Image by Hebi B. from Pixabay

Stan is a C-level executive in his late fifties.  He’s done well, thriving and progressing in the volatile, high-pressure world of healthcare. Also, like many at his level in this chaotically-evolving industry, his career was recently disrupted when he was laid off, despite a stellar performance record, following the merger of two health systems.

Rather than withdraw and lick his wounds, Stan wisely invested in a career-transition program that equipped him to re-enter the industry at a level very close to what he was when laid-off.  His successful re-entry happened in just under six months, about half the amount of time re-entry takes for most execs at his level.

I connected with Stan just as he was wrestling with which of two attractive offers to accept to continue to move his career forward – a situation I consider to be a “high-class problem”.

We fell into a brief conversation about “what’s next” for him after this next gig which led to an exchange about whether or not he had given much, or any, thought to his post-career life.

Not surprisingly, he hadn’t wandered very deep into that misty territory.  Right now, it’s still all about survival in an evolving, unpredictable industry and continuing to “accumulate” to prepare for whatever that final stage is supposed to look like.

As I probed with a few questions that work well to penetrate this veneer, I uncovered an angst about this looming life-phase that, understandably, gets easily shoved to the background when faced with having to cover a sizeable mortgage and college tuitions – and, most likely, a “bigger than a bread box” lifestyle.

Stan’s initial response was the typical “I guess we’ll figure it out when we get there”. But as the conversation progressed, he acknowledged that he has had recurring thoughts about what he wanted his life to count for and that it couldn’t simply be wrapped up solely in having been a successful healthcare exec.

When I remind folks like Stan that this post-career third-age could be nearly as long as their career phase, most will pick up on the significance of not entering into it casually and unplanned.

I asked him how he would handle going from 110 miles-an-hour to zero.  I sensed that the question turned on some new lights.

I left it there with Stan. He agreed that the two of us need to reconnect in the next few years to continue the conversation.

When I do reconnect with Stan, I’m going to remind him that he, like most, is operating under the model of a three-stage life (learn-earn-retire) that “taught us that this is a one-tank journey” where we may “find ourselves running on fumes as we realize it takes two tanks of fuel to propel us to a  fulfilling lifelong journey.”

I love the analogy, so I’m stealing it from Chip Conley and his book “Wisdom at Work”.

Yes, I understand – few of you reading this are, or were, at a C-level.  But that doesn’t change the argument that most of us need to be wary of this uncharted, unmapped territory.

You wouldn’t attempt to negotiate Chicago with a map of Des Moines. Yet we’ll enter the third-age on fumes with a one-tank mindset built around an 84-year old lifestyle model.

How many other 84-year old methods or tools do you still have operating in your life?

The more conversations I have with retirees – exec and otherwise – the more it becomes obvious that there is a price paid for winging it into retirement.  A big chunk of the price is the loss of the valuable early years of the third-age when energy is still high and the accumulated and transferable skills and experiences have not gone stale.

I’m told that, in Australia, the government has a program called “Long Service Leave” which mandates two months of additional vacation for every ten years of continuous service with an employer.  It sets up an opportunity for an extended break before transitioning into the retirement phase.

In the U.S. – well, I’m not holding my breath we will ever see anything similar.  Adult life here can “feel a bit like a run-on sentence that goes on too long without some punctuation” in the words of Chip Conley.

We are seeing more kids taking “gap years” after high school or college. But what about adults.

Again, I’ll share Conley’s perspective:

“But why should eighteen- or twenty-two-year-olds be the only ones entitled to some punctuation, when they’ve barely even begun writing the run-on sentence of adult life?  What about fully-baked adults who just need a little space to pause, to hit refresh, or to rewire? Luckily, as more and more people are liberating themselves from the three-stage model of life, the idea of a lengthy sabbatical in midlife is gaining currency”.

With that perspective, here’s some advice for any of us contemplating this fuzzy “what’s next”:

• Plan your off-ramp while still employed. Anyone who fails to plan runs the risk of falling into an abyss.  Make it an off-ramp, not a cliff-jump
• Partner with your partner. It’s critical to align expectations with the significant other.  Develop a shared plan that is endorsed by the family.
• Avoid busyness and “calendar filling”. Many early retirees allow their calendar to get jammed up by saying “yes” to too many activities that turn into obligations that aren’t fulfilling or meaningful long-term.  “I’m busier now than when I was working” is a common proud refrain from new retirees – a comment that loses luster as they discover many of the activities are not advancing or adding to their sense of purpose.
• Reacquaint yourself with yourself. Retirement shoves us into unfamiliar territory where previous skills, accomplishments, and titles don’t count so much.  Self-questioning and self-doubt are common at this stage.  It is a time where some “self re-assessment” is helpful, reflecting anew on your personality, strengths, temperament and things like the motivating drivers in your life.  This can be the well-spring from which a meaningful, purposeful third-age can emerge.

I’m in the pilot-phase of a course designed to address these, and other, pre- and early-retirement challenges.  It’s working title is “What’s Next? Developing A Post-career Roadmap: Transitioning To a Balanced Lifestyle of Labor, Leisure, and Learning”.

If you would like to know more about this offering, drop me an email to gary@makeagingwork.com for more details.

Chances are pretty good that you may live 20 or more years longer than your parents. If you hit 65 without major illness, you have a better than even chance you will live to 90 or beyond.

So the prospect of 25-30 more years beyond the average retirement age in the U.S. puts us in a territory we haven’t been in before.  And we find ourselves with no roadmaps.  Where mom and dad, or granny and grandpa had a few years of bingo, bridge, and bocce ball, we now face the prospect of multiple decades of – what?

Just being older longer?  Who wants that?  But that’s what happens when there is no plan for this extended longevity.

Without a plan, that’s what it often turns into for those who refuse to give up the traditional learn-earn-retire model that we’ve bought into for the last several decades.  You know the one I mean – that old, aging elephant in the room, the one that has those golden years of “every day is Saturday” at the end.

Well, we’re getting smarter now and discovering that “every day is Saturday” or “I have plenty to keep me busy” is not a healthy plan for this extended longevity period.  There is this thing called “boredom” or “stifling sameness” that sets in when every day becomes the same people, place, time, combining to yield the same result.

Mitch Anthony, author of “The New Retirementality”,  puts it this way:

“‘Every day is Saturday’ quickly becomes a life of those Mondays you used to dread.”

He goes on to say:

“You need to have realistic expectations regarding retirement. Thinking that going from working full-time to a life that involves focusing on only leisure activities gets old quickly—and makes us older in the process. Most of us will be disappointed once we find out that our vision of retirement is not the nirvana we thought it would be.”

It’s rare that I hear a recent retiree use the word “bored” in describing the current status of their retirement.  I get it – who’s going to admit that their retirement isn’t sailing along as presented and expected?

The “no structure” trap

I’ve had lots of conversations over the last year with newly-retired hospital and large medical practice executives.  These are highly-educated, highly-compensated folks stepping away from very time- and stress-intensive positions.  They created and thrived in a very structured environment – a necessity in an industry which, at its core, is often akin to herding cats and just simply keeping the wheels on because of the ever-changing world of government intervention.

One common theme I see emerging from these conversations is the visceral “I have plenty to keep me busy”.  Catching up on delayed home projects, more family involvement, resurrecting moth-balled hobbies, trying new activities (pickle-ball comes up more often than I expected!).

Being busy soon after retirement never seems to be an issue.

But, I’m also hearing that the move from structure to non-structure is wearing thin.  Several have expressed a sort of “drifting” or “ping-ponging” nature to their retirement and feeling that “there is more that I can do that has more meaning.”

Steve is a former hospital CEO that is three years into his retirement.  He recently shared this with me: “I enjoy being by myself and with my family. But I need intellectual stimulation, a new challenge, something that uses my expertise, experience and leadership abilities.”

He laments that he didn’t give thought to, or have someone to help him with, things to consider post-career – a method for “finding himself” or a path to more purposeful use of his time at this stage.

His financial goals were achieved early.  But nowhere in conversations with financial advisors was there any conversation about “what’s next” from a mental, physical, social or spiritual perspective.   Nor did anything along the path to retirement “hook” him and steer him toward something that would ignite dormant passions or a greater sense of purpose in how he was living.

Like so many, this very talented, experienced executive walked from a structured environment into an unstructured environment with the assumption that retirement would “take care of itself”.

This new terrain can be a bit like trying to negotiate the city of Chicago using a map of Des Moines.

Steve, at 66, understands he probably has a longer roadway ahead than previous generations. That’s part of his angst, I believe. Perhaps fear of a meaningless, dependent post-career existence.  In other words, just being “older longer.”

We’ve agreed to work together and experiment with some techniques to help him get on this “purpose-path” that seems to be simmering in his psyche.  It’s interesting to note that, even with his successful career experience and education, he is most interested in starting that process by going all the way back to doing some basic strengths and talent assessments and tests.

With this reminder of how he is “wired up” and some guidance on the development of a flexible, written plan for his post-career life, I believe we will carve out that roadmap that he feels is missing for the remainder of his days.

I am confident that we will see a Steve that is “younger longer” with no fear of being “older longer.” More importantly, I believe, will be a focused transfer of skills and experience back into the marketplace in a way that will allow him to leave a more meaningful footprint.

It’s a discovery path that is an option for all of us if we are willing to stare down that “aging elephant in the room.”

Isaac Newton was a great physicist.  Maybe not by today’s standards, but he helped us move forward with some pretty big leaps back in his day.  Like (1) deciphering gravity; (2) inventing calculus; (3) building the telescope.

He also introduced the “First Law of Physics”.

This law is sometimes referred to as the law of inertia and is often stated as:

 An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

The word “object” in the law would seem to reference a solid, physical object – like a rock, a car, a rocket ship, a human body.

I’ll bet, however, that you know a mind or two at rest that is impervious to any opposing view or unbalancing force.  I’ve encountered a few.  There seems to be quite a collection gathering daily along the Potomac.

Isaac’s law pits inertia against action.

My body and mind seem to favor the inertia and resist the action.  Like daily.  It’s so much easier, it seems, to be comfortable, inert.

Be honest.  You’ve been there.

I found myself thinking about the phases – or portals if you will – that we pass through in life and the “unbalancing forces” that move us through those portals, countering our tendency to be a perpetual “object at rest”.  Parents, peers, professors, cultural expectations/pressures.   Sometimes it takes a crisis or a calamity before an inertia-beset mind and body get moving.

Psychologists and marketers have brought us to where we now have seven life portals (P.S.  150 years ago, we had two: childhood and adulthood).  Each portal  (newborn – infancy – childhood  – adolescence – young adult  – middle age – old age)  has inertia and an unbalancing force to counter the inertia.

Aren’t you grateful you had some unbalancing forces in your life that moved you off your inertia-inclined butt at each phase?

Intentional inertia

I’m grateful I got moved off each portal.  I just regret that the unbalancing forces didn’t come along sooner and more forcefully, especially in the later stages.  But that’s a sob story for another article.  It will have “intentional inertia” in the title.

Speaking of  “intentional inertia”, as I scanned those life portals reminiscing on who and what the unbalancing forces were at each phase, it struck me that there is a phase where, culturally, we work somewhat feverishly to establish intentional inertia.  Between portal six and seven, middle age and old age.

It’s called (drum roll) – retirement.

Think about it.  We’re taking a body in motion, some fast, some slow, some half-fast  (sorry – old, tired joke) and we’re suggesting a return to inertia, or at least a measure of it.

We’re entitled to it, we’re told.  We’ve succumbed enough to the “unbalancing forces” in the earlier portals.  Time to stiff-arm those and experience a little or a lot of good ‘ol inertia.

Funny thing about inertia.  This may sound crazy, but my screwy mind went to my days spent on my grandfather’s and uncle’s farms.  Both farms had lots of “retired” farm equipment – tractors, combines, plows, various farm implements.   What did they do with them?  There was no convenient way to “recycle” in those days so they became inert, often at the spot where they quit working.

From there, nature’s payoff for inertia took over – rust.  Useless, inert, just taking up space and using up oxygen and moisture to form iron oxide.   It’s the sort of “farm junk” that you will see as you drive by any small farm in America.

I know some retirees that remind me of one of my Uncle Ray’s old retired Farmall tractors.  Taking up space, using oxygen, immobile and inert.

I’ll bet you know some too.

Between portal six and seven, which I refer to as our “third age”, there is great opportunity for self-imposed inertia.

Our financial planning industry, founded by insurance salespeople a half-century ago, has been hugely successful in convincing us that it’s a time to “wind down”, a time for a “landing”.

No more “take-offs” – you’re done with that.

How could a $60.4 billion industry that’s growing at a 5% pace annually with over 300,000 financial advisors possibly be dispensing bad advice?

Well, it’s really in the eye of the beholder.   It’s easy to think inertia when you are burned out doing something you didn’t fully enjoy so you could accumulate the cash to maybe do what you really wanted to do all along and then discover out you don’t have the motivation or the energy to do it.   All the while, your financial advisor is in your ear convincing you that there are “golden years” ahead and you deserve them.

Forget this striving business, they say – you’ve paid your dues.

I know it’s a hard truth, but you’ve been relinquishing a good chunk of your net worth to get a lesson in how to form iron oxide.

One-hundred-fifty years ago, we had no one telling us that we’ve earned the right to become a body at rest.  The incentive to keep moving was called survival and work was the engine.   We flipped all that upside down with the Industrial Revolution and intensified the incentive to become inert as we’ve moved through an evolving revolution in the way we work and live.

The word “work” for a mid-to-late-lifer seems to have become a bad word.  Something to get away from because, well, just because that’s the way it’s now done.  We’ve been hearing that mantra for six or seven decades so it’s not surprising that it’s not going to be dislodged any time soon.

But I see a glimmer of rational thought emerging.  There are those amongst the pre-boomer, boomer, and early GenX’ers that are questioning this iron oxide option.

• Maybe they’ve seen too many human equivalents to my uncle’s rusted Farmall.
• Maybe there is a growing realization that 65 doesn’t mean “done”.
• Maybe more of us are through buying the outdated bull**** from a “drug it or cut-it-out” medical community that says cellular senescence is automatic and that we should “learn to live with it.”
• Maybe we’ve seen enough Warren Buffetts, William Shatners and other high energy octogenarian and nonagenarian types that are still kicking butt to convince us that unretirement/non-retirement has merit.
• Maybe we are giving up hope that government and corporations will come to their senses about their disrespect for mid- and late-lifers and have decided to do our own thing.
• Maybe we’ve finally learned that ageism starts with us, with how we think and talk about ourselves and how we tolerate how others think and talk about us.
• Maybe we are finally acknowledging that continuing to deploy our accumulated talents, skills, and experiences into the third age will overcome the deterioration that our culture expects us to experience.

I’m not prepared to call it a full-on revolution yet, but something’s fermenting.  If you’ve read this far, you might be part of that fermentation.  I hope so.

I hope you literally get pi**** off about the prevailing negative cultural attitudes toward those beyond 55 or 60 and mount your own personal campaign against the forces that encourage us to succumb to Uncle Isaac’s “First Law of Physics”.

Let me know what you think about all this with a comment below.  Also, you can subscribe to our weekly newsletter at www.makeagingwork.com and receive a free e-book “Achieving Your Full-life Potential” as a thank you.