One of our social media team is hooked on the curiously addictive “Race Across the World”. In case you’ve missed series 4 of this TV reality show, the premise is simple. Five teams of two race to a set destination by land and sea only via various checkpoints, armed only with a map and the cash equivalent of the air fare. That means to travel from Sapporo in Japan to Lombok in Indonesia, they have just £1,390.
Whilst the logistics of travel is the headline challenge, (not to mention the lack of smart phones and internet access), there is also the not-inconsiderable challenge of being together 24/7. That’s perhaps fine at home, or in a five star resort, but when spending up to 30 hours in a rattling, hot bus or crowded train together, the challenge takes on a whole new meaning.
The show shows the reality of this “in each other’s pockets” existence across the age ranges too, from two lads in their 20s, a mum who according to her 20-something daughter is “old” (she’s 61), and a recently married retired couple, Stephen (61) and Viv (65 when she started out)
Stephen and Viv are, perhaps, the most inspiring team of all, determined to live every moment on their journey after two major life-changing health incidents in their past forced them to retire early.
Even when running with heavy back packs along Asian streets, with the young fit lads on their tails, they keep going with spirit and enthusiasm. They overcome their pet hates (in his case, dirty hands when mucking out stables) to earn money to keep in the race. And on Viv’s 66th birthday, celebrated en-route, they really splashed the cash to buy two beers instead of the budgeted one (total expenditure, £2.20).
They like to be first – who doesn’t – but don’t seem to much worry if (for that leg at least) they are not. There is always tomorrow and a new adventure, from herding ducks into Thai rice paddy fields to watching 3 million Cambodian bats take flight at night.
Revealing their initial tactics to the BBC, Stephen explained that:
“We’re hoping perhaps our experience, life experience, our maturity might give us a perspective that perhaps other people don’t see. … We like keeping busy and definitely we’ll have a go at anything. We’d rather have a go and fail then not have a go in the first place.”
Viv thought respect and cooperation would be crucial;
“I think you both have to trust each other, you both have to listen. Different opinions will happen. I think you’ve got to give a reason behind your opinion and I think we just have to listen to each other and go along with what the consensus of opinion is.”
Reaching agreement is also a potentially winning tactic for retirement! When you are both retired and both have the freedom to do what you want when you want, how do you actually decide what to do together on any given “free” day?
Listening to each other’s ideas and coming to an agreement is perhaps the start of a new adventure if you view it as a consensus, not a compromise.
Struggling with planning your life in retirement?
I can help. My retirement planning sessions can help you focus on what’s working and what’s not. It’s a case of striking the balance between all the key pillars of a successful retirement – and only one of the pillars is financial.
For more details, contact me for your no obligation initial discovery appointment, to find out if retirement planning is right for you.
