So I’m going to let the cat out of the bag right at the start. Women aren’t at all like men when it comes to retirement. And thinking they are can get both sexes in trouble. Join us as we discuss how different retirement actually IS on VENUS.  This presentation will be presented on  February 15, 8 PM EST/7 PM CST/5 PM PST via  About55 Live.

Join us, dive in and find out how a Life’s Next Steps retirement lifestyle planning will help you plan for retirement and how to create a retirement lifestyle you’ll love living.

2011′s plan,  encourages me to focus on MENTAL interests: grow our business online, write speeches, blogs, and webinars, that help people create the retirement they really want to live.  For PHYSICAL activities: keep meeting with my trainer once a week, play golf 3X week for at least two seasons/yr., bicycle weekly in Miami, and go cross country skiing in the Cascade Mtns.  For SOCIAL/SPIRITUAL, I have several items:  keep my membership in both reading groups, find a knitting group,  contribute to a Boys & Girls after school program, develop new relationships with people in my new home of Miami, plan next year’s trip to South America, as well as possibly a cooking group so I can learn more regional style dishes.  As always, keep my family and friends close!

• Exercise daily.
• Plan a schedule for your week.
• Know the 5 highest priorities of your life.
• Hire a coach.
• Be a hero to someone.
• Remember that leadership is about influence and impact, not title and accolades.
• Create unforgettable moments with those you love.
• Have 5 great friends.
• Pursue your dreams.Have a vision for your life.
• Know your strengths.
•  Shift from being busy to achieving results.
• Make your life matter.

So, now, share your ideas on what to do in retirement.

Life’s Next Steps helps retiring baby boomers create a clear retirement plan that makes the best and most meaningful use of the time and resources at your disposal upon retirement.

Our workshops help high-achieving, high-expectation men and women discover for themselves WHERE they want to go, and HOW to get there as retirement age arrives.

With 80 million baby boomers nearing retirement in North America, many are asking themselves “What’s next?”.

Our intensive programs, including a two-day workshop, help you to create real answers in the form of a life plan – a roadmap for the future – that you can act on.

Life’s Next Steps is ideal for individuals and couples, and we also work with HR departments and the clients of Financial Advisors. The variety of the backgrounds, careers and goals of the people participating in the workshops is an important part of what makes them a learning and growing experience.

Surveys have shown that while many boomers have dedicated plenty of effort and resources toward financial planning for retirement, seven out of ten are still struggling with the issue of exactly what they’re going to do to make retirement meaningful and engaging.

One reason for this is that there’s a wealth of information, books and resources to help people prepare financially for their retirement – but very little support for boomers seeking guidance on how to spend that other precious resource in retirement – their TIME. Life Next Steps’ mission is to help you take the crucial steps needed to articulate and develop your own unique life plan for retirement.

The program is based on a proven three-stage process that helps you uncover your real strengths, interests and passions, build a retirement lifestyle plan around them and put that plan into action.

The program includes the use of personal assessment tools to promote self-understanding, highly interactive workshops, and ongoing support from Life’s Next Steps and peer coaches. Retirement is not typically a time when people think about ‘making dreams a reality’ but this is the best time to dream in ways that will put precious time to a very good use.

Boomers have typically led active, meaningful, accomplished and fulfilling lives. They will want to continue on that path into retirement to varying degrees. Past generations hit retirement, quit working, and happily proclaimed “That’s it.” This generation will be asking “What’s next?”. That will require some deep thought and careful planning – and Life’s Next Steps is here to help.

Find out more about creating a future you’ll love to live. Click here or full details the retirement planning program, workshop dates, locations, and more…  or write to info@lifesnextsteps.com

It’s what I thought of but didn’t say when John, a former corporate-change colleague came to one of our workshops.

When we got around to the topic of transitions, I mentioned that the change cycle happens to all of us.

“Not to me,” said John. He had been dealing with the change cycle for years, so he could bombproof his life against its effects. He had already figured out his life’s next steps and didn’t need to worry at all! I idly wondered “if that’s true then what’s he doing in the workshop,” and moved on

Six months later, he called and said, somewhat sheepishly, “So, you were right”.

“John! So nice to hear from you. How was I right?”

It seems that he’d spent the first year of his retirement renovating his second home in Florida. Kept him busy, it did. Then, with the renovations complete, he had nothing to do but crosswords in the morning and golf in the afternoon!

The anxiety and uncertainty that we all feel when we undergo a major change had begun to creep in. I was so glad he called, especially when he said that he had started working on his Life’s Next Steps Plan and the ideas were flowing.

He’d finally seen the forest!

Somehow, Arthur, who claimed to be a tough sell, managed to share his dreams, aspirations, and strengths during the workshop, but I could tell it was difficult for him.

What wasn’t difficult was his pleasure at finding an old friend, Daniel, a fraternity buddy, participating in the workshop. They hadn’t seen each in 30 years, even though they lived in the same town. They spent one of their debrief sessions discussing a favorite professor.

When it came time to chose “buddy coaches” Mr. Tough Sell, declared that he had been won over and in fact, was asking Daniel to be his buddy. Their mutual task, along with implementing their Life’s Next Steps action plans, was going to be a trip back to their university to look up that professor.

Arthur is now that he wants to be more engaged with others as he faces a new phase of his life. And what a wonderful way to do it with an old friend as buddy and coach.

In this video, Suzanne says we need a plan that recognizes multiple dimensions of our life, including family, work, community, leisure. Learn what you need to do to engage your partner in planning, to coordinate what you want to do individually and jointly.

The goal is to develop a plan for the first few years of retirement, as our needs and circumstances will change over time.

Alan is a corporate type with 35 years of resounding success. He loves planning and he came to the workshop determined to develop and implement his plan as he had in his career.

Somehow, Dave and Alan go together to coach each other, then they “buddied up” for a year. Theirs was, to put it mildly, an unlikely partnership.

I ran into Dave at his restaurant a few months after the workshop. As we chatted, I asked him how two such different people managed to get along so well – even now. He laughed and said, “You know, I would never have predicted that Alan and I would be successful partners but we are and I think it’s because of one key factor.

“Our brains work differently, our personalities and temperaments are different. We approach things from totally different perspectives. Alan’s perspective actually enhances my own, and vice versa. We can test our ideas in new … arenas, you could say. I think it also helps that we’re both pretty bright and we value the ability to see things from someone else’s angle.”

Seems like a great way to partner!

We hear that every now and then but people usually change their minds once the group’s enthusiasm takes over. But this fellow kept beating the same drum. “I don’t want to do anything. Why do people even want to travel?”, he asked.

He traveled a lot in his job and didn’t understand that a lot of people looked forward to spending more traveling … big time!

At the end of the workshop he took me aside to ask one last question:

“If I want to keep working, how would I go about it?”

It occurred to me to kid him a bit and maybe ask “You mean when you retire you want to keep working at the same job?” But I didn’t. Instead, I suggested that he talk it over with his law firm partners.

I heard a few weeks ago that the firm is working out an arrangement. He won’t work in the same job but will continue to add value in key areas.

A happy ending, but the beginning was rough!

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard “I want to work till I drop”, my husband, Chris, and I could take a nice cruise.

People who say they want to work till they drop are invariably talented at what they do. They’re typical boomers in that every success has come to them.

But the notion of work till you drop worries me at times. I recommend looking at life in total, not just the professional/work part, and examining how it could proceed going. It’s easy to say “I’ll just keep doing this” but it’s also easy to spend a little time reflecting on missed or put-aside opportunities that would enhance an already successful life.

What’s not easy is actually taking steps toward one of those opportunities. Work till I drop people are so deep inside their comfort zones, so successful, so well known, that life seems to have a built in safety net. Working without a net can be downright scary but it can be exhilarating, challenging and uplifting.

Personally, I like to keep one foot in my comfort zone and one foot in something new, always ADDING to my life. That means doing new and different things along with familiar and safe things.

All the additional things I now savor are new (and, usually, wonderful) to me!

photo credit: puzzlemepuzzle