Unveiling 'Prime Time' and thinking about your real purpose

In this edition:

• The launch of Prime Time with Bec Wilson
• Finding your Purpose: Do you know how?

A big announcement: the launch of Prime Time with Bec Wilson

The moment is finally here. I am thrilled to announce a BIG new project, the launch of the podcast called Prime Time with Bec Wilson. But before I tell you all about it, I want to explain where it comes from. (Humour me!)

My world has been undergoing a delightful transformation, and maybe yours has too. As my kids started spreading their wings and becoming more independent, I found myself with a sense of nervous freedom. And I’m calling it. I’m a few months past 47.5 right now and I think this is the beginning of the best bits of life, the start of what I’m calling affectionately my Prime Time.?Almost all of you here are already in yours.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love my kids. I don't even want an empty nest at this time - I love them popping in and out, ignoring my requests to tell me if they don’t want dinner.

I know from watching all of you in your 50s, 60s and 70s planning for and living out your epic retirements, that the years ahead can be the best years of our lives, if we get out of our own way and live them to the fullest.?

But, here's a nugget of wisdom I've gathered from watching you: we need to start discussing the steps we should take to lead a longer, healthier, and higher quality life way before the typical "retirement age." We need to extend the concept of our "best years" to encompass the 10-15 years BEFORE retirement, when we have more financial flexibility to shape our lives into this exciting next stage.

So, as I mentioned, I'm giving this stage of life a new name. I'm calling it our PRIME TIME of life. For me, it begins at the powerful age of 47.5 and stretches all the way through and well into to our EPIC RETIREMENT. And there's solid science backing this up.

Research involving more than a million people in the western world says that 47.5 is the bottom of the U-curve of happiness.?(Which you can read about in the book).

It's around this age that many people start realising that the career climb, even if they scaled to the top, might not be the ultimate goal. They begin to understand that their work and the reasons they wake up each morning can be more meaningful if they choose.

Around the same time, many of us start seeking more from life than just "more stuff" and "more career achievements." We yearn for meaning, purpose, relationships, and above all, health. And wouldn't you know it, these are the very things that research shows lead to longer, happier lives! Of course, we can only do that if we have financial confidence, so we have to have that too.

And, if we start talking about this stuff from 47.5, and we keep talking about it we naturally arrive in our epic retirement with plenty of fuel in the tank. We get there healthier, more financially secure, more fulfilled by our work, and more secure in what we want from our relationships. And that places us in the enviable position of choosing how we spend our time—perhaps embarking on longer trips, working part-time, and gradually easing into retirement at our own pace. Sounds like a much better way to approach the second half of life, doesn't it?

So, today is the big reveal. Today I’m introducing?PRIME TIME, a high-quality podcast that I've had the joy of producing in partnership with the Nine Network. This podcast is for all of us in the second half of life who want to live long, live well, and thoroughly enjoy it.

I get to ask?ALL?the questions. I want to dive deep into what will make this phase of life absolutely fantastic, with insights from experts and pioneers. After all, there are no set rules for navigating this second half for our generations. Just 50 years ago, we expected to live till around 70. Today, we could live well into our 90s! We're the first generations with such long lives and such grand expectations for the second half.

Let's figure out how to live the SECOND HALF of our lives well. So, come with me and let’s explore what our Prime Time can look like, together.

I invite you to listen to the trailer here: It’s just launched. The first full edition will be released NEXT THURSDAY the 19th OCTOBER 2023.?

LISTEN TO THE PRIME TIME PODCAST HERE

APPLE PODCASTS

SPOTIFY

Or simply sign up to receive a podcast newsletter each time it is released at www.primetimers.net

Make sure you FOLLOW or SUBSCRIBE on your chosen podcast platform.

You can read all the reasons behind the Prime Time podcast here, on Epic Retirement's weekly newsletter, where this was first published.

Do you know what your real purpose is?

It sounds awfully profound to ask you this question. But for some people it’s a really easy question to answer. They feel a true sense of who they are and why they are here. For others it feels like ethereal bullshit.

So I’ll ask a simpler question. “Why do you get up in the morning?” or even “What drives you to do things each day?”.

In the working years of our lives this identity and sense of purpose is often tied up in going to work, and meeting your expectation-led family and career goals. But when you leave your job, or start reaching toward retirement this can disappear, or seem much less important. So I want you to look deeper.

Your true purpose and values can’t be stripped away by leaving your job. It’s built around what you find real meaning in.

According to the gurus of purpose, having a clearly understood purpose can add years to your life. It can also add a buzz, or a sense of momentum. But how do you know what yours is?

Many people in the middle of life or at a point of significant transition like retirement often wonder what their purpose is, and plenty wonder at whether they have actually found their purpose earlier in life at all. They ask themselves questions like:

• Do I know what I want or need to feel happy on the inside?
• Have I missed my calling in life? Can I find it now?
• Is this all there is to my life? Surely there’s meant to be more?

If this is you, there’s a couple of helpful steps that Victor Frankl, a holocaust survivor and popssibly the world’s most recognised leader in finding life’s meaning, says could help you explore your own purpose.

“We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways”, he said:

(1) “by creating a work or doing a deed”;

(2) “by experiencing something or encountering someone”; and

(3) “by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering" and that "everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances"

Think about this in the context of your own life and how you have managed to find a sense of meaning and value in other phases.

“Doing a deed or creating a work”?is said to be achieved by doing deed or creating work which moves us emotionally, and this can be in our family, community or within an organisation we are passionate about. The important thing to note is that the deed doesn’t need to be noticed by others to be worthy of a sense of purpose and value. In fact, if we are doing it to be noticed, that may show a lack of real purpose behind it.

Ask youself - is there a deed or a work that seems important or needed to you?

“By experiencing something or encountering someone”.?Another way of saying this is having a?relationship?with something or someone. It is centred around our sense of real relationships with family and community. We know how important it is to feel like we belong, and to love and be loved in our lives. And this is one of the pivotal ways we can achieve a sense of purpose.

Who do you treasure and want to spend time with in your life? Which people and which communities?

And finally,?“by the attitude we take to unavoidable suffering”.?This can be said another way as how we find courage during difficult times.? So how do you respond to suffering? As Frankl said, “even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond himself, and by so doing change himself.”

Sometimes suffering can cause us to revisit our own stories - the stories we tell ourselves about what matters to us, and sometimes it can drive us to reconstruct our stories. Sometimes it is necessary to reconsider what’s important so we can move forward.

This article was first published here on my newsletter at epicretirement.net

How to Have an Epic Retirement: The Book

From page 160: Happiness and Fulfilment

Given our topic today on purpose, this short challenge from the book seemed a good one to leave with you today. Enjoy Xx

“Researchers say that many people have a fundamental change of values in their 40s and 50s, starting to take family, community, charity and purpose more seriously, often causing them to look more closely at why they work and re-evaluate their purpose. It is in this window that people consider ‘retirement’ and start to count down the clock. But I challenge you to look at this window as an opportunity for a change of direction or a transition instead. In previous decades it might not have seemed sensible to retrain in your 50s into a new career you feel more interested in. But if you knew that you could have twenty?plus working years ahead of you at the age of 50–55, would you reconsider doing further education and taking careful steps toward working in areas you have a passion for?”

About the book

How to Have an Epic Retirement ?is the ultimate guidebook for modern retirees. It is grounded in my own widespread research on modern retirement, and draws on my prior ten years as the CEO of Starts at 60 and Travel at 60 (before I stepped away to pursue my next career in retirement education). It also draws on the work of the leading thinkers in the longevity, health, happiness, purpose and modern ageing spaces and incorporates many interviews with people who have navigated the sometimes challenging path into retirement.

How to Have an Epic Retirement is officially a bestseller in Australia! You can buy it at all major booksellers. Or get your copies here .