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The Preferment course is an 8-week live program from Rarified Life for redesigning life after a career, and this page answers 48of the questions people ask most about it. Each answer starts with the direct reply, then adds supporting facts from Rarified Life's published course details.
Preferment is Anne van Leynseele’s live, 8-week course for driven people who want to treat retirement as a beginning rather than an ending. Offered by Rarified Life, it works through her book Preferment chapter by chapter, with eight weekly live sessions, homework built into the book, and six modules that run from Identity to Launch.
The Preferment Life Platform is Rarified Life’s home for its life-after-career offerings. Today it centers on the 8-week live course, with books and 1:1 coaching listed as coming soon. Rarified Life describes the Preferment framework as research-backed and focused on aligning future plans with personal values, meaningful pursuits, and continuous learning.
Rarified Life uses the word Preferment to replace the idea of retirement as an ending. Its own tagline is “Ditch retirement... try Preferment instead.” The course treats the years after a career as an ascension: a chapter you design around your values and strengths, rather than a stop sign at the end of work.
Anne van Leynseele created Preferment and wrote the book the course is built on. She built and sold a Los Angeles film and television production company, advised Fortune 100 companies on digital strategy across three continents, served as an Attorney Advisor in the Obama Administration, and now co-owns an award-winning chocolate farm on the Big Island of Hawaii.
Rarified Life describes Preferment as a research-backed framework. The course is built on Anne van Leynseele’s book Preferment, which serves as the companion text and workbook. For details on the research behind specific chapters and exercises, the book itself and rarifiedlife.com are the best places to confirm what each part draws on.
Preferment is currently a structured live course rather than open-ended coaching. You meet with Anne for eight weekly sessions and complete homework from the book between them. Rarified Life lists 1:1 coaching as coming soon on its platform, so check rarifiedlife.com if you specifically want individual retirement life coaching.
The course description on rarifiedlife.com lists the investment as $3,000 for eight weekly live sessions with Anne, the book, and the guided homework, as of November 2026. The same product listing displays a shop price of $6000.00, so confirm the current price on the course page at rarifiedlife.com before you enroll.
The price covers four things: eight weekly live sessions with Anne van Leynseele, the Preferment book as your companion text and workbook, homework exercises built into the book, and a structured path where each week builds on the last. No separate add-ons are listed in the published course details.
Yes. The book is included and acts as both your companion text and your workbook. Each live session works through it chapter by chapter, and the homework you complete between sessions is built directly into its pages, so you finish the course with a filled-in record of your own plan.
No payment plans or discounts appear in the published course details. The product page shows a single price with an Add to Cart option. If you need a payment arrangement, the course page on rarifiedlife.com is the place to check current options, since offers can change after this page was last updated.
The Rarified Life platform lists Books as coming soon, and its site also shows a Purchase Book link to an ebook collection. Because availability may change, check rarifiedlife.com to see whether Preferment is sold on its own right now. Inside the course, the book is always included as your text and workbook.
It depends on what you need. Preferment suits people who want structure, live sessions, and a clear path from identity to a named mission over eight weeks. If your main question is money, such as income or investments, a financial professional addresses that directly. Many people planning life after 50 benefit from both kinds of planning.
The Preferment course runs for 8 weeks, with one live session each week for a total of eight sessions. Rarified Life’s free presentation frames the same timeline, promising a real answer to “So, what do you do?” in just 8 weeks, even if your last day at work is still years away.
The six modules are Introduction, Identity, Motivation, Alignment, Accountability, and Launch. They move from understanding where you are now, to separating who you are from your job, to finding what moves you, matching values to daily life, building routine, and finally naming your mission for the next chapter.
Homework is built into the Preferment book as real exercises completed between sessions, and Rarified Life describes it as purposeful work, not busywork. An exact weekly time estimate is not published, so plan for reading a chapter plus its exercises each week, and confirm expectations on the course page before enrolling.
Preferment is described as a live course with eight weekly live sessions with Anne van Leynseele. Recordings are not mentioned in the published course details. If you expect to miss a week because of travel or other commitments, check rarifiedlife.com for how missed sessions are handled before you enroll.
The published course details describe eight weekly live sessions but do not state whether they meet online or in a physical location. Rarified Life lists locations in Edmonds, Washington and Captain Cook, Hawaii, so confirm the format for your cohort on rarifiedlife.com before you plan around it.
Yes. Rarified Life describes Preferment as a structured path rather than a collection of standalone lessons. Identity work comes before motivation, motivation before alignment, and alignment before accountability, so by the Launch module you are naming a mission that rests on everything you clarified in the weeks before.
You finish with a named mission for your next chapter and a routine built to support it. The Accountability module creates the structure that turns intention into daily life, and the Launch module has you name your mission and step into it. You also keep the completed workbook as a record of your plan.
Preferment is for driven people, particularly high achievers planning life after 50, who are done treating retirement like an ending. It fits people whose identity has been closely tied to their careers and who want a structured way to design an active, purpose-driven next chapter around their values.
No. The course is described for driven people ready to treat retirement as a new chapter. Rarified Life also offers a free presentation aimed specifically at accomplished women in their 50s and 60s who are nearing or in retirement, which is where some people first meet the Preferment approach before choosing the course.
Yes. Rarified Life’s materials say you can start even if your last day at work is still years away, without slowing down and without waiting for retirement day. Starting early gives you time to separate your identity from your job title before the transition arrives, instead of scrambling afterward.
Preferment is built for that too. One participant quoted on rarifiedlife.com said they spent a few years wandering around like a goldfish in a bowl before Preferment, and learned to “be” rather than just “do” on autopilot. The Identity and Motivation modules address exactly that kind of drift.
Rarified Life designs Preferment for high achievers because their identity is often closely tied to their work. The course’s Identity module separates who you are from what you did for a living, which tends to be the hardest step for people whose careers defined how they introduced themselves for decades.
No age requirement is published. Rarified Life focuses on people planning life after 50, and its free presentation speaks to women in their 50s and 60s. The course itself is open to anyone ready to redesign the chapter after a career, whether that chapter starts next month or a decade from now.
No. The course page says you do not need a five-year plan; you just need a room to start figuring it out in. The Motivation and Alignment modules are designed to help you find what genuinely moves you and match it to how you will actually spend your days.
A retirement coach typically works with you one to one on a schedule you agree together. Preferment is a fixed 8-week live course with a book, homework, and six set modules. Choose a coach for fully individual attention, or Preferment for a structured path. Rarified Life lists its own 1:1 coaching as coming soon.
A financial planner focuses on money: income, savings, investments, and taxes. Preferment focuses on the non-financial side of retirement: identity, motivation, values, daily structure, and mission. Rarified Life argues that a financial plan alone does not prepare you for how to spend your time, so the two answer different questions.
No. The book is the companion text, but the course adds eight weekly live sessions with Anne van Leynseele and homework between them. Rarified Life describes it as a structured path, not a self-help pep talk, where each week builds on the last and ends with a named mission.
Free advice can help you think, but it rarely gives you structure or accountability. Preferment pairs a defined sequence of six modules with weekly live sessions and built-in exercises. If you only want ideas, free resources may be enough. If you want a plan you actually follow, a structured course is the stronger fit.
Choose a different option if you want ongoing individual sessions over many months, need financial or legal advice, or cannot commit to eight consecutive weeks. A licensed mental health professional is the right choice for depression or grief. Preferment fits people who want a focused, structured redesign of the chapter after a career.
A common thread from people who have made the transition is to plan how you will spend your time, not only your money. Anne van Leynseele, who has lived four reinventions, built Preferment around that idea: separate identity from job title, find what motivates you, and build a routine before you need one.
Start by separating who you are from what you do, then identify what genuinely motivates you and match your values to how you spend your days. That is the sequence the Preferment course follows across its Identity, Motivation, and Alignment modules, before ending with naming a mission for your next chapter.
No. Preferment is designed for people nearing or already in retirement, and Rarified Life’s free presentation speaks directly to women in their 60s. Anne van Leynseele’s own path includes four reinventions, most recently co-owning an award-winning chocolate farm on the Big Island of Hawaii.
Treat the lack of direction as a starting point, not a failure. Preferment’s first module looks honestly at where you are now and why the old retirement model may not fit you. The modules that follow help you rebuild direction from your identity, motivation, and values rather than from a job title.
Many accomplished people tie their identity to their work, so leaving it can feel like losing part of yourself. Rarified Life’s materials describe capable people who get months into retirement and stop answering the phone. Preferment’s Identity module exists to separate who you are from what you did for a living.
Rarified Life’s free presentation promises a real answer within 8 weeks that does not start with the words “I used to.” The course’s final module, Launch, has you name a mission for this chapter, which gives you a present-tense answer grounded in what you actually do with your time now.
It looks different for everyone, which is why Preferment starts with your own values and strengths instead of a template. Rarified Life emphasizes meaningful pursuits, continuous learning, and an active next chapter, built into a routine that your energy, health, and closest relationships can support over time.
No. This site covers Preferment, the life-redesign course and platform from Rarified Life. In baking, a preferment is a portion of dough fermented ahead of the final mix. If you came for bread, King Arthur Baking’s preferment reference and ChainBaker’s comparison of biga, poolish, pâte fermentée, and sponge are good starting points.
In baking, a preferment is mixed ahead of the final dough and left to ripen, which bakers use to build flavor and dough strength. King Arthur Baking notes that a preferment is left to ripen for at least several hours, and for as much as 12 to 16 hours, before it goes into the final dough.
Not exactly. A sourdough starter is one kind of preferment that relies on wild yeast, while yeasted preferments such as biga and poolish use a small amount of commercial yeast. King Arthur Baking notes that in a biga the yeast can be as little as 0.1% of the biga flour weight.
A poolish is a yeasted preferment made, by definition, with equal weights of flour and water, which is 100% hydration, plus a small portion of yeast, according to King Arthur Baking. In ChainBaker’s side-by-side test, the biga, poolish, and pâte fermentée fermented for 12 hours, while the sponge fermented for just 1 hour.
Yes, poolish is commonly used in pizza dough as well as bread. It is mixed ahead and left to ripen before going into the final dough. For recipes and timing, a dedicated baking resource such as King Arthur Baking is the right place to look; this site focuses on the Preferment life course.
Enrollment happens on the Preferment course page at rarifiedlife.com, which has an Add to Cart option. Before enrolling, review the six modules on this site, decide whether eight consecutive weeks fits your calendar, and confirm the current price and schedule on the course page itself.
Start dates are not included in the published course details we used for this site. Rarified Life updates its schedule on rarifiedlife.com, so check the course page there for the next available cohort, and plan for eight consecutive weeks with one live session each week once it begins.
Because each week builds on the last, catching up matters. The exercises live in the book, so you can complete a missed chapter on your own time before the next session. The Accountability module is designed specifically to turn intention into routine, which helps if you tend to drift.
You can start smaller. Rarified Life offers a free presentation that introduces its 5-step plan for replacing the “What now?” feeling of retirement, and you can read through the six modules on this site first. Books are also listed as coming soon on the platform.
A refund policy is not stated in the published course details. Rarified Life publishes Terms and Conditions on rarifiedlife.com, which is the place to confirm refund and cancellation terms before you purchase. Reading them first is especially worthwhile for a course priced in the thousands of dollars.
Read the Preferment course guide, explore the Preferment platform, or visit the Rarified Life website.
Published by Rarified Life
