Dear Friend Who I Have Yet to Meet:
Subject:"Recipe for the Golden Years"

Let's begin with some good thoughts:

  • You can determine your future and how you will live this life!
  • You can choose the people you desire to associate with!
  • You can live longer than you presently imagine you will!
  • You can learn more about the magic of love and improve your relationships!
  • You can learn to enjoy more of your hours, days, weeks and months!
You can give you a reason and a purpose to eagerly get out bed each morning. I refer to the above items as, "The Other Side of the Story". Each time I exercised retirement planning, I was confronted with instruction on all types of financial analysis and products, but in my personal conversations with other retirement thinking people, we talked: Not about finances - but of other important things we desired from retirement. I have been teaching night classes as an adjunct instructor for The University of Virginia for over ten years and this part of the University has many students above the age of fifty and preparing for retirement. My conversations with these students and my own thinking began focusing on these "other things." I suspect you may be like us also. That is the reason I am talking to you today.

Financial retirement considerations are important but my intention is to leave finances to more specialized professionals. I would like to talk with you about "your other side" of retirement. Consider this short story that illustrates one facet of the "other side":
An accountant desired to help people more than their accounting work permitted. The desire was to be a nurse in a hospital and especially to provide care for those dying and very near death. The desire became a dream of early retirement and a conversion to this new type of work. The dream solidified with an education process and a specific pre-selected retirement date. Then the nursing classes commenced, followed ultimately by graduation, and early retirement. Part-time employment was then secured on a three-day per week basis in a local hospital. The dream became a reality. The employment request to be around dying people was honored by the hospital. After only a few months, this newly-trained nurse contacted some type of virus, most likely the result of this new found employment. Two years later that newly retired and employed nurse died. Was this a successful retirement?
Can you see yourself in that story? In some ways I hope so; in other ways I pray not. The story illustrates a pre-determined process of entering retirement, I hope you can see yourself systematically preparing for that day when you will be doing less and/or doing completely different daily activities. You may be sensing or considering:

  • Working at a new career or different business activities to occupy your time.
  • Doing volunteer work.
  • Teaching others.
  • You may want to arrange more time with your children or grandchildren.
  • You may choose to become more deeply in love with your spouse.
  • You may be looking to establish new relationships.
  • You may choose to take a class on "anything" you can imagine.
  • You may want to learn computer applications and the Internet.
  • You may be expecting a more spiritual relationship at this point in life and long to activate it.
  • You need to know more about how your body functions so as to more successfully implement the above considerations.
If you are like me, you have all those desires and more.

However, the road to achieving them often gets confusing, then, distractions and other priorities steal our energy. While traveling (and our life, including retirement life, is still a journey) it helps to have a map and companions. While acquiring a night school college education, an MBA, a CPA and business experience from a mail-boy through the steps to the executive suite, I discovered, that maps and companions are not just sitting on a shelf somewhere jumping at us to give timely solutions to dilemmas. However, a product, a person or a specific situation often leads to the activation of our inner spirit and that moves us (often rapidly) toward a desired result. With this phenomena in mind, I have created a manuscript that activates the spirit within a person considering retirement. You can transform your "considering" and "dreaming" into concrete reality. A valid question you may ask is, "Can acquiring and reading a book really do that for me?". My honest answer is "No, a book can't. But you, absolutely, can transform considering and dreaming into reality when you are activated."

I have heard an old story of a frog who when put in a pan of water on a heating stove will allow itself to stay there and slowly stew to death. But, if someone just flicks the side of the pan with their fingernail, the frog will jump high and away from the danger. Years of standard thinking and fixed ways of responding to life situations can make us comfortable as we are warming up in the pan. Many of us want our behavior to be different in retirement. This book can be the flick on the side of the pan to make you jump. I also recognize that more is needed than just a jump. What do you do when you land in the new place? How do you know the correct next steps to take? My manuscript is designed to explain the best method to provide you with a map and like minded companions to assure your continued progress in a direction of your choosing. I titled this triggering manuscript "Recipe for the Golden Years." In the writing, I answer the question presented in the accountant to nurse story - "Was this a successful retirement?" but more importantly the manuscript is a power tool for you to use to create a cathedral of your retirement or if you choose a "lean-to". I am personally encouraging you to invest in yourself to identify and activate your retirement dreams and to put yourself on the path to a destination of your choosing.

Please, order your personal copy today, and we will make available a manuscript on-line. Do it Now! We so often put off great opportunities!

Or preview absolutely FREE the table of contents, the introduction and all of Chapter One (the seven everyday ingredients).

Sincerely,
Richard Katchmark CPA,MBA

P.S. Our world is populated with friends we have yet to meet. I truly hope to meet you face to face one day and share our retirement successes.