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W four WN Radio. Well, hello and welcome to Fearless Fabulous You.
I am your host, Melanie Young, and I'm delighted that you're joining me
on the Women for When network. You can hear all my shows anytime on
demand on your favorite podcast channel. I think I'm on like over fifty or
sixty now, including the big ones. iHeart Spotify, Apple. I enjoy
inspiring women around the world and you listeners to live your best life at any
Asian stage, and today we're going to talk about. My theme is I
don't want to live forever. I just want to live my best life now
and with no regrets. So lately I have been feeling a little sensitive about
my age. I turned sixty five this year, twenty twenty four. And
it's not that I feel old, because I don't. I frankly call myself
Melanie Forever Young because I feel young and I feel awesome. But it's just
sometimes the way people treat me. And I am going to bring this up
because I talked about it at my last show last week and I was turned
down for a job because I was trying to get a job after being an
entrepreneur, because I was told, oh, you're overqualified and you probably not
going to be comfortable reporting people who are younger than you. Well, no
one really, you know, don't assume anything about me. If I say
I'm comfortable doing something I put, you know I am comfortable. I'm confident
in saying what I say and comfortable in how I feel because I'm comfortable in
my own skin. So don't judge me for what I appear to be or
if you think I'm too old, because that's not the way it should be.
And you listeners should not be judging people as well, because we don't
really know what's going on, and we don't really know people's capabilities and amazingness
until we get to know them, and I'm finding a lot of people just
don't take the time anymore to get to really know people. They just look
at what's there superficially, what they see, how someone dresses, maybe their
social media, but they don't really take the time to dig in deep to
get to know people. I do because I have a show where I interview
people all the time, and I make it my point to get to know
them and understand them before I have long conversations with them. I used not
to do that when I was younger. I was much more superficial. I
was so busy getting work, bringing in business, doing the work, making
clients happy that I ever really got to sit down with my clients to get
to know them and ask them how they were doing. It was just too
busy making sure that we were fulfilling whatever the job was for them. But
now, given time and reflection, I realized that it is important to have
that human connection and to think of people you work with as people and not
employers or products or clients or whatever. We're all people. So what's interesting
is I do a lot of research online about people and topics, including retirement
and difference between an annuity and an investment fund, and all those things you
need to be more serious about when you grow up. Actually you should be
more serious about them when you're younger, but boy, when you're older,
you do get more serious about them. And so now my online inbox is
being flooded with marketers who are targeting me with retirement pitches and articles. Many
are about the best and worst places to retire. So evidently New Orleans,
the city that I've just chosen to move with my husband and have settled in
and the door, is one of the worst places to retire and live.
Thank you, Chattanooga, Tennessee. My childhood home where I just left,
is supposedly one of the best. So I'm bucking the trend. I'm always
been ahead of the pack. I go against the trend. Maybe I make
good decisions, maybe I don't, but I do what I feel is right
for me at the time I'm in and right now, I'm very content because
I have many friends in New Orleans, and I enjoy its diversity of culture,
food, music, and beauty. It's more or less affordable, except
for the crazy insurance. And now if I can live through a hurricane season,
I'm doing okay and I'm pretty happy, So I really have to stop
turning on the computer early in the morning and seeing this influx of ads telling
me where I should be living and what I should be doing and how I
should be investing my money because I'm getting a lot of annuity ads as well,
and people keep telling me what I should be doing online because of my
age, and I don't really want to hear it unless I ask for it.
I don't need your opinion unless I ask for it. So I'm learning
just to tune out and turn off and find incognito ways to search for things,
and you should too. No affiliation, but I hear duck Duck go
is a good one for that. So here's the reality. According to the
US Census Bureau, by twenty sixty, which seems like a lifetime away,
but it's not, total life expectancy in the United States is projected to reach
an all time high of eighty five point six years since nineteen sixty. The
largest gains in life expectancy occurred around between nineteen seventy nineteen eighty and an increase
about three years. And statistically women outlive men, so I'm more likely to
outlive my sixty year old husband who's five years younger than me. Reality check.
So we are living older. And I remember my mother told me she
was lying in bed in her final days and weeks and months. I never
planned to live past eighty, and therefore my finances didn't go that far.
Well, we are living longer, hopefully or not, depending on what happens
in your life. And we, most of us, have not planned for
that. I'm getting that clear and loud in my inbox. So what do
we do well, I'll be honest with you. Sixty is the new forty,
seventy is the new fifty. Age and gender should not be factors when
selecting someone for a job, or or a partnership or anything. They shouldn't.
You shouldn't judge people by numbers. You should judge it by who they
are and how amazing they're in what they do, and how they can be
a part of your life. Pragmatically speaking, we have to think beyond that.
So you know now that I've gotten that off my chest, that young
people should not judge elders as too old, and older people should not consider
younger people as an experience, and we all should just appreciate eight people for
who we are at any age, because I got to tell you, I've
had some really amazing young people teach me things about computers I didn't know,
and I have great respect. And I've been able to teach a lot of
younger people about how to be effective communicators, which they don't seem to know
because they're too busy community depending on the computer or on the mobile phone.
The point is everyone should be considered amazing at any agent stage of their life,
and we should never be judgmental based on appearances, names, locations,
or anything. Keep an open mind, an open ear, and an open
attitude, and opportunities will open for you and for others. Okay, so
I figure reality check, I have about ten to fifteen more years left of
my life to live, hopefully all thement good health. So that's about eighty.
I don't really care if I lived much longer than eighty, and don't
think that's like a big no in negativity. I really don't care. My
father died at seventy one, my mother died at eighty eight. Both outlived
their financial means and died in poor health. I don't want to follow in
their footsteps. I want to die in good health and in good financial situation
and just live every day happy. But if I could write a letter to
my younger self and sit my younger self down, I would give her some
advice that I'm going to share now, so I wouldn't make the mistakes that
I made earlier in youth, included too much spending and saving enough. Planning
for the future seems a lifetime away when you're in your twenties and thirties,
but boy, planning it when you're in your sixties, that is like a
life sentence. It's challenging when you don't have the means to do it the
way you want. So what do you do? Younger self? Not so
younger self. You can do it at any age, but this is what
you need to do first. If you are in a situation, if you
are younger and you're starting to earn money, set aside money, put it
away, get an IRO way, if your company has a matching funds,
roth Ara, whatever, do it. Take advantage of every benefit you can
because it will save you money and it can make you money. Just do
it. And if you end up becoming self employed, get really good tax
advice on how to save money, and you know, write off what you
can, because it's not only about making money, it's about saving money.
And some of the millionaires in life are people that lived humbly and frugally and
saved. They may not have made a lot of money, but they lived
humbly and frugally and saved and invested wisely. That's why Warren Buffett, the
Oracle Omaha, still lives in his ranch house. That's all. My grandfather,
a CPA by trade, lived in a ranch house, was frugal,
shopped at kmart, looked like a farmer in jeans every weekend when he did
his gardening, and he died with a lot of money in the bank.
Who knew. So if you're in a situation where maybe you're like me,
uh, where you spend a lot of money and you lived well and everything
was great, but now you don't have as much money as you'd hope,
what do you need to do well? First of all, I want to
be very clear, I am not a financial certified financial planner. I am
not a financial advisor. I'm not any of that. I'm a human being
that's trying to make good based on what she has left in the bank and
how many years left she has of her life and reflecting back on what she
could have done and realized that she can't go there now. So she's got
to just figure it out as it is right now. Okay, I made
a lot of money, I spent a lot of money. I wasted a
lot of money. I lost a lot of money. That's in my past.
No, I got to look at my present and think about the future.
And that's what I'm saying to you. Don't look back and say,
damn, what a dumb ass I was. Just move on. You can't
shame yourself or what was. You got to just blame yourself and what could
have been. You just got to look forward and say, Okay, one
foot in front of the other. So one. So I made a tempt
checklists from my last ten to fifteen years in my life. Okay, and
again, it's not morbid. I'm accepting it. It's cool. First,
take a hard look at what you're spending on a monthly basis and an annual
basis, and figure out where you can cut back. The first thing I
cut were things I really enjoy clothes, shopping and dining out. That was
hard because I just love both of them. It's not that I denied myself
any of it. I just cut back. It's not being the queen of
denial. It's about being a better navigator and being more strategic about how you
spend your money. Right. So, if I'm going out to dinner,
I want to go out with dinner with friends, so I can use that
time to visit with friends, not just sit with my husband, which I
do every night at home. If I need to buy clothes, I make
sure it's because I need to replace something that I'm going to throw away or
donate and need to replace, not just go out and buy willy nilly just
because I'm in the mood. I've also identified, and you should too,
spending habits week moments. So many of us have week moments. Mine are
usually after dinner and a few glasses of wine and I'll get on the computer
and bingo, I maybe spending. So I've learned turn off the computer after
dinner. Don't go shopping after you've been sipping. It can get sloppy and
messy. So that's number one. Okay. Two, I cut up my
credit cards and only have two, one I use regularly in a backup,
and I try to pay off my balances monthly to avoid fees. I also
use more cash, although many businesses prefer debit cards. Yes, I've said
a budget. The budgets are hard to follow sometimes, but I do the
best. But at one point in my life, I think I had like
ten credit cards. Nobody needs ten credit cards. That is just like having
ten pieces of candy interview and want to eat all of them. It's not
good. So I cut them up and I'm actually going to turn them into
works of art. Because my parents had like fifty credit cards and I found
them all and I kept them and I'm going to now use those to create
works of art collages. This is why not, you know, repurpose.
So I'm trying to cut back on credit card use or use it for only
essentials. Third, I reviewed recurring charges on my bank and credit cards and
canceled almost everything because there are so many recurring charges and you have to sit
down and go, am I really using that recurring charge? Am I really
using that service? Am I really reading that magazine? Probably not, So
I cut back on a lot of it. I'm getting ready to do it
again, because sometimes you just sign up for stuff on a trial basis and
the next thing you know you've got recurring charges, So read the fine print
when you sign up for free trials and freebies, because half the time you're
signing up for a long term commitment and sometimes it's hard to get out of
those. That said, I use auto pay for things like utilities and insurance
so I never fall behind because that could be deadly. And I also ask
when I'm negotiating insurance plans or other services if there's a discount for prepayment in
full. That happened with my car insurance. I got a discount for paying
a full and I'm glad I did, although it's still expensive. I also
ask for bundling. If I do my homeowners or rental with my car,
can I get a discount? So I think about negotiating discounts. Speaking of
when you're over, I learned when you're over sixty sixty two sixty five there
are a lot of discounts ask. Don't be afraid to ask. For example,
if you were going to the National Park Service, great example, they
have a senior lifetime pass. I think it's eighty dollars. For eighty dollars,
you can go visit any national park in the country. That's a great
deal. There are museum passes like that where if you buy one pass you
can go visit museums all over the country. They have partnership programs, so
ask there's discounts for seniors or special partnership programs because you can get multiple deals
that way. Same with gas, same with apparently shopping. Certain days at
supermarkets they have senior days at certain supermarkets, so ask. And it's also
bookstores like probably not Costco, but maybe Target, Walmart. Wherever you go,
say what offers do you have for people over sixty, sixty two,
sixty five, whatever the age, Always ask because there are deals to be
had. Today, there's autumn Zoo in New Orleans where I'm living, there's
free day you can go to the zoo for free. So also ask what
days are free? What days are local days? If you live in a
city where they have specials for locals, really some of the best ones for
that, or museums, chain restaurants, airlines. Do you know that if
you go on line, say Delta or Kayak, you can put in that
you're a senior and potentially get a senior rate to toe with your hotels like
Mariott Bomboy has a senior rate. Don't be embarrassed or afraid to ask.
Just do it. You can get amazing discounts. That's one of the best
things about turning sixty, sixty, two, sixty five, whatever the age
is, and sometimes it's as low as sixty. You have to ask.
Okay, so that's four. Ask about discounts. Don't be afraid to ask.
Ask about bundles, Ask about is there a discount for cash payment,
Ask about if there is a discount for full payment on certain high ticket things.
Just ask. So insurance, don't scrimp on insurance, but negotiate hard.
This is im four. I think it's four. I do a lot
of price shopping on insurance, whether it's health insurance or I'm renting versus buying.
That's a whole other topic for another show. Property insurance, health insurance,
life insurance. Just do your homework, and remember you can get discounts
if you stay with one company, but you know, shop around, call
five companies. Take the time and do it because you can get amazing deals.
I'll give you an example here in Louisiana. I decided, even the
renting that I want to flood insurance. Why because there's a lot of floods
in Louisiana, and if this house floods, I want my property to get
some insurance coverage, not my owner. So I do you know. I
called three companies and got three prices that ranged in about a three hundred dollars
difference. Three companies, three prices, same insurance, three hundred dollars difference.
Obviously I went for the lowest one. So price shopping can take time,
but it can really pay off because remember it's not about how much you
make, it how much you can save and how much you can keep.
So don't scrip on insurance. Negotiate hard and don't give up. Maybe take
a few days to do it, or just sign up for six months so
it advise you time to keep looking for the next six months, et cetera.
And remember auto pay sometimes can create discounts for you. Not necessarily pay
my phones. Always ask if there's convenience fees if you're paying by phone,
for example, because those sneaky convenience fees are really annoying. And how do
I know? Because my mother loved it just pay things by phone. She
thought that was more efficient, quote unquote efficient. And when I came back
to Tennessee to take care of my mother's finances. There were so many problems.
Besides, who's still paying for AOL? And nobody pays for AOL?
And the recurring charge have been going I think for over twenty years, she's
been paying for AOL, go figure and numerous other recurring charges. She was
paying convenience fees left and right because she was paying by phone, and I
said, we got to stop that, because convenience fees are not anything you
need to be paying for. You know, you shouldn't be penalized for paying
by phone. That's the silliest thing ever. So always look out for pesky
convenience fees you should see. You should have a good tax advisor and a
good financial advisor, and start with a moderate savings or investment plan, knowing
what your threshold for risk is. Frankly, I'm still sorting this through,
and I have not had in my youth, I had a bad situation or
two with people who didn't give me great advice. So I'm a little gun
shy here. But I'm doing my due diligence. I'm setting up meetings with
people, I'm listening, and I'm not saying too much don't share too much.
Just listen. Be honest, but just listen and ask to speak with,
get testimonials you know, don't and you know what, don't put all
your eggs in one basket. Maybe you work with different advisors and you test
them out. You know, you don't have to be loyal to the same
people all the time. You need to move around if you have to.
You know, plant your seed in different areas and see where the plants thrive
and grow better. If I could speak with every young girl starting out life,
and even as young as when they start earning an allowance, I wouldn't
underscore the importance of learning to manage your own finances, save early, and
never ever ever give up financial independence. I don't care if you marry the
love of your life and he's a financial wizard. I don't care if it's
your dad and you trust him with all your heart. You become financially savvy
and manage and keep a separate account for yourself, and don't rely on anyone
else to take over your finances. One hundred and fifty percent. You have
to be in it to win it, and you have to know and ask
questions and read statements and ask questions and read more statements and don't stick stuff
in baggies like my mother did. And read statements and ask questions and don't
say, oh, I hand this over to my husband or my partner because
they know more than me. You have a capability of knowing as much as
anybody if you put your mind to it. And there's plenty of free advice
online. You don't have to listen to it, you don't have to take
it. You could just listen, inform your own opinion, and then get
a very solid, trustworthy and trusting financial advisor to help you. It's so
important, so important, and I can tell you firsthand. I've seen disasters
occur when women have lost everything because they didn't ask questions and they didn't have
frank discussions with their spouse. And frankly, I still go there with that.
My husband is still a testing area here in our my own home.
So you know, push you need financial independence. So once you have I
think this is number six. Once you have financial security and assets, get
a will drawn up. You're never too young to have a will because you
could die at any age. Contact a lawyer or I contacted Legal Aid in
Tennessee and met with a nice guy, But get a will. Drop that
so that you know what's going to happen to anything you own, your a
estate, anything. Even if you don't know how, you still have a
state. You need to plan for your inevitable death. Planning for your inevitable
death is important. It's investing your life. Because if you don't have a
will, and you're of legal age, so you're an adult, it's different
if you're a kid, if you're like sixty five, not having a will
means that a state is intestate. That means the state where you live,
where you lived, will take over and decide how this spense of any assets
you have, which could mean nexicin, but could it mean other things.
There's no control and your last wishes that you never bothered to express because you
were too busy doing other things besides getting a will, we're never granted.
Did you know that Aretha Franklin the Great died without a will. I mean,
there's some really amazing people making a lot of money that you look up
to and they didn't bother to get a will. That's the stupidest thing ever.
And also, don't just put the will away, which you should in
a lock box. That's fireproof. You should have different multiple copies and want
online, but also review it from time to time. So when I moved
to Tennessee and started taking care of my mother and then she died and I
realized that she was in my will, the first thing I did was contact
Legal aid and say, I need to change my will because I needed to
update it and take her out of it. And also I needed to think
about things like I don't have children, what's going to happen with anything I
do have left? Where do I want it to go? What would happen
if my husband and I died together? That was a big one. A
lawyer said, you've not made any provisions to address what would happen if you
and your husband, David died together. Well, I was a big one
because I left everything to David. So you need to think about every scenario.
And you are never too young. When you're an adult and you're starting
to earn income and put money away and have investments and maybe buy house,
you should have a will. Okay, enough said, I think this is
eight or seven lost track. So another thing you need to have is a
healthcare proxy and a legal power of attorney. Particularly the older you get.
But you know, if you have a health if you have a health condition,
it's super important. Okay. My first health care proxy came when I
was diagnosed with breast cancer and in the hospital said do you have a health
care proxy? Well, I was like, no, but I'll get one.
I guess it's my husband, David. If I had been single,
it would have been my parents. So again you have to keep that updated
because if you're single in your healthcare proxy as your mom or dad and they
pass away, then you don't have a healthcare proxy. So you also have
to think about when changes happen in your life and when life changes for you,
what documentation do you need to change with it. So a good example
is having current health care proxy and legal power of attorney in the event that
you become ill or incapacitated. And again, that could happen at any age
or stage in your life. Hopefully not when you're young, but god forbid,
you're in a our accident and you're in a coma. Who was going
to be your health care proxy and your legal power of attorney if you cannot
make decisions? This person or person should be a trusted family member, a
friend or counsel. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I needed
to resort to showing my power of attorney documents when dealing with my own mother's
health and finances as she entered the final two years of her life. It
was on file. I had to send it to credit card companies, I
had to show it at hospitals. I had to go to the banks,
I had to go to insurance companies. I had to show it every step
of the way with her my power of attorney and in our case, we
had a co power of attorney. We had two powers of attorneys because my
mother didn't trust me completely, but it was used a lot. So think
about who was going to be your power of attorney if something happens to you
and you cannot make decisions, and it really needs to be somebody you trust,
and if you don't, they need a copower of attorney so they have
to make decisions together. Same as I said with health care proxy, that
is super important. Next, and I believe this is eight unless I have
a bonus, create a blueprint of your life and key accounts, passwords and
locations of major documents, both print and online, and make sure this information
is routinely updated. Wow, I can't say enough about this, because when
my dad died, we can access his phone. When my mom died.
Fortunately, because my dad died, my mother didn't have you know, she
didn't think about getting his computer passwords. She didn't think about getting access to
his phone, so she couldn't contact anybody in his phoneless to say he died.
People didn't know my dad died because my mother didn't know where his friends
were because she didn't know how to find them online or in the phone.
But it could be worse than that. What if you can't access to your
loved one's bank account, or there's stock account, are there insurance account or
their utilities built? I could go on and on and on. I am
telling you passwords need to be in a secure place, and they need to
be updated regularly, and may a couple. I'm the worst at updating passwords.
I'll get frustrated updated password and then forget to put it into the document
I've created. So try to as much as if as much as you make
regular hair appointments, and you keep detailed documentation of other things in your life,
get documentation in writing on the cloud, in paper, and a secure
file of all your accounts. And there are a lot of them. I
mean, you know, I made a listen to my accounts. There's go
Daddy from my computer. There's Ascuma or my software. There's technology accounts,
there's phone accounts, there's insurance accounts, there's utility bill accounts, there's you
name it, and of course there's access to phones. There's access to social
media. How you access social media. What if you want to take somebody's
social media down because they're dead, You don't want to make it immemorial.
What if they've been hacked. There are so many accounts you need to create
a detailed list by category, technology, insurance, utilities, banking, investments,
magazine subscriptions, all the things you're paying for, somebody's got to deal
with if you're not able to take care of it. Super super important.
Next, be very clear and put in writing what your final wishes are.
And I'm not talking about a will, well, I've already covered that.
I'm talking about how you want to spend the final years, months and days
of your life. Okay, this is important because I'm seeing and I have
a lot of friends who are now caring for elderly parents and the onlyly parents.
You know, usually there's a sibling fight. But what are we going
to do with mom? She's really old and she's you know, really like
losing it. What are we gonna do with And Mom may not really know
what she wants to do, But usually mom wants to stay at home because
moms never really want to go with the assists of living. Moms or dads
just want to stay at home and have a nice life. My mom never
wanted to leave her house. She made it very clear to me. She
wanted to live and die in her house, very clear. So you need
to have a plan, and if you have siblings or family members that need
to want to be involved, make them part of the discussion. Don't make
unilateral decisions about what you're going to do with mom or dad without consulting with
the rest of your family, because I trust many of you may have differing
opinions that also have that conversation with your parent. So one of the best
conversations I have with my parent is that my mother and my father both sat
down with me and they were very clear about how they wanted to live the
last days of their life. One they did they wanted a DNR do not
resuscitate if they became totally incapacitated. My mother did not want a feeding tube.
This was a tough one. It had put her into rehab after she
fell. She did not want a feeding tube, but she did want to
be kept alive if she was still mentally capable. So feeding tubes are very
different from being mentally capable, very different. And at one point I kind
of got nervous when I was signing all these documents as her power of attorney,
and I had to go into the room and say, Mom, I'm
a little unclear about this. Do you want a feeding tube if you're unable
to eat? What do you want to have happened? And it was not
awkward, it was important, and she answered and I felt more comfortable putting
my initials down as a result. But I wasn't sure. But have that
very clearly in writing. So what do you ask them? What happens if
you become incapacitated and incapacity It could mean several things. It could mean I
can't feed myself, I can't dress myself, I can't shower, I can't
walk. So there's those physical things we call normal activities. I think there's
five that are concer you're disabled. There's like five. I think it's feeding,
walking, dressing, showering, bathing, using the bathroom if you can't
go to the bathroom yourself, or you can't get to the toilet, or
you need a you know, special potty under your butt. Those are things
where you will need help. You can't do them yourself, and you if
you qualify, those could be covered by insurance or Medicare or medicaid or whatever
you're on. It's a whole other topic. But it's different when you're becomes
your mind. You may be physically okay, but maybe your mind is going,
what do you want to do? If your mind is kind of in
and out but you're still functioning, you're just not functioning at high level.
You need to kind of create degrees of what do you want to happen?
If what would you feel more comfortably than have that conversation? And then look
at the financial ramifications. Can you afford putting your loved one in a assisted
living? Do you have the means? Because you better have money put away
or start socking money away for that, or have a long term care plan,
which I could go on and on about the pros and cons of that.
But do you have the resources for that, because if not, you
may have to sell the home that your loved one's in so that person can
move into assisted living. There's a lot there. I mean, what if
they don't have a homework, if they're renting. I'm renting now, so
I don't know what's going to happen to me. If I have to go
into assisted living. Probably i'll die. I'll probably just go to Switzerland and
do assisted suicide. I know that's more ad, but then bother me again.
I don't want to live my rest of my life out sick and poor.
Bingo had that conversation while your loved one is still mentally capable. It's
awkward but necessary. My mother actually sat me down and not only made it
clear that she wanted to live out the rest of her life and her house
no matter what, and we did it, no matter what, and it
cost us a small fortune, but we did it. But she also laid
out her wishes for her funeral, down to where she wanted to be buried
and what the music was and who would cater it. Because my mother left
to plan parties at nauseum and I'm proud to say we honored all of it.
We really did, and I'm glad we had that conversation. I took
notes down to what she wanted read at the funeral and we did it,
and I filed it, and when she died, I pulled it out and
bingo, I followed her little checklist down to the tea. So what happens
if, like me, you don't have children or heirs, Who do you
want to be your legal guardian? If there's no one to care for you?
Well, I don't know. David and I talk about that all the
time. I mean, if something happens to me, David'll be there,
and somebody has David, I'll be there. But if we go together,
we've already I've addressed it in my will. I don't know if he's addressed
in his, because we have separate wills. But I know what I plan
to do. I plan to leave a lot to charity because I really don't
have family members. I have friends, I live this and that too.
But if I get incapacitated, plan B, as I said, is to
figure out where I can go to just say I'm done and move on to
the next world. I don't have a fear about that. I have a
greater fear of being unable to care for myself and have nobody care for me.
So you have to think about that. Who will care for me if
there's no one there? And do I care if it's time to go?
You know, sometimes it's just time to go. But you got to have
that writing, put your final wishes in writing, and update it if you
change your mind. Yeah, because you can't change your mind, but do
update it. Make sure people know where it is, because if you don't
know where it is, then people won't know how to take care of it.
So yes, I figure I have ten to fifteen years left in my
life. As it is, I am trying to live more consciously about not
spending a lot of money figuring out how to make money. I'm still pissed
it I got turned down for the job because I'm apparently too overqualified, too
old. But that's not going to stop me from doing other things. And
I'm brushing out my resume, but I'm also brushing up a sales kit to
go out and sell myself as an amazing consultant to help people better figure out
what they want to do with their life. Because I'm good at that and
communicate those their capabilities to people and help them grow and build. So I'm
dusting that off. I'm going to dive right in. Hopefully somebody out there
is going to sponsor this podcast, because that's really what needs to happen,
Bingo, and I'm going to stop offering free promotion to people on this show
who are getting paid and making money. I do charge for some That's why
I do more single shows now, because I'm tired of promoting other people who
are making money off my back. So I'd rather just share my own interest.
And I only say that to you now because you need to be very
careful of your value and your time when you're talking to people as well.
Okay, so yeah, I have ten to fifteen years of my life over
That means officially lived more than well over half of my life. Wow,
I've lived more than half my life and now I have about ten to fifteen
years left. That's about six thousand days by the way I calculated, maybe
six or seven I don't know. So does this mean the best parts are
over? Well? In some ways, I do believe that's true. I
had a great successful business, make of money, live the New York,
creating impact of programs, Live the High Life, Lived the Best Life,
didn't save a dime, and now I'm paying the price for it. But
I also did new things. I created these shows, this one and my
other one Connected Table, I've shorted writing, I've connecting with people in other
ways. I don't work as hard, and I'm using the time to explore
other areas of passion, including travel and connecting with people in a new way.
So I never want to rest on my laws, and you should not
either. Yes, I had a former life and you probably did two,
and it was fabulous. But we cannot live in the past. We can
only live in the moment and make the best of the time we have and
what remains of it. And you have the potential to do new things and
try new opportunities and spend and grow in new ways if you choose to.
You just have to be open to this and never say I'm too old,
I'm too tired, i don't have enough money, I can't do this,
blah blah blah. Sure you can't, or you can at least try.
If you try and it doesn't work out, then move on to something else.
Wash your hands and move on, which leads me to my final point.
Maybe it's ted, maybe it's love, and maybe it's twelve I've lost
count. It's this. Saving for the future is important so you have long
term security, as in long term financial security and human security. People you
know you can trust on to be there for you when you really need them.
That's saving. But spending on what really matters is also important. Spending
time doing things you love, going out and doing things, and not denying
yourself. If you only have ten to fifteen more years of your life,
why are you denying yourself things that bring you joy? What are you saving
for You've already you know, So spend on the things that really matter and
bring you joy. And if you want to take that special trip because you
only live once, just do it. Just do it. Don't just say
oh, I'll wait a couple more years, because that's a couple more years
may not happen, that opportunity may not pass its way again. You need
to seize opportunities. I'm a big opportunist. You know. Some people see
the glasses half full, others see it half empty. I drink the glass.
That's called opportunist. You drink the glass and just do it because you
never want to say, with regret, if only I had done this,
said this, tried this, experienced this. You never want the words if
only I wish I had, I should have would have cout a I wish
I had if only you never want to say those. Regret is the worst.
You know, guilt is bad, Regret is equally bad. You never
want to feel guilty, but you never want to feel regretful that something happened
and you didn't seize the opportunity to take advantage, and it could have been.
I never I regret not having a great conversation with my mom. I
regret not seeing my friend before they were walking. You know killed. You
know people, people live and die at all ages, and you know you
just want to live with no regrets. So I leave you in this episode
with two poems versus. They're not poems and versus. The first is from
the great poet John Greenleaf Wittier. The saddest words of all said, words
of tongue and pen. The saddest are these. It might have been.
Let's add this thought and to this verse it might have been a great deal
worse. I love that, But now I add my own verse by Fearless
Fabulous Melanie Young and maybe I'll become a poet after this. Live for today
with no regret, be prepared for challenges you have not met. Life is
never one way set. Your future can always be even better yet, so
live a life full and with no regret. And with that I leave you
to ponder what you're going to do today that's going to make your day awesome,
and what you're gonna do and say to someone to make their day awesome.
Beau's not only about making you feel good, but making people around you
feel good. Live a full life with no regret, and remember this,
You can choose life to live on your terms. If you choose, don't
let people choose your life for you. Stand firm, stand for what you
believe in, and remain the fearless fabulous you you deserve to be at any
age and any stage of your life. I'm Melanie Young. Please follow me
at Melanie Fabulous on Instagram and Fearless Fabulous Melanie on Facebook, Twitter, I'm
Mighty Melanie and visit me at Melanie youong dot com and take time to listen
to my other show, The Connected Table, which I host with my husband
David ransom. It's all about eating and drinking my passion. Thank you for
joining me and have a fabulous day.