Cycles: How We Will Live, Work, and Buy

Rating:
Summary: An optimistic view of a changing society
Review: "Cycles" is about how newer generations of Americans are living a different pattern of life than their parents. In contrast to the linear life pattern of education first, followed by marriage, career, and retirement, newer generations are juggling this process by restarting their life cycle at later ages. This cyclic pattern of life enables people to experience new ideas and interests. College education is no longer just for people in their late teens and early twenties, more people wed several times in their life, and no longer is retirement permanent. This redefinition of life affects the way people structure their families and purchase services.

This book is interesting because is provides a unique thesis of its kind. Although much of the information is derived from demographics, the reader is not bombarded with meaningless statistical numbers.

However, this book has some major flaws. I feel that it is too optimistic about the cyclic life pattern. It does not investigate problems associated with this radical lifestyle, such as the impact divorce has children. At times it makes changing careers sound quite simple. Most importantly, each chapter has a segment on "Buying Implications." Many of the ideas presented align very well with the cyclic lifestyle, but I feel few of the ideas present potential long lasting, stable industries.

The focus is almost exclusively for the Baby Boomer generation, which would probably make it an interesting read for any Baby Boomer. It does provide some food for thought on future buying trends. Best of all, reading this book may even help you out of a midlife crisis!


Rating:
Summary: Cyclic Lifestyle Provides Exciting Opportunites
Review: "Cycles", is an enticing, informative book with a positive message for an aging population.The book provides the Baby Boom generation with insight on leading a cyclic lifestyle instead of the linear one of past generations. This new lifestyle approach provides Boomers with a plethora of opportunites for living, working, and buying. Ms. Dychtwald assures us that we are living longer and healthier and that we can continue to have challenges, adventures and interesting career opportunites throughout our lives.

Rating:
Summary: From an Ageless Perspective
Review: "Cycles", is an enticing, informative book with a positive message for an aging population.The book provides the Baby Boom generation with insight on leading a cyclic lifestyle instead of the linear one of past generations. This new lifestyle approach provides Boomers with a plethora of opportunites for living, working, and buying. Ms. Dychtwald assures us that we are living longer and healthier and that we can continue to have challenges, adventures and interesting career opportunites throughout our lives.

Rating:
Summary: Essential Blueprint for Future Marketplace
Review: Cycles is the essential blueprint for navigating the future marketplace. Ms. Dychtwald has done a great job in laying out what the challenges, opportunities and risks that may define Baby Boomers and society. She adds fresh insight into understanding how the Baby Boomers lives are changing and what executives, leaders and marketers need to know to turn these trends into competitive advantage. Cycles best part are the stories of individuals as they deal with the personal choices that will confront us all. As we all grow older we may be wiser from reading Cycles. This is an informative and engaging book that will give anyone from a personal or a professional viewpoint an in depth look at how to examine their life with more meaning and relevance. I would forecast that Cycles will be the New Passages, helping Baby Boomers--and those that would market to the Boomers--better understand the Cycles that will define our lives.

Rating:
Summary: From an Ageless Perspective
Review: Maddy Dychtwald has written a powerful and insightful analysis of modern American lifestyles that turns many of our traditional assumptions about successful marketing upside down. In Cycles, her comparison between the "linear" view of life from our grandparents' generation and the new "cyclic" patterns of life today profoundly changes how we view business decisions as well as our own lives. I found her chapter on emerging workforce trends particularly fascinating, with its provocative forecasts for free agent labor and cyclic careers. And her argument is convincing! The old attachments and expectations about life at a certain age are out. What is in? A spirit for personal reinvention at every age and unexpected business opportunities a thousand times over in the second half of life.

Rating:
Summary: Chockful of information and insight
Review: Maddy Dychtwald's book Cycles arrived on my doorstep at a time of enormous change for my husband and me. We met in college and married a year after graduation. We supported each other emotionally through law school and graduate school. We then both got wonderful jobs and spent 5 years living life to the fullest, with no obligations except to each other. We built up savings and bought our first house. With the birth of our first son, after 7 years of marriage, we finally felt like grownups and set about the business of raising him and his brother, with all the ups and downs and joys and sorrows that parenthood entails. Now, 21 years later, we have made it through 3 life cycles together - that of students, young professionals and parents. When our younger son leaves the nest for college this August, we will be cycling into another phase of our lives - one that I couldn't foresee arriving at when I went out of my first date with him way back when. We have talked long and often about ways to structure this next phase of ours - both as individuals and as a couple. In addition, I am embarking upon a totally new career, after spending the last ten years trying to find my niche. I was pleased to see Maddy's remarks on distance learning, as the certification program that I am enrolled is given online through a major university. It is much easier to fit this kind of learning into a busy lifestyle. I am energized through taking these classes and love the learning they afford me. I greet this time with excitement as well as a bit of trepidation. Reading Maddy's wonderful book I find that I have lots of company - in both my journey through my marriage and my quest for a new form of identity. Cycles answered lots of questions as well as gave me lots to ponder. I recommend this book for all readers - no matter their age. Life is an incredible journey and this book serves as a wonderful road map to help navigate your way through it.

Rating:
Summary: Chockful of information and insight
Review: Maddy Dychtwald's book Cycles arrived on my doorstep at a time of enormous change for my husband and me. We met in college and married a year after graduation. We supported each other emotionally through law school and graduate school. We then both got wonderful jobs and spent 5 years living life to the fullest, with no obligations except to each other. We built up savings and bought our first house. With the birth of our first son, after 7 years of marriage, we finally felt like grownups and set about the business of raising him and his brother, with all the ups and downs and joys and sorrows that parenthood entails. Now, 21 years later, we have made it through 3 life cycles together - that of students, young professionals and parents. When our younger son leaves the nest for college this August, we will be cycling into another phase of our lives - one that I couldn't foresee arriving at when I went out of my first date with him way back when. We have talked long and often about ways to structure this next phase of ours - both as individuals and as a couple. In addition, I am embarking upon a totally new career, after spending the last ten years trying to find my niche. I was pleased to see Maddy's remarks on distance learning, as the certification program that I am enrolled is given online through a major university. It is much easier to fit this kind of learning into a busy lifestyle. I am energized through taking these classes and love the learning they afford me. I greet this time with excitement as well as a bit of trepidation. Reading Maddy's wonderful book I find that I have lots of company - in both my journey through my marriage and my quest for a new form of identity. Cycles answered lots of questions as well as gave me lots to ponder. I recommend this book for all readers - no matter their age. Life is an incredible journey and this book serves as a wonderful road map to help navigate your way through it.