New Platinum Book - "Don't Retire, Rewire!"

I knew I would probably recommend this book from the moment I read the title. But the subtitle put me over the top - "5 Steps to Fulfilling Work
  • That Fuels Your Passion,

  • Suits Your Personality,

  • and Fills Your Pocket"
In setting forth these three attributes, the authors, Jeri Sedlar and Rick Miners, apply their 25 years of experience in personal and professional transition counseling to identify the key ingredients of a successful "second half of life."

I have written pretty extensively about the importance of pursuing our passions at all stages of life, and we have dabbled with personality issues, particularly through our recommendations of the book Authentic Happiness and the associated website, www.authentichappiness.org, where you can find a number of free personality tests.

And although I have not written directly about filling our pockets in retirement, or "rewirement," this idea is implicit in my encouragements not to take social security or other pensions too early for the sake of "flexibility." In this case, we are talking about the flexibility to bring in extra income without limitation and to keep on improving your eventual retirement situation. And the flexibility gained from the income supplements earned as we "fill our pockets" with encore career income also allows me to use the cavalier "number, schmumber" response to those who are a little preoccupied with reaching their "retirement number" and going fishing.

So I am very sympathetic to the conclusions of this book, but that, in itself, doesn't merit a "Platinum recommendation."

If you tend to like a step by step approach, this book is definitely for you. But even if, like me, you don't want to formally complete the exercises the authors present, I think you'll still find the lists, examples, and case histories in this book to be valuable idea generators.

I like the fact that the authors hate the word "retire" as much as I do. They have even gone so far as to TRADEMARK their suggested replacement word, "rewire," as a substitute... (that puts me off just a bit ... but I digress).

The book begins with some examples of people who, by their own admission, "flunked retirement," including former Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca, who is quoted as saying,

"You plan everything in life, and then the roof caves in on you because you haven't done enough thinking about who you are and what you should do with the rest of your life."
And that, after all, is the mission of the Platinum Years Network and of this book. And the book gives us all some great new tools to do just that - think about who you are and what you should do with the rest of your life. So it should be no surprise that "Don't Retire, Rewire!" will be added to our list of Platinum Recommended books, with a next to perfect "four bar" rating. - Bob

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