Session 1 · Guide and forms
Session 1 Participant Guide
WhyzMen: Rewire Retirement
Navigating Transition · Building Brotherhood · Igniting Jubilee
S E S S I O N 1 Basecamp: Program Overview What This Is, Why It Matters, Who We Are Together PARTICIPANT GUIDE |
Cohort Kick-Off · 90 Minutes · 37-Slide Deck (Basecamp rev 17)
Wise Men Still Seek, Knowing Their Why's
This guide belongs to:
Welcome
This guide is yours. Write in it. Mark it up. Bring it to every session. The blank space is not filler — it is where the program actually happens.
What is in your notebook this morning This guide — the Session 1 tab. Each session you receive the next guide to file behind it. The Harvest Charter — the last section of the notebook. You will add to it at every session. Coming at Session 2 — the Reference tab (the Communication & Relationships Toolkit) and your Practice of the Week card. Pocket cards come one at a time, in the session that teaches each skill. Keep them in the front pocket. |
What This Morning Is
Session 1 is the doorway. Over the next two semesters — a fall arc, a winter break, and a spring arc — you will do the work of moving from the first half of your life into the second on purpose rather than by accident. This morning we name what we are doing, why we are doing it, who we are doing it with, and how we will be together.
The work begins in earnest at Session 2. But the relationships begin this morning. Trust begins this morning. Your willingness to be honest with the men in this room begins this morning.
Bob Buford called the move we are making the shift from success to significance. Richard Rohr called it falling upward. The Hebrews called it yovel — Jubilee. We agree with all three. Different vocabularies for the same conviction: the most consequential chapter of your life may still be in front of you. WhyzMen exists to help you write it.
This Morning's Arc | Slide 4
Four movements. This guide follows the same four, so you can always find where you are.
# | Movement | What it covers |
1 | The Big Picture | First summit, valley, second summit — the shape of the whole journey. |
2 | The Greater Cost | Not breaking a valuable container — and losing what is inside. |
3 | Harvest, Equip — and Why Climb Again? | What we carry up the second summit, and why we go. |
4 | Next Time: Getting Ready | Preparing for the descent, and the climb that follows. |
THE PROMISE OF WHYZMEN Navigate your transition with clarity — grieve the losses, welcome the new possibilities. Build genuine brotherhood — new purposeful tribes and campfires. Discover or invent a next calling — that is not a job title. Create your Harvest Charter — a personal constitution for your Jubilee season. Stay on track for the long haul — rhythms, relationships, spirituality, growth. |
YOU ARE THE PILOT COHORT Fifteen men, three of whom are running it. This is the first time this material has been in front of a room, and we are asking you to do two jobs at once: walk the program, and help us build it. After this session we will email you a one-page feedback sheet. Answer it honestly — including the parts that did not land. A man who tells us what to cut is doing us more good than a man who tells us it was fine. |
Movement One | The Big Picture
Slides 1–5. Who is carrying this, where we are going, and the shape of the whole journey — handed to you before anything hard is asked.
SLIDE 1 | Rewire Retirement |
Three verbs arc through this program — Navigating, Building, Igniting. They are not steps. They are simultaneous postures held across two semesters.
SLIDE 2 | Who's Leading It |
Three men carrying it — a curator, an elder, and a man two years into the transition himself.
Who | Role | What he brings |
Dave Jackley | Curator & Lead Facilitator | A four-year search; he built the curriculum, the Charter, and the source library. Management consultant across 80+ companies and a dozen industries, from Haiti to Hong Kong. NCC since 2009; Mission Team, "NCC Goes." Married to Sandra 50+ years; 2 children, 7 grandchildren. His posture is curator, not expert — he is the first participant in his own program. |
Gary Proie | Elder, Facilitator & Host | Bought and grew the family business fifteenfold, sold it in 2014 — he has actually made the handoff. Pitt Industrial Engineering. NCC Board of Elders and Mission Team. Calls himself semi-retired, a description half this room will recognize. |
Doug Viafora | Facilitator & Recent Traveler | 35 years at Emerson; stepped away at the end of 2024 and turned it into service — Coraopolis food bank, 412 Food Rescue, medical transport. He is two years ahead of the men in the room, not twenty. |
We are not teaching this from above the climb. We are climbing it with you. |
Three facilitators is not accidental. It models the triad structure you will form. "A cord of three strands is not quickly broken." — Ecclesiastes 4:12
SLIDE 3 | Curation and the Iceberg Principle |
WhyzMen is curated, not invented. A curator does not paint the pictures — he walks the museums, picks what is true, and hangs it where you can stand in front of it. Your job is the man's job in the picture: stand in front of it and ask, what does this mean to me, and how does it change how I see things?
Everything we hand you is an iceberg. This guide is the one-eighth above the waterline — what to do. Underneath is why it makes sense, the many perspectives, and the science, theory and research. When a slide goes by fast this morning, that is the tip. The rest is in the library, and it is yours for the asking.
The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. — Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon (1932) |
SLIDE 5 | The Two Summits |
The first half of your life was one summit — career, family, reputation, provision. The second summit is not a smaller version of it. It is a different mountain, climbed for different reasons: significance instead of success, meaning instead of metrics, legacy instead of ladder. The valley between them is where the Harvest happens.
The first half of life builds the container. The second half is where the contents finally appear. — Richard Rohr, paraphrased |
Movement Two | The Greater Cost
Slides 6–16. Not breaking a valuable container — and losing what is inside. This is the heart of the morning, and the order matters: you name your own loss before anyone explains it to you.
SLIDE 6 | Have You Asked Yourself…? | What happened? Is this it? |
Two questions most men ask in private and rarely admit to anyone. Culture sold us a destination. Nobody mentioned the valley between the working life and what comes next.
We have been sold a destination that may not fit when we arrive, while the transition to it involves loss. — WhyzMen | |
WHAT'S RESONATING FOR ME | |
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SLIDE 7 | Culture Paints a Dream | …and Hides the Valley |
Most retirement conversations focus on what you gain — time, freedom, leisure. They quietly skip what you lose. The inventory below is not designed to depress; it is designed to make grief speakable.
At first, we lose (from work) | And we change | And we lose the tense |
Identity — "Title" Status Mastery Tribe Structure | Physically Athletically Sharpness Length of runway Becoming (Unlimited) options | Progress Stimulation Purpose Validation Future tense |
Future tense is the one most men do not notice they have lost — until they notice they have not woken up toward something in months.
Reference: Dan Haylett, "What You Will Lose When You Retire," Humans vs Retirement — an optional reading this week.
WHICH OF THESE HITS HARDEST FOR ME? |
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SLIDE 8 | Our Common Language | The Five Loss Categories |
Sixteen scattered losses reduce to five words. You will hear them in every session this fall, and your Harvest Charter will address each of them as they apply across the ten domains of life.
THE FIVE Structure · Identity · Relationships · Purpose · Mastery Name to mourn. Mourn to bridge. |
Grief denied lasts forever. Grief well done is fast. — Dan Haylett |
SLIDE 9 | Discuss for 5 Minutes | In Threes |
THE QUESTION What loss has surprised or shocked you in retirement? Consider: Identity · Structure · (Work) Relationships · Mastery — the skill or profession you did every day · Purpose One man speaks at a time. The others listen without fixing. | |
WHAT I SAID / WHAT I HEARD |
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SLIDE 10 | Building the Container | The First Half of Life |
Richard Rohr says the first half of life has one job: build a container. Identity, boundaries, security, structure. You spent thirty or forty years laying courses of brick — and you built well. Nobody is in this room because he failed at the first half.
# | What the first half built | What it looked like |
1 | Proving & Achieving | Performance was the price of belonging. Do more, be more, win, earn your place. |
2 | Career Identity & Ego | The title becomes the man. "What do you do?" answers "Who are you?" |
3 | Roles, Rules & the Calendar | Provider, coach, deacon — and the schedule that told you where to be at 8 a.m. |
4 | The Network | Colleagues, the team, the men who knew your work without being told. |
5 | Binary Thinking | Right/wrong, win/lose, in/out. Certainty raises walls fast. |
6 | Building Reputation | The résumé self — standing, credentials, the good name you defend. |
7 | Competence & Fluid Intelligence | Skill, speed, raw horsepower. Peaks at 30–50 (Arthur Brooks). |
Now notice what is not in the container. The container is not the contents. We spend the first half building a vessel and are then surprised to find it empty.
The task of the first half of life is to create a proper container for one's life… — Richard Rohr, Falling Upward |
Biblical anchor. "I laid a foundation as a wise builder… For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid." — 1 Corinthians 3:10–11
SLIDE 11 | Why There Must Be a Fall |
The question every man asks silently: why did this have to happen to me? Rohr's answer is that it did not happen to you as a punishment. The fall is the only mechanism by which the first half can end. Five reasons, and they stack.
1.The ego cannot dismantle what the ego built. It is like asking the night watchman to burgle his own house. It is outside your control — you are led there, you do not go.
2.The container's strength is the lid. Certainty, boundaries, competence. A man who is still winning has no opening.
3.Grace stays theoretical until you need it. The self-made man holds the concept of mercy but has no experience of it. The fall is what turns doctrine into discovery.
4.Paradox cannot be learned inside a working binary. Either/or breaks only when it stops explaining your life.
5.The pattern of everything, not a punishment. Death, then resurrection, is the shape of reality. Asked for a sign, Jesus offers only one: the sign of Jonah.
Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. — John 12:24 (ESV) | |
IF YOU ARE IN IT RIGHT NOW Some men in this room are inside the fall today, not past it. You do not have to find the meaning yet. It is enough to know it is not punishment. |
The line to carry home: the fall is not the price of admission to the second half. It is the door — and it only opens inward.
SLIDES 12–15 | From Container to Charter | One Picture, Four Builds |
This is the architecture of the entire program, revealed in four stages: what you built, what retirement takes, what the Charter rebuilds, and the ten domains it all gets written on.
THE ORGANIZING CLAIM The Harvest Charter is not a journal, a workbook, or a bucket list. Every section exists because a specific brick came out of a specific wall. |
What the first half built | What retirement does | What the Charter builds |
1 Proving & Achieving | Takes — PURPOSE | §2.1 My Mission & True North |
2 Career Identity & Ego | Takes — IDENTITY | §1.2 My Compass · §1.4 Faith |
3 Roles, Rules & the Calendar | Takes — STRUCTURE | §3.1 First Steps · §3.2 My Rule |
4 The Network | Takes — RELATIONSHIPS | §3.2 My Triad |
5 Binary Thinking | Converted — yes/no becomes both/and | Weighing & the Essential Few (§3.1) |
6 Building Reputation | Converted — reputation becomes legacy | §4.1 Legacy, not résumé |
7 Competence & Fluid Intelligence | Takes — MASTERY | §1.3 Strengths & Gifts · Wisdom |
TWO OF THE SEVEN ARE NOT TAKEN — THEY ARE CONVERTED Most men assume retirement takes everything. It does not. Binary thinking becomes both/and. Reputation becomes legacy — influence in place of authority. That conversion is the hinge of the whole program: some things are taken, some things are transformed. |
My Subtractions (the first line of §3.1 My First Steps) is the Charter's formal act of setting down what is already gone — and naming the new identity, commitments and assumptions that replace it. Leidy Klotz's research (Nature, 2021) found that under load humans reliably add and fail to consider removing. The Charter forces the subtraction.
The ten domains are the frame, not a fourth column. They are the grid every answer gets written on: 1 Faith & Spiritual Life · 2 Marriage & Family · 3 Friendships & Community · 4 Health & Wellbeing · 5 Identity & Purpose · 6 Service & Contribution · 7 Growth & Learning · 8 Recreation, Adventure & Joy · 9 Finances & Stewardship · 10 Practical Readiness.
SLIDE 16 | What Other Cultures Call This Season |
Retirement is an English outlier. The word literally means to withdraw, to pull back, to remove from service. Almost every other language reaches for ripening, joy, rest, or wisdom.
Language | The word | What it means |
Spanish | jubilación | Same Latin root as Jubilee — you don't retire, you enter jubilation. |
Hebrew | gimla'ut | From gamal: to ripen, to deal bountifully. The same root as "weaned child" in Psalm 131. |
Japanese | kanreki (還暦) | At 60, one full zodiac cycle complete. You wear red — the color of new beginnings — and are treated as reborn. |
Chinese | tuìxiū (退休) | Stepping back to rest in order to transmit wisdom to the next generation. |
French | retraite | A dignified strategic withdrawal to regroup — not defeat, repositioning. |
German | Ruhestand | The state of Ruhe — not mere inactivity, but settledness. More shalom than nap. |
Xhosa / Zulu | ikhehla | The elder crosses into wisdom-bearing status. Not a stopping — an investiture. |
DO I IDENTIFY MORE WITH ANY OF THESE THAN WITH "RETIRED"? WHICH ONE, AND WHY? |
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Movement Three | Harvest, Equip — and Why Climb Again?
Slides 17–27. What we carry up the second summit, and why we go: the promise, the evidence, the roots, the Charter, the Harvest, the pack you will carry, and the Why underneath all of it.
SLIDE 17 | The Rewire Retirement Promise |
Five outcomes. These are the structural beams of the entire program. Every session, every assignment, every conversation feeds at least one of them.
•Navigate your transition with clarity — grieve the losses and welcome new possibilities.
•Build genuine brotherhood — find new purposeful tribes and campfires.
•Discover or invent a next calling — that is NOT a job title.
•Stay on track — rhythms, relationships, spirituality, growth, what you invest in, the direction you set.
•Create your Harvest Charter — foundation and roadmap; tell your past and future stories, excavate your values, character traits, and strengths.
On the other side of transition and harvesting the first half, an extraordinary second summit awaits. |
SLIDE 18 | The Health Case for Purpose |
Purpose is not a luxury of retirement. Your body and your brain are downstream of your Why.
He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. — Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning |
Domain | Finding | What it means |
Longevity | 2.4× | More likely to be alive at follow-up. Adults 50+ with strong purpose had significantly reduced all-cause mortality risk, even controlling for health behaviors. (JAMA Network Open, 2019) |
Brain Health | 28% | Lower risk of dementia. Purpose protects against cognitive impairment — including Alzheimer's — even in those carrying the APOE4 risk factor. (Am. J. Geriatric Psychiatry, 2025) |
Heart & Stroke | −29% / −32% | Isolation and purposelessness raise cardiovascular risk at rates comparable to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. (Surgeon General Advisory, 2023) |
Energy & Sleep | Better | Fewer sleep disturbances, less chronic pain, slower onset of disability — the difference between aging and declining. (Musich et al., 2018; Ohsaki Ikigai Study) |
Life Satisfaction | 3–5× | More intentional selection, optimization and compensation behaviors in thriving elders. (Baltes; Vaillant, Harvard Grant Study) |
THE REWIRING CONCLUSION Purpose is not a luxury of retirement — it is a medical necessity. Buford's "halftime" is not just a metaphor; it is a prescription. A life without purpose is a body without a compass. |
WHICH OF THESE FIVE FINDINGS LANDS HARDEST FOR ME? |
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SLIDE 19 | The Quiet Crisis | Mental Health in Retirement |
The data refuses to be simple, and that is the point. The destination is fine. The transition is the danger zone.
Finding | What it says |
↓20% | Retirement cuts depression risk by about 20% in the short term — the finding that surprises everyone. |
Day One | The highest incidence of depression strikes at the moment of retirement itself. |
+37% | Depression risk ≈10 years out for those who retired after 65 (+21% for former non-manual workers). |
11% | of pre-retirees are emotionally ready — versus the 50%+ judged financially prepared (FPA, 2025). |
940,000 | older people in the UK feel "often lonely" — 7% of over-65s, projected to reach 1.2M by 2034. |
65–74 | now the age group most likely to drink alcohol on 4+ days a week (28% of 55–64 exceed weekly limits). |
The financial plan is the carriage. The emotional plan is the road. — Dan Haylett, "The Quiet Crisis," Humans vs Retirement |
SLIDE 20 | Curated, Not Invented |
We did not invent the idea of a second half. Four serious thinkers arrived at it independently — and every one of them lands somewhere Scripture was already standing. We read generously, weigh against Scripture, and credit what is true.
Who | The claim | Where it lands |
David Brooks The Second Mountain (2019) | First mountain: self, career, ego. Second mountain: commitment, community, and contribution — the move to moral joy. | Mirrors our two-summits picture |
Martin Seligman Flourish (2011) | The aim is flourishing, not mere happiness — PERMA: Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment. | Psalm 92:14 — "they flourish" |
Arthur C. Brooks From Strength to Strength (2022) | The second-half shift from fluid intelligence (raw achievement) to crystallized intelligence — wisdom, teaching, mentoring. | Its title is Psalm 84:7 |
Richard Rohr Falling Upward (2011) | A necessary fall — failure, loss, limits — breaks the ego open so a deeper, humbler self can rise. | Falling down is the way up |
The wider chorus we read and weigh also agrees: Viktor Frankl · Bob Buford's Halftime · Erik Erikson · Dallas Willard · James Hollis · James Fowler.
SLIDE 21 | The Taproot | Biblical Roots |
The second half of life is harvest — not decline. The Harvest–Jubilee frame is not a Christian veneer laid over a secular core. It is the structure itself.
Reference | What it gives us |
Psalm 92:14 | "Still bear fruit in old age; they stay fresh and green." (our anchor verse) |
Leviticus 25 | Jubilee — joyful release and abundance, not winding down. |
Galatians 6:9 | "We will reap a harvest if we do not give up." |
Titus 2:2–8 | The elder's calling to teach and model for the young. |
Psalm 71:18 | "Declare your power to the next generation." |
2 Timothy 4:7 | "I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." |
Ecclesiastes 4:12 | "A cord of three strands is not quickly broken." — the triad. |
Hebrews 12:1 | "Throw off everything that hinders." — the work of subtraction. |
We may retire from a job — but we never retire from a calling. |
SLIDE 22 | Your Harvest Charter | A Personal Constitution for Your Jubilee Season |
A living document and roadmap: who you are, the losses and the transition, where you are going, and how you will get there — the central artifact of our work together. Every session feeds it. Every reading informs it. Every triad conversation tests it.
Part | The question | What goes in it |
1 Foundation | Who am I? | Your threshold, story, values, strengths, faith — the raw material (§1.0–§1.4). |
2 Vision | Where am I going? | Your next chapter, mission, and A Tuesday in 2031 (§2.0–§2.2). |
3 Action | How will I get there? | Your first steps, your Rule, and your triad (§3.1–§3.2). |
4 Legacy | What outlasts me? | One letter or a one-page testament, with your Legacy sentence (§4.1). |
You will not write this all at once. Each session adds a layer. A charter is the founding document of a new entity — which is exactly what you are doing: chartering the second half of your life.
WHAT PART OF THE CHARTER MOST INTRIGUES — OR INTIMIDATES — ME? |
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SLIDE 23 | The Harvest | Ten Domains · One Tree |
One picture holds the whole program. The soil is Faith. The roots are what formed you. The trunk is who you are. The tending is the daily work. The ten fruits are the domains of a life. Above it all, Jubilee — rest and giving back under God's hand. And the orchard around your tree is the brotherhood: nobody harvests alone.
Flourishing Vision | Stewardship & Readiness |
1 Faith & Spiritual Life 2 Marriage & Family 3 Friendships & Community 4 Health & Wellbeing 5 Identity & Purpose 6 Service & Contribution 7 Growth & Learning 8 Recreation, Adventure & Joy | 9 Finances & Stewardship 10 Practical Readiness
Domains 9 and 10 are treated differently from the rest — they are plans and preparation rather than vision, and several satellite sessions exist to support them. |
SLIDE 24 | What Will You Take? | The Plane Crash at 8,000 Feet |
Same gear for every man. A forty-pound pack. He cannot carry the tent, the winter coat, the flare gun and the rope — something stays in the snow. He took what would get him to the valley, thirty pounds of it, and left the rest: not because it was worthless, but because it was not worth its weight for this trip.
THE FORTY-POUND RULE Look back at the Big Picture. The men on the second summit are wearing packs and carrying rope. Retirement hands every man in this room the same weight limit. The first half built you a container, and you cannot carry a container up a mountain. A container stores. A pack carries — and a pack is chosen by weight. |
SLIDE 25 | The Pack: What You Carry Up | Take · Convert · Leave |
Before the second climb, every man packs one. This morning is a preview of the three piles; your values ride in the top pocket, and your True North joins them at Session 11, and we weigh the whole pack together at Session 13.
THREE PILES TAKE — what the first half actually grew, harvested, not hoarded. Faith, the lamp for the path. Strengths, the engine you were issued. Your story, and the people in it. Values, what you stand on when the rest is taken. This is Part One of your Charter. Your values ride in the top pocket, where you can reach them without taking the pack off; the rest fills the main compartment. CONVERT — what changes shape instead of being lost. Two of the seven are not taken: either/or becomes both/and, and reputation becomes legacy. And two losses come back converted: the network becomes the rope team, and fluid horsepower becomes crystallized wisdom. The conversions pocket at the bottom of the pack: Wisdom · Both/And · Rope Team · Legacy. LEAVE — not lost. Set down on purpose. The title on the card. The need for applause. Being the one who always knew how. And some of it is not set down at all — it is what you ask Christ to carry (Charter §1.0). The rope is your triad — nobody climbs this roped to no one. The top pocket holds your values; at Session 11 True North goes in beside them. |
A pack is measured not by what it holds but by what it makes you leave. "Throw off everything that hinders." — Hebrews 12:1 |
ONE THING I ALREADY SUSPECT I WILL LEAVE AT THE TRAILHEAD — AND ONE THING I WILL CARRY UP, AND WHY |
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SLIDE 26 | Why WhyzMen? | The Name and the Guardrails |
Say it aloud: WhyzMen sounds like Wisemen. That is not an accident.
WHYZ · the Why's | WISE MEN · Wisemen |
A Why reveals character, conviction and calling — and drives the How and the What that follow.
"…to search out a matter is the glory of kings." — Proverbs 25:2 | Say it aloud: WhyzMen sounds like Wisemen. Wisdom begins where self-sufficiency ends.
"Come now, let us reason together." — Isaiah 1:18 (ESV) |
A WHY THAT IS NOT VETTED AGAINST PRINCIPLE BECOMES APPETITE Without clarified principles, a man drifts: leisure that becomes emptiness · bitterness at being "put out to pasture" · identity stuck in past accomplishments · whatever fills the void — TV, alcohol, isolation. |
If you don't stand for something, you might fall for anything. — often attributed to Alexander Hamilton |
Principles are what you stand on when everything else is taken away — and character formation is the same process at 15 and at 75: discover your WHYs, ground them in principles, test through experience, refine through reflection, transmit to others. The mechanism does not change. What changes is the season.
ONE PRINCIPLE I ALREADY KNOW I HOLD — AND ONE I NEED TO ARTICULATE | ||
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SLIDE 27 | WhyzMen Become Wisemen | Symbols & Process | |
THE SYMBOLS | THE PROCESS | |
Why's — drive everything you seek and do Cross — seeking Jesus, our North Star Owl — wisdom we hope to find and share Compass — finding direction Family / Relationships — our most important goals and drivers Shield — our faith, courage and brotherhood Tree — the life that anchors and grows | WHAT — the action that flows from your why HOW — skills and capacities you bring TEST — experiment, refine, and try again WHEN — the season, timing, and urgency WHERE — the context, place, and community WHO — the people you serve and journey with WISDOM — all of it, lived out and shared | |
The four parts of the Harvest Charter are this architecture written down. The Foundation answers Why. The Vision names the What. The Action works out the How, When, Where and Who. The Legacy is the Test of a life.
Wise Men Still Seek, Knowing Their Why's — WhyzMen motto |
Movement Four | Next Time: Getting Ready
Slides 28–37. Preparing for the descent, and the climb that follows.
SLIDES 28–29 | How This Program Works | Why We Believe It Works |
Three phases. Each one builds one part of your Harvest Charter.
Excavation, Sessions 1–9 (fall): name what's true, tell your story, know yourself. Produces Part 1, Foundation.
Reframing, Sessions 10–12 + winter break: find your circle, name your mission, set your vision. Produces Part 2, Vision.
Integration, Sessions 13–15 (spring): build new architecture, make it work, commission yourself. Produces Parts 3 & 4, Action and Legacy.
The order matters. You can't write a vision for a man you don't know yet. And the Charter is not something you fill out once. It is a mirror that helps you show up as your true self in the moments that matter most.
SLIDES 30–31 | The Roadmap | Three Seasons |
The fall is about you. The spring is about what you build.
Fall Sessions | Title |
S1 | Basecamp — Program Overview, Covenant & Assessment |
S2 | Who Am I When I'm Not What I Do? — Identity Beyond Career |
S3 | The Messy Middle — Transition |
S4 | The Marriage Retirement Lands In — Three at the Table |
S5 | Me, the Co-Author & Protagonist of My Story — The Journey So Far |
S6 | Read My Story — Redemption & Continuity |
S7 | Who Am I at My Best? — The Values Compass |
S8 | The Strengths Portrait — What Am I Wired to Do? |
S9 | The Ground Beneath Me & Harvest the First Half — Faith Foundation & Part One Complete |
S10 | The Fellowship Gap & Finding Your Circle — Why Men Lose Friends, and Who Yours Are |
Winter break, the Wilderness Between: rest & gratitude, story integration, triad check-in, threshold reflection, Charter sprint.
Spring Sessions | Title |
S11 | Mission & True North — Clearness Room + Purpose & Contribution |
S12 | Building the Vision — Domain Visions & the Honest Evaluation |
S13 | The Essential Few & First Steps — Subtraction, Filter & Action |
S14 | Legacy & Letters — Stories, Ethical Will & the Ground You Hand Forward |
S15 | Commissioning & Send-Off — Witnessed, Blessed, and Sent |
Beyond the last session: meetings with your triad, large group gatherings, satellite sessions.
The dates (Slide 31): Mondays, from November 2 to March 22. No session Thanksgiving week (November 23) or on December 21 and December 28. The Wilderness Between runs January 26 – February 14, between Sessions 10 and 11. Clearness Monday, February 22: no class; your triad meets in its own room at church, 9:00–10:30. Commissioning is March 22; First Fruits follows in April.
Our Group Covenant | Slide 32
Before this room can carry weight, we agree on how we will be in it. Rules are imposed; a covenant is entered. The six below are the starting point. As a group you will add, adjust, and own it — and what we add this morning becomes binding for the cohort.
THE STARTING COVENANT 1. Confidentiality — what is said in the room stays in the room. 2. Presence over performance — bring who you are, not who you wish you were. 3. Listening before fixing — advice only when invited. 4. Punctuality and follow-through — show up. Do the work. Communicate if life prevents either. 5. Honesty with grace — tell the truth, kindly. Disagreement is welcome. 6. Prayer for one another — pray for the men on your left and right between sessions. |
A covenant we wrote together is one we will keep.
WHAT WE ADDED OR SHARPENED THIS MORNING |
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Pick a Why to Try | Slide 33
These are the Whys we are still finding. Pick the one that pulls hardest this morning — or write your own if none of these is the question pulling at you.
SEVEN OPEN WHYS 1. Purpose — Why pursue purpose at all, when rest is available? 2. Calling — Why do I believe I can build something new and valuable? 3. Identity — Who am I when what I did is taken away? 4. Faith — Why am I seeking God differently than I did at 40? 5. Brotherhood — Why do I need other men, after years of going it alone? 6. Legacy — Why does it matter that something outlast me? 7. Presence — Why am I in this room this morning? |
THE WHY I CHOSE THIS MORNING |
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WHY THIS ONE? (TWO SENTENCES) |
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HOW THE EXERCISE WORKS | 20 MINUTES Write — 5 min, solo. Pick your Why. Write the two sentences. Share — 12 min, threes. Read your Why aloud. Listen without fixing. Curiosity only at the end. Witness — 3 min, room. Name what you heard another man say — not what you said. |
The Why you pick this morning opens a door. Walk through it. More Whys are waiting.
This Morning's Takeaways | Slide 34
What we leave with.
•There are two summits — and the second is the better one.
•The challenge of the transition valley is real — you leave things behind to pick new things up — the pack.
•This is God's design, not decline — the second climb is worth making.
•You have a Why for every domain — health, relationships, purpose, legacy. Each drives the next.
•We will keep the covenant we made — presence, listening, honesty, prayer.
•Your facilitators are climbing it with you — not ahead of you.
Satellite Sessions | Slide 35
Around the spine of our core sessions, satellite sessions handle the practical infrastructure of retirement — including domains 9 and 10 from the Harvest tree. These run alongside the core arc; you attend what serves you.
•Harvest Charter Writing Workshops
•Meeting My Spouse / Family in Retirement
•Finance & Managing Assets
•Psychology of Money
•Estate Planning
•Health & Medicare
•Legal & Housing Decisions
Your Homework Before Session 2 | Slide 36
Session 2 is "Who Am I When I'm Not What I Do?" — Identity Beyond Career.
This is the most important page in your hands this morning. The required work is Section A: four items, about 90 minutes this week, with the minutes beside each. Everything under Optional after it is only if it calls to you, and is not counted.
A. Required This Week | About 90 Minutes
1.Complete and score the Retirement Readiness Assessment (about 45 min). Enclosed separately. Bring it, scored, to Session 2 — you will read your own gauges in the room. It is a self-inventory, not a test. There are no wrong answers.
2.Read the Rewire Retirement Overview (about 20 min). The architectural map of the program.
3.Watch Riley Moynes, "The 4 Phases of Retirement" (11-minute video; about 15 min). youtu.be/DMHMOQ_054U. Identify which phase you are in. Links will be emailed.
4.Names & Numbers — reach out to one man (about 10 min). Use the Names & Numbers page at the back of this guide: three men from this morning's room, and reach out to at least one of them this week. This is your first practice (Toolkit 5 · Build & Host). Session 2 opens by asking who you reached.
About 90 minutes this week. Bring the scored assessment to Session 2. That is the whole required list.
READINGS FOR THIS WEEK | SLIDE 37 Required first. Going Deeper only if it calls to you. REQUIRED The 4 Phases of Retirement — Riley Moynes · 11-minute video Rewire Retirement Program Overview — emailed, and in your binder GOING DEEPER · OPTIONAL What You Will Lose When You Retire — Dan Haylett, Humans vs Retirement (PDF) · 15 min Summary of Falling Upward — Richard Rohr · next week’s reading — start early if you like |
Optional | Going Deeper — Only If It Calls to You
Nothing in this section is required, and none of it is counted in the 90 minutes. Pick one thing if it pulls at you. The questions that used to sit here have moved to the session that uses them: the Opening Questions open Session 3, and the Going Deeper questions are printed in your Session 3 guide.
B. Optional | Practical Takeaways
Try any that call to you — including the two-hour prototype. Not required, and not counted in the week's minutes. A couple of lines under each if you want them; the Personal Notes in later guides give you more room.
1. Write three things about the first half you need to grieve — and three that are trying to emerge. |
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2. Answer Rohr's three questions: (1) What container did I build? (2) What cracked it open? (3) What is trying to emerge? |
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3. Identify one area of fluid intelligence (raw horsepower) and one of crystallized intelligence (wisdom, mentoring) you could lean into. |
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4. Try one small prototype (Burnett & Evans): a two-hour experiment in something that interests you. What did you try, and what did you notice? |
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5. Spend fifteen minutes in silence asking God: "What are you trying to grow in me through this season?" |
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6. After the Moynes video: which of the five losses — structure, identity, relationships, purpose, mastery — has been hardest for you? |
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WHY THE WRITING MATTERS MOST The video and the articles are useful. The assessment is useful. The writing is the only piece of homework that is not received but generated. Generation matters. Reading something other people wrote can shift your mind. Writing something yourself starts to shift your life. Even one paragraph. Especially one paragraph. |
Reference | More on the Why
One more piece of the Session 1 material, taken out of the room to give the harder work more air. Nothing here is retired from the program. The Joy Span verbs come back in Session 12, Working the Harvest in Session 8, and Wisdom Across Traditions in Session 9; their pages are in those guides.
A Why is not a question. It is a revelation — of character, conviction, and calling. Every answer traces back to something permanent. Simon Sinek: most men can say what they do; few can say why — the belief that drives everything else. Those who can, move the world.
Proverbs, Isaiah, and James all honour the man who seeks, questions, and pursues wisdom rather than settling for the surface.
The man who knows how will always have a job; the man who knows why will always be his boss. — Ralph Waldo Emerson |
The Wisdom Orbit
Your What flows from your Why. Your How serves it. Test experiments and refines. When is the season and the urgency, Where is the context and community, Who are the people you serve and journey with. Wisdom is all of it, integrated and shared — and the four parts of the Harvest Charter are this architecture written down.
Next Steps | Names & Numbers
Take down the names and contact information of three other men in this morning's room. Reach out to at least one of them this week. The brotherhood does not begin in Session 2. It begins this morning.
Name | Phone / Email | What I want to remember about him |
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Important Dates
RETIREMENT READINESS ASSESSMENT — SCORED, BRING IT TO SESSION 2 |
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SIGN-UP FOR SATELLITE SESSIONS |
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Facilitators & Contact
LEAD FACILITATOR / CO-FACILITATORS |
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A Closing Word
At the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. — Galatians 6:9 |
The work begins in Session 2. But the man who shows up to Session 2 is shaped — in some small way — by what he does between now and then. The questions you answer. The assessment you complete. The video you watch. The conversation you start with one of the men whose name you took down this morning.
You are not climbing the second summit alone. The men around you are roping in. So is God. So are we.
Wise Men Still Seek, Knowing Their Why's — WhyzMen |