Do you need a retirement coach? [wholesale jeans]
Bud Robertson is 62, recently retired, and wealthy enough after a long business career that he doesn't have to work another day in his life. He's in great shape, is full of energy, and lives in a big house in Groton, Mass., that looks like an antebellum mansion uprooted from a Georgia plantation. Divorced for six years, he has time to spend with his girlfriend, three sports cars -- a 1958 Bugeye Sprite, a 1956 Chevy hardtop, and a 1981 Corvette -- and his two children and five grandchildren.
But don't envy Bud Robertson. In fact, hang out with him for a while, and you almost feel bad for the guy. Because on a recent spring morning he is not lounging at home in his pajamas or snorkeling in the Bahamas. Instead he is sitting in a conference room in Boston with Mike Jeans, the president of a firm called New Directions that, among other services, helps retired executives like Robertson figure out what to do with themselves when they can't boss people around anymore.
"Bud, I want you to take a pad of paper and write down a list of 200 people you intend to contact," Jeans says.
"Two hundred?" Robertson says, startled. "I could find 20, but I don't know about 200." Just think about everyone you know, says Jeans. "Former colleagues, attorneys, accountants, financial planners, recruiters, college alumni, people from church ..."
I am supposed to be silently observing this coaching session, the proverbial fly on the wall, but I can't help myself. "Wait a minute," I break in, "that doesn't sound like retirement. That sounds like job networking."
"Networking has two purposes," Jeans says. "To get on a board of directors and stay on people's radar screen so he doesn't get lost."
But why not get lost? Dude spent his whole life playing the game. If ever there were a time in Bud Robertson's life to get lost, wouldn't this be it?
Jeans turns to Robertson and says, "Bud, I want you to take six months off and not do anything."
"No," says Robertson.
And there you have it -- the existential dilemma of the successful, retired baby boomer. Once upon a time you worked for 40 years, then played golf or sat in a rocking chair waiting for your arteries to calcify. Maybe you hated it, but you didn't complain. Then came Viagra, liposuction, Tony Robbins, and all the other inventions that made boomers the most annoying generation ever. Now they are being dragged into retirement -- the first wave of boomers turns 65 this year -- and they are not going gentle into that good night. But they are not exactly raging against the dying of the light either. Mostly they are just confused. Says Jeans: "A lot of folks are emotional wrecks."
In December, when he retired as chief financial officer of Progress Software (PRGS) in Bedford, Mass. -- after 38 years of being a "workaholic" -- Robertson says, "I felt lost."
Well, of course he did! The guy was a freaking dynamo, super-positive and super-likable, arriving at the office every morning at 6:45, jazzed to keep alive his astonishing streak of giving quarterly earnings guidance to Wall Street that his firm met or exceeded for 10½ years straight. That's when he decided to hang it up. "It was Rocky Marciano time -- 49-0!" he exults. Suddenly everything stopped. He became just plain old Bud Robertson. He filled his mornings by running and lifting weights, but in the afternoon there was nothing to do but stare at his old, rotting cars. Longer life expectancy means he could face another 20 to 30 years -- a full third of his life -- navigating this strange, empty landscape without a map. Help!
Fortunately, there is a solution, and he is sitting across from Robertson, nodding empathetically. Jeans, who is also 62, spent 28 years in marketing, sales, and management before coming to New Directions in 2001 as a senior consultant. (He was also a client in 1992.) His firm attracts the upper portion of the upper crust, charging $15,000 to $75,000 to help executives handle all manner of personal and professional transitions, including how to manage their "post-career" life (they don't like to use the R-word).
In other words ... retirement coaching! And why not? This is the dimming of the Age of Aquarius. Just imagine one of John Cheever's lonely commuters transported a few generations into the future. He would still be an empty shell, his marriage still in tatters. But today he would see a retirement coach to save his yuppie soul.
But don't envy Bud Robertson. In fact, hang out with him for a while, and you almost feel bad for the guy. Because on a recent spring morning he is not lounging at home in his pajamas or snorkeling in the Bahamas. Instead he is sitting in a conference room in Boston with Mike Jeans, the president of a firm called New Directions that, among other services, helps retired executives like Robertson figure out what to do with themselves when they can't boss people around anymore.
"Bud, I want you to take a pad of paper and write down a list of 200 people you intend to contact," Jeans says.
"Two hundred?" Robertson says, startled. "I could find 20, but I don't know about 200." Just think about everyone you know, says Jeans. "Former colleagues, attorneys, accountants, financial planners, recruiters, college alumni, people from church ..."
I am supposed to be silently observing this coaching session, the proverbial fly on the wall, but I can't help myself. "Wait a minute," I break in, "that doesn't sound like retirement. That sounds like job networking."
"Networking has two purposes," Jeans says. "To get on a board of directors and stay on people's radar screen so he doesn't get lost."
But why not get lost? Dude spent his whole life playing the game. If ever there were a time in Bud Robertson's life to get lost, wouldn't this be it?
Jeans turns to Robertson and says, "Bud, I want you to take six months off and not do anything."
"No," says Robertson.
And there you have it -- the existential dilemma of the successful, retired baby boomer. Once upon a time you worked for 40 years, then played golf or sat in a rocking chair waiting for your arteries to calcify. Maybe you hated it, but you didn't complain. Then came Viagra, liposuction, Tony Robbins, and all the other inventions that made boomers the most annoying generation ever. Now they are being dragged into retirement -- the first wave of boomers turns 65 this year -- and they are not going gentle into that good night. But they are not exactly raging against the dying of the light either. Mostly they are just confused. Says Jeans: "A lot of folks are emotional wrecks."
In December, when he retired as chief financial officer of Progress Software (PRGS) in Bedford, Mass. -- after 38 years of being a "workaholic" -- Robertson says, "I felt lost."
Well, of course he did! The guy was a freaking dynamo, super-positive and super-likable, arriving at the office every morning at 6:45, jazzed to keep alive his astonishing streak of giving quarterly earnings guidance to Wall Street that his firm met or exceeded for 10½ years straight. That's when he decided to hang it up. "It was Rocky Marciano time -- 49-0!" he exults. Suddenly everything stopped. He became just plain old Bud Robertson. He filled his mornings by running and lifting weights, but in the afternoon there was nothing to do but stare at his old, rotting cars. Longer life expectancy means he could face another 20 to 30 years -- a full third of his life -- navigating this strange, empty landscape without a map. Help!
Fortunately, there is a solution, and he is sitting across from Robertson, nodding empathetically. Jeans, who is also 62, spent 28 years in marketing, sales, and management before coming to New Directions in 2001 as a senior consultant. (He was also a client in 1992.) His firm attracts the upper portion of the upper crust, charging $15,000 to $75,000 to help executives handle all manner of personal and professional transitions, including how to manage their "post-career" life (they don't like to use the R-word).
In other words ... retirement coaching! And why not? This is the dimming of the Age of Aquarius. Just imagine one of John Cheever's lonely commuters transported a few generations into the future. He would still be an empty shell, his marriage still in tatters. But today he would see a retirement coach to save his yuppie soul.
2011-06-01 14:04
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