Meet Lori Harrow, Co-Founder
For over a decade, I have helped people navigate changes that reshaped how they saw themselves, their relationships, and the life ahead of them. Retirement stood apart because it was the transition people believed they had already planned for.
I’m a Retirement Transition Specialist and co-founder of Winning@Retirement™. I work with professionals nearing retirement or newly there who want life after work to remain relevant, connected, and fully engaged.
Most retirement preparation does an important job. It answers questions about timing, income, healthcare, and whether the money will last.
But retirement changes more than a financial picture.
Work may also be supporting your sense of who you are, where your judgment matters, who you talk with regularly, and what gives an ordinary week its shape. Those parts of life can be easy to overlook while work is still holding them together.
I began paying closer attention to what happened when people were ready to leave the pressure of work but less certain about what they wanted to carry forward.
They could name the trips they wanted to take and the obligations they were ready to leave behind. It was harder to picture an ordinary Tuesday or answer a question such as:
What do I want my life to ask of me now?
That was the missing part of retirement preparation I wanted to address.
The founding
I wanted people to have a way to prepare for the personal transition before the final day arrived.
A way to notice what work was still providing. To decide what should come with them. To begin important conversations before everyone else made assumptions about their open time. And to enter retirement with direction without expecting themselves to plan the next 20 years in advance.
I brought the idea to Jenny James, whose retirement experience looked very different from mine.
Jenny spent 35 years in finance and has retired twice. Her retirements had clear endings. She understands what it is like to leave the role and discover, from the inside, what needs to take its place.
My transition is more gradual.
I have significantly reduced my therapy practice while building Winning@Retirement. Over the next several years, I expect this work to take the place that therapy once held in my professional life.
I’m living the kind of bridge I encourage other professionals to consider: keeping what still matters, changing the conditions around it, and giving the next version time to take shape.
Together, Jenny and I bring two different views of the transition. She knows the hard stop. I know the gradual crossing. Winning@Retirement™ grew from both.
What guides our work
Retirement does not require you to become someone entirely new. It gives you an opportunity to decide what you want to carry forward, where you still want to matter, which relationships deserve more attention, and what you want your days to hold.
Our work looks at four parts of life that a career may be supporting more than you realize.
Work can answer the question of who you are before anyone thinks to ask it. Retirement gives you space to decide which parts of yourself still belong in the life ahead.
Your experience does not lose its value when the role ends. You get to choose where you want it to go and how much of your life you want it to occupy.
Retirement changes time with partners, family, friends, community, and peers. More time for the people who matter still benefits from honest conversation.
Trips and special occasions fill part of a calendar. An ordinary week asks different questions about movement, connection, contribution, rest, and what gives the day momentum.
These four areas help explain why someone can be financially prepared for retirement and still know there is more to think through.
About Lori
Lori Harrow, MA, LCMHCS, NCC
I’m a clinical mental health therapist with over a decade of experience helping people navigate life transitions, recognize patterns, and make thoughtful changes.
That professional foundation informs the work I do today. Winning@Retirement™ brings an understanding of behavior change and transition into a practical process for preparing for life after work. It is thoughtful, structured, and grounded in the real decisions retirement asks people to make.
I live in Davidson, North Carolina, with my husband. We are empty nesters, although life still feels full with our sons, grandchild, and the rest of our family.
Outside of work, you’ll often find me walking, reading, planning a trip, taking one, or spending time with the people I love.
I’m approaching retirement much the way I hope to help others approach it: paying attention to what I want to carry forward, making room for what is becoming more important, and allowing the shape of the transition to evolve.
Work with me
The WIN Strategy Session is a private 60-minute Zoom consultation with me. We’ll use your Retirement Transition Audit results as a starting point, talk through what is changing or still unclear, and identify which part of the personal transition deserves your attention first.
Within 48 hours, you’ll receive a written strategy brief capturing what we uncovered and your clearest place to begin.
One hour. One written brief. One clear place to begin.
Investment: $297 through Dec 31, 2026
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Work may end. A fully engaged life shouldn’t.
Helping accomplished professionals prepare for the personal side of retirement — identity, relevance, relationships, and the rhythm of an ordinary week.
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