What Color is Your Parachute? For Retirement

By John E. Nelson and Richard N. Bolles

"Given the nature of work, who wouldn't want to retire?" write the authors in the second edition of the retirement volume of the venerable What Color is Your Parachute? series. They are talking about factory labor, not white-collar employment-and it's a good thing, since many Americans have no intention of stopping work at 65, nor any other age. The problem is, many of your clients may have trouble envisioning what they will be doing at that age, especially now that unemployment may be shoving them out the office door, long before they're ready to leave. So rather than calling this life stage "retirement," the authors suggest calling it "rewirement."

Which makes this updated book completely relevant right now. It's hard to imagine that many of your clients aren't thinking about rewirement (unless, of course, they're already retired). Nelson and Bolles provide worksheets galore, and lots of introspective exercises, but this is more than a feel-good read. There's also some substantive financial and healthcare information-including a section about fiduciary advisors-making this book a great gift for clients and prospects in midlife who may be getting ready to think about next steps.

Marion Asnes became the editor of Financial Planning magazine in 2005. Financial Planning is the leading professional magazine for independent financial planners and has a circulation of 115,000. The topics covered on its pages range from industry news and trends to sophisticated discussions of portfolio management, estate planning and philanthropy. Asnes is the first female editor in chief of Financial Planning in the magazine's 38-year history.

Before joining Financial Planning, Asnes was a senior editor at Money, participating in the magazine’s coverage of personal finance, retirement, investment and health care issues. Her areas of expertise included retirement and 401(k) planning, asset allocation, estate planning and the particular financial challenges faced by women. In addition to her regular editorial duties at Money, Asnes co-edited Money for Women, an annual special issue that was featured exclusively on “The Today Show” on NBC.

A 27-year service journalism veteran, Asnes has contributed to a long list of national publications including Vogue, Elle, Glamour, Good Housekeeping, More, Mirabella, Working Woman and Lear's. She has spoken at conferences and symposia ranging from the National Endowment for Financial Education’s Retirement Summit to the National Football League’s Rookie Symposium. In addition, Asnes has appeared on national television programs as an expert on financial and economic topics including CNN, CNN Headline News, NBC's Today, ABC's 20/20, PBS's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor.

Asnes graduated with a B.A. from Cornell University.