Interview with George Jerjian
In today's podcast, author and retirement coach George Jerjian explains why you must discover your purpose if you want to take full advantage of your so-called retirement.
George Jerjian is an author, lecturer, and mindset mentor. He helps retiring baby boomers understand that they deserve to live lives filled with passion and purpose in their later years. His advice is to leave this world with a bang rather than a whimper.
His approach is based on years of research and his own life experiences. He pushes readers to DARE to defy accepted retirement strategies and live the life they've always wanted.
His recent book, “Dare to Discover Your Purpose,” explains why retirement doesn't have to be a letdown. In it, George offers strategies, assurance, and a road map for maximizing this stage of life.
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Dare to Discover Your Purpose When Retiring
The concept of retirement can be threatening and misunderstood. However, it is an opportunity and a blessing in disguise: a chance to live life pursuing the things you love.
Walking into retirement triggers ‘identity bridging'. This happens when an individual has an identity that is deeply ingrained and tied with what they do before retirement. Post-retirement, this identity disappears. According to George, at some point, you must create a new identity. The difference this time is you have the opportunity to do something you love for as long as you like.
George thinks back to the Clint Eastwood movie “The Mule.” His character discusses how he avoids letting the old guy in, which helps him continue to be active, do things, and enjoy life—even at the age of 91.
George Jerjian's Advice
Retirement is no country for old people… There are huge emotional, mental issues that you'll be facing… Prepare yourself. Don't go in blind. You can't wing this one.
Summary
You can get George's book, Dare to Discover Your Purpose: Retire, Refire, Rewire at George's website or on Amazon (affiliate link).
George also provides coaching for those struggling with this transition. He offers two courses at the moment and soon will increase that to four. One is an eight-week prerecorded course.
The second course is a live online eight-week course. Each week, George will connect with you remotely. It is more hands-on and includes exercises and Q & A sessions.
NOTE: Look below for a transcript of today's episode.
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Links for Today's Episode:
- George Jerjian's Website
- DARE to Discover Your Purpose: RETIRE, REFIRE, REWIRE by George Jerjian (affiliate link)
- George Jerjian's Courses
- NewScr!pt
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Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 258
Why You Must Dare to Discover Your Purpose When You Retire
- Interview with George Jerjian
John: I recently discovered today's guest and I became very interested in what he's been up to after looking at his book called "Dare to Discover Your Purpose". And it also was triggered by the recent retirement of a good friend of mine who after 35 years as an oncologist just went from full-time practice to just stopping. And I had conversations with him and he has no idea what he is going to do other than golf.
And it also occurred to me after reading the book that my guest wrote that a lot of what he talks about applies to any kind of major career transition for physicians who have done something major intense clinical work for most of their life. And then they're going to do something different, which sometimes we call retirement. Anyway, with that, let me welcome George Jerjian into the podcast. Hi George.
George Jerjian: Hi, John. It's nice to be on your show. Thank you for inviting me.
John: Oh, it's my pleasure. We're going to learn a lot and all these concepts are going to probably apply to anyone who's making this kind of major transition. But like I usually do, I'll have you go ahead and give us a little background about yourself and then what you're doing now and how you got interested in this particular topic.
George Jerjian: Sure. Well, John, where should I kick off? I think probably the appropriate place would be where I had a perfect storm in my life in 2007. Three unrelated events hit me. One was, we were moving homes. That's stressful enough as it is on its own. Then my wife's father had a stroke and passed away within a week and we had all sorts of estate issues and stuff like that. And third, I was diagnosed with a bone tumor and given six months to live.
John: That can't be good.
George Jerjian: Well, it's a triple whammy. And it really knocked me out for six. I didn't know where I was coming or going. First of all, the oncologist said to me that in 98% of cases, and I repeat that, 98% of cases, bone tumor is secondary cancer, which means it's spread all over your body and there's nothing really they can do. However, he said, we need to do tests to confirm their diagnosis, which they did. It took three weeks. And three weeks later I went back to see him. And he said, I've got some good news and bad news. The good news is you belong to the 2%.
John: Awesome.
George Jerjian: Fortunately, my tumor was benign, but it was very aggressive. It was the size of an eggplant sitting on my pelvis. Long story short, it took two surgeries to remove it and I had to learn to walk again, and it took me about six months to recover. So, death sentence to six months, that's a pretty good commutation.
Anyway, that set me off on a course of recognizing that everything that I thought was important was actually not important. And all the things that were important, I wasn't focused on. One of the things I learned was the value of time and not taking time for granted. Money is replaceable, even though it's difficult, it's replaceable. Time, you can't replace time. That's the importance of that. For me, since 2007, for the past 15 years, I've been living on bonus time. Fast forward, I retired, semi-retired, for 10 years because I had a litigation to fund on the back of my father-in-law's estate. That kept me occupied. I thought it would only take 18 months. It ended up taking 15 years. It's just another story.
But the point I'm making is that I semi-retired and I realized after the sort of honeymoon period of 12 to 18 months, that everything started to go south. My energy, my enthusiasm, I just didn't have to get up in the morning. There was nothing to jump out of bed for. My heart was not singing. My friends were busy because they weren't retired yet and I was filling time. I even wrote a book, I wrote a novel, but it wasn't satisfying. And so, I unretired after 10 years in 2016, I went on a 30-day silent retreat to look for what it is I want to do.
I had to go deep and ended up understanding about mindset change. And I visited Bob Proctor in Canada and I worked with him and studied with him for 18 months. I was about mindset. And then I realized that my ideal market are boomers, retiring boomers because they need a serious change of mindset. The journey I had made from where I was not even thinking about retirement to semi-retirement and discovering that it's not what it's made out to be, was a huge learning curve. And on the back of that, I learned about unretiring, which I did by default and then created something new for myself. And the dare book is in fact the journey of that and the process. That's my background.
Now, my vocation, if you like, is helping retiring boomers to unretire and discover a new purpose in their lives. Another way to say this is to have a new beginning, because one of the big misunderstood ideas about retirement is for example, we know that the first casualty of war is the truth. Propaganda takes over. The truth is eviscerated.
The first casualty of retirement is identity. This is not understood. And because it's not understood or recognized, it's like termites in a house, it slowly eats away. And before you realize it, it's too late to go back. And why do I say that? Because identity who we are, for example, your audience would be doctors in their special fields. These are individuals who have an identity and their identity is deeply ingrained and tied with what they do.
John: Absolutely.
George Jerjian: And I think with doctors, there's a special, extra difficulty. And I say this tongue in cheek, but I think you will all recognize it is that doctors have a very special standing in society. Let's be honest, they have a special standing. They're healers. They're also people who stand at death's door for many people. And so, they have a status of, and forgive me if I use this word, because I can't find another word to replace it. They have the status of Demigod. And I'm going to be honest with you, shedding that identity is tough.
John: Well, what you're saying is so true and my listeners will know this because I talk about this all the time. Because many physicians reach a point, whether it's near retirement or not, they're overwhelmed, they're burned out and they have to make this transition. And it's always about mindset. That's the first thing they have to address. It's about, "Do I still have my status? Am I still a doctor?" Et cetera, et cetera. That's why I see these parallels. And I'm so interested in hearing what else you had to say.One of the things we touched on during our brief call before was that there's a reason why we look at retirement in a certain way, which is no longer applicable. Maybe you can talk a little bit about that, why this whole concept of retirement needs to sort of switch.
George Jerjian: Yeah. Well, I think we need to go back in history to find out why retirement was introduced in the first place. I think once we have an understanding of that, the audience will see for themselves that, "Oh, if that's where it started, then that's the reason why." Then no wonder it's not working. Let's go back in history. Caesar Augustus is probably the nearest that history can show us. I'm sure in Babylonian times they must have had pensions just like they had insurance, but it was probably in a very basic way. But Caesar Augustus introduced the aerarium militare, which was the military pension for the Imperial Roman army. And he introduced that because, well, he was a young boy, but he wasn't a military man. And what he was trying to do was to ensure that he didn't end up the way his uncle Julius Caesar did, assassinated.
He wanted to make sure the army was on side. So, he created this pension fund. He put in 6 million sesterces of his own family's money into it to kickstart it. And it grew and burgeoned beautifully investment wise. And like the social security fund in the US, it was slowly eaten away by loans taken out by the Senate. Nobody can leave gold bullion like that alone. It's too good to be true. They've got to slowly chip away at. Within the lives of two emperors, it disappeared.
Now after him, I'm going to just pick up two examples. Abraham Lincoln introduced pensions as a recruitment tool for soldiers for the union army. Bismarck introduced it in Germany. Otto von Bismarck introduced it in Germany because the Germans were falling in love with Marxism and he wanted to make sure that they came off it. So, he knew his people. He knew the angst the Germans had about security. So, he introduced the pension fund at the age 65 I believe it was when life expectancy was 58. He was a clever man. There was a seven-year difference. He knew most of them weren't going to make it. But those who did would have the mental comfort of knowing they'd be looked after and they'd probably kicked the bucket two years after that. It wasn't a great deal. Of course, we know corporations even going back to the 1870s, American Express introduced the first personal pension plan. The railway companies introduced pensions in the US to retain staff, to retain employees. And so, retirement and pensions were always done for the purpose of securing loyalty. It was not done for the benefit of employees. That is the truth of it.
Fast forward to today, in the last 40-50 years pension, the financial services industry with the advertising industry has created this bubble, this wonderful place, which is kind of like an extended vacation. You've got margaritas, you've got beach, you've got sunsets, you've got friends, and you can do what you like when you like, how you like. What a heavenly place. No, it's not a heavenly place. That's called a vacation. That's a holiday. For retirement that is a trap. It's a terrible trap because once you go into it, it becomes very difficult to come out and I'll explain why.
John: Okay.
George Jerjian: As I mentioned earlier, your identity is compromised, the minute your job ends. Who are you now? And I can show you the evidence of what is called identity bridging. When people who have retired, for example, retired surgeons or doctors, when they go to cocktail parties and are asked, "What do you do? - Oh, I'm a retired surgeon or I'm a retired oncologist." No, you're not. You're just retired, period. And why is that? Because your days as an oncologist or a surgeon or whatever specific area you're in, is done. And you haven't replaced it with anything else. You think you can take that from a linear point and just move it and continue. And I'll do a little bit here and a little bit there. It's not the way it works. Your identity is now compromised.
The only way to sustain your identity is to create a new identity. When you create a new identity, you're no longer compared to who you were before. And by creating a new identity, you're creating something new for yourself. The difference this time is you're choosing to do something you love for as long as you like. The hours that you want. The pay is not going to be the same, but it's a lot better than eating out of your retirement fund. Plus, you've got purpose.
John: Okay. There you go. I'm going to have you talk about that a little bit more, although I will say this or ask this question. If we get to that point as a physician, and we're going to do something else with purpose, there isn't really any reason why one wouldn't want to necessarily build on all that experience, that education, those skills and other things. So, obviously a surgeon isn't going to turn around and be some different kind of surgeon, but there's a whole lot that they know about the health system and other things that might fit into that new model of what they're doing, I would think.
George Jerjian: Absolutely. And it's very individual. There is no one formula for each individual. The formula I have is really a kind of framework that people can use in order to evoke the feelings of things they want. It's kind of a direction. And that helps them to dig deeper because the answer, believe it or not, John, does not lie outside us. It lies within.
Carl Jung, the Swiss psychologist talked about, I think the quote that comes to mind is "What was true in the morning of life becomes a lie in the evening." What was true in the morning of life becomes a lie in the evening. What did he mean by that? What he meant was that in the morning of life, it's all about achievement, accolades, ambition. We all strive for this. This is what we were built for, this is our education system. This is how our families brought us up. But in this second part of life, it's about moving from ego to soul. It's moving from caterpillar to butterfly, but you can't cross that chasm without going into the Chrysalis, into the cocoon, which is a painful place to be. Make no mistake. It's not an easy transition, but I promise you, it's a hell of a lot better than being stuck.
Now, this transition that I'm talking about, moving from caterpillar to butterflies, or for example, from being a doctor to being something different, something new, you've got to go through this cocoon. And in this cocoon, as we know, the caterpillar is broken down into caterpillar soup, for lack of another word. And that caterpillar soup is then built on the fractals that are going to create the new butterfly. Painful process. And I suspect for doctors particularly, it's painful for everybody else, I promise, but it must be particularly difficult for doctors because of their position in society, because of the position that they themselves hold themselves accountable.
It's a two-way thing. It's society putting them on a pedestal. And they, themselves, hoard themselves accountable to a higher standard and work the way they do as hard as they do. That becomes your life. That becomes who you are. And how do you move this ego? The word I have for it is ego death. It's ego death, because you need to die. Stuck in mustard seed needs to die. It needs to go into the ground and die so that it can be reborn. And in a sense, that's what happens to us in retirement.
Retirement, in my sort of perspective, is actually a blessing in disguise because you don't want to end up on your deathbed thinking, "Oh, I didn't live the life I should have. I was always doing other people's bidding." And for many people, many of us, we're doing the bidding of the way our parents brought us up, or we are doing the bidding of our spouse. And for some of us, it even goes further. We do the bidding of our children because we love them. And to a certain extent, there's also a bit of misplaced love. And I put my hand up, I'm just as guilty as everybody else. Love is love. You do things with the people you love. But in a way, and this is what I've taught myself and it's been a hard thing to learn, is that you can't love your neighbor if you don't love yourself first.
"Love your neighbor as yourself" is an equation. It's not "Love your neighbor, that's an order." It's "Love your neighbor as yourself." But if you don't love yourself, how can you love your neighbor? And by the way, your neighbor isn't literally your neighbor. It could be your family and friends and so on.
My point is that retirement is an opportunity. It's life knocking on the door saying, "Hey, wake up. This is your last chance to do what you'd love to do." And I go even further, to live the legacy that you would've left by living it now. Don't wait till "Oh, I'll leave this for so and so." No, live it now, because this is all we've got is now. Tomorrow is not promised to us.
John: Okay. Let me recap here. I'm trying to think for myself, to highlight some of the things you said.
George Jerjian: Sure.
John: Well, let's see, first of all, the concept of retirement as we used it in the past really just has to go away because we don't have the money, we don't have the time. We don't have the mindset to go 30, 40 years, but aimlessly. And the second thing is that it's a process, and there's going to be a transition. I guess my next question would be, it's okay to not prepare for this ahead of time before you "retire". But at some point, you do have to make that transition. So, how long does that usually take and what do people have to do to get through that transition? How do they prepare?
George Jerjian: Again, from my personal experience, I've coached people pre-retirement, on retirement and even post retirement. There are pros and cons to each. For somebody who hasn't retired, they've got no idea what's happening at the other end when they cross it over. But if they do the course, they'll wake up to, "Oh my God, I did not expect this to go down this road." They're kind of forewarned and forearmed.
The advantage for those who've retired and then do this is "I was so bored. I needed this. I was stuck. I didn't know what to do." And one of the biggest challenges of being stuck is because of your identity. You've lost your original identity and you don't have a replacement. Your self-esteem and self-worth start to slowly diminish, which impacts on your confidence. And it doesn't take long because it's a really downward spiral. And when you're in that position, you don't want help. Your pride won't allow it. There's a lot of these emotional things that come in and block you from seeking help because you don't even know where to go for help.
But to come back to your question, which was how long does this process take? How long is a piece of string? It all depends on the individual. It depends on the individual's circumstances. It depends on the individual's desire to emerge from being stuck. If they have had it up to here, they're ready. If they're very happy in retirement, oblivious to what's going on, you can't help somebody like that. They're in their own place. But at some point, reality will hit and hopefully they'll still have time to come back.
Where the problem happens is if somebody has been retired for seven, eight years and the mind, the cognitive, all the cognitive skills, everything starts to deteriorate. Then you have a problem. Also, once that's already happened, your confidence is already diminished. A lot of stuff is. You're kind of beyond the pale. You can't come back. That's the danger of retiring, not knowing what you're going into. I hope I've answered your question.
John: Yes. Yes. And I want to pause here for a minute because not everybody listens to the very end of the podcast episode. I want to mention the book, which we've alluded to "Dare to Discover Your Purpose: Retire, Refire, Rewire". You have to read it to know what you're referring to with those last two of terms. And your website, we can go to georgejerjian.com, correct?
George Jerjian: Yes. It's georgejerjian.com.
John: Awesome. That'll be in the show notes and we'll mention again at the end. It's definitely beneficial if you recognize you have an issue that you need to address. Can you tell us a little bit more about the core issue? You mentioned it earlier, the purpose.
George Jerjian: Yes.
John: You have to have some purpose ultimately to go through this process. So, explain how that works and how one might discover it.
George Jerjian: Okay. I did a survey of 23,000 people who answered nine questions. And the title of the quiz/survey was "What retirement mistakes are you making?" And 23,000 people answered those nine questions. And then I got the stats. And one of the questions, a pivotal question that I asked was "What is your single biggest challenge in retirement?" 50% said health. 35% said fear of outliving their savings. 15% said aimlessness or lack of purpose. So, you've got that 50% for health, 35% money, 15% lack of purpose.
A couple of questions further down I asked them "If you had a magic wand and you could solve your single biggest problem, which one would it be?" 50% said health again, 35% said having a purpose and 15% said outliving savings. So, it's interesting how it flipped from purpose and money. Health remains static, money and purpose switched. Now my reading between the lines was that, now granted, there are many people who have health issues, which are chronic. There's nothing much you can do there. And everything is just alleviated problems, but there's no solution.
But for the vast majority of retirees health is an issue that's kind of self-created. And I'll explain what I mean by that. The mindset is crucially important. When we are fully engaged in working, health isn't an issue. It's not top of mind. When we're retired, we've got all the time in the world now to create problems. Any small thing becomes major. And so, it's being in that status. And it also explains why. The center for disease control, where I was seeing stats was that after the age of 65 illnesses grow exponentially. Go figure.
Why would people suddenly become sick at 65 and not at 60? Why at 65? Interesting, right? I put it down to that health issues happen for many reasons, many of which is A) they've got time to make themselves think about it more. But secondly, the fact that they're not engaged, the fact that they've lost their identity and they don't have purpose has an impact on your emotional and mental health. And ultimately it shows itself up in your physical ailments.
If you are engaged and just watch all the people, whether it's celebrities or people in the media who age, but who are productive and who are working, you don't see them ill, you don't see them troubled. They're fully engaged. Even down to the actresses, Dame Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Dolly Parton. All these women, they're fully engaged. And my favorite, Clint Eastwood.
John: Yeah. He is producing movies.
George Jerjian: At 91, he's still working. And he's got this wonderful clip on YouTube. You have to Google it. I think it was on YouTube. Clint Eastwood, "Don't Let the Old Man In".
John: Don't let the old man in, huh?
George Jerjian: It's terrific. It's only a couple of minutes. It's from a film called "The Mule", which Clint would star in. And in that, he talks about the reason he succeeds in being constantly active and doing stuff and enjoying his life, even at the age of 91 and still going forward is because he doesn't let the old man in. Which is a tick of
George Bernard Shaw, the Irish literary guy who said that people don't quit because they grow old. They grow old because they quit.
John: Well, as a physician, and I've seen this many, many times, if someone maybe is a little depressed and they have a little joint pain, their natural tendency is to rest more and sit more and not take the stairs. Well, the more you sit, the less you take the stairs, the weaker you're going to get, the more deconditioned you're going to get and you get into a vicious cycle. And it can be mental. It can be physical. And so, it's hard to get someone who has gotten there to turn that around because at that point it's painful. But we know for some conditions just going through the pain, working through the pain, you'll actually get to a point later where the pain is gone. You've lost weight. You're more vigorous. So, that's consistent with what you're saying.
George Jerjian: No, I agree. That's very true. Very true.
John: All right. Let's talk a little bit more about the book and about your coaching, because I know that you address these things and you help guide people through this. The first thing, where can we find the book? Should we go to your website? Should we go to Amazon?
George Jerjian: Amazon or my website. I've got the US, UK, Canada, and I think Australia where you can plug in straight away from my website, but whichever country you're in, in the US go amazon.com and just plug my name in or Dare to Discover Your Purpose and it'll take you straight to the book.
John: Okay. Now this coaching that you do. There are all kinds of coaching. I'm interested in hearing because I do have a lot of coaches on the podcast, physician coaches and so forth, some mindset coaches, but nothing that addresses retirement per se. Is this live coaching? I assume it's remote. Are there courses? Tell me about it.
George Jerjian: Okay. At the moment there are two courses. I'm hoping to increase it to four courses, but at the moment there's only two. One is a prerecorded course to discover your purpose. It's prerecorded, it's an eight-week online course. You get a video, audio, PDF, and also exercise each week.
John: Okay.
George Jerjian: And what it is, and there's a video showing you why and how to do the exercise. So, nothing is missed out. And this is each week. Each week you get this, you watch it, you do the exercise and you have a week to ponder on it because this isn't something that you just write down from the top of your head. You need to come back to it. It's like cooking. You need to meditate and marinate because these are feelings that are emerging, not just thoughts. And feelings take a little bit longer to come out.
And the reason is that I'm trying to bring the answer to the question out of the individual. I'm not giving them the answer. I don't have the answer for them. There are 6 billion people, every single one of them has got their own ideas and their own views on life. All I'm doing is helping them by having, if you like, this process to help them through. So, that's the first week. And it goes on for eight weeks. And you get the second one at the end of the first week and so on.
And these exercises all build on each other like a Lego. By the eighth week, your exercise will be complete. And then you will have a one-page document, your blueprint for your next stage in life. Now that blueprint is the work of eight weeks that you've crafted, but it's not written in stone. It's a working document. It's like an architect imagines what a house is going to look like, but he can't start building until he's got a blueprint out. And that's what I do. I help them to bring the blueprint out of their heads onto a piece of paper.
Now it becomes half real. It now looks believable. It looks achievable. And it's also editable. It's not written in stone, but you've got a pretty good idea. It's almost like if you can imagine Michelangelo's David. You've taken all the big rocks out. Now you've got pretty much the framework of what things are going to look at. The work is much easier now. That's the prerecorded one. And that's $195.
The live online eight-week course where I'm on the course with you each week for 90 minutes. And we go through the presentation which I do on the topic and we then move to the exercise and Q&A. And it's a slow buildup, but it's live, it's active, it's interactive. And that's $1,995. It's under $2,000. Those are the two available at the moment.
And just to talk a little bit about the course itself. The course is there to discover your purpose, and it is obviously requiring courage. That's what it means. You need courage. Why? Well, courage comes from the Latin word core, which means heart. You need a bit of heart. And I mean heart in the sense that you need to have courage to emerge out of retirement, to unretire, but also you need heart because we need to get down to your feelings, which are hidden.
John: It's not just an intellectual process, correct?
George Jerjian: Absolutely.
John: They get to their core, get to their heart, get to their feelings, beliefs, principles, values.
George Jerjian: Totally. Those are integral. Your values. You're now going to live through your values, which is now going to give you a new sense of power that you might not have had before. And I call that spiritual power, truly. I mean, just think of the word enthusiasm. It comes from "in theos", in God. You are in the spirit. When you're in the spirit, there's an energy that you can express that you don't have when you're just in a physical state. It's an energetic kind. And that's the kind of energy that we need in this sort of third chapter of our lives. And it gives us that sense of "We're living the good life". Death will not come as a shock to us. Death will not be a bad thing. We will meet death in a good way because we're enjoying each day, we're milking it for what it is.
John: We'll be totally spent when that day comes, it seems like, with all out there. We didn't hold back.
George Jerjian: Exactly. And we find ease in risk instead of being terrified, instead of our sandbox getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And we think we're secure, but actually we're getting smaller and smaller and smaller. That's not a way to live. I say this in jest, but I mean it. You don't want to get out with a whimper. You want to get out with a bang. One thing is for sure, we're all going to die.
John: Yeah. Somehow people forget that.
George Jerjian: Well, John, you mentioned this. I was thinking about this the other day, I was telling a friend. There was a piece in the film Troy. Do you remember that film with Brad Pitt?
John: Yes.
George Jerjian: When Achilles lands in Troy on the beach and then completely desecrates the temple of Apollo, and kills all the priests and the vestal virgins. And only one is brought to him. Obviously, a beautiful Australian actress, should have to be, it's Hollywood. And she says to him because he's desecrated everything, "The Gods will punish you." And Achilles, Brad Pitt, turns around and says, "The Gods are envious of us because we're mortal, because we are living. The Gods are bored. They have nothing to do. They've got nothing to worry about. They're eternal, they are bored. And they look at us and they go, can I go down there? Can I get a life down there? I just want to experience it."
John: And there's something at stake at that point, right?
George Jerjian: Yes. And here we are ignoring death, ignoring the topic of death. Culturally, we are devoid. We don't want to talk about death. It's sort of sanitized. And of course, doctors don't have that issue but the vast majority of the population, the culture doesn't want to know. But actually, death is a friend because when you recognize that time is precious, you can live your life. You should live the life you want, not the way that you should or have been told to do. If that makes sense. I hope I got my point across.
John: Yes. Yes, definitely. When you have that looking at there, being an end, that means, "Okay, then I got to get to work. I got to get something done and something that is meaningful, having purpose and so forth." I think that's a good place to stop, except I need to ask you, if you were talking to a group of physicians who are in their, whatever, late fifties, early sixties. They're producing, but they're thinking, "Okay, I don't know about this transition. I just don't know where to start or what to do." Any advice you would give to them in terms of trying to think about this process, how to prepare for it?
George Jerjian: Sure. I'll use this phrase tongue in cheek. Retirement is no country for old people. Now we know when we travel overseas, we need a guide. We need a guide who knows the landscape, who knows the lay of the land. And you got to believe me when I say that retirement is not a walk in the park. There are huge emotional, mental issues that you'll be facing. And it's not because you're stupid. It's because you don't know what's ahead of you. You can be the most intelligent doctor, you could be on top of your profession, but you've no idea where you're landing here. And so, it behooves you to prepare and to be forewarned, forearmed and you are then ready to face what's ahead of you. So, that's what I would say. Prepare yourself. Don't go in blind. You can't wing this one.
John: I appreciate that. That's very good. And for the younger group here that may be listening, all of these things apply to transitioning from what you're doing now to something else as well. There are going to be issues and changes and challenges, but definitely the concept of retirement is changing. And I really appreciate your comments, George. It's been really helpful. I encourage everyone to get the book. It's a very interesting read, focusing a lot on the mindset and mentally preparing more so than let's say the physical or recipes or anything like that. It's the mind. All right, George, thank you very much. With that, we'll call it the end here. And with that, I'll say goodbye.
George Jerjian: Thank you, John. Thank you.
John: It's been my pleasure. Take care.
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Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 258
Why You Must Dare to Discover Your Purpose When You Retire
- Interview with George Jerjian
John: I recently discovered today's guest and I became very interested in what he's been up to after looking at his book called "Dare to Discover Your Purpose". And it also was triggered by the recent retirement of a good friend of mine who after 35 years as an oncologist just went from full-time practice to just stopping. And I had conversations with him and he has no idea what he is going to do other than golf.
And it also occurred to me after reading the book that my guest wrote that a lot of what he talks about applies to any kind of major career transition for physicians who have done something major intense clinical work for most of their life. And then they're going to do something different, which sometimes we call retirement. Anyway, with that, let me welcome George Jerjian into the podcast. Hi George.
George Jerjian: Hi, John. It's nice to be on your show. Thank you for inviting me.
John: Oh, it's my pleasure. We're going to learn a lot and all these concepts are going to probably apply to anyone who's making this kind of major transition. But like I usually do, I'll have you go ahead and give us a little background about yourself and then what you're doing now and how you got interested in this particular topic.
George Jerjian: Sure. Well, John, where should I kick off? I think probably the appropriate place would be where I had a perfect storm in my life in 2007. Three unrelated events hit me. One was, we were moving homes. That's stressful enough as it is on its own. Then my wife's father had a stroke and passed away within a week and we had all sorts of estate issues and stuff like that. And third, I was diagnosed with a bone tumor and given six months to live.
John: That can't be good.
George Jerjian: Well, it's a triple whammy. And it really knocked me out for six. I didn't know where I was coming or going. First of all, the oncologist said to me that in 98% of cases, and I repeat that, 98% of cases, bone tumor is secondary cancer, which means it's spread all over your body and there's nothing really they can do. However, he said, we need to do tests to confirm their diagnosis, which they did. It took three weeks. And three weeks later I went back to see him. And he said, I've got some good news and bad news. The good news is you belong to the 2%.
John: Awesome.
George Jerjian: Fortunately, my tumor was benign, but it was very aggressive. It was the size of an eggplant sitting on my pelvis. Long story short, it took two surgeries to remove it and I had to learn to walk again, and it took me about six months to recover. So, death sentence to six months, that's a pretty good commutation.
Anyway, that set me off on a course of recognizing that everything that I thought was important was actually not important. And all the things that were important, I wasn't focused on. One of the things I learned was the value of time and not taking time for granted. Money is replaceable, even though it's difficult, it's replaceable. Time, you can't replace time. That's the importance of that. For me, since 2007, for the past 15 years, I've been living on bonus time. Fast forward, I retired, semi-retired, for 10 years because I had a litigation to fund on the back of my father-in-law's estate. That kept me occupied. I thought it would only take 18 months. It ended up taking 15 years. It's just another story.
But the point I'm making is that I semi-retired and I realized after the sort of honeymoon period of 12 to 18 months, that everything started to go south. My energy, my enthusiasm, I just didn't have to get up in the morning. There was nothing to jump out of bed for. My heart was not singing. My friends were busy because they weren't retired yet and I was filling time. I even wrote a book, I wrote a novel, but it wasn't satisfying. And so, I unretired after 10 years in 2016, I went on a 30-day silent retreat to look for what it is I want to do.
I had to go deep and ended up understanding about mindset change. And I visited Bob Proctor in Canada and I worked with him and studied with him for 18 months. I was about mindset. And then I realized that my ideal market are boomers, retiring boomers because they need a serious change of mindset. The journey I had made from where I was not even thinking about retirement to semi-retirement and discovering that it's not what it's made out to be, was a huge learning curve. And on the back of that, I learned about unretiring, which I did by default and then created something new for myself. And the dare book is in fact the journey of that and the process. That's my background.
Now, my vocation, if you like, is helping retiring boomers to unretire and discover a new purpose in their lives. Another way to say this is to have a new beginning, because one of the big misunderstood ideas about retirement is for example, we know that the first casualty of war is the truth. Propaganda takes over. The truth is eviscerated.
The first casualty of retirement is identity. This is not understood. And because it's not understood or recognized, it's like termites in a house, it slowly eats away. And before you realize it, it's too late to go back. And why do I say that? Because identity who we are, for example, your audience would be doctors in their special fields. These are individuals who have an identity and their identity is deeply ingrained and tied with what they do.
John: Absolutely.
George Jerjian: And I think with doctors, there's a special, extra difficulty. And I say this tongue in cheek, but I think you will all recognize it is that doctors have a very special standing in society. Let's be honest, they have a special standing. They're healers. They're also people who stand at death's door for many people. And so, they have a status of, and forgive me if I use this word, because I can't find another word to replace it. They have the status of Demigod. And I'm going to be honest with you, shedding that identity is tough.
John: Well, what you're saying is so true and my listeners will know this because I talk about this all the time. Because many physicians reach a point, whether it's near retirement or not, they're overwhelmed, they're burned out and they have to make this transition. And it's always about mindset. That's the first thing they have to address. It's about, "Do I still have my status? Am I still a doctor?" Et cetera, et cetera. That's why I see these parallels. And I'm so interested in hearing what else you had to say.One of the things we touched on during our brief call before was that there's a reason why we look at retirement in a certain way, which is no longer applicable. Maybe you can talk a little bit about that, why this whole concept of retirement needs to sort of switch.
George Jerjian: Yeah. Well, I think we need to go back in history to find out why retirement was introduced in the first place. I think once we have an understanding of that, the audience will see for themselves that, "Oh, if that's where it started, then that's the reason why." Then no wonder it's not working. Let's go back in history. Caesar Augustus is probably the nearest that history can show us. I'm sure in Babylonian times they must have had pensions just like they had insurance, but it was probably in a very basic way. But Caesar Augustus introduced the aerarium militare, which was the military pension for the Imperial Roman army. And he introduced that because, well, he was a young boy, but he wasn't a military man. And what he was trying to do was to ensure that he didn't end up the way his uncle Julius Caesar did, assassinated.
He wanted to make sure the army was on side. So, he created this pension fund. He put in 6 million sesterces of his own family's money into it to kickstart it. And it grew and burgeoned beautifully investment wise. And like the social security fund in the US, it was slowly eaten away by loans taken out by the Senate. Nobody can leave gold bullion like that alone. It's too good to be true. They've got to slowly chip away at. Within the lives of two emperors, it disappeared.
Now after him, I'm going to just pick up two examples. Abraham Lincoln introduced pensions as a recruitment tool for soldiers for the union army. Bismarck introduced it in Germany. Otto von Bismarck introduced it in Germany because the Germans were falling in love with Marxism and he wanted to make sure that they came off it. So, he knew his people. He knew the angst the Germans had about security. So, he introduced the pension fund at the age 65 I believe it was when life expectancy was 58. He was a clever man. There was a seven-year difference. He knew most of them weren't going to make it. But those who did would have the mental comfort of knowing they'd be looked after and they'd probably kicked the bucket two years after that. It wasn't a great deal. Of course, we know corporations even going back to the 1870s, American Express introduced the first personal pension plan. The railway companies introduced pensions in the US to retain staff, to retain employees. And so, retirement and pensions were always done for the purpose of securing loyalty. It was not done for the benefit of employees. That is the truth of it.
Fast forward to today, in the last 40-50 years pension, the financial services industry with the advertising industry has created this bubble, this wonderful place, which is kind of like an extended vacation. You've got margaritas, you've got beach, you've got sunsets, you've got friends, and you can do what you like when you like, how you like. What a heavenly place. No, it's not a heavenly place. That's called a vacation. That's a holiday. For retirement that is a trap. It's a terrible trap because once you go into it, it becomes very difficult to come out and I'll explain why.
John: Okay.
George Jerjian: As I mentioned earlier, your identity is compromised, the minute your job ends. Who are you now? And I can show you the evidence of what is called identity bridging. When people who have retired, for example, retired surgeons or doctors, when they go to cocktail parties and are asked, "What do you do? - Oh, I'm a retired surgeon or I'm a retired oncologist." No, you're not. You're just retired, period. And why is that? Because your days as an oncologist or a surgeon or whatever specific area you're in, is done. And you haven't replaced it with anything else. You think you can take that from a linear point and just move it and continue. And I'll do a little bit here and a little bit there. It's not the way it works. Your identity is now compromised.
The only way to sustain your identity is to create a new identity. When you create a new identity, you're no longer compared to who you were before. And by creating a new identity, you're creating something new for yourself. The difference this time is you're choosing to do something you love for as long as you like. The hours that you want. The pay is not going to be the same, but it's a lot better than eating out of your retirement fund. Plus, you've got purpose.
John: Okay. There you go. I'm going to have you talk about that a little bit more, although I will say this or ask this question. If we get to that point as a physician, and we're going to do something else with purpose, there isn't really any reason why one wouldn't want to necessarily build on all that experience, that education, those skills and other things. So, obviously a surgeon isn't going to turn around and be some different kind of surgeon, but there's a whole lot that they know about the health system and other things that might fit into that new model of what they're doing, I would think.
George Jerjian: Absolutely. And it's very individual. There is no one formula for each individual. The formula I have is really a kind of framework that people can use in order to evoke the feelings of things they want. It's kind of a direction. And that helps them to dig deeper because the answer, believe it or not, John, does not lie outside us. It lies within.
Carl Jung, the Swiss psychologist talked about, I think the quote that comes to mind is "What was true in the morning of life becomes a lie in the evening." What was true in the morning of life becomes a lie in the evening. What did he mean by that? What he meant was that in the morning of life, it's all about achievement, accolades, ambition. We all strive for this. This is what we were built for, this is our education system. This is how our families brought us up. But in this second part of life, it's about moving from ego to soul. It's moving from caterpillar to butterfly, but you can't cross that chasm without going into the Chrysalis, into the cocoon, which is a painful place to be. Make no mistake. It's not an easy transition, but I promise you, it's a hell of a lot better than being stuck.
Now, this transition that I'm talking about, moving from caterpillar to butterflies, or for example, from being a doctor to being something different, something new, you've got to go through this cocoon. And in this cocoon, as we know, the caterpillar is broken down into caterpillar soup, for lack of another word. And that caterpillar soup is then built on the fractals that are going to create the new butterfly. Painful process. And I suspect for doctors particularly, it's painful for everybody else, I promise, but it must be particularly difficult for doctors because of their position in society, because of the position that they themselves hold themselves accountable.
It's a two-way thing. It's society putting them on a pedestal. And they, themselves, hoard themselves accountable to a higher standard and work the way they do as hard as they do. That becomes your life. That becomes who you are. And how do you move this ego? The word I have for it is ego death. It's ego death, because you need to die. Stuck in mustard seed needs to die. It needs to go into the ground and die so that it can be reborn. And in a sense, that's what happens to us in retirement.
Retirement, in my sort of perspective, is actually a blessing in disguise because you don't want to end up on your deathbed thinking, "Oh, I didn't live the life I should have. I was always doing other people's bidding." And for many people, many of us, we're doing the bidding of the way our parents brought us up, or we are doing the bidding of our spouse. And for some of us, it even goes further. We do the bidding of our children because we love them. And to a certain extent, there's also a bit of misplaced love. And I put my hand up, I'm just as guilty as everybody else. Love is love. You do things with the people you love. But in a way, and this is what I've taught myself and it's been a hard thing to learn, is that you can't love your neighbor if you don't love yourself first.
"Love your neighbor as yourself" is an equation. It's not "Love your neighbor, that's an order." It's "Love your neighbor as yourself." But if you don't love yourself, how can you love your neighbor? And by the way, your neighbor isn't literally your neighbor. It could be your family and friends and so on.
My point is that retirement is an opportunity. It's life knocking on the door saying, "Hey, wake up. This is your last chance to do what you'd love to do." And I go even further, to live the legacy that you would've left by living it now. Don't wait till "Oh, I'll leave this for so and so." No, live it now, because this is all we've got is now. Tomorrow is not promised to us.
John: Okay. Let me recap here. I'm trying to think for myself, to highlight some of the things you said.
George Jerjian: Sure.
John: Well, let's see, first of all, the concept of retirement as we used it in the past really just has to go away because we don't have the money, we don't have the time. We don't have the mindset to go 30, 40 years, but aimlessly. And the second thing is that it's a process, and there's going to be a transition. I guess my next question would be, it's okay to not prepare for this ahead of time before you "retire". But at some point, you do have to make that transition. So, how long does that usually take and what do people have to do to get through that transition? How do they prepare?
George Jerjian: Again, from my personal experience, I've coached people pre-retirement, on retirement and even post retirement. There are pros and cons to each. For somebody who hasn't retired, they've got no idea what's happening at the other end when they cross it over. But if they do the course, they'll wake up to, "Oh my God, I did not expect this to go down this road." They're kind of forewarned and forearmed.
The advantage for those who've retired and then do this is "I was so bored. I needed this. I was stuck. I didn't know what to do." And one of the biggest challenges of being stuck is because of your identity. You've lost your original identity and you don't have a replacement. Your self-esteem and self-worth start to slowly diminish, which impacts on your confidence. And it doesn't take long because it's a really downward spiral. And when you're in that position, you don't want help. Your pride won't allow it. There's a lot of these emotional things that come in and block you from seeking help because you don't even know where to go for help.
But to come back to your question, which was how long does this process take? How long is a piece of string? It all depends on the individual. It depends on the individual's circumstances. It depends on the individual's desire to emerge from being stuck. If they have had it up to here, they're ready. If they're very happy in retirement, oblivious to what's going on, you can't help somebody like that. They're in their own place. But at some point, reality will hit and hopefully they'll still have time to come back.
Where the problem happens is if somebody has been retired for seven, eight years and the mind, the cognitive, all the cognitive skills, everything starts to deteriorate. Then you have a problem. Also, once that's already happened, your confidence is already diminished. A lot of stuff is. You're kind of beyond the pale. You can't come back. That's the danger of retiring, not knowing what you're going into. I hope I've answered your question.
John: Yes. Yes. And I want to pause here for a minute because not everybody listens to the very end of the podcast episode. I want to mention the book, which we've alluded to "Dare to Discover Your Purpose: Retire, Refire, Rewire". You have to read it to know what you're referring to with those last two of terms. And your website, we can go to georgejerjian.com, correct?
George Jerjian: Yes. It's georgejerjian.com.
John: Awesome. That'll be in the show notes and we'll mention again at the end. It's definitely beneficial if you recognize you have an issue that you need to address. Can you tell us a little bit more about the core issue? You mentioned it earlier, the purpose.
George Jerjian: Yes.
John: You have to have some purpose ultimately to go through this process. So, explain how that works and how one might discover it.
George Jerjian: Okay. I did a survey of 23,000 people who answered nine questions. And the title of the quiz/survey was "What retirement mistakes are you making?" And 23,000 people answered those nine questions. And then I got the stats. And one of the questions, a pivotal question that I asked was "What is your single biggest challenge in retirement?" 50% said health. 35% said fear of outliving their savings. 15% said aimlessness or lack of purpose. So, you've got that 50% for health, 35% money, 15% lack of purpose.
A couple of questions further down I asked them "If you had a magic wand and you could solve your single biggest problem, which one would it be?" 50% said health again, 35% said having a purpose and 15% said outliving savings. So, it's interesting how it flipped from purpose and money. Health remains static, money and purpose switched. Now my reading between the lines was that, now granted, there are many people who have health issues, which are chronic. There's nothing much you can do there. And everything is just alleviated problems, but there's no solution.
But for the vast majority of retirees health is an issue that's kind of self-created. And I'll explain what I mean by that. The mindset is crucially important. When we are fully engaged in working, health isn't an issue. It's not top of mind. When we're retired, we've got all the time in the world now to create problems. Any small thing becomes major. And so, it's being in that status. And it also explains why. The center for disease control, where I was seeing stats was that after the age of 65 illnesses grow exponentially. Go figure.
Why would people suddenly become sick at 65 and not at 60? Why at 65? Interesting, right? I put it down to that health issues happen for many reasons, many of which is A) they've got time to make themselves think about it more. But secondly, the fact that they're not engaged, the fact that they've lost their identity and they don't have purpose has an impact on your emotional and mental health. And ultimately it shows itself up in your physical ailments.
If you are engaged and just watch all the people, whether it's celebrities or people in the media who age, but who are productive and who are working, you don't see them ill, you don't see them troubled. They're fully engaged. Even down to the actresses, Dame Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Dolly Parton. All these women, they're fully engaged. And my favorite, Clint Eastwood.
John: Yeah. He is producing movies.
George Jerjian: At 91, he's still working. And he's got this wonderful clip on YouTube. You have to Google it. I think it was on YouTube. Clint Eastwood, "Don't Let the Old Man In".
John: Don't let the old man in, huh?
George Jerjian: It's terrific. It's only a couple of minutes. It's from a film called "The Mule", which Clint would star in. And in that, he talks about the reason he succeeds in being constantly active and doing stuff and enjoying his life, even at the age of 91 and still going forward is because he doesn't let the old man in. Which is a tick of
George Bernard Shaw, the Irish literary guy who said that people don't quit because they grow old. They grow old because they quit.
John: Well, as a physician, and I've seen this many, many times, if someone maybe is a little depressed and they have a little joint pain, their natural tendency is to rest more and sit more and not take the stairs. Well, the more you sit, the less you take the stairs, the weaker you're going to get, the more deconditioned you're going to get and you get into a vicious cycle. And it can be mental. It can be physical. And so, it's hard to get someone who has gotten there to turn that around because at that point it's painful. But we know for some conditions just going through the pain, working through the pain, you'll actually get to a point later where the pain is gone. You've lost weight. You're more vigorous. So, that's consistent with what you're saying.
George Jerjian: No, I agree. That's very true. Very true.
John: All right. Let's talk a little bit more about the book and about your coaching, because I know that you address these things and you help guide people through this. The first thing, where can we find the book? Should we go to your website? Should we go to Amazon?
George Jerjian: Amazon or my website. I've got the US, UK, Canada, and I think Australia where you can plug in straight away from my website, but whichever country you're in, in the US go amazon.com and just plug my name in or Dare to Discover Your Purpose and it'll take you straight to the book.
John: Okay. Now this coaching that you do. There are all kinds of coaching. I'm interested in hearing because I do have a lot of coaches on the podcast, physician coaches and so forth, some mindset coaches, but nothing that addresses retirement per se. Is this live coaching? I assume it's remote. Are there courses? Tell me about it.
George Jerjian: Okay. At the moment there are two courses. I'm hoping to increase it to four courses, but at the moment there's only two. One is a prerecorded course to discover your purpose. It's prerecorded, it's an eight-week online course. You get a video, audio, PDF, and also exercise each week.
John: Okay.
George Jerjian: And what it is, and there's a video showing you why and how to do the exercise. So, nothing is missed out. And this is each week. Each week you get this, you watch it, you do the exercise and you have a week to ponder on it because this isn't something that you just write down from the top of your head. You need to come back to it. It's like cooking. You need to meditate and marinate because these are feelings that are emerging, not just thoughts. And feelings take a little bit longer to come out.
And the reason is that I'm trying to bring the answer to the question out of the individual. I'm not giving them the answer. I don't have the answer for them. There are 6 billion people, every single one of them has got their own ideas and their own views on life. All I'm doing is helping them by having, if you like, this process to help them through. So, that's the first week. And it goes on for eight weeks. And you get the second one at the end of the first week and so on.
And these exercises all build on each other like a Lego. By the eighth week, your exercise will be complete. And then you will have a one-page document, your blueprint for your next stage in life. Now that blueprint is the work of eight weeks that you've crafted, but it's not written in stone. It's a working document. It's like an architect imagines what a house is going to look like, but he can't start building until he's got a blueprint out. And that's what I do. I help them to bring the blueprint out of their heads onto a piece of paper.
Now it becomes half real. It now looks believable. It looks achievable. And it's also editable. It's not written in stone, but you've got a pretty good idea. It's almost like if you can imagine Michelangelo's David. You've taken all the big rocks out. Now you've got pretty much the framework of what things are going to look at. The work is much easier now. That's the prerecorded one. And that's $195.
The live online eight-week course where I'm on the course with you each week for 90 minutes. And we go through the presentation which I do on the topic and we then move to the exercise and Q&A. And it's a slow buildup, but it's live, it's active, it's interactive. And that's $1,995. It's under $2,000. Those are the two available at the moment.
And just to talk a little bit about the course itself. The course is there to discover your purpose, and it is obviously requiring courage. That's what it means. You need courage. Why? Well, courage comes from the Latin word core, which means heart. You need a bit of heart. And I mean heart in the sense that you need to have courage to emerge out of retirement, to unretire, but also you need heart because we need to get down to your feelings, which are hidden.
John: It's not just an intellectual process, correct?
George Jerjian: Absolutely.
John: They get to their core, get to their heart, get to their feelings, beliefs, principles, values.
George Jerjian: Totally. Those are integral. Your values. You're now going to live through your values, which is now going to give you a new sense of power that you might not have had before. And I call that spiritual power, truly. I mean, just think of the word enthusiasm. It comes from "in theos", in God. You are in the spirit. When you're in the spirit, there's an energy that you can express that you don't have when you're just in a physical state. It's an energetic kind. And that's the kind of energy that we need in this sort of third chapter of our lives. And it gives us that sense of "We're living the good life". Death will not come as a shock to us. Death will not be a bad thing. We will meet death in a good way because we're enjoying each day, we're milking it for what it is.
John: We'll be totally spent when that day comes, it seems like, with all out there. We didn't hold back.
George Jerjian: Exactly. And we find ease in risk instead of being terrified, instead of our sandbox getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And we think we're secure, but actually we're getting smaller and smaller and smaller. That's not a way to live. I say this in jest, but I mean it. You don't want to get out with a whimper. You want to get out with a bang. One thing is for sure, we're all going to die.
John: Yeah. Somehow people forget that.
George Jerjian: Well, John, you mentioned this. I was thinking about this the other day, I was telling a friend. There was a piece in the film Troy. Do you remember that film with Brad Pitt?
John: Yes.
George Jerjian: When Achilles lands in Troy on the beach and then completely desecrates the temple of Apollo, and kills all the priests and the vestal virgins. And only one is brought to him. Obviously, a beautiful Australian actress, should have to be, it's Hollywood. And she says to him because he's desecrated everything, "The Gods will punish you." And Achilles, Brad Pitt, turns around and says, "The Gods are envious of us because we're mortal, because we are living. The Gods are bored. They have nothing to do. They've got nothing to worry about. They're eternal, they are bored. And they look at us and they go, can I go down there? Can I get a life down there? I just want to experience it."
John: And there's something at stake at that point, right?
George Jerjian: Yes. And here we are ignoring death, ignoring the topic of death. Culturally, we are devoid. We don't want to talk about death. It's sort of sanitized. And of course, doctors don't have that issue but the vast majority of the population, the culture doesn't want to know. But actually, death is a friend because when you recognize that time is precious, you can live your life. You should live the life you want, not the way that you should or have been told to do. If that makes sense. I hope I got my point across.
John: Yes. Yes, definitely. When you have that looking at there, being an end, that means, "Okay, then I got to get to work. I got to get something done and something that is meaningful, having purpose and so forth." I think that's a good place to stop, except I need to ask you, if you were talking to a group of physicians who are in their, whatever, late fifties, early sixties. They're producing, but they're thinking, "Okay, I don't know about this transition. I just don't know where to start or what to do." Any advice you would give to them in terms of trying to think about this process, how to prepare for it?
George Jerjian: Sure. I'll use this phrase tongue in cheek. Retirement is no country for old people. Now we know when we travel overseas, we need a guide. We need a guide who knows the landscape, who knows the lay of the land. And you got to believe me when I say that retirement is not a walk in the park. There are huge emotional, mental issues that you'll be facing. And it's not because you're stupid. It's because you don't know what's ahead of you. You can be the most intelligent doctor, you could be on top of your profession, but you've no idea where you're landing here. And so, it behooves you to prepare and to be forewarned, forearmed and you are then ready to face what's ahead of you. So, that's what I would say. Prepare yourself. Don't go in blind. You can't wing this one.
John: I appreciate that. That's very good. And for the younger group here that may be listening, all of these things apply to transitioning from what you're doing now to something else as well. There are going to be issues and changes and challenges, but definitely the concept of retirement is changing. And I really appreciate your comments, George. It's been really helpful. I encourage everyone to get the book. It's a very interesting read, focusing a lot on the mindset and mentally preparing more so than let's say the physical or recipes or anything like that. It's the mind. All right, George, thank you very much. With that, we'll call it the end here. And with that, I'll say goodbye.
George Jerjian: Thank you, John. Thank you.
John: It's been my pleasure. Take care.
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