Potterings Blog

Pottering around life's issues, a little digging here, some fertilizer there, pruning to stimulate new growth and generally cultivating people's potential to blossom. Your comments are always welcomed.  

However ADVERTISEMENT comments WILL be promptly REMOVED

Research shows more than 90 percent of retirement plans still - today - don't go beyond money, travel, social life and family fun.

Six months to a year after leaving work, I hear, “what have I done??”, “my family are busy living their lives”, “once I was a somebody, now I’m a nobody”,”I am a stranger in my old workplace”, “my partner is either working or has their own interests”. These are all true-life 21st century responses!

I can’t believe how many thinking businesspeople still think life after work is simply ‘putting the feet up’, free of work-related stress and life becoming one long holiday. C'mon! We're talking potentially another 30 years or more.

When people say “I don’t ever want to retire”, they don’t mean they want to work until they drop; they mean they don’t want to stop living a purposeful life. Implying there is no purpose in life if one is not working. Wrong!

The good news is we were all born with the potential to find a purpose beyond making money. Our job is only a snapshot of our unique life identity - what we are good at, what makes us different and what people value about us. When are the best years to realize that? – in our latter half of life.

Purpose has found me twice since I left fulltime work more than 20 years ago. It’s simply a matter of wanting life purpose and meaning beyond work.

The secret is to start searching before you quit work. That’s when you know what you’re good at and (as I did) could tweak it to a cause important to you  (pay is optional).

Momentum matters if you want another 30 years of purposeful living. To ensure you stay being a somebody, start planning today for a seamless transition into how you can be of value to others in your life after work.

Any or all of three of my books will help you work through your own unique approach to planning your life after work:

"Enjoy Being You More: The Path to Finding Your Purpose and Legacy", January 2026 

"Free to be Me: Why a Life Ethic is Replacing the Work Ethic", June 2023

"The Hunger to Grow : How to Enjoy the 'Desert Years' of your Life", 2016

 

 

Systems Within Systems

From an early age I was aware of the interconnectedness of various systems, which shaped my path to leadership and thought leadership. At 13 a friend invited me to join a field hockey team run by European war refugees.  Hockey wasn’t a well-known sport in Australia at the time. Their club needed juniors to survive and thrive. I took to the game like a duck to water and was made captain of their first junior team.

I was asked to write weekly team reports and soon my involvement extended to wider club administration tasks.  Thus began a rise to state and national hockey administration responsibilities over the next 20 years.

I was working within systems – individual efforts within a team environment, the team within a club, the club within a state association and the state association within a national system and field hockey within a community social system. I began to understand the role of the bigger picture in everything we do.

My Midlife Awakening

A pivotal moment occurred at a one-day seminar when I was 35. It highlighted that “leisure may well be the social issue of the next decade”.  This led me to pursue a Graduate Diploma in Recreation Planning, passing with Distinction. I became a recreation planner within the South Australian Government system,  state recreation and sporting association systems and national and international systems of developing recreation and sport.

Joining the relevant parks and recreation professional association further broadened my perspectives, leading to voluntary roles on the State and National Council. Eventually I served a term as National President including responsibilities within the global parks and recreation development systems.

Bucking the System

The analogy of a manager’s task to guide people through daily jungles and leaders to rise above the jungle to check they are in the right jungle has long resonated with me.

Yet thought leadership is also about testing the bigger picture thinking and, if necessary,  bucking the system. It’s how new thinking comes into existence.

Advocating the enjoyment factor as the driver of personal growth and development in life was, for many years, challenging. In a world dominated by the work ethic, my words tended to fall on deaf business ears.

The breakthrough came at the highest global system level, through the impacts of pandemic-driven long periods of lockdown.  It was the pause we had to have for people to reflect and realize their real purpose in life through enjoying being their true selves and doing work they love.

It’s gratifying to now be acknowledged as a thought leader in advocating the power of the enjoyment factor in improving almost every facet of our personal and business lives. Less because of the world suddenly deciding it was ready to hear that message. More because of the many dots that were joined over my life. My curiosity, constant questioning, exploring and challenging the status quo (the bigger picture).  The product of increased depth of understanding myself and others and my depth of perspective and insight. 

My hope now is that many will follow me in embracing and promoting the enjoyment factor as key to opportunities in this emerging new world.

For a complete answer to the question, the first thing I would say is work is defined in most dictionaries as ‘activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result’. The word ‘money’ doesn’t appear.  Because money is (regrettably, I feel) a necessary resource in this world, work for pay has to come into our lives in one way or another. When or why and for how long is something we each have to decide for ourselves.

 

Focusing first on the dictionary definition of work, we all do things for a purpose, an outcome. I believe every outcome needs to in some way result in a use, development or appreciation of our natural-born talents, gifts, soft skills, passionate interests.

 

In every case these actions would be directed to in some way moving us forward to achieving our natural born potential.  A potential that only self can achieve because our mix of natural abilities is different to everyone else in the world. This fact means we can all make a difference to the world…be it a small or large difference.  Making a difference in this world is a goal we were born to achieve and to be proud of when we realize we have made some sort of difference between the world we came into and the world we one day leave.

 

Work, in this context, becomes merely a means not an aim in itself. There are many financially rich people who have left the world in a worse place than when they arrived in it.  There are far more financially poor people who have made magnificent and memorable positive changes to the world during their time here.

 

When it comes to ‘finding a job, a career, or a vocation’, we know our best life is in serving a cause that serves our purpose in being here, one that is bigger than ourselves, one that gives the world a reason for having us.  

 

To verify what I am saying, we need only look to nature.  An acorn is ‘born’ to become nothing else but an oak tree. It can never become a fruit tree or other money-generating tree, bush or plant. It has all the right ingredients within its seed to achieve its natural potential (albeit with the help of its surrounding ecology).  I don’t need to describe what an amazing creation an acorn is born to become.  We are in awe of any acorn that has blossomed and matured into what can be described as a natural cathedral of substance. It doesn’t get old, it ages, and matures to the point it becomes regarded as significant.  

 

A mature oak contributes to the surrounding natural ecology in so many ways.  Beyond simply something magnificent to admire, it provides a home for birds and insects, shade for us and the growth around the tree, oxygen for the air critical to survival of all, and nutrition to the earth its roots spread far and wide to explore out of our sight. We are in fact a part of nature, not above it. It’s why we come alive, we‘come home’ whenever we are outdoors in nature-al surroundings.

 

Work is what we do, be it for passion, for love, for service to others, irrespective of whether we get paid money to do it. Life is about keeping our eye on our purpose, our passion, our reason for being here. Money is just one part of the process.

I am not a gardener. I don’t have a ‘green thumb’. But I have always loved nature. Twenty-five years as a parks and recreation planner taught me humans are part of nature (not above it).  Like any other part of nature we are born with all the ingredients we need to grow, develop, flourish and blossom to our destined glorious true self.

 What makes my heart sing is my gift in helping people find their own natural, fertile growth environment. One that enables their lives to flourish and blossom into the valued person and purpose intended of them.

 Yet it’s been a hard slog over the last 20 years selling that line of thinking in a work ethic world.  I tried various business titles. Eventually I decided to follow my heart and become Australia’s People Gardener – growing better people. Catchy, but who in business linked nature and work?  Life Enjoyment Mentor? Still didn’t crack the wall dividing work and enjoyment.

 It took a global phenomenon to do so – the long pandemic-driven lockdowns. People had to think for themselves. Quotes from “Enjoy Being You” went viral. Work had to fit into enjoyment of life, not the other way around. The universe told me in a few odd ways (ask me sometime) to allow my ‘people gardening’ heart to sing again. 

So Australia’s People Gardener is back.  With simpler, clearer, more 'it just makes sense' explanations of what has long been my core theme – “when you lose yourself in an interest you love, you find yourself”. Your true self comes to life with clarity, confidence and the courage to blossom into the person you were born to be. 

Do you need a gardener? (the ‘people’ kind). Do you know someone who does? You can contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or mob. 0417 817 027

 There’s heaps of people gardening tips throughout this site. 

No, I don't dig up dirt! :)


The new post-pandemic world future demands a different approach to the way we think. It’s time to consider life from a left-field perspective. Re-thinking the previously unexpected, the unthinkable, the crazy, the unusual. As the TV series “1% Club” puts it, “it’s not about what you know, it’s about the way you think”. 

I’ve been professionally seeing life from a left field perspective for nearly 50 years. The first half as a Recreation Planner, focusing on what makes people tick at the weekend – the ‘life’ side of the work / life wall. That’s weird in itself. We saw life as working for five days (or more) and living for two days (or less). No wonder working people were stressing, burning out and even committing suicide. Many literally died of boredom after they left work.

Since 2003 I have been a Life Enjoyment Mentor (under various titles), advocating enjoyment not simply as fun, but as the core driver of who we really are and our purpose in being here. Given the business perception that work and enjoyment were like chalk and cheese, such thinking was always a battle.

Covid lockdowns brought the world to a screeching halt, triggering a paradigm shift in every aspect of life.  People now want to enjoy all their life – at work, home and play. What was once left field thinking helps us not just how to enjoy life, it clarifies our purpose. People are now  telling me, “he makes sense”.  

Left field thinking is ‘in’, not just in what I do but for all of us.

Read more in my full article.

The second half of life

The first half of life prepares us for the richness of the second half of life. Forget the outdated perceptions of life ending at the half-way stage, of being over the hill and on the downhill slide. 

The reality: as we move into the second half, we are starting to realize that, while we measure age in years, we measure growth in depth. Depth of understanding others and self, depth of insight, depth of perspective. Our thinking doesn’t wane…it explodes into exploring new areas of curiosity, awe and what we truly value in life.

The worst dampener is that word “old”. It is more than just a negative perception we place on anyone who has aged 15 or more years longer than us.  The very word kills our desire to continuously grow and enjoy regular new leases of the life we were born to enjoy. To explore our full natural potential that can go far beyond what we achieve in our working years.

if we leave this sort of thinking until we quit work, we leave it too late. Maintaining the momentum of a growth mindset is crucial to a seamless transition from the end of work to the beginning of a new life adventure.

I can help get your pre-retirement thinking on track. Start by grabbing your free copy of my brief ebook “A Tree Doesn’t Stop Growing at 65, Nor Do You”


“He just makes sense” is one of the most rewarding expressions of feedback I get in response to my writings and public speaking presentations.

An acorn ‘knows’ that, because of its natural ingredients, it is destined to become an oak. If it could talk about its personal growth it would make sense.

Long ago, we humans adopted an artificial approach to determining growth and potential. We called it the traditional work ethic and it doesn’t make sense.   

Enjoyable experiences are nature’s way of discovering, developing, energising and managing our natural talents, gifts and passions. We make sense of our lives when we connect the dots of all those experiences we have to date enjoyed in our lives.

By recalling the best parts of our life story so far, we make sense of what our best future could be like.

If your current life situation doesn't make sense to you, click here to check out my one-one “Enjoy Being Your True Self” program. Together we join the dots of your best past as the foundation on which you can plan your best future.  

The unquenchable yearning to follow our heart is there in each of us. Some of us know it and live it to the full. For many it’s more often in our personal life. It can be buried at work by the desire to earn enough money to more than pay the bills.

So it was for me for my first 12 working years. Enjoying my personal life was enough to satisfy me. At 30 I wondered, “thirty-five more years of this? And then what?”. The yearning had stirred. No answers. Simply a realization from deep within that I was born with a natural unquenchable yearning to follow my heart.

Four frustrating, searching years followed, with still no answer. “I wonder if I would be any good at….?” was my ever-present question. Suddenly my heart, mind and life came together in the form of a one-day seminar on Leisure as a Social Issue. I went on to gain my Graduate Diploma in Recreation Planning (with Distinction). From then to today has been a wondrous journey of transition and revelations.

Have you resolved your unquenchable yearning to follow your heart? It’s there and it’s never too late. Perhaps start searching for it by asking “I wonder if I would be any good at….?”  

Every enjoyable experience is a positive step in building your natural life journey. A journey made doubly exciting by the uncertainty of where you are going , but with an assurance you are traveling in a direction you were born to take.      Click here for information on my "How to Enjoy Being You" Program (online or in person (Adelaide only)

Enjoyment is 3

 

Being who you really are is a risk worth takingI can personally vouch for the truth in the words of The Voice (australia) contestant when he said :”Being who you really are is a risk worth taking”. I was 30, in a safe and responsible position in the Australian Treasury in Canberra. I looked out my window one day thinking ’35 more years of this and then a gold watch? And that’s it??” I decided I hated working for no purpose beyond just paying the bills.
 
It took another four years of searching to find the answer. Then my life changed in one day, attending a seminar on leisure as a social issue. I was hooked. I passed a Graduate Diploma in Recreation Planning with distinction, got a job in the then new SA Department of Recreation and Sport, quit my job at The Treasury and moved with my wife and young children to Adelaide.
 
Reactions from Treasury colleagues ranged from “you are mad, Peter” to “I wish I had your courage”. To them the risks were great. To me, my heart had found it’s rightful home. To deny it was pointless. The secret was in the realization at 30 and the four years of subsequent searching.
 
I have since forever enjoyed being the real me – as a recreation planner for the rest of my working career which gave rise to my first book “Enjoy Being You” in 2001. That book subsequently brought me work in the business world, leading to me becoming a Life Enjoyment Mentor.
Your heart knows what it wants…it just needs you to put it into search mode. It might be during your working career, or after you leave work…or both!

Enjoyment drives our lives 1In a work ethic world enjoyment was seen as separate to work – some fun or pleasure that gives you a rest from the realities of an economic rationalist world. Bosses often saw it as a competitor to work – slacking off in a world where “time’s money!”.  

Enjoyment is in fact the desire to live the life we want and love – work and personal life. It’s about why we are here. We can have fun for a day. Enjoyment however activates our life of purpose, fulfilment and service to others. Enjoyment drives our self-esteem, self-confidence, taking control of our lives, developing talents, unleashing  passionate interests, growing the person we were born to be as distinct from playing roles we think others expect of us.

If you are feeling that the life you lead is out of sync with what you would love to be doing, you would enjoy my structured self-review of what you have enjoyed over your life to date, especially those experiences that triggered new growth in you. They are the ones giving you the foundation you want for a new life adventure of enjoying being your authentic self. 

Click here for more details.

What is Importan

2020 brought us probably the most significant life shift we will ever make in our lifetime. Totally unexpected. Life - indeed time itself - stopped...globally. Yet we did have time – time to stop and think like we have never done before.


We think about what’s most important to us when we get married, pass a 'Big 0' stage of life, or have a midlife crisis, . Usually it’s a measured process of planning the change while life rolls on around us.

In the eerie silence when Covid first hit, we wanted to get back to the way things were. Eventually we began to realize we never want to go backwards. We want to keep going forward. But how?

More than ever we need to focus on the basics of what makes us tick as individuals. It’s time to realize our identity isn’t found in the work we do but in who we are, what we love doing and our natural-born gifts that no-one else on earth can duplicate.

It's become vital to enjoy being and backing our authentic selves.

 

 Go here for information on my  "It's Vital to Enjoy Being You" Program. Three 90 minute sessions - in person (Adelaide only) or via Zoom. 

 

No matter what age you are, Covid-19 has caused you to wonder what impact the world today and in the years  to come will have on your life.

It's time to get back to the basics of what it means to enjoy being your true self. The real you who wants to:
• Enjoy a fulfilling life of purpose,
• Stay mentally fit for a long healthy life
• Never let age get in the way of continuing to grow as a person
• Be always valued for who you are and what you do
• Confidently say what you really believe
• Know how to sustain the energy to cope with problems, and
• Know when to say yes to opportunities put to you.

What you will learn in my Zoominar 2 is based on my 50 years of professional experience helping people improve the quality of what they enjoy in life. Thirty years in recreation planning and development and 20 years as a Life Mentor. You will enjoy a refreshingly different and positive perspective on your continuing potential.

You naturally control what you enjoy. The 7  Key Features of Enjoying Being Your True Self will give you clarity of everything you need to know to unpack your strengths and repack those you want to take forward to your future.

Full details appear in the image below.  Register your place now at
https://lnkd.in/gPGT4an

I look forward to meeting you on the call.

Zoominar November 10 2020 3

 

Finding – or renewing – your purpose in life doesn’t happen by chance. It requires constant questioning of your ‘why?’. A journey of searching for, enjoying, backing and trusting the real you.

I had decided in 1975 to leave a secure well-paying job in Canberra to take up a less-than secure and lower-paid Recreation Planner job in Adelaide. Not a long-term considered decision. One of those things that happens overnight – in my case attending a day seminar on leisure becoming an emerging social issue. 

An upheaval affecting not just me but my wife and two small children. For me it just had to happen…not quite so for my wife who was a born-and-bred Canberran. Reflecting on it now reminds me how grateful I have always been that she agreed to the move, albeit with a few agreed conditions.

The expression “sliding doors” became famous in the 1990’s with the film by that name. In essence today it means “what if I had made a different decision?” What if I had simply said at the end of that fateful seminar “well that was interesting, but it puts too much at stake for me and my lovely family”? I had plenty going for me in Canberra – in my work, in my community and especially in sport where I held various senior positions at Club and Territory levels.

There were those who said I was mad to make “such a reckless decision”. Others admitted they wished they had the guts to do what I was doing. 

It took me another 45 years to fully understand why I made that decision. In a recent workshop I was posed with a double-question aimed at clarifying why I am doing what I do: “what was it you hated doing …. and what did you decide you would love to do instead?” I found my thoughts going back not to 1975 but to an event five years earlier in 1970.

It was a day on which I remember looking out my office window, thinking “35 more years of this??”. What did I hate doing? Working for no purpose beyond the money. What would I love to do? Earn my money doing something of purpose and value to others. 

I have come to realize that the day seminar I thought was an overnight epiphany was in fact just one small step in a long process of finding my true destiny in life. A process that continued in my 60’s when I became a Life Mentor. I wanted to help others who were looking for or reviewing purpose in their work and their lives. I will continue to do so for as long as my health allows.

Finding – or renewing – your purpose in life doesn’t happen by chance. It requires constant questioning of your ‘why?’. A journey of searching for, enjoying, backing and trusting the real you. It can take you down unknown paths, but with an assurance you are traveling in a direction you were meant to take.

There is no more important trust in life than trusting in yourself and your natural-born gifts and talents.

 

Never more than now have you wanted to feel truly connected with people you value ...and who value you.

PeConnecting with othersople who open doors to experiences you were meant to have, to interests you were born to explore, for successes you needed to share to achieve. It's not the number of connections but their depth and meaning. Mind to mind, heart to heart, soul to soul, passion to passion.

You enter and leave this world alone. Connection with like-minded others is the magic that gives your life purpose, develops your growth and sparks the love that fires you.

Connection is the mirror that synchronizes body language, develops trains of thought, triggers the aha moments that change your world... and mine.

Only when you meaningfully and mutually connect with like-minded others do you truly discover and enjoy being your true self.

7 features Enjoyment FactorEnjoyable experiences are much more than simply having a good time. They actually energize and expand your growth.
The enjoyment factor is at the centre of the seven features because when you are enjoying life, the other six fall into place.
Experiences you truly enjoy express the real you. Only you can decide what you enjoy.
Enjoyable experiences lift your self-esteem, self-belief and self-confidence. Enjoy them often to sustain your resilience to cope better with the stresses of life.
The enjoyment factor has to be present in any physical exercise intended to meaningfully improve and sustain mental fitness.
Any workplace culture that doesn't include the enjoyment factor is facing problems, especially in these dramatically changing times.
The enjoyment factor generates the energy that drives your life forward.

7 Features

 

The Enjoyment Factor – Energizing experiences that expand your growth

Gifts/Talents – the natural strengths that make you different

Emotional Energy – the source of your desire to grow

Passion – the unquenchable desire to use your talents to enrich your life

Connecting with others – the sense of sharing sparks the magic of living

Positive Outlook – looking beyond problems in search of solutions

Continuous development - all the above interacting for the rest of your life.

Why It's Time to End Ageism

The world is dramatically changing. The global population over 60 continues to grow faster than those under 60. Society needs to see this as an opportunity, not a problem. 
Why? The gap today between work and death is dramatically ballooning out to anything from 30 to 50 years or more because a) we are living longer, and b) ageism is shortening our working life to as low as 45.

Add to this:
• Retirement is an increasingly unpopular term
• We feel younger and want to enjoy purposeful lives well into our 80’s and beyond. 
• People in the workforce are giving professional development a higher priority over salary.

We need a total paradigm shift based on the fact of continuous development from birth to death, be it through payment or passion. Instead of the traditional ’mature then decline’ lifecycle, personal development continues for as long as health permits.

Continuous development brings with it more than accumulated experience and knowledge. Age deepens our understanding of life, of people and, most importantly, of ourselves.

This is not just to benefit people currently over 50. This is to ensure people of all ages can look forward to being a person of value and worth for life. The only change we need is in how we think.

It’s time.

Beware the "Retired Husband Syndrome"

The days of the one-income family are fading. But the following story still resonates with many of us. Hubby earned the money and his wife stayed home and raised the children. Then hubby retired with no plans for his future. Meantime his wife has over the years built life-long personal interests.

The husband, feeling lost, looks for options such as:

“Where are you going dear? Can I come too?”

“We can do the shopping together now”

“Why do you do it that way dear? I know a better way”.

Personal space has disappeared. The relationship is being tested and each is individually facing problems about their future.

In fact the problem is the same for a dual-income relationship. Research shows retirement-related stress is felt more by the wife, not just at retirement but, if the problems are not addressed, more so as time goes by. Men to note!

Enjoying life after work revolves around the freedom to express your authentic unchanging inner self. Start by each of you separately listing every type of interest you love, especially those you enjoyed before you met. Discuss how you might each help the other expand their interests.

It’s another reason for planning well in advance of quitting work. I can help you. Let's have a virtual coffee chat about your findings.

Being able to see past the public persona of people is a bit like being able to break a concrete block with your bare fist – you have to look beyond the block. My ability to see beyond the public persona of people without judging their vulnerabilities is a major factor in why I am (and love being) a Life Mentor.

We all wear our public mask (usually a blank look) when out in public. It protects our vulnerabilities – especially in the workplace. However it’s the person behind the mask – the private self - who makes all of the decisions about what you do with your life.

For most of us, the private self gets battered around during our 50’s. It sure was an emotional roller-coaster decade for me. The prospect of nearing the end of my career wasn’t in my thinking but I say now that events during those years dramatically changed my thinking about the sort of longer term future I wanted to have.

This post is by way of encouraging you not to let your public persona influence your heart's wishes. Your 50's is the time to back your true self. Your experience and natural abilities have been deepened by your accumulated wisdom. That's the self who wants to take you forward into your future.

If you are within ten years of retiring (voluntarily or enforced) you will want to ensure you continue living a long and fulfilling life after you leave work.

The problem is, if you wait until you retire to work out what you want to do next, you will have left it too late. For a seamless transition to life after work you need to start today. How?

You are no doubt regularly investing, say, 10% of your money for your superannuation – perhaps more if you salary sacrifice. Why not also invest 10 % of your week to build on and develop those natural talents and lifelong passions you have always enjoyed (or wanted to enjoy)?  And right away it helps you manage your stress levels too.

A simple first action is to download my brand-new free ebook “A Tree Doesn’t Stop Growing At 65 Nor Do You”, to gain some 21st century thinking on how you can start the process right now towards enjoying a new life adventure after leaving work.  Click here to go to the download page

I made a successful transition and am still passionately enjoying life. You can too. But make it a long steady transition from today rather than a shock stop 'n start.

I love the analogy of a full life being like a big dipper water slide. A wild journey packed with bumps and thumps, ending finally with a huge splash as you yell “WOW!! what a ride!”. The question for you is….will the final splash come for you at the end of your working career or at the end of your life?   

 The 20th century (19th century?) idea of “retirement” as a time of effectively shutting the door on your life and value is totally out of place in a 21st century world of rapid social changes  and a healthy expectation to continue growing and blossoming as a person for many years beyond 65.

 Yes I thought I had retired in the tradional way when my career came to an end.  But 21st century events soon told me my career skills were still highly valued and needed by people very different to the ones I served in my career. In reinventing myself as a Life Mentor I built my own new water slide, one I could enjoy riding as much as I wanted. Designed to provide bumps and thumps that accord with my skills and experiences, taking me in the direction of people who value me and need my skills. I plan to keep riding that slide until my health tells me “Last ride Peter…enjoy it”.

The traditional work ethic is rapidly changing into a growth ethic. It’s a bit like the tree that doesn’t stop growing at 65, knows no distinction between work and leisure and instead of getting old it becomes increasingly significant.  

21st century living needs 21st century thinking. You are at the cusp of a global ageing revolution that has already begun. A revolution firmly based on valuing your continued accumulation and expression of your experience, knowledge, perspective, depth and wisdom.

Long service leave may seem like a taste of life after you leave work. In fact the two experiences are very different.

Leaving full-time work is a bit like the astronaut who leaves the space ship and breaks the ship’s umbilical cord. It leaves him/her to float in space, out of reach, never to return to the home ship. You have left the security of a structured working life. In the context of finding your daily purpose and meaning, you are on your own.

However you do have your own personal energy pack, containing an accumulation of all the energizing experiences you have enjoyed storing over the years, ready to tap at just such a time as this. Thoughtfully and carefully unpacked, it can empower and propel your life in any direction you want to go.

Talk to me about my program on how to purposefully unpack all of your stored potential.  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

All the publicity on life after work is about how much money you will need. Very little attention is given to the emotional and mental impact such a transition can have on you. Many people have died from retirement within months of leaving work purely because of the impact it had on their very reason for living.

Our rapidly ageing society is a global issue and we need to take a much more modern 21st century approach to ageing. We all want to make the most of our statistical expectancy of living a longer and healthier later life.

Your new life adventure after you leave work needs to embrace all of the following emotional factors – expressing your authentic self, creative enjoyment, unique abilities, emotional energy (interests that energize you), passions, a positive outlook, connecting with like-minded others, and a desire to keep growing.

I myself remember, a few months after I left work, sitting at home thinking “if I sat here all day no one would give a damn”. There was no-one specializing in helping me work out what I would actually do with the rest of my life. It was up to me to figure it out for myself.  You however now can access my subsequent personal and professional experience in helping others make the emotional leap into a new life adventure.

Importantly, the fact that you are different to everyone else continues for the rest of your life. Only you can know the real you and your emotional needs. Talk to me about my program that respects that fact. It gives you a structure that enables you to come up with your own custom-designed plan.

One of the biggest problems I face in helping people who are considering making the transition from full-time work to a new life adventure is their perception of life beyond the age of 65. It’s essentially true that you cannot know what it’s going to be like until you get there yourself, but a lot of negative perceptions don't help. Having been through it myself and in helping clients do so, I would suggest you can put to rest many of your perceived fears and doubts about your life beyond 65.

I base this on the fact that the authentic you, the person who looks out at the world through your eyes, never changes. In my presentations I often use a slide of me at the age of 14 and me now. I look totally different and much has changed in my life in those intervening years. But in both pictures it is the same me – the authentic me who has never changed since birth. 

Try this yourself with a picture of you in your youth and now. No matter what life has thrown at you in the intervening years, the inner you has never changed. Nor will you do so after you turn 65.

Forget the perceptions you have created about people who have aged for many more years than you. Forget the perceptions of those who think that only people under 40 can cope with the pace and change of modern business life. Forget the perceptions of 'old', a word that I will only use here for the sake of the article’s purpose. 'Old' too is a perception – usually yours of others or others of you. If you think you are old or you think you are not old, you are right! That we age from birth to death is a fact. 'Old' however is an optional choice.

So how will life look like to the authentic you when you go beyond 65 years? You will continue to review and modify your thinking and priorities as you do now. Importantly you will also continue to deepen your understanding of people and life, your insight, your perspective and your wisdom. And you will enjoy continuing to do so for as long as your health permits. A tree doesn’t stop growing at 65 nor do you.

If you know someone considering finding a new adventure in life after leaving full-time work, I would be pleased to chat with them over a coffee. Absolutely no obligation.  0417 817 027.

Peter Nicholls Amelia McLeod Photography 29 3 19 Web 19Why are we sucked in by this word "old"? Who decided anyone was old or at what stage of life one becomes old?  It’s a fact that we age from birth to death but old has always been a matter of perception.  And usually perceptions of other people, not of self..."whether you think you are old or think you are young, you're right!". Nor do I know of any health or social issue that is solely age-related.

Perhaps it didn't matter in the past when life was short. Now we are being told that, despite our increasing longevity and medical advancement, employers are shrinking the working lifespan to as low as age 40! Why? "Because you are 'too old'!" Oddly, many of the people influencing the existence of age discrimination are themselves over 60...interesting!

It's time to stop perceiving society as divided into "us young people" and "those old people".

It's not just a matter of current age discrimination issues.  Globally the numbers of people over 65 are growing faster than those under 65. Sooner or later we shall reach the tipping point beyond which age discrimination of any sort will become totally unworkable.

The good news?  In a world where the "them and us" age division no longer exists 'we young people' will never be old unless we want to.

Now in my 70's, I can and do enjoy my life-long ageing process without being old.