Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders, MBA - Interview with Ben Green Co-Founder of Ready2Retire & Author of Retire Rich in the New Economy

Episode Date: September 1, 2026

A native of Columbia, SC, Ben is Co-Founder of Ready2Retire™, the leading retirement planning firm for people who want to retire with confidence. Ben greatly appreciates customer service and client satisfaction, honed from over 20 years of experience, and is recognized nationwide as a top retirement, insurance, Medicare, and Social Security planner.He has over 2,000 clients and has educated over 10,000 people. Ben is also President and COO of Insurance Advantage, an employee benefits agency he co-founded 13 years ago. Ben has previously served as COO of a human resources staffing firm and as Vice President of Asia and Europe for an American software company.Ben has extensive experience in economic development and consulting and worked as a Business Recruiter for South Carolina. Since Ben opened the Japan office in 2012, South Carolina has received over $2.2 billion in investment. In 2014, he was hired to write the Strategic Plan for the State of South Carolina.Based on ten years working overseas in Japan, Brazil, & Spain, he wrote the Amazon Best Seller The Global Superstar: How Your Students Can Develop an Advantage over Global Competition to help students prepare for careers in this changing economy. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Finance from Morehouse College, an International MBA from The University of South Carolina, and certificates from UNC and Temple University.He’s conversant in Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish. He has served on numerous boards, including the South Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities Association, the SC Chamber of Commerce, and the Columbia (SC) Chamber of Commerce. He’s a member of the Nashville City Club and the Nashville Kiwanis Club.Ben splits time between his homes in Nashville, TN, and Columbia, SC, with his wife Kim, their two wonderful daughters Anna & Kate, and their dog Sophie. He loves traveling, spending time with friends and family, and helping his clients win.Learn More: https://www.ready2retire.netInfluential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-ben-green-co-founder-of-ready2retire-author-of-retire-rich-in-the-new-economy

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of influential entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have with us Ben Green, who's co-founder of Ready to Retire and the author of Retire Rich in the New Economy. Ben, welcome to the program. Hey, Mike, great to be back. Hey, I'm looking forward to talking with you because anytime someone comes out with the book, that means that there was a period of time in your business that you started seeing gaps of opportunity, of information, of teaching, of education,

and you're like, this story needs to be told or this concept needs to be taught. What was it with you in the market that made you think this book has to be written now? Yeah, Mike, so we specialize in wealth preservation and retirement. income planning for for folks that are around 55 to around 75 years old. And time and time again, we saw lots of women in particular coming to us with no, with no plans in place for retirement planning and for income and, you know, all the other, all the other challenges that they're going to face like Medicare and long-term care and covering the cost of health care. And so over the last last year and a half have been very really, really fortunate to meet Kendra, Kendra Rhodes Murphy,

who is a co-author of ours on this book and also Taylor Grypenshrog. And together we're sort of forming a super friend's team, if you will, to bring comprehensive retirement planning to women into this really important market that has been overlooked for a long time. Yeah, that's a great point. And I think that so many times people don't really realize the statistics And when you see the numbers and you go, oh, wow, that makes some sense. Meaning, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I have heard that women typically, statistically, are living longer than men. And if that's the case, then maybe a retirement plan for a female might need to look

a little bit differently than for a man. You're absolutely right. And, of course, you know, Taylor and Kendra have also, you know, really experienced this as well. but on average women are going to live five or six years longer than their husbands, for example, or their spouses. And so it's really important for them to understand the unique challenges of retiring as a woman. Yeah, so what are some of those challenges that you would be talking about in addition to longevity? Because five or six years longer is longevity. What are some of those other differences that people might not have thought about?

In addition to the longevity factor, I think the biggest difference that women's retirement planning is facing is that women's retirement planning has to account for a wider range of circumstances. For example, women are more likely to step back from their careers, work less or put advancement on fold to raise children, care for aging parents, etc., which can be truly meaningful choices, but that can also mean less income. retirement savings, Social Security over time, and add to that a divorce in the family or the premature death of their spouse, that those issues can compound their financial concerns. And at the same time, many women focus heavily on their careers, but may have also deferred their own health and well-being during that time. And health care costs can become significant financial issues, particularly when expenses that disproportionately affect women aren't fully covered by insurance.

So I think really the most important thing to consider is that we can't assume that there is a one-size-fits-all financial plan for women. Every woman is different. She has different goals, responsibilities, experiences, et cetera. So to me, a good retirement plan needs to focus on the client as an individual person, not as an account, and building that plan around her life rather than trying to fit for life into a financial plan. That's a great point.

And even if you were to take kind of that framework of what you just described and said, here's a great plan for, you know, a client A, you could not cookie cutter that into the next client, even if it is a female, because everyone's situation is different. You know, someone might be like, well, I don't even have a career. Okay, well, then you're totally different than someone who has a career or took a break from the career or got divorced. So that's an excellent, excellent point. And some of the key things to keep in mind are statistically those factors that you said,

well, hey, typically a female will, you know, fill in the blank with some of those points. And because of those things, now you're going to have to make some tweaks and some adjustments in that retirement plan. Not that it's, you know, harder or different. It's just a little bit of a different makeup. So what do you think, what are you guys talking about in the book where you talk about the 240 paycheck plan? because that is something that is really powerful for someone if they've got a process in place to really understand. Yeah, Mike, so we put together the 240 Paycheck Plan concept to help folks understand, help women and men understand that typically when you retire at age 65, for example, you have a really good chance of living until age 85. So take that 20 years, Mike, of the 20 years times 12, that's 240 months of paychecks that you're going to need in retirement to fuel your lifestyle.

And that really helps folks conceptualize and visualize the fact that they have to turn that pile of money that they've accumulated into a reliable, consistent income. You know, that flies in the face of what I feel like many people think, which is I want to retire at this age. and I think that I need X amount of money to retire this big pile of money. Well, the problem is you don't know what that pile of money is going to give you. And what you're focusing on there is monthly income. And I want to distinguish the difference there between monthly income and then a big old chunk of change in some retirement accounts. What does that look like and what consideration should people be thinking about?

Yeah, I can chime in. And this is Taylor, by the way. So I like to kind of put money in two different buckets. So the first one being purpose money and the second one being performance money. So we have purpose money and then performance money. So purpose money is the money with a job. It's there to generate a consistent paycheck, cover the essentials, and it isn't allowed to take risks with that job.

On the contrary, performance money is what's left over, and that's the money that's allowed to grow and take on more volatility because you don't need it next month, right? And then when those two buckets get blended together, you know, unfortunately, every market dip to that woman can feel like a threat to their income even when it isn't, if that makes sense. for example. Yeah, totally does. It's kind of like trust the process. We put together this plan and we knew this dip could happen. We just didn't know when, but here's the dip. Trust the process.

We've got the plan in place and we're going to watch it closely. Yes, sir. And to piggyback on what Taylor said, this is Kendra, many people feel unprepared, even though that they have a significant amount of money because in any entirely market-based portfolio, which is what most traditional financial plans rely upon, there is inherent market risk. So many people, especially women, feel uncomfortable with the fact that there are uncertainties, that what they lack are guaranteed.

So if we're building into these plans, pieces of that plan that have guarantees a baseline of what to expect, if A, then B, by question. contract, we're providing that certainty, that peace of mind. Because with these risks, which have happened, you can get completely wiped out the crash of 29, the dot-com bust, the recession of 08, COVID. We've seen it happen many times before with all these market-based plans. It's a house of car is built on a foundation of sand. So building with the bottom off from a fixed series of pieces of your portfolio, those market things that make your multi-story house on top of your fixed basement

gives your life a whole lot more structure because you're building on a solid foundation. but if it all went pear-shaped, you can live in the basement. And you get that peace of mind from the foundation and the upside from the investment portfolio that will, as Taylor said, give you the performance as well as the foundation. So one thing that comes to my mind when you mentioned that, which makes total sense, the foundation, you want to have the safety, security, you know, guarantees, all of that. You want to have a little bit of balance and some risk in there, but calculated risk. and all of that. Well, once that plan is put into place and it's dialed in and you have those

reviews every six months, every 12 months, whatever the frequency, and it's going just like clockwork, I would venture to say that there are some women that still don't allow themselves to spend their money in retirement, if they're in retirement, because they're like, yeah, but what if? So talk to me a little bit about once you get to retirement and you're working through retirement, those 20 years or so, how do you have the increased mindset and faith that the plan is working the way it should? We've said you can spend X number of dollars every month, allow yourself to do it. Otherwise, you're not going to live the life you want to live. Mike, so that's a great question.

And as Taylor and Kendra talked about, we first off, you know, make sure that everyone has that purpose money set aside for the purpose of income and generating and fueling your lifestyle. And then we separate that performance money as well that can just kind of, we can let it ride and they don't have to worry about it. And so we've had folks now, Mike, on this system for over three years, quite frankly. And we do the reviews every six to 12 months for a lot of our clients. And what they've found is that the system is working just like we thought it would because of the fact that we have, you know, set aside a good chunk of their change, if you will, for making sure they have that income in retirement. whether it's a combination of Social Security or any pensions they may have, whether we've turned some of their 401ks and their Ts into an income stream using some of the guaranteed products, guaranteed by the insurance carriers in their claims paying ability, or if we're using some structured products, or if we're using a combination of other tools that are available to us, the bottom line is that when you build that income foundation properly, you can go on the vacations and you can. can leave the computer behind. You can leave the stress behind in your retirement. Yeah, huge. You know, in one of the chapters you guys talk about flying blind. And I think this is really,

really important. And for every, you know, example or statistic, there's the antithesis of it that's like, oh, in my family, that's not the case. But flying blind is when maybe a married couple, the woman tends to not know what's happening in the finances. The man takes care of it. And I know it could be flipped as well. But talk a little bit about making sure that you know what's going on, A, in what's coming in and out, but also B, where are the funds? Because if something happens to the husband, the wife sometimes doesn't know passwords, knows accounts, that flying blind is a pretty big situation. Taylor, I think you have a great example. So please, please give it. Yeah, absolutely. So flying blind is far more common than people want to admit.

You know, even in 2026 among successful and also capable women, there is a division of labor or kind of who's in charge of the account. So it's really not about intelligence. It's more so that there is division in the household financially. So the first three things I tell women to do is get access into every account, even if it's read only. So they have visibility. They can see what's going on, understand, you know, what their social security statement will be if they don't already know what that is. And then also write down every recurring monthly bill and then all of their debts in one place too. So it's very important they understand what is coming in, what is going out, and where their accounts currently are.

And that way they themselves and their partner can make decisions together and they both have visibility. And then in that visibility, that is where control starts. And I also just want to speak to the identity that some women may feel. They may feel fearful because they don't have this control. So it's really about getting enough visibility so that the money starts to work for them rather than them working for the money. Because that's where a lot of the fear arises. It's because there is a lack of visibility and control. And Mike, my first client, Mike, was my mom actually in 1999 when she got amicably divorced from my dad.

And the bottom line is that both of them super, super smart, you know, in education, their principles, sister principals, all that good stuff with master's degrees, but we never talked about any of the financials in our household. And so when my mom got a divorce, I kind of stepped in and really started helping her rebuild her financial picture because we did not have any plans. My mom and dad didn't have any plans at that time. And so she set up the 401K and ended up getting long-term care coverage. We took a look at our mutual funds and life insurance and all of that, Mike. And what I can tell you is that it's just very important for the household to have a plan for their budget, of course, and then also for retirement. And if you do not have a plan, a written plan in place

that is being executed by ideally a professional, whether it's you yourself or by a team of fiduciaries like Taylor and Kendra and myself, then it's just critically important to have it done going forward. Yeah, because then you've got a playbook to work work off of. You've got some guardrails. You've got some things to kind of, you know, keep keep it in check. So I think that's such a huge point. You know, when we have been talking about statistics, if you see a stat that's kind of large, you might want to address it. And I know that statistically divorce is a large statistic.

And you devote a lot of your book on the situation of divorce and widowhood and things like that. Talk a little bit about how some of these impact the plan and putting it together. Absolutely. So in terms of divorce, you know, you've seen the stats, whether it's 40 or 50% of people get divorced. We see a lot of our clients actually are getting divorced later in life. They may be 60 or 65 years old, but I have a client that's 75 years old who got divorced a year ago. And so these sorts of life events, but I can really throw your entire roadmap off, including the retirement roadmap. And so as Taylor said, having a plan. plan in place before something like this happens is really important. And just making sure you have a plan and hopefully a team that you can lean on to get advice during times of change is really, is really, really important. So because of that, oh, go ahead. Yeah, thank you, Mike. So and widowhood is also when that blinds feeble financially because the tax bill actually goes up the year after a spouse dies because she loses the lower joint tax brackets right when her income often doesn't drop much.

So there are just different moving parts and things. And even if someone doesn't anticipate widowhood or divorce, you know, just reading the book and understanding what to do or at least being able to be that source of wisdom for a friend or a family member can be pretty life-changing. And I would think that there's almost like a compound effect that comes into place with all of these factors like, oh, it could be widowhood. It could be divorce. It could be, you know, whatever the case is. If one of them happens, it's like then an amplifying effect on the next step, like almost like the domino effect, right? So you need to be aware of everything and then have a plan in place for each one of these so that it doesn't mushroom on you. And there's actually a third, oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. The third avenue that we have not discussed yet, where you're not talking about divorce, you're not talking specifically about death, but the avenue that is actually significantly more likely is when you have some major health challenges within a relationship, because now

no one in the house is working. And there's still money going out, but you have to leave your job for a significant period of time to take care of not just aging parents, but your partner and their life insurance doesn't give you a death benefit because they haven't passed. What do you do then? And those types of things need to be structured in to a plan to relieve that stress because that is actually the most likely path forward for many couples. and that is something I know that weighs on a lot of women that I've worked with, that what happens if they're significantly older spouse has medical challenges? You know, you bring up two points right there.

Life insurance, which we could spend four and a half hours on right there, but also the potential high chance that you would need some type of long-term care, whatever that looks like, whether it's the mental long-term care, memory care type of thing or assisted living statistically. A huge percentage of us people will need that. So talk a little bit about how proper life insurance planning goes into putting together a plan, A, for the actual death benefit life insurance, but also what happens to your point, death is not in action right now, but you need the living benefit of some long. term care. How do you handle those aspects? That's actually a really good point. So a traditional life

insurance product protects the family against the financial loss associated with the loss of a loved one. More modern contracts also have riders that provide for financial loss associated with severe illness or disability as well as death. In addition to those benefits with a traditional plan, a whole life insurance product, if it is properly designed, can build significant cash value internal to the policy, which can be leveraged to achieve your financial goals. Essentially what that means is that the policy is the builder or the policy owner is building their own bank,

utilizing the cash value within the policy to do something, whether that is buying a car, a home remodel, funding cash flow for a business or a period of unemployment, Instead of borrowing money from a traditional third-party bank that comes with hefty interest rates and proof that you can repay the loan, once you have taken money out of your whole life insurance policy, you can repay and refill that cash value within the policy to use later on as you need to. Meanwhile, the cash value internal to that policy is growing as if it had never been touched. So essentially what you are doing by using a life insurance policy that is properly designed is you are reducing or entirely eliminating your exposure to external interest payments, thus increasing your spending power by leveraging the cash available in the life insurance policy,

as opposed to financing through a third party bank. It also plays into retirement planning because a policyholder can leverage the cash value within the policy to spend during retirement with absolutely new. no plan of returning the cash value to the policy ever. So your next question is probably going to be, so what happens then? Eventually, the insured will die because, let's face it, unfortunately, we are all mortal. We haven't figured out how to eradicate that yet. So if you have utilized cash inside the policy, for the sake of this example,

we'll say that the contract is a million dollar policy and you've leveraged $600,000. The insurance company looks at the policy and says, okay, it's a million dollar policy minus $600,000 is $400,000. Then they write a check to the beneficiary for $400,000. So you can utilize the product, use your money during your life, reduce your exposure to interest payments, and you still leave a financial legacy to your heirs. You know, and again, like I said, we could spend three hours on that one topic, but when you can think about all of the living benefits that that,

type of product can provide, not just when I die, my family gets X. It opens up a lot of opportunity where it seems like, you know, back in the old days, it's like, I need to get this long-term care policy in case I need to go into assisted living. Those standalone policies tend to be expensive. And then if you didn't go into a facility for one or two or three or five years, those premiums are getting paid and going nowhere. Whereas in this vehicle, if you need it, it's there. If you don't, it's doing what it needs to do and you're not losing any ground. Yeah, I'd love to chime in as well. So people think of life insurance as something you buy just for someone else's benefit after you're gone. But it is a really great planning tool for the living too. So for me personally, I have an IUL that's accumulating cash, but it also has living benefits attached to it for critical terminal and chronic illness that I can pull up to 80% from if I ever get cancer. a heart attack, a stroke, anything like that. So it really helps a person to stop worrying about the what

ifs and used well. It can also, it can be less about death and more about removing financial fragility from their overall plan. Because like, let's say a spouse passes away, their pension could also leave two or their income stream could disappear. And that life insurance, death benefit gives them that income while they're still alive. So, and, you know, in our retirement planning division as well, we're seeing certain products that provide stable, monthly income, also have long-term care riders attached as well. And they can use what's in their retirement program for long-term care. So really just finding the right fiduciaries and financial planners to assist you in the best products to suit your needs is super critical.

because one size does not fit all. And that's really why we created this book, too, because there is a little bit of information about everything and really it can serve as an encyclopedia for everything you need to know and where to start. You know, that brings me to my last point, which leads right into it. It's like you had the perfect entree, because one of your chapters is the dim fallacy, the do it myself. And I think we all have a little bit of that, you know, inclination, like, oh, here's a problem. Let me go Google it or let me go to AI and fix it. Boom, boom, boom, done.

Thank you, goodbye. But with these kinds of decisions that we've talked about today with all of these intricate planning decisions, one thing leads to the next and builds on the next, you can't just go out there and ask AI or Google and go click, click, done. What are your thoughts around or what is your recommendation around getting someone who is a independent and fiduciary that has your best interest in mind to help. look at it over your shoulder. It might not cost anything at all, but now you know you're doing it the right way.

Yeah, Mike, so all of our consultations on the ready to retire side are our initial consultations are free. And really, all of our consultations are complementary. And as you said, it's so difficult to have expertise on your own in all these different areas. So Medicare, Social Security, which investment should I pick, which. ETFs, which precious metal, you know, for the products should I have? Should I include annuities? Should I take a look at structured products? It's just exceptionally difficult to have expertise in all those different areas. And that is why, that's exactly why, you know, Kendra and Taylor and myself and the rest of the team at Ready to Retire. That's why we have experts in all these different

areas to be able to bring this level of customized expertise to our clients because it is, it takes village to build your retirement plan and execute it properly over a 20 or 30 year period. And of course, you know, really, really, really rich people and wealthy people like Elon Musk, for example, they know that. And so obviously, Elon, he has not changed his own oil, you know, at least in a decade or so. And same thing for, you know, running his investment portfolio. He has a team that has been vetted and that executes his vision for him after he provides that input and provides that, you know, the customized, puts together a customized plan that

he wants his team to execute. Well, this has been really eye-opening, guys. I'm loving what you're putting together. If someone is interested in learning more and reaching out and connecting with you, what's the best way they can do that? Yep. They can visit www.rede, the number two, retire.net, or they can email us at office at ready to retire.net. And they will also be able to go and find the book on Amazon here in the next couple of very, very shortly. So we look forward to to, we're also going to be doing a little bit of a book tour and then we'll also be providing a lot of educational webinars around this content for women specifically. And so we look forward to serving everyone we can. Great. Thank you so much for coming on. It's been a real

pleasure chatting with you. You've been listening to influential entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders to Learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes. Visit www. www. Influential EntrepreneursRadio.com.