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I have such exciting news to share with you! The Wall Street Journal selected my book, Retirement by Design, as one the six best books of 2020 on aging and retirement! As an author, I’m always happy to get a good review, but this was an unexpected and thrilling honor. And I’m deeply grateful that the WSJ, and my readers, are finding value in this book.

The reader feedback I receive shows that, after so many months of the pandemic, many people, young and old, are contemplating what retirement means, when it happens, and how it might look. The very concept of retirement is being revolutionized. There is a growing awareness that the traditional linear career trajectory of education, then work and family, then retirement, is being replaced by individualized life and career patterns that might take any shape or direction. People may seek education, work, family, travel, volunteering, adventure, and retirement (permanent or temporary) at any point and in any order during their increasingly long lives. Fortunately, while more senior professionals may have the most immediate interest in the book, its creative, design-focused approach is adaptable enough to accommodate any career and retirement scenario.

The holidays are coming up fast. Retirement by Design would be a great gift to yourself if you are starting to think about retiring, or for any friend, family member or colleague who is (or should be). Its workbook format makes it highly…

I hope this finds you, your families and colleagues healthy and coping well while you shelter in place.

Many firms have asked me how to ensure that their mentoring programs and informal mentoring initiatives continue effectively while people are working remotely and facing so much uncertainty. If you have questions or could use some help with your mentoring efforts, feel free to contact me. Also, my recent article, Mentoring During a Pandemic, offers some simple advice for maintaining mentoring relationships.

The other area I have been concentrating on involves retirement planning. Now that you have been working from home for two months, are you reconsidering how much longer you expect to continue your practice? In a recent essay, Altman Weil consultant Jim Wilber described his thought process and imagined that other senior practitioners were also “recalculating their retirement horizon.” And it’s not just senior practitioners who are reassessing their priorities and career choices as a result of the pandemic. According to a study discussed in Fortune Magazine last month, 14% of women and 11% of men are considering quitting their jobs due to increasing work-family conflict.

If you are wondering what your future might look like, and how much longer you want to keep practicing, take a look at my recent article, “Is this the time to plan your retirement?” It presents a few basic questions to help you find some clarity about the things that are…

As a writer, I’m a stickler for finding the right words to communicate what I mean. As we read and hear about “social distancing,” it’s important to recognize that what we are practicing during this pandemic is “physical distancing.” For while we need to remain apart physically, we can and must remain connected socially. People are social animals; we have a basic biologically-based human need for social interaction. So while I’ll include below some substantive information about mentoring and an invitation to discuss retirement via zoom later this week, my principal message to you is this:

Reach out to someone every day. Whether you are living alone or with a family, working from home or not working at all, coping well or struggling, healthy (as I hope you are) or worried about someone who isn’t, make at least one call a day to someone. Try to do it by phone or video call. Stay connected or reconnect with friends, relatives, colleagues and neighbors, especially those who live alone or are vulnerable. Find out how they are doing and let them know you hope they’re all right. Use those calls to remind them and yourself of our social bonds, which will survive and maybe even strengthen, when all this is over and we can be together physically once again.

Mentoring During the Pandemic

One of the people to be in touch with is your mentor or mentee. In these uncertain and scary times,…