A Presumptuous Pen Writes a Comfortable Story
Each day an average of 11,200 Americans turn 65. Time keeps on trucking into the future, loading up retirees the day they hit 65. In the prime of the second half of their lives, a presumptuous pen has already marked their age, writing out a plan complete with 3 chutes that merge into retirement.
These 3 chutes haven’t changed in 40 years.
- Rest a while. More time to catch up on that new TV series, eventually so much rest that the home you end up in, bears that very name.
- Drink a bit with a nice vacation thrown in every so often.
- Eat a lot. Sprinkle in a sunny locale and you’re living your golden years.
But free reign is not given up easily by those who value freedom, rather than being captivated by 3 fold comfort.
Picture Perfect
Substitute rest home for retirement community and the 3 chutes of comfort glamorize a picture of leisurely retirement marketed to all Americans beginning in the 1950s. But, this may be more costly than anticipated.
Towards Pleasure Way
In his book The Super Age: Decoding Our Demographic Destiny, Bradley Schurman wrote “A comfortable retirement is reserved only for a shrinking proportion of the population, an issue due largely to vanishing corporate pensions, shrinking state pensions, and declining private savings.” Further still, retiring towards pleasure way may actually be a slaughterhouse, gutting healthy aging and future dreams in one fell swoop.
Return to Freedom in Retirement
I’ve noticed a shift away from this traditional picture of retirement. Even with a solid financial plan in place and a few enjoyable hobbies to kick around, a shift is happening. Americans are experiencing different stages of life after sixty five. No longer will age be a corral of conformity. These stages of life are as unique as Americans themselves. “Sixty-five as an age marker that signifies the entry into old age no longer works.” says Stanford professor Susan Wilner Golden.
F.I.T. Future Startup
In the future, will we see a movement of experienced professionals following the freedom to start and raise their own successful startups in committed community? Research is showing that if current trends are any indication of the future, not only will older entrepreneurs start companies, they’ll flourish as they go. Spurred on by the opportunity of freedom over time, initiatives and finances means not following mainstream messaging, but your own purpose in committed community.
A Challenging Process
We’re free to think about where to start. But, what does our startup really need? There are are a lot of good books, trainings and insight, but there are really only two approaches to innovation.
Ideas First
The first starts with ideas. It leverages your ability to generate ideas, one of which will rise to the top in your eyes. Your experience will definitely help you here, but how can you know if your idea will be well received before you invest your time and money into it? We really can’t know for certain with any approach, but the odds are not great when starting out with an ideas first approach to innovation. Which means, you’ll most likely need to adjust your original idea as you go. Predicting and pivoting our startup ad nauseam is expensive, because startup failure rates tower around 86%.
Needs First
Another approach is to consider the innovation needs of our startups, not as a fleeting thought, but a strategic process. Which isn’t easy. It means applying discipline to work the process.
We need to know what people are trying to do first. Finding their needs will answer that question. But that’s really hard because ideas are exciting … dare I say sexy? They are that way because they’re easy. Why waste time following opportunistic ideas that overpromise and don’t deliver?
On the other hand, it’s hard work to uncover customer needs. But, if we choose to discover the job people are trying to do, we’ll dig deep to find all of their needs. Thus, we are free to pen our own purpose, so that nothing is wasted.
No Time to Waste
Mottainai is a Japanese word that embodies the concept of respecting resources while reducing waste. It may be why Japanese families all use the same water to take a bath. Something very wasteful made its way into the American water supply in the 1950s. They had to bottle it up with branding to get what is arguably our greatest generation to drink it down. They grew up during the great depression, sacrificed during WWII and worked together to make America great. But, how did the premise that fulfillment and enjoyment is found in a comfortable retirement at 65 happen?
It wasn’t magicians, but marketers of a bygone industrial economy that effectively painted the picture of pleasure and leisure as an earned right in one’s golden years. It’s been celebrated in corporate culture complete with private pensions and retirement parties. American culture cheered this celebration through media, music and marketing. Wasteful living and decreased responsibilities have never been the true measure of happiness for Americans. Not now, nor ever.
A Different Dream
In the next few years we’ll see more Americans daring to dream about their own startup, yet not as entrepreneurs without life and business experience. The next step is asking ourselves, why now? We could wait for a while. But we’ve been doing that throughout our professional careers. It’s time to write your own startup story in committed community with Friends I Trust.
2 Innovation Approaches