{"id":55610,"date":"2025-01-05T09:52:41","date_gmt":"2025-01-05T09:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innodebt.com\/?p=55610"},"modified":"2025-01-05T09:52:41","modified_gmt":"2025-01-05T09:52:41","slug":"if-you-are-retired-is-it-too-late-to-leave-a-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/innodebt.com\/?p=55610","title":{"rendered":"If You Are Retired, Is It Too Late To Leave A Legacy?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After working with terminally ill patients for years, Bonnie Ware often heard her patients express regrets as they reflected on their lives. So she wrote the popular book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ware believes the book resonates with people as a reminder that we \u201conly have a limited time to live the life we choose ourselves.\u201d She believes it \u201cgives people permission to change direction. That\u2019s what it triggers\u2014it\u2019s a wakeup call and gives them permission to change tack.\u201d<\/p>\n

We need to know that someday, maybe sooner than later, we\u2019re going to die, and we have to be OK with that. When we\u2019re aware of our impending death without fearing it, we become paradoxically freer to live.<\/p>\n

Retirement is its own form of death and I know from personal experience. After 30 years of a career of college teaching, I left to start an encore career. My focus now is helping people and organizations navigate transitions as a leadership and change management consultant. At the time I left teaching, I had spent more than half of my life in that institution. My colleagues were my family. My life as I knew it was ending and it was an emotional time of life. Yet, I don\u2019t regret making the change. It is just part of the process of making a life transition.<\/p>\n

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Without preparation, retirement can be a time of living life by default and drift as if we are rudderless. If we think about our legacy on a daily basis (a concept I call Breadcrumb Legacy\u2122) we might not have as many regrets. According to Ware, the top five regrets of the dying are:<\/p>\n