Unretired

The Map of Life is Changing

The nation's first generation of knowledge professionals, some thirty million Americans who've earned a living through their education, intelligence and expertise, has reached or is nearing retirement age. For more than half, this feels like a life sentence to purgatory, according to the most scientific studies ever done on this generation.

While many can afford to, they have no interest in powering down their ambitions to play golf or pickeball, garden, cruise, booze or dabble in hobbies for the rest of their days. Recalls one who tried: "You retire, you have a drink on your patio at 4:30 in the afternoon. More time goes by. Now you have a drink at 1:30 in the afternoon. You realize it's time to go back to work."

And that they are-the number of college educated Americans in their mid-60s and beyond who have kept working rather than retire, has more than quadrupled over the past few decades. And their numbers continue to climb, as millions more each day recalibrate their career trajectories, realign the U.S. economy, and reinvent the path to happily ever after for future generations to follow.

Reported the Wall Street Journal in April 2023, "for many people, the idea of stopping work is a nonstarter-an inevitable path to boredom, ill health and a life devoid of meaning."

In this sequel to his Amazon bestseller Boundless Potential and the nationwide PBS-TV Special that it spawned, Peabody award-winning journalist and Fortune 100 management consultant Mark S. Walton crisscrossed the country, visiting with passionately unretired CEO's, Mayo clinic doctors, attorneys, neuroscientists, psychologists, financial experts, journalists and more, to chronicle their stories, share their lessons learned, and unpack the seismic trend that's changing the map of life.