Too old to start a business? No way!
Do you think that as a baby boomer you’re too old to start a new business? Here is a great story from MSNBC about octogenarians starting new businesses. The title of the story is great: Forget bingo! 80 is the new 30. Included in the story is a profile of a guy who is over 100 and still running his business every day.
I am sure you’ve heard of other people starting businesses or going back to school later in life. I started my PhD in my 50’s, figuring I would be the oldest person in the class (at Walden University, a great online school, which is one of the oldest regionally accredited distance learning universities in the U.S.). Turns out I was about average; a good number of the students were also in their 40’s and 50’s.
The article quoted some Labor Department statistics showing that a third of self-employed people started their businesses after age 50. Of course, there are many issues and concerns with starting a business later in life. For example, will you need to spend some of your precious retirement savings? What about health insurance? And how will you deal with the vagaries of getting older while trying to keep a struggling business going?
George Lucas says, “Train yourself to let go of the things you fear to lose.” In other words, if you really want to start that business, you may have to let go of some things you’re holding tight to, like that full-time job you really don’t like but that continues to pay the bills.
Bottom line: As Henry Ford said, “If you think or can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”
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POSTED IN: Being A Boomer, Businesses for Boomers, Mindset, Starting Up
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