Generational Trade off: Mentoring and Training

Many people nearing retirement, or who have opted out with a fat retirement package, are seeing their goals become reality. They sacrificed time with their spouses during most of their waking lives in order to scrabble in the workplace, missed some milestones of their children's lives because of an out-of-town business trip and sometimes paid more attention to computer screens than to other people.

And there are "good" habits so entrenched from years of work and keeping up professional self-esteem that we must pay special attention to learning how to not only relax, but to kick back and do zip! In fact, the restless urge to keep doing something is a chronic problem for those who are newly "condemned to freedom."

So with all this momentum still driving us, with seemingly no place to go, it may be time to consider a transition from working to mentoring. Mentoring is a kind of one-on-one, easygoing teaching and consulting. It's a way of plugging back into the skill guild you have been used to, and handing down to younger professionals some of the wisdom and techniques that got you this far into a dawning of personal freedom.

Mentoring and consulting can be an avocation or a lucrative way to repay the community and the profession of which you have long been a member. Now you may be an esteemed member, and really in demand. 

If you don't want to return in any way to the profession you've lived out, consider bringing your expertise into the local or regional political arena.

But if you or someone you know are still hauling down a wage, it may be that after 45 or so, it's rankling to be given directions or training from someone young enough to be your kid. For that fairly common situation, this may be an opportunity to strike a bargain. Consider offering your younger manager or trainer a deal: You train me, and I'll mentor you. This establishes a balance that other cultures relish, especially in Europe and Japan.

Whatever the rewards of mentoring and consulting, they can help you achieve a balance between the workaholism of your former life, and the daunting freedom of nothing to do. This can also help you ease into getting to know your spouse and family and friends better than you ever dreamed, and make you glad that your dreams have come true.

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