 
Books for Boomers: Reviews & Coaching Tips

By John G. Agno

Copyright 2011 Signature Inc.

Smashwords Edition

ISBN-10: 097585612X

ISBN-13: 9780975856123

This book may not be reproduced in any form without permission of the author. However, permission is granted to people who have purchased this publication and wish to reproduce the content of the book or select pages for their own personal use.

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Limited of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the author has used his best efforts in preparing this book, he makes no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents and specifically disclaims any implied warranties or merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by booksellers or sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. The author shall be not be held liable for any loss of profit or any other personal or commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Hope and Happiness

Boomers: Two Halves

What is that thing called love?

Boomers Live Longer and Happier

Where were you in 1969?

Getting beyond the fear of death

Boomers' Leadership Needed

Will Boomers Give Their Best?

Shared Thinking

Hope and Inspiration in Tough Times

Life is About Hope Not Happiness!

Love, Marriage and Friendship

Sex Lives of Older Women

When Lovers Part

Revisiting "The Joy of Sex"

Boomer Grandmothers on Mother's Day

Mother of the Bride

For Boomer Women: Friends Matter

Sex and the Single Senior

What Boomers Don't Know About Love and Marriage

Marriage in America

Finding Love Later

Does an Empty Nest Spell the End of Your Marriage?

Jane Fonda on alpha men, forgiveness and mellowing with age

Is Prostate Cancer The Kiss Of Death For Your Sex Life?

After a Relationship has Lasted a While

Boomers Dance and Find Romance

Secrets Boomers Don't Want Known

The Inner Workings of Women: For Men Only

Is Your Marriage Graying?

Facebook Dating: Friends of Friends

Our Life on Facebook and Google+

Encore Career and Second Life

Midlife Career Correction

Your Encore Career, Boomer

Work/Life Survey

Boomers having a Purpose in Life

Starting New Careers

Boomers Lead a Brake on Consumer Spending

Tips for finding a Job When You're Over Fifty

Planning to Die in Office?

A Baby Boomer's Nightmare

Keeping Boomers on the Job

Oldest Boomers and a Phased Retirement

Welcome to Your New Job, Boomer!

Second Careers After 50: An Entrepreneurship Example

Brain Drain

Self-Coaching Guide for Boomer Women

Boomers' Encore Entrepreneurial Wave

What Have You Missed in Life?

Leaping into our Second Life

Un-Rooted Boomers Take Root in France

Health, Fitness, and Aging

This isn't Supposed to Happen to Me

Growing Older Should Be Rewarding

Fearless

Boomer Choice: Old or Beautiful

Boomers Sharpen Your Brains

For People Who Weren't Born Yesterday

Boomers facing a more challenging old age.

Baby Boomers; the Next Elders

Poor Balance, Weak Bones = Falling Danger

Stick with a Purpose for Exercise

Physical Rituals Matter

America is getting older fast!

Maximize Your Energy Boomers!

What Aging Men Want

Cool Old People

Fear of Death

The Enlightened Elder?

Boomers Coping with Alzheimer's

The Brain and the Mouth

Parenting Millennials/Gen Y

Boomers' Children Define Their Life By Meaning

Boomer Parents Still Supporting College Graduate Children

Boomers' Kids Graduate But Aren't Being Recruited

Gen Y/Millennials Shaking Up the Workplace

An Adult Children Parenting Guide for Boomers

Boomer Children at Risk in Retirement Security

Boomers Concerned About Millennials/Gen Y Employment

How Boomer Parents are Ruining Millennial Job Skills

Gen Xers are very much like their Boomer Parents

Generation Squeeze

Coach Your Unemployed Grad into the Workforce

Retirement

10,000 Boomers Reach Age 65 Everyday

Boomer, Are You Ready to Retire?

Boomers are Reinventing Retirement

Boomers Downsizing

Preparing for Retirement in Today's Economy

Many boomers have a sense of worry as they approach retirement

Boomers Rip Up Retirement Plans

Reverse-Mortgages

Boomer Views of the Golden Years of Retirement

The Dangerous Myth of Reinvention

Retirement Readiness

Boomers' Spending Binge Hinders Retirement

Boomers Saving While Retirement Waits

Boomers Saving for Retirement

Starting Over After Involuntary Retirement or Unemployment

A Retirement Guide

Where Will Baby Boomers Live?

About the Author

Introduction

**Baby Boomers are becoming aware that they are experiencing a different type of retirement than the previous generation.**

Compared to other generations, these confident and independent Baby Boomers admit that:

\+ They need more money than their parents' generation to live comfortably.

\+ Their generation is more self-indulgent than their parents'.

\+ They will be healthier and live longer.

Most Baby Boomers (the cohort of Americans born between 1946 and 1964) believe that they will still be working during their retirement years. The oldest, born in 1946, reached 65 in 2011 as they begin retirement age over the next several years.

**8 in 10 Plan to Work at Least Part-Time**

Eight in ten say they plan to work at least part-time--and others envision starting their own business or working full-time at a new job or career **-** -according to an **AARP Segmentation Analysis: Baby Boomers Envision Their Retirement.**

The fact is older boomers, those born between 1946 and 1955, had a median household net worth of just $146,050 in 2001, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by AARP. Half of this net worth was accounted for by savings accounts, mutual funds and other financial assets with the rest tied up in home equity.

Financial stress is the dominant theme of a Putnam Investments survey of 2,000 people who retired between 1998 and 2002. Some 70% said they wished they had saved more, and 59% regretted they didn't start investing earlier to meet their higher-than-anticipated expenses.

According to a survey by John Hancock Financial Services, the average 401(k) participant expects to retire at about 64 1/2 years old. That's up more than three years from a 2002 survey, and up nearly five years since 1995.

If these workers carry through with their plans, they would reverse a 50-year trend toward earlier retirement. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, men retired at an average age of 62 between 1995 and 2000, and women quit at 61 1/2. In 1950, the average retirement age was 67.

Governments and companies around the world are shifting retirement risk to individuals. The troubling news is that neither workers, retirees, nor the financial world are adequately prepared. Few Americans realize how long they can expect to live, or how much retirement will cost. Don't expect to rely on the government or your former employer as you plan for your retirement years. There will still be a safety net, but proceed as if you are on your own.

Today, many seniors have been forced back to work by financial need. The impact of the new global economy and the financial effects of the lengthy bear market on 401(k) plans have affected thoughts of retirement. A staggering half of households headed by 50-to-59-year-olds have $10,000 or less in their 401(k) accounts even as public and employer retirement benefits are being trimmed. With little net worth to fund retirement, there is now an exodus out of retirement to working. Most are healthy go-getters who would rather work than scrimp and save in an idle retirement. By 2015, estimates the National Council on the Aging, 20% of the U.S. work force will be over age 55, up from 13% in 2000.

This "phased retirement" of Baby Boomers will shape the American workplace and compensate for a severe talent gap due to a shrinking supply of new workforce entrants. Phased retirement will allow Baby Boomers to engage in work they enjoy while providing needed income.

Managing money well is important. But for many people, the most important investment they can make during their working years is in gathering the skills, education and contacts they need for the work they want to do in retirement. Start today asking yourself what kind of life you want to lead?

Before retirement is the time to dream about what you would love doing--and--invest in that dream by being specific as to what, where and how to make your dream a reality **.**

If you are about to retire, now is the time to get smart by shaping your phased retirement and deciding how you want to live the rest of your life.

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Hope and Happiness

Boomers: Two Halves

  In 2014, the youngest of the Baby Boomers turned 50. The boom generation really has two distinct halves.

The difference between them have to do with sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll...and economics and war. And it probably matters even more whether you reached adulthood before or after the early '70s, a time of head-spinning changes with long-term consequences for families, careers and even survival.

The end of the war in Vietnam makes for one especially sharp dividing line: In 1973, the cease-fire was signed, United States forces were withdrawn, and the last American draftees were inducted.

Late boomers had none of that--no war, no draft, no defining political cause, and most of their fathers were too young for World War II. In this way, late boomers have more in common with the jaded Generation X that followed: less idealism to spoil.

  Older boomers may have wanted to change the world: most of younger peers just wanted to change the channel. Aids slammed the free sex window shut in the 1980s, but it was in that opening that late boomers reached adolescence and early adulthood, developed their sexual attitudes and embarked on their sex lives. Younger boomers took for granted the sexual freedom that had been revolutionary to older boomers.

But if sex got easy, then marriage, it seemed, got hard. More babies were born to single mothers, and between the late 1950s and the late '70s, the divorce rate tripled. Compared with early boomers, the younger cohort was a lot more likely to grow up with only one parent around.

  When the Gallup organization asked about marijuana use in 1969, 8% of adults under 30 admitted to having tried it. A mere 8 years later, it was 56%. Late boomers, going to high school in the '70s, knew plenty of people who had tried drugs when they were in high school, including teachers and parents, and knew many more in college.

Macroeconomics form another dividing line, also in the early '70s. By then nearly all of the first-half boomers had finished school and started their working lives. People just a few years younger grew up with that kind of prosperity, but it evaporated when they reached the age to seize it. From 1973 to 1982, the U.S. suffered through three recessions, two energy crises, inflation and high unemployment--a disillusioning time to establish a career.

The boomer generation also straddles a revolution in the roles of women, with the first half more likely to fight past old assumptions, and the second more likely to reap the gains. When early boomers were children and young adults, American women were far less likely than men to go to college or hold jobs. The gaps narrowed slowly for decades, but here again, an inflection point came in the early '70s, when women's numbers began to soar.

  In 1970, women were 41% of college students; by 1979, they were a majority. In 1972, 51% of American women ages 25 to 54 were in the work force; by 1989, the figure was 74%.

The gap between the two halves of the baby boom may best be summed up by some of the staples of radio and TV. The classic boomers had "Mr. Sandman" and "Leave it to Beaver." The rebooted boomers: "Sympathy for the Devil" and "All in the Family."

**Source: The New York Times, January 12, 2014**

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What is that thing called love?

   Why is it that so few couples seem to have found the secret to keeping love alive after the wedding?

The problem is that what has been overlooked is one fundamental truth: People speak different love languages.

   Your emotional love language and the language of your partner may be as different as Chinese from English. Being sincere is not enough. Seldom do partners have the same primary love language. We must be willing to learn our partner's primary love language if we are to be effective communicators of love.

There are basically five emotional love languages. Here are the five ways that people speak and understand emotional love:

**Words of Affirmation:** Verbal compliments, or words of appreciation, are powerful communicators of love. They are best expressed in simple, straight forward statements of affirmation.

**Quality Time:** Looking at each other and talking, giving your undivided attention. That twenty or more minutes of time will never be had again: we are giving our lives to each other. It is a powerful communicator of love.

  **Receiving Gifts:** A gift is something you can hold in your hand and say "Look, he was thinking of me," or "She remembered me". The gift is a symbol of thought and the thought remains not only in the mind but is expressed in actually securing the gift and giving it as an expression of love.

**Acts of Service:** Doing things you know your spouse would like you to do. You seek to please her by serving her, to express your love for her by doing things for her. These acts require thought, planning, time, effort, and energy.

**Physical Touch:** For some individuals, physical touch is their primary love language. Without it, they feel unloved. With it, their emotional tank is filled, and they feel secure in the love of their spouse. The touch of love may take many forms. Don't make the mistake that the touch that brings pleasure to you will also bring pleasure to her.

When we choose active expressions of love in the primary love language of our spouse, we create an emotional climate where we can deal with our conflicts and failures.

What if the love language of your spouse is something that doesn't come naturally to you?

When an action doesn't come naturally it is a greater expression of love.

**Source: The Five Languages of Love by Gary Chapman**

**More about love at:**

www.LawofLove.com ****

www.LawofReciprocity.com

** http://coachedtosuccess.com/personalassessments/online_assessments/love.html**   Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge. ****

   A General Theory of Love  
Leaders know and science has discovered emotionality's deeper purpose: the timeworn mechanisms of emotion allow two human beings to receive the contents of each other's minds.

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Boomers Live Longer and Happier

   "The biggest advance in modern medicine is not a new drug. It's the knowledge that how we manage our lives can help us to live longer and happier," declares Harry H. Gaines, author of FITNESS BEYOND 50: Turn Back the Clock (Langdon Street Press; $15.95/trade paperback).

Based on research, interviews, and personal experience, Gaines' book shows how physical fitness can prolong and enhance life by combating a range of illnesses and health conditions. By including over 125 real-life stories, Gaines motivates readers – both those who are new to exercise and those who want to step up their game – with knowledge and techniques that will enable them to feel better than they ever imagined they could.

Reviewed by multiple doctors, kinesiologists, exercise physiologists, and personal trainers, FITNESS BEYOND 50 lays out the science that shows powerful links between physical fitness and brain health, heart health, balance, and general well-being. "My goal is to get readers to understand what they're missing by not exercising and eating healthy and what they'll gain if they do," says Gaines, who cites recent studies and health professionals throughout the book. Among the topics he addresses are:

**Exercise and the Brain** – New research in neuroscience has demonstrated that aerobic exercise has a powerfully positive impact on cognitive function. "The care and feeding of your brain can make a difference in the quality of your life," writes Gaines. In FITNESS BEYOND 50, he explains how aerobic exercise is critical to neurogenesis – the growth of nerve cells in the brain – and therefore has a beneficial impact on memory and information processing. Research also suggests that being in good shape enables people to learn more efficiently. In addition, Gaines points to links between exercise and other issues such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, creativity, and anxiety.

  **Aerobics: Keys to a Healthy Heart** – The importance of exercise for a healthy heart is well known. Gaines draws on the latest scientific studies to describe how to make such exercise most efficient and effective. One major key is intensity. "While walking several times a week at a moderate pace trumps doing nothing, more vigorous activity will make a huge difference in future years," Gaines writes. He points out that people who walk at least 2.25 miles per hour on a consistent basis have greater longevity than those who walk slower. Gaines also urges the use of a heart monitor and describes the benefits of "interval training" – alternating between sixty to seventy percent and eighty percent or more of your maximum heart rate – for building cardiovascular strength. Not only does this burn more calories, it increases the amount of oxygen delivered to your muscles – an outcome that is linked to longer life. Plus you'll gain more exercise benefits in less time.

**Strength Training** – Beginning in their thirties or early forties, most people lose a quarter pound of muscle per year, states Gaines. The good news is that muscle mass can be retained and even increased by a consistent strength-training program. Not only does this make us stronger and more toned, it helps with balance and coordination. In FITNESS BEYOND 50, Gaines details why it is critical to work muscles "to fatigue." This approach leads muscle cells to break down so that they grow back stronger. He also shows how to develop a strength-training program that sticks, including using a trainer and why keeping records is effective.

**Healthy Eating** – "More knowledge about food will enable you to make better choices about what you do and don't eat," writes Gaines. He addresses a broad range of nutritional topics, including cholesterol, triglycerides, good and bad fats, fiber, salt, sugar, whole grains, and the debate about processed foods. He urges people to write down what they eat and drink. "The chances are very good that you'll eat less if you do," he explains.

**FITNESS BEYOND 50** also provides an array of tools to turn commitment into lasting practice. Gaines urges people to find support groups – whether this means others to go biking with or sharing progress with a friend by phone. "You can significantly increase your chances of succeeding at starting – and staying – with an exercise and healthy eating program by finding others to join you," he writes.

Containing the inspirational stories of dozens of people who have improved their health through a commitment to physical fitness, FITNESS BEYOND 50 provides a wealth of knowledge to help people take charge of their well-being. Gaines writes, "Investing an hour a day in your health can pay huge dividends in the quality of your life and the number of years of quality living." His new book is a hands-on guide that will enable people to make that investment successfully and reap the many benefits.

   Harry H. Gaines: Fitness Beyond 50

  **** John Agno: Boomer Retirement Life Tips

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Where were you in 1969?

In many ways, the "culture wars" of the twenty-first century began in the sixties. Those 1960s were symbolic of change, creativity, experimentation and the perseverance of human spirit. The final year of the sixties decade was a vastly influential year covering politics, sports, civil rights, music, technology and much more.

   Personally, while living in the Metro Seattle Area in 1969, I looked up into the sky and thought I saw a Boeing 707 plane flying very low. After awhile, I realized what I saw was the maiden flight of the Boeing 747 high in the sky. In January 1969, my wife and I had purchased our first house overlooking Lake Sammamish and the Cascade Mountains and on August 18th, 1969 our son was born in a small hospital in Bellevue, WA.

Here are some of the events that happened in 1969 that you may remember:

Jan 12 - Joe Namath and the New York Jets won Super Bowl III

Jan 20 - Richard Nixon is inaugurated president of the United States

Jan 30 - The Beatles give their final live performance in London

Feb 9 - The Boeing 747 takes its maiden flight

Mar 1 - Mickey Mantle retires from baseball

Mar 3 - The launch of Apollo 9

Mar 30 - Detroit police engage in a gun battle with members of the group New Republic of Africa

Apr 9 - Harvard Student Strike

May 18 - Apollo 10 launches

May 25 - Midnight Cowboy premieres in New York City

June 22 - Cuyahoga River catches on fire

June 11 - True Grit with John Wayne premieres

July 18 - Mary Jo Kopechne perishes in Chappaquiddick incident

July 20 - Man walks on the moon

August 8 - "Helter Skelter": Manson Family murders at the home of Sharon Tate & Roman Polanski

August 15 - Woodstock Music and Art Fair in White Lake, NY

August 20 - Arlo Guthrie Alice's Restaurant premieres

Sept 6 - Lieutenant William Calley formally charged for his role in the My Lai massacre

Sept 8 - Police raid the Black Panther breakfast in Watts, CA

Sept 23 - Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid hits screens in limited release

Sept 26 - The Brady Bunch debuts on ABC

Oct 11 - The Zodiac Killer murders San Francisco taxi driver Paul Stine

Oct 16 - Mets defeat the Orioles to win the World Series

Oct 29 -Computer networks, in any real sense, didn't exist until the ARPANET was built starting in 1969. However, the first email message via the ARPANET network (the forerunner of the Internet) was sent by Ray Tomlinson, an old high school friend of mine, in late 1971.

Nov 10 - Sesame Street debuts on National Educational Television Network

Nov 19 - Apollo 12 lands on the moon's Ocean of Storms

Dec 4 - Black Panther Party leaders Fred Hampton & Mark Clark are killed during raid by Chicago Police

Dec 24 - Curt Flood declares his intentions to challenge baseball's reserve clause and file as a free agent--- (that free agent act kicked off the move toward high salaries for talented professional sports players and corporate executives that we recognize today)

Source:    Rob Kirkpatrick: 1969: The Year Everything Changed

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Getting beyond the fear of death

Once the fear of death is transcended, life becomes a transformed experience because that particular fear underlies all others. Few people know what it is to live without fear--but beyond fear lies  joy, as the  meaning and purpose of your existence surfaces.

Motivation proceeds from meaning, and meaning, in turn, are an expression in context. Thus, achievement is bounded by context, which, when correspondingly aligned with motivation, determines the individual's relative power.

Power arises from meaning and this meaning has to do with the significance of life itself. Power gives life and energy to what uplifts, dignifies and ennobles. This energy is associated with compassion and makes us feel positive about ourselves.

Although  it is not ordinary to move out of one energy field into another during one's lifetime, the opportunity still exists. It remains for motivation to activate that potential; without the exercise of choice, no progression will occur.

For more on the meaning of your life, go to: **www.LifeSignature.com** ****

Source:" **Power vs. Force, The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior"** by David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D.

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Boomers' Leadership Needed

While on vacation in Maine, I purchased a $.25 well-used book from the Great Cranberry Isle library. This best-selling book was written in 1972 and targeted to young Baby Boomers to help them understand the political health of their country and what they must do to get the country back on track.

**Here is the author's Foreword to the bestseller "Captains and The Kings" in 1972:**

"This book is dedicated to the young people of America, who are rebelling because they know something is very wrong in their country, but do not know just what it is. I hope this book will help to enlighten them. The historical background and the political background of this novel are authentic. The "Committee for Foreign Studies" does indeed exist, today as of yesterday, and so does the "Scardo Society," but not by these names.

There is indeed a "plot against the people" and probably always will be, for government has always been hostile towards the governed. It is not a new story, and the conspirators and conspiracies have varied form era to era, depending on the political or economic situation in their various countries.

But it was not until the era of the League of Just men and Karl Marx that conspirators and conspiracies became one, with one aim, one objective, and one determination. This has nothing to do with any "ideology" or form of government, or ideals or "materialism" or any other catch-phrases generously fed to the unthinking masses. It has absolutely nothing to do with races or religions, for the conspirators are beyond what they call "such trivialities." They are also beyond good and evil. The Caesars they put into power are their creatures, whether they know it or not, and the peoples of all nations are helpless, whether they live in America, Europe, Russia, China, Africa, or South America. They will always be helpless until they are aware of their real enemy.

President John F. Kennedy knew what he was talking about when he spoke of "the Gnomes of Zurich." Perhaps, he knew too much! Coups d'etat are an old story, but they are now growing too numerous. This is probably the last hour for mankind as a rational species, before it becomes the slave of a "planned society." A bibliography ends this book, and I hope many of my readers will avail themselves of the facts. That is all the hope I have."

Taylor Caldwell

Now 40 years later, ** Baby Boomers** are the best educated of all former generations. However, they need to read or re-read **"Captains and The Kings"** to better understand how their countries are being weaken through politically created wars and inflationary monetary policies.

Boomers are valued and needed to exercise their responsibility, serious work ethic, "can do" attitude and competitiveness in stopping the bankruptcy of their country. They need to exercise their leadership capabilities in finding, promoting and voting for political candidates in 2008 that are for free markets, sound money, reasonable tax policies, and ready, willing and able to fight terrorism the way Canada, Sweden and Switzerland do.

Source: ** Taylor Caldwell: Captains and the Kings**

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Will Boomers Give Their Best?

 As millions of people in their 50s and 60s exit the corporate world, many will search for "encore careers" in the public and nonprofit sectors.

   This could result in  the biggest transformation in the U.S. workforce since women began pouring into it some 30 years ago, says Mark Freedman, author of Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life (PublicAffairs, $24.95). Freedman, founder of San Francisco think tank Civic Ventures, discussed this trend in BusinessWeek (December 17, 2007) with Toddi Gutner.

How do you define an encore career?

It's when someone can earn income, find new meaning and use accumulated experience in ways that have a positive impact on society. They represent the best use of the accumulated experience of the  Baby Boomer population.

Despite boomers' claims of wanting to help society, is it possible most would rather retire to a life of travel and golf?

Baby Boomers could be blowing a lot of hot air. I think whether they retreat into another round of selfishness or can  respond to JFK's challenge\--to ask not what the country can do for me but what I can do for the country--will have to do with whether we as a society call them up to a higher purpose. We need to create the on-ramps to work that matters and embrace the talent.

Does their romanticism blind them to the trade-offs?

There is definitely a lack of realism over what it means to do this work. That's why, if you think you might be interested in a give-back career for your encore, you should get as much experience as possible before making the leap. Boomers will do these jobs if they feel they are making a genuine impact or if their time isn't wasted and their experience is put to good use.

If these things aren't there, it becomes a question of grinding it out in a nonprofit for less profit versus working for a corporation. I don't think many people will make that choice unless they are masochistic.

Source:  Marc Freedman: Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life

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Shared Thinking

   The natural laboratory we call "life" is often much more informative about the way the world works than is the artificial setting of a man-made laboratory.

Some scientists are intrigued by psi, the technical term for psychic abilities, but have openly worried they will lose their credibility if they investigate it. Strong evidence for psi phenomena such as telepathy is vitally important, for it has the capacity to be the revolutionary catalyst that will redefine our understanding of consciousness.

Twins and Coupled Consciousness

Some of the most compelling evidence for telepathy comes from the study of identical twins. According to Guy Playfair, author of Twin Telepathy (Vega, 2002), as many as 30 percent of identical twins appear to experience telepathic interconnection.

Some of the earliest research on twin telepathy was done by a twin, Professor Horatio Newman, head of the zoology department at the University of Chicago. He had what he considered telepathic experiences with his twin brother and published a book called Twins and Super-Twins in 1942. The section on telepathy discussed identical twins who were mystified by the way they could communicate with each other without any verbal exchange.

Telepathy happens frequently between closely connected twins during crisis.

 The term crisis telepathy was coined after several dramatic accounts such as the following: Martha Burke felt as if she "had been cut in two" one day in 1977 when a searing pain crossed her chest and abdomen. Hours later she discovered that her twin sister had died in a plane crash halfway across the world. Similarly, in July 1975, Nita Hurst's left leg became agonizingly painful as bruises spread spontaneously up the left side of her body. She later discovered that her twin, Nettie Porter, had been in a car crash at the very same time four hundred miles away.

Research launched in 1979 by the University of Minnesota on identical twins raised apart produced findings that were startling. Many of these are discussed in Nancy Segal's book Entwined Lives (Plume, 2000). Sixty-eight cases were extensively studied. The twins who were reunited often felt as though they had known each other their entire lives.

The "Jim twins," for example, had been separated at four-weeks-old and were apart for 39 years. Both were named Jim, married a woman named Linda, divorced, and then married another woman named Betty. However, one Jim was on his third marriage. They both had had childhood dogs named Toy and sons named James. One son was James Allen and the other James Alan. They both had been firemen and sheriffs. Both bit their nails, suffered from migraines, smoked Salem cigarettes, and drank Miller Lite beer. Each was six feet tall and weighed exactly 180 pounds, but they wore their hair differently. Among the most remarkable shared details was that both had a compulsion to build a circular white bench around a tree in their yard during the time right before they met. Also, they both had owned light-blue Chevrolets, which they had regularly driven to Pass-a-Grille Beach, Florida, for family vacations. They also enjoyed leaving love notes to their wives throughout their homes. Their facial expressions, IQs, habits, brain waves, and handwriting were nearly identical. To top it off, they died from the same illness on the same day.

Defying Conventional Explanations

What explains these remarkable findings? Are they because of the twins' identical genetics, similar brain wiring, or both? The Minnesota data confirms that the commonalities aren't because of the amount of time the twins spend together. How much can we attribute to genetics, and how much to environment? And how do these two influences interact?

Because the Minnesota study's twins shared identical genes but had entirely different environments after birth, scientists have used the twins-separated-at-birth data to justify the idea that our genes play a far greater role in which we are than we previously realized. However, the problem with this conclusion is that the human genome isn't complex enough.

This isn't to say that genes don't explain some of the similarities, such as similar tastes in cigarettes or colognes, similar interests or careers, similar looks, similar IQs, and so on, but some parallels---such as building a circular white fence around a tree---do not have a genetic explanation.

Could the answer be with the chromosomes? Ninety-eight percent of the content of our chromosomes isn't genes and cannot be translated directly into the manufacture of proteins, which is how genes produce their effects. The explanation also can't come from the shared hard writing in the twins' brains.  The brain has a "plastic" quality, meaning it is highly influenced by its environment.  Its connections are continually changing in response to what is learned, reinforced, or ignored.

Richard Rose, professor of psychology and medical genetics at Indiana University in Bloomington, has studied personality in more than seven thousand sets of twins. He believes that environment, whether shared or unshared, plays a larger role in their personality development than do genetics. Rose examined a factor unique to identical twins that correlated with the degree to which the twins were similar: the length of time they were joined in the womb. Rose found that the earlier the egg separates, the less alike the twins are in personality.

In the research to date, the twins who were the most alike were those whose cluster of undifferentiated cells separated one day before the biological deadline that would have resulted in their becoming physically conjoined. This makes one wonder whether telepathic twins could be an illustration on the macro scale of what physicists see on the micro scale between electrons that have been entangled, or coupled.

Entangled electrons must always have spins that are complementary, or opposite, to each other. If entangled electrons are allowed to travel light-years away from each other, they still maintain complementary spins. If the spin of one of them is altered, the spin of the other instantaneously changes. This "nonlocal" effect is due not to a signal between the two electrons but rather to the fact that in some way they have remained interconnected.

How can electrons be light-years apart but not separate? Superstring theories propose that there are at least six more dimensions that the four (time and three physical ones) that we experience directly. Perhaps, entangled electrons only separate in the dimensions we knowingly experience but not in one or more of the "higher" dimensions. What if the time those identical twins spend as "one" similarly keeps them from separating in one or more of these dimensions?  How frequently could we be experiencing the same thoughts as someone to whom we feel closely connected?

It probably happens far more often than we've ever imagined.

Source:    Diane Hennacy Powell, MD: The ESP Enigma: The Scientific Case for Psychic Phenomena

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Hope and Inspiration in Tough Times

In 1908 an unknown American author, then a reporter, named Napoleon Hill got the opportunity of a lifetime to interview America's richest man, Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie presented to Hill, then twenty-five years old, a letter of recommendation that would grant him access to 500 of that era's top achievers in business, politics, science, and religion in order to discover the common denominators for success.

From those interviews, Think and Grow Rich was created and written. It covered the thirteen principles and the philosophy of personal achievement and success. Hill gave life to the personal development movement that has since swept the world.

Fast forward a hundred years, and the Napoleon Hill Foundation wants to provide renewed hope and courage for everyone during the current global economic crisis. The Foundation to ask the leaders of our generation to find out something very timely: Why they didn't give up--through their challenging times. From these interviews, many lessons were learned and are shared in this book:

   Sharon L. Lechter CPA: Three Feet from Gold: Turn Your Obstacles into Opportunities! (Think and Grow Rich)

From reading these leaders' stories, you will learn what kept them going, what gave them the courage to persevere, and why they want to share their stories of success with you so you may find your own personal path to great success.

In today's global landscape, we truly need to keep reminding ourselves that once we find our definite major purpose and create our mastermind, it is our responsibility to continue the quest, no matter how hard the challenge.  Every one of us holds a gift that is meant to be shared with others.

Source: Mark Victor Hansen, the co-creator of the #1 New York Times best-selling series Chicken Soup for the Soul.

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Life is About Hope Not Happiness!

   In 1978, a trio of psychologists curious about happiness assembled two groups of subjects. In the first were winners of the Illinois state lottery. In the second group were victims of devastating accidents. Some had been left paralyzed from the waist down. For the others, paralysis started at the neck.

The researchers wrote up their findings on the lottery winners and the accident victims in the **Journal of Personality and Social Psychology**. The paper is now considered one the founding texts of happiness studies, a field that has yielded some surprising morose results. It's not just hitting the jackpot that fails to lift spirits; a whole range of activities that people tend to think will make them happy do not, it turns out, have that effect.

As the happiness researchers Tim Wilson and Daniel Gilbert have put it, "People routinely mispredict how much pleasure or displeasure future events will bring."

Several studies have been offered to explain why the United States is, in effect, a nation of joyless lottery winners. One, the so-called "hedonic treadmill" hypothesis, holds that people rapidly adjust to improved situations; thus, as soon as they acquire some new delight their expectations ramp upward, and they are left no happier than before. Another is that people are relativists; they are interested not so much in having more stuff as in having more than those around them.

In his bestselling book "Stumbling on Happiness" (2006), Daniel Gilbert, a psychology professor at Harvard, offers a catalogue of the ways that people misjudge their own satisfactions. They tend to think they'll be happier with more variety, when, in fact, they get more pleasure from being offered the same thing over and over again. They are willing to pay a premium to preserve their options, but they're more contented when they commit themselves to a particular choice. They anticipate being overjoyed by events that, when they actually occur, leave them unmoved.

If happiness research simply confirmed what people already believed, there would be no need, and really no reason, to argue for its relevance. It's the counterintuitive cast of the results that makes the work provocative. Life satisfaction comes from the hope of tomorrow being a brighter day. As Alexander Pope wrote in 1733, "Hope springs eternal in the human breast."

**Source: THE NEW YORKER, March 22, 2010**

   **Daniel Gilbert: Stumbling on Happiness**

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Love, Marriage and Friendship

Sex Lives of Older Women

   T **he U.S. Census projected that 1.5 million female**  Baby Boomers **turned 60 in 2006. And the percentage of Americans older than 65 is rapidly increasing.**

"It began with movies that featured romantic scenes with older women, like **'Something's Gotta Give** **,'** and **'Under the Sand'** with Charlotte Rampling," says Carol Schneider, executive publicity director of the **Random House Publishing Group** , which is bringing out Gail Sheehy and Jane Juska's books.

"That paved the way for people writing about the ** sex lives of older women**. This is ground that has not been covered extensively before. We put these books out because there is a market for them."

The truth is that women tend to live longer than men, and finding a partner is often difficult. Of all the books, Juska's is the darkest, especially as she describes her romance at 71, with Graham, 36, with whom  she fell deeply in love. But Graham eventually married a woman closer to his own age. "I am moved to tears with longing and love for this man," Juska writes, "with despair and regret for what cannot be."

Indeed, in a telephone interview from Berkeley, Calif., Juska says that since the publication of **"A Round-Heeled Woman,"** in her conversations with older women, "the strongest sense I came away with was yearning."

Source: Dinitia Smith, **New York Times** , February 16, 2006

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When Lovers Part

The intuition of love had told him.

It could never be deceived. Tears came into her eyes. But I am glad that I will be the one to go first, she thought. You are strong, but I am weak. You will bear this as you have borne other tragedies, but I could not have borne your dying. For that, if nothing else, I thank God.

All our lives are a giving up, one by one, of the things we love and enjoy, and finally there is the last abandonment and we are empty.

But the memory of our love which I will take with me, if I may, for you are the only joy I have ever known, the only contentment and delight. And so, I am rich after all, richer than most. Others live lives of no color or vitality, and their existence are like nursery porridge, and as bland.

But I have known all the heights that can be possible for a woman, all the raptures and the faith and the trust, all the excitements and the wonders, and even grief was bearable in your presence, my darling. I must not be greedy and try to cling to what I have had--for it is all fulfilled, full and overflowing. Nothing can be added. Nothing taken away.

From:  "Captains and the Kings" by Taylor Caldwell (Doubleday & Company, Inc) 1972

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Revisiting "The Joy of Sex"

   The 1972 best-seller "The Joy of Sex" was intended to unleash its readers' sexual potential by counteracting their ignorance and shame. "The Joy of Sex," which sold more than twelve million copies worldwide, was an "unanimous account of the full repertoire of human heterosexuality," according to its author, the British scientist and physician Alex Comfort. It was the English answer to Japanese pillow books, illustrated texts designed to show couples where to put what, and was further enhanced by helpful advice: for instance, "Never, never refer to pillow-talk in anger later on ('I always knew you were a lesbian,' etc.)."

If you are a child of the seventies and were raised on "The Joy of Sex," you are not likely to have forgotten the illustrations. The woman depicted in these drawings is lovely, and, even nearly forty years later, quite chic. Her gentleman friend, however, looks like a werewolf with a hangover.

At times, "The Joy of Sex" has the feel of a penis propaganda pamphlet.

The penis "has more symbolic importance than any other human organ." Lest there be any confusion: "Vibrators are no substitute for a penis." Comfort writes of male genitalia, "It's less the size than the personality, unpredictable movements, and moods which make up the turn-on (which is why rubber dummies are so sickening)."

   There was not a lot of feminist outcry about the book when it was published, probably because in 1972 there was so much else for feminists to cry about. There was, however, a feminist alternative: the Boston Women's Health Book Collective's "Our Bodies, Ourselves" which covered much of the same material as "The Joy of Sex," just with a different tone. Both books said that everybody was bisexual, that sex should be a mutually satisfying, full-body experience, and that the communication of turn-ons could be of great benefit to this enterprise.

"Joy" and "Our Bodies" were part of a movement that radically reformed the way the English-speaking world conceives of sexuality.

Today, Crown is releasing a new edition of "The Joy of Sex" ($29.95). Comfort himself revised his book several times; now Susan Quilliam, a British "relationship psychologist and agony aunt" (as her Website describes her), has endeavored to modernize the text for a new, post-feminist era. Quilliam has succeeded in bringing "The Joy of Sex" up to current standards. The book is still emphatically straight, but Quilliam has given it a gay-positive tone.

The original drawings have been replaced, with a mixture of modest photographs and impressionistic sketches. The participants have the smug smiles of a couple whose 401(k)s have just appreciated. They look as if they were in a Viagra commercial, which is to say that they look like two people who have never, ever had sex.

Source: THE NEW YORKER, January 5, 2009

   Alex Comfort: The Joy of Sex: The Ultimate Revised Edition // The Timeless Guide to Lovemaking

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Boomer Grandmothers on Mother's Day

Did you know that you are one of the 58% of grandparents in the U.S. who are boomers?

That's right, more than 27 million boomer grandparents are best friends with their grandkids...probably due to the fact that they both have one enemy in common. These boomer grandparents are probably living close to one or more of their grandchildren and spending as much time with them as possible.

Today, grand motherhood is radically different from motherhood because when you become a grandmother you realize very quickly you have no control, no say in anything. Exploring these grandmotherly emotions and experiences is the theme of a new book by 27 grandmother writers who reveal the hidden pleasures of being a grandmother.

If you are a grandparent, you have probably talked with grandparent friends who told you their stories of connecting with their grandchildren. In past generations, it was over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house they went. However, since our children are spread all over the country and even the world, today's grandparents mostly travel to where the children live.

Reading about real stories from these two dozen plus grandmother authors is a great gift that every boomer grandmother would love to experience. The new book, "eye of my heart," is a unique Mother's Day treasure for the woman who has molded you and/or your children and now is taking on the mission of becoming a cherished mentor to her grandchildren.... ....wherever they may live.

   Barbara Graham: Eye of My Heart: 27 Writers Reveal the Hidden Pleasures and Perils of Being a Grandmother

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Mother of the Bride

Congratulations on the engagement of your daughter (or son)!

The excitement has begun and the wheels are in motion for a dream wedding she'll never forget. Now comes the hard part – what should YOU wear on the big day?

Are you stressed out at the mere thought of going shopping for a mother of the bride dress?

Is this the first time in years you have tried on formal wear, and have no idea what looks good on you?

Are you confused about the color and style of dress to buy?

Do you worry you'll have a hard time finding a dress that will flatter your midlife body?

Or, if you've found your dress, are you still unclear about what shoes, purse and jewelry you need to make your dress look wow?

  If you wish someone could just wave a magic wand and turn you into the 'Belle of the Bridal Ball' then you need to stop worrying, and relax!

You can find the perfect mother of the bride dress and look absolutely gorgeous on your son or daughter's wedding day, with the help of the Glam Gals at Fabulous After 40. The Glam Gals, are image and style experts specializing in helping women 40 plus look and feel fabulous.

Their ebook, "Mother of the Bride" is written for women who will be attending the wedding of their daughter (or son) and have no idea what to wear. Readers of this e-book will discover how to select the right color and style of dress and accessories to wear to any type of wedding. The ebook is bursting with over 150 color photos including styles of dresses that are perfect for the big day.

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For Boomer Women: Friends Matter

The research is clear about the positive implications of friendship.

There was, for instance, a 14-year project at Flinders University in Australia that tracked 1,500 women as they aged. The study found that close friendships---even more than close family ties---help prolong women's lives. Those with the most friends lived 22% longer than those with the fewest friends.

Linked by 40 years of experiences and memories, 10 women from Ames, Iowa, are a lesson in the power and lifelong benefits of friendship. Born at the end of the Baby Boom, their memories are evocative of their times. Their story is universal, even common, and on that level, it can't help but resonate with almost anyone who has ever had a friend.

In their adult lives after Ames, the women found newer friends. But these more recent friendships are built mostly around their kids, jobs or current neighborhoods. The bonds are limited to the here and now.

   Duke University researchers looked at hundreds of unmarried patients with coronary heart disease and found that, of those with close friends, 85% lived at least five years. That was double the survival rate of those lacking in friends.

Gerontologists say longtime friends are often more understanding about health issues than family members are. Friends are more apt to acknowledge each other's ailments without dwelling on them. The Ames girls do their share of talking about the aging process, but then they move on to the next conversation. And given how much they laugh, and how laughter is good for anyone's health, they figure their time together is completely therapeutic.

By the time women are middle-aged, most have built the friendships that will sustain them. That is the conclusion of a study that began in 1978 at Virginia Tech, when 110 women over age 50 were first asked to name their closest friends. Fourteen years later, when these women were ages 65 to 89, they were asked the same question, and 75% of them listed the exact same names.

Similarly, a Harris Interactive Inc. survey in 2004 found that 39% of women between ages 25 and 55 said they met their current best friends in childhood or high school. Women are likely to connect early and then hold tight to each other. This is despite our transient society, or in some cases, even because of it.

There's a Spanish proverb: "Tell me who you're with and I'll tell you who you are."

The story of the Ames girls will have many more chapters, of course. There will be losses ahead, they all know that, but there will be great joys, too. And they have no doubt they will be there for one another always, whatever happens.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2009

    Jeffrey Zaslow: The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship

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Sex and the Single Senior

The U.S. Census reports there are nearly 16 million unmarried Americans age 65 and older. Add the bubble of single Baby Boomers, now 47 to 65, poised to join the senior set -- and it's no wonder that singles age 55 and older are the fastest growing group of online daters.

Dr. Terri Orbuch (a.k.a. The Love Doctor®) – a professor, federally funded research scientist, and marriage and family therapist -- has joined forces with SeniorPeopleMeet (www.seniorpeoplemeet.com), the nation's largest online dating site devoted to seniors, to offer guidance and perspective to the seniors who have formed a community there in their search for companionship, love or even marriage.

"Without doubt, the single most common question I get from seniors is: is it too late or will I find that someone special again?" said Orbuch. "Many seniors believe in the concept of a soul mate and think they've already had their turn at love. That's absolutely not true, and online dating can be a godsend for them. It offers a vastly expansive pool of potential partners -- far more than the limited number of singles one can find randomly in the neighborhood, grocery line or place of worship."

Dr. Orbuch discusses such senior dating dilemmas as:

· When is it too soon -- to date, have sex, tell the kids?

· Seniors and cyberdating: is there a stigma and how to overcome it?

· Money: yours, mine and ours? When's the right time to talk about it?

· Top tips for staying safe online -- for seniors in particular

· Why older singles crave companionate love

· How health issues affect commitment in seniors who date

· Special rules for seniors dating after divorce

· Top ways to build trust in a new relationship

· How your personal history affects your ability to trust

   Terri L. Orbuch: 5 Simple Steps to Take Your Marriage from Good to Great

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What Boomers Don't Know About Love & Marriage

   While having dinner out, we noticed a couple at a table across from us, who were separately and silently reading during their meal; she a book and he a newspaper.

Terri L. Orbuch, Ph.D., "The Love Doctor," would tell them (to be happy in their marriage) wives need emotional connection, including talking regularly with their husbands about their emotions, their relationship and sharing a team-like approach to household activities. This time of connection, say over dinner at the end of the day, matters to women. Yes, husbands don't want a lot of relationship talk. However, when husbands take time to listen to their wife and respond in affective affirmation, the "mood" of the marriage can dramatically change for the better.

There is so much we don't know, we don't know, about the science of becoming happy couples. That is why a new book by Dr. Orbuch, based upon her federally-funded research study of married couples, is a necessary read for boomers who wish to seize the moment and make their marriage exceptional.

"5 Simple Steps to Take Your Marriage from Good to Great" is full of "do you knows" that can change your perceptions from myths to proven facts, separate tips for both men and women, as well as important findings from Dr. Orbuch's ongoing long-term study of marriages detailing what works and doesn't work for couples to be happy.

Yes, men are from Mars and women from Venus and bound to collide as Dr. John Gray has told us. And because we genders think differently, we seem to speak different languages.

For instance, Helen R. Weingarten and Elizabeth Douvan, both psychologists from the University of Michigan, observed that men and women ask different questions when they problem solve. When problem solving, women will ask you what you mean? They are focused on the underlying emotional reasons why you did what you did. It is difficult for most men to speak clearly about the emotions behind their actions--such as telling someone how they felt. In contrast, the man will ask her where is this going? Men's problem solving is very task oriented and focused on the future implications of the discussion.

Can old boomers lighten up, understand the other gender's language and focus on new, positive elements to boost marital happiness?

Just as they have been setting new trends in every stage of their lives, boomers will continue to do so as they head into their best years. With greater freedom to explore exciting experiences and places, they hope to enjoy these new adventures side-by-side with a loving partner. Dr. Orbuch's new book is an excellent travel guide to take along on these new journeys

   Terri L. Orbuch: 5 Simple Steps to Take Your Marriage from Good to Great

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Marriage in America

The casting agents for NBC's "The Marriage Ref" scoured the countryside in search of bickering couples ("No problem is too small!") willing to submit to an arbiter advised by a panel of stars, including Alec Baldwin, who, though divorced, did play the title role in a movie called "The Marrying Man." Meanwhile, a National Marriage Boycott is on: its members pledge not to get married, no matter how many people ask them.

**Marriage in America is in disarray.**

Americans, among the marryingest people in the world, are also the divorcingest. Even during the downturn, business is up at eHarmony, which has taken credit for one out of every fifty weddings in the United States.

"The State of Our Unions," a annual report issued jointly by the National Marriage Project and the Institute for American Values, warns of a "mancession": in a lousy economy, more men than usual are working fewer hours than their wives, making for unhappier husbands and angrier rows. A spike in the divorce rate is anticipated, although this may be mitigated by the fact that divorce isn't cheap and people are broke.

You may think that the mancession would also foretell a falloff in couples counseling, which isn't cheap, either, but there's no sign of a "therapycession." Up to eighty percent of therapists practice couples therapy. Today, something like forty percent of would-be husbands and wives receive premarital counseling, often pastoral, and millions of married couple seeks therapy. Doubtless, many receive a great deal of help, expert and caring. Nevertheless, a 1995 Consumer Reports survey ranked marriage counselors last, among providers of mental health services, in achieving results.

As Rebecca L. Davis observes in an astute, engaging and disturbing history, "More Perfect Unions: The American Search for Marital Bliss" (Harvard; $29.95), the rise of couples counseling has both coincided with and contributed to a larger shift in American life: heightened expectations for marriage as a means of self-expression and personal fulfillment. That would seem to make for an endlessly exploitable clientele, especially given that there's not much profit in pointing out that some things just don't get any better. Not everything admits of improvement.

   Rebecca L. Davis: More Perfect Unions: The American Search for Marital Bliss

Source: The New Yorker, March 29, 2010

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Finding Love Later

By Author Laura Lee Carter

Love can be a tough one when you're older, recently divorced or widowed, and wondering what's next. I know I felt relatively certain my "love life" was over at age 49. But I learned so much more after I lost my career as a research librarian.

Going only on my own desire to try something completely different, I started my own dating service. There I spent some serious time learning from hundreds of 40+ singles about what it feels like to know that you are too young to give up on love, and yet fearful that you may be too disillusioned to ever believe in love again. What I discovered is that there are quite a few of us who have lost our faith in love, and that included me!

So I got busy and figured out how to change that. With my natural stubborn streak and extensive background in counseling psychology, I used decades of personal experience with love and disappointment to turn my attitude around. I first began to finally value my mysterious intuitive personal guidance system and not interrupt it constantly with more "rational" assessments of my situation. I also acknowledged how important it was for me to forgive myself for everything in my past, but what was the best way to do that?

Slowly I created a formula which included finding new self-respect for where I was at, appreciating how I got there, and then finding various ways to love myself into believing in love again. I saw that I felt afraid of love for many good reasons, so I began searching out those experiences in my past that were keeping me stuck in my old way of thinking. My formula included focusing on my own unique shame and trust issues, forgiving myself for past mistakes, listening to my inner wisdom, and utilizing cathartic techniques to change my beliefs about what love might have to offer me now.

I knew I was on the right track when I met the love of my life a few months later! Six years after that fateful meeting I completed the new book: How To Believe In Love Again: Opening to Forgiveness, Trust, and Your Own Inner Wisdom. Pick up this book when you are ready to acknowledge that you have lost your faith in love, and getting it back it your highest priority.

   Laura Lee Carter: How To Believe In Love Again

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Does an Empty Nest Spell the End of Your Marriage?

That was the question we asked Dr. Jacqueline Del Rosario, America's Marriage Doctor, and Dr. Terri Orbuch, The Love Doctor. Here are their answers:

   Dr. Terri Orbuch answers the question: Does an empty nest spell the end of your marriage?

Even though we love our kids, many studies have found that marital happiness actually increases after the kids leave home. For many couples, marriage happiness continues to rise steadily during the empty nest years and reaches an all-time high at 35 years of marriage.

Despite these hopeful findings, it's very common for spouses to express anxiety before their children move out. The questions I typically hear from my therapy patients, TV and radio fans, and online readers who are about to enter the empty nest years are: Do we still have things to talk about? Do we have enough in common? Will we get sick of each other's company? Do I even still like him/her?

The big message I tell them is this: It doesn't take a lot of hard work to renew your marital bond and to rekindle the kind of lighthearted joy and excitement you felt early in your marriage. In fact, the "newness" of being alone together again helps to jump start these feelings. My research has shown that when partners make a few positive changes in their behaviors and habits, they can greatly increase their marital happiness over the next many years.

Here are five marriage-rekindling strategies that will absolutely help you and your spouse enjoy years of happiness together once you are empty-nesters:

Start chatting daily--for 10 minutes.   
When was the last time you and your partner talked about something other than the kids, the house, money or your work? Practice talking to your partner for 10 minutes a day, every day, about anything other than those four topics. Meals are good opportunities to practice the 10-Minute Rule. So is right before bed. My research found that couples who practice the 10-Minute Rule daily feel closer and happier over time.

Psyche yourselves up.   
As in any new endeavor, going in with a positive attitude and some concrete goals leads to success. Sit down with your spouse and discuss all the benefits of having the house to yourselves and what you are each looking forward to. More free time? Freedom to travel? Eating out more? Eating differently? Less mess? Skinny dipping in your pool? Doing this simple activity will get the two of you in alignment and jazzed up about your new life.

Share a new activity.   
Engaging in a new experience benefits your marriage by helping to rekindle the same feeling of newness you experienced as dating singles, when every activity was a freshly shared experience. Doing something novel together--such as taking tennis lessons, eating at a new restaurant, or visiting a local tourist attraction--is also a way to inject fun into the marriage. My research has found that when couples characterize their relationship as frequently fun, they are likely to be happy over the long term.

Knock your partner off balance.   
One of the best ways to bring more passion into your marriage and get out of a relationship rut is to shake up your normal routine. For example, if the wife goes grocery shopping at the end of the day, maybe the husband offers to go with her. Or if he typically falls asleep in front of the TV at night, maybe the wife challenges him to a game of Scrabble instead. Even small changes and surprises keep relationships feeling fresh and exciting.

Talk about sex.   
It's important for long-married couples to talk about their sex lives together. This can be helpful as well as physiologically arousing to both partners. Discuss what makes your sex life exciting, your sexual fantasies, or what you desire from each other. A good way to start this conversation is to remember back when you first had sex and remember what turned you on then. Focus on the positive and what would be erotic to each of you.

As you can see, these are not complicated, difficult, or major activities. Nevertheless, each one addresses a different aspect of your relationship in a positive way. Bringing these new behaviors into your mature marriage will guarantee that you and your long-time spouse will enjoy many more years of marital happiness through the empty nest years. Don't be surprised if you begin to feel more content and connected to your spouse than you've ever felt before--it happens all the time.

   Terri L. Orbuch: 5 Simple Steps to Take Your Marriage from Good to Great

  Here is Dr. Del Rosario's answer to the question: Does an empty nest spell end of your marriage?

Absolutely not! But, whether your marriage can weather this transition is entirely dependent on the level of preparation and commitment that you and your partner are willing put in.

When a couple starts having children, it's easy for their entire relationship to focus on the needs of the next generation. Parents' lives revolve around feeding, changing and bathing infants followed by baby proofing the house and potty training. For the next few years, couples have to worry about elementary school, science projects and a strew of ever-changing extracurricular activities. This continues with changing scenarios as children grow into puberty and then young adults going off to college. This tunnel vision allows partners not to have to communicate with each other about the relationship, and the marriage lasts almost by default. In other words, the kids become the point of commonality rather than one another.

I remember watching the movie "Failure to Launch" starring Matthew McConaughey who played Trip, a 35-year-old late bloomer still living in his parents' house, clinging to their sides. However, when Trip finally moved out, it sent his parents into a state of shock since they were so used to the family unit revolving around him, their only child. On one end of the spectrum was the stir-crazy father who immediately did everything he always wanted to do including turning Trip's old bedroom into his new "naked fish tank" room. Yes, you guessed it – a room where he could walk around naked and admire his new fish tank. On the other end was his mother who was worried that her husband would have to get to know her again in the context of a woman, as opposed to a mother. What scared her even more was the thought of her husband not liking the person she had become over the years they spent growing apart just focusing on their son.

It's important for couples to be aware of the "All-About-the-Kids" syndrome, so that they can try to avoid it. They need to remember that their relationship requires attention and nurturing too. Individuals are constantly evolving and changing over time, so it's imperative that couples stay in tune, so that they can grow alongside each other.

In fact, my husband and I are currently experiencing it. We have two boys – the eldest went off to college last year, and we're in the process of sending the second one off this year. And while we've grown stronger over the last 22 years of marriage, we have some adjustments to make. I've always said that marriages go through seasons, and the empty nest period will take work.

So when the empty nest approaches your door here are a few things to keep in mind. A mistake that couples often make is trying to recreate where they were before the children came along. You and your mate are two completely different people than when you first fell in love with each other. Couples need to establish how they will recommit to each other during this new phase. If you assume that your lives will just return to what it was prior to having children, you will be thoroughly disillusioned and disappointed...it's been almost two decades! Often, your perspectives and goals have changed, not to mention your physical features – your spouse could have a different body, different hair or no hair at all! Remember that while love is a feeling, marriage is a commitment, and you must be ready to fall in love all over again.

Secondly, couples shouldn't wait until the "chicks" are gone to start dismantling the "nest." During the high school years, the kids are able to drive themselves and they spend more time with their friends out of the house, so it's a great time for you and your mate to begin redefining the relationship and thinking about the new era to come.

   Couples must start to purposely craft this new time by relinquishing the mundane and ordinary. Repurpose or come up with new ways to be with each other. I'm not talking about risky escapades or mid-life crisis moves. I'm referring to creative ways to get to know each other in this new setting. Ask yourselves, "What can we do that's about us?" This can be a very hard question to answer since both of you are so used to asking what you can do for the kids.

Just the other day, my husband and I decided to run errands together. We ended up eating lunch at a new restaurant and even caught an impromptu movie before the night ended. It was refreshing just following our own whims instead of our kids' schedules, but I have to admit that it was an unfamiliar feeling.

In many cases, that adventurer in you who used to crave spontaneity went into hibernation. Instead, you and your partner focused your attention and resources on building that nest for your children, making it as comfortable as possible. And, over the course of time, you got used to the dimensions of it without realizing that there's a whole another word out there. Just like your kids, it's time for you and your partner to venture outside that nest.

Remember, it may feel foreign, but you can't fear the unfamiliar. It's unchartered territory that you must embrace by recognizing that it's a new beginning that holds so much promise and possibility. It's the next chapter in your lives, and if you make sure to turn the page together, you can make it EXACTLY what you want it to be.

"America's Marriage Doctor" Jacqueline Del Rosario, Ed.D. is President and CEO of Recapturing the Vision International, an organization dedicated to promoting healthy marriages and family strengthening. Also a published author, speaker and nationally regarded media personality, Dr. Del Rosario has been a certified pre and post-marital counselor for more than 20 years. Her cutting-edge series, Marriage Solutions and The Marital Constitution™, help couples successfully work through problems and find healthy solutions. She may be reached online at www.doctordelrosario.com.

 JACQUELINE DEL ROSARIO: Capturing the Vision

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Jane Fonda on alpha men, forgiveness and mellowing with age

In your new book, Prime Time, about the joy of being old, you have a cute exchange with your daughter about making a movie of your life.

Cute? It was very painful. She said, "Why don't you just get a chameleon and let it crawl across the screen?" That was the rap on me—that I was only what the men in my life wanted me to be. Through most of my life, I have been defined by my parents and my husbands. But finally, having done what I call in my book a life review, I understand who I am. I'm a late bloomer to that, but since we live so much longer, it's a wonderful thing.

One theme of your life is gutsiness, which I guess is why you devoted almost 50 pages of this book to sex advice.

I have never found a book that talks about everything from the psyche and spirit and wisdom to penile implants. So I decided that I'd write about as much of the research as I possibly could—everything I wanted to know as a woman who is 73 years old and still sexually active. I see people who aren't traditionally beautiful, but if they're having good sex, you can tell.

Do you go up and ask?

Sometimes, actually.

Recently you had an appearance on the QVC home-shopping network canceled because of that photo of you in North Vietnam. Why is that one so hard for people to let go?

That picture was a terrible mistake, and I'm prepared to apologize for it until I go to my grave, because it hurt servicemen and their families in ways that are very profound. But I'm getting comments on my blog from veterans saying, "I've hated you for years, and now I am able to forgive you and ask for forgiveness," and I cannot tell you what that means to me.

You have married three very alpha men, as you put it: Roger Vadim, the creative alpha; Tom Hayden, the political alpha; and Ted Turner, the wealth alpha.

No, no, no, Ted isn't a wealth alpha. Ted is an explorer alpha.

O.K. Which is the bigger aphrodisiac?

Ah. Well. [Laughs.] I would say someone who was an explorer like I am but in a different direction. I've never been turned on to a man who couldn't teach me new things. They all taught me new things, but Ted taught me so much.

Do you find you're mellowing with age?

Yes, and it's wonderful. The natural slowing down that comes with age is really important. One of the reasons Ted and I split up is that Ted does not slow down. Ted lives horizontally, moving across his land and then across the world horizontally—chased, I believe, by demons. I wanted to live vertically, and I told him so, and he wasn't able to change.

Where do you fall on the spectrum of faith?

I'm a Christian. I study the teachings of Jesus, which are that we have to overcome differences, we have to forgive. I was particularly drawn to black churches when I lived in Atlanta, but I do not now go to church.

Do you still have that stripy leotard?

I do! I just found it, way in the back of a storage room. I'm so happy.

What would the older you say to the younger you?

This too shall pass. It's much more important to be interested than to be interesting.

Source: Time Magazine. For the full story, go to TIME.com: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2088024,00.html

   Jane Fonda: Prime Time: Love, health, sex, fitness, friendship, spirit--making the most of all of your life

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Is Prostate Cancer The Kiss Of Death For Your Sex Life?

_MYTH:_ _All men who have prostate cancer will have erectile dysfunction forever._

This is just one of the myths that surround the often uncomfortable subject of prostate cancer.

"Prostate cancer is not the kiss of death for your sex life," says Dr. Dudley Danoff, a board certified urologist and author of _Penis Power: The Ultimate Guide to Male Sexual Health_ and _Superpotency_. Having treated more than 10,000 men over the past 30 years, Dr. Danoff has firsthand knowledge of the truths, half-truths, and tall tales surrounding this serious yet very treatable health problem.

Although more than 238,000 cases of prostate cancer will be diagnosed this year (according to the National Cancer Institute), the men affected can still have a satisfying sex life as well as live a long and healthy life.

A longtime expert in the field of men's sexual health, Dr. Danoff has the ability to share the complexity and mystery of the male anatomy with humor and truthfulness—addressing the fears, fiction, and fantasies of men and women on subjects such as:

how you can have a healthy and happy sex life after prostate disease

what foods can help prevent prostate cancer

the facts about PSA blood tests

how prostate cancer affects your marriage and your partner

the health benefits of having sex

the link between birth control pills and prostate cancer

the best surgical and nonsurgical options for treating prostate cancer

"The most essential aspect of ensuring the preservation of a normal life expectancy and high quality of life is the early diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer," says Dr. Danoff.

"The good news is that provided the diagnosis of prostate cancer is made early enough to allow maximally effective treatment, life after prostate cancer, surgery, or other treatment options can be full, rich, and rewarding and allow a man to be continent, sexually active, and vigorous in all areas of his life."

Source:   **** Dudley Seth Danoff MD FACS: Penis Power: The Ultimate Guide to Male Sexual Health

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After a Relationship has Lasted a While

   Half a century ago, the birth-control pill offered women the ability to switch off ovulation, to separate sex from reproduction. It played a part, as the '60s got under way, in propelling a host of profound changes, cultural as well as reproductive, societal as well as intimate — in how women saw themselves and lived their lives, starting with the notion of women being above all baby makers and mothers.

The promise of new drugs, like Lybrido and of a similar medication called Lybridos, is that they will be possible to take a next step, to give women the power to switch on lust, to free desire from the obstacles that get in its way. "Female Viagra" is the way drugs like Lybrido and Lybridos tend to be discussed. But this is a misconception. Viagra meddles with the arteries; it causes physical shifts that allow the penis to rise. A female-desire drug would be something else. It would adjust the primal and executive regions of the brain. It would reach into the psyche.

Beckoned by ads on the radio and in newspapers and on Craigslist, in the fall of 2011 women across America began applying to be among the 420 subjects in the Lybrido and Lybridos studies---created to stoke sexual desire in women.

Plenty were turned away when the trials filled. Lack of lust, when it creates emotional distress, meets the psychiatric profession's clinical criteria for H.S.D.D., or hypoactive sexual-desire disorder. Researchers have set its prevalence among women between the ages of about 20 and 60 at between 10 and 15 percent. When you count the women who don't quite meet the elaborate clinical threshold, the rate rises to around 30 percent. For a minor fraction of all the sexually indifferent (or repelled), the condition has been lifelong, regardless of whom they're with or how long they've been with them. For middle-aged or older women, menopause and its aftermath may play a role, though its importance is much debated. For a sizable segment of the undesiring, the most common antidepressants, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, can be the culprit. Millions of American women are on S.S.R.I.'s, and many of them would have good use for a pill to revive the libido that has been chemically dulled as a side effect of the pill they take to buoy their mood.

But for many women, the cause of their sexual malaise appears to be monogamy itself. It is women much more than men who have H.S.D.D., who don't feel heat for their steady partners. Evolutionary psychologists argue that this comes down to innate biology, that men are just made with stronger sex drives.

**All scientists really know is that the disparity in desire exists, at least after a relationship has lasted a while.**

   But desire resists comprehension. Whether it is mainly a raw drive or a complex emotion is a question that has bedeviled psychiatry for decades. And the fading of desire can seem impossibly intricate. Is it a result of a lack of intimacy or its cause? As Stephen A. Mitchell, one of the leaders of relational psychoanalysis, described it: "Sustaining desire for something important from someone important is the central danger of emotional life. What is so dangerous about desiring someone you have is that you can lose him or her." Mitchell argued that ultimately the emotional meshing and vulnerability of committed relationships can become the most rewarding source of eros.

How much easier it would be if we could solve the insoluble by getting a prescription, stopping off at the drugstore and swallowing a pill.

Source: The New York Times Magazine, May 26, 2013

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Boomers Dance and Find Romance

   It is Friday night at Sneaky Pete's restaurant and bar in Bonita Springs, Fla., and the dance floor is jammed.

A band called _The Hype_ is blasting "Mustang Sally" and "Louie Louie," and the dancers are singing along, hands in the air, booties shaking, bodies sweating.

Almost all are well over 60. Some are past 70. They dance for hours.

It is well known that Florida retirees play golf, sit on the beach and occasionally use walkers. They also rock out by the thousands at South Florida bars, looking for romance or just having fun.

Not all Florida retirees go dancing, of course, but with baby boomers retiring, crowds are getting big.

Some are singles doing things they haven't done since high school, this time without parental guidance. Some women show up in slinky black dresses, sequins and plunging necklines, although many others are in pants. Men lean toward T-shirts, Aloha shirts, shorts and jeans. To attract older dancers, some clubs offer music at 6 p.m. or earlier and advertise early-bird dinners.

   Dancing is good for older people's health and balance, studies show, especially salsa, says Timothy Dougherty, medical director of the emergency department at nearby Cape Coral Hospital. Still, in the past two or three years he has treated a growing number of older people for heart attacks suffered while dancing. Two or three couldn't be saved, he says.

**Source: The Wall Street Journal, April 16, 2013**

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Secrets Boomers Don't Want Known

**Here are a few secrets that boomers don't want you to know about:**

   **Boomers might be in denial that they are getting older.** They are staying younger longer, but time still marches on. No matter how many vitamins, health regimes, even facelifts you have, we all age.

Baby Boomers **already have a very drawn out** spirit of youthfulness because of the era they were born into.

**Boomers still long for the 'simpler' times of their youth.**

   **They don't want to admit that they are terrified of high technology** , or even low technology. Many boomers have classic technophobia. They would almost rather cut off their right arm than learn how anything online functions. Truth be told, most boomers have their kids or grandkids set up their iPhones, iPads or Android systems.

**Boomers are relying on the** millennial generation/Gen Y **for virtual direction.** Although boomers are quickly learning the Internet, there are many who are still very intimidated.

**Boomers are running out of money.** Sad, but true. A lot of boomers thought that life was always going to be good and therefore they never set aside savings or learned how to invest.

   **Boomers are really into health and fitness.** The world of health and fitness is taking on a whole new light. Since the 1970s, the public's interest in health and wellness has soared to become a multi-billion dollar industry. The supplement and pharmaceutical field has exploded. New vitamin stores are popping up all over the place. Most of their clients are the aging Baby Boomers.

**Boomers will pay top dollar for most products.** They want the best and they want it now. Boomers feel special to begin with and they love top quality.

**Source** :    Jay Conrad Levinson: Guerrilla Marketing to Baby Boomers

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The Inner Workings of Women: For Men Only

After a year of research and input from more than 3,000 women, they actually can be understood. "For Men Only" identifies seven key findings about women that explain many of the mysteries and enables you to love her the way you want to and be her hero.

**Reassurance:** Why does she ask "Do you love me?" even though you just said "I love you" this morning?

**Emotions:** Why does she, out of nowhere, bring up something that happened two years ago?

**Decoding:** Why does she say "Just do what you want" when she means "You better not"?

**Security:** Why does she accuse you of not caring about her when you're working long hours to provide security for her and the kids?

**Listening:** Why does she say "You're not listening!" when you've already been listening to her for half an hour?

**Sex:** Why does she rarely initiate sex?

**Beauty:** Why does she ask, "Do these pants make me look fat?"

Like some guys I know, you might be tempted to skip the other six and jump right to the sex chapter. And if you're chuckling right now, it probably means you plan to. However, if you've been in a committed relationship with a woman for more than, say, a day, you know that going just for what you want isn't actually going to get you what you want for very long....like a more fulfilling, harmonious relationship if understanding her might actually be possible.

   Shaunti Feldhahn: For Men Only, Revised and Updated Edition: A Straightforward Guide to the Inner Lives of Women

   Shaunti Feldhahn: For Women Only, Revised and Updated Edition: What You Need to Know About the Inner Lives of Men

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Is Your Marriage Graying?

By Jody Gastfriend, LICSW and Vice President of Care Management, Care.com

Am I the only one who barely (no pun intended) got through book one of _Fifty Shades of Grey_?

Most of the women in my book club, ages 50 plus, couldn't put it down. E.L. James' trilogy, which delves into the more esoteric, hard-edged aspects of a consensual relationship, clearly speaks to the erotic yearnings—or at least curiosities—of some very "normal" women. Thirty-one million copies have been sold and booksellers say the paperback flew off shelves faster than a Harry Potter installment. That doesn't happen with a niche audience.

However, I found myself skipping through some of the sex scenes to get to the relationship parts. From my perspective, the quippy email barbs between Christian Grey and Ana Steele – not the SMB&D – were the best part of the book. Maybe I am old school, but what really draws me to a story is the simmering allure of romance, like the kind you find in " _Sense and Sensibility"_ and " _The Sound of Music"_. No non-disclosure agreements pertaining to sexual encounters required.

So what is everyone else so titillated about? Do women need more thrills in their lives? Are we looking for a fantasy escape from grown up responsibilities? The obligations we shoulder may provide us with home, family and career, but are we missing the excitement and forbidden pleasures that come from being less well-behaved?

With so many marriages ending in dissolution and divorce—and so many women drawn to so-called "mommy porn"—I think we should all consider what keeps the spark alive and the love juices flowing.

As I look at my husband of 28 years, I still feel the spark I felt when I first laid eyes on him. Yes, he is graying, as am I. The chondroitin sulfate he buys _en masse_ at Costco doesn't always diminish the aches and pains in my joints. And the realities of aging often lead to unexpected results. When asked what I wanted for a birthday present last year I requested a colonoscopy (his – not mine). Yet we continue to enjoy a shared journey that binds us.

And yes, there have been many conflicts and stresses over the years. Money, children, household tasks, aging parents and blackberries at the dinner table have been topics of a few shouting matches or sleepless nights. We don't need manufactured tension or pain in our lives...it's there.

   But there also have been many ways we keep the fires burning. Adventures such as hiking in Iceland, a weekend in Paris, and a Mediterranean cruise provide romance and excitement. But when my husband brings his mandolin to the nursing home and serenades my dad or offers me his ice cream cone because mine fell on the ground (I contemplated applying the 5 second rule), that is what keeps my heart fluttering. Those selfless and completely unselfconscious acts of love keep our marriage from graying.

So I ask you, would Christian Grey ever settle down, change diapers, take out the garbage on Thursday nights or agree to a birthday colonoscopy? Since I didn't get past book one, I don't know. But I do know that the little things we do to show each other respect, love and patience provide the foundation for marriages to grow, deepen, and yes, get more physically satisfying as we gray.

_Jody Gastfriend, the Vice President of Care Management at Care.com, is a licensed clinical social worker with more than 25 years of experience in the field of eldercare._ Care.com _is the largest online care destination in the world._

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Facebook Dating: Friends of Friends

How many single people have trolled through a friend's photo album on Facebook, spotted someone cute and then asked for intel about his or her availability? Poring through a trove of friends of friends can seem better than gauging whether the creep factor of a random person is low enough to warrant an in-person meeting.

The invitation from Yoke.me, a new online dating start-up, seems innocuous enough. It suggests that you meet some of the single pals of one of your friends.  Yoke.me pulls in data from Facebook — your city, for example, and what movies you prefer — then generates matches with people from your extended social circle, based on common interests.

It may not be a problem that software can solve on its own, said Eli Finkel, a professor of social psychology at Northwestern University. "Technology is not the way to figure out who is compatible and will never be," he said. "At the end of the day, the human algorithm — neural tissue in our cranium called a brain — has evolved over a long period of time to size up people efficiently. On a blind date, a person arrives and in that instant I can say I'm glad I did this or regret it."

Professor Finkel, along with several other researchers, published a study this year raising doubts about the idea that a personality test or algorithm of the kind popularized on _eHarmony_ , can help you meet a potential mate.

Sites that say algorithms can help you find your soul mate "are probably spitting in the wind," said Harry Reis, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester and a co-author of the algorithm paper, who has written upwards of 120 papers on online dating.

While Professors Finkel and Reis question the value of algorithms, they do say that online dating is useful because it can broaden the pool of people you come across on a regular basis.

All of this may simply mean that online dating is at an early stage. In other realms, we're already moving toward a future when the most dazzling and successful technologies are not visible and work almost by magic.

**Source: The New York Times, April 8, 2012**

  ****  John G Agno: Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge.

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Our Life on Facebook and Google+

   Most of us try to live our lives with far too little information about how life really works.

If you think about it, everything in life... from kitchen gadgets to the tools we use, come with very detailed instructions. Pages of them. But the thing that matters most to us, life itself, comes with no instructions. We have to discover it ourselves!

This is true when we begin to participate in online social networks like Facebook , Twitter and Google+.  We don't know what we don't know and that can cause us and our online friends trouble when we push a wrong button or send a special message to the wrong people.

   **So what can people over 50 do well on these social networks?**

Facebook has more than 500 million users around the world. That means one out of every 14 people on Earth use Facebook. Assuming age demographics break down more or less uniformly across all countries, there are approximately 76 million users who are 50 or older on Facebook. If we all gathered together, those of us in Facebook's 50+ population would form the 17th largest country in the world. That physical gathering will never happen but it doesn't have to because we can all gather online at Facebook.com with just a few clicks of a mouse.

Google has responded to the lively interest in social networking with one of its own called Google+ (also known as "Google Plus" or even just "g+")---and Google+ is quickly becoming a serious alternative for those looking for a new environment to play in. An estimated 30 million or so users joined in just it first month of operation. Google has figured out a way to integrate the network with all of its major products, which becomes evident the minute you sign up for the service. Google+ ties everything together right at the heart of Google.

You don't have to be new to these social networks to read the books below. These books offer both the new and experienced user insights as to how these social networks operate and how they differ from each other. The purpose of these books is to allow you to get past the "weirdness" of these networks along with any concerns you may have with either.

You know why you want to participate in one or more social networks: to keep in touch, share your life, make connections, learn new things, make a difference and have fun.

   Jesse Stay: Google+ For Dummies (For Dummies (Computers))

   Paul McFedries: The Facebook Guide for People Over 50

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Encore Career and Second Life

Midlife Career Correction

After decades of raising children and climbing the corporate ladder, they're weary of the same old routine. But Baby Boomers are so caught up in high-pressure jobs that they don't have the time and energy to figure out what to do next.

Enter the career break.

Most non-retired Baby Boomers say they expect to work in some fashion after retirement. The vast majority of those who go back to work plan to launch a second career from the outset—and see any time off as a chance to regroup.

For many, there is also the realization that "part of this transition is leaving the old life behind," says Jaye Smith, a founding partner of Reboot Partners LLC, a research and consulting firm that specializes in retirement planning and career breaks.

**Source:** The Wall Street Journal, December 9, 2013

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Your Encore Career, Boomer.

With more than half of adults over 65 currently online, older Americans are among the fastest-growing segments of social media users. A recent AARP study even found that only one in 5 boomers uses LinkedIn!

 When applying for a job, a digital footprint is a must. If you look competent online, you might get a response to the résumé that you emailed to the company. If you have no digital footprint, you're likely to get a pass. For job seekers over age 50, digital recruiting is a still unknown terrain. To help navigate these murky waters, AARP offers these tips:

Make yourself visible: If you're just browsing company job boards — boomers' favorite sources of job openings — and sending résumés online, you're not doing enough: Employers need proof that you're up-to-date. Even if you network the old-fashioned way, by calling friends and having lunches, the employment decision will probably be funneled through the hiring office, which will search for you online.

'Friend' someone **(lots of someones)** : Use Facebook to set up a free profile page. Again, search for friends and business colleagues and send them a "friend" request to link to their pages. You can ask them about the job market or about the companies where they work. This is another place to inform your community about the work you're doing, such as consulting, writing or developing a part-time business.

Learn the joys of tweeting **:** Once you've set up your digital presence, you have to feed the beast with regular posts, comments and links to interesting developments, which is a job in itself. But the modern job hunter can't avoid it.

Start drilling down **:** Once you've established — or enhanced — your presence online, you're ready to drill down on jobs. Big companies and many smaller ones have "Careers" pages online. Job boards such as Monster.com, Craigslist.com and CareerBuilder.com list thousands of jobs.

**Source:** June issue of _AARP Bulletin_

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Work/Life Survey

Today's top professionals and recent graduates expect their careers to provide more than just an income, a survey released by Philips North America found. The **Philips Work/Life Survey** examined key factors of Americans' job happiness, with a particular focus on their ability to bring personal interests to their workplace career as a way to create more job satisfaction, achieve greater shared success with their employers, and improve overall well-being.

For Baby Boomers, work was about the stable paycheck and vertical climb up the corporate ladder. Generations X and Y are redefining the workforce attitude, and instead want to do and achieve what personally matters to them in an environment where respect and entrepreneurial behavior is encouraged. Accordingly, even in the face of a turbulent economy and competitive job market, 68 percent of working Americans would be willing to take a salary cut to work in a job that better allowed them to apply their personal interests to the workplace. Further, almost one quarter of workers (23 percent) would take a pay cut of 25 percent or more.

Companies also face a new challenge of a diminishing labor market of fewer qualified professionals with the skills needed to drive sustainable growth for multi-national, innovation-driven organizations. In fact, projections show that by 2021, there will be a technology talent deficit relative to talent supply growth versus talent demand growth in the U.S. and Canada of -.8 percent and -.9 percent respectively. Coupled with an aging baby boomer workforce that will be replaced by a generation of workers that have vastly different career values relative to the role of work in one's life, companies must adjust and focus organizational change efforts on bridging any human capital gaps.

"Philips recognizes that to be successful, we must fully understand and adjust to the wants and motivators of all generations, especially younger ones; and as the survey found, 96 percent of Americans, regardless of their career stage, believe that applying personal interests in a career would make them happier," said Dana Stocks, Chief Human Resources Officer. "We believe that by recognizing our employees as real people with real passions, we help them do better work that leads to more meaningful innovation for others. Ultimately, we want to provide our employees with more than a job; we want them to have a meaningful career where they can create a legacy in life through their work, and be deeply engaged while doing it."

  Forty-eight percent of workers who are able to leverage personal interests in the workplace state they are very satisfied, signaling this may be a key factor to work happiness. Comparatively, only 7 percent of those who are not able to do so state they are very satisfied.

Forty-one percent of those who don't apply personal interests through their work regret their career path, whereas only 23 percent of workers who are able to do so regret their path. However, more than half (51 percent) of Americans have never changed career paths to integrate their work and personal life in a more meaningful way. Interestingly, men (47 percent) are much more likely than women (30 percent) to be able to pursue personal passions through their work all or most of the time.

The survey found that empowering workers to be real people instead of just on-the-job employees can also drive career advancement. When asked to grade themselves on their progress in achieving major career goals, those who were able to leverage their personal passions through their work were much more likely to grade themselves with an A or a B (62%) than those who weren't (21%).

Additionally, when workers feel that they are able to comfortably explore their personal interests in the office, they find themselves more excited about their professional lives. Almost half (47 percent) of Americans state they are motivated to go to their current job by "living their passions, which are reflected in their work." Despite the value Americans find in living their passions in their work, most (61 percent) are only able to do so some of the time or not at all, suggesting an opportunity for businesses willing to engage their employees' interests as a means to improve productivity and company results.

**Philips is actively recruiting across diverse disciplines such as engineering, solutions selling, quality and regulatory, and marketing. Those looking for a more meaningful career path can learn more at** www.philips.com/na/careers **or** @PhilipsJobsNA **.**

   When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women

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Boomers having a Purpose in Life

   By Dr. Patricia A. Boyle in The Wall Street Journal, January 14, 2013

You've heard the phrase: Get a life. Well, better yet: Get a _purpose_ in life.

Studies of 1,500 men and women by the Chicago-based _Rush University Medical Center's Alzheimer's Disease Center_ show that having a purpose in life can help stave off cognitive decline and promote a broadly healthier, longer life.

The following comments are edited excerpts of an interview with Patricia A. Boyle, a neuropsychologist and researcher for the _Rush Memory and Aging Project_ who is also an associate professor at the medical center.

_What role does having a purpose in life play as we age?_

**DR. BOYLE:** Our study showed that having purpose in life is robustly protective. Those who reported having purpose in life showed a 30% slower rate of cognitive decline than those who did not. Having purpose reduced the risk of Alzheimer's and its precursor, mild cognitive impairment. Even those whose brains had the plaques and tangles associated with Alzheimer's had better cognitive brain function. It's a remarkable finding.

**Why and how does having purpose provide these benefits?**

**DR. BOYLE:** We don't know exactly how, but we think that people who are purposeful are actively pursuing goals, and by virtue of doing this they are enhancing their brains, either bringing in or developing other areas of the brain.

In addition, if you're pursuing goals, you're probably engaging in a whole host of behaviors that we know to be beneficial for health, such as being socially involved and connected to other people and going out and being physically active.

**How does this translate into the actual things people do and how they live their lives?**

**DR. BOYLE:** There are so many ways. Philanthropic types of activities, such as volunteering at a food bank, and finding ways of helping others. Maintaining connections with family and friends. One woman who is essentially homebound writes a letter to someone every day, often a note of appreciation. it keeps her social connections active and it gives her something to look forward to.

Many people decide to become mentors. They have a lot of wisdom as a consequence of their having done so much in their lives, and they want to pass along that knowledge to others. Other people want to accomplish new things. They learn a new language or take up a new area of study, even at the age of 80.

**For more information on purposeful boomer** phased retirement options **:**

   Boomer Retirement Life Tips explores their personal strategy and saving for retirement to where they will retire, how to handle aging parents and adult children, to health and wellness tips for aging like fine wine and deciding on a phased retirement or encore career.

Sample for free or purchase this new retirement life tips ebook at: www.smashwords.com/books/view/106452

Purchase Kindle Edition

Purchase Nook/iPad Edition

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Starting New Careers

 Americans' dreams of early retirement **,** **interrupted by the 2001-2011 stock market collapse, live on.**

   A Merrill Lynch survey back in 2004 found that 77 percent of more than 3,400 Baby Boomers polled planned to ** work in some capacity in their retirement**, with second careers in the mix for some. Money worries aside, starting a new career is within reach for most people, said Steve Vernon, author of the retirement book " **Live Long and Prosper."**

"The barriers are more psychological than financial," said Mr. Vernon, a consultant of Watson Wyatt Worldwide. "People get used to a certain level of guaranteed] income. Also, a lot of people can't seem to find the [motivation to make a change."

Source: The Washington Times, October 12, 2005, www.WashingtonTimes.com

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Boomers Lead a Brake on Consumer Spending

As millions of Baby Boomers join others in retirement, income growth will provide less oomph for the economy in the next 20 years. The labor force that remains will include a growing share of workers with less earning power.

Together, the trends will act as a brake on consumer spending, which makes us 70% of gross domestic product of the U.S.

Baby Boomers started turning 65 in 2011, and for the next 16 years, about 10,000 each day will hit the age long associated with retirement, according to the Pew Research Center. The demographic shift will reduce the growth of median income by 0.5% a year through 2030.

The slowdown in income growth will be another drag on household budgets that took a hit during the recession. Median household income dropped 8.3%, to $51,107, in 2012 from the end of 2007, while the poverty rate remains 2.5% higher than in 2007, the Census Bureau reported.

   Making matters worse is a slowdown in the birthrate. Fewer than 4 million babies were born in 2012; near a 14-year low, data from the National Center for Health Statistics show.

As more workers retire and the pool of active ones grows less quickly, smaller advances in payrolls will be enough to hold the unemployment rate steady.

**Source:** Bloomberg BusinessWeek, November 2013

   Robert R. Prechter Jr.: Conquer the Crash: You Can Survive and Prosper in a Deflationary Depression

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Tips for finding a Job When You're Over Fifty

By Guest Author Judy Bitterli, Senior Vice President of Marketing for AVG: the free antivirus software provider.

   This is not about resume writing, networking or Monster.com. This is about the right frame of mind if you are over fifty and looking for a job and some everyday technology which can help.

During the past few years, I have witnessed some amazing job interviews by people over fifty and sadly observed many dismal failures. Here are five tips to make sure your skills shine through:

Get your **head** in the right place. Remind yourself, this is not about you. This is about what you can offer the company. No one owes "boomers" anything. Start with a mental list of what you would bring to the company and keep the list succinct and ready. Then, learn everything you can about them. If the company is public, read their annual report. If they are private read their press clippings.

Show up with **energy**. No, I'm not talking about hitting up Starbucks. What I mean is that you need to convey you can still "hang" through the hours and have intensity. Simple things like sitting up straight and speaking with conviction will hit this. Also, practice at home. Practice standard interview questions with your friends and record them on your phone. Playback. Practice. Playback. Practice. How you sound may surprise you but by using this tool you'll get a head start and make a great impression.

Relax and **Smile**. People want a coworker who is a pleasure to be around. If you make the experience stressful, you're less likely to be hired. Create a music play list for that last half hour before an interview. Make sure it's happy music that keeps you relaxed. Or try an app like Simply Being to get in touch with your inner Zen. But don't get so relaxed you fall asleep. Pre-install extreme Alarm Clock just in case.

Convey **passion** about the opportunity. Frame this job as a calling, but don't go over the top. Tell them why it gets you out of bed every day. Whatever it is from answering a phone to driving a bus. Be passionate about the position.

Start off with the question, "What skills are you looking for in the person you hire for this position?" It creates a conversation and gives you time to frame your skills around the requirements.

Make sure you express no technology gaps, are proficient on Microsoft Office, have an up to date LinkedIn profile that matches your resume and recommendations on your LinkedIn account. When putting together your resume, make sure it's in a file format accessible to all computers, such as a PDF or Word document saved in a .doc format. And scan that resume with your antivirus software before you send along to ensure it isn't blocked by your Internet Service Provider or a company's firewall system.

Happy Hunting!

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Planning to Die in Office?

More people may be spending their "Golden Years" at the office.

A new study from _CareerBuilder_ shows that retirement no longer means the end of one's career. Sixty percent of workers age 60-plus surveyed said they would look for a new job after retiring from their current company, up from 57 percent last year.

The nationwide survey was conducted online by Harris Interactive© on behalf of _CareerBuilder_ _._ It included more than 680 U.S. workers age 60 and older and more than 2,600 hiring managers and human resources professionals between November 1 and November 30, 2012.

When asked how soon they think they can retire from their current job, more than one-in-ten (12 percent) respondents said they don't think they'll ever be able to retire. Other responses included:

1-2 years – 27 percent

3-4 years – 20 percent

5-6 years – 27 percent

7-8 years – 6 percent

9-10 years – 5 percent

More than 10 years – 4 percent

**There is good news for mature workers who are putting off retirement.**

Employers are looking to hire more seasoned staff, with 48 percent of employers planning to hire workers age 50-plus this year, according to the survey. Forty-four percent said they hired workers age 50-plus in 2012. Seventy-six percent of the employers surveyed would consider an application from an overqualified worker who is 50-plus, with 59 percent of employers saying mature candidates bring a wealth of knowledge to an organization and can mentor others.

"We're seeing more than three quarters of mature workers putting off retirement, largely due to financial concerns, but also as a personal decision made by people who enjoy their work," said Brent Rasmussen, President of _CareerBuilder_ North America. "The majority of workers who have talked with their bosses about staying on past retirement found their companies to be open to retaining them. If you're approaching retirement age but hope to continue working, an open line of communication is very important."

Mature workers can find job search success by emphasizing the qualities that set them apart from other workers. _CareerBuilder_ offers these tips:

Highlight professional and personal experience **–** When updating your résumé or interviewing for a job, think about your experience in terms of both work-related and life skills. Whether it's your strong leadership skills or your wherewithal to weather a tough economy, use your age to your advantage and play up the strengths that come with having more years under your belt.

**Stay current –** Workers of all ages are going back to school to increase their marketability. Attending seminars and workshops or taking formal courses is a great way to keep your skills up to date and can come in handy during an interview. ****

**Find new ways to benefit the company –** If you're looking to stay with your current company beyond retirement, come up new ways to contribute to the organization outside of your day-to-day tasks. Running mentorship programs or training new hires are examples of how some mature workers have reinvented themselves within their organizations.

Utilize your network **–** Being in the workforce for an extended time gives you the advantage of a broad professional network. Whether it's offline or online, reach out to former colleagues, vendors, clients, etc. to see where opportunities may arise.

Consider part-time or freelance work **–** Fifty-two percent of workers age 60-plus said they will most likely work part-time once retired. Check out job boards, staffing firms and other resources for part-time, freelance or temporary work.

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A Baby Boomer's Nightmare

One moment you're 40-ish and moving up, the next you're 50-plus and suddenly, shockingly, moving out — jobless in a tough economy.

Too young to retire, too old to start over. Or at least that's the line. Comfortable jobs with comfortable salaries are scarce, after all. Almost overnight, skills honed over a lifetime seem tired, passé. Twenty- and thirty-somethings will gladly do the work you used to do, and probably for less money. Yes, businesses are hiring again, but not nearly fast enough. Many people are so disheartened that they've simply stopped looking for work.

For millions of Americans over 50, this isn't a bad dream — it's grim reality. The recession and its aftermath have hit older workers especially hard. People 55 to 64 — an age range when many start to dream of kicking back — are having a particularly hard time finding new jobs. For a vast majority of this cohort, being thrown out of work means months of fruitless searching and soul-crushing rejection.

To which many experts say, "What did you expect?"

Everyone, whatever age, needs a Plan B. And maybe a Plan C and a Plan D. Who _doesn't_ know that loyalty and hard work go only so far these days?

**Here are some information places as you begin to build your encore career:**

Keeping boomers on the job:  http://www.sobabyboomer.com/2011/12/keeping-boomer-on-the-job.html

Welcome to your new job, boomer:  http://www.sobabyboomer.com/2012/10/welcome-to-your-new-job-boomer.html

Online resources for boomer job seekers:  http://www.sobabyboomer.com/2008/11/online-resource.html

Phased Retirement: http://www.sobabyboomer.com/phased_retirement/

Ask the Coach about starting over: http://coachingtip.blogs.com/what_can_it_be/career/

Who are You?   http://coachingtip.blogs.com/career_women_coaching/2013/01/who-are-you.html

Becoming a Network Linkpin:  http://www.coachingtip.com/2011/02/becoming-a-network-linchpin.html

In job hunting, personal connections matter:  http://coachingtip.blogs.com/career_women_coaching/2011/08/in-job-hunting-personal-connections-matter.html

Finding passive job candidates:  http://coachingtip.blogs.com/coaching_tip/2008/10/finding-passive.html

Don't send your resume:  http://coachingtip.blogs.com/coaching_tip/2007/01/dont_send_your_.html

**Sources: The New York Times, January 13, 2013 and** http://www.SoBabyBoomer.com ****

**Subscribe to Baby Boomer Life Tips sent to your Kindle**

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Keeping Boomers on the Job

As America's Baby Boomers grow older and creakier, some companies are trying to keep those with hard-to-replace skills fit enough to remain on the job.

Harley-Davidson has a gym at its Menomonee Falls, Wis., factory where workers like Mike Snow, above, get exercise routines tailored to their jobs.

To avoid the early retirement of key workers, employers have redesigned work areas to minimize kneeling or awkward twisting of muscles and joints. Others have gone even further. Duke Energy Corp. offers a special stretching program for its line technicians before they start a shift. Harley-Davidson Inc. has trainers stand ready to ice down inflammations between shifts at one of its engine plants.

Given high unemployment, companies could hire young workers to replace older ones, but many jobs require years of on-the-job training. Boomers "can be role models and mentors for the younger folks," says Joel Lunsford, a training manager at Duke Energy, an electric-power utility based in Charlotte, N.C. It takes about eight years for a line technician—people who make repairs on power lines—to master the main skills needed, he says. The average age of line technicians at Duke Energy is 50 to 55.

Companies also tend to value older workers because they are less likely to job hop. Besides, reducing strains on workers can cut medical-insurance and workers-compensation costs arising from injuries. Such efforts appear to be paying off at least modestly. The rate of sprains, strains and similar injuries —some of the most common workplace hazards—among workers aged 55 through 64 in U.S. private-sector industry has generally declined in recent years, falling to about 42 per 10,000 full-time workers in 2010 from 48 in 2006, according to U.S. government data.

**Source: The Wall Street Journal, December 28, 2011**

   **Boomer Retirement Life Tips** explores their personal strategy and saving for retirement to where they will retire, how to handle aging parents and adult children, to health and wellness tips for aging like fine wine and deciding on a phased retirement or encore career.

Sample for free or purchase this new retirement life tips ebook at:

www.smashwords.com/books/view/106452

Sample or purchase Kindle Edition ****

Sample or purchase Nook/iPad Edition

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Oldest Boomers and a Phased Retirement

Many older Americans fear they will be working well into their 60s because they didn't save enough to retire. Millions more wish they were that lucky: Without full-time jobs, they are short of money and afraid of what lies ahead.

Older Baby Boomers are trying to postpone retirement, as many find their spending habits far outpaced their thrift. With U.S. unemployment at 8.6%, and much higher among people in their teens and 20s, younger members of the labor pool accuse Boomers of refusing to gracefully exit the workplace.

  But their long-held grip is slipping, as employers look past older Americans to younger, cheaper workers.

Taking into account the number of older people who want full-time work but are unemployed, working part-time or need a job but have quit looking, the unemployment percentage jumps to 17.4%, or 4.3 million Americans ages 55 to 64, according to the government data. The number has grown from 2.4 million in October 2006.

This group without full-time work now accounts for more than one in six older Americans seeking positions.

Older people have more trouble finding new jobs. Among unemployed workers older than 55, more than half have been looking for more than two years, compared with 31% of younger workers.

Older families aren't just failing to save, they are increasingly draining accounts that were supposed to help finance retirement.

The median household headed by someone aged 55 to 64 has $87,200 in retirement accounts and other financial assets, according to Strategic Business Insights' MacroMonitor database. If each of the 4.3 million unemployed or underemployed people in this age group runs through half the family savings, that will, in theory, total $188 billion in lost retirement money.

The typical retirement-age household has too little saved to maintain its standard of living in retirement, according to actuarial and Federal Reserve data.

**Source: The Wall Street Journal, December 19, 2011**

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Welcome to Your New Job, Boomer!

   Growing numbers of older adults are finding a nice surprise in the workplace: a "Welcome" sign.

The number of workers age 55 and up grew by 3.5 million from September 2009 to September 2012. That represents the lion's share of the gain of 4.2 million for all workers 16 and older, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Two factors help explain the trend.

**First:** demographics. In the three years ended in July, 86% of population growth among people ages 25 to 69 came in the 55 to 69 age range, says Richard Johnson, director of the program on retirement policy at the Urban Institute, a nonprofit research group. That increase comes mostly from the baby boomers, who began turning 55 in 2001.

"There are many more Americans turning 55 in recent years than turning 25," Mr. Johnson says.

**Second:** changing attitudes. More employers are recognizing that older adults bring skills and experiences to the table that can help the bottom line.

For example, in the world of consulting, "it can be a plus to have experience," says Ms. Jackie Greaner, North American practice leader for talent management at Towers Watson. "There's not really a stigma about being older."

The same is true for other knowledge-worker jobs. For example, "the nuclear-power industry is an industry that is very hard to get people that are fully developed in terms of skill sets and capabilities," Ms. Greaner says. For employers, "it's very difficult to get that expertise."

Aon Hewitt's senior vice president for talent administration Ms. Erin Peterson says talented recruiters can be hard to find. "I find people who have a lot of life experience and professional experience make the best recruiters."

**Source: The Wall Street Journal, October 22, 2012**

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Second Careers After 50: An Entrepreneurship Example

  By Jan Erickson, Owner of Janska, Clothing that Comforts, on starting a business after 50

"Everyone comes to this planet with a gift and I believe one of mine has been the ability to ask myself, "what can I do that will matter to someone else."

When I was in congregational care, I worked with a woman who had a series of strokes and was dependent on others to get her dressed. The simple task of getting her arm into a sleeve seemed impossible for her. Like so many times in my life, I asked myself that familiar question "how can I help her?"

That night I had a dream that was so vivid I got out of bed and sketched what I had dreamt. It was a jacket that was easy to get on and off, looked fashionable and most of all, it would bring comfort and dignity to my friend Jean. The dream was so strong I could not stop thinking about it. I took my sketch to a cut & sew company that could help my vision become reality.

With one simple design, Janska Clothing That Comforts was born. It started with a simple hope of comfort and has now blossomed into over 60 clothing designs. This year alone, Janska is working toward $2 million in sales.

My life experiences have taught me valuable skills in running a successful fashion company. But it's my passion that fuels Janska's success. It's never too late to allow our ideas to blossom and become reality. There's no stopping any one of us who believe in something bigger than ourselves.

At the time of Janska's inception, I didn't even know how to sew!

Now, with the help of a talented team of creative people who share the dream of Janska, we are able to provide women with comfortable stylish clothing, bringing color, happiness, comfort and ease to the world.

I have never really stopped working and serving others. I've found when we love what we are doing, it really isn't work after all. It's love.

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Brain Drain

**Will your company continue to thrive when Baby Boomers retire and take their knowledge with them?**

We are all "knowledge workers" today. Yet, few companies have figured out how to  **share knowledge** among employees or to pass it on when workers  retire or change assignments.

**Here are four steps for preventing a brain drain where you work:**

**Identify your vulnerabilities.** "Many companies don't know where they are most vulnerable to knowledge loss," says David DeLong, author of **Lost Knowledge: Confronting the Threat of an Aging Workforce**. One way to get around this is by doing an age profile of your workforce by work unit or by function. Determine the average age of employees in each unit and identify who's likely to retire or leave the company for other reasons.

**Identify types of knowledge at risk.** Use interviewing and social network analysis software to find out what knowledge is most valuable. This will help you decide where to focus your knowledge-retention efforts.

**Choose your tactics.** If you're focusing on transferring "tacit" knowledge, or experience that is hard to catalog, establish mentoring programs or communities of practice that bring older and younger workers together for extended periods. If you need to document information quickly before key employees retire, start developing databases and other repositories.

Source: **CIO** magazine, January 15, 2006

**Develop programs where Baby Boomers with critical knowledge can continue working for your company.**

Most Baby Boomers believe that they will ** still be working after retirement**. Eight in ten say they plan to work at least part-time--and others envision starting their own business or working full-time at a new job or career--according to an **AARP Segmentation Analysis: Baby Boomers Envision Their Retirement**.

This  'phased retirement' of Baby Boomers will shape the American workplace and compensate for a severe talent gap due to a shrinking supply of new workforce entrants. Phased retirement will allow Baby Boomers to devote more free time to community service/volunteer activities and their grandparent role by living near at least one of their children.

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Self-Coaching Guide for Boomer Women

   Fellow executive coach Barbara McEwen and I have authored a self-coaching book for career women.

The concept for the book came about because of the very real, very important needs that our female clients repeatedly expressed. Year-after-year, we have heard women's frustrations as they struggle with the countless roles and duties that are routinely placed upon them.

It is hardly news that, despite the feminine "revolution" that began in the 1970's, the majority of women have not found the enjoyment, lifestyle or satisfaction they once imagined. The reason they attribute to their problem is that they have taken on too much! But, that is just the tip of the iceberg. Career women, in particular, have come to believe it is their lot in life to be running on 8-cylinders day in and day out.

Women are dancing to a frenzied beat, believing _just because they can, they think they should._ __ They have been taught if they are capable of doing something it shouldn't be necessary to look for help. This has led women to become frustrated by experiencing long days and nightmarish schedules. Women are exhausted.

In this inspiring book you'll discover why gender continues to be an issue and how the multitude of expectations placed upon women have created a generation of exhausted and weary women who are not getting the life they want.

We believe this book deserves to be read by all women who strive to achieve fulfillment in both their personal and professional lives. In the book, we deftly examine the reasons behind why so many articulate and well-educated women today feel overwhelmed and underappreciated.

Highly effective people know that the most important and intimidating work we do is "inner work". Knowing who you are, what you want and why you want it are all important steps in your personal and professional journey. The book provides numerous easy-to-relate-to examples with actionable recommendations.

This self-coaching guide helps you explore your natural talents, focus on what you do best and how to manage your stress and default behaviors. You can benefit from getting a better understanding of how your personality impacts others and how, too often, we "get what we tolerate." There is no longer need for you to self-sabotage or embrace limiting behaviors. You can also challenge yourself to change some of your outdated beliefs. It is not all that difficult.

As you embrace the concepts in the book and become a more effective leader, you'll learn how you can negotiate what you want and fine tune your time management skills.

Since each of us has been given the gift of choice and the power to act, you are encouraged to take the time to complete a variety of workbook exercises which will help to determine your passions, purpose, and priorities in order to achieve the fulfilling life you want. 
   " **When Doing It All Won't Do: A self-coaching guide for career women** " by Barbara McEwen & John G. Agno.

Purchase and download for the Nook eReader at Barnes & Noble  (.ePub)

Purchase and download at **Amazon for the Kindle Edition** -(.mobi format)

Purchase and download all eReader formats at Smashwords **** (Various Formats, except the pdf Workbook Edition, are available.)

For more information, visit: www.WhenDoingItAllWontDo.com

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Boomers' Encore Entrepreneurial Wave

The Center for Productive Longevity (CPL), which serves as the bridge between people 55 and older and the opportunities that enable them to continue in productive activities, recently announced the results of the first in a series of four meetings, **"** Spotlight on Entrepreneurship Opportunities for Baby Boomers **."**

Their first event was held at the _Kauffman Foundation_ in Kansas City, MO, a focal point for entrepreneurship in America, and attracted almost 100 participants to engage in interactive discussion and dialogue about entrepreneurship. Sponsors of the event included the Kauffman Foundation, AARP, the National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship (NACCE) and CPL.

Written evaluations from the event indicated that almost all participants have a strong desire to start a new business; 97 percent stated they are more likely to create a new business as a result of attending the daylong meeting.

According to the _Kauffman Foundation_ , from 1996 to 2011 the number of Baby Boomers starting a business increased by nearly seven percent, the largest increase among all age groups. For people 20-44, the number of people starting a new business actually fell about five percent during that same time period.

"There is a wide range of individual, economic and societal benefits for the Baby Boomers to start new businesses," says William Zinke, 85, founder and president of CPL. "People are living longer, yet often retiring earlier, and recent AARP studies confirm that 80 percent of Baby Boomers indicate their intent to continue working after leaving regular career jobs."

In 2011, the oldest of the 77 million Baby Boomers began turning age 65---the traditional retirement age. Now 10,000 boomers reach the age of 65 everyday.

For years, the surge of nearly 80 million Baby Boomers into the second half of life has been described as a great gray wave, moving inexorably forward, building in size and momentum with every passing day.

The necessity today is to encourage people to continue to work in ways that truly use their talents to support the economy as well as themselves. It is essential that those who have a strong need and desire to work in this new way have every chance to realize that objective and every opportunity to use their accumulated human and social capital in areas where it matters most....demonstrating the potential of an encore career.

"People aren't ready for retirement at fifty-two or fifty-three years old (IBM's average retirement age)," says Stan Litow, president of the **IBM International Foundation** and a former deputy superintendent of New York City schools. "People want to use the opportunity of a second career to do something that is meaningful."

To be sure, there are still not enough encore career opportunities for all the people who will want them. But thousands of aging boomers are not waiting for a job posting to tackle tough social challenges. By identifying and implementing an innovative solution to a problem, they are also creating their own career opportunities.

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What Have You Missed in Life?

**If you were on your deathbed and only had a few hours left, what would you regret most?** **** What did you not get to be or do? What did you miss out on? What broken relationships were you not able to repair?

Take a few minutes now and write down the answers to this question. Your answers will tell you what is important for you to do before it is too late. After all, this life of yours is not a dress rehearsal.

  "I'll be happy when...." is the way many people think they are living their lives. Yet, happiness is not something that happens to you. Happiness is inside you now. You are motivated from within. You only have to allow happiness to surface.

**Happiness** **= K (** **knowing** who you are **)** **X** **D (** **discovering your** life's work **)** **X** **L (** **learning not to tolerate what's not important** **).**

That's **Coach John Agno's** formula for happiness--know yourself, your true calling and that you get what you tolerate.

The way to plan to live the best years of your life  is less about money and more about  meaning. Now is the time to do some soul-searching; examining who you are and how you want to live your life.

Life planning is about fulfilling those important things in life that you have buried or put aside to make a ton of money that supports the big house, the expensive cars, the summer/winter place, the private schools, etc. The unfortunate outcome of following this path, is that you have become emotionally invested in that world--and haven't really wanted to ditch the life you are now tolerating by opening up the lock box and letting your dream surface. If this sounds like you, pick up a copy of Charles Dickens' **"A Christmas Carol"** and then check out: **www.LifeSignature.com** ****

**"Nothing happens unless first a dream." Carl Sandburg**

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**Leaping into our Second Life**

**Life as Sara Davidson thought she was living it has disappeared.**

  Her lucrative jobs in television have dried up, because she's no longer perceived as young and edgy. A cowboy she fondly labeled as the love of her life left her without notice. Her teenage daughter takes deep offense at everything she says. She applies for a job teaching writing at a university, and nobody's ever heard of her. She bitterly complains about all this to a friend who replies: **"Oh, honey, you've got** ** money problems** **and** ** no sex** **. That's not good."**

On impulse, Davidson decides to move from Los Angeles to Boulder, CO, where she strives to put together a new life. And she begins to write, **Leap!,** an amusing and truthful story framed as a personal journey. A personal journey that many  Baby Boomers follow while attempting to answer the question, **"What will we do with the rest of our life?"...** **.** now that the kids are out of the house, our original spouses have either died or wandered off somewhere, and our careers have come to a grinding halt.

Source: Review by Carolyn See in Washington Post Book World, March 2007

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Un-Rooted Boomers Take Root in France

Anne-Marie Simons worked for more than 30 years in the United States, mostly in the Washington DC area. In 1997, her husband had an opportunity to take early retirement from a career in international development banking and they decided to go in search of the ideal place to retire. They'd long enjoyed traveling in France where Provence, with its mountains, beaches, ancient cities, remote villages, glitzy resorts, culture and leisure became their favorite destination.

But did they really want to LIVE there for the rest of their lives?

In trying to answer that question they set aside part of their next French holiday to drive to villages where they thought they might like to live, and ended up rejecting one after the other. In the course of this research they came to the conclusion that year-round village life was not for them and quickly agreed on the city of Aix-en-Provence.

A year later they took the plunge, left Washington for good, bought an apartment in the old center of Aix, and started living like the locals. It turned out to be the right choice for these former Washingtonians who have since decided to make France their permanent home. Taking Root in Provence is their story.

This 'warts-and-all' account of life among the French offers us a close-up of the daily markets, strikes, gypsies, curious villagers, ancient traditions, truffle cheaters, pagan and religious celebrations, secret swimming spots in the middle of Marseilles, not to mention the French interest in food that borders on the obsessive. Add good weather, a pinch of hedonism, a dose of culture, and it all adds up to a tantalizing view of life's most cherished and elusive prize: quality of life.

  Anne-Marie Simons: Taking Root in Provence

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Health, Fitness, Parenting and Aging

This isn't Supposed to Happen to Me

By Charlie Hudson

As we age, most of us expect to remain vital and independent. If you have already experienced an elderly loved one losing the ability to do things they once enjoyed, you probably silently thought, "This is heartbreaking, but this won't happen to me."

Of course not – it's what happens to _other_ people. After all, today's 70s are the new 50's. Despite healthier lifestyles in general and advances in medical treatments, each of us faces the likelihood of significant decline if we live long enough. It may be incremental or an unexpected illness/injury that brings us face-to-face with a fragility we were convinced did not, would not, apply. And that's what makes planning ahead so important.

If sheer force of will altered these dynamics then my former mother-in-law would have ended her life as she envisioned, fading gently away, fully mentally intact. Although she had a plan for her later years, she was emotionally unwilling to adjust when reality didn't match her plan. What I learned in the excruciating months as she spiraled downward was that we were not prepared for what took place. I spoke with nurses, nutritionists, therapists, doctors, and a lawyer. I had numerous conversations with a social worker and ultimately with hospice personnel. I had to let go of how I thought things would be and watch another person literally waste away in front of me. Later, muddled financial documents consumed almost two years to untangle notwithstanding the modest size of the estate.

The fundamental point is that none of us truly knows what the future holds. Many topics that require planning are unpleasant, but planning doesn't get easier in the midst of emotional crisis. Coming to genuinely understand this is why I wrote, Your Room at the End: Thoughts About Aging We'd Rather Avoid. There will be things beyond your control and beyond your knowing, but developing a plan that you can then appropriately adjust is most assuredly within your power. This is not something that you have to do in isolation and there are many sources to turn to. It is a matter of being willing to do so.

You can contact Charlie Hudson through her web site, http://www.charliehudson.net/ or her blog, **Living Forward** , **Looking Back** at http://www.charliehudson.net/weblog

   Charlie Hudson: Your Room at the End

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Growing Older Should Be Rewarding.

With nearly 78 million **Baby Boomers** heading into retirement, trying to stay young is the worst way to grow old. Instead, we should welcome the experience and spiritual riches that age has to offer.

In collecting stories for his book, " **Rich in Years** ," Johann Christoph Arnold met some amazing old people. He wanted to know how they continue to enjoy life despite the limitations, indignities and discomforts that old age brings.

What was their secret?   Surprisingly, each in his or her own way, gave him the same answer: Focus on helping others rather than thinking about yourself. Look for ways to contribute to your community. Take time to give a child personal attention. Find something to live for, a cause that needs dedication and work. Then you'll always have a reason to get up in the morning.

If we follow their example, each of us can find peace and purpose. Living our life purpose or life signature gives us the meaning we were born to carry out. Martin Luther King Jr. encouraged his supporters in this way: "If you can't fly, run; if you can't run, walk, crawl, but by all means keep moving."

 _"No man is born into the world whose work is not born with him." James Russell Lowell_

**As Ecclesiastes so beautifully puts it, there is:**

A time to be born and a time to die,

A time to plant and a time to uproot,

A time to kill and a time to heal,

A time to tear down and a time to build,

A time to weep and a time to laugh,

A time to mourn and a time to dance,

A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

A time to search and a time to give up,

A time to keep and a time to throw away,

A time to tear and a time to mend,

A time to be silent and a time to speak,

A time to love and a time to hate,

A time for war and a time for peace.

How will you use your time to keep moving forward in life?

**Source:**    **Johann Christoph Arnold: Rich in Years: Finding Peace and Purpose in a Long Life**

   **The Life of Margretta**

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Fearless

   Today, we are a world bathed in fear. It wasn't too long ago that it seemed opportunities were endless; jobs were secure, banks were stable and we could count on the ever-expanding growth of our economy to help us fund our children's future and our own. Most importantly, we felt invulnerable to foreign attack, and confident that our borders would never be violated.

What is fear? It has been said that there are only two emotions: love and fear.

It takes practice to unravel fear. It is one thing to have an intellectual understanding of what is harmful, it is something else to know how to actually get rid of fear in your life. The truth is that fear is a bully: When you turn around and face it head-on, it becomes powerless.

Reality always brings what is needed, whether you like it or not. The more you welcome what is being brought to you--feel it, taste it, know it--the more you release false expectations and are able to learn the lessons you need to learn. Then you can open your treasure-house, access your enormous inner resources and receive the plentiful nourishment and support that are waiting for you.

**Source:**    Brenda Shoshanna PhD: Fearless: The 7 Principles of Peace of Mind

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Boomer Choice: Old or Beautiful

The anti-aging phenomenon started off with understandable intentions. Baby Boomers were getting older and didn't like what they saw or how they felt. So when a study was printed in the **New England Journal of Medicine** in 1990 positing that human growth hormone (HGH), previously used to treat growth disorders in children, could be used on healthy adults to "reverse aging," people took note—and many latched on like junkies.

In 1993 a number of doctors, notably osteopaths Ronald Klatz and Robert Goldman, began injecting themselves with HGH. After they observed, among other outcomes, decreases in body fat and increases in energy, the cat was out of the bag. Paying no attention to a medical establishment that saw HGH as exceedingly dangerous and unresearched, they and countless imitators opened clinics around the country where patients could pay thousands of dollars to learn how to inject themselves with HGH. If hormones were bad for you or caused cancer, the duo argued, all teenagers would be dead—twisting logic in such a way it's unclear whether they were intellectually dishonest, stupid, or thought their clients just didn't care. Regardless, many didn't.

Klatz and Goldman launched a "medical society" called the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M), whose mission it became to promote HGH and certify doctors in this exciting and lucrative new field. Soon after, they were holding annual conferences in Vegas, charging $4,000 for procedures mainstream science deemed faulty and recommending diets of hormones to replace those gone "missing" during the aging process.

While it may not have been good science, it was good business. A4M was hardly the first association to market the fountain of youth, but by making the unattainable seem accessible, it paved the way for successive companies--and entire industries--to offer their own dose of the same promise.

Supermarket aisles now teem with bottles adorned with the words "anti-aging;" second-tier produce like pomegranate and acai have become "superfruits" and the foundation of their own billion-dollar businesses. For men fearing the onset of "male menopause," anti-aging hormones and over-the-counter antidotes like Viagra and Cialis have helped assuage millions of midlife crises.

**Source: Bloomberg BusinessWeek, August 30, 2010**

   **Arlene Weintraub: Selling the Fountain of Youth: How the Anti-Aging Industry Made a Disease Out of Getting Old-And Made Billions**

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Boomers Sharpen Your Brains

**What can we mature adults do to sharpen our brains?**

 The differences between a sharp and a dull brain can depend on whether you establish and maintain certain factors. A large body of research has shown that without these factors the brain dulls, resulting in major health problems, including dementia. By applying them to your daily life, you can cultivate a healthy brain capable of thinking clearly and feel positive through the rest of your life.

Research shows that the health of middle-aged people diverges greatly at this pivotal period as a result of lifestyle and habits. " **The Brain Bible** " by author John Arden, Ph.D. describes five categories of actions mature adults can take to promote healthy, sharp brains through the middle years and into old age.

**The Education Factor:** New learning is critical for the mature adult brain. People who are more highly educated and use their brains to learn new things throughout their lives are more resistant to the symptoms of dementia. The more brain connections that exist, the greater your brain's longevity. A brain that is intellectually challenged demonstrates the positive side of the old adage, "Use it or lose it."

**The Diet Factor:** Diet dramatically affects the way the brain functions. By learning how to maximize a healthy diet, you can enhance brain performance.

  **The Exercise Factor:** Exercise has been shown to boost the longevity of the brain. Mature adults must engage in exercise to thrive in their later years.

**The Social Factor:** The brain thrives on compassionate communication with others and is starved without it. From the first few days of life to our last, relationships have a dramatic effect on our mental health. The social factor, in short, expands our longevity and boosts the brain's vitality.

**The Sleep Factor:** Most people do not know how important sleep is to the brain. Because sleep accounts for roughly one-third of our lives, a healthy sleep cycle can enhance memory and clarity of thought. But when the brain is deprived of sleep, it can fail to take advantage of those critical cognitive abilities.

All the healthy brain factors described may sound deceptively simple, yet reasonable enough, but you may regard them as things to do when you have the time and during periods without stress. Ironically, your stress level actually increases if you do not attend to these factors.

A periodic and moderate degree of stress is actually good, not bad. Without a moderate degree of stress, we wouldn't arrive at work on time or get to the grocery store to pick up food when the refrigerator is bare. A moderate degree of anxiety turns on the prefrontal cortex to help us adapt to the world and be successful in reaching our goals.

Do not wait until you are stressed out to incorporate relaxation exercises into your life. Practice them before you are stressed out so that it will be easier to use them when you are stressed later.

**Source:**    **John Arden: The Brain Bible: How to Stay Vital, Productive, and Happy for a Lifetime**

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For People Who Weren't Born Yesterday

  Straight talk, valuable life strategies, practical tools and inspiring messages for the 150 million Americans who will soon be 50 years old and older. These are just some of the things George and Sedena Cappannelli deliver in their eminently accessible " **DO NOT GO QUIETLY** : A guide to living consciously and aging wisely for people who weren't born yesterday."

**DO NOT GO QUIETLY** is loaded with valuable perspectives oh how to live more consciously and age wisely and provides a host of practical and relevant recommendations on specific choices we can make to lead more satisfying and successful lives. This is a call to action for those who the world calls older GenXers, Boomers and Elders that our work is not done. We have the wisdom, experience, resources and necessity to take an active role in doing it so we will leave behind a legacy of greater hope and consciousness for those who come after.

**Few dispute that these are challenging times.**

In these awkward times, we recognize the crisis our world faces---as 50% of our population moves toward a time when they will be 50 or older for the first time in history. These challenges are being exacerbated by a confluence of political discord and by the growing ease with which some people with power and influence are willing to sacrifice truth in the interest of private political agendas and personal financial gain.

At the same time, a remarkable and unstoppable bubbling up seems to be happening. This bubbling up is bringing with it unprecedented opportunities and extraordinary possibilities for people of all ages. The over-50 crowd have at our disposal greater resources, more information and technological knowhow, better health options and more leisure time than the generations before us. Some of us also have decades of direct experience in creating substantive social and political change.

For us "doing something" involves first putting our own houses in order. It also involves remembering to exercise the enormous power that those of us in the second half of life have; financial and electoral voting power to influence change.

We were born before the dawn of the digital age and therefore know that many of the overamped, excessively medicated, digitally preoccupied, entertainment addicted, economically driven and relatively unconscious practices that constitute life in the modern world are not our only choices. Many of us remember a time when we utilized our time and invested our energies differently.

Our world has changed and we cannot simply snap our fingers and reverse time. Those of us who still remember what this other world looked like have the opportunity to ensure that the "brave new world" we are entering will still offer genuine opportunity, as well as sufficient care and compassion, for all members of our human family. We remain hopeful that as a gloriously complex, courageous and talented species, we can still wake up in time to smell the roses.

   The intention to live with a greater moment-by-moment awareness will assist you to drink more fully from each experience and every interaction. The gift of living and of learning in each moment will allow you to move beyond the discomfort of a divided consciousness and allow you to live a life that is much freer of worry, doubt, and concern. So take a moment and imagine what this next stage of your life can truly be like.

**Source:**   George Cappannelli: Do Not Go Quietly: A Guide to Living Consciously and Aging Wisely for People Who Weren't Born Yesterday

   The Life of Margretta

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Boomers facing a more challenging old age.

While plenty of Baby Boomers have become affluent, the wealth disparity of many boomers is emblematic of a broad shift occurring around the country.

Many graying boomers are less secure financially and have a lower standard of living than their parents. The median net worth for U.S. households headed by people aged 55 to 64 was almost 8 percent lower, at $143,964, than those 75 and older in 2011, according to **U.S. Census Bureau** data.

That's left many ill-prepared to provide for themselves as they approach old age, even as they are likely to live longer than their parents. For the first time in generations, the next wave of retirees will probably be worse off than the current elderly.

  Today, retirement savings of $120,000 is right at the median 401(k) balance for households headed by Baby Boomers, according to 2011 data from the _Center for Retirement Research_. That will provide just $4,800 a year to boomers when they turn 65, assuming they take out 4% annually, the top amount many financial planners say should be withdrawn to assure retirees don't run out of money during their lifetime.

37% of the elderly in the U.S. collect pensions, which provide some guaranteed income until they die. Fewer than 10% of boomers do, and that number is quickly shrinking.

**Source:** Bloomberg BusinessWeek, January 6, 2014

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Baby Boomers: The Next Elders

**Since Baby Boomers are the next elders, it will require them to assume a**  leadership role **, preferably starting immediately.**

They have until the decade of the 2020s to take action about dwindling essential resources, such as water and cheap oil; ballooning population; the widening gap between the rich and poor; global warming; and species extinction.

**Four equally powerful trends are converging into a whole-systems opportunity, creating the possibility of an evolutionary bounce.**

One trend is a wide, already occurring perceptual shift: "In seeing through the deadness of materialism and into the subtle aliveness that infuses the world around us, we transform the human experience from a secular to a sacred journey."

The second trend is voluntary simplicity, which leads to more satisfying and sustainable lives.

The third is communications technology, "which gives us the tools to communicate our way into a positive future."

These make possible the fourth trend, "reconciliation -- between men and women, black and white, rich and poor, humans and other species, current and future generations, and many more."

Sources: Betty Booker, June 27, 2005 **www.TimesDispatch.com** **** and Duane Elgin's **"Promise Ahead: A Vision of Hope and Action for Humanity's Future"** (HarperCollins, 2000)

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Poor Balance, Weak Bones = Falling Danger

   As Baby Boomers age, being able to maintain body balance and strong bones is key to a long and healthy life.  Regular exercise and maintaining acceptable bone mineral density (BMD) helps to keep your body strong and in balance. A bone mineral density (BMD) test is the best way to determine your bone health.

Why not prove to yourself that you can maintain your balance by standing on one leg without holding onto anything? To improve balance, when you walk, stand on one leg as you pick up the other one. If you have a fear of falling, take smaller, shuffling steps.

  Exercise is one of the most powerful preventive medicines in staving of the disabilities of middle and old age. Physical fitness does not apply only to muscular and athletic efficiency, but also to the activation of nutrients in your body---making them work.

Exercise stimulates body tone, sending minerals to your muscles, skin, organs, blood vessels and other body parts. Exercise causes minerals to help keep your body properly hydrated, to get rid of waste materials properly, and to keep operating at optimum level with little fatigue or loss of quality.

When minerals are stimulated by exercise, they work to help pass food along your digestive tract, to enable you to inhale air into your lungs and to regulate blood-vessel action when more pressure is needed in an emergency. The faster minerals bring oxygen to your cells, the better you feel. You 'come alive.'

With help from a guiding and qualified health care professional, you can stop "old-age" posture and a lack of balance...in a smooth transition toward a healthy and happy second life during those retirement years.

For more information, boomers should regularly follow this new blog: http://www.Build-Better-Bones.com ****

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Stick with a Purpose for Exercise

_The Center for Disease Control and Prevention_ surveys report 7 out of 10 Americans are not getting enough exercise. So what is the secret to getting enough physical activity and actually enjoy doing it?

There is a connection between purpose and exercise. When we tap into that wonderful motivator called purpose, it is our "why" that is fueled by an inner source of motivation that drives its reward from the exercise itself. The purpose could be to have fun, out live your age group, win a game, win a championship, run a marathon, lose X pounds, walk the dog, mow the lawn, walk the golf course or whatever your motivation to exercise.

To help people find exercise they'll love for a lifetime, Bob Hopper (author of **"Stick With Exercise for a Lifetime: How to Enjoy Every Minute of it!")** looks at seven best practices used by the most successful exercisers to identify what physical activities works best for each person and how to incorporate them into their regular routine.

**These key principles are:**

1.  **Focus on fun, first.**

2.  **Get** coaching **.** A trust-worthy, respectable and likeable instructor virtually guarantees success at learning a new activity, and can guide talent development for a lifetime.

   3.  **Join a team.** Membership in a club or team generally provides not only fellow participants for camaraderie and encouragement, but also regularly scheduled times and locations for participation, making it easier to commit. It was Woody Allen who said, "Eighty percent of success is showing up."

4.  **Protect your time.** Having fixed times for play and practice will help establish the role of exercise in your life and ensure its priority.

5.  **Add supplementary fitness.** Improvement in your lifetime sport through a supplementary fitness program means added motivation to stick with that sport...and how to succeed with exercise!

6.  **Seek continuous improvement.** Goal setting can encourage continuous improvement and build a passion for a lifetime activity.

7.  **Win at championship moments.** Use a set of four mental techniques to get yourself to "just do it" when you are tempted to deviate from your exercise plan.

**Source:** **"Stick With Exercise for a Lifetime: How to Enjoy Every Minute of it!"**

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Physical Rituals Matter

The aging of the Baby Boomer Generation and the surging of obesity and diabetes to epidemic levels are focusing attention on the healing powers of physical fitness.

The Wall Street Journal reports that a 30-year study of five men shows that almost anyone can get a second chance at youthful fitness. The study began in 1966 when five healthy 20-year-old college students loaned their bodies to science by staying in bed for 20 straight days followed by intense exercise.

Three decades later, the same five men, now in their early 50s and bigger around the waist, signed on for a follow-up to examine the effects of aging on the cardiovascular system. Researchers were astonished by what they found: The three weeks of bedrest back at  
age 20 was more damaging to the men's aerobic capacity than 30 years of aging.

To assess cardiovascular fitness, researchers used a measure called VO2 max, an indicator of the body's ability to use oxygen at maximum exertion. 'Oxygen is the key molecule in life that allows us to make energy in our bodies to do physical work' says Benjamin Levine of Presbyterian Hospital and University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas, and a researcher on the study.

When the men reunited for their 30-year follow-up, all five had gained at least 20 pounds each, and a couple much more. Then the men began a carefully controlled, six-month aerobic exercise program. They all reached their target performance: VO2 max readings equivalent to those when they first entered the study at age 20. That doesn't mean the men can run a quarter mile as fast, as they could in their youth, but it does suggest their endurance is essentially as good as it was then.

The results of this study offer the prospect that starting a moderate but consistent exercise program later in life (even after years of falling out of shape) can restore aerobic capacity to levels one had as a young adult. It's never too late to establish an exercising ritual within your daily activity.

Why not take a walk today, tomorrow and, maybe even, everyday this week?

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America is getting older fast!

Today, more than 40 million people in the United States are age 65 and older, and this number is projected to grow to nearly 89 million by 2050. Yet most communities are not preparing to take advantage of the opportunities — and meet the challenges — presented by a growing number of older adults.

**Grantmakers In Aging** (GIA), a national association of funders, and the Pfizer Foundation announced a second year of funding totaling $1.3 million for **Community AGEnda** , an initiative aimed at helping American communities become more age-friendly, meaning great places to grow up and grow old. The award will support grants up to $140,000 from GIA to each of the five participating Community AGEnda communities, in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, and greater Kansas City. Funding for Community AGEnda is provided to GIA by the Pfizer Foundation.

"Supporting age-friendly goals is one of the best ways we can respond to the aging of our population, whether we are funders, nonprofits, elected officials, planners, business people, or private citizens," said John Feather, PhD, CEO of **Grantmakers In Aging**. " **The Community AGEnda** teams have worked hard to identify the age-friendly goals that matter most to their regions, and are building the coalitions needed to pursue those goals in a sustainable way."

Efforts to make communities age-friendly can include improving mobility and walkability; informing regional planning efforts; designing affordable, accessible housing; promoting healthy lifestyles; improving access to public services; and increasing volunteer, intergenerational, and social opportunities.

"The Pfizer Foundation recognizes the importance of helping our communities prepare wisely for the aging of our population, which is why we are pleased to support a second year of **Community AGEnda** ," said Caroline Roan, President of the Pfizer Foundation. "As the **CDC** recently noted in its 'State of Aging and Health in America 2013,' healthier lifestyles and improved mobility are important factors in improving older adults' quality of life. Community AGEnda is pursuing these and other important age-friendly goals in creative, community-specific ways."

**About Grantmakers In Aging (GIA):** **Grantmakers In Aging is an inclusive and responsive membership organization comprised of all types of philanthropies with a common dedication to improving the experience of aging. GIA members have a shared recognition that a society that is better for older adults is a society that is better for people of all ages. For more information, please visit** GIAging.org **.**

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Maximize Your Energy Boomers!

Most of us don't have enough reserve energy to fuel the super-productivity we may wish to achieve in the time available. This energy drain often stems from the growing societal demand to literally make every second count.

According to a study from the _Future Foundation_ (a London-based think tank), we are rapidly approaching a 24-hour society. "Information technology makes it possible to operate around the clock, increasing the pressure to do so," says an article in the _Futurist_. The result is increased customer demand to have services available at all hours. Coping with this frantic pace can be draining.

**Here are some ideas for increasing your energy levels:**

**1. Get a check-up.** Fatigue is a symptom, not a disease. Therefore, if you suffer from constant fatigue, a trip to your family physician may be a good idea.

The causes of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) are not well understood. Neither are the treatments. However, as the name implies, those who suffer from CFS are chronically exhausted and need specialized medical attention.

If you're wasting time every day because you're just too tired to concentrate or focus, see your doctor. There may very well be a medical reason for your fatigue.

**2. Eat light and right.** Big meals can make you sleepy. What is the reason? Depending on your diet, 50 to 80 percent of the energy produced by digesting food is consumed by the act of digestion itself. The more energy that digestion takes, the less energy the food provides the rest of the body. It takes more energy to digest cooked and processed food and much less to digest fruits, vegetables, grains and nuts. Try to eat more of the latter. They're easier on your digestive system and you gain more energy from them.

**3. Reduce caffeine and sugar.** Caffeine and sugar aren't particularly healthy. However, many people use both as short-term energy boosters--in moderation. Sugar has virtually no nutritional value. Eating sugar tends to rob the body of its nutrient stores. It also causes drastic swings in blood sugar levels, stressing the adrenal glands. Coffee, which can give you a temporary lift in energy, also weakens the adrenals.

**4. Get enough sleep.** Numerous studies indicate that most people need eight hours of sleep, yet an increasing number get far less. We are working longer, staying up later, and getting up earlier. Workers who sleep less so they can work more and get more done may in fact be accomplishing the opposite.  _The National Sleep Foundation_ estimates overtired employees cost American business $18 billion annually in errors and slowness, according to an article in _Forbes_.

**5. "Finish every day and be done with it,"** advised poet Ralph Waldo Emerson. "You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; but get rid of them and forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, and you should never encumber its potentialities and invitation with the dread of the past. You should not waste a moment of today on the rottenness of yesterday."

**Source:**    Robert Bly: Make Every Second Count: Time Management Tips and Techniques for More Success With Less Stress

    John G. Agno: Women and Time

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What Aging Men Want

The Odyssey comprises eighteen powerful adventures, each symbolizing a developmental challenge confronting men on the long journey home.

Most aging men initially behave like Odysseus' crew. Never questioning their lifelong warrior ways, they continue pushing ahead in everything they do. In fact, nearly all men continue in their accustomed warrior mode at first because it is all they know.

Some of us also make the mistake of continuing other "wars" -- with spouses, adult children, neighbors, coworkers, city hall, and imagined political foes. These battles can serve as defensive distractions from underlying feelings of failure, disappointment, fear or depression. In this way, personal problems get projected onto others and we avoid the light of self-awareness.

Age also influences how we approach this journey home. In their early sixties, men still feel pretty immortal. Until men experience the reality of aging bodies and accept the inevitability of personal death, Odysseus' adventures merely represent a good story. For some reason, the earlier men retire, the longer it may take them to work through these challenges, for the "young" old have not yet felt the shudder of age. Age is a force that changes us, but it acts through the first-hand knowledge of physical decline and personal mortality.

The first mistake we make on the road to wisdom and maturity is to not change at all but simply continue the warrior life of competition, achievement, performance and self-aggrandizement. You and I are Odysseus wending our way home, but too often we travel alone. Why not join forces and travel the many lands of The Odyssey together?

  ** Men Mentoring Men**

Dictionaries define a mentor as one who offers sage advice or counsel to a younger person. In fact, the word comes from role Mentor played in The Odyssey. While the role of a male mentor usually involves the relationship between an older and a younger man, it could just as appropriately refer to older men helping each other. Thus was born the idea of the male mentoring group to help each other cope with aging issues.

The ideas for starting and running an _Older Men's Mentoring Group_ where the approach is "peer mentoring," (a gathering of like-minded individuals who can offer guidance for one another) can be found in the Appendix of the book, "What Aging Men Want: The Odyssey as a Parable of Male Aging" by author John C. Robinson, Ph.D., D.Min.

**Source** **:**    John C. Robinson: What Aging Men Want: The Odyssey as a Parable of Male Aging **($7.69 ebook, $16.47 paperback)**

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Cool Old People

Most of us are aware that there are two types of old these days. There is Baby-Boomer old, an audacious, aspirational sort of old. Common depictions include couples sky-diving for their 40th anniversaries; Richard Branson doing all manner of macho rich-guy nonsense; and the woman of a certain age on a seashore holding a fluttering piece of voile toward the winds of freedom.

Then there is old old, a realm often belonging to the parents of the baby boomers. This is nursing-home old. This is prunes-for-breakfast old. This is "I've fallen, and I can't get up" old.

It would be easy to make the mistake of thinking new interest in the aged exists simply because the boomers, still the largest generation in the Western Hemisphere, are now careering into seniorhood. But it's worth remembering that, notwithstanding their aging, the boomers are still the generation that gave us the famous boardroom credo "Nobody wants to see old people on TV/in the movies/in advertisements." "The Golden Girls" was what it meant to be acceptably ancient on prime time. Rue McClanahan was a fit 51 when she took the role of Blanche Devereaux on that show.

**So it's not the new old who are driving this fascination. It's the young.**

It is from this cultural interstice that Betty White's late-career renaissance was made possible. The White phenomenon can be cast largely as a youth-culture one; something that never would have happened if it weren't for the 2010 Facebook petition, driven by under-30s, asking White to host "Saturday Night Live." Today White fits in a truly novel category of fame: a giant star with cult cachet among people who could be her great-grandchildren.

The twilight years thus appeal as a time when a kind of paradoxical freedom can be located, a time thought to be beyond the petty concerns of hotness and coolness, where you can finally, truly, _really_ be yourself.

Today, college graduations, weddings, 30th birthday parties, Christenings, braises — these sorts of events are regularly blessed with multiple Grannies, Papas, Yiayias, Zaides, Nanas, Nonnas, Omas, Abuelitos. They stand up; they take bows. In the true fabric of experience, this is not some invisible stitching.

**Source: The New York Times Magazine, April 28, 2013**

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Fear of Death

" _When it comes time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with_ the fear of death _, so when their time comes, they weep and pray for a little more time to_ live their lives over again in a different way _._ Sing your death song _, and die like a hero going home."_ __ Chief Aupumut, Mohican 1725

   In order to rediscover our natural confidence and live a fearless life, we must examine the challenge: we must "recognize fear."

Fear, for the neurophysiologists, is a stimulus to investigate, discern and resolve. Taking a Buddhist perspective on fear, however, requires that we make a simple, yet somewhat outrageous, observation: _fear does not exist_. This is not to say we don't experience fear and its many forms. Of course, we are afraid of death and pain, afraid that we can't handle life. We fear new situations and the unknown. Yet, while we may want to define fear, explore fear, and possibly even resolve it, we first must acknowledge that we cannot actually find such a solid thing as "fear" at all.

Our ability to suddenly discover a powerful seat of fearless abundance may not be all that fantastic. In fact, rediscovering this fearless abundance is considered more likely than we think and is traditionally often referred to as "discovering the wish-fulfilling gem." Discovering the gem is said to happen abruptly, like winning a lottery, thus opening up a sudden physical and spiritual energy similar to that of riding a mighty horse. This frees the mind of impoverishment and revels the natural state of fearless abundance.

**Sources:**    M.B. Tosi: The Crimson Path of Honor

   Michael Carroll: Fearless at Work: Timeless Teachings for Awakening Confidence, Resilience, and Creativity in the Face of Life's Demands

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The Enlightened Elder?

By Guest Author John Robinson, Ph.D., D.Min.

I have written about spiritual enlightenment for many years, exploring its remarkable nature, revelations and effects.

   Called by countless names (like satori, mystical experience, or cosmic consciousness) depending on one's philosophy and theology, it's that unpredictable and timeless moment when the mind's chatter stops, perception and consciousness intensify incredibly, identity and ego boundaries may dissolve, and a divine and loving Presence seems to engulf or permeate everything, evoking a feeling of ecstasy and often providing profound insights about the spiritual nature of life.

What I never anticipated, however, was how the enlightenment experience would also creep up on me as I aged. I now believe that aging is enlightenment in slow motion, if we pay attention.

Subtle changes in consciousness appear naturally and spontaneously in the aging experience. Released from the tyranny of clock, calendar and career, we slow down to "smell the roses" and often notice fascinating shifts in awareness. See if you can identify some of these changes:

A gradual fading of identity as if who you were or think you are is no longer very important or even that real.

Unexpected experiences of a silent and thoughtless consciousness in which there is no sense of purpose, effort, agenda, point of view or even a thinker.

Unusually intense and vivid sensory perceptions revealing the nearly indescribable beauty of the world around you.

Moments of unexplained joy, wonder and childlike innocence.

Loss of interest in or attachment to material things that once seemed so important.

Feelings of unconditional love and compassion for the world and all living things.

Subtle awareness of a larger consciousness all around you, as if consciousness were no longer in you but you were in it.

Spontaneous spiritual insights that surprise you with their depth and significance.

These kinds of experiences may signal a growing awareness of enlightenment consciousness breaking into everyday life. What is their purpose? With the unprecedented longevity gifted us by science, medicine and nutrition, we boomers again have a chance to change the world - not by heroic means, but by a change in consciousness. As we integrate more awakened consciousness into our lives, values and activities, Enlightened Elders will subtly change the consciousness of humanity - away from the warrior model of western civilization to a more loving, inclusive, and enlightened way of life. Will join us?

**Bio: John C. Robinson, Ph.D., D.Min. is a clinical psychologist with a second doctorate in ministry, an ordained interfaith minister, and the author of seven books on the interface of psychology and spirituality. His recent works include** The Three Secrets of Aging **,** _Bedtime Stories for Elders: What Fairy Tales Can Teach Us About the New Aging_ **, and the forthcoming** _What Aging Men Want: Homer's Odyssey as a Parable of Male Aging_ **. You can learn more about John at** http://www.johnrobinson.org/

  John C. Robinson: The Three Secrets of Aging

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Boomers Coping with Alzheimer's

**By Diane Casey Agno, P.T.**

John Zeisel 's new book, "I'm Still Here", is a wonderful gift to those of us who work with, live with, interact with, or love someone who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

In a mere 241 pages, Mr. Zeisel teaches us that an individual with Alzheimer's actually becomes a different person with new interests, talents, and appreciation for things such as art, poetry, and music which can be discovered with a little effort. We are encouraged to meet them where they are, which can make life so much easier for everyone involved. We are given permission to stop struggling to bring the person back to "normal", recognizing that there is a new normal which is meaningful and precious.

Mr. Zeisel speaks about the **4 A's of Alzheimer's Disease: agitation, apathy, anxiety, and aggression** and how these behaviors are not symptoms of the disease but rather reactions to the environment that is being perceived by the individual with Alzheimer's.

For instance, agitation is often a restless response to boredom. Apathy can be related to a lack of stimulation in the environment. Anxiety stems from not having a clear picture of time and/or relationships, and aggression is often an uncontrolled reaction to not understanding what is happening. These behaviors can be dealt with through a combination of medical treatment, social and physical environment, and care giving that is well-suited to the individual. This requires learning to pay close attention to the underlying causes of these behaviors. Blaming the person with Alzheimer's for their reactions, rather than looking closely at ourselves to understand what we might be doing to contribute to them, will cause avoidable stress and unhappiness. Creativity is the key to discovering how best to help.

As I read this book, a wonderful memory came back to me of visiting my own grandmother with advanced Alzheimer's disease, accompanied by my mother, and my young daughter and son. My son, who was 4 or 5, understood that Granny wasn't interested in the spoonfuls of food being offered by my mother and stated he'd like to give it a try.

We all watched in amazement as he played the "airplane is coming in for a landing" game with full sound effects. My grandmother ate every bite with glee, thrilled to be having this fun time with such a sweet, funny boy. I actually saw a flash of the grandma she was to me in her smiling eyes. It took a child to show my mother and me that she could be reached with a little creative behavior.

**Diane Casey Agno has been a practicing physical therapist for 30 years, specializing in geriatric patients through her work as a home care therapist.**

  ****  John Zeisel: I'm Still Here: A New Philosophy of Alzheimer's Care

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The Brain and the Mouth

In March 1963, the press described the almost incredible story of the seven weeks deprivation of food and the survival of Ralph Flores, a forty-two-year-old pilot and twenty-one-year-old Helen Klaben, a co-ed of Brooklyn, NY, following a plane crash on a mountainside in Northern British Columbia.

The couple was rescued March 25, 1963, after forty-nine days in the wilderness in the dead of winter, over thirty days of this time without any food at all.

Ms. Klaben, who was "pleasingly plump" at the time of the crash, was happily surprised, at the ordeal's end, to learn that her weight loss totaled thirty pounds. Flores, who was more physically active during their enforced fast, had lost forty pounds. Physicians who examined them after the rescue found them to be in "remarkably good" condition.

  The interesting question that arises from this observation is not how long a person can survive a fast, but what enables that individual to do so. Neither human beings nor animals can survive prolonged abstinence without a readily accessible store of reserve food (our fatty tissue) to tide them over. Many observations have confirmed the fact that when an organism goes with eating, the bodily tissues are sacrificed as a source of energy in reverse order of their importance. Hence, fat is the first to go. Herein lays the importance of fat stores--our "built-in pantries."

In most species roaming the planet, there is an almost fixed and close relationship between the location of the mouth and the brain. This is no coincidence. The brain is very concerned about what the mouth is doing and has a vested interest in what goes into it. By being the repository of the appetite centers, the brain controls how hungry we are and how much we eat. The mouth is the portal of entry for all of this food.

Unlike other bodily organs, such as muscles and the heart, which can generate the power they depend upon from a diversity of nutrient fuels, the brain doesn't have that luxury. It must rely on the burning of glucose (the "sugar" in blood) as its only source of energy. Not only that, but the brain can't store nutrients the way the body can. If blood sugar levels ever fall too low, the brain can go for only a few seconds before it suffers from an "energy brownout," and we lose consciousness. Herein lays the significance of the connection between the brain and the mouth.

**When we get hungry because we haven't eaten for awhile, it's really not an empty stomach but rather our brain sending the message.** **** If no food is forthcoming, we must rely on the energy stored in our "belly," or, more appropriately, the collection of adipose tissue (fat cells) around our middle.

   By making proper food choices, you can learn how to easily tap into the large reservoir of storied fat we all carry around and how to stop food cravings. Being able to easily avail ourselves of the fat stored in our built-in pantries is a concept that has not received proper attention in the ongoing weight gain-weight loss discussion among experts.

Fat is stored in fat cells. When they get big, we get fat. As they shrink, we lose weight. To be successful, we need to know how to control the flow of fat into and out of these temporary fat storage depots. Hence, a step in losing weight is controlling this fat switch.

This is where hormones come into play. One bit of metabolic magic they perform is to help determine whether we are in a fat-storing or a fat-burning mode. Hormones coordinate this delicate balance in conjunction with the brain and fat tissue. The "master" hormone in this setting is call insulin; it plays a key role in turning this fat-storing switch on and off.

It makes sense that fat-storing machinery has become ingrained in our body chemistry, brain, and genetic makeup because of the vital role it plays. Comfort foods are the prime offenders. They have potentially addictive properties because they make us feel good. Consequently, we look forward to the next sweet, savory bite. A pleasure response is generated and is repeatedly reinforced.

   The sweet taste such products deliver can change the way we perceive food, think about food, and crave food, and they can even enhance our appetite and influence insulin secretion. Sweeteners should be avoided, if possible, for your safety and your waistline.

The pivotal role insulin plays in appetite control and weight regulation, how it interacts with fat and sugar (and other foods that are broken down into sugar), and how it can easily be controlled are topics that are covered in "Feed Your Brain, Lose Your Belly."

   Larry McCleary: Feed Your Brain, Lose Your Belly

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Parenting Millennials/Gen Y

Boomers' Children Define Their Life By Meaning

   Generation Y or Millennials appear to be more interested in living lives defined by meaning than by what some would call happiness.

They report being less focused on financial success than they are on making a difference. A 2011 report commissioned by the Career Advisory Board and conducted by Harris Interactive, found that the No. 1 factor that young adults ages 21 to 31 wanted in a successful career was a sense of meaning.

Though their managers, according to the study, continue to think that millennials are primarily motivated by money, nearly three-quarters of the young adults surveyed said that "meaningful work was among the three most important factors defining career success."

Social psychologists define meaning as a cognitive and emotional assessment of the degree to which we feel our lives have purpose, value and impact. People who lead meaningful lives feel connected to others, to work, to a life purpose, and to the world itself.

People who said that doing things for others was important to them reported having more meaning in their lives. Workers who find their jobs meaningful are more engaged and less likely to leave their current positions.

This mind-set affects what types of careers millennials search for. Today's young adults are hoping to go into careers that make an enduring impact on others. Millennials have been forced to reconsider what a successful life constitutes. By focusing on making a positive difference in the lives of others, rather than on more materialistic markers of success, they are setting themselves up for the meaningful life.

**Source:** **The New York Times, December 1, 2013**

   Malcolm Gladwell: Outliers: The Story of Success

   Daniel H. Pink: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

   Marcus Buckingham: StandOut: The Groundbreaking New Strengths Assessment from the Leader of the Strengths Revolution

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Boomer Parents Still Supporting College Graduate Children

Many 2009 college graduates are still searching for work long after they stored their caps and gowns in their boomer parents' attics. Now, as the Class of 2010 prepares to follow them into workforce, the job market continues to deteriorate.

A deteriorating job market for new college graduates caused widespread dissatisfaction among students this year. Schools that succeeded in finding jobs for grads rose to the top of the ranking.

  Anxiety about jobs, and students' dissatisfaction with the help they are getting from school placement offices, are reflected in Bloomberg BusinessWeek's fifth annual ranking of undergraduate business programs. Only 38% of college seniors majoring in business who responded to the BusinessWeek survey in January reported having a job offer in hand. That compares with 46% in 2009 and 56% in 2008. Of the 27,317 student respondents, 58% voiced concern about their job searches and 38% reported they are considering alternatives, such as graduate school or the Peace Corps...or...just chilling out by moving-in with their helicopter boomer parents.

While student satisfaction is down from 2009, the level of discontent varied widely from school to school. Schools that performed well in the ranking pulled out all the stops to help students find work\--enlisting faculty and alumni, using social media, and developing talent pipelines to local businesses.

Schools are using technology to give students an advantage. At Virginia's McIntire School, Tim Fitch, assistant dean of career services, has taken to the Web, using Twitter and Facebook to distribute career tips and help find jobs, and internships for students, particularly in industries where few openings exist. Says Fitch: "We're really trying to be creative in our whole approach."

**Source: BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK, March 15, 2010**

   **Therese Marie Boldt: Yes! You Can Land A Job (Even) In A Crummy Economy**

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Boomers' Kids Graduate But Aren't Being Recruited

The outlook for newly minted college graduates remains grim and many are trying new strategies for landing positions.

Here in Michigan, career-fair recruiting at Michigan State University (MSU) is down 25% this year. The same story is heard on college campuses from coast to coast: Companies have cut back hiring and when they do have jobs, they have plenty of experienced applicants to pick from. College graduates typically need further training and seasoning, so many employers are skipping college career fairs this year or tapping former interns if they need fresh talent.

At the University of Florida in Gainesville, where I got my BSBA degree, recruiting has fallen 40% to 50% from the 2007-08 school year. Education is one of the hard-hit career paths this year, said Wayne Wallace, director of the university's career-resource center. "Several years ago the state of Florida could not find enough teachers," Mr. Wallace said, "now we have school districts that are doing massive layoffs."

Preliminary data from a spring poll of employers by the National Association of Colleges and Employers show college-graduate hiring could rise 3% to 5% this year after falling 22% last year. You've got to have hope!

**Source: The Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2010**

   Therese Marie Boldt: Yes! You Can Land A Job (Even) In A Crummy Economy

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Gen Y/Millennials Shaking Up the Workplace

   Seventy-six million strong, the Gen Y or Millennial Generation is challenging the workplace more powerfully than any generation has in the past. Some progressive business coaches, consultants and corporate leaders are partnering with Gen Y to create the most powerful, productive and creative workforce today.

The Millennial generation, born between 1982 and 2000, have entered the workforce in droves and are challenging assumptions about everything we do--from how we use technology to how work gets done. They're causing a revolution in the workplace, and it's time for managers to learn how to tap the power of this generation that will change the face of business over the next decade.

Their Baby Boomer parents are more involved in their adult kids' lives than ever before--even at work. This poses challenges; accustomed to lots of praise and little failure, Gen Yers often see themselves as worthy of special treatment when they enter the job market. This causes a significant source of friction for other generations. It's human nature for Traditionalists (those born before 1946), Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964), and Gen Xers (born between 1965 and 1981) to expect that the way **they** did things was the best way. Sadly, times change. The old ways get replaced, and we have to move on.

When Gen Yers don't find what they hoped for, such as the anticipation of rapid-fire career advancement or a collaborative environment in the workplace, they jump ship.

**Collaboration & Generational Conflict**

Traditionalists established their reputations as _contributors_ , serving the greater good of the institution and doing whatever needed to be done. Boomers have been _the competitors_ , pushing themselves to stand out from the crowd of 80 million and driving organizations to become bigger and better. Gen Xers are _the controllers_. Believing they could rely solely on themselves, they have drawn on their individual talents and entrepreneurial skills to invent and achieve.

Millennials will be _the great collaborators_. This is a generation weaned on cooperation at home and teamwork in school that did most everything in groups. They see their parents and peers as colleagues, not rivals. Being the ultimate team players, they push for increased collaboration in decision-making. This collaborator drive allows organizations to use Gen Yers' highly developed cooperation skills, particularly when it comes to the transfer of knowledge from older to younger employees.

If you want to make the Millennial work experience more fun, create teams for them. They will bond by blowing off steam together and providing support for one another when the going gets tough. By putting their creative minds together, they can push one another to come up with ingenious solutions. And with their superior team skills, they are likely to be highly efficient.

It should be mentioned that the teaming of Gen Yers can save the boss time. If Millennials are bouncing their ideas off one another, they won't be quite as quick to bounce into the boomer manager's office every time they want to share a new thought.

**Creating a Coachable Workplace**

   Organizations must recognize that Millennials expect coaching and step up to offer it\--and when it comes to recruiting and retaining the best and brightest, companies can build strong bonds by reaching out to the boomer parents of their young employees.

As Gen Yers integrate into companies, they are going to expect ongoing coaching and mentoring:

**Coach on explicit and implicit know-how:** Explicit means specific procedures, such as how to complete a tax filing or install an air-conditioning unit. Implicit means the intangible stuff, like how to sell an idea or make the boss look good. Both are important, but we tend to be more prepared to teach new employees about the explicit things and assume they'll pick up on the other stuff through osmosis.  Don't make that assumption.

**Be a coach, not a nag:** Millennials have been coached all their lives, so this won't be new to them. But they expect to be treated like a darling, not a doofus. Their parents, teachers, and coaches have addressed them like valued team members. They'll anticipate the same treatment from you.

**If you're stuck, call HR:** In the battle to manage mismatched expectations you can't always be expected to know what to do. One Baby Boomer manager of a financial office blushed while admitting he felt paralyzed trying to talk about their dress code with Millennial females. As a Boomer male, the branch manager was in way over his head trying to address the issue, but he hadn't called HR for help. If he had, a female Millennial HR rep who called all the employees in for a short meeting would review dress code and firmly clarify that no part of the uncovered female bosom should be visible because it made customers uncomfortable (or overly happy in some cases).

In today's workplace, we have four generations attempting to work well together. Helping managers better understand how each of their generational associates make meaning is of great importance to the leadership of organizations--since all of the work is done through relationships.  Effective coaching can help to bridge the gaps and oil the skids of communication between generations.  Effective leadership can happen on the dance floor of communication when engaging in respectful conversations.

**Source:**    Lynne C. Lancaster: The M-Factor: How the Millennial Generation Is Rocking the Workplace

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An Adult Children Parenting Guide for Boomers

According to the U.S. census, 55 percent of men and 48 percent of women ages 18 to 24 are now living with their parents, and although many guides will tell you how to handle your child once he or she graduates from diapers, none tells you how to proceed once he graduates from high school and college. Between the new patterns emerging in the lives of young adults, boomer parents find that big children today have even bigger problems that just a few years ago.

Should you lend your son money? Do you pay for his medical insurance when he can't? Do you dare to comment on how your child is conducting his job search, still "temporarily" living at home three years after graduating from college, or raising his or her children? What happens when your gay son and his partner adopt a baby and his partner leaves him? What if your daughter is on her way to becoming obese? Do you pay for your forty-year old daughter's wedding?

There are millions of questions boomer parents have when dealing with their adult children. Until now, there have been few answers. But a new book, "How to raise your adult children" (Hudson Street Press, August 2010), is a comprehensive guide for you worried moms and dads. The professional women authors are two "been there, done that" moms who give advice with an edge on a variety of emotionally and/or financially perilous situations. Topics include: money, college years, family rituals, holidays, weddings and divorce, grand parenting, in-laws and more.

**Here is a typical question the authors answer in the book:**

"We have a small vacation cottage on a lake. We let our son temporarily move into it while he was deciding what he wanted to do with his life. My wife and I figured he would be there for a few months, but it's been three years. We don't know how to get him out. By the way, our son did decide what he wanted to be--a poet. Are we just stuck with the situation?"

Gail Parent: How to Raise Your Adult Children: Because Big Kids Have Even Bigger Problems

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Boomer Children at Risk in Retirement Security

Report finds Gen Y/Millennials are the "lost generation" of retirement planning; women and lower-income employees also at significant risk of not being able to achieve retirement security.

   While there is a lot of attention on Baby Boomers' lack of preparedness because of their proximity to retirement, Liz Davidson, CEO of Financial Finesse, says that more attention should be paid to the savings behaviors of at-risk groups, in particular Boomer children: GenY/Millennials, dubbing this cohort the "lost generation" when it comes to retirement planning. "Although they have more time than the Boomers and Gen Xers, they face far more economic and financial challenges than any other demographic, and they're not recognizing retirement planning as a priority," says Davidson.

She points out that retirement planning is not resonating with this group of employees. According to Financial Finesse's study, 87% of this demographic are saving in their employer-sponsored retirement plan, but this is more likely a result of employers implementing automatic enrollment.

According to an AON Hewitt report, 59% of employers use automatic enrollment and it's likely that Millennials are taking a 'set it and forget it' mentality thinking that because they are automatically enrolled their retirement planning is being taken care of for them. A 2011 Mercer study called attention to this phenomenon, finding that participants who are automatically enrolled in retirement plans defer on average between 3.5-4.4% into their plan versus over 7% for those who proactively elect to contribute.

  Davidson adds that the generation is very reliant on automation in all aspects of their lives, from online bill-pay services to GPS automatically navigating them to their destinations. As a whole, these services work well for them because they solve relatively simple problems where there is not a lot of opportunity for error. The problem is that retirement planning needs to be a proactive process where participants actively engage, running projections annually and making adjustments as needed based on changes in personal and economic circumstances. For a generation focused on getting answers and conducting transactions instantly, a process that requires more thought, patience, and planning is actually counter to their natural decision-making processes.

When you layer on the challenges Gen Y/Millennials are likely to face, with fewer government and corporate benefits, longer life expectancies, expected increases in taxes and inflation, and rapidly increasing health care costs, they are already at a significant disadvantage versus older generations who have more subsidized benefits, relatively low taxes and inflation, and a more traditional "planning" mindset.

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Boomers Concerned About Millennials/Gen Y Employment

  Millennials/Gen Y—people born between 1981 and the early 2000s—are much closer to their boomer parents than previous generations, and they have gained a reputation for being coddled by so-called helicopter parents, say researchers who study Millennials. But when they started joining the workforce in the early 2000s, managers balked at parents getting involved in their kids' workplace struggles or job searches.

   That was then. Now, some firms have begun embracing parental involvement and using it to attract and hold onto talent and boost employee morale. Meanwhile, some high-profile tech companies are turning the traditional "Bring Your Daughter/Son to Work Day" holiday on its head in a bid to boost morale.  LinkedIn Inc. will host its first "Bring In Your Parents Day" in November at its offices in 14 countries, and it plans to roll out how-to guides for businesses hoping to host similar events.

Contrary to what students and society are conditioned to think, obtaining a college degree does not automatically result in a job. In the last year, half of college graduates are either jobless or underemployed in positions that don't fully use their skills and knowledge.

  Authors Tori Randolph Terhune, a gainfully-employed young college graduate herself, and Betsy A. Hays, a college professor, show readers what they can do in college to successfully pave the way for future employment in Land Your Dream Career. The authors provide 11 easy-to-follow strategies for effectively using time on campus to start building a career.

**The challenge:** Nearly 20% of employers use personality tests (http://www.personalassessments.com/) to help with hiring or promotion decisions, according to a 2011 survey of 495 human resource managers by the Society for Human Resource Management, an Alexandria, VA professional group. The tests are designed to measure attitudes, emotional adjustment, interests and interpersonal skills. Some 71% of respondents to the survey say the tests can be useful in predicting job-related behavior or "fit" with a company's culture.

**The solution:** Right now is the perfect time for you to create your professional brand. The world hasn't seen that much of you yet and college is the place where people expect you to "find yourself."

Start by taking one or more self-assessments at: http://www.selfassessmentcenter.com/ and by writing down as many adjectives as you can that either describe the best of you now or describe the best of how you want to be. Then look at the list, and group ideas together. Eliminate words that mean the same thing to you, leaving the strongest word. Then narrow the list down to 3 or 4 words total. You are choosing the core of your professional brand and the core can't be made up of everything. Four is the maximum, and three is the minimum for this exercise.

Once you have your brand words, the words that describe the core of your professional brand, you need to start building that brand by showing the world that you are those words. Ultimately, you want people to repeatedly use those words to describe you; these are the things you want people to say when they are talking about you when you're not in the room. That is when you know you have succeeded in building your brand.

People will believe our brand when our words and deeds match. It's as simple as that.

**Sources:** The Wall Street Journal, September 11, 2013

   Tori Randolph Terhune: Land Your Dream Career: Eleven Steps to Take in College

  **** John Agno: When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women

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How Boomer Parents are Ruining Millennial Job Skills

By Guest Author and Generational expert, Brad Karsh

 Some overbearing parents have extended their smothering into the workplace, and despite their loving intentions – it's backfiring. Big time.

The most egregious offenses include parents tagging along for job interviews or personally arbitrating their children's professional affairs. While these are extreme instances, many well-intentioned Baby Boomer parents may be doing more harm than good when it comes to their child's career. Brad Karsh, a generational expert and co-author of the new book Manager 3.0: A Millennial's Guide to Rewriting the Rules of Management, offers tips on how to avoid excessive parenting that leads to poor performance in the workplace.

**Stop Telling Them** _Exactly_ **What To Do**

   Millennials have always had a teacher, coach, nanny, instructor, and yes...a parent, to look up to for answers.  _Someone_ was always there to tell them exactly what to do whenever they weren't sure. Naturally, they look up to their manager at work and ask exactly what they should do.

In the workplace, Boombers/Xers constantly complain about having to "hold the hands" of millennials as they answer countless questions about even the most simple tasks. Employers are looking for more initiative in millennial employees. As a parent, you can help wean them off of the tendency to ask too many questions. "Ask, 'what do you think?' instead of giving them the answer," says Karsh. Many parents immediately jump in with their advice, without giving the child the option to think on their own. When a child confides in a parent for major life advice, like selecting a new job, it's important for the parent to offer opinions, but not precise answers.

**Let Them Fail** There's a good reason learning from one's mistakes is a well-worn adage. Every parent wants their child to succeed and do well, but parents need to let their children adapt and grow from their mistakes. Avoid the urge to intervene, and let them figure it out on their own. When parents constantly help their children over every bump in the road, they're crippling their child's ability to address issues as adults. Allowing a child to navigate challenging scenarios will teach them to thinking under pressure and find resilience in tough times; both necessary skills in the corporate world.

**Let Them Fight Their Own Battles** Similar to the point above, parents must allow children to fight their own battles. If boomers received a poor grade in school, their parents punished and blamed them, not the teacher. If Xers faced a bully at school, they stood up to him, got beat up, or figured out a solution; mom swooping in to help wasn't an option. Millennials grew up being protected from difficult situations and constructive feedback, so they're entering the workforce quite sheltered. When a millennial vents to Mom or Dad about a bad day at work or a poor performance evaluation, some parents may be tempted to swoop in. Parents must refrain from stepping in, and allow millennials to navigate their own conflicts, disagreements, and sticky situations – at work, and in life.

 **Help Them Recognize That Trying Isn't** _Always_ **Good Enough** Millennials have been raised with the mindset that as long as they try their best, they will succeed. In the workplace, trying isn't always good enough. In fact, success is very largely based on whether or not you actually succeed, meet goals, and produce results - and hardly based on how hard you try. As a parent, you can help your millennial children understand the reality that workplace success is based on results. Try to wean them off of the idea that just trying automatically equates to success.

**Don't Be a Helicopter...Or Worse...A Lawnmower Parent** The familiar term "helicopter parent" has evolved to "lawnmower parent" as parents are on the ground mowing over anything that comes in the way of their child's success. They are writing their child's resumes, reaching out to human resource managers and even showing up on job interviews. It's one thing for a parent to introduce their child to personal networks that may help them land a job, but many parents have gone as far as to negotiate terms of employment. From debating salary figures on their child's behalf to filing complaints with HR when their son or daughter receives a negative performance review, lawnmower parents are detrimental to a young professional's career despite their loving intentions.

**Source:**    Brad Karsh: Manager 3.0: A Millennial's Guide to Rewriting the Rules of Management ****

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Gen Xers are very much like their Boomer Parents

They may have been known as the MTV Generation or sometimes "the slackers," when they first started entering the workforce more than 25 years ago, but members of Generation X (Gen X, those born between 1965 and 1976) are now as affluent, stable and saddled with responsibility as their parents were at the same age.

   A new study from the MetLife Mature Market Institute, The MetLife Study of Generation X: The MTV Generation Moves into Mid-Life, reports that 70% of Gen Xers live with a spouse or partner. They have an average of 2.5 children and 82% own their own homes, though 17% of those report that the value of those homes is less than the debt attached to them. Forty-three percent have remained in the same type of career throughout their working years and just more than 40% have been with the same employer for 10 years or more. 75% are working full or part-time. Most are part of a dual-earner household.

   Now approaching or in middle age, Gen Xers are part of the sandwich generation because many are caring for both their children and their parents. 10% are grandparents. The economy has not been too tough on the group, now aged 36 to 47. Just 19% earn less than $35,000 per year and fully 29% earn more than $100,000. They are arguably better educated than any generation before them-43% graduated from college. Only 50% say they are behind on their retirement savings; they have relatively high ownership rates of 401K plans (66%).

"The Gen Xers have suffered from the 'Marcia, Marcia, Marcia' syndrome since they've been compared with The Brady Bunch daughter, Jan, the frequently unnoticed middle child," said Sandra Timmermann, Ed.D., director of the MetLife Mature Market Institute. "Because they followed the Baby Boomers, it took a while for them to make their mark. That was also due to the fact that they're small in number - just 50 million compared to 77 million boomers - and entered the workforce later than their predecessors."

The moniker Generation X originated in the 1991 novel, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture by Douglas Coupland (St. Martin's Press). At the time, the group was perceived as unfocused 20-somethings, lacking drive and taking an extraordinarily long time to grow up. They were the first to be associated with the term, "emerging adulthood" because they were thought to have put off being fully self-sufficient until their late 20s.

The GenXers grew up in the 1980's and 90's listening to Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana. They spent their childhood and adolescence watching MTV and _The Cosby Show_ and, identified with the characters in the movies, _The Breakfast Club_ and _Ferris Bueller's Day Off_. Fully 46% were latch-key children whose parents both went to work.

**Other aspects of Generation X revealed in the study include the following:**

The majority (63%) of Gen Xers still have both parents living and almost two in 10 regularly provide care for their aging parent(s).

Almost six in 10 Gen Xers report they include exercise in their daily routines.

Approximately 20% have never been married.

70% of Gen Xers are not confident that Social Security will be there to provide benefits when they retire.

Most would like to retire at age 62, but believe working until at least age 67 is inevitable.

Many Gen Xers identify as Baby Boomers.

Two in ten Gen Xers have been married more than once.

On average, Gen Xers own about four financial products, with those in higher income brackets much more likely to own more products. ****

**Methodology**

**The nationally representative survey for** The MetLife Study of Generation X: The MTV Generation Moves into Mid-Life **was conducted by GfK Custom Research North America on behalf of the MetLife Mature Market Institute between November 29, 2012 and December 19, 2012. A total of 1,000 interviews were completed by phone - respondents were all born between the years of 1965 and 1976. Data were weighted by demographics to reflect the total Gen X population.**

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Generation Squeeze

In the current listless economy, every generation has a claim to having been most injured. But the Labor Department's latest jobs snapshot and other recent data reports present a strong case for crowning Baby Boomers as the greatest victims of the recession and its grim aftermath.

These Americans in their 50s and early 60s — those near retirement age who do not yet have access to Medicare and Social Security — have lost the most earnings power of any age group, with their household incomes 10 percent below what they made when the recovery began three years ago, according to Sentier Research, a data analysis company.

   Their retirement savings and home values fell sharply at the worst possible time: just before they needed to cash out. They are supporting both aged parents and unemployed young-adult children, earning them the inauspicious nickname "Generation Squeeze."

The share of older people applying for Social Security early spiked during the recession as people sought whatever income they could find. The penalty they will pay is permanent, as retirees who take benefits at age 62 will receive 30 percent less in each month's check for the rest of their lives than they would if they had waited until full retirement age (66 for those born after 1942).

Those not yet eligible for Social Security are increasingly applying for another, comparable kind of income support that often goes to people who expect never to work again: disability benefits. More than one in eight people in their late 50s is now on some form of federal disability insurance program, according to Mark Duggan, chairman of the department of business economics and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

**Source: The New York Times, February 3, 2013**

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Coach Your Unemployed Grad into the Workforce

By Dr. Bonnie Snyder, Certified College Planning Specialist and author of _The Unemployed College Graduate's Survival Guide: How to Get Your Life Together, Deal with Debt, and Find a Job After College_ and _The New College Reality_ _(F+W Media)_

After thirteen years of K-12 education and four years of college, you probably thought your parenting job was over, and that your child should be off the family payroll. Instead, you may still have some work ahead of you in order to successfully launch your child into the full-time workforce.

To achieve the best results in the worst employment market since the Great Depression, don't just sit on the sidelines hoping for the best. It's time to get actively involved in your child's job search. You'll always be your child's parent, but in terms of dealing with initial entry into the workforce, it might be helpful to take on a new role with your child: the role of "coach."

People don't just need coaching in the world of sports. Many highly successful people today use a "life coach" to push them to achieve important life goals. A good coach helps a client to set goals, develop a plan, and put the plan into action.

Coaching isn't cheerleading. It's also not about bossing your child around. It's about agreeing on a plan and sticking to it. To be most effective, you will want to formalize the process by writing down the job-hunting strategies you decide upon, so that everything is spelled out clearly. This is a powerful way of keeping things organized, positive, and productive.

A central aspect of any coaching relationship is holding the person-being-coached accountable for taking action. Establish regular career chat times. These discussions don't have to be long, but they do have to be focused and purposeful. Each time you review the written plan, check on your child's progress. Stay calm if your child occasionally fails to accomplish certain tasks. This becomes an opportunity to discuss what happened and to discover strategies for overcoming life's inevitable setbacks and obstacles.

It's okay to make necessary adjustments along the way, but you must hold your child accountable and keep moving forward together, taking some action daily. Being a coach is a more adult way of "parenting" your job-hunting child. If you have the means, you can consider hiring a professional career coach but with determination, any committed parent can develop effective coaching skills to assist with a difficult job search.

   Bonnie Kerrigan Snyder: The New College Reality: Make College Work For Your Career

   Bonnie Kerrigan Snyder: The Unemployed College Graduate's Survival Guide: How to Get Your Life Together, Deal with Debt, and Find a Job After College

   Therese Marie Boldt: Yes! You Can Land A Job (Even) In A Crummy Economy

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Retirement

10,000 Boomers Reach Age 65 Everyday

A joint poll by the _Society for Human Resource Management_ (SHRM) and _AARP_ shows that U.S. employers are ramping up skills training and employee benefits aimed at closing skills gaps left when Baby Boomers retire, and at retaining and recruiting older workers.

  In 2011, the oldest of the 77 million Baby Boomers began turning age 65---the traditional retirement age. That is why 72 percent of human resource professionals polled described the loss of talented older workers to be "a problem" or "a potential problem" for their organizations.  
HR managers said that the actions their organizations have taken to prepare for the loss of talented older workers who retire include the following:  
\--- increased training and cross-training (45 percent);  
\--- developed succession planning (38 percent);  
\--- hired retired employees as consultants or temporary workers (30 percent);  
\--- offered flexible work arrangements (27 percent); and  
\--- designed part-time positions to attract older workers (24 percent).

The poll, which focused on strategic workforce planning, also asked human resource professionals to identify the greatest "basic skills" and "applied skills" gaps between workers age 31 and younger compared with workers age 50 and older.  
\--- Basic skills - more than half (51 percent) of human resource managers indicated they find older workers to have stronger writing, grammar, and spelling skills in English;  
\--- Applied skills - more than half (52 percent) of human resource managers said older workers exhibit stronger professionalism/work ethic.

Despite the proactive steps being taken, the SHRM-AARP poll finds that many U.S. organizations are largely unprepared for the brain drain and skills void that talented, retiring older workers will leave. Roughly 71 percent of those polled still have not conducted a strategic workforce planning assessment to analyze the impact of workers 50 and older who will leave their organizations.

   Purchase this retirement life tips ebook at: www.smashwords.com/books/view/106452

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Boomer, Are You Ready to Retire?

By Guest Author Louis Mack

I have spent much of the last ten years dreaming of late-morning cups of coffee at home and off the clock with the morning paper. That day is still long-and coming, but I have been doing my research and developing a plan for retirement that will hopefully allow me to retire sometime in the next decade—and stay that way.

I have heard too many horror stories from folks who have tried to settle into retirement and have fallen prey to planning pitfalls to let that happen to me, or to you.

So, without further ado, here is a checklist to help you plan for your own days of retired bliss, and to help you know when you've arrived there.

**Figure out Your Retirement Income**

Before you can do anything else, you'll need to calculate the amount of income that you'll be bringing in including income from any pensions you might have, social security checks, retirement accounts, savings, etc. If you live with a spouse or a significant other, factor in their projected income as well to calculate a household figure.

**Calculate Adjusted Cost of Living**

Next, figure out how much money you can expect to spend each month. Be careful to include all regular monthly expenditures and allot financial resources for incidentals and monthly "fun" spending. If this amount is greater than your projected retirement income, consider re-drafting your projected expenditures after cutting back a bit on excess or unnecessary spending. Using a retirement calculator can help you crunch the numbers quickly and efficiently.

**Calculate Risk**

Do you have health conditions or other foreseeable circumstances that you will need reserve cash for? What about other members of your household? This might also be a good time to evaluate how long you expect to live, and how long you plan to be living off of your retirement.

**Check On Investments**

Do you have money invested that you could put toward unforeseen circumstances? Assets to draw on? And if so, how much? It's best to know exactly what you are working with, even if it isn't as much as expected and still needs time to grow.

**Get Medical Coverage**

This will become increasingly important in your old age, so be sure you have it. Don't cut costs here.

**Can You Put off Retirement?**

Delaying retirement will allow you to grow your funds (or at least preserve them for later), will shorten the amount of time you'll be living off of your assets, and will increase the size of your monthly social security check. If you can hold off, or you don't quite feel ready to leave the workforce, then retirement may be better postponed.

_Louis Mack is a seasoned retirement planner who has turned to writing to share the knowledge he has collected through many years of experience with a broader audience. When he's not writing about retirement, he's more than likely casting a line somewhere._

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Boomers are Reinventing Retirement

The paradigm of retirement has shifted. The old retirement pattern of a long career of hard work, followed by no work and freedom to pursue leisure activities, is no longer typical or even attractive.

As **Baby Boomers** enter their 60's, they begin to think about how to retire from their professions or occupations. The combination of longer anticipated lifespans, entrenched patterns of consumption, and other factors, such as losses in retirement account funding due to the economy, has led many boomers to consider post retirement as a "next phase" of life (work-wise and otherwise).

Getting ready to look within and re-discover who we are now, and then using that newly found data to fashion what we want to do, to see, to become will be the imprint of our unique "life signature."

Remember when you believed that you could change the world? Where are those dreams and aspirations of youth? You may feel you are now ready for a life makeover but are not sure what the changes should be.

 _"No man is born into the world whose work is not born with him." James Russell Lowell_

The message is: Life is not a dress rehearsal. You can solve your problems using the mind you know you have. You can stop seeking answers outside yourself. You can look within.

" **Shifting Gears To Your Life and Work After Retirement** " by authors Carolee Duckworth and Marie Langworthy helps you transition into a healthy, happy, productive new phase of independent adulthood.

This new book is the jump-start to propel boomers on the brink of retirement to start thinking of their retirement from this (whatever they've always wanted to do, but never dared to dream possible). The 50-60 age group will find this one-stop-shopping source the definitive compendium to chart the direction of their next and last best life phase. Boomers will engage in a process of self-discovery as they travel through a _Five-Step Process_ designed to help them determine who they are, the values that define them, and how they want to spend this last great, rich phase of their life.

   Today, boomers are redefining who they are in such roles as: dual professional marriages, late life parenthood, serial singlehood, parenting parents and/or grandchildren. Yet, boomers want to: look and act young, stay connected and creative, and work at least part-time after retirement.  Their encore career is on the minds of many, if not most, retiring boomers.

**Bottom Line:** Retiring boomers are or plan to be energetic and vital, techno-savvy, entrepreneurial and globally aware. They have more to offer along with the desire and ability to offer it. And they have expectations of living for one or even two additional 15-year cycles beyond what was formerly common.

**Source:**    **Carolee Cameron: Shifting Gears To Your Life & Work After Retirement: A Boomer's Roadmap to Transform Retirement into the Best Time of Your Life, Created by Two Boomers Who Did It**

**Subscribe to Baby Boomer Life Tips sent to your Kindle**

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Boomers Downsizing

The McMansion generation is in downsizing mode; 43% of Americans ages 50-64 plan to move within six years and 50% of those say they plan to move to a smaller house.

Millions of Americans age 50 and older are looking around their spacious homes and are deciding they don't need all that room anymore. The kids are gone, maybe a spouse, too. And they could really use the money from a sale to bulk up their retirement funds.

But downsizing isn't always simple, painless—or even all that beneficial financially. With the real-estate market still fragile, many baby boomers are getting a lot less than they expected for the old homestead. All too often, they have little cash left over after buying a new place, and their monthly expenses don't fall as much as they thought—or may even rise instead.

It's a challenge lots of boomers are going to face. All told, more than 40% of Americans ages 50 to 64 plan to move within the next five years or so, according to the Demand Institute, which is jointly operated by the Conference Board and Nielsen Co.

Dominated by "the many Baby Boomers who delayed retirement during the recession," prospective downsizers exceed would-be "upsizers" by nearly 3 to 1, says Louise Keely, chief research officer at the Demand Institute.

**Source: The Wall Street Journal, December 10, 2012**

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Preparing for Retirement in Today's Economy

By Guest Author John Kulhavi

Baby Boomers are considered a wealthy generation; however, many are not prepared to ensure their wealth lasts. As a generation, boomers have tended to avoid conversations surrounding long-term planning and do not sufficiently account for all of the important financial factors of retirement.

According to a recent retirement study by Merrill Lynch Wealth Management[1], the majority of people aged 50 and older provide financial assistance to family members, yet the vast majority have never budgeted or prepared for providing this support. Factoring financial support and care for loved ones into retirement planning assists in ensuring long-term financial security. Quality planning for life after retirement is essential to the happiness and well-being of both baby boomers and their families.

  In order to continue being as generous with supporting their family as Baby Boomers have been, they should consider planning their finances and retirement plans early. To get started, follow these tips for retirement planning. ****

**1. Ask yourself: "Are you the 'Family Bank'?"** The more financially responsible and secure you are, the more likely you are to be considered the "Family Bank," meaning someone extended family will most likely turn to for financial help. Look into helping family out responsibly by making sure you are not affecting your long-term goals. ****

**2. Prioritize.** If you are the "Family Bank," make sure you balance your family needs with your own retirement financial security. Giving too much without accounting for your future needs may jeopardize your retirement—and ultimately require you to rely on support from your family.

**3. Anticipate and budget.** Anticipate and budget for support you may provide to multiple family members—adult children, parents, siblings, and grandchildren - during your retirement. Also lay out what your personal goals are in retirement.

**4. Identify challenges.** Recognize and plan for the unique challenges that blended family and divorce can have on retirement preparedness and family financial decisions. For example, a blended family may have to account for stepchildren's financial needs. ****

**5. Discuss, plan and coordinate.** Discussing, planning and coordinating with family members around important financial topics prepares everyone for potential challenges, reduces emotional and financial costs and creates greater financial peace of mind for both yourself and your loved ones.

With today's challenging economic climate, more and more baby boomers are extending financial support to their loved ones. While supporting your family is admirable, it is important to ensure it does not become a risk to retirement.

** [1]** **Merrill Lynch Retirement Study: "** Family & Retirement: The Elephant in the Room **" November 2013.**

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Many boomers have a sense of worry as they approach retirement

Financial Finesse, the leading provider of unbiased workplace financial wellness programs, announced the release of its latest research report on Trends in Employee Financial Issues for the third quarter of 2013.

The study found that employees' financial wellness declined in Q3 to a level not seen since Q1 2012. The decline appears to be a result of employees growing more aware of their financial shortcomings in areas outside of day-to-day money management. In fact, employees as a whole slightly improved their financial wellness in the key areas of cash management and debt.

   **Employees age 45 and above are showing more interest in their financial wellness:**

Nearly half (48 percent) of all employees that took a financial wellness assessment in Q3 2013 fell into this age group, up from 44% of all who ran an assessment in Q3 2012.

This group is likely more concerned about their current state of wellness than younger employees due to the fact that they face more immediate challenges in achieving retirement security, sending children to college, and in particular, rising health care costs.

Only 13% of employees age 45 and older have a long-term care insurance policy in place, versus 18% just a year ago, likely due to increased costs of these policies brought on by providers getting out of the market.

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Boomers Rip Up Retirement Plans

Nearly two-thirds of Americans between the ages of 45 and 60 say they plan to delay retirement, according to a report by the Conference Board. That was a steep jump from just two years earlier, when the group found that 42% of respondents expected to put off retirement.

The increase was driven by the financial losses, layoffs and income stagnation sustained during the last few years of recession and recovery, said Gad Levanon, director of macroeconomic research at the organization and a co-author of the report, which is based on a 2012 survey of 15,000 individuals.

The labor force has been getting older for decades for reasons that range from longer life spans and better health to companies' replacement of defined-benefit pensions with higher-risk 401(k) plans.

But the stark increase in workers expecting to stay on the job—now 62%—was a surprise.

"Keeping older Americans in the work force is a good thing," said Kevin Cahill, an economist at the Sloan Center on Aging and Work at Boston College. "Those workers have more financial security, employers have a larger labor pool to draw from, and we have more people to produce goods and services. There may be bumps like the recent contraction in the labor market, but we need to look beyond the short term."

**Source: The Wall Street Journal, February 1, 2013**

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Reverse-Mortgages

  Christopher Mayer, Columbia Business School professor, says "You have $3 trillion in housing wealth among older Americans. You have large institutions exiting the market, and more and more elderly with housing debt coming out of the crisis, as well as other kinds of debt.

A reverse mortgage is a loan made to a homeowner typically age 62 or older with no payments due as long as the borrower occupies the home. The lender aims to profit from fees when making the loan and the sale of the home when the borrower moves or dies. One danger is that the borrower will spend the proceeds too quickly, leaving nothing to live on.

In 2012, the _Consumer Financial Protection Bureau_ warned that retirees taking out assets as a lump sum through a reverse mortgage could find themselves impoverished later. Borrowers without the funds to pay property taxes and insurance could end up losing their homes, the agency said. In some cases, brokers have persuaded reverse-mortgage borrowers to invest the cash they received in dodgy financial products.

To address those issues, the _Federal Housing Administration_ , which insures almost all reverse mortgages, instituted rules limiting the amount of equity borrowers can withdraw upfront. In 2014, the agency also started requiring lenders to verify that borrowers can afford to pay property taxes and insurance. In addition to protecting consumers, the changes are intended to stem projected losses of $2.8 billion on the $88 billion in reverse mortgages the agency insures. Losses occur when homes sell for less than the loan's amount.

"These changes all make this a much more attractive business, and the product is a better product," says Mayer.

Under the new rules, borrowers will have access to only 60 percent of their equity at closing or during the first year of the loan. Even with those limits, homeowners need to be careful that they use the funds appropriately, say Stephanie Moulton, an associate professor at the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at Ohio State University. "It is becoming a different product than it was even two years ago, and it is a safer product, but there are still risks," says Moulton, who is studying reverse-mortgage defaults. "Any time you take an asset and you spend it, you have to have a good plan for how you're going to spend that money."

**Source:** Bloomberg BusinessWeek, January 27, 2014

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Boomer Views of the Golden Years of Retirement

One in four retirees think life in retirement is worse than it was before they retired, according to a poll by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Harvard School of Public Health released today. The poll shows stark differences between what pre-retirees think retirement will be like, and what retirees say is actually the case.

"Those of us over 50 and working are optimistic about our future health and health care, but that optimism is not necessarily shared by those who have already retired," said Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, MBA, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. "Many people who have already retired say their health is worse, and they worry about costs of medical treatment and long-term care. Insights from the poll can help policy-makers and others think about how to meet the needs of aging Americans. There are changes we can make to our health care system, finances, and communities that might help ensure that our retirement years will be as fulfilling as we hope."

The poll focuses on views and experiences related to retirement among people over age 50, including not only people who have retired, but also people who plan to retire ("pre-retirees") and those who do not plan to do so. It was conducted by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Findings show that a large majority of retirees say life in retirement is the same (44%) or better (29%) than it was during the five years before they retired. Many retirees say their stress is less, their relationships with loved ones are better, their diet is improved, and the amount of time they spend doing favorite activities is increased – yet 25 percent of retirees say life is worse.

**Pre-retirees: At what age do you expect to retire (or partly retire, for those who never expect to completely retire)?**

**Retirees: At what age did you partly or completely retire?**  "The poll shows that a significant number of people who are near retirement may be underestimating the challenges of retirement," said Robert Blendon, professor of Health Policy and Political Analysis at the Harvard School of Public Health. "When you compare what people think retirement will be like with what retirees say it actually is like, there are big differences. Pre-retirees may underestimate the degree to which their health and finances may be worse in retirement."

**NPR is reporting on the findings and American's deep-rooted attitudes toward retirement in a six-part series, "Life in Retirement," beginning today on** _Morning Edition_ **and** _All Things Considered._ **Stories in the series are at** **www.NPR.org** **.**

Complete poll results can be found at http://www.rwjf.org/, http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/, and http://www.npr.org/.

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The Dangerous Myth of Reinvention

By Marc Freedman  
 _Harvard Business Review, January 1, 2014_

Gary Maxworthy spent three decades in business until a personal tragedy prompted him to reexamine his priorities. He left the corporate world behind, set off to find his true calling, and in the process discovered both a new identity and the path to accomplishing his most important work fighting hunger.

In this telling, Maxworthy is an archetypal example of the reinvention mythology that seems omnipresent today, especially when it comes to those in the second half of life. Self-help columns are packed with reinvention tips. Financial services ads depict beaming boomers opening B&Bs and vineyards.  **More** magazine, that bastion of midlife uplift for women over 40, even sponsored a series of reinvention conventions.

Retirement itself, we're advised, is being reinvented.

There's no denying the heroic appeal of the reinvention narrative, especially to 50- and 60-somethings confronting uncharted territory and the imperative to forge ahead with a new chapter. And this notion surely beats the counter-narrative that says you're washed up at some arbitrary age, your best work behind you with two choices: hanging on or the abyss.

Yet for all its can-do spirit, I've come to believe the reinvention fantasy — the whole romance with radical transformation unmoored from the past — is both unrealistic and misleading. I'll even go further: I think it is pernicious, the enemy of actual midlife renewal.

For the vast majority of us, reinvention is not practical — or even desirable. On a very basic level, it's too daunting. How many people have, Houdini-like, escaped the past, started from scratch, and forged a whole new identity and life? Sure, it happens — but not often, at least outside of Hollywood.

More troublesome is the underlying assumption that the past — in other words, our accumulated life experience — is baggage to be disregarded and discarded. Isn't there something to be said for racking up decades of know-how and lessons, from failures as well as triumphs? Shouldn't we aspire to build on that wisdom and understanding?

After years studying social innovators in the second half of life — individuals who have done their greatest work after 50 — I'm convinced the most powerful pattern that emerges from their stories can be described as reintegration, not reinvention. These successful late-blooming entrepreneurs weave together accumulated knowledge with creativity, while balancing continuity with change, in crafting a new idea that's almost always deeply rooted in earlier chapters and activities.

That's a clear lesson inherent in the work of the 430 winners and fellows of the Purpose Prize, an annual award for social entrepreneurs and innovators in the second half of life (sponsored by my organization, Encore.org). In 2007, Gary Maxworthy was one of them.

As a young man, Maxworthy heard JFK's call to service and aspired to join the Peace Corps. But practicality intervened: He had a family to support, and put his early dreams on hold to work. And work he did, for 32 years in the for-profit food distribution business. Then his wife died of cancer. That tragedy forced him to reevaluate his life, particularly how he would spend the coming decades. Maxworthy then joined VISTA, the domestic sister organization of the Peace Corps, which in its wisdom placed Maxworthy in the San Francisco Food Bank.

The food bank, he quickly realized, was only set up to distribute canned and processed foods. Meanwhile, his years in the food business had taught him that an enormous amount of fresh food is discarded daily by growers throughout the state, simply because it is blemished. Drawing on his knowledge of how to distribute large quantities of food in ways that preserved freshness, he launched Farm to Family — which distributes nutritious food, that otherwise would have been thrown out, to food banks in California and elsewhere.

Maxworthy might have been able to do some good as an idealistic young Peace Corps volunteer, but after a significant body of midlife work, he was able to accomplish something truly remarkable, something at the intersection of experience and innovation — qualities long regarded as oxymoronic in nature. You could say Maxworthy put two and two together, except in this case common sense logic led to something larger: this year Farm to Family distributed over 100 million pounds of food.

I could recount a hundred other tales with essentially the same pattern, and fundamentally the same lessons — tales of reintegration that are not only more pragmatic than the reinvention fantasies but also, to my mind, far more heartening. They affirm the value of what we've learned from life and remind that the seeds of change — even very big change — are often already within us.

Why, then, has the reinvention myth proved so persistent, even as it serves us poorly? I think the answer lies deep in American character and history. Literary critic R. W. B. Lewis unearthed this cultural vein in his classic 1955 volume, The American Adam. From the earliest days of the republic, Lewis wrote, Americans were enthralled with the ideal that they could fashion a future liberated from the past. One magazine of the 19th century movement known as Young America wrote, for example, in 1839: "Our national birth was the beginning of a new history... which separates us from the past and connects us with the future only."

D.H. Lawrence observed in 1923 that glorifying the new and jettisoning the old amounted to "the true myth of America." In this narrative, Lawrence writes, America "starts old, old, wrinkled and writhing in an old skin. And there is a gradual sloughing of the old skin, towards a new youth."

That perspective has not only influenced our view of youth, but of later life. The Golden Years retirement mythology was built around the dream of a second childhood, graying as playing. Retirement communities were age segregated not only to avoid school taxes, but somewhat paradoxically, to evade the idea of old age itself. If everyone was old, then no one was old.

To me that's the most damaging part of the reinvention mythology: the preoccupation not only with rebirth, but with youth itself, even as it is slipping away. Today 70 is upheld as the new 50, 60 the new 40 or even 30, and 50 practically adolescence.

So as we head into the resolution season, let's think less about reinvention and more about forging ahead in ways that draw on our accumulated knowledge — what former Alvin Ailey star Elizabeth Roxas-Dobrish describes as "all the things that life has put into you."

And as the nation enters the year in which the youngest of the boomers will turn 50, and we take another sizable step into the graying century, let's think about a new myth of America, one that breaks free from the notion of eternal youth, and that learns to appreciate the true value of experience.

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Retirement Readiness

Certified financial planner and author of " _Retirement Readiness_ " Mike Bonacorsi, CFP, says, "I still find that people aren't taking all the information that's out there about retirement and applying it to their own lives. Maybe it's because I'm a boomer myself that I'm paying more attention to the  idea of retirement readiness. I remember when my grandfather left the mills of Lawrence, MA. He retired at sixty-five and lived to sixty-nine.   Retirement for him was short and uneventful. Now, my friends and clients are getting ready to retire and are talking about  a completely new world awaiting them. Before they get there, however, they need to get ready."

Things are different now. Between 1946 and 1964, during the postwar baby boom, more than 78 million Americans made their appearance, and now sixty years later, the world is getting ready for us. Our retirement lifestyle will be much different from that of our parents.

Activity is one of the keys to a longer life, whether you choose to golf, bowl, dance, run or walk. The physical and social benefits of taking part in an active lifestyle are key to living a long and fulfilling life.

  Many of us will find that we still want to or, in some cases, have to continue to be productive. About 80 percent of the boomers retiring say  they would like to continue to work. We may not want to continue in the same job, but this could be the opportunity to try something new.

The disappearance of the traditional pension plan and the concerns of  Social Security have taken away what have been in the past a security blanket to support the retiree.   Retirement will have its challenges.   Our longer life expectancy will create for those living on fixed incomes.

Retirement is a long time, and we probably will not increase our savings substantially even if we continue to work. Overspending of our retirement savings in the early years and poor money management can have a lasting effect on our account values that may be impossible to recoup. That's why it's critical for us to take time to  create a plan for our retirement.

_Source_ _:_     Mike Bonacorsi: Retirement Readiness: A Guide to Creating Your Vision, Knowing Your Position, and Preparing for Your Future

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Boomers' Spending Binge Hinders Retirement

More Americans are reaching their 60s with so much debt they can't afford to retire. The combination of easy credit, low interest rates and a consumption-oriented culture helped fuel a spending binge for Americans until the financial crisis.

Most people used to pay off their debts before retiring. But as wages have barely kept up with rising prices over the past 35 years Americans have pushed debt higher, living beyond their means. Now, people are postponing retirement, cutting living standards or both. All kinds of debt held by this age group have risen, but the big problem is mortgages.

People make their biggest salaries in their 50s and 60s, which should permit them to make their biggest retirement-savings contributions. But partly because of debt payments, many are missing out on the end-of-career push that is supposed to boost retirement savings to where they need to be.

   The housing crash has made things worse. A few years ago, homeowners in their 60s with big mortgages could sell their homes for a profit and buy smaller places or rent. But the drop in housing values means that many homeowners have little equity, and some now owe more than their houses are worth. People have tried to reduce debt since the financial crisis, with limited success.

"Relative to the value of their homes, the amount of indebtedness if anything has gone up because house prices have fallen faster than mortgages have been reduced," says Christopher Herbert, director of research at Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies. Many have little choice but to keep working.

Debt isn't the only issue clouding retirement prospects. People aren't saving enough either. The typical American household nearing retirement with a 401(k) retirement account has less than one-quarter of what it needs in that account to maintain its standard of living in retirement.

Instead of boosting their savings as they approach retirement, a period when people usually make their largest retirement contributions, some older people are stopping contributions in order to service debts. Some who had already retired are going back to work because they can't make the financial numbers add up. ****

**Source: The Wall Street Journal, September 7, 2011**

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Boomers Saving While Retirement Waits

People usually save more as they near retirement, and they're saving extra now that Americans' wealth has been depleted by the financial crisis.

From 2007 to 2010, median U.S. household net worth fell by 38.8 percent to $77,300, the lowest level since 1992, the Fed said in June. The savings rate has averaged 4.3 percent in the 39 months since the recession ended, compared with an average of 2.3 percent in the same period before the recession. Retirees and older workers also will likely cut spending as they anticipate tax hikes and cuts in Medicare and Social Security. Six out of every 10 baby boomers between the ages of 50 and 61 say they may have to defer retirement.

Federal Reserve officials say they are concerned that retirees are making it harder for the central bank to create more jobs for those still working. Older people are more likely to avoid purchases of houses, cars, and other pricey items that the Fed is trying to encourage with record-low interest rates. Their growing numbers are making the Fed's job even harder.

"Spending decisions of the older age cohorts are less likely to be easily stimulated by monetary policy," said William Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, in a speech on Oct. 15. Each day, some 10,000 of the 78 million American boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, turn 65. The share of the population that's made it to that age will swell to 18 percent by 2030 from 13 percent last year, according to the Pew Research Center in Washington.

**Source: Bloomberg BusinessWeek, November 19, 2012**

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Boomers Saving for Retirement

Baby Boomers who can't retire are in almost every organization.

Stung by the recession, many have watched their 401(k)s plummet. Others have plundered their retirement savings to make mortgage payments or help their kids go to college or stay afloat. The result: Thousands are psychologically ready to retire, but financially unprepared and unable.

"With the decline in pensions [and] defined-benefit plans, it's becoming apparent that people have been woefully deficient in putting enough aside to meet their retirement goals," says Kent Allison, partner and national practice leader in the financial education practice at PwC in New York. "The average 401(k) balance is $25,000. Among those over the age of 50, it's only $100,000. It's in no way sufficient to replace what historically was provided by a defined-benefit plan."

Thirty-seven percent of 1,700 working American adults nationwide cited not being able to retire on time as their top concern, according to PwC's _2012 National Financial Wellness Survey_. That's an increase of 19% in just one year. Not surprisingly, more than half (53%) of employees said they plan to retire later than they had previously planned. Sixty percent of those individuals said they were delaying retirement because they hadn't saved enough.

**Source: Human Resource Executive, November 2012**

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Starting Over After Involuntary Retirement or Unemployment

The average period of unemployment is nearly 34 weeks for older Baby Boomer job seekers---more than 13 weeks longer than it was at the start of the recession.

"The chance of a 60-year-old finding an ad on Craigslist that says, 'Wanted: Vice President of Marketing and Sales. Must be 60 to apply' doesn't exist, so you might as well take your skill set and make it into an encore career," says Mary Furlong, a Baby Boomer marketing expert and author of " _Turning Silver into Gold: How to Profit in the New Boomer Marketplace_."

More older workers are trying to make second or third careers work. The unemployment rate for persons aged 55 and over hit 7% in October 2009, continuing the recent trend of high jobless rates for older persons not seen since the late 1940s, according to an analysis of Labor Dept. data by Sara Rix of AARP's Public Policy Institute.

As the economy continues its downward spiral, many able men and women are facing an  involuntary retirement, as well as having difficulty in finding a new job. That is why a number of  job coaching tip options have been created to help job seekers move from where they are now to where they want to be in today's tough times.

Here in Michigan, the epicenter of joblessness in the U.S. with a 15% unemployment rate, Wayne State University's School of Business Administration is sponsoring workshops and a new book, "Yes! You Can Land a Job; (even) in a Crummy Economy" authored by Therese Marie Boldt, a successful recruiter and career coach.

Making a leap into a second or third career may mean taking financial risks. Some people use severance payments as seed money. Others tap credit cards, family savings, even retirement accounts. Dipping into reserves to fund the next stage of your life may not feel great when cash flow is a concern. But it's often necessary.

Ideally, a later-in-life career means turning a passion into a profit making enterprise. It also often involves finding a way to blend different areas of expertise. The best way to determine a life-two "starting over venture" is to work with a personal career coach.

   Therese Marie Boldt: Yes! You Can Land A Job (Even) In A Crummy Economy

Another place to make connections and find resources to help build a new career is your alma mater or local college. All college grads seeking jobs should consider contacting their university's career services office or alumni association for career coaching assistance...or...search the Internet for a personal career coach to put the book's recipe into practice.

For all job seekers and those without the slightest clue on how to seek a new opportunity, you can access a range of job coaching services from personal coaching to  job coaching tips that can be purchased online **.** Now is the time to custom tailor your approach to what's next for you. Consider purchasing the low-cost  21 Career Transition Tips or sign up for a year's subscription to weekly email  Job Seeking Coaching Tips to guide you through your career transition.

For joining a free social network connecting job seekers, recruiters and career coaches ready to share actionable knowledge for those making a career move, go to: www.CareerTips.us.com

**Source: BUSINESSWEEK, November 23, 2009**

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A Retirement Guide

Baby Boomers are becoming aware that they are experiencing a different type of retirement than the previous generation....and....it will take some serious financial reading and planning to  become an economic survivor during retirement years.

**"The Number: a completely different way to think about the rest of your life."** (Free Press) **** is creating a lot of word-of-mouth buzz which may be sending potential Baby Boomer buyers to bookstores.

With the first Baby Boomers passing 65 years, Free Press printed the book advising readers to go beyond the traditional  retirement planning question, "how much is enough?" Author Lee Eisenberg says, "But the question is twofold. How much is enough, and what's it for? It's only after you answer the second question that you can build an intelligent financial plan."

    Lee Eisenberg: The Number : A Completely Different Way to Think About the Rest of Your Life

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Where Will Baby Boomers Live?

  We may be getting older, but boomers are still maintaining their power.

Those born in the first ten years of the boomer generation — between 1945 and 1955 — number 36 million, and they will continue to influence communities and real estate markets across the country, especially as they contemplate life after kids and retirement.

We know that these gray lovers are hooking up online through dating sites like Match.com. The fastest-growing demographic for Match.com is those people over 50. Their ranks have swelled by 18 percent in the 12 months ending in June. Users of "OurTime," Match's site for older people, more than doubled over the past year, to 1 million.

The active lifestyles among boomers appear to continue working later than ever. According to a Careerbuilder.com survey, over 60% of workers over 60 indicated they are postponing retirement. And an analysis of those who were 55 to 65 in 2000 and 65 to 75 in 2010 reveals a strong anti-urban bias, with an over 12% drop in city dwellers.

**So where are these surviving boomers settling as they enter their likely extended golden years?**

Indeed, if boomers do move, notes Sandi Rosenbloom, a noted expert on retirement trends and professor of Planning and Civil Engineering at the University of Arizona, they tend to move to less dense and more affordable regions.

The top cities for aging boomers largely parallel those that appealed to the "young and restless" in an earlier survey. The top ten on our list are all affordable, generally low-density Sun Belt metros: No. 1 Las Vegas, Nev. No. 2 Phoenix, Ariz., No. 3 Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla., No. 4 Orlando, Fla., No. 5 Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif., No. 6 Raleigh, N.C., No. 7 Austin, Texas, No. 8 San Antonio, Texas, No. 9 Jacksonville, Fla., and No. 10 Charlotte, N.C.-S.C.

"The boomers are staying put more than anyone thought," Rosenbloom says. "People of that generation tend to own their own homes and stay there. The idea that they are moving to the city really comes from the wishful thinking school of planning."

The recession has exacerbated this stay-at-home trend. The number of people moving is at its lowest level since the early 1960s. When boomers do decide to move, Rosenbloom notes, they do so largely for prosaic reasons, such as being closer to children or, more important, grandchildren.

An analysis of the Census data reveals that most boomers — as well as those older than them — are staying in the suburbs a lot longer than expected. Many will likely to stay in their homes and old neighborhoods well into their 70s or even 80s, leaving either their home either in an ambulance or to an assisted living facility.

**Sources: Forbes and Bloomberg BusinessWeek, August 2011**

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About the Author

JOHN G. AGNO is a seasoned corporate executive, entrepreneur, author and management consultant who today coaches senior executives and business owners to reach decision-making clarity by exploring unintended consequences of their future actions.

John helps you see things you are missing, affirms whatever progress you have made, tests your perceptions and lets you know how you are doing. His developmental coaching helps you focus your natural abilities in the right direction.

Coach Agno shares his decades of professional coaching and consulting knowledge to create a better life for many through  proprietary self-coaching guides; delivered to your smart phone, tablet, eReader, and computer or via low-cost paperback books.

Agno knows what caused the strain, stress and frustration of his successful clients in order to help them create effective and profitable solutions.

His purpose is to communicate these unique insights in blog postings and self-help books at prices so low that as many people as possible are able to afford and use them in their personal and professional lives. These powerful  self-coaching solutions deliver life-changing possibilities for those willing to allow their perceptions to evolve.

**What is professional coaching and how can it help you?**

Download and listen to this MP3 recording of a recent interview of Coach John Agno for the answer to that question: http://view.vzaar.com/845767/download

To Ask the Coach a question, send an email message to: leadershipcoaching@gmail.com

If your question is too complex and you want to have a 50 minute telephone consultation for $299, send an email message requesting an appointment to: leadershipcoaching@gmail.com

Visit our websites and blogs for more specific information:

www.SoBabyBoomer.com

www.CoachedtoSuccess.com

www.SelfAssessmentCenter.com

www.ExecutiveCoaching.us.com

www.CareerWomenCoaching.com

www.LifeSignature.com

www.CoachingTip.com

www.Ask-Know-Do.com

www.WhenDoingItAllWontDo.com

**Check out our self-coaching ebooks:**

    Boomer Retirement Life Tips

    Ask the Coach

   " When Doing It All Won't Do: A self-coaching guide for career women"

    Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge

    Women and Time

    Cyrus Durey: Frontiersmen of the Adirondacks: Economic Development in Early North America

   **** Can't Get Enough Leadership

  **Kindle Edition:** John Agno: Can't Get Enough Leadership

**ePub/Nook Format:**  http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Cant-Get-Enough-Leadership/John-Agno/e/2940012474339

**Buy all ebook formats at Smashwords:** http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/64141

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