Work in Progress. Have you read that sign in a shop window or on a website landing page, and often wondered, if by chance I stroll or scroll this way again will this darn thing ever be done? You could say the same thing about one of the most long-standing social constructs in the western world – “Retirement”. Given the changing attitudes and approaches to the subject over the last 130 years, is it any wonder that maybe it will always be a work in progress?
Thinking back to 2001 when I began designing programs, (seminars and coaching), for people transitioning through later life careers, scouting out the extravaganza of Retirement books on the bookshelves became par for the course in my research. As I saw it then, as new generations faced the promise of greater longevity, it was important not only to be contemporary, but futuristic.
Though I no longer work directly in the Retirement area, I still find our ongoing dialogue and storytelling of it interesting to follow, with its hard to shift, often predictable, language, all at once formulaic and metaphorical. As long as this saga prevails, Retirement remains an industry, commercialized with financial products and life planning services, and yes – books and blogs abound.
Indeed, from author Mike Drak, the title of the latest book in my hands right now has an almost Dante-like tone – Retirement Heaven or Hell. Its subtitle asks a question – Which Will You Choose? That reminded me of those fearful feelings of being stuck, as expressed to me by many people in the course of individual client conversations. That feeling of being stuck sounds like another lost place on the Retirement journey – Purgatory. Met a number of people there.
Retirement party, “It’s hard to have a good time…when it’s not authentic.”
What prompted Mike Drak to write this book was to share of his own personal growth through his own story, his abrupt encounter in the corporate world with job loss after thirty-six years working at a major bank. As he says, “I was forced out”, but the kicker was, he goes on to say, “The bank wanted me to pretend I was retiring…” Adding insult to injury, nothing says welcome to Purgatory than a purification Retirement party, “It’s hard to have a good time…when it’s not authentic.”
Drak’s journey was first unveiled in 2016, within the book Victory Lap Retirement, co-authored with Jonathan Chevreau and again in 2019 – the 2nd-edition with Chevreau and Rob Morrison. Now in 2021, Retirement Heaven or Hell accomplishes something fuller for Mike Drak. What really is the substance Drak offers here: the chapters in Part 2, where he has identified “The Nine Retirement Principles”.
For me, this is where the book could model as an “at any stage” career development exercise. After all, for years my adapted theory is that career is your life’s journey. Life is a continuum, a forward spiral of change and transitions. Mike Drak’s Nine Principles encapsulate one man’s view of how to wrestle with a restless spiral in later life, how to re-shape this outmoded social construct.
Furthermore, I could uphold the view that Retirement Heaven or Hell, be categorized as a later life career guide, as demonstrated in Part 3, when Mike talks about Searching for your Purpose. Echoes of Theodore Roszak in Longevity Revolution (2001): “Living longer…it’s time we start finding a good social use for those extra years.”
If we choose to frame the discussion around Retirement as the term then, perhaps, it is more a repurposing of personal identity, which often goes missing in action in a corporate work world.
For some, COVID has felt like a dry run for Retirement
One distinguishing element of Retirement Heaven or Hell is that, written mostly during the 2020 COVID world, this book is likely the first of its ilk to contain new reflections, rethinking Retirement. Inserted throughout, Mike adds segments “Lessons from a Pandemic”. Very fitting in that over the past year, I’ve listened to some in their 50’s say how lockdown in COVID has felt like a dry run for Retirement, which is interesting if one dares imagine living life like a lockdown thirty years ahead.
Last word to Mike.
In prep for this review, I asked him – Your book on Retirement may have the distinction of the being the first to be written on this topic in the COVID world. In the long-term how do you think this decade ahead will be different for people as they manage ongoing transitions in later life?
“COVID woke people up to what retirement feels like and many people didn’t like the experience. I believe you will see more people focus on the non-financial aspects of retirement, as well as the financial services industry (will). You will see more people working longer, more people starting their own businesses, more people taking better care of their health. Because of COVID they know how important it is to have purpose in retirement and how boring retirement can be if you don’t.”
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Postscript. Always keen to know about how other names come to arrive on a book cover, I asked Mike Drak about the two contributors to his book, Susan Williams and Rob Morrison. He said that while it is based on his own personal experiences with retirement transition; both contributors Susan and Rob, with years of experience in this area, served as his sounding board and pulled him back if he was going off track or too deep on a particular subject. Most importantly, Susan made sure that the book was written with both men and women in mind.
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