Managing Yourself Into Your Second Half – Three Critical Steps

“When work for most people meant manual labor, there was no need to worry about the second half of your life. You simply kept on doing what you had always done. And if you were lucky enough to survive 40 years of hard work in the mill or on the railroad, you were quite happy to spend the rest of your life doing nothing. Today, however, most work is knowledge work, and knowledge workers are not ‘finished’ after 40 years on the job, they are merely bored.

We hear a great deal of talk about the midlife crisis of the executive. It is mostly boredom. At 45, most executives have reached the peak of their business careers, and they know it. After 20 years of doing very much the same kind of work, they are very good at their jobs. But they are not learning or contributing or deriving challenge and satisfaction from the job. And yet they are still likely to face another 20 if not 25 years of work. That is why managing one-self increasingly leads one to begin a second career.”

I stole the long quote from a short Harvard Business Review booklet entitled “Managing Oneself”  by the late, great,  and revered management/business guru, Peter F. Drucker.

Drucker suggests that there are three ways to develop a second career:

  1. Actually start one.  It may mean moving from one kind of organization to another,  or perhaps moving into a completely different line of work. Like a close friend of mine who took his sales skills from the high-end furniture industry to the automobile brokerage industry and thrived.
  2. Develop a parallel career.  Another close friend and investment banking executive prepared himself for a parallel career in Christian counseling by getting a Master of Divinity on top of his MBA. He functions in both roles with a thriving counseling business where heart and wisdom team up to change lives one at a time. With the changes and volatility taking place in the banking/brokerage world, his decision may prove prescient.
  3. Be a social entrepreneur. These are people who have been successful in their first careers but are no longer challenged.  Very much like my friend Ron Benfield who I wrote about in my 3/2/20 article. Ron fit this scenario. Unchallenged and passed over in his large hospital CFO role, he started his own healthcare consulting firm which thrives two years later providing services back to hospitals solving the same problems he solved as a successful CFO. But now he provides employment to a team of skilled professionals who were also escaping the corporate handcuffs.

Option #3 appears to be alive and well – –

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the self-employment rate among workers 65 and older (who don’t incorporate) is the highest of any age group in America: 15.5 percent. In sharp contrast, it’s 4.1 percent for ages 25 to 34.  We’ve known for some time that more businesses are started by people over 50 than any other age group.

– – but the majority still don’t plan for their second half.

Drucker comes to a conclusion similar to my observation as I connect with mid-life professionals.

He says:

“People who manage the second half of their lives may always be a minority. The majority may ‘retire on the job’ and count the years until their actual retirement. But it is this minority, the men and women who see a long working-life expectancy as an opportunity both for themselves and for society, who will become leaders and models.”

Why is it that the majority fail to plan for the second half?  Perhaps it is not accepting the fact that living longer will inevitably include some level of a major setback in work or life. Whether it is being passed over, being a victim of a downsize, a marriage breakup, loss of a child, a second major interest – beyond a hobby – can make a huge difference.

How do I do this?

Let me share three suggestions that should help:

1. Start early. Drucker suggests beginning long before entering the second half, noting that all the social entrepreneurs he knew began to work on their chosen second career long before they reached the peak of their original careers. Much of this can happen through volunteering, pursuing one’s curiosity, experimenting while at the same time expanding awareness of opportunities and needs in the world. Drucker makes the point that “- if one does not begin to volunteer before one is 40 or so, one will not volunteer once past 60.”

2. Get reacquainted with your real self. We all start with an “essential self” and it sticks with us until we are no longer. Martha Beck, author of the seminal book “Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live” describes it as:

“–the personality you got from your genes: your characteristic desires, preferences, emotional reactions, and involuntary physiological responses, bound together by an overall sense of identity.”

Unfortunately, career pursuit, conformity, building another’s dreams, and chasing the paycheck can push that essential self to the background. Beck suggests it is the formation of  a “social self” or “– that part of you that developed in response to pressures from the people around you and was shaped by cultural norms and expectations.”

The aforementioned major setback has a way of bringing that essential self forward.  Rather than wait for the setback, mid-life is a time to reflect, reassess, and resurrect that core, essential self and commit – through experimentation – to finding a way to apply it in the second half.

Kick start the process by asking yourself:

  • What am I really, really good at?
  • What do I really, really want to do?
  • What does the world need?

3. Grow, learn, expand, be curious. Now is a good time to not only rediscover your essence but also beef up your skills. Discovering your essence should reacquaint you with your talents. Now is a good time to burnish those talents with deeper skills and turn them into deeper strengths. Take some classes; go for a new or another certification; volunteer and learn something new.  It’s easy to flat-line intellectually at this mid-point, stay stuck in old ways, and be unprepared for the unexpected.

Be the CEO of your second half.

I’ll wrap with another quote from Drucker:

“Every existing society, even the most individualistic one, takes two things for granted, if only subconsciously: that organizations outlive workers, and that most people stay put.

But today the opposite is true. Knowledge workers outlive organizations, and they are mobile. The need to manage oneself is therefore creating a revolution in human affairs.”

I hope this may help you join the revolution.

Share a comment below. Thanks for actively participating in the discussion.  Join our email list if you haven’t already by going to www.makeagingwork.com. You’ll receive our free ebook “Achieve Your Full-live Potential: Five Easy Steps to Living Longer, Healthier, and With More Purpose.”

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It’s Never Too Late To Be A Genius. Don’t Forget – You Were One Once!

Einstein was told he was stupid.

Yours truly was stupid – for the better part of 55 years.

Not because anyone called me stupid – other than a little demon in that fatty-acid clump between my temples.

It all started with my mistaken interpretation of a standard IQ test taken somewhere along my high school journey – I don’t remember when exactly.  Somehow I interpreted – or was told by someone – that my score was substantially below average. In other words, I was kinda stupid.

And a little demon was birthed.

That’s not a good thing when the hormones are raging as an adolescent. It’s just not a great combination.

It leads to a “personality.”

Sure, we all have a personality. As life coach Steve Chandler reminds us, we fundamentally stay what we became in junior high school. Then we operate out of that personality, play the life game, and forget we were once geniuses.

Do you remember when you weren’t a personality? When you were in your genius years. When you enthusiastically, unabashedly tapped into that thing called “creation.” Even at my age, I remember spending whole days as a child – sometimes alone, usually with others my age – making stuff up, acting things out. Maybe it was made up games on a vacant lot with an old abandoned shed; or a new mound of dirt at a construction site, or a house of blankets and sheets stretched across furniture, or trying to build a tree house – or just turning whatever you could get your hands on into something.

Kinda like this – when my 7- and 8-year old grandsons get together and tap “nana’s” toy bin or my 10-year old granddaughter decides to go into premature domesticity in a box house.

We didn’t have or need Disneyworld growing up. We did our own Disneyworld where we were with what we had. We were geniuses.

Until we weren’t.

What happened?

Grown-ups happened! Parents, peers, professors. The “P’s” – those ahead of us whose creativity had been suppressed and now felt compelled to continue the culturally-defined suppression.

As Chandler writes:

“Grown-ups project their own lack of creativity on their young children and take them places like Disneyland or Chuck E. Cheese constantly to over-stimulate the child. They are projecting their own emptiness on the soon-to-be spoiled child. Children don’t need all that. Children can (and will) create anywhere with anything.”

How do we lose that creativity? Chandler nails it:

“- by assuming personalities and then defending those personalities with our lives. No more creativity, just defense. Now I’m afraid I won’t get a job. I’m afraid my spouse won’t approve of me, and I’m afraid of my employer, and I’m afraid I won’t raise my kids right. And soon, I’m out of energy. Because nothing takes more energy to maintain than a fear.”

I’m not into victimology and don’t point fingers. Except at my own thinking – the thinking that produced that little demon. Perhaps it had a bit of a nudge from a parent or peer or professor/teacher.  But I owned it and nurtured it into my 60s. My personality formed around it.

My little demon persisted despite the fact that I survived pretty well in light of my perceived deficiency.

  1. Graduated high school, popular (not hard in a high school of 90 kids).
  2. Finished college (OK, three tries and nine years post-high school – the demon loved it).
  3. Did above-average in career and ladder climbing, pulling down some OK jack.
  4. Married way over my head to someone much smarter and with far fewer blind spots.

Still, my little thought demon had me convinced that I should be intimidated and be rendered speechless in the presence of someone I perceived to be of higher intellect, ability, title, and status. No way I could measure up, look smart, or leave an impression. So, best to just avoid the encounter.

With the persistent help of she who is “smarter and without many blind spots” and a gradual rise in my self-awareness, I started retiring the demon in my 60s. It wasn’t going willingly. Remnants still surfaced.

Until my 50th high school reunion, ten years ago.

The reunion was a big deal. Half of my class showed up! All six of us had a ball. (Yes, you read that right – 12 in my graduating class. No, it wasn’t a one-room school!)

One of my enterprising classmates had rifled through some school records that were about to be thrown out as the state announced they were going to preserve our high school as a state historical site.  She found files of high school transcripts for each of us in attendance at the reunion.

And there it was – the record of my IQ test. Along with old test papers, report cards, teacher’s reports (deportment was not one of my strong suits).

My IQ test graded slightly above average!

The demon exited!

Now, a conversation with someone who I would have perceived as of “higher intellect, ability, title, and status” is easier because I know most are operating from the defense of a personality that mostly isn’t real.  Just like in my world.  Despite their intellect/ability/title/status, I know the defense of their personality is at the expense of creativity that never really left them.

It just got “P’ed” on.

That’s why I like working with folks entering the “second half”. It’s about then that personality defense and 35 years of catering to cultural expectations become tiresome, energy is in shorter supply, and there’s a concern that there’s a limited time period in which to “make a difference.” It’s a “turning point” in which one can operate from purpose and not personality and re-connect to core creativity and bring it back even stronger than in childhood.

It’s why I’ll be adding a new company over the coming months – “Turning Point Career Services” –  with the intent of offering coaching services and other resources designed to meet people at this second-half juncture and help them move forward from there with purpose in the lead, not personality.

That creativity and spirit we all had as 7-year-olds didn’t leave. It just got barnacled over, enculturated, and tamped down. But it can come raging back if we’ll set it free.

That’s what the second half of life can be all about.

Maybe some of you can relate. We’d love to hear about it. Scroll down and leave a comment or drop us a note at gary@makeagingwork.com.

Beware the Furniture Disease! I Have It – My Chest Has Fallen Into My Drawers!

I  can’t deal with it – having an untucked shirt touch my midsection when I stand up.

It’s a condition that has added to my indigenous grumpiness for the last few years.

I’m venting because it reached a new peak of seriousness this last week when I decided to order some new T-shirts from “Nordy” (for you Oakland Raiders fans and residents of Douglas, Wyoming, that’s suburban WASP-speak for Nordstrom’s). It’s their annual “customer appreciation” sale.

I have always hated shopping, especially for clothes. Those who have had the misfortune of live, personal contact with me can attest to that.

Online shopping hasn’t changed that feeling.

Committed to the mission of replacing tattered, ten-year-old T’s, I found some Nike and Adidas (cheap) T’s that looked good but then faced the decision of sizing before hitting the “buy now” button.  So I referenced the sizing guide offered by both manufacturers which suggest sizes based on a range of chest sizes.

Forever, I’ve been “XL” but have lost a little weight so decided to drag out the cloth tape-measure from my bride’s sewing box (which came as a wedding gift 49 2/3 years ago and has been opened four times since) and measured my chest.

Check. I know what size to order.

But, since I was standing there half-naked, I seized the opportunity to drop the tape to the “part that can’t stand to be touched” and measured my waistline.

It hasn’t been pleasant to be in the same area code as me since I made that mistake. It would have been better around here for the aforementioned bride if I hadn’t taken that second measurement.

Chest: X inches. Waistline: X+3 inches.

Ugh! On two levels:

  1. Ego, vanity, arrogance – really bad post-shower frontal and side view in the mirror.
  2. Health, metabolic-syndrome concern.

That little T-shirt event spurred me to go back and refresh my memory on the downsides of those prevalent “love handles” so many of us walk around with these days. With 65% of us American males overweight and 24% obese, we’re showing our naivete about what that collection of mostly white adipose fat (WAT) can mean for us long term.

I wrote about this topic on 1/13/2018 – click here to read that post. 

You see, if it’s showing up around the middle, it’s likely present around vital internal organs – like the liver, pancreas, and others  And that’s not a good thing.

Love handles are part of the “metabolic syndrome.”

You’ve probably heard of the “metabolic syndrome.” Mayo Clinic defines it as:

“- a cluster of conditions that occur together, increasing your risk of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. These conditions include increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist, and abnormal cholesterol or triglyceride levels.”

Heart.org offer this:

Metabolic syndrome occurs when a person has three or more of the following measurements:

  • Abdominal obesity (Waist circumference of greater than 40 inches in men, and greater than 35 inches in women)

  • Triglyceride level of 150 milligrams per deciliter of blood (mg/dL) or greater

  • HDL cholesterol of less than 40 mg/dL in men or less than 50 mg/dL in women

  • Systolic blood pressure (top number) of 130 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) or greater, or diastolic blood pressure (bottom number) of 85 mm Hg or greater

  • Fasting glucose of 100 mg/dL or greater

I’ve been aware and watchful of the components of the syndrome for decades and watch each component carefully. That is until I didn’t – and let the “abdominal obesity” slip through my calorie-rich-and-processed (C-R-A-P) food-stained fingers. Along with a little help from COVID isolation and no access to the late, great 24-Hour Fitness.

In my refresher trip, I was reminded, at the site Healthfully.com, that the waist-to-hip ratio and body-mass-index (BMI) were more important than the chest to waist ratio.  When you click on this site, you’ll find a very simple BMI calculator.

It didn’t get any better when I did the waist-to-hip ratio. Or the BMI calculator.

Disclosure: Normal BMI is under 25 on the index. I’m solidly in the overweight category at around 27.

Temporarily!

40 and 35

Those are the maximum waist size numbers for men and women respectively to avoid having that extra white visceral fat create cardiovascular or cerebral problems down the road. That’s tougher to do past age 50. But vital.

Oh, and don’t play games with this and say that you are good because your pant size is under 40.  Doesn’t work that way, fellas. Your waist size is going to be, at a minimum, 3″ larger than your pant size. I still can squeeze into my 36″ jeans with a waist-size 4-5″ above that.

Do you have the visual I look at every day now? Not pretty.

COVID is exposing us.

So, why all the drama about belly fat?

I wrote two weeks ago about how 40% of people who died with COVID-19 had diabetes. Among the deaths of those under 65, half had the chronic condition.

Obesity = Type 2 diabetes = vulnerability.

For the last 3-4 decades, we’ve been heading in the wrong direction. Collectively, we are 20 pounds heavier than 20 years ago but no taller. Wikipedia states that as of 2015, there were approximately 392 million people diagnosed with Type-2 diabetes compared to around 30 million in 1985 – tenfold plus.

Yikes!

Here are the culprits:

If tying your shoes has become an aerobic event, it’s time to shift some lifestyle.

I’m shifting mine because it’s way too close to an aerobic experience.

Share a comment. It’s great to hear from you – thanks for actively participating in the discussion.  Join our email list if you haven’t already by going to www.makeagingwork.com. You’ll receive our free ebook “Achieve Your Full-live Potential: Five Easy Steps to Living Longer, Healthier, and With More Purpose.”

Stay safe!

Just a quick side note:

Exactly three years ago today, 8/17/2017, I began this weekly diatribe. A few of you have hung in for 152 blog posts. I hope you know that I deeply appreciate that.

It’s Never Too Late To Get “AMPed”. Post-career May Be the Best Time!

Time travel with me for a second, will you?

It’s day one of your life – cleaned up, aspirated, swaddled, lying on mom’s chest.

Were you?

  1. Active and engaged?
  2. Passive and inert?

OK – I tried it and it didn’t work for me either. My recall was a tad fuzzy. Perhaps a little early for those esoteric thoughts.

Let’s roll the camera forward three years. Were you #1 or #2?

Now, we’re getting somewhere. My recall of me at that age isn’t much better, but I guarantee I wasn’t #2.  Nor were you. There was some level of “out-of-control” in your life and mine at that age.  That’s our start-up wiring. Perhaps like you, I’ve watched it through my kids and, now, my grandkids.

Have you ever seen a three-year-old that isn’t curious and pretty much into his or her own thing? Active, engaged, curious, self-directed, exploding with mile-a-minute ideas and creativity, all impractical and unmarketable. As parents/grandparents, we roll with it, confident that “this, too, shall pass” and taking comfort in the fact that #2 will eventually prevail.

And then, like most of us, chances are they will ride the #2 bus to the end, creativity and enthusiasm giving way to cultural expectations and the allure of extrinsic rewards of the work world. The final big dose of #2 will come with a full-stop retirement plan where passivity and inertia thrive.

Our default setting gets shifted!

We have lots of help on this journey. For instance, the “5 P’s” that creep into our lives to make sure that the energy, creativity, engagement, unpredictability is corralled back between the culturally-acceptable fences. You remember the P’s, don’t you?

  • Parents
  • Peers
  • Professors
  • Politicians
  • Pundits

Then,  43 or 57, our three-year-old-self is, well – we’re not really sure where it is. And we don’t get much encouragement to try to find it again. It’s not part of the “model.” The “5 C’s” have taken ownership:

  • Comfort
  • Convenience
  • Comparison
  • Conventionality
  • Contentment

And then, mid-life or later, we hear a voice saying “Is this all there is?” Or somebody reminds us that the number of people attending our funeral is going to be largely determined by the weather!

Ouch!

Very few don’t give in to the 5 P’s and C’s. Most of us do.

Are you “Type X” or “Type 1”?

Author Daniel Pink, in his best-seller “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us”, unpacks some intriguing corollaries to all of the above, based on extensive research into human nature relative to our innate drivers.

Hugely condensed, Pink’s message is that our best self emerges when our rewards are intrinsic (inside) and not extrinsic (external). As an example, recognition versus money.

He takes it further to point out that there are inner drivers that take us to our full potential and fulfillment. They are:

  • Autonomy
  • Mastery
  • Purpose

A-M-P!

He distinguishes between two types of people, Type X and Type 1, saying:

“For Type X’s, the main motivator is external rewards; any deeper satisfaction is welcome, but secondary. For Type 1’s, the main motivator is the freedom, challenge, and purpose of the undertaking itself; any other gains are welcome, but mainly as a bonus.”

The core message in Pink’s book seems to be (I’m 2/3 through it) that we are awakening to the weaknesses inherent in systems built on the extrinsic rewards that have been the predominant model in business tracing back to the start of the industrial age. Smarter managers are now seeing better results when they appeal to, and create an atmosphere for, the motivating force of the intrinsic rewards of having autonomy, pursuing mastery, and doing something with deep purpose.

His message engendered some not-so-positive memories of my 35 years of corporate life, which ended 18 years ago at age 60. I’m challenged to remember any significant intrinsic rewards from my five different work experiences across three different industries.

I was doing it all for the money. For the eventual retirement dream. What I didn’t have, and was never offered, was (drum roll) A-M-P.

My autonomy gave way to a cubicle, an 8 a.m. at-your-desk-or-else edict, and an under-qualified, forever-threatened boss.

My mastery never flourished because shifting corporate programs, policies, products didn’t keep us in one spot long enough to master something – plus, I had no clue what I might want to master. It was all about hitting the numbers and earning the cash.

Purpose? Oh, it was there – it just wasn’t mine. It belonged to senior management and the satisfaction of shareholders.

OK, I’m a whiner, a victim, an anomaly.

Well, I think not, as evidenced by what Forbes reported in 2018 about how employee engagement continues to shrink in the enlightening article entitled “10 Shocking Workplace Stats You Need To Know.” In it, The Conference Board reveals that “- 53% of American workers are currently unhappy at work.” Gallup’s extensive research reveals nearly 20% are actively disengaged.

One out of two has no A-M-P in their lives. One in five is clearly in it only for the extrinsic.

I’m not out to change that!

I’m done with the corporate scene and have no intention of trying to do what Daniel Pink is doing i.e. transforming the way we treat people in the workplace.

But I am out to plant the seeds of the A-M-P principle in the minds of folks at the mid-life, post-career, early-retirement, “third age” phases of life.

It’s at those stages where a crossroads exists: #1 or #2 for the rest of my life?

Parts of #2 are pretty tempting after 30-40 years of corporate life. What’s not to like about no schedule, no agenda, no alarm clock, and being one with the voice-activated remote.

That euphoria wears out pretty quickly. And then it’s “what’s next?” or “what now?”

My suggestion: Get AMPed!

Will there ever be a better time in our lives to experience the autonomy that was absent in the control-and-command corporate world?

Will there ever be a better time in our lives to be able to achieve a significant level of mastery over something we have longed to do most of our lives?

Will there ever be a better time in our lives to be able to discover a purpose of our own rather than one dictated to us?

The formula looks like this:

AMP = (Doing what I want, when I want, where I want) + (Doing what I’m really good, what I really like to do) + (Making something/somebody/someplace better) 

Simple. Fulfilling. And likely to add more life to our years as well as more years to our lives.

And a chance to be your three-year-old self, active and engaged.

We appreciate your feedback. Have a thought about all this? Scroll down and leave a comment. And thanks for being a reader. If you aren’t on our email list, you can join up, at no cost, at www.makeagingwork.com.  See you next week.

 

After working in a career for 31 years, and then retiring at 57, is it better to relax for awhile or get a post-retirement job fairly quickly?

Recently, I penned out an answer to this question asked on Quora.com:

“After working in a career for 31 years, and then retiring at 57, is it better to relax for a while or get a post-retirement job fairly quickly?”

My answer is my 10th most viewed post on Quora (out of 365 posts) with just under 30,000 views.  A number of readers took the time to comment. I like this one in particular:

Terence S. commented: 

“I had the fortune to take a “mid-life retirement” from 40–46. I learned a valuable lesson that prepared me for the rest of my working life. Money, Friends, Purpose really do matter.

1) Having the money to do your bucket list will make you happy. Material things don’t last in my soul, but the remarkable adventures I took in those 7 years make me smile every day. The Corollary to that is get out there and do anything that requires physical effort and stamina before your body gives out! Stay active no matter what. There is a cut off between riding your bike across the United States to riding your bike across the state to just riding 10 miles. Travel while you still can if that’s your thing. Eventually, it will be rocking chair time.

2) Despite having a wonderful time for 6 years I got itchy. The walls started closing in on me. I was bored. I needed a purpose. So I went back to school and got a Masters in Education and have been teaching in an elementary school for the last 14 years. In addition to building upon my previous career’s savings, I’ve now built up a decent pension and 403(b) account. I love what I do and working with kids gets me out of bed every day. Plus I get 2 months off every summer! The irony is that after 2 months I can’t wait to get back to work with the next bunch of kids. As long as I have the stamina I’ll keep doing this.

3) Having community is something I’ve neglected and I realized that as well during my time off. I have a couple of support groups, but I’m trying to cultivate community outside of work.

If you don’t stay active, connected, and purposeful your mind, spirit, and body will give out on you fairly quickly and at that age, it’s hard to recover.”

Terence is in an enviable position that fewer people are going to be able to realize, having been resourceful with his career and the financial side of his life.

I’ve been fortunate to work with folks who are at a similar “life-decision point” and concur that there is a very strong argument for taking some time off, relaxing, and being self-indulgent for awhile.

But only for awhile.

Long enough to do some serious soul-searching, reflection, and consideration of what you want the rest of your life to look like.

It’s important to understand that we have never been where we are now. This is not our parents’ or grandparents’ retirement. Like Terence, many are moving into a “post-career” phase with the possibility of living 25–40 more years.

That’s a long – and dangerous – stretch to spend in the traditional, full-stop, leisure-based retirement model that still pervades our thinking and planning. I’m sure that 30 years of bingo, bridge and boche ball isn’t going to excite many.

It certainly won’t excite our biology which is designed to grow, not decay. Traditional retirement has proven itself a superior pathway to accelerated decay.

Entering into the retirement phase of life is a critical and exciting juncture. We can decide to continue to grow – or decay. We can decide if we want to continue to produce and serve or pursue the traditional retirement route of being a self-indulgent consumer.

The choice is ours. Some time off to reflect on this is time well spent. It’s a time to reflect back on what we have accomplished in this “first two-thirds” of our lives, a time to think deeply about what really excites is, what we are really, really good at, and how that may intersect with what the world needs.

Maybe that will mean getting another job that touches those areas. It may mean doing work at a non-profit (for-pay or no-pay); it may mean starting our own venture that puts our “active wisdom” to work. Much of that will depend on whether we need to supplement our retirement income.

As you can sense, I am an evangelist for redefining retirement. Terence fit the mold of those I strive to reach with the message that this post-career phase of life can, and should be, the most impactful, purposeful, and fulfilling.

Six decades of “labor-to-leisure”, “vocation-to-vacation” retirement have taught us a number of things beyond the fact that it does not honor our birthright to good health. Foremost of these, in my mind, is the wasting of accumulated talent, skills, and experience that folks, like Terence, can bring forward for the benefit of our society.

We are buried in research confirming that work is a vital component of healthy longevity – contrary to what the traditional leisure-based retirement model has sold us for decades.

Few centenarians didn’t work until they couldn’t.

So. let me step down from my soapbox and encourage us mid-lifers, pre-retirees, early-retirees to take some time off, relax, reminisce, reflect, and respond to our inner urges with the realization that we have a long and impactful future ahead for which we can set the tone, the shape, and the pace. That’s the beauty of this phase – at this phase, we now have the most control we’ve had in 3-4 decades

Just beware of the temptation to slide toward comfort, convenience, and conformity. There will be pressure from peers to “just retire.” Netflix and the voice-activated TV remote can be very tempting. Don’t linger too long in your relaxation!

One of my favorite virtual mentors is Dan Sullivan, founder of Strategic Coach. Dan once stated that people die early for three reasons:

  1. No money
  2. No friends
  3. No purpose

Our mission at this point should be to protect our health and work toward a meaningful purpose for the balance of our lives. Without it, our life may be shorter and full of regrets.

My goal with clients who are in Terence’s situation is to help them find a “balanced, flexible lifestyle of labor, leisure, and learning.”

I wish the same for all of you.

If interested in how we help people explore and plan for the possibilities for a healthy, fulfilling post-career, email gary@makeagingwork.com or call 720-344-7784 to set up a no-cost, no-obligation “exploratory” conversation. Also, join our growing list of subscribers if you haven’t already by going to www.makeagingwork.com and adding your email. You’ll receive a free e-book entitled ““Achieve Your Full-life Potential: Five Easy Steps to Living Longer, Healthier, and With More Purpose” and receive a new article every Monday.