How To Retire Happy, Wild, And Free

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THE RETIREMENT CAFE:

This website addresses the new retirement including topics such as why you should retire before you expire, where to retire, how to preserve retirement savings, how to increase retirement income, how to find fun retirement jobs, and how to get involved in inspirational retirement activities.
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THE FRIENDSHIP CAFE: Where Best Friends Learn How to Become Great Friends - Topics covered include:

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Here are some quotes from THE WORLD'S BEST RETIREMENT BOOK.

If you want to live a long and happy life, forget how old you are - this gets more important the older you get!
- from How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free by Ernie J. Zelinski

Don't wait for retirement to be happy and really start living. Invariably, people who try this find out that they have waited much too long.
- from How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free by Ernie J. Zelinski

To fear retirement is to fear life.
- from How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free by Ernie J. Zelinski

Retirement Wishes on The Retirement Quotes Cafe by Ernie Zelinski

Top-10 Reasons to Retire Early by Ernie Zelinski

How Much Do I Need to Retire by Ernie Zelinski

Photos of Ernie Zelinski

From The Strebel Planning Group, New York

"With a focus on the non-financial aspects of retirement, How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free explores the myriad choices and decisions we're all confronted with in living out our lives. Such as, pondering the pros and cons of remaining at your present job; changing jobs or changing careers; taking an early retirement; delaying retirement; never retiring; or semi-retiring. Clearly, from Mr. Zelinski's point of view, staying in a less than satisfying job for the sake of some distant future payoff is enormously risky to the health and well being of your life. A mistake like that cannot be fixed since you cannot go back in time to change your decisions."
- The Strebel Planning Group, New York

From Another Retirement Coach on Amazon

Kudos for Ernie!,
Ernie's book, How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free, was one of the first books I read on retirement planning. Personally, I found it delightful. So maybe books can be doom and gloom, but I loved his view point and attitude.

As a retirement coach I look for optimism, positive attitudes and fun. Ernie provides all of that. If we can't have fun at this point in our lives, then we are in trouble!

I know there are scary things out there, with 'what are you going to do with the rest of your life?' but I think we have choices with our attitude and our beliefs. I think Ernie helps us see another way of looking at our lives.

There need not be any 'gloom and doom' as some folks think. Why do that when there is a much more fun alternative? Ernie's book give us that alternative. Read it.

A Terrific Alternative Supplement to Retirement Advice

Most retirement books focus on the financial side of this stage in life - how to save and invest properly so that you are not hung out to dry in your golden years. Zelinski focuses on the other aspect of retirement, as important if not more than how much money you have when you last step out of the working world: how you will spend your time and what attitude you will have when you retire. Because of its overarching "live life to the fullest" philosophy, this book has great value to anyone in any stage of life.

Zelinski [in How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free ]advices current and potential retirees to plan ahead for this component of retirement - know what you are going to do. To achieve this, he provides a useful planning tool that will help retirees identify dozens of potential ways to spend their time. The key is not be a couch potato, but to engage in activities that keep your body nimble and your mind sharp. Retirement allows you to do pretty much whatever you want when you want to do it - it's a matter of going into it with a plan and staying engaged with life.

THE BEST RETIREMENT BOOK
IN THE WORLD!

Over 110,000 Copies Sold

Published in 7 Foreign Languages

Purchase How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free by Ernie Zelinski on Amazon.com with this direct link:

HOW TO RETIRE HAPPY, WILD, AND FREE on Amazon.com

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on BarnesandNoble.com with this direct link:

HOW TO RETIRE HAPPY, WILD, AND FREE on BarnesandNoble

Retirement Speeches on Squidoo

Free Retirement Letters on Squidoo

1001 Ways to a New Retirement

Retirement Poems on Squidoo

Places to Retire in the World on Squidoo

Retirement Career Change on Squidoo

The True Spirit of Mothers Day

The Following Article Is Exerpted from the National Post

Life of Ernie Is Wild and Free

To say Ernie J. Zelinski has taken the road less travelled would be a large understatement. Quite simply, the author of How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free and other self-help best-sellers has taken the road never before travelled, living a life designed on his own terms.

In How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free: Retirement Wisdom That You Won't Get From Your Investment Advisor, he writes: "The way I see it, you will have attained true freedom in this world when you can get up in the morning when you want to get up; go to sleep when you want to go to sleep; and in the interval, work and play at the things you want to work and play at -- all at your own pace. The great news is that retirement allows you the opportunity to attain this freedom."

Zelinski , 58, a professional engineer by training and subsequent MBA graduate, has been mostly semi-retired since 1980 and has not missed the corporate grind one bit, living his particular kind of freedom for almost 30 years.

"I semi-retired when I was $30,000 in the hole and I've been semi-retired ever since," he says over the phone from his home in Edmonton. "Even if I made $10-million or $20-million, I still think I'd want to be doing what I'm doing because I really like doing what I'm doing."

Yes, but what exactly does a semi-retired self-help author do to make a living and live his version of happy, wild and free?

"Remember, there were years when I was living below the poverty line," he says, "though I never considered myself poverty stricken."

His 1991 book, The Joy of Not Working , published in the midst of the recession, struck a chord with readers and sold 10,000 copies a year for the next five years. "Everyone's writing about how to get a job and I came out with The Joy of Not Working," he says. "It did really well."

That it did really well caught the attention of Ten Speed Press in California, which picked up the title in 1997 and has since been Zelinski's partner in other ventures. Today, The Joys has sold 250,000 copies and How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free has had sales of over 100,000 counting foreign sales. It is the No. 1 best-selling retirement book on Amazon.com and Zelinski is aiming to sell half-a-million over time as the Boomers retire.

Zelinski's books strike a happy balance between light reading and enlightenment, with the author's cheeky observations and many retirement quotations helping the mix.

Also key to the books' success is Zelinski's talents at marketing and promotion, mostly through the Internet. Readers are drawn to Web sites with marketing offers that often translate into sales.

In his research about retirement, what strikes him the most is the fact that so many people have saved so little for their later years. "I know money can't make you happy," he says, "but a lack of money can make you very, very miserable."

What can also help make people happy in retirement, he adds, is to retain the three things that they lose when they stop work: Purpose, sense of community and structure. "You've got to put those things back in your life."

Zelinski , while taking the road never travelled, has seen to it that he has maintained those bedrock facets of life in a remarkable span of "semi-retirement." He has lived his self-help message and is living proof that one retirement does not fit all.

"I've learned to live very basically," he says. "I don't need what other people need."

By Bill Hanley, Retirement Writer for the National Post

The image to the right is of the front cover of the Allstate Financial edition of How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free.

Allstate purchased 3,750 copies of the book to give to clients and employees.

Several other organizations have made quantity purchases of this book including the Syncrude Corporation which has purchased over 1,100 copies for its retiring employees.

A REVIEW OF THE WORLD'S BEST RETIREMENT BOOK ON BARNESANDNOBLE.COM

My first encounter with How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free was downloading over half of the book as a free E-book which I found on the Internet. It was the top half of the book, however.

Although the E-book was inspiring to read, it was a little frustrating with the bottom half missing. I loved the top half so much that I purchased the whole book. It?s the best one I?ve read on retirement. I had been looking for a book that dealt with aspects of retirement that weren?t tied up with all the financial gobbledygook.

As a personal coach who often gives advice to the newly retired, I have already purchased over a hundred copies to give to my clients and will continue to purchase more. Moreover, How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free has given me the inspiration and incentive to make my own retirement happen earlier than I had planned for.

Ernie Zelinski has an off-the-wall sense of humor and is a master of one-liners that catch your attention and open you up to new concepts. You may be surprised to find out that you don't have to watch one minute of TV when you retire ? and perhaps you shouldn't given that the probability of having a happy and successful retirement is inversely proportional to how much television you watch.

According to Zelinski, if you manage to retire happy, wild, and free, then your retirement will be more rewarding than your career ever was. The ingredients in such a retirement are likely to include great friends, a sense of purpose, some structure in your day, plenty of exercise, something to stimulate your mind, and spiritual growth. If you don?t have these ingredients in your life at this time, Zelinski has a number of suggestions for finding and incorporating them. For those who haven?t cultivated interests outside the workplace, filling all that time may be a challenge.

The Get-a-Life Tree in Chapter 3 provides the answer. Other chapters are devoted to the consideration of activities that enhance body, mind, and spirit. Zelinski quotes from many sources, but his attitude is reflected in a quote from the Buddha.

In the end, these things matter most. How well did you love? How fully did you live? How deeply did you learn to let go?

Better still, Zelinski?s own words in How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free are worthy of being quoted as much as the Buddha. For example:

When money is lost, little is lost. When time is lost, much more is lost. When health is lost, practically everything is lost. And when creative spirit is lost, there is nothing left.

Another example:

Retirement life is a game in many ways. Ensure that you laugh and have fun, even when the score is not in your favor. This way, you will always end up winning at the most important game you will ever play.

My edition of How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free indicates that it will be published in seven other languages. No wonder. Although I can't prove it, this is likely the best retirement book in the world.

Published in Greek by Kedros Publishers, Athens, Greece.
Published in Spanish by Editorial Amat, Barcelona,
Spain.
Published in Chinese (simplified characters) by CITIC
Publishing House, Beijing, China.
Published in Chinese (traditional characters) by Yuan-Liou
Publishing, Taipei, Taiwan.
Published in French by Stanké International, Montreal,
Quebec, and Paris, France.
Published in Korean by Like a Wild Flower Publishing,
Seoul, South Korea.
Published in Japanese by Open Knowledge Corporation,
Tokyo, Japan.
Published in Russian by Gayatri/ Livebook Publishing,
Moscow, Russia.
Published in Canada by Visions International Pub. and
Distributed by Sandhill Book Marketing, Kelowna, B.C.

The Best Retirement Book in the World
Which Is Also the Best Retirement Gift

Over 110,000 Copies Sold

Published in 7 Foreign Languages

Purchase How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free by Ernie Zelinski on Amazon.com with this direct link:

Retirement Book on Amazon.com

Purchase How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free by Ernie Zelinski
on BarnesandNoble.com with this direct link:

HOW TO RETIRE HAPPY, WILD, AND FREE on BarnesandNoble