Before I delve into advice for seekers of a next life chapter, this is a GENTLE REMINDER requesting that you attend one of our upcoming talks that are open to the public about our book on Boomers seeking encore careers. At 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, January 31, 2015, at the well-known Book Passage bookstore in Corte Madera we’ll be speaking and showing photos. And/or at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February 3, 2016 join us at the Mountain View Library.
In terms of Boomers’ next steps in embarking on potential encore careers, once you answer the questions from my blog of January 14th, then rank the importance to you of those answers.
Once you’ve got a sense of what is important to you, consider outside insight, guidance and/or sounding boards for Boomers and those in career transitions to determine/narrow your focus on your next life chapter.
- Once Rick wanted came up with his general category of interest, “creating world peace through poverty reduction,” he began to narrow his focus by reading many books to give him insight into how many different organizations approached this, and then writing down the most meaningful aspects.
- I hired a “Life Coach” to guide me through a more disciplined approach. This helped me determine my top areas of interest (Entrepreneurship, education, youth and women’s issues) as well as assess the skills that would be most valuable in a nonprofit career.
- Friends who know you well can help you narrow down your ideas by your
creating a “set of feedback questions including strengths and weaknesses” about areas you are considering. They can give you honest insight into how you might fare. And in a second phase, can help you lists the skills and experiences that are applicable to your more honed areas of interest. I assembled a group over an evening dessert and using structured questions on both phases. They were helpful in guiding then reinforcing my thinking.
creating a “set of feedback questions including strengths and weaknesses” about areas you are considering. They can give you honest insight into how you might fare. And in a second phase, can help you lists the skills and experiences that are applicable to your more honed areas of interest. I assembled a group over an evening dessert and using structured questions on both phases. They were helpful in guiding then reinforcing my thinking.Once you found your potential areas of interest for your next chapter, start your online research to find some organizations in relevant fields.
We hope to see some of you—and friends and family–in the next week or so. And please spread the word to buy AND review our book at Amazon and other online book retailers as well as Books Inc. in Mountain View and Palo Alto and Orinda Books.
