By Matthew Elder

Four years after taking early retirement, Susan Reid has settled into a comfortable life in Knowlton and Nova Scotia. But it was initially a challenge in the months after she closed the door on her tenured marketing professor position at Bishop’s University in 2021.

“Near the end of a post-retirement trip to France, I had the first panic attack of my 57-year-old life,” she says. “I realized I was returning home with absolutely no plan for my future. I’d gone from pedal-to-the-metal work to zilch in the blink of an eye.”

A Retirement Reimagined

Reid describes her entry to retirement in the introduction to her recently published book, Re-visioning Retirement: A Workbook. The shock of what to do next inspired her to create an action plan and, four years later, turn it into a short, easy-to-read guidebook that shows younger retirees how to prepare for a change in life – a transition she says needs vision.

Researching and teaching marketing for three decades has required Reid to focus on vision – “what it is, why it’s important, and how to create it,” she says.

“Yet here I was, with no vision whatsoever for my own retirement.”

The Three Pillars of Retirement Vision

This led her to create a step-by-step vision for retirement, which she has documented in her book. She describes it as a fun process, based on three pillars and taking the reader through 15 formal exercises (hence, the workbook structure):

1. Foundations – You embrace your authentic self by identifying and exploring values, skills, and passions.
2. Uncovering – Then move on to discovering your aspirational values and go through the steps of activating attitude these aspirations and aligning them with your life.
3. Nurturing – This is the final step in re-visioning retirement, in which you create a vision statement, which Reid says represents an aspirational direction that you plan to move toward in the future.

A Life Rooted in the Townships

Reid’s attachment to the Eastern Townships is based on two decades of apple farming near Frelighsburg, where she and her husband developed an ice apple cider product. Her mother-in-law was raised on an apple orchard near Granby.

“I loved the Townships vibe and it quickly became the place where we wanted to work, build a business and raise our family,” she says.

Where to Find the Book

Re-imagining Retirement: A Workbook is available at Brome Lake Books and online. The book’s publisher is Barlow Books, founded and run by former Knowlton resident Sarah Scott.