After 15 Months, I Can Finally Share This
Why I wrote Designing Your Second Act — and what I want you to know about it
🟢 I’m in my late-forties and I don’t want a traditional retirement where I work full out until age 65 and then quit cold turkey.
But what is it that I want? And do I need a runway so I can start experimenting, validating and building for the life I want to live later?
I started asking myself why I wouldn’t apply all the tools I’ve been using to help organizations improve their processes and achieve their strategic plans to my own life. I felt excited at the opportunity to try these tools on myself. The idea didn’t start as a book, actually. It was just to try these tools on my own life. Then I wondered if other people would get value from it. Maybe I should write my journey down.
🧭 Then I started sharing the idea with others.
People who were either on the cusp of retirement or had recently retired were strongly supportive. They said they wished they had this book because retirement excites them but it’s also making them anxious. Those who had already retired wished they knew what they know now. They’re bored. They don’t really know what to do with themselves outside of visiting family and taking the occasional sunny vacation. They feel like they don’t have a purpose anymore. They miss the impact they once had. One person even felt depressed.
This made me realize that there is a LOT more to this major life transition than just the financial aspect.
That’s when I started getting excited about the idea of a book. I can bring people through the journey I’m about to undertake and I can research and interview people to pull in their stories as well. I was elated at the idea and the opportunity to write something meaningful that might fill a gap — so people can enter into this amazing new chapter called retirement, or their second act, with confidence instead of anxiousness or fear.
It wasn’t fluffy advice about discovering one’s purpose and it wasn’t about financial planning. Those topics are covered. It was about how to get from where you are to where you want to be.
🌱 Why Lean thinking? Why these tools?
Adapting Lean thinking tools to personal use isn’t completely new. I had used a personal A3 for my own leadership journey before. I had developed Leader Standard Work for my leadership practice. And there was even a show on TV dedicated to personal Lean tools like 5S for decluttering and transforming a space.
I just took it a step further. Strategic planning is all about where an organization is now, envisioning where we want to be in three or five years, and then building the annual plans to get there. Why on earth wouldn’t I use a similar framework for a major life transition — like my own strategic plan? The Lean tools for process improvement can be adapted and would certainly fit for personal improvement.
💡 The book cover — and the bridge
I went back and forth with Routledge quite a bit on the cover. I knew I wanted a bridge because that is a metaphor I use throughout the book. Sometimes life feels like a big canyon between where I am and where I want to be. You can see the other side and you know you want to get there. but it can be completely overwhelming thinking about how one actually does that. I wanted to help people build a bridge to get there.
It has been so fun and rewarding spending hours with coaching clients as they start dreaming about the future they want to build for themselves, naming what’s important, discovering and being honest with themselves about what dimensions of their life need some attention. It has been rewarding to use the IDEA Cycle to help them identify small steps of change and low risk experiments they can try, so they can discover what they truly love doing and what energizes them. It has been so rewarding to see them gain both excitement and confidence about stepping into their second act.
✍️ What I want you to know
I genuinely want to help people. This book is for them and I feel it’s about them. It contains dozens of stories from people who have the same fears and concerns — stories readers can relate to. It’s a practical book that can be used for any life transition that seems daunting.
One thing I wanted to mention that might surprise you.
I also included a chapter specifically for leaders in organizations — encouraging them to think differently about how we offboard employees who are about to retire. These are our beloved employees who have spent decades of their lives in service. We should invest in their offboarding the way we invest in their onboarding. Not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because there is a real return on that investment.
If you’ve been reading this newsletter since January, you’ve been part of this journey whether you knew it or not. Your encouragement, your comments, and your willingness to let me share your stories have kept me going and shaped this newsletter and what what this book became.
Designing Your Second Act publishes November 4, 2026 through Routledge Productivity Press. Pre-orders open October 14th — I’ll share the link and a discount code the moment they do.
If you know someone approaching retirement who is excited but also a little anxious about what comes next, I’d be so grateful if you’d share this with them. That’s exactly who this book was written for. 🌱
Tammy Martins is the author of Designing Your Second Act, forthcoming from Routledge Productivity Press on November 4, 2026.
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