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Lisa Orrell, The Promote U Guru 
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How A Boomer Executive Got Fired and Launched a New LifeMarch 17th, 2012Hi All! I have 2 rituals that I perform prior to boarding a plane if it’s a morning flight: Buy a Vitamin Water and a USA Today newspaper. No matter what city I’m flying out of, if my flight is before noon local time, you can find me doing this in an airport store close to my departing gate. There is absolutely no point in my telling you that, other than recently I was on a flight, reading my USA Today, and came across an interesting article about a new book that I thought was very interesting and inspiring. But, before I jump into telling you about it, let me take a minute to explain why the article about the author’s journey and his new book grabbed my interest: Back in October of 2011, I published my third book, “Boomers into Business: How Anyone Over 50 Can Turn What They Know into Dough Before and After Retirement”. Basically, there are startling stats about how ill-prepared more than 47% of Boomers are to have enough money to retire (or to even cover their basic bills later in life!). So I wrote my latest book to provide career options that Boomers can consider to make more money now, on-the-side of their current job, if they’re employed, as well as what they can do after they “retire” from their current job or career to generate income past 65 years old. Again, almost 50% of Boomers are at risk of outliving their retirement savings so this is a serious issue…and will cause many Boomers to have to generate income, somehow, well into their later years. Okay, now back to the book I read about on the plane. It’s called, “Diary of a Company Man: Losing a Job, FInding a Life”, written by James. S. Kunen (Lyons Press). In a nutshell, at 59 years old Kunen was fired from a corporate job at Time Warner, and found himself in what he, along with many other Boomers, describe as a place of: Too young to retire and too old to hire. According to the article about his journey, 100 employees out of 500 were let go, and of those 100, 4-out-of-the-5 people let go in corporate communications were over 40 years old. He being one of the “oldest” at 59. So, there Kunen was, caught in that weird vortex many Boomers find themselves in where they find it hard to find a job, yet they’re too young to “stop” working because they don’t have enough retirement savings. Now, I don’t want to give away the ending and how he survived this, so you’ll either have to read his book or read the article I read online in USA Today back on February 27, 2012 to get more details. But I will offer you this brief book description to wet your appetite: The funny, insightful, and inspiring story of a 1960s campus radical turned corporate PR man who finds himself, along with his fellow baby boomers, in a place called “Too Young to Retire and Too Old to Hire”. James S. Kunen—author of “The Strawberry Statement“, an account of the 1968 student uprising at Columbia University—chronicles his adventures on the road to finding meaning in work and life. He traces his evolution from a rebellious youth who sees working as a kind of death, to a laid-off corporate executive who experiences not working as a kind of death, to a reinvented and reinvigorated individual who discovers something important and meaningful to do. The experience of falling victim to America’s recession-ravaged economy (and the people who run it) leads him along a career path far different from anything he had planned. After years of making a living, Kunen finally learns how to make a life. “Diary of a Company Man” will be a revelation not only to baby boomers but to young people trying to figure out what to do with their lives. Aside from publishing a book, what did he do to make a living? How did he reinvent himself? Did he become self-employed? Did he find another corporate job? If you’re a Boomer and find yourself in a similar situation as Kunen, let-go from a job close to 60, what can you do? Or if you still have a job but need to make more money for your retirement account, what can you do? Or if you’re looking for something you can do to generate income past 65 years old, what can you do? For starters, on Amazon you can pick up a copy of Kunen’s book, or my new book (mine is available in both Print and Kindle versions), for some ideas! Sadly, all of this is a reality for over 35 million Baby Boomers, and the time to start thinking about financial security in your golden years is now! Cheers & Happy Marketing! Lisa  2 Responses to “How A Boomer Executive Got Fired and Launched a New Life”Leave a Reply |
The Great Recession has been hard on everyone, including and perhaps especially older workers.
While the unemployment rate for people in their 50s is about 7 percent, compared to an overall rate of 9 percent, workers 55 and older generally stay unemployed for a longer period of time than younger people, according the Pew Economic Policy Group.
retire forum…
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