The truth about retirement and career transition with Tony Underwood and Dan Hipkiss

It was a pleasure to hear from former England rugby players Tony Underwood and Dan Hipkiss on their experiences of retirement and career transition, at Futurum Group’s most recent event. We touched on the aspects of retirement and career transition that we cover in our ENCORE coaching programme, such as: resilience, identity, purpose, adaptability, relationships, networks and mindset. Tony and Dan were both open and honest about the ups and downs of their careers and experience of retirement:

“Who am I now? Who is Tony Underwood now? ….It’s really challenging when retirement is forced on you, even if you knew it was coming at some point” explained Tony. He went on to say: The highs and lows have helped. Everyone faces challenges. Rugby helped with resilience, learning from successes and failures week by week. You’ve got to be curious about the change and see the positive in any situation you find yourself in.”

Dan talked about how his retirement impacted his identity: “It’s damaging to try to hold on to your (previous) entity. I needed to manage it, take the good bits with me, so I could start again.” And also our tendency to compare ourselves to others: “My mindset used to be that of a silver medallist. I used to look up at the gold medallist and think “I wish I was Jonny Wilkinson…” Now I’m delighted to be a bronze medallist, happy to be on the podium. There will always be somebody better. As Dan Carter (the famous New Zealand All Black) used to say “If I compare myself to others, I’ll get bitter. If I compare myself to myself, I’ll get better.”

We had great feedback from the event including one attendee describing it as “The BEST webinar I’ve been on since lockdown.”

The link to watch or listen to the event: https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/8ELoLfLQcLhb5KUL60f8BLyfS3QXOUefrJ2zK-VFJv0xcJXp5fJI-7adA0mvbXA.65dix8x4VXHzCjjk

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