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Rating: 
Summary: Likely the Best Retirement Book in the World
Review:
My first exposure to 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.
Rating:
Summary: Well worth the purchase and your time
Review: Ernie Zelinski's newest publication, entitled HOW TO RETIRE HAPPY, WILD, AND FREE (Ten Speed Press, 2004), is intended for pre-planners, retirees, and those who dream about leaving the restrictions of the daily grind. His often whimsical, yet essentially practical ideas are meant to assist in our making the best of life's pleasures. Like his very successful THE JOY OF NOT WORKING (Ten Speed Press, 2003), HOW TO RETIRE HAPPY, WILD, AND FREE is well thought out, upbeat, and a delight to read. Anyone contemplating retirement -- and I guess that means all of us -- could take a page from Zelinski's book about lifestyle considerations to make the daily activities in our new "life after work" not only full of purpose, but also full of enjoyment. This book is a primer on how the many opportunities found in retirement can help each of us be the person we always knew we were but were too busy to realize...I'd like to use the expression "right on the money" to characterize Zelinski's suggestions, but after completing this book or any of his others, readers will know that money is not the touchstone for a comparison. As Zelinski himself tells us: "the biggest mistake you can make with your retirement planning is to concentrate only on the financial aspects" (p.2)...Zelinski is methodical in revealing ways for us to be so engaged. I highly recommend that you purchase and read HOW TO RETIRE HAPPY, WILD, AND FREE. This is one book that will prepare you to keep smiling.
Rating:
Summary: Retirement is not just about the money, it's about lifestyle
Review: Having been a financial advisor for more than 30 years, it is a refreshing relief to find a book that does not focus on the monetary issues of retirement. As principal of a company that helps people "design the best years of their life" this book is an excellent primer that is also entertaining. Contrary to the sub-title there is a slowly increasing number of advisors who have an equal focus on retirement lifestyle planning as they do on pure financial planning. The style of read is "appealing." This book will encourage the baby boom generation to explore what is possible for them in retirement, to be more and to contribute more to their communities. Life Planning Matters distributes this book to its clients - it makes a great gift!
Rating:
Summary: Retirement is not just about the money, it's about lifestyle
Review: Having been a financial advisor for more than 30 years, it is a refreshing relief to find a book that does not focus on the monetary issues of retirement. As principal of a company that helps people "design the best years of their life" this book is an excellent primer that is also entertaining. Contrary to the sub-title there is a slowly increasing number of advisors who have an equal focus on retirement lifestyle planning as they do on pure financial planning. The style of read is "appealing." This book will encourage the baby boom generation to explore what is possible for them in retirement, to be more and to contribute more to their communities. Life Planning Matters distributes this book to its clients - it makes a great gift!
Rating:
Summary: If you want to buy one 'how to retire' book , buy this one!
Review: How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free is a wonderful book. The other reviews listed here, say it all but I just had to add my two cents. Though I am a few years off from retirement age, I want to be prepared and the author has done much of the groundwork.
Mr. Zelinski has been helpful in enlightening my 'field of vision' to better prepare me for life lived on the road to the golden years. I especially appreciated the quotations he has gathered to drive his points home to the reader.
Thank you for sharing your insights with us. You are helping us all to make our trip to retirement a journey worth anticipating and appreciating.
Rating: 
Summary: A great idea but poorly written
Review: My wife and I are preparing for retirement in our mid-fifties -- twelve years from now. (Yes, we like to start planning early.) The title and summary on Amazon intrigued me so I purchased this one along with some other books that specialize in the non-financial aspects of retirement. This book is, unfortunately, not of the caliber we experienced in our other finds. It is poorly written to the point of being frustrating in its redundancy -- so much so that my wife stopped reading it after getting halfway through. The book does have one redeeming feature: the author has a very good idea on building an interest tree of what you'd like to do with your future free time. This idea is probably worth the price of the book, but don't bother to read anything other than that chapter.
Rating:
Summary: Zelinski: The Supreme Guru of Retirement Authors?
Review: This book is quite different than the author's other one that I like so much, "The Joy of Not Working." The format is quite different. In my opinion, the organizational structure is not as good. But in the end, there is a wealth of good, solid, useful, insightful information contained inside, and that would be the point of reading it in the first place.
In short, "Happy, Wild and Free" is another winner by Zelinski for retiree readers, and it can serve as a great "only" retirement book for those who are looking for that. I can't imagine anyone feeling they don't get their money's worth from reading the book.
Just a read of the preface may be worth the price of admission. Here we find a good overview of the subject of retirement, with some first-class comments to boot: "Retirement is the perfect time to become the person you would like to be and do the things you have always wanted to do." "Retirement can be both exciting and demanding, bringing new challenges, new experiences, and new uncertainties." "...retirement is the last opportunity for individuals to reinvent themselves, let go of the past, and find peace and happiness within." "Despite the bad press that retirement sometimes gets, there has never been a better time to be retired in Western nations." And the one I like the best: "The most fortunate of retirees are those who through good planning, experimentation, and risk-taking succeed in making retirement the best time of their lives."
I just don't think the elements of this retirement insight and advice gets any better any place else. I truly believe that Zelinski is the reigning guru on retirement, and I have since I first found and read, "The Art of Retirement." If Zelinski didn't exist, I think we would have to have invent him. But he's saved us the trouble with his combination of fantastic books on retirement.
The major criticism of the book is that, for me, the flow of chapters and even the flow of sections within the chapters does not work. The collection of chapter sections, I think, could probably be randomly placed with the same eventual result. It's not like one section logically follows the other, nor positively belongs in one chapter rather than another.
And, as I look back through my notes in the book, I find words I've written such as "sophomoric," "irrelevant," "repetitive," "dumb," and "weak." I simply do not find all sections of the book to be at the level I want them to be. But that's it. That's all of my criticisms. To me the reader is free, after reading the preface, to read through the rest of the book, remembering quotes and advice and insight along the way, finding sections that he or she finds valuable and to be favorites, ignoring those found not to be worth the read.
The flaws that I see should not prevent most from finding the bulk of the book to be well worth the effort. I highly recommend this book as a gift to oneself and/or for others. I don't think it gets any better than Zelinski when you look for books on the subject of life after work.
Rating:
Summary: Zelinski Again
Review: Who Wouldn't Want To Be Coached By A Guy Named Ernie Zelinski? That's the title of an article I wrote about Zelinski's other books. I love Zelinski. This time his book, How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free is about living, although it's disguised as a book on retirement. It is his best. I recommend the book for anyone under 27 years old because they are young enough to embrace the ideals of this book and shift their lives accordingly. They can choose to live the life their heart calls them too instead of the life the MBA drives them, too. After 27 years of age people get buried in delusions about the supposed necessities of life. I also recommend the book for people over 50. These people are now wise enough to know better and can embrace the attitudes of Zelinski's retirement long before they stop working for money. His definition of retirement is all about following your heart and is not based much on working for a living or not. Retirement is a state of mind, and you can apply many of the ideas in the book today to make your life happy, wild, and free. Zelinski is inspiring. Zelinski knows we are all creative; I agree. I am constantly urging my patients to have some creative pursuit in their lives. Here is what he says from the book: Once you retire, you too can reclaim your creative spirit and find an artistic pursuit that will ignite your inner fire. Your artistic pursuit -- whether it's painting pictures, writing poetry, or making pottery -- will rekindle a part of you that has been suppressed for years by the structure of a job and the routine of daily life. Not only can it make you feel more alive, an artistic pursuit can constitute the primary reason for your being. Ninety-five percent of books on retirement are about how to plan financially for the event, and they ignore the spirit of the matter. Zelinski goes for the heart as he always does. He shows oodles of evidence demonstrating money has little to do with satisfaction in retirement. It is about finding meaning in your life. It's about living happy, wild, and free. Isn't that something that would be useful at any age? It's what I want for you and for me. That and being able to wear aloha shirts or the equivalent whenever you want. Cha!
Rating:
Summary: Zelinski Again
Review: Who Wouldn't Want To Be Coached By A Guy Named Ernie Zelinski? That's the title of an article I wrote about Zelinski's other books. I love Zelinski. This time his book, How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free is about living, although it's disguised as a book on retirement. It is his best. I recommend the book for anyone under 27 years old because they are young enough to embrace the ideals of this book and shift their lives accordingly. They can choose to live the life their heart calls them too instead of the life the MBA drives them, too. After 27 years of age people get buried in delusions about the supposed necessities of life. I also recommend the book for people over 50. These people are now wise enough to know better and can embrace the attitudes of Zelinski's retirement long before they stop working for money. His definition of retirement is all about following your heart and is not based much on working for a living or not. Retirement is a state of mind, and you can apply many of the ideas in the book today to make your life happy, wild, and free. Zelinski is inspiring. Zelinski knows we are all creative; I agree. I am constantly urging my patients to have some creative pursuit in their lives. Here is what he says from the book: Once you retire, you too can reclaim your creative spirit and find an artistic pursuit that will ignite your inner fire. Your artistic pursuit -- whether it's painting pictures, writing poetry, or making pottery -- will rekindle a part of you that has been suppressed for years by the structure of a job and the routine of daily life. Not only can it make you feel more alive, an artistic pursuit can constitute the primary reason for your being. Ninety-five percent of books on retirement are about how to plan financially for the event, and they ignore the spirit of the matter. Zelinski goes for the heart as he always does. He shows oodles of evidence demonstrating money has little to do with satisfaction in retirement. It is about finding meaning in your life. It's about living happy, wild, and free. Isn't that something that would be useful at any age? It's what I want for you and for me. That and being able to wear aloha shirts or the equivalent whenever you want. Cha!
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