What does retirement mean to you?
Does it seem a long way off, or is it right around the corner?
Odds are wherever you are in your career there will be at least one actionable item you can take away from the meeting that will help you move forward.
Check out the video above and listen in as I go into a little more detail about what we will be covering at our Oct. WREIA meeting on Monday night.
I hope to see you there!
John
Re: Risk
“That’s too risky.”
I hear it all the time.
When people ask what I do for a living some people respond by telling me about a cousin or brother-in-law who either “lost” a ton of money in real estate, or recently made a fortune.
It never fails though – if they have the distant cousin who “lost it all” they have formed an opinion that buying a home, renovating it and selling it at a profit is just “too risky”.
I usually just smile and listen to their story. Here is reality from my perspective and how I would like to respond:
“Of course my business is risky. So is yours. I have just learned to reduce the trust the process and focus on doing good work and helping other people.”
When I say “your business” it may be that you own a small business like I do. You get up everyday and you are in charge of how you spend your time and how you respond to the challenges that may come.
Your business may mean that you work for someone else. You get a paycheck every other Friday. Your job may be your business. It’s how you make a living.
Your job may have risks as well. You could be going to work at a job you don’t really care for, or working with people you would never associate with outside of work. That causes a tremendous amount of stress. Some people don’t feel fulfilled by their work – but they say to themselves “Hey. It’s a check.”
Few people want to admit but their job may not be all that secure. Millions of people learned that lesson the hard way in our last recession. Thankfully, we are through that era as a broader economy. Sociologists are telling us that many of the people that were laid off and have gotten back to work don’t seem to be as happy working today. Economists are telling us that those people who lost their jobs are still not earning as much as they were in the early and mid 2000’s.
For those people that are back to work, they are getting a check, but something is still missing. Just having a job sometimes isn’t enough. Sometimes people want a purpose as well.
I think that is one of the reasons we as a country are having such a surge in entrepreneurship.
I am a big fan of choosing your own destiny. By that I mean – planning and mapping out where you want to be – as opposed to being at the mercy of your boss’ plans for you.
If you started working 5 or 10 or even 20 years ago – are you where you hoped you would be in your career today?
Did you have bigger plans at the beginning and over time slowly lost your dreams as they got mixed in with the challenges of everyday life?
What if you could turn it around and start enjoying your work more?
I hope you come and join all of our WREIA members are our meeting this Monday. I want to share a plan that we have devised, utilized and shared with other students. Some of those students have gone on to mini-retirements of their own. They checked out of the workplace and are enjoying their life on their own terms.
One of the biggest risks for all of us is that we spend all our time and energy living a life that is not rewarding, unfulfilled, and suddenly realize that we have put all our effort into building another persons dreams – and not focusing on our own future.
Join us on Monday and take away a few tools and exercises you can use to get focused and get determined. Just being at WREIA on Monday and taking action on what you learn will help you finish this year strong and start 2016 with passion.
Remember – We are in the home stretch of 2015:
Come on out and join other WREIA members this month.
It’s going to be like a one night mini-course on how to develop a plan to put your career in Hyper-Drive.
Make this week a great week for your business!
I hope you join us at WREIA on Monday!
Re: Seasonal Employment
For many people the extra seasonal income is a way to put away additional rainy day funds, or use it to wisely pay cash for a few extra gifts without going into debt.
This got me to thinking – “I wonder how someone getting started in our business could leverage this type of seasonal employment opportunities?”
Follow me for a few minutes and reflect on a WREIA article we posted a few months ago:
That June WREIA article also mentioned last years seasonal Amazon hiring. (The article is posted at http://washingtonreianetwork.com/2015/06/21/will-you-hire-a-temp-this-summer/)
My challenge to you in that post was to act like Amazon and hire a temporary employee to do a little work for your business. That temp employee could help you create a postcard or maybe do some research and help with a mailing list.
Some people may have trouble coming up with an initial fund to get started and pay those temporary employees. So take the temporary employment opportunity a step further and we find ourselves involved with something a college friend told me about – international wage arbitrage.
This sounds crazy at first, but what if you decided to take a job with Amazon, or another seasonal employer over the holidays? Most companies will pay around 12$ an hour in the U.S. – maybe more.
Lets say you only work part time, 20 hours per week during the evenings, for the next 8 weeks. Quick math ….. and it seems like you can walk away with a couple thousand dollars.
What do you do with that extra money? Spend it on gifts? Perhaps.
Maybe instead, let’s implement a little wage arbitrage.
Simply put that 12$ an hour to use for you – and invest it in your business – creatively.
You can hire someone overseas to do some research work for you for 2-3$ per hour. In other words, for 12$ an hour you could hire 4 talented people and pay them 3 dollars an hour.
Do you think if you picked the right mix of people you might be able to uncover a single deal in the DC area? There are nearly 6 Million people in the DC metro area – could you find one person to help with a housing situation?
Obviously, these temporary workers will not be out knocking on doors for you. They will likely be sitting at a desk in the Philippines or India, maybe Pakistan, or even Russia. They may work off hours, but does that matter if they are getting good quality research finished?
Finding a good deal does not come easy these days. Anyone telling you that investing in houses or renovating properties is easy – is quite frankly – lying to you.
However, you can begin by taking a few small smart steps and wisely investing in your business. At WREIA this month I am going to show you how you can start with nothing today and safely walk into “retirement” within 10 years.
As I look down the road over the next few years, I will have two kids going to college and after that – the home stretch to “retirement”. I know the financial pressures that everyday life can bring.
This is not going to be a fantasy type dream plan. It’s going to be an actionable itemized plan that will allow you to step away from a job (if that is what you want) and have enough set aside to enjoy life and live comfortably on your terms.
The reality is, if you take a few small steps and get started, the small snowball in 2015 can be a giant unstoppable machine by 2025.
Only TWO WREIA Meetings Remain!
Come on out and join other WREIA members this month.
It’s going to be like a one night mini-course on how to develop a plan to put your career in Hyper-Drive.
Make this week a great week for your business!