Suzanne Braun Levine » CIVIC VENTURES

Retirement Ambivalence: Who’s Afraid of Getting Off the Career Track?

glenlevy — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 00:18:55 +0000

By Ruth Wooden

President, Public Agenda & Chair of the Board, Civic Ventures

There’s a new chapter required in The Etiquette Handbook: “What to say to someone who is retiring.”

I can’t get over some of the things people have said to me after a routine announcement that I plan to retire as President of a NYC-based nonprofit later this year. By the time I retire, I will be 64 and will have served more than seven years in this position after a working career of more than 40 years, interrupted only for 10 weeks of maternity leave in 1983. Is this really such a big surprise?

Apparently it is. The most benign response from professional colleagues was “Wow, that’s big news!” The most inappropriate was “Are you sick?” The most flattering was “You don’t look old enough to retire.” There were plenty of people who did say “Congratulations,” but by far the most frequent response was “What are you going to do next?”

After a few weeks, an amusing pattern became evident. Almost to a person, women were the ones who said “Congratulations. You’ve earned it.” Some men also said some variation of that sentiment, but more often than not, the men seemed surprised and anxious to know “what’s next?” And the closer people were to “normal” retirement age, the more likely they were to fit into this gender pattern. Clearly there was a lot of projection going on. As a friend said, “The women are hoping for free time and enough money to avoid bag lady status while the men are panicked at the thought of not having a business card.”

We’re going to see a lot more of this pattern. I am a “canary in the mine”, so to speak, having been born in 1946, the first year of the baby boom. I’ve noticed throughout my life that I could usually count on having a lot of likeminded people to talk to when I was mulling over major life changes. That instinct for spotting trends served me well in my earlier advertising career –I could usually tell when there would soon be much more interest in products that I wanted or needed, e.g. clothes for a thickening waistline. Already there is a flood of articles and books telling us how to make the most of our retirement – from how to make your money last to how to find more meaning in your life. But most of us are inventing this new life stage on the fly and in secret.

And I think it’s fair to say that not retiring has become rather chic, especially in some NYC and other high-powered circles. It’s a sign that you are just too engaged and passionate to ever give up your important, productive work. One acquaintance asked me the other day if I was really using the “R word?” And since most people avoid talking about money, the retirement discussion is not about whether to retire, but what one will be doing in retirement, often using that oxymoron “working retirement.” It’s not that I don’t expect to work for some time during the next decade. I’ve got enough money saved to survive, but I will live more comfortably with a modest consulting income to supplement those savings. I’m not rich, but I do feel rich in the things that matter most to me—health, family, friends, passions and interests. And I have thoughts about what kind of work I might do, but honestly, I don’t know if these ideas will ever come to pass.

It would be disingenuous to say I am not anxious about the “what’s next?” question. I get anxious just being asked the question without having a ready answer. I have always had a good response to that question, or at least I pretended to know and gave a socially acceptable answer. A friend once told me that I had great timing, e.g. knowing when to buy and sell real estate, when to take a new job and when to move on. But now my secret fear is that I will let too much “game time” elapse and I will be” out of sight, out of mind” when I am ready to pick up the briefcase again. Last week I told a very considerate man that as my next thing I was thinking about buying a new bathing suit. I figured that would stop his questioning (it did), but my snarky response revealed the depths of my own anxiety, especially my worry about being too leisurely as I try to figure this all out.

The ironic thing for me is that I have already spent a lot of time researching the retirement question. I’ve been a board member of Civic Ventures for nearly 10 years and we have interviewed any number of retirees and near retirees, looking at what it would take to encourage the country’s upcoming baby boomer retirees to consider starting “encore careers” to take on the social problems that so many of us have the experience, skills and interest to address. I’ve heard this yearning over and over and feel it myself, but I am not yet sure exactly what it is I want to do in my encore. I know enough to know I’m not moving to Florida to play bridge or golf, and I doubt I’ll be joining the Peace Corps , though that was the encore career my own mother chose, going to Yemen of all places at age 70.

I guess what I want more than anything is to feel free to live for some decent amount of time in what my fellow Civic Ventures board member, Suzanne Braun Levine, refers to as the ”fertile void,” which she says could last a year or more. It’s a “prolonged state of confusion… feeling the energy and spirit of adventure stirring, without knowing what type of action to take.” I need to clear out the years of noise in my head and listen to my inner voice so I can truly know what I want to do next. Correction: I think what I really want from my time in the fertile void is to figure out what I don’t want to do and to finally give up on all those socially acceptable things I think I should want to do.

So for now when I get asked the question “what will you do next?” I plan to say with as little anxiety as possible, “Ask me next year.”

Ruth A. Wooden became president of Public Agenda, an innovative public opinion research and public engagement organization, in 2003. The organization, has been providing unbiased and unparalleled research that bridges the gap between American leaders and what the public really things about issues ranging from education to foreign policy to immigration to religion and civility in American life. She serves as chair of the board of Civic Ventures, which works to define the second half of adult life as a time of individual and social renewal.

“Retirement Ambivalence: Who’s Afraid of Getting Off the Career Track?” is also featured on More magazine’s site: www.more.com

For additional information, visit:

www.publicagenda.org

www.civicventures.org

www.encore.org

“ENCORE CAREERS – Recession Prompts Reinvention”

glenlevy — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 03:50:50 +0000

“ENCORE CAREERS – Recession Prompts Reinvention”

By Terry Nagel, Managing Editor

Encore.org

As the economy forces people to rethink their careers, a vanguard of the adventurous and the desperate is navigating an unrecognizable landscape that has little to do with resumes and contacts.

In the June issue of San Francisco magazine, Nina Martin tells the stories of more than a dozen Bay Area residents who have discovered that all the rules about job hunting have changed. Landing a job these days requires reinvention – “a do-it-yourself proposition,” according to Marc Freedman, founder and CEO of Civic Ventures, who is quoted in the article.

Martin writes, “Over the past few months, I’ve spent a lot of time at Starbucks and Peet’s, talking with men and women who used to have stable careers but now have migraines, insomnia, depression, and the gnawing realization that most of what they know about earning a healthy living is, or will soon be, obsolete. Often, during a pause in the conversation — maybe we’re talking about how companies in Chapter 7 bankruptcy don’t have to offer COBRA, or what it’s like for someone with 10 or 20 years of experience in user interfaces or mortgage banking, earning a great deal of money, to start from scratch, competing with kids who will work for peanuts — I look around and notice that the place is full of other people talking about the same things, in the same stunned way, trying to pretend they’re fine when in reality, they are scared to death.”

Among those she interviewed is Gina Cassinelli, 53, a former vice president of technology-systems marketing at Hewlett Packard who found her calling as an Encore Fellow working for a nonprofit called Citizen Schools. She made the switch to the nonprofit sector, she told Martin, because after 26 years the tech industry “just didn’t hold the same freshness and fun.”

Another is Penny Mudd, 55, a 20-year tech veteran who is training to become a middle-school math teacher through her local community college.

Read their stories and others here.

Join Encore Careers and visit Terry Nagels blog www.encore.org

ABOUT Encore.orgEncore.org is published by Civic Ventures, a nonprofit think tank that is leading the call to engage millions of experienced individuals in becoming a force for social change. Civic Ventures focuses on creating pathways to encore careers that provide continued income doing work that is personally fulfilling and helps address some of society’s biggest challenges.

While Encore.org is not a job placement service, it provides free, comprehensive information that helps individuals transition to jobs in the nonprofit world and the public sector.

To find your Encore Career, visit:

www.encore.org

“READY FOR LIFE’S ENCORE PERFORMANCES” Baby Boomers in Second Careers

glenlevy — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:49:05 +0000

Civic Ventures and Encore.org in the News – Again!

Photo Credit: Angela Jimenez for The New York Times

Ever since the June, 2009 White House hosted an event salute to social innovators who are in their Encore Careers, Civic Ventures www.civicventures.org and Encore.org have been in the news.

On March 3, 2010 The New York Times (by Elizabeth Pope) reported on “Matching Life Experience With New Careers:”

“HEALTH navigator? Conflict coach? Pollution mitigation outreach worker? These emerging jobs aren’t household terms yet, but they are a natural fit for older people looking for new career opportunities, said Phyllis Segal, vice president at Civic Ventures, a nonprofit research group based in San Francisco.
“Many of today’s new encore careers build on multiple work and life experiences, so they are a good match for older adults who’ve spent decades in the workplace,” Ms. Segal said.”

[To read more, click here]

And most recently, The New York Times praised the work of Marc Freedman, who started Encore Careers and initiated the pilot program for baby boomers to transition into second careers (March 19, 2010, by Sarah Kershaw): “Ready for Life’s Encore Performances”:

“IN the back room of a neighborhood restaurant here (Palo Alto, CA) a small group of men and women in their 50s gathered recently to mark a milestone. “I feel like when historians look back and think about this salmon lunch at MacArthur Park, they’ll see this was a real turning point,” said Marc Freedman, who started a pilot program for baby boomers to transition into second careers.

These 10 executives had all left their high-paying jobs in the private sector and joined the pilot program, and this was their formal graduation. They had taken a step familiar to some high school or college students: take a year off to regroup, rethink and figure out what they want to be when they grow up.”

[To read more, click here]

As Marc Freedman has said, “In tough economic times, we need more creative solutions to long-standing social problems. It’s reassuring to note that as America ages, we have creativity in greater abundance. Purpose Prize winners show that experience and innovation can go hand in hand, that inventiveness is not the sole province of the young.”
Please join me in saluting these wonderful organizations.
For more information, please visit:

www.encore.org

www.civicventures.org

‘A Revolutionary Gathering’ of Social Entrepreneurs – The Purpose Prize Summit

glenlevy — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:21:42 +0000

Ann Higdon

MEET ANN HIGDON
2009 PURPOSE PRIZE WINNER
“The Purpose Prize gathering is revolutionary,” said Ellen Goodman the newspaper columnist and herself, the winner of a Pulitzer Prize. “I am looking at you as my mentors,” she told the audience in her keynote address at the recent Purpose Prize Summit.

I have to agree. It was a room filled with inspiring people and stories.

I met Ann Higdon, winner of a 2009 Purpose Prize ($50,000.) and was impressed by her strength, warmth, and humor. Ann is the fist to admit that in high school she had “a big mouth and a bad attitude.” She will also tell you that one teacher made a difference. She was a D student, but the teacher saw something more and wrote across the top of an essay — “You are profound and eloquent.”

It changed everything, and at age 69, Ann was honored for creating three charter schools, and a program for high school dropouts that has evolved into a successful organization (ISUS) that teaches nursing, construction, computer operations, and manufacturing skills in Dayton, Ohio.

Union and civic leaders call her a ‘magician, but her biggest fans are ISUS graduates. “Progress means staying nimble,” says Higdon. “We’re agile… We change.”

Learn more Ann Higdon and ISUS (Improved Solutions for Urban Systems)
http://bit.ly/7SfH0p

Want an Encore Career?
www.encore.org

MEET “THE PURPOSE PRIZE WINNERS” – Encore Careers & Civic Ventures Honor Change-Makers Over 60!

glenlevy — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:34:09 +0000

Marcy Adelman: 2009 Purpose Prize Winner

BRINGING EXPERIENCE TO SOCIAL INNOVATION CHANGES EVERYTHING

In a culture that often seems to thrive more on “creating” villains than honoring heroes, it is especially rewarding to report on people who are changing the world. THE PURPOSE PRIZE – announced by Encore Careers and Civic Ventures – celebrates and honors people over 60 who are bringing experience to social innovation (read the press release).

I was proud to have been a judge for this Award, and I can tell you the candidates and winners are a diverse, talented and impressive group of people dedicated to change. Each one of them had asked themselves the familiar Second Adulthood Question: “What shall I do with the rest of my life?”

Each identified a social problem that their First Adulthood had prepared them to solve. Then they took the risk. Their stories are truly inspirational.

Congratulations to all the social entrepreneurs who entered or were nominated for The Purpose Prize in 2009. Civic Ventures awarded $100,000 to five winners, $50,000 to another group five people and recognized the accomplishments of many other
change-makers.

Read about Encore Careers, this year’s winners, their big ideas and watch the videos. And, for 2010, nominate yourself or someone you know.

http://www.encore.org

http://www.encore.org/prize/nominate?ref=winners.cfm

FIVE WAYS TO MAKE FALL WORK FOR YOU – ENJOY “FIFTY IS THE NEW FIFTY, SIXTY, SEVENTY…”

glenlevy — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:56:44 +0000

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

I know that I am not the only one who thinks of Fall as the beginning of the New Year. It’s that embedded back-to-school schedule – ours then and our children’s now. I am much more inclined to get going in October than in January.

What’s more, while my January resolutions have more to do with self-improvement (or self-criticism) – perennially “go on a diet” – my October plans are more about taking care of business and beefing up the rewarding parts of my life. This year my main resolution is to rejoin the Thursday life-drawing class that I used to enjoy, but slipped off my calendar a couple of years ago.

Here Are My Other Suggestions:

1. Keep reading books at the same pace you did during the summer. If you are finding it annoying to lug around a 500-page tomes, try a Kindle. It makes all the difference. And recommend good reads to your friends. Debbi Honorof, who recently interviewed me at a Transition Network (TTN) event, writes reviews for Long Island Woman magazine. She is very enthusiastic about Traveling With Pomegranates: A Mother-Daughter Story by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor (Viking / 2009/ $25.95). Here is how she summarizes the plot:

In Traveling with Pomegranates, Sue Monk Kidd, author of The Secret Life of Bees, and her daughter, Ann Taylor Kidd, write of their travels together and how they drew upon their respective experiences to gain clarity in their lives. Along the way, they rediscover their relationship with each other…Ann, who had been quietly suffering from depression, searches for answers about her ultimate purpose in life…Sue, who had just turned 50 when the first trip took place, was coming to terms with her transition into become an older woman.”

2. Remember Good Health is about Maintenance

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month (see links to groups you will want to connect with at the end of this feature).

While you are at it, though, be aware of other important cancer-detection opportunities you miss at your peril.

Here is what you need to know about neglecting your mammogram:
Older age is the single greatest risk factor for breast cancer in women. According to the American Cancer Society (1999), breast cancer risk increases from 1 in 67 at age 40 to 1 in 25 at age 70, and the incidence continues increasing to age 80. More than one-half of all breast cancers occur in women age 65 or over. Mammography screening has been demonstrated to reduce breast cancer mortality, especially among women in the age group 50-74 compared with those without mammography.

And consider that other regular item – the Pap smear. The risk of getting cervical cancer increases with age (over half the new cases of cervical cancer diagnosed each year are in women over 50) but the good news is that the cure rate also increases with early detection by a Pap smear.

3. Invent something – literally. I recently met two sisters who were just beginning to market their brainchild – “Not So Hot.” It is a collapsible (on a folding spring) round fan that comes in a little compact-sized bag for those times when you are the only one in the room who thinks the heat is turned up too high. (www.not-so-hot.com). Don’t we all have ideas for things we wish someone else would invent? (Mine is a dip-stick to confirm that you are really being served decaf coffee). What are we waiting for?

4. Enjoy contemplating What’s Next!

Ellen Meister, Suzanne Braun Levine, Saralee Rosenberg

We are beginning to get it – we are not our mothers’ fifty- sixty- and seventy- year-olds and we have lots to do and accomplish and discover during our Second Adulthood. So even if Next looks far off, why not begin dreaming and investigating instead of dreading and worrying? One way to share your curiosity and benefit from the discoveries of like-minded women is to join a group like The Transition Network (www.thetransitionnetwork.org) an organization with multi-city branches devoted to women making change from a professional chapter in their lives to – another professional chapter, or volunteering, or consulting, or simply discovering.

Another way of thinking about the future is to get to know Civic Ventures (I have just become a Board member), a terrific organization that encourages and rewards social entrepreneurs and the creation of what they call Encore Careers. Founded by Marc Freedman (left), author of Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life, they spread the word about the value of workers over fifty and at the same time support and create opportunities for people to transition “from money to meaning.” Just reading the stories on their website will give you ideas and inspiration (www.encore.org).

5. Take Something On/Let Something Go

Our first video series – Why Fifty is the New Fifty – from the panel at Barnes and Noble in New York is now available here for FREE in Watch and Share. In “Episodes” 4 and 5, our moderator Lesley Jane Seymour, editor of More magazine and the panel – Gloria Steinem, Isabella Rossellini, Rep. Donna F. Edwards and I talk about:

Taking Risks – “What kind of risks are you willing to take on today that you weren’t when you were younger?”

Reconsidering Regrets – “What do you have absolutely no regrets about?”

Their answers may surprise you, and will surely entertain and inspire you.

Additional links for Breast Cancer Awareness Month:

Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation
http://www.dslrf.org

National Breast Cancer Awareness Month
http://www.nbcam.org/

Susan G. Komen for the Cure
www.komen.org

Breast Cancer Prevention
http://stanford.wellsphere.com/breast-cancer-prevention-cause/258185

National Women’s Health Network
http://www.nwhn.org/