Am I ready to retire? Should I stay or should I go? Who will I be if I retire? Planning for retirement brings a plethora of questions to ponder. Esteemed LA Times columnist Steve Lopez shares his year-long exploration of these, and other questions, in his new book Independence Day: What I Learned About Retirement from Some Who’ve Done It and Some Who Never Will. His journey included conversations with a wide range of people with different perspectives on retirement that informed his own decision on whether to retire, keep going - or do something else. The observations and insights can help you retire smarter - in a way that's right for you.

Steve Lopez joins us from Southern California.
Bio
Steve Lopez is a California native who has been an L.A. Times columnist since 2001. He has won more than a dozen national journalism awards for his reporting and column writing at seven newspapers and four news magazines, and is a four-time Pulitzer finalist for commentary – in 2012, for his columns on elder care; in 2016, for his columns on income inequality in California; in 2018, for his columns on housing and homelessness; and in 2020, for purposeful pieces about rising homelessness in Los Angeles, which amplified calls for government action to deal with a long-visible public crisis.

He is the author of three novels, two collections of columns and a non-fiction work called “The Soloist,” which was a Los Angeles Times and New York Times best-seller, winner of the PEN USA Literary Award for Non-Fiction, and the subject of a Dream Works movie by the same name. Lopez’s television reporting for public station KCET has won three local news Emmys, three Golden Mike awards and a share of the Columbia University DuPont Award.

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For More on Steve Lopez

Independence Day: What I Learned About Retirement from Some Who’ve Done It and Some Who Never Will

The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

The Unretirement Life – Richard Eisenberg

The Emotional Side of Retiring – Kate Schroeder

Purpose & a Paycheck – Chris Farrell

If You Love Your Work, What Challenges Will You Face in Retirement? – Michelle Pannor Silver

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Are You Ready to Retire?

How prepared are you for the non-financial side of retirement? Take our free quiz.

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How to Win the Retirement Game

(It Might Just Be the Most Important Game of Your Life)

What Readers Are Saying:

           “Definitely the best book I’ve read on the non-financial aspects of retirement.”
           “I wish I had this book when I retired.”
           “…the book is amazingly readable, and chock full of insights.”

           “This is the book I didn’t know I needed after retiring!”

           “This is a great gift for anyone anticipating retirement years or already in the thick of it.”

Amazon    Barnes & Noble    Bookshop.org

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Wise Quotes

On the Transition to Retirement

"...there are a lot of things that surprised me. One thing I had not given a lot of thought to, and I was persuaded by among other people, a woman by the name of Nancy Schlossberg, who is in her nineties and lives in Sarasota, Florida. I hope her house is still there after the storm. She talked about how much thought should go into this time in your life, because this is a huge transition. And it's not just going from work to not working. There's a transition in every aspect of your life and your relationship, say, with your spouse, or with your colleagues who will become former colleagues - do they still have time for you? Have you developed enough friendships, hobbies or causes that when you do finally leave your job and have all of that extra time, do you know what you're going to do with it? Do you know if it's going to be fulfilling?