Health, Business & Retirement Strategies, | so we can live, work and retire with purpose. Steven Doggette

October 8, 2026October 8, 2026

The Miracle On Ice Lives On

This week, we hiked Mt. Van Hoevenberg – elevation 2,939 feet.

This mountain hosted the bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton events during the 1980 Winter Olympics. Today, it still boasts an outstanding sports complex that makes full use of that Olympic investment. On the day of our hike, it was hosting a professional downhill mountain bike world cup event.

Yes, this is the same Olympics where the United States unexpectedly beat a heavily favored Soviet Union team in the medal round of men’s hockey, the moment forever known as The Miracle On Ice. These are the things movies are made about.

October 2, 2026October 2, 2026

Finding Gratitude and Purpose Beyond the Office

Today we hiked to the top of Storm King Mountain, elevation 1,340 feet. It sits on the west bank of the Hudson River and, together with Breakneck Ridge on the opposite bank, creates the northern narrows known as “Wey-Gat,” or Wind Gate. During his initial voyage up the river, Henry Hudson took note of its prominent aspect and called the mountain Klinkesberg because of its rock cliffs near the river.

As we climbed up the difficult trail, which often doubled as a flowing creek, I noticed that we were practically alone on the mountain. One other hiker we ran into warned us of wet, steep trail conditions on the back side of the mountain, but we pressed on. The clouds hung low in the sky, and I worried we would not have a view once we reached the top.

September 5, 2026September 8, 2026

How to Capture Inspiration Like Chasing Fireflies in a Night Breeze

A Quiet Moment of Insight

It was late evening and I was exhausted. I turned out the light, said a quick prayer, and waited for sleep to whisk me away. But instead of drifting off, I suddenly found inspiration for a new post, bullet points and all.

My first reaction was, I’ll just write this down in the morning when I’m not so tired. But experience has taught me that half of those thoughts would vanish by sunrise.

August 25, 2026August 25, 2026

Do The Hard Thing With Purpose

Do you know your purpose?

August 19, 2026August 19, 2026

How to Break Free from the Hollow Life

There’s an old apple tree on our property that, without pruning, has grown into a full-size tree.

Whether from age or burrowing animals, the trunk is hollow near the ground, where it should be strongest. There is even a spot where daylight shows through a hollow area in the middle.

The funny thing is, it still produces what looks like a full yield of apples every year. From a distance, you’d never know anything was wrong. And yet we fully expect the day it finally tips over, because its foundation simply can’t support the weight forever.

August 17, 2026August 17, 2026

How to Fuel Your Brain for Peak Performance

When I was in the corporate world, I was constantly consuming information. Emails to triage, financial projections to build and socialize, and technical content to absorb and translate. It was a nonstop buffet for the brain.

Then I retired. Suddenly my days were filled with travel, helping my parents relocate, and tackling long delayed house projects. After a few weeks, I realized something surprising: I missed the constant ingestion of content. My mind felt like it had taken an extended vacation. My brain was getting hungry.

August 6, 2026August 9, 2026

The Lighthouse Still Guides Us

Sometimes the things that guide us for decades go dark — and that’s when the real work begins.

Last week we visited the Tarrytown Lighthouse, the cast‑iron beacon that sits in the Hudson River at Sleepy Hollow — yes, the same Sleepy Hollow from Washington Irving’s Headless Horseman. Built in 1883, it guided ships for 78 years until modern navigation made it obsolete in 1961.

July 29, 2026July 30, 2026

The Empty Briefcase

A quiet milestone in my retirement journey happened today — and it surprised me more than I expected.

It’s been three weeks since my last day of work, and today I finally emptied out what remained in my laptop bag — my modern‑day briefcase. Somewhere among leftover folders, random cables, and a couple of loose coins were the final day‑to‑day artifacts of the professional rat race I stepped away from when I retired.

July 22, 2026July 30, 2026

The Legacy That Matters Most Isn’t Financial

This week, I’ve been thinking about what it means to leave a lasting legacy — more specifically, what remains after the season we call retirement comes to an end.

We often think of legacy in terms of financial assets passed down to the next generation. But what if it’s more than that? What if our lives were lived in such a way that our lasting impact isn’t just money left to children, but enduring attributes like family strength, cultural influence, and a spiritual foundation?

July 15, 2026July 30, 2026

The High-Stakes Retirement Exam

Retiring is a lot like those all‑important school tests — the kind where your score opens (or closes) doors to future opportunities. In many cases, you only get one chance to get things right, and the consequences can last for years.