Don’t Retire… Refire!
When Ken Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager, happened to meet up with his old friend psychologist Morton Shaevitz, they talked about how people approach getting older.
Blanchard, 75, said he used the term “refire” to describe the attitude of approaching life with gusto. He and Shaevitz, 79, agreed that refire is a way of seeing each day as an opportunity.
Together they wrote Refire! Don’t Retire: Make the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life. It tells about a
fictional couple who worked with others to evaluate different aspects of their lives, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Shaevitz says people who are going toward something have the opportunity to live fuller lives. In the book, Blanchard used a fictional couple because, “When you tell a story, people can suspend their inner critic and watch what happens to the characters in a detached way.”
Quoted in USA Today, Blanchard’s best advice is, “Get out of your comfort zone. Take a class at a local college, which will put you into a new setting with different people.”
The two of them have formed The Last Minute Gang, an informal group of a dozen friends or couples, people who have agreed that, at the last minute, if someone calls and invites you to do something, unless you’re previously committed, you’ll say yes.
Let your retirement be a new beginning to the best of your life.