As I write this, I am a few days from turning 60. Though I am a modestly successful business professional, some might say I am a member of an endangered species.
For most of us, in what has been referred to as the Yellow Leaf period of our careers, the going can get rocky. There are younger, much less expensive professionals in the wings.
I don't believe it has to be that way, and it was for this reason I wrote The Portfolio Bubble: Surviving Professionally at 60. The fact is, many of us don't aspire to retire. In some cases, it is simply not something we can afford to do.
At 60, actuarial tables suggest that I will be 14.4 years away from the date when relatives will have to choose between bronze and pinewood for my remains. Living and working in Eastern Europe, as
I do, the charts are not so liberal.
In fact, according to World Health Organization figures, I have already lived my allotted time. However, I do not smoke, unless one considers an occasional Cuban Monte Cristo cigar, and my serious boozing days are long behind me.
In the sixth decade we are stereotyped, just like the cartoon character Mr. Magoo, near-sighted and bumbling from place to place, or the commercial caricature of "granny" on so many television sitcoms. We are put into the same square box, regardless of our achievements.
A late 90s survey of older working Americans by the AARP indicates that we are believed to have a good work ethic. It is also generally considered that we bring experience, knowledge and stability to the workplace. On the other hand, we are also characterized as being inflexible, adverse to change and resistant to learning and understanding new technologies.
This might be partially true. I wince at having to learn a new computer program, and admit that my digital Dictaphone took more brainpower to figure out than I would care to commit. Still, if need be, we do learn those software programs, and my recording device has become my next best friend.
Among the qualities of all workers cited in the survey as most desired by human resources managers is a commitment to doing quality work. However, the perception HR managers have of older Americans (and they include anyone over 50 in this group) is that, above all else, they are loyal and dedicated to the company, with commitment to quality of work coming in a close second. This, to me, seems a rather admirable trait.
The HR people, however, cite the ability to get along with co-workers as the second-most desired quality. Studies show that older folk are a cantankerous lot, and rank dead last in this category.
Aging is an inevitable and natural process, though some might argue to the contrary. It is also a fact that aging is being pushed both upward and downward. Pubescent girls of 14 can, in some cases, pass for 21, their bare midriffs adorned with navel jewelry. Children who once had Kool-Aid stains on their lips are now smudged with China red lipstick, purple eye shadow and pink rouge. They are marched out
to compete in beauty contests with similarly adorned children playing grown-up.
On the other end of the scale, a century ago middle-aged was mid 30s, but now the bar has been raised (or lowered) such that this benchmark is beyond 50, or even 60 years of age.
In a recent year, Americans spent $7.7 billion on 6.9 million cosmetic procedures in an effort to look and feel younger, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. This included 1.7 million Botox injections for facial wrinkles, 495,000 chemical peels, 125,000 facelifts and 83,000 tummy tucks.
In 1932, Walter B. Pitkin wrote a book called Life Begins at 40, and it was published two years later. An amusing movie starring the humorist Will Rogers was made from it in 1935. At the time, the life expectancy of the average American male was 58. Today, it is nearly a decade-and-a-half longer. I think it is not too much of a stretch, given modern medicine, to suspect that many of us have a chance to reach our eighth decade (Current life expectancy for women is 79.8 years compared to a male's 74.4 years).
The obvious question posed is this: What will we do with the extra time? Not all of us want to or can be greeters at Wal-Mart, and even that conglomerate doesn't have that many jobs.
The Portfolio Bubble: Surviving Professionally at 60 was written to enlighten and encourage those of us aged 60 and beyond to choose a more enlightened and useful path - should that be our desire - and to convince the officer corps of corporate professionals that age is an advantage, rather than a detriment.
There are those who work well beyond 60 simply to have something to do. Putting in a good eight hours is more important to them than the actual product of this work effort. This is not, however, the philosophy of The Portfolio Bubble. This is your last-gasp employment opportunity. The last lap. You have trained all your life for the final stanza, whether it is the average 16 years beyond age 60 or whether you boost that norm to 25 or more years on this globe. There is no denying that you have many more years in the past than the future holds. It stands to reason that you will want to make your last match a victorious one.
You can't do this from the vantage of the bleachers. Also, you can't do it by setting your sights so low you are handling assignments easily mastered at a younger age. For one thing, this is a prescription for being mustered out of whatever field you have taken this comfortable perch in. A portfolio warrior has to have a set of skills that sets him or her apart from that enthusiastic and ambitious younger crowd.
For this reason, The Portfolio Bubble treats the individual as a brand, and warns that when one becomes 50, he or she is entering the Portfolio Bubble, and in order to keep options open, it is necessary to have accumulated portfolio talents.
Having worked in marketing a number of years, I no longer get excited about the dozens of trends that tend to come our way, whether it has to do with measuring people and product quality, or with a magic formula for enhancing or changing images. Most of them have the consistency of refried beans.
In my first year with the worldwide public relations company Burson-Marsteller, I was introduced to perception management, a proprietary exercise that the company was selling to clients as if it were a miracle elixir for polishing an image. Most of the younger employees took the instruction as gospel, but the savvy veterans, by and large, suggested that this technique was something the best of us did every day for clients. We just didn't have a fancy name for it. In fact, a recent book listed 50 or so business fads that had come and gone in the last few years, including buzzwords like "total quality management," the "one-minute manager" and an assortment of branding techniques - nearly all different highways leading to the same location. The emphasis on perception management at Burson-Marsteller lasted but a few years.
Upon turning 50 and being drawn screaming into the Portfolio Bubble, one tends to become more serious about what he or she does and a little less serious about who he is. This is good. I have found that in the portfolio zone, if I take myself too seriously, nobody else will have that same opinion of me. One becomes the equivalent of the pontificating old fool.
At age 50, it is difficult to discuss without laughing that any inanimate product - say a bag of candy, a pack of cigarettes or a bar of soap - carries one back to the refreshing taste or feel of springtime.
Product attributes beyond the old varieties of tasting better, having a longer life, or getting one a little cleaner seem sheer fantasy and subterfuge. That which excited the young marketer in me years ago gives way to a skeptic's broader view. Having been there and done that - many times - it doesn't excite the senses so much as elicit a yawn. You simply want to be and should be doing something more cerebral and worthwhile with your life in the portfolio zone.
Until I reached age 50, I had experienced the usual playthings of the upwardly mobile, starting with having acquired that proverbial pony. Her name was Brandy. From there it was sports cars (two Corvettes, a Porsche, an MGB, a Triumph Spitfire -not to mention an assortment of manly Jeeps) and finally a twin-engine Beechcraft Baron airplane and a nearly 40-foot cabin cruiser. Of course there was the beach house, and before that a little cabin in the woods. None of them stayed with me. Though I make more money now than I did then, I am car-less, boat-less and plane-less.
When I was 30, happenings of the moment seemed important. I put more stock in those material things, such as cars, electrical gadgets or an evening out with a gaggle of people. Now the journey is more solitary, and I enjoy the simpler assets of life, such as occasionally smoking my pipe, good music, an evening in instead of out, my painting, my books, and quiet time with my family.
This inspires rebirth. This adds impetus to an awakening as one enters the portfolio zone. It is the revelation that the game is not about working like a whirling dervish until one drops in his tracks, but to pace himself. To, in essence, work smarter. To grow into the person you want to be in this third stanza of your life.
All this is leading up to a purpose, a philosophy perhaps, that life is made up of passages, and that we become different people as we walk through each of those doors. Finally, in the third and in that final fourth stage, we can, should we desire, change dramatically. It should be a time when one's regrets are wrapped in a sack and tossed off the bridge. It should be a time to recapture with little exertion those moments we might have missed. This doesn't necessarily take additional cash. It takes an attitude. You want to be the person who trades in solid ideas, and not simply the guy who advances slogans.
In 1955, a book by Sloan Wilson ignited a debate between work habits and the quality of life. It was called The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, and was later made into a popular movie starring Gregory Peck. Legend has it that Wilson, who died in May 2003 at the age of 83, received inspiration for the book from a friend who came back from World War II and worked in an advertising agency.
The man's primary job, we are told, was to decide whether people preferred a rubber spider toy or a tin frog as a gift in a box of cereal. Writing in The New Yorker magazine, Wilson opined, "It haunted me and I thought 'what a terrible thing to reduce a man to.'" A poignant section of Wilson's Gray Flannel script read: "I really don't know what I was looking for when I got back from the war, but it seemed that about all I could see was a lot of bright young men in gray flannel suits rushing around New York in a frantic parade to nowhere. They seemed to me to be pursuing neither ideas nor happiness; they were pursuing a routine. For a long while I thought I was on the sidelines watching the parade, and it was quite a shock to glance down and see that I too was wearing a gray flannel suit."
The portfolio warrior is in pursuit not of a routine, but of ideas and inner happiness. Most of us aren't there yet, but that is the dream we pursue with a passion. Don't be afraid. If you prepare yourself in the portfolio bubble, than you will have a green light through the red zone. Plus - and hopefully not to sound too Pollyanna about this - you'll be a happier person, which I find especially important.
You are not alone. For starters, in the United States one person in seven is over the age of 65, and this figure is expected to rise to one in four by the year 2030. Remember your agents and advocates - those people who can help you reinvent your career - and make good use of them. Think in what I call Dolby Stereo and brilliant Technicolor, and let your imagination guide you toward what you really want to do in this most important part of your life.
Pull up your socks, figuratively and literally.
The portfolio man has to be the consummate professional, and cannot be seen as the aging buffoon. He or she must present in such a way as to command respect. This doesn't mean you can't be yourself - it does mean make yourself even better.
Also, there is nothing wrong with - and it is admirable if you can do it - being the portfolio man from the golf fairway. We are not suggesting less relaxation during this period, only that you redirect your energy to what you really want to be doing in the so-called third stage of life. If managing your financial portfolio provides significant challenge and achievement, and you can do this while sipping martinis and watching As the World Turns, more power to you. Just don't fall off the couch.
As for me, I have a few more clicks left in the portfolio bubble. I have a few more skills to hone, and a few more dreams to chase. Like you, I want to be The Portfolio Man.
J. Michael Willard is the author of “The Portfolio Bubble: Surviving Professionally at 60”. The book, on career options for older executives, is published by Vidalia House.
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