Retirement Planning for the Soul

Not Another Godfather Girl.

It isn’t every day you decide to change your life and do a 180.

Ego: Could’ve fooled me…
Soul: Sssh.

Back in 2012, I quit banking — the perfect mix of left-brain thinking and healthy competition. I remember the decisive moment when I just decided, I was still in my suit - I LOVED wearing suits and on my desk in the middle of Merrill Lynch’s trading floor. Decisive moments are always instinctual. Fast-moving. No time to call your mum or your best friend.

Every human’s true calling simmers quietly in the background. It lives beneath the humdrum of 21st-century busyness. It’s a seed planted by either this life’s circumstances or maybe a past one.

That’s the only way to explain why, one afternoon, out of the blue, while sitting on the trading floor, a thought rose up:

I wanted to act. To be creative.
What happened to that?

Next thought: check the news.
There’s an article on Angelina Jolie.

Turns out she trained at the Lee Strasberg School.
Next thought: Google it. They’re running a summer intensive.
Next thought: Apply.

Ego: Don’t humans realise not every thought needs to be acted on?
Seven years of sheer hard work… and she throws it away over a thought? About Angelina Jolie?

Soul: That’s how the soul works, baby.
Ego: And did she become Angelina Jolie?
Soul: Who says she wanted to?

Anyway, a few swift weeks later, I had my acceptance letter, my visa, and my layoff notice. The bank was doing a second round of layoffs. I had brought in £750k in a new territory (Jersey, Channel Islands, selling vanilla derivatives). But apparently, unless you’re bringing in north of £5 million, you don’t get paid. Lesson learnt.

There was no massive reward for all the hard work anyway. And I had fully understood who I needed to become to stay on, and that version of human wasn’t for me. So I packed my bags for NYC.

I was 28, and leaving a good job felt like the most radical thing I’d ever done.
Yeah, I know- I’d led a pretty protected life.

It was radical… until I met my coursemates. People who had begged, borrowed, and worked night shifts just to be there. My version of bravery looked more like a well-calculated joyride.

That summer was magic. On the course, I met Geoffrey Horne and Lola Cohen - stalwarts of “the method,” trained by Lee Strasberg himself. Then my girlfriend from Jordan visited, and we stayed on and had the best summer of our lives!

In hindsight, I was so naïve. Creatively, I mean. Back then, I still thought The Godfather was the best film ever made. Cinematically? Yes. The Chiaroscuro Lighting! Perfect! Grand, Operatic, and Shakespearean. Okay, maybe I still think it is fantastic, but it is too patriarchal for my liking now.

I want to know the women’s side of that story. I want to know what kept them going? How did these women bumble along with that violence and glorified obedience?

Diane Keaton became my favourite. I love all her films. She is so real and more importantly, she didn’t get weird with age. There are others, such as Susan Sarandon, Meg Ryan, and the whole Nancy Meyers family.

I was a fan of Al Pacino, too… until he had a baby at 80 with a 20-something. I find that hard to wrap my head around.

Ego: So why did she leave the world of sane people?
Soul: Because they would have driven her away from herself.
Ego: And the summer of blowing up savings in NYC brought her closer to herself? Maybe to her poorer self! Hmm.

Now, 13 years later, as I begin my second play, I’m a very different person.
It all worked out—not glamorously…but right in a way I can’t put on a curriculum vitae.

Now I can see that moment of spontaneity on the trading floor was about breaking away from the patriarchy. And I wasn’t aware of it until I began writing about it 13 years later.

Something inside me had realised that growth doesn’t come from staying in one lane. That choice changed the trajectory of my life. It made me more flexible, and surprisingly, it made others around me more flexible, too.

The choice was also about loyalty to myself.

It paid off in a way I could not have known I needed. Today, I am in a phase of life where I need to juggle responsibilities nonstop. My work gives me a connection with you, beyond 21st-century busyness. This connection refreshes my spirit so I can jump back into the juggle with my spirit replenished.

Our 40s are when we are forced to reflect deeply on our truth as human beings. Had I not had a creative outlet, I am not sure I would have found peace.

Also, imagine going to Strasberg now?

If you’re at a point in your life where the trajectory feels a bit uninspiring, then maybe it’s time to rethink your retirement strategy. I mean, what are you going to do when you don’t need to earn money anymore?

Ego: They are going to make more sensible investments and raise grandchildren.

Soul: Here we go again!

Ego: They will travel first class and do annual family vacations in Verbier. You might still be building an audience on Substack!

Soul: I am surprised she gets enough distance from you so she can even think!

That day on the trading floor?
The thought appeared. Fear disappeared. The course existed. The layoff came.
It all lined up. I was single, and the dread of mortgage payments and accumulating assets hadn’t quite got hold of me yet.

Even though the results are now scattered, and I sometimes feel embarrassed or doubtful, I lean back into the fact that I am building something—my creative voice.

I bowed out of the rat race that day. So that mindset- that craving for metrics and milestones -had to be bowed out of, too.

So yeah. That’s what this blog is really about…

Staying loyal to the soul-calling when it shows up.
Not abandoning the journey just because it feels foolish.

Staying the course will invite in a less fearful version of you.
As long as you can walk - or write - you keep going for richer or for poorer.

No big bonuses. No big titles.
Just doing that thing for your future self.

A very different result from the women portrayed in The Godfather, for sure.

Ego: How fucking boring. She’s lost it.
Soul: Nope. She’s just changing.
Ego: Changing?!
Soul: From money and status to messy and sublime.
Ego: Pardon?
Soul: She’s not going to kill you. Just expand you.
Ego: Ego expansion? Is that even possible?
Soul: Well, must be. You're asking the question!