Over-50

Baby Boomers - Earning the Right to Be Post-Adult

The amazing 2020 novel "Anxious People," by Fredrik Backman talks about the tragedy of becoming an adult. 

You lose the protections of being a child, then a teenager, and finally a minor in the eyes of the law.

You get it that nobody really cares about you. Not like your mum did when you were a toddler.

And, you have to go to work. If you don't you will not be able to survive (unless you are cunning).

Oh, we adjust to that rite of passage from things-being-okay to things-being-scary.

That in-between state goes on until we float into what I call post-career, post-money, and within not too many years post-life.

The age for that varies from person to person. Probably the head of Fox Rupert Murdoch, age 90, will never do that float. He seems to thrive being the adult. Maybe because he is in-charge. Most adults never get to be in-charge. Adulthood usually means a sense of powerlessness.

My float happened when I relocated from the buttoned-down midwest to a vestige of the wild west, near Tombstone, Arizona. That was December 2020. In May 2021, I celebrated one of those grim omg-I'm-in-my-70s birthdays. 

Then, that moment of clarity came to me: I can float.

I earned the right to be post-adult.

I had paid off all debt.

I had enough in an investment fund to be comfortable if I continued to follow a minimalist lifestyle.

Sure, I could continue doing assignments for clients. But it would be w/o the careerist angst.

In my blogging here and on my syndicated legal blog I could push the envelope on content. 

For about 52 days I have been post-adult. I have to admit, though, that I do look back.

For instance, in my professional orbit is one of those born-whole success stories - Brad Karp, chairperson of elite law firm Paul Weiss. In almost a competitive sense I wonder if he would ever float into the state of post-adulthood. My hunch is that anyone who piles up those many accomplishments lacks an inner floatation device. 

There are also my two new close friends here in the southwest. I admit: I am judging them harshly for having floated, well, prematurely.

They should have socked away more money.

They should have paid off all debt.

They should have picked up another marketable skill, just in case.

No, they haven't really earned the right to surrender the burden of responsibility. Of course, I keep that to myself. I do allow them in to play in my sandbox. But I also resent that they don't bring any toys because they hadn't worked long enough and hard enough to afford them. 

Then there is the sister from whom I have been totally estranged since 2003 - Anne Murga-Ring. Her LinkedIn profile is down. Her ex-husband wouldn't dish any dirt about her when I contacted him. There's nothing usable on Google. One of the few members of our tormented family who is capable of pleasure, she, I have to assume, gave up on the whole adult stuff as soon as she and her current husband reached that magic number in their portfolio (that varies, of course, from person to person). 

So, how is it to a post-adult? Well, it was Saint Teresa of Avila who oberserved:

"More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones."

Of course, when I was an adult I prayed for liberation from angst about work, bills, how I was perceived, crazy relatives coming to vist, and much more.

That's what I got. That's a given in post-adulthood. The state of being is days of heaven before heaven. "They," that is other post-adults, say you adjust. I will give that 180 more days. Then, I might start up some adult stuff again. I really need to get back worrying again. 

Small changes can trigger big success in your career and your business communications. Also guidance for pre-retirement. Swing by for a complimentary consultation (janegenova374@gmail.com)

Baby Boomers, Whether You Became a Billionaire or Not, You Still Didn't Win in America

"Father, forgive me. I had acquired wealth."

Finally, sizes up Bloomberg, the Apollo Fund is moving out of the shadow of scandal. Investors are re-committed. 

The specifics of the previous Apollo brand tarnishing included media-grabbing tidbits like association with Jeffrey Epstein. 

Okay, Epstein was a bad guy.

But the intensity of the hit to the Apollo brand and its one-time head Leon Black is not really about that, is it? The root of the self-righteous hysteria seems to be this: America's ambivalence about wealth. Both institutional and personal. 

On the one hand, the Puritan ethos had the acquisition of wealth as a the play-out of the right moral values. The lack of it was interpreted as a lack of those. That's not gone away. Shame on you. You're not on the list of billionaries under-40.  

On the other hand, there is the embedded meme: Money is the root of all evil. Had Black not possessed such personal wealth he wouldn't have been able to have become involved in a romantic dalliance resulting in a lawsuit against him and a countersuit by him, right. We're certain of that. We praise MacKenzie Scott for giving away so much of her wealth.

The problem is that the ambivance (along with the certitude) is growing. That means so much confusion. 

On an individual level, the Hamptons had become a symbol of decadence. The media does photos of disgraced "Today" executive Matt Lauer you know where: the Hamptons. 

As for institutional wealth. Where to begin. Yes, folks want the returns on their investments in public companies to be amazing. Simultaneously they want the corporations producing them not to showcase wealth in terms of power and influence.

No, they shouldn't be dictating where the employees are working from.

No, they cannot choose whom they want to hire.

No they can't just operate the business when there is so much suffering in the world. And, the brass is getting paid too damn much. Wall Street? You don't want your kid training there as a junior analyst. And as a lawyer do you want to work at a BigLaw firm representing Wall Street? 

A proven out public relations firm like Edelman might have to be parachuted in to design a campaign for rebranding wealth as an economic-growth necessity. It's like the car industry is the 1950s. What was good for GM was good for the creation of the middle class. Only the creation of more wealth now will restore that middle clas. Tighten that up as a message.

In addition, corporate leadership has to get smarter about identifying where the landmines are on this one and how to not step on them. That's the rub. What was a standard value a month ago is verboten yesterday and today who the hell knows. Check your values before you start announcing policies this morning.

That's why law firms' ESG (environmental, social, goverance) practices may be evolving into the most critical service to current clients and to prospective ones. That could be inventing a new category of what law firms do, in addition to the traditional transactional and litigation segments. Actually, that could be more important than the latter two. Will law firms come to declare that the real busines that they are in is saving American capitalism? Part of that is figuring out social justice for the clients.

Paul Weiss, chaired by Brad Karp, has captured that new core function of a law firm in how it has  positioned and packaged its own ESG practice mission.

Essentially the language is code for how to succeed despite what's happening externally and internally (employee activism). The current cultural upheaval doesn't get corporations off the hook for producing over-the-top financial performance. But they better do that and communicate about that in ways that walk the line on the perception of wealth.

Here is the Paul Weiss mission:

"Business leaders face greater pressure to increase their organizations’ resilience while simultaneously addressing social issues of importance to stakeholders. Our advisory practice helps companies navigate the legal, business and political ramifications of developing and implementing ESG initiatives. We advise on matters such as stakeholder engagement, corporate governance, crisis management, corporate social responsibility, sustainability, diversity and inclusion, ethics and compliance."

Meanwhile, the Delta variant has introduced more uncertainty. Folks don't like that. Individuals and organizations with wealth will likely be taking it on the chin. There could be greater expectations of help from them as well as vilification of what they are assumed to be about. Give us your money and get out of our sight.

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Baby Boomers - Remember How Mom Mandated We Be Practical about We Were Going to Earn a Living ...

"The Daily Beast spoke with 17 former and current support staff members who’ve worked as script coordinators, writer’s assistants, showrunner’s assistants, executive assistants, and production assistants. All of them said their jobs’ relentless demands and poor pay are unlivable. Even worse, they said, is doing this essential work in the same room as colleagues performing the same amount of labor for tens of thousands of dollars more than them." - Laura Bradley, Daily Beast, July 25, 2021.

Hollywood assisants could follow employees from Burger King, Chipotle and Dollar General out the door. 

However, when it comes to Hollywood assistants, mainstream America may not be sympathetic. After all, trying to break into Hollywood represents a wild dream. Hasn't the crazy economy since the post-9/11 recession chastened dreamers? Instead, get certified in X or Y field at the community college. Or, major in business or computer science in college.

In addition, as baby boomers well remember, our mothers hammered us to play it safe. For women it was to get a teaching certificate or train to be a nurse. For males it was a degree in accounting or to go the distance and plow through three years of law school. Glam? We were warned not to go there.

Then affluence filled the land. And the next generations were even encouraged to go to The Big City and pursue a glam career in whatever. Give it five years, they were told. The M.B.A. crowd, the lawyers - way too buttoned-down. 

Now, we could be circling back to extreme practicality in earning a living. When college students contact me for coaching they are caught between dream/glam and a career path that will pay off student loans and open them to those rites of passages such as starting a family.  

However that binary way of thinking might be total anachronism.

The Future of Work might create whole new models. Instead of careers in the traditional sense, Willis Towers Watson projects working as a continual path of acquiring new experience and skills. That will be the portfolio those wanting to make a good living will carry around. The game will be about income. That journey won't be linear. Last year the work was in apartment leasing. This year, by leveraging the regulatory part of that experience, it's a manager's position in a collection agency. Significantly more income. Title? Not so important. Status? Hey, that never did necessarily pay the bills. 

In a sense some of that has already kicked in. In marketing my communications and coaching boutiques the pitch is not the backstory or what's on a traditional resume. Instead it's about what I can accomplish right now for clients as a fee that fits that fits their budgets. Usually I leverage just-in-time experience. Pedigree? Not that relevant. The shift is to focusing on results. 

If those results are satisfactory to them then I can put all that in my portfolio. For now. Of course, there is extreme pressure to keep that portfolio up-to-date. Only very recent experience can be marketed.

Small changes can trigger big success in your career and your business communications. Also guidance for pre-retirement. Swing by for a complimentary consultation (janegenova374@gmail.com)

Baby Boomers - Finally, We Don't Have to Be Rich to Have Power

"For decades, large swaths of low wage service work have proved difficult to unionize because of fissured workplaces and aggressive union-busting by employers. Now these workers, many of them women of color—have taken the next best option, protesting through mass resignation." Lauren Karori Gurley, Vice, July 23, 2021.

Soon enough it won't be a story when the whole workforce walks off the job. And that isn't a strike. It's a quit. Like, we're not coming back. 

Currently it is the story, though, at Burger King, Chipotle, and Dollar General. A more sophisticated version of that is happening on Wall Street. Young analysts have been exiting for more humane work cultures. And, just the threat of walking out in BigLaw by junior lawyers has been shaping back to office policies (at least before the Delta variant). 

Meanwhile, freelance players have re-learned that they can make a good buck in the underground economy. No, they don't have to pitch over and over for assignments in the above-ground economy. So, obviously, if the balance of power between business and workers doesn't shift, the government is going to lose on plenty of tax money. 

Nothing is static. This use of quitting to send a message will evolve into legislation and litigation. Employment law practices will continue to blossom. 

And, all of us who exchange our labor for money will be making an existential assessment about what "work" means. That is part of how the Future of Work is playing out. 

Of course, corporations will stumble. That's where law firms ESG practices loop in. They provide both preventive guidance and fix-it operations for business when power is being redistributed.

JPMorgan Chase head Jamie Dimon can have all the money in the world. But that no longer ensures that he will control the levers of power. Already, he is being mocked for pontificating where work has to be done. And, Generation Z preferences about the values of the workplace are making Dimon look, well, old-line. 

Yes, Dimon has just re-opped with JPMorgan Chase. And, yes, that institution will probably still make lots of money. But there has been an unbundling of money and power.

Small changes can trigger big success in your career and your business communications. Also guidance for pre-retirement. Swing by for a complimentary consultation (janegenova374@gmail.com)

Baby Boomers - We Knew Not To Be Funny Ladies (what Kamala Harris has not yet learned)

That shouldn't have happened.

Harris should have known how a vestige of pre-feminism is that females are not allowed to lean in to humor. At least not too much of it. The exceptions are those whose living is in the funny box. Think Tiny Fey.

And, like money, politics isn't funny. I hammer to my clients in financial services to hold any humor in their marketing materials.

Sure, SNL can make politics funny. But for the majority of both voters and those voted for or not voted for, the art and science of politics don't involve humor. Politics is serious business. Everything from tax rates to workers' rights depends on it.

In addition, Harris is not dealing from a position of strength. She has made many myriad mistakes. Also floating around is the growing assessment that she is not up to the job. Instead of showcasing mirth she should be adopting a persona of gravitas. 

If the White House had hired a presentation coach for Harris it should fire that vendor. Search for one more tuned in to what the mainstream expects a woman to look, speak, and smile but not laugh.

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Non-Brandname Baby Boomers - At Least You Didn't Chase After Someone Else's Power

The ugliness of the world Michael Wolff depicts in "Landslide" is one in which many men and even some women chase power by association. 

Some such as Rudy Giuliani had lost their own power.

Others like Chris Christine couldn't seem to have the kind they lusted after.

And then there were those like the myriad lackluster lawyers Donald Trump floated into his orbit who didn't have what it requires to become powerful.

That chase, at least as it was made to configure in the Trump Administration, was both bizarre and sad.

Those men and those women could have gone on with their own professional and personal lives with dignity, satisfaction and inner peace had they not looped into the power-through-association game.

On a much smaller level that can be played out by ghostwriters and speechwriters who mistake their service to power as their own real power. Typically they "throw their weight around" in corporate executive communications departments. In referring to the chief executive they write for, they slip into the term "we." The rest of us, there to just earn a good living through our writing skills, roll our eyes. 

Tech innovator Steve Jobs had his own power.

In the literay world so did novelist Philip Roth. Like Greek god Zeus he could throw thunderbolts. For example, his books triggered the controversy if there were such a phenomenon as ethnic self-hate. 

In the legal sector, Brad Karp, as chairman of Paul Weiss, clearly has his own power. Just in New York City, there are 811 lawyers. Interestingly, in addition, he also, as Bloomberg Law reports, enjoys power by association with the Biden Administration. Are the two synergistic? That's not as important as the need to have one's own solid power base.

Of course, there are all sorts of power. Hedrick Smith hammered that in "Power Game." For instance, the ability to obstruct constitutes a kind of power.

But most think of power in heady terms and want it that way: There are the BigInfluence, media coverage, option to acquire great wealth, invites, and adulation.

About the latter, it was Henry Kissinger who observed that power brings on the babes. So, it's not hard to speculate that maybe former Apollo head Leon Black didn't really have power. He wound up ponying up money and too many gifts for the babe who sued him last June (and whom he sued yesterday).

Irony: As "Landslide" makes clear: Those chasing power are hardest on those chasing power. So, sure, we wonder if author Wolff is chasing power by association.

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Those Professors - We Didn't Leave Them Behind When We Got Our (Multiple) Academic Degrees

"Including its first two hearings, 57 of 82 committee members and witnesses [of the Presidential Commission on the U.S. Supreme Court] are professors, of whom 36 teach at one of six schools: Harvard, Yale, Duke, the University of Chicago, Columbia, and NYU." - Bloomberg Law, July 20, 2021.

We baby boomers were not only the first educated generation. We were the first over-educated one. The mantra back then had been: The more education the better.

Along the way we should have come to at least be skeptical of the credibility and authority of professors.

More likely we probably came to feel strong antipathy against their claims of certitude. The worst I have found during my own journey in over-education were the professors teaching the 1Ls at Harvard Law School.

So, we baby boomers should be in the front lines of concern about both the high number of professors on the SCOTUS Presidential Commission and the predictable reality that they are primarily from the Ivy League.

Will that sort of configuration generate a multi-dimensional review of what goes down in SCOTUS, everything from who tends to get admitted to the club to if a mandatory retirement age is a good idea? Don't bet on it.

The best tutorials I have had on what counts in everything and anything have been from my supervisors and clients in business. They range from an assistant manager with a community college education working in an inner city big box to the mom-and-pop blue-collar owners of a waterproofing firm. 

Over-reverence for higher education, especially the kind served up in elite institutions, didn't end with us baby boomers. As former Yale Professor William Deresiewicz showcases in his book "Excellent Sheep," current college students still are in that box. 

Both the undeserved power of professors and the aura of the Ivy League can end with an aggressive push back against the dominance of professors on the SCOTUS Presidential Commission. Let's demand a recall.

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The New York Times Pays Attention to Sibling Issues - Anne Murga-Ring and Jane Genova

Finally, that complex relationship among siblings is being put under the same kind of therapeutic microscope as the parent-child dynamics. Here, for example, is an article from The New York Times.

As I remember it, back in the 1970s, most of my three years of psychotherapy with David W. Harder focused on my mother, less on my father. And not at all on my sister Anne Murga-Ring. That was when Harder was doing his residency at the University of Michigan Neuropsychiatric Institute. Later he went on to teach at Tufts. Now, he's retired from Tufts.

Of course, currently I wonder if I should have been nudged by Harder to explore what I perceived might have gone down with Anne? After all, we frequently have more interaction with siblings than parents, at least in those days. 

It wasn't until November 2003 that I recognized the problematic nature of the sibiling context. I had called Murga-Ring for assistance during a crisis. There was no help. Not then. Not until the now time of July 2021. Yeah, I sure got the message that maybe our relationhip wasn't all that great. 

Then there was the Ah-Ha Moment: Maybe it never had been all-that-great. 

Somewhere along the line in my little life it would have been useful to tutor me in the potential dark side of the sibling context. I would not have expected anything and would not have been devastated when I received nothing. 

Of course, I got through my crisis. And, of course, that adversity opened me to a Next I may never have had had I been assisted by my sister. C.S. Lewis put it this way: Life is a brutal teacher. But, by god, we learn. 

Small changes can trigger big success in your career and your business communications. Also guidance for pre-retirement. Swing by for a complimentary consultation (janegenova374@gmail.com)

Baby Boomers - Our First Communion

White dress.

White veil.

White knee socks.

White shoes.

White purse.

White prayer book.

White rosary beads.

White candle.

That was me on my First Communion Day. 

To the present time, I have never felt so important.

That's likely exactly what the one-time brilliant-in-marketing Roman Catholic Church intended in configuring the First Communion ritual. It is a starter sacrament whose aura becomes embedded in both the individual and collective memory bank. My family was beside themselves watching me walk in measured steps up to the altar. 

So, it's no surprise that currently the power structure of Roman Catholicism in the U.S. has zeroed in on communion as the symbol of the need to buy into its whole orthodoxy of beliefs and practices. As is well known, the bishops have been busy bees putting together a manifesto about this sacrament. It seems intended as a stern warning to all who approach its dogma menu on an a carte basis. Among them is U.S. President Joe Biden.

Those close to his administration, such as Brad Karp of Paul Weiss, might advise Biden to, well, smirk. 

Strategically, this busy-bee activity on the part of American Roman Catholicism seems like a very dumb move at the wrong time. And those bishops used to be such smart players.

 Pew documents that of all religions in the U.S. Roman Catholicism has lost the most members. Since the Boston Globe outed clergy sexual abuse of young boys beginning in 2002, there have been a loss of market share, bankruptcies and the shuttering of parish schools. 

Those of us supporting the Biden Administration policies such as pro-abortion could protest in front of our local diocese  headquarters in simulations of our attire for our First Communion.

A budding fashionista can loop into a big brandname by designing the females' Communion Dresses so that they won't be confused with wedding dresses. Much fun to be had. Plus interesting to time travel back to an era when Roman Catholicsm could cast such a spell on our immigrant families in the 1950s. 

Reflection: Is all religion voodoo?

Small changes can trigger big success in your career and your business communications. Also guidance for pre-retirement. Swing by for a complimentary consultation (janegenova374@gmail.com)

Retirement: That "Ah-Ha Moment" That You Are Not in Post-Career Heaven, But in Hell

"In retirement hell, you get a feeling of being incredibly lost and vulnerable. Your heart isn’t into the hobbies and activities that used to bring you joy. The life of leisure that you dreamed about for so long becomes empty and meaningless. This is when the depression sinks in." - Mike Drak, MarketWatch, July 16, 2021.

That awful "Ah-Ha Moment" that you are in hell may occur even though you are relieved to be post-career. The last few years of going to work full-time might have been increasingly stressful. To your surpirse, after decades of relishing the hustle, you wanted out. 

But out turned out to be, yes, hell. 

So, how to map out an exit from Retirement Hell? 

The begins inside you. Unlike a career, you don't look outward. From the get-go in pursuing a career, you had been guided to continually monitor the economy, your industry and your company. That was called "keeping up." 

Now, post-career you have to shift to that entity we don't discuss much in America any more: the inner life.

The Big Inside. What does it need and what does it want? Meditation - really  - can help you explore that Big Inside. American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron teaches the fundamentals of how to quiet the mind. Here is one of her teachings on what meditation is and how to meditate, a video free to download. 

Also, what can open that Big Inside to the light is reaching out, even just a little bit, to easing the suffering of others. That could be as simple as slowing down to allow another driver to change lanes. Or it could have more scope such as listening to a neighbor who is in the midst of a divorce. No, no advice. No need for that. Just to listen.

A third path to a new kind of wholeness is to experiment. Try out parts of life where you never have been. Yes, those "pilot programs" you create even could consist of going to landing a gig assignment or working part-time/full-time in something different for you. That could be managing the front desk in a funky hotel in a tourist town such as Bisbee, Arizona, or becoming certified in an aspect of digital marketing.

Reflection: Retirement is as challenging a rite of passasge as had been the transition from formal education to earning a living. Give time time.

Small changes can trigger big success in your career and your business communications. Also guidance for pre-retirement. Swing by for a complimentary consultation (janegenova374@gmail.com)