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Hi, I'm Stu Friedman. I am the director
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of the Wharton Work-Life Integration
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Project here at the Wharton School and
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uh professor in the management
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department. And I'm thrilled to welcome
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today Marci Alboher, who is here on the
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Penn campus celebrating her 25th uh
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reunion. Uh she is the um author of The
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Encore Career Handbook: How to Make a
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Living and a Difference in the Second
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Half of Life, which was released earlier
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this year. And uh she is a leading
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authority on the changing face of work
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and is vice president at encore.org,
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which is a nonprofit that is devoted to
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making it easier for the millions of
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people who are pursuing uh second acts
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for the greater good. Welcome, Marci.
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It's great to have you here. It's great
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to be here, Stu. Let's start off with
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just some basic definitions. What is an
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encore career and what is encore.org?
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Great. Okay, good place to start. So, an
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encore career is a second or third act
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that combines personal meaning with
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social impact and continued income.
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And continued income is an important
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part of that definition cuz for some
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people um the continued income is
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optional. If you've made enough money to
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take care of yourself for the rest of
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your life, your encore career may not be
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a paid um
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piece of work. But for the majority of
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people, it is. And encore.org is a
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national nonprofit that's been in this
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game for close to a decade now that is
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trying to pave the way for the growing
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number of people who want to have encore
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careers, who want to plan not for a
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leisure-based retirement, but for a
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later stage of work that has some impact
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in the world, some positive impact in
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the world. And we do that through a
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variety of programs. We could get into
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all of those if you'd like, but the the
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most famous one is the Purpose Prize.
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Yes.
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We give out $100,000 prizes to social
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entrepreneurs over the age of 60. So,
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the idea of that is to change what you
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think about innovation and aging. By By
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elevating these role models of people
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who are innovating in huge ways in the
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years that we used to think of as the
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time of life where you start receding
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away rather than continuing to be
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engaged.
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give us a recent example of a Purpose
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Prize winner and what why they earned
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it?
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we're sitting here in Philadelphia, so
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someone from Philadelphia comes to mind.
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Barbara Allen, who was a museums a
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museum administrator who had taken off
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some time to raise her kids and um she
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was always in design and the arts and
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she got involved in a project where she
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was asked along with her son to help
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decorate the um Philadelphia uh building
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a school superintendent building. And uh
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they decided what they wanted to do is
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they they were asked to bring the the
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images of children into this building so
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that people would have a sense of who
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they were serving. So, her son had done
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a lot of work he he'd worked in printing
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and design with large-scale printing and
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they came up with this idea to get a
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treasure trove of children's art that
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was created in schools in schools and to
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blow that up into these giant um kind of
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uh works of art that could be used to
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decorate the hallways. And it was so
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successful this project that an idea was
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born and she said um she was really
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concerned about the um budget cuts for
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art supplies and art programming in
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public schools in Philadelphia.
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So, they came up with this model where
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they created what she calls student
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philanthropists. So, the students make
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art
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and they blow these pieces up like she
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had done for that one project with her
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son. Corporations buy the art from the
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students and decorate their walls and um
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and the all the money goes to buying
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replenishing those art budgets in the
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schools that um have had these budget
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cuts. And it's a sustainable business
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model. The corporations are feeding the
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money in to fund this venture.
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Um it's called Fresh Artists. So,
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anyway, it's and it's replicable. It's
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somebody something that people are
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looking at all over the country as an
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interesting model to help inner-city
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schools that are struggling and it
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creates the sense of philanthropy with
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the students who are actually and they
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get to see their art on the wall of
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these companies and the companies get
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this Everyone wins.
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Yeah, everybody wins. It's a community
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project.
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a great example.
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There there others that you probably
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write about in your book that I'm sure
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would be a great interest and we have
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time we'll we'll get into a couple more
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of those, but let's step back and um
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looking at the big picture, why is there
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so much interest in this topic now?
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Right. So, I would say there's a few
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things that have converged in on the
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time that we're living. So, demography
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is a big part part of it. We've heard
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about the gray tsunami, right? The aging
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wave of baby boomers coming down the
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pipe. Uh they've been called the the
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greedy geezers that are coming to
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deplete social security, right? So, um
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the 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 every
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day and it's going to be like that for
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the next 20 years or so. We're going to
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in by I think the year is 2050, we're
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going to have more people over 65 than
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under 30. I mean, this is a very big
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demographic shift. At the same time, we
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have kind of a longevity shift, too. And
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it's not so much that we're living
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longer. We are living longer technically
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by a few years, but we're living um the
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period of life that's this extended
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midlife from your like 50s to your 70s.
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If you maintain your health, those are
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years of vitality and engagement that
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used to be years that weren't that
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useful to people.
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And that could be a pretty long period
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that's opening up. So,
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this work work was really pioneered by
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the founder of the organization I now
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work for, Marc Freedman. And um his his
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vision
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Yeah.
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Right, and spelled different. He's E E
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D.
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incorrectly.
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Yeah, yeah. So, his his uh his idea was
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rather than viewing this aging
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population as a problem, right? It's
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going to drain our national resources,
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it's going to make it harder for young
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people, all of these things. What if
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instead we said, we have this great wave
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of talent and experience that could be
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applied to solving the big the world's
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biggest social problems. So, what if we
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looked at this aging population as a
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resource rather than a problem, as a
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legion of problem solvers really, rather
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than a problem. A legion of problem
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solvers.
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Yeah, a cadre, yeah. An army. And so,
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that's really what we're trying to do is
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figure out like so, how do we take that
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idea and turn it into reality and
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mobilize all the people who want to do
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this encore work? So, is this only about
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people who are moving from the private
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sector to the nonprofit sector or
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what about those people who have spent
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their lives and careers already, you
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know, doing work of service?
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Yes, like people in education, for
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example. Yeah. Um no, it's not just
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about people who are sector switchers.
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It's about um
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but there is something that happens to
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you after you've been doing any kind of
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work for 20 or 30 years where you get
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this need or this but an interest in
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shaking it up a little. I mean, that's
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not uniform. Many many people figure out
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how to shake it up within the confines
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of what they do. But um I've now
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interviewed hundreds of people at this
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life stage and what happens is you know,
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you get to a point, you know, you've
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been in the classroom maybe, you know,
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public school teacher for 30 years and
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you're ready to get off your feet, but
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you are not done with education. So,
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that's where we see these people who go
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into education policy reform or taking
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all those years of on-the-ground
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knowledge and figuring out like what's
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wrong with the system that I'm now in
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the position to see and change and
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dedicate all that time to. And or how
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can I mentor the next generation of
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people who are coming into my field, who
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need the knowledge that I've amassed.
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So, we see it happening across the board
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um of people wanting to have an impact,
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but in a new way, even if they feel like
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their whole life has been about having a
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social contribution in the world. How
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did you get into this? Yeah, so I got
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into it both personally um a little
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pre-encore in terms of what kind of
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slightly younger than the people that we
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look at, but um I'm always thinking
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about the future, so I've got
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self-interest here in mind. But I also
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came at this as a journalist, so I had a
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few career rein- reinventions myself. In
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my first career, I was a a corporate
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lawyer. Um and after about 9 years, I
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realized I I was I was having a really
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bad fit for with my organization and
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this totally relates to the work you do,
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Stu, in that I was having a values clash
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with the work that I was doing. I I I
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felt like I was representing companies
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that I didn't believe in and practices
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that I couldn't support and I kind of
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had a crisis of conscience. But at the
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same time, I also realized that rather
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than just reinventing the law, the law
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was a bad fit for me and I needed to
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reinvent in a kind of bigger way. So, I
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left the law. That must have been very
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very challenging for you personally. It
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was. It was challenging and it took a
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long time. It wasn't an overnight
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transition and even when though I was
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young, I was in my 30s when I made that
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first transition and I quit my law job
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and I tried to become a writer, which
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was what I originally wanted to do. I'd
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been an English major when I went to
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Penn.
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Mhm. I could never figure out how to
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turn that into paid work. I I hadn't
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discovered journalism in those days. I I
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just didn't um go in a natural
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progression. So, um I decided I want to
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become a writer and I I went back and I
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took some classes, like little classes
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at at community centers and I took one
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class at the New School and one at a
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local JCC in the in New York City where
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I live. And within two classes, I
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started publishing pieces. I got a piece
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in the New York Times after my first
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piece after my first class and I said,
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"Wow, I've had more professional
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satisfaction out of this one article I
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just got published than anything I'd
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done in the 9 years previously." So,
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long story short, I spent a couple of
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years trying to turn that early kind of
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sign of promise into really what was
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going to be a sustainable career and it
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took a long time and it wasn't easy and
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I had to find new mentors and I had to
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learn from a bunch of 20-year-olds who
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were already way ahead of me in this
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game.
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And uh That's probably a major issue for
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a lot of encore clients.
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Exactly. I was seeing the very things I
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now report on, like that you have to
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find mentors who are younger than you
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who understand how the world works now
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in the world that you want to break
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into.
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And accept that. Yes. Um I'm sure a lot
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of people resist that sort of mentoring
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from people younger than them.
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Right, but that's that's the best way to
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kind of stay in the game and stay
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relevant is to figure out how to have
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intergenerational relationships in the
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workplace. We all need to figure out
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that in the workplace. How can young
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people learn from older people and how
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can older people learn from younger
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people?
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So for the next 10 years, um I I wrote
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as a journalist mostly for the New York
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Times, but for many other publications
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as well.
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About kind of workplace trends and the
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changing face of work and how the world
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of world is constantly changing and we
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are constantly changing to keep up and
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stay relevant. And um
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So you're you're in this space, so you
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know the kinds of things I I write
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about, you know, how we can
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combine work and life in better ways
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than we've been doing, how organizations
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and people can be smarter and more
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effective about those kinds of things.
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Demographic changes that were shifting
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the way people work. And in the course
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of that work I started to learn about
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what was happening at encore.org, which
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used to be called Civic Ventures. And I
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reviewed Mark Freedman's
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two books ago. He wrote a book called
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Encore, which really put this big idea
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out in the world. And I covered that
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book for the New York Times and I got to
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know him and he became one of these
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trusted sources, a guy I went to
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whenever I wrote about social
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entrepreneurship and baby boomers and
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demographic trends and social purpose
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work. And I wrote so many pieces on this
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that it became like a little mini beat
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for me.
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This Encore stuff really intrigued me.
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And uh
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In the wake of all of that, I I had a
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column in a blog for the Times called
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Shifting Careers and in 2008 in the
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midst of the recession and the media
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implosion, the New York Times canceled
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my column and blog. And here I was kind
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of writing about the recession and how
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it's impacting people and suddenly I'm
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trying to I'm going to have to think
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about my own next steps.
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And I was a little older than I was the
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last time and I wasn't sure my skills
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were as good as the 20-year-olds coming
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into the workplace and I was really
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trying to think about how can I continue
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to have an impact? And I wasn't sure
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that the media was going to be the best
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place for me to do that. And I wrote a
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piece about this for my blog. I wrote
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the parting column on what it's like to
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be a workplace writer who's out of work.
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I remember that.
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You remember it. It got a lot of
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response and one of the first people who
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responded to me was Mark Freedman from
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encore.org. And he wrote me a note and
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he said really interested in talking to
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you about your future plans.
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And we started what I call like one of
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those professional courtships that goes
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on for a long time and we spent the next
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year. I continued to work in journalism.
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I got a blog at Yahoo where I continued
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to write about the new economy.
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The the always new economy. That's our
00:12:43
permanent name for what we work in now,
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right? And
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and eventually Mark and I decided that I
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should come over to encore.org and lead
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a piece of our work that was all about
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kind of helping people better understand
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this idea and and really helping people
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make the steps from thinking this is a
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good idea for society to figuring out
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and how do we make this happen for
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ourselves? How do we create a career
00:13:05
that's going to sustain us for 50 years
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and not for 30 years like we used to
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have. Let's get let's get a little
00:13:11
further into that cuz I'm sure a lot of
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our readers and
00:13:15
viewers are are interested in some of
00:13:18
the practical aspects of this which the
00:13:21
book is just filled with. So
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for example, what do you say to someone
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who feels like well, I'm just too old to
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do this. You know, I've I've already had
00:13:29
a lot. I'm tired. I don't have really
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the energy. I mean I'd like to do
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something new, but can I really retool?
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Yeah. What what do you What's the advice
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you have for people who have that
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mindset?
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Right. So um there's this
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Zen concept of beginner's mind, right?
00:13:46
This way that you learn something new
00:13:49
with the eyes of a beginner and it's
00:13:50
actually a pretty exciting thing. So I I
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think we all have the capacity to
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continue to learn and and truthfully if
00:13:57
you become a lifelong learner, you will
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keep that skill from atrophying. So it's
00:14:01
a pretty important part of aging to
00:14:03
learn how to learn new things and to
00:14:05
exercise that muscle often.
00:14:07
And the truth is it's something that you
00:14:09
have to do if you want to figure out how
00:14:11
to continue to have impact in the world,
00:14:13
how to stay relevant and how to stay in
00:14:14
the game. And I was just at my 25th
00:14:16
reunion and I think our class was like
00:14:18
at the beginning of people who are just
00:14:20
dealing with this. We all see 50 right
00:14:22
ahead of us. We're thinking wow, that's
00:14:25
20 25 years of more work I can do and I
00:14:29
I'm not done.
00:14:30
I could have a career that is as long as
00:14:33
what I've been doing for the last 20 or
00:14:34
30 years. Perhaps longer.
00:14:36
Perhaps longer.
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So and I found people all over my class
00:14:40
who were going back to school, who were
00:14:42
embarking
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on master's programs, who are going back
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to
00:14:47
for a certificate somewhere, for an
00:14:48
online program. I met this woman and
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she's a classic example who had stayed
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home for 20 years raising her kids, who
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got interested based on a lot of what
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we're seeing climate-wise in especially
00:15:00
the East Coast lately where we live.
00:15:02
She got interested in coastal erosion
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and she's going back to school to learn
00:15:05
about coastal erosion so that she can
00:15:07
work in urban planning to help prevent
00:15:09
some of the disasters that we're going
00:15:11
to be facing in coming years. It is a
00:15:13
field she never even knew existed 25
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years ago when she first planned. And
00:15:18
she was saying that back at Penn, she
00:15:20
barely took a science class. Like she is
00:15:22
she was interested in science, but she
00:15:24
went into a whole different She was a
00:15:25
Wharton person. She hadn't even thought
00:15:27
about this field as something that could
00:15:28
interest her. So what role do
00:15:30
universities play in this? One of the
00:15:32
things that we're doing here at Wharton
00:15:34
is uh
00:15:36
um investing in lifelong learning in a
00:15:38
significant way.
00:15:40
How does that play into the Encore
00:15:42
movement?
00:15:43
I think universities are going to be a
00:15:44
huge part of this and all of higher
00:15:46
education. We've done work with
00:15:48
community from community colleges up
00:15:50
through Wharton and Harvard Business
00:15:52
School. Like we believe that higher
00:15:54
education is the key to helping people
00:15:56
through this because people are going to
00:15:57
go to places in their community, they're
00:15:59
going to go to their alma maters and
00:16:01
they're going to go to the name brand in
00:16:02
the field they want to learn about
00:16:04
because they're going to have to retool.
00:16:06
So it's a great market opportunity for
00:16:08
higher education to be thinking about
00:16:10
how do you serve both your alumni
00:16:12
through their own life life course and
00:16:14
how do you serve the greater population
00:16:15
who want to learn about the areas that
00:16:18
you have the name brand program so that
00:16:20
you could be attracting the public. So
00:16:22
I believe my my vision is that the way
00:16:25
executive education is now so standard,
00:16:27
Encore education will be just as
00:16:29
standard, a buzzword. So the Encore is
00:16:32
how can I retool for a second act that's
00:16:33
going to have a greater good, you know,
00:16:34
a greater good impact. And you're going
00:16:37
to look at all the schools that have the
00:16:39
programs for the thing you want to do,
00:16:41
but you're going to want to make sure
00:16:42
that they know how to serve somebody of
00:16:44
your generation. So are they going to
00:16:47
help you with tech support you might
00:16:49
need if you haven't been in a classroom
00:16:50
for 20 years? Are they going to
00:16:53
be as flexible as you want to be? So
00:16:55
executive education was built around
00:16:57
serving the corporate employee who had
00:16:59
certain particular needs. Encore the
00:17:02
Encore market may have some of those
00:17:03
needs in common, but they're going to
00:17:05
have a whole different set of needs and
00:17:07
I think the smartest players in higher
00:17:08
ed are going to recognize what those
00:17:10
needs are to make sure that they deliver
00:17:12
the product in a way that the Encore
00:17:14
population is going to want to learn.
00:17:17
Very important advice.
00:17:20
What about age discrimination? Does that
00:17:21
still exist in the workplace and in
00:17:23
society? And how does that play into the
00:17:25
Encore movement?
00:17:27
Yeah, so age discrimination really does
00:17:29
exist and I have to say even sitting
00:17:31
here, we should try to catch ourselves
00:17:32
if we are if we are saying things like,
00:17:35
you know, those younger folks are more
00:17:36
tech-savvy or those we all kind of have
00:17:39
these stereotypes that we parrot because
00:17:42
we think this is the way the world
00:17:44
works. But what's interesting is as
00:17:46
as people who are more experienced stay
00:17:48
in the workplace, it's going to be much
00:17:51
more common to see people of all ages
00:17:53
playing roles in the workplace.
00:17:55
Education is interesting because I think
00:17:56
there is it's a place where it's a
00:17:58
little comfortable to We have We have
00:18:00
respect for age and experience and
00:18:02
wisdom in education the way it doesn't
00:18:04
exist in some other fields. And
00:18:06
education is a really hot Encore field.
00:18:08
Another hot Encore field that really
00:18:10
values age and experience is health
00:18:12
care. And health care is where all the
00:18:13
jobs and opportunities are right now. It
00:18:15
is the the sector that we see the most
00:18:17
steady continued growth you know,
00:18:19
quarter after quarter. So what's
00:18:21
interesting in health care is there are
00:18:23
all these jobs and roles for which
00:18:26
having lived through some health issues
00:18:27
of your own, having been a caregiver
00:18:30
perhaps, are really really useful and
00:18:33
make people marketable when they go into
00:18:34
the marketplace. So yes, ageism exists.
00:18:38
Um
00:18:39
but the best best way to combat it is to
00:18:42
find sectors where age is appreciated
00:18:44
and wisdom is welcome and experience is
00:18:47
valued. But also to dispel those
00:18:49
stereotypes. You've at knowledge at
00:18:50
Wharton you've written some great pieces
00:18:52
about this. I I was reading something by
00:18:53
Peter Cappelli Cappelli Cappelli about
00:18:56
combating these myths we have. You know,
00:18:59
there's this myth that you hire an older
00:19:01
worker and they're not going to stay.
00:19:02
Mhm. And the the data all shows that
00:19:04
older older workers dig in. That's what
00:19:06
they're used to. They're used to finding
00:19:08
a job and staying there and being
00:19:09
committed. They do not expect to flit
00:19:11
around from one employer to another.
00:19:13
There's another myth that they're more
00:19:15
expensive because of health care. But
00:19:17
the truth is a lot of older workers,
00:19:19
their kids are off their health care
00:19:20
plans, they're less you know, they could
00:19:22
be less expensive than having younger
00:19:24
workers to support.
00:19:26
So there's a you know, there's and and
00:19:27
we all when we're in a position to hire,
00:19:30
we have to be thinking about what does
00:19:31
it mean to have an intergenerational
00:19:33
team as a new kind of diversity to look
00:19:35
at. So building teams that have the
00:19:38
enthusiasm of youth and the experience
00:19:41
that age can bring. We all have to start
00:19:43
thinking about that. So we're going to
00:19:45
have to wrap up here. What's what's the
00:19:47
most important thing you'd want to
00:19:48
convey to people who are interested in
00:19:50
pursuing an Encore career, but they just
00:19:52
don't know how to get started. Yeah, so
00:19:54
I I want to leave with two thoughts. So
00:19:56
So the the how to get started is um
00:20:00
there's a two-part process. The first is
00:20:02
there's something you have to do in your
00:20:03
head first, right? You have to figure
00:20:04
out, you know,
00:20:06
where you are in your life and what
00:20:07
you're looking for. So
00:20:09
um you focus a lot on people who are on
00:20:10
the throes of their mid-career, where
00:20:12
they're kind of at that sweet spot.
00:20:14
Well, what can you be doing to add more
00:20:15
social impact to where you are right now
00:20:17
if that's where you're sitting? And if
00:20:19
you're planning for the future, if
00:20:20
you're a few years off from what would
00:20:22
be the time where you're ready to make a
00:20:24
shift, what could you do now to lay the
00:20:25
foundation? Could you be exploring what
00:20:27
interests you? Could you be taking some
00:20:29
courses on the side? Could you be
00:20:30
connecting with other people who are
00:20:32
interested in this idea? Who Could you
00:20:34
be volunteering more or doing some pro
00:20:36
bono pro bono consulting for
00:20:38
organizations you care about? So that
00:20:40
that's kind of something you should be
00:20:42
doing now. And then I just also want to
00:20:44
make sure that people recognize that
00:20:46
this just isn't about you and your own
00:20:48
reinvention. You have a part You have a
00:20:51
possibility, if you get into this encore
00:20:53
idea, to be a part of changing the world
00:20:55
for future generations. So
00:20:57
the pioneers who are figuring out how to
00:20:59
have a really big impact in the later
00:21:01
years of their career are going to be
00:21:04
helping to create a whole new kind of
00:21:07
paradigm for what work looks like, the
00:21:09
way the pioneers of the women's movement
00:21:11
did it in the '60s. I mean, I've talked
00:21:12
to a lot of women who are in an encore
00:21:14
careers now who were trailblazers in the
00:21:16
1960s as the first women at work, who
00:21:19
are now trailblazers as the first women
00:21:21
to have encores in the workplace. So I
00:21:23
think this is a really interesting and
00:21:25
exciting time to be a part of.
00:21:28
Marci, thank you so much for joining us
00:21:29
this morning. Author of The Encore
00:21:32
Career Handbook: How to Make a Living
00:21:33
and a Difference in the Second Half of
00:21:35
Life, which is is filled with all kinds
00:21:37
of wonderful examples and practical
00:21:39
advice
00:21:40
for those who are
00:21:42
thinking about or in the midst of or
00:21:44
helping other people to think through
00:21:47
and act on
00:21:49
making that next step. Thank you so
00:21:51
much. Thank you, Stu.
