RETIREMENT FROM THE TYPE A PERSPECTIVE

2010-01-02T16:19:00.000-08:00

A QUESTION FOR YOU

As we start a new year, I would like to hear what you have to say.

Each of us looks at retirement from a slightly different perspective, but we probably share similar thoughts and concerns. I would therefore pose this question for you: If you have not yet retired, what is your major worry or apprehension about approaching this transition? If you have already retired, what was your biggest problem or obstacle, and would you do anything differently?

I earnestly request your feedback by posting a response below.

2009-12-23T01:14:00.000-08:00

THE 10 MOST IMPORTANT QUESTONS

Some might argue that there are other equally important questions to ask when thinking about the transition to retirement (and I would agree), but each of these certainly needs to be considered:

1. Will I have enough money to live the life style I desire?
2. Do I have a way to generate income if the need arises?
3. When will I quit or slow down?
4. How do I decide what I want to do in retirement?
5. Where will I (we) live?
6. How will I fill my days?
7. Have I learned how to enjoy leisure time?
8. Can my ego handle being a “nobody”?
9. How will I continue to stimulate my brain?
10. Is my spouse in agreement with my plans?

2009-11-20T09:15:00.000-08:00

PLAN AHEAD . . . BUT BE FLEXIBLE

The fundamental premise of this blog on Retirement is that the transition will be more enjoyable, productive, and stress-free if you begin to think about what you want to do well in advance. Five to 10 years before your anticipated date of retirement is not too early, for that gives you time to 1) figure out what you want to do; and 2) gradually work into your new life by spending more time in that endeavor or taking additional training, if necessary.

As you plan, it’s probably not a bad idea to incorporate into your “leisure years” an activity from which you can continue to garner some income. Even if you calculate that you have enough in savings to live on the interest, a whole lot of unexpected events can happen (most of which are not good). We all know what happened to the stock market (and most everyone’s savings) in 2008 – there is no guarantee that a similar event might not happen again. Severe injuries sustained in a car wreck or a disabling but not fatal illness could alter your plans dramatically. There are many other unpleasant scenarios, but you get the point.

So plan ahead and hope for the best, but prepare for the unexpected.

2009-10-11T14:02:00.001-07:00

WHAT DO YOU LOVE?

In the last blog entry, I mentioned that I think it is important to have more than one activity/interest/endeavor in retirement. The first step in identifying those activities is to recognize what you enjoy doing. I think there is a very simple way to do that. Whenever you’re doing something and the time flies – that’s what you love

I enjoy writing, and when I am working on either research or trying to create a manuscript, I totally lose track of time. Futzing around in my wood working shop is another of those activities that makes the time fly for me. Both of these endeavors have a prominent role in my retirement activities.

So. . .what do YOU love?

2009-09-30T17:18:00.000-07:00

ONE IS NOT ENOUGH

I have thought for the past decade or so that my “second career” would be non-medical writing, and in preparation for that I have written a couple of non-medical books in the past 15 years. As I began to slow down in my surgical practice and add more free hours, I discovered that my thinking may have been flawed.

Yes, I love to write, and I plan to do a fair amount of that in my retirement years. But what I didn’t anticipate – but was pointed out to me by a good friend who retired a few years before I did – that I don’t want to retire to a SINGLE endeavor. Most of us put in many 12-16 hour days in our “first career” jobs, and I realize now that I don’t want to invest that kind of time and energy into my “second career.”

The simple point is – we need to have several interests to fill up the time. The possible combination of these interests is limitless. It can be a mixing of part time work, hobbies, sports and fitness programs, volunteering, travel, etc. etc.

So. . .start making up your list and begin spending some time in each of those areas you think you’d like to pursue.

2009-09-11T08:32:00.000-07:00

CHOOSING ACTIVITIES FOR RETIREMENT

Many highly successful professional and business people have been so committed to their jobs that they have not developed many (or any) hobbies or interests. These are the folks who are the most likely to be frightened by the prospect of retirement, when that activity which demanded 16 + hours a day is no longer there. How do you fill all those hours?

There are many ways for all of us to choose activities that we wish to pursue in retirement, but I would remind you that the sooner you start this process, the smoother and more enjoyable the transition to retirement will be.

So. . .how do you figure out what you want to do? In my blog post of July 2, 2009, I mentioned Ernie Zelinski’s “Make-a-Life Tree” That’s a great way to start. Another way is to ask yourself “What do I love to do?” The answer to that question is simple – whenever you’re doing something and the time flies – that’s what you love.

2009-08-30T16:31:00.001-07:00

WHAT DOES YOUR SPOUSE THINK ABOUT RETIREMENT?

Many professional and business people are so used to making decisions on their own that they approach retirement in much the same way. You need to remember that it’s not JUST about you. Your spouse’s life is going to dramatically changed with your retirement, so he (or she) must have equal say in the decisions.

I have known men who were having a wonderful time in their new retirement life but the wife was miserable because she had been uprooted from the long time friends she had made before retirement dictated a move to another city.

It’s important to keep in mind also that the spouse has a life, too – before retirement – and the retiree’s new schedule and interests might well interfere with her comfortable life style.

2009-08-26T06:10:00.001-07:00

IS IT TIME TO RETIRE?

There are many factors that influence when each of us is going to quit. Financial stability is perhaps the most dominant one – and we will discuss that later – but there are many others: health issues, forced retirement, love (or dislike) of job, family concerns, burnout, and the list goes on. We’ll address each of those in future blogs, but today I’d like to consider ATTITUDE towards how and when you are going to retire.

Forced retirement for health or other reasons may take our own desires out of the equation, but let’s assume for the moment that you do have the luxury of choosing not only the date, but also the manner in which you will retire. I have asked a number of my friends and colleagues who are in various stages of semi- and full retirement to comment on this question, and several of their thoughts are posted below.

2009-08-01T16:01:00.000-07:00

HOW TO POST A COMMENT ON A BLOG

One of my friends asked how to post a comment on a blog. I’m new to this stuff myself, but as well as I can figure, here’s the way:
Go the bottom of whatever blog entry you want to comment on.
Click Comments
This will take you to a ‘Post a Comment’ box
Type your comment into the box
You will be given a choice to comment either as
Anonymous, or
Name/URL
Then appears on the screen: “Your comment will be visible after approval”
Not sure how this works because I entered a comment and it came up
immediately.

2009-07-30T11:31:00.000-07:00

DOES YOUR JOB DEFINE WHO YOU ARE?

Ego can get in the way of successful retirement. If a person’s self esteem is dependent on his or her job title or position, loss of that role can be devastating. There are sad examples of highly capable and successful people who became depressed or even alcoholics when they were forced to retire. People whose opinion has always been considered and whose advice has been sought may find it difficult to realize that no one is really interested in what they have to say any longer.

This is only one of the reasons why it is is so important to develop interests outside of one’s job. If a job description is all that defines you, you may be in real trouble when you no longer have the title.

2009-07-15T05:32:00.000-07:00

LEARN HOW TO ENJOY LESIURE

Most Type A’s don’t handle leisure well. The reasons may vary, but probably the most fundamental reason is that they were raised with a work ethic which said that if you are not doing some productive or “worthwhile,” you’re wasting your life.
That’s a hard mind set to change, but it’s doable. It’s probably not a good idea to wait until you retire to learn how to enjoy leisure, because that abrupt change may be too much for your psyche to handle.
My suggestion is that you pick some activities you REALLY enjoy doing (I’m going to write more later about how you can identify those things) and carve out some time to do them. And I mean, make the time inviolate. Don’t let anyone mess with it – that’s YOUR time, to do what you enjoy doing. It doesn’t make any difference whether it is fishing, golf, working in your shop, rebuilding engines, writing, volunteer work, taking college courses, or what – and start doing it now. You can work into this gradually. Start with a couple of hours per week, and then increase it to a half day, or a whole day, or whatever you can squeeze into your schedule. After a while, you will learn that your world is not going to crash if you spend some time doing what YOU want to do, even if it is not “worthwhile.”
OK, so some of you are saying, “Well, my work is what I really like to do.” I can buy that, but I urge you to think ahead to some years from now when you are unable – for whatever reason – to do your real job any more, or perhaps not as much. Start figuring out NOW how you want to fill those hours.

2009-07-07T06:02:00.000-07:00

DIFFERENT STROKES

Over the past twenty years, I have discussed plans for retirement with many friends, colleagues, and mentors. One fact is patently clear – there are a lot of ways to approach it and a wide range of attitudes regarding this transition.

Some people can’t wait to retire. Even among this group, there is a huge diversity of reasons and intentions. Some want to fish or play golf every day; some want to just take it easy after working hard for decades; and some have a whole other “career” mapped out.

At the other end of the spectrum are the people who never want to retire. They want to “die with their boots on,” and keep working right up until the end. For this group, there are many obstacles that could derail those plans – but that’s a topic for another day.

The group in which I find myself lies somewhere in between these two extremes. We want to stay busy – and in fact the thought of not having something “programmed” to do almost every day is daunting or even frightening. We are the people that need to plan ahead, to find something (or things) to retire to, rather than to retire from their old job.

The goal of this blog is to share with readers my own thoughts about how develop that plan, but more importantly, to discover how others have done it or plan to do it.

PLANNING AHEAD

2009-07-02T11:28:00.000-07:00

A recent perusal of Books in Print revealed that there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 350 books on retirement currently available. Well over 50% of these deal exclusively with the financial aspects of retirement – and I suspect that there will be even more on that topic as retirees and wannabe retirees start trying to climb out of the financial hole most fell into in 2008-2009.

Finances are certainly a critical element in retirement planning, and I intend to address that issue in future blogs. But as a starter, I wanted to talk about a topic that most of us think about when facing the transition to retirement – What am I going to do with all that time I’ve got on my hands?

A major emphasis in my blog is going to be how important it is to begin thinking about that long before we’re eligible for Medicare. I believe that the ideal way should look something like the graph above.

Line A is your “Real job”. Line B is what you want to spend more time doing in retirement. Well before you start downsizing your real job, you should be learning more about and spending more time in that activity (or activities) you want to do after you retire. At some point the lines will cross, and you will be spending more time doing the new, fun stuff.

So. . .how do you figure out what you want Line B to be? There are lots of ways, but one of the best suggestions is in Ernie Zelinski’s book, How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free, where he describes the “Make-A-Life” Tree. You make 3 lists:

1) Activities that turn you on now
2) Activities that turned you on in the past (but you have stopped doing)
3) New Activities you have thought of doing (but haven’t done)

This is just one of the many great ideas in Zelinski’s book, which is without question one of the very best ever written about how to retire. Check it out.

WHAT'S THIS ALL ABOUT?

2009-06-15T16:37:00.000-07:00

I admit it. I have been worried about retirement for 20 years. I worry about how I will fill my days.

I was raised with a strict Scots-Irish heritage, and was instilled with the notion that if whatever you’re doing is not productive, you’re wasting your time. Having spent 40+ years as a surgeon, that work ethic has dominated the pursuit of my dreams and aspirations. Now, at age 72, I am slowing down, but still working – seeing fewer patients, doing less difficult operations. We all enjoy doing what we’re good at, and it would hard not to be reasonably good at something you’ve spent 12-16 hours a day doing for nearly 50 years. So I have to say that I do love my job. It is gratifying and fulfilling, and even though every job has its less desirable elements, I am blessed that I have something I truly enjoy doing.

My choice is to slow down gradually, for several reasons.
1. As noted above, I enjoy what I do – I just don’t want to work as hard at it as I have most of my life.
2. I need the income. I have been divorced twice since age 53, and it doesn’t take a financial guru to figure out that you can’t cut your net worth 50% twice after that age and have enough left to be financially independent at age 65.
3. I’m scared to do it cold turkey. At this point I wouldn’t know how to handle a “week full of Saturdays,” so I figure I can slide into the retirement mode gently.

My guess is that there are many Type A people just like me out there. If you are one who has a day off and wonder what you are going to do all day, you fit the mold.

On this blog I plan to share with you the specific steps I’m taking to make a successful transition to Retirement (the “R” word).

I’d like to hear the thoughts on Retirement from other Type A’s, both those who have done it and those who are contemplating it. I earnestly invite your comments. We can help each other.