Beyond Retirement

Stan Kochanoff is an entrepreneur, an environmentalist and a life coach. At 84 years old, he is still running 2 landscape-related businesses while also being involved in a few other income-generating projects and working on two books.

His belief is that if you stop looking and stop learning, you're dead.

In proof of this belief, he's done (and continues to do) many things:

• has presided over a number of regional and national Horticultural Associations
• has served as president of Landscape Atlantic (LA) the original regional association, Landscape Nova Scotia (LNS), Landscape Canada (CNLA), ISA-Atlantic Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture, The Canadian Ornamental Plant Foundation (COPF) and the Nova Scotia Greenhouse Growers Association
• is involved as a volunteer with the new Municipality of Windsor-West Hants Communities-In-Bloom Committee and coordinator of the Windsor Tree Canopy Project
• has served as a national judge for Communities-in-Bloom
• has volunteered at numerous Olympic Games
• was busy with the Windsor Hockey Heritage Society, and with the Birthplace of Hockey Museum in Windsor

Stan's companies, Environova Planning Group Inc. and Maritime Landscape Services Ltd., offer full landscape planning, design and consulting services for commercial, institutional and residential customers throughout the Annapolis Valley, Metro Halifax and the South Shore of Nova Scotia, Canada.

Stan tells us about the books he's writing and gives us some good tips on how to grow older and stay healthy and happy.

Rituals are really important, so I spend a bit of time talking about the retirement rituals.

Day Schildkret is an award-winning queer author, artist, ritualist, and teacher internationally known for Morning Altars, which BuzzFeed calls, “a celebration of nature and life.” With nearly 100K followers on social media, Day has worked for close to two decades with thousands of individuals, communities and organizations to help heal the culture through a meaningful and creative response to marking personal and collective change.

Day is the founder and principal instructor of the Morning Altars Practitioner & Teacher Training. He is the author of Morning Altars: A 7-Step Practice to Nourish Your Spirit through Nature, Art and Ritual, as well as a newer book, Hello, Goodbye: 75 Rituals for Times of Loss, Celebration and Change, which hit Amazon’s #1 book in three categories.

You can find out more about Day at https://morningaltars.com and https://dayschildkret.com and on Instagram and Facebook his handle is @morningaltars.

Today, Day talks about the importance of rituals in helping us make sense of and make peace with the changes in our lives. We all face many changes; retirement is one of the bigger events that rock our lives. So it stands to reason that we don't come out of it unscathed. Having rituals to mark our transition into retirement helps us to celebrate (and mourn) the end of this part of our life, and prepares us for what lies ahead.

Timestamps:

04:15 - Rituals versus Routines

06:50 - why do we struggle with change?

09:45 - 3 rituals around retirement

12:10 - description of each of the retirement rituals

Quick little hello to say that things are going to continue... with some new guests.

Is it time to rethink retirement? Or maybe it's just time to re-evaluate your relationships as you move into this new stage of life that the Spanish call la jubilación.