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We’re looking for a few lifelong learners to join us in a new free monthly discussion group
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Clients tell me that no matter how much they were looking forward to retirement, there comes a moment when they feel that something’s missing. After a demanding corporate career, Charles Chumley discovered that the hardest thing about retirement wasn’t giving up a title. It was losing the built-in structure of having somewhere to be and someone needing him to be there.
An unlikely new pursuit helped him find his footing: building elaborate sandcastles.
In this conversation, Charles shares what mornings on the beach taught him about identity, failure, creativity, and impermanence. He also explains why clarity about your next chapter is more likely to come from doing than through endless thinking, and why people approaching retirement should begin testing new interests before they leave full-time work.
We also discuss his book Every Grain Is Real: What the Sand Teaches, how the question “What do you do?” changes after you retire, and why he believes you should start trying something new before you’re ready.
Charles Chumley joins us from Greece.
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Bio
Charles E. Chumley spent three decades in corporate America before retiring to find out what the sand had to say. Since then he has been kneeling on two beaches, Playa del Carmen, Mexico and Gulf Shores, Alabama, building sandcastles before anyone else arrives and paying closer attention than he planned to. The result is Every Grain Is Real: What the Sand Teaches, a memoir in forty-four chapters that is funny in the right places, honest throughout, and ends on a beach at dawn with everything the tide could not take.
Chuck is also the creator of the Paintbrush series, children’s books following Paintbrush the cat through pickleball courts, Kung-Fu masters, wise grandmothers, and America’s 250th birthday. The series has nothing to do with sandcastles and everything to do with the same belief that got Chuck to the beach every morning: that showing up and trying something new is always worth it.
He lives in Roswell, Georgia with his wife Pam, who is quieter and funnier than he is. All author royalties from Every Grain Is Real are donated to Family Promise, which helps families experiencing homelessness.
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For More on Charles Chumley
Every Grain Is Real: What the Sand Teaches
Free Resources – Three short guides on lessons learned you can use
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Other Retirement Podcast Conversations You’ll Love
The Art of the Interesting – Lorraine Besser, PhD
Two Grannies on the Road – Beth Sobiloff & Marcia Rothwell
Purpose Driven Retirement – Jet Vertz
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Wise Quotes
On Creating
“What I had to learn…is that I need to make something. I don’t have to manage it or evaluate things, but actually make something, and that could just be making a difference somewhere.”
On “So, What Do You Do?”
“I think ultimately people are not asking, ‘What’s your employment status?’ when they say, ‘What do you do?’ They’re really asking, ‘What’s something interesting about you?’”
On Experimenting Your Way Forward
“Learning what that thing will be for you arrives more from doing something rather than just…sitting…thinking about what you’ll do with your life…Don’t wait for the transition to find a thing. Start it before you leave so that you can have some test runs or test drives going in parallel to the existing life.”
