Ideas in the Wild: Brittany Anderson and Bryan Sweet On How to Build a Retirement Greater Than You Dreamed Possible

In this new, breakthrough follow-up to Dare to Dream, Brittany Anderson and Bryan Sweet redefine what it means to dream big when it comes to retirement. Having dedicated their lives to helping people plan for and achieve impossible dreams, Anderson and Sweet now share their secrets for unlocking the full potential of our imaginations — and our retirements.

In Dream Architecture, they show us how to reignite creativity, think like kids again, and achieve our dreams. Even better, they teach us to go beyond settling for a status-quo retirement and build a retirement beyond what we thought was possible. I recently caught up with Brittany and Bryan to learn more about why they wrote the book and the ideas they share with readers.

Why did you write this book?

In 2016, we published our first book, Dare to Dream. The book’s goal is to explain how to gain clarity about and live according to your “why” in retirement, evaluate the health of your wealth, and safeguard your future. The book focuses on planning for the distribution phase of retirement — the phase in which you begin to live on the savings you gathered during your accumulation phase, which was the years of your life that you spent saving.

After we published the book, we realized it was missing essential information. In our daily work with clients, we constantly witness how critical a positive mindset is for embracing the possibilities that proper planning can create. As we walked our clients through our Dream Architect™ process, we began to see how critical a positive mindset is in people’s ability to think, dream, and live even bigger lives than they know are possible.

This book is really the prequel to Dare to Dream. We believe your mindset and attitude have to be poised for possibility before you can optimize the process of planning for retirement.

We believe every person has the right to realize that their dreams are possible. Possibility comes to those who create it; it doesn’t just appear mysteriously. In this book, we hope to help you define what possibility means to you.

What’s an idea you share that really excites you?

Few people really allow themselves to dream big. One reason is because they lack confidence in themselves and their future. Planning for the future with the right advisor can increase your confidence, which will in turn fuel your ability to dream big.

Self-confidence is the foundation of your big dreams. But even though self-confidence is your belief in how good you are at something, it’s not a measure of your actual skill.

Given that, why does it matter if you believe in yourself? According to Charlie Houpert, the author of Charisma on Command and the founder of a 2.7-million-subscriber YouTube channel of the same name, confidence doesn’t just make you feel better, it also helps you take risks to make tangible improvements to your life.

To increase your confidence, Houpert recommends several strategies — among them, trying something new, exercising, and avoiding “impostor syndrome,” a nasty mental bug that convinces you that your accomplishments don’t really count and that you’re going to be found out as a fraud. He says doubt can creep into our minds, because it’s easier for us to remember faults than it is to remember successes.

To help you focus on your successes, make a habit of periodically writing down or reflecting on the things you’ve done well. It’s easier to be confident in your abilities when you remember them. And remember to celebrate even the small wins!

How will following your advice improve your readers’ lives?

Many people find it difficult to focus on the future. They tend to — almost by habit, it seems — bring up their past failures and ruminate on them. We remind them that the future is all there is. The past is done, and the present will soon be the past, so the only place you can create value or something better is in the future.

If you’ve never had a mindset of focusing on the best the future has to offer, you can begin right this minute to adopt that mindset. We do not believe in the tired adage, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” People have proven throughout history, time and time again, that it’s possible to do amazing things at any point in life, at any age.

We hope that this book shows you how important it is to view retirement as your new beginning. We want you to look forward to retirement so you can accomplish all those things that “fill your cup” and make you feel happy and fulfilled. You have so much to give to the world! Believe in yourself, surround yourself with positive people who believe in you, and set your intentions on your biggest possible dreams.

We know retirement can seem overwhelming. But the great news is this: all you have to do is take small steps at first, and this book will help guide you along the way. We think you will find at least one, and perhaps many, tips in this book that will help you think differently. Ultimately, we hope that, after reading this book, you understand that your mindset about retirement is just as important as the numbers are.

We wish you the most amazing future. And we know, if you follow the advice in this book, you can have one!