Reuters columnist John Wasik announces his top book picks of the year, including The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife, by Civic Ventures founder and CEO Marc Freedman. Wasik writes, "If you're hitting the sweet spot between middle age and retirement, you need to read this book." (This column also appeared in the Chicago Tribune.)

These days, 25 million people are thinking about starting businesses or nonprofit ventures in the next five to 10 years – or roughly one in four Americans between 44 and 70, according to a new study from Civic Ventures. Money, on the other hand, isn't so easy to come by. But you don't have to impress an angel investor to bankroll your dream gig. Here are some some new possibilities for funding.

Elizabeth Hanes spent years in middle management at a corporate job before she turned 45 and decided she wanted more out of life. She enrolled in nursing school and five years later is happily employed as a registered nurse at an Albuquerque, N.M., ambulatory surgery center. Civic Ventures' Encore.org links to resources for people like Hanes who want encore careers.

We all think it’s a panacea. If you don’t have enough money saved for retirement, you’ve got a few ways to close the gap between what you have and what you need in your nest egg. Working past age 65 is certainly one way to make sure you have enough income to fund retirement expenses. “We need to enable the many people who want and need to work longer, without hurting those who are not able to,” says Civic Ventures founder and CEO Marc Freedman.

Three or more decades of well-funded leisure may remain an option only for increasingly narrow sections of society. For the rest, the final chapters of life are poised to change dramatically. “We can’t stuff a 21st-century life span into a life course designed for the 20th century,” warns Civic Ventures founder and CEO Marc Freedman in his new book, The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife.

A chapter of life is evolving for people between middle age and old age – much the way that adolescence was first recognized as a distinct developmental stage in the early 20th century. Many of today's 65-year-olds are vibrant, active and engaged. Some are searching for a second act that combines meaningful work and a paycheck. Civic Ventures founder and CEO Marc Freedman calls this new life phase the "encore years" in his new book, The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife.

Have you heard the phrase “encore career”? The definition is still evolving, but for now, one online source calls this “a term used to describe work in the second half of life that combines continued income, greater meaning and social impact. These are paid positions often in public interest fields such as education, the environment, health, government sector, social services and other nonprofits ... a substitute for retirement.” (This article also ran in the Pioneer Press.)

Marc Freedman, founder and CEO of Civic Ventures, is a member of what he calls “the encore generation.” He’s 53, one of America’s 78 million boomers and – as someone who’s made a living by understanding the changing nature of aging and retirement – keenly aware that he probably has about three more decades to live. And work. In fact, Freedman believes his best contributions may be yet to come.

On one hand, “second act” or “encore phase,” is supposed to be a time of giving back to the community, of pursuing one’s passion. On the flip side, there are people who don’t think they’ll ever have enough to retire. “There’s definitely a longevity paradox,” says Marc Freedman, author of The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife. “The doctor tells you to exercise and eat well, while the editorial pages tell of a long gray wave of greedy geezers who won’t move aside to let younger workers in.”