Welcome back to my series on the great retirement book The Retire Sooner Method: The 5 Secrets Behind America’s Happiest (and Unhappiest) Retirees.
So far we’ve had the following posts in this series:
If you missed any of those posts, you’re going to want to go back and read them before you read this one, since today’s post is a continuation of the others.
And to make things extra fun, I’ll be giving away a copy of the book at the end of each post in this series, so be sure to stay tuned and read to the end if you want a chance to win a copy.
And there’s more news as well…Wes Moss has agreed to do an interview with me about this book.
We’ll be talking in a few weeks, which gives ESI Money readers a chance to submit questions ahead of time. I’ll review the questions left in the comments on my posts and include some of the best ones in my interview with him.
So if there’s something you’d like to ask Wes about the book, retirement, or any of the ideas he discusses, leave your question in the comments below.
Today we’re talking about Secret #3: social connections.
Anyone ever notice that this is part of EVERY retirement book ever written (at least the non-money-focused ones)? I guess it must be important!
I know I’ve gotten the message, which is why I included “building and maintaining strong social connections” as one of the items in my top seven retirement activities.
Regular readers know I’m not exactly the guy who needs a packed social calendar every day. I like people, but I also like peace, quiet, and time to do my own thing. That said, the evidence from retirement books, happiness research, and my own experience is pretty clear: some level of social connection is essential to a great retirement.
The key question is how much connection you need and what kind of connection counts.
That’s what we’ll dig into today.
Benefits of Social Connections
The book begins by talking about the various benefits of having social connections in retirement:
You might say that the other secrets behind the Retire Sooner Method ultimately serve this deeper purpose. Having enough money gives you freedom to build community. Your core pursuits provide structure for socializing. Good sleep keeps you awake and energized to maintain and nurture strong relationships. Even having a written plan reduces stress so you can focus on what truly matters: your family and your social network.
Regular social connections release oxytocin, the bonding hormone that reduces stress, boosts trust, and helps regulate cortisol levels, heart rate, blood pressure, and even inflammation.
Michael’s research shows that connection can literally reduce inflammation in our bodies, while loneliness activates the opposite response a threat response that increases stress hormones and slowly damages the body over time.
Of course, the right social connections can do these things.
The wrong ones could go the other way, I imagine.
Anyway, those are some pretty awesome physical benefits to being socially connected. We often think about friendships and relationships as emotional or mental-health issues, but the book is making the case that they affect physical health as well.
That makes sense to me. Stress impacts the body. Loneliness impacts the body. Feeling supported impacts the body. If you have people you enjoy, people you trust, and people who care about you, that can make life feel more secure and enjoyable.
And when life feels more secure and enjoyable, it’s not a giant leap to think your body responds better too.
Turns out that those with larger numbers of social connections are happier:
Americans who report one to two friends fall significantly below the US happiness baseline. Conversely, Americans with five or more friends are significantly above the baseline.
Our research shows that having three to four friends lands us close to the US happiness baseline. Statistically, 3.6 close friends is the tipping point. If you zoom out of the statistics, what that means for you is that it’s great to have three to four friends — it puts you solidly in the neutral zone. But clearly, when it comes to friendships, connections, and socialization, more is better. If you want to get you into that other fabled Green Zone, shoot for the five-plus camp.
Some thoughts here:
- In Wes’s past books, he’s said, “To be happy in retirement, you need at least three “CCs” (close connections), aka friendships. More is great, too, but three seems to be the magic number. Unhappy retirees have 2.6 CCs. Happy retirees have 3.6.” Now the number is five, so this went up just like the core pursuits number did. Though to be fair, you could still argue that 3.6 friends is the tipping point and five is more like the Green Zone number.
- In my interview with Wes Moss, I asked if family members count and he said, “Close connections are people that you trust, who love you unconditionally, and completely see you for who you are. This can absolutely include family members.” That’s good because family members make up my closest connections.
- As you’ll see when we move through this chapter, he also talks about social connections that are less developed, like golf friends or, in my case, people I know from pickleball. But he doesn’t really tell us what impact those have on happiness. Is it none? Is it some but not as much as close relationships? Other books have said weaker connections are important too, and I wish he covered them more here.
- The distinction between “close friends” and “social connections” matters. If we’re talking about people who know me deeply and would be there if something serious happened, that’s one group. If we’re talking about people I enjoy seeing, chatting with, and doing activities with, that’s a much bigger group.
- I’m not sure retirees need to be chasing a specific number as much as they need to make sure they don’t become isolated. Some people need a lot of close relationships to feel fulfilled. Others need only a few close relationships plus a larger circle of casual connections.
Next, he makes these comments, which opens things up a bit:
Once again, there’s more research that bears this out. Happy retirees (HROBs) are twice as likely as unhappy retirees (UROBs) to say they have “enough” close friends.
When we asked retirees whether they felt they had sufficient close personal connections, aka friends, 81 percent of happy retirees answered yes, compared to just 38 percent of unhappy retirees. Essentially, happy retirees are two times more likely to say they have enough close friends.
This isn’t about having dozens of acquaintances — or dare I say, Facebook “friends.” It’s about having enough meaningful relationships to feel socially supported and connected.
What the data suggests is that crossing a threshold of “enough’ creates a dramatic happiness inflection point. When you feel like you have sufficient close connections, everything else in retirement becomes more enjoyable, and happiness levels soar.
Ok, hold on one minute.
Do we need five close connections? Or do we need to feel like we have “enough”?
Because while I’m at four close connections, plus a gazillion less-than-close connections, I think I could feel like I had “enough” even if I had fewer. In fact, I think I could be fine with one or two, as long as they were the right one or two.
Anyone else feel that way?
So I’m not really sure what the benchmark is, but I know the following:
- I’m happy as a retiree.
- I have four close connections and many more connections that are not as close.
- I think I’d still be happy with fewer close connections, assuming those connections were very strong.
- I do think no one is an island, so it’s true we all need to be connected socially in some way.
- The “right” number is probably different based on each person’s unique situation, personality, family structure, temperament, and desired level of social activity.
This is where broad research gives us useful guidelines, but we still need to apply them personally. If you are a highly social person, two close friends and a few casual contacts might leave you feeling lonely. If you are a strong introvert, five close friends plus several groups and activities might feel like too much to manage.
The key is probably not hitting a magic number. The key is feeling supported, known, and connected enough that your retirement life does not feel lonely or hollow.
Making Friends
The book now makes several statements about various social connection issues in retirement starting with this:
Recognizing that friendship becomes more challenging with age means we can be intentional about addressing this challenge. Just like financial planning requires more effort and strategy as we approach retirement, social planning requires deliberate action to maintain and build the relationships that will sustain us.
In other words, you just can’t sit at home all the time and expect the world to beat a path to your doorstep in search of friendship.
No, you gotta get out there and do something. Almost anything really.
This is probably one of the bigger issues for retirees, especially for people whose social life was mostly built around work. During your career, you may be around people all day whether you like it or not (I was ok with it but it was tiring and I certainly didn’t “need” it.) You have coworkers, customers, vendors, bosses, employees, lunch meetings, conferences, and all sorts of forced interaction.
Then retirement comes, and that built-in social structure disappears.
For some people, that’s a relief. For others, it creates a vacuum.
That’s why I think it’s smart to build social connections before retirement if possible. Don’t wait until you’re retired, bored, and lonely to start figuring out where your people are. Begin testing activities, groups, churches, clubs, sports, volunteer roles, and community opportunities before you need them.
Next is this interesting tidbit:
Your social brain network is like a muscle. The more you use it, the more it grows. Every little interaction — even talking to the barista at Starbucks — is like getting on the treadmill for your brain. You have to keep working at it to keep your brain healthy, vital, and alive.
Again, I would have liked to see more discussion — or really any discussion — on friends we have that aren’t close connections.
For example, I play pickleball with the same group (for the most part) every Monday and Friday. Over the weeks, you get to know each other fairly well. Certainly better than I’d know a barista at Starbucks, a clerk at a grocery store, or a waitress at a restaurant.
And yet he’s talking about the value in casual conversations with strangers. Given those are valuable, aren’t semi-close or familiar relationships even more valuable?
I wish we knew, or at least had an idea.
A few thoughts on these “middle-level” connections:
- I think there’s a big difference between a stranger you chat with once and someone you see every week at pickleball, church, a gym class, a volunteer activity, or a neighborhood group.
- These people may not be close friends, but they still create a sense of belonging. You walk in, people know your name, they notice if you’re not there, and you share a common activity.
- For retirees, that kind of regular, low-pressure interaction can be very valuable. Not every relationship needs to be deep to improve your life.
- In fact, some casual connections are enjoyable precisely because they are not too demanding. You get the social benefit without the emotional maintenance of a close friendship.
- I suspect these connections are one of the big reasons group activities are so powerful in retirement. They combine something you enjoy with repeated exposure to familiar people.
And then there are these tidbits:
People with higher levels of wealth report that making friends is easier across all life stages. Americans with $3 million or more in assets are 38 percent more likely to say making friends is easy compared to those with lower asset levels.
Why is this the case? I don’t know, but I have a few guesses. Maybe it’s because wealth provides more opportunities for social activities joining clubs, traveling, dining out, entertaining at home. Maybe it’s because financial confidence can translate into personal confidence.
Again, I’m not sure. But this does give us one more reason to hit the financial Green Zone.
So the rich get richer in many different ways, huh?
Personally, I think this is the key: “financial confidence can translate into personal confidence.”
If retirees with $3 million are more likely to be happy, which we know from previous posts, then it seems likely they would make more friends. That assumes happy people make more friends than unhappy people, which I don’t think is a huge leap of faith.
There’s also the “wealthy people do more things” point of view. If you have more money, you may have more opportunities to join clubs, travel, dine out, entertain, participate in activities, take classes, attend events, and live in places where social opportunities are easier to find.
So wealth may help in several ways:
- It can reduce stress, and lower stress may make people more open and friendly.
- It can create more opportunities to participate in activities where friendships form naturally.
- It can increase confidence, which may make it easier to initiate conversations and invitations.
- It can allow retirees to live in communities with built-in social infrastructure, such as active adult communities, clubs, fitness centers, and organized events.
- It can free up time because financially independent retirees are not working simply to pay the bills.
Of course, money does not automatically create friendships. There are plenty of wealthy lonely people. But I can see how financial security makes social connection easier to build and maintain.
Ok, we’re going to pause here for today as we have a lot more to go — which I’ll share next time.
For now, it’s time for another book giveaway…
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As I said above, I’m giving away a copy of The Retire Sooner Method on every post I do about the book. Here’s how to enter:
- Leave a comment below telling me what you liked best about this post, what you think you can use, or something you learned from it. Basically just share anything meaningful related to the content above (note: “please enter me to win” and similar comments will not be considered out of pure weakness! At least put a bit of effort into it!) This should be fun!
- Be sure to leave your email address when you leave the comment so I will know how to reach you if you win (the email address will not be visible to anyone other than me).
- The winners will be selected by me at random a few days after this post goes live. I’ll announce who wins in my own comment.
- I’ll email the winner, get their address, and send them a book from Amazon.
As with most giveaways, there are rules. Here they are.
Good luck!!!!
