My Generation X daughter, who sometimes must teach me a new tech shortcut twice (okay, maybe four times) would answer boldly and quickly, “No way.”

Older is slower. So how could her mother possibly be better at new thinking and fresh ideas than, say, her dewy-faced, Lululemon-clad Spin instructor? Older, slower, more innovative -  is this shockingly hard to believe?  It seems it is.

In reality, media darlings of innovation like a sweet faced Zuckerberg, a young Gates or Nick – who can now easily purchase one of only 60 of the coveted Italian-made Pagani Zonda Roadster F C12S 7.3 ($667,000) after only a year of driving experience – are exceptions. But the media has a job to do and one of the reasons older workers don’t get much recognition for innovation is they don’t generally produce hot Web apps that make drop dead news.

Yet we are all swayed by common stereotypes and cultural narratives about aging and innovation that are dead wrong.

Here is research to establish the reality about age and innovation:

1. The average founder of a high-tech start-up isn’t a whiz-kid, but a mature 40-year-old engineer or business type, says Duke University scholar Vivek Wadhwa, who studied 549 successful technology ventures. What’s more, older entrepreneurs have higher success rates when they start companies.
2. The age at which entrepreneurs are more innovative and willing to take risks seems to be going up. According to data from the Kauffman Foundation, the highest rate of entrepreneurship in America has shifted to the 55-to-64 age group, with people older than 55 almost twice as likely to found successful.
3. The directors of the five top-grossing films of 2012 are all in their 40s or 50s and two of the biggest-selling authors of fiction for 2012 – Suzanne Collins and E. L. James are 50 plus.
4. What about regular workers? The research in one of Germany’s largest companies showed that the older workers not only had great ideas for making procedures and processes more efficient, but their innovations also produced significantly higher returns for the company than those of workers in younger age groups. Birgit Verwonk, a Dresden University of Applied Sciences economist and author of the study, says the findings were so surprising for the company (which wasn’t named in the study) that it is now phasing out its early-retirement program.
5. And here’s the best news. According to research by Benjamin Jones of Northwestern University, a 55-year-old and even a 65-year-old have significantly more innovation potential than a 25-year-old.

If organizations want innovation to flourish, the conversation needs to change. Encourage senior workers to stay put, open the hiring doors to mid-lifers, and provide sabbaticals to rejuvenate new thinking  and continued high performance.

Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games trilogy, that outsold the Harry Potter series of 7 books.

And that older woman in your meeting who you think is dreaming of retirement? She’s not.  She’d thinking up the next new big business idea for her soon-to-be start-up. So mosey on over and have a chat.  Could be a good career move for you.

No inspiration for living the second half of life? Reading about  a grey-bearded mid-lifer who decided to circle the earth by bike and rowboat or a 57-year-old Brit named Rosie who completed an epic run around the world wore me out.  I laud them for their efforts to inspire, but I’d launched a previous transition into an energetic and meaningful phase of life and work by taking sabbatical to sail a little boat alone with my daughter for six months … so I had done that physical challenge business.

Despite my solid credentials in human development and vociferous reading on living one’s best life, I tottered into my mid 60’s underwhelmed and confused about my future work and life.

What should life look like for me? What am I going to do? Should the bucket list rule? Phase out work? Is volunteering in Ecuador a good option? And nagging at me was this “longevity revolution” I was reading about. Did that hold answers?

In the new life stage in front of me, my age and working identity set the tone. Having less time to live a life makes a difference. With a successful professional life, blessed with good health and no financial wolves at the door, it feels a privilege to enter the kingdom of the second half of life. But, as in other endeavors, I wanted to do this very well. If there was a yellow brick road to longevity, happiness and well-being, I wanted to be on it.

Mid-lifers racing to the future take heed. There’s a very good chance that much of what you think you know about aging is wrong. Hell bent on being fantastic parents and in hard pursuit of career success, the average 40 or 50 year-old likely still thinks there’s a finish line up the road – that day in his/her late 60s when the call comes for work life to slow and real life to begin. What’s wild about this outdated, American model of retirement is that it’s one hazy fantasy.

In light of the longevity revolution, which will add an extra 30 years to one’s life, 80 would be the appropriate age for that retirement call, according to Laura Carstensen, founding director of the Stanford Center for Longevity . In her book, “A Long Bright Future” that’s the only idea that makes sense.

All generations will be affected by this new longevity.  Yes, the young will reap benefits, but “people attempting forty-year retirements are bad for the economy and not good for anyone, especially for retirees,” states Carstensen.

So welcome to your super-sized life. Here are two truths I wish I had been better acquainted with:

1. We are clueless about our own life expectancy.

Perhaps the most important thing to understand about life expectancy is that half of all people live beyond it.  If you’re married, the math changes considerably. Since two lives are involved, there’s an even greater chance at least one of you will live to a very advanced age. In fact, for a 65-year-old married couple, there’s a:

• 92% chance at least one spouse will live to age 80.
• 57% chance one spouse will live to age 90.
• 11% chance one spouse will live to age 100.

Live expectancy in the US – age 83 for men and age 86 for women – is an “average” and perhaps not the best exit number to bank on when designing the second half of your life.  Using this long version of the University of Penn Longevity Calculator, my life expectancy is 96.9 which puts a different spin on things.

I’m not alone in underestimating life expectancy. Approximately four in 10 respondents (43% of retirees and 38% of pre-retirees) underestimate average life expectancy by five year or more. Another two in 10 underestimate it by two to four years.

One way to shock yourself into a better understanding of the longevity revolution comes from a suggestion in Carstensen’s book:  Take a peek inside one of those pre-school classrooms for 3-year-olds.  Half of them are expected to live to be centenarians.

2. Careers should never end.

If you “want” to live longer and elevate your well-being, extend your working life.

In meetings interviewing potential financial planners, I was asked, “How long do you intend to work?”  “Until I’m 65 or so,” I replied.  Why did I choose that particular age? Why didn’t I say 80 or 90?

Truth is that most of us are breezing past 80, 90 and beyond. And if they choose to, they can whistle while they work. 88% of those in the 65-74 range are healthy enough for work.  60% of those over age 85 – the majority- do not have health problems that would preclude work.

“It wasn’t the happiest or the most relaxed older participants who lived the longest,” the authors of the new book, “The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study” (Hudson Street Press, March 2011).” It was those who were most engaged in pursuing their goals.”

Work is a prelude to making life not just longer than your laid-back comrades, but healthier.

Long life has appeared suddenly –a goodly number of  years tacked on at the end, unretirement is common, mindsets stuck in old social constructs, the future blurred – and bad decisions ensue.

For instance, I wonder if the partners in the CPA firm who refuse to go on their mandatory, paid sabbatical  are thinking of a late life stage that includes extending their work? (Yes, your boss called us about you.) Rethinking the longevity of their careers might lead them to an understanding that those four weeks could reap benefits of clarity and rejuvenation for the many more years to come.

Bequeathed this remarkable gift of a long life, I make my way in a radically altered society that is just beginning to dawn.  I’m doing well, re-kindling creativity and making a plan for life to last far longer than any prior generation in human history.  I think of it as a pretty cool life stage.

And no, you will not get a five-step plan.  That’s the point.  It’s chaos.

Your Primer on Generation Flux:

• Chaos is where we live and work today. Renamed the “Age of Flux,” this is the defining feature of modern business. If you are not dizzy from career choices, leadership challenges, innovation and the sheer velocity of change then you must be backpacking in Mongolia. (Actually, making that choice could put you way ahead of the success curve. More on this later.)
• Generation Flux is described as an attitude, not a demographic that embraces paradox and diversity, sees opportunity in today’s chaos and rejects nostalgia and fear of change. But if that attitude is the irreverent and self-serving one exhibited in the featured successful leaders whose zigzag careers suddenly fused and bloomed , we might all be concerned. One reader called it the I-don’t-give-a- f*** attitude.

Who will thrive best in this Age of Flux?  GenFluxers, of course. While there is no age limit and no single model to emulate, a successful GenFlux Leader covets these characteristics:

• Adaptability and nimbleness.
• Open to learning from anywhere.
• Lives inside a blender of failure, success, failure, success. (Got it? You always want the blender on.)
• Decisiveness tempered with knowledge that business life changes in 30-day increments. (Others argue it’s 2-hour change ups)
• Nukes nostalgia and embraces go-go-go into the future.  (The past doesn’t work doofus, don’t go there.)
• Enjoys continuous recalibration of careers.
• Loves instability and I mean LOVES it.

Should you strive to join the cult-like GenFlux?  Maybe. Good ideas are presented, some of the characteristics are admirable, business environments ARE moving faster than ever and the landscape for navigating success IS ever changing.  Still, hold on a minute for two reasons:

Number One. The idea of an ever-changing world ISN’T NEW and some of us have successfully thrived through chaos thanks to great thought leaders (one of whom Safian quotes more than once) of our time.” The bandwagon of GenFlux has wheels in the past so the whole truth is important.  No need to think of the past a reprehensible.
Living in chaos, learning from Chaos Theory – it’s all been around:

• By the mid 1970s, the movement toward chaos as a science was underway, and in 1977, the first conference on chaos theory was held in Italy.
• “Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution” by Tom Peters published in 1987 after a significant and sustained economic disarray and the brutal recession of the early ‘80s – marked by unemployment in excel of 10 percent, interest rates in excess of 20 percent and inflation stuck in the mid-teens – rocked the world.
• Margaret Wheatley’s 1992 bestselling book, “Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World” launched a revolution by demonstrating that ideas drawn from quantum physics, chaos theory and molecular biology could improve organization performance.

Number Two. Until the last few paragraphs of the second article, a reader yearning for success may start to consider not taking his ADHD medication to fit in the frenzy. Turns out that future success in the Age of Flux is about adapting a life-and-work style. To really thrive, you have to “get away from your work.”

Does that mean that to be a  successful Generation Flux leader you create time “where you do not do WORK?”  Marshall time AWAY from the job for more success ON the job?” Revolutionary.

“Leaders need to create times for reflection and ask their staffs to do it individually” argues the mature, well respected Wheatley.  How did that get left off the list of characteristics and end up not being brought up until the last three paragraphs of the last article of the series? You can see it’s gotten under my skin – my somewhat wrinkled skin.

Ciscos’s CTO, Padmasree Warrior, agrees that this kind of new leaders will need to make time to clear their brains.  Unfortunately his lame example of how he devotes at least four hours each weekend to something not analytical – “I paint, I write haiku” -  is not what Margaret Wheatley has in mind when she talks about getting away from your work.  She’d not think .08 per cent of Warrior’s weekend adequate for renewal.

Her organization, The Berkana Institute, has shut down for the entire Winter:

“We have decided to “bed down” Berkana for a period of stillness and rest, Winter in the cycle of life. During this quiet season, we’re gathering our energy, preserving our valuable capacities, and listening in for Spring.”

Wheatley also states when it comes to Generation Flux “it  may not be healthy to expect everyone to adopt their model.”

So you might be able to thrive after all and not be a part of Generation Flux. Your choice. As for walking around in Mongolia? GenFlux or not – planned time away from work-  it’s the kernel of truth for sustained high performance and long term career success.

1. “Working hard, going nowhere.”
2. “Well, you know, my life is all about the kids.”
3. “Not much of anything.”
4. “Same ole’, same ole.”

This is not how everyone responded. The theme of bored and going nowhere was prevalent.

What was my answer when asked what’s going on in my life? It seems I sought to be savvy and not use any of the answers above that could reflect badly on me.  My reply was, “I’m percolating on some ideas for the future.”

This worked well throughout the holiday season until a friend replied yesterday, “You know, Barbara, you’ve been percolating for a long time now.” Zapped. Nailed.

She might as well have whacked me with a frying pan or asked me to sign a paper saying, “I have no idea what direction I want for my life in the coming year.”

I have been exploring new business ideas and getting ready to create a new direction to apply to my life for over a year now.  While I know what I don’t want in my life, I’m unclear as to what I want to add to my life.  Establish a facilitation business, expand products on yourSABBATICAL, create coaching certification for coaches whose clients seek sabbaticals, join a consulting company in Buenos Aires to coach executives to be better leaders – all good ideas, but nothing creates the level of passion and commitment that pushes me to commit and get something off the ground. I could get super excited about some of these ideas, but so far, no OMG moment.

Transitions – critical endeavors of sorting through hopes, dreams and passions to determine one’s plan of action, to determine one’s course for future life and work – are hard work. You can get stuck, unknowingly it seems.

Whether in business, relationships or career, anyone who is not quite sure of their next step or steps can feel like they are in a mental muddle.  If we start comparing ourselves to others we can feel like we are hopelessly sinking in a bog surrounded by joyous people on  galloping horses riding wild to a destination.

Lest we forget, three reminders about life transitions are:

1. Individuals with clearly defined direction had times of transition when choices had to be made.
2. While some transitions are easy, others are very tough.
3. Your current transition is NOT your last. (This was written for me, just in case I try to kid myself.)

Making important decisions during transitions is scary.  Life’s pivot points ultimately end in a new destination and require your time, energy, finances and courage.  To be able to look back and know when and why you “decided” to start that business, leave a marriage, or add that new product line can assuage a sense of sanity if it doesn’t work out.  And if it does work out, you’ll have true answers for your spot on 60 Minutes when Scott Pelley asks, “What were you thinking?”

One option to avoid too much time in “transition” is to get “coached into action.” I’m getting cheery messages in my inbox right now from people who want to coach me to success using their personal model – “Let’s start now!”  I value the coaching process (I am a coach), but a disturbing plethora of unqualified, ego-centric people using the platform look-what-I’ve-done-with-my-life charging $175 to $1000 an hour (yes, you are reading that correctly) could scarcely provide me with the well-defined answers I seek.

Why not?  Because you and I both know we already have the answers somewhere inside us and a one-hour session with a stranger – albeit a marketing-savvy one – is not likely to gain us more than a few suggestions. Good ones even, but not likely to be real game changers.

Along with peppy videos in blogs from these newly minted coaches, there’s also the whole New-Year’s Resolutions angle people employ to define actions for the future.  Two people at a dinner party the other night offered theirs.  Judith’s is to “move more” and she’s already gathered some base line data on her comfort distance so she can start to log an increase in daily miles beginning today. Small business owner, Teresa, created the acronym FILL for her new year – Focus, Innovate, Lead and Listen.

The process of making resolutions with a plan including accountability is a great tool propelling one to immediate action.  Many of my first-day-of-a-new-year activities found me organizing and making plans to implement my resolutions – business and personal.  It works!

But this is not the year for me to make New Year’s resolutions. While it is true I am bored with percolation, tired from not having clarity and not making much progress lately, what is my best move?  If not a coach right now or a list of goals or a theme for 2013, just what do I need to move forward out of generating great ideas and into action?

Answer: A break from all this– a short one – to warm my soul.

I am giving myself the gift of a journey – an adventure, a change of scene.  While this isn’t a true sabbatical since I will access the internet for work, I will be in a place that makes me happy and creates contentment.  That might be a yoga retreat for you, ice climbing or walking along the Seine. For me sitting in the sunshine on a park bench in the village square of some third world country watching donkeys pull carts does the trick.

Grande Square, Quito, Ecuador

Is this a good answer to help me move through this transition?  In my educational experience in counseling, I was taught that if you can change the physical stance of a person you can often change his/her point of view.  For instance, if you can get an angry person to sit down the conversation often becomes more productive.  Or if you get a person to lean in closer, uncross their arms or sit on the floor, the conversation changes toward a more meaningful one.

Combine this with my work creating positive outcomes utilizing sabbatical experiences for company executives – allowing a break from work to explore – I’m confident in my choice.  While I have a budget to consider and  a mere 4 weeks to spare away from the real world, I plan to soak in aspects of a new, unknown culture, improve my Spanish and see if the blue bird of clarity will dot a couple of the i’s on my future.

Right now, ideas to jump-start me into “doing” are not as important as listening more closely to me.  The conversation on the park bench with me might just be different than the ones I’ve been having. Who knows?  If not, the least I gain is a renewed spirit for more hard work ahead and a couple of new vocabulary words of Spanish. And although I have not one nano of more clarity than I did last week, I’m feeling very excited about my life. And that’s a feeling I’ve missed lately.

Perhaps it’s not the year for you to make resolutions or set goals right off the bat.  Take a break.  Change your scenery.  Start a new conversation – while standing on your head with your eyes closed in East Tennessee.  I hear it’s pretty there.

Jeff Jung, host of The Career Break Travel Show.

Endings are powerful experiences. As the season of shopping, glittering lights and cookies gains momentum, we are letting go of the final days of 2012.  How was it for you?  Living the life you want?  Too busy for much of anything? Cat got your tongue?

Soon we’ll all receive the greatest gift of all – time.   Exactly 8,760 hours coming your way to do with as you deem fit.

As this gift of time appears on the horizon, don’t do that dreary list of resolutions or beat yourself up for how you wasted last year being slightly north of miserable. Instead gather the smartest, best, current and most insightful information of what might be in your better-designed life ahead.

In our experience, people often choose travel as part of their sabbatical.  But heading out for a six-week hop around European museums or studying Spanish in a third world county is not embracing the true “long term travel” that Career Break Secrets founder Jeff Jung knows best.  In sharp contrast to  a smile and wave bye-bye at the airport, the reality of Jung’s career break travel includes a sit down with your parents (or significant others) to review your will and life insurance. Do you feel the difference?

The valuable part of the Jung’s recently published, Career Break Secrets Traveler’s Handbook is that it’s for real – the stories, the people, the tips.  In this good read, no business class tickets or rooms at the Ritz were needed to make the long term travel folks who shared their stories  genuinely joyous at the leap into travel as a way of life (one that often takes them around the world!)

So if you dream of seeing the headwaters of Leech Lake in Minnesota as you explore the two-for-one bins at Publix, this is the long-term travel handbook for you.

Here are some of the valuable topics that jumped out for me:

• How to use the web for planning along the way (including a section on twitter chats and social media)
• Best things to have on a long bus ride
• How to pack for “long term” travel
• Things too important to ignore – wills and life insurance
• How to deal with banking, credit cards, and taxes
• The expensive digs versus the budget digs
• An overview of the less expensive areas of the world plus how to manage the most expensive ones

If you truly can’t negotiate time away from your career yet feel strong undercurrents of imagined places and experiences in a world yet unseen taking precedent over an uneasy truce you’ve made between work and life, perhaps this new year is the one for extraordinary  changes you’ll have to make happen on your own.

Start by giving yourself the gift of insight and an entrance into a community of people who felt just like you.  And, savor the advice in this book so you don’t end up lonely and on a long bus ride  to Comayagua without a bottle of water.

Another idea – a killer idea – also steeped in history moves toward a possible true comeback. This idea aims to pack a significant wallop for everyone who works and is complete with smiles, controversy and -  smart thinking.

For years the 40-hour work week was “the design” for the working life. Both of my parents – my mother as a salaried buyer of defense parts for the government and dad as an hourly General Motors factory worker – punched time clocks to keep track of those 40 hours.

And with that 40-hour work week, American companies achieved productivity and profits while workers had work-free weekends and evenings.

The 40-hour work week idea needs more supporters to become a short-week-work  movement with the power of a Tea Party. But signs of life  – and strong advocates who demand attention and get it – are creating meaningful dialogue.

In an excellent essay, Why We Have to Go Back to a 40-Hour Work Week to Keep Our Sanity, Sara Robinson, a trained social futurist, lays out decades of research backing the 40-hour work week wisdom and how it applies to both manual laborers and knowledge workers.

With 150 years of research, Robinson points out that every hour of work beyond 40 actually makes you “less effective and productive over both the short and long haul.” She also argues that for every worker working more than a 50-hour work week every week there’s one American who should have a full time job and doesn’t.”   (Pack that away for your next guilt trip.)

While most of us know we work “a lot,” just how many hours do we work? Americans are working approximately 11 more hours per week now than they did in the 1970’s.  Following a summary of Robinson’s essay in March, the popular blog LifeHacker asked readers to respond to an informal poll on the number of hours in their work week.   With over 15,000 responders, 58% indicated they worked between 41 and 60 hours a week; 14% reported a 60-80 hour work week. (See Full Poll results at end of my post.)

While not scientific, that’s a lot of self-reported worker-bee hours. Are they in pain? Do their wings ache? I have friends who indignantly tell me they wish people would stop commenting on the fact that they have no life other than work.  “I l-o-v-e my work,” they purr.

Digest Robinson’s well-documented negative outcomes of overwork (to our bodies, families, and performance), and see if you wonder, like me: Why would people choose any of those outcomes? The answers differ widely and include necessity, ego, Puritan upbringing and it’s-just-the-American-way.

Back to clocking out at 5pm every day. Could it work? I’m not sure. In my personal and professional experience coaching leaders, I know that in order to build successful careers there are times you just have to give up life. For my daughter and business partner, Elizabeth, and me to meet a publisher’s date for a book we wrote, we worked 12-hour days, 7 days a week for 2.5 months (we had one day off for Thanksgiving and one for Christmas).  If we had worked a 40-hour week, the project would have taken over 6 months – 4 months longer.  (If you’re thinking about dissing us as over-worked achiever types, note that we had just returned from a 6-month sabbatical.)

While a return to the 40-hour work week may be radical, take heed. The popularity of Sara Robinson’s essay (12k reader “likes”), the number of posts it prompted and the 954 comments resulting from The New York Times Opinion piece in June 2012, The Busy Trap, signal frustrated people with out-of-control lifestyles who need a better, smarter way to live and work.

What could be the outcome of  a short-work-week movement?  50 hours? 55 hours? How about “fewer” than 40 hours? In February 2012, The Economic Foundation, a British think tank proposed a  “21-hour work week.” Noodle on that and keep your ears open.  You’re going to hear more about this.

Results of Working Hours Poll, Lifehacker March 19, 2012

How Many Hours Do You Work Per Week? (Poll Closed)

Less than 20 2.79% (442 votes)

20-30 3.6% (571 votes)

31-40 21.53% (3,416 votes)

41-50 37.72% (5,986 votes)

51-60 20.34% (3,228 votes)

61-70 7.83% (1,242 votes)

71-80 6.19% (983 votes)

Total Votes: 15,868

Who doesn’t want answers to these questions:

Just how did those teenage daughters like being away from her friends for a year?

Did careers tank?

Was the hassle to make it happen worth it?

And how did you pay for it anyway?

Paris in Love: A Memoir and A Month of Italy: Rediscovering the Art of the Vacation are excellent reads for arm-chair sabbatical enthusiasts as well as those serious about a future family sabbatical.

If far away adventures aren’t for you, then stay at home but take a break from “busyness.” Author Joanne Kraft takes the plunge with her family (that includes a teenager) into a year off from all technology and activities. Her “radical sabbatical” makes you laugh and could inspire you to take some busyness out of your life.

Though all of these books chronicle “family sabbaticals,” don’t dismiss what you’ll learn about the power taking time off for your career or business. For instance, within one year of Brady’s sabbatical, he relocated his family home to another state as he had long dreamt of doing, founded a multimillion dollar company with several of his best friends, and wrote a best-selling book. Pretty good results on top of the vistas endured for 30 days in Italy eh?

Single or with a gaggle of kids, these three good reads about sabbaticals unfolding are praised in Amazon reviews and will make you smarter in your sabbatical planning:

Paris in Love: A Memoir by Eloisa James

This well-written book documents a family’s year out in Paris with short missives from talented writer, Eloisa James. James, (author of A Kiss at Midnight and Much ado About You) took the leap many only contemplate: she sold her house, took a sabbatical from her job as a Shakespeare professor and moved her family to Paris. With triumphs and her children’s adjustments, the book chronicles her joyful year and invites the reader into the life of a family. Her observations are rich and witty. Don’t expect a list of how to’s or advice. But you’ll glean some insights as well as thoroughly enjoy this book. Strong Amazon reviews attest to that!

A Month of Italy: Rediscovering the Art of the Vacation by Chris Brady

Brady’s book details the one-month long “trip of a lifetime” (what he calls a “radical sabbatical”) to Italy that his family took in order to enjoy quality family time. With wit and humor, Brady illustrates how taking a break from his normally frenzied life “invigorated, rejuvenation, inspired, renewed and change him for the better, making him even more productive.

If your wanderlust is stifled, NYTimes, USA Today and Wall Street Journal best-selling author Chris Brady offers renewed hope that you really can and should make a dream happen.

Just Too Busy: Take Your Family on A Radical Sabbatical

By Joanne Kraftl

This family doesn’t leave home on their sabbatical. Instead, the Kraft family takes their sabbatical by colliding head on with “busyness.” Joanne Kraft, a 43-mother of four, was encouraged by her church to write about her experience. In this book families discover the symptoms for a common disorder known to moms today: A.D.D. (Activity Denial Disorder.)

What if your family did nothing for a whole year? Nothing. No sports, no extra classes, no activities that would tie up the calendar week after week.

On New Year’s Day the parents announce that for an entire year the family will engage in doing “nothing.” Off a reader goes laughing large while following their adventure. You’ll discover simple ways you too can guard against the constant distraction in your own life.

Finally, we have the answer. According to the latest research, once you have about $75,000 a year, earning more doesn’t really help.

Not surprisingly, people with a comfortable living standard are happier than people living in poverty. So, this magic number defines a “comfortable standard” and varies across individuals and countries, but in the United States Gallup data collected from half a million Americans found that the benefits, other than a slightly better mood on a daily basis – taper off entirely after the $75,000 mark.

So, why do many continue to bother to work so hard long after we have reached an income level sufficient to make most of us happy? Because we anticipate that doubling our income will double our happiness plus the fact there’s a kind of high connected with being upwardly mobile. Don’t be in denial, your adrenaline will surge and you’ll like how you look in that Lexus if you aren’t zipping around in one now.

But, twice as much money, twice as much happiness? Not so. If this belief drives your time and energy, get ready for a letdown. You’ll have about 9 percent more satisfaction your efforts to double that income. While that’s more than a zero return it is NOT the return most of us believe we’ll get. While extra income will allow you to buy more and more stuff that you will like – from designer clothes to a luxury car to eating out at fancy-chmancy restaurants – it will be ineffective in making you happier.

That’s not to say money won’t buy happiness. It will. The authors of a forthcoming book, “Happy Money: The Science of Spending” by Elizabeth Dunn, an associate professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia and Michael Norton, an associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, present new data that supports a decade of research that says your life satisfaction is substantially increased when you do two things with your money – spend it on experiences for yourself or give it away.

It’s all pretty simple. If you seek happiness but are not making the base line of $75,000 to provide the “comfortable standard” you can work harder and harder, buy lottery tickets or move to Nicaragua where you’ll find comfort on much, much less.

If the magic number of $75,000 is already on your tax returns or you’re close, give up amassing money enough to quit your job so you can  just  buy more stuff.   Instead, boost your happiness for the long run now by successfully, negotiating some time out from work and buy yourself an experience.  Note: This is not more vacation time where you go off to wonder what’s going on at the office, check your email constantly and never let your team truly be on their own so they can learn new skills and grow into larger roles for the company.

Rather this is time out for an experience you’re vested in, plan for, arrange carefully  for your work to continue and disconnect fully from work.  What we’d call a smart move for career longevity, productivity along with this happiness benefit.

Not going to do that but still want to be happy?  Then, open your wallet and give that money away. According to Dunn and Norton in The New York Times, it’s another scientifically validated means of increasing happiness with money.

You have choices. Just don’t say your happiness is out of your control. It’s such a cop out.

“Happy Money: The Science of Spending,” written by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton is available for pre-order at Amazon. Published by Simon and Schuster, the release date is  May 14, 2013.

Elizabeth Dunn is an associate professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. At age twenty-six, she was featured as one of the “rising stars” across all of academia by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Michael Norton is an associate professor of marketing at the Harvard Business School. His research has twice been featured in The New York Times Magazine Year in Ideas issue. In 2012, he was selected for Wired magazine’s Smart List as one of “50 People Who Will Change the World.”

In today’s world of electronic communications and banking, identity theft is a real threat. Even more so if you are traveling. So those who are looking to go on sabbatical or those already in the middle of their leave may fall victim to this form of fraud.

If private information such as account, Social Security and credit card numbers is stolen, a thief can drain bank accounts, make purchases and even open new accounts using the stolen information. According to a recent Federal Trade Commission bulletin, billions of dollars and thousands of hours are spent every year repairing the damage done by identity thieves.

Here are five ways professors on sabbatical can protect their identities on the Web and in the real world:

Check Your Credit Report

The quickest way to be certain your identifying information is secure is to check your credit report. If you have been the victim of identity theft, or if credit has been established in your name without your permission, it will appear on your credit report. The Fair Credit and Reporting Act guarantees every U.S. citizen the right to access his or her own report once every year. Also consider using a service like Lifelock to protect your finances. Services like this will monitor your credit and alert you if anyone uses your information.

Destroy Sensitive Information

Sensitive information is any information that contains your name, address, birth date, Social Security number or any identifying account numbers. If you are disposing of old papers or receipts, be sure they are shredded or burned. The same goes for old computer hardware. Data stored on your computer can be retrieved by crooks. If you are getting rid of an old machine, destroy its hard drive. Simply erasing the information may not be enough. As a recent article on the Seniors Guide put it, “think sledgehammer.”

Use a Secure Computer

Many people use library computers to pay bills and make account transfers. If you do, be sure the computer is secure. When you are done using it, log out of your accounts and close the browser. This will keep other patrons from accessing the pages you have just used. If you are using your own laptop in a public setting, remember public servers may not be secure. It is best to do all important computer work from the safety of your own home.

Report Stolen Credit Cards

If your wallet has been lost or stolen, call all of your credit card companies right away. They will cancel your accounts immediately and issue you new cards with new account numbers. That way, even if your cards fall into the wrong hands, they will be unusable. Keep a separate record of your credit cards, account numbers and the credit card companies’ contact numbers. Without your wallet, you will need that information to make important phone calls to cancel your cards.

If It Sounds Too Good to Be True, It Probably Is

We all love a bargain, and when we’re offered something at a great price, it may seem too good to pass up. This is why following tip No. 5 may be the hardest one of all. Thieves will use that knowledge to rob people of important information. If you are offered anything for free through email, it’s probably a scam. Furthermore, “free” medical services that are not offered by the federal government can actually be costly.

Either way, it is best to always think twice before participating in a special offer or bargain that seems too good to be true. With these tips in mind, those on sabbatical and their families can feel more secure about their identity safety.

The urge for gold star adventure status without carabiners, harnesses or helmets is strong. But where do we find a place to be outdoors and test ourselves but not join a group with a mantra of “win or die trying”?

Join the sport of “the walk.” The “walk” I refer to has elements of the uncommon – quiet, a chance to re-set your internal clock and strong historical ties of a pilgrimage.    Camino de Santiago (or The Way of St. James) is the pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, north west Spain, where legend has it that the remains of the apostle, Saint James the Great, are buried.

While you and I might consider it a once-in-a-lifetime experience,  two women I met last week first hit the Camino in 2010 and are returning in September for a third time.  Christina Brandt and Susan Baghdadi are leading a group of no more than 12 with an 8-day walking itinerary that averages 6-8 hours each day. They expertly handled a myriad of my questions about their upcoming opportunity to walk the Camino with them so I might share them with you.

Here are aspects of this experience  I hold high in my priority list of choosing this kind of experience:

1. Comfy Room with My Bag Waiting. While you CAN walk the Camino on your own, having the logistics (lodging, food, transporting gear) taken care of allows you to focus your energy on the experience.  I don’t walk long distances with a 30-lb pack on my back because I don’t want to. And I don’t like dirty, risky or bad accommodations.  Each inn chosen for this trip is a typical Galician manor house, formerly belonging to noblemen.  Situated in rural spaces away from the actual Camino route, they’re unique and comfortable.   And your bags will be there for you when you arrive.
2. Limit on Small Group Sharing. You are not going to be pressured to sit around in the evening forced to “share” anything.  The structure for this group experience will depend, according to Christina and Susan, on where the energy and need presents opportunities.  Certainly, the opportunity to engage with both of these professionals for a check in on your life’s direction and create new perspectives is something to consider taking advantage of – if the spirit moves you.
3. Might Find a Buddy. Having done my share of walking for continuous days, I know for certain at the end of the day it’s lovely to shower, smooth my bedcovers (whether bunk, tent or inn) and look forward to good food shared in the camaraderie of a small group.  I might not bond with everyone, but all it takes is one or two possible good buddies to make a journey worthwhile. On a trip like this you can walk alone, with a stranger, or several people.  In my experience, life-long friends are possible to make on a trip like this.
4. But I Don’t Want to Walk Today. And one of the best things this trip provides is the option of getting to the location for the day WITHOUT walking.  On a kayak week in Crete, there were many of us who found that last leg of the day, just not appealing.  So we could walk or ride. I loved that option.  (The only people to do all four legs for 8 days were three 80-year old Canadians.  Go Canada!)

Susan and Christina have the professional expertise and experience to enrich your experience.  More importantly, both combine passion with purpose.

Susan and Christina on the Camino.

No ridiculous preparation or practice required.  Yeah!

Many thanks to Filiz Telek for connecting me with Susan and Christina so I might pass along this valuable information to sabbatical seekers.  I met and interviewed this extraordinary woman several months after she walked for 30 days on the Camino.  See Filiz in the taped interview here.