At a recent conference in San Diego, I had the opportunity to listen to Ken Dychtwald, who is widely regarded as the foremost expert on the coming retirement of the baby boomers.

His credentials are impressive. He has authored 11 books on aging-related issues, including "Bodymind," "Healthy Aging," "Age Wave," and his most recent, "The Power Years: A User's Guide to the Rest of Your Life."

He has appeared on "60 Minutes," "The Today Show" and "Good Morning America." His article, "It's Time To Retire Retirement," just received the prestigious McKinsey Award in the Harvard Business Review.

As founding president and CEO of Age Wave, Dychtwald acts as both guide and consultant to many Fortune 500 companies in the development of products and services for baby boomers. So whether it's the vitamins you take, the cookies you eat, the car you drive or the mutual funds you invest in, there is a good chance that Ken Dychtwald had something to do with them.

The lecture I attended was exciting and invigorating. His message was that we are going to live years longer than our parents and that we are going to use that longevity bonus to live it up rather than rocking on the front porch like Henry Fonda in "On Golden Pond."

Retirement is not even the right word to use. Ken Dychtwald coined the term "The Power Years" to more accurately describe what boomers are already starting to do.

Our generation will raise the bar to include all kinds of activities. Some of them will be even more physically demanding than you might think. But we will rise to the challenge. Think of the senior President Bush's sky dive at age 80. Baby boomers will have more fun, find a new balance between work and leisure, and work will be your passion rather than something you do just because you need a paycheck. Some will donate their time to their favorite charity.

Retirement will be more about living the life you really want to live.

You will have more time to spend with old friends, maybe even make some new ones. You can live in a different place, take up new hobbies. Attend your local community college and take that course on fly-fishing, or whatever. Hop on a plane in the middle of February and spend a week in Tahiti. In short, enjoy a level of freedom never before possible.

What makes the new "Power Years" possible? The biggest contributors to this longer life expectancy are science, medicine and technology. Some facts are pretty amazing when you stop to think about them.

For example, according to Dr. Dychtwald, the first pension plan, when the arbitrary retirement age of 65 came into being, was in Europe in the 1880s. Life expectancy then was 45. The vast majority of workers never made it to retirement.

Since 1900, each decade has added an extra 2.5 years to life expectancy. The pace of this progress will most likely even accelerate in the future. Over the next 20 years, living to 95 will be an expectation rather than a surprise.

Consequently, baby boomers will have to explore questions that their ancestors never had to encounter. What do you do from age 60 to 90? Finding the income to support those extra years is just one piece of the puzzle. We may have to reinvent ourselves. Learning will be a lifelong pursuit rather than end after your last day at work.

The first radical shift is already here. Evidence of it is everywhere: the presence of gyms in every community, the growth of plastic surgery and the explosion of prescription drugs to treat various conditions that come with age. Operations that were on the cutting edge 20 years ago are now commonplace.

Every eight seconds another baby boomer turns 60. That's 11,000 people every day and 4.5 million every year. Our impact on society and business will be just as it has been since World War II. Enormous!

Next year, my wife JoAnne and I will be two of those 4.5 million.

Every year for the last 15, we have attended the LPL, Linsco Private Ledger annual conference. And every year we return, thanks to speakers like Ken Dychtwald, refreshed, rejuvenated, excited and with some new ideas.

As financial planners, we often look at spreadsheets that focus on financial projections. What will your cash flow look like during retirement? Will your nest egg be able to support you during those years? Ken reminded us that personal happiness and fulfillment need to be part of every individual's financial plan.