I’ve done some stuff, seen some stuff, and learned some stuff. Somehow this turned into sixteen years of speaking and consulting.
But I was never happy with what this did to my blog. The feeling that I should be writing a certain way about certain topics. Turning my blog into a series of LinkedIn updates was not what got me into this in the first place.
Now that the speaking and consulting has slowed to a trickle I feel I can write what I want on my blog. And it feels good.
I’ve still done some stuff, seen some stuff, and learned some stuff and am very happy if people want to pay me to come and have a natter about what I know.
But it is a relief not to feel that I have to make it look like I have all the answers. I don’t. No one does.
The Obvious? 
Thanks for writing about this tune. I’ve found the transition from doing what are used to do too retirement brackets that is), very difficult.
I am able to look at the world differently but I do get regularly overwhelmed by memories of the past.
Usually, of things I did badly. I’ve often thought that we leave work ill-prepared for what comes next. Perhaps this is something you might write about?
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Sorry. Lots of errors in my reply.
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Reposting my reply: Thanks for writing about this, Euan. I’ve found the transition from doing what I used to do to retirement very difficult.
I am able to look at the world differently but I do get regularly overwhelmed by memories of the past.
Usually, of things I did badly. I’ve often thought that we leave work ill-prepared for what comes next. Perhaps this is something you might write about?
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Not sure I can decipher that first paragraph but I get the gist. Although I sometimes put “retired” on forms I don’t think of myself that way as I didn’t have a full time job to retire from and I’m still up for doing stuff in the future. But I do get the adjustment to not feeling you have to do things. As I think I wrote elsewhere most people are going to have to make a degree of this adjustment in the future.
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Just to say that I relate very much to this feeling of not being able to write without (feeling) strings attached. I guess it is also not that much about the actual “strings” that impact writing, but our own maturity to see account for them in the same way we account for the weather turning less favorable on a day we feel like walking.
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Yes, I relate to this a lot. It’s one of the things I wrote about on my blog for many years too and at times, I think it hurt my chances of securing work because there was always a blurred line between whether I was writing to “instruct/direct/teach/tell” vs my writing which overall was showing me in the process of learning/experimenting/making mistakes and self deprecating which also doesn’t help with credibility at times. I think what got me through though was my consistency in the latter. It somehow created some trust (?) that I was “giving things a go” that helped out in being able to find work (it got me my current work); or have people ask me to speak at conferences.
I remember the early years of blog writing where people would say ti me that the style of writing like this is not what they wanted, preferred or were told by business coaches to do. It’s too risky, vulnerable, open.
Pity. It’s what people need to read currently.
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So true. The world is too full of people succumbing to pressure to be “the way they should be” rather than the way they are. But this is why your blog is so valuable. Your willingness to be open and vulnerable shows people what is possible if they are brave.
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