Guest Blog by Greg Butler, Retirement Coach

“Work cures all ills” – my father used to say.

It depends on the work I guess, yet there is evidence that work is good for retirees.  For example, experts from King’s College London found that people who retired later were able to avoid Alzheimer’s disease longer than people who retired earlier.

I met Anne Marie whilst on holidays in Gran Canaria, one of ‘The Fortunate Islands.’ She asked how I was enjoying retirement.  I explained to her that I was a ‘Portfolio Worker.’ I earn some money as a Retirement Coach and Writer, I enjoy a variety of hobbies, I engage in research and study, and I do some volunteer work. ‘Wow Greg! She exclaimed, ‘I wish my Dad had met you years ago.’  She then told me her dad’s story.

He was a ‘genius’ at mathematics and physics, top of the class in school and university.  He spent most of his working career using these skills in a Multi-National Company in the information technology and communications industry.

He was happy and effective at work because he had a career that fed his self-esteem by the very doing of it, because he got to use the skills he most loved to use, in the field he loved to work in.

He didn’t do any planning for his retirement.  He didn’t attend a pre-retirement course, though one was offered by the company.  At 65, retirement arrived as a ‘sudden guillotine on working life.’

He had achieved his original career goals by 65, yet hadn’t asked himself the question ‘what next?’ With life expectancy of another 25 years or more, he needed new goals and a new life balance.

With hindsight he wished he had explored the possibility of a gradual and flexible retirement, and looked at options for a retirement job.

Within twelve months he had developed a chronic illness, which his doctor said was life threatening.  Taking a holistic view the doctor suggested that the sudden emergence of this illness was related to his new lifestyle.  Although financially secure, time weighed heavily upon his hands, and he missed the status, job satisfaction and companionship he enjoyed at work, a common feature of executive retirement.

And yet he had no desire to return to his pre-retirement position. With the support of a retirement coach he explored some options.  He started giving grinds in mathematics and physics to college students and this lead to a part time teaching position at the college.

His daughter told me that within months of returning to work his health problems had cleared up, and at age 72  he was enjoying excellent work/life balance for the first time in his life.

“I wish I had test driven this retirement job option, long before I retired,” he told her.  “It would have saved me a lot of pain.”

He learnt the hard lesson that the failure to invest in retirement planning meant that he ended up investing a lot of time and money in his illness.

Plan for your health before you retire, or pay for your illness later, is the moral of this story.

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About Retirement Stories
Greg retired, in January 2007, from his position as Finance and Marketing Director of one of Ireland’s leading grocery brands. He now pursues his interest in writing and retirement coaching, through the medium of inspirational stories, which you can read at www.retirement-stories.com. He tells real stories about real people, to enable retirees to understand their retirement needs, identify and achieve worthy goals, and lead a more balanced and fulfilled life.

When you think about retirement, what is the first thing you think about?

If you are like most of us, the idea of financial savings and retirement income pops into your mind first and foremost.

And there is no question that having money to do what you want to do during the retirement years is important. It is, in fact, one leg of the four legged stool of retirement preparation and readiness.

For information on ways to maximize your financial growth and security for retirement, I urge you to get yourself a good quality relationship with a good quality financial planner!

Now, let’s suppose you have found that quality relationship, and have done the important work of making good financial decisions regarding retirement savings. What are the other legs of this stool, since we know a stool will not accommodate the weight and girth of your arse with just one leg!

The remaining three legs of the retirement readiness stool I refer to as: Get Happy, Get Healthy, Get Connected.

This blog post will address the first of these three components to a good retirement. Future posts will talk about the remaining two legs of the proverbial stool of retirement.

I hope I haven’t lost you…hang in there!

So…a huge part of a good retirement is the art of getting happy! Art, you say…? What the heck does that mean?

We usually think of happiness as a bi-product of things going the way we want them to go in our lives, acquiring enough possessions to finally satisfy our all-abiding need for stuff, and everybody liking and admiring us!

Think again!

I become concerned when I hear the nay-say folks and the worriers of the world warning all of us not to “waste” money on frivolous things like latte coffee drinks.

We must, must, must remember that man (and woman) does not live by bread alone. Spending our money only on the essentials makes for an unremarkable and a very dull life!

I’m not suggesting we be foolish and careless with our money. Well, not all the time anyway!

If you don’t have money for the rent or mortgage, certainly refrain from spending what you don’t have on what you don’t “need”.

If, however, you don’t have enough for the rent or mortgage, you might do an assessment as to whether your rent or mortgage is more than your budget allows, and see whether it’s possible to reduce these expenses so you have more discretionary cash to keep your “absolute needs” and your “gee, I’d like to have that”s more balanced.

I understand I’m mainly speaking to those folks who are not so financially strapped that they have to make really difficult decisions about which expenses they will pay and which expenses they will need to juggle, or not pay.

That is a different discussion.

But when you take a gratitude inventory at the beginning of your day, are grateful that you have enough money to not have to worry about basic needs?

If so, I am talking to you.

We sometimes get confused when we’re dealing with money, and begin to believe that the paper and the coinage somehow has value in and of itself.

Don’t forget, there was a time when we traded in beads and shells. At least we could make jewelry out of those things, whereas our modern currency would look quite strange strung together and hung around our necks!

In fact, its only value to us is what it can get us in trade!

That means the first thing we need to decide is what we want to have in our lives, and that will inform the amount of money we need to get those things.

Currently we tend to come at it from the opposite perspective of thinking how much money we want, and then buying stuff from the cache of funds we scramble and sacrifice in order to acquire.

Maybe it’s time for a good hard re-assessment of what life is all about, what we want our lives to look and feel like, and what will get us that!

And if that includes a latte or two, then so be it!

Coach Char

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