Podcast (retirement-wisdom-podcast-feed): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:00 — 29.3MB)
Subscribe: Spotify | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | RSS | More
A lot of the conversation on retirement runs one way: stay busy, stay productive. Dr. Denise Taylor thinks that could quietly cost some people their best years.
Denise is a Chartered Psychologist and later-life researcher in the UK. She spent 25 years coaching people through career transitions, then, at 61, went back to school herself, completing a professional doctorate on how people reconstruct meaning after full-time work. Her research subjects were all at least two years past retirement, deliberately, because the first two years tell you very little. What she found in them became the backbone of her new book, ThriveSpan: Walking Gently Into What Matters Now.
The extra years we have gained, she argues, arrive roughly between 60 and 80, while health usually still holds. Spending them duplicating the shape of your working life is a decision, and it’s not right for everyone. Her alternative is not reinvention, which she calls exhausting, but recalibration: a reset in which you subtract before you add.
She is also candid about her own path. Leaving a twenty-year marriage. Four days and four nights alone in nature with no food and no tent. A doctorate that started the October before COVID. Four acres of woodland that taught her, at last, how to stop moving fast.
We discuss why purpose does not have to be a cathedral, why she stopped dyeing her hair on principle, what her research says about curiosity and being of service, why you should imagine the future you do not want, and why saying no is the most underrated skill in later life.
Retirement is different for everyone and we have choices. Denise argues against a continue to work narrative, and she argues strongly. If you’re a listener who loves their work, or who needs the income, shear her as offering choice rather than a verdict.
________________________
Bio
Dr. Denise Taylor is a Chartered Psychologist, later-life researcher, and widely published author whose work explores how we can live well as we age.
With more than 25 years’ experience supporting career and life transitions, she has written extensively on work, identity, ageing, and meaning in later life. Her work has been featured by the BBC, ITV, and national newspapers.
Her previous books include Career Coaching for Midlife and Beyond, Rethinking Retirement for Positive Ageing , and Find Work at 50+. Her doctoral research into meaning after full-time work won the Research by a Career Development Professional award in 2024.
ThriveSpan: Walking Gently Into What Matters Now offers a reflective, psychologically grounded approach to later life, integrating research, lived experience, and the restorative influence of nature.
Denise writes the Substack newsletter Ageing Reimagined and is a regular contributor to the i Paper.
She lives in Gloucestershire, where time spent in her woodland continues to inspire both her writing and her approach to later life.
_______________________
For More on Denise Taylor
Substack – https://ageingreimagined.substack.com/
ThriveSpan – https://denisetaylor.co.uk/thrivespan/
Website – https://denisetaylor.co.uk/
_______________________
Other Retirement Podcast Conversations You’ll Also Love
Inspired Retirement – Nathalie Martin
Re-Visioning Retirement – Susan Reid, PhD
_______________________
Wise Quotes
On Recalibrating
“You don’t have to reinvent yourself. You can just slow down a bit…now time is more my own.”
On Purpose
“When I’m talking to people about purpose, they want this massive thing, like building a cathedral. You can have purpose just by smiling at somebody walking down the street.”
On Being
“If all you are is a human doing, then you’re not really thinking about who am I as a human being?”
______________________
About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast
There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.
About Retirement Wisdom
I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.
Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms.
About Your Podcast Host
Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.
Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University.
In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 2 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.
