Retiring from the jobisn’t like retiring from a job.

In my last years on the job, I watched firefighters with decades of service — careful people who ran complex scenes every shift — make retirement decisions in an HR office because the paperwork was due.

Not because they were careless. Because nobody ever taught us this part of the job. The fire service gives you world-class training for everything except what happens after it.

So I learned it, lived it, and wrote it down for the next crew coming up behind me. The free chapters cover the three decisions that do the most damage when they’re rushed.