Retirement Playbook: Your Guide to Life After Insurance

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Slide, Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark). Webinar Series. Logos, Travelers Institute (registered trademark). Travelers. Text, Joan Woodward. 

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JOAN WOODWARD: Good afternoon. And thank you so much for joining us. Welcome to Wednesdays with Woodward, a webinar series, as you know, where we convene leading experts talking about really interesting things-- business, public policy, society and, of course, insurance. I'm so glad you're here today. 

I'm Joan Woodward, President of the Travelers Institute. So before we get started, I'd like to share our disclaimer about today's program.

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Slide, About Travelers Institute (registered trademark) Webinars. Text, The Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) educational webinar series is presented by the Travelers Institute, the public policy division of Travelers. This program is offered for informational and educational purposes only. You should consult with your financial, legal, insurance or other advisors about any practices suggested by this program. Please note that this session is being recorded and may be used as Travelers deems appropriate. 

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And a huge thanks to our program partners today: TrustedChoice.com, the MetroHartford Alliance, the Master's in FinTech Program at UConn, the Insurance Association of Connecticut. We really appreciate your support throughout the whole year. 

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Slide, Retirement Playbook: Your Guide to Life After Insurance. Logos, Travelers Institute (registered trademark). Travelers. MetroHartford Alliance. Insurance Association of Connecticut. UConn School of Business M.S. in Financial Technology. TrustedChoice.com. 

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So, now on to our terrific program today. We are going to be talking all about a topic that a lot of us are really conflicted about. Whether you're young or old, all of us at some point are going to retire. And just to clarify, today's conversation is really talking about everything in retirement except your finances. So, that's important. Our focus is really going to be how to find meaning and purpose and fulfilling retirement when you do that. 

So, this brings up emotions. I know for me, certainly, and my family, everyone thinks about what are you going to do? Are you going to be happy? Your phone's not going to ring. Are you going to travel? Are you going to eat, drink? Are you going to watch more videos? What is on your plate? So I think that the most exciting part of today's program is two friends of mine are joining us to talk about their experiences. And there's nothing like learning from others, and they're going to talk about the things that they love in their retirement and the things that maybe didn't go so well.

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Slide, Speakers. Three portrait-style photos of the presenters, from left to right. Text, Joan Woodward. EVP, Public Policy, President, Travelers Institute, Travelers. Jody Rollins, Co-Founder, Retirement Transformed. Markham Rollins, Co-Founder, Retirement Transformed. 

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So, these executives of the insurance industry are Mark and Jody Rollins. So Mark spent 38 years as a third-generation owner of an insurance agency in Bronxville, New York. He and his brother sold it to Brown & Brown in 2013. And then he stayed on for five more years before he retired. Jody Rollins has a 33-year career as a senior-level executive at Chubb. Jody left at the same time as Mark, at the end of 2018. And as you're going to hear in their story, they had a bumpy start in their retirement. But then it evolved, and they switched up a few things. They were inspired by a number of people that they spoke with. 

And so we're really fortunate to have the Rollins share their story with us today and give us their advice. So if you have questions for Mark and Jody, please drop them in the Q&A feature. We're going to get to all the questions we can later in the show.

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The presentation slides change to side-by-side videos of the speakers. 

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So, Mark, Jody, welcome. It is so great to have you both with me today. 

JODY ROLLINS: Thank you. 

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Well, it's certainly great to be here as well. Typically, every time we met, we were talking insurance, and now we're not. So this is interesting.

JOAN WOODWARD: Yeah. I think I met you all maybe 15 years ago at one of the Travelers Leadership Conferences. And so it's so nice to reconnect with you. Why don't we start out with you just kind of both telling us a little bit about yourselves first and what you've been doing these past five years since you left your careers.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Past five years?

JODY ROLLINS: I know.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Wow.

JODY ROLLINS: It doesn't seem like it's been that long.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Well, our story really began about 10 years ago. And that's when my brother Chuck and I sold our agency to Brown & Brown. And that triggered conversations with Jody and I about what our retirement would look like. I was 55 at the time and thought for sure I'd work another 10 or 15 years.

JODY ROLLINS: Yeah. And you know, I was a senior-level executive at Chubb. And I loved it. I loved insurance. And everyone at our dinner table will laugh every time I say that. But I really-- I loved my teams and the clients and the problems and everything that went with it. And Mark and I had a real clear, simple vision of retirement. We had a second home in Connecticut. We would have the kids come and visit all the time. Our parents would be included. And then we'd coax the kids to have their weddings there. That was pretty much our retirement plan.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Yeah, it was simple. It was spending time with kids and parents, doing a lot of travel, spending a couple months each year in Florida, really building a life around our kids, our grandchildren and our parents.

JODY ROLLINS: And, you know, our vision did include some things that you're probably thinking of, too, like letting go of some things, letting go of responsibilities and inboxes and emails. And in my world, it was claims and marketing and managing people and having someone else manage my calendar where I didn't feel like I was in control, always being on call. So we wanted to let go of those things. And we knew that.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Yeah, because the daily grind was getting to both of us. We looked forward to freedom-- freedom to choose what we want to do, when we want to do it and who we want to do it with.

JODY ROLLINS: So if you think about it, we thought we knew what we wanted in retirement. And we knew what we didn't want. Right?

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Right. But about a year later, amidst all of our dreaming of retirement, my dad died. And my father was the third-generation owner of our agency, and he retired at the age of 65. And he failed miserably at retirement. He's really a lot of the inspiration why we started this.

I tell people, he was like the Don Draper of the insurance agency. He had a bar in his office with his favorite scotch and vodka, and he'd ring a bell every night to say, hey, the day is over-- let's have a drink. But he took his three-martini lunch practice into retirement. And unfortunately, he drank himself to death. And a year later, my mom died from dementia. So that was a big setback for Jody and I.

JODY ROLLINS: And if you think about those years and the timing, that was 2014 and 2015. And for me, in 2015, Chubb announced that they were going to be purchased by ACE, which would then become Chubb again. So Chubb survived the name, but the culture and everything started to change very quickly. So I had a huge integration project in front of me in 2015. And then in 2016, everything started to unravel a bit for me. My mom was diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer. My three daughters had gone off to college. So we were empty nesters. So we had all those feelings and emotions going on. And then in 2017, my mom actually passed away, which was devastating for me and for my retirement plans because she was a big part of it.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: So like Jody said, now we're empty nesters. We're all alone, trying to figure out what that looks like. And it's three years post-sale on my agency. And gosh, I'm working really hard, harder than I have before. But I'm starting to lose my drive and passion. So I speak to my boss, and I say, listen, I'm done. I've done this for three years. I want to step down as office leader. I just want my top 25 clients. I want to go back to service them. That's what I'm really good at.

So I stepped down. What I didn't realize was that that first Monday as I walked in, I realized I was instantly irrelevant to the agency. I walked past a conference room where the weekly leadership team meeting was taking place-- that I led for 30 years-- and I wasn't even invited to that meeting anymore.

JODY ROLLINS: So you have to imagine this. So it's Mark and I in our house, bumbling around, no kids. He's stepping down from his role. And in my role, my company, now I'm in the middle of deep integration and emerging, new leadership coming in, changing structures. I was feeling, honestly, a little bit like I'd been thrown back into the '80s with some of the cultural changes that were happening. And all of a sudden, my fulfillment in my job that I loved-- I mean, I told you I loved it-- it started to fade.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: So there's Jody working her butt off and me not because I don't have any responsibilities. So I start going in late and coming home early every day. One day, it's 3 o'clock. I have nothing to do. My email box is empty. There's no one asking me any questions. My phone isn't ringing, so I go home at 3 o'clock. I open a bottle of our favorite wine, Belle Glos Pinot Noir. I pour a glass. I get in front of the TV. I turn it on, and I turn on “Ellen.” I had become addicted to daytime TV during this phase of my retirement-- or semi-retirement.

JODY ROLLINS: And so you don't know me that well, but you can imagine how great that was to come off of a hard day's work, bags of groceries in hand, in on two wheels, to find Mark sitting in the chair with an empty glass of wine watching “Ellen” and wanting to tell me all about it.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: [LAUGHS] So our vision of a soft landing in retirement suddenly seemed out of reach. We both started really bad habits. My engagement at work continued to falter, and it was a hard time for us.

JODY ROLLINS: Yeah. And you know, I came home one day in 2018-- so it's three years past original merger announcement, takeover announcement, and a lot of trials and tribulations-- and I just said to Mark after a really terrible meeting that I was in and just not a healthy place for me to be, I said to Mark, you know what? I'm going to pitch an early retirement. You got to remember it's 2018, and I was 53 years old. And I put together a pitch for an early retirement.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: So we left. We both left December 28, 2018. That was our last day at work. And what did we do? Well, we ran away. We jumped on airplanes. We traveled the world for about seven months. We went everywhere.

JODY ROLLINS: We did. We went to Italy and Barcelona and London and a couple of weeks in Florence.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Oh, Florence was amazing and Lisbon, and then we went to Bora Bora for two weeks to celebrate our retirement. That was at the end of that seven-month period. It was an amazing trip.

JODY ROLLINS: We were having a great time, and really this was what we thought our retirement vision would be. So we were really trying to live it out. We were traveling. We were entertaining friends and family. We were enjoying our second home in Connecticut. But then it became clear that that pace and those lifestyle choices were not sustainable.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: No. We were drinking every single night. We were going out to eat every night. We weren't cooking. We weren't exercising. We were really taking very poor shape of ourselves, and it was obvious.

JODY ROLLINS: It was. And then I had one of those realizations. So for maybe the women and men on the call-- but especially the women, I think-- I had one of my daughters come up to me and say, I've got an observation. You are no longer in any family photos. You're always taking the photo, or you're hiding behind somebody in a photo. Why aren't you in the photos anymore? We have a year with you not in photos. And it really struck me that I had to take a hard look. I wasn't feeling well. I wasn't looking good. I didn't have great self-esteem. We were just tired all the time. And we were retired.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: So with all this happening, our first grandson, Luca, is born. We have six children. And we realized that there's a good chance we're going to have more than one grandchild. So we needed to take a pivot. We didn't want to end up like my dad, who died at the age of 80 from poor habits.

JODY ROLLINS: So we started to rethink. What should the next 30 years look like? And we changed our focus to really drill down-- this is the corporate background in me-- let's drill down on five things we could really work on. So we chose physical wellness, mental wellness, relationship, our spouse-partner relationship, and then how are we going to share our wisdom into the communities to give back.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: So over a 12-month period, we went through all this change. And people, our friends and our kids, noticed the change. We looked better. Our relationship was blossoming. Our life took on a whole new meaning.

JODY ROLLINS: And as people were asking what we were doing, we offered to help them. So, hey, we have these five pillars. What do you do in these areas? And we started kind of softly coaching people. And then Retirement Transformed was born.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: And here we are today, five years later from that. We have online courses. We do one-on-one coaching. And most recently, a couple of years ago, started our YouTube channel.

JODY ROLLINS: It's definitely been quite a journey, but it's changed the way the next 30 years are going to look for us and how retirement in general looks for us.

JOAN WOODWARD: Well, that's a lot. And I think, just in my own life, thinking about traveling and eating around the world, having different wines, I mean, that sounds like this incredible thing. But you pivoted when you realized that wasn't sustainable, and I love how you talk about the next 30 years.

So, all right, everyone in my audience, we're going to ask you three questions because we want to know who's tuned in today. And then we're going to dig into the new lifestyle Mark and Jody have created for themselves. So first polling question coming up now.

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The questions do not appear on the screen. 

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All right, so be honest on all this. This is all anonymous. 

When are you considering retirement? In the next year, next 12 months or so? In the next five years? In the next 10? Or you just don't know? Or maybe you're scared to retire. We're going to dig into that, too. So short term, medium term, or long term. It'll give us a sense of our audience here. And the tips and tricks we're going to offer them.

OK, so it looks to me like about 60% of the audience is either going to retire in the next year or the next five years. So we'll say in the next five is 60% of the audience. But we also have about 40% or so saying in the next 10, or they're really not sure. I love to speak to the people who are retiring in the next year, which is 20% right there. So we're going to talk to those folks immediately because you guys have to pay attention because you want that healthy lifestyle that Mark and Jody have created for themselves. 

OK, next question. So let's see that next question. Here we go. How are you feeling about retirement? I can't wait. I'm counting the days, the hours down. I'm very nervous. So this is me. I would choose this. For anybody who knows me, I'm very nervous about thinking about retirement. And then the last category, I could also put myself in this one. I don't want to retire because I think I have the best job in the insurance industry.

So 35% of the audience say they can't wait. They're counting the days. Sixty percent say they're nervous. And I'm going to add 60% to the 7% and say 70% of us on this call are either nervous about retiring, which is why, of course, you're joining our call, or saying they don't want to retire. So very interesting. And thank you all for joining today. We had 5,000 people sign up for this webinar. So it's clearly important.

All right, next question-- last question for everyone. How do you plan on spending your time during retirement? So you can choose as many as you want. So this is not a one-shot deal. What are you going to do when you retire? What do you think you're going to do when you retire? A lot of people, obviously, taking care of the family, just chilling out, maybe traveling. Focusing on your health, which is an excellent one-- I'm glad to see that category is up there.

Getting involved in community. As you all know, we have a Citizen Travelers platform now that we talk about civic engagement being so important. And so I'm glad to see the half of my audience says they're going to get involved in community. Seventy percent, you guys, say travel and chill, which sounds to me like your first seven months, the travel and chill part. Sixty-two percent say health. Not a lot of people are thinking about starting a new business, so only 13% of the audience.

So why don't you guys spend a minute and comment on-- again, you're talking to people who are going to retire between, say, now and five years. Look at what they think they're going to do. And then speak to the 70% of my audience say they're nervous about it.

JODY ROLLINS: You know what? That doesn't surprise us really at all. A lot of the people that we talk to, a lot of the clients that we have, start from a nervous position. Because even though you can chart your course and you have control-- and we've all started saving for retirement since the day we started working. So financially, we've climbed mountains over the years. I know my 30-plus years at Chubb, I climbed those mountains. So that part is working. But the fear is what am I going to do every day? I love that you had a big percentage say get involved in the community.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Yeah, that's good.

JODY ROLLINS: Because volunteering, building community, finding new community is just a head start on people who don't want to do any of that. And we do have clients that tell us they don't want to do any of that. So it's a real juxtaposition.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: And I think I just want to validate that if you are afraid, and you're fearful of it, that's OK. That's how you feel, and you should be OK with that. The thing is to figure a way through that fear. There's a great book that we love called “The Way of Transition” by William Bridges. And it's a fantastic book that talks about, particularly for us, when you leave retirement, you have to leave something behind before you can move into something in the future. But you really need to design that. Otherwise, you get stuck in the middle.

And I was there for 10 years. I was in between leaving my job as the CEO of the Rollins Agency, working for Brown & Brown, figuring out what to do next. You just get confused, and you have to get clarity around retirement for sure.

JODY ROLLINS: And when you're in that middle, it's messy. Any transition, there's always a messy middle. As long as you have a plan on the other side, that seems to get easier. The other observation I'd make, Joan, is it's great that there are people on this call that are one to five years out. That's really when you want to start thinking, communicating, looking into hobbies.

Heck, I was a senior executive at Chubb. I didn't have a lot of hobbies. I also have six kids, so hobbies were not a thing for me. I played the occasional round of golf. But I didn't have a lot of hobbies, and it terrified me that I was going to end up in retirement with nothing to do.

JOAN WOODWARD: Yeah. I think a lot of people on this call would say that. They may have golf. And now everybody knows I have golf as well. But having that outside kind of life, you don't because you're so busy working. You're on the road all the time.

I want to talk about transitions because you guys had two transitions. One, your first transition was that first seven months of what you thought your 30 years was going to look like, which is, again, traveling the world, doing all the things that you just thought would be amazing. And then your second transition. So how difficult was it to overcome the first transition, leaving jobs? How was it your phone not ringing or maybe your BlackBerry-- BlackBerry.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: BlackBerry?

JOAN WOODWARD: Come on. No, but you had that BlackBerry. I'm sure you had that BlackBerry.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: We had BlackBerrys. We did. Listen, I got into business before there was fax machines and all that. I had a Hagstrom Atlas that I used to try to drive around.

JOAN WOODWARD: Right. So talk about your transition and how you-- maybe individually. I don't want to talk about the “Ellen,” opening a bottle of wine, because I think everybody can figure out how that went. But how did you get over that?

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Well, listen, the first Monday morning-- for anyone who retires, if you retire on a Friday or whatever day it is, the next day you wake up, and there's this confusion of joy and freedom and fear and concern. And it can really affect you in a bad way. And it does affect a lot of people in a bad way.

So, first, you have to realize that you're entering a new phase of life, and something needs to change because you're not going to have the job to go to. You're not going to have that community. And I think there's a couple slides when we talk about this stuff. But your life dramatically is changing, like, in an instant. And it's really hard. It's really hard to get through that first stage of what do I do now?

JODY ROLLINS: Right. I mean, for me, when I tell you, I loved my job, and I loved the industry and I loved my teams, I-- that gave me so much fulfillment in my life. Now I love my kids, and I love my husband, and I love my new puppy and all that. That gave me some fulfillment, but I wasn't built traditionally to get all my energy from that. So I had, as a female leader, a huge void-- a huge void because I thought, when I leave, they're all going to call me. They're all going to still need me.

I mean, I was in the middle of two or three deals. I tried to wrap up everything I could. But I'm sure my phone's going to ring. And I will tell you, I probably spent a week or two sitting there thinking, today's the day. Today's the day. They're going to all call me because they all need advice on something. And literally, life goes on for everybody else. And I felt the hardest part of that transition for me was that isolation.

I was a working mom. I didn't have a whole lot of social networks. I just said I didn't have a whole lot of hobbies. So I really kind of bumbled around during that first week or two thinking, well, what do I do? Well, I'm going to get a Peloton. OK, so I'm going to be on my Peloton. Now I'm just going to be on the Peloton all the time. But just really trying to find out, what happens next?

JOAN WOODWARD: So let's talk about-- you obviously struggled with this, as I'm sure many on the call today are thinking about how they're going to struggle with it. What would surprise my audience to know about your transition. And what would-- may surprise my audience?

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Because of how bad it was, or how we got through it?

JOAN WOODWARD: Either.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: I would say that what might surprise your audience is that we worked hard at getting through this phase of our life. It takes energy. It takes effort. It takes research. It takes researching about yourself. It really takes a lot of effort to find this passion, this fulfillment, this reason to get up in the morning every day. That doesn't happen naturally.

You just cannot-- this whole thing about retirement, it's not about, and it shouldn't be about, retiring from something. You have to retire to something. So maybe that's the big “aha” here. You've got to figure out what you're retiring into, or you will be lost for a long period of time.

JODY ROLLINS: I will tell you the thing that surprised me the most is that as I was counting down to retirement, the things I couldn't wait to have stop. Flor was my assistant, and there would be a line of people at my office before I got in in the morning. And I'm thinking, my calendar is packed. I had no control over this. I've got all these deals and all these things happening. I thought, I can't wait to not have that. I couldn't believe how much I missed it.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: You were stuck with me.

JODY ROLLINS: I really couldn't believe how much I missed it. And we weren't TV people. But as I did start to do some research, some surprising things really came to roost with us, like people over the age of 65 watched 38 hours of TV a week.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: On average.

JODY ROLLINS: They create that to be a full-time job. And I knew that was something we weren't going to be able to-- that wasn't going to be it for us. And, yeah, it's easy to get a cocktail with friends at noon and then have a glass of wine before dinner. Before you know it, you're-- and I'm a calorie counter, so I was like, well, geez, that's a lot of sugar going in every day and then not sleeping well at night. So I was surprised-- most surprised at how much I missed what I thought I couldn't wait to get rid of and how isolated I felt just in my own world to charge my own plan.

JOAN WOODWARD: So let's take the pivot. So you had the seven months or so. You went through that transition. Then you decide to start a business. You're starting the Retirement Transformed. What motivated you to build a business? You used the word, I did a lot of research, which, of course, sounds like me. It sounds like-- Jody, we could be sisters, I think, Jody, because if you're going to be good at something, you want to know what's out there in terms of your research. So what motivated you to build a business? And why don't you guys just start with that-- and the process.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: So we're retired. So we're retired. We're struggling a bit. We're sitting across from each other having coffee three or four days in a row, and we start to Google retirement planning, retirement lifestyle, retirement everything. And 99.9% of what came up was financial planning. And we didn't need that. We had a financial planner. We were financially independent now. We could last the next 30 years doing whatever we wanted to do within reason, of course. But there wasn't any help beyond the numbers.

So that's when we started just to create schedules for ourselves, how to bring habits into our life. What are some healthy habits? And the research pivoted from retirement lifestyle to just being healthy. And we took all of that and started to build good practices for ourselves, which ended up turning into an online course and some coaching. So it really was the lack of resources out there that caused us to create something. Because, again, my dad was an inspiration. I didn't want to go down the same path as him, and easy to do that.

JODY ROLLINS: And full disclosure-- when we first started this business-- because I'm a researcher, Joan, because I need to know facts and figures and studies-- I went back to the University of Pennsylvania and took a course in Applied Positive Psychology. I felt that I had such a corporate hangover, and I was so not an entrepreneur, and I so didn't see the world glass half full, I needed to rejigger my mind. So I went and took a course at Penn. And that was my first entree in.

Mark started the business. He was off and running. And I was like, you know what? I need to find some centering. I need to get more-- I need to get smarter. How do I become an entrepreneur? I'm a corporate girl. How do I become an entrepreneur? And this-- when I engaged with the folks down at Penn, I got a real good boost of energy around building a business together.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK, so just why don't you just tell us-- assume my audience knows nothing about your business. So tell us exactly what does Retirement Transformed do for people?

MARKHAM ROLLINS: So we are a consulting company. We have some online courses that people can buy to take them through-- our premier course is an 11-week course with 11 weeks of videos, 30 worksheets. It really helps people from beginning to end figure out what to do in retirement. And it's great, and that's sort of a core product that we have.

We do one-on-one coaching. We do some speaking. But really it's evolved into our YouTube channel, which we started a couple years ago as a "let's try it and see what happens." People kept encouraging us, and it's turned into a legit full-on business, which is really cool.

JODY ROLLINS: It is. It's fun. I mean, it's funny to our six kids that are age 38 to 25. They think it's funny that we think we're YouTubers. But we put out content a couple of times a week, and it becomes a way that we can spread the message.

So we really built the courses and the course work around the fears that we were investigating that clients were coming to us on, things like I feel isolated. I'm lonely. I don't know what to do with my 40 hours a week. I don't have good relationships. Suddenly, I was CEO of everything, and my wife doesn't want me, or my husband doesn't want me, to set the table because I don't do it right. Whatever it might be. So we started to build this course around what we were hearing and what we were doing research on, around the fears people had in the retirement lifestyle.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: And the YouTube is completely free. So we put up free videos. There's almost 300 videos in there on all of the things we've been talking about, everything non-financial.

JOAN WOODWARD: Wow. You guys are busy. Three hundred in five years?

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Yeah.

JOAN WOODWARD: I've done 100 webinars in three years; 300 is a lot. OK. So I took a little peek at your Retirement Transformed webinar. And you talk about there's five key focus areas. I want to go through each one of these. So my audience members, this is where we're going to get smart about a smart retirement and a fulfilled retirement. Let's talk about the five areas and just literally go slow. Go one by one, so we can take notes.

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Slide, The Five Retirement Pillars. Text, Overriding theme is building community. 1. Physical Wellness. 2. Mental Wellness. 3. Relationships. 4. Spouse slash Partner Relationships. 5. Wisdom Sharing. 

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MARKHAM ROLLINS: Well, physical wellness is obvious. It's really taking care of your body. And it's really the starting point and the No. 1 part of living longer and healthier. So that is probably the most critical area for all of us to spend time on. 

JODY ROLLINS: And really, this is the time in your life when you can do that. You can set benchmarks. You can talk to your doctor. You can talk to a nutritionist. You can talk to a naturopath. You can kind of get a baseline as to where you're starting. And no more do you have the, I don't have time. I don't have time to go to the gym. I don't have time to go for a walk. I don't have time to build muscle over bone, which we all have to do as we age because if you fall, you want muscle around your bone.

So Mark and I really decided that physical wellness was going to be the No. 1 pillar that we wanted to focus on. Now, I'll tell you, I was a college athlete. I was an All-American lacrosse player.

JOAN WOODWARD: That doesn't surprise me. OK? That doesn't surprise me.

JODY ROLLINS: So I love being active, have always loved being active. But like many people during your career, you kind of use the time excuse. I realized at this phase of my life that the way I used to get cardio or get stretching or build muscle, now that I'm 58 years old, it's not the same. It doesn't work the same for me anymore. So I had to take my whole physical wellness program-- and Mark did the same thing-- and then we rejiggered it so that we were doing what was actually working better for our bodies. And for me, that became 90 minutes of hot yoga every day. And that changed my physical wellness.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: The second pillar, mental wellness.

JOAN WOODWARD: Wait. Mark, I'll stop you because Jody said something that I think maybe some in our audience may not know about. So you said you talked to your doctor, talked to your nutritionist, and then you used another word that I didn't recognize. So Jody, who else did you talk to?

JODY ROLLINS: Our naturopath.

JOAN WOODWARD: What do they do?

JODY ROLLINS: We actually have a naturopath doctor that does deeper blood studies, deeper saliva studies, and helps you actually work with your diet, your exercise, your hydration, your electrolytes, your macronutrients. She helps you wean yourself away from what we would call lifestyle drugs.

So Mark had-- for example, Mark was pre-diabetic. As thin as he is, he was pre-diabetic. And we were able to utilize her help with a Mediterranean diet to get him off of and out of the pre-diabetic stage and off of those meds.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. So for my audience out there, if you are just joining us in the last couple months, every January-- go back and look-- every January, I have a healthy eating and exercise-- just when we start to slip from our New Year's resolutions, I remind us in late January about your health. And so go back and look at our webinar from last January and make sure to sign up for our January webinar 2024 because I have a real surprise about nutrition, health and exercise. It's going to be very fun. That's at the end of January. So I'm just giving a little teaser for that. OK, Mark, No. 2.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Cool. Mental wellness. This is really critical. And I think especially for men. I don't know. I want to get serious for a minute. But the highest group of people in the United States that perform successful suicides are men over the age of 65. And that's a staggering number to think about.

And it's really because men tend to get isolated more than women. We don't build community as well as women. We just want to figure it out ourselves. We want to fix it ourselves. We're OK being alone. But then when you're alone for more than two weeks, then it's chronic loneliness. And it's one of the worst things for you because it exacerbates kidney disease, heart disease, all of that, high blood pressure. So meditation, journaling, seeing a therapist if you need one. You've got to really take care of your mind as much as you do your body.

JODY ROLLINS: And this is a really good, again, a good time of life to do that. I was never-- Mark was always a really good journaler. I was never a really great journaler. I mean, I'd sit down to journal, and one of the six kids would need something, or the dog needed to go out, or I had a call that I had to take. So I always had excuses for why that didn't work for me.

And I really put my mind to a meditative state before yoga. I would meditate 15 minutes, do my 90 minutes of yoga, and come home and journal. And that became a solid morning routine for me. And routines are what I was used to. I mean, I was all about routines raising kids and working in corporate America. So I needed to find a routine that was healthy. And that mental wellness piece was a really big missing link for me through all my corporate years. I probably would have been a better leader if I had worked on my mental wellness more, and I'm sure my teams would agree. [LAUGHS]

JOAN WOODWARD: Yeah. Thank you for being honest. I think that's probably true for a lot of us. So thank you.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Relationships. This is another critical area. The overriding theme of what we try to do with our clients is talk about community, building community. But when you walk away-- when I walked away from my job at Rollins and then Brown & Brown, I had thousands of relationships-- clients, teammates, insurance company underwriters, centers of influence. I mean, I had thousands of people that I was in touch with on a regular basis. And that ended that last day. And you find yourself without really any relationships.

So we take people through a process of identifying your key relationships, getting those back on track, how to meet new people, how to build coffee time with friends. You have the time. You need to use it to build your relationships because humans are built to be in good relationships. And if you have good, solid relationships, then you're healthy.

JODY ROLLINS: And you know, it's funny. Relationships are kind of thrust upon you during your career. And in your mind, you can say, like him, don't like him, like her, don't like her, respect this person, whatever. You go through it. But they're all there. And they're feeding you one way or another.

This is a time in your life-- and we work our clients through this idea of really, what are the relationships you want to nurture? What have you failed to nurture? Identify that to yourself. Be honest. Where can you do better? And where do you need to just kind of let some relationships go-- the toxic ones that don't bring you value anymore? I mean, you're not mandated to sit in that meeting with these people anymore. Do you need them in your life?

And I know that sounds harsh. But this is your time, the next 30 years, to be with and do the things you want to do. So the relationship module that we run people through is a really interesting one with a lot of self-reflection.

JOAN WOODWARD: I love that. I really do love that because, as you say, we work with so many people when we're in our jobs, and you get to choose when you're in retirement who is going to be a healthy and positive impact on your life. So I love that.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Spouse/partner relationship. If you are in a marriage, or you're in a close relationship, when one of you or both of you retire, it is treacherous times, my friends. It is a recipe for disaster. The divorce rate in America is down, but gray divorce, those getting divorced over the age of 50, is up dramatically from 10 years ago.

We are not marriage therapists. But I will tell you that, over the last five years, we have spent so much time with each other reading and with therapy trying to find the best way for us to get along. We're getting really good at being couple relationship experts because we make all the same mistakes a lot of you guys make. But we're working really hard to make sure that we don't, and we're getting-- and the key there is wide-open communication and trust and vulnerability.

JODY ROLLINS: Yeah. And you have to remember, work was kind of this interesting outlet. Mark would get up, and we'd have coffee, and then he's out the door, and then I'm out the door. And then there was a soccer game or a lacrosse game or something. Then I'm back at work. And then roll in with dinner. And next thing you know, it's 9 o'clock, and everybody's tired. You didn't really spend those 24 hours together.

But when you both retire, it is like cold water on the face 24 hours a day, seven days a week of being together. And you realize that, for example, I am a huge reactor. So you want someone to run up the hill with you, Joan, I'm your girl. I'm ready. I'm always on the move, ready to go. That doesn't work very well when you're in a conversation that's looking for a response.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Or not a response.

JODY ROLLINS: Or not a response.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: You just want to share what's on your mind. So this spouse/partner piece--

JODY ROLLINS: So we had to learn a lot of tools.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: --is really, really important. And then the last one, wisdom-sharing--

JOAN WOODWARD: Wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait. I have a lot of questions. While you guys were chatting, I was looking at the Q&A. And a lot of people want to know-- and you guys kind of retired together. You sort of retired separately a little bit because Jody kept working a little bit longer. But a lot of people are afraid to say it out loud, and I'll just say it, that one spouse retires, but the other one is not ready. So one is trying to think about their 30-year retirement plan, and the other one could be still on planes and constant meetings and having this fulfilled life through work.

So how do you counsel and think about that? Because it sounds like those two paths are on a collision course. Or at least not even on a collision because they're not even together. They're on a "two ships passing in the night" course. That's my first question. And then the second part of that-- well, answer that one first. So what is your kind of tips and tricks for the person who wants to retire and then the person who doesn't want to retire?

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Well, there's two components there. There's the basic relationship part. So I don't know what is new. If they both worked, and one retired, the other one didn't retire, the one who's at home now and retired, that person is going to build a life for themselves all on their own. And the person who's still working won't be part of that life.

So, the tip is you've really got to communicate openly to each other. The one who's at home sharing what they're doing and always leave a little bit of space in there for the working spouse so that you still have some kind of connection. I mean that's a short-- I mean, it could get longer than that. But that's one tip, I would say.

JODY ROLLINS: Yeah. And I would say there's always those ways to plan independent activities that you do alone and then plan. Let's plan for that date night. Let's plan that we're playing tennis on Saturday morning with the neighbors. Let's plan so that there are also those opportunities for camaraderie together so that you have some joint activities that aren't just talking about the finances or who's going to do the grocery shopping or those type of things.

One thing I would tell you, Joan, in that situation, the person that's still working-- and there's research behind this-- has a dysfunctional thought that now that you're at home, you're going to do more at home. The person that's retired says, now that I'm here, I'm going to go build my life in my community and find my hobbies and find my purpose. And there's a big disconnect which comes around the most basic things like household chores. And that's where we see a lot of heads get butting. Well, you are home all day, you couldn't take the can to the curb? Whatever it might be.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. I'm very guilty. I'm guilty on that. I'm guilty. I told my husband, look at the front yard. Get that Weedwacker out. You're working from home, and I'm traveling. So, OK, a little oversharing. One other thing you said on the relationship, and we're going to go to one last thing on wisdom-sharing, but intentionality. And I picked up that you're very intentional about building this relationship as a couple now, a couple who's together all the time. So I want to just raise the word intentionality. OK, let's move to No. 5.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Wisdom-sharing. I truly believe that everyone on this planet has something for them to do that's much bigger than themselves, and they might not even know what it is yet. And there's this voice we all have in our head for our entire life that's saying, you should do this. You're like, I'm never going to do that. You should try this. I can't do that.

(DESCRIPTION)
We return to the side-by-side videos of the speakers. 

(SPEECH)
In retirement-- before retirement, you need to start journaling and listening to that little voice to find out maybe there is something I could do. Maybe it's writing a book. Maybe it's volunteering. I mean, everybody should volunteer at some point to help others. 

So the wisdom-sharing component really is taking all your gifts and talents that you’ve accumulated for the last 66 years for me and regurgitating them and using them to help others. And for Jody and I, it's our YouTube channel. That's our form of wisdom-sharing. We research. We regurgitate. We test it. We try it. We fail. We success. And we share it with everybody.

JODY ROLLINS: The other thing I would say is in the wisdom-sharing bucket, that is the most fun place to put yourself out there. So for example, I wanted to put myself out there as a mentor. And I mentor in a couple of different women's groups. But I went to the University of Hartford and said, in your business class with your juniors, seniors next year looking for jobs, any way that I could be a professor for the day? They could give me-- and you would be shocked at how many colleges, university, community colleges, high schools would love a business perspective, any business perspective at all.

A woman who was in business in the late '80s in New York, let me tell you, it's a little different than where we're sitting today, and isn't that good? And those type of things. So we reached out to the University of Hartford and did that, gosh, for a year with their emerging business class, and that was just a blast. We have six kids, but they don't take our coaching quite as well as some of the other kids. [LAUGHS]

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. So those are the five pillars. And I think you have an offer for my audience, a special offer. So anyone out there multitasking, listen up. This is going to be fun.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Yeah. One of the things-- products that Jody and I created was a seven-day challenge. It's really a seven-day kick-start for your retirement. And we normally have this online for, I don't know, $39 or something like that. But we worked with Joan and said, we're going to give that to all of you on here for free. There's going to be a link in the comments.

JODY ROLLINS: There it is.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: If you click that link and register-- you have to give your email-- you'll have this seven-day challenge. And it's Jody and I for seven days pumping out a training video in the morning with a worksheet and then a follow-up video at night for seven days. And you can have this thing forever. You can use it as many times as you want. So if I was you, I would get it because it’s free. And it really does help you start to think about the five pillars and how you want to kick-start your retirement.

JODY ROLLINS: Right. And I think the worksheets that are in there give you a good sample of some thought-provoking questions, which I think we all need around each one of those topics.

JOAN WOODWARD: I just love it that you're giving us homework. I mean, honestly, you are corporate, corporate, corporate. OK. I like it. We've got homework and tasks to complete. I love the seven-day challenge because, you know what? It's digestible. It's a nugget. It's not like I'm committing to a whole-year plan or something like that. So thank you. We really appreciate that offer for our audience.

So I want to get into what you've learned from your clients over these years. So people are living longer, into their 70s. They're very active. People are healthier. How is retirement different today than it was maybe for our parents? And obviously, Mark, we understand your dad's situation. But my dad was a coal miner for 42 years. He retired, and he probably had 10 years of retirement because he was a blue-collar kind of guy. And his retirement was wonderful. But how's it different today for us?

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Well, because of health care and because of other things you can do for longevity, people are living longer, and retirement is longer. And I think a lot of it's in your mindset. So for all of the pillars that Jody and I have, we create-- help clients create a vision.

So, my physical wellness vision is so simple. It's just that I will be physically independent at the age of 90. So that vision is what gets me to meditate in the morning, to exercise every day, to eat right. So if you're doing that, you're going to live longer, and you're going to feel better.

So knowing that, that I'm going to live to 90, or even 100, what am I going to do for those 30 years? That's a long time. If my career was 38, and my retirement was 30, what the heck am I going to do? So you've got to have a plan to figure out what to do. And work on your health so that you're healthy as long as you can be.

JODY ROLLINS: And we're not preaching. We're consulting and helping. So it's got to be what works in your world, wherever you are in your mindset, to begin to open those doors to say, I can do these things. I do have the power to control what I'm eating, what I'm meal prepping, how far I'm walking. Mark and I invested in Oura Ring so we know what our heart rate is, our temperature is, how well we slept, how much deep sleep did we get? How hydrated are our bodies? So we're really deep into it because that's important to us.

But, Joan, what we work with our clients on is what's going to work for them. We had a client who was a Chief Custodial Officer of the school district that we were in in New York. And he said, you know, I don't have time to exercise. I said, do you have time to take a walk with your wife? He said, I'd love to take a walk with Debbie. I said, well, why don't you walk 10 minutes one way and 10 minutes back. They're up to an hour and a half one way and an hour and a half back. And they have the most amazing chats while they're doing it. So it's really what works for you.

JOAN WOODWARD: That's great. My husband had a challenge for me. I didn't quite make it. But he did 100 miles of walking in May of this year. And so we had like a little toilet paper ribbon when he was coming across the gate. Everyone was there kind of cheering him on. So that was fun. I tried to join him as much as I could on that.

OK, a lot of questions coming in from the audience. I love getting to my audience questions. So, here's a big one. How do you know when it's time to retire? So, I don't want to think about 62 or 65 or any of those numbers in anybody's minds. What's the right time? How do you advise your clients how to tell when the right time is to retire?

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Well, you might not know. So I think the first thing is, look at your finances because that's kind of an important triggering event. And if you don't have enough money and you still need to work three or four more years because your financial consultant told you to do that, then do that.

But if you're financially set, then it's time to really start thinking about what do you want to retire into. Don't just leave for the sake of leaving, but really spend some time. And I think on our YouTube channel-- I know we had that on there. We have three videos-- 10 years to retirement, five years to retirement, and then your last year at work. And in there, there are some free download worksheets, checklists to really help you trigger what to do. So that might be a good place for people to start.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. Did you want to say something, Jody?

JODY ROLLINS: No. Well, what I was going to say is, if you're the fortunate one that you can choose your retirement date-- not your age, but your date-- you kind of know. Your internal voice is starting to tell you, I'm less interested in X, Y and Z. And I'm kind of tuning out on A, B and C. And these things aren't getting me jazzed anymore. And I'm financially secure enough to do it.

We have a lot of clients, unfortunately, through COVID, where retirement was forced upon them. And that's a whole different mindset shift that we have to go through and uncover and peel back and get rid of some of the hurt that comes with that.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. I'm going to pivot because this hour is just flying by. So I want to talk about your YouTube channel. But first I want to talk about you guys started a business. So a lot of people in the chat are saying, they didn't retire. They just started a new business. So I want to talk about that and how you advise clients about maybe just trying something new.

A lot of people know my story of trying golf. That was a new thing for me, a nearly 60-year-old person. Are you ever too old to try something new? And then I want to talk about your YouTube channel and social media marketing, which people-- older people like us, I mean, we have a hard time with social media. And you guys have built this incredible business, and I want to talk about that because if someone's building a business, they might want to build a social media marketing program. So go ahead and go on the first one.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Well, we just recorded a video-- we're recording a video tomorrow, “25 Part-Time Jobs for Retirees.” I think it's really important to work after your career. To play every day, seven days a week, without any work at all, which could be writing a book. I just finished writing my first book. I'm almost finished it. I didn't think I'd ever-- I always thought I'd write a book, but it would be about insurance.

Now I'm writing a book. It's called “The Evolving Man, Life Virtues Men Don't Talk About.” I mean, where did that come from? But I think everyone has a book in them, and everyone's got another career after this big career. So I'm a big fan of working through retirement.

JODY ROLLINS: And what I would say, I think if we could retire the word “retirement” and come up with something else. It's not like it used to be-- you retire and die. You've retired because you worked so hard physically that your body couldn't keep up with it afterwards, and then you would die. I mean, we're going to retire and have all these years.

So if we could get rid of that word and really just think of this as the next 30 years, the next chapter. I don't want to sound cliché, but something different than the word retirement. This is your next opportunity to do what fills your soul, what fills your cup, what makes your body tick, investing in relationships that feed you. I mean, now is the time, and you have 30 years. So I would say that, if we could just get rid of that word. Our marketing firm tells us we can't. So it's still in all of our literature, but--

MARKHAM ROLLINS: It's going to change. I do believe it's going to change over time. I think in high school and college, they will start to teach now about this third phase of life, and it'll have some structure to it.

JOAN WOODWARD: I love that. OK, you talked about social media marketing. We have a slide to show everyone. So for someone who wants to start a new business or a new venture, let's take a look at your slide here on social media marketing for a minute.

(DESCRIPTION)

A slide with a screencap of the YouTube page for Retirement Transformed. The banner at the top is blue and white and has a photo of Mark and Jody Rollins on the right with the text, New Episodes Weekly. Below it reads, Join Mark & Jody Rollins each week as we guide you in living a retirement beyond what you’ve ever imagined. Below on the left is the text, Retirement Transformed. @RetirementTransformed. 27.7 thousand subscribers. 249 videos. Tips on Lifestyle Retirement Planning that isn’t financial advice! If you are entering into or a, the text turns to an ellipse with an expand arrow on the right. facebook.com/groups/retirementtransformed, and 3 more links. A Subscribe button, a View channel stats button, and a Play icon button. www.youtube.com/@RetirementTransformed. Below are the Latest Uploads with a Play All button to the right. Text, Mark and Jody Rollins share conversations, tips, strategies and more on a variety of topics to help you transform your retirement. Video thumbnails are in rows below. The titles of the videos are, Retirement Tips You Can’t Afford to Miss! 20 Things To Say Goodbye to in Retirement, You won’t, title continues. The Transformative Power of Minimalism in Retirement. Why do People Struggle the First Year in Retirement? Don’t Let These Things Ruin Your Retirement. How to Decide if a 55 Plus Community in Retirement is, the title continues. Popular Videos, Play all. Titles, Why is Everyone So Tired in Retirement? The Top 5 Things Retirees Should Never Buy! Top Tips to Declutter Your Home for Retirement. 6 Ways to Improve Your Retirement & Life After 60! Instead of Downsizing your Home for Retirement, Try, the title continues. Declutter Your Home and Save Memories: What To Do, the title continues.

(SPEECH)
And then we're going to close the program with the five practical tips. So we're going to get to the five. Go ahead. 

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Listen. I never really watched YouTube. We started this in May of '21. We put up a new video every week through the end of the year. We had 180 subscribers.

JODY ROLLINS: Mostly family.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Mostly family. We did it again for 12 months. We had 1,800 subscribers. So we had 1,800 subscribers in January of this year. We just kept putting up video, and then something happened. And now we're about to get 30,000 subscribers. And we just crossed over 2 million views.

We're not YouTube experts, but we're learning. We're researching. We joined some masterminds. So I would encourage everyone, there's something out there for you if you have the time and the patience and a desire to learn. And it's a great time to learn. It keeps your brain sharp.

So, there's so much content on here. I mean, everything we talked about today, there's hundreds of hours of video and worksheets. It's all free. So go to it. We'd love to have you subscribe. That's kind of fun, but--

JODY ROLLINS: And it's free.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: It's free, yeah. Look around it at stuff. It's great. I think you'll really enjoy it.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK, I love that it's free. So I'm all about free. So take us to your five practical tips for retirement. And

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide, Our Five Most Important Retirement Tips. Text, 1. Plan well in advance of retirement date. 2. Get finances in order. Know what they are! 3. Communication and building community is critical. 4. Focus on health and wellness. 5. Build a new solid routine. 

(SPEECH)
I have to say, there's so many questions coming in the chat. I promise my audience we're going to have another webinar on this in 2024. We're going to invite you back just because the feedback is-- you're blowing up the website right now. So five most important retirement tips. 

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Well, the other thing, just to let people know, if you're on Facebook, Retirement Transformed has a Facebook community. We go live every week. That's free as well. Joan loves free. And we take all your questions all day long in there.

But five things. You have to plan well in advance-- five years, 10 years, 15 years. You've got to have some time to put together a plan.

JODY ROLLINS: And I think it's important, the second thing, get your finances in order. And by that I don't mean checks and balances, but know what they are because you will be in a different place with your finances now. You're no longer accruing assets. You're de-accumulating and working through it. A budget is really important. So you have to know what the finances are.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Communication and building community is critical. We talked about that a lot. Our communication is critical. On No. 4, we talked about that too. You've got to focus on health and wellness. It needs to take a front seat to everything and anything you do.

And the last one-- and some people criticize us for this, or they ask us why do we do this? We have pretty solid routines. And when we get our routines going-- and I'm up early, I'm journaling, I'm exercising. Jody's off to yoga at 5:30. We try to eat right. We have coffee every morning for 30 minutes alone, just reviewing the day. And when we're on point with our habits and routines, we're good. When we go off point, when we're on vacation, we get a little screwed up. But it's OK. We do it on purpose.

JODY ROLLINS: Or when Jody brings home a new puppy, like I did a couple of weeks ago.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Yeah, solid routines and good habits are important.

JODY ROLLINS: Yeah, those are the best five.

JOAN WOODWARD: Yes. No, I love that. I love that. And, yeah, I did that once to my husband. I brought home a new dog. And we ask for forgiveness later. We did not ask for permission.

So listen, the hour has flown by. You guys got an A-plus on content and an A-plus on delivery. And I mean that because I could tell, all of our listeners are still on the line listening to your content, and it's just fabulous. And I want to say thank you for sharing it with us because I think a lot of us are really nervous about this phase of our lives.

And I did take a course in college, it was called the Three Boxes of Life. I don't know if you read that book. But I didn't even read the third box because it's, like, oh, we'll get to that later. So I appreciate you having such an engaging way to deliver your content, and we're going to go look at those YouTube channels.

So I'm going to talk about a few upcoming webinars. But I want to thank you again. Any closing thoughts for our audience?

MARKHAM ROLLINS: No. We're grateful to be here. Download that seven-day challenge, and I think you're going to put the link in your follow-up. That's really important. Jump on the YouTube channel. Come to our Facebook community and ask us a question.

JODY ROLLINS: There's a lot of free information.

MARKHAM ROLLINS: Yeah.

JOAN WOODWARD: Excellent. Speaking of free, who wants a free lunch, who's in Dallas, Texas, on November 29?

DESCRIPTION
Slide, National Cybersecurity Education Tour. On the left is a blue map of the continental United States with Travelers umbrella icons over six cities, two on the West Coast, two in the Midwest, and two on the East Coast. The map is titled, Cyber: Prepare, Prevent, Mitigate, Restore (registered trademark). Logos, Travelers Institute (registered trademark), Travelers. Text, September 12, Atlanta, Georgia. September 19, San Ramon, California. October 17, Worcester, Massachusetts. October 20, Kansas City, Missouri. November 7, Bellevue, Washington. November 29, Dallas, Texas. A red button on the lower right reads, Register: travelersinstitute.org. 

(SPEECH)
We're having a cybersecurity symposium at the Bush Presidential Institute there in Dallas. So please join us. Register travelersinstitute.org for that cybersecurity luncheon. It's going to be delicious. And you're going to learn a lot. 

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide, Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series. Text, Upcoming Webinar: December 13 - Real Estate Market Update with National Association of Realtors (registered trademark). Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. A red button at the bottom reads, Register: travelersinstitute.org. 

(SPEECH)
And then our very last webinar for 2023 on December 13, we're going to talk about the real estate market, commercial real estate, residential real estate, the rental market-- with the Chief Economist of the National Association of Realtors. So, Lawrence Yun came on our show about a year ago, and that was another just A-plus on content, A-plus on delivery. He's a fascinating guy talking about real estate. 

So don't forget to connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm very active there. You can find all this great content as well. 

(DESCRIPTION)
Text, Watch Replays: travelersinstitute.org. Logo, LinkedIn. Text, Connect: Joan Kois Woodward. Take Our Survey: Link in chat. #WednesdayswithWoodward. 

(SPEECH)
If you have a second, take a survey for us. We'd love to hear from you. And again, thank you for your engagement. We're so highly excited to really see the engagement of our audience on all these sessions. So thank you so much. Have a great week. 

(DESCRIPTION)
Logos, Travelers Institute (registered trademark). Travelers. Text, travelersinstitute.org. 

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