There are some conversations that stop you in your tracks. A conversation with Dr Linda Mellors is one of them.

She is not short on credentials. More than two decades in health and aged care. Seven-plus years as Managing Director and CEO of Regis Aged Care, one of Australia's largest providers. Board Director of Ageing Australia. Now, barely a month into the role of Managing Director and CEO of InvoCare, a company that supports families through some of the most profound moments of their lives.

But the thing that makes Linda's perspective worth sitting with isn't her resume. It's the simplicity and honesty of her thesis.

"I think purpose is the thing that drives most of us to get up in the morning."

Not money. Not status. Not routine. Purpose.

And it's something, she argues, that we do a remarkably poor job of protecting for older Australians.

What aged care taught her

Linda spent years working with people at the most vulnerable stages of life. That experience gave her a front-row seat to what purpose looks like in practice, and what happens when it disappears.

One story she returns to often involves a man who discovered painting after moving into residential aged care during the COVID pandemic. The facility set up an art room for him. He taught other residents. He taught staff. He found particular joy in working with employees new to Australia, teaching them to paint and helping them practise their English.

"You just see people," Linda says. "They might have been a teacher in their background. They're wonderful at teaching employees and other residents. All of these people who have wonderful skills, and the desire to share them with others."

The contrast with what that same man could have been doing, she notes, is stark. Sitting in a chair. Not contributing. Not connected. Not purposeful.

The research bears this out sharply. People with a strong sense of purpose are 46% less likely to die over a four-year period, according to research published in Preventive Medicine in 2020 tracking more than 13,000 older adults. They are 24% less likely to become physically inactive. They are dramatically less likely to experience depression. A major meta-analysis published in Psychological Medicine in July 2026, covering nearly 500,000 people followed for up to 32 years, found purpose associated with 30% lower risk of death.

These are not soft numbers. Purpose is a health outcome.

But Linda frames the cost of purposelessness differently. She's not just talking about health statistics. She's talking about what we lose as a society when we don't let older people contribute.

"There's a great cost that's often not measured when people don't have purpose later in life."

And then, the number that stopped her: 40% of people living in residential aged care do not receive a visitor across the course of a year.

One in four people. Not seen. Not connected. Physically present, but socially invisible.

"We live in an ageist society," she says. "And we need to keep working to address that."

The identity question most people don't see coming

The challenge of retirement isn't just about what to do. It's about who you are.

Linda is direct about this: "Identity and work are very, very closely intertwined."

Most of us, at some level, already know this. We introduce ourselves by what we do. We structure our days around our roles. Our colleagues are often our primary social network. Our sense of contribution, our sense of being needed, our sense of who we are in the world — all of it is woven into work.

When that ends, the loss is not just practical. It's existential.

"You will hear people talk about the loss of identity when they stop working," Linda says. "For those who have attached their identity to their work very closely, they will have to work quite hard to establish a new identity after that."

This is where the first year or two post-retirement becomes, for many people, genuinely dangerous. Research published in Frontiers in Psychiatry in 2022 found that involuntary retirement is associated with a 31% higher risk of depression. Australian longitudinal data consistently identifies the transition period as the point of greatest mental health risk.

The connection Linda makes is precise: "Connection is crucial in reestablishing an identity after work."

Not connection in the abstract. Structured, purposeful, meaningful connection. The kind that comes from belonging to something, contributing to something, being known by the people around you for something you bring to the world.

"This is where I think Purpose Again can really help," she says. "Especially for those who have had an identity so closely attached to work, and they'll be looking for something new to attach their identity to."

The body follows

Linda is careful to flag that she is not a health expert. But her decades of working alongside health professionals, and watching what purpose does to people physically, has given her a clear lay understanding of the mechanism.

"Serotonin is a really important mental health hormone," she says. "It makes us feel good. When we feel good, we have more energy, which means we probably move around more. We'll get out and about. So those things are exceptional for physical and mental health. And it doesn't actually take very much to improve our physical and mental health. Purpose is a key part of overall health and wellbeing."

This maps closely to what the research shows. People with a strong sense of purpose have been found to be two years biologically younger than their chronological age, measured using DNA methylation, one of the most accurate measures of cellular ageing. They spend, on average, $418 less per month on medical care. They are 28% less likely to develop cognitive impairment and dementia, even accounting for genetic risk factors.

The physical and the purposeful are not separate systems. They run together.

What a 93-year-old's funeral taught her about what matters

Linda has recently joined InvoCare, a company that helps families through the end of life. She is one month in. Already, she is learning something important.

"I was at a friend's mother's funeral just a week ago," she says. "She was 93. She had nine children, 18 grandchildren, and 12 great-grandchildren. The reflections on her life were around the values she instilled in her family and how she was an extraordinary matriarch who invested very heavily in the values she wanted to role model."

Not her net worth. Not her career achievements. Not her property portfolio.

Her values. Her relationships. Her community. Her church. Her school. The circle of friends she worked alongside on things that mattered to them.

"When we're celebrating somebody's life, the things that are celebrated the most are actually human relationships."

It's a simple insight. And it has a kind of clarifying power that financial planning conversations rarely achieve. The things we will be celebrated for, at the end of a long life, are not the things most of us spend our forties and fifties optimising for.

What her own mother showed her

Linda's parents came to Australia from England in 1967, two weeks after their wedding, for what was meant to be a two-year adventure. Almost 60 years later, they are still here.

Her mother, she says, struggled for years with missing home. "I think my mum really missed England. I think she would have gone back until she had grandchildren."

Grandchildren changed everything. Her mother found her new purpose in raising them, being present for them, giving her daughters the freedom to work with someone they trusted absolutely at the heart of the family.

"My mum rediscovered purpose. She's such a great nana. My children have the most beautiful relationship with their grandparents as a result."

It's a small story. It is also a reminder that purpose doesn't have to be grand to be life-changing. It has to be real. It has to connect you to other people. It has to get you out of bed.

Why she joined Purpose Again

Linda Mellors is in her fifties. She plans to keep working for as long as she can. But she thinks about what comes after.

"I'm the type of person who needs to be busy," she says. "I think I would eat my own brain out if I didn't have enough to do. I love working. And I worry about what will happen when I retire, when I'm not working. If I don't have enough to do, enough to keep my brain well occupied, what will happen to my mental health and my physical health?"

That worry, she is clear, is what brought her to Purpose Again. Not a belief that the problem doesn't affect her. The opposite.

"I joined as an advisor to Purpose Again because I fear the concept of retirement. I know I won't want to just stop."

For someone of her experience, that honesty is notable. She has watched what purposeless ageing looks like up close. She has seen the cost of isolation, the cost of a lost identity, the cost of a life without contribution. She knows the statistics. And she still finds the prospect of navigating that transition daunting.

That, she suggests, is the point. If someone with her resources, her networks, her professional fluency finds retirement a genuinely intimidating prospect, then the idea that most people can just figure it out alone is not realistic.

"I think Purpose Again will provide an extraordinary community resource to people who are looking for that next thing and might not know what all of the opportunities are available to them."

Every purpose is valid, she says, borrowing language from the Life Changer Foundation she supports, which works to improve the mental health of young Australians through resilience and positive life skills programs. It doesn't matter what your purpose is. Just have one.

Dr Linda Mellors is Managing Director and CEO of InvoCare and a board member of Ageing Australia. She joined Purpose Again as an advisor in 2026.

Purpose Again helps people navigate the personal and social transition from work, alongside their financial planning. Early access is available at purposeagain.com.

Research cited in this article:

Kim, E.S., Shiba, K., Boehm, J.K., & Kubzansky, L.D. (2020). Sense of Purpose in Life and Five Health Behaviors in Older Adults. Preventive Medicine, 139. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32593729

Sutin, A.R. et al. (2026). Purpose in Life and Mortality: A Meta-Analysis. Psychological Medicine. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42417009

Howard, E.P. et al. (2025). Purpose in Life and Risk of Incident Cognitive Impairment. The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40555597

Long, Z. et al. (2022). Involuntary Retirement and Depression Among Adults. Frontiers in Psychiatry. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8854640

Kim, E.S. et al. (2023). Reduced Epigenetic Age in Older Adults With High Sense of Purpose in Life. The Journals of Gerontology: Series A. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10329221

Musich, S. et al. (2018). Purpose in Life and Positive Health Outcomes Among Older Adults. Population Health Management. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5906725