Life & Work By Design Blog

1.  Your headstone will not say “he/she just lived and ordinary life.

2.  Your Mother will be proud even if she’s not still around to tell you.

3.  You will have a sense of accomplishment.

4.  You can set a new standard for your kids.

5.  You can help someone else have a better life.

6.  You might win some kind of award or recognition.

7.  You will learn new things about yourself and others.

8.  You will want to get out of bed in the morning.  

9.  You will have something to write in your journal.

 10. Life will be fun again…..   

Ah, did I get your attention?  The problem with blogs is that things get lost way back in the archives - I doubt too many readers actually go back and read them all.  So, I’m bringing an important one back to the front.

Civic Ventures.org is the creation of Marc Freedman, the author of Encore Careers: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life.  For the last several years, Freedman and his group have been promoting the concept of Boomers using their collective experience and wisdom to benefit our society by creating new, possibly unique solutions to many of our ills.

They have created an organization that recognizes the efforts of thousands of folks who have found a cause and applied their passion to it.  If getting involved with the less fortunate, giving back to your local community or finding a better way to provide public services is one of your dreams, you need to get on this bandwagon.

Freedman’s book is inspiring and the website is full of fascinating stories and resources for Boomers who are ready to go back to work to improve the lives of others.    Check it out at www.civicventures.org and read about the Purpose Prizes for 2008 that were just announced.  Six hard-working folks received $100,000 and nine others were awarded $10,000.  They are all over 60 and from towns across the country.  Here’s a link to the press release:

http://www.civicventures.org/news/releases/index.cfm?date=2008_12_03

Some of my students say that they don’t know where to start to look for information about a possible career or great  business idea they need to learn about.  Some don’t know how to surf the internet for reliable information, and others don’t know about some great resources that are right under their noses.Well help is on the way!   I’m posting a series of articles on my website called Your Personal GPS that will explore lots of ways to find out “stuff”.  So far, there is one about all the great reference materials at the library and one about the ABC’s of finding good information on the internet.  Look for at least one more in the next week or so.  If you have a questions or challenges that you need help finding the answers to, please comment here and I’ll find places to help you.   Detective work is one of my favorite past-times!     

Are you ready for a change?   Are you thinking about retiring?   Does your wish list include a new career?     Dream of living in a foreign country?  My e-book, For Mature Audiences Only: How to Redesign Life and Work in the Second Half of Our Lives is now available.  It has lots of ideas and resources to get your creative juices going.  You can download your own copy for free by signing up for my monthly newsletter, WORKIN’ MY WAY in the box on this page.    Once you confirm your e-mail address, I’ll send a message with the link to the book.  

It’s easy to read, it’s informative and it just might change your life!  

Request your copy right now.   

Times are changing…  Even though most of us will be just fine, there are some industries and areas where folks are going to be looking for alternative work.  If you are in the job world and think you are seeing the lay-off or downsizing handwriting on the wall, don’t panic.  Take a deep breath, analyze your situation and make a plan.If you need a fresh up-to-date resume get in touch with my colleague Glenna Bailey. She does an excellent job at reasonable rates.  You can check out her website at www.thebragmethod.comTalk with your employer about continuing to use you as a sub-contractor or consultant.  They still have work that has to be done – they just need to do it differently.  You are a known entity – if you have done a good job, use that relationship to your advantage.Check out the temp agencies – these aren’t just for secretaries anymore.  There are agencies that place CPAs, accountants, lawyers, nurses, teachers and tutors, engineers, grant-writers and PR pros.  With companies looking to cut back their expenses, temp employment will rise.Go ahead and apply for a part-time job right now.  We’re in the season when retail always hires more help and even though the predictions aren’t great for this year, there are Now Hiring signs in lots of places.Want to start some sort of endeavor you’ve been dreaming about?Consider taking a course to update your skills or even starting back to school in a new field that you’ve always been interested in.Start laying the groundwork now for your new side business – make a plan, find out what you need to learn, schedule at least 30 minutes a day to work on your concept and talk to everyone you know about it.  You never know who might turn out to be a valuable ally.Check out the articles on my website and the blog entries for ideas of things you can do and where to look for information.  I just started posting a series called Your Personal GPS – How to Find Information.Talk to everyone you know - design a creative career that fits you - consider a tiny small business on the side - make a list of people who can help or mentor you - create a part-time retirement stream of income.And remember what Ernest Hemingway said,“Courage is grace under pressure.”

When I started investigating the whole concept of second careers for boomers a couple of years ago, Marc Freedman had just written his book entitled “Encore”. He founded Civic Ventures and has created a community of energetic, motivated, and intentioned folks who are finding rewarding, meaningful ways to contribute to their communities in the second half of their lives.  

As I started talking to friends and acquaintances about my vision of helping others to find their passion in life, most had no idea that this was a concept that they could embrace in their own lives.  Fast forward just a few short years, and the Encore Career movement is catching on and the buzz is getting louder.  

Two recent columns in the NY Times by Nicholas Kristoff called Geezers Doing Good and another by Jane Brody on the health benefits of “doing work that matters”  have highlighted the increasing awareness of the endless possibilities that are available to those of us who are approaching retirement age but have no intention of retiring. 

Retirement is no longer just an extended vacation of travel, golf and bridge games.  The need for income for many, and the desire to do something meaningful for lots of others is fueling a whole new world of opportunity.  If you want to  learn more about what others are doing and to find ways to generate ideas about what you might do, check out the Encore web site. 

Now about this GEEZER thing.  That has always implied a grumpy old person to me, and I’m definitely not grumpy and not all that old.  On the other hand, I really don’t like the name BOOMER either.  Can someone please come up with a new name for us???    If you have a good suggestion, send it to me by commenting below.   

Technorati tags: retirement, meaningful work, second career, encore career, geezers, boomers and careers

      (An excerpt from my E-book  for the over-50 crowd ) 

The advantage of finally being a “grown up” (if there is such a thing) is that once we are over 50, we find new roads opening up in front of us. Things that used to matter begin to pale. Our outlook begins to widen. We start to consider possibilities for change. Maybe we can make a dream come true. Maybe we can reinvent ourselves after all. We’ve still got at least 20 years good years in front of us.

There are lots of stories of folks who found their life’s work after 50. Grandma Moses didn’t start painting until she was 76. At age 70, Harlan Sanders started what would become the KFC restaurant chain. Frank Lloyd Wright completed Fallingwater at age 72 and worked on the Guggenheim Museum until his death at 91. Cezanne did his most important work after his 60^th birthday, and Clint Eastwood finally directed his best film, “Letters from Iwo Jima” when he was 76. Then there are those like Ronald Reagan, Jesse Ventura and George Foreman who completely changed their life’s direction after 50.

All of these people made choices to pursue their passion, to keep trying new things despite early failures, or to change paths completely at a time when many others consider their lives coming to an end. Do you have a dream that you still want to accomplish?

It’s never too late to start working on it. It’s a gift you can give to yourself and to the world.

In her book Pursuit of Passionate Purpose, Theresa Szczurek presents a process to help discover who you really are. It is impossible to define a purposeful life and work if you don’t know what is important to you. A list of priorities is essential to creating the mission statement that will guide you to success.

You may not realize it, but you make choices and decisions based on these three categories of self definition.

Values: These are your core beliefs, ideology, ethics, morals, attitudes and ideals that define who you are and what is meaningful to you. One way to identify your values is to look at the way you spend your two most valuable currencies – time and money.

Gifts: Your natural gifts are the sum of your talents, experience, abilities, aptitude, and education. These are not skills. Skills are taught. Gifts are either an innate part of you or are acquired through living. Ask others for input about what your unique gifts are. Think about your reactions to growing up experiences, adult life events and times of adversity. Everything in your past contributes to who you are today. Strengths are gained over the course of life especially during times of challenge.

Traits: These are the personal characteristics that allow you to effectively use your values and gifts. Traits are such things as confidence and self-esteem, curiosity, energy, integrity of effort, optimism, passion, regeneration and wholeness. (7)

Finding your mid-life passion can re-energize your life and bring rich rewards but only if it reflects who you truly are.

Determining your key priorities is an important first step and not one to be bypassed.

Mike Bellah, a columnist for many years at BestYears.com calls it taking inventory. “Before you decide what to change in midlife, you must decide what to keep.

Make a list of your values, strengths and interest.. …….Once you have decided what to keep at midlife, decide what you will change. What can be improved upon to make you even better at what you do?”

Pursuit of Passionate Purpose can be purchased in my bookstore, Web-site Link

The question used to be What do you want to be when you grow up? But now you are all grown up, and like it or not, you are coming face to face with yet another new phase of your life. We haven’t come up with a good name for this yet. It is the time between 50 and 80 years of age when many people are continuing to work either because they need to financially or because they want to emotionally. It is *a new phase* between middle age and old age.

There are many new terms for it - Second Acts, Encores, Middleage-less, and My Timers are some examples. The concept of finally retiring and doing nothing except to play golf and move to a sunny place is fading quickly.

From the store greeter to the head of a philanthropic foundation, experienced, wise and energetic seniors are affecting our economy and society in myriad ways every day. For many, the big difference is that they are finding wonderful things to do that

• bring them joy
• fulfill a long-held dream
• make a meaningful contribution to their community
• use a newly discovered talent (or a long hidden one)
• or are just plain fun to do.

Marc Freedman, author of Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life, presents the theory that this infamous group of us who are approaching the classic retirement age are capable of considering many new possibilities for work that can tackle some of society’s major problems and actually create positive change in this country in the next 20 or 30 years.  Whether we continue to work for others, start our own businesses, or develop non-profit organizations, we can make work that is good for us and the world around us.

There are no rules for this gap stage of our lives and we are free to write our own stories now.  As a member of this group, I find this exciting and challenging.  I will be creating a separate section on my web-site for the “boomers” and developing some ideas for tele-classes and workshops to help you find ways to live this part of life to the fullest.  Stay tuned…….