Don't Retire, REWIRE! - Second Edition
So what is Rewirement®?
A new way “to do” the future!
Through research Jeri Sedlar and Rick Miners discovered that three out of four boomers said they hated the word retirement, and didn’t ever plan on totally retiring. When asked about a retirement vision, many answered reading, traveling, volunteering, learning and doing some type of work. Key was that whatever work they did it would be of their choosing--- minus the 24/7 stress and pressure of their traditional work and would give them fulfillment, value and purpose!
That new vision needed a new name and a philosophy behind it…so the concept of rewirement was born! And the 5 step process to make it happen!
But people aren't sure how to get that fulfilling life. We created the 5 step REWIRING™ Process to guide people to their next act.
What is REWIRING™?
REWIRING™ is all about your personal energy flow, where you want it to go, and how using it will fulfill your mind, body, and soul.
In our former roles as executive recruiters we had discovered three things about people that have implications for their retirement or as we like to call it rewirement®:
- when people are in any type of transition they can feel anchorless and that they are accomplishing little; not part of a social structure, and with few connections to many of the work related things that they valued
- they admit to not fully appreciating or recognizing the existence of the psychological payoffs they got from work, or that they took them for granted
- although compensation is important the happiest people are those who do work where the additional payoffs they seek are part of the job -- we call it "driver fulfillment."
People are motivated by personal needs that we call “drivers.” It 's why one person seeks a leadership role, while another is happy to be "behind the scenes." Having power, visibility, being a problem solver, being valued—are all examples of drivers that can impact why we make the decisions we do, and choose the roles we play.
Knowing what makes you tick is a key part of REWIRING™.
What is it that brings a retiree out of retirement? Or stops a retirement - eligible executive from retiring in the first place? It's usually not the money. Is it to have visibility, power, a place to go? Or what about the retired scientist who finds himself going back to his old company because he misses his team and the chance to discover new solutions?
Our premise is that the energy we have, and the motivations that have driven us all of our lives DO NOT disappear with age. That is what REWIRING™ is all about! The energy once used to do our traditional work will still be running through our veins and needs to be re-routed into new activities that fill our needs, not just our time. The personality traits we have exhibited throughout our life, remain. They may go through different levels of intensity, but they stay with us. We need to find constructive ways to keep expanding our lives so we stay true to ourselves and our needs, or “drivers.”
The book’s 5-step process enables readers, regardless of age or position, entrepreneur, doctor, teacher, artist, or executive, to discover their drivers and then see how these “drivers” are currently being fulfilled in their lives. What’s key is to see how they will be impacted in our next act. What activities will go? Which will stay? The remaining steps of the rewiring process include: the unearthing of discarded dreams and interests, the recognition of accomplishments and skills and the brainstorming of possibilities against an expanded world of work.
