The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife

by Marc Freedman

Marc Freedman, hailed by the New York Times as “the voice of aging baby boomers [seeking] meaningful and sustaining work later in life,” offers a recipe for how we can transform America’s coming midlife crisis into a midlife opportunity. Millions of people in their fifties, sixties, and seventies are searching for answers to the question “What’s next?” and are navigating their way to an entirely new stage of life and work, one that could last as long as midlife. Shifting to a much longer lifespan isn’t as easy as it may seem. Unlike the transition from adolescence to adulthood, managing this process for many is a do-it-yourself project. Drawing on powerful personal stories, The Big Shift provides not only direction but a vision of what it would take to help millions find their footing in a new map of life.

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Business

257 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 5, 2011

About the author

Marc Freedman, President and CEO of Encore.org, is one of the nation's leading experts on the longevity revolution.

He is a member of the Wall Street Journal's "Experts" panel, a frequent commentator in the media and the author of four books. The New York Times described his most recent book, The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife, as "an imaginative work with the potential to affect our individual lives and our collective future." His new book, How to Live Forever, will be published by Hachette Book Group in November 2018.

Originator of the encore career idea linking second acts to the greater good, Freedman co-founded Experience Corps to mobilize people over 50 to improve the school performance and prospects of low-income elementary school students in 22 U.S. cities. He also spearheaded the creation of the Encore Fellowships program, a one-year fellowship helping individuals translate their midlife skills into second acts focused on social impact, and the Purpose Prize, an annual $100,000 prize for social entrepreneurs in the second half of life. (AARP now runs both Experience Corps and the Purpose Prize.)

Freedman was named Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the World Economic Forum, was recognized as one of the nation's leading social entrepreneurs by Fast Company magazine three years in a row, and has been honored with the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. He has been a visiting scholar at Stanford University, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and King's College, University of London.

Freedman serves on the boards and advisory councils of numerous groups, including The George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, the Stanford University Distinguished Careers Institute, the Milken Institute's Center for the Future of Aging, and the EnCorps STEM Teachers Program.

A high honors graduate of Swarthmore College, Freedman holds an M.B.A. from the Yale School of Management. He resides in the San Francisco Bay area with his wife, Leslie Gray, and their three sons.

Reviews

[Jay French · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subtitle of “The Big Shift” is “Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife”. Sounds like this is a self-help or how-to book similar to a lot of the retirement books in vogue these past ten years or so. It is not. This is more of a description of how this stage in life, called different things in the book like young old, the encore stage, or the third stage, is a classification of a part of life that hasn’t been studied in depth yet. Freedman compares it to the adolescence stage of life that wasn’t defined until earlier in the twentieth century. Given changes in society and lifespan, we now have a classifiable stage of life where folks are still active and still can provide value to society, roughly from ages 40 to 75, where in the recent past these were considered the golden years, best savored as (early) retirement.

Freedman runs a non-profit consulting on this new stage of life, and he mentions this often. This book documents what his non-profit is consulting on. This isn’t a personal self-help book for those in that age bracket wondering what to do next. There are some well written case studies of individuals changing careers and rethinking what they want out of life, but that isn’t the focus of the book, and there aren’t any how-to specifics here.

Instead, this seems to me a book for others running non-profits catering to the same population. It provides the background, the descriptions, research, and examples of how this population needs support as they rethink their lives. For this purpose, this is a very good book. This feels like one of those books that is written by a consultant to describe their business and drive interest in their services. This one seemed less overtly sales-y than others, focusing on background, research, and some stories. While I usually dislike books written for these purposes, this one provides some interesting examples. Just don’t be tricked by the subtitle – this isn’t self help.

[Dale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very timely read for me, and I think Marc Freedman is on an excellent point in this book. Many - probably most - of us aren't going to be able to retire in happiness at the age of 55 or 60. More importantly, hardly any of us want to give up working completely and simply vanish into retirement at that age. It is a great time for us to shift to a new career, a new way of contributing, perhaps a chance for us to start a new business. Freedman is head of encore.org, an organization focused on helping people bridge from midlife to whatever will constitute the "new retirement".

Education is a key piece here, and Freedman discusses how people navigate the need for new learning. But most of the book talks about a new way of thinking: both personally and as a society. We need to have people consider that the encore years aren't just a time for leisure at some isolated "sun" community playing golf (and a good thing too, I think I would be bored out of my skull just playing golf every day). The encore years can be a place of significant contribution, a way of helping society through the dreaded "social security gap" crisis, and most importantly, just a better way of approaching these very productive years.

If you are approaching this stage, as I am, this is a helpful read. But even if you are much younger (or much older), I recommend this book as a way to change your expectations of what can in this stage of life

[Gaye Sweeney · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't get far with this, sorry boring.

[Kathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Navigating the new stage beyond midlife. That's the subtitle of Freedman's book. I really didn't care for it as I was looking for more specific concrete options rather than new ways of viewing the "Third Age" and other new definitions of life's stages which I don't buy into anyway.

I agree we should not be trying to 'look younger' through fillers, injections, surgery, and that 60 is 60, not the new 40, etc... However, I don't appreciate his term the "Encore" job. Encore is a second return to the stage. It's.. well it's an encore. A second act.

I felt crazed reading all the categories historically depicted which compartmentalized our lives in tidy sums of 12 years or so. These views of life are more accurately part of a continuum. People seemed obsessed with working, giving back, doing, acting, being, rather than just living a simple quiet life.

Maybe there does need to be a different way of viewing one's years of productivity given the longer life spans, but there also needs to be a different way of companies using up one's energy to thankless jobs that sap people of all creative energy and force a subservience upon them to support corporate culture. Maybe no one would be eager to "retire".
I'll never use that word again. It seemed to me that readers who fervently join groups in order to figure out the purpose of their "Third Age" could better benefit from a disciplined meditation practice and quiet rituals. Maybe a good book by the fire. This book made me glad I left the work world and am not too eager to keep giving..

[Angie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read the whole thing. I say that, because as you can see from some of the poor reviews, many don't even finish. Freedman uses far more words than necessary, when a tightly written article would've sufficed and been more enjoyable. With that said, it's a topic worth discussing as you can tell by the sheer number of books and programs that others are producing in response. These spin offs (such as The Encore Career Handbook) are still based on his work, but have much better applicability and a more readable writing style.

[Dayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recommend everyone read this book right after they retire:

The Big Shift discusses the challenge of transitioning to and making the most of this new (retirement) stage. In reality, this time is a unique period of life. Freedman, the author, says that we can make a monument out of what so many think of as the leftover years. The result could be a windfall of talent that will carry us toward a new generation of solutions for growing problems in areas like education, the environment, and health care.

[Gina]

Library ebook. I actually DNF’d this one. It just wasn’t what I was looking for right now. May try to read it again some day but I just kept finding other things to do rather than spend time reading this one. Didn’t want to rate it for now

[Homer Robson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The "third age" with zero mention or consideration of the role of third agers in the lives of grandchildren. Found the read to be a summary of academia thinking about this age, but how could Marc possibly miss the important aspect of our roles in the lives of our families?

[Monzenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid book about a solid topic: ageing. And surprisingly, not a self-help book about how to handle ageing, as I first thought, but an economic and philosophical screed about harnessing the power of productive senior-aged individuals.

[Sherri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even though I'm a little younger than the main audience for this book, I'm still fascinated by it because I am ready to start thinking about my next career!!

Freedman quotes other writers I've read/admired: Mary Catherine Bateson (http://www.marycatherinebateson.com/) and Daniel Pink for example. I'm learning about other interesting "life stage" theorists like Stanley Hall and Barbara Strauch. Strauch wrote the recent book The Secret Life of the Grown Up Brain which emphasizes that older brains may have short term memory lapses, but they are better equipped for synthesis and problem-solving and pattern recognition.

For most of the book, Freedman argues that we as a culture need to revise our conception of the typical life stages. He argues that traditional retirement wastes a lot of valuable experience and brainpower. The media as it is now highlights the costs of our aging population rather than the values. The new stage he proposes would cover from age 55-70 and this stage involves not giving up a career, but starting a new "encore" career, usually in some service area. This all get a little repetitive, but throughout he does offer several examples of people who have found meaningful second careers focusing not on money but on passion.

To make this all makes sense. Who wouldn't be better off finding that they have something meaningful to contribute for the rest of their lives?

Now I have to figure out how to take a year or two off so that I can prepare for my encore career! Hopefully I'll figure out what it will be.

[Wren · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I took a class on age, work and retirement, I ran across the work of Marc Freedman via the webpage Encore.org He is a great advocate for people 50 plus who are reinventing themselves in their work lives, given the extension of the life expectancy occurring in industrialized nations. His book explains the emergence of a new life stage (similar to how adolescence emerged as a new life stage fairly recently). People are starting new careers in their 50s and 60s and working into their 70s and 80s.

Freedman draws on economics, politics, sociology and psychology to explain this "big shift." Not only does he quote a number of theorists, he shares accounts of several individuals who got stuck in their first careers, fell flat or got bored and then reinvented themselves to follow a career with purpose and passion in addition to a paycheck (that's a tweaked version of Encore's motto).

For example, in one story, a woman postponed law school to raise a family, then later went to law school. She didn't pass the bar exam (by just a narrow margin). She then worked in real estate. Around 50, she hit a ton of dead ends in professional and personal life. Then she found a way to combine her love of a neglected river in the LA area with her expertise in law and land. And now she's a passionate and effective advocate for re-establishing the health of that river. Her paycheck is not huge, but the sense of purpose for her is enormous.

It's an invigorating book. Check out the webpage, too. Read about some of the people who have won the Purpose Award. Very inpsiring!

[Dennis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found it somewhat interesting.

Some of the Authors ideas seemed to me a little far fetch. In our current society.

Perhaps a few more decades and it can come to some kind of fruition.

Narcissism is part of our Society. Mr.Freedman's idea that many Baby Boom elders will become part of a volunteer workforce is unlikely. Not to say a small percentage strive for this goal, but not the throngs to create the wave Mr Freeman speaks too.

Perhaps, when the ME generation starts to reach their Encore years, his vision will start to become a reality.

Many current citizens coming into their Encore years have scraped and fought to reach this magical time. R&R sounds great. Why would they want to go back to the grind? For future generations...sounds great, but how many elders are really thinking in these terms? Are they able to contemplate what a good old age and death should look like?


Some new shift possibilities noted are in Education, Environment, health, and Social Service.
However, schooling will more then likely be needed unless you go into a field you once worked in.


Additional reading: "The Third Chapter" by Sara Lawrence, "Composing a Furher Life" by Catherine Bateson

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

For anyone contemplating retirement, not as a cessation of purposeful work, but as a switch to something newly energizing and inspiring, this is a good book to read. The author explores the particular dilemma and promise faced by a society in which twice as many people are over 60 as are under 17. He terms the current generation of Boomers approaching retirement as the Encore Generation. Unlike previous generations, the Encore Generation has a good 20 to 30 years of productivity ahead of them. Just as the invention of the stage of adolescence in the early 1900s changed the way our society treated young adults, Freedman proposes that society must find ways to utilize the wisdom and experience of the Encore Generation, too valuable to put out to pasture and too eager to continue to be productive.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting thesis. We have extended life by adding on to the middle not the end. Many more people have the capacity to have a full second career (from age 55 to 75) before health problems and full retirement but we lack the vocabulary and the social policies to encourage and nurture "encore careers". The author believes that the baby boomers will redefine this period of life defining it and naming it in the same way that increased knowledge of children defined the concept of "adolescence" as a distinct life period.

Interesting thesis, but not a terribly interesting read.

[Gwen · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Our notion of life cycle is being blown apart. Adults in their 50s are finding themselves in transition. Finding another job, doing what they were doing, is often not an option. Who plans for a 30 year retirement? Accomplished professionals with experience, resilience and drive are rewriting a script for a second adulthood, in the years between 50 and today's more accurate reflection of "elderly"...75-80-90-etc. At the same time, they are rewriting the script for 2nd careers. Get used to it...it's the new norm."

[Keith · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a book club selection.

I was quite disappointed with this book. At the beginning, I thought it was going to offer suggestions for how to make the long period between mid-life and old age. Instead, it was a call for the world, and baby boomers especially, to invent the institutions that would make this phase a recognized life segment. In the author's view, I am not grown up enough to want to feel badly about not wanting to donate my time to work for non-profits in building a legacy for future generations.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I cannot objectively review this book; Marc Freedman is a friend of mine, but I will -- all the same -- be recommending it to my millenial friends. Even though I know the Encore.org organization inside and out, this book still managed to reduce my fear of growing older, and I think it would have a similar effect on other 20 and 30 somethings.

For my generation: why wait until we're in our Encore years to make the world a better place; better to do it now, and to continue the fight until we cannot. Lord knows there is a lot to be done in the next 50 years.

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I kept waiting for the author to tell me something useful but alas it never happened. The main redeeming part of this book was that it was encouraging for us 50 somethings that are wondering if life is almost over. I felt the book was incomplete and left loose ends. It mostly felt like a lit review without any actionable ideas

[Glenn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Childhood, adolescence, parenthood, retirement. Stages of a life path that, at some time, became a part of our social consciousness, but are relatively recent in invention. We are in the midst of a new stage coalescing, an encore stage, emerging post-first career but before old age. Its name and shape TBD.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting piece of work. I was interested in some of the history and social theory re: the invention of adolescence and retirement, but thought it was a little light on detail re: how to shift the paradigm and better support folks moving into their second career/Third Age/etc.

[Mary Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting perspective on navigating "mid-life".

[JeanneBee]

meh.

[Melissa Gans · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the stories of people starting new lives after 50, but there was not much else to take away from this. Interesting, but not very useful.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of Freedman's perspective on how work and life will change for baby boomers as they move out of the workforce - and how society will be changed by that movement.

[Nancy Holt · Rating 1 out of 5]

Author is a clueless dingbat...writing a book to justify his own wacky life choices. Not recommended.

[Linda Harkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent sound recording! Well researched and inspiring! However, I'm NOT convinced that returning to work after 35 years in public education is on my agenda.

[Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book about the new stage, the encore between 50 or 60 & old age.

[M · Rating 2 out of 5]

A sociological and descriptive narrative of the changing demographics caused by Baby Boomers. Suggests numerous ways 50+ adults can have a viable and successful "second life" - a "encore".