My Next Phase - New Member Tips

The My Next Phase Newsletter - Volume 7

Frank's Story: Back From The Brink of a Flunked Retirement Fulfillment, The Second Time Around

Everyone knew Frank was mired deep in a miserable retirement. Everyone, that is, but Frank.

Veteran of two successful careers - the first peaking as a senior sales executive at an international pharmaceutical company, the second as chief of his own consultancy - Frank was poster child for "has it all" upon retirement. Happy, 43-year marriage, good health. Successful adult children. More than enough money to sustain a long, comfortable life. Vacation home. Boat. More.

Frank decided that, indeed, he had it all, and that he'd had enough. He gave up his consulting clients. To do what, he wasn't quite sure. Frank imagined his retirement as a little of this, a little of that, a lot of relaxing. No more misery of traveling to clients, to be sure.

Friction at Home

"So I'm going along like this for eight or nine months, thinking things are more or less OK. Maybe a little something was missing, I wasn't quite sure," Frank recalled. "Then one day my wife sits me down in at the kitchen table and reads me the riot act. I remember her opening line: 'We've got a problem.'

"The problem was, I was driving her nuts, and almost everyone else around me, too. I had no idea."

Chief among Frank's wife's list of grievances was how he'd so aggressively invaded her space at home - a home that was her sole domain most weekdays throughout their long marriage.

Failure Breeds Success

J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series was rejected by 12 publishers.
The Beatles were turned down by Decca records.
Walt Disney was fired for lack of imagination.
Thomas Edison failed at over 1,000 failed experiments before discovering the light bulb.
Michael Jordon was cut from his high-school varsity team in his sophomore year.

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She didn't appreciate Frank's "new and improved" ways of doing things. They just broke her routine, and created friction that never existed between them before. It took her some months to get a handle on the friction's source. Once she did, she pulled no punches. (We've heard variations of this story from countless clients and acquaintances.)

A Family "Gift"

If the kitchen table talk was a first-round jab of self awareness, the knockout blow came with Frank's birthday present from his son: a one-year membership to My Next Phase, including a full coaching package. "My initial reaction, to tell you the truth, is unprintable," says the refreshingly forthcoming Frank. "Someone telling me how to spend my time? Thanks, but no thanks."

One healthy, family-instilled guilt trip later, Frank got started. The personality assessment changed his mind about his potential gain from developing a non-financial retirement plan. "For the most part, it jived with how I saw myself, so I moved on to the rest of it."

Not long after, Frank began to understand what he lost when he retired: his daily routine, his identity, and his social network.

"I really had no idea how important my work relationships were beyond the 'work' part, and how I was, effectively, mourning those losses when I retired. I didn't know how much of me was wrapped up in the business, because I'd always been able to enjoy myself outside of work," he recalls. "When the equation flipped around, I went off keel, but in ways that were much more apparent to others than yours truly."

From Understanding to Planning to Action

Realizing that connecting with the world outside of his family was a very necessary next phase ingredient, Frank developed a list of volunteering options geared to improve his local community - a kind of giving back that Frank had learned would likely produce his greatest psychic rewards. He kept his options open by applying to three organizations: his town board of health, the conservation commission and the historical commission.

In developing his plan, Frank looked back and rediscovered his love of woodworking; in retirement, it served as both a great escape and an easy way to give his wife the space she needed, and deserved. He forged more outside connections by visiting the library regularly. Frank's vacation home took on new meaning, as the place where he and his grandson now share their newfound passion for bird watching.

"I wish I'd known about a non-financial plan before I decided to retire," Frank says.

As Frank's story illustrates, while sooner may be ideal, "later" carries its own special rewards.

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