Living Curriculum
You’ve stopped working. Now what do you want to learn, do and become?
Retirement hands you something you haven’t had since you were a child: time that belongs to you. Nobody tells you what to do with it. For a few months that feels wonderful. Then the question arrives. What is this next part of my life for?
I asked myself that question too, and I answered it by writing my own curriculum. No school, no diploma. A plan for the year ahead, built around how I’m made and what I still want from life.
Now I do it for others.
€1,490 · your personal reading, your written curriculum of around 40 pages and two calls with me. See sample pages.
What a Living Curriculum is
We start with your four-system reading, so we know how you’re made, what gives you energy and what season of life you’re in. Then we talk about what you want: the things you’re curious about, the skills you’d love to have, the way you want your days to feel.
From those two, I write your curriculum for the year ahead. It isn’t a reading list. It follows the way you learn best, according to your design: alone or with others, by reading or by doing, in bursts or a little every day. It also keeps the number of things you have on the go at once to what suits you, so you actually get somewhere.
If you’ve also had a founder reading with me, your work and your projects go into it too.
It is called living because it changes as you do. It suits people who are retiring or recently retired, and anyone standing at a threshold and wanting to cross it on purpose.
What’s in your curriculum
Around 40 pages, written for you alone.
A letter from me about what I see for your year.
How you learn. What each of the four systems says about the way you take things in and keep going: alone or with others, by reading or by doing, in bursts or a little every day.
Your timing. The months that favour starting, studying, travelling and resting.
Your subjects, sorted. Everything you want to learn in three groups: what’s active now, what runs in the background and what waits for later, with the reason and the season for each.
Your year, month by month.
Your day and your week. A few simple anchors, and how much is enough.
Your first thirty days, in plain words.
Your reviews. A short check-in each week and a longer one each season, with the questions to ask.
Your notebook pages, ready to print, to plan, keep track and write down what you’ve tried.
An example. Someone who has always wanted to paint, who would love to speak Italian and who has a box of family letters waiting in the attic might find a first season of drawing classes close to home, Italian starting in the months that favour study, a trip to Tuscany placed in the best moment of the year for travel, and the family letters kept for a quieter winter. Same wishes, put in an order and at a pace that fit the person.
How it works
Your form. You tell me about yourself and your life as it is now, in your own words.
Your reading call. About 90 minutes, online. We go through your chart in the four systems and talk about what you want from the year ahead.
Your written reading. Around 60 pages, yours to keep. It is the ground the curriculum is built on.
Your draft curriculum. I bring together how you’re made and what you want. Your draft reaches you within four weeks after your reading call, often sooner.
Your curriculum call. About 90 minutes. We go through the draft together, page by page, and I adjust what doesn’t feel right. You receive the final version within a week. If the changes are big, we add a short follow-up call first.
You begin.
Updates
Life moves, and so do you. Each update includes a call with me, of about an hour. You tell me what you’ve done, what has changed and what you want now. I look at the timing ahead in your chart, rewrite your plan for the next season and add a short set of lessons on the subject that’s active for you then.
Take one whenever you’re ready, or a year of updates: four, one each season, with a new agenda.
What it isn’t
It isn’t therapy or coaching, and it isn’t medical, legal, tax or financial advice. When a subject needs a professional, your health or the paperwork in your country for example, your curriculum says so and points you to the right person.
The prices
Living Curriculum: personal reading, your written curriculum and two calls · €1,490
With your personal agenda · €1,690 digital · €1,740 printed. The printed agenda includes the digital one.
Curriculum only, if you’ve already had a personal reading with me · €990
One update, with a call of about an hour · €290
A year of updates: four updates, each with a call, and a new agenda · €890 digital · €940 printed
To offer a Living Curriculum to someone, see the gift vouchers.
Questions people ask
Do I need to be retired? No. It suits anyone at a turning point who wants to cross it on purpose.
I’ve already had a reading with you. Then you only need the curriculum, at €990.
What if I don’t follow it? It is made to bend. The weekly check-in is there to change the plan, not to judge you.
Questions first?
I work with one person at a time, in English, French, Spanish or German. If you’d like to talk it over before you book, leave your name below and I’ll write to you personally.
See what’s inside
Here are four pages from a Living Curriculum and one page from its notebook, so you know what to expect. Emma Collins is an invented person. Click a page to see it larger.
