6: You can use this time of your life for a whole NEW BEGINNING
You see it everywhere you look. There's the corporate vice president who becomes a high school basketball coach or the director of marketing who joins the Peace Corps. Today's new retirees are often healthy, energetic, and increasingly viewing retirement not as a withdrawal from the workforce but as a time to set out on a new beginning.
"The idea of trying new things and of reinventing themselves is more the nature of the boomer generation than any previous group of elders that America has encountered," says psychologist and gerontologist Ken Dychtwald, cofounder of the baby boomer consulting firm Age Wave. He describes the current elder population as straight arrows who bloomed and then decayed into retirement. Yet he depicts the boomer model of retirement as a metamorphosis. "I am much more fascinated by what happens to a caterpillar, and just when you think it's just about to start winding down, it gathers itself up and then reconstitutes itself," Dychtwald says. "Twenty-five to 40 million people will look at their 60th or 65th birthday thinking, 'What's next? What's the next chapter in my life?' The new stature of the later years will not be how long have you been retired but what have you made of yourself in this new chapter or new phase."
Among workers between the ages of 60 and 65 who left the workplace and then returned, a MetLife survey found, the No. 1 reason for returning to work was to try something new and different (20 percent). And Merrill Lynch reports that 71 percent of adults intend to keep working in retirement, with most expecting to retire from their current job or career at around age 61 and then launch into an entirely new job or career. More than half (65 percent) of baby boomers who expect to keep working plan to do so in a different field.
Mustangs. Gerry Thompson, 58, of Estacada, Ore., for one, has his next chapter figured out. After more than 20 years of running his own construction company, he knew it was time for a change. "My father had raised horses when I was a young kid, and I always had a passion for it," Thompson says. He decided to invest in one good horse--a Kiger mustang. It turned out to be the greatest horse that Thompson had ever ridden. Now, a year and a half into his retirement, Thompson has acquired 30 mustangs that he breeds and runs in endurance races. "I'm getting up earlier now than I did when I was working," says Thompson, who can't seem to sleep late because he has so many ideas that he wants to try with the horses. Thompson makes money from the horses, at least enough to take care of his ranch payment, his mustangs, and some fun, but that's not his primary motivation. "Horses and maybe writing the western novel are something I've always wanted to do," he says.
Indeed, it's not always about the money. According to MetLife, 72 percent of people between the ages of 66 and 70 say that staying active and engaged is their primary reason for working. Only 37 percent of workers in that age group cited financial incentives. But among younger workers between the ages of 55 and 65, money was the dominant reason for working. "Motives change over time and clearly shift for people in their 60s," says David DeLong, a coauthor of the study and research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AgeLab. "They shift from one of earning income to accomplishing meaningful outcomes, staying connected with colleagues they like, and maintaining a social network."
A new beginning can be found almost anywhere. Don Davidson, 78, turned a hobby into his second career. Davidson, a former executive with Ladies' Home Journal and Woman's Day, retired to launch a custom woodworking business, Don Q. Davidson & Sons Fine Woodworking, out of his home in Wilton, Conn. "I wanted to see if I could commercialize what had been this lifelong hobby," Davidson says. Davidson's sons, 32 and 34, both work full time for the word-of-mouth business, constructing and installing cabinets and restoring and refinishing furniture. Davidson is just starting work on an ornate maple fireplace mantel and beginning drawings of a mahogany computer center that he will antique. While his furniture often appears older than it is, Davidson himself shows few signs of wear and tear. His 20-year second career has kept him active and engaged. He particularly enjoys creating something he is proud of and presenting it to a client. "I've found this to be a wonderful way," Davidson says, "to go from a busy corporate life into a busy private endeavor."
This story appears in the June 12, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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