Five strengths retirement will test

Today I share a warning from the ghost of retirement future. I built a solid portfolio of skills and talents in my 38-year career, and when I retired from full-time work, the things I was good at were the first to go. Everyone talks about outliving your money, but maybe the real risk of retirement is having our hard-won strengths put to the test.

  1. Time Management – The morning flies by fast when you sleep late. Breakfast, news, email … and the next thing you know, it’s time for lunch! Last week I had a 10 a.m. appointment just a few minutes from my house, and I wasn’t sure I had enough bandwidth to execute in a timely fashion. And yet another worry bead – at this pace, I may not have enough jammies to get me through the next few years.
  2. Leadership – I have no authority and a team of one who does not believe he reports to me. I have a clear vision, which I’ve shared with him during happy hour (think of it as an all-hands). But I get the sense he is not engaged. His discretional effort is focused on BattleBots.
  3. Project Management – We work on a new project every day, and it is called dinner. The results are spectacular, world-class, but there is occasionally a problem with cost, schedule or expectations … mostly expectations. Somehow during the kickoff meeting, he forgets to tell me he’s putting Trinidad Scorpion Peppers in the beans, and I don’t know, he just doesn’t seem to understand the business case for chia seeds.
  4. Communication – As a leader, I used to command attention, but now I wonder if I speak and no one hears me, do I still make a sound? I practice my outside voice on the pool guy. “Wow, a lot of leaves today, huh?”
  5. Conflict Resolution – When colleagues with different objectives and needs clash in the workplace, a good leader uses respectful dialogue to separate the people from the problem and help the team stay focused on shared business goals. This doesn’t always work at home, where there is no best practice to resolve snits, irks, miffs, fumes, gripes, pouts, stews, nags and peeves.

Of course, the agile retiree with a learning orientation will adapt. I now realize my strengths are also development areas. I’m committed to continuous improvement. In the near-term, I will get dressed and do something about the jammie shortage.

A new opportunity to annoy your partner

Consider me the canary in the coal mine, dutifully sharing dispatches from the dark recesses of retirement so you can learn from my best practices and perhaps a mistake or two.

As for mistakes, it appears I’ve been annoying my husband.

A friend suggested it might happen with all this new-found togetherness. I said don’t be silly, we won’t be spending that much time together, because I will be playing golf. However, moving to a new home, performing my duties as House Elf, writing and a lack of cooperation on the weather’s part means I have not played as much golf as I had planned.

Instead, we’ve been holed up in the house passing notes to each other through the cat. The fundamental problem is he needs to be more like me, and I need to be more like him.

I’m a driver – sometimes known as a Type A. I like to keep things organized, and I like to get things done. Dale, on the other hand, is a wee bit sloppy and pleasantly laid back. I have, in a moment of weakness, called him lazy. He said lazy is such a harsh word. He likes to think of himself as differently motivated.

Normally we balance each other out, but it seems I’ve been using my bonus retirement hours to try and make him more like me. Well, why not? With my astute powers of observation, I’ve identified key shortcomings, and who doesn’t love a good list?

It was a healthy discussion.

  • He admitted to being lazy. I admitted to being possessed controlling.
  • I agreed not to criticize his driving. He agreed to park inside the lines.
  • He said he’d try and get more done. I said I was aroused by a guy with a few chores under his belt.
  • I conceded Vietnamese and Thai fish sauce are both tasty, but whoever is cooking gets to pick.
  • He is not required to eat oatmeal if he doesn’t care whether he lives or dies.

We renewed our vow that we can’t afford to NOT love each other. In a deeply romantic moment, I believe I said, “Dance with the one who brung ya.”

Love morphs over 40 years, but it does not fly out the door in a matter of months. Retirement changes the dynamics, and we’ve learned it’s important to keep the lines of communication open now more than ever. We each owned up to our part in this drama, and I believe our ability to duke it out rationally is one reason we’ve lasted this long. That, and being soul mates.

If I had to do it over, I might suggest one retire in the spring, so one could have a long, warm period of adjustment. As for your trusty reporter, the weather is improving, and I have every confidence it will improve fast enough to get me out of the house before you find me strapped to a lie detector screaming, “Yes! It’s true! Almond milk is not real milk!”

Looking for money

My mother and I used to go for long walks, usually ending up at one of the strip malls that punctuated our southern California town. As we stood on the front porch ready to go, she’d lock the door, check it and recheck it before turning to me to share her time-honored parental advice:

Remember. Look for money.

Seriously. Mom’s thing was to look for money as we walked, I guess because there was never enough. And the funny thing is – we usually found it! Scattered coins in the sidewalk cracks, a dollar blowing in the breeze. Once we found two $5 bills, and it was as though we’d won the lottery.

Sometimes we’d celebrate with a bite to eat at the dime store lunch counter. Was it J.J. Newberry or Woolworth’s? I can’t remember, and they’re both gone now. Mom got Jello because it wasn’t fattening. Grilled cheese for me because it was cheap.

Money was in short supply at our house, and perhaps that is why I grew up obsessed with making sure I had enough. And with this mindset, it’s easy to believe there will never be enough. No sacrifice to great, no cushion to thick – more money always wins.

Some baby boomers are reluctant to retire, in part because they haven’t saved enough and in part because they can’t give it up. Boomers say it’s the work they can’t give up, and I get that, because what we do for a living is part of our identity. But I also wonder if it’s the need to make money and the habit of spending money we can’t quite quit.

Only in the last few years did I begin to reconsider my relationship with money. I had a nice nest egg from years of saving, and that helped. But as I closed in on the concept of retirement, it occurred to me I could feel more secure with that nest egg if I spent less. You don’t need as much stuff as you think.

It is scary when the regular paychecks stop. I’m not super-frugal, and I’m not a financial whiz. Preparing for retirement was more about changing my mindset … believing I could live differently and gain back what we used to call a life. Time to sleep late, read, write and cook from scratch. Meet with friends, volunteer, maybe a little side hustle just in case.

I still love my long walks, and now I have time for them. Sometimes I enjoy a mindless loop, and other times I like walking toward a destination. There’s a little strip mall at the bottom of the hill, and I often think about stopping for a bite to eat. For now, I just keep going, occasionally scanning the grass that lines the sidewalk, looking for money.