July 27, 2024

Thanks for all of the emails and comments on Part I of my Year One Retirement Progress Report. My Dad wrote that he liked it, but it was way too long and could have used several more drafts. He’s not wrong. So I’ll shorten my introduction by five paragraphs (Winning!!) and get right to examining the last three criteria: Sharpening the Saw, Relationships, and Purpose. 

Sharpening the Saw

In Steven Covey’s introduction to his 7th Habit of Highly Effective People, he famously asked, “Have you ever been too busy driving to stop for gas?” He also quotes Abe Lincoln’s, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Like Abe’s axe, our lives will become dull and ineffective if we do not make the effort to improve ourselves by seeking new knowledge and new ways of thinking, and by taking time to deliberately reflect on what we are doing well, and what needs to be improved.

Covey pushes people to sharpen their saw constantly in order to be the best they can be. He targeted mostly working people, but I know he would say it’s critical for retirees too. My friend John died this year at age 95. When I visited him last, he was on a reading tear, learning all he could about ancient east African civilizations. Why is it that those whose axes are the sharpest are the same ones who spend the most time at the sharpening stone? President Obama publishes the extensive list of the books he has read and music he is listening to at the end of each year. It is stunning how much he can get done. Theodore Roosevelt read a book every day while he was president. Though I can’t hold a candle to the people above, here is what I am doing to sharpen the saw in my retirement.

• I continue to be an avid reader, though I have added the lens of reading as a means of learning how to write better. I keep a journal of writing lines or passages that hit home for me, and hope that it can inspire me to add beauty and depth to my writing. Seeing and reflecting on those passages is in itself a beautiful moment, like watching a blue heron fly silently by while you are sitting next to a river having a cup of coffee and finalizing your blog post.
• I look for, and sometimes pay for, good coaching. I have appreciated and written often about my masters swim coach, and my golf game is less atrocious due to professional coaching. Sometimes, coaching comes from cookbooks, or from videos on cooking or pickleball, and there are certainly plenty of coaches from whom we can learn more about living well. There is so much expertise in the world, and to not use it is truly a missed opportunity.
• Finally, and this is easier in retirement, I try to take as many opportunities to pause and reflect as I can. Consuming a large quantity of books, podcasts, or lectures doesn’t mean much unless we take the time to ponder how they might impact and improve our lives. My calendar has many more open spots in it than before, which means I’m not rushing like I used to from meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting. Looking back at my career, I wish I would have been better at leaving open spaces in my calendar, so I could have paused more to reflect and plan. Too often, I was too busy driving to stop for gas. But now, I have the luxury of time, and I am working to be better at pausing, reflecting, and sharpening the saw. I appreciate the research on reflection in the Harvard Business Review, which stated, “The practice (of reflection) itself is all about learning, looking back on the day (without bias or regret) to contemplate your behavior and its consequences. It requires sitting with yourself, taking an honest moment to think about what transpired, what worked, what didn’t, what can be done, and what can’t. Reflection requires courage. It’s thoughtful and deliberate. Being at the ‘top of your game’ only comes when you extract from the past how to engage the future.”

As for the progress report . . . After one year, Teacher Mike would tell me that I am growing, and I am spending time sharpening my saw, but that blade could be a lot sharper. I need to be more disciplined and make the time for both learning new information and finding time to reflect, and make more deliberate efforts to be more like Abe the axe-sharpener.

Relationships

One of the things that I miss the most in retirement is the social interactions that I enjoyed at work every day. I miss the short little conversations, the checking in on each other, the inside jokes, hearing about roses and thorns, and the hundreds of light and deep conversations I had over the course of a week. Most of those work relationships will fade away. This means that everyone who retires has to maintain their existing away-from-work relationships, and, in the best of all possible worlds, develop new ones. There is data from the Blue Zones research that confirms that healthy relationships improves and prolongs human lives.

Speaking of my marriage relationship, perhaps my biggest win after one year of retirement is that Jill doesn’t hate me. Victory! Jill works at home a few days a week, therefore we see each other more than we ever have. And after a year, not only does she not hate me, but we both agree that we are thriving with our new time together.

I am also free to travel more to see my family. I’ve taken several trips to Arkansas and Sacramento, and I will be going to southern Washington in August for my nephew’s wedding. Many of these trips would have been impossible to take while working, and they all serve to make my family relationships deeper. 

And I will continue to enjoy life with friends. One of my favorite things to do is organize big and little experiences and adventures with my friends. It could be a bike trip, a fantasy football league, pickleball Saturdays, a bbq, or any number of things. My friend Grant (a regular blog reader!) is one of the best at this, and he shared, “When you help a group of people to have a good time, or to do something fun together, and they leave with a smile, I think that makes us live longer.” I think you’re exactly right, Grant.

On the virtual side, these blog posts have been a wonderful way to keep in touch with friends. I hear from my high school classmates, former students, parents, and colleagues from my jobs all over California, and even a few new people that I’ve met through my writing. With an average of around 300 readers, I am still able to respond to everyone who comments or emails. Thanks to all of you who make that work so well.

As for the progress report . . . After one year, Teacher Mike would tell me that I am doing OK here, but I cannot rest. Relationships take initiative, care, and a lot of work. They are too important to take for granted.

Purpose

Why do you wake up in the morning? If you like your answer for that question, then you have a sense of purpose. Blue Zones research points to healthy relationships adding seven or more years to your life. I was fortunate to have a career that gave me so many ways to answer that question for almost forty years. And now, I need a different answer. 

One of the most difficult parts of retiring after 39 years in the same field is that I left at a time when I was at the height of my knowledge of not only what works in public education, but also how to best support leaders and educators in the important work that they do. I don’t know how much longer I can do it, but I am enjoying using that knowledge and experience to support districts and leaders as an educational consultant. Some of that work I get paid for, but most of it I do just to support former colleagues. I am enjoying my work as a consultant and mentor, supporting leaders, helping teams be their best, and supporting districts with challenging tasks, and it is one of the things that answers the question of why I get up in the morning.

I will be a proud educator for all of my days, and I will continue to use that passion and knowledge, even after my consulting days are done. Still, I need to look beyond my former career-related endeavors for my sense of purpose. So what else is there?

What makes this transition easier for me is that I have never derived my entire identity and sense of worth from my career. I have always had other interests. I think a lot of it goes back to the other criteria is this progress report. Sharpening the saw can be a purpose-creating activity in itself. Healthy, loving, and enjoyable relationships can give more than enough purpose to make a life worth living. Finding ways to give back and make the world a better place for others adds to a sense of purpose. And finally, the pursuit of spiritual growth cannot be ignored. We all have to find our way.

Teacher Mike, in his assessment of my pathway to purpose, would agree that I am one of the lucky ones. He would also agree that consulting will not last forever, and I will have to rely on purpose-giving activities that have nothing to do with my career. The search for purpose is not a static one. One of my sayings is, “Today is a good day.” I have said it for the last twenty years, because you never know what challenges today, tomorrow, or next week will bring. Appreciating and embracing each day lets me wake up each morning with so much to look forward to. And when those next challenges come, and they will, I’ll do my best to accept the challenge and continue to appreciate all of the love and beauty in the world.

So that’s my progress report. Thanks for reading this far. I hope this post has you thinking about (1) Health and Fitness, (2) Hobbies, (3) Sharpening the Saw, (4) Relationships, and (5) Purpose. For those of you who are retired, I wish you luck in enjoying this new phase of life and making the most of it. For those of you who aren’t there yet, I hope this post gives you ways to look at leading your best life now and in the future.

Thanks for reading!

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Post #113 on www.drmdmatthews.com

NOTES

Harvard Business Review Article by James R. Bailey and Scheherazade Rehman. What a great article. A couple of thoughts from this study;

• The work that it took to compile thoughts of hundreds of executives was stunning. It required coding the comments, and doing a detailed analysis of that coding. It’s something that AI can now do in five seconds. We live in a different world.
• I love the recommendations for incorporating reflection into our lives:
  • Keep a journal
  • Set aside an hour a week to review your journal.
  • Don’t just re-read what you wrote, add to it and enhance it.

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One of my theories for staving off dementia, and it’s based on a good amount of reading on the topic, is that we reduce our chances for dementia-related illnesses when our lives are strong in these three areas;

• Exercise, particularly when it’s outside. Walking, hiking, biking, golf, you name it. Get off your ass and do something that gets your heartbeat up.
• Social engagement. Loneliness is an epidemic in this country, and maybe beyond. Be a part of a church or other organization. Get out of the house and be with friends and family. Don’t let the TV be your most frequently visited companion.
• Keep your brain active. Solve problems. Learn something new. Brush your teeth with your non-dominant hand. Always look to be growing as a person.

I know people who do all these things, and still get dementia. But science says we do better, and more than anything, life is a lot more enjoyable because we are doing those things.

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Maybe I don’t want my saw to be too sharp. Funny story, or so I think. While with the fantastic Manhattan Beach Rotary Club, I volunteered to be a sous chef for a fund-raising dinner by a celebrity chef. In this case the celebrity was a 7th grade Manhattan Beach student who had just won a Chopped, Junior competition. How hard could that be? I arrived at the beautiful home where we were preparing and eventually serving. The 7th grader asked me if I brought my own knives. Um . . .  no. Then she asked if I had ever used sharp knives. The nerve of the kid! Give me that knife! But just to check, I did lightly touch the knife with my fingertip. Mistake. We’ve got a bleeder! Five minutes on the job, and I almost ruined everything. So, the saw that we sharpen doesn’t need to be razor sharp. I don’t know if that story works, but I sure like it!

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I love the Blue Zones research. Here are all of the references to it on my website. And here is the Blue Zone website that is so worth your time.

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This post was still too long. Sorry, Dad.

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I mentioned my “Today is a good day” refrain. A more famous version of that comes from my former colleague Sandy Casey. Here is what I wrote in my post on Sean: While I was Superintendent in Manhattan Beach, one of our most beloved teachers at Manhattan Beach Middle School was one of the people tragically killed at the Route 91 Music Festival in Las Vegas. Her name was Sandy Casey, and she taught some of our most impacted students. She had a saying: “Today is a good day for a good day.” In the wake of our loss, we remembered those words, and if you look around, you can see that saying written in cursive on doors throughout the school district. Sandy continues to teach us to find ways to make the most of each day. I love it. ”

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The pictures in the post are from a vacation with friends camping by the Kings River near Fresno, CA, where we spent our 100-degree days floating down the river on tubes, cooling off in the 55-degree water, playing a gazillion games, laughing, and making lots of memories. Please don’t give me too much of a hard time for having my computer at the river. These blog posts don’t write themselves!