Careers Archives

If Athletes Can Unretire, So Can You

April 12, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby 1 Comment

Since we’ve started this blog, I’ve become very aware of the word “unretirement”.

Do you know where the word unretirement (or unretire) shows up a lot? In sports. Professional athletes decide to retire and then unretire. Some famous sports figures who’ve unretired include Michael Jordan, Brett Favre, Roger Clemens, Sugar Ray Leonard, and Bjorn Borg. It made me realize that if athletes can unretire, then so can we.

There’s no rule that says once we retire, we have to stay retired. If you define your current status as retired and want to do more, do it. If in a few years, you decide that you’ve had enough and want to do something else or just retire, that’s fine too.

I believe that’s the beauty of unretirement.

I will say though, that this approach takes a little thought and planning. Like athletes, we have to decide if we’re both physically and mentally able to perform a task that may be required in unretirement. Athletes cannot play a sport forever. They know it. But they might be able to transition into a role that allows them to use their existing knowledge and skills in a new way. Like the athlete that becomes a coach or a broadcaster. Troy Aikman and Cris Collingsworth are examples. A big potential unretiree for 2017-2018 is former Dallas star quarterback (now CBS sportscaster) Tony Romo.

We also have to be honest with ourselves about how much we want to do something. Just because we’ve done a job for years doesn’t mean we have to keep doing it in our unretirement. It’s okay to try something new. If former Seattle Seahawks star running back Marshawn Lynch can unretire from football and make chocolate bars, then you can totally make a change too.

Unretirement isn’t a new concept. Maybe using the word “unretire” is. I think what’s new is giving ourselves permission to officially unretire and pursue something we really enjoy.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby while wandering the streets of Reykjavik, Iceland

6 Reasons You Should Embrace #Unretirement

April 5, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby 4 Comments

Over on my other blog, HR Bartender, I recently wrote about the reasons that human resources professionals should embrace the concept of unretirement. But it occurred to me as I was writing the post that individuals looking at their future might not be totally convinced that the concept of unretirement is right for them.

So, I came up with a list of reasons that someone might use to decide if they should think about unretirement as an option.

You like working. According to Gallup, 2 out of 3 employees are disengaged. We spend so much time focused on the disengaged statistic that we forget 1 out of 3 ARE engaged. There are plenty of people in this world that their passion is their work. There’s nothing wrong with that. Maybe at some point, those engaged employees will simply want to work less. And organizations will be thrilled to retain their expertise.

You want to finally do your dream job. While I understand that I just finished talking about employees who are happy with their jobs, let’s face it, some of us like our professions and we’re good at them, but it’s not our dream job. Unretirement allows us to get the education we want to pursue our encore career.

You want to make a little extra money. Regardless of how much money you have and what’s going on with Social Security and Medicare, we have to think about living on a budget. Which means that having the ability to make a little extra money might be attractive. Maybe it’s for a trip you’ve always wanted to take. Or a little splurge – like shoes and handbags.

You’re ready to give back. When we’re busy climbing the corporate ladder and raising children, volunteering can move lower on the priority list. Now it’s time. It could be mentoring someone in your industry or volunteering to be an usher at your local theatre. The point is, that carving out time to give back to the community that supported you is important.

You want to learn something new. If you aren’t looking for an encore career, you might want to take up a new hobby. It might be to play an instrument or learn a language or take up crocheting. Maybe there’s something that’s been on your ‘to-do’ list for a long time and you want to make it happen.

You want to pass along your knowledge and skills. This kinda goes along with #4 about giving back. Whether that’s coaching someone inside the company you work for or by sharing your experiences writing a blog/book, unretirement allows you to do those things.

Unretirement says that there’s no pre-determined age restrictions on living life. Of course, there are government retirement-related programs and you’ll want to understand how those work. That doesn’t mean that life stops. However, unretirement takes planning both in terms of figuring out what you want the future to look like and designing a road map to get there.

Image captured by Keith Lauby on the streets of San Francisco, CA

Why Unretirement and Why It’s Important

February 1, 2017 by Keith Lauby 8 Comments

We remember what retirement used to look like. One day, you just stop working and start retiring – living off your company pension with a little help from Social Security. That’s what our parents did. Today, for the most part, all of that has changed.

To help us understand, we might want to look at what retirement really is. The Cambridge Dictionary defines retirement as “the point at which someone stops working”. If we accept that as the true definition of retirement, we can then understand the need for something new. The need for unretirement.

Unretirement is the move from working full-time to working . . . less. But it’s more than that. It’s working, but doing something we want to do. And getting paid for it. Most of all, unretirement is earning the opportunity to live on our own terms.

Best of all? It’s exactly what the labor market wants from us.

Right now, ten thousand people reach retirement age every day according to a recent Pew Research study. The National Institute on Aging reports that, on average, only 33 percent of retirees continue working full-time. The result is a growing labor shortage that is creating a real need for our skills.

In most cases, businesses don’t want to hire more and more full-time employees. But they are looking for skilled workers who want to help out and take on some of the work. This is called the gig economy, and finance company Intuit predicts that, by 2020, 40 percent of U.S. workers will fall into this category. In fact, entire enterprises such as Lyft and Airbnb have risen out of gig employment.

That’s where unretirement comes in. It’s identifying that encore career and understanding the best way for it to fit into our retirement life. Wikipedia defines encore career as “work in the second half of life that combines continued income, greater personal meaning, and social impact.”

Unretirement is also focusing on our health and wellness so we can get the most out of the fun things we want to do in retirement. We may have to upgrade a skill or two along the way. But no successful unretirement comes without a cost.

It’s time for a fresh perspective about life after work. It’s time for unretirement.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby while traveling in Maui, HI