Generation “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.

Seniors Staying In The Workforce,“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.”

The Best Brains of Our Lives – Senior Clients

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The Benefits of a “Reverse Mortgage-Age” Mind

When people talk about “having a senior moment” it’s decidedly unfunny — especially if you’re the one who went to the basement and now can’t recall why. But the surprisingly good news? Our brains are more fertile and resilient than once believed — in fact, they actually peak in performance sometime in midlife, which most researchers define as anywhere from ages 40 to 68.

Reverse Mortgage ClientsIn The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain, New York Times health and medical science editor Barbara Strauch writes, “Middle age is a far more important time for our brains than anyone ever suspected. This is when paths diverge. What we do when we’re on Planet Middle Age determines what the next stop, Planet Old Age, will look like. At midlife, the brain is ‘on the cusp’. What we do matters, and even what we think matters.”

What does this mean for the “reverse mortgage-age” brain? While your prospects may have more trouble with name retrieval, and their brains may not perform at the same rate of speed they did when in their twenties, the brains’ owners are collectively happier, more adaptable to stress, and actually power up, not down, to solve problems.

This is especially handy in a crisis: remember 57-year-old pilot Chesley Sullenberger III, who made a successful emergency landing of a disabled jet on the Hudson River? Sullenberger was able to call up established patterns and connections built up in his brain over the decades. One reason everyone survived, reported an air safety investigation, was the middle-aged pilot and crew: “a testament to experience.”

We live in “a strangely schizophrenic world in terms of age,” confirms Strauch. “We tell people to get out of the way at 62, yet we’ve had a man running for U.S. president, arguably the toughest job around, at age 72. We send clear messages to women, in particular, that they’re past their prime in dozens of ways by their late fifties, and yet we have had a grandmother, at age 68, running the U.S. House of Representatives.”

The Thinking of Reverse Mortgage Clients

So when your reverse mortgage clients and prospects can’t recall a name, or are a bit slower to grasp new information, remember that this is a brain more focused on the positive than its younger counterparts, more integrated in terms of its experience, judgment, and yes, wisdom, and blessed with “cognitive reserve,” explains Strauch.

Cognitive reserve means that the more we feed our brains with education and mental enrichment, from reading to concerts to Chinese lessons (as well as nutrition and exercise), the more we build brainpower throughout the lifespan — even to the extent that a cognitively enriched brain is more protected against dementia, reveals Strauch.

And a robust, age-reversed brain can also exhibit greater interest in a reverse mortgage than one that’s in decline.

Cookie-Baking Granny … Or Purple-haired Artist? Marketing to the Mature Home Owner / Part 3

In the Leave It to Beaver and My Three Sons era, grandmas wore aprons, baked mouth-watering cookies, and indulged their grandchildren in ways mom and dad would not. Grandpa might have been a bit gruff, but his grandchildren knew his arthritis was acting up, and he loved them even if he couldn’t run and toss a ball like dad. Had reverse mortgages existed back then, our grandparents probably wouldn’t have known what to do with them.

Welcome to the third millennium. Lillian, age 83, sports fuchsia-streaked hair and a dry wit. After lovingly nursing her husband through a long illness, followed by a grieving period, she’s now so busy she doesn’t have a lot of time to chat.

She’s creating charcoal portraits of the hospice staff that cared for her beloved during his final weeks. (Lillian only discovered her artistic talent at 70, when she enrolled with her daughter in an art class). She also tutors several high school students, and participates in a discussion group at the local college. She often eats meals out because she hasn’t time to shop, cook, and keep up with all her activities. Fortunately, she has the financial freedom to enjoy her unorthodox lifestyle, unfettered my monetary concerns.

Lillian is by no means unusual among today’s dynamic elders. (See previous post, Marketing to the Mature Home Owner / Part 2 . Though some seniors may still live as our grandparents did fifty years ago, many more are coming into their own late in life, taking up hobbies they’ve just discovered, like Lillian, or those laid aside while raising a family and working long hours. The calendar may call them “old,” but they’re still giving younger folks a run for their money, pun intended.

The best way to reach these reverse mortgage prospects? Remember that people don’t usually change dramatically just because they age; they simply become more of who they’ve always been. So in marketing reverse mortgages to 70-plus homeowners, appeal to their independence and interests, engage their intelligence, and you’ll be rewarded with a concomitant interest in reverse mortgages — and some wonderfully unique new clients.