Retirement Maze

Rob Pascale, PhD, founded Marketing Analysts, Inc, a quantitative market research company, in 1982. Dr. Pascale retired from full time responsibilities at MAi in 2005 at the age of 51. Throughout his 25-year tenure as president of MAi, Dr. Pascale was directly involved in over 5000 research studies for more than 50 of the largest corporations in the world, and has polled well over 2 million consumers. Louis H. Primavera, PhD, is a New York State Licensed Psychologist trained in behavior and rational emotive behavior therapies, and maintained a private practice for more than twenty-five years specializing in marriage counseling. Dr. Primavera is currently the Dean of the School of Health Sciences at Touro College. Previously he was the Dean of the Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies at Adelphi University, held the Department Chair and served as Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at St. John’s University, and has held full time faculty positions at Hofstra University, St. Francis College, and Molloy College. Primavera has published extensively in the social sciences, and his work has appeared in a number of prestigious professional journals in Psychology. He was a consultant to the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and has held a number of other consulting positions in medicine, business, and education. He has been a member of a number of professional organizations and has served as President of the Academic Division of the New York State Psychological Association, and the New York City Metro Chapter of the American Statistical Association.Rip Roach is senior partner and managing director at Marketing Analysts, Inc. He also serves as the lead technical consultant for the MAi staff and its clients.

There is great content here, provided at a time when millions of Americans will transition into a life without work. The nuggets and insights truly helpful to those planning to get out of the nine-to-five world are nested in lots of psychological and academic research. The retired founder of a market-research firm, Pascale teamed with a former coworker and a psychologist to study the ways and means behind the beginnings of a new life. Based on a substantial number of online and some in-person interviews, they found—no surprise!—that determinants of happily-ever-after work are gender, health, wealth, attitudes, motivation, and personality. Anecdotes (occasionally repeated) underscore the need to thoroughly plan, not just financially but also emotionally, for a purposeful next stage. Perhaps the most powerful chapter of all is the last, spelling out the five nonsequential steps to a great retirement: put back structure, purpose, and direction; get your finances in order; and keep searching and experimenting.

• Part 1: A Frame of Reference Chapter 1. Motivations and ObjectivesChapter 2. Why We Can RetireChapter 3. Why We Run into ProblemsPart 2: Pre-Retirement: What to Know Before You GoChapter 4. How We DecideChapter 5. Expectations and Pre-ConceptionsChapter 6. The Devil’s in the DetailsPart 3: Post-Retirement: Pitfalls and AmbushesChapter 7. Health and WealthChapter 8. Retired and WorkingChapter 9. Taking Early Retirement Chapter 10. Ladies, Gents, and Collar ColorsChapter 11. How We Use Our TimeChapter 12. Friends and FamilyChapter 13. Love and MarriageChapter 14. How We See Ourselves Chapter 15. The Good and Bad in Each of UsChapter 16. Where to Go From HereAppendix i BibliographyAppendix ii About the Authors