What can we learn from someone who spent weeks living in retirement communities and interviewing dozens of retirees?

That's exactly what today's guest set out to discover. Dr. Andi Simon is a corporate anthropologist whose curiosity about retirement led her to study how people navigate life after work.

Although every story was different, she found that many retirees shared the same struggles and the same opportunities as they entered this next chapter.

We discuss:

• 4 questions almost everyone wrestles with after leaving their career behind
  
  
• What surprised Andi after interviewing dozens of retirees
  
  
• Why "Saturday every day" isn't always as fulfilling as it sounds
  
  
• How friendships often change more than we expect after retirement
  
  
• What an anthropologist sees that the rest of us often miss about retirement
  

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Resources:

Website: andisimon.com

Book: Rethink Retirement

Jake Fishbein joined his first men's group for research.

He was helping write a novel about men's groups and thought he should probably see one from the inside.

What he didn't expect was that the experience would change the course of his own life.

In this episode, we discuss why retirement can trigger an unexpected identity crisis, the challenge of separating who we are from what we do, and what it means to stay engaged with life long after a career ends.

We cover:

• Why retirement can trigger an unexpected identity crisis
• The challenge of separating who you are from what you do
• What it means to transition from achievement to eldership
• Why staying "in the arena" matters at every stage of life
• The fear of becoming irrelevant as we grow older
• Lessons from a woman who began her most meaningful work in her seventies

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Keep Exploring

If you enjoyed this conversation, check out Jake's novel, The Men's Group: A Novel of Messy Friendships.

Amazon Print
Amazon Kindle
Barnes & Noble Print
Barnes & Noble Nook

Loneliness isn't something we usually associate with successful people. When the career ends, where do purpose, connection, and belonging come from next?

My guest today is Carl Nassar. He's an engineer, teacher, businessman, and eventually, psychotherapist. After achieving everything his parents had hoped for, Carl realized the one thing he was still searching for was a sense of belonging.

So he walked away from a tenured professorship, started over, and spent the next twenty-five years helping people find their way back to each other.

In this episode, we covered:

• Why Carl walked away from a tenured professorship to start over
  
  
• The childhood lesson that fueled his drive to achieve
  
  
• What thousands of therapy sessions taught him about loneliness
  
  
• Why consumer culture promises belonging but rarely delivers it
  
  
• How becoming a "lingerer" can lead to deeper relationships
  
  
• Practical ways to build community in the next chapter of life

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Resources

Website: https://carlnassar.com