Session 2 Participant Workbook

WHYZMEN: REWIRE RETIREMENT · PARTICIPANT WORKBOOK

Session 2 — Who Am I When I'm Not What I Do?

Identity Beyond Career

Navigating Transition · Building Brotherhood · Igniting Jubilee

“You must go down before you can go up.” — Richard Rohr, Falling Upward

This is a workbook, not a handout. Fill it in — most men will type straight into this PDF in free Adobe Reader; if paper is your way, print it (or ask us to) and bring a pen. Every place this morning has a question, you'll find a space to think. The point is not to fill in every line — the point is to leave with raw material in your own words. What you write here is the first draft of your Harvest Charter Part One — Foundation.

Part One · Reading the Gauges

Before we climb, we read the gauges. The Retirement Readiness Assessment you completed is a dashboard, not a report card — low scores aren't failures, they're invitations to growth. This morning we read it together.

“The purposes of a person's heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out.” — Proverbs 20:5 (NIV)

SLIDE 2 · SET THE STAGE

Last week you chose one of the Seven Open Whys — the door you walked through to get here. This morning we walk through it together. Hold four quick questions in mind:

•Which Moynes phase are you in this morning? (Vacation, Loss, Trial & Error, Reinvent.)

•Did any of Dan Haylett's losses ring true to you?

•Any questions or observations about the Rewire Retirement pathway?

•Names & Numbers: who from the Basecamp room did you reach this week?

SLIDE 3 · NAME YOUR PHASE

Riley Moynes describes four phases of retirement: Vacation (“I can do anything”) → Loss (“Who am I now?”) → Trial & Error (“What fits me?”) → Reinvent (“This is who I am”). Name yours silently — no hands.

My phase this morning — and the evidence:

SLIDE 4 · YOUR WHY

From the Seven Open Whys — Purpose, Calling, Identity, Faith, Brotherhood, Legacy, Presence — you each picked one. Or wrote your own. Write yours here so it sits next to the rest of this morning's thinking:

My Why for being in this room:

ORIENTATION · THE ROADMAP

Rewire Retirement runs 15 sessions across three seasons. Fall (S1–S10) excavates who you are. Winter Break (the Wilderness Between) is three weeks for integration and the Charter sprint. Spring (S11–S15) builds the vision, names the action, and sends you out commissioned. This morning is the first real climb of the fall.

SLIDE 5 · THE DASHBOARD — THE GAUGES

Your assessment scores each domain of your life — one gauge apiece — from Needs Attention through Developing and Strong to Thriving. Read the whole board before you read any single gauge. No man reads high across all of them. The aim was never a perfect panel. It is a life that runs well — and a dashboard honest enough to drive by.

SLIDE 6 · WHAT'S BEST — YOUR TWO STRONGEST

Your two highest-scoring sections are your solid ground — and your tools for everything else. A man does not arrive at his low gauges empty-handed; he arrives carrying these. If a gauge reads Thriving, the sheet's counsel is to consider how that strength might serve another man in this room.

“What will happen when we think about what is right with people, rather than fixating on what is wrong?” — Donald O. Clifton

My two strongest gauges:

What I've already built that's working:

How this strength might serve another man:

SLIDE 7 · WHAT NEEDS WORK — YOUR TWO LOWEST

Your two lowest-scoring sections are candidates for your Charter work — not a sentence handed down. A gauge reading low isn't a verdict; it's a destination. Needs Attention (8–18) is where preparation changes everything; Developing (19–26) is real progress that intentional effort will compound. You will choose among these later, with your strengths in hand — and you will not choose all of them.

My two lowest gauges:

Which one have I been quietly avoiding?

What would 'one notch up' look like in six months?

SLIDE 8 · THE PAIRING — ONE STRENGTH, ONE DOMAIN, ONE EXPERIMENT

Strengths are the tools. The low gauges are the domains. You don't fix a low gauge by staring at it — you carry something you already have into it. Pair one strength with one low gauge, then name one experiment small enough that you will actually run it: small, cheap, reversible, thirty days. Not a resolution — a prototype.

The strength I am bringing (one of my two highest):

The domain I am bringing it to (one of my two lowest):

My 30-day experiment — small, cheap, reversible:

SLIDE 9 · WORKING THE HARVEST

The tree slide names the same movement in the program's own language: your roots are what formed you, including the strengths you were issued; the fruit is the ten domains; the tending is the daily work, and the harvest is what lands in your Charter. You just did in three blanks what the tree describes in four stages. Keep the pairing where you can see it — it is the seed of §3.1, where three domains become three goals.

SLIDE 10 · WHERE THIS POINTS US

For most men in this room, Identity & Purpose reads low first. That's not a coincidence — it's exactly where this morning begins. Work, as the saying goes, tells a man what to do; it never tells him who to be.

Part Two · Who Am I When I'm Not What I Do?

SLIDES 11–14 · THE PATH SO FAR · THIS MORNING'S ARC

In Basecamp you saw two summits and that the climb between them costs you something. You wrote a covenant. You picked a Why. This morning we ask the question underneath all of it: who is it that makes this climb? Two movements, ninety minutes, then we write.

Key Idea 1 · Avodah

SLIDES 15–16

Avodah (ah-voh-DAH) is a Hebrew word that means both work and worship — the same word for both. Your calling was never primarily your job title. The form of your service changes in this season; the calling itself does not.

We retire from a job. We never retire from a calling.

SLIDE 17 · TALK IT OVER

Breakout question: Name one part of who you are that has nothing to do with what you did for a living.

What I said — or what I heard in the others:

Key Idea 2 · Where Am I on the Climb?

SLIDES 18–19 · TWO SUMMITS, TWO HALVES — ONE MAP

Two well-known thinkers describe the same journey from different angles. David Brooks writes of two mountains; Richard Rohr writes of the two halves of life. They rhyme:

•The first half / first summit — build. Career, reputation, the résumé self. It gives happiness — real, but it fades.

•The second half / second summit — reveal. Meaning, calling, the eulogy self. It gives joy — the thing we are made for.

The fall between them is not punishment. It is the curriculum. Arthur Brooks adds the science: as raw mental horsepower fades, wisdom rises. This is design, not decline.

SLIDE 20 · THE FIVE LOSSES

This is our common language for what retirement takes. The same five words appear in every WhyzMen session. Name to mourn; mourn to bridge.

“Grief denied lasts forever. Grief well done is fast.” — Dan Haylett

Which loss has hit me hardest — and have I let myself grieve it?

SLIDE 21 · MEANING LIVES IN THE PARTICULAR

Meaning never left. It is here with you: this moment, this person, this act. Not somewhere back there, or some day, or in someone else’s example.

“Be still, and know that I am God.” — Psalm 46:10

Everything we build here serves this: being present to the particular moment in our particular lives. The five losses are five places to practice it.

SLIDE 22 · YOUR KNAPSACK — CHOOSING WHAT TO CARRY FORWARD

The first half filled your Knapsack (the pack): identity as “still working,” proving something to your father, a hobby collection, career achievement still climbing, a second home, golf and church and a board seat. The problem: you can’t carry all of it. “Seek first his kingdom” is a compass, not a luxury item. Over the coming weeks this cohort will help you weigh what you carry, ask what is truly valuable, and choose what goes into the Knapsack for the second half. Your Harvest Charter captures those choices across the ten domains of your life.

SLIDE 23 · YOUR ROPE TEAM — IN THREES

Three men, the whole climb. You'll go further watching the man beside you attempt this than hearing it described. With the men at your table this morning, pick the question with the most pull:

•Which phase am I in — and what's the evidence?

•Which loss has hit hardest — and have I let myself grieve it?

•What's one small experiment I could run in the next 30 days?

What I heard at my table this morning:

What I want them to know about me before next week:

Part Three · This Morning's Charter Advance — §1.0 My Threshold

SLIDES 24–25

Between the summits lies a valley — the messy middle — and we map it next week in Session 3. But before we leave the room: four lines, private, in your own words. These are the warm-up for §1.0 — My Threshold, the first section of your Harvest Charter. The prompts below are the Charter's own words, word for word. Draft them here this morning while the room is still in you; write them into the Charter itself before Session 3, where we take them further. Hold one question underneath all four: who am I becoming?

1. What I am setting down

2. What I am carrying forward

3. What still deserves to be mourned — and what mourning it might open

4. What I am asking Christ to carry

Part Four · This Week's Homework

Four pieces of work this week — about 55 minutes in all, with the minutes beside each. One finishes a section of the Charter; one is a conversation at home; one is the Practice of the Week. Going Deeper, after the total, is optional and not counted. Bring this workbook and your Charter to Session 3.

1 · Read — Falling Upward in brief · about 10 min

Read Falling Upward in brief, the WhyzMen book reference on Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward (Session 2 · Recommended Readings). About ten minutes. Bring one sentence that landed.

The sentence that landed for me:

2 · Write §1.0 — My Threshold — into Your Harvest Charter · about 20 min

Take the four lines you drafted this morning and write them into §1.0 of the Charter itself, in the Charter's own words: what you are setting down, what you are carrying forward, what still deserves to be mourned, and what you are asking Christ to carry. Twenty minutes. Section 1.0 is a half page — you are not writing your life, you are naming a doorway. This is where §1.0 gets written. Session 3 checks it, and you revisit it in Session 9.

Done? Date I wrote §1.0:

3 · Three at the Table — One Question with Your Wife · about 20 min

Ask your wife one question: “What are you most looking forward to in this season — and most anxious about?” Listen before fixing. Write what surfaced — from both sides — within an hour of the conversation, while it’s fresh. (This readies us for Session 4: Three at the Table.)

What I heard from her:

What I noticed in myself — and what I wanted to say:

4 · Practice of the Week — Ask the Second Question · about 5 min

Before you tell your own story, ask one follow-up about theirs. From the Toolkit: 2 · Ask. Tried it this week ☐ · Bring one moment to the room. (Card P came out of your pocket this morning and the Toolkit was handed out; the full practice is on the Practice of the Week page.)

About 55 minutes this week. Out of your pocket this morning: card P (Practice of the Week). Handed out: the Reference tab (the Toolkit). Bring this workbook and your Charter to Session 3.

Optional · Going Deeper — Only If It Calls to You

Not counted in the 55 minutes. Falling Upward, Part One (the book) is in the readings box below. The space for this morning’s 30-day experiment, identity moments and a text to the two men is kept here for the man who wants it.

Optional · Your 30-Day Experiment

The pairing you made this morning (Slide 8): one strength carried into one low gauge — small, cheap, reversible. If it calls to you, name the first step and put it on the calendar; it runs for thirty days. (The Three Markers come next week — Session 3 assigns them.)

MY EXPERIMENT — My strength, my domain, my experiment — and the first step, with a day:

Optional · Notice Identity Moments

This week, pay attention to the moments when someone asks what you do, or when you have to introduce yourself. What do you say? What do you wish you said? What does the gap reveal? Two or three quick observations are enough.

Identity moments I noticed this week:

Optional · Brotherhood — One Text

Text the two men from your table one sentence: how you walked out this morning. Not a summary. One sentence. The rope team is built one sentence at a time.

My one sentence to the two men:

Readings for This Week · Slide 27

Required first. Going Deeper only if it calls to you.

Required

•Falling Upward in brief — the WhyzMen book reference on Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward · about 10 min

Going Deeper · optional

•Falling Upward, Part One (or the whole book) — Richard Rohr

•The Second Mountain — David Brooks

•From Strength to Strength — Arthur Brooks

•Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life — James Hollis

•The Third Chapter — Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot

•Transitions — William Bridges

•Life is in the Transitions -- Bruce Feiler

•Designing Your Life — Bill Burnett & Dave Evans

Where the eight authors agree

The one-sentence version: When work ends, the role falls away and the self underneath is exposed. The second half is rewarding when a man lets that loss empty him, waits through the in-between without rushing it, and then gives himself to something larger than his own success, discovering more of who he was all along rather than inventing someone new.

Six points they share:

1.The role isn't the self. Each author separates the job title, the résumé and the ego from the person. Rohr calls these the "false self" and the "True Self." David Brooks calls it the first mountain, built by the ego. Hollis asks, "Who am I apart from my history and the roles I have played?" Arthur Brooks warns that "success addicts" fall hardest because they have nothing left once the work is gone.

2.Every new beginning starts with an ending. Bridges says it plainly: "Every transition begins with an ending." Rohr calls it "necessary suffering," and David Brooks calls it the valley. None of them treats the loss as a detour. It's the way in.

3.The in-between is part of the process. Bridges names it the Neutral Zone, Rohr calls it liminal space, and Feiler calls it "the messy middle." Feiler interviewed about 225 people and found the average transition takes roughly five years, so there's no point rushing the fallow season.

4.The focus moves from achievement to contribution. Arthur Brooks describes the move from fluid to crystallized intelligence, from inventing things to teaching and connecting. In his words, Darwin faded but Bach became a teacher. David Brooks lists four commitments to make: vocation, marriage and family, philosophy or faith, and community. Lawrence-Lightfoot's Third Chapter (roughly ages 50 to 75) is about generativity and new learning, not winding down.

5.The true self is uncovered, not built. Rohr says the first half builds the container and the second half finds what it was meant to hold. Arthur Brooks borrows Michelangelo's idea of chipping away the marble until the figure appears. Hollis reframes the question from "What do I want?" to "What wants to live through me?"

6.You learn the way forward by trying things and telling the story. Burnett and Evans have people prototype small experiments and sketch three "Odyssey Plans." Feiler says we re-author our life story at each major disruption. Lawrence-Lightfoot finds that the happiest people in their Third Chapter are willing to be clumsy beginners again.

Where they differ: It's mostly a matter of depth. Rohr, Hollis and David Brooks treat the second half as a spiritual descent. Arthur Brooks brings social science, and Bridges and Feiler give a map of how transitions unfold. Burnett and Evans offer a practical toolkit. Read together, they cover why, what and how.

T. S. Eliot captured the shared conclusion: "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

One metaphor for a slide: Think of the first half as building the house and the second half as turning it into a home. The structure matters less now than who you invite in and what happens around the table.

Practice of the Week · Slide 28

One skill a week. Try it this week. One story for your brothers. Starting this morning, each session names one practice from the Communication & Relationships Toolkit (your Reference tab). Try it this week — once is enough, more is better — and tick the one “Tried it” box on the back of your Practice of the Week card. Each session opens with “Tell us one moment with this week’s practice,” so bring one moment to the room.

“Encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today.’” — Hebrews 3:13

One moment with this week’s practice, for Session 3:

Part Five · Benediction

SLIDE 29

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.” — Frederick Buechner

This morning you took the first step of writing your way there.

A Word for the Week

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!”

— 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV)

The same God who authored your first half is writing the second. The losses are real — and so is the new thing.

References

WhyzMen contextualizes the work of these authors for a population they did not originally write for. We cite openly and direct readers to the sources themselves.

•Rohr, Richard. Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. Jossey-Bass, 2011.

•Brooks, David. The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life. Random House, 2019.

•Brooks, Arthur C. From Strength to Strength. Portfolio, 2022.

•Moynes, Riley. “The Four Phases of Retirement.” TEDxSurrey, 2021.

•Haylett, Dan. “What You Will Lose When You Retire.” Humans vs Retirement.

•Buechner, Frederick. Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC. Harper & Row, 1973.

•Clifton, Donald O. & Tom Rath. StrengthsFinder 2.0. Gallup Press, 2007.

•Bandura, Albert. Social Learning Theory. Prentice-Hall, 1977.

•Avodah (עֲבוֹדָה). Hebrew: labor, service, and worship. Strong’s H5647 / H5656.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission.