My Story
The backstory behind
the work.
"The next chapter of life should not happen by accident."
The backstory to Rewire or Retire probably began around 2010, when I first heard someone use the phrase "the second half" in connection with work and life. It immediately resonated with me, both positively and uncomfortably.
I had spent more than twenty-five years in the emergency services, much of it as a team leader and manager, whilst juggling family life, raising six children with my wife Lila, studying, and trying to stay fit enough to outrun middle age. But the idea of "the second half" unsettled me. For the first time, I caught myself thinking: "How do you find the motivation and strength for another big chapter after such an energy-sapping first half?"
I later discovered there was another reason behind it. I was suffering from pernicious anaemia, a condition that prevents the body naturally absorbing vitamin B12. Physically and emotionally, I was running on fumes without fully understanding why. My usual response to difficulty was simply to push harder. Go for a run. Keep moving. Keep going.
Around that time, the idea of building a "second half" coaching practice began to take shape. In 2012, I floated the concept with a Belfast business consultant. She gently suggested that perhaps I was a little ahead of the curve for Northern Ireland. At the time, it was difficult hearing what I did not want to hear: "Not now, Aaron." Looking back, it turned out to be a blessing.
Instead of immediately building the business, I ended up living the very thing I would later coach others through. Over the next number of years, I coached senior leaders across North America and Asia-Pacific, worked for five years as an international police advisor in the Za'atari and Azraq refugee camps in Jordan, and later lived and lectured in the UAE within the safety, security, and crisis management sector.
What I eventually realised was this: the second half of life is not simply about winding down or drifting towards retirement. For many people, it becomes a moment of reckoning - a point where experience, ambition, fatigue, identity, and purpose all collide. Some people retire. Some people rewire. Most wrestle with elements of both. Rewire or Retire grew from that understanding.
