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Retirement Planning: 5 Reasons to Have a Stop Working Date

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There’s an excellent read over on the Considerable blog titled, “How long will you be able to work?” Regardless of your current age, one of the questions that individuals should ask themselves is, “When would I like to stop working?” Picking a possible retirement date – and I do mean possible – allows individuals to have a starting point in their retirement planning. And that planning date is important for several reasons:

  1. Think about a Plan B just in case you need to retire before the date you’ve chosen. Let’s say you’ve decided to stop working at age 70. But something happens when you’re 65 and you might need to retire sooner. I hear stories of individuals retiring early to care for their health or the health of a family member. What does a Plan B look like? And can you kick it into gear should you need it?
  2. Consider having two dates: a part-time date and a full-time one. Instead of going from fully employed to fully retired, does it make sense to think about a phased strategy? You could transition to part-time at 65 and then fully retire at 70. Of course, I’m just throwing out ages here. You have to decide what makes sense for you. This could also make a lot of sense when trying to coordinate your retirement and your spouse or partner.
  3. Use a retirement date to map out the transition to an encore career. I know several people in their 40s who work insane hours and travel a lot. They love their lifestyle right now but at some point, want to find a different pace of work. Selecting a retirement date (or dates as in #2) could help with planning an encore or second career. Especially if that next career involves getting some additional education or a certification.  
  4. Reflect on how your retirement date impacts savings and spending. It goes without saying – but I’ll say it anyway, our decision to slow down or stop working impacts our finances. When retirement planning, we do have to think about how the bills will get paid and we can maintain our lifestyle. In fact, we might want to consider making some lifestyle decisions well in advance, so we can get used to them.
  5. Get yourself mentally ready for a change. I’ve always been a person who needs a full-plate of activity. I am getting myself ready for retirement to be a major change. It’s one of the reasons we started this blog. As you think about an approaching retirement date, ask yourself if you’re ready. Do you need to think about starting a hobby? I’m not joking. I do believe many people retire without a plan and get bored.

It’s very easy to simply pick the government’s age for collecting Social Security as your retirement date. But if I had a dollar for every person who turned 62 or 65 and said, “I’m not ready yet.” I would be retired right now. LOL! No one is holding you to that date. It’s simply a placeholder for planning.

And retirement planning is important.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby somewhere in North Carolina

Encore Careers – Part Three: Using Volunteerism to Find Your Dream Job

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In this series about encore careers, we’ve talked about why we should consider an encore career as part of our unretirement and how to figure out the right encore career. So, we have a game plan. Today, we’ll start talking about the task of finding it.

I was going to say finding your encore career is the hard part, but I’m not sure it is. I can’t help but wonder if figuring out what we want to do later in life is the hardest part. My guess is for the majority of us, we identify with our career. Changing to a different career or even going from full-time to part-time in the same job could be hard. 

It could be said that finding our dream encore career is challenging because job hunting in general is hard. And that’s true. But there are a few things we can do to keep our job search skills fresh.

Don’t stop thinking about networking and job search. Until you are 100 percent, completely and absolutely convinced you will never need to look for a job again, you should always have job search in the back of your mind. You should continuously build a network. As a human resources professional, I am amazed at the people (of all ages) who  find themselves looking for a new job, struggle finding something because they don’t have a network, swear that they’re never going fall into bad networking habits again, and as soon as they land a new position…they stop networking. 

Take some classes. Especially around the use of technology. AARP is regularly offering job-search webinars for older workers. And they’re recorded so you don’t have to listen to them live if you have a scheduling conflict. If you’ve never tuned into one of these sessions, it will only take you a few moments to realize that being a lifelong learner and keeping your skills current is going to be key in getting an encore opportunity. 

Get a retirement career coach. When we first started this blog, I interviewed Hannah Morgan (aka Career Sherpa) about getting a retirement career coach. This is a great opportunity to work with someone on developing an encore career that you will find rewarding. If you don’t have the budget for a coach right now, start reading some career related blogs that might offer some preliminary insights. 

Which leads me to my last point and the subject of today’s post – volunteerism. One of the best ways to learn about different careers, gain new skills, and show off the skills you currently have is volunteering. Lots of organizations want volunteers and they rely on them to help their operation. But, even with volunteerism, you have to be patient. You can’t just show up and expect the entire organization to give you whatever you ask for. If your strategy is to get involved with a non-profit in the hopes that you can get a job there, you have to think short- and long- term. 

Start getting to know non-profits in your area. Find out what they do, how they get their funding, who’s on their board, etc. etc. You want to work with a non-profit that aligns with your values, has solid funding, and a respectable, ethical board of directors. 

Apply for a volunteer role. Consider this to be the best job interview you could ever have. See how the non-profit treats volunteers. The volunteer experience will give you some sense of what working there will be like. See how they manage the organization. 

Talk with management about goals. Once you know that you’re happy with the organization and the people associated with it, then consider setting up a time to talk about transitioning into an employee role. You don’t have to rush this conversation. 

Becoming a volunteer is great for organizations and good for you. It can also be a source for your encore career. But it takes time to find the right non-profit and build the relationships. The good news is that you know what to do. You’ve been networking, interviewing, and doing job research your entire career. Use those skills to create the encore career of your dreams. 

Encore Careers: 4 Ways to Find a Thriving One

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In a recent AARP Bulletin, they published a list of the “99 Ways to Add Healthy Years to Your Life”. Number 83 caught my attention. It was “Don’t cling to a dying profession.” 

We’ve been talking about encore careers here at Unretirement Project. One of the things to consider as you’re thinking about an encore career is what the jobs of the future might look like. Here are a few recent articles that you might find interesting.

The fastest-growing job in the US is expected to grow 105% by 2026—here are the other 19.

The 20 Fastest Growing Jobs in America—And How Much They Pay.

Bureau of Labor Statistics: Fastest Growing Occupations

These types of lists can be used to identify a potential encore career. It’s possible that you have many of the transferrable skills that would make a shift logical and easy. Or you might see something completely different that looks interesting and exciting, so you can go to school and get the necessary skills. Either way, these lists serve a purpose. That being said, there are bigger messages here. 

  1. We should be regularly evaluating our career possibilities. Whether you’re 30, 40, 50, or older.The last thing you want to hear is that your long-term career potential is dwindling. These lists might offer some insight about your current career that would be helpful. And of course, your current career could have an impact on the decisions you make about an encore career.
  2. Career choices involve decisions about knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs).It’s important to keep the KSAs for your current job relevant. It’s also important to think about the KSAs you’ll need in the future. I cannot emphasize enough the need to embrace lifelong learning. Not only is it good for your mental health, but it’s good for your career and encore career. 
  3. Figure out how you like to learn and what you need to learn.The conversation about KSAs and being a lifelong learner is really about self-learning. As we start to think about our unretirement and retirement, we need to think about how we will continue to learn. There won’t be any more corporate training programs. Or vendor sponsored webinars. Our learning will come in different forms. But it will start with us personally. 
  4. Today’s hot jobs might be lukewarm tomorrow. While lists of growing occupations can be helpful, we must be careful when it comes to taking these lists as the only truth. If today’s fast-paced, technology-driven business world has taught me anything, it’s that today’s bright shiny concept could be a dud tomorrow. As you’re looking at your future career, make sure you’re not trading one dying career for another.

There are many factors that go into the encore career decision including what we like, what we’re capable of doing, how much money the job pays, etc. One important factor is the future for that role. Will it be around in a decade? Researching industries and occupations can help us find an encore career that’s growing and thriving. 

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby while exploring the streets of Disneyland and San Francisco, CA

Your 5 Day Plan to Using Twitter in Unretirement

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This is the third installment in our series about using social channels to help with marketing yourself when working as an independent contractor during retirement. First, we discussed the benefits of using Facebook to expand your audience. Then we talked about LinkedIn and how you don’t have to be looking for a new job to benefit from sharing and writing articles there.

Today, I want to look into Twitter and see how it can help you in unretirement.

What is Twitter?

Twitter launched in March of 2006 so, by now, many of us probably have an account. Twitter describes itself as an online news and social networking site. It has also been called a microblogging site. Did you know: 

  • Over 330 million monthly active users worldwide share “Tweets” of 280 characters or less (that’s double the number they started with).
  • The average Twitter user has 707 followers.
  • 66% of brands with 100 or more employees have a Twitter account.

500 million Tweets are sent each day – that’s 5,787 every second! In addition, Twitter is the number one platform for government leaders. Even in unretirement, you should really appreciate that kind of activity.

How do you create a Twitter account?

If you don’t have one, perhaps the most difficult part of creating a Twitter account is getting a unique name. That’s because there can only be one of us in all of Twitter. So, if your name is John Smith, chances are pretty good that someone has already claimed that.

If the name you select is already taken, Twitter will immediately prompt you to select another. You may have to do this a few times so don’t get frustrated. Keep in mind that your ultimate goal here is to grow your followers. So, if you have to get creative with your Twitter name, think of something that is memorable and makes people want to learn more about you. For example, Unretirement Project wasn’t available when we created a Twitter account for this blog, so we chose @UnretirementPro instead. 

Once you have your name, you will be asked for a brief bio and link to your website (if you don’t have a blog, use your LinkedIn profile). Again, share information that people will want to engage with. You want the Twitterverse to follow you and click on the link you share.

Finally, you will want to upload an avatar photo so others will recognize you when you show up in their Twitter stream. If this is to promote your side hustle, you can use your business logo. Just don’t skip this step! There are many users who just ignore connection requests from people who don’t have a profile picture. 

There are a couple of good resources that can guide you in creating an impressive Twitter profile:

5 Simple Tips for a More Impressive Twitter Profile

How to Make a Perfect Twitter Profile: A Complete Guide

Your 5-day Plan Being a Twitter Pro

Now that you have an account, let’s talk about the 5-day plan to learning more about Twitter.

DAY 1 – Hashtags. These days, most social sites use hashtags. But Twitter is where it all began. Simply put the # symbol in front of key words or phrases (with no spaces) to create a searchable hashtag in a Tweet. A hashtag serves two big purposes – 1) if someone is interested in a topic, they click on a hashtag and they might find you and your Tweets and 2) if they like your Tweet and profile, they may start following you. Do a search for #retirement or #retirementplanning and see what I mean.

DAY 2 – Write a Post. In the bottom right of your phone is a circle with a quill pen. Or, on your browser, a button can be found on the top that says “Tweet”. Clicking on it will launch the composition screen asking, “What’s happening?”. Just start typing your message here and share whatever you like. You can attach a link to great content (like this article). And don’t forget to add your hashtags. Along the bottom of this screen will be buttons to add photos, videos, GIFs, or polls. 

DAY 3 – Start Connecting. Like most social sites, Twitter is happy to make recommendations on who to follow. Just click on the magnifying glass at the bottom of your phone or check out the section titled Who to Follow in the top-right of your browser. Just look for the Follow button next to their user name. And be sure to click on a hashtag you like and follow a few people who share your interests. You might even want to start with this great account – @UnretirementPro

DAY 4 – Get to Know Your Audience. Again, like other social sites, Twitter wants you to know about your audience and what they are saying to and about you. At the bottom of the home page on your phone is a bell so click on that. In your browser dashboard you can see the bell next to “Notifications” in the upper left screen. This will show new followers, post comments, and mentions about you. From here, it’s very easy to follow back those people who interact with you.

DAY 5 – Engage, Engage, Engage. As you scroll through the Tweets on your home page, you will probably find something interesting. At the bottom of each Tweet will be icons. If you like the Tweet, click on the Heart to let the person and their followers know. If you want to comment on the Tweet, click the comment balloon icon to launch the familiar composition screen. The two arrows icon is used to Retweet – that is, share someone else’s Tweet with your followers. You will find that, the more you engage, the more you grow your follower audience.

BONUS! Twitter clients. The Twitter site has improved a lot over the years, but you might be saying to yourself, “There’s got to be an easier way to view and engage with information.” And there is. Test drive a Twitter client such as HootSuite or Tweetdeck to help you organize information. 

Twitter remains a very popular social channel – one that just can’t be ignored. The large number of active users can help you quickly grow an audience. And be sure to share all of your other social accounts with your Twitter followers. They just might want to connect with you everywhere!

Encore Careers – Part Two: Figuring Out What to Pursue

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In the first post in this series about encore careers, we talked about what an encore career is and why you might want to start thinking about one as part of your unretirement journey. As a quick refresher, encore careers are jobs or careers that happen later in life. They often fulfill different needs than the jobs we have early in our career. So, an encore career might be something that aligns with a passion you’ve had over the years or possibly just something to get out of the house and make a few bucks. 

Once you decide that you want to pursue an encore career, the next logical step in the process is to figure out what you want to do. Remember when you were in high school and everyone started asking, “What are you going to do when you graduate?” Well, think of this similarly but the question becomes, “What are you going to do when you retire?”

I would suggest that the first step toward figuring out your encore career is to take inventory of your knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs). Even if you change jobs and industries in your encore career, you’re going to want to choose something that you’re good at. So, think about the skills you’ve collected. 

It might even make some sense to prepare an “unretirement” resume. Instead of saying to yourself, “I don’t need to maintain a resume anymore. I’m going to retire in a few years.” Maybe it’s even more important now. Use your resume as a way to discover and showcase your encore career skills. In addition, take a moment to ask yourself, “Of all my skills, which ones have a mastered as a result of being older.” There a reason you should do this that will become more apparent as you read on.

Now, some career coaches might tell you that ideal encore careers for older people are in the areas of people management and coaching. Let me dish out some tough love here. Your age, your desire to become a coach, and your skills in communication, empathy, and listening are three different things. I’m not saying that older people can’t become coaches – they certainly can. And I’m not saying that older people don’t have the skills to become coaches – they might. But making the assumption that because you’re 50 or 60 automatically makes you a people person…sorry, no. 

Your encore career should be something that you’re interested in, that fulfills a need for you, and that you’re good at. You might say, “I’ve spent my entire career coaching employees and the last thing I want to do in my retirement is coach employees. I want to take care of animals because they don’t talk back.” And to that I say, good for you. 

Another option might be simply tweaking the job you have right now. Maybe you’d like to do the same thing you’re doing right now just less. Or maybe your current job has two primary functions and you’d like to focus on one of them. It makes me think of a marketing manager who is responsible for marketing, public relations, and social media. Maybe for an encore career they want to focus solely on social media.  

After you conduct your skills assessment, hopefully, this will point you in a direction. It might shed some light on skills you want to acquire before you retire. This allows you to put a plan in place to gain experience and knowledge over time. You can do things at your pace and within your budget. It also gives you time to think about how you’re going to transition into your encore career. Will you be able to just change jobs? Or is there an interim job that will make the transition easier? 

There’s one other thing to consider. As you think about your work experience and skills, along with where you want to go with an encore career, consider how you would answer the question, “Why do you want to take a job where you’re overqualified?” While companies might not come right out and say it, you know that there will be recruiters and hiring managers thinking this. As you’re planning your encore career, plan an explanation for your encore career.  This will demonstrate to prospective employers (including your current one) that you’re focused, planful, and detail-oriented. 

Encore careers can be a wonderful, fulfilling part of your unretirement journey. Start thinking about it early and put a plan in place to get there. 

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby while exploring the island of Maui, HI

Encore Careers – Part One: What They Are and Why You Might Want One

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One of the most common questions people ask themselves when they’re thinking about retirement is “What am I going to do?” We spend the majority of our lives identifying with a job, whether that’s one that happens in Corporate America or at home (as in being a stay at home parent). When those things stop, we have to figure out how to answer the question “So, what do you do?” Even when we hear people say, “I’m retired.” it seems like the next question is “Well, what did you do?”

Figuring out how to answer the question about what you do isn’t simply to satisfy others. It’s also for ourselves. Every time someone asks, “What do you do?” does it cause you to pause? I know lots of people who are saying they’re not ready to retire. They say that they want to still contribute but maybe not 40+ hours a week. 

One option available to us as we’re thinking about our retirement (and unretirement) is an encore career. It’s defined as a job or career that happens later in life to provide both purpose and money. According to Encore.org, some of the most promising fields for encore careers are in the non-profit sector, management services, and services for aging persons. The older generation is also currently the largest freelancing group. 

Encore careers can be related to your existing career or they can be something completely different. Either way, if you’re considering an encore career, you will want to plan a transition to the new role. Keith’s career path is a perfect example. While it happened when he was younger, it demonstrates how you can transition from the role you have today to a new (and different role). Here’s a summary of his experience:

  1. College degree in Wildlife Biology
  2. Animal care specialist for a zoo
  3. Duckmaster for a hotel chain (position was 50% animal care and 50% public relations)
  4. Marketing coordinator for hotel chain
  5. Marketing manager for safety products company
  6. Marketing manager for HR company
  7. And now he works with me.

You can see how he transitioned from working with animals to working in marketing. You can also see how he accepted positions of greater responsibility along the way. And you can see how he transitioned to HR-related companies. Now this took several years. Which is why if you’re considering an encore career, you don’t want to wait until you’re a couple of days years from retirement. 

The second part of this transition to think about is salary and benefits. Again, I mentioned that Keith’s path happened when he was younger, so he was able to earn more money and benefits. But as we’re transitioning to an encore career, we might have to adjust our expectations. It’s possible the encore career we’re considering doesn’t pay as much as we made during our peak earning years. It might not be full-time, so we won’t get benefits like health insurance. But our encore careers might serve a different purpose. 

Encore careers might help us keep our minds fresh. They could allow us to work for an organization we’re passionate about. Oh, and yeah, maybe we can make a few dollars too. Before you start looking, ask yourself, “Do I want an encore career? Why or why not?” You can also check out Encore.org or the Encore.org LinkedIn group for some additional information. 

We all know that our work lives can bring tremendous satisfaction or incredible heartburn (or even just plain boredom). It’s important that we have the right job with the right company. The same holds true when we’re considering an encore career. You didn’t make the decision about where you’re working right now in a silo. Don’t make that mistake with this one. In part two of this series, we’ll talk about how to find your encore career. 

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby while exploring the island of Maui, HI

3 Ways You May Contribute to Your Own Ageism

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I mentioned a few weeks ago that I listened to a LinkedIn Learning program on encore careers. One of the topics discussed during the program was ageism. It totally makes sense. Age does play a factor into our career decisions. 

I’m starting to see an interesting trend where the discussion about ageism is concerned. And that’s ageism might not be totally “somebody else’s fault”. Yes, I will admit that ageism does exist. It’s sad to say but it’s true. However, are all instances of ageism somebody else’s fault or is it possible that we are creating our own self-fulfilling prophecy?

Shortly after completing the LinkedIn Learning program, I ran across an article from a colleague of mine on the site Fistful of Talent titled, “Ageism is Real – And It’s Your Fault”. The article talks about the things that we do as individuals that contribute to the “old person” perception. You know, like “I don’t have time for that technology stuff.” Or “Oh, those Millennials….” My takeaway from this article was regardless of your physical age, if you act like the stereotype then people will assume you are one. 

Then, Next Avenue published an interview titled, “Are Concerns About Age Discrimination by Employers Overblown?”where the conversation focused around whether ageism is real. The idea being with an employment market where there are more openings than candidates, at some point, organizations have to realize that older workers are valuable. Again, my takeaway from the article was it’s important to keep current.

Seeing these conversations so close in time took me back to the discussion in the LinkedIn Learning program about ageism. As we age, there are three things about aging we need to consider to ensure we’re not contributing to our own ageism. 

Believing your own negative self-talk. Self-talk is those messages we tell ourselves. Think of them as those little voices inside our head. Sometimes we say them out loud, but often not. Bottom-line: Our self-talk is incredibly powerful. Especially when we say things like, “I can’t do this because I’m old.” Granted there might be things that we can’t do anymore, but that’s not the case for everything. 

And let me add one more thought. There’s a big difference in deciding you don’t want to do something because you’re older and you can’t do it. Keith and I have said to ourselves plenty of times, “been there, done that, and we don’t need to do it anymore”. 

Stopping your own learning. This is a big one. You don’t have to earn a college degree to learn. Just because you turn 40, 50, 60, or 70 doesn’t mean you can’t take a class, listen to a podcast, watch a TED Talk, or read a book. If there’s something you want to learn, do it. Especially, if you’re thinking about switching careers as you get older. 

If you haven’t checked it out, sites like Coursera and edX offer massive open online courses (MOOCs). Most of them are free and have a wide variety of topics. If you have a budget, MasterClass offers programs from some very famous people. Whatever you decide is fine. Just keep learning.

Not networking across generations. I believe this last one is harder than it looks. If you have younger family members, then you might be able to chat with them. But if you don’t (or you would prefer not to network with family), think about how you can gain exposure to different points of view. Regardless of who you speak with, it’s important to interact with a diverse group of people. 

Maybe think about mentoring as a way to share your expertise and learn at the same time. There are lots of organizations that are regularly looking for mentors. It’s also possible that your current employer might have a mentoring program that you can sign up for. 

We have some decisions to make as we age. And one of the biggest is deciding how we will accept aging. If we want others to see us as contributors, then we need to act like it. Please notice I didn’t say we need to act “young”. People need to accept our age for what it is. But that doesn’t mean we’re not able to bring value. We need to send the message and demonstrate that we can.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby while exploring the streets of Las Vegas, NV