From Publishers Weekly
If you’ve just received your AARP membership card and wonder what comes next, you might find some help from Leider and Shapiro, co-authors of Repacking Your Bags. They put it a bit more lyrically, using their fire image: this book is for "people who are ready to stoke the wisdom gained in the first half of their lives to burn with a brighter sense of purpose in the second half." Drawing on what Leider learned while sitting around the fire with tribal elders in Tanzania, he refers to his readers as "new elders," meaning people "who never stop reinventing themselves." This isn’t a self-help book, exactly: it doesn’t offer advice on activities for elders or where to retire. It is a guide to an internal, spiritual search for the purpose of one’s older years. Readers who don’t mind the New Age-y tone and the references to Ram Dass and dream interpretation as a source of wisdom may find inspiration here for answering the central questions that can guide them to a fulfilling elder life.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


Walter F. Mondale, Former Vice President, Senator and Ambassador
"This is a book that will comfort anyone afraid of growing old. It sheds new light on vital aging."


Jeffry S. Life, M.D., Ph.D. Institute Physician, Cenegenics Medical Institute
"A must-read for anyone entering the second half of life. Masterpiece providing the necessary wisdom to help age successfully."


Marshall Goldsmith, America's preeminent executive coach and founding director of the Alliance For Strategic Leadership
"Once again Richard and David have their finger on the pulse of purpose and that has always been their gift."


Alan M. Webber, founding editor, Fast Company magazine
"Claiming your Place At the Fire is thoughtful, warm, helpful, and above all else, wise."


Book Description
More than 10,000 people turn 50 every day in the U.S.; how do they handle this shift? Claiming Your Place at the Fire invites this group of "new elders" to ask four key questions: Who am I? New elders synthesize and transfer the wisdom of the past into the present. Where do I belong? They have a powerful sense of where they have come from, where they are, and where they are going. How do I bring my passions alive? They rejoice in rediscovering their life's work, their calling, their vocation. What is my life's purpose? Freed from imposed schedules and demands, new elders now find the freedom to create their lives anew. This timely book describes how new older adults can rekindle the good life, relight the fire within, and share that warmth and light with others.


About the Author
Richard J. Leider is a founding partner of The Inventure Group, a coaching and consulting firm in Minneapolis, Minnesota devoted to bring out the natural potential in people. He is a nationally-known writer, speaker, and career coach, and a pioneer in the field of Life/Work Planning. A National Certified Career Coach, he has been helping people to discover their life's purpose for more than 30 years. Author and co-author of six previous books, including the bestsellers Repacking Your Bags, The Power of Purpose, and Life Skills, he is also an online columnist for Fast Company. Richard lives in St. Croix, Minnesota with his wife, Sally. David A. Shapiro is a writer, philosopher, and educator, whose work involves questions of meaning and purpose, ethics and identity, and dialogue and community. He is Education Director of the Northwest Center for Philosophy for Children, a non-profit organization that brings philosophy and philosophers into the lives of young people through literature, philosophical works, and group activities. David is coauthor two other books with Richard Leider, Repacking Your Bags and Whistle While You Work, and is the author of Choosing the Right Thing to Do. David is a faculty member at Cascadia Community College in Bothell, Washington where he teaches philosophy classes to young adults and older returning students. He lives in Seattle with his wife Jennifer and daughter, Amelia.

FROM THE PUBLISHER