Hi Reader

It’s been a ridiculous week.​
Two of the biggest industry podcasts invited me on. One of the most-read retirement blogs on the planet ran my guest article. The Humans vs Retirement podcast smashed its best-ever download day by a country mile, now ranking 3rd on Apple Podcast charts in the Self-improvement category. Over a thousand new people joined this newsletter (hello, you lovely curious humans). And the book climbed to 3rd on Amazon’s retirement planning list, which is somewhere between “bloody brilliant” and “how the hell did that happen?”

But here’s the funny thing…
Amid all that noise, success, and attention, one theme kept smacking me in the face in client meetings this week:

Identity.​
Who the hell are you when the job title disappears?
What’s left when the applause stops?
What fills the vacuum when busy-ness and status fall away?

So this week’s feature article goes straight at it... the messy, uncomfortable, liberating truth about identity after work. Because no amount of money, strategy, or spreadsheets can save you from the question every retiree eventually confronts:

Who am I now?

Grab that coffee and let’s get into it.

FEATURED ARTICLE

The Day Your Job Title Dies (But You Don’t)

The Brutal Truth (With a Hug)

There’s a moment no one warns you about. Not the day you hand in your laptop. Not the farewell drinks. Not even the first Monday morning when you wake up and realise you’re not rushing anywhere.

It’s the day your job title stops being your identity, and you suddenly feel like a ghost in your own life.

No badge.
No label.
No easy answer to “So, what do you do?”

And that silence? That’s the bit that terrifies people far more than running out of money.

The Illusion We All Bought Into

You’ve spent decades being introduced as the engineer, the director, the nurse, the teacher, the one who fixes things.

Your job became your shortcut, your social proof, your conversational armour.

And society bloody loves a label. It saves everyone the emotional effort of asking who you actually are.

So you build a life around it, routines, expectations, identity, pride, even your damn diary structure.

Then retirement arrives. And it quietly removes the scaffolding you didn’t know was holding your sense of self upright.

Sure, you thought you were ready. You had spreadsheets, you had pension statements, you had a “bucket list” (which let’s be honest, was basically a panic-written collection of things you thought you should want to do).

But no one told you that the biggest retirement risk isn’t financial.

It’s existential.

Where the Psychology Gets Messy

A 2021 study in Psychology and Aging found that retirees experience their highest spike in anxiety not in the run-up to retirement… but in the first year after leaving full-time work.

Why?

Identity loss.

Not boredom. Not lack of money. Not too much time. Identity.

Your brain has spent 30+ years wiring itself around one central organising narrative:

“I am someone who contributes in this specific way.”

Take that away, and your mind goes into a weird limbo, like a phone searching for signal that no longer exists.

Suddenly, simple things become emotionally loaded:

“Am I still useful?”
“Do I matter as much?”
“Who am I when no one needs me at 9am on a Tuesday?”

This is where people either crumble… Or avoid the whole emotional mess by trying to fill the new void with noise:

Grandparenting schedules that look like full-time jobs. Volunteering for anything with a pulse. Booking holidays like they’re going out of fashion.

Anything to avoid sitting with the real question:

Who am I when I’m not performing?

The Consequence (The Bit Most People Don’t Say Out Loud)

This phase hits people differently.

For some, it feels like grief. Not dramatic, sobbing-on-the-sofa grief — more the quiet ache of losing a part of yourself you didn’t realise was so fused with your identity.

Others feel guilt. Guilt that they should be “loving every minute” of retirement, yet some days they feel more lost than liberated.

And then there’s the restlessness. This low-level hum in your chest, like your body knows you’re meant for something, but you can’t name it yet.

Clients describe it to me all the time:

“I feel like I’m floating.”
“I thought I’d feel free, I just feel unanchored.”
“I don’t miss the job. I miss the clarity.”

Because that’s what full-time work gave you: an automatic sense of purpose and identity, pre-packaged and neatly delivered every Monday morning.

When that disappears, you’re left with raw space, and humans are terrible at sitting with space.

The Shift (No Platitudes. No Forced Positivity.)

Here’s the uncomfortable but freeing truth:

Your job title was never your identity, it was just the easiest version of it.

Retirement doesn’t erase who you are, it exposes who you’ve always been beneath the performance.

This isn’t about “finding your purpose.” I've come to realise that phrase is bollocks... it makes it sound like there’s one magical thing you’re supposed to uncover behind the sofa.

This is about reclaiming your self-concept instead of outsourcing it to a payslip.

It’s about asking deeper questions than “What will I do?”
It’s about “Who do I want to be now that the script has dissolved?”

Maybe you realise you’re more curious than competent.
More creative than corporate.
More relational than productive.
More playful than you ever allowed yourself to be while you were busy “being someone.”

Identity after full-time work isn’t built by filling your days.

It’s built by befriending the parts of yourself you ignored while proving your worth through work.

The uncomfortable truth? Some people never do this work, and they drift through retirement feeling like life has become a long, vague Sunday.

But the ones who do? They say it feels like exhaling after 30 years of holding their breath.

Not a euphoric high. A quiet rightness.

The Final Punchline

The end of your career isn’t the end of your identity.

It’s the moment you finally stop borrowing one.

Because the most dangerous thing you can take into retirement isn’t a small pension pot.

It’s a small sense of self.

And the bravest thing you’ll ever do, long after the job title fades. is let yourself become someone you’ve never actually met before.

PODCAST

Ep 98 - The New Rules of Retirement

In the final episode of Season 6, I’m tearing up the old retirement rulebook and replacing it with a bold, human, rebellious manifesto for the second half of life. If you’re done with playing it safe, shrinking your days, or following outdated “shoulds,” this one’s for you. It’s time to rewrite the rules, and make your encore unmistakably yours. Listen in now ​​​​

SKETCH OF THE WEEK

The Great Retirement Balancing Act

Retirement might be the only stage of life where you can feel poor and tight at the same time... a weird psychological Cirque du Soleil act nobody warned you about. On one end of the seesaw, you’re terrified of spending too much in case future-you ends up living off budget value beans and regret. On the other end, you feel guilty for being so bloody tight that present-you never actually enjoys the life you spent 40 years working for. And so you teeter… never quite relaxed, never quite reckless, just wobbling between “I can’t afford that” and “Why the hell won’t I let myself?” This is the real balancing act of retirement: learning to step off the seesaw and actually live.

IN OTHER NEWS

What I've Read This Week

• The Things You Miss About Work That You’ll Never Admit Out Loud - Humans vs Retirement​
• Nine Things You'll Spend Less on in Retirement - Kiplinger​

Spreading The Message

• I was privileged to be a guest on personal finance juggernaut Pete Matthew's Meaningful Money Podcast, one of the best and biggest personal finance podcasts there is. check out our converversation on Youtube or Audio​
• I was honoured to be a returning guest on Morningstar's The Long View Podcast, hosted by the peerless Christine Benz. We had a wonderful conversation, take a listen​