Handle Me with Care

Been beat up and battered 'round,
Been sent up and been shot down.

— George Harrison

Dependency on a retirement nest egg has turned me into an obsessive market watcher.

That's not a healthy habit. 

Unchecked, it induces stock market stress.

So my usual jitteriness wasn't helped a bit yesterday morning when economist Peter Berezin announced that, with Putin on the rampage, the odds of a "civilization-ending nuclear war" in the coming year have risen to 10 percent.

But not to worry, folks, Berezin said.

"Despite the rising risk of Armageddon, investors should stay bullish on stocks,” he told The  New York Times.

The Times found the economist's prediction of increased earnings somewhat baffling.

"What I wasn’t trying to say," Berezin replied, "was that stocks were going to go up if there is a nuclear war. Obviously, they will go down. 

"The point is that everything else will go down, too."

Somehow, I'm discomfited by Berezin's analysis.

Maybe it's my memories of all those duck-and-cover drills we practiced in grade school; those uncles with mildewed bomb shelters; or Walter Cronkite's live coverage of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I don't know.

But the fact that the prices of all investment vehicles will fall when the world turns into a radioactive ash heap doesn't much ease this market watcher's jitters.

I was tempted to place a sell-everything order with my guy after reading Berezin's analysis, but I resisted the urge.

Instead, I ordered a box of Potassium Iodide on line and spent the rest of the morning painting a picture (my encore career).

The problem with a pronouncement like Berezin's isn't that it's wrong.

The problem is that, when it comes to Boomers, it's tone deaf.

Mr. Berezin—a Gen Xer—clearly doesn't grasp the fact that, as Cold War survivors, we Boomers have to be handled with the utmost care.

Sure, we thought annihilation went out with giant shoulder pads.

But a lot of us have PTSD. 

Post Thermonuclear Shivers Disorder.

We're easily triggered.

Easily.

So, please, handle us with care.

Murder Most Foul

It is what it is and it’s murder most foul.

― Bob Dylan

I'm listening to Bob Dylan's new album and remembering the trauma that gripped most Boomers and their parents when JFK was assassinated.

Placed alongside successors, JFK was incomparable. Reagan, Clinton and Obama came close, but none was as influential as JFK.

JFK was young and lithesome; a wounded combat veteran and war hero; a dashing, thoughtful, cultured, funny and articulate politico; someone you could idolize.

The week after the president died, I recall, my dyed-in-the-wool Democrat father bought a life-size bust of JFK and put it on the mantel in our living room, where it sat for 30 years.

JFK not only steered us safely through near-Armageddon, but taught American men important lessons by example, such as why they should speed-read (they'll be better informed); why they should go hatless (they'll stand out from the crowd); how to look chic while sitting (sit in a rocking chair); who's the best contemporary fictional character (James Bond); and how to love your country (volunteer for pubic service).

And then there was Jackie. 

She taught American women by example, too. Jackie taught them to wear suits and pillbox hats; to decorate their homes with antiques; to learn foreign languages and attend concerts and plays; to devote themselves to their children's education and―most memorably of all―to conduct oneself with dignity and aplomb, no matter how foul the deck.

When You're 64

My wife and I frequent a farmers market Sundays in Dupont Circle, and often buy from a local pickler named Number 1 Sons.

The pickler's stand is run by 20-somethings who inevitably ignore me until I go all geezer on them and crabbily insist on making my purchase.

I'm not alone in taking it personally.

According to a survey by AARP of 61- to 69-year old Americans, 21% say they feel invisible around Millennials, and 10% say they receive slower service at stores and restaurants.

Fifty years ago, Sir Paul McCartney's lyrics to "When I'm 64" seemed so sweet.

Every Boomer would relish aging, he implied, just as long as "you still need me."

Things aren't quite working out that way.

But there's more than sour grapes in my tale.

There's a business lesson.

The late novelist Pat Conroy once told C-SPAN, "Every industry is going to be affected by the aging population. This creates tremendous opportunities and tremendous challenges."

He was right—especially about the opportunities.

The GI Generation didn't put up with crap service. Why would Boomers? We ended an unjust war; elevated women, blacks and gays; invented heavy metal and punk rock; and created the Internet.

Hey, Sonny: If you want to disrupt, try disrupting discourtesy.

NOTE: July 19th marks my 64th birthday.

This is No Ordinary Job

This is no ordinary job. This is your #dreamjob.

— Salesforce

Human happiness never remains long in the same place.

                                                                                     — Herodotus

With the success of socially conscious companies like Apple, Google, Whole Foods and Salesforce, Millennials' expectations of finding a dream job have risen.

A recent Harris Poll, in fact, shows 8 of 10 Millennials think they can find one.

I was hired for my first dream job under false pretenses.

The Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf hired me as its publications clerk in the belief I wore hearing aids when, in reality, I wore band-aids.

It was 1974, the year of gargantuan eye wear, thanks to Sir Elton John, and my fashionably oversized specs were so heavy they irritated my auricles, making it necessary to wear band aids for relief. But to the association's HR folks, they looked like hearing aids.

The job was a dream job because, after a long series of outdoor gigs, it was my first experience working in an air-conditioned office. Washington, DC, is sultry much of the year; the Alexander Graham Bell Association was a 65-degree nirvana.

I was lucky, because, as the Harris Poll indicates, most Boomers, unlike their Millennial counterparts, don't expect to find a dream job (the same holds true for Gen Xers). They're dubious. Millennials, by comparison, are like overeducated Don Quixotes, rejecting home and hearth and questing instead for the perfect job.

The Harris Poll also indicates how workers define a dream job. Among those who hold one:

• 91% say they know what's expected of them
• 83% say their work matters
• 73% say the job is rewarding and
• 70% say the job taps their greatest strengths.

While many considerations—from compensation, security and opportunity, to mission, culture and location—help define a dream job, it's noteworthy that defined outcomes—the key to sustained organizational growth, according to Gallup—tops the list.

Perhaps no other job in history had more carefully defined outcomes than that of "Keeper of the Royal Rectum," the consultant on colonic matters to the Pharaohs in Ancient Egypt.

The Greek historian Herodotus said the Ancient Egyptians were obsessed with purging themselves "by means of emetics and clysters, which is done out of a regard for their health, since they have a persuasion that every disease to which men are liable is occasioned by the substances whereon they feed."

And if that job lacked for advancement opportunities, there was also the "Groom of the Stool" in King Henry VIII's court—another dream job.

Unless you hate paperwork.

Celebrate!

Dylan is a reminder of how America used to talk to itself.

— Lili Loofbourow

"A great poet in the English-speaking tradition," Bob Dylan became a Nobel Laureate yesterday.

Killjoys will kvetch. "Someone who performed in Las Vegas the same day he became a Nobel Laureate doesn't belong to the club of Lewis, O'Neill, Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Bellow and Morrison."

I refuse to accept this.

In his Banquet Speech, Faulkner said:

I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

When I Ruled the World

Baby Boomers are more engaged and productive workers than Millennials, according to studies by Gallup.

Gallup's researchers suggest three reasons why: Boomers see their jobs as suited to their skills; as career capstones; and as intrinsically fulfilling.

Millennials, on the other hand, take less pleasure from work, and remain less engaged and productive. Additional studies show they don't care particularly much for their employers.

"Young people are increasingly cynical about work," says psychologist Jean Twenge in Psychology Today.

Cynicism is worrisome, Twenge says, because it trumpets lackluster performance—and pay—in the long run.

Twenge recommends Millennials quit their dreams of world domination and seek instead that "intrinsic fulfillment" Boomers enjoy in the workplace.

Dialing back social media is a good start.

"Social media doesn't help us live the career stories we want," Twenge says. 

"We constantly judge ourselves via comparison to others, and social media fuels this fire. Seeing posts from friends about their seemingly glamorous, high-profile work can make us question our focus on intrinsic rewards. It helps to remember that every job has its downside, or at least its dull side, which few share on Facebook."

Twenge also recommends:

• Reducing the volume of other distractions in the workplace

• Savoring the tasks you most enjoy, aiming for "flow"

• Finishing mundane tasks when you're naturally least engaged (while waiting for the start of conference calls, for example); and

• Looking for fulfillment outside work—in hobbies and among family, friends and communities

"In the end, focusing on intrinsic fulfillment should lead to extrinsic rewards, too," Twenge says.

Besides, "Who would ever want to be king?"

The Art of Art is Simplicity

The art of art, the glory of expression, is simplicity.

—Walt Whitman

Simplicity's cool... so cool, brand researchers now index it.

But before it was cool, two artists preached simplicity every week on popular TV shows.

The beatnik, Jon Gnagy

Beatnik Jon Gnagy premiered in 1946 on NBC's first regularly scheduled TV program, the hour-long variety show Radio City Matinee. 

In the opening segment of the first episode, Gnagy stood at an easel and demonstrated, in a few simple steps, how to draw a tree. 

The show's producer called those 10 minutes of airtime "pure television," and within four months gave Gnagy his own 15-minute show, You are an Artist—TV's very first spin-off.

Gnagy used his weekly show to teach viewers how to draw the barns, haystacks and water mills that symbolized bygone America. He sketched his subjects using four basic forms—the ball, cone, cube and cylinder—with shadows cast from a single light source. When he finished each drawing, he matted and framed it, so—voila—the piece was ready to hang on the wall.

During each broadcast, Gnagy also pitched his branded art kit, complete with pencils, paper and a book of drawing lessons.

While Gnagy's prime-time show lasted only two years, it continued in weekend syndication for another 12, inspiring thousands of Boomers to learn how to draw chestnut trees, horse corrals and covered bridges.

The hippie, Bob Ross

Hippie Bob Ross preached simplicity for 11 years through his half-hour PBS show, The Joy of Painting.

Remembered for his fuzzy Afro and fuzzier aphorisms—"Happy little trees" being the most famous—Ross popularized the 16th century oil painting technique known as “wet on wet."

He also marketed a branded line of paints.

Throughout the 1980s, Ross' weekly show (which his business partner called “liquid tranquilizer”) inspired thousands of pre-Internet kids, if not to pick up a paintbrush, at least to contemplate das Künstlerleben.

Ross himself finished over 30,000 paintings in his lifetime, many of which he donated to PBS fundraisers.

They May Never Know What Hit Them

Whether they know it or not, Millennials' destinies have been shaped by the Great Recession—just as Boomers' were shaped by the Vietnam War.

While family and fortune play defining roles, wars and the economy affect our lives more fundamentally.

In 1960, John O'Hara sent his publisher Bennett Cerf a letter describing the cast of characters in a book he was writing.

O'Hara described them as "the people of my time," men and women too young to be part of The Lost Generation—the generation disillusioned by World War I—but too old to feel part of "The Greatest Generation."

"Everybody can understand a war," O'Hara told Cerf. "But it is not so easy to understand an economic revolution; even the experts continue to be baffled by it; and the people of my time never know what hit them or why."

Millennials are in a companion boat.

They're a generation that won't see anything resembling the luxury and security their parents and grandparents enjoyed.

And they may never know what hit them.

As marketer Mitch Joel advises in his new book, Ctrl Alt Delete, "Accept it: There is no gold watch in your future."

Remains of the Day

AOPs, rock on!

Over three nights in October, California mega-festival DesertTrip will feature a slate of "living legends" that includes Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones and The Who.

Festival-goers who return all three nights will rock out to a cadre of 35 Grammy and Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners.

A wrinkled but ribald Benny Hill gave us a glimpse of the geriatric goings-on in 1972, when he aired Woodstick, his eight-minute spoof of Woodstock.

Speaking of The Who, the WHO claims you're officially "old" when you're 50, in many nations "the point when active contribution is no longer possible."

Adults and Older People (AOPs), rock on!

Benny Hill Woodstick by kermlinmaster

Harvest Time

Salesman Ray Kroc was 52 when he asked the McDonald brothers to let him franchise their drive-in burger joint.

Composer Ludwig van Beethoven was 54 when he wrote Symphony No. 9.

Pharmacist John Pemberton was 55 when he started to sell his invention, Coca-Cola.

Actor Ronald Reagan was 55 when he first ran for public office in California.

Former slave Nancy Green was 56 when she was selected to portray the trade character "Aunt Jemima" by the Pearl Milling Company.

Philosopher John Locke was 57 when he penned An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Two Treatises of Government, his magnum opuses.

Pamphleteer Daniel Defoe was 58 when he penned Robinson Crusoe.

Filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock was 59 when he directed Vertigo. 

Actor Sidney Greenstreet was 61 when he began his film career.

Gas station operator Harland Sanders was 65 when he opened his first fried chicken restaurant.

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright was 70 when he designed Fallingwater. 

Artist Grandma Moses was 78 when she first picked up a paint brush.

Even though I've worn out two dozen erasers in my Saturday afternoon drawing classes, I feel a thrill every time the marks resemble the thing in front of me.

Any gardener will tell you, patience and blind faith are the keys to an autumn harvest.

"Here's to the late bloomers, holding on 'til our time arrives," says songwriter and storyteller Korby Lenker.

Learn more about later bloomers from Dan Pink and Malcolm Gladwell.

"Autumn Leaf" by Robert Francis James. Charcoal on paper.

Furnish Your Brain with Care

Research by neurologists reveals multitasking clobbers the short-term memories of people over 60.

For a 2010 study, four doctors at the University of California, San Francisco divided adult subjects into two groups.

The individuals in one group were asked to examine a nature scene and, after a 15-second pause, answer a series of questions about it. These subjects had no trouble with the task.

The individuals in the second group were asked to perform the same task, but were interrupted. While answering the questions about the nature scene, they were shown a human face, and asked to identify the person’s gender and age. The doctors then resumed asking their questions about the nature scene.

The subjects in the second group who were under 60 had no trouble answering all the doctors' questions. But the subjects over 60 struggled to answer the questions posed after the interruption.

During the experiment, MRI scans of the subjects' brains revealed big differences in the brains of younger and older people, after the interruption.

Among the younger people, the brain-areas engaged when processing the picture of the human face shown switched off immediately after that interruption. But, among the people over 60, those brain-areas remained engaged after the interruption. The over-60 brains brains couldn't instantly switch back to the original task.

Besides concluding that multitasking erases the short-term memories of people over 60, the doctors also believe multitasking impairs the formation of long-term memories, because, to take shape at all, long-term memories require short-term ones.

Interruptions are inevitable. So how can people over 60 stay sharp, minimizing "senior moments" and maximizing long-term memories?

My prescription: Furnish your brain with care.

Leaf through any lifestyle magazine and you'll find an article that insists a serene mind requires a clutter-free bedroom (or living room, sitting room, den or home office).

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle thought a sharp mind did, too.

In A Study in Scarlet, Dr. Doyle's detective Sherlock Holmes tells his sidekick Watson the brain is like a "little empty attic."

The wise worker furnishes the attic with care.

"A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things," Holmes says.

"Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”

Unless you're Watson—IBM's, not Doyle's Watson—letting trivia clutter the attic diminishes your ability to focus.

Literary man Dr. Samuel Johnson believed something similar.

"The true art of memory is the art of attention," Johnson said, referring to our ability to retain what we read.

"No man will read with much advantage, who is not able, at pleasure, to evacuate his mind, or who brings not to his author an intellect defecated and pure, neither turbid with care, nor agitated by pleasure. If the repositories of thought are already full, what can they receive? If the mind is employed on the past or future, the book will be held before the eyes in vain."

Wheel of Fortune

My maternal grandfather, a watchmaker, survived the Great Depression by operating a carnival wheel in an amusement park in Newark, New Jersey.

Today, the wheel hangs on a wall in my home, a gaudy artifact symbolizing weird work and small wagers, and the legacy of a man whose real trade was time.

Most of my grandfather's biographical details are lost, but at least one is clear: despite the Depression, he stayed in the game.

Fortunate are the people who—as he did—show up, learn new skills, take risks, think weird.

They don't surrender to the feeling they're hostages or has-beens. They choose instead to be bootstrappers.

Right now, two generations, Millennials and Boomers, are joined at the hip by the prospect of near-poverty.

They're placing bets on the next spin of the wheel.

The bootstrappers are mastering new, adaptive skills. 

The rest are at home, consuming games and gameshows.

Which are you doing?

Bread and Circuses

Will games become the new social divide?

TIME reports this week that 70 percent of big companies will embrace gamification in 2013.

While most will use gamification to attract customers, many companies—40 percent, according to new research from Gartner—will embrace it as an employee-retention tool.

Endorsing the latter, 20-something gamifier Katherine Heisler recently urged readers of Forbes to gamify the jobs of next-gen workers.

Citing a new workplace survey by MTV, Heisler argues that "Millenials overwhelmingly agree that their jobs should reflect their lifestyle."

The workplace, in short, should be "social and fun."

"Some people think of my generation as lazy, good-for-nothing slackers, feeling entitled to everything and entirely lacking a work ethic," Heisler writes. 

"But that’s wrong: Millennials have an incredible work ethic. We want to work, we want to succeed and want to reshape the world in our image. We are simply motivated in non-traditional ways."

When I was young and struggling alongside my fellow Boomers for a handhold on the slippery corporate ladder, money was a pretty good motivator.

But—excluding those at the very top of the ladder—money's in short supply today.

Will employers compensate for today's measly paychecks with "social and fun?"

Will circuses take the place of bread?

Boomers: Which Kind of Genius are You?

Social entrepreneur Marc Freedman, writing for Harvard Business Review, cites the research of economist David Galenson, who by studying painters concluded there are two kinds of geniuses.

Conceptual geniuses do their best work before the age of 30. These "finders" produce breakthroughs early in their careers, then peter out.

Experimental geniuses peak later in life. These "seekers" need decades of trial and error to accumulate the ideas and techniques that mark their signature work.

Freedman thinks Galenson's research is good news for entrepreneurial-spirited Baby Boomers.

"One in four Americans between the ages of 44 and 70—about 25 million people—are interested in starting their own businesses or nonprofit organizations in the next five to 10 years," Freedman writes.

Provided they didn't peak in their 20s, these 25 million Boomers stand to succeed in launching new ventures, because they bring decades of experimentation to the task.

Half of these aging entrepreneurs also want to "give back" through their new businesses.

"Research shows that half of those who want to become midlife entrepreneurs—more than 12 million people ages 44 to 70—also want to meet community needs or solve a critical social problem at the same time," Freedman writes.