They Flunked Retirement, and the World Will Be Better for It

What do John Kanzius and Dr. Jose Antonio Abreau have in common, beside being featured in two back-to-back good news segments on a recent 60 Minutes (April 13)? Although motivated by very different causes, both 60-somethings came out of retirement to make contributions to humanity that will be felt for generations, perhaps forever. Here are the summaries of their stories.

Unable to sleep one night during a recent bout of chemotherapy for leukemia, John Kanzius, a retired businessman and radio technician, had a brainstorm: was it possible that radio waves could kill cancer? Months of tinkering in his own garage and thousands of dollars of his own money later, he produced the Kanzius Machine which, combined with nano technology, zaps cancer cells in experimental animals, leaving healthy tissue intact.  Kanzius’ invention has been deemed promising enough to attract research funding.

El Sistema, founded by retired economist Dr. Jose Antonio Abreau in 1975, is rescuing hundreds of thousands of young Venezuelans from lives of poverty and neglect, by teaching them to play a musical instrument and introducing them into youth orchestras. The Simon Bolivar National Youth Orchestra, the flower of eL Sistema, now plays to packed concert halls around the world. Says Raphel Elster, one of the leaders, “We work hard. And they love it!”

Staying On the Job: Open Dialogue Needed

All research on older workers indicates that a significant number will choose to become free agents of one sort or another, some swelling the ranks of entrepreneurs 50 and older. But many who are retirement-eligible would prefer to remain in their jobs, renegotiating terms of employment with their current employers. Phased retirement and consulting gigs are among the many options most sought after, if employees could find a way to broach the subject without jeopardizing their positions.

As it happens, the more enlightened companies are willing to listen (see A Longer Goodbye). These employers know that talent shortages are not going away any time soon. This means they are much more amenable to new ideas on how to retain valuable employees of a certain age. Sounds like a win-win, provided there is frank and open dialogue on the subject.  And a new bill before Congress now will certainly add some fuel to the discussion.

Regardless of which side of this question you find yourself, check out the Retention Connection, a collection of thoughtful articles on the subject from The Herman Group, “futurists specializing in workforce and worplace trends.” While you’re at it, you could sign up for the free Herman Trend Alerts, which arrives in my emailbox every week. There’s invariably a tip I find useful.

On Abolishing Retirement

 

Thanks to Retire Smart columnist, Mark Miller, for letting us speak our minds on the subject of retirement, in particular, why it is an idea whose time has gone, baby, gone. Mark is the former editor of Satisfaction magazine where we picked each other up on the radar. His new baby, RetirementRevised.com is the companion website of Retire Smart, that appears in more than 30 newspapers each week. “For millions of Baby Boomers,” he notes about his own generation, “retirement is an opportunity for reinvention, rather than taking it easy.” Mark is helping write the playbook for the new career and personal pursuits of a generation. Check out the video.

While you’re at it, listen to John Nelson, co-author of What Color is Your Parachute in Retirement, speak about ‘retirement hogwash,’ that is commerce aimed at mature consumers that is ‘misaligned with their values.’

A Long and Happy Life

It’s in our Constitution, but apparently not in our stars: happiness, that is. Perhaps the problem is that we confuse pursuit with the thing pursued, and possibly, we enjoy it far more: the excitement of the chase, the adrenalin rush of competition, the thrill of overcoming obstacles. They make us feel good.

Happiness, notoriously difficult to define (Bartleby’s offers over 500 quotes on the subject), pales by comparison. In any case, we are, according to a new study by Leicester University in England (see 60 Minutes), failing miserably in the happiness race. For all our material wealth and power in the world, we are ranked #23 in happiness, well behind Canada and Costa Rica. Bhutan’s national goal may be the Gross Domestic Happiness of its citizens, but Denmark ranks #1.

Interestingly, what four young Danes interviewed in the segment describe as happiness sounds less like pleasure, joy, exhilaration, bliss — to cite typical synonyms — and more like contentment, a sense of security in their daily lives (free health care and education, very low crime rate), and not giving a damn about the Joneses. We might take a page from their book and try curbing our expectations.

If advertising messages tell us anything about ourselves, you might draw the conclusion that happiness is having more, bigger, better, newer stuff. Happiness might sell, but apparently we’re not buying it. Diet books, foods and advice are big business, too, yet we have an epidemic of obesity.

Are we stuck with this unhappy state of affairs? Apparently not. According to the positive psychology movement, happiness can be learned. Gratitude, grit, optimism and the ability to forgive are among the aspects we need to cultivate, according to the work of Dr. Martin Seligman, founder of the movement. Apparently, older people have absorbed the lessons and generally describe themselves as happier than younger folk, according to research reported in MarketWatch article by Andrea Coombes: “Among U.S. respondents, 89% of those in their 70s and 87% of those in their 60s said they were happy most of the time in the previous week versus 78% of those in their 40s.” Now that’s something to celebrate.

Here’s some other things to ponder or pursue:

Doing good is the greatest happiness. (Chinese proverb)

Happiness? A good cigar, a good meal, a good cigar and a good woman—or a bad woman; it depends on how much happiness you can handle. (George Burns)

Happiness is a by-product. You cannot pursue it by itself. (Sam Levenson)

Happiness is a clutter-free environment: http://unclutterer.com/

Happiness is a project, that is Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project 

The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.  (William Cowper)

 

“They take Medicaid, they’re near my house and they have an opening.”

Criteria for choosing a nursing home for a father suffering the symptoms of dementia? Apparently so, for John and Wendy (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney), two estranged and deeply competitive siblings, brought together by a problem that is, or should be, front of mind for anyone with an elder in the family or who hopes to be one some day. Heartbreaking, gritty and beautifully acted (Linney is an Academy Award nominee for her role) Savages, is right on target in depicting the bleak landscape of a typical nursing home, complete with screwball and futile attempts at gaiety, i.e. the changing, nursery-school seasonal motifs, as well as the explosive pressure and the wacky behavior it generates.

Item: in her own when-the-going-gets-tough-the-tough-go-shopping moment, Wendy attempts to make the barracks-like accommodation more homey for Dad (Philip Bosco). We see her hanging sheer curtains to hide the institutional blinds, plumping up the pillows, and plugging in a lava lamp as a final touch. Not long after, when she finds a cushion she had bought for her father in the firm grip of another resident, she snatches it away while the elderly woman wails. Gut-wrenching.

The film is also a reminder that housing our elders — and one day, ourselves — should the ability to perform many tasks of daily life become too difficult, is a challenge for an entire family, and for the larger community. Except in the most extreme circumstances that demand 24/7 care, there are better, less expensive alternatives to a nursing home (recent figure for South Florida: $5,000/month). It comes as no surprise that most older people want to live as independently as possible in surroundings that are familiar — who wouldn’t? So it is encouraging to find models like the concierge program in Boston’s Beacon Hill Village beginning to proliferate in other cities. The program gives subscribers age 50 and older who live in the neighborhood, access to an array of services for a fee, everything from cleaning and shopping assistance, to car service for a doctor’s appointment or night on the town.

For lower income elders living in subsidized housing, needed services at reasonable cost are available through a program created in South Florida by 2006 Purpose Prize winner, Conchy Bretos. It is in demand nationwide. After she appeared on the Today Show, Ms. Bretos, an experienced lobbyist, activist and executive administrator of special population programs, returned to her desk to find her in-box jammed with over 3,000 email messages.

The Eden Alternative, founded in 1991 by Dr. William Thomas, a Harvard-educated physician and geriatrician, focuses on de-institutionalizing the culture and environment of today’s nursing homes and other long term care institutions. To date, it has trained over 15,000 Eden Associates and now claims over 300 registered homes, in the U.S., Canada, and Australia.

Savages has been called a black comedy. We see it as a wake up call. The long term care insurance that is being marketed relentlessly to older Americans is only as good as the facilities and staff available. We need fresh, innovative thinking sooner rather than later. We need activism.

Sole Proprietor

If having your own business has been a lifelong dream, chances are you will start out as — and possibly remain — a sole proprietor. Legally, a “proprietorship essentially means a person does business in his or her own name and there is only one owner,” according to Wikipedia’s definition. These days the slightly antique IRS category of sole proprietor could includes everyone from the 50-something employee-turned-consultant, to a life or career coach, freelance commercial writer, motivational speaker, cruise ship lecturer, professional organizer, yoga instructor, or massage therapist, to name a few popular late life career choices. There are some distinct advantages to running your own business, tax-savings and the speed with which you can make decisions and respond to opportunity perhaps the most obvious. Anyone with a good idea can get into business at minimal cost. About $5,000 is typical to set up with the basic tools for a home-based enterprise.

Yes, small can be beautiful, and it appears may become the encore career of choice for many. In Free Agent Nation: How America’s New Independent Workers Are Transforming the Way We Live, Dan Pink predicted an explosion in independent contract workers, soloists and owners of microbusiness, a trend he believes is already reworking work itself. One example in our area of South Florida (more retirement central than a hotbed of entrepreneurial spirit) Kinko’s is open 24/7.

To be a successful soloist, you have to be self-sufficient and comfortable wearing many hats. It also helps to know yourself well enough to know what you don’t know, and what, when and where to outsource, in effect, building your own team of specialist/ sub-contractors. After all, being small in size doesn’t mean you can’t have big ideas. Luckily, there are any number of excellent resources so that you don’t have to go it alone. And many of them market themselves by giving away tons of free, valuable advice (take note). Here are three of our favorites, all small business owners themselves:

  • Terri Lonier’s Working Solo is a must read. See Terri’s excellent piece on Networking for the Terminally Shy.
  • Our former neighbor and friend, Ilise Benun’s excellent Marketing Mentor is another resource that belongs in your toolbox. Ilise is also the author of The Art of Self-Promotion.
  • For guerrilla publicity that really works, Joan Stewart’s Publicity Hound will inspire you to get going. Sign up for her free newsletter. Just say we sent you.

The Leisure Economy?

Now’s here a new wrinkle (you should pardon the expression). According Canadian economist, Linda Nazareth, leisure is the new, new thing that will shape the way we live (and work!) Here are eight trends — some self-evident, some whimsical — outlined in her new book: The Leisure Economy: How Changing Demographics, Economics, and Generational Attitudes Will Reshape Our Lives and Our Industries (Wiley 2007):

1. In the Workplace, It Will be Time to Welcome Back Fido

With more people looking for leisure or retiring early, companies are going to have to put up with more special requests from employees – like maybe to bring the odd dog, or cat or budgie into the office. Think the days of the dot.com boom.

2. Saying “I Was Here All Weekend” May Make You Seem Like a Loser Rather than a Hero

It’s very ‘baby-boomerish” to brag about working flat out all the time. Gen Y is into having a life; they’ll work, but they want their leisure too. (By the way, they know how to use technology so they know they don’t have to be in on the weekend anyway).

3. If You Don’t Know How to Knit, It Will be Time to Learn

Boomers have been too busy working to take up hobbies. When they retire, they are going to make leisure pastimes huge – even if they have to learn how to knit or rughook or how to play with model trains first (caveat: education will be the biggest growth industry, but it may not be traditional education).

4. Chopping Up Your Own Carrots May Seem Like a Reasonable Thing to Do

In the leisure economy, some people will be coping with lower incomes, so they will not want to pay for the convenience of pre-chopped vegetables or the like. And they’ll have more time to do the chopping. Keep an eye on the restaurant industry – it could be forced to adjust as more people cook.

5. People Will be Hitting the Road – and Not Just on the Long Weekends

More “leisurites” means more travel – but a different kind. The new leisure class will have lots of time, so can think in terms of seeing lots of different things, maybe over the course of a few months.

6. There’ll be Lots of Volunteers – But They Won’t Want to be Candy Stripers, Thanks Very Much

Boomers may be open to the idea of volunteering, but many will want to use the skills they developed when they were working in professional fields. Problem? The volunteer sector isn’t well set up to receive their talents, so they may lose them altogether. And keep an eye on Gen Y volunteers. They’ve spent years volunteering in school, and could be convinced to keep at it if organizations manage them well.

7. If You’re Looking for a Business to Start, Try a Moving Company

Boomers will be tapping into the value of their homes in the GTA and looking for cheaper places to live. They’ll pull up stakes at a quicker pace than their parents or grandparents. Gen X and Y may move too: they’ll want to try out telecommuting and they don’t have to be in big city-centres to do that.

8. Loitering Will be Encouraged

Or at least it will be by smart companies. If people don’t need to rush back to work, they’ll stay in stores longer, and smart ones will offer them comfortable spaces to hang out (Starbucks gets this), or things to do (talk to a nutritionist in a drug store or take a craft class at a craft store).

Interestingly, Nazareth’s book foreshadows the latest Metlife Mature Market Institute survey of leading edge boomers, which we found full of surprises. Boomers Ready to Launch finds that “Contrary to what most of us have believed about the baby boomers who came of age in the turbulent 1960s, the group is very much like the ‘Silent Generation’ that preceded them,” said Sandra Timmermann, Ed.D., director of the MetLife Mature Market Institute.

“Despite the social and political turbulence of their youth, these leading edge boomers have established very traditional lifestyle characteristics. They were married once, had two children and feel they’ve done a decent job of caring for their family, their community and themselves. They really are more like Ward and June Cleaver than we may have thought and they might be classified as ‘conventional.’ Just 2% say they attended the Woodstock Festival of 1969.”

“They’re comfortable being identified as a baby boomer, and contrary to claims that they’re not ready to retire, only 18% dislike the term ‘retirement’ to describe their next transition.”

Bottom Line: there isn’t one. Trend-spotting makes for interesting books and surveys. But as you know, and Peter Drucker famously said: The best way to predict the future is to create it.

The New Senior Moment

You know the comedy routine: a ‘senior citizen’ tears the house apart looking for his reading glasses only to find them, perched on top of his head. It’s been called a ‘senior moment,’ but it’s only funny if you find stereotypes about the aging brain humorous. Well, Gene Cohen, M.D., Ph.D., the first Director of the Center on Aging, Health & Humanities at George Washington University, has news for us on the other side of 50: it ain’t necessarily so. The brain is far more malleable than has been supposed.

In his back-to-back addresses to the Life Planning Network pre-conference and the First Annual Positive Aging Conference, held December 5-8 at Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, Florida, Dr. Cohen mixed cutting edge evidence about brain regeneration (there’s more to the line, use it or lose it than you might think) with flashes of wit. Creativity and practical intelligence actually increase with age, Cohen told some 200 professionals including life planners, life coaches, career counselors, social workers and psychotherapists — most of them 50 or better and eager to serve clients in the age cohort.

As an example of a new kind of ‘senior moment,’ he told a story about his own parents. Visiting Cohen and his wife one winter, the elder Cohens found themselves marooned in an unfamiliar part of the city by a snow storm, with nary a taxi in sight. The solution: they ordered a pizza ‘to go,’ and had themselves delivered to their son’s address with it.

“It’s not at all about denying the very real problems associated with aging,” Cohen said. “It’s all about not denying th very real potential associated with aging. Any program that doesn’t consider both [the problem and the potential], is not state of the art.”

The fact is, the brain — once thought to have all the neurons it could — can continue to regenerate and experience can actually have an impact on brain structure. We have, Cohen said, “a built-in inner push [which is] an evolutionary component of aging. Furthermore, it never leaves us.” Midlife can and should be more than a ‘crisis.’ For many it is a flowering of creativity coupled with a feisty sense of self that manifests in ‘second acts,’ ‘encore careers,’ and a strong desire to make a positive impact on society.

For more on the conference, visit Positive Aging Conference

Here’s a report that rebuts the notion that aging and disability go hand in hand.

Here’s how to keep your brain sharp so you can give ‘senior moment’ a whole new meaning.

Learning Life, etc.

Eons, TeeBeeDee, and now AARP are moving into the social networking for the 50+ space. Just today came news that The University of Minnesota has launched a new social networking site called Learning Life and we think this could be the wave of the future: focused, useful, and definitely not trying to be all things to all people 50+. In short, a mature way to do social networking for a specific purpose, and a universe away from the ‘see and be seen’ style of the top runners in this hot space. Although it is not age-specific, Linked In is another very grownup approach that focuses on professional relationships. At the moment, all these are gratis to the user, but so were ATMs once upon a time.

Social networking is probably here to stay, in fact, some believe it will become as commonplace as email and may actually begin to compete with it. I have friends — albeit a generation younger than I — who seem to prefer to use Facebook to stay in touch. One benefit: the chain of message is clearly displayed, sort of like comments in a blog. Exchanging photos this way is great, too.

If you have yet to jump in because it all seems overwhelming, here’s a little video that might change your mind: Social Networking in Plain English. The video was created by Lee and Saachi LeFever of Common Craft just because they are passionate about sharing what they know. Poke around their blog. It’s informative and fun.

The Purpose Prize

What if you offered a $100,000 prize for social entrepreneurs over the age of 60? Civic Ventures, a think tank and incubator based in San Francisco, was convinced that such a prize would draw out candidates by the thousands, proving its point that life after 60 is the time for an ‘encore‘ career aimed at societal good. It convinced two foundations to fund the prize and in 2005 began to seek nominations. The nonprofit organization was immediately innundated with nominations from which it selected 60 Fellows, 15 finalists and five winners of the first Purpose Prize. In 2005, Howard and I nominated Rick Koca, founder and leading light of StandUp for Kids which rescues homeless and street children, and he was chosen a Purpose Prize Fellow for 2006. In 2007, we were also chosen Fellows for co-founding 2young2retire, and a week ago, we attended the Purpose Prize summit in Palo Alto, CA. It is the kind of company that leaves you wondering: what am I doing here? Here are a few memories and people that standout for us in a memorable experience.

  • At the airport in San Francisco, we shared a van with Rick Koca of StandUp for Kids and Robert Chambers, 2006 Purpose Prize Winner and president of Bonnie CLAC, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to help individuals purchase fuel efficient new cars at very low interest rates. The conversation spontaneously turned to succession issues, that is, whom we could envision carrying our work forward — a founder’s mixed blessing.

  • Life and death issues. Purpose Prize winner, Donald Berwick, MD., a pediatrician whose political-style 100,000 Lives Campaign seeks to improve hospital safety and save lives. Dr. Berwick’s goal is to help hospitals reduce unnecessary deaths by encouraging them to implement six specific, scientifically proven improvements in care, including those aimed at reducing medication errors and infections. In December 2006, his Institute for Healthcare Improvement expanded its goals to avoid five million incidents of medical harm. Nurses for Newborns Foundation, the brain-child of neo-natal nurse, Sharon Rohrbach, has proven to be a low-cost, high-impact way of reducing infant mortality, particularly in populations at high risk. In 2006, the program reached 5,300 children in 40 counties in Missouri and Tennessee. Frank and Peg Brady, who are 2006 Purpose Prize Winners, also direct their efforts toward sick children. Their Medical Missions for Children uses interactive video technology to allow pediatric specialists to remotely diagnose patients and recommend treatment.

  • We had breakfast and talked one morning with Richard Cherry, 2006 Purpose Prize Fellow and 2007 Winner, and creator of the Community Environmental Center, the first New York City nonprofit to focus exclusively on environmental issues of housing and development. Over the last decade, the former Wall Street attorney’s organization has saved low-income New Yorkers $20 million in energy costs, and reduced annual carbon dioxide emissions by 83,000 tons.

  • On another day, 2007 Winner Gary Maxworthy told us how he translated his three decades in the food distribution business and one year as a VISTA volunteer at the San Francisco Food Bank into a new service that brings non-market standard fresh produce to the poor. An expanded initiative called Farm to Family distributed 22 million pounds of produce to 40 California food banks. This year, their target is 34 million.

  • “How Might We?” It’s a deceptively simple question, but one that IDEO, an organization that applies design thinking to products, services, spaces and processes, to help its clients experience innovation directly, come up with new, better answers, and sometimes even change their culture. At our day-long session with IDEO, Howard worked on a team to help Jessica Holt of The Bauen Camp, Parkman, Wyoming, on strategies to scale up her project. They produced a template for a start-up kit. Marika’s team helped 2007 Winner, Adele Douglas, founder/executive director of Human Farm Animal Care, to devise a prototype of a brochure that supermarkets could hand out to customers. Work should always be that stimulating and fun!

  • Tolerance was a big subject among Fellows. Emira Habiby Browne combined her experiences as a Palenstinian immigrant and social service professional into the Center for Integration and Advancement of New Americans. The organization provides support and educational services for immigrants and refugees upon entry into the U.S. to help them gain economic independence and engage in civic life. Shakeela Hassan, a University of Chicago Professor Emeritus, is producing “The Sounds of Faith” a three-part series exploring the connections between the music of Judaism, Christianity and Islam for a national PBS broadcast. 2007 Winner, Phil Borges, is in his second encore career: using photography (his first encore, after leaving his orthodontic practice) to expand children’s worldview and cultural knowledge. Bridges to Understanding has involved 4,000 students in 30 countries. Nearly ten years ago, Richard and Shelli Steckel became photographers dedicated to chronicling the humanity shared by all people, with a special focus on children. Their Milestones Project has reached over 118 million people through exhibits mounted in airports, museums, restaurants, colleges, schools, at the United Nations and on the web.

  • Senior Civic Ventures Fellow and founder of Uplift Academy, Tom Munnecke inspired us with this question: What is the simplest thing I can do to create maximum benefit for humanity?

  • During a break, Marika took a walk toward the Stanford University chapel (our hotel was conveniently located right across the street from the campus), and stumbled on the Rodin sculpture garden and a work entitled, Stone River, by environmental artist, Andy Goldsworthy. If you don’t know his work, prepare to be stunned.

  • One week later, we met with fellow Fellow, Dennis Littky, a veteran, much-recognized educator with some ideas we would like to see implemented throughout the educational system. In 1996, he co-founded the Met Center High School in Providence, Rhode Island, a school designed to meet the personal educational needs of underserved urban students. All you have to do is talk with students — as we did — to know it is working. With the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Littky’s model has been embraced by 54 schools, all public schools with fewer than 150 students. A college matching up Prime Time mentors with students is in the works, which is something that got our attention. For more, see his Big Picture Company.Nominations for the Purpose Prize are open. Deadline is March 1. Join the Encore revolution!