About Kwame
People weren't ready for how long retirement would last. It showed up in their purpose, their money, their homes, their health, and their relationships. That's why I co-founded Next Chapter Media, and why I speak.
Where this started
I started where the need was most basic: helping people get food assistance. Then the questions grew. Social Security. Medicare. Medicaid. Disability. For more than 15 years I've answered them, first one person at a time, then on video for an audience that grew past 365,000 adults over 55.
When you spend that long that close to a community, you notice what the statistics don't show. The people writing to me had done what they were told. They worked. They saved what they could. They claimed their benefits. And a few years into retirement, many of them were in trouble, not because they'd done something wrong, but because the retirement they'd planned for was the old one. A few years of rest. The one they were living was 25 or 30 years long, and nobody had planned for that.
The same five problems kept showing up.
You are not right or left leaning, just the facts. So many other so-called experts use scare tactics and false information.
Thank you for an easily understandable explanation of Social Security changes. You are an excellent teacher.
The five problems
Five things I saw over and over, in emails, comments, and live Q&As. They became the Next Chapter Five, and they're the reason Next Chapter Media exists.
They retired, and a year later they realized they still had decades of skill, judgment, and energy, and no idea what to do with them. For many, a little income would have helped too. Nobody had planned for either.
They claimed Social Security at the first chance and enrolled in Medicare by default, because nobody explained what those two decisions were worth. Then they watched the checks fail to stretch across a retirement twice as long as the one they'd planned for. And money trouble doesn't just shrink the budget. It makes the purpose question sharper: what is this chapter for, if I'm only trying to get through it?
Almost everyone told me they wanted to stay in their own home. Almost no one had prepared the house, the mobility, the help, or the money that aging in place actually takes.
Health turned out to be the biggest line item nobody budgeted for, in dollars and in years. The difference between a long retirement and a long decline came down to habits nobody had told them still mattered after 60.
Friendships that faded with the job. A spouse or a parent who needed care. Decisions worth tens of thousands of dollars made with no one to think them through with. The loneliest part of retirement was navigating it.
What I did about it
I co-founded Next Chapter Media to meet those five problems where people actually are: on their phones and their TVs, in plain language, with no panic, no politics, and no products to sell. Benefits Insider, The Retirement Navigator, and The Morning Step each take a piece of it. The books take the two decisions that matter most.
Speaking is how I take the same message to the people who can act on it at scale: the financial firms, employers, and associations whose clients and members are walking into the new retirement right now. Education first, so it's easy to clear through compliance, and built so that the firm that brings me in becomes the guide.
My own story overlaps with theirs. I built a company to more than $60 million in sales, won a deal on Shark Tank, was named EY Entrepreneur of the Year in Maryland, and then watched that company close. Rebuilding taught me what I now tell every room: you don't start over from zero. Age gives you experience, wisdom, and perspective, and a 30-year retirement spent winding down wastes all three.
Today I teach finance at Johns Hopkins University's Carey Business School, and I've been a member of the Entrepreneurs' Organization since 2014. Everything I do exists so that when one chapter ends, the next one is already yours.
Book Kwame
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