A major premise of RebootYou.com is that it makes sense to stay active after “retirement.” There are many reasons – physical and mental health, economics, and preventing the waste of experience and knowledge, among others.
In fact, we believe that “retirement” in the conventional sense – withdrawing to a passive, unengaged existence – is a bad thing.
One of the reasons for continuing to work described on www.rebootyou.com is the need or desire to continue to make money – other than Social Security or a pension.
Now along comes a book whose main message is that many people will have to work longer than they thought they would, just to maintain their standard of living.
The book is Working Longer: The Solution to the Retirement Income Challenge, by Alicia H. Munnell and Steven A Sass (Brookings Institution Press.)
The book was reviewed recently by Harry Hurt III in the New York Times. Munnell and Sass “note that the nation’s retirement system, as embodied by Social Security and Medicare in the public sector and I.R.A.’s and 401(k) plans in the private sector, is contracting in its ability to replace workers’ lost income – even as life expectancy is increasing,” Hurt writes.
I think this book is most likely to be a very important contribution to the conversation about retiring/not retiring, encore careers, reinvention and rebooting. I plan to say more about it in future blogs.
“About 19 percent of men and 33 percent of women who survive to age 65 will live to age 90 or older and have to support themselves for almost 30 years,” Munnell and Sass write. “The arithmetic does not work.”
The authors cite numerous studies that turn up these very inconvenient truths:
• For people who retire at 65 today, it is estimated that Social Security will only provide the equivalent of 39 percent of their incomes after deductions for basic Medicare contributions.
• Those who plan to retire in 2030 can expect net benefits of only 30 percent of their incomes.
• In 1989, 66 percent of American employers provided post-retirement health care benefit programs. By 2006 that number had fallen to 35 percent.
• Americans do not save enough. In a 2004 Federal Reserve study, the theoretically possible or simulated amount of money owned by people aged 55 to 64 was $314,000. However, the actual average savings was only $60,000.
Munnell and Sass recommend that people postpone their retirements from the current average age of 63 to age 66. Four more years of work changes the ratio of retirement to working years from 1 to 2, meaning 20 years of retirement and 40 years of work, to almost 1 to 3, or 16 years of retirement and 44 years of work.
Working longer, the authors say, would delay the need for people to tap into their I.R.A.’s and 401(k)’s, increasing their total assets and the future income they can produce. It would also maximize the benefits of Social Security, which are about one-third higher for recipients who are 66 than for those who are 62.
The authors raise other important issues, which we will discuss in subsequent blogs: whether older workers will be healthy enough to continue to work, whether they will want to, and whether employers will be willing to employ them.
If you’re interested in ordering the book, please click here click here. The link will take you to the resources section of RebootYou.com, and Working Longer is the first book listed.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Early Retirees in New Ventures, Mostly for Fun
A recent article in the New York Times described a new breed of entrepreneur rebooters now coming on the business scene.
“Not the hard-driving type who makes the business news pages,” the Times reported in an article by Brent Bowers. “Rather, the laid-back, come-what-may variety. Many of them are part of the first wave of America’s 76 million baby boomers who are taking early retirement and turning their hobbies into small businesses. Very small businesses.”
The Times said the new entrepreneurs see their microbusinesses as a way to give focus to a favorite pastime, get more zest out of life and make a little money. The best part is they do not care if the ventures fail.
Ty Freyvogel, a small-business consultant and investor in Pittsburgh, predicts that the ranks of early retirement dabblers will swell as they discover they have too much time and not quite enough money. “If they do the proper research and can get started without putting a significant amount of capital behind them initially, these types of small start-ups can get going with little risk,” he said.
Three of these entrepreneurial rebooters were described in Bowers’ article.
Carl Boast, owner of Peaceable Kingdom Photos in Moneta, Va., quit his job as a neuroscientist in the pharmaceutical industry five years ago at age 55 and became a nature photographer.
He says he is too busy hiking, boating, reading, writing songs and traveling to fit the definition of an entrepreneur. “I’ve put very little effort into marketing,” he said. “I’m not out to make money or change the world.” He has created a Web site, he says, but it is “buried in Earthlink somewhere” and is out of date.
He makes a few hundred dollars a year, but it's not about the money. What really motivates him, he said, is “sharing my pictures to convey the idea, ‘Wasn’t this a neat moment?’”
Jan Oudemool of Harwich, Mass., 65, retired five years ago from a job as a special-education teacher and not long after began making decorative mobiles in his home.
Last year, he sold about 35 for close to $4,000, more than double the revenue of the previous year, his first in business. He’s pleased with the growth – not so much for the money as for getting his creations out of his house so they won’t clutter up his basement.
He has a Web site, business cards and a niche market. But he says he knows next to nothing about business, did no research or planning for his company and does not want it to grow.
Bowers, the author of the article, has also recently started a business. Formerly a New York Times editor, he took early retirement two years ago and opened a business writing freelance articles and giving occasional speeches.
“I do not know a whole lot more about the mechanics of running a business than Mr. Boast or Mr. Oudemool,” wrote Bowers. “But I guess I’m a quasi-entrepreneur like them. I’m doing this for the fun, not the money. I love being (mostly) my own boss and I am even tempted by the delusion that I may make it big some day.”
“Not the hard-driving type who makes the business news pages,” the Times reported in an article by Brent Bowers. “Rather, the laid-back, come-what-may variety. Many of them are part of the first wave of America’s 76 million baby boomers who are taking early retirement and turning their hobbies into small businesses. Very small businesses.”
The Times said the new entrepreneurs see their microbusinesses as a way to give focus to a favorite pastime, get more zest out of life and make a little money. The best part is they do not care if the ventures fail.
Ty Freyvogel, a small-business consultant and investor in Pittsburgh, predicts that the ranks of early retirement dabblers will swell as they discover they have too much time and not quite enough money. “If they do the proper research and can get started without putting a significant amount of capital behind them initially, these types of small start-ups can get going with little risk,” he said.
Three of these entrepreneurial rebooters were described in Bowers’ article.
Carl Boast, owner of Peaceable Kingdom Photos in Moneta, Va., quit his job as a neuroscientist in the pharmaceutical industry five years ago at age 55 and became a nature photographer.
He says he is too busy hiking, boating, reading, writing songs and traveling to fit the definition of an entrepreneur. “I’ve put very little effort into marketing,” he said. “I’m not out to make money or change the world.” He has created a Web site, he says, but it is “buried in Earthlink somewhere” and is out of date.
He makes a few hundred dollars a year, but it's not about the money. What really motivates him, he said, is “sharing my pictures to convey the idea, ‘Wasn’t this a neat moment?’”
Jan Oudemool of Harwich, Mass., 65, retired five years ago from a job as a special-education teacher and not long after began making decorative mobiles in his home.
Last year, he sold about 35 for close to $4,000, more than double the revenue of the previous year, his first in business. He’s pleased with the growth – not so much for the money as for getting his creations out of his house so they won’t clutter up his basement.
He has a Web site, business cards and a niche market. But he says he knows next to nothing about business, did no research or planning for his company and does not want it to grow.
Bowers, the author of the article, has also recently started a business. Formerly a New York Times editor, he took early retirement two years ago and opened a business writing freelance articles and giving occasional speeches.
“I do not know a whole lot more about the mechanics of running a business than Mr. Boast or Mr. Oudemool,” wrote Bowers. “But I guess I’m a quasi-entrepreneur like them. I’m doing this for the fun, not the money. I love being (mostly) my own boss and I am even tempted by the delusion that I may make it big some day.”
Friday, June 20, 2008
Exercise: the spark for your brain
Does exercise benefit your brain?
You bet it does, and if you want to know the many ways it does, get this book: Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, by Dr. John J. Ratey with Eric Hagerman.
“We all know that exercise makes us feel better, but most of us have no idea why,” Ratey writes. “We assume it’s because we’re burning off stress or reducing muscle tension or boosting endorphins, and we leave it at that. But the real reason we feel so good when we get our blood pumping is that it makes the brain function at its best, and in my view, this benefit of physical activity is far more important – and fascinating – than what it does for the body.
“Building muscles and conditioning the heart and lungs are essentially side effects. I often tell my patients that the point of exercise is to build and condition the brain.”
Ratey is a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He has put together an wonderfully fascinating account of what goes on inside your head when you exercise.
Ratey describes these almost unbelievable chemical and neurological processes in terms that a lay person can understand. And they make a convincing case that “… you have the power to change your brain. All you have to do is lace up your running shoes.”
For me the most interesting chapter of all was the one on aging. Ratey lists nine ways that exercise keeps you going:
1. It strengthens the cardiovascular system.
2. It regulates fuel (glucose).
3. It reduces obesity.
4. It elevates your stress threshold.
5. It lifts your mood.
6. It boosts the immune system.
7. It fortifies your bones.
8. It boosts motivation.
9. It fosters neuroplasticity (keeps your brain growing).
Considering a list like that, why would anyone let laziness keep them from exercising?
You bet it does, and if you want to know the many ways it does, get this book: Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, by Dr. John J. Ratey with Eric Hagerman.
“We all know that exercise makes us feel better, but most of us have no idea why,” Ratey writes. “We assume it’s because we’re burning off stress or reducing muscle tension or boosting endorphins, and we leave it at that. But the real reason we feel so good when we get our blood pumping is that it makes the brain function at its best, and in my view, this benefit of physical activity is far more important – and fascinating – than what it does for the body.
“Building muscles and conditioning the heart and lungs are essentially side effects. I often tell my patients that the point of exercise is to build and condition the brain.”
Ratey is a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He has put together an wonderfully fascinating account of what goes on inside your head when you exercise.
Ratey describes these almost unbelievable chemical and neurological processes in terms that a lay person can understand. And they make a convincing case that “… you have the power to change your brain. All you have to do is lace up your running shoes.”
For me the most interesting chapter of all was the one on aging. Ratey lists nine ways that exercise keeps you going:
1. It strengthens the cardiovascular system.
2. It regulates fuel (glucose).
3. It reduces obesity.
4. It elevates your stress threshold.
5. It lifts your mood.
6. It boosts the immune system.
7. It fortifies your bones.
8. It boosts motivation.
9. It fosters neuroplasticity (keeps your brain growing).
Considering a list like that, why would anyone let laziness keep them from exercising?
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Leonardo da Vinci: Renaissance Rebooter
This cartoon by Mort Greenberg, which appeared in the New Yorker, then in a Fidelity Investments print ad in the New Yorker, and most recently in Last Laughs: Cartoons about Aging, Retirement… and the Great Beyond (Scribner, 2007) perfectly captures the ideal of rebooting – Leonardo da Vinci, the ultimate Renaissance man, in his studio, busy working on two things at once.
The housekeeper is saying to the visitor, “Oh you know with Leonardo, it’s never retirement, it’s always reinvention.”
The cartoon brings back fond memories of a visit I made some years ago to the Clos Luce manor house in Amboise, in the Loire Valley of France. This is where Leonardo, at the invitation of King Francois I, came to live when he was 65. He happily continued to paint, sketch, and work as an engineer, architect, and festival organizer for the King Francois I court in Amboise, spending the last three years of his life there. The manor house is now a Leonardo museum.
I was traveling with a group of Stanford Sloan classmates, including Mike Fitch, a highly regarded Wells Fargo banker with a well-tuned and mischievous sense of humor. As Mike and I were walking through the models and drawings, we got into some nonsense banter about how Leonardo might have interacted with “Jacques,” an imaginary person who might have been hanging around Leonardo’s workshop (perhaps the guy in the cartoon).
Jacques: “Hey Lennie! Whatcha doin’ today?”
Leonardo: “I’m inventing a helicopter.”
Jacques: “Oh.”
(Pause.)
Jacques: “Hey Lennie! What’s a helicopter?”
Leonardo: “It’s something to fly around in and report on traffic.
Jacques: “Oh.”
(Longer pause.)
Jacques: “Hey Lennie! What’s traffic?”
OK, you had to be there. There was much more. Too bad one of our classmates didn’t have a video camera. Our improv routine might have made it to YouTube.
"A well filled day gives a good sleep. A well filled life gives a peaceful death." -- Leonardo da Vinci
The housekeeper is saying to the visitor, “Oh you know with Leonardo, it’s never retirement, it’s always reinvention.”
The cartoon brings back fond memories of a visit I made some years ago to the Clos Luce manor house in Amboise, in the Loire Valley of France. This is where Leonardo, at the invitation of King Francois I, came to live when he was 65. He happily continued to paint, sketch, and work as an engineer, architect, and festival organizer for the King Francois I court in Amboise, spending the last three years of his life there. The manor house is now a Leonardo museum.
I was traveling with a group of Stanford Sloan classmates, including Mike Fitch, a highly regarded Wells Fargo banker with a well-tuned and mischievous sense of humor. As Mike and I were walking through the models and drawings, we got into some nonsense banter about how Leonardo might have interacted with “Jacques,” an imaginary person who might have been hanging around Leonardo’s workshop (perhaps the guy in the cartoon).
Jacques: “Hey Lennie! Whatcha doin’ today?”
Leonardo: “I’m inventing a helicopter.”
Jacques: “Oh.”
(Pause.)
Jacques: “Hey Lennie! What’s a helicopter?”
Leonardo: “It’s something to fly around in and report on traffic.
Jacques: “Oh.”
(Longer pause.)
Jacques: “Hey Lennie! What’s traffic?”
OK, you had to be there. There was much more. Too bad one of our classmates didn’t have a video camera. Our improv routine might have made it to YouTube.
"A well filled day gives a good sleep. A well filled life gives a peaceful death." -- Leonardo da Vinci
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Doing Good Work and Getting Paid to Do It
Between working at a for-profit business for a salary and working at a non-profit organization as a volunteer, there’s another path for rebooters: Doing “good work” and getting paid for it.
That is, starting a new career by taking on a salaried position in an organization devoted to some higher social good, such as health care, education and social services.
Marc Freedman, co-founder of Civic Ventures, author and one of the nation's leading thinkers and writers on the opportunities presented by the aging of America, documents this growing trend in Encore: Finding W
ork that Matters in the Second Half of Life. He calls it one of the most significant developments of the new century, and the biggest change in the American workforce since the women’s movement.
“Millions of boomers are headed not for an endless vacation but for a new stage of work, driven both by the desire to remain productive and the need to make ends meet over longer life spans,” he says.
"Boomers can capitalize on longer working lives to go beyond their own narrow needs, get down to some of their most significant work and leave the world a better place than they found it.”
Civic Ventures (www.civicventures.org) and its affiliate Encore.org (www.encore.org) are dedicated to helping people make such transitions to “encore careers,” working both online and offline. On the Web, Encore.org members share their stories, their ideas and their challenges. On the ground, the Encore.org community includes nonprofits, companies, colleges and other organizations that help people explore, prepare and launch their encore careers.
While RebootYou.com has no official affiliation with Civic Ventures and Encore.org, we are proud to share objectives with them and help further this valuable, vital and much needed trend.
That is, starting a new career by taking on a salaried position in an organization devoted to some higher social good, such as health care, education and social services.
Marc Freedman, co-founder of Civic Ventures, author and one of the nation's leading thinkers and writers on the opportunities presented by the aging of America, documents this growing trend in Encore: Finding W
ork that Matters in the Second Half of Life. He calls it one of the most significant developments of the new century, and the biggest change in the American workforce since the women’s movement.“Millions of boomers are headed not for an endless vacation but for a new stage of work, driven both by the desire to remain productive and the need to make ends meet over longer life spans,” he says.
"Boomers can capitalize on longer working lives to go beyond their own narrow needs, get down to some of their most significant work and leave the world a better place than they found it.”
Civic Ventures (www.civicventures.org) and its affiliate Encore.org (www.encore.org) are dedicated to helping people make such transitions to “encore careers,” working both online and offline. On the Web, Encore.org members share their stories, their ideas and their challenges. On the ground, the Encore.org community includes nonprofits, companies, colleges and other organizations that help people explore, prepare and launch their encore careers.
While RebootYou.com has no official affiliation with Civic Ventures and Encore.org, we are proud to share objectives with them and help further this valuable, vital and much needed trend.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
RebootYou.com featured in SF Chronicle Sunday Magazine
With your permission, a bit of self-promotion.
Today’s San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Magazine (May 11, 2008) has an article about how I came up with the idea of RebootYou.com. Here’s the link:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/09/CMUMV9Q8G.DTL
I would be pleased if you would take the time to peruse the article. I’m gratified that the folks at the Chronicle consider RebootYou.com a “bright idea,” and I hope you do, too.
Today’s San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Magazine (May 11, 2008) has an article about how I came up with the idea of RebootYou.com. Here’s the link:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/09/CMUMV9Q8G.DTL
I would be pleased if you would take the time to peruse the article. I’m gratified that the folks at the Chronicle consider RebootYou.com a “bright idea,” and I hope you do, too.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
The next big thing: Neuroplastics
You remember the line in “The Graduate” when a friend of Dustin Hoffman’s parents pulled him aside and revealed the next big thing: “Plastics.”
Well, the next big thing today may be: “Neuroplastics.” This is the field of medicine that explores the ability of the brain to improve itself through activity or mental exercise.
“The idea that the brain can change its own structure and function through thought and activity is, I believe, the most important alteration in our view of the brain since we first sketched out its anatomy and the workings of its basic component, the neuron,” writes Dr. Norman Doidge in his book, The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science..
“The neuroplastic revolution has implications for, among other things, our understanding of how love, sex, grief, relationships, learning, addictions, culture, technology and psychotherapies change our brains,” Dr. Doidge writes.
Today’s New York Times has a related story: “Exercise Your Brain or Else You’ll … Uh…” The lead actor in the story: ELDR magazine editor David Bunnell, who recounts his techniques for maintaining the acuity of his own brain.
“Mr. Bunnell now does regular brain calisthenics, largely avoiding expensive software in favor of simpler solutions,” says the Times article. “He works at memorizing the numbers that swirl around his daily life – credit cards, PINs and phone numbers – and devises mnemonics for remembering people’s names. ‘Smart people find new ways to exercise their brains that don’t involve buying software or taking expensive workshops,’ he said.”
A growing industry is turning out brain health products – both dietary supplements and computer-based products such as math and memory exercises, cognitive assessment and training and other “neurosoftware” programs.
My favorite brain exercises are crossword puzzles and the “Scramble” word game. I’ve tackled sodoku but so far with little success. But I haven’t given up yet.
Now where did I put this morning’s puzzle page?
Well, the next big thing today may be: “Neuroplastics.” This is the field of medicine that explores the ability of the brain to improve itself through activity or mental exercise.
“The idea that the brain can change its own structure and function through thought and activity is, I believe, the most important alteration in our view of the brain since we first sketched out its anatomy and the workings of its basic component, the neuron,” writes Dr. Norman Doidge in his book, The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science..
“The neuroplastic revolution has implications for, among other things, our understanding of how love, sex, grief, relationships, learning, addictions, culture, technology and psychotherapies change our brains,” Dr. Doidge writes.
Today’s New York Times has a related story: “Exercise Your Brain or Else You’ll … Uh…” The lead actor in the story: ELDR magazine editor David Bunnell, who recounts his techniques for maintaining the acuity of his own brain.
“Mr. Bunnell now does regular brain calisthenics, largely avoiding expensive software in favor of simpler solutions,” says the Times article. “He works at memorizing the numbers that swirl around his daily life – credit cards, PINs and phone numbers – and devises mnemonics for remembering people’s names. ‘Smart people find new ways to exercise their brains that don’t involve buying software or taking expensive workshops,’ he said.”
A growing industry is turning out brain health products – both dietary supplements and computer-based products such as math and memory exercises, cognitive assessment and training and other “neurosoftware” programs.
My favorite brain exercises are crossword puzzles and the “Scramble” word game. I’ve tackled sodoku but so far with little success. But I haven’t given up yet.
Now where did I put this morning’s puzzle page?
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