Alan Bernstein and John Trauth Launch Center for Innovative Retirement

Alan Bernstein and John Trauth announced today the official opening of the Center for Innovative Retirement, located at 122 East 82nd Street in New York City. Bernstein and Trauth are co-authors of “Your Retirement, Your Way,” (McGraw-Hill), Amazon’s top-selling retirement book.

The mission of the Center for Innovative Retirement is to (1) stay abreast of new research and thinking on the subject of retirement; (2) develop creative retirement strategies which challenge the concept of traditional retirement, and (3) encourage innovative thinking on how this phase of life can be the most rewarding, both to the individual and to society.

The Center employs the disciplines of psychotherapy, career strategy and financial planning.

“Particularly in these troubling times of financial turmoil, the Center will explore ways in which people can negotiate their sense of loss and betrayal and make rational decisions regarding the rest of their life,” said Bernstein.

“In times of crises, it is important that people re-examine what is truly important to them, and then design a retirement lifestyle which complements both their interests and passions. Of course, this lifestyle must also be financially feasible, which will require some readjustments to prior thinking,” added Trauth.

Previously, the current thinking about the mature workforce has been dominated by single thought paradigms such as HR policies and retirement asset management. The Center views retirement as a multi-faceted challenge, experienced as both opportunity and loss, growth and decay – a deeply contradictory state to be maneuvered with sensitivity and openness to new ways of thinking and behaving.

The Center’s goal is to heighten mutual awareness – the needs of the mature worker alongside the needs of business – through proven methods based on self-assessment by using the Birkman Personality Profile. The Birkman has been in use for half a century by Fortune 500 companies and has a data base of 2.5 million people.

“Serving as editor of The Birkman Reader, I have been privileged to see first hand the Birkman Method utilized by many international companies,” added Bernstein. “The Birkman is the cornerstone of the assessment system we use for individuals and provides us access to data for policy implementation at major corporations.”

John Trauth further added, “From this informational platform we develop creative recommendations — each based on previously proven methods — to explore underlying myths which may be unconsciously interfering with forward thinking on this important subject. Once these myths are dispelled, effective reality-based planning can begin.”

Bernstein and Trauth also developed the MORe program, “Mutually-Optimized Renewal,” a cutting-edge program for balancing the corporation’s need for retention with the individual’s need for renewal.

Alan Bernstein, LCSW, is a psychotherapist and career counselor in New York City, consulting to hedge funds and coaching senior management executives. His first book, Guide to Your Career (Random House/Princeton Review) is now in its 6th edition.

John Trauth, MBA, is a strategic and financial planner in San Francisco. He helps companies and nonprofits develop and implement strategic plans. Having taken early retirement 12 years ago, he works part-time, following the “Your Retirement, Your Way” method outlined in their book (2nd edition, 2008).

The Center for Innovative Retirement can be reached at 212-288-4881. More information is available at (www.YourRetirementYourWay.com)