Check out my Channel 12 Interview on Rethink Retirement
Last week, I had the pleasure of joining News 12 to discuss a topic that doesn’t receive nearly enough attention: the connection between anxiety and retirement.
Television interviews are wonderful opportunities. They introduce important ideas to a broad audience. But they also move quickly. In just a few minutes, there’s only time to touch the surface.
What I wish we had more time to explore is this:
Retirement doesn’t create anxiety. Uncertainty does.
When people tell me they’re anxious about retirement, they rarely begin by talking about money.
Instead, they ask questions like:
Who am I if I’m no longer the CEO, physician, teacher, entrepreneur, or manager?
What will I do every day?
Will I still matter?
Who will I spend time with?
Those aren’t financial questions.
They’re human questions.
Over the past several years, while researching and writing Rethink Retirement, hosting conversations on my podcast, and leading workshops with people approaching this transition, I’ve heard these same questions again and again.
They point to something we often overlook.
For decades, work quietly organizes our lives.
It gives us an identity.
It structures our days.
It provides opportunities to contribute.
It surrounds us with colleagues, customers, clients, and friends.
We don’t notice how much work provides until one day it isn’t there anymore.
No wonder retirement can feel unsettling.
The Four Pillars
I’ve come to believe that preparing for retirement means preparing for four transitions.
Identity. Who are you becoming beyond your career?
Structure. How will you create days that energize rather than simply fill time?
Purpose. Where will your talents, wisdom, and experience make a difference?
Community. Who will walk beside you in this next chapter?
These four pillars have become the foundation of my workshops because they consistently emerge in conversations with people who are preparing for—or already living—their next chapter.
A Conversation That Stays With Me
Recently, during one of my retirement Masterclasses, the participants were all in different places.
One man had retired only days earlier. He was still enjoying the freedom of waking up without an alarm clock.
Another had been retired for several years and had gradually built a wonderful circle of friends simply by inviting people to lunch. Each lunch brought someone new, and before long he had created a vibrant new community.
Another participant had intentionally chosen to become deeply involved in his neighborhood, creating connections that reflected who he was becoming, not just who he had been.
Different journeys.
Different timelines.
The same challenge.
Each was learning that retirement isn’t something that simply happens to us.
It is something we design.
A Life Plan Matters
For years we’ve encouraged people to create financial plans for retirement.
We should.
Financial security matters.
But a financial plan answers only one question:
“Can I afford to retire?”
A life plan answers a different—and perhaps even more important—question:
“How do I want to live?”
That conversation deserves just as much attention.
Perhaps even more.
Retirement isn’t about leaving work behind.
It’s about creating a future that reflects the person you’ve become and the person you still hope to be.
If you’d like to watch the News 12 interview that inspired these reflections, you can find it here:
The Link Between Anxiety and Retirement
I’d love to hear from you.
Which of these four pillars—identity, structure, purpose, or community—do you think people underestimate the most? Why?