Rick Woolworth had every reason to coast. He’d built success on Wall Street, the kind of career that earns you the right to a retirement of golf and exotic travel. Instead, he started asking a different question, not how much have I made but what is it for ? The answer pulled him into a second act he hadn’t planned, a non-profit mentoring others.
John Coleman shares Rick’s story in his conversation on The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, and in his new book, Good Money: Six Steps to Building a Financial Life with Purpose. Coleman, Co-CEO of an investment firm, and a regular contributor about purpose in the Harvard Business Review, makes his living in the world of money yet stresses in his book that it isn’t the point. Money, he says, is a tool, not a totem. A means, never an end.
The research that spurs you to take stock
Coleman anchors this view in the work of several researchers, including Harvard’s Tyler VanderWeele, whose Human Flourishing Program identifies the things that actually make a life go well: deep relationships, character, health across mind and body and spirit, happiness, and meaning. There’s a sixth element, financial stability, and it’s the only one on the list that’s a means rather than an end in itself.
Coleman cites a study of more than 100,000 people across roughly 60 nations, where researchers found an inverse relationship between a society’s prosperity and flourishing. Some of the wealthiest countries on earth are flourishing less than lower-and middle-income ones. More money has not bought more meaning.
Why “withdrawal” is the wrong move
This is why Coleman is openly skeptical of conventional retirement, the quick exit into a life of withdrawal and leisure. The evidence, he notes, is piling up on top of what ancient wisdom told us: people are built to deploy their talents. Retire into nothing and the data is grim, a path toward loneliness, isolation, and even an elevated risk of mortality. He cites the all too familiar pattern of executives who run hard for decades and then survive only a few years past their exit, having lost the very thing that drove them.
His reframe is powerful. Don’t save so you can withdraw from the world. Save so you have the buffer to engage with it, on your terms, and at your pace. Financial freedom buys your agency back, giving you the power to say no, to scale down, to start something new, or to serve.
And then the Co-CEO of an investment firm hands us a provocative spreadsheet to consider. The 4% rule says a $40,000 lifestyle needs $1 million saved; an $80,000 lifestyle needs $2 million. But if you keep earning, even part-time, the buffer you must amass falls from $2 million to $1 million. Staying productively engaged doesn’t just feed meaning. It changes the math.
How to build Purpose: John Coleman’s own playbook
John Coleman believes that purpose is built, not found, and is best created as a portfolio rather than levered to one job or one relationship that could vanish overnight. When he changed careers five years ago, he didn’t chase a title. He opened a spreadsheet and wrote down ten things he wanted from his next phase, based on his values, not specific jobs. He then evaluated new opportunities against it, with his wife and a close friend as accountability partners. His first offer paid a multiple of his compensation at the time, but it failed the list of 10. He turned it down.
Three moves to start your own version:
- Write your values list. Name the ten things you want your next chapter to deliver and score every option against them.
- Reconsider your number. Recalculate what’s “enough” if you’ll keep earning something doing work you’d choose freely. Watch how much smaller the required buffer becomes, and how much sooner freedom arrives.
- Loosen money’s grip through generosity. Coleman’s family gives a fixed percentage off the top before spending a dollar. It’s a practice, not a virtue signal: redirecting resources first is what trains you to believe your worth was never your net worth.
Rick Woolworth stopped asking what his money could buy him and started asking what it could free him up to give. That’s John Coleman’s definition of good money. And it’s a helpful way to begin thinking about what comes next.
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Listen to my podcast conversation with John Coleman
Get John Coleman’s new book Good Money: Six Steps to Building a Financial Life with Purpose
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Retirement Wisdom covers the non-financial aspects of retirement. From time to time we may explore other aspects of retirement planning, and highlight guests solely for educational purposes. You are advised to consult qualified financial and/or medical professionals on those matters.
