Retire Club newsletter..
 

RESOURCES

 

The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of the many other authors quoted in their book whose ideas have increased the power of many readers to plan for, inform, and enrich their life transitions, including retirement.

Selected Publications by Authors

Birkman Reader:
Alan Bernstein, Editor
If you would like to understand the Birkman Method in depth, including its application as a stimulus for self-development and its uses to promote organizational maturation, order the Birkman Reader directly by sending an email to shipping@birkman.com

Mergers and Acquisitions in the Nonprofit World:
John Trauth and Kathy Kenny
Article in "Community Investments," a publication of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, fall, 1998. Explains the difference between mergers and acquisitions in the private sector vis-a-vis the nonprofit sector. Read the Article

The Princeton Review Guide to Your Career, 6th edition
Alan Bernstein, LCSW,PC
This popular Guide helps access your key motivaters, your interests, and the style in which you like to accomplish.In addition, over 275 careers are outlined so that connections can be made between your personal career style and the careers listed through a brief version of the Birkman Method. Order Book


Additional Publications

This Is Not Your Parents' Retirement: An Inspirational Guide to Investment for a Revolutionary Generation
Entrepreneur Press, ©2005, Patrick P Astre
This book is a guide for people who want to build and preserve wealth toward retirement. Topics covered include mutual funds, stocks, bonds, insurance products, tax strategies, debt management, setting up future streams of income, and real estate investing. Order Book

Values-Based Financial Planning: The Art of Creating an Inspiring Financial Strategy
Bill Bachrach
This book about personal finances focuses on awareness of your values and making investment choices consistent with this knowledge. Readers create their own financial road map to implement their values-based financial strategy. Order Book

True Colors
Nashville Press, ©1995, Roger Birkman
This book is an in-depth introduction to the Birkman Method by its founder and creator. Roger covers personal relationships, spiritual values, and life transitions. If your aim is to enter this period of your life with grace and equanimity, this book will engage you.Order Book

What Color Is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers
Ten Speed Press, ©2004, Richard N. Bolles
If you think of your retirement as a new career (which in many ways it is), this is the book to help clarify your skills, interests, needs, and style. Beyond the career horizons, Dick understands the pace of change and engages the reader to maintain a process of self-respect through major transitions. Order Book

Younger Next Year: A Guide to Living Like 50 Until You're 80 and Beyond
Workman Press, ©2004, Chris Crowleym and Henry S. Lodge
A doctor and a retired litigator team up to present a personal story and a passionate argument that if you train for the next third of your life, you can live with vitality and grace well into your later years. Biological and evolutionary research is combined with pragmatic advice about maintaining active physical and intellectual lifestyles to stay young in body and mind. Order Book

Flow
Harper and Row, ©1990, Mihaly Csikszentmihaly
A rare ability to manage a transcendent idea and make it applicable to everyday life is the source of the joy waiting within this book. Highly recommended as a beginning source to understanding the power of epiphanies. Dr. Csikszentmihalyi trains the reader to both recognize and appreciate the power of the moment. Order Book

Retire on the House: Using Real Estate to Secure Your Retirement
Wiley, ©2006. Gillette Edmunds and Jim Keene
This book describes how to use your home equity to finance your retirement. Strategies include selling your home and moving to a less expensive residence, remodeling your home into units for rental income, home equity conversion loans, reverse mortgages, and others. Order Book

Prime Time: How Baby Boomers Will Revolutionize Retirement and Transform America
Marc Freedman
Countering the negative implications associated with the large number of retiring baby boomers and what a drain this will be on society, Freedman takes the opposite, optimistic view that baby boomers can be an enormous resource for improving society through volunteer work with nonprofit organizations. The book argues that volunteer work can bring greater fulfillment and purpose to the "postmidlife" years. Order Book

Stumbling on Happiness
Random House, ©2006, Daniel Gilbert
A Harvard psychologist presents the latest research on happiness, and reveals what scientists have discovered about the uniquely human ability to imagine the future and our capacity to predict how much we will like it when we get there. Order Book

Emotional Intelligence
Daniel Goleman
This seminal book helped create a national dialogue about the nature of intelligence: what it is, how it is best applied, and its connection to creativity and social relationships. If any of those questions appeal to you, so will this book. Order Book

The One Page Business Plan: Start with a Vision, Build a Company
Jim Horan
Presented as a professional planning tool for entrepreneurs, this book helps simplify the complex process of creating a business plan. Clearly written, with helpful examples, friendly visual graphics and humor, Jim helps small businesses focus on what is important to building a successful business. This book will also be useful for preretirees looking to transform a hobby into a money-making venture in retirement. Order Book

LifeLaunch: A Passionate Guide to the Rest of Your Life
Frederic M. Hudson and Pamela McLean
The book examines life transitions and renewal cycles and provides tools for proactively approaching change during the adult years. Effective strategies for life transitions are presented to help lead to personal growth and fulfillment. Order Book

Solving the Retirement Puzzle: How to Get the Most out of the Rest of Your Life
Peter Lindquist
This book provides forty anecdotal examples of retirees who overcame the challenges they faced in retirement. Key topics include the importance of preparing financially; maintaining physical, mental, and spiritual health; revitalizing relationships; and maintaining self-esteem. Order Book

Time Management from the Inside Out: The Foolproof System for Taking Control of Your Schedule and Your Life
Julie Morgenstern
Offering a three-step program--Analyze, Strategize, Attack--this book provides time management techniques to help reclaim your life from your busy schedule. It helps you define your goals in life and explains how to reorganize your time to help achieve them. It also includes helpful time mapping tools to help you determine where you invest too much and too little time. Order Book

Second Acts: Creating the Life You Really Want, Building the Career You Truly Deserve
Stephen M. Pollan, and Mark Levine
Written for everyone from the twenty-five-year-old career-changer to the sixty-five-year-old almost-retiree, this book describes how to successfully change the course of your life and create a more rewarding, enjoyable future. The authors argue that most of the barriers to a rich and rewarding life are self-imposed and surmountable. Order Book

Retirement Countdown
David Shapiro
A financial-planning book focused on retirement issues and strategies, including saving for retirement, establishing an income you can't outlive, understanding and managing investment risks, and investing in equity and fixed income investments, mutual funds, insurance, and annuities. Order Book

Retire Smart, Retire Happy: Finding Your True Path in Life
Nancy K. Schlossberg
The author interviewed 100 men and women and categorized them by the types of paths they followed. Five categories of retirees emerged from the research: Continuers, Adventurers, Searchers, Easy Gliders, and Retreaters. Most people follow a combination of paths and may change courses at different points in their retirement years. Order Book

Yes, You Can Still Retire Comfortably! The Baby Boom Retirement Crisis and How to Beat It
Ben Stein and Phil DeMuth
This book focuses on retirement financial planning, including investing for retirement, how much to save and how much to spend, strategies for drawing down retirement savings, and what to do if everything you have is not enough. Fall-back strategies including immediate annuities, moving to another location, and reverse mortgages. Order Book

The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
Eckhart Tolle
Not aligned with any particular religion or tradition, this book emphasizes the importance of living life in the present, freeing oneself from dominance of the analytical mind, and achieving a calm sense of presence, "being," and spirituality. Order Book

We're Not in Kansas Anymore: Strategies for Retiring Rich in a Totally Changed World
Walter Updegrave
This book describes the realities associated with financial retirement planning in today's world. Employers are cutting back company pension plans and replacing them with individually directed 401k plans; the long-term future of Social Security is in doubt; and individuals need to take more responsibility for planning their own financial future. This book provides detailed and helpful advice about saving and investing to secure your future. Order Book

Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution
Paul Watzlawick, John Weakland, and Richard Fisch
This book provides a valuable demonstration of how to apply the principles of mathematics and logic to any problem, whether theoretical or functional. It is concerned with how problems arise and how they are perpetuated in some instances and resolved in others. It examines how, paradoxically, common sense and "logical" behavior often fail and provides guidance in converting "stuck issues" into a series of resolvable steps. Order Book

Getting Started in Retirement Planning
Ronald M. Yolles and Murray Yolles
A broad financial-planning guide coving a number of topics, including saving for retirement, life stage financial strategies, investing while retired, protecting your portfolio, health care, and estate planning. Order Book

How To Retire Happy, Wild and Free
Ernie J. Zelinski
This book offers advice about how to enjoy life to the fullest in retirement, including finding interesting leisure activities, creative pursuits, traveling, achieving physical, and mental well-being, and the importance of a balanced life with strong social support. Order Book


Other Resources

Birkman Method
To utilize the full Birkman Method, contact Birkman International (800-215-2760). They will put you in contact with a Birkman consultant in your area. The Birkman Method consists of many different applications, and you may select the specific areas that are most significant to you.

Hudson Institute
Located in Santa Barbara, California, this learning center is dedicated to developing capacities for change. The concept of the "Renewal Cycle" is examined and explained. Workshops and training programs are offered that are specifically focused on the transition to retirement.

North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement
Located at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, the center was early to recognize the coming seismic shift in the aging U.S. population and has been in the forefront of research and course offerings on retirement. As baby boomers age and the median U.S. age increases, the center continues to study the effect on the U.S. economy, the job market, nontraditional work patterns, and other emerging trends.

Outward Bound
This organization originated from the concept that we are more capable of extraordinary motivation and behavior than most of us realize. To go on an Outward Bound Expedition is to give yourself license to see the world through new eyes, renewing your optimism about the joy of change, which can help facilitate the transition to retirement.

Road Scholar
Educational Travel is gaining popularity as a vacation with a difference, and among the best is Road Scholar, an offshoot of Elderhostel. Designed for retired and soon-to-retire professionals, Road Scholar focuses on in-depth learning in a new culture, with insights provided by experts. Adventure trips run by Steve Van Beek are specifically recommended. Steve, a forty-year resident of Asia, author, and river explorer, and his wife, Piyawee Ruenjinda, take visitors down lesser-known rivers of Southeast Asia on journeys of three to seventeen days. These are no-strain, no-hurry adventures to absorb local cultures and settings. They include hikes, overnights in village homes, and a chance to experience and share rural life. For a schedule of upcoming trips as well as photos from past trips, visit stevevanbeek.com.

 

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Alan Bernstein, L.C.S.W. & John Trauth, M.B.A
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