What If Wealth Had Nothing to Do With Money?

Rethinking Retirement Through the Lens of ‘Living Wealth’

🟢 I have been thinking about the concept of “living wealthy” in the context of retirement.

It aligns so well with the Life Design Purpose Wheel that I wrote about in my book Designing Your Second Act, forthcoming from Routledge on November 2, 2026.

The Purpose Wheel is a tool that helps you look deep into your life and assess it from the inside out. Here is what it looks like through the lens of living wealthy…an invitation to think about what matters most and focus on the things that are lasting and meaningful.

---

🧭 The six dimensions of a wealthy life

Health and Vitality

A Japanese proverb puts it this way: “When you are healthy, you have many problems. When you are sick, you only have one.”

Living wealth in this dimension means treating your physical, mental, and social wellbeing as your primary and most valuable asset. Health is one of the critical foundations needed to enjoy all the other dimensions of life. Without it, everything else narrows.

Creativity and Play

Living wealth means that abundance can be found in doing things you love. This can be creative expression or small activities in the day that bring you joy. Some of these cost money, but many times they don’t.

One beloved client talked about the joy she finds in blowing bubbles on her backyard deck. It is relaxing, sparks wonder and joy, and helps her be truly present and appreciate the small things in life. That is living wealth!

Financial Stability

Financial plans and budgets aren’t just tools to plan for retirement. They can also act as blueprints for a meaningful life.

When you align your spending with what matters most to you (your loved ones and activities that create joy, impact, and personal growth) your money becomes a tool and an enabler for intentional living rather than the point of it.

Connection and Relationships

Living wealth means measuring true prosperity through the depth of our connection with others.

Many people enter retirement and feel lonely. Colleagues are still working, children are independent and have their own lives, and they realize that the connections they had were centered around work. Intentionally creating strong social ties and meaningful relationships is one of the most important investments you can make in your second act.

Service and Contribution

One of your most valuable resources in retirement is your time.

Living wealth can be measured by the active impact your time and energy have in uplifting others. It emphasizes giving while living and results in compounding joy… for you, for others, and often through a ripple effect you may never fully realize. For some this means volunteering and supporting the community and future generations. For others it means focusing on the relationships that matter most and finding ways to encourage, support, and be a blessing to the people around them.

Growth and Learning

Living wealth starts by growing your mind, expanding your thinking, and taking small, imperfect actions as a way of learning and improving.

I was on the phone with my brother recently, and he asked how my speaking engagement went at the end of July. I had just led a seminar focused on living intentionally in every season of life. It reminded me of something I find to be true: we can learn something and understand it intellectually, but our learning deepens when we apply it to our own lives. And it deepens even further when we teach or share it with others.

Living wealth invites us to take a posture of curiosity and embrace lifelong learning, because knowledge and skills are active assets that compound over time, especially when we pass that learning on to others.

---

🌱 The wheel as a mirror

The Life Design Purpose Wheel is not intended to be a scorecard. Instead, I think of it as a mirror.

It can help you get a clear, honest snapshot of your life satisfaction across all six dimensions. The purpose is not to judge the gaps or be hard on yourself, but to see them clearly enough to do something about them. The goal is to increase awareness of where you are now, identify imbalances, and set meaningful goals so you can begin to enjoy ‘living wealth’ in every area of your life.

Most retirement planning focuses almost entirely on financial stability which is only one dimension out of six…the other five are largely left to chance.

True living wealth is multidimensional and I believe it is available to anyone who is willing to design for it…intentionally.

---

💡 An invitation

If this concept resonates, the Life Design Purpose Wheel is available as a free tool on my website. It walks you through each of the six dimensions, invites honest reflection on where you are today, and helps you identify where you most want to grow.

You can find it at nextchapterlifedesign.ca and it is explored in depth throughout Designing Your Second Act, where each dimension is unpacked with frameworks, stories, and practical tools.

Living wealth is truly is something you design, one intentional choice at a time.

---

✍️ A question for you:

If you assessed your life honestly across all six dimensions today, which one would be the most out of balance and what would one small step toward living wealth in that area look like?

---

Tammy Martins is a retirement transition coach, speaker, and author of Designing Your Second Act, forthcoming from Routledge in November 2026. She helps professionals and executives design a purposeful and fulfilling life after work.