Over-50

Aging-in-Place - Personal-Care Robots

There has been a souring of the dream of starting a new life in retirement/semiretirement through relocation. Historically, that had been the accepted way of having a lower cost of living, better weather and adventure.

But inflation has reared its head. Those top spots like Arizona have gotten more expensive. The influx of the budget-challenged from California who can no longer afford that state have migrated to AZ, driving up the cost of living. Climate change has brought troublesome weather to paradises like southern Alabama. And, it's well documented how difficult it is to make new friends when over-40. 

What is gaining attention is aging-in-place. You bet, stay in your house or downsize from that house to a one-bedroom apartment or efficiency. There are also more government subsidized senior residential complexes with steep discounts on rent. Forget uprooting your whole life. 

Aging-in-place has become more financially affordable with robots as standard in personal care. A human home health aide can run about $20.50 an hour. 

An option is to buy or lease a robot. That Artificial Intelligence helper can assist with everything from helping you out of bed and making your breakfast to supervising your workout and delivering a pep talk on what life has to offer. MarketWatch anticipates this DIY approach to aging-in-place will take off. 

Likely your robot will be configured to look very humanoid.

Place your paid sponsored content on this blog. Here are 6 tips for search engine optimization (SEO) in 2021. Contact janegenova374@gmail.com.

BigMonday for Google

Yesterday was BigMonday for Google. There were two developments - oriented toward social justice, reports The Hill.

One was the decision by Google's NetPAC to halt donations to all in Congress who opposed the certification of election results. That was an unambiguous move. Some other companies have simply backed off on all donations, indicating it will review the entire matter. There was no singling out particular far-right loyalists. 

The other development was the announcement by employees around the world of the formation of a new global union alliance. It is called Alpha Global. Its mission is to hold Google accountable. So far, there are members from 10 countries.

Tech workers are highly marketable. They are in a position of strength to push their employers to change current policies and procedures. 

Place your paid sponsored content on this blog. Here are 6 tips for search engine optimization (SEO) in 2021. Contact janegenova374@gmail.com.

No, You Can't Wait for Experts to Identify Trends

"Chinese President Xi Jinping warned that a 'new cold war' could turn hot, and must be avoided, in a speech on Monday at World Economic Forum’s virtual 'Davos Agenda' conference.'" - Dave Lawler, Axios, January 25, 2021.

Because of its one-time ethos of power, the World Economic Forum annual conference in Davos had been a media event. My clients would bring along their media staff to Davos. That allowed them to get press exposure for not only themselves. They could also network by offers to "lend out" their media team to those attending the conference who didn't have such a sophisticated media outreach.'

That was then. Now, Axios is among the few focusing on the goings-on at Davos. Way back in 2018, even before COVID-19 dominated the headlines, there had been opining that Davos was less relevant. Youth was shrugging it off. After all, every generation represents a possible power shift. 

In November 2020, William Cohan published an article in Vanity Fair on how the old-guard is fighting to have what goes on at Davos still matter. 

But the odds are against it. Not only is power viewed differently in 2021. The BigMan behind Davos - Klaus Schwab - can almost be classified as a global "public nuisance." His concept of power and influence seems to be 20th century. Isn't that getting in the way of urgent problem-solving? Hey, how are we going to prevent civil war in America? How will the Future of Work play out in terms of manpower demand? Should Universal Basic Income become standard globally? It worked well in Canada's New Leaf Project. 

The lesson here for organizations and individual professionals is this: Everything changes. The smart keep surveying the horizon for signs of emerging trends. That's where the opportunity is.

In this perilous time for operating a business to make a profit and to get, hold and move on to better work, that proactive mindset is a must. Trend-spotting is no longer for the experts. It's part of the economic survival plan for any entity and any human being who is determined to navigate the fresh risk factors of 2021. They include the virus variants resistant to current vaccines, caution in consumer spending and exploding government debt.

Takeaway: Figure out what is happening. Don't wait for an official report or media coverage.

The Future is already underway. Ghostwriting/Marketing Communications and coaching on those issues. Sliding scale fees. Complimentary consultation (janegenova374@gmail.com)

Letting Go of the BigJob - When Is It Time?

"Many baby boomers—especially those at the top of their game—struggle with the decision to step down. And when they leave, the transition is often ‘painful and messy ...'" - Betsy Morris, The Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2021.  

The classic template for retirement is that established by Johnny Carson. He left at the top of his game. His final show celebrated what he had put in play. And that was that.

Later David Letterman modified that model. Essentially he put aside his personal brand as The Comic. But he still remains in the game. For instance, he did a bit on the 2020 Emmys and hosts on Netflix "My Next Guest Needs No Introduction."

However, most brandname aging professionals find retiring unthinkable. Even "stepping back" horrifies them.

There is lots to be said - and they know it - to exit or "step back" when the reputation is still intact. But, that entails so much loss. It entails everything from money to being in demand (the email box is full, plenty of texts ping, the phone clamors). The reality is that once the job per se is over so often also is the personal branding.

In capitalism, you are your official title. Retirement can mean becoming invisible. Thought leader Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld detailed that tragedy in the book "The Hero's Farewell." It's painful to recall how one-time business giants Lee Iacocca and Jack Welch struggled to hang on after they retired from their chief executive officer positions. 

Those who opt to embrace some version of getting off the career track frequently make a mess of it. They often attempt to hang in, becoming a kind of public nuisance. One former law firm partner I coached came to me with the awareness that he was making a pest of himself spouting off plans to create a class-action law firm. The pain of that humiliation set him off abusing alcohol. His first step back to finding post-career work with a purpose was climbing out of his comfort zone. Here is my book, a free read, on that process. 

On the other hand, if professionals dig in their heels and conjure up strategies and tactics to remain just where they are on their career paths they also risk humiliation. They may experience cognitive decline and it shows. Ambitious younger careerists could be launching stealth attacks, including on the reputational front. There are smirks in the background. The good assignments might not be coming to them. The power brokers could be forcing them out. Initially it could begin with a pay cut. 

There are no absolute answers about when to let the big job go. Those who are equally in-tune with how the marketplace perceives them and where they are in their own overall abilities can do an audit. What can they continue to contribute to their organization and simultaneously prevent what could trigger downward trajectories? Of course, that assessment is an encounter with raw reality.

Capitalism is a harsh task-master, usually unforgiving. In addition, there are the usual monsters of the mind which undermine rational thinking. That inner chatter can and usually does have professionals in vulnerable situations shoot themselves in the foot. 

What makes the coming-to-jesus moment of clarity less traumatic is to get serious about creating a post-career plan. Yes, the big career ends. But work doesn't. That plan has a better shot at playing out well if there is no visible decline in performance or reputation before stepping back. 

The next kind of work can produce a fresh type of success. Professionals who let go of what they had could discover the unleashing of talents which makes them authentic late bloomers. There really is such a phenomenon. University of Chicago researcher David W. Galeson documented how talent might find its way of manifesting itself when youth is over. His seminal book is "Old Masters and Young Geniuses."

Also, the Future of Work is an unknown. Professionals who step back may be surprised what they step into. The world they left behind back there may vanish. 

The Future is already underway. Ghostwriting/Marketing Communications and coaching on those issues. Sliding scale fees. Complimentary consultation (janegenova374@gmail.com)

Retirement & Relocation - "Affordable" Can Mean High-Crime, Lousy Weather

The dream of retirement on the cheap is darkening.

As MarketWatch points out to "Mo" who writes in, living on $800 to $1,200 monthly can mean high crime and lousy weather. MarketWatch makes suggestions outside the U.S., ranging from Mazatlan, Mexico to Merida, Mexico. Factor in crime and heat.

I would add, within the U.S., cities in Ohio such as Youngstown and Toledo. In the latter, two police officers were fatally shot when doing their jobs. In both, you endure the brutal midwest winter. 

Since making it on peanuts is increasingly impossible - at least if you want to be safe and like the weather - an option is not to plan to retire. Instead, when your career is nearing its end, prepare to simply keep working for income. That could include any kind of work or training for jobs in demand. Your new direction could be it freelancing in what you used to do, taking on gig assignments and/or reskilling for long-distance truck driving or being a substance-abuse counselor.

According to the research by ProPublica, the odds are that you will be forced out of that good job - yes, because of age.  Also, if you do land another full-time job, it's unlikely to pay what your earlier job had. Only one in 10 match their former compensation.

The good news is that beyond the usual parameters of career paths, work is plentiful. That is, if you are willing to give up on status, high pay and security. Here is my bible on getting, holding and moving on to better work, at any age - a free read Download Outwitting ageism. In addition, reskilling can be low-cost online, at a trade school or at a community college. 

For instance, learning to drive a rig interstate can only represent an investment of $1,500. Often, though, it is about $7,000. Loans are available. If you receive financial aid that's free. Also some businesses will pick up the entire expense if you agree to drive for them for two years. 

If you are willing to embrace hustling, you have the option of aging-in-place. You don't relocate. Since you know the ins and outs of where you have been living it will be easier for you to find work or start a business. What you avoid having to do is the tough challenge of making new friends. It's documented that with aging it's difficult to acquire a new social network. The reality is that people's social circles rarely change after they are 30. 

Should you age-in-place there are myriad options to keep housing costs manageable. One is co-living or renting out rooms in your home. You recruit boarders who can pitch in with maintenance. Among the renters could be a landscaper and a plumber. Another option is to put yourself on the waiting list for subsidized senior housing. A third is to downsize to a studio apartment. Donate your furniture to charity. 

Back around 2014, some media outlets were gushing about older Americans living in Ecuador for only $700 a month. It was also possible for retirees to participate in the national healthcare system.

However, International Living now provides the cost breakdown for a couple at about more than $20,000 annually. In addition, there is the matter of crime. Non-natives are targeted. A third issue is the ability to adjust to a very different lifestyle. The strong pro about relocating to Ecuador, though, is that many expats start online businesses. 

Retiring used to be an event - analogous to graduating college or experiencing the birth of the first child. Now it is more and more a state of transition. That can be ongoing, extending for the rest of your life. 

A typical scenario: The career is losing traction or is already over. Since longevity could go on to over-100, the angst is about running out of money. There are more and more approaches to address that fear. In the process, you could land a solution which makes you a "late bloomer." The ways of earning income you try out could unleash talents you never had been aware you had. After all, traditional career paths can stuff you into a narrow box.

The Future is already underway. Ghostwriting/Marketing Communications and coaching on those issues. Sliding scale fees. Complimentary consultation (janegenova374@gmail.com)

Broken Networks - Bob Dilenschneider Lost Larry King, Jack Welch and Roger Ailes

In business, whether we are legit professionals or gangsters, we are our networks.

Unfortunately, as we age, too many of key players on those networks die.

That's what has been happening to public relations representative Bob Dilenschneider. He had headed Hill + Knowlton Strategies. Then he launched his own firm The Dilenschneider Group, with offices in Manhattan and Chicago. Of course, his networks were golden. On them had been Larry King, Jack Welch and Roger Ailes. 

Those three have died. 

The double whammy is that death not only puts gigantic holes in a network. With aging, it's more difficult to find and nurture fresh contacts. 

Voids like that can make older players vulnerable to attack by upstart competitors. The now-dead members of the network had constituted a kind of moat, stocked with alligators, and the drawbridge pulled down. 

Takeaway: Treat your networks as assets subject to profound change.

Place your paid sponsored content on this blog. Here are 6 tips for search engine optimization (SEO) in 2021. Contact janegenova374@gmail.com.

Those Old-Neighborhood Moral Guidelines - Collapsing in COVID Times

In the old neighborhood - and the ethos in film "A Bronx Tale" - snitching was verboten. There was even the saying, "The snitch winds up in the ditch." And the kid tattletaling in school back then wound up with gum in his or her hair. Or worse.

That code was like a religion. 

Now, such a value system may be breaking down. Daily Mail reports that Boston College has opted to encourage members of that academic community to report on those not observing measures to prevent COVID. That seems to be positioned and packaged as a "duty," associated with  a system of cherished values.

Of course, Boston College is not alone in making prevention a collective responsibility. And, disclosing the names of those not conforming has become beyond acceptable. In some circles, it's considered the right thing to do.

Long term, that old-time bias against snitching could collapse as part of our society. Future generations might be puzzled why the boy in "A Bronx Tale" sided with the gangster, not law enforcement.  The moral guidelines some had acquired in the urban neighborhoods of yesterday might evolve into kinds of crimes against the people.

A one-time kid who grew up on the mean streets of pre-gentrified Jersey City, New Jersey, I feel my value system being blown away. 

Place your paid sponsored content on this blog. Here are 6 tips for search engine optimization (SEO) in 2021. Contact janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

Peril of Old Business Models in Hyper-Competitive Times

"IBM posted lower sales every quarter in 2020, underscoring the challenges ahead for Chief Executive Arvind Krishna, who took over during the pandemic. In the latest quarter, revenue fell 6.5% to $20.37 billion, missing analysts’ projections, according to FactSet." - Maria Armental, The Wall Street Journal, January 21, 2021.

Back in the early 1990s, under attack by competition, IBM did the unthinkable. It ousted its chief executive officer John Akers. And it parachuted in an outsider Lou Gerstner Jr. That put in play a turnaround. For a while.

Then, the corporation seemed to return to having as leadership the old-guard kind. For example, during years of decline there had been Ginni Rometty. An Ok, Boomer, from the get-go, she was criticized for not grasping where technology really was. In addition, there was not fast enough movement to nurture new businesses. Also there had been the drag on revenues by the legacy ones.

Clearly, there is a lesson for law firms. Actually, plenty of them.

Like IBM, law firms tend to be stuck in rigid models. So far that has not undermined PPP. 2020 had been a good year for many large law firms. But with the surge of new forms of competition, that success could be on short time. 

As the recent report on the state of the legal market by the Thomson Reuters Institute and Georgetown Law Center points out, yes, many law firms proved resilient during the fallout from COVID. Much of their financial performance, though, was due to cost-cutting. As Corporate America knows, that only goes so far. Growth is also needed. In 2020, demand had been down for law firms.

In addition, billing is an issue. That will become more of an issue as clients bear witness to the 2020 PPP. Those clients, such as Walt Disney, are suffering. At Disney, the general counsel's compensation had been cut more than 30% in 2020.

Also, there was not enough risk-taking. Among the exceptions had been the lateral strategy of Paul Weiss, chaired by Brad Karp. For instance, through lateral hiring, it is going where some other law firms have failed: Northern California. There its mission is to expand its footprint from the New York and D.C. areas to San Francisco tech. Included in the risk is having media watch that initiative.

Meanwhile, as this white paper by Incom-CNS Group notes, globally the legal sector is being hit in the bottom line with fresh challenges. At the top of the list are the alternate business structures for how legal services are delivered and priced. And, nowhere can law firms ignore the edge BigAccounting has in business development. It can cross-sell to current corporate clients which trust them.

In the early 1990s, Microsoft and Apple were eating IBM's lunch. Currently, predatory forces are also moving in on the operating practices of traditional law firms. As soon as 2021, law firms might notice their lunch, dinner and breakfast not arriving, as usual. If they are surprised, shame on them.

The Future is already underway. Ghostwriting/Marketing Communications and coaching on those issues. Sliding scale fees. Complimentary consultation (janegenova374@gmail.com)

The New Haves/Have-Nots in Aging (what, me worry, I have a conservative portfolio of equities)

Inauguration Day was an especially good day for those of us over-50 who own stocks.

As MarketWatch reports, the surge in the Dow Jones had been the highest in 36 years. Sure, there can be a crash. But many of us aging have factored in that possibility with a relatively conservative portfolio. We are well beyond the phase of our lives when we are focused on maximizing returns. Instead we are content to protect what we put in and have modest gains. 

We who are financially positioned that way are the New Haves. The mascot of the Ok, Boomer generation - Alfred E. Neuman - would put it this way: What, me worry?

Not that we don't have to monitor our spending. However, unlike the new Have-Nots, we don't have to now or it seems that it won't be necessary in the future to embrace radical frugality. Some call that "minimalism." 

Admittedly, for some of us it wasn't always that way. After my own financial unraveling in 2003, I had to get smart fast about how to pay off debt, make ends meet, start/scale a business and practically starve to have a few bucks to invest. Here is that story geezerguts-139.pdf (typepad.com)

Then, there was no longer a hole to climb out of. Instead of making my life more comfortable (e.g. buying a house or a new car), I continued to invest. My Edward Jones Financial Planner Michael Hernan listened to my request: Keep it conservative. 

Currently, I am far from wealthy. Where I am, though, is being able to semiretire. I can choose what assignments I want to accept for my two boutiques. I can estimate what to bill w/o needing to factor in financial peril.

In contrast, there are the Have-Nots. They did not invest. They probably had reasons why they didn't. Just as there were reasons, such as the collapse of my industry at the turn of the century, why I found myself in a real financial pickle. However, the reality is that the mindset of not living up to one's income usually turns out to be very smart.

Among the Have-Nots are those who had been considered the folks to go to with a problem. Now they carry around a kind of stink. We tend to duck them. Something smells very rotten in the state of Denmark, to introduce that other human being in peril - Hamlet.

For the over-50, society seems to have become binary. There are those not frantic about money. And those who are.

No, it's not too late to begin investing.

Place your paid sponsored content on this blog. Here are 6 tips for search engine optimization (SEO) in 2021. Contact janegenova374@gmail.com.

A New Era - Drudge Report Captures the Shift Moment

IN GOD HE TRUSTS!
'DEMOCRACY HAS PREVAILED'
BIDEN TAKES THE OATH
CALLS FOR UNITY
L I V E

Place your paid sponsored content on this blog. Here are 6 tips for search engine optimization (SEO) in 2021. Contact janegenova374@gmail.com.