We’ve changed our name from Encore.org to CoGenerate! Join us at cogenerate.org to bridge generational divides and co-create the future.

We’ve changed our name from Encore.org to CoGenerate! Join us at cogenerate.org to bridge generational divides and co-create the future.

I’ve been following Rita Foley’s career for years — from when she was juggling the corporate life with a board role at Pro Mujer (a Purpose Prize honoree doing groundbreaking microfinance working in Latin America) through her work around popularizing “reboot breaks” for people thinking about what’s next in their lives.

Rita, along with Catherine Allen and Nancy Bearg, recently published “The Retirement Boom: An All-Inclusive Guide to Money, Life, and Health in Your Next Chapter.” I caught up with Rita to talk about serial encore shifts, leaving a legacy and reckoning with mortality. Excerpts of our conversation follow.

 

You’ve had a rich and impact-oriented life since you retired from a senior role in the corporate world. You began your encore by serving on the board of Pro Mujer, and later started a consulting practice to help others navigate the often-confusing period right after retirement. What is your key advice for people who want to have real impact on issues that matter to them?

I have been able to build my dream of a portfolio life, which is in three parts. I retired early so that I could do more volunteer work – my passion. At the same time, I was on one corporate board and nominated to serve on a second. This board work used my business skills; it funded my nonprofit work and met my need for staying busy and relevant. The third wedge of my retirement portfolio is having fun. I started to explore creativity – things that I hadn’t done since I was a child – painting, knitting, photography. Photography became my creative passion.

My advice is to try various things. Most likely, you will not know what you would like to do when you retire. I recommend researching through organizations like Encore, AARP and other groups. Study the possibilities, and if one or more fits your areas of interest, you can do more research, or write to them and ask if you can intern for a short period of time.

You need to spend your time doing something for which you have a lot of passion. I did so with microfinance and women’s development. Volunteering with Pro Mujer also met my desire for travel to remote and interesting places throughout Latin America. I have been able to offer my photography for Pro Mujer brochures, as well as for brochures and websites for other nonprofits. But passion aside, it’s mostly been my business skills that made a difference for Pro Mujer and my consulting and mentoring work. We may think that we are good at only our area of work expertise – in my case, global packaging – but the same skills that made us succeed in corporate life are most likely those that will help us have a real-world impact in our post-retirement/encore roles.

Given what you know now about retirement, what could the corporate world be doing better for transitioning employees?

Why have individuals sit around and fret about this next stage in life? Corporations can and should take the lead in offering inclusive programs on pre-retirement planning. Many corporations, especially those in the financial services industries, have mandatory retirement, only to find that 20 to 30 percent of their staff are retirement-eligible. Those companies – really, ALL companies –should offer workshops that address financial matters, along with lifestyle concerns, and fears and questions, like “Yikes, what am I going to do with all that time on my hands?” and “How will I remain relevant?” The good news is that there are great answers – especially for those open to developing their own encores. This is a wonderful time to think about how to reinvent your life, unleash your creativity or continue to earn income in your same or a different field.

Reboot Partners, the company my co-authors and I founded six years ago does just that – experience that we captured in the book. In our programs and presentations, we start by introducing the concept that this time can and should be the best time in one’s life. We use interactive exercises and link participants to many resources and tools. We help move employees from fear or uncertainty to a positive mindset. And we help them realize what they would like their work legacy to be – and, how to exit, which increases productivity and positive focus at work

You write frankly about your two bouts with cancer. How has reckoning with your own mortality affected how you use your time?

When faced with a terminal disease, you can’t help but think about how you would like to live your life. Equally, I feel that retirement can and should offer you a chance to think how you would like to live your life. It’s a time to explore all those things you were unable to do when working 40- to 50-hour weeks. It’s a time to try creative endeavors that were squashed when you were a child. I fell madly in love with photography, and that is now one of my key endeavors. And I am so grateful that it is. I also found a way to combine photography, writing, and my cancer. My upcoming book, “Show Up for Life Each Day: Living with Cancer,” combines stories and photographs on facing pages. It is my legacy to both the person with cancer or a terminal illness and the caregiver.

Speaking of legacy, that’s a big theme of your book. What are some other ways you see people thinking about the idea of leaving a legacy?

If you are still working, what do you want your legacy to be at work? How do you want people to remember you? It is incredibly rewarding to have a former employee or colleague say, “You were the most influential manager I’ve ever had,” or “You served as a mentor, not just a boss, and gave the best advice I ever received.” Grooming your successor and personally recommending him or her to management is a huge legacy.

Then, think about your personal life. Legacy isn’t limited to money, such as leaving a bequest to your college. You can also plant a tree or donate funds to projects that help low-income families climb the economic ladder.

How do you want the people closest to you to remember you? One powerful way to leave a legacy is to tell your life story. Stories and oral history are the arts often lost when we no longer have time to sit down and eat our meals together. You can write a memoir. Journaling and scrapbooking offer ways to preserve family history. Sharing my stories and photos is my legacy for others and especially for my boys. The most important legacy of all is how you live your life. We influence family and others through our actions, words, and especially our deeds – by the way we treat people.

We recommend starting by creating a family values statement. A few things that might be on that list are: helping others less fortunate, values for education, religion/faith, being a good friend, taking care of your family, mentoring young people, giving back to the community, giving money to causes or nonprofits, taking care of the environment, being a good neighbor and making the world a better place.

Cathy, one of my co-authors, lost her fiancé John just a couple of months before they were due to be married. Cathy has stayed very close to John’s family. Every Christmas, she writes a story about John and what he did for others that they may not have known about. She gives them as gifts to John’s grandchildren, but when reading them, his children find out about his humor and largesse of heart. These letters, John’s legacies, have given his family a very special window into their dad/grandfather. And they can think about he would have lived his life, had he been alive.

Published: January 7, 2016

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