Victory Lap Retirement Book Review

For my 2025 Personal Finance Resolutions, I wanted to read five personal finance books, once of them was Victory Lap Retirement: Work While You Play, Play While You Work by Mike Drak, Rob Morrison, and Jonathan Chevreau. Here’s my Victory Lap Retirement book review.

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Who Are Mike Drak, Rob Morrison, And Jonathan Chevreau?

Mike Drak is a public speaker and a retirement lifestyle designer (doing his own Victory Lap) after retirement from the banking indusry in 2014. He is well versed on the non-financial aspects of retirement- like finding meaning and how to spend your days.

Rob Morrison is a Certified Financial Planner based in the United States and is a Chief Experience Officer at Savant Wealth. He also wrote another book called Retirement Heaven or Hell: Which Will You Choose?

Jonathan Chevreau is the founder of Findependence Hub and was the editor-in-chief at MoneySense magazine. He also wrote a column in the Financial Post. I had not heard of Mike Drak or Rob Morrison in my years as a personal finance enthusiast but definitely have heard about Jonathan Chevreau.

Victory Lap Retirement Book Review

The premise of the book is that 100% complete retirement doesn’t work for people anymore. People want to find meaning in their lives and spending your days watching TV and just sitting around isn’t an ideal retirement for many. Working can provide socialization and a chance to talk to people and connect.

In this book, it goes over the financial and non-financial reasons for continuing to work.

The first part of Victory Lap Retirement talks about why you might want to rethink retirement, including how early retirement and sudden retirement might actually reduce your life span.

They then talk about how it is important to find your purpose, and reference longevity in Okinawa and the importance of finding your Ikigai. In case you’re not aware, Ikigai means melding a few things together: What you love, what you are good at, what you can be paid for, and what the world needs; and doing that for your work (even if it doesn’t really pay you much).

In the last few chapters, the book talks about how health is wealth and how you should also focus on spiritual health as well, and of course they reference the Tale of the Mexican Fisherman. Health is something we take for granted until we don’t have it. Then it whacks you in the face and when you don’t have it, you can’t focus on anything else. It might only a matter of time before we have chronic disease of the western world- diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia..

What I LIked About Victory Lap Retirement

Victory Lap Retirement was the best book I have read so far (and I’ve read 4 out of the 5 books that I wanted to read this year). I liked the quotes in the book, the comics in the book before each chapter started.

They also gave some tips on how to shape your retirement work day (sounds like an oxymoron) by working a maximum four hours per day and how to be productive with it.

What I Didn’t Like About Victory Lap Retirement

There wasn’t much that I didn’t like about Victory Lap Retirement. It was a good read and I liked reading the different perspectives and stories from the co-authors.

I met up with a colleague recently who is almost 80 years old. I asked her how she spends her retirement, and she says she spends the morning looking at the stock market and making small trades. She says it’s a form of entertainment for her. Then she just goes out for a meal a few times a week with her husband. She doesn’t sound like she’s enjoying retirement entirely and mentioned feeling bored.

Another colleague who had early retirement is in her 60’s now and she sounds busier than when she was working. She is busy playing Pickleball a few times a week, she’s embarking on different travel trips (I can’t keep track of where she’s going next), and helping out her aunt who has dementia with medical appointments.

I think how you enjoy retirement (or not enjoy retirement) is based on your personality and you can choose to shape it how you want to shape it (like all things in life, it is about your perspective).

Here’s how I would like to retire happy. Being TRUE to yourself creates a beautiful life. Don’t have any regrets.

“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me” is one of the many regrets of the dying, according to Bonnie Wrare, a palliative care nurse who shared a popular piece on the 5 regrets of the dying.

Have you read Victory Lap Retirement? What are your thoughts on working on your own terms after retirement?