Cover of The Renaissance Years by Oliver Mindwell

PDF · 29 pages · 6 × 9 in · printable worksheets

The empty Monday · A Pattern Weaver guide

The Renaissance Years
A polymath's guide to never retiring.

What a job was quietly giving you, and three tools for replacing it on your own terms.

$13 USD, plus VAT where applicable, shown before you pay

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Sold by Sanava LTD, Cyprus, published as Oliver Mindwell.

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What is actually in it

11 chapters, 29 pages.

Introduction: The empty Monday.

  1. What a job gave you
  2. What the research says happens
  3. When flatness needs a doctor
  4. The mind is protected by challenge, not rest
  5. The people who did their best work late
  6. Selectivity: the gift with a condition
  7. Tool one: the Curiosity Calendar
  8. Tool two: the Mentor Hour
  9. Tool three: the Legacy Project
  10. The first ninety days
  11. Common objections

Conclusion: The work is finally yours. Then the Sources chapter, where every source named in the book is listed with a link, and a short note on the author.

The tools

Three tools, and the worksheets to run them.

The Curiosity Calendar

A planner that gives the week the structure the job used to supply, without handing it back to somebody else.

The Mentor Hour

One hour a week teaching one person. The cheapest way back into the part of work that was actually worth having.

The Legacy Project

A worksheet for choosing the one long thing, and the first ninety days of actually starting it.

Sources

10 sources, every one a working link. Where a finding has limits or has been revised, the book says so. Not all of them are journal papers, and the chapter says which is which.

The first page

Read the opening before you pay for the rest.

For forty years, someone else decided what you would think about from nine to five. From the video this guide was written for

Most people find that freedom wonderful for about a month. Then something arrives that the brochures did not mention. The days blur. The projects that were going to be started are not started. The mind that spent four decades solving other people's problems looks around for a problem and finds the garden, and the garden is not enough. A quiet, flat feeling settles in, and because retirement is supposed to be the reward, nobody feels entitled to complain about it.

This book is for the person facing that Monday, or watching someone they love face it, and it makes one argument. For a mind that connects many fields, retirement can be the most creative chapter of a life. But only if you understand what happens when the structure comes off, because the danger and the opportunity are made of the same material: a mind built for use, with nothing to use it on.

That is the opening of 29 pages.

Before you buy

The questions worth asking.

Is this just the video in writing?

Partly, and here is exactly which part. The three tools are the same three tools, because they work. What the video does not have: the worksheets for all three, the full research with every source linked, a straightforward chapter on recognising when flatness has become something a doctor should see, and what the research on retirement really says, and the questions there was no room for. If you only wanted the three tools, you already have them, free.

Is the chapter on flatness medical advice?

No. It is a plain description of the difference between the ordinary flatness of an unstructured week and the kind that needs a doctor, written so that you can tell which one you are looking at. If it is the second, the chapter says to go and see someone, and so do I.

How long is it, really?

29 pages at 6 by 9 inches, about 5,000 words, 11 chapters plus an introduction and a conclusion. It is a short book and it is priced like one. It is not a 300 page business book and it does not pretend to be.

What do I get, and how?

One PDF. The download link appears on the confirmation page the moment the payment clears, and the same link is emailed to you with your invoice. No account, no app, nothing to install. The link does not expire, and if you lose the email you can have it sent again.

Can I print the worksheets?

Yes. The pages are laid out at 6 by 9 inches. The parts you fill in sit inside the chapters they belong to, so you can print just those pages, or the whole book.

Are the sources real, and can I check them?

Every source is named and linked in the Sources chapter, 10 of them in this one, and the links were checked when the book was built. Not all of them are journal papers: some are reference pages, talks, or news write ups of a study, and the chapter says which is which. Where a finding has limits or has been revised, the book says so rather than quoting the headline.

Something went wrong: the file will not open, or I was charged twice.

Reply to the email your invoice came in and it gets fixed, with a fresh link or by refunding a duplicate charge. To be straight with you, that is not a change of mind refund policy. Because the file is delivered the instant you pay, and you confirm that at checkout, the 14 day right of withdrawal does not apply. This is us fixing our own mistakes, which is a different thing.

The work is finally yours.

29 pages, three tools, 10 linked sources. One file, yours to keep.

Instant download, PDF. Secure checkout by Stripe.
Sold by Sanava LTD, Cyprus, published as Oliver Mindwell.

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