Why you must understand the root cause of the retirement problem…

I get asked all the time when was the moment it all clicked for me and I shifted my thinking and working to the human side of retirement…

Well, for me it was when I discovered and dived into Complexity Theory!

It helped me realise that retirement isn’t a completed ‘maths’ problem, it’s a complex human problem.

What’s the difference?

A complicated problem has lots of parts, but it’s predictable. Like a car engine. If you follow the instructions and fix each part, it’ll work!

A complex problem on the other hand, is dynamic, unpredictable, and constantly changing. Like raising a child… or navigating retirement

In complicated systems, the solution comes from logic.

In complex systems, the solution comes from understanding the human inside the system.

That’s retirement! It’s not just about income, tax, cashflow charts or withdrawal rates.

It’s about identity, relationships, time, purpose, loss, growth, reinvention.

Once I understood that, everything changed.

I stopped trying to optimise retirement and started trying to humanise it!