Retirement As You Want It

Losing Your Job Loses Your Meaning ... or Does It?

I was on a Boomers & Beyond SIG (see Dorian Mintzer) tele-call yesterday with Jan Hively, who created ShiftOnline.org, a Minneapolis-based organization that "supports people in mid-life who seek greater meaning in life and work." Jan Hively, a woman in her mid-70s, is an exemplar of someone who has found meaning in her life and work. Hively cited recent studies about boomers who seek meaning in their work even more than money (I've blogged about this before).

In Alain de Botton's book, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, he reminds the reader that it's a contemporary phenomenon to even consider the idea that work can be pleasurable [i.e., meaningful]. In times past, people worked because they had to. Biographies of da Vinci or Raphael gave us a glimpse into the life of people who "worked" because it was a passion for them.

Now, being out of work, aside from the financial crisis, speaks to a loss of identity, loss of meaning. We've become accustomed, de Botton wrote, to seek experiences at our workplace that will add to our sense of productivity, self-esteem, and learning. It should feed the soul, we believe today.

De Botton writes that the most meaning comes from knowing that we helped others, that we made a difference. Yet, many careers that we consider "successful" do little more than make money for someone - perhaps you as the employee, more often for the owners or stockholders. Is this meaningful?

When we no longer have our job, or temporarily have lost it, we are bereft; we feel worthless. We no longer know how to define ourselves to ourselves, let alone to people we meet. Who are we? What is our reference group? 

How can we create our own meaning, regardless of whether we have "meaningful" work? In these uncertain times for people over 55 who lose jobs, we would do well to make our own meaningful experiences, rather than rely upon our employment.  

 

Are You a Work in Progress - Unfinished and Learning and Growing?

Not too long ago developmental psychologists thought that all of our growth and learning cemented before age 20 or so. After that, it was downhill - we'd be losing brain cells, rather than gaining them. Now, new research (see last post) corrects that error. We are capable of learning and growing in many dimensions until the day we die.

So, here's a lovely memoir written by then-50ish Joan Anderson, called A Year By the Sea: Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman.  Joan's journey is very much a female version of this path, but a book could well be written about the male version.

A Year By the Sea chronicles Joan's decision not to follow her husband across country to his new job, but rather to spend a year alone in the family's cottage on Cape Cod. She knows she's lost her real self in the daily ministrations she's accustomed to have made for decades as a wife and mother, fitting in her writing of children's books around all that. It seemed more compelling and inevitable to this woman to do so, having been raised to be a caretaker of others, as many women have.

"I'm tired of swimming upstream, against the current, only to arrive at unnatural destinations with little sense of where to yield, when to sow, what to ask, how to find," she wrote. So, off she went, all by herself, to find her "self," in a resort town on the sea.

What did she find? "I must live a little each day, greet the sun as it rises and revel in its setting, swim naked [with the seals], sip coffee and wine by the shore [camping alone on an island, dropped off and picked up next day by a fisherman], generate new ideas, admire myself, talk to animals, meditate, laugh, risk adventures. I must try to be soft, not hard; fluid, not rigid; tender, not cold, find rather than seek."

Rather than being lonely or scared or bored, she found she became "utterly content, tranquil in my aloneness, serene." A worthwhile book for those who feel their work life or relationships have become stale and barren. Joan now holds retreats and recommends we all take 2 days per year to be completely alone.

See info about her workshops here. "My six step process is all about retreating in order to retrieve lost strength, repair our inner selves, and then regroup by lightening our load, regenerating our spirits, and returning new to an old place. A weekend by the sea (and elsewhere) helps a woman rearrange her life in her own image," writes Joan about her retreats for women.

Live With Purpose – Going From Success to Significance

"Live life with urgency as if time is running out," wrote Ken Dychtwald in With Purpose: Going From Success to Significance.` Are you feeling this sense of urgency as you get into your 50s and 60? I must be feeling that, as I'm going full steam ahead on all kinds of fronts. Publishing my next book: Women Riders Who Could -- and Did. Expanding my coaching practice. Speaking in public forums about retiring retirement. Getting comfortable with spirituality. Moving ahead in learning new things on my horse. Started my own TV show and have interviewed a dozen wonderful encore careerists. Becoming social networking- savvy. I'm having the time of my life.

Dychtwald sees the convergence of 3 trends that change the landscape of the traditional retirement:

• Boomers are maturing
• People want to balance leisure and leaving a legacy
• Giving has a new face - philanthropists are younger, entrepreneurial, and socially conscious. They want solutions and measurable results and want to give back their skills and talents and see the impact they've made.

“To live with purpose or without is a choice. And the choice is ours,” is Dychtwald’s mantra. He believes that to make life truly worth living, one must have a sense of purpose. That doesn’t have to be saving the world in a big sense; rather it can be finding how to bring meaning and purpose to everyday activities – eating, reading, traveling, decorating, tipping.

Can we make choices about what we eat based on our values – values about sustainability, e.g., by eating local foods, by growing our own? Or tipping well at restaurants and hotels to reward human encounters by servers? Or renovating our homes with green materials? Or planning our travels to coincide with volunteering?

There are many paths to “legacy,” to fulfillment in the arena of giving back. Here are a few mentioned in the book:

·         Becoming a “vacateer,” a vacation where you volunteer your services for a few weeks to months (see Brian Kurth’s Test-Drive Your Dream Job) to Peace Corps and Americorps.

·         Mentoring (see Tuesdays With Morrie and Maggie Kuhn’s Grey Panthers) where you pass on your wisdom to younger people

·         Join Habitat for Humanity and similar programs

·         Philanthropy from very small scale where you give micro-loans to aspiring communities across the world to much larger feats (that most of us can’t afford, but many new entrepreneurs are doing now)

What do people get when they give? Here’s Dychtwald’s ideas:

• Doing the right thing just feels good
• Making a difference brings meaning – think about what you’ve been exposed to that you care a lot about. Health care for all? Affordable housing? Environment? Public transportation rather than more roads?
• Builds a new social network, one where you connect deeply with your new friends
• Recognition – maybe your efforts will result in seeing your name on a letterhead for an organization or entry to a new club
• The “helper’s high”

Many people want to give back, but don’t know what would really grab them. Or they have so many interests, they fritter away their time. Or their lives seem too busy already. That’s the case for most of us. My expertise is in helping people like you find your niche, find what you really are good at, what your gift is that you can offer to the world. Are you good at managing, at being entrepreneurial, at being a team player, being a cheerleader, a mentor? How can you parlay your gift into giving back, even a little at a time?

Dychtwald’s book, With Purpose, is one which triggers our sensibility about who we are and what we are here to do. What do you want your legacy to be?

 

See a longer version of this article at www.WorkForce50.com in my column called "Meaning and Purpose."

 

Find Your Passions and Purpose to Fulfill Your Next 30 Years

Are you looking for what I refer to as your "True North," the place where you gravitate to experience the feeling of Flow, of being in the Zone? Do you want your next act, when you leave your mid-years' career, to be a time when you truly connect with your passions, your values, your mission? I've written in these posts for years now about how we have the opportunity to experience 30 or so bonus years, years our parents couldn't depend upon (even if they did live long lives, like my grandmother who lived until 101). Do you want to make those years as fulfilling as possible?

I read a book lately that is germane to this topic, even though it's written for an audience of organizational leaders.  The Purpose Linked Organization: How Passionate Leaders Inspire Winning Teams and Great Results, written by Alaina Love and Marc Cugnon, co-founders of Purpose Linked Consulting (www.thepurposelink.com).They wrote: “Purpose is the driver that propels us through life and gives meaning to our daily existence … Without purpose, and its outward expression through our passions, life becomes a series of unconnected activities that do not lead to a sense of fulfillment and joy so vital to our well-being.”

The book includes access to a tool called a Passion Profiler ^TM, which tells us our top 3 Passion Archetypes; mine are: Transformer, Teacher, and Healer. The Transformer, which is the way I see my passion and purpose as a Life and Career Coach, is described as someone who is a change agent, who identifies and embraces possibilities, and can see the full potential of what can be and will gravitate toward it. The Transformer is passionate about facilitating change. That’s me to a “T.”

 

These are the things I take from this compelling book:

1. Once we enter the path of finding one's purpose and passion, we are much more independent and capable of finding a way to express it in any domain of our lives. It's always there for us to access. We don't have to wait to find just the right combination of circumstances.

2. It is a process that takes mental, emotional, and spiritual energy and focus. Many of us don't have the discipline to do it on our own. Find a partner, coach, support or mastermind group.

3. If we really want our lives to be stupendous, we can create work or other experiences where our passion archetype is valued, where we are chosen because of it and the organization needs just exactly what we have to offer. Now, that is bliss.

 

See a longer version of this article and book review at my column on "Meaning and Purpose" at WorkForce50. And comment by clicking the button below to contribute to this topic: e.g., what do you imagine is your "Passion Archetype," what really drives and motivates you?

 

 

Is Your Relationship With Your Adult Kids What You Want It To Be?

Many of us are finding that our adult children are returning home with baggage - children of their own, debt, a layoff, a broken heart - and we want to help out, but also want to have our own lives.

Or, they have moved away and only come home once or twice a year, when we had hoped to continue to be an active part of their lives and their family's lives.

Or, at age 35, our son or daughter is still finding her way - trying out careers, relationships, and graduate programs. We worry and think we should be giving advice, finding them answers, but our offspring does not want to hear our viewpoint, but doesn't mind accepting our hospitality.

Or, our adult child is marrying, or living with, someone of a different culture, race, age, or same sex and doesn't understand our consternation.

Do any of these scenarios afflict you and your family? If so, take a look at Dr. Ruth Nemzoff's book, Don't Bite Your Tongue: How to Foster Rewarding Relationships with Your Adult Children.

Nemzoff, resident scholar at Brandeis University's Women's Studies Research Center, wrote a timely book for boomer (and older) parents who lovingly nurtured their children through soccer, drama club, SATs, college searching all over the country, and even graduate education to help them acquire the  skills to be happy, well-functioning adults. These parents fully expected that their adult children would be friends, even like-minded friends, and that they would be able to understand why their kids were doing what they chose to do.

Surprise! That's not always the case. It's not only that the adult offspring behave differently than hoped for, but the adult children don't always want to accept mom's and dad's wanting to have their own life. If the kids live close enough to expect spur of the moment babysitting... or even long-term commitments to child care and mom decides that this is the time to invest in her career, there are resentments and misunderstandings.

Many parent-child duos fail to discuss their different expectations or ask questions about what the other might want. It can lead to estrangement, blow ups, or acting out on the part of the kid or the parent.

Nemzoff talks about communication tips: when to "bite your tongue," when to reveal one's true feelings; know that communication is not just deep talks, but building a shared inventory of experiences, whether shopping or a bike ride or going to a concert together; build trust by respecting each others' boundaries; know your own motivations for bringing up a subject - is it curiosity to learn more about your child? Is it an interrogation? Is it building a case to buttress your own bias?

If you and your adult children are less than comfortable with one another, consult Dr. Nemzoff's website and book. You'll see that she speaks clearly and with empathy for both parents and children - no jargon, no formulaic recipes.

Passion, Risk, and Adventure Found in Third Chapter Lives

The “Third Chapter,” a still newly defining phase of life, following the middle years, can be a time of exploration, adventure, risk-taking and new learning. Distinguished Harvard Education School sociologist, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot’s new book, The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk, and Adventure in the 25 Years After 50, takes us on a journey to meet 40 people she interviewed across the U.S.

What did she discover about people, aged 50-75 who are embarking on a new adventure? They were crossing boundaries, much as one would in an “anthropological expedition.” Challenging themselves to leave the comfortable niche of their mid-years’ careers, they enter a world where they feel like “awkward strangers, inept travelers, vulnerable observers.”  As one of the men whom I interviewed for my TV show, “Alivelihood: New Careers As We Age” said, “I’m both the oldest and the newest,” at learning to be a stand-up comic after 30 years as a teacher.

Lawrence-Lightfoot finds that in crossing boundaries and learning to welcome ambiguity, these 3^rd Chapter folks require several talents:

• Deep curiosity to know something new
• Ability to relinquish fear of the unknown and fear of failure; being able to name the fear and take a leap of faith
• Willingness to be vulnerable, exposed to public floundering
• Embrace contradictions and integrate the new with the familiar

Do you possess these characteristics already? Do you want to learn how to nurture them so your next decades will include passion and adventure? Contact me for a complimentary strategy session to see if you're ready to take flight into this new, exciting phase of life. Email or call: 617 731 6170.

Are You Experiencing Passion, Risk, and Adventure in Your Bonus Years?

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Harvard education professor and former chair of the board of the MacArthur Foundation, turned 64 and was struck with the inspirational stories she was hearing from peers she was meeting about their new passion in later life. Fascinated, she decided to interview these new seekers, high achieving people who relinquished their careers to pursue an entirely new path.

The outcome of these interviews is chronicled in her new book, The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk and Adventure in the 25 Years After 50.  In an interview by David Mehegan, called "Later-Life Lessons", she responds to the question about why most of the people in her book are well educated and high-achieving? She explains that people have to feel some level of abundance to imagine that they have all the choices in the world, to recognize that they can give up their high-paying jobs and do something "from the heart."

This group, she believes, is curious by nature, always pushing themselves to acquire new knowledge and experience. They felt they no longer had an outlet for their inquisitive nature that inspired and challenged them. So, they were propelled to take a risk and choose something entirely new. This became a time to "spread our wings and take flight, to sing a new song,"

In these bonus years, when we live longer and healthier, what opportunities are you giving yourself to experience risk, adventure, and find your new passions? If you know you want to do this, but have not yet found the vehicle, contact me for coaching to your Third Chapter.

I shall review Lawrence-Lightfoot's new book and post in this column. Stay tuned.

Try Out Your Dream Job(s)

Have you always had a desire to do something different from the career you've had for the past decades? Reach back into your childhood... what did you want to be when you grew up? What did you love doing that gave you a sense of zest, where you were "in the zone" with no thought of time passing?

Brian Kurth, author of Test-Drive Your Dream Job: A Step by Step Guide to Finding and Creating the Work You Love was composing a wish list of all the jobs he'd rather be doing than the one he was doing -- sales and marketing for a phone company. He fantasized about being a dog trainer, a wine taster, a tour guide. Anything seemed better than what he was doing. but, how would he know if he would like any of those esoteric occupations? Wouldn't it be terrific, he mused, if you could try them out first, before moving your residence, investing in a costly re-training, or leaving your job and risking long unemployment?

Serendipitously, he lost his job and had the opportunity to create a new service for people like himself, who had gravitated to a career that gave him a good paycheck, but little pleasure.

Test-Drive Your Dream Job is a guidebook for people of all ages who want to live their fantasy job for a few days, mentored by a committed person who's been in the field for years. You can try on several jobs to see if your fantasy meets any kind of reality.

People in their 50s and beyond who want to continue to work will find inspiration and common-sense practical advice about how to try out a new career. Kurth helps the reader to dissipate fears of change. He outlines how you can do the research on your fantasy careers, how to find multiple mentors, how to join associations to learn about the real pros and cons, and what to do when you've entered a new career and things don't go as planned.

Unlike most self-help books that start out with a bang and fizzle out after the first chapter, the last chapter of Test Drive is compelling. Kurth reminds us that this process is a journey as well as a goal. Making such a change forces us out of our comfort zone. We learn an immense amount about our values, habits, and attitudes. It is "a continuous, rising cycle of challenges and resolutions, the perfect combination of stress and pleasure," that Csikszentmihalyi talks about in his Flow (see this video) research. 

How to Make Your Life "Something to Die For"

If you are a bit of a hedonist, this book isn't for you. If you yearn for a life of meaning and want to create a "life to die for," read on.

Something to Live For: Finding Your Way in the Second Half of Life, 2008, by coach Richard J. Leider and educator/ philosopher David Shapiro, offers us another guide for living. Leider has taken groups of men to East Africa for the past 25 years. There, they reflect upon their adventures and "inventures" (self-reflections) as they sit around the fire in the evening with the wise elders of the traditional hunter-gatherer tribe, called the Hadza, that Richard has forged a relationship with. They apply the cultural, ecological, and spiritual learning from their journey to the questions: Why do some people create something to live for in their later years and others do not? Why are so few people happy at any age? They wonder: How can we make the 2nd half of life as energizing and exciting as the 1st half?

The men ask themselves existential questions: Where do I come from? Where am I going? What is my life purpose? Through stories of their African experience, they suggest that "something to live for" comes from linking savoring with saving the world. How do we do that?

Savoring in the 2nd half of life, they write, involves a new way of thinking, where we value the now as much as we value the destination. Spiritual thinkers over the ages... popularized currently by Eckhart Tolle, Thich Nhat Hanh, and many others... recognize the power of being in the present moment. The pilgrimages to Africa for these Western men epitomizes a return to basics, to be able to view life from the lens of the present moment.

Saving the world suggests a generativity, an openness to being generous with our community, however large or small we define that. It's a life of meaningful connections to and caring for the future generations.

The book includes exercises of writing "Letters to Live For," letters to your younger self from the vantage point of what you know now, letters to your child, to a deceased love one, to someone you've had difficulty with. In these writings, the authors counsel us to "put your whole self in" and see what you learn about yourself.

The mantra of their trip became "better than good." How can we find our voices that are "wholehearted, authentic, and purposeful?" When we do, then our 2nd half of life becomes "better than good."

 

 

 

How Can You Achieve "the Marriage of Money and Meaning?"

Assume you've got all the money you need. What would you do with it? How would you live?

You just found out you have only 5-10 years to live. How will you live those years?

You've just found out you have 24 hours to live. What did you miss? Who did you not get to be? What did you not get to do?

These 3 questions are asked by financial planner George Kinder, author of The Seven Stages of Money Maturity: Understanding the Spirit and Value of Money in Your Life. His methods encompass his keen interest in Buddhist spirituality, feelings, and money. He has tuned into the fascination that Boomers have had with discovering the meaning and purpose of their lives. His trainings of financial planners world-wide focus on melding the "deepest human aspirations for a life worth living with rigorous financial goals," according to (July-August 2008) Harvard Magazine's story about him. He helps people to recognize the personal meaning of family, creativity, spirit, service, and place. 

Kinder was inspired by the philosopher Jacob Needleman, author of Money and the Meaning of Life. Needleman believes that money has a profound influence on who we are and what messages we give ourselves about what we cannot have. "Our long unwillingness to understand the emotional and spiritual effects of money is at the heart of why we have come to know the price of everything and the value of nothing," he declares on his website.

Kinder, known also as a Buddhist teacher, takes us through these 7 steps in order to deepen our awareness of the place that money has held in our lifetime, from childhood on.

1. Innocence--The childhood state we are born in, devoid of any concept of money
2. Pain-- We recognize that we have more money than some and less than others and that work is necessary to make a living
3. Knowledge--The cognitive process of learning financial techniques, such as saving, budgeting, and investing
4. Understanding--The emotional work one needs to do to come to terms with feelings around money, such as greed, envy, and resentment (which are rooted in Pain)
5.  Vigor--The physical, emotional, and spiritual energy that must be expended to reach financial goals
6.  Vision--The direction of Vigor outward toward the health and welfare of communities, with or without a profit motive
7.  Aloha--The compassionate goodwill that allows one to use money to perform acts of kindness without expecting anything in return

In Kinder's interview with Kara McGuire of the Star Tribune, he declares that people need to understand what really matters to them and to make a commitment to that, even though it might mean some financial sacrifice. Once people answer the 3 questions for themselves... then it becomes much more clear what sacrifices they're willing to make to achieve their life vision. 

In this tumultuous financial period, many of us will have to make financial sacrifices, whether we choose to or not. Best to discover what really matters, what our real purpose in life is, and how we want to put that into daily practice. 

Life coaching  is a process that helps you bring your life purpose to light, to draw in the details, to determine how you want to put it into operation, and to be held accountable to doing so. If you'd like to try coaching, contact me for a complimentary phone session at Karma@LifeSpringCoaching.com