What happens when work stops defining you?
You've spent decades building a career, a business or a family. But as the next big chapter of your life approaches, does the conventional image of retirement - sitting on a bench overlooking a beach - fill you with a sense of dread rather than excitement? The financial decisions are complex enough - pensions, assets, business sales, inheritance - but it's the deeper questions of identity and purpose that tend to stop people in their tracks. Chris Daems, Chartered Financial Planner with twenty years of experience, has written the guide he wishes his clients had read before they got there.
What Happens Next is a radical new roadmap for life after work. It is a framework for anyone approaching retirement planning, a career crossroads, or the question of what a fulfilling second act might actually look like - not a pensions manual, and not a bucket-list manifesto.
Drawing on philosophy, psychology, and the real experiences of clients and expert contributors, Daems argues that the biggest mistake people make is treating this transition as a single decision rather than a design process. Your next chapter hasn't been written yet. The book's approach is simple: don't redesign your life in one go. Run small experiments. Learn what matters. Build from there.
The book moves through six dimensions of wellbeing - purpose and identity, financial wellbeing, physical health, social connection, intellectual and occupational fulfilment, and community - showing how each interacts with the others, and how financial independence alone is never enough. Life after work is richer when it is planned across all of these dimensions, not just the financial ones.
Each chapter combines evidence and wisdom - from the Harvard Study of Adult Development to the Stoics, from behavioural finance to the K�bler-Ross change curve - with practical tools and prompts the reader can apply immediately. Real client stories bring the theory to life, including the stories of people who got it right, and those who had to find their way back from getting it wrong.
For anyone over fifty navigating a major life transition - whether leaving a career, selling a business, or simply asking what comes next - this book provides the clarity and courage to move forward.
Contributors and voices include founders, executive coaches, financial wellbeing specialists, and experts on purpose in later life and wellbeing over sixty. Chris Daems is a Chartered Financial Planner and Chair of the CISI Financial Planning Forum. What Happens Next is also a podcast and a growing community of people redesigning life on their own terms.
The practical guide to retirement that goes far beyond the money.
Daems, Chris: - Chris believes that good financial planning should have one simple purpose: to help people achieve their financial goals so they can live the life they want.For Chris's clients, this involves building a plan that, over the long-term, helps them get from where they are today to what they want to achieve tomorrow and beyond. Chris is a chartered financial planner and one of the directors of Cervello Financial Planning. He is responsible for the strategic direction of the business, as well as continuing to look after his portfolio of clients. Chris is a fellow of the Personal Financial Society. Fellowship is the highest and most prestigious level of professional achievement is possible within the PFS.Chris feels he's learned a lot as a financial planner in his twenty years of working with clients. He also believes in a consistent focus on improvement (something he tries to teach his daughters Sophie and Charlotte). However, Chris also believes the true test of good financial planning is what clients say about the experience. That's why he's really pleased when his clients tell him they 'sleep better at night knowing that Chris and his team manage their wealth and support their financial goals'.Chris has been fortunate enough to win several awards and has published two books, one helping employers comply with pension regulations and another sharing the stories of kindness he's collected while hosting a podcast with his daughter.
