How Will You Navigate The Retirement Transition?

Today on our retirement podcast, we welcome Brendan Hare, author of From Working to Wisdom: The Adventures and Dreams of Older Americans. Upon retiring as a lawyer, Brendan invested two years interviewing 46 older Americans from a variety of backgrounds about their life stories. The book provides a rare look at the real stories of how people are navigating the transition to retirement and a bounty of valuable lessons learned that we can all benefit from.

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Bio

Brendan M. Hare is a recent retiree and the author of From Working to Wisdom: The Adventures ad Dreams of Older Americans. He lives outside Boston with his wife, near his three grown children.

Mr. Hare worked as a teacher, college economics instructor, and for over forty years, as an attorney. He served as chief litigation counsel for a Fortune 50 company and later as the founder and managing partner of his own law firm. For over twenty years, he built and guided a sizeable national law practice, with clients drawn from some of the largest corporations in America.

Few experiences have been as rewarding as this book project. He spent two years traveling the country, meeting new people, and listening to them discuss their lives and thoughts about growing older. Writing this book changed him profoundly. He hopes it will have a similar impact on readers.

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Wise Quotes

On What He Learned From Writing the Book

"We’re in charge of our own lives and always have the power and responsibility to choose our attitudes. The people in this book are elderly, but they speak to everyone, even to the very young. They made me realize that aging is not just a physical journey, not just a decline, but a psychological and spiritual journey as well. The quality, shape, and direction of which is entirely my responsibility."

On The Role of Adventure in Retirement

"Adventure, however you define it, can help you through this period of transition. To successfully navigate this period of transition you have to go through a process of discernment when you’re seeing yourself from a new perspective and you’re re-ordering your priorities to match that new perspective. An adventure that involves risk does that because as one profile subject observed, “when mortality moves in, we get serious about life.” We shed all the unnecessary baggage: the ego and the materialistic focus. Risk reveals the fragility of life and deepens our commitment to living fully."

On Ageism

"The consequences of ageism are real and very troubling. First, it sets up a dangerous loop: it tells seniors, Time has made you infirm, obsolete, and worthless. ....In response—as is natural—seniors feel pressure to accept and internalize this view of themselves, with disastrous consequences for their mental and physical health. Studies have correlated experiences of ageism with memory loss, cardiovascular sickness, low self-esteem, diminished will to live, and shorter life expectancies. All of this is staggering when we consider how widespread ageism is: Over seventy percent of American seniors report that they have been insulted or mistreated on the basis of their age. There is no reason to accept these attitudes. Our generation can proudly reflect on the many ways in which, together, we helped to shape popular culture, music, politics, and civil rights."

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For More on Brendan Hare:

Brendan Hare’s book on Amazon (From Working to Wisdom: The Adventures and Dreams of Older Americans)

The From Working to Wisdom Website

About Retirement Wisdom

We help people who are retiring, but not done yet, discover what’s next.