Clarity
Understand where you stand.
See your current financial picture more clearly and replace vague uncertainty with better questions and informed choices.
The new book from Ed Gaskey
Creating YourNext Chapter
How to gain financial clarity, purpose, passion, and vision before you retire.
A practical guide to moving beyond the question “Can I retire?” and toward a clearer picture of the life you want to create next.
Financial clarityRetirementLife design
Creating Your Next ChapterEdward Gaskey
Why This Book
The financial questionis only the beginning.
People can spend decades preparing financially for retirement without ever defining what they want retirement to become.
Creating Your Next Chapter starts with the practical questions about where you stand, what is possible, and what comes next. But it does not stop there. Ed invites readers to think beyond a retirement date and build a clearer picture of the life they actually want to create.
This Book Is for You If
You are ready for more than a number.
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Retirement is getting closer, but the next chapter still feels undefined.
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You want confidence in your financial picture without making money the only measure of readiness.
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You are asking what will give your time, relationships, and experiences meaning after work changes.
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You want to approach the years ahead intentionally instead of simply waiting to see what happens.
What You'll Walk Away With
Four ideas for thechapter ahead.
The same four principles that shape Ed's work and the message of the book become a practical framework for thinking about what comes next.
Purpose
Define what the next chapter is for.
Look beyond leaving work and consider the people, priorities, contribution, and meaning you want the years ahead to hold.
Passion
Reconnect with what energizes you.
Make room for interests, experiences, and ambitions that may have taken a back seat during the busiest years of life.
Vision
Turn possibility into direction.
Begin forming a concrete picture of the life you want to create, along with the practical steps that can move you toward it.
From Ed GaskeyPersonal Letter · 01Instead of asking, “Can I retire?” you can begin asking, “What do I want my retirement to look like?”Read Ed's letterClose letter
A note from me to you,
For nearly three decades, I've sat across the table from people who have done many of the right things.
They've worked hard. They've saved. They've built careers, raised families, accumulated assets, and prepared for the future.
And yet, as retirement gets closer, I often hear the same questions: Have I saved enough? Will my money last? Am I really ready for this?
Those questions are the reason I wrote Creating Your Next Chapter.
Over the years, I've learned that fear about retirement often isn't caused by a lack of preparation. It comes from a lack of clarity. When you can finally see your complete financial picture, understand your options, and know what's possible, the conversation begins to change.
Instead of asking, “Can I retire?” you can begin asking, “What do I want my retirement to look like?”
That distinction matters to me.
Retirement shouldn't simply mean leaving work. It can be thirty years of your life. Those years deserve the same thought, intention, and planning that you gave to everything it took to get there.
I wrote this book to share the lessons I've learned helping people make that transition from uncertainty to clarity and from fear to confidence. My hope is that it helps you understand where you stand financially, but also gives you the freedom to think bigger about what comes next.
What experiences do you still want to have? Who do you want to spend your time with? What are you passionate about? What kind of legacy do you want to create?
There may never be a “perfect” time to answer those questions. But there is tremendous value in starting.
And if you picked up this book because you've ever found yourself awake at night wondering whether you're going to be okay, I especially wrote it for you.
My hope is that by the final page, you feel less afraid of what comes next and more excited to create it.
Ed GaskeyAuthor · Creating Your Next Chapter
Creating Your Next Chapter
Foreword
I grew up in rural southern Virginia. My father was a pastor, and grandfather was a sharecropper and factory worker. While money always elicited some level of emotion in family conversations, I always felt fear when the future became the focus of the discussion. I thought, “What are they afraid of? What is retirement? How is it possible that Granddaddy no longer works?”
As I got older, started a family, became the president and CEO of a multimillion-dollar Christian nonprofit, and pursued entrepreneurial endeavors, whether I was financially stable or our nonprofit had raised hundreds of thousands of dollars over our annual budget, the most pervasive emotion when discussing aspects of money in the future was still fear.
Continue Reading Foreword
I have known Ed Gaskey for nearly a decade. Our kids went to school together at a time when our family had a significant hardship. Our five-year-old son went to the hospital with a rare condition that ultimately left him immobile and nonverbal for seven and a half years. As you can imagine, with fear about the future already present, my son’s illness, ambiguous grief, and a global pandemic only exacerbated that fear. During that time, the Gaskey family was a solid rock of generosity and a source of mutual encouragement. I was training one of Ed’s children in basketball, and when she needed to make some decisions, I applied my skills as a communications engineer, organizational leader, and executive coach to help her make those decisions with confidence. At that time, I also began consulting with Ed. There we were, two visionaries in a conference room, coming off a global pandemic, dreaming, and asking questions about the future. His mentality was sure, clear, and confident. It seemed he knew all the principles necessary for success or had a system for preparation. He operated his financial practice with focus, definitions, and assessment, like I helped teens at our nonprofit, leaders of organizations on coaching calls, and countless others who needed the advice that brought clarity. His approach was so calculated. I didn’t know how to get what he had, but I wanted that kind of confidence. I know now what I needed much, much more . . . was clarity.
After reading this book, I now know what he knew. I have the approach to the kind of clarity that fosters a level of competence and elevates my level of confidence.
Let’s face it . . . none of us is getting younger. We all have a future, no matter how short or long it is away, that will come whether we like it or not. We cannot control what happens, but we can control our preparation and response. This book is a cheat sheet for the open-book test of financial planning for life. Most books about finances are nuanced or seem impersonal. Ed Gaskey is a down-to-earth man, husband, and father who worked his way up with integrity, grit, honesty (sometimes brutal), and a high value on helping people. Because his focus is helping people live in their God-given purpose, his passion for your overall financial health, clarity, and personal alignment makes him more than a financial advisor. He talks like a real person in this book because he is a real person, has asked the same questions, and needed the same clarity. He has built and continues to refine the systems that have helped him embody the end product this book makes achievable for everyone.
I have much more clarity. Herein lie a roadmap and systems for taking next steps toward planning your financial future with clarity, competence, and confidence. That will do much more for your whole life as you will find deep breaths, long walks, quiet times of reflection much less interrupted by fear and intrusive thoughts. Honestly, I am not there yet, but now, I know where to start and how to get there. When you read this, you will too. I am so grateful Ed Gaskey took the time to make a short, simple, honest treatise on the topic of financial planning. You will be blessed to read it.
ByTimotheus Pope
A Thought to Carry Forward
The next chapter is not only something to discover. It is something you can begin creating with clarity, purpose, passion, and vision.
Meet the Author
A Conversation with Ed Gaskey
Hear Ed discuss Creating Your Next Chapter, the ideas behind the book, and the experiences that shaped its message.
The Interview
The Story Behind the Book
In this conversation, Ed shares more about the thinking behind the book and why creating an intentional next chapter can matter during seasons of transition and change.
Your Next Chapter
Ready to Begin?
A meaningful next chapter starts with taking time to consider where you are, what matters, and where you want to go next.
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Creating Your Next Chapter · Ed Gaskey
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