Wholeness Healing Center

How to Retire and Not Die, A Book Review

This book review might, at first, seem a bit out of the realm of the kind of books we usually feature in our newsletter, and I initially had the same thought. A financial advisor recommended it to me, and I am always open to new materials. I had to laugh when I began the book, as the farther I read, the more it read like a road map to happy, healthy living, not just in retirement. So I continued.

The book How to Retire and Not Die: The 3 P’s That Will Keep You Young was written by a financial advisor and his son. However, it is not really about accumulating the funds it takes to retire; it is about the “Plan” of retirement. So after a chapter on why he wrote the book, the book is then divided into 3 parts, the first being the groundwork, which features chapters on “Why You Think You Should Retire” to “Your Retirement Mindset” which is a great prelude to creating the plan.

Part 2 includes the “guts”, creating the plan, 10 chapters on the tools, the models, and identifying the wishlist, along with becoming aware of your passion and purpose. The chapters feature “assignments” (which of course the teacher in me loves), prompting the readers to become interactive in the formulation of their own plans. I loved the exercises geared to identifying passion and purpose. Along with graphics and charts, interspersed with the assignments, as well as narratives featuring stories of actual clients, are the nuggets to continue the guidance. “Your plan is going to be unique. It’s going to be different than mine, your neighbor’s, or anyone else’s. This makes sense. Retirement isn’t one size fits all. There isn’t a ‘right way’, there’s only a right way for you”. (Sirak & Sirak, p. 121) This makes the assignments all the more productive, as the readers identify what has worked in their lives, to lay out the model for their retirement.

Part 3 includes another 10 chapters which begins with “Putting it all Together”, taking what the readers have gleaned plus adding their own writing, using their lists to construct an idea of what the retirement might look like. The Passion and Purpose is then molded into the Plan, the last of the 3 P’s. “Your Plan can look however you want it to look. What matters is it’s built upon the 2 P’s and meets all your needs”. (Sirak & Sirak, P.167). This underscores the reason for the readers to do the written assignments, to focus on their hobbies, their likes, their wishes, their needs to contribute in the ways that give them purpose, while living out their passions.

This is a short book, but a quick and easy read, just full of gems; the personal writing assignments could be geared to how we live our lives, not just the planning of the life after work. We usually have found some passion and purpose in our work, so when we walk away from that, it is good to identify what was meaningful about that part of our lives, focusing forward on how that then can be used to create the plan after work. Grab the book if you are thinking about retirement, or even if you are not. It was a great jumpstart to some internal processing with the writing to continue the year.

Works Cited
Sirak, Gary and Max. (2021) How to retire and not die: the 3 P’s that will keep you young. LinMax Publishing, LLC.

Tags: Managing retirement, Planning for retirement