Your dreams shouldn’t have an expiration date, even in retirement. In this episode, Wes sits down with Patrice Jenkins, Ph.D., an organizational psychologist, retirement speaker, Founder of Day One Dreams, and author of “What Will I Do All Day?: Wisdom to Get You Over Retirement and On With Living!”
Patrice explains how it’s never too late to go after your dreams, but you have to start today, the intricacies of success stories, and details from her book. Additionally, she discusses how thriving has two components, the similarities between thriving at work and thriving in retirement, along with where intrinsic motivation stems from. To wrap up the episode, Patrice talks about figuring out retirement as you go but planning in advance, finding new roles in retirement, and what retirement means to her.
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Read Show Notes From This Episode (click to expand and read notes from the full interview)
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- Patrice says it’s never too late but you have to start today.
She’s from the Catskills – Rip Van Winkle country.
Patrice says everyone loves success stories but she is very interested in how that success started. She wants to roll that clock back and say “Was there one thing you did to get the ball rolling?”
They talk about Patrice’s book: “What Will I Do All Day.” Patrice doesn’t like the term “killing time’.
Thriving has 2 components: 1) energy and vitality AND 2) growth.
Studied high thriving employees. What they were saying was very similar to what people who were happily retired were saying.
Wes asks “So, thriving at work is similar to thriving in retirement?” Correct.
Job satisfaction narrows it down too much. The term “Organization citizenship behaviors” describes it a little more. All the things like that make up that person who is thriving in the workplace.
How do you get unstuck at work? Where does intrinsic motivation come from? You need 3 things. CAR.
Competence
Autonomy
RelatednessCAR
Psychological contract. Both sides (employer and employee) need to be meeting their end of the bargain.
Most of us don’t just retire on the first day. We figure it out as we go.
There is an anxiety that builds up when people aren’t working. Try to answer the question “What do you do?” without bringing up your job. Wes says when he was in the UK he noticed that people ask and think about jobs much less. Is it American to do this? Patrice says it is American.
It’s not that we want to get up and go to work at 6:30 AM. Setting the alarm is terrible. Not setting the alarm is one of the best parts of retirement for Patrice. But when we don’t, we feel out of sync.
Sense of Continuity. We’re always thinking “What doesn’t feel right, here?” Start planning 3-5 years in advance.
Finding new roles is a great opportunity in retirement. Right now Patrice is learning to play the drums. She got some $5 drumsticks because her husband got sick of her using pencils. She asked “What does a drummer my age wear?” and her husband said, “I think you need to learn to play first.” Wes brings up “Animal” – the muppet who played the drums.
Wes brings up the clarinet story we wrote. Patrice takes that as an example of her teaching and builds upon it. You keep pulling in more things. She calls it “Compound Interest.” Compounding interest but being intentional. Her husband learned the bagpipes in retirement. He got a teacher, learned more, got a kilt, and finally played a gig.
We need to take away the status of saying that we’re not busy. Instead, how are you spending and investing your time? Leave room for things to bubble up and fit in. We’re not trying to make retirement look like work. It’s something else.
Patrice and Wes talk about a favorite piece of advice for someone who is retired but isn’t enjoying it. They talk about realizing you aren’t alone if you aren’t enjoying it. You have to learn and keep trying.
Patrice’s definition of retirement is “What do you want to make yourself available to?”
Dream shopping: Patrice will do one and “try it on”. For instance, for Day One Dreams, she pulled out her computer and had an imaginary conversation with the person next to her on the airplane. When she got home, she ended up buying the domain name she had thought of.
Wes tells a story about Japanese Sweet Potatoes and wanting to make chips out of them. He got a domain name for it.
Patrice’s favorite book of hers is “Dreams Don’t Have Expiration Dates.” But they talk about “It’s Still Good.”
