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THANKSGIVING
ISSUE - 2006
Table of Contents for this
issue.....
1.
Authors Comments
2.
Tim Knox
Article
Author's
Comments
Thanks
to the automatic message transmission of Aweber.com, when you receive
this email, Linda and I will be on
Lake
Medina
west of
San Antonio
,
TX
staying at a friend’s lake house.
We got a kind offer we could not refuse.
We
spent Thanksgiving in
San Antonio
with Justin, Mary, and Allison (son, his wife, and their daughter).
Our entire family gathered there for Thanksgiving.
We
went to
Lake
Medina
late Thursday to stay till Saturday morning.
We will drive back to
San Antonio
on Saturday for Allison’s first
birthday party. Exciting
times!
Tim Knox
Article
Tim
called me and interviewed me about Boomers and my thoughts on the
subject. Here is the article
that he wrote from that interview.
If
you want to listen to the interview, the instructions are at the end of
this article.
It’s
A Baby Booming Time For Business
by Tim Knox
Copyright © 2006
The
first wave of Baby Boomers turned 60 this year and as many approach the
traditional retirement age of 65 they are finding that (a) they are
still vibrant and don' t want to stop working; and/or (b) their life
expectancy has been extended and they will be dead broke long before
they are dead and gone.
As
a result Baby Boomers are not slowing down now that they're approaching
what once would have been considered their "golden years." If
you were a man you expected to retire at 65 and die at 75; and if you
were smart you banked enough dough to see you comfortably through that
stretch. We figured we'd get at least 10 good leisurely years before the
grim reaper shows up without having to worry about money. Turns out, we
were wrong.
Leave
it to modern medicine and Mother Nature to throw a monkey wrench in our
plans. People are living longer, which is one of those good news/bad
news scenarios. It's good that you're living longer, but it stinks that
you have no idea how you're going to finance all that extra life. Who
wants to live forever on a diet of crackers and cat food? Certainly not
me and I expect, not you. And do me a favor: if you see me thirty years
from now passing out buggies at Wal-Mart, please, just kill me where I
stand. You'll be doing me and all Wal-Mart shoppers a huge service.
Personally,
I think Viagra is the reason men are now living longer. Let's be honest;
if a man thinks there's still a chance of getting lucky when he's in his
eighties he'll hold on for dear life. And women are living longer
because they know old men couldn't survive without them. We'd never find
our car keys or our pants or our reading glasses or our way home from
the drug store.
Being
your average, white male in good health, I can now expect to live into
my eighties if I can avoid an unexpected heart attack, getting creamed
by a runaway truck, or the wrath of my lovely wife (who I believe is
actually killing me a little every day).
And
by the time I get to eighty years old someone will have discovered a
pill that extends my life into the hundred and ten range. Personally I
don't think I want to live to be a hundred and ten. I'm crotchety enough
now in my forties. Imagine what a pain in the backside I'll be fifty
years from now.
All
kidding aside, older Americans are finding that they have the time,
energy, desire and, sometimes, the need to start their own business. I
talked about the insurgence of older entrepreneurs in this column two
years ago and as I predicted then, the trend toward elder
entrepreneurship continues today.
I
talked to "Boomer Expert"
John Howe
, 63, of Dallas, TX, (Author’s Note:
I told Tim that Kingsville and Dallas are only 430 miles apart,
but by Texas standards, he didn’t miss it too far.
His reply was he was glad
he got the right state) who has started an organization designed to
assist Baby Boomers who want to learn more about entrepreneurship and
making their older years more fulfilling and profitable. Howe publishes
the weekly electronic magazine for Boomers found at Boomer-Ezine.com. I
asked: How are boomer entrepreneurs different from younger
entrepreneurs?
"Boomers
have the benefit of the lessons that many bumps and scars of life taught
them," Howe said. "They are more conservative than the younger
group. Patience is a trait that one learns with age. When we are young,
we tend to shoot from the hip a lot. A little age teaches you to take
aim and fire.
"Boomers
also have more money to invest in their venture than the younger group,
but the fact that this money is from retirement savings makes a Boomer
conservative. The Boomer will study the opportunity and do a lot more
homework before jumping in."
Howe
makes a good point. Boomers are more careful with their money because
they have less time to rebuild their fortune than someone who goes belly
up at 25. I asked Howe why he thought so many Boomers were starting
businesses. Was it out of desperation and need or because they enjoy the
challenge?
Howe
responded, "I believe it is a mix of all of these. It also depends
on the person. A major concern is that modern medicine will make us live
longer and we will outlive our savings. When we started saving 30 years
ago, many planned savings for living a shorter time that we are now
projected to live."
And
why are so many boomers now looking at entrepreneurship as a way to
supplement their retirement income?
"Some,
like myself, cannot think about not having a challenge to wake up to
everyday," said Howe. "Sitting around without a definite
direction is not my idea of retirement. I am also not doing this for
free so it is also profit motivated. We Boomers made a lot of money over
the course of our lives, but many lived for the moment and did not plan
for retirement like they should have, or they suffered in the stock
market downturn and lost a considerable amount of their savings."
In
the end, Howe believes, the decision by Baby Boomers to start a business
comes down to energy and economics. "If the desire and finances are
there, there is no reason someone over 60 should not consider becoming
an entrepreneur."
If
you're a Booomer interested in starting your own business you can
contact
John Howe
at Boomer-Ezine.com
or contact me at TimKnox.com.
****End
of Article ****
Visit
the
Tim Knox
website at http://www.timknox.com/show.php.
Scroll down to the archives to find this article. If you want to listen
to the interview, you will find the links at the bottom of the article
summary on the
Tim Knox
site. Tim interviews me in the last
half of the program.
I
recommend that you download the .mp3 file to your computer and then
listen to it from there. To
do so, right click the audio link on the Tim’s site and select “Save
Target As” on the dropdown box. Save
the file to your download folder on your hard drive.
When the file has downloaded, double click on the file, and it
will start playing using your default media player.
That wraps up our
issue for this week. Linda
and I hope that you had a great Thanksgiving.
We are thankful for our wonderful family and the good life that
God has given us.
Until next week,
stay tuned.
John and Linda
Howe
www.boomer-ezine.com
www.boomer-guru.com
www.boomer-entrepreneur.com
www.boomer-marketplace.com
eBay
Boomer Retirement Store
(http:/stores.ebay.com/BOOMER-RETIREMENT-STORE)
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Amazon Store
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