BLOG.THEENLIGHTENEDRETIREE.COM

Your job is to thrive in retirement not survive retirement!

2008-08-18T23:12:00Z

Let’s face it. We often equate our personal self-worth with what we do for a living and how much money we make.

For many of us, work defines who we are.

Work structures our lives so that come Monday morning we know where we are expected to be. Work provides an opportunity for us to meet new people and make new friends. Our jobs also provide us with an identity and a particular social status.

And let’s be honest; if you were too really reflect on the situation you would come to the conclusion that for the past 35 years you have been relieved that work has defined who you are. If you did not have somewhere to go and something to do 5 days a week, than you would have had to figure it all out on your own.

Most of us would rather be subjected to a painful dental procedure than have to deal with the pain of having to figure out who we are apart from what we do.

So when you exit the work force and you hang up the title that others have come to know you by, and MORE IMPORTANTLY that you have come to know yourself by, it should come as no surprise that you might feel unsure of your position in the world.

I am going to let you in on a little secret.

THIS IS NOT YOUR PARENTS RETIREMENT!

If you have managed to live to 60, guess what? Chances are you are going to keep on ticking for another 20 years if not more.

So SURVIVING the next phase of your life is not an option . Your job is to THRIVE in this next stage of life.

Dream a few dreams.

Take up a new hobby.

Start a new business.

Travel the world.

Become a mentor.

Share your knowledge

Volunteer – make someone’s life sweeter.

Hey you have been walking around this planet for quite some time. You have seen a few things, had a few experiences.

I know that you have wisdom to share.

I am reminded of my good friend Lin Schreiber's quote, "The abundance of problems on the planet could use your abundance of talent. What are you waiting for?".

And guess what. You have an obligation to share with us what you have learned.

Boomers have redefined every life stage, and will once again redefine the very concept of retirement to mean something very different than a well-deserved reward of rest and relaxation for a lifetime commitment of work.

Your job is not to survive retirement but to THRIVE in retirement!

Until next time,

To your retirement success!

Gillian

Gillian Leithman is the founder and president of Directions Third Age Consultants Inc, a company devoted to helping people prepare for their emotional well-being in retirement.

To find out more check out www.directionsrc.com

Drop me a line at gill@directionsrc.com

The Secret to a Happy Retirement: Plan, Plan, Plan

2008-08-18T18:49:00Z

So you are planning to retire from your job after 30 some odd years of service.

Congratulations!

You have earned the right to rest and relax after a lifetime commitment to work.

You are probably counting down the days (only 5 months, 3 weeks and 4 days to go) until you get to escape the confinement of your four office walls and the rigidity of a 9 to 5 schedule.

At long last, you get to be free of demanding bosses, impending deadlines and obnoxious co-workers. Not to mention the long and taxing commute to and from the office!
Not so fast!

I want to let you in on a little secret that most of your retired friends won’t tell you:

When the novelty of your new found freedom wears off, you may suddenly feel that RELIEF from not having to wake up and go to work is quickly replaced by feelings of boredom, emptiness and a sense that you are disconnected from PEOPLE, PLACES and a PURPOSE.

Very often, the retirement experience turns out to be different from what we initially thought it to be. In fact, the first 12 months in retirement can seem as though you are on an emotional roller coaster: Some days are great and others are difficult.

Some days you may feel FREE and LIBERATED from the 9 to 5 grind, while on other days you may find yourself longing for those 5 minutes of “DAILY GOSSIP” around the water cooler.

Although it may not have seemed so at the time, chatting about Lucy’s new boyfriend or Tod’s new promotion and even Annie’s crazed teenage daughter, actually made you feel “CONNECTED” to others.

You may even discover that you miss that sense of ACCOMPLISHMENT from having met difficult challenges. Now, you maybe wondering, where will I get that sense of achievement?

You may yearn for some semblance of a routine.

You may desire more STRUCTURE in your daily life so that you feel that you have a reason and a PURPOSE to get up in the morning.

I am sure you would agree that for most of us WORK represents much more than a PAYCHECK .
Yet, we have been led to believe that a happy retirement is all about the accumulation of a big nest egg.
The bigger the egg, the happier the retirement!

I will agree that although money is no guarantee for a happy retirement, it is a good place to start.

BUT MONEY IS NOT THE ONLY REQUIREMENT FOR A HAPPY RETIREMENT

A happy retirement also requires that we ask ourselves, “WHAT’S NEXT?” long before we exit the workforce.

Dr. John Dewey, the great American philosopher, said it best when he stated, “The deepest urge in human nature is the desire to be important”.

For better or for worse, we live in a culture which defines who we are by what we do.

For most of us, work is the primary arena (if not the only arena) in which we are recognized for our accomplishments.

It is where we feel most USEFUL and NECESSARY to the world.

So we end up satisfying our CRAVING for importance by our job titles.

And although there are countless other ways for us to feel “useful” and “important” in the world, these alternatives seem to be overshadowed by a culture that measures success by the titles on our business cards.

Think about it:

The title on your business card that reads banker, manager, or teacher gives you an identity and it reflects your position in society.

Giving up that position and replacing your job title with “RETIREE” may cause you to start questioning your place in the world.

So how do we satisfy our desire to be important without a job title?

That, my dear friend, is where the real “work” of our lives comes in.

Once you retire you are forced to ask yourself, without work, “WHO AM I”? .

Do yourself a favor and start to answer that question before you leave the workforce. You will ease your transition from work to retirement if you come up with some good answers to that question before you leave your job.

Until next time,

To your retirement success!

Gillian

Gillian Leithman is the founder and president of Directions Third Age Consultants Inc., a company devoted to helping people prepare for their emotional well-being in retirement.

To find out more visit. www.directionsrc. com or drop Gill a line at

The secret to saving money

2008-08-18T18:46:00Z

If you are like many people who are planning for retirement you probably think that you need to SAVE a whole bunch of money so that you can maintain your current standard of living once you retire.

We are constantly being bombarded to Save Save Save . Companies are doing an excellent job at instilling FEAR in us with headlines that read,

“Do you have enough money to ensure that you can fund all of your retirement”?

“Will you outlive your money?”

“Do you know how expensive long term care is?”

Predicting the future is a difficult and complex task. Not only do you have to predict when you will die but you also have to consider the rate of inflation when you retire, end of life medical expenses and the possibility of long-term care.

Quite the daunting task! Not too mention it is rather depressing.

Let me ask you this:

Have you ever felt like you are saving for tomorrow but feel robbed of enjoying your life today?

Do you feel RESENTFUL of having to always save for a rainy day when what you really want to do is take that trip to the south of France or splurge on an expensive dinner with a great bottle of wine?

Don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting that you shouldn’t save for retirement. In fact I strongly believe that you have a RESPONSIBILITY to save for retirement and I encourage you to make saving for your future a priority.

But I also understand that saving money does not come naturally to most of us.

After all, I am part of the latte generation!

So what I suggest is this:

Strike a BALANCE between living for today and saving for tomorrow so that you do not feel robbed of today.

One great strategy that you can incorporate into your life RIGHT NOW is what T.Harv Eker author of The secrets of a Millionaire mind refers to as a PLAY ACCOUNT .

This is how it works:

Every time you set aside money for your future, you ALSO set aside some PLAY MONEY . It doesn’t have to be a lot of money but it has to be placed into your play account at the same time as you make a deposit in your future retirement savings account.

At the end of the month you need to SPEND all of your play money on something just for you or you and your spouse. It can be a weekend getaway, a lavish dinner, a day at the spa or even his and her messages! Whatever you want.

When you get to play and spend some money in the present you will no longer feel resentful of having to save for your future.

Try it out and let me know how it works. Drop me a line at gill@directionsrc.com

Until next time,

to your retirement success,

Gillian

Gillian Leithman is the founder and president of Directions Third Age Consultants Inc, a company devoted to helping people prepare for their emotional well-being in retirement.

For more information check out

or drop Gill a line at gill@directionsrc.com

Don't pay too much attention to your wife!

2008-08-18T18:45:00Z

I want to let you in on a little secret.

When my father first retired he was very excited to spend more time with my mom. He looked forward to lounging around the house, tending to his garden, and helping her with the grocery shopping and household errands.

Your probably wondering, what’s wrong that?

I’ll let you in on another secret.

My mom did not want to spend all her time with my father and chances are YOUR WIFE DOESN’T WANT TO SPEND ALL HER TIME WITH YOU!

I know this may be hard for you to hear. But your wife probably has a life independent of yours, and she won’t want to lose that independence or have you accompany her to lunch with her girlfriends.

I know that when you first retire life can be difficult and stressful. All of a sudden you went from having a title, a routine and a paycheque to having countless hours on your hands with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

You may feel like A FISH OUT OF WATER . You don’t know what to do with yourself and you feel as though your life lacks meaning and purpose.

If you feel this way you are not alone. Many people, especially men, feel lost when they first retire. But you can’t expect your wife to always entertain you or plan your social schedule.

Following her around and listening in on her phone conversations is not going to endear you to her.

Have you noticed that she is now taking the phone in to the closet so that she can talk to her girlfriends in PRIVATE ???

So here’s what you need to do.

You need to develop new hobbies

Find some new buddies

Become a member of an association

Take up a new language or

Learn how to make sushi

Make a date with your wife twice a week so that she feels that you are placing aside time for just the two of you.

Do something romantic. Send her flowers once in a while.

Make her feel special and I guarantee she will want to spend more time with you.

Remember it is not the quantity of time that you spend together, but the quality of your time together that matters.

Until next time,

To your retirement success!

Gillian

Gillian Leithman is the founder and president of Directions Third Age Consultants Inc, a company devoted to helping people prepare for their emotional well-being in retirement.

For more information check out

or drop Gill a line at gill@directionsrc.com

Don't leave your children an inheritance!

2008-08-18T18:42:00Z

I know that contemplating your earthly departure can be a rather uncomfortable subject to consider.

But let’s face it. We are all going to die sometime. And deciding who gets your “stuff” is a rather important task to tackle before you go.

You may want to leave your children a bunch of money, some piece of property or some possession that you deem valuable or sacred. And chances are that they will be more than grateful for your generosity.

But let me ask you this:

Have you considered the impact that your financial decisions will have on the emotional well-being of your children?

Make no mistake. For many children, “who gets what” , has a far greater meaning than the actual asset itself.

Bereaved families rarely fight over tax shelters or estate laws. Their quarrels most often center on who receives which Jewels, why Sandy gets the china, why James has been named executor or why half the estate has been left to charity!

America’s leading Will, Estate Planning and Legacy Coach, Elizabeth Arnold , expresses it best in her book, Creating the Good Will , in which she explains that what you chose to leave your family members may very well be equated by your children with your love, approval and acceptance of who they are as people.

Drawing upon years of experience, Arnold explains that many children believe that dividing an estate equally means that it has been divided fairly.

Yet that is not necessarily the case.

Each of us has our own perception of what we believe to be equal and rarely do our assets reduce to clean and equal fractions!

What matters MOST is YOUR perception of what is FAIR .

No family is perfect. Scratch beneath the surface and you will often find hurt feelings, jealousies, resentments and sibling rivalries.

Inherited money will not heal these wounds, but it might INFLAME them.

So talk to your family long before the reading of your will.

And consider Arnold’s advice:

You may very well want to pass on your values, your history, your tales of successes and of failures, romantic love stories, relationship or financial advice, in addition to or instead of your money!

Don’t leave your family an inheritance. Leave them a legacy to remember you by.

In fact in a recent

Until next time,

To your retirement success!

Gillian

Gillian Leithman is the founder and president of Directions Third Age Consultants Inc, a company devoted to helping people prepare for their emotional well-being in retirement.

For more information check out

or drop Gill a line at gill@directionsrc.com

Renegotiate your marriage contract

2008-08-18T18:39:00Z

Not planning for your emotional well-being in retirement can make for a very difficult transition from work to retirement. Not to mention it can place a great deal of stress on your relationship with your spouse.

Let me ask you this:

Have you thought about what a week in your life, as a retiree would look like?

Think about what you plan on doing the day that you retire. Next, plan out your daily activities for the following 7 days. And don’t forget you have to consider the impact that your schedule will have on your spouse.

Are the two of you going to spend everyday together?

Are you going to designate certain days that are “couple days”? And other days in which you will do whatever YOU want to do? Alone, or just you and your friends?

If you plan on spending more time at home you must understand that

OLD ROLES NO LONGER APPLY.

Maybe when you were working the arrangement you had with your spouse was that one of you was responsible for grocery shopping and meal preparation while the other’s responsibilities included taking out the garbage, fixing things around the house and tending to the lawn.

Well guess what-

YOUR PARTNER MARRIED YOU FOR BETTER OR WORSE BUT NOT FOR LUNCH EVERYDAY!

So now that you are no longer working, you can’t expect 3 COOKED meals a day. You are going to have to learn to fend for yourself.

Unless you find a way to communicate with your spouse and establish new roles and new roles for this stage of your life, you will find yourself in a world of pain and frustration.

So here are some issues you should clarify with your spouse when planning for this next life stage:

Revisit your marriage contract

When you were first married, you and your partner developed a contract that

dictated who would do what. This contract may have been written, discussed

or just adapted based on your beliefs and expectations of each partner’s role

within their marriage. It is now time to revisit this contract and adapt it to

this next phase of life.

You need to clarify the following:

How much time will you spend alone? How much time will you spend with

your spouse?

Do you have activities that you will pursue together? Do you plan on

engaging in activities alone?

Do you share the same interests? Do you have different interests?

Do you spend your money in the same ways or are one of you a saver and

the other a spender?

If the thought of having to renegotiate your marriage contract has provoked anxiety than you have come to the right place.

These issues do cause a great deal of stress for both men and women who are planning to retire but have not thought about how retirement will affect their marriage.

Stress is not a bad thing. Stress will cause you to take INITIATIVE and plan for this next phase of life. So don’t get discouraged.

In fact I COMMEND you for taking the time to read this blog. Just having more information on what to expect about the retirement transition and how retirement can influence your marriage, will help you alleviate a lot of the anxiety and depression.

Knowledge is power.

And know that after what can at times be a rocky start, most married couples do overcome the challenges brought on by retirement and adjust 12 months later.

Until next time,

To your retirement succes!

Gillian

Gillian Leithman is the founder and president of Directions Third Age Consultants Inc, a company devoted to helping people prepare for their emotional well-being in retirement.

For more information visit www.directionsrc.com or

Drop her a line at gill@directionsrc.com

Welcome

2008-08-17T18:12:13Z

Welcome to my blog The Enlightened Retiree.

My mission is to help YOU prepare for YOUR emotional well-being in retirement so that
the transition from work to retirement is as smooth and as easy as possible.

My name is Gillian Leithman and I have a spent the last 6 years researching retirement and what makes people happy at this stage of their lives. In fact, I even wrote my master's thesis on the subject (which is soon to be a book).

I won an award for my research on the differences between how men and women handle the retirement transition, their regrets about their past decisions and how PLANNING for this next stage of life can make all the difference in how happy you are once retired.

Since then, I have devoted all of my time and energy to my company, Directions Third Age Consultants Inc. We help people, just like you, plan for what's next. Take a look at www.theenlightenedretiree.com and our parent company Directions Third Age Consultants Inc.

For those of you who are not yet retired, you will find tons of information on what steps you need to take in order to plan for a successful, happy and enlightened retirement.

And for those of you who are retired and are having difficulty with this transition, you to will find tips on how to navigate this next chapter of your life.

I want to congratulate you for coming on board and joining the thousands of, ZOOMERS (that is the word that Media Mogul Moses Znaimer has termed to define the baby boomer generation and it means boomers with Zip) just like you who are part of an ever growing community of people that are changing the face of aging and retirement.

Enjoy the read!

To your retirement success,

Gillian Leithman

BLOG.THEENLIGHTENEDRETIREE.COM

Your job is to thrive in retirement not survive retirement!

Let’s face it. We often equate our personal self-worth with what we do for a living and how much money we make.

For many of us, work defines who we are.

Work structures our lives so that come Monday morning we know where we are expected to be. Work provides an opportunity for us to meet new people and make new friends. Our jobs also provide us with an identity and a particular social status.

Most of us would rather be subjected to a painful dental procedure than have to deal with the pain of having to figure out who we are apart from what we do.

So when you exit the work force and you hang up the title that others have come to know you by, and MORE IMPORTANTLY that you have come to know yourself by, it should come as no surprise that you might feel unsure of your position in the world.

I am going to let you in on a little secret.

THIS IS NOT YOUR PARENTS RETIREMENT!

If you have managed to live to 60, guess what? Chances are you are going to keep on ticking for another 20 years if not more.

So SURVIVING the next phase of your life is not an option . Your job is to THRIVE in this next stage of life.

Dream a few dreams.

Take up a new hobby.

Start a new business.

Travel the world.

Become a mentor.

Share your knowledge

Volunteer – make someone’s life sweeter.

Hey you have been walking around this planet for quite some time. You have seen a few things, had a few experiences.

I know that you have wisdom to share.

I am reminded of my good friend Lin Schreiber's quote, "The abundance of problems on the planet could use your abundance of talent. What are you waiting for?".

And guess what. You have an obligation to share with us what you have learned.

Boomers have redefined every life stage, and will once again redefine the very concept of retirement to mean something very different than a well-deserved reward of rest and relaxation for a lifetime commitment of work.

Your job is not to survive retirement but to THRIVE in retirement!

Until next time,

To your retirement success!

Gillian

Gillian Leithman is the founder and president of Directions Third Age Consultants Inc, a company devoted to helping people prepare for their emotional well-being in retirement.

To find out more check out www.directionsrc.com

Drop me a line at gill@directionsrc.com

The Secret to a Happy Retirement: Plan, Plan, Plan

So you are planning to retire from your job after 30 some odd years of service.

Congratulations!

You have earned the right to rest and relax after a lifetime commitment to work.

You are probably counting down the days (only 5 months, 3 weeks and 4 days to go) until you get to escape the confinement of your four office walls and the rigidity of a 9 to 5 schedule.

At long last, you get to be free of demanding bosses, impending deadlines and obnoxious co-workers. Not to mention the long and taxing commute to and from the office! Not so fast!

I want to let you in on a little secret that most of your retired friends won’t tell you:

When the novelty of your new found freedom wears off, you may suddenly feel that RELIEF from not having to wake up and go to work is quickly replaced by feelings of boredom, emptiness and a sense that you are disconnected from PEOPLE, PLACES and a PURPOSE.

Very often, the retirement experience turns out to be different from what we initially thought it to be. In fact, the first 12 months in retirement can seem as though you are on an emotional roller coaster: Some days are great and others are difficult.

Some days you may feel FREE and LIBERATED from the 9 to 5 grind, while on other days you may find yourself longing for those 5 minutes of “DAILY GOSSIP” around the water cooler.

Although it may not have seemed so at the time, chatting about Lucy’s new boyfriend or Tod’s new promotion and even Annie’s crazed teenage daughter, actually made you feel “CONNECTED” to others.

You may even discover that you miss that sense of ACCOMPLISHMENT from having met difficult challenges. Now, you maybe wondering, where will I get that sense of achievement?

You may yearn for some semblance of a routine.

You may desire more STRUCTURE in your daily life so that you feel that you have a reason and a PURPOSE to get up in the morning.

I am sure you would agree that for most of us WORK represents much more than a PAYCHECK . Yet, we have been led to believe that a happy retirement is all about the accumulation of a big nest egg. The bigger the egg, the happier the retirement!

I will agree that although money is no guarantee for a happy retirement, it is a good place to start.

BUT MONEY IS NOT THE ONLY REQUIREMENT FOR A HAPPY RETIREMENT

A happy retirement also requires that we ask ourselves, “WHAT’S NEXT?” long before we exit the workforce.

Dr. John Dewey, the great American philosopher, said it best when he stated, “The deepest urge in human nature is the desire to be important”.

For better or for worse, we live in a culture which defines who we are by what we do.

For most of us, work is the primary arena (if not the only arena) in which we are recognized for our accomplishments.

It is where we feel most USEFUL and NECESSARY to the world.

So we end up satisfying our CRAVING for importance by our job titles.

And although there are countless other ways for us to feel “useful” and “important” in the world, these alternatives seem to be overshadowed by a culture that measures success by the titles on our business cards.

Think about it:

The title on your business card that reads banker, manager, or teacher gives you an identity and it reflects your position in society.

Giving up that position and replacing your job title with “RETIREE” may cause you to start questioning your place in the world.

So how do we satisfy our desire to be important without a job title?

That, my dear friend, is where the real “work” of our lives comes in.

Once you retire you are forced to ask yourself, without work, “WHO AM I”? .

Do yourself a favor and start to answer that question before you leave the workforce. You will ease your transition from work to retirement if you come up with some good answers to that question before you leave your job.

Until next time,

To your retirement success!

Gillian

Gillian Leithman is the founder and president of Directions Third Age Consultants Inc., a company devoted to helping people prepare for their emotional well-being in retirement.

To find out more visit. www.directionsrc. com or drop Gill a line at

gill@directionsrc.com

The secret to saving money

If you are like many people who are planning for retirement you probably think that you need to SAVE a whole bunch of money so that you can maintain your current standard of living once you retire.

We are constantly being bombarded to Save Save Save . Companies are doing an excellent job at instilling FEAR in us with headlines that read,

“Do you have enough money to ensure that you can fund all of your retirement”?

“Will you outlive your money?”

“Do you know how expensive long term care is?”

Predicting the future is a difficult and complex task. Not only do you have to predict when you will die but you also have to consider the rate of inflation when you retire, end of life medical expenses and the possibility of long-term care.

Quite the daunting task! Not too mention it is rather depressing.

Let me ask you this:

Have you ever felt like you are saving for tomorrow but feel robbed of enjoying your life today?

Do you feel RESENTFUL of having to always save for a rainy day when what you really want to do is take that trip to the south of France or splurge on an expensive dinner with a great bottle of wine?

Don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting that you shouldn’t save for retirement. In fact I strongly believe that you have a RESPONSIBILITY to save for retirement and I encourage you to make saving for your future a priority.

But I also understand that saving money does not come naturally to most of us.

At long last, you get to be free of demanding bosses, impending deadlines and obnoxious co-workers. Not to mention the long and taxing commute to and from the office!
Not so fast!

I am sure you would agree that for most of us WORK represents much more than a PAYCHECK .
Yet, we have been led to believe that a happy retirement is all about the accumulation of a big nest egg.
The bigger the egg, the happier the retirement!