Book Review - Shifting Gears By Richard Haiduck
My chosen work is retirement lifestyle design, and I’ve written two books on the subject. I felt the need to write a third book a collection of stories about how other people are approaching retirement so people could learn from what others went through - both their mistakes and successes. Thankfully I don’t need to do that anymore because Richard Haiduck did it for me in his new book “Shifting Gears.”
I like his book so much that I’m going to make it required reading for my clients prior to having them start the retirement lifestyle design process. It will shorten their learning curve and help them avoid a lot of stress trying to figure things out for themselves.
Successful retirees know that winning at the retirement game is not about sitting around and taking it easy the rest of your life. It’s about finding fulfillment through purposeful activities – whatever that means to you.
As you go through the stories you will notice that everyone’s picture of retirement heaven doesn’t look the same. You will read about people that decided to get a part time job, go back to school, or even climb Mount Kilimanjaro, which proves there is no wrong answer. The truth is it doesn’t matter what others think about your version of retirement as long as you are doing things that are meaningful and fulfilling for you.
The way I recommend you use this book is to first go through it highlighting sections that resonate and speak to you. Then go through it a second time focusing on the highlighted sections looking for patterns and commonalities in the stories, clues that will require further consideration when you start designing your own retirement lifestyle.
This book serves as a good first step in designing a lifestyle that is unique to you, based on your own needs and values, not on someone’s else’s vision of what retirement should be.
I love reading stories about “real people” people in their sixties, seventies, and eighties who have ripped up the old retirement rule book on aging and retirement. The stories in this book are about ordinary people doing extraordinary things – stories of trailblazers who have regained the curiosity of a child, travelling the world to see and experience new places, entering marathons in different cities, learning new technology, volunteering, and starting new businesses.
As you read you will also feel the pain and uncertainty that some are experiencing as they try to figure things out and answer the million dollar question “What am I going to do with the rest of my life?”
One of the most important takeaways from this book is that it’s hard to enjoy retirement when you are not doing what you like/need to do but the problem is that many retirees do not know exactly what that is. Upon completion of this book you will understand yourself a whole lot better, and how to design a lifestyle that you’ll be happy living. You will wake up to the fact that a successful retirement involves much more than simply ceasing work and adding a leisure activity or two. You will learn that a successful retirement is more than just having a lot of money it has to do with a lot of non-financial issues as well. Not having a good attitude, not challenging your brain, not being physically active, not having strong relationships with family and friends, not having a sense of purpose, not eating healthy are common issues that if not addressed are going to cost you big time in retirement – trust me on that.
Some of the stories you read will trigger thoughts and feelings within you, and you will start to develop a sense of what you want your retirement to look like.
This book will help you answer the following key questions;
Who are you?
What do you want to be?
What do you want to do?
Once you can answer these questions you will have a level of awareness of what you need in your life to be happy something that most retirees lack so consider yourself ahead of the game. The clearer you can visualize retirement success (whatever that looks like to you) and the more detail you can create in your mind, your mental pictures, the quicker and easier you will get there. The next step is to take what you have learned and use it to create a retirement vision so compelling and exciting that it pulls you out of bed in the morning, motivating and driving you towards the future you want.
