships.
You know, the reality is, is people who feel that their life is a part of a larger community. This is according to Richard Leider. He wrote a book. I met him before, super Guy, really smart about this stuff. He wrote a book called The Power of Purpose and this is a quote from his book. He said, people who feel that their life is part of a larger community, they have stronger immune systems, lower blood pressure, a lower risk of heart attack and cancer.
Plus, they live longer on average, seven years longer. So yes, money does matter. We talk about that all the time, but so does your health, your ability to work. And of course, relationships. So, you may be in retirement or thinking about retirement. Which of those scenarios resonates with you? I think it’s pretty obvious. The nightmare retirement, no money can’t work, no friends.
You’re dependent on the state, Medicaid. That’s not what we want. A burden retirement, no money. You can’t work and you have to depend on family. You don’t want that either. A normal, we don’t even want normal retirement where no money. You can work at Walmart. You may have relationships, but you’re just completely broke. And the fourth is the dream retirement.
This is when we pivot. This is we have money, we have relationships, and we can work if we want. But then the fifth bonus one is your super rich, no relationships. And that’s really, really sad. But there’s a pathway out of that. So, man, I was certainly inspired by that survey. And it’s never been lost on me.
A group of ninety-year-old women, if they ask, anything differently, if you could do anything different. What would they do? And they said they take more risks. They would stop and smell the roses, and they would do something that would outlive them. I hope you pivot, and I hope you pivot well. Remember, you think different when you think long term.
Have a great day.
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