Why retiring from a successful career can be more challenging than we expect — even when we’re looking forward to it. How Do I Reply When People Ask What I Now Do? One of the first questions we usually ask someone we’ve just met is, “What do you do?” For most of our adult lives, it’s an easy question to answer. I’m a lawyer. I’m a banker. I run a business. I’m a partner at a professional services firm. It’s a convenient introduction. But it also tells people something about o

Studying again in your 50s is just one option for your next chapter The old three-stage life is disappearing. What replaces it? For much of the twentieth century, adult life followed a fairly predictable pattern. First came education. Then work. Then retirement. One day you are working. The next you are not. It was a simple, linear model, and for many people it worked reasonably well. You trained for a career, spent 30 or 40 years building it, and eventually stepped away from

You might have heard the term Snipers’ Alley. It came to prominence during the Bosnian War in the mid-1990’s to describe a place where civilians were randomly shot by snipers. Today it has a relevance that’s a lot closer to home for anyone who is over 50 and especially for those in their 60s. It’s often used to describe that period in our lives when we suddenly become susceptible to life-ending diseases such as cancer or a heart attack. As I write this, I’m grieving over the

For many people, one of the hardest parts of leaving a senior role isn’t the loss of status or routine. It’s the feeling that you somehow don’t matter any longer.. For years, your judgement was valued, your experience was sought out and people listened to you. Then suddenly the meetings have stopped and your diary is empty. You start asking yourself the question “If I’m not doing all that anymore… then what?” This transition away from corporate life can be a really tough peri