The Big Shift, Marc Freedman
The Big Shift, Marc Freedman
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The Big Shift
Midlife Opportunity and the Transition to a New Stage of Life

Author: Marc Freedman

Narrator: Walter Dixon

Unabridged: 6 hr 23 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Ascent Audio

Published: 04/11/2011


Synopsis

Marc Freedman, hailed by the New York Times as “the voice of aging baby boomers [seeking] meaningful and sustaining work later in life,” makes an impassioned call to accept the decades opening up between midlife and anything approximating old age for what they really are – an entirely new stage of life, which he dubs the encore years.

In The Big Shift, Freedman bemoans the fact that the discussion about longer lives in America has been entirely about the staggering economic costs of a dramatically aging society when, in reality, most of the nation’s 78 million boomers are not getting old … at least not yet. The whole 60- to 80-year-old period is simply new territory, he writes, and the people in this period constitute a whole new phenomenon in the 21st century.

The Big Shift is animated by a simple premise: that the challenge of transitioning to and making the most of this new stage—while deeply personal—is much more than an individual problem; it’s an urgent social imperative, one affecting all generations. By embracing this time as a unique period of life – and providing guidance, training, education and support to the millions who are in it – Freedman says that we can make a monument out of what so many think of as the leftover years. The result could be a windfall of talent that will carry us toward a new generation of solutions for growing problems in areas like education, the environment, and health care.

About Marc Freedman

Marc Freedman is founder and CEO of Encore.org. An award-winning social entrepreneur, frequent media commentator, and author, Freedman is widely published in the national media and has been honored with numerous awards and fellowships, including the Eisner Prize for Intergenerational Excellence. Originator of the encore career idea linking second acts to the greater good, Freedman helped create Experience Corps, the Purpose Prize, and Encore Fellowships.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jay

The subtitle of “The Big Shift” is “Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife”. Sounds like this is a self-help or how-to book similar to a lot of the retirement books in vogue these past ten years or so. It is not. This is more of a description of how this stage in life, called different things in th......more

Goodreads review by Dale

Very timely read for me, and I think Marc Freedman is on an excellent point in this book. Many - probably most - of us aren't going to be able to retire in happiness at the age of 55 or 60. More importantly, hardly any of us want to give up working completely and simply vanish into retirement at tha......more

I didn't get far with this, sorry boring.......more

Goodreads review by Dayla

I recommend everyone read this book right after they retire: The Big Shift discusses the challenge of transitioning to and making the most of this new (retirement) stage. In reality, this time is a unique period of life. Freedman, the author, says that we can make a monument out of what so many think......more