What Happens After Your Career? Finding Purpose In Your Work-Optional Life

What happens after the excitement of retirement begins to wear off?

For many people, the first months of retirement feel like a well-earned vacation filled with travel, family, and freedom. But eventually, a new question emerges: What's next?

In this solo episode of Retire & Aspire, Scott explores why so many people struggle to find purpose after leaving their careers and how to reconnect with the passions, creativity, and dreams that may have been waiting for decades.

Drawing from his own journey of leaving a secure banking career to build a wildlife sanctuary, Scott shares practical tools to help you move beyond simply staying busy and begin creating a truly meaningful work-optional life.

In this episode:

• Why the "honeymoon phase" of retirement eventually comes to an end
• The difference between staying busy and living with purpose
• How your career identity can make it difficult to embrace new passions
• Scott's unexpected journey from banker to wildlife sanctuary founder
• Why creativity needs space—and how to create it
• The value of personal retreats and quiet reflection
• How to use an "interest radar" to discover new passions
• Why it's never too late to reinvent yourself
• How small steps can lead to your next meaningful chapter

Connect with Scott

Visit mindswitch.ca to access resources, events, and tools designed to help you create a meaningful work-optional life.

Transcript

Scott (00:04)
Welcome to Retire and Aspire, the podcast that is helping you get more out of your retirement. My name's Scott, and today you're stuck with me. And the reason you're stuck with me today is because we're going to talk about creativity, passion, coming into your work optional life. Should be an easy thing when you transition out of your work. But for a lot of folks, it creates a big challenge. I mean, we've had these dreams, ⁓ aspirations, interests, even.

That once we get into retirement, we're just can't wait to bring to life. And here's what usually happens: people retire They want to shed that career, the schedules, the obligations, and they go on what I call the honeymoon phase of work optional life. And if you've been with me for a while, you know I call retirement work optional life.

And that's that is the trips, it's the family visits, it's just feeling free for perhaps the first time in many years, if ever. And the phase of that life can be three months for some. Sometimes it's up to two years. People just have to shed off things, run wild, run free. It's like a dog getting out of the house and running on a big field. It's going, my gosh, this freedom's amazing. But somewhere along the line, we go, okay, I've run. I'm exhausted. Now what?

and it really doesn't matter what kind of career you had, whether you're a professional, whether you're working on the field all the time, it doesn't matter. It's what is next? What is next? And all those dreams that we had when we were busy and we couldn't wait to get to, all of a sudden the field is set before us. We've got the winning lottery ticket to actually get onto these dreams. But that's where the chasm of work optional life comes.

Because there's one thing that's really significantly different between wanting and wishing for something and then actioning it. And it's because the brain is a muscle. And for many decades now, you've probably been very good at reacting to what the world has thrown at you, whether that is career and all the various pivots that go along with that. Family, same thing, right? All the pivots that go along with that. And to actually say, I don't have to react to other people's demands on me now.

That it's on me to do that? Hmm. Different proposition. Way back when I was in commercial banking coming out of university and got to work with a lot of cool businesses and see what business was about. And I soon realized that I wasn't meant to be a banker. And if you've known me for some time, you're going, duh, Scott, yeah, you're not a banker. Absolutely. Nothing on bankers there, but I was meant to create. And so what I did was I left my job.

And this was in nineteen eighty seven, eighty-eight. And I came out to Whistler, British Columbia. And there's a bar there if you've ever skied on Creekside, Dusty's Cantina, and I bartended for a season there. And what I was trying to do was make room for creativity. I was shedding what was my banker's skin and getting into a new environment. And I was able to save enough tip money to go and buy a ticket to Hawaii.

Now in 1988, going to Hawaii, this is a guy who'd been on a plane once in his life. This was an incredible kind of exciting thing. And I went to Waikiki and on the south end of Waikiki Beach is Diamond Head Mountain. I always wondered why they called it Diamond Head, but it turns out it's got some stones in it that when the moonlight's right and the sun's right, it looks like it's shimmering. And I would climb up there a couple days in a row and I asked myself this question if I could do anything at all. Anything.

Don't put up the obstacles, what would it be? And after two days of going up there and thinking about things, I came up with two things. I came up with creating travel videos for people. This was when VHS was a big new thing. So it was a pretty innovative thing. And the other one was working with wildlife. Love working with the environment, big protector of the environment. It's it's in my heart and soul. and I settled on that second option to work with wildlife.

And so when I came back from Hawaii, I came back to Toronto, okay, try on these new things, right? The new vision, the new passion. And keep in mind, if you're going to work optional life now, you've got more experience, you've probably got some more resources. I mean, there's a lot of things in your favor. I was doing this and I was in my mid twenties ⁓ with none of that kind of stuff. And I went back to find jobs to work with wildlife, and you know how many of those there were, right? Yeah, that's right. Zero.

I actually volunteered to train dogs for free just to get in there. But over a period of time I I got to connect with people and I met some group that had an endangered animal sanctuary. And if you've ever been in Toronto back in the 70s and 80s, it was down at Millbrook and Bayview Avenue, sort of Eglinton area. And in this small storefront, they had over 20 exotic animals. And they were taking in exotic wildlife that was from zoos, people had bought it as pets, really nasty stuff.

And I did some volunteer work for them. So I went from a you know banker and I was having a 2% mortgage, which was pretty cool when Prime was 11 and 3 quarters, to volunteering. I eventually got a paycheck of $500 a month. That's you know good. But that's what passion does. That's what passion does. Passion keeps you going when you actually start something new. And the hard part was when we go leave our careers, we're usually at the top of our game, right?

People come to you to solve their problems. You are the creator. You've been around. You've got that institutional knowledge, those skill sets that everybody's coming to. So there's a bit of an identity piece attached to that. There's an ego bump. And now you're in work optional life. And your passion, you know, your career is here, but your passion is somewhere way over here. And all of a sudden you've got to learn things again. And you have to be a newbie. You have to let go sometimes of ego protective ideas so that you can learn again.

And when it came to the wildlife piece, I still remember I think my biggest thing handling wildlife up at that point was a garter snake called Jessie that I caught when I was a little boy. And now I was going into an enclosure with Sarah, who was a mountain lion, and ⁓ hearing her purr and having her sit on my lap, and understanding why so many people would try to think this is a good idea to have wildlife. The feeling of having a a lion or a tiger or something like that come up and cuddle you.

is an incredibly intoxicating feeling. Wrongly advised to ever do that, you know, to in terms of pets. So I decided to start my own wildlife sanctuary and I bought a farm just south of Peterborough, Ontario, and set up a place where people who had exotic pets that they no longer wanted do rehab work with zoo surplus animals. At that time circuses were still a thing, and go out and educate school children across southern Ontario to do that. Let's take a look at this.

I left banking, everything was secure, I had a future in front of me. I went into a place where I had no skill sets, had to acquire all the animal husbandry skills, and by the way, there aren't a lot of institutions that offer those kinds of things. There are none as a matter of fact. And the number one thing was, I hated public speaking. Any of you share that? Public speaking's not your jam.

And yet, to make this business run, I was gonna have to get out every day, three or four times a day, to get fees to raise funds for the animals. That's what passion can do for you. So as you transition to your work optional life, you leave your career behind, you go through that honeymoon phase of life, and all of a sudden you go, Now what? I'm going

encourage you to not immediately drive into the busyness. People will ask you for things.

They will ask you to volunteer things. You will be asked, perhaps if you're lucky enough to have grandkids, to come and do things like that. We often take the path of least resistance. And when we come back from break, we're going to take a look at some of the tools you can use in your kit to make sure that you don't fall into that trap of busyness where you are task-rich and purpose poor.

Scott (08:24)
Well, welcome back. I was telling you a little bit about my company. It's called Speaking of Wildlife. And believe it or not, here we are, 37 years later, 38 years later, and it's still in existence. A different ⁓ ownership group type of thing, but it's ⁓ kind of a a cool legacy piece. and some of the stories there, I I was fortunate enough that when I was 28, 29 doing this, I said, you know what, if some reason God were to scoop me up from this planet for something else or whatever you believe in.

I've had a good life. What an incredibly naive thing to say. But that's what I felt at the time. I had felt, much like some of the athletes that I work with in hockey and football, that the pinnacle of their professional existence often occurs in their minds early in life. And maybe you feel that way too. Maybe you feel like the best days you've had, your career was satisfying, and you're going, you know what, Scott? I'm okay to do the Freedom 55 cruise into the sunset on a yacht type of next phase of life.

I'm gonna poke you just a little bit on that because there's usually so many more things that we can actually bring to life. We just haven't allowed the space for that to happen. Now, people always ask me, you know, what were some of the incredible things with the wildlife that still here we are 37 years, you know, make me go. I remember receiving a mountain lion, a young mountain lion. ⁓ she was seized in a downtown Toronto drug bust. the guys were peddling cocaine and ⁓ animals at the same time. What a wonderful combination.

And Amber was six months at that time, Amber the mountain lion, and terrified. I I couldn't tell you what she had been through. And so we had her in a a really nice enclosure with lots of quiet spots that she could actually hide and get comfortable with. where I read my first John Grisham novel. I would sit outside her enclosure so that I wouldn't be intruding on her, and I would just read for a few hours every day.

And on the second or third day, she came up and sort of, you know, checked me out, sniffed, nuzzled, and then starting to purr. if you've had a house cat, you know, mountain lions are part of that fetus family there. This they had this lot of the same traits. And that was her invitation to me, ⁓ to just come in and ⁓ sit. And that's what I did is I hopped into the enclosure very slowly. I sat in the corner, didn't approach her, and just read the book. And read the book. And she got

used and comfortable, you know, with me. ⁓ it was an incredible feeling to have that kind of trust. It became to such a trust that Amber and I, over the number of years, we would visit ⁓ sick children's hospital together, where she could hop up on a bed and purr for kids who, were having a really tough life. I remember taking her into Peterborough General Hospital for a friend who'd had a stroke and wasn't recovering based on normal

protocols and saw amber and all of a sudden his face lit up. Incredibly powerful stuff. So if you've had those kind of moments in your career and you're going, you know, that's enough for one life. Poke? No. There's a lot more to be had. The question is, how do you go forward after leaving a career that, you know, was just maybe a career for you? Maybe it was a time for money kind of thing? Or maybe it already had purpose for you. How do you move forward from that?

Well, two things that we can sort of take a look at. One is if you've got some of these unrequited passions that you are waiting to have happen, what passion and purpose need to come fully into your life is time to breathe. And in this busy day and age where every moment our senses are being assaulted with all kinds of things, it's tough to find that quiet space to hear yourself. That's right. You inside already know what your next passion is.

It's just getting through those layers of noise, pulling them off so you can hear it. And sometimes it's even scary because all of a sudden you find yourself in a quiet spot and your brain's going, okay, where's the next stimulus? I have to respond to it. And now we have to generate the stimulus. So when you're looking to have that quiet time, I call it personal retreats. And I actually do it once a week. It's on Sunday mornings, where I just go and I sit. I don't have an agenda, I just see what floats.

coming to my mind that's gonna move me forward, not this week necessarily, but this month and next year, the longer term visioning, and see what pops into your mind and allow that to happen. Now if you're somebody who doesn't have any idea of what you're really looking to do, well, what you can think about is creating something I call an interest radar. Because sometimes honestly, you've been overstimulated your whole life and you're enjoying the quiet. You don't really want to have a whole bunch of new stuff coming on.

That's what the honeymoon phase of retirement of work option life is for. So, what I'm talking about is, you know, you've stretched your wings, you've run in your field, and you're going, now what? We don't want to go to what's given to us, it just falls on our plate, because that rarely is the passion that we're looking for. This is the first time in your life, probably, where you can focus more on yourself than your work responsibilities, your family responsibilities. They're still there.

I know if you've got aging parents or others. you're You're still gonna have that. The question is not to let that sort of filter all across that plate of possibility. You have to keep a a wedge for yourself to go find something for you. And it's interesting that once you find your passion and you radiate that positive energy, then everybody else around you sort of picks up on that. They're going, wow, you're looking different. You're looking you're looking healthy, like what's going on? And yeah, you know you found something.

But if you don't know what those passions are, and and a good number of people that I've come across, and I've worked with thousands of people, really say, I I have no idea. I really haven't thought just for myself. You know, that was considered selfish, maybe. Or I was scared that there wouldn't be anything there. So here's what you can do is one of the ways to start actually trying to find your own peace. The interest radar. And you can change it any way you'd like.

You you might take something like your phone. And ⁓ anytime something captures your interest, ⁓ just write it down. And you know, I've always wanted to try painting. And if you can see over my shoulder there, that's one of my paintings. By the way, I was a C student in art in school. I have very little natural talent. I love it, but I have very little natural talent. And I had to make room to actually, you know, take painting classes. So on an interest radar.

Over a period of two weeks, three weeks maybe, just make notes of things that catch your attention. I was talking to somebody yesterday, you know, I when I retire, I'd I'd really like to take up flight. it can be all over the place. The key thing is over those two or three weeks, you sort of accumulate a list of possibilities, things that caught your your heart. It's not about necessarily it's not about the money. hopefully it's not about the prestige and the ego, because this is really for you. And it doesn't have to be

one big thing. Okay, that's the big illusion. It's not one big thing that for most of us. It's a whole bunch of little things that you sort of tap into that together you go, yeah, this is how I envision more of my life. So with that list, after the two or three weeks, take a cup of your favorite beverage and I won't tell you what's in here. I'll just let you know it's the morning time. And you go through the list and you sort of pick out the top three

Five things that over those three weeks have caught your attention. And then you go, huh, what could I do to take that one step forward to explore that further? So when it came to painting for me, I decided I was not going to invest thousands of dollars and create a whole new studio. I was going to sign up for a community art class in the day. And I did. And every week for four weeks, you know, for an hour and a half, we'd get together and paint.

Myself and I think it was 10 gals, so I was the only guy there. Remember, we we check ego at the door. They had all been painting before, and here's this left-handed guy who had no idea of color or anything like that, obviously. And and you go and you have some fun. And you don't worry quite as much about what other people think because who's this for? Yeah. This is for you. This is where you get to find that internal compass. And it's funny, once you find one little thing, whether it's in the

The creative realm or or the volunteering realm or whatever it is. Maybe it's starting your own business. We're running a lifestyle entrepreneurship class for our folks at Retire and Aspire. Whatever it is, when you do one thing that is more authentically you, it's like it sends energy out into your universe and it starts attracting other things that you go, wow, this is real. This isn't just busy.

This isn't just coffee for the sake of coffee, lunch for the sake of lunch, gardening for the sake of gardening, all those things that will actually consume time. Remember, you know, spending your time is not a challenge these days. But these are the things that actually make you feel like, yeah, yeah, this is me. And that's what I want for you. So, you know, coming out of this one, if you are getting towards work optional life, what you can start doing is start doing some planning, thinking about.

When this is all done and I've stretched my legs and I've visited Europe and I've visited Asia and I've scuba dived with dolphins and all those wonderful things that ⁓ whatever they are for you, what awaits you on the other side of dessert buffet? That's what I call the honeymoon suite the dessert buffet. Because you can only eat so much dessert, and after a while your body's craving veg and proteins. And that's the sustaining kind of stuff. What would be waiting for you? If you've transitioned and you're in a bit of that chasm right now where you go, you know.

It's not what I thought it would be. and I was talking to I play volleyball with a group of friends, and I should say friends, the the youngest is 14 years of age, the oldest is seventy-five. There's fifty of us, we get together, we don't keep score. It's just a lot of fun. And one of the guys was a retired doctor, and you know, he just came back from three months, I think it was down in Mexico, and I said, How's it going? And they he'd been retired for about eight months. He goes,

You know, it's it's okay. I I just always have to figure out what I'm going to do next. Because he'd been in one of those careers that there was another patient, another diagnosis, another, you know, helping somebody. It was real, like his his actions meant something every day, and he's really struggling finding purpose that sort of takes him on that level. So what is it for you? I don't know. But I do know the pathway to helping find that.

Is giving yourself time to allow creativity to happen. Don't put so much in your calendar that you don't have an hour or two. You know, a day would be kind of great, but you know, sort of a couple of times a week wherever focus goes, that's where usually results happen. And so many times, you know, I I mentioned before a guy who wants to take flying lessons, and you know, I said, you know, how many hours you have to put in. I'd never try to get that again. I'd never be able to put that kind of time on.

Well, it's surprising that once you carve away some of the routine, the repetitive stuff that you're just used to doing, but becomes almost mindless engagement, you take some of that away, it opens up a whole new space for your mind and your passions to play. Creativity, passion, that's what I want for you in your next phase of life and the rest of your phases of life. Because it's not just a tagline that we use at Retire & Aspire which is you're just getting started.

You think the best years of your life are behind you? No. More resources that you have now, time that you have, the wisdom that you have, whether you choose to grow it or pay it forward to others, the ground is ready for you to do the best stuff of your life. And what you need to do is give yourself some time to think about what that is. Okay? Thanks for joining me. next time we're talking, we're going to be talking to somebody who's changed his passion.

into comedy. Okay. Scott Armstrong, Retire and Aspire. We'll see you next time.