Nearly every woman I work with wants the same thing. She is looking for like-minded women and has no idea where they are. One of my clients put it to me this way: “Are we all just sitting in our own little globes, wishing for a friend?” The most useful thing I know about finding your people comes from an online dating profile, which is not where I expected to find it…

In the two years before I retired, I put “write myself a job description for my retirement” on a list. Retirement, for those keeping score, is the part where you don’t have a job. The list lived on my phone, in a note called Elaine’s Retirement. It had 14 sections, because apparently my retirement required the same scope as my 1994 dissertation. Spiritual, Hobbies, Creativity…

The money is handled. You met with the advisor, ran the numbers, and the date is coming into view. You did the responsible thing. The question that’s harder to answer, the one that comes up when someone asks what you’ll do with all that time in retirement, is who you’re going to be once the title is gone…

Are you not as happy in retirement as you had hoped? Please know there are many women out there who feel exactly the same way. Part of the problem might be that you haven’t yet found your rhythm. This article will help you figure out what that looks like for you…

My husband Nick and I are very different in the mornings. Nick is a hare. He gets 1,500 steps in before I finish my coffee, and is ready for breakfast a full hour before I am hungry. For a while, I tried to sync up with him. It did not go well. I’m a tortoise. I need about 90 minutes in my recliner – journal…

Last Thursday night, I found myself at a hotel bar at 10pm. I was very proud of myself for staying up so late. I know, I know – retirement means I don’t have to get up early. But the truth is, I’m an early-to-bed kind of person. I was out with my cousin, who was visiting…

I have a cart full of art supplies to the right of my desk. To my left, there’s a stool with more supplies precariously balanced on top of it. And, front and center on my beautiful mango wood desk: my monitor, keyboard, mouse, and laptop…

For nearly 20 years, I was the queen. Not literally – but close enough. I directed a small but mighty research center at a university, with an annual operating budget of a million dollars. I raised funds, set the vision, networked, hired, mentored…

You can be financially ready for retirement – and still feel completely unsure about whether it’s time. Anne appeared on my Zoom screen looking tense and tired. Before we even got into the details, she said, “I feel like I’m on a ledge.”

This morning, a small wave of fear caught me off guard. I’m more than six months into retirement, and I’m enjoying it. I love slow mornings. I love not having meetings. I love the lack of daily pressure. And yet, out of nowhere, I found myself thinking: What if this changes?