About Nick

Nick Constantinou is 54. He is not retired. He's writing this from inside the transition — the part where the numbers work and the picture of what comes next doesn't.

He's spent the past two years talking to dozens of people who've navigated the same crossing: some who planned it carefully and still found the first six months harder than anything they'd prepared for; some who had no choice in the timing and had to work backwards from where they landed. He's read the research on identity in later-life transition, on what actually predicts a good outcome versus a difficult one, and applied it — imperfectly — to his own situation.

He is not a financial adviser. He is not a retirement coach. The financial mechanics are covered in other books, and he points to them. What this book covers is the question underneath the mechanics: what the next twenty years are actually for.

He wrote the book he couldn't find when he needed it.