Let’s Help Prepare you for YOUR Retirement:
No two retirements look the same - yours won't either. Below, you'll find a selection of articles written to help you put words to something you might not have realised needed articulating. Sometimes the hardest part isn't finding the answer; it's not knowing there was a question worth asking in the first place.
If you'd like a feel for how I think about retirement - or a sense of what working together might actually be like before you commit to a call - start with the blog. It's the closest thing to sitting in on a conversation with me.
ABOUT YOU. My first podcast! Please listen below.
My guest Pete and I will discuss his transition to retirement and his passion for bicycle riding in order to pick up on the very interesting topic of curiosity.
Children and retirement
Do you have a parent who is close to or in retirement?
If so, is your parent experiencing:
· feelings of apprehension in advance of retirement?
or
· emotional difficulty with that transition?
Maybe a parent is already retired and is:
· Saying that they are bored
· Having trouble adjusting to being two people in the house together (aside from COVID-19 practices)
· Not able to fill their days.
Here are some symptoms to watch for:
· Lots of plans, but no action
· Talk of going back to work that never leads to an outcome
· Complaints from their partner
To take action, contact 64PLUS for some ideas on how to help:
Telephone: 0409 116 766
Email: jon@64plus.com.au
Web: www.64plus.com.au
Retirement: You won’t know what it is like until you get there.
The long-distance grandfather-a Kindle book
When I wrote this book I couldn’t predict that Corona virus would quickly make its subject matter relevant to most grandfathers. Available in the Amazon Kindle store:
Reviews of my book; Finding Joy in Retirement: fourth one.
As Oscar Wilde remarked, youth is wasted on the young and those many among us who were students of The Happy Prince, did our darndest not to waste those halcyon days.
We laughed in the face of age and risked all for wisdom and experience. Perhaps following the exhortation of The Who, we had a shot at dying before we got old and mocked the sober senior souls around us. Now our inner puck chuckles from his cowslip as we hesitate before crossing the river Styx.
Glass and Kennedy provide a guide to navigating that crossing.
The book is structured around advice, guidance and exercises in reflection. It poses the question, ’Would you not plan for retirement as you would for any other phase in life?’
Work, as we all know, provides meaning, routine, identity and satisfaction. Where will these things derive from in retirement?
A coach or guide can assist in finding meaning and, through reflective listening, can elicit your concerns; what the authors call the four Ms, missing, measuring, meaning and mastery.
They go on to discuss aspects of life you will miss; understanding that life beyond work is not a wilderness, finding motivation, structuring one’s life and defining one’s role in the world.
The authors encourage the reader to commit to retirement and embrace the assistance of a coach to get the best out of it, to reflect with others on its challenges. This involves managing time, energy and space, establishing new forms of validation and carpe diem seizing the time.
All of us, like Frank Sinatra, have had a few regrets, but retirement is a time to move beyond regret, to do what you didn’t have time to do before, to value your friends and cherish your values. It is a time to discover your true personality, your rhythm, your relationship to wealth and the possibilities of self-creation.
The authors conclude by exhorting the reader to take risks, to master their goals, to divide life into its components, adjust their dependency relations and begin to learn anew. Most importantly they suggest this process of self-assessment should be done vis-a-vis the goals of your partner in life.
As Joni Mitchell said, ‘you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone’.
But it hasn’t gone yet, not by a long shot. And if you want to know the secret to making the next stage of life as good or better than the last, this is the book for you.
Reviews of my book; Finding Joy in Retirement: third one.
An easy read which has many nuggets and thought provoking ideas. An excellent resource for people thinking about retirement - planning ahead can make a world of difference but this book would help anyone at any stage of retirement. Highly recommended for anyone thinking about retirement is trying to support someone who is!
Reviews of my book; Finding Joy in Retirement: second one.
Sometimes retirement is thrust upon you. Other times you have plenty of time to prepare but do you? The premise of Finding Joy in Retirement is that you can’t step idly into retirement. You need a plan, not just a financial plan but a life plan. After the sleeping in, going for coffee, going to the gym what are you going to do? If you don’t have a plan you risk driving your partner crazy and then there won’t be any joy in retirement. Based on his retirement coaching practice and interviews with a wide range of workers Jon Glass and David Kennedy have devised four steps to help you plan for and ease into retirement. You will have to read the book to find out these four steps to discover meaning in life after work. A great gift for friends or colleagues contemplating this next phase in life.
Reviews of my book; Finding Joy in Retirement: first one.
I am by inclination a stoic. I understand that we have a beginning and an end and that it is what we make of the finite time between those points that matters.
With that premise firmly in mind it was with real expectation that I read Finding Joy in Retirement knowing that its intent was to guide the reader through a pivotal change in one’s life and to assist in creating a positive methodology for navigating the next stage/s.
I was not disappointed. Yes, I understood the need for financial security and yes, I anticipated that emotional satisfaction needed to run side by side with it in one’s later years. What I didn’t have clearly in my mind were the loss factors marking the transition from a working life and the practical steps necessary to help negate the impact of these losses. In other words I lacked clarity in my perception and methods of coping.
Clarity is the gift this book offers.
Retirements can be viewed with stunning superficiality. Retirements can be multi-faceted requiring review and restatement of objectives. They are not to be mistaken as simply an opportunity to have a good time. Jon and David hold the mirror up to a different reality that lies in wait for those of us on the cusp and who hope to sail into it with no compass for the voyage.
There is much that can be said about the authors offering, better to obtain the book and learn for yourself. It may be a life changer.
The price you pay
Thomas Babington Macaulay wrote - in 1834 – that almost every physical job has a tendency to cause some sort of injury in the practitioner, for example:
“Grinders of cutlery die of consumption; weavers are stunted in their growth; smiths become blear-eyed.”
Whatever job you have, there may be a price you pay for it. Here are two contemporary examples.
We all know of workaholics who sacrifice the benefits of private life in pursuit of wealth or fame; or sportspeople who develop physical injury that can last a lifetime.
What can be said about the price we may pay in retirement? It depends. For those who are happy in retirement, just as for those who are content at work, we can say that the price is negligible.
But what about those people who haven’t found their meaning or purpose in retirement: could they be an unhappy burden on themselves and those close to them?
Is that a price that, as a retired person, you would want to pay?
Retirement: You won’t know what it is like until you get there.