Baby boomers are turning to retirement coaches and other types of senior advisers to help them navigate their “second acts” as they head into their mid-60s, says a recent USA Today article.
“It’s not always easy for Baby Boomers to switch gears as they approach retirement age,” writes USA Today. “Some have never given retirement a thought as they focused on their jobs and families. Many are more concerned about their retirement nest egg than on creating a second act of life. But suddenly retirement may be looming ahead without a plan.”
Some of those boomers without a defined plan are turning to retirement advisers they trust to help them find a new identity.
“Before, retirement was a destination,” Dorian Mintzer, a therapist and board-certified retirement transition coach, tells USA Today. “You had your retirement party and bought your condo in Florida. Now it’s a process. It’s a journey that can be daunting but can be very exciting, too.”
Sometimes the journey turns into a new, post-retirement career.
Boomer Peter Johnson tells USA Today he never thought about retirement in terms of leaving the workforce. Instead, once his children graduated from college and their education was no longer an ongoing expense, Johnson decided to leave a career in marketing, Internet advertising, and raising capital for tech business to go back to college and get a doctoral degree in marketing.
At 63 years old, Johnson works full-time as a faculty member at Fordham University in New York City.
“[N]ow that people will be working well into their 70s,” Marci Alboher, author of The Encore Career Handbook, says in the article, “I bet we’ll be seeing more people doing what Peter did.”
Written by Alyssa Gerace
