Gerontologist Coins New Term, "Zoomers" Awesomely Ageless Boomers Dr. David J. Demko, professor of gerontology and editor AgeVenture News Service 04-10-1998 There's a totally new a kind of Boomer. Boomers who break retirement tradition. Increased life-expectancy has transformed "Yesterday's Yuppies" into Today's "Zoomers". These new boomers are coloring outside the lines, zig-zaging and zoooooming toward a bright new horizon chock-full of possibilities for reinventing retirement and redefining what it means to be a mature adult in the new millenium. Here's how I got the idea for Zoomers, a term now sweeping the country. Zig Ziglar, super salesman and motivational guru to entrepreneurs everywhere, is about to infuse his high energy success formula into the nation's 80 million baby boomers. In order to do that, this best-selling author of "See You At the Top" has penned yet another book, "Success for Dummies", and it's sure to transform America's boomers into what I call "Zoomers". Yes, you heard it right, "Zoomers". Greater life-expectancy and enhanced health caused today's baby boomers to re-invent retirement. "Zoomers"are ransforming retirement's traditional laid-back "golden years" in pure platinum. A Zoomer is a boomer that's got the Ziglar kind of get up and go. You see, most of the boomers are starting to struggle with a decline in energy. As the saying goes, "there get up and go has got up and went". True-to-form, these boomers are working over-time to find a magic elixir that might rekindle that ol' fire in their belly that decades ago helped them transform a nation. As a case in point, the phenomenal growth of the health food industry attests to the fact that boomers are frantically searching to boost their energy level. Interestingly though, the boost that boomers need isn't found in physical food, but rather the spiritual "food for thought" that's inside Ziglar's new book. The way the author explains it, baby boomers have reached middle-age, but they haven't been able to exceed their parents' goals and aspire to greater material gain. They don't have millions of dollars, a bigger house, or the key to the executive washroom. Maybe their fortunes haven't changed because they've been looking for luck in all the wrong places. Ziglar seems to think so. He explains just how to find success, and suggests that success is far more than a material entity. "Success for Dummies" is about more than making millions, rather it is the beginning of a life-long journey. Ziglar believes that seven factors contribute to his brand of success, which he calls the "wheel of life". His wheel includes physical, spiritual, family, financial, mental, personal, and career factors. Toward that end, "Success for Dummies" contains real life stories of people who have made positive changes in their lives, demonstrating that the "wheel of life" is more than a pie-in-the-sky theory. The hub of Ziglar's wheel seems to be the author's belief that the foundation of everyone's success is based on relationships. Good relationships are the most important part of life. For example, you leave work tired but happy, knowing you did a good job today and that you made a difference in other people's lives. Zig Ziglar lays the groundwork for readers who want to effect the same kind of success in their lives by building "winning relationships". Relationships that achieve real life success. "Success for Dummies" is hot off the press (March 1998, IDG Books, Foster City, CA) and in bookstores now for $19.99.