While some people wonder what they’ll do for their second act, Bill Kennedy says the “R” word itself brought new-found bliss.

When Bill Kennedy jokes that retirement is his new love, he’s not really jesting. “I read in all my alumni magazines about people who flunked retirement three times,” he says. “Not me! I’m off the hamster wheel. I found my passion in retirement itself.”

Bill grew up in Boston but spent most of his adult life in Chicago, nose to the grindstone. After working in banking, then at a health care startup for 18 years (the original plan was for two), he helped sell the business, moved to Atlanta and got into consulting. There, he’d expected an elder statesman’s life of dining and sharing ideas. Instead, he discovered that consulting was non-stop travel with too many messes to unravel. It was time to wind down, but where? Despite the fact his real-estate broker wife Colette’s family is…