About the new podcast: "Refinement NOT retirement"
(The Two Rs)
Welcome to our Blog. We are Tony & Christine from the quintessential Cotswolds village of Elmley Castle where we’ve been living for the past three years after our great escape to the country from South Kensington area of London.
Now, for the first time in 40 years – for the first time in our lives in fact - we’re out of a job. At age 66, we decided it was time to move to the next exciting chapter of our lives together. But why avoid the R word?
Speaking for myself (& this is Tony speaking) - I’ve gone through several transitions as part of a continuing process of REFINING my life. (By “refining” I mean making changes that improve one’s life.) Here are some of the refinements (course corrections intended to improve our lives) made so far during our voyage.
UP TO AGE 40: I was obsessively focused on finances - on keeping my head above water - on paying the mortgage, so we didn’t lose our house. That was my primary focus. I had zero work life balance.
I didn't spend enough time with my family. I missed too much of my children growing up. I worked ridiculously long hours. Life was nearly all work and no play. As I approached my 40s, I understood with increasing urgency the need for change towards a better work life balance. Refinements were required.
45 TO 60: Now that I had started to achieve some financial success, I was able to shift my focus towards achieving a better work life balance. Through work, I met the right life-partner (my second wife, Christine) and the business we started together was becoming highly profitable - without requiring long hours from either of us. This led to the first MAJOR REFINEMENT.
For the first time in my life, I had plenty of time to relax and enjoy time with Christine, while we both worked, when necessary, on our business. And we were able, for the first time in our lives to play a lot.
We arrived at a point where we were even able to spend large chunks of time in Southwest Florida. We acquired a second home there, in Naples, Florida, which was the second MAJOR REFINEMENT (another interesting story which we will share later!)
60 TO 66 (current): We made further refinements, but we’ll also save those for further posts and podcasts. Then COVID struck, so another big course correction was needed. We escaped to the countryside from the life we’d previously loved, living in the heart of London.
We continued to run our business but ultimately decided to make another MAJOR REFINEMENT, which was to step away from our beloved business - a business we’d worked on together for more than 35 years.
We retired from that business, but hesitate to say we RETIRED. Rather we’d made yet another course-correction as part of our ongoing life-refining - a process of optimizing our lives to fit the latest set of circumstances.
But I’m not going to lie, to retire from our business was a decision we wrestled with, certainly I did - much more than Christine. I watched a lot of videos and read lots of material about the dreaded R word. I didn’t find much that helped me.
But I did find it illuminating talking to peers. Some said that “retiring” was the best thing they’d ever done, and they’d wished they’d done it sooner. Others regretted it, and warned me to be very, very careful. Some said it had affected their mental health and made them feel a loss of identity.
Coming to our decision (to retire from our beloved business) was a fascinating journey, and it continues to be. Please join us as the journey continues to its natural end!
As we began our new adventure, we decided to start a new podcast called Refinement NOT retirement
On the new podcast, we will chat about this new chapter of our lives. And we will reach out to interesting guests for their perspectives, experiences and wisdom.
And we’d LOVE to hear from you. Please stay in touch and share your ideas with us. Your thoughts will help shape our content going forward. Post a comment with any ideas you might have, and do let us know if you’d like to be a guest on the show.
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