American Executive - Where Business Leadership Begins

In the 20-plus years since I founded New Directions, business has learned to cope with the technology revolution. That’s been a huge change, but in my work, I’ve witnessed a shift that may be bigger: the emergence of a new life phase, extended middle age, that occurs roughly between 50 and 75 years of age.

People not only live longer but stay healthy and creative longer, a development that’s redrawing the boundary between career and retirement. With its promise of added years and opportunity, extended middle age is a gift. But it doesn’t come with an owner’s manual.

According to the old three-stage model, we prepared in college for our careers, then during our careers prepared for retirement. But people entering this new fourth stage, life post-career, are often unprepared and have few places to go for help. They get too much advice on what to do with their money and too little on how to rebalance their greatest wealth: their time and energy.

It used to be easier. For decades, Americans retired soon after 60. We’d go to the retirement party, empty out our desk, and, as we left the office for good, hear a loud click as though we had passed through a one-way door. Sadly, this was often followed by a period of decline.

Now, there is a new transition zone between career and retirement. American executives are using these vital bonus years in late middle age to explore what motivates them—to become entrepreneurs, pursue second or third vocations, go back to school, volunteer, fire up foundations, and leave legacies. They may take a voluntary “demotion,” shedding executive or administrative responsibilities, but they keep working, often until 85.

The fact is, financially comfortable people increasingly want to keep working, at least part time, to turn their careers into callings, their success into significance. I know others who tried retirement and say they failed at it. I believe retirement failed them.

A nebulous process
According to the US Census Bureau, in 2005, there were 48 million Americans aged 60 and up. An estimated half of them say they are retired. I know from experience that among the other half are millions of people who feel too young and vital to retire but are tired of work that is not enriching their lives.

A growing number are living what I call a life portfolio, a balanced and individually tailored combination of pursuits that rejuvenates them. They are spending more time doing things they love and creating work that enriches their lives beyond just paying the bills. They’re becoming mentors and community leaders, painters, teachers, and inventors of better ways of doing things. They look at the prospect of trudging along in forced retirement or squandering their time in trivial pursuits and say: we can do better.

There are plenty of practical reasons to work, from the waning of corporate pensions and growing uncertainty of federal benefits to the astronomical rise in the cost of healthcare. But something else is going on. I’m struck by the number of senior executives and professionals I meet in my work who want to rediscover their passion and create a legacy, rather than enter into retirement limbo. They’re coming to realize that the time to be happy, to be fully who they’re meant to be on this earth, is now. I urge them to keep the fires burning and not let the concept of passive retirement creep into their thinking.

Earlier, I mentioned the change caused by the technology revolution. Companies coped well because the challenge was pretty clear: figure out the new way and adjust to it. One reason extended middle age has proved a difficult adjustment is it entails a more nebulous process: the rediscovery and reclaiming of our unique personal identities.

When people surrender a job, they have to stop identifying themselves by their title, company, or industry. They have to rediscover who they are and, possibly, who they probably should have been. Not everyone can do this, and there are many emotional obstacles to overcome. But for those who can, the rewards are manifold. That’s why my company’s mission statement quotes the philosopher Martin Buber.

Every person born in this world represents something new, something that never existed before, something original and unique...and every man or woman’s foremost task is the actualization of his or her unique, unprecedented, and never-recurring possibilities.

I believe Buber is right. This new stage of life is an opportunity to actualize our gifts. But there’s a catch: to seize them, you have to become an entrepreneur of your own life. People who behave entrepreneurially do better as they go from careers to their own life portfolios in extended middle age. Disappointments, rejections, and losses are all opportunities—

no doesn’t mean never, and everything is negotiable. These people tend to explore and make choices. They may be wrong at first, but they jump in anyway. They become players, not spectators, in the game of life.

If you can direct such curiosity inward, you’ll discover the values, interests, and abilities at your core. Those qualities, once identified, can be applied to opportunities as exciting as any start up. Those who dream by day, wrote Edgar Allen Poe, see things that escape those who only dream by night. Challenge tradition. Look at the end of your career as the start of a life change.

Younger executives still building careers must plan for this stage. No one should be caught flat-footed by extended middle age. Anticipate. Do the homework. Assess your assets and skills and gifts. Become familiar with your callings, energies, and passions. Extend your support networks and create new ones, and make doing these things your agenda day after day.

David Corbett is the founder of New Directions, Inc., of Boston, a career services company that helps senior-level executives and professionals create new opportunities in their lives. Portions of this article were excerpted from Portfolio Life: The New Path to Work, Purpose and Passion After 50 (Jossey-Bass) by David Corbett with Richard Higgins.