Cool Jobs for Encore Hustlers

One of the great things about planning to be an encore hustler that we do not necessarily need to be  bound by what we did in our "real" career.  Also, not all encore hustles have to be limited to the sharing economy jobs, or "gig" jobs, that always come to mind: Lyft, Uber, TaskRabbit, PostMates, etc. Instead, we can let our imagination flitter across the possibilities that are there for the taking only if we have the courage to try them.

For example, would you jump at the chance to work on a cruise ship in exchange to free accommodations and a small salary?  The cruise industry is booming, with 13 new ocean going ships were launched in 2018 alone. Name a niche or interest and the cruise industry tries to cater to it.  Many cruise ships are virtual floating cities and they need armies of people to work these ships as photographers, nurses, shop personnel and instructors for crafts, bridge and golf. There is also my personal favorite gentlemen hosts hired to be dance and social partners for woman passengers.

If cruising is not to your liking how about being a caretaker of luxury houses on an island on the Australian Great Barrier Reef?  Check out this article about Bedarra Island that is advertising for a caretaker to maintain a cluster of seven luxury vacation homes while the owners are off island.  In exchange you will receive $450 a week and a one bedroom cabin.  The 15-hour work weeks should allow you plenty of time to enjoy the pristine beaches and tropical rainforest the island is known for.

Another great site to check out for the outdoor enthusiast is the Older and Bolder section of CoolWorks.com which goes by the motto If You Rest, You Rust! Spend a minutes pursuing scores of jobs that range from Grand Denali Lodge in Alaska, Mt. Rainier Park in Washington and the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee and imagine nights spend under a dome of stars and clear mountain streams waiting for you to drop a fishing line.

One of the activities I love to indulge in when visiting new cities or historical sites is taking tours.  Well, have you considered working the other side of the microphone and being a tour guide yourself? Imagine having a captive audience that will pay to listen to you tell stories and appreciate your vast trove of trivia. It is true that many tour guides are unpaid volunteers  but there are thousands of paid positions that are just a Google search away.  For example, I did a quick search on Indeed.com and found part-time tour guide jobs at the New York Power Authority, the City of Aurora (CO) Naturalist Program, the Minnesota Historical Society and the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston.  I am sure that there are similar opportunities where you live.

Over the last few years I have met many people who have pursued cool encore careers.  It takes planning, guts and a dream, and I'm giving a thumbs up and a hurrah to:

• The Air Canada pilot who now owns a beachfront hotel in Honduras
• The steel mill scheduler who took a buyout package to join the Texas Seniors golf tour
• The Wendy's shift manager who is now a flight attendant on a regional airline in California
• The engineer who started his own wine label in the Columbia Valley in Washington state
• The university professor who runs a coffee business in Shanghai
• The procurement manager who retired to join a Search and Rescue team in Bend, Oregon

If you have encore career or are planning to take the leap I would love to know more about it.  Please contact me at Mr.EH@encorehustle.com and share your story.

Happy Hustling!

I'm just talkin' 'bout my g-g-g-generation

What is (or will be) your Encore Hustle style?

The Aristotelian side of my nature loves creating classifications and making organizational systems.   In the case of Encore Hustles I propose they can be broadly classified under the 4G's.

1) Grinder

2) Grower

3) Guru

4) Gigger

Grinder
A Grinder would be someone who works a regular "job", just like they did before leaping past 65.  A Grinder will make an hourly wage and will receive a W-2.  For many people a Grinder job would be ideal.  It could be full or part time and maybe include benefits, such as healthcare and 401k.  Grinder jobs could range from being a barista at Starbucks, a seasonal employee or even continuing with the same job they had before reaching 65.

Grower
A Grower is someone whose Encore Hustle is starting a business.  A Grower could transition from being an employee to a boss by essentially doing what they were doing pre-retirement but they get to use their skills and experience to put any profits into their own pocket.  A Grower could also buy a franchise, monetize a hobby or strike out on a new venture that has been longtime dream. Of course a Grower will experience the stress of starting and running a business.  It could involve creating business plans, raising start up capital, marketing, and dealing with accountancy and taxes.  Being a Grower would not necessarily be right for everyone but if you always had a hankering to be the Boss now is the time to seize the moment.

Guru
A Guru is someone who making teaching, editing, freelance writing, mentoring, consulting, coaching, training or tutoring their Encore Hustle.  You might be a retired teacher who has become an on-line tutor or substitute teacher.  A Guru could also be an engineer with a lifetime of accumulated knowledge who hires out to clients or teaches as an adjunct at a local college. A Guru could also be tour guide who gets to share the history of their area and get about to flaunt their knowledge of local trivia.  

Gigger
A Gigger takes advantage of the internet and the sharing economy to cobble together a string of Encore Hustles.  A Gigger could drive for Uber, pet sit, rent out a room with Airbnb, be an online juror, flip garage sale finds on eBay or serve wine at an event thru a Craigslist ad. Sure the work for a Gigger can be sporadic and pay will swing wildly but it will have flexible hours and if the work is not to your liking then just drop it and find another gig. You can think of Gigging as the ADHD of Encore Hustles.  But Gigging also gives you time to hone your skills and build your brand.

If you wanted to present the above classifications as Venn Diagrams it would be clear that many Encore Hustles within the 4G's would intersect.  For example, a tutor (Guru) could be a Gigger when they find students through Tutor.com or they could be Grower when they start their own tutoring business.  And there is nothing to stop a Grinder, maybe working a cash resister at Walmart, picking us a few extra bucks being a Gigger by being a petsitter, or setting up their own Esty shop to be a Grower.  This is one of the exciting aspects of Encore Hustles - the possibilities and permutations are only limited by your imagination. 

Let me know what your Encore Hustle is and we can feature it on a future postings.

Where's our Jetpacks?

In the scrub desert of eastern Washington near where I work there is a laboratory that measures gravitational waves, essentially the ripples of space and time, when black holes collide.  Much like these distortions of the fabric of universe, the Baby Boom continues to be a seismic event that sends ripples through our society and the economy.

As I mentioned in my first post, an estimated 10,000 Americans turn 65 every day and people over 65 now outnumber teens for the first time since 1948.  By 2029 the +65 cohort will number over 71 million or about 20% of the population.  And yet as the ranks of seniors swell recent polls asking if people plan to continue working, either full or part-time, past 65 have resulted in a responses ranging from 48 to 74%.  Which means that if you are not planning on working past 65 I am sure you know someone who does.

So what happened to the traditional retirement model that our parents enjoyed a generation ago?  Where did the secure retirement go that allowed for lazy days of golf, fishing and bridge that could be enjoyed after a lifetime of labor?  I am afraid that for most of us that idea has gone the way of the jetpacks that we were promised when we were growing up in the 60's.

I am sure we all experienced several of the following that resulted in the "new" retirement model:

• A shift from defined benefit plans (pensions) to defined contribution plans (the 401k). For example, in 2015 only 20% of the Fortune 500 companies offered pension plans down from 59% back in 1998.  The onus on retirement planning has been placed our shoulders and for many of us we have not been up the task.  We did not max our our contributions or understand the nature of risk while investing for the long term.
• We are living longer than our parents.  Advances in healthcare means that we are living about 10 years longer than our parents which means we increase the chances that we will outlive our savings.
• Wages have been stagnant for close to 40 years.  Real median wages have only risen 9% since 1979.  For comparison, real wages in the 25 years after the end of WWII rose 91%.
• Lifestyle inflation.  Our parents didn't have three gas guzzlers in the driveway of our McMansions.  Nuff said.
• Increased personnel debt has become a way of life.  For example, in 2016 the average household had credit credit debt of $6,184.  That is on top of the other debts: auto, student and mortgage.  You can't save for retirement if your are in hock to the bank and MasterCard.
• The rise in the cost of medical expenses and college tuition has been raising faster than inflation. Since 1978 college tuition has increased 1,120% (four times faster than the consumer price index).  Over the same period medical expenses have risen 601% while food has increased 244%.  Many of us are still paying for students loans taken out decades ago (not to mention the loans we co-signed for our children) and the burden of medical debt is a leading cause of personal bankruptcy. 
• We have become a "sandwich" generation with about 15% of middle-aged households providing financial support to both an aging parent and a child, siphoning money away from retirement savings.
• The restructuring of the American economy that shattered traditional industries resulting in many workers being fired from companies with whom they thought they would have lifetime employment.  This resulted in millions of workers having long term unemployment, a reduction in savings and for many employment in positions at lower wages and benefits.
• And let us not forget the Subprime Mortgage Crisis of 2007 and the subsequent Great Recession.  A recent poll has indicated that these events have left almost half of Boomer households significantly less prepared for retirement.

Ok, enough of that, sorry for being a Debbie Downer.  Now on the flip side, there numerous reasons embrace the "new" retirement and the Encore Hustle:

• We are living longer and overall we are healthier! The old model of retiring at 65 was started at a time when if you lived to 68 you were considered lucky.  So, in addition to advances in healthcare, we have come to realize that the continuance of work has huge health benefits.  It keeps us active and engaged.  It can strengthen our social network and stave off cognitive decline.
• We are a more educated workforce.  In 1950 only about 7% of the workforce had a college degree.  By 1990 this increased to about 24%. This education doesn't expire when we turn 65!  Put it work.
• The economy has shifted where the workforce is employed in manufacturing to one of services and knowledge based.  This benefits the older worker.
• Conversely since the number of workers in trades and crafts have declined there is a generational gap in this sector.  If you have these skills and don't mind grease under your fingernails there will always be a place for you.
• Current unemployment rates are low and many employers appreciate flexibility and work ethic of older worker.  In some cases companies are actively seeking out that sector of the workforce.
• The internet and the sharing economy has made it incredibly easy to network, search for work and start businesses.  Linkedin, Monster, eBay, Facebook, Payday, Alibaba, Uber, Airbnb, eLance, Craigslist etc are all household words that did not exist 15 years ago.

Sure we are not strapping on our jetpacks or booking vacations to the moon yet.  But we do have electric cars, solar energy and gene therapy.  I personally can't wait to see what the next 30 years will hold.  How about you?

Welcome To My Blog

Welcome to my first posting.  As you might have guessed this blog is dedicated to the 10,000 people that are retiring everyday.  Among those are the dreamers and schemers who have decided that retirement is only a pause before starting their encore hustle.

For myself I am, as they say at college, a Rising Senior.  As you can see from my profile I have 30 plus years as an engineer and I can see retirement on the horizon.  And although there are mornings when I wake up and wish I do not have to head to the office and I check my 401k more often than I should I really don't relish the idea of retirement.  I still still enjoy learning something new and being smarter when I leave the office than when I arrived.  However I am looking forward to the day when I can work on my own terms (hopefully a mix of work and travel) and this blog is one of the ways that I am preparing for that day.

There is something called the Baader-Meinfon phenomenon, alternately known as the recency illusion.  Sort of like when you buy a red car you notice how many other red cars are on the road.  In my case it is noticing people who are working well past what we like to call "retirement age".  For example I was recently flying with a regional carrier and I noticed that our flight attendant was well past 60.  I made a slight joke about how many years he has been on the job and I was surprised to learn that he was 64 and had only been on the job for a year.  It turns out he was previously a manager at a fast food restaurant and was recruited by the airline because of his exceptional customer service.  He told me that being a flight attendant was the best job he ever had and he would keep doing it as long as he could sling baggage into the overhead compartment.

I love meeting people who have these stories and this is what I want this blog to be about.  I want to share stories of people who are pursuing their encore hustle and provide resources to people who want to find and succeed at their hustle.  Hopefully this blog with grow and become the EH community with forums and resources.

Thanks for reading and I would love to hear about your EH.