In this episode of 60 Plus Uncensored, host Seb Frey sits down with Karen Green, a sales and retail specialist who has spent decades on both sides of the table, first as a buyer for major UK retailers, then as a consultant helping businesses sell smarter. Karen is on the cusp of turning 60, and she’s spent the last ten years building a new life in the south of France, just north of Nice. What makes her story land isn’t a list of achievements, it’s how practical and human her reinvention is: a move sparked by a long-held promise, a financial wobble that forced her to adapt, and a steady commitment to purpose, relationships, and work that still feels worth doing.
From Newbury to Nottingham: An early career built in retail
Karen grew up in a world where retail wasn’t an abstract concept, it was part of the family fabric. Her father ran a department store in Newbury, a town about 60 miles west of London, and Karen was around shops and customers from the start. As a teenager, she worked in the store, absorbing the rhythms of how people choose, buy, hesitate, and commit.
That early exposure mattered later, because it trained her to notice what many people miss: even “rational” purchases often come from emotion first. Long before she worked with corporate teams or advised founders, she was watching real people in real settings make decisions for reasons that didn’t always show up on a spreadsheet.
Eventually, her career took her into big retail. She worked as a buyer for Boots and Tesco, two well-known names in the UK, and later moved to Nottingham for work. It was a good city for being young, she says, but it didn’t have the sea or the mountains. That detail sounds small until you realize how much geography and daily environment became part of her later story.
If you’re thinking about how a lifelong career can shape what you do next, and how reinvention can still be practical, not performative, When Retirement Feels Too Small: How to Reclaim Purpose, Connection, and Joy is a great companion resource.
What it feels like to sit on the “power” side of the table
Karen’s experience as a buyer gave her a front-row seat to corporate negotiation, and she’s candid about what that means. When you’re buying for a major retailer, you have leverage. Suppliers are competing for shelf space, and the buyer’s decisions can shape a product’s future.
She explains that negotiation is easier when you hold the power, but it’s not only about pushing for better terms. Even from that position, you still have to “sell” internally and externally. You have to make the case that investing in this brand and this product is a better choice than investing in a competitor. It’s persuasion, not just pressure.
Later, as Seb brings up how emotional real estate decisions can be, Karen connects the dots to business decisions. She mentions a striking idea she’s seen play out repeatedly: corporate decisions often look logical on paper, but they’re driven by human emotion, desire, fear of missing out, trust, status, anxiety, hope. People don’t stop being people just because there’s a contract involved.
That’s where her work begins to shift from “sales tactics” to something more personal.
The long promise: Why France, and why then?
Karen didn’t wake up one day and randomly choose France. The move had roots.
Years earlier, after redundancy from Boots, she had a small amount of money and made a decision that would quietly change her options later: she bought a small apartment on the French coast and rented it out. That wasn’t just a property purchase, it was a thread tying her to a future she hadn’t fully stepped into yet.
She also had a promise to herself: when her younger daughter went to university, Karen would move into that flat and see what life in France could be like. She’d had those “I’ve had enough, I’m leaving” moments many people know, but she wasn’t going to uproot her children while they still needed stability at home.
So she waited. Then she did it.
France appealed for practical reasons too. She spoke some French (not fluent then, better now), she already had friends in the region, and where she lives offers a rare mix: sea, mountains, and an easy drive to Italy. It’s beautiful and versatile. She considered Italy at first but felt intimidated by bureaucracy. Spain? The late dinners were a deal-breaker. Karen loves food, but not the idea of waiting until 10 p.m. to eat.
If Karen’s long-held plan to move has you thinking about your own timing, priorities, and what a “better-fit” life could look like, Creating a Fulfilling Lifestyle After Retirement is a great companion resource.
The first year: excitement… and then the cliff edge
The first year in France went relatively smoothly because Karen had a couple of contracts that kept her going financially. But then those contracts ended, and she hit the question that shapes so many reinvention stories:
“Now what?”
This is where the reality of reinvention after 60 (or close to it) shows up. It’s one thing to move. It’s another thing to create a sustainable life once the initial plan runs out.
Karen had to learn how to market herself in a new way. She had to shift from being a corporate professional to being a self-employed person building a business from the ground up. She wrote a book, developed offerings, and created additional income streams, including renting out her apartment during the summer.
That process wasn’t a glossy “follow your dreams” montage. It was learning, adjusting, and building. The kind of reinvention that happens one practical decision at a time.
If you’re also navigating that moment when the original plan ends and you have to rebuild income and momentum, How to Reenter the Workforce After 60: A Practical Guide to a Fresh Start is a great companion resource for modern resumes, confidence, and strategy.
Money in a new country: budgeting, healthcare, and choices
Seb raises a question many listeners and readers will relate to: how do you make living abroad work financially?
Karen’s answer is grounded. She talks about minimizing outgoing costs, selling her house in the UK, and initially planning to pay off her mortgage in France, though she ended up buying another house instead, which became its own story.
She also points out some cost differences that matter a lot to people considering a move:
- Healthcare is significantly cheaper for her in France compared with what Americans often face.
- Energy costs are cheaper than in the UK.
- Food is generally more expensive, though inflation in the UK has narrowed the gap.
She doesn’t pretend it’s simple. There are complications in how money moves across borders, and she’s clear she’s more qualified to speak from a UK-to-France perspective than from the US. But she offers something useful: a reminder that “Europe is expensive” isn’t the full picture. Property costs vary wildly depending on location. Nice and the surrounding area can be pricey, especially with a sea view, but rural regions can be surprisingly affordable.
She gives an example of a friend buying a large house north of Limoges for €79,000. For someone used to major US cities, that number can feel almost unreal. For someone used to rural Midwestern pricing, it may still feel like a bargain.
What matters is context: your needs, your location, your expectations, and how you’re defining quality of life.
If the financial side of living abroad is what you’re trying to get clear on, especially costs, trade-offs, and avoiding expensive surprises, 7 Common Financial Mistakes Seniors Should Avoid is a great companion resource.
Daily life in France: still working, but living differently
It would be easy to imagine Karen’s life as pure leisure, sunshine, markets, and leisurely meals. But her day-to-day routine is a blend of discipline and enjoyment.
She starts her mornings like an Englishwoman: tea first. Then some work, often marketing, before walking her dog for an hour, sometimes in the hills. She works from home, does coaching calls, marketing calls, and podcast appearances. She tries to take an hour for lunch, a French habit that’s become part of her rhythm.
And she travels. Some work is virtual, but many engagements are in person again, in London, the Czech Republic, Belgium, and even Stockholm later in the year. She likes being back in rooms with people, not just on screens. Seb agrees, sharing how easy it is to become house-bound after the pandemic, and how life “happens outside your house.”
This part of the conversation lands especially well for adults thinking about life after 60. Karen isn’t chasing youth, but she’s also not shrinking her world. She’s choosing a life with movement, physical, social, and professional.
If you’re trying to build a day-to-day rhythm that supports energy, mobility, and a body that recovers differently with age, The Best Low-Impact Exercises for Adults Over 60 is a great companion resource.
Writing books as a pivot: turning experience into something others can use
Karen wrote two books.
The first, Recipe for Success, grew out of her experience helping food businesses sell into grocery retail, what goes wrong, what to do right, how to grow.
The second, Buyer-ology, zooms in on something she thinks many B2B sellers overlook: the person behind the corporate role. Too often, she says, people try to sell to “Tesco” or “a corporation,” focusing on store counts and distribution, without deeply considering the buyer’s personality, motivations, and decision-making style.
Her premise is simple and practical: study the buyer as a person, not just a job title. Profile them. Understand how they interact with their company. Adapt your approach without losing your identity.
That’s also where her coaching work connects.
What holds people back: identity, “should,” and the fear of being yourself
When Seb asks what holds people back, Karen doesn’t default to generic advice. She talks about something specific she sees often: people struggle because they don’t understand other people, or they don’t know how to adapt to others without feeling fake.
In corporate environments, success often requires working across different personalities. It also requires confidence in your own approach. Karen notices that many people, especially women, carry a heavy “should” mindset:
“I should be more like this.”
“I should sound like that.”
“I should act a certain way to be taken seriously.”
Karen doesn’t like the word “should.” In her coaching, she pushes people to examine where those ideas come from and whether they serve them. The goal isn’t to perform a personality; it’s to show up in a way that’s aligned with your values while still being effective with others.
She describes her coaching as more question-led, helping people uncover what they want and what’s in the way, while her mentoring is more directive, sharing expertise and guidance.
Sometimes, her coaching leads to promotions. Sometimes, it leads to people leaving their jobs because they realize they want something different. She’s okay with that. In fact, she sees it as a win if someone stops forcing themselves into a life that doesn’t fit.
That’s aging with purpose in a very real sense: not just “staying busy,” but getting honest about what you want the next chapter to be.
Negotiation surprises: when your expertise doesn’t translate culturally
One of the most revealing moments in the conversation comes when Karen talks about negotiating in France.
She has years of negotiation training. She’s taught it. She’s lived it. And yet she found that negotiating in France, especially around property, felt almost impossible.
Her experience buying the house she lives in now took five months to agree on a price because the seller simply wouldn’t negotiate. Karen expected a middle ground. The response she got was basically: take it or leave it.
It’s a reminder that reinvention after 60 isn’t only about learning new skills. Sometimes it’s about unlearning assumptions and adapting to a different cultural logic, even when you’re competent and experienced.
For anyone trying to stay relevant later in life, this is a helpful truth: expertise is real, but contexts change. The ability to remain flexible matters as much as what you already know. If you’ve ever realized your expertise doesn’t automatically travel across cultures, and you’re trying to stay flexible and sharp as contexts change, The Science of Staying Sharp: How to Keep Your Brain Young After 60 is a great next read.
Purpose: not just work, but giving back and staying awake to the world
Seb asks Karen about purpose, and she answers with honesty rather than slogans.
For her, purpose includes taking care of herself, sleeping, movement, not overdoing alcohol, and staying healthy. But it also includes giving back. She tries to work with someone each year for free, often a food business she can help grow. She’s mentored through organizations like Virgin StartUp and (previously named) The Prince’s Trust, now The King’s Trust.
She also describes work she did with the UN International Trade Center supporting food businesses, often chocolate companies, in places like Ghana and the Caribbean, helping them think about exporting and building value “in country,” not only exporting raw materials while profit is created elsewhere.
She’s also candid about the emotional weight of seeing global contradictions, weight-loss drugs in wealthy places alongside hunger and starvation elsewhere. She doesn’t pretend she has the solution. She’s thinking about what she can do. That’s an important part of aging with purpose, too: staying awake, not numbing out.
The advice that shaped her: don’t wait for later
Near the end, Karen shares something deeply personal: her father worked hard, put money into his pension, planned to retire at 65, and died at 63.
That experience shaped her approach to life. She still works, she needs income, but she refuses to postpone joy and meaning indefinitely. She gets frustrated with people who feel trapped in miserable work for decades. Not because she lacks compassion, but because she believes many people have more options than they think, especially today, with tools, networks, and resources that didn’t exist before.
Her message isn’t “quit everything tomorrow.” It’s closer to this: do something interesting, and ask for help. Life has seasons. There’s a season for raising kids, a season for building stability, and a season for creating something more fitting.
And importantly, she’s not preaching from an ivory tower. She waited until her children were ready. She took calculated steps. She learned as she went.
Life after 60: a working life, a chosen life
Karen doesn’t describe herself as retired. She calls herself an expat, running a self-employed business. She still wakes up with a reason to move, think, connect, and contribute.
At the same time, she acknowledges something many people in their late 50s and beyond quietly feel: energy changes. You may need more recovery time. You might not be able to do as much without rest. Seb mentions exercise and nutrition as ways to protect energy, and Karen agrees that health matters.
This isn’t a story about pretending aging isn’t real. It’s about building a life that works with reality, not against it.
And it’s a strong example of life after 60 (or right on the doorstep of it) that isn’t defined by decline. It’s defined by choice, adaptation, and ongoing curiosity.
Conclusion: Curiosity is a practical form of courage
Karen Green’s story is a clear, grounded example of reinvention after 60 that doesn’t rely on fantasy or hype. She made a long-promised move, hit financial uncertainty, and responded by learning new skills, building a business, and creating a daily life that includes work, movement, friendships, and contribution. Along the way, she faced emotional challenges many adults recognize, identity shifts, confidence questions, cultural surprises, and the quiet pressure of what you “should” be.
If you’re thinking about staying relevant later in life, Karen’s approach offers something steady: keep learning, get in rooms with people, ask for help, and choose work or projects that feel meaningful. Aging with purpose isn’t about doing more for the sake of it. It’s about doing what fits your values, your season, and your energy.
You don’t have to blow up your life to begin. Start with curiosity. Start with one honest question about what you want next. Then take the smallest step that moves you toward it.