Customer Reviews

What Color Is Your Parachute? for Retirement, Second Edition: Planning a Prosperous, Healthy, and Happy Future (What Color Is Your Parachute? for Retirement: Planning Now for the)

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I liked the first book, but I really liked this one. I wish I could give it more than 5 stars. Whether you read one or twenty books on retirement, this one should be at the top of your list!

Just like the first edition, this book is going to generate new thoughts and actions about retirement planning and how to prepare for this phase of life. Whether already in retirement, not there yet, or just starting a first job, I'm betting you will find this book well worth the read. It makes you aware that retirement is an entirely separate life stage that requires some careful thought and planning.

I found the new information and worksheets included in this second edition to be even more helpful for planning for my retirement future than those in the first book. They clearly identified the steps that I need to take to be happy, healthy and financially prepared.

I've worked in the retirement field for over 20 years and this is a message that both young and old need to hear and by taking the approach suggested in the book, it can be a great help in deciding how much someone should be setting aside for their future. How can you establish a saving and investment plan if you don't have a clue about what you want your retirement lifestyle to be like?

I'm one of those people who are "kind of" retired, but still working and I'm not alone. Studies show that between 60% and 80% of retirees and pre-retirees (and often even more) plan to continue some type of "work" - whether for pay or volunteering - well into their retirement years.

The reasons for continuing to work are generally because the retiree is bored, needs a social network and/or wants to add some purpose to their life. Unfortunately, most people don't have a clue about how to actually plan for what their retirement lifetime will be like or even think about what their "dream retirement" is.

This book provides a wealth of information to help you become more aware of all the variables that go into planning for a successful retirement. It makes you think differently about today and tomorrow and the steps that you should be taking to plan for your future.

This book is an easy read and very comprehensive. The additional exercises and worksheets were extremely useful. You can tell that a great deal of research has gone into this material. I really believe anyone who reads this book will have greater insight into what you want your retirement lifetime to be like and how to make it happen.

If you haven't given any, or much, thought about planning for a retirement lifestyle - not just saving and investing money - or you are just leaving your retirement happiness to chance, this is definitely a book you should read.

But as noted in the forward from the author, don't just read the book, experience it! Fill out the worksheets and really spend time on the exercises to explore what retirement really means to you. Even a seasoned retirement expert, like me, learned a great deal from this process.

LIVING YOUR DREAMS -- planning for Prosperity, Health, Happiness & THE BEST TIME OF YOUR LIFE -- (this review is of the 2007 edition and was first posted November 22, 2007)

By Constant Reader "lovetoread" (Madison, WI USA)

This review is from: What Color Is Your Parachute? for Retirement: Planning Now for the Life You Want (Paperback)

I remember very well the revolution that the the original WHAT COLOR IS YOUR PARACHUTE? caused in my thinking. Here was a career planning book that said I could design a satisfying work life based on what I like and who I am! It changed my thinking.

This new book is designed to support the same kind of revolution in our thinking about retirement. The back of the book says "START LIVING YOUR DREAMS."

This is not about just "not working." This book has lots of practical information about money and health and relationships--but the main thing is the basis of all the PARACHUTE books--- that you can discover your heart's desire and design your life to live it. This book can help a person identify their heart's desire and would be terrific for anyone thinking about what they want for their future retirement.

I know John Nelson. John is dedicated to an approach to retirement that supports true fulfillment for the whole person, based on that person's own dreams and heart's desire. I would occasionally see him at meetings while he was writing this book. He was so inspirational when he talked about the book, and changes in how we view retirement, and how we can re-imagine and recreate our lives for happiness and satisfaction in retirement, and how retirement can be a wonderful time of fulfillment, that I just couldn't wait to read it.

John consulted closely on this book with Richard Bolles, the author of the original WHAT COLOR IS YOUR PARACHUTE? And, just like the original did for starting or changing a career, this book is designed to help us to get out of the "retirement box" thinking and realize we can design a future that is based on our preferences, proclivities, dreams and desires as we want to express them NOW.

Richard Bolles says in his preface to this book that he thinks life can be compared to a symphony with four sections, and that what we call retirement is the fourth section. He says that instead of thinking of retirement as the end of life, this book helps us to think of it as the beginning of the fourth section. So this book is designed to gives us a way to organize our thinking and to imagine and create what we want to be, and do, and have in that fourth section of life.

Like the original PARACHUTE book, this book offers a template and guidance, appropriate for this time of life, for how to design a satisfying "fourth segment of life" with the goals of prosperity, health and happiness, designed by you, with you in mind. It is designed to help us think creatively about planning our future.

The book covers the practical aspects we need to consider, such as financial planning, and it provides practical guidelines such as a "map of your retirement journey" for the practical aspects of life we want to consider when we plan. But the main thing, and the thing that I think makes this a PARACHUTE book, is that it talks about the components of life that a human being needs to feel fulfilled, and emphasizes the deeper characteristics that make us human --such as transcendence, wisdom, humanity, justice, courage and temperance. It shows us how to identify our strengths and desires and how to build our future around them.

I think anyone considering retirement, whether soon or far in the future, would be inspired by this book. It speaks to the practical questions we must ask regarding money and planning, but it also does more--it is designed to help you get in touch with your truest underlying purposes, and to tune your planning to your heart's desire---a future that is based on your true nature and your heart's desire.

I highly recommend this book. This book can help us create a retirement that includes not only financial well-being, but also living a meaningful, prosperous, happy life, tailored for our very own heart's desire.

If you are looking for an exceptional introduction, overview and synthesis of key issues you will face in retirement (e.g, financial security, relationships, life expectancy, health, happiness) buy this book. If you want to go beyond filling your bookcase with interesting books, try the exercises, complete the self-assessments and check out a few of the suggested web sites.

I am a 62+ year old male educator preparing for retirement. I loved the first edition. The revisions justify the investment in the revised edition, even if you own the first edition.

For example, one of the new chapters summarizes the most recent research on happiness in retirement - pleasure, engagement and meaning. The chapter is 26 pages plus suggested readings and sources. As an alternative, you could purchase the references and find time to read 2500+ pages of academic research.

I own and have read six of the eight primary references for this chapter. In my opinion, the author has done a remarkable job of distilling and synthesizing key ideas and presenting them in a useful, practical and relevant way. The choice is yours - 26 pages or 2500 pages. You will find a similar experience in each of the other chapters. Enjoy the book - I did.

This second revised and updated edition captures the change in retirement from the end of work to a new stage of life. It helps readers to prepare for the transition whatever form that takes for each individual. This book is about your retirement and the exercises you will find in its pages will help you clarify what you want. This book is updated with the considerations of the recent economic meltdown in mind and how that could have changed many readers plans about retirement with the stock market plunge and the real estate bubble popping. It is a new world and this is a new book for 2010.
I have read several books on retirement, and this one is by far the best. It contains all the tools you will need to build a retirement that is best for you. It has lived up to its namesake, "What color is your parachute?" and I believe will be a classic itself. It begins by explaining you must build your retirement by balancing the big three of happiness, prosperity, and health. They overlap each other and depend on the others for fulfillment. Can you be happy if you are broke or sick in retirement? It explains the three boxes of life: education, work, and then retirement which takes you through the three dynamics of development, productivity, and then leisure. However you may want to make plans to have education or productivity in your retirement also and not just leisure. It briefly covers the financial aspects of retirement in examining what you will need from social security, your IRA/401K, and possible pension income, but it is brief, and covers the necessary information.
The book then takes you through exercises on the six fields of knowledge for well being that enables you to build a specific retirement plan that caters to you. They include the aspects of social, psychological, geographical, financial, medical, and biological. You will have to answer for yourself questions like:
Will I have an adequate network of friends after I retire?
What do I value most? Simplicity? Excitement? etc.
Where do I want to live? Do I want to keep my house or sell it for a condo in Florida?
Will I have enough income to support the lifestyle I want? Should I scale down for freedom or should I work only part time in retirement?
Do I favor medical doctors, alternative care of a mixture of both? Will I have adequate medical coverage? Do I need to change my lifestyle of eating or exercise to maintain my health in retirement?
You will find specific answers to all these questions as you build a page of information that contains your answers to these questions. This will be the only book you need on retirement it is like a text book and when you are finished you have the answers. Read every page and do all the exercises. The information you will gather about what you want and need in retirement are a guide for your journey. It doesn't matter what color your parachute is as long as it brings you safely to the ground after you jump.

This book is a comprehensive guide to planning for your retirement future. I myself am very close to completing my current career with state government, and I was looking for a book that would assist me in figuring out what I should be concerned about as I look to my life after this first stage. I would recommend this book to anyone who is currently working, not just those who are nearing retirement. I firmly believe it's never too early to start thinking about what your retirement years might look like. This book provides many useful suggestions as to what one needs to do to plan for a successful and rewarding retirement. It goes way beyond financial planning. In fact, it admits that it isn't really about that. It's about what's important in anyone's life, really. It helps you think through the really important aspects of a variety of the components of one's life, including health, values, living environment, social contacts, spiritual issues, and one's need for a purpose in life. And it gives you a lot of tools to grapple with these issues. It also includes many references to other great books on the subjects discussed.

I do not praise this book because I have gotten to know the author a bit, but rather I took the trouble to get to know him because I admired his work so much. As principal founder of the Association for Integrative Financial and Life Planning, I pay particular attention to writers on retirement planning who not only cover all the ground, but do it in a way that tries to tie together the many threads that a serious contemplation of one's own retirement inevitably involve following. John Nelson is one of the few who even tries to do this, and he does it remarkably well.

"Parachute"'s most conspicuous virtue, though, even more than the expertise and clear writing of its author, is its balance. Nelson has an approach to retirement that is explicitly, deliberately balanced -- because a life that is meaningful and rewarding should itself be balanced. Nelson believes, and builds his book upon the idea that, a good life requires a balance of money, health, and happiness. More importantly, he tells you how to do it. This is important.

Nelson deals with these topics in sufficient breadth so that you legitimately feel that the ground is being covered, and with enough specificity so that you walk away with ideas you can really use..

If you are going to read only one book to help you make the most of your retirement, try this one.

Brought out some things I hadn't thought about in retirement. New ways to live in retirement years....second career doing something you're passionate about, but not looking to climb the ladder. Makes me recognize it's to my advantage to continue working a couple more years. Not ready for a rocking chair for a long time.

I hesitated buying this book based on a couple of the negative reviews but am very glad that I decided to go ahead with it. I have read many retirement books but this one is different - it contains little of the common investment, insurance, etc. advice and focuses primarily on the pyschological adjustments and finding happiness and fulfillment. The exercises help to assess areas of interst and strengths and are probably similar to what you would get during a university-based retirement seminar. I highly recommend this book - especially for those like me that are approaching retirement.

Now in a completely revised and updated second edition, What Color Is Your Parachute? For Retirement: Planning a Prosperous, Healthy, and Happy Future lives up to its title with rock-solid advice on planning not only one's retirement finances, but also other aspects of retirement - social relationships, personal health, big life decisions, and more. Chapters address everything from making sure the neighborhood or community one retires into is suitable for one's tastes, to solid practices for building "biological vitality" and maintaining one's health, to the value of building social relationships in advance, given that social relationships grounded in work are likely to fade when one retires and there is no "automatic relationship generator" in the third phase of one's life. Highly recommended; it is never too soon to start learning from a user-friendly and practical guide such as What Color Is Your Parachute?

This is a great book, because it doesn't focus ONLY on the financial aspect of retirement. It focuses also on health and happiness during retirement. By combining all three issues in one book, it teaches the reader how to find true fulfillment in retirement. A great book!
- Aimee Elizabeth, Author of Poverty Sucks! How to Become a Self-Made Millionaire.