Replying to a commenter Cochrane

Transcript

Mark, it's like you've been hanging around with me the last two years. It's paradoxical that high performers spend their careers seeing obstacles and challenges as an opportunity. All through our work lives, when we see something that seems impossible, we're like rubbing our hands together. We're like, oh yeah, this looks like it's going to be hard. And we love it. We want to attack it. We want to solve it. And when we retire and we lose our identities, that characteristic that made us so amazing at work just abandons us. I don't know why. I mean, I have a couple of theories for myself. At work, I always felt like I had a support system. I had information. There were those that had led before me that I could take some cues from. But when I retired, I felt alone, like completely alone. And I didn't feel like I was alone. I didn't feel like I had any support system. I didn't feel like I had any resources. So I thought, how am I going to figure out who I am now? I don't even know where to start. I didn't take it like, oh boy, this is going to be a fun challenge. Until about six months in, I had to kind of get all the garbage out of my mind first. And then I started looking at it like, who is this versus? Who am I against here? And I eventually realized... that if I could frame the problem like a competition, and I'm not saying this would work for you, Mark. Mostly, I'm just... I'm sorry about what you're going through because I went through it too. But I can tell you what I did. And once I was able to turn it into a me versus whomever, it helped me to sort of attack it. Because I was defending myself against something.