Summary: Jeanne Thompson shares her experience transitioning from a successful 30-year corporate career to retirement. She gets real about the emotional struggles, loss of identity and purpose, and finding new meaning.

Key Takeaways:

• Jeanne spent over 30 years working in financial services, most recently as SVP at Fidelity Investments helping people plan for retirement. Despite her expertise, she still struggled with the transition.

• The first few months of retirement were depressing. She lost her sense of purpose, identity, community, and structure. She advises honoring the grief process.

• It took time to figure out who she was and what brought her joy outside of work. She found fulfillment in hobbies like pickleball, writing a book, and making videos.

• Her advice: Do a self-assessment of your interests and relationships outside work pre-retirement. Stay present - focus on what brings you joy right now, not the past.

• She started making videos on TikTok as a creative outlet. Her TikTok blew up (80k views on first video) and led to consulting work. She now has a sizable following.

TikTok handle: @jdawgretires

This podcast is sponsored by Good Morning Freedom, my retirement coaching firm. I help executives and professionals plan the non-financial part of their retirement, like how to discover new purpose and how you want to spend your time. I offer a 1:1 coaching retirement blueprint package where we work together to discover some new avenues of exploration for your Act Three. This coaching is completely custom and will provide you with a ton of resources and support as you transition to this new stage of life. For all the details, please go to goodmorningfreedom.com/services.

Connect with Cara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caraliveslife/ or Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caraliveslife/ or Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cara.a.gray/