My Next Phase in the News

Retirement Brings on Emotional Adjustment

Program helps people find focus for time when work no longer part of life

You've dreamed all your life of retiring to a quiet cottage by the lake away from the hustle and bustle of the world.

You make it happen. But once you've realized your dream, you're not happy.

Turns out your life has been spent interacting with people, and now you don't know what to do with the quiet.

Enter Eric Sundstrom and his virtual business, My Next Phase.

While financial planners are busy helping clients make sure their nest egg is suffi cient to retire, Sundstrom is answering the needs of another side of retirement.

“We provide guidance for the emotional side of retirement, said the 59-year-old University of Tennessee psychology professor.

“If you have clear direction going forward, a big picture, the general plan of the elements, your next phase will fall into place. It's really helpful to have a plan looking ahead.”

By 2020, the United States is expected to have 70 million citizens more than 65 years old, Sundstrom said.

Sundstrom and his two partners, Michael Burnham, president and CEO of My Next Phase, and brother Randy Burnham, a clinical psychologist, started the business in 1999 to cater to retiring baby boomers. Their Web site is six months old. They've also fi led for a patent for their assessment exercises that help clients fi gure out what they really want to do in the last phase of their lives.

The business is not a “bricks-andmortar” operation. The public relations agent works in New York, the branding fi rm is in Memphis and the company that runs the Web site is in Arlington, Va.

Sundstrom works from his Knoxville home, and the business is not associated with the university.

The worst-case scenario for a person not emotionally prepared for retirement is spending life sitting in a rocking chair, then dying early.

“That's flunking retirement in a really grim, dysfunctional way,” Sundstrom said. “The best-case scenario is to plan ahead, fi nd out what is most fulfi lling for your retirement, go that way slowly to fi nd out if it works. You can't do that if you create a detailed plan for your 65th birthday, load up the moving van, go to your dream house and don't understand for your personality what fi ts.”

Most of the work can be done online by going through a special assessment exercise to determine what someone really wants to do during retirement. The online test costs $39.95.Two other plans involve group coaching by phone ($109) or individual coaching by phone ($395).

“What we hope people come away with is one or two insights about themselves and their future, a guided self-refl ection,” Sundstrom said.

“The whole notion is to fi nd the best kind of future that fi ts your personality and circumstances.”

Sundstrom uses seven personality traits to assist clients in making the transition to retirement, including - cautious versus optimistic; evaluating options for the down side versus looking on the positive side; outgoing versus contemplative or going inward; emphatic versus analytic; making decisions based on emotions versus basing them on facts; practical versus visionary; and being a concrete thinker versus the big-picture thinker.

The assessments take clients through four steps to help fi nd their place in retirement:

Understanding yourself: Offers insight into personality and how a client handles change. Clients identify their strengths and vulnerabilities for the retirement transition.

Balancing life: Examines the changes clients face in working and non-working life. Clients gain understanding of how disruptive retirement transition can be.

Exploring options: Create and refi ne a meaningful list of future pursuits, refl ect on past interests and future dreams.

Redefi ning roles: Personal pointers, journal, planning workbook and interactive reality checks. Helps to plan a future that fi ts the personality.

John Majors, fi nancial planner with Knoxville fi rm Coulter & Justus Financial Services, believes My Next Phase is a unique business and said it sounds like it fulfi lls a glaring need.

“That's actually something we would be interested in as a planning fi rm,” Majors said. “Some of our clients haven't thought emotionally about what retirement means to them. They know they don't want to work.

They know they want to relax. We fi nd people come in with fi nancial questions, and they realize it's an emotional question.”

Jim Pottkotter, 57, director of information systems at Methodist LeBonheur Health Care of Memphis, has used My Next Phase. “It's a very innovative program,” he said. “I found it very insightful.”

Pottkotter elected the program that uses a coach to walk participants through the process.

“I got lots of insights,” he said. “I enjoy quiet time and being alone. My coach pointed out to me that that's great when I'm surrounded by people, but in a retirement scenario, I will want to plan to have more social contact because being alone when not surrounded by people may not be the same experience. I'm very resilient and very optimistic.”

Pottkotter has made some changes as a result.

“I've done a lot more talking with my wife and friends and family about retirement even though it's well out in the future. You can plan a smooth transition by discussing it well in advance.”

He now plans to continue some kind of work after retirement “because I get a lot of satisfaction out of that.”

By Rebecca Ferrar, Ferrar ferrarr@knews.com July 11, 2006

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