Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Boring Retirees Take On Boring Retirement Jobs


Apparently many Americans are taking on new jobs after their "official" retirement.

Some retirees need the extra money and other retirees are simply bored.

Whatever the reason, an increasing number of retirees are opting for semi-retirement by having some sort of retirement job.

Here are eight of the most popular post-retirement jobs.



  1. Consultant

  2. Caterer

  3. Store Greeter

  4. Floral Assistant

  5. Temp

  6. Tour Guide

  7. Retail Worker

  8. More of the Same That the Retiree Used to Work at

To me, the majority of these retirement jobs are boring, boring, boring.


Of course boring retirees will tend to take on boring retirement jobs




Related to the fact than many people who retire actually get a retirment job sooner or later is the trend of many just staying in their jobs.


A recent survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute found that a growing number of American workers are also planning to delay retirement.

That has negative implications for the U.S. job market, where unemployment is high and layoffs continue to grow.

Almost one in four workers (24 percent) postponed plans to retire this year.

Of those postponing retirement 29 percent cited the poor economy, wheras 22 percent cited a change in employment status, 16 percent cited inadequate finances and 12 percent cited the need to make up stock market losses.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Advertise on My Websites - Yes If the Ad and the Money Are Right!


I receive quite a few e-mails like the following from various people wanting to advertise on my many websites.


    ----- Original Message -----
    From: A. Marketing
    To: VIP BOOKS
    Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2010 11:11 AM
    Subject: Advertising on your website

    Hello, I came across your Website and was wondering if I would be able to purchase some space with targeted content and a few links with anchor text on your site.

    Thank you,
    Niki
This was my reply to the above e-mail:


    Hello Niki:

    Thank you for your interest in advertising on my website.

    First, I have no idea which of my websites you are referring to.

    Second, I do partner with certain people who want to advertise on my websites.

    For example, just today someone called and offered me $150 to advertise on my Squidoo Mother's Day webpage. All I had to do was change the link that previously went to Wikipedia to a website selling flowers. And the client only wanted the link until the day after Mothers Day. So I happily accepted.

    And if you check the Inspiration to Help You Enjoy More Leisure webpage on my The Joy of Not Working website, you will see a link for "blackjack" for which I am being paid $130 for the year. And if you check my
    Fun Things to Do When You Retire webpage on The Retirement Cafe, you will find a link for bingo games for which I am also being paid around $130 for the year.

    However, someone recently offered $150 a year each for 4 text-based ads (for a total of $600) on two homepages of my retirement websites
    How to Retire Happy and The Joy of Being Retired and I rejected the offer because I did not want any text-based ads for casinos or gambling on the home pages.

    So if you want to make an offer for any ads, tell me which website, the particular webpage, the nature of the ad, and the maximum that you will pay.

    In short, the answer is yes if the ad and the money are right!

    Many thanks and so long for now,

    Ernie J. Zelinski
    The Creativity Guy
    Best-Selling Author, Innovator, and Unconventional Career Expert
    Author of the Bestseller How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free
    (Over 120,000 copies sold and published in 9 languages)
    and the International Bestseller The Joy of Not Working
    (Over 240,000 copies sold and published in 17 languages)

    *************************************************************************************

    Note: This is a one-time notification about How to Retire Happy, Wild & Free. Please do not consider it as SPAM.

    If you have any objections, please respond and we will not send you further e-mails about our other retirement giveaway e-books that we intend to release.

    Our retirement books are designed for corporations so that they can create GOODNESS, COOLNESS, and AWARENESS with clients and customers.

    Even more important, our funky retirement books such as 365 Reasons Why You Will Love Retirement help retirees and the soon-to-be retired to earn their retirement karma points so that they retire happy.

    *************************************************************************************


    Tuesday, April 13, 2010

    Sponsorship Is Not about You or Me - It Is about the Sponsor


    Recently I have been fascinated by the idea of creating corporate sponsorships for some of my books and projects. This will help me achieve my retirement plan a lot quicker.

    That is why I attended Brendon Burchard's 3-day Sponsorship/Partnership seminar in San Francisco.

    I just received this e-mail from a friend after discussing the idea of Corporate Sponsorships with her.


      There is a guy in Alberta who has brain cancer and has to raise $9100 each month for a drug that is not yet available to Albertans because of some red tape. I've suggested to the person running a campaign to raise funds (in a very tedious, slow way) that she go directly to the drug company and ask for a sponsorship for her cause. I've just sent her the links to his videos. Hopefully she will use the idea!
    This was my response:


      Thaneah:

      Quickly, about sponsorships, particularly going direct to the drug company.

      This is not a good idea.

      Sponsorships are about Partnerships, which means both parties have to win.

      The problem with most people is when they think of sponsorships, they think of Me, Me, Me!

      See my blog post SPONSORSHIP IS ALL ABOUT PROFITS - THAT IS THE WAY IT SHOULD BE! on my Redroom blog at:

      Plain and simple, Sponsorships / Partnerships are about how you can create something for the Sponsor so the Sponsor wins big time and you win big time at the same time.

      What you have to do is create a campaign that brings COOLNESS, AWARENESS, and GOODNESS to the Sponsor and the Sponsor gives you what you would like in return.

      With this in mind, the drug company is not the place to go for sponsorship. It would not benefit from any awareness that it is giving away the drug to someone. There would be thousands of other people asking for the drug for free. This would be detrimental to the drug company. The drug company is not in the business of giving away the drug for free and this is the way it should be. I don't hear of any school teachers or nurses or auto workers willing to work for free of at a loss.

      Having said this, sponsorship is definietly possible for this case.

      It's a matter of being creative and putting in the work.

      What is required is creating a campaign for a large company (bank, telephone company, human resources company, etc ) that would create COOLNESS, AWARENESS, and GOODNESS for the company by buying the drug for someone who needs it.

      I suggest that if you don't have a LinkedIn account, that you sign up for one.

      Then join the two sponsorship groups that I have joined.

      Then ask other people for opinions on how to create (notice I said create and not "get") a Sponsorship/Partnership for this case.

      Particularly ask Kim Skildum-Reid from Australia, who has been doing sponsorship for about twenty-four or so years.

      Also review all her posts on LinkedIn because there is a lot of valuable information there.

      She has written a book about it called Sponsorship Seeker's Toolkit Third Edition which I am ordering.

      Note that I am buying this book even though I spent over $2,000 to attend Brendon's Sponsorship/ Partnership Seminar and already have an incredible amount of resources to work with.

      Check out Kim Skildum-Reid's website called Power Sponsorship and note that she is doing two different workshops on Sponsorships in Los Angeles in May.

      Also check out Kim's blog posts such as this one called How Do I Get Sponsorships for My Event.
        In short, sponsorship is not about you or me - it is about the Sponsor! That is the way it should be because the sponsor is the one spending the money.

        So long for now,

        Ernie J. Zelinski
        The Creativity Guy
        Best-Selling Author, Innovator, and Unconventional Career Expert
        Author of the Bestseller How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free
        (Over 110,000 copies sold and published in 9 languages)
        and the International Bestseller The Joy of Not Working
        (Over 225,000 copies sold and published in 17 languages)


      Monday, April 5, 2010

      Americans and Canadians Delusional about Their Government Pension Plans


      I have been saying for years that Americans and Canadians are delusional about how much they will receive from their government or corporate pension plans.

      My argument has been that it defies logic that a fire fighter or police officer can work for 25 years, retire early at 55 or 60, and then collect nice government-funded pensions for another 20 or 30 years. Taxpayers simply can't afford this.

      Where is the money going to come from to support these unreasonable pension plans?

      In fact, my creative retirement plan based on my own financing — and no one else's — is much more solid than those of government workers. (That is why I created the webpage Ten Reasons to Never Work at a Real Job — so that you can enjoy your retirement.)

      The writing has been on the wall for some time but most Americans and Canadians are in denial about how serious the situation is.

      Fact is, many baby boomers, even those with pensions, are in for a big surprise: They will not collect any where what they think the will collect in pensions. Their retirement plan based on taxpayers may in the long run be no better than The Retirement Plan for Idiots

      Here is more evidence:

      A study released by Standford University in early April 2010 indicates that California's public retirement plans are underfunded by more than a half trillion dollars, equal to about $36,000 per household and far exceeding previous estimates.

      The Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research warns that $360 billion would have to be injected into pension and health care benefit systems immediately just to have an 80 percent chance of meeting 80 percent of the obligations in 16 years.

      Again, the $535 billion shortfall estimated by the Stanford report means every household in the state is on the hook for about $36,000.

      "That's how much they (California taxpayers) owe to government workers for their retirement benefits," says a renowned expert.

      This expert goes on to say, "It's not like they will have to send a check to pay for it. But they will see it in higher classroom sizes, roads that aren't repaired, parks that are closed, fewer policemen, far fewer firefighters and government offices that are probably going to be closed even more than we are seeing today."

      My guess is that the California government workers will never collect what they expect because there will be a total collaspe of the system.

      The end result will be that these government workers will collect a lot less simply because the taxpayers will not be able to afford what the government workers expect.

      In short, these collective agreements with such generous pension plans should have never been made in the first place.

      If you would like to retire happy, here are some resources for retirement that may help: