‘What comes next?’: Kobe Bryant once gave life advice to retirees when their employment income dries up — said maxing out money shouldn’t be top priority. What the NBA legend did instead

What comes next?

Despite his immense fortune, Bryant was acutely aware of the fact that financial success is never guaranteed. “Once you retire, you don’t have that source of income that’s coming in, right?” he said on CNBC. “So even if you saved over a 15-year career, if your spending habits remain the same, eventually that well is going to run dry.”

Nevertheless, Bryant was determined to ensure that his post-retirement ventures had less to do with making money and more to do with what he was genuinely passionate about.

“The question needs to be, ‘What comes next? What can I do? What is my passion?’” he said. “Not where I can create the most value or generate the most revenue. But what is my next passion? When you find the next passion everything else will make sense, but that’s the hardest part for us [retired athletes].”

Despite the challenge, Bryant eventually found ventures he was as passionate about as taking jump shots on the basketball court. In the few years between his retirement and untimely death in 2020, the “Black Mamba” had already set up a $100 million venture capital fund, pursued several investments and won an Oscar for screenwriting and narrating the short film “Dear Basketball.”

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Lessons for non-NBA legends

For most investors and savers, retirement is the ultimate goal. However, few people make concrete plans for the post-retirement phase of life.

Data suggests that Bryant’s approach is justified. Retirees should focus on not running out of money and working on something they’re really passionate about.

A significant 47% of retired Americans say their living expenses are higher than they anticipated, according to a survey from Schroders. And 68% of these retirees rated outliving their assets as one of the top concerns they face.

Meanwhile, another survey by NewRetirement, found that the top challenges facing retirees included missing work, getting bored and feeling irrelevant.

It seems that the key to a truly blissful retirement is to find a source of income from a personal passion. Earning money in retirement from side gigs or passion projects is now more common. Nearly 1-in-5 Americans over the age of 65 were actively working in 2023, double the ratio from 1987, according to Pew Research.

While there is a very real chance for some of running out of money in retirement, it can be avoided by setting yourself up with a straightforward and simple plan of action — including what you’ll do to find satisfaction and motivation. With that established, you’ll not only have the funds to enjoy a comfortable retirement, you can rest assured that you’ll be setting yourself up for the richest kind of retirement of all.