Most pre-retirees and retirees feel understandably ambivalent about seeking financial advice. While building up our assets is simple enough, transitioning into retirement ratchets up the stakes, risks, and complexity. We know we need help. But we also know, or we can at least sense, that the Retirement Advice Industrial Complex will do and say almost anything to get us to buy, and most of what they're peddling is toxic waste. Many people in the industry are decent-but it's a distorted system rife with troubling conflicts of interest due to the prevailing compensation models.

In the pages of this book, I lay out key retirement, tax, insurance, and investing strategies in an approachable and practical way. I also show you how to weave those threads together, all while avoiding the most costly and problematic products.

And I don't stop there. Having a great plan (with great products) is not sufficient on its own. So, I also show you how to cultivate a feeling of relaxed confidence in your financial life-a feeling that eludes all too many.

Be the Bird is a simple, approachable roadmap for both solving your financial puzzle for retirement and learning how to remain relaxed and confident for the long term.