The June 13 issue of Fortune Magazine contained an article with a title that made my heart happy and my eyes pop: Do You Need a Retirement Coach?* I am used to doing the kind of coaching that includes career, life and retirement planning, but retirement coaching isn’t exactly part of the vernacular–yet. I certainly hope it will be.

For much too long, in my opinion, retirement planning has had everything to do with money, and very little to do with content — the content of your days, weeks, and years that are waiting ahead of you once you are retired. Research continues to show that people who disengage from the marketplace anticipate that they will be happy doing nothing, but the reality is very different. It takes about two years until these retirees report feeling disengaged and irrelevant.

I didn’t like the Fortune Magazine article, so don’t feel too bad if you missed it. The best thing about it may have been the title. First off–and not surprisingly–it was aimed at the highly affluent. It focused on New Directions, a high-end retirement coaching center in Boston, where retirees pay upwards of $15K for a variety of coaching services. The writer, Paul Keegan, hung out there to observe the retiring baby boomers, as he characterized them, and interview staff. After having sat in on a coaching session with a client–a divorced, newly retired 62-year old former workaholic CEO who was having a difficult time not working Keegan says,

And there you have it — the existential dilemma of the successful retired baby boomer. Once upon a time you worked for 40 years, then played golf or sat in a rocking chair waiting for your arteries to calcify. Maybe you hated it, but you didn’t complain. Then came Viagra, liposuction, Tony Robbins, and all the other inventions that made boomers the most annoying generation ever. Now they are being dragged into retirement — the first wave of boomers turns 65 this year — and they are not going gentle into that good night. But they aren’t exactly raging against the dying of light either. Mostly they are just confused.

Yes, well, one thing I am not at all confused about is the fact that you have so missed the mark here that you should really think about returning your paycheck to the magazine.

People who are close to 60 years old, on either side of that number, have 20 to 30 long years ahead of them, and the fact that they don’t want to sit in their rocking chairs waiting for their arteries to calcify is an awesome thing. This “annoying generation” is up to some very interesting things.

Boomers have more education and training than any generation that has gone before, and they are going to keep using it. They can’t help it. They are starting businesses, writing books, joining the Peace Corps, founding and working for non–profit organizations, establishing and/or participating in community choirs and theaters, and, more importantly, following their passions. Where’ve you been, Paul? And how old are you anyway?

The question was, Do you need a retirement coach? And that is a very good question. Rephrased, it says, Do you want a great retirement? Maybe you could use a little help. And most places you look won’t cost even close to $15K — 20K.

*http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/31/retirement/retirement_coach.fortune/index.htm