Many seniors don’t realize that when choosing a reverse mortgage, they’re at the start of a decision tree resembling a Chinese menu of options — though with a much longer lasting outcome!
Continue reading“Graduating” Into Your Own Home
Life can seem like one long stepping stone towards graduation: Fortunately, for elders who want to remain in their own homes as long as possible another kind of graduation exists, thanks to the reverse mortgage. It’s a rite of passage that is often overlooked; the decision to age in place….
Continue readingSituational Awareness
The trick is to separate what we can control and with the rest merely absorb the information and move on. Fighter pilots have a term for this when flying called “situational awareness”
Continue readingHow to get time on your side as a reverse mortgage professional
People who live in tune with natural rhythms experience time as creative possibility. How do you get time on your side?
Continue readingAre You in Tune With Senior Style?
Do you know your prospect’s ‘buying style’? Here are some traps to avoid and ideas to shape more productive conversations.
Continue readingClose Calls: Yes to success
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Reverse Mortgage Client Meetings Success
Are your reverse mortgage client meetings “close calls,” as in, closing the transaction? Or are they “close calls” — just missing the mark? Shannon Hicks spoke about the power of positive expectation in this video. Here’s more about how you can say “yes” to success:
Bless The Fear
Fools rush in; the rest of us tremble. Fear is normal. It’s even valuable, because it gives us something to push up against, which helps develop our mental muscles. This is positive resistance. Weight training for the mind. Fear itself is only a smoke screen: false evidence appearing real. You can defuse it with “affirmative action.”
When I launched my marketing communications business, every night before bed I’d look at my office (initially set up in a corner of the living room) and give it the thumbs-up sign. I did this for years. A simple, powerful, YES for success! I went to sleep in a positively expectant state of mind, and my business prospered.
Envision the joy your prospects will feel when their reverse mortgage loan is approved and their money worries fade. Every day, you’re ensuring that someone’s later years will be financially peaceful rather than stressful. That alone could help you segue from fear to faith.
Improvise!
I’ve also drawn inspiration from improvisational comedy. The core concepts of improv are: Begin with what is. Don’t manipulate the action, discover it. And never stop the action by saying “but” or “no”; instead say “yes, and” and add on to what’s come before. In this way we build a story, a business, a life.
When I wanted to start writing for health magazines, I began by authoring a piece about a fashion designer for a business magazine (Begin with what is.) After the article was published, I asked the editor, “Do you have other needs I could fill?” (Discover the action.) I learned they were planning to drop a certain column for lack of writers with good story ideas. The topic? Personal health. I became their primary contributor, and used these articles as a springboard to generate assignments in health magazines. (Yes, and…).
Start where you are as a reverse mortgage professional. If you feel fear, acknowledge it, bless it, and mentally give yourself the thumbs-up you deserve. Discover how you can best serve your clients. Remember to always say “yes, and” and build on what’s come before. Those “close calls” (completed reverse mortgages) are coming closer all the time.
The Technology Connection
The idea that seniors are technophobes is disproved daily by the popularity of computer classes…
Continue readingStaying Connected: The Health Connection
Mental and emotional health is as important as physical well being for seniors.
Continue readingStaying Connected: The Travel Connection
There’s a humorous country song about a man who leaves his wife in their mature years, and how, in response, “she let herself go”
Continue readingGeneration “U”: Unretired & Inspired
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Generation “U”: Unretired & Inspired…
and Reverse Mortgage-Ready!
Seniors Staying In The Workforce Longer
Workplace expert Lynn Taylor, who coined the term “Gen U” for Generation Unretired, believes today’s seniors and soon-to-be seniors represent a sea change for both business and the reverse mortgage industry. She says, “With the growing number of people seeking greater financial security to address longer life spans, Gen U will be highly receptive to financial incentives such as reverse mortgage, which will allow them to continue to thrive.”
The author of the workplace conflict resolution book, Tame Your Terrible Office Tyrant (TOT): How to Manage Childish Boss Behavior and Thrive in Your Job notes that Gen U will make up almost all the growth of the U.S. labor market over the next seven years. According to AARP, eight out of 10 of the 80 million Baby Boomers will work part- or full-time rather than retire.
“Gen U’s contributions reside not only in their skills sets garnered over many years, which can be passed onto Gen X, Gen Y, and Baby Boomers. They’ve also learned a thing or two about people skills -something often lost in today’s frenzied, high-tech workplace,” observes Taylor, who has watched this evolution from within corporate America and as a consultant over the past three decades.
Henry Alford, author of How to Live: A Search for Wisdom from Old People, concurs with her assessment. “In general, the more technological a culture, the less the wisdom of elders is valued; in a world in which megabytes and artificial intelligence are the coin of the realm, skills like passing on traditions and providing cultural context are perceived to have diminished worth.”
But Taylor believes we err if we cast off the older generation.
“Because Gen U has the maturity of experience, they are often more adept at ‘humanizing the workplace.’ They’ve seen sandbox politics come and go and have witnessed that nice guys really don’t finish last. They are often the ‘anti-TOT’. That’s not to say that all of them make great bosses. But they can be a major asset to a more interpersonal, motivational workforce.”
Unretired Reverse Mortgage Prospects
This is also why a reverse mortgage may be key to helping Gen U workers thrive: remaining in the workforce, or reinventing themselves for an entirely new encore career, “presents an opportunity to re-apply their knowledge, pay off expenses, ‘give back,’ and feel a renewed sense of purpose,” says Taylor. While a sense of community can be created in a yoga class or golf game, for many mature workers, building something that directly impacts the livelihoods of others can be even more rewarding, she notes.
“This Gen-U-ine shift will become a win-win-win for companies, the reverse mortgage industry, and the unretired in the months and years ahead.”
