Are You Ready to Shift Gears?- Richard Haiduck

Retirement is one of life's transitions - a big one. What's the ideal retirement lifestyle in today's Baby Boomer retirement? I've had the opportunity to read Shifting Gears, the new book by Richard Haiduck. Through interviews with Baby Boomers in retirement, he paints the picture of the diverse retirement life that different Baby Boomers are living today. Whether you're planning for retirement or you're in retirement, you'll benefit from the stories and life lessons he's captured and chronicled. Why he wrote Shifting Gears:50 Baby Boomers Share Their Meaningful Journeys in Retirement. The themes that emerged from his interviews  - and what surprised him Insights people shared about deciding when to retire Lessons learned from retirees on choosing where to live in retirement One of the many compelling stories in the book - and what it taught him How the stories he heard have influenced his own retirement What's on his recommended reading list _________________________ Bio Richard Haiduck is the author of the new book  Richard is a former life sciences executive and mentor and now has an active retirement. He is becoming the Voice of Boomer Retirement Stories. He is immersed in challenging the boundaries of his own retirement while observing the experiences and areas of curiosity of his fellow retirees. At age 7, he was sure he wanted to be an author.  Now, 66 years later, that dream has become a reality.  The inspiration for the book came from hearing about the meaningful journeys in retirement taken by friends and colleagues. They were doing fascinating activities at this stage of their life, and often completely new directions from their prior careers.  The idea that these stories could become a book became a driving force for Richard. His 75+ interviews and his frequent social media interactions have developed his perspectives and insights on the retirement activities of the boomer generation.  Richard’s prior roles as both a leader and a mentor have been based on his ability to listen and to get people to share their feelings.  He uses a style of interviewing with short, open questions to get people to open up about their retirement stories. The result is Shifting Gears; 50 Baby Boomers Share Their Meaningful Journeys in Retirement. He graduated from Miami University and got his MBA from Xavier University.  He is happily married to his wife of 52 years and has 2 daughters and 4 grandsons. His own retirement has been hyperactive.  He learns new things through weekly interactions at Stanford, formerly via attending lectures and via Zoom during the pandemic.  Each year he reads about 100 books and bikes more than 3000 miles.  He mentors organizations serving refugees and small farmers in Ghana.  He combines family time with domestic and international travel. _________________________ Wise Quotes On the Freedom to Retire - and Trial & Error "While you're working, there are things that you don't have the time to do, but you want to do. And they may be things from when you were seven years old. This guy who was fishing, my guess is he may have been fishing when he was seven years old and always wanted to do more. And I think through some of the other stories as well, people decided to go back to an earlier passion, an earlier hobby, an earlier goal - and rejuvenated it in retirement. You get to do whatever you want in retirement if you can deal with the health and wealth challenges. If you're not broke, and you're not sick, then you get to do whatever you want. And that means if you've got a passion for something, then go do it. And that passion can be whatever is important to you, but you've got the freedom and you've got the freedom of trial and error too.  You can try something. One of the guys in the book said,