Best Places Where to Retire for Your Retirement Plan

I received this e-mail the other day in regards to my international best-selling retirement book:

----- Original Message -----
From: Abe Colture
To: success101coach [ at ] yahoo.com
Sent: Tue, May 31, 2011 12:57:17 PM
Subject: Retirement Book How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free

Ernie,

I have just read your retirement book How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free and thoroughly enjoyed it. So many good though provoking points. Many I've discovered or learned over the years but forgot. I have just retired a bit on the younger side for corporate America, 57. There are many opportunities out there and I needed a way to sort through them. I'm looking forward to completely the "Get a Life Tree" exercise. I've also asked my wife to develop her own tree so we can look for common activities. As I read the book, I was thinking this would be a great read for my kids in their mid-20's. I received your book The Joy of not Working. I hope there are some new stuff in there!

We have one major dilemma. We really want to relocate domestically. I have yet to find a good source of material to help with the effort. I saw where your book referenced two other books; Choose a College Town for Retirement and Retirement Places Rated. I plan to look at these. Do you have any other good recommendations besides the annual ratings by various magazines?

I certainly appreciate your material and would appreciate any further advise you may have.

Thanks,

Abe Colture

This was my resonse to Abe:

Hi Abe:

First, thank you for your kind remarks about How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free.

Regarding books on the best places where to retire, here are three more retirement books that I have listed on one of my websites:

1. Where to Retire, 7th: America's Best Places to Retire and Cheapest Places to Retire by John Howells
2 America's 100 Best Places to Retire Fourth Edition: The Only Guide You Need to Today's Top Retirement Towns by Elizabeth Armstrong
3. Retire in Style: 60 Outstanding Places to Retire Across the USA and Canada by Warren R. Bland

Can you do me a favor and I will send you one of my other books as a thank-you gift?

If you have a spare moment, it would be a great help to me if you could post a 5-star review of it on Amazon.com and let other potential readers know why you liked it.

It's not necessary to write a lengthy, formal review — a summary of the comments that you sent me would be fine.

Here's a direct link to the Amazon page for How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free.

Also, if possible, can you place the review on the BarnesandNoble.com Webpage for How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free.

If you place this review, I will send you an autographed copy of my latest book: Career Success Without a Real Job: The Career Book for People Too Smart to Work in Corporations. This is not strictly a retirement book but it is a great book for retirees who want to continue working, but not in a corporation.

Career Success Without a Real Job may also be a book that your kids would like to read.

Once you place the review, send me your address so that I can send you one of my other books.

Many thanks and so long for now,

Ernie Zelinski
Best-Selling Author, Innovator, and Unconventional Career Expert
Author of the Bestseller How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free
(Over 140,000 copies sold and published in 9 languages)
and the International Bestseller The Joy of Not Working
(Over 250,000 copies sold and published in 17 languages)

Check out Half of Retirees Have Nothing in Retirement Plan to Pass On:

Here are two new retirement quotations:

Planning not to retire is simply not a viable retirement strategy.
— Catherine Collinson, president of the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies

If we wait until retirement to enjoy ourselves, there may not be enough of ourselves to enjoy it.
— Mike Hammar

Success Story about The Joy of Not Working

Here is a recent e-mail that I received from one of the readers of two of my books. The books were likely The Joy of Not Working and Career Success Without a Real Job.

----- Original Message -----
From: Nadine Myers
To: vipbooks
Subject: Success Story

Hi Ernie,

You likely will not remember me. I am from Australia, and whilst in Vancouver in 2009 sent you an email shortly after reading a couple of your books, so excited and inspired.

Wow, has my life changed since then! My husband and I decided to give up corporate life a couple of months after reading the books, and to see how long we could live without working in a "job". We lasted two years! During that time we travelled all the way across Canada, and down through Central America, then to South Africa. We are now living in South Africa, as it is a beautiful country and reasonably cheap to live.

I have to say, I have been living the life of my dreams the past two years and continue to do so. I created an online business that allows me to work anywhere in the world, and choose the hours that I work. I have no-one to report to, and have complete freedom and control over my life. I am in awe of the life I have created every day, and can't believe how lucky I am.

I thank you for your inspiring books and for setting such an incredible example for others to follow.

All the best to a happy life of leisure, Ernie!

Kind regards,

Nadine

Nadine Myers
Managing Director &
Emigration Job Search Strategist

Nab That Job in Australia!

Sponsorship Australia

Here are a few career success quotes to help you find a retirement job or an inspirational career so that you can have fun at work:

What counts is not the number of hours you put in, but how much you put in the hours.
— Unknown wise person

After my spectacular failures, I could not be satisfied with an ordinary success.
— Mason Cooley

People seldom see the halting and painful steps by which the most insignificant success is achieved.
— Anne Sullivan

Don't flaunt your success, but don't apologize for it either.
— H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that man can alter his life simply by altering his attitude of mind.
— William James

If your belief system has not molded the life you desire, how you think will need to change. — Asha Tyson

Retirement Can Be Much Better Than Work

Here is the latest e-mail from a fan (name has been changed) who read one of my books (likely The Joy of Not Working).

If you are having a bad day at work or in retirement, the e-mail will cheer you up, in that your situation won't appear to be all that bad.

It may also make you decide to not pursue that retirement job that you were thinking of pursuing.

"Dear Mr. Zelinski,
My name is Sam and I work for a community college as an administrative assistant in the worst department. The department is totally dysfunctional. I have tolerated this crazy place for 14 long years. I ended up working here because I did not know what I wanted to do with my life professionally speaking. This still remains a problem. Perhaps, if you don't mind, you might be able to suggest a starting point, to begin to be happy at work and to have some career direction. I just turned 48 yesterday. It was difficult to celebrate my birthday when I am so unhappy. I received this memo from the person in charge of the entire department about being tardy to work. She went on to explain the hours that I am required to work as if, after 14 years, I would not know this. I felt like I was in second grade. I am sure even second graders would not need to be told this.
Thanks for your time.
Sincerely,
Sam D."

No doubt in this guy's situation, retirement can be better than work.

Perhaps he should try to do something that will attract a much better job in the work world keeping in mind Why the Law of Attraction Does Not Work for Most People.

Here are a few quotes about work to put things in proper perspective:

Get happiness out of your work or you may never know what happiness is.
— Elbert Hubbard

I believe you are your work. Don’t trade the stuff of your life, time, for nothing more than dollars. That’s a rotten bargain.
— Rita Mae Brown

You are what you do. If you do boring, stupid, monotonous work, chances are you'll end up boring, stupid, and monotonous.
— Bob Black

In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it: they must not do too much of it: and they must have a sense of success in it — not a doubtful sense, such as needs some testimony of others for its confirmation, but a sure sense, or rather knowledge, that so much work has been done well, and fruitfully done, whatever the world may say or think about it.
— W. H. Auden

My father taught me to work, but not to love it. I never did like to work, and I don't deny it. I'd rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh-anything but work.
— Abraham Lincoln

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
— Aristotle

Don't be a salary slave! If you are going to do anything in this world, you must start before you are forty, before your period of initiative has ended. Do it now!
— Robert Cochrane (a Chicago advertising executive, to Carl Laemmle, who took the advice, quit his job as a clothing store manager, and eventually became a movie mogul)

Retirement Planning Test - How Much More Are You Than a Damn Job?

An important element of retirement planning is the nonfinancial aspects of retirement. In other words, what are you going to do with all the spare time if you don't get yourself a retirement job to fill some of the extra leisure time that you acquire?

There are many other issues relating to your leisure time as well such as including your spouse in your retirement plan. As a participant in a retirement planning seminar said to the seminar leader, "I now have half the income and twice the husband." I received the following letter about my retirement book The Joy of Not Working from Cary H. of Salem, OR on April 15th, 2011.

Hi Ernie: I am a 69-year-old general contractor, semi-retired, and eager to quit! A friend of mine gave me your book The Joy of Not Working. Delightfully your book has enchanted me and turned me around. I am now looking for ways to live with less and to quit work NOW. What I have known and practiced and forgotten, is that attitude adjustments are what produce change. I have bought into the concept that I am my job. My big excitement is what is going to happen now that I can stop work-work and be alive with my creativity. Dylan Thomas's retirement quotation was perfect. I remember my father being curious to the day he died. What a great trail. Now I look around and wonder how much more I am than a damn job! Thank you, thank you! Cary. H.

Note: The Dylan Thomas quote that Cary was referring to is "Somebody is boring me; I think that it is me."

See the post: There is success in The Joy of Not Working and Prosperity Too!

Also see details of my other retirement book How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free on Amazon.com , actually The World's Best Retirement Book.

His Retirement Plan vs My Retirement Plan

Here is the latest e-mail that I received about The Joy of Not Working:

Ernie,

I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed The Joy of Not Working on the beaches of Playa Del Carmen recently.

It makes a lot of sense!

A lot of the things you mention like the North American work ethic of living to work instead of working to live. How workaholics [don't have fun at work and] actually produce less than normal workers, having coffee breaks to re-juvenate yourself, pursuing more leisure, fun activities etc. [real success] are things I always believed in.

Thx

Doug

PS: My youngest brother retired at 47 and has never looked back, or regretted it!

Note: See and "Like" The Joy of Not Working Facebook Page:

Here is the latest e-mail about How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free from a gentleman whose retirement plan is different from my retirement plan.

Hey Ernie,

Just an update [to my e-mail earlier about How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free].

My company went public with my retirement last week and we have named my successor. I have decided not to call it retirement but rather the death of "corporate Jay" my friends are holding a wake instead of a retirement party. April fools day is the last day of my corporate life! Btw I could use a couple of snappy responses to "your too young to retire" and "what are you going to do all day"

... Jay:

This was my response to Jay:

Congratulations on your retirement: I don't believe that you need any retirement advice.

From my book The Joy of Being Retired: 365 Reasons Why You Will Love Retirement here are 10 of the reasons why you should love retirement.

1. Retirement allows you to pursue your first love — which is living life to the fullest!


2. You get to appreciate one of life’s great pleasures — lots of time on your hands.


3. By having retired early, you don’t have to wind up like so many people who retire too late — they have given so much of themselves to their companies that they don’t have anything left in the tank for their retirement years.


4. If a Meyer-Briggs professional personality assessment test given by your employer indicated that you were best suited for retirement, you can now put your skills and talent to good use.


5. You can wake up in the morning with nothing to do and by bedtime be in a position of only having done only half of it — with no consequences.


6. When you take early retirement from a stressful job you immediately look about seventeen years younger — simply because you feel about seventeen years younger.


7. Working long hours can sometimes be rewarding, without doubt, but so can goofing off and enjoying life. As they say in Spain, “How nice it is to do nothing all day and then rest afterward.”


8. You get to spend a lot more time with your spouse and learn how to compromise, how to pick the right battles, and how not to kill each other.


9. You have all the time in the world to prove The Law of Napping — A Body at Rest Remains at Rest.


10. You can now preach the shortcomings of the work ethic and proclaim to the world —as the great philosopher Bertrand Russell once did — that “the morality of work is the morality of slaves and the world has no need for more slavery.”

Note: See and "Like" The How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free Facebook Page: