Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life | Marc Freedman

Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life | Marc Freedman | Very important book for all of us - perspective from a 30-something

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Encore: Finding Wo...

	Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life Marc Freedman PublicAffairs, 2007 - 272 pages average customer review:based on 28 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A great and important book

Most of what you read about the aging of America suggests that this event is likely to be a disaster, especially a financial disaster. Marc Freedman has a fresh approach and a big idea about how the aging of the boomer generation may actually be an occasion for great new personal and professional adventures that produces huge results for society. Freedman sees a future that is better for individuals, for communities and for the nation. He foresees a new phase of work, which he calls the Encore Career, in which people who have finished their midlife careers engage in work that benefits society.

If you like the thinking of creative optimists like John Gardner, Sargent Shriver, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harris Wofford, you will love Marc Freedman. And if you like good writing and good storytelling, you will love Encore: Finding Works that Matters in the Second Half of Life.

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Very important book for all of us - perspective from a 30-something

Freedman offers an important perspective for those Americans approaching retirement or second careers. But his analysis and stories may prove as important for those of us at earlier life stages.

I'm in my early thirties. My generation will face enormous fiscal challenges as a result of the demographic shift Freedman discusses - this much is clear. Yet Freedman's book is important to me and my peers in several other respects: we are helping our parents make a transition from a first career that has shaped their identity for decades into something new and engaged and fulfilling; and we ourselves need a new lens through which to preview our own lives-to-come and frame our career and life decisions now. As Freedman suggests, a new life map - and the societal supports to allow it - is needed for all of us.

I especially appreciate that Freedman's astute observations and lively, humane storytelling offer up a hopeful shift, and one full of promise for all of us. The book helps me look forward to my next career(s) and allows me to relax into knowing that there is ample time and no shortage of exciting social challenges to tackle.

Lastly, we are seeing a significant demographic shift globally and I would hope to see Freedman, a first-rate social entrepreneur, lead a global movement to reframe retirement, linking with actors in India, Brazil, Europe, and so on. This book speaks to a historical moment of global significance and opportunity. I absolutely welcome this book and would encourage others of my generation to dig in. We've got quite a big and joyful project ahead of us.

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Encore: Guide for a New Generation

For the past dozen years or so, my chief passion has been to study, write about, and talk about the challenges and unbounded opportunities awarded current generations by the gift of longevity--the 20-30 added years of active adulthood awaiting our rapidly maturing and longer-lived society.

My inspiration has been drawn from such serious scholars and forebearers as Robert Butler, Peter Drucker, and John Gardner. And it's blended with some small wisdom gained in more than 25 years of post-midlife experience.

Today, I've discovered a new hero to follow in the heritage of Gardner, Drucker, and Butler: social enterprise innovator and author Marc Freedman. He brings to the scene fresh energy and invention, plus a novel approach and subtle but forceful strategy for resolving the confounding and persistent challenges of learning how to live well and beneficially for an extra generation.

His ideas are consistent with the theme, spirit, and content of his latest book: Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life.

This visionary volume is an uncommonly thoughtful and bold endorsement of keeping the eldest third of our more durable population active, alert, healthy, productive,and essentially self-supporting over the course of a new and socially beneficial working age that begins after midlife.

Here's my quick take on Marc's plan.

It is built on the clear understanding that folks nearing, at, or beyond midlife represent a significant resource of experience, savvy, mature vision, and human vitality. Prospectively, their continued engagement and involvement in America's work life can provide our nation and our people with an incalculable advantage in coping with the demands of leadership and partnership in a global community.

(Longer work lives, by Freedman's reckoning, are a certainty for current generations--especially for baby boomers.)

The opening gambit in his plan is a relatively straightforward, three-phase investigation of added career options appropriate to an extended work life.
1.Identify those who enjoy and are committed to their current work. Ask them to confirm their chances or options for staying on the job.
2.Help others explore and evaluate as accurately as possible their short term and long term working options and opportunities.
3.Broaden the inquiry to include a search for criteria that will clearly show what factors most strongly influence new career choices.

The Encore book is basic to this process. It is packed with clear, concise testimony, advice, instruction, resources, and references for "finding work that matters."

It also calls for a reawakening of our individual zest for making an inimitable imprint on the lives of those around us and the world in which we live.

Happily, it's also a good read. Try it, you'll like it.

Carl Atkinson
San Rafael, California

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I'm recommending this to my son-in-law's parents

If you know anyone who is trying to figure out what they should do in their "retirement," I'd recommend this book for inspiration. I'm on the verge myself, but my son-in-law's parents are there... and trying to figure out how to give some meaning to this stage of their lives and earn an income in the process. I especially loved the profiles of the people who are living out their "encores."

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, page 5, 6

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