Welcome to a new episode of  The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, where we explore useful ideas and different perspectives that can help you retire smarter. Do you have a clear picture of yourself in the future? What will you be doing in your life in retirement? Hal Hershfield is a professor of marketing and behavioral decision-making at UCLA. His research shows that getting to know Your Future Self can not only help you make smarter decisions to prepare for the future, but also benefit you in the present. His new book Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today examines the world of our future selves and how we can bridge the gap between our present actions and long-term goals - and why you'll want to develop a vivid picture of and a closer connection with your future self.

Hal Hershfield joins us from California.

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Registration is now open for the next Design Your New Life in Retirement group coaching program -- with Very Early Bird pricing. Limited to 10 participants.

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Bio

Hal Hershfield is the author of the new book Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today.  Hal is a Professor of Marketing, Behavioral Decision Making, and Psychology at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management and holds the UCLA Anderson Board of Advisors Term Chair in Management. His research, which sits at the intersection of psychology and economics, examines the ways we can improve our long-term decisions. He earned his PhD in psychology from Stanford University.

Hershfield publishes in top academic journals and also contributes op-eds to the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, and other outlets. He consults with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, many financial services firms such as Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, and Avantis. The recipient of numerous teaching awards, Hershfield was named one of “The 40 Most Outstanding B-School Profs Under 40 In The World” by business education website Poets & Quants.

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For More on Hal Hershfield

Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today

Website

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Happier Hour – Cassie Holmes

Chatter & Your Inner Voice – Ethan Kross

Retire Happy – Catherine Sanderson

The Gift of Gratitude – Glenn Fox

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Wise Quotes


On Visualizing Your Future Self

 


"...One is to try to really figure out ways that we can ramp up the vividness of our future self....what can we do to make that future self more vivid and more concrete and less abstract? One thing we can do is write a letter to our future self and then write a letter back from our future self. And I think I really want to stress the back part because it kind of forces us to step into the shoes of our future self and see the world through their eyes. Engage in some visualization exercises where we try to think about deeply what's my life going to be like? How will I spend my time? Who will I spend it with? Am I workin  not all the time? Am I traveling? What am I doing with myself? I think most people in the retirement space, in the financial planning space, they think of the future selves. It's not like this is a foreign concept, but it's always done at an implicit level. You talk about retirement, you talk about decumulation strategies, you talk about annuities, whatever. It's all sort of done in a very abstract and implicit way. But to like really bring the self back into the conversation, [ask] who am I? What am I going to be doing? That's where I think we can start to see some change in the way we really think about that period of time."

 



On the FIRE Movement



"And so, the question really does become one of harmony. How can I both live for today and live in a way that puts myself in a good position in the future? And there's no easy answer here,