Books Archive

Organize Your Emotions, Optimize Your Life

Retirement Wisdom · Feb 25, 2017 ·

By Margaret Moore, MBA, Edward Phillps, MD and John Hanc. (2016 – William Morrow)

Book Review by Joe Casey

Emotional intelligence is important throughout life, including retirement. The transition to retirement or early retirement is an emotional one as well. Some of the best books on retirement aren’t specifically about retirement. They focus on topics that happen to be valuable in making the transition to retirement or from one career to another. This excellent book is clearly one of the very best of them.

All Life Transitions Are Emotional

Any big change across our lifespan is an emotional experience. When it comes to retiring, that can be underestimated. You may be wondering, ‘What’s the problem? Every day will be Saturday! The only emotions I’m feeling are joy and anticipation!’

But there are many aspects about retirement that are emotional. Shifting your identity is a key one. Your relationships change, sometimes more abruptly than anticipated. The benefits of the relationships you had at work will need to be replaced in some different ways. Relationships in your personal life face changes as well.

Your ‘Inner Family’ of Emotions

Retirement is not a solo pursuit, it involves family as well. But there’s another family that will be along for the ride on your journey. The authors introduce the concept of your ‘Inner Family’ of nine emotions. Raising awareness of your emotions, in tandem with mindfulness, tilts the odds in our favor toward self-mastery. Your emotions have a language all their own. This book helps your ability to listen to their powerful messages, leverage your strengths and move in the direction you really want to go. It’s powerful knowledge for the next chapters of your life.

Optimize Your Life

Finally, one of the main tenets of this book is that taking control of managing your emotions will position you to optimize your life. You’ve probably spent decades working, saving and investing to be able to enjoy your retirement years. This book provides smart tools and tips, backed by research, that can help you make the most of them.

Retirement Wisdom · Aug 18, 2016 ·

By Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott (2016 – London, Bloomsbury)

Book Review by Joe Casey

Let’s look ahead a bit – or back a bit – and imagine. It’s your 60th Birthday Party.

You receive the best gift of all time.

You’re given more 30 years of life. How would you react? Psyched about all you get to experience and do? Scared about what lies ahead? Well, according to statistics the authors cite, if you are 60 today, you have a 50 percent chance of living to 90.

In Short

It’s very difficult to see a sea change when you’re in the middle of it. The 100 Year Life provides a primer on the trends unfolding in human longevity – and a clear-eyed look at both the ramifications and the opportunities. This books offers a paradigm shift in how to think about retirement – for government policy makers, corporate executives and individuals alike.

Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott are professors at the London School of Economics and approach longevity from two different academic perspectives – Management and Economics. The authors note that given the increases in the lifespan, many of us will indeed live longer – and we will either dread the reality of working significantly longer or embrace the gift of additional years and what we can do with them. That depends upon many factors,including our attitude and how well we plan ahead.

Food for Thought

Government policies, corporate programs and individual attitudes about retirement are based off an old model of retirement that’s obsolete. Because people are now living longer, the authors argue that the models of thinking about retirement need to change.

The old model looked at life as unfolding in three broad phases:

Education (childhood and adolescence)
Adulthood (focused on career and raising a family)
Retirement (the end of working and a period of leisure)

What’s changing is that the “Retirement” period will now often be much longer. It will encompass multiple phases – instead of one. It will include several transitions, not just the abrupt transition from working to retiring in the old model. Gratton and Scott argue that we need to shift our thinking about retirement to account for this probable gift of time and the multiple stages and transitions that will be involved.

Takeaways

The new model drastically changes how we need to plan for retirement. Clearly people will need to save and invest with the possibility of a longer retirement in mind. From a non-financial standpoint, people will also need to plan for how they want to optimize the potential gift of additional years in retirement, including lifestyle, health care, work and leisure pursuits.

The authors note that this with this longer retirement, it’s wise to invest in planning and preparation, because the consequences of bad decisions can be severe. However, this new model of a longer, multi-phased retirement is uncharted territory. They point out that there are few role models and road maps to reference. You have to build your own. They advocate experimenting with new paths as a way to discover what works best for you – and to limit the downside risks.

In addition, Gratton and Scott highlight that this new model of retirement a highly individualized journey.

They ask:

“What will make it essentially your journey? The answer lies, in part, with the choices you make and the values you live by. It is these that will define and shape the sequence of events, stages and transitions that together become your accumulated sense of self – your identity.” – (The 100 Year Life – page 214).

Kickstarter

What if ?
What if you live to 90 – or beyond?
What shifts will you need to make in your retirement planning?
What’s your attitude about retirement?
What plans could you make for work, leisure and your lifestyle if you have the gift of extra time?

Retirement Wisdom · Aug 18, 2016 ·

By Ken Blanchard and Morton Shaevitz

Book Review by Joe Casey

In Short

Retirement books are ubiquitous. But if you only read one book on transitioning to retirement, I’d urge you to read this one.

This is an exceptionally insightful and inspiring book. It’s fun, easy to read and full of practical wisdom.

Ken Blanchard and Morton Shavevitz encourage us to rethink retirement. In their view, it all starts with our attitude and beliefs. Sometimes we don’t realize that our own beliefs may be rooted in outdated views of aging and retirement. Instead, they advocate

thinking differently. They define Refiring as: “Adopting an attitude of embracing the years ahead with enthusiasm rather than apathy. “

It’s presented as an engaging story, but it’s based on solid research – although they don’t make you plow through the research to get the useful nuggets. Each chapter ends with a shortlist of action steps to consider. Using Blanchard’s entertaining ‘One Minute Manager’ format, the authors share the story of Larry and Janice, who have been married nearly 40 years. Attending Larry’s 45th high school reunion, they are struck by the contrast between two groups of Larry’s classmates, who are now in their sixties. One group is clearly active and engaged while another group seems to have “little joy or sense of the future…”.

Serendipitously, Larry runs into his former teacher, Dr. Jeffrey, at the reunion, who has spent the last decade studying aging and retirement. He then shares what he’s learned with them over a series of meetings and encourages Janice and Larry to put the lessons into action in ways that work for them.

Food for Thought

Blanchard and Shavevitz see planning for retirement as purely a financial task as a limiting approach. They argue that the transition to the retirement phase of life is a much broader adventure encompassing four areas of life:

Emotional – engaging with key people in your life to revitalize meaningful relationships
Intellectual – staying sharp mentally by pursuing learning and trying new things
Physical – keeping active, healthy and fit
Spiritual – connecting to something greater than yourself, not necessarily through religion, but through service to others

Takeaways

This book makes an interesting point about aligning with your spouse or partner. Keep in mind that you may not both want the same things in the next phase of life. One partner, after an exhausting career, may be ready to relax and recharge – or travel the world. But the other partner, perhaps after an exhausting period of taking the primary responsibility of raising children, may be more energized about achieving – returning to work, school or assuming a leadership role in a volunteer organization. Their point is don’t assume. Have conversations on the future early and often. It sounds obvious, but it often doesn’t happen.

Kickstarter

They pose powerful questions to consider:

Are you going to embrace – or endure – the rest of your life?
What are you going to do with the rest of your life to make it healthy and meaningful?

This book makes a compelling case that the next chapters of your life can be a period of active engagement and growth. Despite the very real challenges retirees face, with the right attitude and tools, the rest of your life can be intellectually, emotionally, physically and spiritually rich indeed. Scrap the traditional views of retirement. Instead, the authors urge us to Refire:

“Approach life with gusto. It’s to see each day as an opportunity for adventure and learning.”