Emerald Bay, Fannette Island – 2010

Lake Tahoe, CA

 An Approach for Evaluating Your Readiness

At some point in time, you’ll begin to consider a transition from your career. The first step is often to review your retirement plan and consult with your financial advisor.  

Next, you and perhaps your spouse will schedule a meeting with your advisor. Your goal is to assess your financial readiness for the transition.

Questions and Reflection

During the meeting, your advisor will ask how you visualize your future lifestyle. You discuss your preliminary ideas, and he suggests that you take some time to develop a more detailed plan. Together, you’ll map out how you envision your ideal lifestyle post-career, including a projection of associated costs. 

The meeting concludes with a commitment to refining your ideas.

A Deeper Dive into Planning

Now, the real work begins. You each set aside quiet time for reflection and planning. Afterward, you compare your notes and combine your ideas. ...

Impending Sunrise – 2022

Virginia Range, NV

 Navigating the Road to Preparedness

The transition from your career is one of those major life events for which it is critical to prepare well in advance. 

As you consider this, it will become evident that the magnitude and scope of the challenge is significant. You will realize that to achieve a successful transition you will need to devote focused effort over a significant period  of time. These inevitable, initial questions will arise: 

• How do I begin? 
• What should I do? 
• In what order should I do it?

I am confident that you have learned long ago, as I have, that great achievements require great preparation.

The First Step of the Path 

To begin, there are three major concerns for which preparation is essential.

The first of these is to prepare yourself, personally, to enter the next great phase of your life. As you do so, it is important to keep in mind that your spouse, family and staff, are also going through their transi...

Accents of Autumn – 2013

Carson Canyon, CA

Your Career Transition Is a Stimulus for Personal Development

Change and transition are words that are sometimes used interchangeably. However, these two words have different meanings and what they describe have distinctly different purposes, especially with regard to the transition from your career.

Lessons I Learned on My Journey

My personal experience with change and transition illustrates this point. Years ago, I was diagnosed with colon cancer and then developed other medical problems. Together they created an unexpected change that ended my Plastic Surgery career and triggered my transition. Thankfully, years later I am cured, renewed and fulfilled in my new career. 

The end of my career was precipitated by an unexpected change. The subsequent transition was not an event. Rather it was a process that involved sustained, focused and deliberate effort over a period of time.  That effort was directed at a particular envisioned outcome...

West Fork, Carson River – 2013

California

Empowered Choices Create a Life of Freedom

The time to transition from your career is drawing near.

Your vision for the next phase of life is coming into focus.

Your are growing more confident that the dreams born of your imagination will become a reality. 

Your smile reflects joy of anticipation. 

You take a deep, deep breath that seems to emphasize the satisfaction you feel for what you have accomplished in life.

You feel deeply the conviction that you have earned the life that your aspire to live.

I say to you: Well earned, well deserved!

A Time for You and New Perspectives

This is your time for dreaming, planning, executing and experiencing the emerging reality of it all. Amidst the excitement, it is also the time to apply the skills and wisdom you have developed over the course of your career to this very special time of your life.

You will probably experience a variety of profound feelings that coexist. 

A prominent example i...

Buffalo River – 2013

Grand Teton National Park, WY

Steps and Stages

The transition from your career is a process that is usually lengthy. When it is well-planned, it is typically executed in sequential phases that are comprised of tasks that build upon the previous ones. The most challenging of these phases is usually the first. This is when you come to terms with the fact that your transition from practice is in your foreseeable future. It is natural for reactions to vary widely from joy of anticipation to apprehension and perhaps some stress. The experience is commonly a blend of both.

Regardless of how you perceive this phase of your life, you will probably experience a sense of loss that is accompanied by excitement about great anticipations. It is beneficial to think of this process as what it really is: a transition, rather than a “retirement.” The term transition emphasizes its purpose: to experience renewal and fulfillment, a form of positive transformation.

 Retirement cl...

Autumn Splendor – 2010

Arizona

The Lifelong Value of Trusted Advisors

When individulas think about their personal and professional successes, it is natural to think that they are largely the result of their own effort. Upon further reflection, they usually recognize how they also benefited from those who cared about them and provided wisdom and guidance.

Personal guides that probably influenced your life are personified by parents, family, friends, teachers, consultants, coaches, professors and mentors.

Gratitude for my Giants

I have benefitted immensely from all of the above, recognized early on their enormous value and thanked them accordingly. As time progressed and my perspectives evolved, I felt gratitude even more deeply for those who cared and cheered me on to various successes.

At some point in time, our formal training came to an end.  Yet the pursuit of excellence requires that personal and professional development continue throughout life. 

Your Ongoing Development

Sneffels Range – 2013

Colorado

Navigating Your Career Transition

As a seasoned professional, the prospect of transitioning away from a life's work can be a complex and multifaceted journey. It requires a meticulous blend of personal readiness, professional realignment, and preparation of your enterprise. In this article, we delve into the nuances of preparing for this significant life event, ensuring that you are equipped with the knowledge and tools necessary for a smooth and rewarding transition.

Embracing Change: A Personal and Professional Renewal

The transition from your career to the next chapter of your life is not merely a change; it is a metamorphosis that requires introspection and strategic planning. The initial phase of this journey is deeply personal. It is the bedrock upon which you will design your framework as it relates to you professionally and your enterprise.

This transformative process is a testament to your life's work and an opportunity to redefine your goa...

From Sunset to Sunrise – 2013

The Teton Range

Grand Teton National Park, WY

The Practice of Equanimity

It is commonly familiar that it is in those quiet moments when our mind is free to wander, that we are the most creative.

For me, it is commonly during morning coffee or perhaps fly fishing on a beautiful river for trout or salmon.

There are other times when feeling the rhythm of my heartbeat and breathing is the only perceptible activity.

I usually make no effort to think about anything in particular. And yet, the more my mind wanders, the more meaningful are the insights, ideas and innovations that emerge.

I believe that this simple discipline can be beneficial as you plan your career transition. 

It is then that you will have a window of opportunity prior to embarking on the next great phase of your life. This is the time for you to create plenty of time and space to comfortably design your roadmap. The map that will take you in the direction that you want your life to go…...

Clear Path – 2022

Grand Teton National Park

 An Outlook for Renewal and Fulfillment 

One fine morning with coffee in hand, you still savor that last sip of your custom brew.  You feel peaceful. Then a fleeting thought stirs up an awareness that you are thinking more and more about your future career transition and your new lifestyle. You smile and feel warmer inside…and then you feel a twinge of angst.

These are mixed emotions: joy and apprehension. They swirl around your mind stirred up much like the sweetener you blended into your coffee.

You wonder whether this is a common experience, how successful people deal with it and perhaps when you should begin to resolve this emerging dilemma. 

You sense that you must do something. 

A Fictional Character that Reflects a Real Person 

The following is the gist of the story of Alex, a fictional character like many accomplished physicians I am familiar with.

Alex is at that time of his (or her) career when he sees his end of career wit...

Henry’s Lake – 2022

Idaho

Elements of a Balanced and Fulfilled Life

It is a common life experience that sometimes you have to forgo satisfying a desire in order to commit time, effort and perhaps financial resources to fulfill a necessity.

This is more frequent during your earlier years when life’s responsibilities required such choices. It often meant that wants or desires that you considered non-essential were put off. Perhaps they were never fulfilled, but hopefully, simply deferred and remembered in the well of your memory.

The desire to fulfill a myriad of responsibilities whether at home, work or community, springs forth from the nature of your character. Your cumulative experience and satisfaction derived from meeting your responsibilities further strengthens and develops it. Your focus on various achievements becomes a way of life.

Visions of Change

As you begin to envision life after the end of your career, your perspective about life will evolve. You may find yourself ...