Jann Freed, who teaches leadership development and change management in the Des Moines area, tells this story:

Not long ago, she was working with a large insurance company that had offered an incentive package to workers eligible for retirement.

About 80 employees received the offer, which Freed described as lucrative. In fact, the retirement package was so good, she said, top executives figured they’d probably never offer it again.

One reason the offer was so good was that the bosses knew that if they didn’t create opportunities for advancement, the company would begin losing promising young talent.

The bosses were worried that they might lose too many employees. They need not have worried, though, because very few took the offer.

The response confounded the executives.But not Freed. She figured the low response had little to do with how lucrative the incentives were or how old the employees were.

Sometimes, she told the executives, it’s not about the money.

If people feel financially secure, Freed explained, it’s often other things — beyond the money — that concern them.

“It’s about what to do with their time,” Freed said. “It’s about their identity. Who would they be once they left the company and their job titles? How would they structure their lives without the framework that’s guided them for the past 20, 30, even 40 or more years?”

“It’s hard to get out of one’s comfort zone, and given the choice, those workers decided to stay,” she explained.

The situation gave Freed an idea.

Five years ago, she’d written a book, “Leading With Wisdom: Sage Advice from 100 Experts,” that distilled the insight of leaders she had interviewed over the years. Freed wrote the book as a self-help manual for baby boomers trying to decide what to do with the rest of their lives.

She saw the insurance company’s problem as a continuation of that same theme.

It’s a problem, she said, other employers also face, or will face: baby boomers who can afford to retire, but who are afraid to pull the trigger because they don’t know what to do next.

On her website, JannFreed.com, she offers employer-sponsored seminars designed to help employees pull the retirement trigger.

In one exercise she tells participants to think of retirement as “an encore career” and to select five to 10 drivers of that career from a list of 35 options. The options include “solve problems,” “be my own boss,” “feel needed,” “have fun” and so on.

A few days later, Freed asks them to refine the list to just five drivers. Later still, to rank the drivers and place them in the perspective of a new life.

As someone who has been through a retirement, I believe her process has merit.

Not long after I left The Des Moines Register in 2012, John Forsyth, chief executive of Wellmark Inc., Iowa’s largest health insurer, took me to lunch and said: “You know, Dave, a lot of people die within four years of retirement.”

It was Forsyth’s way of saying retirement needs purpose. His point was that if you don’t have something to do, retirement won’t be much fun.

Freed’s list of 35 drivers is aimed at helping people see the possibilities and find purpose.

As I read her list, I selected the five drivers for my own retirement — stimulate my mind, have a flexible schedule, be creative, continue to learn and supplement my retirement income.

You readers are a big part of my retirement because you let me research and write about things that interest me, including business, politics, the economy, history, personal finance and whatever is on the mind of my friend K.C.