What do you think?
Rate this book
Retire with a Mission: Planning and Purpose for the Second Half of Life
Take on retirement with a new mission and fulfilled life! Retirement is not merely an end to a career; it's an entirely new phase of life that requires new activities, renewed relationships, and, most important, a way to find value and worth without going to work every day. Create a new mission for your retired life and discover a blueprint for health, happiness, and fulfillment. Retire with a Mission shows readers how to match the skills they used at work to new activities for a joyful and satisfactory retirement. As well as guiding readers through writing and evaluating their new mission, Dr. Wendel provides actionable and insightful information Find the help you need navigating your retirement with purpose, perspective, and a renewed sense of joy!
320 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2008
1 person want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 27, 2014
I won this book as a door prize to a wellness event that my employer hosted.
Thanks to Goodreads, I can easily look back at the books I’ve read this year. I think I’ve rated every one of them 4 or 5 stars. This makes me pause and think, am I too generous in my evaluations. Realistically, I think that it indicates that I am pretty good at picking books that I know I will look. Thank you Goodreads and Amazon reviews!
Alas, those heady reading experiences are interrupted with Retire with a Mission! This was a pretty mediocre book. I got it for free and feel that I paid too much. Somehow, I feel my objectivity is confirmed by this two-star book.
I am in my fifties and have been studying quite a bit about retirement as I anticipate making this decision (soon?) in the years ahead. I am definitely very invested in this topic.
One huge red flag is that there are no references to direct the reader to further information. Ok, there were two appendices, one on human sexuality and the other on investing resources. He really needed other such recommendations in the other topics covered. In the topical chapters, he rarely references external resources for recommendations outside of “check with your local …” The author is an MD and MBA he is presumably well informed but these omissions speak of scholarly laziness.
He does promote a holistic approach to retirement. Whereas retirement treatises tend to focus on having enough money to retire and related topics, Wendel rightly recommends using this phase of your life to enrich others (“giving back”) while developing yourself by exploring and improving other areas of your life. He makes a decent case for this and his suggestions are usually pretty good.
The chapters that infuriated were entitle The New Economy, Managing your Investments, and Biomedical Discoveries. These chapters were so abysmal that I think they deserve individualized rants. They helped transform a so-so book to something worse.
The New Economy seeks to explain the economic environment that retirees face. In reading this, I get the sense that Wendel has a lot of rage about the economy and in this book he gets that opportunity to vent. One problem is, again, there is no research to back this up (in the book anyway). Another is that there is nothing actionable in this vitriol that retirees or near-retirees can use to enrich their retirements.
Managing your Investments is a huge disappointment as a top priority for many near-retirees is how to invest to better ensure a financially successful retirement. Wendel focuses on individual stocks rather than 401(k)s and mutual funds! This is a dangerous approach as utilizing individual stocks as the primary investment vehicle virtually guarantees an overly volatile portfolio due to under-diversification of investments. Bad, bad, bad!
Biomedical Discoveries is the most ironic chapter. Wendal gazes into a crystal ball and shows what medical breakthroughs are in store in the next 10-25 years or so. Again, there is no research to back this vision up. There’s no much advice to the reader outside of “stay in good shape so you’ll be healthy enough to take advantage of these breakthroughs.” What’s really amazing is that an MD wrote this!
Not much here my fellow near-retirees, move along elsewhere for your retirement research.
Thanks to Goodreads, I can easily look back at the books I’ve read this year. I think I’ve rated every one of them 4 or 5 stars. This makes me pause and think, am I too generous in my evaluations. Realistically, I think that it indicates that I am pretty good at picking books that I know I will look. Thank you Goodreads and Amazon reviews!
Alas, those heady reading experiences are interrupted with Retire with a Mission! This was a pretty mediocre book. I got it for free and feel that I paid too much. Somehow, I feel my objectivity is confirmed by this two-star book.
I am in my fifties and have been studying quite a bit about retirement as I anticipate making this decision (soon?) in the years ahead. I am definitely very invested in this topic.
One huge red flag is that there are no references to direct the reader to further information. Ok, there were two appendices, one on human sexuality and the other on investing resources. He really needed other such recommendations in the other topics covered. In the topical chapters, he rarely references external resources for recommendations outside of “check with your local …” The author is an MD and MBA he is presumably well informed but these omissions speak of scholarly laziness.
He does promote a holistic approach to retirement. Whereas retirement treatises tend to focus on having enough money to retire and related topics, Wendel rightly recommends using this phase of your life to enrich others (“giving back”) while developing yourself by exploring and improving other areas of your life. He makes a decent case for this and his suggestions are usually pretty good.
The chapters that infuriated were entitle The New Economy, Managing your Investments, and Biomedical Discoveries. These chapters were so abysmal that I think they deserve individualized rants. They helped transform a so-so book to something worse.
The New Economy seeks to explain the economic environment that retirees face. In reading this, I get the sense that Wendel has a lot of rage about the economy and in this book he gets that opportunity to vent. One problem is, again, there is no research to back this up (in the book anyway). Another is that there is nothing actionable in this vitriol that retirees or near-retirees can use to enrich their retirements.
Managing your Investments is a huge disappointment as a top priority for many near-retirees is how to invest to better ensure a financially successful retirement. Wendel focuses on individual stocks rather than 401(k)s and mutual funds! This is a dangerous approach as utilizing individual stocks as the primary investment vehicle virtually guarantees an overly volatile portfolio due to under-diversification of investments. Bad, bad, bad!
Biomedical Discoveries is the most ironic chapter. Wendal gazes into a crystal ball and shows what medical breakthroughs are in store in the next 10-25 years or so. Again, there is no research to back this vision up. There’s no much advice to the reader outside of “stay in good shape so you’ll be healthy enough to take advantage of these breakthroughs.” What’s really amazing is that an MD wrote this!
Not much here my fellow near-retirees, move along elsewhere for your retirement research.
March 22, 2010
Did learn some helpful information to help me in my retirement
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews