Writer’s Block and Thursday Thoughts

January 26, 2012 by 2 Comments


I am having a “writer’s block” kinda week. I have written two posts, but after I read them, I thought that probably several hundred other bloggers have probably written the same thing this week so why should I just clutter the blogosphere with more of the same?

Maybe I’ve just got a bad attitude this week!

So, here I sit on Thursday morning with just a few thoughts that I would like to pass on:

  • Every blogger, writer, entrepreneur, and business owner goes through times like these. Just keep your eyes, ears, and heart open and the ideas/words will return.
  • Writing nothing is often of greater value than writing something that is either copycat or is just something to get a post up. If a post doesn’t reflect you and you concern for your clients, don’t post it!
  • Remember the passion that caused you to write in the first place. Too many times writer’s block is the result of a perceived responsibility born not of passion but of sense of duty. Your clients and potential customers would rather see your passion than your duty!

Owning a business and writing to benefit your clients is a tough job. When the ideas dry up for a time, don’t make things worse by trying to fill your space with fluff. Your clients will better respond to the best of your thinking a little less often spoken than just more noise!

How do you get beyond writer’s block? What ideas can you share with the rest of us?

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Middle-Income Boomers and Retirement

August 18, 2011 by 2 Comments

I just read a great article by Alyssa Gerace about the number of middle-income Boomers and their plans for retirement. You can read the whole article at Reverse Mortgage Daily.

The question that these Boomers need to ask is, “Do I want to stay in my current industry/job or are my “retirement” years the time that I should go for that dream career that I always said I would do if the situation were right?” The reason for asking this question is because more than 80% of Boomers say that they don’t like their current job and would change it if they thought they could. Well, your retirement years might just be the time.

How can a Boomer thinking about a work oriented retirement decide how to spend it? Here are a few thoughts:

  1. Do your research. If you are thinking about starting your own business, make sure you know what it is going to take to get it up and running. Don’t go into a business blindly, it can be devastating!
  2. After you have done your research, you can begin slowly, working at your dream career very part-time at first. As you get more comfortable with what you are doing and how to market, generate sales, and learn to do customer service, you can move forward and make the full-time change at just the right time.
  3. Become a student of your niche. Even if you enter a niche that you have an advanced amateur skill-set, turning that skill-set into a successful business requires that you keep learning, growing, and adapting.
  4. Be patient and don’t quit at the first sign of trouble. Starting a business is not easy task and no matter how prepared you think you are, there will be a learning curve. Patience and passion will help you make it through the inevitable hard times.

Middle-income Boomers having to come to terms with this new “working retirement”  should not feel cheated, but rather see this circumstance as an opportunity to do what we always wanted to do and in the end to create a legacy business that we can pass on to our family.

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Your Second Career – When Should You Start?

August 2, 2011 by 2 Comments
"Boomers on Wheels" at the CREHST ( ...

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So many boomers have recognized that they both want and are going to need to have a second career after they retire from their first. The question then becomes, “When should you start that second career?”

While, there are certainly some contributing factors that would make every situation different, I think that there is are a few guidelines concerning this question:

  1. Your investigations should start sooner rather than later. My recommendation is that you should begin considering your options at least two years in advance (more time is better).
  2. When you find some things that appeal to you, you need to “get your feet wet” to see if these options have the kind of personal satisfaction and income potential that you are going to be looking for in your second career.
  3. Once your research and dabbling has led you into a particular niche, you can begin on a very part-time basis to create, market, and build your second career. By the time you are ready to end your first career and launch your second, you will already be building something that reflects your essence and provides the kind of income that will secure the kind of retirement income you are looking for.

If you take the time to plan ahead, test the waters, and then build in your extra time, you will be able to walk away from your first career with anticipation and excitement for what lies ahead!

What has been your experience? Have you already begun that second career? What have you learned that could help the rest of us?

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What do you want in a second career?

July 28, 2011 by 11 Comments

I was talking with a new friend just yesterday about “what I do.” When I told him that I help boomers transition into a second career doing the things in life that make them happy, he looked at me with a strange look. I think the look is indicative of many who don’t equate work/career with something that you want to do.

Yet, so many boomers these days do want to do something in their retirement years that revolves around the establishing of some sort of business enterprise. The question for many is, “What do you want in a second career?”

Some folks want to explore something completely new and foreign to anything they have ever done before while others want to elevate a hobby into a career/business. Still others want to remain in their current industry/market but doing so as a free-lance consultant or trainer. There are lots of options and lots of questions that need to be asked and answered.

Time considerations, location, travel, family, and amount of income to be drawn from the new business all play a part in making the right decisions. In the end, you have to choose. You have to decide what you want in a second career. You have to think, talk, plan and prepare. If you do making the right choice for you will be much easier than you think!

What do you want? Any ideas about how to find the answers? How did you come to your decision about your second career?

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How to Start a Second Career

June 25, 2011 by Leave a Comment

This is the third article in a series of articles entitled: Business on Your Terms. I hope that you will take time to read all the posts in this series and will add your thoughts to the conversation.

I have always been the kind of person who has never seen a bad business deal. Well at least that was my perception …. until, of course, I was in the middle of things with tremendous  amounts of time and money invested and few dollars clearing my bottom line. The real problem wasn’t the “deal” it was the fact that I chose to jump in without the proper consideration/planning.

So, as I now counsel people about how to start a second career, I really want them to consider and plan in three very important ways: what, how, and why.

What? When boomers start to consider a second career, usually one of two things happen. Either they look at businesses that, in terms of time at least, are nothing more than buying or building a job. If that’s not the case, they want to make tens of thousands of dollars with no work, no effort, and on a couple hours per week! Neither of these ideas make a perfect second career. Being honest about what you want from a second career will set you on your way.

How? Once you have decided what you want, how to get there is the next part of the plan. Do you want to sell something produced by someone else or sell something that you produce yourself. How much can you charge and how can you market your new business to bring in new clients/customers.

Once you understand what and how, you need to consider why? Why do you want to do what you have chosen? What does your second career do to make your life better? When you get up in the morning does your second career fit into the perfect retirement life-style.

This whole idea about how to start a second career needs to be well thought out. Each of us will have different answers to the what, how, and why thus creating an myriad of great businesses that “turn the crank” of the owner while providing unmeasurable customer service.

What you are you thinking about as you consider your second career? How much planning do you think is necessary? When do you quit planning and “pull the trigger?”

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Business on Your Terms

June 20, 2011 by 7 Comments
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This is the first in a series of articles entitled: Business on Your Terms. I hope that you will enjoy what you read and will add your thoughts to the conversation.

Boomers around the world have so much to offer and after a life filled with doing what needed to be done it is time, that if you choose to launch a second career, you do business on your terms. In this series I hope to define exactly what this means and how boomers can find both the business and the terms that best suit the way they want to live and give in the second half of a very successful life and business. No matter where you came from to get to this point, nor where you want to head in the days ahead, you need to set the bar and then go for it!

I want to warn you at the outset that there will be those around you who will seek to set the pace for you, to tell you what you should and should not do, and even set out to steal your dream for this second career. It always seems that “know-it-alls” and “dream stealers” find their way into our lives just about the time we are going to do something great. I’m not saying that you should move without counsel, but I am saying that if the world had always listened to the detractors, we would still be hunting and gathering to survive.

We boomers have the knowledge and skill-set to do anything we set our minds to. As you approach retirement, or as you live in its early years, is there something you always wanted to do? Is there something that you always knew deep down inside that you could make successful? Have you always thought that if you just had a chance you could do something special? Well, now might just be the time. Be careful, be thoughtful, be prepared, but in the end build a business on your terms!

What have you done in this area? What have you chosen to do? What battles have you had to fight? Let us know and let’s get a conversation started that will help us make the best choices for the launching of our second careers!

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The Power of You

February 3, 2011 by Leave a Comment

For as long as I have been in business I can remember being told that the only way to be really successful in business is to look to others who have been successful and do what they have done. I have been told more times than I can count that “there is no need to reinvent the wheel.”

The only problem that I find with this attitude is that when I have studied the really successful, world-changing people in all aspects of life, they all worked hard to reinvent the wheel. They didn’t live with the status quo. They marched to the beat of a different drum! From Edison to Einstein, from Ford to the Wright Brothers, from Gates to Jobs all the “world changers” in business (as well as all other aspects of life) were re-inventors of their particular wheels.

What does that mean to you? Well, I’m glad you asked! I see three particular things you need to know about these people and how they built their life successes:

1. They were great thinkers and dreamers of how the impossible could be made possible. Real thinking is a lost art in business (as well as most areas of life) anymore. Most people just want to be told what to do and then to follow along in that until they can retire. There are very few hardcore thinkers anymore. That opens a very wide door for those who are ready to think for the good of their clients/customers and for the good of society at large.

2. They were inventors and innovators. Once they spent time in thought, dreams started to materialize. Those dreams became passions and the passions became successful businesses. But, all their success in businesses started as new thoughts about how life could be better for the greatest number of people.

3. They learned that in everyone there is a power that exceeds the normal and everyday! As they would think and dream, they asked questions of others and caused them to think and dream. In the end their initial drive made not only their world better, but the worlds of multitudes of others as well. They challenged others to reinvent some wheels as well.

We each chose our businesses because we felt we had something to offer our clients/customers. We each have set out on the journey of finding our own level of success. We can either limit ourselves to the wheels that currently exist or we can reinvent the wheels of our niche. Either way money can be made, but only as a thought leader can you really find the power of you!

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