Book review: Refire! Don’t Retire. Making the rest of your life the best of your life

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 57, No. 8, October 2015, Page 350 News
By: Willem R. Vroom, MD

book cover for refire
By Ken Blanchard and Morton Shaevitz. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2015. ISBN 9781626563339.

This book addresses the conundrum faced by many new retirees: Now what? What am I going to do with the rest of my life to make it healthy, joyful, and rewarding?

Refire! provides much practical advice on matters such as building and rekindling relationships, mental stimulation and challenge, maintaining health, and dealing with adversity. The authors divide the book into four keys: refiring emotionally, intellectually, physically, and spiritually.

I found particularly inspiring the section on venturing out of established comfort zones and being more spontaneous. Physician readers might find Refire! too clinically unsophisticated with the health advice. However, that makes it all the more recommendable to our retiring patients.

Few of us have well-grounded retirement plans, and we tend to venture into retirement by providing the occasional locums, surgical assists, or working a few shifts in a walk-in clinic. This book might give some inspiration and focus for making retirement a more exciting opportunity. The publisher has provided a free sample chapter at http://refirebook.com.
—WRV

Willem R. Vroom, MD. Book review: Refire! Don’t Retire. Making the rest of your life the best of your life. BCMJ, Vol. 57, No. 8, October, 2015, Page(s) 350 - News.


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