Making & Keeping Friends…in Retirement – Janice McCabe

Choices shaped your career. But when retirement approaches, a new design challenge appears. Not a financial one. A life design challenge. What will your days look like? What will energize you? What might the next five years become? In the Designing Your New Life in Retirement program, you’ll step back from the fray and apply design thinking to those questions, with a bias for action. Learn more here. We begin in April. Join us and get started – on your most important project. _____________________________ Friendship is one of the most powerful forces shaping our lives—and our health. Friendships become harder to maintain as life evolves, especially during major transitions like retirement. Losing work friends is normal, yet few realize how new connections can be cultivated. Our guest today highlights why identity shifts can, perhaps counterintuitively, create oppotunities to build new friendships. My guest today is Janice McCabe, is a sociologist at Dartmouth and author of Making, Keeping, and Losing Friends. Her research, mainly on college campuses, illuminates key principles of forming friendships like the hidden structures that shape our friendships. In this conversation, we explore how anyone—at any stage of life—can become more intentional about building meaningful connections. Why friendships are essential for long-term health and well-beingThe two biggest drivers of friendship formationWhy proximity matters more than we realizeThree types of friendship networksThe difference between fading friendships and breakups If you’re approaching retirement or navigating a major life transition, understanding these patterns can help you design a richer and more connected life. Janice McCabe joins us from New Hampshire. __________________________ Bio Janice M. McCabe is associate professor of sociology at Dartmouth College and the Allen House Professor. She is the current president of the Sociology of Education Association and the author of Making, Keeping, and Losing Friends and Connecting in College: How Networks Matter for Academic and Social Success. __________________________ For More on Janice McCabe Website Books __________________________ Mentioned in This Retirement Podcast Conversation I Study Friendship. Here’s How You Make Lasting Friends. ___________________________ Retirement Podcast Conversations You May Like How to Make New Friends in Retirement – Dr. Marisa G. Franco Our New Social Life – Natalie Kerr & Jaime Kurtz The Good Life – Marc Schulz, PhD ____________________________ About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time. About Retirement Wisdom I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident. Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms. About Your Podcast Host Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Joe has earned Master’s degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University. In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy. ______________________________ Wise Quotes On Life Changes & Friendships ” We’re changing and we’re growing throughout our lives, and there may be times that we change with our friends, and so our identities, our interests change in similar ways, or we’re able to keep some sort of connection through those transitions. But it can be harder for people who are now retired. They likely have friendships that, started earlier in life, and you may have similar transitions with having kids at the same time, or living in the same area or in different areas throughout your lives. So all of those things, some of which are structural. When you’re having those life ...