#140: 🧓🏼💰 Why Retiring at 65 Doesn’t Make Sense Anymore
Living to 100 means rethinking education, work, and retirement
Hey Friends,
This is the 140th edition of Nina’s Notes.
I think every time I hit a milestone like this I stare at my laptop screen in disbelief.
Hard to believe I’ve been writing this newsletter weekly for nearly 3 years.
Whether you’ve been here since the beginning or just joined, thank you for reading, thinking, and learning with me.
This newsletter started as an experiment. It’s become one of my favorite ways to connect.
I’d love to hear from you:
What do you want more of? Neuroscience? Longevity? Psychedelics? Stories? Business insights?
Reply and let me know, your input shapes where we go next.
Xoxo.
Love from Greece 🇬🇷,
Nina
💬 In this note:
🧓🏼💰 Why Retiring at 65 Doesn’t Make Sense Anymore
📚 The Martian Contingency
⚡️ Starbucks Protein Foam
#140: 🧓🏼💰 Why Retiring at 65 Doesn’t Make Sense Anymore
The traditional “learn-work-retire” model is broken.
It made sense when life expectancy hovered around 70.
But as we inch closer to 100, and even 120 for some, retiring at 65 just doesn’t add up.
It could mean spending 50+ years in retirement. That’s longer than most people’s entire careers.
And yet our systems, education, work, finances, haven’t caught up.
The Three-Stage Life Is Outdated
The old formula went something like this:
Education → Work → Retirement
But that model was built for a very different world. Today we face:
Longer lifespans
Rising costs of living
Greater career instability
Dissolution of the middle class
This means we need to adjust our thinking.
Presenting….the multi-stage life.
Instead of front-loading all our learning in our teens and twenties, we now need lifelong learning, with built-in phases for re-skilling, caregiving, career breaks, second (or third) acts, and creative pursuits.
If people are living longer with 100-year lives becoming the norm, this could mean that retirement could last for 50+ years.
This requires a different approach to planning and engagement.
Hobbies That Become Mastery
Imagine picking up writing, ceramics, music, or coding in your 50s, and becoming a master by 95. Why not?
With more years comes more potential to explore new identities and careers. What once seemed like a “retirement hobby” can evolve into meaningful work or income later in life.
And it’s good for us, too. Lifelong learning helps maintain:
Cognitive flexibility
Mental agility
Social connection
A sense of purpose
Nothing ages the brain faster than a rigid routine.
The most vibrant, “young” older adults I know are those still learning, traveling, trying new things, or launching new ventures.
What About the Money?
Of course, none of this works without financial planning. If we’re living longer, we’ll need to support ourselves longer.
But most retirement planning only considers 20–30 years of retirement, not 50.
According to a World Economic Forum Pulse Poll:
Only 45% of respondents believe they’ve saved enough
40% want better visibility into their retirement finances
45% of under-40s expect to support their parents financially
Meanwhile, younger generations dream of retiring earlier, 44% of under-40s want to retire by age 60.
But I suspect it’s not about early retirement. It’s about opting out of the system.
Many just want time and space to pivot, to rediscover themselves, or finally pursue a dream.
What they really want might not be “retirement,” but reinvention.
A Call for Longevity Literacy
If we’re going to live to 100+, we need longevity literacy.
Not just financial knowledge.
But, the ability to plan a life that’s sustainable, flexible, and fulfilling.
That means:
Governments offering education on retirement models and flexible pension schemes
Employers supporting re-skilling, phased retirement, and caregiver-friendly policies
Individuals embracing lifelong learning and preparing for multiple careers and income streams
Retiring at 65 might work for a 70-year lifespan, but not for a 100-year one.
It’s time we stop thinking in terms of “career paths” and start thinking in career waves.
A longer life doesn’t just mean more years. It means more chances to grow, change, and start again.
Let’s build systems, and lives, that make space for that.
👀 Who’s Working On It?
Longevity & Life Design-Focused Startups
Modern Elder Academy (MEA): Offers immersive programs in "midlife wisdom" for people in their 40s–70s.
CoGenerate: Encourages older adults to engage in new careers with social impact, and connects older and younger generations for mutual learning and leadership.
Traditional Institutions Reinventing Education
Stanford Center on Longevity: Advocates for a restructured life arc with multiple learning and working periods. They offer research and programs on the "New Map of Life" including 60-year careers and lifelong learning.
Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative: One-year fellowship for experienced leaders to pivot into social impact work later in life.
University of the Third Age (U3A): A global, grassroots movement that provides informal lifelong learning for older adults. Peer-led, volunteer-run education and workshops for the 60+ age group.
Edtech Platforms with Longevity-Relevant Offerings
MasterClass and Coursera: Not longevity-specific, but both platforms see high usage by older adults. This could become even more important as midlife adults reskill for encore careers.
Outschool / Skillshare / FutureLearn: While older adults are on the target market for these platforms currently (Outschool is currently for Ages 1-18). They all could be adapted for the 50+ age group, and explore topics ranging from creative writing to tech skills for older learners.
Neuroplasticity & Brain Health EdTech
Posit Science / BrainHQ: Digital brain training programs for cognitive longevity and lifelong learning.
Neurotrack: Focused on cognitive health, with potential for integration into lifelong learning programs.
📚 Book of the Week
Source: Simon & Schuster
The Martian Contingency by Mary Robinette Kowal
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Years after a meteorite strike obliterated Washington, D.C., triggering an extinction-level global warming event, Earth’s survivors have started an international effort to establish homes on space stations and the Moon.
The next step…Mars.
Elma York, the Lady Astronaut we fell in love with in the first three books of the Lady Astronaut series is back to land on the Red Planet.
She is going into this mission optimistic about preparing for the first true wave of inhabitants. But from the moment she arrives, something is off.
Disturbing signs hint at a hidden disaster during the First Mars Expedition that never made it into the official transcript.
As Elma and her crew try to investigate, they face a wall of silence and obfuscation.
Hating myself for rating this one two stars…I just couldn’t justify a third star.
This fourth book in the series was my least favorite.
While I love these characters, and that we have astronauts on Mars in what I believe is ~1950s.
The drama in the book is a mix of new and old religious and political issues that left me disinterested in the slow set-up of establishing a habitat on Mars.
Dare I say that you can skip this one….
⚡️ Check This Out
At the Starbucks Leadership Experience event in Las Vegas last month, Starbucks announced its latest innovation.
A 15g protein packed cold foam.
Starbucks observed customers bringing their own protein mixes through their morning drive-through, and stirring or shaking them into Starbucks drinks.
So Starbucks developed a proprietary unsweetened protein blend.
According to reporter Mark Wilson from Fast Company on reviewing the Banana Protein cold foam
“Only when I took a sip did I believe: It was silky, sweet, and not at all chalky. I never would have known it had a meal’s worth of protein inside.”
Let’s try it.
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