Can Owning A Business Help Your End Of Life Experience? (Encore Career)

Can Owning A Business Help You Prepare For A Good End Of Life? (Encore Career)

Do you have a plan for how you would like to live to the end of your life?

Baby boomers have many concerns about their future as they approach retirement age. Most of those concerns can be summed up in three questions:

1. Will I run out of money?
2. Can I maintain my quality of living?
3. Can I maintain good health?

The challenge is that one unasked question must be answered to know the answers to the other three questions: How long will I live?

So the reality is that we can do things that increase the probability that our answer will be "yes" or "no" to the first three questions, but it is not a certainty.

Some people try to resolve the money and lifestyle questions by saving a lot of their earnings. Sometimes that works...if you have good capital markets and wise investment choices.

Some people delay their retirement by continuing to work as long as they can. Sometimes that works...if your employer is prosperous and does not force you to retire.

Some people take on new jobs...commonly called encore careers, to reduce the amount of time they have to depend upon savings to fund their retirements. Unfortunately, health seems to force many to retire sooner than they expected.

So, is there anything we can do to increase our odds of success? Yes, the indications are that a special form of encore career may well be the answer. You can become a business owner as an encore career.

How can becoming a business owner help you solve your retirement fears?

The answer is that owning a business gives you two things that are not always present in having a job.

First, the business gives you an asset that can earn and grow that does not have to depend upon you doing the work.

Secondly, the business gives you leverage. It can give you a bigger return than what you can accomplish by just working alone. The leverage can come from having employees, business systems, or a combination of those.

In our featured video Judy MacDonald Johnston gives us a case study. She helped ranchers, Jim and Shirley Modini plan for the end years of their lives. She manage assets for them as their caregiver and health advocate. She managed the people needed to provide daily care and to run the business of the Modinis. 

Click here to see the video: http://www.ted.com/talks/judy_macdonald_johnston_prepare_for_a_good_end_of_life.html

Granted, the Modinis had a good head start. But the principle is still true at any age. The challenge is to begin building the asset, your business.

What is your next step?

Building your business requires having a vision, just as the Modinis had a vision for their lives and for their wildlife preserve beyond their lives. You can build that vision by understanding the basics of business development. Business development is the process of consciously starting and intentionally growing a business.

Business development is more about developing an entrepreneurial mindset than about being an expert in the details of business. It is about being able to pay attention in a way to spot business opportunities. Next, after spotting the opportunity, it is about learning how to take action to make the opportunity a reality.

By understanding the process of developing an entrepreneurial mindset and acting through that mindset, you greatly reduce the risk of failure that is the experience of so many people who start businesses without a plan.

If you would like more information on developing that entrepreneurial mindset, please sign up to be on our Smarter Small Business Blog mailing list. We will share with you more information on the resources that will help you build your entrepreneurial mindset in a smarter way. Just click this link: http://mybabyboomerbusinessdream.weebly.com/
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Brought to you by Shallie Bey -- The Business Dream Weaver