Episode Details
Back to EpisodesLessons in Purpose and Productivity When Planning Your Retirement
Description
Podcast 411
Last July, I had a conversation with my father-in-law. He was scared and worried. He was due to retire at the end of 2026 (now only a few months away), and he had no idea what to do.
It was that conversation that inspired me to dig deep into what it takes to build a solid, meaningful and joyful retirement. That’s what we’re going to look into today.
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Script | 411
Hello, and welcome to episode 411 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show.
I’m in my mid-fifties now, a time when many people start to think about what they will do when they walk out of their workplace for the last time and enter the next chapter of their lives.
It’s a scary time for many people. Yes, there’s a lot to look forward to: being able to design your own days and go on trips whenever you want, without needing to submit a holiday request form. But there’s an underlying sense of anxiety, will I be bored? Will I lose my health? Will I be lonely?
This is why giving some thought to your retirement before you retire can bring you a sense of relief and purpose.
But what do you want to do?
As the productivity saying goes, “You can do anything but not everything”.
So one of the first things to do when you begin thinking about your retirement is ask that question: What do I want to do?
And this is important.
My grandfather was a farmer all his working life. He had a dairy farm, and each morning at 5:00 am, he would wake up, bring the cows into the dairy and start the milking for the day.
He did this for over forty years, seven days a week. Farming is not so much work; it’s a way of life. When my grandfather was not milking, he was repairing machines and fences, and doing all the other odd jobs that needed to be done.
At the age of 60, he retired.
His plan was to travel, something he’s never been able to do, enjoy a little gardening and take life easy.
That didn’t happen. For someone who had been active all his life, not having to get up early in the morning, come rain or shine, and now being able to stay in bed and have a leisurely morning reading the newspapers was a temptation that was hard to resist.
And so he stopped. He didn’t do very much, and within two years, he was dead.
He was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer, and while the operation to remove the cancer was successful, he developed complications and passed away a few weeks after the operation.
I was only 12 years old when he died, and it was the first fami