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Guest Columnist: From CEO to Average Joe

Navigating retirement change

by Jeff Weld, Ph.D.  |  jeffweldllc.org

I retired seven weeks ago. Despite great anticipation and meticulous planning for a smooth segue, it was a shock.

Still is.

Up until the first Tuesday of last month I was a high-octane executive in overdrive. That Wednesday I was merely Jeff.

The rollercoaster braked for disembarkment. One day my email inbox dinged like a slot machine; the next day was ding withdrawal, salved only by occasional LinkedIn connection requests.

From incessant texts asking favors or appointments, today’s messages are from the pharmacy — pick-up reminders. Phone calls are typically political campaign robo-dials.

The downshift was so swift I got a bit of retirement whiplash. Is this common to executives, I wonder, or a Jeff thing? I asked Google.

The search engine’s artificial intelligence assumed I was asking for the organization. “When a CEO retires” netted lots of advice on when and how a company should swap out CEOs (12 years is the magic time apparently). Exit while on top, said one blogger. I did, but the jolt is higher volt than staying on past prime when the fan base drifts.

Scrolling further, links began to focus more on preparing executives to retire. Have a plan, yes. Serve on boards, sure. Pursue hobbies, check. Stay fit, of course. Travel. Take or teach a class. Keep a routine. All good advice I had long since factored in. The bones of a fourth book await my fleshing out. A couple of executives seek my mentoring. Various trips are concretizing on the calendar. Two vintage motorcycles await restoration in my shop. And I relish becoming a gym rat.

But Google did not scratch the itch for me. Where are the empathetic counselors coaching me on the loss and loneliness of sudden exit from leadership? So, I sharpened the query to “What is it like for a CEO to retire?”

Better results, in my ballpark if not strikes. “Giving up their jobs feels like stepping off a cliff” wrote Bill George for The CEO’s Guide to Retirement in the Harvard Business Review, December of 2019. OK so maybe the early funk is a common rite of passage. His solution though, is a familiar prescription of hobbies, gigs, and books, all of which are fine and right, just months or even years down the road.

What about the early days and weeks when falling from that cliff? I scrolled down a dozen more of the 184 million hits in the search bar. A post from the executive consulting firm Vistage sounded promising, The CEO’s Guide to Success in Retirement. “Some have described the move from work to retirement as jarring and upsetting, akin to falling into a black hole. Others say they felt grief, fear or aimlessness after losing their identity, schedule and sense of normalcy.” That’s it on the nose.

Now, how about the fix?

That’s where all the retirement advisories fell short. They default to coaching us to pick up a side hustle, to keep learning, stay active on social media and stay on schedule. Gracious advice to be sure, just leap-frogging the near-term effects of stepping down. What about the hours and days immediately following the standing ovation, the decorated cake, the selfies with staff, all the toasts and high-fives? From the royal send-off into an ephemeral period of grief and identity loss, eventually rebounding to write and teach and grow on a new schedule. I could not find any advice about weathering the early transition. So here’s mine.

1 — Cushion the landing

In the weeks leading up to retirement, calendar a couple of conferences or events of the industry that follow immediately on the heels of separation. I scheduled two speaking engagements of national trade groups for my first week of freedom. They helped to ease the off-boarding shock while fueling my consulting service. I’d pre-printed business cards of my new identity for just such events.

2 — Get out of town

I retired twice from organizational leadership roles – one a federal post and recently a state directorship. In both instances, my spouse arranged a drop-everything-and-go tropical getaway. Assessing your lot and plotting next moves from a beachside hammock is a potent reset button.

3 — Embrace your shrunken world.

After years of delicately balancing work and family time, sometimes erring toward work, come home, literally and figuratively. Those few weeks of adjustment will soon enough yield to new jobs, hobbies and commitments. In the meantime, revel in folding laundry, doing dishes, movies with family, double dates, reading novels, nature hikes, all the while journaling to focus your thoughts.

4 — Hone your underlying identity

From CEO to average Joe, our constant has always been and will always be family. Those of us fortunate to still have our parents are most certainly due for visits. Same for grandkids if lucky enough to have them. As for siblings and grown children, handwritten letters and phone calls serve both the sender and recipients well.

5 — Spend time

Especially in those black hole moments, remind yourself to cherish the privilege. You have earned the resources and the time ahead to be freer than ever before in life. What might have been a waste of your precious time in the past — a nap, a TV show, shopping, a home repair — is now life’s joy. Ratchet back spend away.

6 — Now, about that book, that hobby…   

If you Googled “executive retirement” in search of solace and comfort when your world shrinks and irrelevance hangs over head, I hope this article pops up and helps.


Jeff Weld recently retired as chief executive of the Iowa Governor’s STEM Advisory Council as well as serving as chief innovation officer at the Iowa Department of Education. In 2018-19 he was White House senior policy adviser in the Office of Science and Technology Policy. He is now an emeritus professor at the University of Northern Iowa and operates an executive consulting firm jeffweldllc.org.