Retirement Renewal with Encodings
We are conditioned to think of retirement as a perpetual Sunday afternoon—a wind-down of endless leisure and passive relaxation. But endless leisure doesn’t lead to flourishing. Nor does endless busyness.
The secret to injecting zest and vitality into your retirement isn’t finding new hobbies to pass the time. It’s about decoding your DNA. Specifically, it’s about uncovering what author and business thinker Jim Collins calls your “encodings.”
In his new book, What to Make of a Life, Collins shifts his masterful lens from what makes companies great to what makes a human life great. He researched impactful people whose success was based on utilizing their encodings.
What Are “Encodings”?
Collins defines encodings as your hardwired aptitudes, your natural default settings, the specific ways you are designed to interact with the world to create value.
Think of your encodings as your personal operating system. They are the activities and environments that give you effortless energy—the things you would do for free just because they make you feel intensely alive.
If you were lucky, your job tapped into your encodings.
- If you were a CEO, your encoding might have actually been the thrill of building something from scratch.
- If you were a teacher, your encoding might have been the spark of watching someone suddenly understand a complex idea.
The mistake we make in retirement is ignoring the encoding just because we left the job.
The Zest Deficit: What Happens When We Ignore the Code
When you enter retirement without an awareness of your encodings, you may experience a vitality crash.
You might try to force yourself into standard leisure activities, only to find yourself feeling restless, irritable, or bored. This is your soul rejecting a mismatched container.
Without your encodings actively engaged, your psychological momentum stalls. Vitality thrives on challenge, curiosity, and contribution. To get that zest back, audit your life to find the patterns of your highest fulfillment.
The Flourishift Flip: From “Winding Down” to “Stepping Forward”
By proactively becoming aware of and applying your encodings, you won’t just be retiring from your job; you will be deploying yourself into your truest form. If you want a zestful retirement, I can help you apply Collins’ concept to ignite your next chapter. Let’s connect.