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Retirement progress report

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Things are fine. I am learning to redefine myself and try doing things the give me pleasure, happiness and purpose besides making money. I am starting physical training PT at local college and will offer my services to 55 and over facing retirement and medical challenges. I am also starting to expand my cooking skills and will be volunteering at a local kitchen . Last but not least i am working on my next book, “Work book on how to retire successfully.

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You spent 40 plus years paying attention to and planning your Breadwinning career. Work-related issues and problems filled your mind on the job and when at home. Now that is gone, but your mind has not moved on. Just like your planning for retirement where you were given financial advice on saving for retirement. You maintained a 401K, set aside money from your family for your own future use. You may have even gotten get help by engaging a financial planner to guide your investing. You were told that hobbies and vacations will fill your days with happiness and purpose. It may, but not likely. The book “Retirement How NOT to end up Tired, Bored and Lonely” is an excellent introduction to this next part of your life. In retirement, you need to rediscover yourself and your new purpose.

Coaching and your Comfort Zone

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Coaching Areas
The challenge of fitness is the process of a paradigm shift on how you see yourself, people and things around you. You have made real choices in the first part of your life that have supported you fulfilling your objectives e.g. family, income, etc., you get to make them again. Couching is meant to enable you by recovering your body, clearing your mind and to give you the tools so you are aware of alternatives so you can choose again.

In the past, it was family, career, and money. Now it is a pleasure, happiness, and purpose.

Why coaching?
Simply said, it is because you have never been here before. All your experience, skills and motivation up to now has been focused on past journeys. During your life, you had parents, teachers, mentors experienced friends all working with you to help you transition from childhood to adolescence and adulthood.

When you retired you are told work on your hobbies or in other words stay out of the way. The trouble with this is you are still coherent. You need companionship and purpose to feel whole. Setting around collecting stamps was good as a break from active life, it is not enough if it is the only thing you have. Without companionship and purpose, you are just waiting to die.

You can continue to live your life working, collecting money and taking a vacation until mother nature calls and you a no longer physically able to continue. An alternative is to rediscover who you are now and just like you did as a teenager, experience new things and make new choices.

Retirement coaching helps you through this journey by helping found your body, discover you are what you eat, clear your mind of other peoples lives and have a clear and open view of yourself and step out of your patterns to discover friendships and purpose.

Coaching Agenda
In your teen age years, you made so many choices types of food, how you thought about your life and what things you liked or did not like to do. You where guided to opportunities my those around you preparing you to become an adult.

Retirement coaching takes you on the same journey with one key exception. On this journey you choose the destination that gives you pleasure, happiness and purpose in your retirement years. You have already earned money, raised a family and meet all the requirements of being grown up. Now you get to choose from all the alternatives, but first you must see and experience them, a paradigm shift.

Coaching covers eating regime (not dieting), breathing, meditation, exercise program to help you find your body and physical abilities that will support finding a tribe of people to enjoy your retirement years.

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You spent 40 plus years paying attention to and planning your Breadwinning career. Work-related issues and problems filled your mind on the job and when at home. Now that is gone, but your mind has not moved on. Just like your planning for retirement where you were given financial advice on saving for retirement. You maintained a 401K, set aside money from your family for your own future use. You may have even gotten get help by engaging a financial planner to guide your investing. You were told that hobbies and vacations will fill your days with happiness and purpose. It may, but not likely. The book “Retirement How NOT to end up Tired, Bored and Lonely” is an excellent introduction to this next part of your life. In retirement, you need to rediscover yourself and your new purpose.

Retirement- – Elevator pitch on the truth of retirement

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The following is an elevator pitch for the book

Retirement – How not to end up lonely, Tired and bored.

Hi, I am joel Smith a recent retiree and have interviewed hundreds of other retires.
Retirement is a big lie. You are sold a story that all you need is a hobby and money. Spending the money will give you pleasure, happiness and purpose during your remaining years.

It is a lie.

This talk tells the story of the chaos of retirement. You experience denial, procrastination, uncertainty, and doubt that you go through as you approach and enter retirement. The talk focuses on alternative paths that can be taken and why the recommendation “all you need is money,” is not true.

We describe how to see yourself in a different light, e.g., a paradigm shift. Things do not change, how you look at them changes. You are retired and have left the principal purpose of your life behind: your career to maintain the financial stability of your family. The approach is to make you aware of the alternatives and help you see them clearly, so you can feel good about your choices.

These are the last years of your life. You have worked hard, supported your family and saved and have an expectation that you will enjoy and prosper during retirement. A fair expectation, but unfortunately, not a true.

You are faced with the real thing, not an urban legend or a marketing blurb from the so-many financial houses on how they can help you live to be 200 years old while you play polo. Until now, you had gotten up every day and gone to work, even when people waiting for you at work wanted to make your life hard, you went to work. Snow, rain, cold and gas shortages, you went to work. Take a moment to appreciate the sense of purpose, accomplishment, passion, and fulfillment that it gave you. Now it is gone!

Talk about going from an active social and productive environment to isolation and chaos! Your career is gone and most likely your body. You are facing a new challenge which will require your body to be there to support you and it is gone.


Click to buy: “Retirement How NOT to end up Tired, Bored and Lonely”

You spent 40 plus years paying attention to and planning your Breadwinning career. Work-related issues and problems filled your mind on the job and when at home. Now that is gone, but your mind has not moved on. Just like your planning for retirement where you were given financial advice on saving for retirement. You maintained a 401K, set aside money from your family for your own future use. You may have even gotten get help by engaging a financial planner to guide your investing. You were told that hobbies and vacations will fill your days with happiness and purpose. It may, but not likely. The book “Retirement How NOT to end up Tired, Bored and Lonely” is an excellent introduction to this next part of your life. In retirement, you need to rediscover yourself and your new purpose.

Retirement – Fear Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD)

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Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) stops most of us from even showing up.
A thought stream.

What should I do? Should I do this or that? How do I know if this or that is what gives me pleasure and happiness?
How can I start this or that not knowing if it is good for my soul?
Can I ever know so not to suffer the guilt and blame of failure?
Should I risk and try, never knowing if success or failure will be the outcome?

95 % of success in life is determined by showing up.

You can’t know if something will give you pleasure, happiness and purpose unless you experience it. Show up, try it and then try it again.

No one starts at the top. It is the journey that we remember.


Click to buy: “Retirement How NOT to end up Tired, Bored and Lonely”

You spent 40 plus years paying attention to and planning your Breadwinning career. Work-related issues and problems filled your mind on the job and when at home. Now that is gone, but your mind has not moved on. Just like your planning for retirement where you were given financial advice on saving for retirement. You maintained a 401K, set aside money from your family for your own future use. You may have even gotten get help by engaging a financial planner to guide your investing. You were told that hobbies and vacations will fill your days with happiness and purpose. It may, but not likely. The book “Retirement How NOT to end up Tired, Bored and Lonely” is an excellent introduction to this next part of your life. In retirement, you need to rediscover yourself and your new purpose.

Retirement has started. What do I do? Part IV – Try, Try Again.

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You have retired. Your old life is gone. No amount of money can bring it back. This is a time of reconciliation, re-organization and rebirth. You need to get up. get dressed and go out into the world and try new efforts to find you pleasure, happiness and purpose for this part of your life. This poem touches on “what you need to do!”

It’s a lesson you should heed,
Try, try again.

If at first you don’t succeed,
Try, try again.

Then your courage should appear,
For if you will persevere,
You will conquer, never fear,
Try, try again.

Once or twice, though you should fail,
Try, try again.

If you would at last prevail,
Try, try again.

If we strive, ’tis no disgrace,
Though we do not win the race;
What should you do in that case?
Try, try again.

If you find your task is hard,
Try, try again.

Time will bring you your reward,
Try, try again.

All that other folk can do,
Why, with patience, should not you?
Only keep this rule in view,
Try, try again.

Fear not you have already succeeded at his once before, second time is always easier. a YouTube video to inspire your efforts —)))

Try it.

You spent 40 plus years paying attention to and planning your Breadwinning career. Work-related issues and problems filled your mind on the job and when at home. Now that is gone, but your mind has not moved on. Just like your planning for retirement where you were given financial advice on saving for retirement. You maintained a 401K, set aside money from your family for your own future use. You may have even gotten get help by engaging a financial planner to guide your investing. You were told that hobbies and vacations will fill your days with happiness and purpose. It may, but not likely. The book “Retirement How NOT to end up Tired, Bored and Lonely” is an excellent introduction to this next part of your life. In retirement, you need to rediscover yourself and your new purpose.

Retirement – Getting started!

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I can’t get started. My day is centered around the TV. Watching the news over coffee and then I make myself a good breakfast, but instead of an energy boost, I find myself again watching the TV. Later I do something for the house or take a trip to the store to pick up a single item. In the afternoon, I will keep my wife company and go out for lunch and do some shoping. She shops while I find a place to sit. My chair and I are becoming one. My get up and go has got up and left.

Retirement is not a time of rest, it is a time to expand your pleasure, happiness and purpose beyond earning money.
Get up, go out and do it.
By showing up you will be successful. Allow yourself to try. Trust your core values of a successful life. Great YouTube video on making it happen:

This YouTube touches on values that are you.

You spent 40 plus years paying attention to and planning your Breadwinning career. Work-related issues and problems filled your mind on the job and when at home. Now that is gone, but your mind has not moved on. Just like your planning for retirement where you were given financial advice on saving for retirement. You maintained a 401K, set aside money from your family for your own future use. You may have even gotten get help by engaging a financial planner to guide your investing. You were told that hobbies and vacations will fill your days with happiness and purpose. It may, but not likely. The book “Retirement How NOT to end up Tired, Bored and Lonely” is an excellent introduction to this next part of your life. In retirement, you need to rediscover yourself and your new purpose.

Retirement Surprises – Depression, Anxiety and Suicide – Part II Anxiety

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We last looked at depression. Anxiety is the same in that you see no outward changes in your body but tremendous effect on your emotions, heart rate and stress levels. You are attacked by a tiger and your body responds even after the tiger (trigger) leaves.

We have a trigger that is with us 24/7, in retirement!

Here are some videos of people going through anxiety attacks:

This first video show the range of when an attach can occur and some alternatives to manage the event.

Listen to the intensity and lack of empowerment in the solution process.

Listen to the history of triggers, self-guilt and uncertainty.

Let us look at the how often retires experience anxiety attacks. A study of males over 50 show an an approximate 10% increase over younger males in depression and anxiety, Link.

We can assume that anxiety rates follow depression rates which mean 5% of the retirement population will suffer severe attacks and from 5% to 25% will suffer mild to suffer anxiety as part of the retirement journey.

The next blog will be on suicide and we will start the journey on alternative methods to help deal with the challenging three, Depression, Anxiety and Suicide.

You spent 40 plus years paying attention to and planning your Breadwinning career. Work-related issues and problems filled your mind on the job and when at home. Now that is gone, but your mind has not moved on. Just like your planning for retirement where you were given financial advice on saving for retirement. You maintained a 401K, set aside money from your family for your own future use. You may have even gotten get help by engaging a financial planner to guide your investing. You were told that hobbies and vacations will fill your days with happiness and purpose. It may, but not likely. The book “Retirement How NOT to end up Tired, Bored and Lonely” is an excellent introduction to this next part of your life. In retirement you need to rediscover yourself and your new purpose.

Retirement Surprises – Depression, Anxiety and Suicide – Part I Depression

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You have successfully managed your money and have enough to live comfortably. Surprise, you may have just set yourself up for the most challenging and stressful time of your life. It turns out that after a brief busy period following retirement, 4% of retirees have severe depression and almost 25% suffer mild to severe depression. This does not include anxiety attacks or suicides.

Here is a YouTube video that reminds you that retirement means a new effort to find your pleasure, happiness and purpose and the need to find a new tribe. Just like when you were a teenager, you need friends:

This great YouTube video by a retiree discuses some truths of retirement’s challenges.

National Institute of Health (NIH) study that shows that a full 23+ percent of retirees suffers mild to moderate depression and almost 4% suffers severe depression
Link to Study

You spent 40 plus years paying attention to and planning your Breadwinning career. Work-related issues and problems filled your mind on the job and when at home. Now that is gone, but your mind has not moved on. Just like your planning for retirement where you were given financial advice on saving for retirement. You maintained a 401K, set aside money from your family for your own future use. You may have even gotten get help by engaging a financial planner to guide your investing. You were told that hobbies and vacations will fill your days with happiness and purpose. It may, but not likely. The book “Retirement How NOT to end up Tired, Bored and Lonely” is an excellent introduction to this next part of your life. In retirement you need to rediscover yourself and your new purpose.

Where to Retire – The one key question to ask

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Retirement options are different for men and for women. Men who lost their tribe want to start over. They may be having social anxiety and are lost without a “job”. They suggest:

Take a Winnebago trip across the county
Move to new housing in a different state
Move to a summer home in the middle of a forest

They are running away, from their feeling of isolation and loss of purpose in their lives. They are alone in their man caves. No matter where you end up living, the challenge is when you get to where you are going you still need to find and grow the tribe of people to have pleasure, happiness and purpose in your retirement years. Bottom line it does not matter where, but with whom you are living that is the leading driver for where to retire. The one key question is:

Are you living within 15 minutes of family or “true” friend?

They key to successful retirement is not being isolated and alone. You will need to find and develop “Purpose” and that means interacting with people to achieve a goal. True friends and family are great companions in this journey.

Other key considerations are:

If you live in the middle of nowhere, you are nowhere. Make sure community resources are within a 15 to 30-minute drive e.g. shopping, entertainment, hospitals, doctors, housing, public transportation, etc.
Reconsider what give you purpose and happiness. You have almost spent your entire life working for family, career and wealth. Each day ask yourself: “What do give you pleasure, happiness and purpose?” Change those things that do not. Start small with what you like to eat for lunch. What shirts you like to wear. Choose and keep choosing. Watch the small things, the big items will follow
Live within your financial means. Happiness is not found in conspicuous consumption. When you pay people for a service, these people are paid to be nice to you. It is not a acquaintance or a relationship, just a moment in time where you are distracted form your real life.

Here is a video of two women discussing handling and repurposing your life in retirement. Enjoy

You spent 40 plus years paying attention to and planning your Breadwinning career. Work-related issues and problems filled your mind on the job and when at home. Now that is gone, but your mind has not moved on. Just like your planning for retirement where you were given financial advice on saving for retirement. You maintained a 401K, set aside money from your family for your own future use. You may have even gotten get help by engaging a financial planner to guide your investing. You were told that hobbies and vacations will fill your days with happiness and purpose. It may, but not likely. The book “Retirement How NOT to end up Tired, Bored and Lonely” is an excellent introduction to this next part of your life. In retirement you need to rediscover yourself and your new purpose.

Retirement New understanding of a friend

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I was sitting at the docks enjoying the view and meet a young women and we started talking about life’s issues. She was recently divorced and relocated from here childhood location of Denver, Co. She was challenged by anxiety and was walking her therapy dog. Our conversation centered around finding and making a friend. I offered the characteristics of a friend.

– Come when you need them
– Listen and dialogue without judgement
– Are part of your life, you have broken bread with them

It can take over 200 hours of contact to turn an acquaintance into a friend.
She added immediately that when she is with a friend she is at rest
I thought her comment was so real that i have now added it to the definition of a friend. A friend is someone you are with totally at ease. It is a time of being together and real. This is in alignment with Tara Brack’s guidance on meditation.

Could it be that being with a friend is like being in the now?

A video from the movie “Ted” that can give you a visual of a friend. Enjoy.

You spent 40 plus years paying attention to and planning your Breadwinning career. Work-related issues and problems filled your mind on the job and when at home. Now that is gone, but your mind has not moved on. Just like your planning for retirement where you were given financial advice on saving for retirement. You maintained a 401K, set aside money from your family for your own future use. You may have even gotten get help by engaging a financial planner to guide your investing. You were told that hobbies and vacations will fill your days with happiness and purpose. It may, but not likely. The book “Retirement How NOT to end up Tired, Bored and Lonely” is an excellent introduction to this next part of your life. In retirement you need to rediscover yourself and your new purpose.