Bottom Line/Personal: We all have fantasies of what I’ll call a glamour career. No cubicles, things out in the public. What are some examples of glamorous careers?

Nancy Collamer: It’s a fun thing to think about, and particularly when you’re talking about second acts. It’s sort of your opportunity to finally go out there and do some work that you’re really going to have a good time with.

I was thinking about that a lot this summer; I happened to be out in the national parks. We went out after Labor Day, so all the college students had gone home and everyone who was working out in the national parks that we met – the tour guides, the people who were working at the concession stands – were people over 50 who were working there as a second act.

I got into a very interesting conversation with a woman who was working as a tour guide. She was a retired schoolteacher, both she and her husband had moved out there. They live out there for 4 months of the year. Then they go back home to Texas during the rest of the year. It’s a great way for them to be out enjoying nature. That’s what they love to do, and that’s what they would’ve spent money on anyway during their retirement.

So that’s the key, think about when you retire or when you’re over 50, where would you be spending your discretionary dollars anyway?

If you’re someone who let’s say loves to learn and loves to take classes, it might make sense for you to go work on a university campus. Not only might you get some good tuition benefits, but also it puts you in an environment where there are constantly free lectures and events going on. If you’re somebody who loves sports, it might make sense for you to go work at a ballpark or for a company that’s involved in sports marketing because it keeps you in that arena and you get to go to events and just have a good time with it.

There are other things I featured – one of the women in my book is somebody, she works as an acting extra.

Bottom Line: I think this one is great. It just sounds so much fun. There’s someone I went to high school with that actually posts regularly on Facebook about this.

Collamer: When she did it the first time, it was really a lark. She saw an ad in the newspaper; it turned out it was on the set of Ugly Betty. She went; she had a great time.

And here’s what’s interesting, she’s someone – she’s in her 60s, she is part African-American, part Native American Indian, so she has an unusual look. And she is constantly getting called to come in because there are a lot of twenty-somethings who are looking to break into the acting profession, and yet all these TV shows and movie sets, they need older people. So it can really be a fun thing for someone who’s older.

Bottom Line: That sounds great. That’s so neat, turning to your passion, thinking about what you would want to do just for fun, and then go find the jobs that connect to that. And you get to do it for free. I think there was a story about Barbra Streisand or somebody who became an usher on Broadway because they loved theater, and they wanted to see the shows.

Collamer: Yeah. And I think, as I said before, if you can just put yourself in the right arena or the right theater or the right stadium, just breathing that air, being around those people, can really be exhilarating for folks.

Bottom Line: So glamorous.

Collamer: Yeah.

Bottom Line: Thank you, Nancy Collamer.

Collamer: You’re welcome.

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