Customer Reviews

How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free: Retirement Wisdom That You Won't Get from Your Financial Advisor

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Who Wouldn't Want To Be Coached By A Guy Named Ernie Zelinski? That's the title of an article I wrote about Zelinski's other books. I love Zelinski. This time his book, How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free is about living, although it's disguised as a book on retirement. It is his best.

I recommend the book for anyone under 27 years old because they are young enough to embrace the ideals of this book and shift their lives accordingly. They can choose to live the life their heart calls them too instead of the life the MBA drives them, too. After 27 years of age people get buried in delusions about the supposed necessities of life.

I also recommend the book for people over 50. These people are now wise enough to know better and can embrace the attitudes of Zelinski's retirement long before they stop working for money. His definition of retirement is all about following your heart and is not based much on working for a living or not. Retirement is a state of mind, and you can apply many of the ideas in the book today to make your life happy, wild, and free.

Zelinski is inspiring. Zelinski knows we are all creative; I agree. I am constantly urging my patients to have some creative pursuit in their lives. Here is what he says from the book:

Once you retire, you too can reclaim your creative spirit and find an artistic pursuit that will ignite your inner fire. Your artistic pursuit -- whether it's painting pictures, writing poetry, or making pottery -- will rekindle a part of you that has been suppressed for years by the structure of a job and the routine of daily life. Not only can it make you feel more alive, an artistic pursuit can constitute the primary reason for your being.

Ninety-five percent of books on retirement are about how to plan financially for the event, and they ignore the spirit of the matter. Zelinski goes for the heart as he always does. He shows oodles of evidence demonstrating money has little to do with satisfaction in retirement. It is about finding meaning in your life. It's about living happy, wild, and free. Isn't that something that would be useful at any age? It's what I want for you and for me. That and being able to wear aloha shirts or the equivalent whenever you want. Cha!

I was looking for just this kind of book. Most retirement books are talking about money,and selling you something, this book talks about your life. I am a nervous Nellie when it comes to change or decisions. I research till I know the topic as well as I can and then make my decision.

I saw myself in so many discriptions in the book. I was a workaholic. I now know better and I am trying to change my thinking about work and leisure. I have taken more time off this year than last year to date and plan a lot more days off. I thought my world would fall apart if I did this. It hasn't fallen apart-matter of fact work has gone along just fine without me! This is something of a shock. All those extra hours were a waste of time, my time! I still have a lot of work to do on learning to find my life and live it "Wild and Free", but I am making some progress.

This book made me think about retirement and life in a whole new way. The humor, quotes and exercises helped me understand my possibilities better. I am retiring next summer and moving on to the rest of my life and looking forward to it. Thank you Mr.Zelinski!

This book is quite different than the author's other one that I like so much, "The Joy of Not Working." The format is quite different. In my opinion, the organizational structure is not as good. But in the end, there is a wealth of good, solid, useful, insightful information contained inside, and that would be the point of reading it in the first place.

In short, "Happy, Wild and Free" is another winner by Zelinski for retiree readers, and it can serve as a great "only" retirement book for those who are looking for that. I can't imagine anyone feeling they don't get their money's worth from reading the book.

Just a read of the preface may be worth the price of admission. Here we find a good overview of the subject of retirement, with some first-class comments to boot: "Retirement is the perfect time to become the person you would like to be and do the things you have always wanted to do." "Retirement can be both exciting and demanding, bringing new challenges, new experiences, and new uncertainties." "...retirement is the last opportunity for individuals to reinvent themselves, let go of the past, and find peace and happiness within." "Despite the bad press that retirement sometimes gets, there has never been a better time to be retired in Western nations." And the one I like the best: "The most fortunate of retirees are those who through good planning, experimentation, and risk-taking succeed in making retirement the best time of their lives."

I just don't think the elements of this retirement insight and advice gets any better any place else. I truly believe that Zelinski is the reigning guru on retirement, and I have since I first found and read, "The Art of Retirement." If Zelinski didn't exist, I think we would have to have invent him. But he's saved us the trouble with his combination of fantastic books on retirement.

The major criticism of the book is that, for me, the flow of chapters and even the flow of sections within the chapters does not work. The collection of chapter sections, I think, could probably be randomly placed with the same eventual result. It's not like one section logically follows the other, nor positively belongs in one chapter rather than another.

And, as I look back through my notes in the book, I find words I've written such as "sophomoric," "irrelevant," "repetitive," "dumb," and "weak." I simply do not find all sections of the book to be at the level I want them to be. But that's it. That's all of my criticisms. To me the reader is free, after reading the preface, to read through the rest of the book, remembering quotes and advice and insight along the way, finding sections that he or she finds valuable and to be favorites, ignoring those found not to be worth the read.

The flaws that I see should not prevent most from finding the bulk of the book to be well worth the effort. I highly recommend this book as a gift to oneself and/or for others. I don't think it gets any better than Zelinski when you look for books on the subject of life after work.

Ernie has another winner on his hands. The book covers all the basics of planning for the retirement life and making it as rich as you can. It is not about saving money or financial planning. It's way more important than that. It makes the point quite well that money is secondary to living a good life. And a good life can be lived on little or a lot. His style is easy to read. It is obvious that he believes that retirement, in whatever form it takes, is a wonderful period of your life. A time when you can pursue dreams you couldn't when you worked 60 hours a week or had small children at home. A time to find your true purpose in life and fulfill it. Fortunately this is not a philosophical or feel good book; it offers practical examples, stories and exercises to help you prepare for retirement. This could be the only retirement book you'll need. I loved this book and use it in my coaching and training sessions with potential retirees.

As a Life Transition Coach who specializes in helping people prepare for and adjust to 'retirement' I am always on the look out for good materials to refer them to. Zelinski's "How to Retire" has become the staple that my clients are referred to again and again.

You can tell this guy really knows how to live life. He has become a huge invitation for people to wake up and smell the burning rubber of their feet dragging on life's treadmill! Even for that small portion of the working public who actually enjoy their jobs, he presents some compelling arguments as to why 'retirement' is an appealing option to work.

I'm someone who doesn't plan on a traditional retirement, yet there were times as I read Zelinski's thoughts and ideas about what's possible in retirement that it got me thinking that I may want to revise my plans at some point in the future.

The distinction between "feel good" and "values based" happiness that Zelinski makes on p. 96 really caught my attention and I've already begun weaving the importance of this distinction into the coaching conversations I have with clients. In short, it highlights how the buzz that we get from spending money and 'accomplishing' things diminishes over time so that we have to spend more or do more in order to get the same release from it. One of those laws of diminishing return things. Compare that to the long term satisfaction and gratification we get from engaging things that hold meaning for us and you discover a kind of happiness that actually grows over time rather than diminishing over time. Very, very important for those caught in the web of illusion that golfing/fishing/shopping/traveling are going to sustain them when they retire.

Zelinski encourages us all to consider retirement earlier rather than later and to begin to pay attention to the quality of our life's experience rather than single mindedly focusing on achieving more material success. He rightfully points out that many of us won't make it to some magical retirement date we anticipate in the future. And he is clear in helping us to notice that money alone is not going to buy us a satisfying, gratifying retirement experience.

The only way that I think this book could be improved is with a bit more focus on the conversation about discovering the identity each of us has that typically lies buried beneath mountains of cultural conditioning. In my experience, folks who haven't ever really spent much time wondering "who am I under all these rules, anyway?" need a fair bit of support and encouragement to keep digging until they discover themselves. That being said, the many exercises and activities Zelinski's suggests are fine starting points for that exploration.

I think that every workaholic in North America should be locked in a room with this book for as long as it takes for them to read it through and discover the big, exciting world that they are missing! And I don't know many people who couldn't benefit from absorbing a few of Zelinski's thoughts on the whole retirement subject.

I purchased and borrowed several retirement guides in the months just prior to retiring. As I read the other books, I kept returning to How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free for the author's good, down to earth suggestions. Most of the other books focus on finances and second careers after retirement. While both of these subjects are important issues, they are not the only concerns you have as you prepare for that big step into the future. How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free covers it all. Those worries you may have about what to do after retiring -- this book has lots of great, affordable suggestions for you. Taking care of yourself, continued learning and travel are all addressed. You will not be a bored retiree. Also enjoyable are the readers' letters to the author that are interspersed throughout the book. Ernie Zelinski's upbeat book is highly recommended as you prepare for that next important chapter in your life. With this book in hand, you will be ready to enjoy your retirement years to their fullest!

This book enhances the idea that retirement is a time to "become much more than you have ever been." It's a practical book, based on the theories that Zelinski has been developing since he semi-retired at the age of 30.
One of the best things about the book is his "Get-a-Life Tree." Using a basic brainstorming technique, Zelinski has expanded it to a useful tool for those who have no idea what they want to do when they retire. That suggestion alone is worth the purchase price of the book.

If you want a nuts and bolts FINANCIAL guide to retirement, you won't find it here.

But if you want a so-much-more-than-nuts-and-bolts guide to designing a retirment that makes you happy, content, and yes, even wild and free, then Zelinski's down to earth advice will uplift and inspire you to retire as soon as possible!

Easy reading with a positive message. Recommended!

I really enjoyed this book. Some of the best things are the "Get A Life Tree" and 7 pages of possible activities for it.

A few quotes:

"The probability of having a happy and successful retirement is inversely proportional to the amount of TV one watches."

"You must pursue what you truly want out of retirement, and not what others want you to pursue or what other retirees are pursuing."

"Virtually everyone will agree at some level that money doesn't buy happiness, but deep down they haven't accepted it. Regardless of how old you are, you will show wisdom well beyond your age when you truly accept that money can't buy contentment and peace of mind."

"Riches are to be used and not to be hoarded. After all, what the ultimate purpose of money, but to spend it?

Sadly, wealthy people can actually be worse off than poor people. Due to their poverty consciousness, a disease of sorts, some of the rich continue to live as if they were poor."

Pages 186-7 has a good list of things to look for in a retirement location.

Page 195 has great self evaluation questions to answer.

I've read a lot of retirement books and this one had new angles for me and I recommend it.

I first noticed that "How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free" appeared in Amazon.com's "Customers who bought this item also bought" list for virtually any other significant book on retirement. So I bought Zelinski's book. I was not disappointed.

Two reviewers state that this book is the same as Zelinski's international bestseller "The Joy of Not Working". This is not true. Although the two books have some similarities, "How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free" is strictly for the retired or soon-to-be retired, whereas "The Joy of Not Working" is directed -- not only at the retired and the unemployed -- but also at working people who want a great work/life balance.

If I were a personal coach who gives advice to the newly retired, I would recommend "How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free" to my clients as the best non-financial retirement book. If I was a corporate human resource manager, I would be purchasing this book in quantity to give to all of my company's retiring employees.

In short, "How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free" is the best book I have read on the personal aspects of retirement. The chapters are devoted to the consideration of activities that enhance body, mind, and spirit. Zelinski quotes from many sources, but his attitude is reflected in this excerpt from his own writing:

"You will have attained true freedom in this world when you can get up in the morning when you want to get up; go to sleep when you want to go to sleep; and in the interval, work and play at the things you want to work and play at -- all at your own pace. The great news is that retirement allows you the opportunity to attain this freedom."