← This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil
This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil
Why “Rewirement” Beats Retirement (and How to Do It Right) with Anne Chow | 350
00:36:50
Rethink retirement as rewirement—a purpose-first, portfolio-style next chapter you design on your terms. Anne Chow drops a battle-tested playbook: reflect honestly, research early, plant seeds while your platform’s hot, protect community and health, and measure success by joy + fulfillment, not job titles.
Loading summary
Transcript21 lines
- [00:02]
A
Abercrombie Kids knows how to make outfitting easy. Mix and match sets are their ultimate outfit hack for fall. Their sweatshirts and sweatpants are super cozy and they always have the cutest colors and patterns. Shop fall's easiest outfit at Abercrombie Kids in the app, online and in stores.
- [00:32]
B
When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more@WhatsApp.com.
- [01:07]
A
I am Nicole Kahlil and you are listening to the this Is Woman's Work podcast where we're redefining what it means, what it looks and feels like to be doing woman's work in the world today. And an inevitable part of most of our lives is rare. Retirement. The concept we probably think about more often than we think, and definitely not as often as we should. Most of us will work and save and hustle and spreadsheet our way through 40 plus years of careers and jobs just to hopefully, fingers crossed and 401ks maxed. Spend the next 30 years not working. But today's episode isn't about financial planning though. If you don't have a retirement plan, seriously, pause this, find a financial advisor and then come back. This episode is about how we want that next chapter to look and feel. What do you want to do? Who do you want to do it with? Where do you want to spend your time and your energy and your hard earned freedom? My personal vision for retirement has definitely evolved, though a few things remain consistent. Travel? Always my people. Non negotiable. A slower, gentler pace? Yes, please. But what's changed is that I no longer imagine closing my laptop, walking out the office door and giving everyone the finger on the way out. I mean, you know I was going to go out in style, right? But the thing is, I just don't see myself not working anymore. I see myself working differently from calling instead of obligation, from purpose instead of pressure. Basically, I see working when I feel like it's I'm not rushing towards this finish line anymore. And the more that I think about it, the more I get why. Research shows that men's confidence dips in their 60s, I assume because their value has often been tied up in producing and providing. But here's the plot twist. Research also shows that women's confidence rises in our 60s, maybe because we finally stopped caring so much about everybody else's opinions. And I, for one, am doing everything in my power to accelerate that trend.
- [03:14]
B
So.
- [03:15]
A
So, yeah, I'm rethinking retirement as more of what our guest calls rewirement. When Ann Chow said the word, it hit me with a full body. Yes, this isn't just a transition. It's a rewiring, a reimagining, a reclaiming. So let's talk about that. Ann Chow is the former CEO of AT&T business and was the first woman and first woman of color to hold that role, overseeing more than 35,000 employees and, and serving 3 million business customers globally. Today she sits on the boards of Franklin Covey 3M&CSX, teaches at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, and is the author of Lead Bigger, a title that says exactly what it is that she does. And thank you for joining us again. Episode 253 for those of you who do want to go back and learn to lead bigger. And I'm going to start today's conversation by asking the obvious question, what is rewirement?
- [04:15]
B
Yeah, thanks. Thanks so much, Nicole. And it is, it's a delight to be back here with you and sharing thoughts with, with your audience and your listeners on a topic that I'm super passionate, which is about rewirement. So maybe I could start with just the origin of this idea and this notion. You know, I spent over 30 years in corporate America and when I reflect back on the moment that I entered the workforce, it was just go, go, go. I graduated in May, I started working in June, and I did not stop, you know, fast forward. I had an amazing three decade plus career in tech and technology, you know, and rose to some quite high levels as an operator. And I found myself, you know, kind of picking my head up after I had reached this pinnacle of, you know, becoming a CEO of a giant, a giant business. Something that I thought that I could do, but I never thought that it would happen for me. And I realized as I led my team and the business through the pandemic that there had to be more, right? And no one could say to me, hey, you haven't done your time, you haven't contributed to the industry, you haven't contributed to innovation, to the business, to your people, to your clients, to your investors. I looked up the word retirement because that's kind of what I was feeling. I was feeling this is it time, is it time for me to go? And the definition of retirement as I found it was to leave the workforce. And it occurred to me that the struggle I was having with this notion of retirement was that I didn't want to leave the workforce. I wanted to leave the type of work that I was doing because I had done it for so long and felt like I had achieved all of the things and more that I had wanted to. And I just felt like there was just more, you know, there was more to life than this type of work, this type of women's work, if I dare say that pun intended. So I thought to myself, you know, I'm an electrical engineer by education. And when you. When you have an old piece of equipment, old piece of technology, in order to refresh it, you often have to physically and literally rewire it. So it struck me as an electrical engineer that I had often rewired in school and in some of my more technical jobs, equipment, whether it was recoding from a software perspective or literally rewiring from a hardware perspective. And I thought to myself, hey, this is a great play on words. What I actually have to do is rewire. I have to rewire my notion of work. I have to rewire what is important to me, and I gotta go almost reinvent myself in an evolutionary way. Not really, you know, kind of a revolutionary, but in an evolutionary way. And so I came up with this word of rewirement to describe this phase of my career. And, you know, one of the. One of the questions, Nicole, that I get very often is that, Ann, do you have to re. Wait till the end? Right? You know, as if, you know, after 30 years, it's the end. It's clearly not. Do you have to wait till you're doing something for a really long time to decide to rewire? And what I've come to learn, as I've spent more and more time with people and have actively talked about this topic of rewirement, is that, no, you can rewire whenever you want, right? Some may call it a career pivot. Right? That seems to be a word of choice. I like the idea of rewiring because it seems more natural. It builds on what you've already done. It builds on the skills, the experiences, the mindsets, the emotions, the preferences that you have built up over the years of experience and things that you've done. So rewirement is really about this next stage, whatever that stage may be. You could rewire in your 20s. I've got two Gen Z daughters and one of their friends went to school for engineering, did that for two years and decided she wants to become a teacher in her 20s. So she has rewired in her 20s with great intention, right? Yeah. So any of us can rewire at any time. And so that's the origin story of rewirement and how I think about it, it's really a refresh, a reset, a evolution, an evolution for each of us of how we think about our work, but now in the context of our lives.
- [08:45]
A
I'm so glad that you said that, because as I was preparing for this episode first, I mean, I love the play on words, right. Retirement, rewirement. It works. And I was thinking about how often we probably have the opportunity for rewirement in other transitions. Empty nesters came to mind, especially as a mom. I think we tend to define our lives and ourselves around our children for periods of time. And I'm not sure that that's a bad thing, you know, but when they go off and chase their dreams or go to college or whatever it is that they do, I think that there is a natural rewirement that gets to happen. Or as you mentioned, doing a career pivot. I mean, there's probably a bazillion examples. But then that leads me to the question of any tips about how to do this? I would imagine there's a level of reflection and going inward that needs to happen. So I guess what are some of the steps or processes that you go through when you rewire, you know, in a big transition like this?
- [09:52]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So I think the first. The first step, and I'm speaking from experience as well as, ironically, Nicole, you know, I've had several requests from people that I've now worked with, if you will, in my refresh portfolio, life in my rewirement era, if you will, over the last almost three years now. And I've had the request to write a book about rewirement, which I'm not committing to here on this podcast, but.
- [10:17]
A
I was just gonna start promoting it, so. Ok.
- [10:22]
B
But it just shows to me that there's just this need. There's this need to talk about the fact that work is not separate from your life. It's an integral part of your life. We as humans were made to work. The question is, what is that form of work? So step one that I would advise people to do is to reflect, right? To reflect on the work that you've done to date. With this type of lens, the reflection should really be about what are the things that you're good at, what are the things that you like to do, what are the Environments that you love to be in. What are the environments that you loathed, that you just did them because you had to? They are these kind of reflections of the experiences you've had to date with full on. You are accountable to nobody but yourself. To answer these questions, then think through. All right, well, how do I build on my skills? How do I build on the environments that I liked, the people that I'd like to help, the communities, the type of work? Let's say you love project management, but you hated the marketing part of your job. So you would say, okay, I know I've got a great competency in project managing things and people, but I don't like that external, that marketing face of things. You would then kind of log that to say, these are my strengths, these are my passion areas, right? These are the things that bring me to a better place in terms of how I feel about myself and how I've spent my time. Another equally important first step, in conjunction with this reflection piece, is to be very candid on what your life needs are. Your life needs as it relates to things like money, health care, right? Healthcare insurance, caregiving responsibilities, what are your must haves? Because as much as many of us would like to rewire at different points in our career, even earlier on, I didn't have a chance to talk to this daughter's friend about her rewirements from an engineer to a teacher in her 20s. But my hope is for her that she has thought through the different trajectory that that will place her on right in all facets of what that means. So this point of reflection, these moments of reflection are so critical. I would say that you should have an inner circle with which you can talk to about this. This is not something you can talk to everyone about. You should only talk to your true confidants who know you personally, whom you trust implicitly. As you might imagine, this is not something that you want getting out there, especially if you're still fully right and engage, as, you know, fully in your, let's say, day job, right? So this is something that you have to intentionally make time for and bounce things off other people that really, that really know you. The people who really, really know you, you know, and have seen you at your best and also seen you at your worst. So reflection is the first thing you know. The second thing that I would say after all of that kind of scope of reflection is you got to do your research, right? You got to do your research. And one of the biggest mistakes that I see people make in this Research, part of what am I going to do next? What does rewirement look like for me is they think that they cannot start that research activity until they are done with their prior job. Okay. You know, I'll never forget this. This conversation I had with a headhunter decades ago, and it really stuck with me, you know, and he told me, he said, you know, and one of the mistakes that so many executives make is that, you know, they. They have these careers for decades, decades, decades. Then they retire, then they decide that they want to go teach, they want to go be on boards, they want to go do these other things. But the reality is, is that their personal stock, if you will, is on the decline. Right? And so this research part of what rewiremont might be for, for you needs to be done while you're still in the game that you're currently playing. It's when your network is the strongest. You have the platform that you've spent years, maybe decades building for yourself. And you do your research. You do your research to assess, hey, how do I competitively stack up? Right? How do I competitively stack up against other entrepreneurs who have gone into this space? How do I stack up as it relates to getting into private equity if I've come from a public company? Right. How does it. How do I stack up if my aspiration is a public company board or an aspiration to go teach at my alma mater, who has done that before? And how do their profiles and experiences compare to me, right? And so this research period of time is work, right? It's work to go and assess. How could you compete? Importantly, the research part, I would say, then leads you to a. What I would call a planting of seeds. All right? If you've not already intentionally, then let's say your research says, hey, you know, the way that you most effectively get on boards is to develop relationships with a couple of key recruiters, make sure that you're networked up with a bunch of existing board members, right? You've got to be honest with yourself of as to have you done those things already, right? Are you starting from a platform of strength which with to plant those seeds and grow those seeds that will form this beautiful array of what your requirement could be. And so planting seeds is really important, again, always easier to do if you are employed and engaged in the workforce in some way. And so that's kind of a big safety tip that I would give, is to make sure that you're planting those seeds and doing that network, that networking and making those connections while you are still out there. So, so then the next step after that is really making that plan, right? Making that plan of transitioning. And only this is such a personal thing. You know, that trigger point, that catalyst of when you pull the trigger is really a personal decision, right? You know, what are the things that, that have you believing, you know, have you already landed a nonprofit board? And that can be a springboard to something, right? You know, and that timing is very personal. There's no right answer or wrong answers. The only, there's only the answer that is circumstantial and situational to you. So then you make the decision. You make the decision to then go for it, right? Now, if I think about that first year of my retire rewirement, I should say, here are some of the things that I would share to watch out for and just be aware of. One is you will go through an identity crisis, especially if you were doing similar things for a very long time. You know, for me, I had 32 plus years of hello, I'm Anne Chow, comma, ATT, Blankety, Blank, Blank, blank, right? And as much as I was ready, I mean, I was so ready that I thought that it would not be an emotional kind of transition. It was very much so. Took me a couple months to get used to the fact that, hey, I'm on my own here, right? I've got no team, I've got no staff. I didn't have that identity that so many people knew me for, right? That was the thing that shaped almost who I was to so many folks out there, right? Whether it was in the community or in the business world or otherwise. So that identity shift, the more you go into it, eyes wide open, I believe the better off you'll be. Beauty adjective used to describe an individual whose spirit is unyielding, unconstrained. One who navigates life on their own terms, effortlessly. They do not always show up on time, but when they arrive, you notice an individual confident in their contradictions. They know the rules, but behave as if they do not exist. New Teen. The new fragrance by Miu Miu, defined by you upgrade your laundry routine with a durable and reliable Maytag laundry pair at Lowe's. Like the new Maytag washer and dryer with performance enhanced stain fighting power designed to cut through serious dirt and grime. And what's great is this laundry pair is inside stock and ready for delivery when you need it the most. Don't miss out. Shop Maytag in store or online today at Lowe's. This episode is brought to you by Indeed, when your computer breaks, you don't wait for it to magically start working again. You fix the problem. So why wait to hire the people your company desperately needs? Use Indeed's sponsored jobs to hire top talent fast. And even better, you only pay for results. There's no need to wait. Speed up your hiring with a $75 sponsored job credit@ Indeed.com podcast. Terms and conditions apply.
- [19:46]
A
One of my biggest takeaways is that this is a much longer transition than we might be giving it credit for. Whether we're talking about rewirement, retirement, or anything else, it's kind of no matter what it is that you want retirement to look like, whether it is you don't ever want to work again or you want to continue to work at a really high capacity in some way or anything in between, reflecting on what it is that you want. Because I know a lot of people who have done the traditional retirement. I stopped working. I'm done. And the identity crisis still happens. The fear around money, this sort of not knowing what to do with your. All of that to say is to, yes, reflect. Think about what it is that you want, how you think you want it to look and feel, and all of that to do some basic research, even if the thing is, I want to do nothing. Okay. But then what does nothing look like for you? What hobbies do you think you're going to want to do? Why not start some of them now to actually see if that's something you're interested in? And then that plan of transition going back to something that you said early on was, what are your life needs? I'm glad you mentioned not just money, but insurance and healthcare and things like that. These are, I think, big issues and also a little bit of, like, the inner circle of who you want to do this with. Like, if I am, in theory, retiring or rewiring with someone else, how aligned is that experience or how we want it to look and feel? Because if we. One person wants one thing and another person wants something entirely different, like, that's a conversation that needs to be had. And my biggest takeaway is that most of us are making the mistake to have these conversations reflect plan research until after the transition happens, as opposed to being proactive and thoughtful about it. So, out of curiosity, now that you've been in rewirement for, I think you said three years.
- [21:52]
B
Yeah.
- [21:53]
A
Obviously didn't look exactly the way you thought it would. I find very few things rarely do. Right. But are you happy? Are you learning new things that you didn't know before about the next transition of re. Rewirement. Like, how is it actually going? I guess is my question.
- [22:12]
B
Yeah. So for me, I, I could not be happier. I am so grateful, you know, and I'm so thankful for all of the different opportunities which have presented themselves, including the ones that I've turned down, by the way. I'm so grateful to have had a choice. This word of choice, by the way, is a core theme of rewirement. What is it that you choose to do with this one precious life you have? What is this thing that you choose to do? Which people do you choose to spend time with? As you pointed out, I'm, I'm thrilled with the portfolio that, that I've got between the boards, the teaching, you know, the book, the speaking. I will confess that one of the objectives that I had in rewirement was to start taking better care of my health. And in classic form, I did not do well. That was the lowest priority I had in the first couple of years. Okay. And it showed. Right. I mean, I still was working at a frenetic pace, albeit at many different things. No staff. Right, right. And no help. Right, right, right. You know, with the exception of my husband, who is now the accounting department, the IT department, the transportation department, all of those things. But this year, three, I've been, you know, as, as I approach a, you know, a milestone birthday next year, I've, I've doubled down to now really try to create more space now that my portfolio is recently settled for my health, right. My physical health, Right. My health, mental health has been quite good. Right. But the physical health has always been lowest on my priorities. Right. It's the thing that I sacrifice the most, I think, which is not uncommon to many women. So am I still learning? Oh my gosh, I am learning so much. I mean, whether it's through the boards that I'm on, the type of preparation now that I have to do, the type of studying and familiarity that I need to do, whether it's conferences that I need to go to, things that I need to read, things that I need to try, it's all sort of self, it's got to be largely self initiated. So even in the context of the business world today, while I'm not a practitioner, I still feel quite relevant on many different areas. In particular the area of leadership and culture and business transformation, all of which are imperatives in every single business today. So I am learning an immense amount. But I can't emphasize how strongly that you may have this vision of rewirements. But the people that you love and you want to spend an immense amount of time with, one, they may no longer be local to you. Two, they might not actually envision this. And if I could share a personal story that I think might be relevant to folks. You know, many, many folks that I've talked to have this vision of when they have children, that when they retire, right, from their. The regular grind, that part of their retirement rewirement is they want to go move closer to the children, wherever they are, and spend time. Hopefully there may be more children and grandbabies and grandpets and all these other things. You know, the. I had a friend tell me a couple of decades ago, like, yeah, that's a great. And she was a couple years older. She said, you know, that's a great vision. But the reality is that you don't want to serve as an anchor to your children, Right? Their careers will ebb and flow just like yours did. What's to say that they're not going to move around over and over and over again? Right. And so that point of quote unquote, settling down may be very, very different for you. Right? And one of the things that she told me, which I can absolutely validate is true from my own experience too, is that as you get older, it is harder to make friends, right? It is harder to find your people, the cohort of people where you're connected with, where you're intellectually compatible and emotionally compatible and socially compatible as well. Right? It's harder to do because you no longer have the infrastructure of, let's say, your children's schools or your work environment, sort of a large work environment where you're constantly out there. So this idea of building community is so important. So this idea of this dream of, hey, I'm going to go move to where my kids are, it means you are going to start all over. Right? And so that has also factored into our thinking about what this could look like. There's sort of like, no, there's no commitments to where we may be. But it's also top of mind for me, you know, having relocated a little bit later, you know, in my career, I've experienced that even while I was working, that it is harder to integrate yourself into a community as you get older. So those structural things don't necessarily exist. And we all know people, sadly, that they've pivoted to this next phase of retirement and couples split up because they're not on the same page. This is actually a phenomenon I've seen with Quite a few corporate executives, if you will, because they've spent most of their waking adult lives apart. And then all of a sudden, all of this togetherness is not what was in the plan.
- [27:35]
A
Right.
- [27:35]
B
It was not, you know, and it's also not how their relationship was shaped. Right. So that takes work. Right. That takes work as well. Again, it's all work, but it's just a different type of work, a work that you choose to do, you know, And I think these are all things that are relevant when you're thinking about rewirement.
- [27:56]
A
Yeah, I'm so appreciative of all of that. I'm just going to call it real talk because I think we often say or think things like, oh, we'll just live where our children live. Well, if you have multiple children, then they live multiple places. And I like this being an anchor. You don't want to be the factor in whether or not they move or take an opportunity. And also this idea of community, I see that with my own parents, where it's, you know, it is really hard to make new friends. You know, you're not just surrounded by people, like, on a regular basis like you are at work or with your kids activities and things like that. And I don't know if burden is the right word, but you don't want your children. I think most of us don't want our children to feel like they're responsible for our community and our connection and our happiness either. And yes, I can totally see how your relationship with your partner would completely evolve when you have that much more time. And it's like, do we really even like each other? Do we like hanging out with each other? I mean, there's so much to this that I, again, I think some forethought and treating it more like a transition would behoove all of us. So my last question is, you know, in work, we have all sorts of metrics that let us know if we're successful or not in parenting. Maybe not metrics, but I think we have ways where we define our own success as a parent. Any tips or thoughts about how we determine our success at rewiring?
- [29:27]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, so I love this question. And can I confess that as a. As a working mom. And why do we not say working dad, by the way? Right. Who was fortunate enough to, you know, be married to a person who chose together to become the primary caregiver. So my. My husband retired at the age of 39 to become the primary caregiver in an era where only 10% of men were stay at home dads, right. So he had many issues that he was dealing with, societal pressures and otherwise. And I'm grateful for the choice that we made together around that. I used to tell him that his KPIs were the children's report card. That's like a true story. I'm kind of embarrassed by that, but. So what are the metrics for success in rewirement? First of all, I think a really important point that I want to make that needs to be at the foundation of all of our requirements is that there is an immense amount of research and data and more coming out that says that a key to longevity is social connection and relationships. So this point that we just kind of ended the last part of the conversation on around community, this is priceless, right? So it is vitally important that you have this in your mind, right? That you will need to develop your own new network of community, your own new set of social connections, right. From transactional to meaningful. But you will, even if you're an introvert, right? And I am, you know, introverted engineer by, you know, by, you know, by sort of my origins. You will need to have connection with more than just one person, right. More than just your family. Right. So that, that, that is critical and I'll give you an example of that and then I'll go to the close with the metric. The how I think about success in the context of rewirement, metric wise, is my parents followed us to Texas a couple years after we moved. And it was not something that I expected them to do or wanted, you know? You know, I of course secretly wanted to them to do it, but I didn't ask them to do it. And they moved into one of those continuing care retirement communities. And I, and this was right before the pandemic, I am 100% confident that their choice to place themselves into a community of people elongated their lives. I absolutely, I lost my father at the end of last year. And I believe that the fact that my mother is still in that community is absolutely part of how she will continue to live hopefully as long as she possibly can. Right. Is the fact that she has built in social connection. She's not ever alone if she doesn't want to be. And it is a beautiful thing of how many of these retirement communities, these senior communities have evolved that I would say break what some of the old paradigms of what retirement communities are about, right. So I'm a huge fan of them from firsthand experience. So how do you measure, how do you Measure rewirement, I would say it's not quantitative, but it is all in. It is all in you. Right. So rewirements, if I could try to put it succinctly, is requirement is about joy, not happiness. Right. It goes beyond happiness, which can be episodic and momentary. It is about joy, which comes from inside. So how joyful is your life? Okay. The other important dimension of rewardment is fulfillment. How fulfilled do you feel? Right. Which directly feeds into how much joy you're experiencing. Fulfillment is different than success and achievement. Right. You can be successful and achieve a lot and meet tons of goals. You could be, you know, you know, buku rich. Right. You know, from a traditional standpoint, but you may not at all be fulfilled. Right. And so to me, the measurements of. Of rewirement, a successful reward is. Would you characterize your life in this moment, in this era, as being joyful and fulfilled most of the time? So that's how I would measure it. And that is a individual personal also changes, you know, from moment to moment to year to year, day to day that only each of us know for ourselves.
- [34:12]
A
Yeah. And thank you for helping us rethink retirement and giving us the skill of rewirement at any stage we care to use it. So I just want to make sure our listeners can find and follow you. So the website is theannchow. Com. You can also find Ann on Instagram or LinkedIn. And I do hope that if we are following you on any one of those, that we do see a rewirement book in our future. But, you know, only if it brings you joy and helps you feel fulfilled. Thank you for being our guest today and I so appreciate this conversation, this concept and your ongoing work.
- [34:50]
B
Thank you. It's been my pleasure to be with you again.
- [34:52]
A
My pleasure. Okay, so here's what I'm walking away with. Retirement doesn't just mean the end of something. It can be the beginning and a transition to something else. So if you're anything like me, ambitious, driven, pulled by purpose, then the idea of a full stop doesn't feel freeing, it feels foreign. But rewirement, that feels right. It makes space for the truth that who we are evolves, that our purpose can shift, that our value isn't tied to just our productivity, and that our worth doesn't expire once we stop clocking in. And we don't have to wait for a specific age or date to do any of that. Whether you're nearing or starting that transition or still decades away. This isn't just a future you conversation. It's a right now invitation to start imagining, to start rewiring, to let go of the outdated narrative that says work is who you are and retail retirement is when you disappear. Because we never disappear. We rewire to reflect both who you are now and who you're becoming. And all of that, my friend, is woman's work.