Book review: Tips to managing life after retirement

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A review of John Akinyele Adegoke’s book, Strategies for Managing Life after Retirement, by Professor Bola A. Akinterinwa.

THE book, ‘Strategies for Managing Life after Retirement,’ is divided into 12 chapters with a foreword written by Professor Adeduro Adegeye, an academic consultant with many state, federal and international institutions.

In his foreword, Professor Adegeye described retirement as “period of rest and inactivity from daily hustling. But retirement does not remove paying one’s bills when due.” This simply means resting does not imply irresponsibility or not living up to expectation. Paying bills cannot but still require a modicum of dint hardwork to survive. Consequently, Professor Adegeye has noted that “he retiree needs to be guided on how to manage both his time and resources in retirement successfully.”

The author, Dr John Akinyele Adegoke, agreed with Professor Adegeye on the need for guidance for the retiree and that retirement is an inevitable occurrence.

Dr Adegoke also observes that “rather than facing the emerging challenges squarely by formulating plans to overcome them, some (retirees) always choose the easy way out – procrastination. With that, they later get caught up with the realities and consequences of unplanned retirement.”

The 12 chapters of the book, published by Lord Keynes Publishing Company Limited, identifies the challenges facing potential retirees and already existing retirees and provided some possible strategies to contain the challenges. Chapter one explicates the notion of retirement from two perspectives: as an action or fact of leaving one’s job and ceasing to work,’ as ‘the withdrawal of a jury from the courtroom to decide a verdict.’ The chapter provides for what to do in preparing for retirement.

Fear is one of the major concerns of potential retirees: fear of insufficient income, health issue, fear of inadequate capital for business, fear of fraudsters in a country that has been internationally described as fantastically-corrupt, etc. were discussed in Chapter Two. Many suggestions on how to overcome the various fears.

The focus of Chapter Three is planning for retirement with emphasis on the rationale for planning, how to ensure optimum use of available resources and avoiding the burden of idleness during retirement. More importantly, useful guides on how to plan for retirement were also given in the chapter. In planning for retirement, Chapter Four considers retirement as an interesting economic phenomenon for various reasons: consideration of old age as poverty and poor health; deciding when to retire as an important labour supply decision; and retirement as the result of employer policy. This chapter four illustrated why retirement planning is a desideratum with the example of his friend who engaged in the business of pure water but ‘did not exhaustively analyse his environment before embarking on the business.

Chapter Five is of particular interest because it deals with personal issues in retirement: the need for domestic security, such as health and physical fitness, personal philosophy of life, self-development and self-management.

What about financial issues in retirement? This is the focus of Chapter Six. Financial preparation for retirement, which requires conversion of savings to income, calculation of monthly incomes, paying off one’s debt, developing an investment strategy, seeking sound financial advice, as well as developing a retirement budget.

Financial preparation for retirement is necessarily challenged by the various myths and misconceptions about retirement which are covered under Chapter Seven. Many potential retirees believe retirement is far away in time, that planning for uncertainty is a difficult exercise, that life in retirement will be a relevant short period of one’s life, that retirement is a period for relaxation. Extensive travel or generally slowing down, etc. All these are fallacious in the eyes of Dr Adegoke. Retirees must overcome these myths and misconceptions. Apparently in Chapter Eight, health management in retirement is neither a myth nor misconception. Various facts about one’s health in retirement, such as medical history, nutritional issues, recreational questions and social lifestyle were covered in this chapter.

The author of the book underscored the importance of entrepreneurship in the life of a retiree in Chapter Nine. He not only underscored the need to establish and manage a small scale business, but also how to kick-start. He explained some of the factors that must be addressed in doing so: environmental needs, interests of the individual, ability of the retiree, needed technology, training needed and working capital. Whenever any retiree decides to go into entrepreneurship, the process to follow is also clearly articulated in this chapter.

What is particularly noteworthy in this chapter nine is the mathematical calculation of the attitudinal disposition of an entrepreneur on page 101.

Dr Adegoke posits that attitude is 100% success when it is defined by determination.

In the words of Dr.Adegoke, ‘for you to succeed in business you must have the right attitude.

While Chapter 10 gives some useful tips for the prospective retiree entrepreneur, Chapter 11 gives some exercises and cases to reflect on to determine the extent to which a prospective retiree has understood the meaning of retirement, its challenges, and the need to live a happier life after retirement. And most importantly, Chapter 12 provides 40 types of businesses that retirees can engage in to survive. Exercises to practise are also given.

In essence, the author defines what a successful retirement is as ‘one devoid of stress, anxiety and dependence on others for economic survival. It is a retirement that the retiree has meticulously planned, prepared for, adhered strictly to the suggestions and ideas prescribed in this book.’

Evaluation: In terms of evaluation, it is a book of all the time that should be read time and over time by all retirees like the Holy Bible requires. It teaches how to prepare for the challenges of life in retirement and brutalities of life. More important, Henry James has it in his ‘Life of Nathaniel Hawthome,’ that “it takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.” This is precisely what Dr Adegoke has done.

He has provided a little literature, but with universal implications for retirees in the developing countries of the world.

In fact, with its pagination, the book is a monograph and a guide to retirees at any day and at any time.

This book is a resultant of great efforts and dint of invaluable hardwork. It should therefore be read with much pleasure.

Apart from this, many are the lessons that can be drawn from this little literature.