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Phased Retirement: Minimize Declarations
Congratulations! You’ve reached a major milestone: the chance to dial things back, enjoy more freedom, and explore life beyond the daily tasks and meetings. Semi-retirement or phased retirement is an exciting chapter, offering a unique blend of leisure and continued engagement. But before you toss your alarm out the window and declare to the world, “I’m done! Never working another…
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Phased Retirement: Smudge the Date
Are you aiming for a traditional retirement at 65 or another specific age with a sudden and complete stop? You’ve circled the date and have a ‘countdown’ to your last day at work. Maybe you’ve even planned what you’ll be doing for the first few months once you’re wrapped up. But here’s a thought: what if you didn’t make everything so…
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Phased Retirement: Personal Reinvention
Not long ago, a friend sent me a sample board profile to help me think about my own next career move. What caught my eye wasn’t the impressive title or the lengthy list of accomplishments—it was a small note tucked into this biography:“After a long career at GE, they took 18 months to reinvent themselves.” Eighteen months. Not two weeks.…
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Phased Retirement: Me as Chief Economist
As I think about my phased retirement and explore new activities, one idea that keeps coming up is serving on a paid board. I’d love to leverage the experience I’ve gained over the years—especially in areas like leadership, technology, and strategy. A friend of mine does this kind of work and recently gave me a few board profiles to review…
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Phased Retirement: No Syllabus
It’s summertime—the season of shorts and flip-flops, long hours of daylight, and a break from the usual routines. But soon enough, school will be back in session. For college students, that means new classes and freshly printed syllabi, each one a roadmap for the next four months. Assignments, deadlines, goals—all neatly laid out. It’s funny how, for much of life,…
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Phased Retirement: The Go-Go Years
If you’ve worked with financial planners or read books about your retirement finances (books like “Die With Zero,” by Bill Perkins that I’ve referenced here before) you’ve likely heard them talk about retirement in three distinct stages: But here’s the thing: you don’t know how long your Go-Go years will last. That’s why it’s so critical to think about and…