Finding Purpose After Retirement: Seniors, Caregivers, and the New Retirement with Anne van Leynseele - Episode 267

In this heartfelt episode of Caregiver Relief, host Diane Carbo, RN sits down with Anne van Leynseele, creator of Preferment®, a bold new way to think about retirement and the final third of life. Anne is a five-time career reinventor, three-time author, former Hollywood producer, Fortune 100 consultant, Obama Administration attorney-advisor, and founder of Rarified Life LLC. Her message: retirement shouldn’t be about filling your hours. It should be about creating fulfilling hours. 🌟

👀 Who Should Listen?

• 🧓 Seniors approaching (or already in) retirement who feel something is missing
• 💛 Family caregivers facing burnout or wondering what comes next
• 🌅 Former caregivers asking, “Who am I now?”
• 👩‍💼 Accomplished women over 50 ready to design a life with meaning, joy, and guardrails

📌 Key Highlights & Insights

• 🌱 Preferment Replaces Retirement: Drawn from a 15th-century word meaning to ascend or be promoted, Preferment reframes life after your career as a step up, where you become your own boss and optimize your time for being productive, healthy, and happy.
• ⏳ Filling Hours vs. Fulfilling Hours: Leaving a career frees up roughly 2,500 hours a year. Without a plan, those hours just get spread thin. Planning what your life will be matters as much as planning your finances.
• 🧠 Learning Keeps the Brain Strong: Crosswords aren’t enough. Anne and Diane agree that learning new skills and applying them is a powerful strategy for healthy aging and dementia prevention.
• 🪪 Introduce Yourself Without Your Career: Instead of saying what you used to do, say who you are. Anne’s example for Diane: “I am a healer.” 🦸‍♀️
• 💔 Loneliness Is a Serious Health Risk: Anne shares data comparing loneliness to smoking 14 cigarettes a day, and notes that 67% of retirees report symptoms of depression. Isolation hits caregivers hard, too.
• 🚲 Plan to Adapt: When a cyclist could no longer keep up with his bike club, Anne helped him find solutions like an electric-assist bike and a tandem to ride with his grandchildren. When abilities change, find a new way to keep doing what you love.
• 🌲 Find Your Theme: A retired tech executive discovered her Preferment theme was “forest” and soon had pages of ideas, from conservancy boards to trail maintenance to art in the park.
• 🙅‍♀️ “No” Is a Complete Sentence: Accomplished women and caregivers often struggle with boundaries. Anne explains why firm, clear boundaries are essential to a life that is truly yours.
• 👨‍👩‍👧 Talk Before the Crisis: Anne’s family holds a check-in at least every other year covering accounts, digital footprint, and end-of-life wishes. The meetings are open and even joyful, and she calls them a gift.
• 🏡 New Ways to Live and Age Together: Shared housing among friends, multi-generational homes, Hawaii’s ohana dwellings, and granny pods all came up as creative answers to isolation and caregiver shortages.

📝 Episode Outline

1. Welcome & Setting the Stage

• Diane introduces the shared “silent crisis” of retirees and caregivers: Who am I when this role ends?
• Why family caregivers so often become socially isolated, and why friendships need tending like a garden 🌷

2. What Is Preferment®?

• Anne’s years at the Social Security Administration and why the 90-year-old retirement model no longer fits longer, healthier lives
• Lessons from Finland and Japan, where later life is more multi-generational and engaged

3. Filling Hours vs. Fulfilling Hours

• The four things most retirees say they want: friends and family, health, volunteering, and travel
• Why that list becomes a “thin existence” without a bigger plan

4. Identity, Loneliness & Cognitive Consonance

• Introducing yourself by who you are, not what you did
• The health impact of isolation, and how Anne’s mother learned to “be single” after 60 years of marriage
• Adapting as capacities change, with the cyclist story 🚲

5. Reinvention Lessons

• Anne’s five career reinventions and the common thread of storytelling
• How she wrote the Preferment workbook in four weeks after a neighbor called her “semi-retired” 😮

6. Talking About Aging Before a Crisis

• “The Conscientious Ager”: regular family meetings, organized accounts, and open conversations about end-of-life wishes
• Diane’s story of a caregiver who moved her 104-year-old mother into assisted living so she could finally live her own life 👏

7. Common Planning Mistakes

• Waiting until after retirement to think about it
• How the stress of the last three to five working years affects relationships, and the rise in divorce after 50
• Finding your personal theme, like the tech executive and her forest 🌲

8. Community, Housing & the Future of Care

• Shared homes, ohana dwellings, granny pods, and multi-generational living beyond blood relatives
• Why we need creative solutions as the senior population grows

9. Accomplished Women & the Freedom to Say No

• Why high-achieving women often struggle most with retirement identity
• A potter’s story, and how to write a firm “no” 🏺
• Diane’s honest reflections on being a lifelong caregiver who is still learning self-care

10. Isolation, Joy & Breaking Taboos

• Small steps to get re-engaged with the world
• Death doulas, opening up about end-of-life, and Diane’s “birthing into the next world” perspective
• What “the best rest of my life” means to Anne

11. How to Connect with Anne

• Where to find Anne’s newsletter, book, and free resources
• Diane’s closing reminder to caregivers to be gentle with themselves 💛

🔗 Resources & Links Mentioned

• 🌐 Rarified Life (Anne van Leynseele): RarifiedLife.com
• 💼 Connect on LinkedIn: Anne van Leynseele
• 📖 Preferment® Book: Coming soon
• 🎁 Free E-book, 30 Days to Get Unbored: Coming soon

Podcast Episode Transcript

Diane: Welcome to the Caregiver Relief podcast. I'm your host, Diane Carbo, RN. Today we are talking about something many seniors and caregivers quietly struggle with, finding purpose after retirement, after caregiving, or after a major life role change.

My guest today is Anne Van Leynseele, creator of Preferment, a new way to think about retirement and the final third of life. Anne believes retirement should not be about simply filling your hours, it should be about creating fulfilling hours.

This message matters deeply for caregivers and seniors, especially the family caregivers. So many of them pour themselves into someone's else survival. They manage appointments, medications, emergencies and daily care. And somewhere along the way, their own identity, dreams and joy can disappear.

Retirees may ask, "Who am I without my career?" Caregivers may ask, "Who am I when caregiving changes or ends?" Today Anne helps us look at the human side of that question. Anne is a five-time career reinventor, three-time author, former Hollywood producer, Fortune 100 consultant, an Obama Administration attorney advisor, and founder of Rarified Life LLC.

She is also the creator of Preferment, a framework for building purpose, identity and meaning after 50.

Anne, you've had quite a career over a lifetime. Welcome to Caregiver Relief.

Anne: Thank you, Diane. I'm so happy to be here that you to talk with you this morning about a topic that most people in America don't like to talk about.

Diane: Absolutely. And I want you to know that the typical family caregiver, becomes socially isolated. They lose all their friendships because caregiving can last, the average is five, five and a half years, but it can last as long as 20.

And they don't keep up with their outside relationships. And what happens, Anne, is that I tell them you have to think of those relationships as a garden. It needs sunshine and water, and if you don't do that, you lose it. And that's exactly what happens to the majority of family caregivers. before we get started, I want a warm up question. what is preferment, and why do you believe we need a new word and new way to think about retirement?

Anne: When I was back east, I actually worked under the umbrella of the Social Security Administration. And for four years, I was daily bombarded with how antiquated this system. It's 90 years old. And it was created at a time when people were lucky to live to 65.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: The average death age was 61.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: So many people had no retirement at all. And I think that now that we're looking at what can be a very productive 20 to 30 years after we leave our career, we need to rethink the entire thing. And rather than trying to retool this antiquated idea, I created preferment, which I hope replaces retirement. And the name comes from a 15th century word. Preferment means to ascend to a higher level or a promotion. And I think that's what we should think about when we leave our day to day jobs, is that we're moving into a place where we are our own boss. We can optimize that time for being productive, and healthy and happy.

Diane: Yes.

Anne: And that's what my message is.

Diane: So many people think retirement means stopping work. now you describe preferment as something much deeper. How is it different from traditional retirement?

Anne: Well, the retirement model is about winding down, resting, and becoming a sideline, participant in the world, and preferment is the exact opposite. I really think that we need to undergo a seismic shift in our country. I've visited countries like Finland and Japan doing research in what they consider the end of life phase, and it's much more multi-generational.

It's much more engaged in society. It has separate aspirations and separate goals. in Finland, there are many, many people that go back to school and get a college degree after they retire. You gotta love that.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: It's just this is the beginning of a new era, and I think that United States is lagging far behind in acknowledging that it's a different world. We don't need rest. We're not doing physical labor that wears out our body any longer.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: And to aim for a healthy longevity, we have to keep our mind as well as our body and our emotional relationships stable and engaged.

Diane: 100%. In fact, that's a dementia prevention a tactic to use. It's a strategy, if you will. doing something new and different every day creates new neural synapses, and it just makes life better for you, and you have a better of quality of life longer.

Anne: Yes.

Diane: I mean, who knew at 73, I'd be a, I was a nurse, and I'm just sharing all my knowledge with everybody right now because I'd be bored out of my gourd, and it's needed out there. So here I am playing a talk show host.

Anne: And it's wonderful, Diane, because this, what you're doing is exactly what research tells us. It's not just doing a crossword puzzle every day.

Diane: Right. Exactly.

Anne: Yeah. You need to learn new skills and apply them.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: You can't just read about things. You actually have to actively engage Yes ... in new challenges. See, I love steep learning curves.

Diane: Yes, yes. So I do too. I mean, I'm always doing new research, learning about new products, meeting new people interviewing them, and I just love it. I mean, Yeah I love what I'm doing, and it's needed because the caregivers out there and the seniors out there don't have enough time in their day to do it. So let me bring all that information to them and hopefully they'll, take action on things that they learn.

Anne: It's a fantastic thing you're doing, bringing all of the new discoveries and exciting changes that we're finding every day about dementia. My mother was a sociological researcher in the area of healthy aging which included some very seminal research in the country, about dementia and how we can lessen the impact on the caregivers

Diane: Yes

Anne: not just on the patients.

Diane: Absolutely.

Anne: And so it's really phenomenal that you're continuing to share all of these exciting innovations and some coping strategies.

Diane: Thank you. That's why I was excited to be able to introduce Proferment, because I love your concept. It's just awesome. Thank you. And, one of the things I learned, that people that retire and have nothing to retire to can die, especially men, can die within the first year after retirement because they have changed their lifestyle so drastically. So it need, you need to be doing something, you know, volunteer work or whatever, but, always learning is really important.

Anne: Yeah, and I take it a step further. the classic, I talk to a lot of financial planners that work in the retirement space. And they say people give them the same four things. They wanna see more friends and family, exercise and live a healthier lifestyle. They want to volunteer, and they wanna travel. Well, those things are things we do when we're working, and if you spread all of that over seven days, it's a very thin existence. Yes. So we need to stop just financial planning for retirement and start planning what our life is going to be and how we can keep it full and rich and engaged.

Diane: That's powerful. Powerful. Caregivers and retirees are, share a silent crisis. both ask, "Who am I when this role ends?" Why is that question so powerful?

Anne: A loss of identity is huge, and consistently when I meet people that are retired, they will introduce themselves and what they used to do. And I'm flipping that around and saying, "Introduce yourself without your career before you retire. Start saying, 'I am a healer, and I am teaching people how to be better caregivers and take care of themselves.'" you were a nurse.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: But in your deeper level, you are a healer who can present stories of triumph. That's a great description. Nobody

Diane: I love that

Anne: Nobody at a cocktail party would walk away in boredom. They would want to hear more.

Diane: I'd be wearing a cape too.

Anne: I think you should have one for the work that you do.

Diane: You are a superhero. Absolutely. Wear a cape and say, "I am a healer."

Anne: Yeah. Yes. But

Diane: Sit down and make a song to that.

Anne: Again, this is how we need to start, instead of our last third of our life being negative and about decline and disarray and loss. I mean, it's sad that even a renowned global psychologist, their developmental stages end at 60 or 65. I wrote a whole set for post 60. We should still aspire to have milestones, developmental milestones about how we're continuing to force our brain to work within the different spheres. That's the one thing that they've quantify we lose with age automatically.

Diane: Absolutely.

Anne: But not memory, not capability, unless there's a disease state.

Diane: Yes. You talk about the difference between filling hours and fulfilling hours. Why is that so important for seniors and their caregivers?

Anne: Well, all too often we have a schedule that spreads, as I said, to fill the time. I had a conversation with a dear friend of mine when both of our fathers retired at about the same time, and we just said, "What do they do all day? I don't know what they do all day." And they had both followed the model of just slow, you know, spreading out engagements or appointments or, doing things. And, rather, that's what I call filling hours.

When you leave a job or a career, it's 2,500 hours per year at minimum to fill with what you

Diane: Wow

Anne: work used to occupy.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: And so that's where fulfilling hours really comes into play. And again, it takes some planning and some thought and some preparation. And there are very simple exercises, that you can do to uncover what it is that is going to be fulfilling to you. Because preferment is as unique to an individual as their personality. And we all have skills that we can convert into productive, interesting, exciting, and demanding activities after we leave our job.

Diane: That's very interesting. You know, I have a good friend who retired early, and, she says she doesn't know how she fit work into her schedule because she's taking classes. She goes to the senior center. It's in Florida, in Tampa, and I can tell you right now I was shocked at it was the most active senior center I've ever been in. It was people exercising, doing yoga, learning to cook. I mean, so many cool things, and I just I loved it. I thought, "You know, when I retire, this is where I wanna be."

Anne: Exactly.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: Good for her, and good for you. I would call her a preferee.

Diane: Yeah, there you go. Oh, I'll tell her that. I'll tell her that. You please do.

Anne: We're making shirts.

Diane: Yeah. Now, you use the term cognitive consonance meaning our attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors are aligned. What happens when a life no longer matches what, our values or our needs?

Anne: Misalignment leads to a lot of disastrous effects. The number one in this country right now for people over 60 is loneliness. I mean, it impacts younger generations as well. But there's new data that loneliness is as bad as smoking 14 cigarettes a day.

Diane: Oh, my.

Anne: So you think about people that would never in a million years think about picking up smoking at 65

Diane: Yeah

Anne: but are actually doing as much damage to their psychological and physical wellbeing by isolation, by intention or accidentally. You know, it's really a battle, I understand. My mother My father died in 2019, and I said to my mom, "Now you have to figure out how to be single." 'Cause after 60 years of being in love with her partner and with her husband, and they were partners, but they led independent lives. It was amazing to me that they still were eager to be back together for their time together to share what they had been up to recently.

Diane: Oh, that's lovely. That's such a, that's beautiful

Anne: It is. It's beautiful. But again, she had to relearn life as a single person.

Diane: Absolutely. Yeah.

Anne: And she dove in with, great vigor and found, friends and, routines and habits where she was engaging with people on a deeper level than just grocery store clerks.

Diane: Yes. And Oh, absolutely. I have people going to book club and going to play mahjong or some other

Anne: Yep

Diane: kind of card game, and others are getting together to sew things so that they can send it to overseas to, for a church.

Anne: Yes.

Diane: I mean, there's so many things out there that people are doing that I just find it- Awesome.

Anne: Yes. And I wanna point out that, there are also things that if, when we have to be adaptable. We are going to lose capacities.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: It's just a reality. If we live long enough to enjoy the full

Diane: Yeah

Anne: range of our life, things are going to have to taper. I worked with a man who was an avid bicyclist. He loved riding bikes, and when he couldn't keep up with his bike club, he had a men's bike club. And they met every Saturday, and they went riding, and it was this great experience. When he couldn't keep up any longer, he just stopped riding his bike. And I said, "That's a tragedy. You can't let that happen." "Let's find six solutions for you continuing to engage in bike riding as a physical, emotional, and intellectual exercise." And we did. In a very short order, we came up with, he can buy an electric bike so that he has electric assist when he's riding with his younger group of men.

He could buy a tandem bike and start riding with his grandchildren and with his wife, who doesn't love bike riding. But loved the time together of them

Diane: Yes, yes

Anne: going out in nature on a bicycle together.

We just found all of these ways that he could reengage, and he did. And again, he had fulfilling life experiences.

Diane: Yes, absolutely. I really

Anne: So adaptation is the key message there.

Diane: Oh, well, you know

Anne: We need to plan to adapt.

Diane: Yes. you've reinvented yourself many times across entertainment, law, healthcare regulation, legal marijuana, nonprofits, and, this is must be semi retirement.

Anne: Nope. Nope. In fact, that phrase is what frightened me into writing the book about preferment. Someone said... 'cause at 48, I started, rehearsing my retirement plan. I bought the farm. I bought a chocolate farm on the Big Island of Hawaii. And I used to only spend two months a year here. And now I'm about five months here, five months on mainland, and a couple months traveling. And someone said to me, it was a neighbor and a very close friend, and he said- you know, "Well, you're semi-retired." And I went, "Oh!" I was mortified. I was like, "I am not semi-retired" Oh. In my head. I didn't, I wasn't the monster.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: But about two months later, I sat down, and in four weeks I wrote the entire workbook. And it is really a fun workbook that has tiny chapters and that has personal stories, other people's stories, and research, and some suggested activities. So there's a challenge for every chapter that basically they're fun, they're short, they take 10 to 15 minutes. This isn't hours of journaling and meditation and deep introspection. This is really about you figuring out what, you need to do to, fill your life with things that have meaning, not just activities to keep you busy.

Diane: What have those reinventions taught you about starting over later in life that you could share with us?

Anne: There's a common thread, and the common thread for me is storytelling. even in the practice of law, especially in cannabis law, where I was one of the first national attorneys that did recreational, legal recreational marijuana, and I helped write the book on how it was done. one small example is, that bankruptcy is a federal posit is a federal, issue.

And so therefore not available to cannabis companies because, marijuana is still federally illegal. And I proposed and helped implement with the Washington State Cannabis and Liquor Board the fact that, receive state receivership was an alternative for liquidating a company and getting debtors paid back in an appropriate way.

So that kind of innovation comes from being able to, in my mind triangulate information and come to different conclusions than everyone else does, which is how Perfirmment was born. There was no viable alternative to retirement when I was at Social Security. I looked. I looked long and hard. And this was with the first Obama administration, so we're talking a good number of years ago.

Diane: Yes, yes. That seems like a lifetime ago.

Anne: Judgement, yeah.

Diane: How can families begin talking about retirement, caregiving, aging, and purpose before they reach a crisis point?

Anne: I recently wrote an article that I'm looking to publish now. It's called The Conscientious Ager. And because of my mother's prior career in research on healthy aging, she is a great example of someone that has very much taken control of her aging. And, instead of having a one time conversation with the family where you talk about the will and the who's gonna do what and the powers of attorney, we have a meeting at least every other year. And my brothers and my mom and I sit down either in person or one brother's out of state, on the phone or Zoom, and go, she goes through. She has an entire spreadsheet that details all of her accounts, the access, and I don't just mean financial accounts. I mean utilities and all

Diane: Yeah

Anne: of the things that we leave. There's a digital footprint we all have now

Diane: yes

Anne: which is a mess to clean up if someone hasn't documented all of this.

Diane: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, if you're going through things like that, it also gives you an opportunity to talk with your family members about your end of life plans, like advanced directives and such, because that's always something that is very challenging for most people.

Anne: Yes. And I really term it as a gift that she's given us her children

Diane: Yes, I agree. I agree

Anne: of being organized and being open.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: We've even gotten down to, we both, the states that Mom and I spend our, we go back and forth between the two, both of us, and both states have, Death With Dignity provisions.

Diane: Yes.

Anne: We have talked openly about the circumstances under which my mother would execute that choice.

Diane: Yes.

Anne: She's very comfortable with it. We talk about it. And, these meetings, because they're not this one time ominous thing

Diane: Yes

Anne: they're with joy and understanding and,

Diane: Exactly

Anne: knowledge.

Diane: Yeah. Yeah.

Anne: It really is this once in a, you know, this periodic check-in on how are things going. And it has brought my brothers and I closer

Diane: Yeah

Anne: in understanding that I'm the primary caregiver. I'm with Mom most of the time. She doesn't need care now.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: I'm just sort of her companion and

Diane: Yeah

Anne: cohorts and, sounding

Diane: Partner in crime.

Anne: Partner in crime. I love that. I love it. I'm gonna use that. But, we really, it is fantastic.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: And for me, it's a real learning experience because I am husband-free and child free by choice. I decided at 16 neither of those things were right for me because I very selfishly wanted to do everything in life

Diane: Yeah

Anne: which I have. And so it's wonderful to, now be in a position to learn how it feels to be collaborating on life choices with someone.

Diane: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I love that you're your mom's caregiver. I have a funny story to tell you. I was working with this woman who was a caregiver for her mother. And she calls me up one day after a few sessions that we had for coaching, and she says, "Diane, I've decided I'm going to put Mom in an assisted living." And I said, "Okay." her mom was turning 104, and she has been with her mom for 25 years, and she decided it was time for her, as a 70 something year old, to start living her life before she gets too old.

Anne: I love it. I love it.

Diane: So I just,

Anne: and she said, "My" If you give me, if you give me her address I'm going to send her a free copy of the book.

Diane: Yeah. She cracked me up. Yes. She cracked me up. And, the funny part is my mother's going to outlive me. But at 104 she was, and Mom was still independent, fairly- Right you know, fairly. I hear you. she needed a few things. she says, I have to do this for me. I want to travel. I want to do things."

Anne: Yes.

Diane: And she did that. She took that opportunity, so I loved that.

Anne: That is a fantastic story and a real lesson.

Diane: Yes.

Anne: That caregivers, there are boundaries, and they're reasonable. And honestly, the care that the mother is going to get at 104 in a facility is probably

Diane: Oh

Anne: more consistent and more constant than any one person could be.

Diane: Exactly. Exactly. And she's going to have a better social life

Anne: Oh

Diane: because there's so many activities, and it sounds like Mom was, a go-getter. She wanted to get out and she was, the daughter was taking her wherever she wanted to go and whatever she wanted to do for so long.

Anne: Yeah.

Diane: She says, "I need to find out, things for me." So

Anne: Yay.

Diane: Good for her yeah, I thought that was awesome.

Anne: And good for both of them.

Diane: Yes.

Anne: Good for both of them.

Diane: Yes. That's great. Yes. 'Cause that's hard to do.

Anne: Oh, yes, it is. It is. But, I love

Diane: I was glad she wasn't waiting around for her mom to die.

Anne: Exactly. I was just going to say I love that she woke up and said

Diane: Me too. Me too

Anne: it's good, it's okay to be selfish in a good way, I say.

Diane: Yes.

Anne: That's my little

Diane: Yes. Oh, yes

Anne: be selfish in a good way.

Diane: Yeah. Yes. Absolutely. Now, Anne, what mistakes do people make when planning for retirement?

Anne: They don't think about it until they're retired. I,

Diane: Yeah

Anne: worked shortly with a woman, shortly 'cause we succeeded fairly quickly, an executive from Dell, and, she's a neighbor of a friend who said, "I know you're working on this book. Is it done? Because my neighbor really needs you" I found her at the mail box near tears three months into her retirement.

Diane: Aw.

Anne: So I really advocate that people begin this. There's a lot of data on the fact that in the last three to five years

Diane: Yeah

Anne: before someone retires, the stress of retirement diminishes their productivity in all aspects of their life. Their relationships suffer. The divorce rate for people over 50 has increased fivefold since

Diane: Wow

Anne: 1990.

Diane: Wow.

Anne: Five times the number of divorces after 50, which destroys two people's retirement plan because splitting the financial assets dilutes things.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: So it really is important that people start working at, what am I going to do with my life? I've got this adorable, two sisters and their husbands that are in their early 40s that got ahold of the book because they wanted it for their parents. And they bought them, bought books for themselves. And now at 40, they're in their early 40s, and both couples are planning to buy land together and live together on a property and do, this and that and the other thing together. Yeah. And I just love that people... I started at 48.

Diane: Yeah. Yeah.

Anne: My farm is the first property I bought. I had been a, global wanderer for most of my life . Yeah. 14 states and a foreign country, and Yeah lots of travel in between, and I started, I said, "Okay, I'm gonna buy where I'm gonna retire," and my parents practiced my retirement plan by living here, so it's all worked out really well. And- Well- But I think the, the mistake is not beginning early enough to think about what is the center or the theme.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: Yeah. Quickly going back to the woman from the tech exec. After four sessions, we got to a place where, she... I didn't know whether I was gonna have a breakthrough. She just kept giving me the predictable answers. And finally she was talking about what she did. I said, "What'd you do this weekend?" And she said, "Oh, I went on a hike with my friends in the forest, in this national park near where we live." And I said, "Oh, that sounds fantastic," and I said, "You just lit up." What if your preferment theme is forest? And she had this, "Oh!" and she said, "Okay, okay, yeah, I can see that might work for me." And the next week she showed up with two and a half pages Oh of activities that had some relation Oh or attachment or were point, on point about the forest. You know, a board where she could be their, a conservancy board. Trail maintenance. there's a group in her region that goes to parks with art supplies. Once a month they get together and do art in the park.

Diane: Oh, that's awesome.

Anne: Yeah.

Diane: Yeah. And here we have, in Myrtle Beach, we have, turtle watching. And, we actually make sure that the beach is safe for the turtles to lay their eggs, and we make sure that they're safe until the hatchlings go back to the ocean. It's just you know, just things like that I didn't even know existed.

Anne: Yes.

Diane: And when you start looking for things. And one of the things that we have to do as, as we're moving on, we are the first generation to have more seniors than youth in our country, and every generation after us has not replaced themselves in, population.

So we're really in a challenge right now where we don't have enough people to take care of us. So what we need to look at is, communal living or, being in a bunch of homes in the same neighborhood so we can share care workers, like or go to the same doctors or go to the doctors in the same building so that we can all pitch a ride from somebody. Of course, we'll have, driverless cars by the time we're all ready. I think. I'm not sure I feel good about that, but, so there'll be things where we're gonna have to share a lot of things so that we can, be taken care of and still have socialization. But I can see community housing where maybe they all get together for, meals too, in the neighborhood.

Anne: Yeah. There are wonderful things already happening like that where especially women

Diane: Yes

Anne: all widowed

Diane: Yep

Anne: get together and buy a house that has space for everybody, and they have chore charts where they

Diane: Yes

Anne: these people are doing that, and those people are doing the other things.

Diane: Yep.

Anne: And, I love that it's becoming a dialogue. I also wanna say that there are some great multi-generational situations that are not

Diane: Yes

Anne: family happening.

Diane: Yep. Yep.

Anne: It doesn't have to be a blood relative for it

Diane: Exactly

Anne: to be a fabulous

Diane: Exactly

Anne: multi-generation solution. Young people that are faced with they, they can never afford a home

Diane: Yep

Anne: and wanna have a home, you know, here in Hawaii, that's a very common situation where there's what we call an ohana, or a small mother-in-law dwelling

Diane: Oh. Yep

Anne: next to a family home where the young family takes over the, the main home, and the tutu or the elder, as we call it are living in the ohana.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: And they're there to support with a little childcare and stories and wisdom, but they also have the benefit of that social

Diane: Yes, granny pods are something that people are putting out. it, yeah, the granny pods are real, and they've been around for, like, 10 or 15 years where you know, you just plop a granny pod in the back of your yard and Grandma and Grandpa are close by. That's great. I love that concept. Yeah, I really do. Yeah. So, why do accomplished women often struggle with retirement identity even more than men?

Anne: Oh, much more. Yeah. It is, a lot of, accomplished men are just happy to go play golf, so

Diane: I get that. Yeah, exactly. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Anne: But, accomplished women, really battle because they're, they understand the matrix of I have to keep moving or I'll stop existing.

Diane: Yes. Yeah.

Anne: And I think that there's a lack of, free- giving themselves freedom. They've suppressed their personal needs for so long

Diane: Yes. Yeah

Anne: that it's harder to tap into. one woman that is, again, a high level tech executive who now does consulting, said, you changed my life. I read the first chapter of your book." "And I went out and I tried something new, and I found out I love doing pottery, and I went from taking one class just, you know, on a lark" to taking a full series to working in the studio by myself now." Yeah. And I said, "What are you doing with all the pottery?" And she said, "I'm donating it." And I was like, "I love that. That's fantastic." Yeah, yeah. You know, it's those kinds of shifts, and it's why I really emphasize that it's okay.

And we have practices in the workbook on how to break down those expectations and get rid learning how to say no as a full sentence. No, I don't want to do this anymore.

Diane: Yes.

Anne: And here's how you get out of it. I've had to help people write messages to charity organizations saying, "I've done this for six years. I need to move on."

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: "Here's the transition plan." Yeah. and to get out of it. And and they keep coming back to me with these emails that it's like, no, this is not definitive enough.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: You're leaving an opening right here in this email message for them to say, "Oh, but how about you stay another year?"

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: We need to be more hard line about

Diane: Yeah

Anne: some boundaries.

Diane: That's typical for 95% of most women.

Anne: Yes.

Diane: They first of all, I think women in, that have a career, absolutely feel like they can't say no to a lot of things because it's going to look bad on them. And I feel that way. But then we have caregivers, a family caregiver or, I know this. I did nursing for, I've been a nurse for 50 years, and I still have a need to take care of people, and I- don't always take good care of myself, and I'm, I work on that every day. I want to be selfish and, I giggle now because I'll say, "Well, I'm semi-retired."

Anne: Yeah.

Diane: So I can allow myself this time today, so that I and enjoy myself, 'cause I don't know how much time I have.

Anne: Yeah. it's true. And even if you have another 20 years

Diane: Yes. Yes. Yes

Anne: you still have earned.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: You have given and given and given.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: And you, should reserve the time that you give to teaching others some of the knowledge and wisdom that you have to share.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: And use the rest of the time for yourself.

Diane: Yeah. Well, that's what I try to do here with Caregiver Relief. So

Anne: Yeah.

Diane: You are Now we talk about isolation. Can you ex- discuss how isolation affects people after retirement?

Anne: Sure. 67% of retirees report depression symptoms.

Diane: Yes.

Anne: And, there are... it takes a little effort, and I will, supply you, Diane, with a link to a newsletter that we do, but also more importantly, a free book that I call 30 Days to Joy. It's tiny. It's like micro activities that can encourage people that don't see how to get re-engaged with the world in very small ways, in very you know, things

Diane: Awesome

Anne: that aren't scary. And yet they are ways that bring happiness into every single day for 30 days.

Diane: I look for that every single day. you know, I'm on the beach when I can. I walk on the beach, and You know, it's funny. I don't post pictures of me on the beach every time I go, 'cause I thought at first I was doing it 'cause everybody needs to see, oh my God, look at this beautiful world we live in, and I'll share a piece of it with you. You can enjoy it too. But people were telling me or were being negative about it. Oh. that I was flaunting my freedom and I thought, people are so negative. I don't need that toxic toxicity in my life. No. You know? It was silly.

Anne: Yeah, it is. And we're, you know We're ... I think we need to continue to promote that everybody's choice is valid. Understand that for many people, retirement is the right fit. They're perfectly happy with the big four, you know?

Diane: Yes. Yes

Anne: just friends and family and those basics. Yes. And that's great. That's their choice. But swinging back to high achieving women, it's a death sentence. It's just an automatic not gonna work. And, there are women that are still working because they're afraid. There's fear around what happens if they retire.

Diane: Absolutely.

Anne: And I'm just gonna do a little blatant here. It's PreFermint. That'll help you solve it. There's me on the farm. So

Diane: Oh, I'm gonna have to try your chocolate.

Anne: Oh. And again, I think that just we're changing society slowly. I'm the first year of Gen X. And Gen X

Diane: Okay

Anne: the, our characteristics are we are changing, we are opening up taboos. Yeah. Menopause, mental health you know, death and dying. I mean, Yeah the frequency with which I hear the word death doula now, it's brand new. Yeah. And I love I love that this is occurring, that even if somebody isn't in hospice, there's still support for the family, support for the person who's dying. And I was that for my father, and we did a ton of research. And, the night before he passed I said to Mom, "This is it. His body is shutting down." Yeah. And later she said, "I didn't believe you."

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: She thought it was just another phase of his decline, and his decline was very short. He was very blessed four days was all.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: And so it is incredible, as we begin to open up that there will be haters. And I think that responding to those people not at all or I just didn't with a positive

Diane: Yeah. Yeah.

Anne: Or with a positive, you know saying, "I hope that you can find joy somewhere else."

Diane: Yes. I have to share a story with you. I did a podcast with a death doula a few weeks ago, and I love how she presented death and dying. we start life being birthing and coming into the world. Well, she sees end of life and death as Birthing into the next world.

Anne: Yeah.

Diane: And when you think about that, it's just a, it makes things easier for some people to accept. I just thought, you know, and I told her, I said, "Well, my boys were hanging onto my tonsils. I went two weeks overdue with both of them," so I was just teasing her, I just it just silly things like that. But, yeah, when you think about it that you're birthing to the next world that makes some sense and it makes it easier for people to understand maybe.

Anne: Yeah. And similarly, I talk about the fact that when we finish high school we, as we come to the end of high school, there's a lot of energy surrounding what's next. What are you going to do next? Yeah. And I consider retirement the antecedent of that as well. There you go. Perfect. That as we end our career

Diane: Yes

Anne: graduate into preferment we need to spend time, and energy, and research on this transition from an organized career to a new structure of your own choosing and a new lifestyle of your own choosing. We need to spend time, and attention, and care in preparing and planning, and making some preliminary decisions that are of course flexible. I mean, people say, "Well, do you ever sleep?" And I say, "Yes, I love sleep." "I love my bed. My bed is a palace to me." Yeah. Just, you know. I had a friend stay over at my house in Washington State and she and her husband, they woke up the next morning, and Carrie said, "It's like sleeping on a cloud."

Diane: Oh. I love that. Yep.

Anne: Yeah. Yep. It should be.

Diane: Be careful. So Ben Franklin says, "Company like fish smell after three days."

Anne: Oh, yeah. No, we don't do... They were just there for one night. They had come from

Diane: Yeah. there you go. There you go.

Anne: they had come from a silent retreat. Oh. They had not talked for 10 days.

Diane: oh.

Anne: I couldn't do it.

Diane: I couldn't do it. I know I couldn't do it. Yeah. I have a cousin who went into a nunnery. a convent actually, that they didn't speak. And I'm like, I just couldn't do it.

Anne: Nope.

Diane: I don't know what I'd be making myself go crazy.

Anne: Yeah. Yeah.

Diane: With all the thoughts I'd be having.

Anne: But that's not for everybody. Yeah. Not for everybody

Diane: though. No, it's not. So Ann, what does the best rest of your life mean to you?

Anne: the best rest of my life means continuing to find steep learning curves-

Diane: Yeah

Anne: engaging multi-generationally. Yeah. I mean, I have friends as young as three that I consider a little friend.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: My little friends. I call them my little friends. And, I live in a place where people are happy to come visit me. Oh. So even though I am single, and no kids of my own, there are plenty of people that will continue to cycle through. I'm trying to make some, changes in Hawaii at a regulatory level to support more agricultural staying, more food staying in the state of Hawaii. We ex we import 95% of what we eat.

Diane: Oh, wow. Wow.

Anne: For an agricultural based land that's not okay. And I'm not alone. There are a lot of other people working on this problem. Yeah.

Diane: Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. Yeah.

Anne: But there are a lot of things that COVID taught us. loneliness, how we need physical interaction face to face interaction.

Diane: Yes. Absolutely.

Anne: resource limitations. Yeah. The shelves were clear in Hawaii after three days.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: Wow. When COVID shutdown began

Diane: Yeah

Anne: the grocery stores just everything was gone, and there were no trucks to bring it in.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: Yeah. And we didn't know when I was mailing things weekly to my mother. I was living in LA. And I was sending care packages to my mom with soap and, sanitizer.

Diane: Yeah.

Anne: Just everyday things she said Basically "I cannot find."

Diane: Oh, that's awful. Oh, that's a story for another day.

Anne: Yes.

Diane: Ann, how do people reach out to you and learn about Performit?

Anne: The website is rarifiedlife, R-A-R-I-F-I-E-D-L-I-F-E.com. We have a free newsletter and as I said, that free, booklet on 30 Days of Joy, which is just fun and playful. The book is available on Amazon and other sellers. And, I just, through you, I guess is the short answer.

Diane: I create a permanent page on Caregiver Relief, and I'll have links to your site, and we'll show your face and I'll link to your book so that people can find you in the future as well as after this podcast is published.

Anne: Yes. Thank you. Thank you. And we are just both enjoying what we're doing, but it's also a very, we're changing the world, and we gotta keep plugging away one person at a time.

Diane: That's exactly my thought process, Thank you so much, Ann. I appreciate you, and I appreciate what you're doing. it's awesome stuff. to my family caregivers out there, you are the most important part of the caregiving equation. Without you, it all falls apart. So please learn to be gentle with yourself. Practice self-care every day, because you are worth it.