In this week’s 4-Quarter Lives Podcast, Avivah Wittenberg-Cox is joined by Rob Nathan, occupational psychologist and career coach, to ask why the three-stage life — education, work, retirement — is proving so stubborn. Recorded on his 77th birthday, Nathan argues the systems around us were built for shorter lives and have not caught up, while individuals get financially and socially bound into their employers. He draws on William Bridges to separate change from transition, and unpacks the self-limiting beliefs that keep people stuck at the edge of the diving board. The conversation turns to cultural contrasts — the respect afforded elders across Southeast Asia against a Western workplace that reads older workers as slower and replaceable — and to the case for career conversations and multi-generational teams. Nathan closes with whitewater rafting and his own definition of a good fourth quarter.
Rob Nathan is an occupational psychologist and career coach of more than four decades. He set up his own practice in 1978 and now directs Career Counselling Services, whose training and coaching work he is expanding into Southeast Asia. He commissioned, edited and co-authored The Holistic Career Conversations Handbook, including a Chapter on Career Conversations to The Holistic Career Coaching Handbook, and an earlier co-authored career title was serialised on television. He designed the Thrive at 55 programme for people rethinking work in later career. Alongside his practice he holds a master’s in creative writing, writes short stories, and runs shared reading groups for elders with Age UK.
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