Retirement for Women: Identity, Purpose, and Life After Work – Part 2 (Ep. 126)
What happens when the career that shaped your schedule, relationships, and identity is suddenly no longer part of your everyday life? Preparing for retirement can mean thinking beyond the financial pieces.
In this episode, I continue my conversation with Kelly Ottman, PhD, Professor at Milwaukee School of Engineering and Executive Leadership Coach at Leadership Portals, LLC, about preparing for the personal transition into retirement.
We explore how women can rethink identity beyond a job title, create new sources of purpose, maintain important relationships, and build structure before leaving work. Kelly also shares practical ideas from her research, including practicing retirement habits, creating a curiosity list, finding mentors and role models, and becoming more comfortable with a different pace of life.
Kelly discusses:
- How women can begin separating their identity and sense of purpose from a professional title before retirement
- Why relationships and social connections deserve intentional preparation before leaving the workplace behind
- How practicing new routines, hobbies, health habits, and social activities can make the transition feel more familiar
- Why a curiosity list can help women explore interests and possibilities they haven’t had time to pursue before
- How mentors, role models, friends, and family can provide valuable support when retirement starts to feel overwhelming
- And more!
Resources:
- Get Your FREE Simply Retirement Roadmap
- Ultimate Guide to Women’s Social Security Success
- #56 – What Will You Do with Your 1,000 Hours a Year in Retirement?
Connect with Eric Blake:
- www.TheSimplyRetirementPodcast.com
- Join the Simply Retirement Newsletter
- Ask a Question or Suggest a Topic for the Podcast
- Blake Wealth Management
- YouTube
Connect with Kelly Ottman:
About our Guest:
Dr. C. Kelly Ottman is an executive coach and consultant, keynote speaker, scholar, and award-winning professor with more than 25 years of experience developing leaders across the leadership lifespan. A former healthcare executive, she brings expertise grounded in a prestigious two-year executive development fellowship and a PhD in Organizational Leadership and Adult Education from the University of Wisconsin Madison. As an executive coach/consultant, Dr. Ottman partners with local, national, and global organizations and boards. Her clients range widely—from Fortune 500 executives to executive steel leaders, and even executive nuns. She has extensive global experience, with a particular focus on Asia, especially China and India. With a passion for service, she is currently the volunteer Executive Leadership Coach Coordinator for the WE Empower United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Challenge and the International Leadership Association. Emerging from the intersection of her coaching and academic work, Dr. Ottman recently completed a groundbreaking study on executives and the transition to retirement. This was supported as part of a protracted leave (research-focused sabbatical) as a business Professor at Milwaukee School of Engineering University (MSOE). To activate her research and extend her current coaching and consulting to include leadership beyond retirement, she is a Certified Professional Retirement Coach (CPRC) through the Retirement Coaches Association.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed