Wonga is not the sort of fintech we want thank you

By Neil Patrick

Does technology have a moral compass? I guess most would say it’s morally neutral. It is the people creating it who must carry that responsibility. But technology and big data is the great power of our age. And with great power comes great responsibility.

When someone tells you big data is the answer, it’s smart to look beyond the data

This week Wonga.com went into administration. It’s a business I’ve watched with interest since its foundation in 2006. But not with admiration, rather a growing unease that its business model wasn’t just unethical, it was fatally flawed. It was bound to have a messy ending.

Wonga was the UK’s biggest payday lender. Payday loans in the USA remain illegal in 14 states yet created several multi-millionaires there in a few short years. And as is usually the case, when that happens, the idea travelled across the Atlantic very quickly to the UK.

Not very long ago, Wonga was a posterboy for the fintech sector. They invested in lavish TV commercials. They sponsored Newcastle United Football Club for £8 million a year. And they were once courted by investors eager to share in their profits.

Papiss Cisse of Newcastle United.
 Photo credit: Dudek1337

And Wonga's founders would be the first to admit that they trusted data and algorithms more than people. Couple big data with a fast and simple internet-based application process and Wonga were sure they would be the next big thing in money lending. They would take a proven business model from the US and turn it into a data-driven internet giant in lending. Tech is so much cheaper and more reliable than people after all. Or is it?

It all went horribly wrong for reasons which are not the same as the ones talked about in the mainstream media. They give you the headline facts. I’m more interested in what created those facts…

A short history of payday loans in the United States

Banking deregulation in the United States in the late 1980s caused many small community banks to go out of business. This created a void in the supply of short-term microcredit, which was not supplied by mainstream banks due to their unprofitability. That unprofitability was easy to explain – banking regulations wouldn’t permit the ultra-high interest rates needed to cover the high default levels that such loans inevitably create.

The payday loan industry sprang up to capitalise on this void and to supply small short-term loans to the working class at very high interest rates. But how was it that they were able to make these loans when banks could not?

W. Allan Jones, the 'father of payday loans'

In 1993, Check Into Cash was founded by Allan Jones in Cleveland, Tennessee, and became the largest payday loan company in the United States. He’s known as ‘the father of payday loans’ - I am unsure if this is a tribute or an indictment - and his business was made possible only after he donated to the campaigns of legislators in multiple states, convincing them to legalize loans with such high interest rates.

And thus a massive new industry was born…

Subsequently, the industry grew from fewer than 500 storefronts to over 22,000 and a total size of $46 billion. By 2008, payday loan stores in the United States outnumbered Starbucks shops and McDonald's fast food restaurants.

And this was the point at which two entrepreneurs named Errol Damelin and Jonty Hurwitz envisioned an internet-based payday loans business in the UK. Both had previous internet start-up experience; but critically neither had any experience of retail banking. I could see exactly how Wonga would make money. I had no doubt about that. What I could also see was that the business model was completely unsustainable.

What exactly are you disrupting?

Wonga claimed and possibly believed they were disrupting big banks. They were not. They were actually disrupting doorstep money lenders and loan sharks; some of the most odious and exploitative businesses you will find.

And guess which other online sector is also in trouble today? Online ticket sellers. They claim they are making event tickets more easily available. But they are actually using all sorts of devious online trickery, enabling inflated prices not to mention a raft of fees and charges which are added to the bill. If they are disrupting anyone, they are disrupting ticket touts and making a killing in the process.

And just like the payday loans sector who became the target for heavy intervention by the Financial Conduct Authority, so too are the secondary ticketing websites, including Viagogo, StubHub, GETMEIN! and Seatwave. All are now under similar legal and regulatory threat by the Competition and Markets Authority.

So when new businesses say they are disruptive, that’s not automatically a good thing. What matters is that the disruptors are challenging an expensive or exploitative sector, remedying the fundamental failures of that sector, not amplifying them through mere digital deployment.

Investors loved this business – at first

In 2008, when Wonga was still an early stage start up, I was doing the rounds of venture capital firms in London, capital raising for another fintech startup. I distinctly recall one venture capitalist telling me that what he really wanted was another Wonga.

Wonga had already raised £3.7m to fund its initial platform development. In July 2009 Wonga raised a further £13.9m of funding through other VC firms (including the one I talked to). These investments enabled Wonga to complete their first platform and begin lending money.

The point here is that investors are looking for a quick return on their investment. Usually a sell out or exit after 3 - 5 years. They want a deal they can buy into cheap, and sell fast with a big return. This rapid rate of buying in and selling out enables them to avoid possible regulatory trouble because:

Regulators are far too slow to intervene to remedy exploitative practices

As I was watching the growth of Wonga and other payday lenders, I was also watching what regulators were doing. One of the first to take any notice was the Office of Fair Trading. Yet in their initial reviews they claimed that they had too few complaints to merit any sort of intervention. Instead they opted to merely keep an eye on things. It wasn’t until 2012 amidst explosive growth of payday lending and mounting criticism, that the Financial Conduct Authority decided to intervene.

The Financial Crash of 2008 was great news for payday lenders

Although when Wonga was founded, the financial crash of 2008 was still ahead, when it came, this event was to ensure that payday lenders were to benefit. Banks and other mainstream lenders stopped lending to virtually everyone. But people’s need to borrow didn’t diminish, which left Wonga with suddenly much less competition from more traditional lenders. Moreover, the economic doldrums which ensued in the Great Recession created new customers in their droves.

Screenshot from Wonga.com showing the cost of borrowing £100 for 30 days as at 17 Nov 2013

In 2012, a typical loan from Wonga had an annual percentage rate of 4,214 per cent. This equates to a charge of £42.96 for borrowing £100 for just 36 days. The debate still rages about this. Payday loans are by definition very short-term. And small. But most traditional loans are bigger and long term, so historically, the annual percentage rate of interest (APR) was a convenient and appropriate way to measure the cost of a loan. Not so much when the loan is for just a few days. My view was and remains that APR is not relevant when assessing the cost of ultra-short-term loans.

No-body wanted to buy Wonga because other predators were eating it…

In September 2012, Wonga reported profits of £45.8m for 2011 from revenue of £185m. But the threats and cracks were already showing. Not least of these was the Financial Conduct Authority’s new rules and ongoing investigation into the whole payday loans sector.

Already anticipating a new financial compensation opportunity, legal claims management firms saw that payday lenders would become their next carcasses to feast upon. And they were right – payday loan regulation created a whole new raft of claims opportunities. Coupled with the capping of the fees that had originally made Wonga so profitable, these claims grew and grew until the business became unsustainable.

Last week in a desperate last hour bid to save the Wonga from collapse, the shareholders stumped up a further £10m. But it was not enough.

Never leave the techies in charge of the business

The mainstream media, politicians and even the Archbishop of Canterbury have complained endlessly that Wonga’s business was exploitative. I agree, but that’s not how the business made so much money. The key to business’s early profitability was NOT through its high interest rates, but the fees and charges it applied to every borrower that failed to meet their repayment terms faultlessly and the rolling over of these charges into new loans.

Before regulators stepped in to tackle this in 2012, if a customer failed to repay the loan in full on the due date, a default fee would be charged and interest would snowball the debt endlessly thereafter. The debt would then be ‘rolled over’ into a new and bigger loan. Such things would involve a lot of letters and phone calls of course. And every letter and phone call would also incur a large fee which was also added to the debt. In the matter of a few weeks, a smallish loan could be transformed into a debt many times larger. This was insanely profitable.

Regulation is inevitable but is always too late

On 28 November 2012, following concerns that small loans, intended to be short-term, could become prohibitively expensive, the government announced it would give the Financial Conduct Authority powers to prevent indefinite rolling over of loans and effectively limit charges.

By this point, Wonga had already made millions in profits. But from this point, their business model couldn’t work. It was just a matter of time until the whole thing crashed. The only thing that surprises me is that the business was able to limp on for another six years.

When the body falls, the vultures complete the kill

The coup de grâce that finally finished Wonga ironically wasn’t it’s business model. True, this had become fatally wounded by the imposition of regulations to prevent their loan roll overs and excessive fees for defaulters. What finished them was another group of predators – the claims management companies. In 2014, the firm introduced a new management team and wrote off £220m worth of debt belonging to 330,000 customers after admitting giving loans to people who could not afford to repay them. But even this was not enough to deflect the inevitable.

The endless cycle of financial ‘innovation’, profiteering, regulation and collapse

Wonga is more than just a tale of dubious morality. It is a perfect demonstration of how a purely technological vision, lacking depth of understanding of the industry sector and its unique characteristics, inevitably wrecks the lives of customers, investors and staff alike.

I am pleased that Wonga is no more. But I am not optimistic that we won’t see this cycle perpetuating again and again in other business sectors. It’s not entrepreneurial innovation or disruption, it’s a perfect storm of lack of morality, self-delusion, arrogance and greed, going unchallenged until long after the damage is done. And as usual the biggest victims are those least able to bear it.

Becoming self-employed? Here’s the #1 critical question you MUST be able to answer

By Neil Patrick

Whether you are setting up business as a sole trader or a company, there's one critical question you must be able to answer.

Last week, I was contacted by a former colleague from the financial sector. She had just lost her job in the latest corporate reorganization. Her reaction to job loss was positive. She was embracing it as an opportunity to convert all those years’ experience and acquisition of skills into a self-employed variant of her former job. I immediately agreed to help her anyway I could.

About the same time, I was sent a business plan for a start-up financial business. I was asked to provide my reactions and suggestions as to how the plan might be improved. The plan was ambitious and innovative. It embraced and aimed to capitalise on the financial, technology and media changes that are transforming the world.

At first, these two events might appear to have nothing in common. But as I examined both situations I realised that both were dependent upon getting to grips with exactly the same question.

It’s a very simple question to ask but a very hard one to answer perfectly. In a single sentence though, it frames the challenge for every new business venture. Being able to answer it clearly and precisely sets you up for success. Even if you cannot answer it precisely, trying to do so will instantly reveal the weaknesses in any business plan.

So what is the question?

It’s this:

“What problem do we solve for whom, and how?”

That’s it.

Time and time again when I see new business proposals, whether they are corporations or individuals, they fall apart when examined with this question.

Often it’s a variation of the age old business failure that arises because the business owner is looking to sell what they want to make or do, rather than making what people want to buy.

Today, attention spans are getting ever shorter. If you cannot articulate what problem you solve in a couple of sentences, you will struggle to get attention. And no attention means no sales. And no sales means your business is dead.

So not only must you be able to answer the question, you also have to be able to express it in a way which demands attention and interest from the people you seek as customers.

In a start-up, this can be the difference between getting investment and withering on the vine. In the case of sole traders, it’s the difference between having a queue of eager customers and an empty diary.

Why do so many people get this wrong? 

Employers don’t teach us how to be entrepreneurs

Experience of working for a large corporation provides plenty of experience and learning. But it’s not usually the sort of learning that equips you to be successful in your own business venture. Suddenly your specialist expertise itself is less important than your ability to get others to pay for it. 

When you are self-employed, before you can start work, you must obtain it

In a normal job, our employer provides a regular pay cheque. And depending on its size, we cut our cloth accordingly. When we have a job, the work is just there. We normally don’t have to actually create it. In a normal job, what’s critical is the quality of our work. When you work for yourself, how much you earn depends on how much work or business you attract. What’s critical is the quantity and frequency of our work. 

Problem solving for others is different to problem solving for an employer

In a normal job, we may very well require problem-solving skills. But these problems are internal to our employer. The problems are given to us to tackle. When we work for ourselves, the problems are not given to us. We have to identify them in other people’s lives. So these problems are external. And before we can solve them, we have to have a solution that our customers find more attractive than the alternatives.

Knowing the answer to the number one question helps us focus our actions on doing the right things to drive business success. It means you have a business proposition which people actually want and are willing to pay for.

Not being able to answer the question means your business isn’t going anywhere, until you can…

Secrets of a killer Linkedin profile for business owners

By Neil Patrick

Business owners and entrepreneurs need a different style of LinkedIn profile to employees.

Here’s how to master this art without falling into the traps of bragging and exaggeration, which turn people off before they even read your profile.

Anton Volney explains here how he does LinkedIn profile makeovers and provides examples of things that work and things that don’t.

He adopts a well proven approach which marketers call AIDA.

It’s highly effective and I’ve used it for decades to design and implement hundreds of effective marketing campaigns.

What does it mean?

Simple. We must take the reader through four stages to achieve engagement:

1. Create Awareness - the first thing is to make it clear who and what we are all about

2. Generate Interest - to do this, we must offer something which matches what our audience wants

3. Ignite Desire - we have to present a proposition which no-one in their right mind would wish to turn down

4. Initiate Action - the final step is to make it fast and easy for your audience to take up your offer

There’s a wealth of tips and insights here for any business owner who is wondering just how they can get their personal profile on Linkedin working harder for them.

Thanks again to Anton Volney for sharing these tips.

Baby boomers fueling wave of entrepreneurship

By Matt Sedensky

In a mix of boomer individualism and economic necessity, older Americans have fueled a wave of entrepreneurship. The result is a slew of enterprises such as Crash Boom Bam, the vintage drum company that 64-year-old Glay began running from a spare bedroom in his apartment in 2009.

The business hasn’t made him rich, but Glay credits it with keeping him afloat when no one would hire him.

"You would send out a stack of 50 resumes and not hear anything," said Glay, who had been laid off from a sales job. "This has saved me."

The annual entrepreneurial activity report published in April by the Kansas City, Mo.-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation found the share of new entrepreneurs ages 55 to 64 grew from 14.3 percent in 1996 to 23.4 percent last year. Entrepreneurship among 45- to 54-year-olds saw a slight bump, while activity among younger age groups fell.

The foundation doesn’t track start-ups by those 65 and older, but Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that group has a higher rate of self-employment than any other age group.

Part of the growth is the result of the overall aging of America. But experts say older people are flocking to self-employment both because of a frustrating job market and the growing ease and falling cost of starting a business.

"It’s become easier technologically and geographically to do this at older ages," said Dane Stangler, the research and policy director at Kauffman. "We’ll see continued higher rates of entrepreneurship because of these demographic trends."

Paul Giannone’s later-life move to start a business was fuelled not by losing a job, but by a desire for change.

After nearly 35 years in information technology, he embraced his love of pizza and opened a Brooklyn, N.Y., restaurant, Paulie Gee’s, in 2010. Giannone, 60, had to take a second mortgage on his home, but he said the risk was worth it: The restaurant is thriving and a second location is in the works.

"I wanted to do something that I could be proud of," he said. "I am the only one who makes decisions and I love that. I haven’t worked in 3 ½ years, that’s how it feels."

Some opt for a more gradual transition.

Al Wilson, 58, of Manassas, Va., has kept his day job as a program analyst at the National Science Foundation while he tries to attract business for Rowdock, the snug calf protector he created to ward off injuries rowers call "track bites."

Though orders come in weekly from around the world, they’re not enough yet for Wilson to quit his job.

"At this stage in my life, when I’m looking at in the near future retiring, to step out and take a risk and start a business, there was some apprehension," Wilson said. "But it’s kind of rejuvenated me."

Mary Furlong, who teaches entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University and holds business startup seminars for boomers, says older adults are uniquely positioned for the move because they are often natural risk-takers who are passionate about challenges and driven by creativity.

There can be hurdles.

Though most older entrepreneurs opt to create at-home businesses where they are the only employee, even startup costs of a couple thousand dollars can be prohibitive for some. Also, generating business in an online economy is tougher if the person has fewer technological skills.

Furlong said many who start businesses later in life do so as a follow-up to a successful career from which they fear a layoff or have endured one.

"The boomers are looking to entrepreneurship as a Plan B," she said."

Antoinette Little would agree.

She spent 20 years at a law firm, starting as a legal secretary and working her way up to manage the entire office. The stress of working 80 hours or 90 hours a week and always being on call started taking a toll.

After being diagnosed with an enlarged heart, she said, "The doctor told me either quit or you’re going to die."

Little took a series of culinary classes and found a new passion, opening Antoinette Chocolatier in Phillipsburg, N.J. She misses her previous career and, though the store is now in the black, the profits aren’t robust. Still, she says she is having fun making chocolate, particularly when children press their noses against the glass doors to the store’s kitchen.

"I’m my own boss and you get to eat your mistakes," she said. "How bad could it be?"

Most boomer businesses are not brick-and-mortar establishments like those of Little and Giannone.

Jeff Williams, who runs BizStarters, which has helped Glay and thousands of other boomers start businesses, says most older entrepreneurs want to make a minimal investment, typically less than $10,000, to get off the ground.

He classifies about 40 percent of his clientele as "reluctant entrepreneurs" who are turning to their own business because they can’t find any other work.

Williams said owning a business also gives older adults the flexibility they desire and a sense of control while remaining active.

"To suddenly leave the corporate world and to be sitting around the house all day long? This is an alien concept to boomers," he said.

Glay says he needed the paycheck, but starting his business was also about keeping his mind engaged. He had worked for the same record company for 23 years when he was told to meet his boss at an airport hotel, where the bad news was delivered.

Though Crash Boom Bam hasn’t come close to replacing an annual income that crept into six figures, Glay says he’s busier than ever now, between the business, regular drumming gigs, and part-time work at a bookstore and a wine-tasting event company. Sitting among shelves full of drums and their shimmering chrome, he is reflective thinking about what his business means.

"The satisfaction of doing what I’m doing now is much greater, but the money is less," he said. "Even if it’s not making me a millionaire, I know what it’s doing for my head. There’s no price you could put on that."

Matt Sedensky, an AP writer on leave, is studying aging and workforce issues as part of a one-year fellowship at the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which joins NORC’s independent research and AP journalism. The fellowship is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and supported by APME, an association of AP member newspapers and broadcast stations.

This post originally appeared here:

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/money/57010864-79/business-older-glay-job.html.csp?page=2

What every HR professional needs to know about the latest findings in neuroscience

With any task which requires learning, we can benefit from a deeper understanding of how the learning process actually works. What you may not know about though is how the latest discoveries in neuroscience can help people perform better at any task they undertake.

If you are a judicious entrepreneur, you will not need any convincing about the importance of a talent management approach as a part of your business strategy. Over the past 15+ years, cognitive science research (and specifically neuroscience) has given us some valuable insights into the ways learning and development take place.

These discoveries are not just of value to business leaders however. They are also invaluable for HR leaders interested in understanding how they can improve the learning capabilities (and overall performance) of their organisation’s people. More generally, they are also valuable for anyone who wants to understand how they can improve their own learning capabilities.

Some of the breakthrough discoveries are:

• Learning is a process that allows new neural networks to be continuously built and re-built 

• Teachers cannot transmit knowledge to learners! (interesting) 

• Our personal performance is entirely dependent on context (work, personal, history)  

• Learning skills are dependent on the coordination of basic skills rather than complex skills. 

• We must support our own learning by creating personal contexts (otherwise we will not learn!)  

• Essential to learning is regression (so if we make an error it is part of the learning process!!!)

• Skills are all interrelated rather than isolated

"Up until the 1980’s, scientists thought the structure of the brain developed during childhood and that once developed, there was very little room for change. Scientists now know that the brain possesses enormous capacity to change: People’s ability to process widely varied information and complex new experiences with relative ease can often be surprising. The brain’s ability to act and react in ever-changing ways is known as neuroplasticity" Understanding What Makes People Tick, 2009.

For example, employees may be able to memorise that HR exists for the purpose of people management. However to fully develop a meaningful understanding, for example one that enables HR professionals to use creative concepts, requires a person to constantly build upon new and old concepts, including understanding.

Cognitive development builds up connections between ideas and skills; this is a skill theory process of coordination of very complex (mental) units. So let's take an HR topic like 'Talent Strategy' and see where neuroscience comes in the picture.

With different explanations of talent strategy, I would broadly position it around these keywords: succession planning, effective training and development programs, and empowering your talent.

Now talent strategy cannot do wonders in isolation, instead you should have 4 key elements firmly positioned in place:

• Motivational factors that enable people to deliver business strategy 

• Elements that create the right talent culture  

• Making sure that managers feed motivation to the talent 

• Managing change by running business strategy and talent strategy in parallel with each other

If you have a vision to intersect neuroscience with HR, you will soon realise that the above 4 elements are already knitted into your culture. So what basically neuroscience suggests is that you, as an HR professional should understand how a human brain works.

Every employee performs and understands their work tasks differently, especially when they receive different levels of support.

First identify your talent through answering this question: Who is performing rather out-performing your expectations and has a track record of efficiently delivering the business goals? I will call these people ‘super performers’.

Recognise the attributes (found in a distributed form) of super performers such as having very clear purpose of what drives their behaviour.

Such people are very sure of how to execute their role and often appear as persistent self-improvers. You would observe their healthy disappointment with under-performance and not settling for anything less than perfect. One of the most admired attributes of super performers is that they are ‘thrill, feedback and new role’ seekers.

Without understanding what neuroscience tells us, as an HR professional, you would identify super performers as nothing but ‘trouble and pain’.

The million-dollar question is how to make most out of super performers through applying neuroscience.

I have created a model for ‘change management’ where you can effectively plant super performers and achieve business objectives. But first let's understand what neuroscience has to say about ‘resistance to change’, a very common HR challenge.

To our brains, change is detected as a fault/error/mistake!

This clearly means that our brain sees change as a slip-up. The reason for this is that our brain has been constantly working to create certain patterns and ways of doing things, these patterns are basically our ‘short-cuts’ for carrying out our everyday activities. As an example, you do not have to think how to walk every time you need to walk. However when our brain sees a change in walking, it realises that it has to work harder and hence, prompts a response of 'error/fault/mistake' and I would say sometimes even irrational reaction to change, as it is viewed as an error and this is directly followed by resistance.

Not trying to be a neuroscientist here, but as an HR professional, I have personally experienced the benefits of applying neuroscience. My approach to facilitate change for change-resisters especially those rated as ‘super performers’ would be:

• Encouraging them to create their own way of managing things, though staying within the scope of the change strategy

• Enhancing flexibility through ‘feeding’ them (in my words), otherwise known as training and development

• Developing people to generate solutions and not problems

So remember, “Those who are nurtured best, survive best” Cozolino

(c) 2013 Human Resources Global Ltd.

Written by Nicole Le Maire, Founder of Human Resources Global Ltd. a HR Consultancy targeting individuals and SME's within the emerging market regions. Nicole focuses on supporting clients in non-traditional HR ways and she can be contacted via Nicole@humanresourcesglobal.com or via twitter @NicoleLeMaire

Baby boomers start 'encore' careers

By Rodney Brooks


“Of 76 million people above 50 and nearing retirement, about half have interest in entrepreneurship,” said Jean Setzfand, vice president of financial security at AARP. “And many want to give back to their communities.”

Sitting at home through a 20- or 30-year retirement is no longer an option for an increasing number of baby boomers.

Some are looking to do something else because they have to for financial reasons. But, increasingly, boomers are embarking on entirely different “encore” careers after retirement.

“The reality is people are living longer, healthier lives, and when they get to the point when the need to make a change - they retire, are laid off or sell their business - they are 60 years old, and they say ‘I still have another 10, 15, or 20 or more years and I want to do something,’ ” said Nancy Collamer, author of “Second Act Careers: 50+ Ways to Profit From Your Passions During Semi-Retirement.”

“It’s out of financial necessity is some cases, but it’s lifestyle in other cases,” she said.

Take Linda Lombri, 65, and Virginia Cornue, 68, both of Montclair, N.J. In their post-retirement lives they have reinvented themselves as mystery writers, even though neither had written fiction before. They began an e-book series, the “Sandra Troux Mysteries,” which is sold on 10 websites, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Apple’s iTunes. The first in the series, “The Mystery of the Ming Connection,” was published last year under their pseudonym, Crystal Sharpe. Their second in the series will be out this spring; the third in the fall.

Both fans of the Nancy Drew series when they were young girls, they have re-imagined her into a trio of female baby boomer characters. “Not only are we reinventing ourselves, we have our characters reinventing themselves as well,” Cornue said.

Pushed out at 62

Lombri had careers as a home economist and a marketing executive. She was forced into retirement at 62 when her job was eliminated - when she had a daughter who was a high school sophomore. “I was ready for (retirement) emotionally, but not financially,” she said.

Cornue said she has already reinvented herself several times. She started out as an actor in New York City, became a director of nonprofit organizations and ended up a cultural anthropologist. She still teaches part time at a local college.

Then there’s David Roll, 72, who ended his career as a Washington, D.C., lawyer 10 years ago and embarked on a new one as an author, historian and founder of Lex Mundi, a nonprofit agency that finds pro bono lawyers for social entrepreneurs around the world.

But it’s the nonprofit legal agency, which has taken him around the world, that occupies most of his time: “I love it,” he said. “It has its frustrations, because you’ve got to raise money to keep it going. But to have created something that is having an impact. ... Not every social entrepreneur is changing the world, but they are some doing amazing things.”

Cookies!

Yuval Zaliouk, 74, is co-owner of YZ Enterprises in Toledo, Ohio. He retired from a career as conductor of the Toledo Symphony in 1989 and decided he didn’t want to move his family to take another conducting assignment.

The answer was his dream: to make and sell cookies based on his grandmother’s recipe, starting out in his kitchen. 

“I even won entrepreneur of the year award in 2003,” he said. “I never imagined that I could be a businessman.”

The Almondina cookies now sell 12,000 cases a day, ship to all 50 states and can be found in supermarket chains such as Trader Joe’s and Publix. Oh, by the way, the co-owner of the business is his wife, Susan, a former ballerina with the Royal Ballet Company in London, where they met.

“Only in America,” said Zaliouk, a native of Israel. “There is a lot of mobility in this country. It’s not like Europe, where if you are not fired, you stick with a job for life. Here you are free to start things. It’s a different atmosphere.”

Marc Freedman is founder and chief executive officer of Encore.org, a San Francisco-based organization that helps Boomers start that second career. Its focus is getting them involved in nonprofit agencies.

Freedman spent 15 years working with children in low-income neighborhoods. He has long had an interest in mentoring, so he made his second career into a job that helps baby boomers step into their second careers.

“The larger aspiration behind the organization is to tap the human capital and population moving into their 50s and 60s,” Freedman said.

Zaliouk has advice for budding boomer entrepreneurs: “In one word, courage.”

“It really is a question of courage, making up your mind to do something - courage, tenacity or stubbornness,” he said.



http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20130327/BIZ/303270026/Baby-boomers-start-encore-careers



HELP FOR ENTREPRENEURS

The U.S. Small Business Administration and AARP are involved in helping retirees into encore careers, as entrepreneurs. They are jointly promoting April as Encore Entrepreneurial Mentor Month, featuring one-on-one instruction, classes, mentoring programs and help writing business plans.

We Must Celebrate Our Older Workers

By Charlie Mullins

Managing Director Pimlico Plumbers – UK’s biggest independent plumbers

It was very encouraging to see centenarian Jim Clement celebrated in the news last week for still working in his office job, in the ongoing battle to change the perception of older workers in the UK.

Seeing Jim in action was a real inspiration and a perfect example of someone that has defied retirement and proven that even at the grand old age of 100, he is still a valuable asset to his employer.

He highlights the benefits that a more mature workforce brings to a business. As I read today that the number of self employed over 50s has soared dramatically since 2008, greatly encouraging news, it's always good to hear about people that have gone out on their own.

Yet, is this upturn because older workers have been forced into self-employment just because employers won't give them a chance, favouring younger employees in the financial downturn?

The government's common sense decision to scrap the compulsory retirement age in 2011 and let people freely work beyond 65 was one of the most rational legislations ever passed. However there is still a lot of work to do on changing the perception of older workers and employers' attitudes towards them.

As we all know, in the future people will have to keep on working way past the traditional retirement age. The state pension age is due to increase to 67 by 2028 and future rises would be linked to life expectancy.

Many employers might think that older staff are ready to slow down in the workplace or more likely to have time off sick, but I have found this not to be the case and in fact quite the opposite. Older workers are still ambitious and take great pride in their work.

What's more, younger workers need more experienced employees to help them learn. In fact, what they can teach new employees about attitude and commitment is worth more than anything you'll find in a training manual.

To simply throw away all the experience and skills that an older worker brings to the workplace just because they have reached a certain age has always been a strange notion to me and one which makes no business sense whatsoever.

I have always been an advocate of older workers and since I started Pimlico Plumbers in 1979 have always appreciated what they bring to the company as employees.

There is no substitute for experience and that's why 20% of my workforce is over 55, with some approaching 80, and are hugely respected by colleagues and customers.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/charlie-mullins/older-workers-we-must-celebrate-them_b_2637844.html

Spain: jobs crisis spawns entrepreneurs

Two years after being laid off from her job as a health and safety consultant, Ana Luis has found a new, quite different occupation. The blue-eyed, blonde-haired 46-year-old stands busy in the window of her very own dress shop in Valladolid, north-eastern Spain, deftly fixing clothes on a dummy.

For Ana, it was a childhood dream come true - one born of the nightmare of redundancy.

Left jobless like millions of others in Spain's recession, she did what many are also doing, for want of an alternative: launched her own business.

"I had a choice: stay sitting at home and do nothing, or throw myself into a project that I like," she says.

She opened the store less than four months ago using part of her redundancy pay and savings - a total investment of 30,000 euros ($40,000).

She is one of a wave of Spaniards trying to create jobs for themselves in the recession that has driven the unemployment rate above 26 percent.

The crisis sparked by the collapse of Spain's building boom had wiped out a lot of self-employed entrepreneurs: 625,000 between 2008 and 2011, says Lorenzo Amor, president of the small entrepreneurs' association ATA. But in 2012, as the unemployment rate climbed to record highs, their number grew for the first time in the five-year crisis, with 53,000 new registered self-employed, he says, citing government figures.

These entrepreneurs created 72,000 jobs, he added - just about the only sector to do generate any.

"For the next few months it is going to be easier to create your own job than to find one," Amor said.

"In Spain, every hour 67 people register as self-employed. Unfortunately, half of those don't manage to keep their business running for more than three years."

Despite everything, they are having a go.

In a trendy district of central Madrid, serving staff bustle at the coffee machine in "La Bicicleta", a novel bicycle-friendly cafe where cyclists can park their bikes. Its tables are crammed with customers even though the cafe only opened days ago, under the management of Tamara Marques, 29, and Quique Arias, 35.

"I had other job plans. I wanted to be an air traffic controller. But the labour market is nothing like it was," said Tamara.

"The way the economy is, I prefer to invest in something I really like and which will bear fruit, rather than wait for the government to do something for me."

She and Quique launched their plan in late 2011 and managed to open their cafe, with its rough industrial-style decor and deliberately shabby armchairs, more than a year later.

They raised the 100,000 euros they needed through a rare bank loan and help from their families -- no thanks, they say, to Spanish bureaucracy.

"We're not even talking about getting subsidies or making it easier to get a loan," says Quique. "We're talking about much simpler things, like just getting the paperwork done."

Among its various emergency reforms, the conservative government says it is working on a law to cut the red tape for people launching their own businesses.

Ana, Tamara and Quique say they are covering their costs but relying on their families to live.

Yet theirs are rare tales of hope in a crisis that aid groups has thrown millions into poverty.

"I think there is a growing dynamism. We are seeing just the tip of the iceberg," says Javier Sanz, director of an MBA programme at Madrid's Complutense University.

"In the next five years people are going to realise more and more that to find the perfect job they are going to have to make one up. For that you need to be an entrepreneur."

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130210/spain-jobs-crisis-spawns-entrepreneurs

Seven ways boomers are rewriting the rules of retirement

By Marc Miller

(Reuters) - The baby boom generation has broken the mold at every stage of life, and it looks like old age won't be any different.

Boomers aren't heading quietly into retirement. They're launching businesses, embracing digital technology and living abroad in greater numbers than ever before. But in other ways they are struggling more than the previous generation.

Here is a look at trends shaping the next wave of retirement.

THEY ARE LEAVING THE U.S.

More older Americans are packing it in for foreign countries, where they can save on living costs and enjoy warmer climates.

The number of retired workers, spouses and survivors getting Social Security benefits in a foreign land is rising almost twice as fast as the number of Social Security beneficiaries generally, according to Social Security Administration data.

And 21 percent of baby boomers say they are "interested or very interested" in retiring abroad, according to a survey by the Center for Medical Tourism Research at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas.

"If that were extended across all boomers, you'd have about 3 million people retiring abroad in the next couple decades," says David Vequist, the center's director.

THEY ARE STARTING COMPANIES

Almost a quarter - 21 percent - of new U.S. businesses started in 2011 were launched by entrepreneurs age 55 to 64, according to the Kauffman Foundation, up from 14 percent in 2007. Entrepreneurs age 45 to 54 accounted for an additional 28 percent of the 2011 startups. Taken together, that's 49 percent of all startup activity - far larger than the 20- to 34-year-old bracket, which accounted for 29 percent of new ventures.

In part, the surge can be attributed to the 2008 recession, which sent older workers into consulting gigs. However, there are a surprising number of complex, sophisticated and large businesses being created as well, according to Dane Stangler, director of research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation. He also thinks many of these older business owners are "serial entrepreneurs."

"We're seeing a lot of entrepreneurs in fields like technology and engineering who are launching substantial businesses," he said. "They started companies in their thirties or forties, and now they're doing it again."

THEY ARE TECH SAVVY

Young people might be leading the digital revolution, but boomers - the generation born 1946 to 1964 - aren't far behind.

"Baby boomers got quite comfortable with the Internet and other digital technologies in the workplace," says Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet Project. "They won't give that up as they age."

For example, 23 percent of older boomers and 27 percent of their younger siblings use tablet devices, compared with 30 percent of Gen Xers (born 1965 to the early 1980s), according to the Pew Internet Project. The gaps also are small when it comes to smartphones and social networking services.

"They're not going to be downloading every new app that catches the crowd," he says. "They're very utilitarian - show me how it will work for me, how it will improve my life." Expect retiring boomers to publish creative works online, connect with friends and children via social media and continue to job-hunt on sites such as LinkedIn.

THEY ARE BORROWING MORE

Older Americans are taking more debt into retirement than previous generations. Mortgage debt is the biggest factor: Forty percent of homeowners over age 65 had mortgage debt in 2010, compared with just 18 percent as recently as 1992, reports the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University (JCHS).

The culprit: the refinancing boom before the housing crash. In the years leading up to 2008, homeowners took advantage of low rates and deductibility of interest to refinance, says Lori Trawinski, senior strategic policy adviser at the AARP Public Policy Institute.

"(They) took out equity for things like education or a new car," says Trawinski. Boomers on the cusp of retirement are still refinancing, sometimes at the behest of their financial advisers, because of the appeal of today's near-record-low interest rates.

Higher debt levels will have a variety of effects. Some retirees will be stuck in homes with underwater mortgages or monthly mortgage payments that sap their spending power; others will use low-interest mortgage debt to keep more cash on hand or to keep other money invested longer.

THEY ARE OUTLIVING THEIR EXPECTATIONS

Life expectancy for men has jumped an average of almost two years in each of the last five decades, to 75.7 years in 2010, according to the Society of Actuaries. For women, life expectancy has risen by 1.5 years, on average, to 80.8 years.

Yet more than half of older Americans haven't gotten the memo. A Society of Actuaries survey of 1,600 adults age 45 to 80 found 40 percent underestimated their likely average longevity by five years or more; 20 percent were too pessimistic by two to four years.

"That means there's a 50 percent chance you'll live longer," says Cindy Levering, an actuary and co-author of the report. "If you make it to 90 and only planned and saved enough for 85, you may not have enough to live on."

The odds that will happen are pretty good. For a couple with above-average health, there's a 60 percent chance one of them will live to age 90, the Social Security Administration has reported.

THEY ARE PROVIDING FINANCIAL SUPPORT

Some 58 percent of boomers are providing financial assistance to aging parents, such as helping them purchase groceries or pay medical and utility bills, according to an Ameriprise Financial survey of just over 1,000 Americans conducted in late 2011.

When it comes to their kids, boomers are even more ready to help out. Almost all boomers surveyed - 93 percent - say they have given their children a hand. A majority have "boomerang kids" who have moved back home to live rent free (55 percent) or afford a car (53 percent).

But only one-third believed that supporting adult children was making it more difficult for them to reach their retirement goals.

"They're not connecting the dots," says Suzanna de Baca, vice president of wealth strategies at Ameriprise Financial. "They may not be taking money out of their retirement accounts to help their kids, but the assistance is coming out of funds that otherwise could be additional savings."

THEY AREN'T RUNNING TO FLORIDA

Boomers aren't embracing the Florida-Arizona axis of retirement to the extent their parents did. Counties known as retirement havens slowed their annual population growth to 1.7 percent from 2007 to 2009, compared with 3.1 percent between 2000 and 2007.

Instead, the Urban Land Institute (ULI) found that the metro areas with the fastest-growing population of 65-plus residents include locations in North Carolina, Texas and Nevada, as well as Colorado, Idaho and Georgia.

Boomers are attracted to communities with large universities and affordable housing, says John McIlwain, senior resident fellow for housing at ULI and author of the report.

The biggest draw affecting relocation? The kids.

"If you want to find out where a boomer couple will be moving to, find out where their oldest daughter lives. It's the pull of the grandkids."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/05/us-moneypack-retire-surprises-idUSBRE9140O720130205

What a New Set of Skills Can Do

By Marci Alboher, vice president of Encore.org, and the author of "The Encore Career Handbook: How to Make a Living and a Difference in the Second Half of Life."

The plight of jobless Americans in their 50s and 60s is well documented, and it deserves attention.

But there’s a different, more optimistic story unfolding. A small army of baby boomers is hitting midlife eager to apply their talent and experience to solving some of our country’s - and the world’s - toughest problems, from homelessness to climate change.

Colleges and career coaches recognize that people in their 50s and 60s seeking to put their skills to good use are good customers.

Often the first step is getting new skills. Consider Gary Bates, an airline pilot forced into mandatory retirement, who, together with his wife Beth, started Care-To-Go, which provides in-home and travelling elder companions. The Bateses gained credentials as caregivers at Gateway Community College in Phoenix and honed their business chops through the help of mentors and coaches.

Colleges and career coaches recognize that people in their 50s and 60s seeking to put their skills to good use are good customers. Structured programs offer another option. At ReServe, operating in seven locations in the U.S., skilled workers 55 and older are placed at nonprofit and public agencies in part-time projects with modest stipends. For some, that work is the destination. For others, it’s a gateway to a new kind of work, much like internships are for young people.

The Encore Fellows program is another model. Encore Fellowships – currently available in 20 metropolitan areas around the country – matches seasoned professionals from the private sector with nonprofits. The fellows, who earn a stipend, make high-level contributions to these nonprofit groups while learning about a new culture. After the one-year program, most fellows remain in the nonprofit sector in paid positions.

Some argue that keeping older workers in the work force will make it harder for young people to launch or advance their careers. But consider this: many people in encore careers start businesses and nonprofits that generate jobs. And pathways like ReServe and Encore Fellowships create incentives for experienced workers to move on and for younger workers to take their places.

Let’s also remember that today’s 20-year-olds will eventually be 50-year-olds. No doubt millions among them, too, will want to be able to contribute to society while earning a living -- in an enriching, multigenerational workforce. 

Join Room for Debate on Facebook and follow updates on twitter.com/roomfordebate.

Ageism in the Tech Sector

Reuters:

When Randy Adams, 60, was looking for a chief-executive officer job in Silicon Valley last year, he got turned down from position after position that he thought he was going to nail — only to see much younger, less-experienced men win out.

Finally, before heading into his next interview, he shaved off his grey hair and traded in his loafers for a pair of Converse sneakers. The board hired him.

"I don't think I would have been able to get this CEO job if I hadn't shaved my head," says Adams, who has founded eight venture-backed companies. He is now chairman of the company that hired him, mobile conference-call service Socialdial, and is fundraising for a new business. Adams has supplemented his makeover by trading in his button-down shirts for T-shirts, making sure he owns the latest gadgets, and getting an eyelid lift.

Forty is definitely not the new 30 in Tech, it would seem:

"I don't think in the outside world, outside tech, anyone in their 40s would think age discrimination was happening to them," says Cliff Palefsky, a San Francisco employment attorney who has fielded age-discrimination inquiries from people in their early 40s. But they feel it in the Bay Area, he said, and it's "100 percent due to the new, young, tech start-up mindset."

They go on to point out that there are some benefits of youth, but it is possibly being over-emphasized now:

In some cases, there are reasons other than bias for preferring younger workers in a startup setting. People with young children can be strapped for time and less able to work long, late hours. Younger workers are more likely to be expert in the newest software programming protocols. Young entrepreneurs, like many others, often move instinctively in hiring from the cohort of those they know.

Yet there are some indications that age bias is now part of the culture in Silicon Valley - especially visible in what Adams of Socialdial calls the "cachet of the young entrepreneur." When young executives like Zuckerberg are successful, their age often gets a lot of attention. Successful older entrepreneurs, on the other hand, take pride in every aspect of their accomplishments - except their age.

So when the software company Workday went public last month and raised $637 million, little attention was paid to the fact that co-founder and co-CEO David Duffield is 72.

My own experience and those of other "wrong-side-of-40's" in the industry I know (bearing in mind anecdote is not the plural of data of course) is that no, we are not as up on the intricacies of the latest cool language, but our experience also shows us that the big drivers of success are seldom to do with the tech itself, nor working long and hard instead of smart. It's about managing risk, enthusing people, controlling cash, ensuring delivery quality, attracting customers, managing expectations - and while experience doesn't guarantee success in this, it does increase it's probability, as it's a learning curve thing. Which is why, when the going gets tough, Boards start to want a "grown up in charge" (Google, Facebook...and now Groupon it would seem). Horses for courses, as they say....

And, if I was being exceedingly cynical, I would suspect that some of the preference for youthful startups is their naivete, allowing funders to strike deals that no-one who has been around the block would ever accept.

http://www.broadstuff.com/archives/2677-Ageism-in-the-Tech-Sector.html

Unleash your unique career power

By Neil Patrick

Here's an inspiring video from last week of my friend Scott Dinsmore's speech at TEDx.

In case you don't know, Scott is the man behind the LiveYour Legend programme.

Scott has single mindedly pursued the realisation of his vision over many years now and I think it's a philosophy and toolset whose time has now come.




I have always felt that the Live Your Legend programme is invaluable to baby boomers. Perhaps even more than younger groups, we are prone to accepting the idea that what we are now is what we must always be.

This is a very risky strategy in today's world. More than ever, we need to embrace new possibilities of what we can become.Today's problems really can be tomorrow's opportunities if we apply the right tools to release our own unique strengths, passions and capabilities.

Why social media empowers you to live your life on your terms

By Neil Patrick

Whenever I see my friends, at some point the conversation inevitably turns to work and how they are getting on. Needless to say, they are all over 40, and work in a wide range of areas, but they are generally professionals of one kind or another.

The first thing that always happens is they tell me about their latest problems at work. It might be long hours, stressful situations, a terrible boss, fears about job security, or just plain disillusionment. When they ask me how I’m doing, I am almost always able to tell them great news about all the progress I’ve made with all my business ventures.

Now this isn’t because I’m an incurable optimist, or a naive fool. I genuinely enjoy what I do. I learn something everyday, I interact with great people all over the planet and I feel that in some small way I make a difference in the world. I do what I choose, whereas they choose to do what they believe they have to.

They explain that they wish they could do what I do but they feel unable to escape from what they have spent the last 10, 20 or 30 years doing. They may hate their job and feel it has no security, but even that is less scary than being self employed. After all they know that every month they get that comforting pay cheque, which is worth 20 or so days of toil and grief.

I think this must be a very widespread attitude. For today’s mature professionals, since childhood, they have mostly been taught that qualifications, a career and a monthly pay cheque are the path to security and fulfilment. And even now, when employers are laying off thousands every month, pay levels are static or falling, job security and generous pensions seem like ancient history, they persist in this belief.

Having your own business used to be a pretty brave decision. It was truly risky. It meant that you’d almost certainly work longer hours than someone who was employed. You’d probably have to invest most or all of your savings and the potential returns were not necessarily very great.

The internet has changed all of that permanently. But more importantly, it is social media which has opened up the opportunities for everyone beyond what anyone could have imagined even 5 years ago.

As recently as 2 or 3 years ago, I was a director of a business where we’d routinely buy ‘clicks’ from Google onto our website for £7 or £8 a time. And so did lots of other businesses. If 15 or 20% of these visits resulted in a sale, we’d make a smallish profit. Years earlier, I’d been the marketing director of a firm with a media budget of around £7m a year. This budget was spent mostly on TV ads which were used to encourage potential customers to visit our website or phone us up. That cost was more than the combined salaries of the 250 or so people that worked at the firm.

Fast forward to today. Thanks to social media, you can get hundreds of visits every day to your websites for free. And because you have often engaged with people before they choose to visit, you have a friendly relationship with them already. So the traditionally huge costs of advertising to make your potential customers aware that you even exist, have been eliminated especially for the small entrepreneur.

Suddenly, having your own business isn’t so risky. And your potential customers are more like friends. What could be better?

Jobs Guru Spills Secrets About Older Workers

By Gary Belsky

Workers 55 and older are expected to be the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. labor force this decade, and it’s not solely because of Baby Boomers are graying. A greater-than-expected number of Americans are staying on the job longer or returning to work after a long absence - some because of Empty Nest Syndrome, others because of financial need and still others looking for meaning as they age.

But whatever the impetus, navigating late-stage career paths presents particular challenges, ranging from outright ageism to a host of stereotypes about older workers.

Curiously, there aren’t many good books targeted at this crowd, but a strong one has just been published, written by the award-winning journalist Kerry Hannon. It’s called AARP’s Great Jobs For Everyone 50+, and we asked Hannon about what she learned from her research into this employment demographic.

What is the most surprising thing about older workers you learned while researching this book?

“Senior entrepreneurship. I am struck again and again by the number of 50+ workers fed up with the job hunt, or looking for something that really kicks them out the door in the morning, who are starting or planning to start their own businesses.”

What’s driving that trend?

“Truth is, some of this emboldened entrepreneurism stems from being frustrated by the tight job market. The refrain I hear a lot is, ‘I doubt I can get a full-time job at an employer these days…’ You know, ageism, the sense that there’s expiration date stamped on their forehead and so on. But a major driver is a genuine desire to try something new. Midstream career rocking is a reality. It might be a job loss that spurred it, but often is a personal crisis: a health scare, losing someone close to you, too soon, too young. And many senior entrepreneurs not only want to be their own boss, they are looking at these as legacy businesses.

What’s a “legacy business?”

“Where they work side-by-side with their twenty-something children. For the somewhat older folks I have interviewed, even grandchildren are in on the new endeavour. It’s a kind of cool combination of enthusiasm and expertise. It takes aim at the older-younger worker schism and - bingo!- here’s a great solution. Tech-savvy, nimble youth blends with the deep knowledge gleaned from decades of honing skills that the older worker brings to the party.”

Is the definition of retirement changing?

“The overriding trend that jumped out at me is how many people don’t ever see themselves retiring in the way our parents did. I’ve interviewed and coached people from 50 to 80, and it’s not the fear of running out of money in their old age that’s lighting a fire. They are generally enthusiastic about their work lives, don’t view themselves as older workers and can’t imagine a time when they didn’t work and earn income in some fashion. The underlying spine is they want to find work that means something to them where they feel valued and relevant, and that can be tricky. That’s why many of the jobs in my book are part-time and can be expanded to full-blown second acts too.”

Is there a correlation between education and post-50 employment?

“Not necessarily. I think the big differentiation is the willingness to try new ways of work - an open mind about what work they want to do, and breaking out of old expectations and patterns. And frankly, for the professional types there is plenty of opportunity if they are willing to step into a new field -redeploying current skills by, say, moving to a non-profit or health care field by using financial and accounting skills.”

But we do hear a lot about an education gap between workers and jobs.

“For non-professionals, the community college system offers some low-cost educational opportunities to shift direction with certificate programs and so forth.”

What stereotypes about older workers are generally not true?

“That they are Luddites when it comes to technology, that they don’t have the energy to commit for the long haul and that they don’t want to work with younger workers. Not true. They may, however, be a little more resistant to change.”

Are older workers generally good at marketing themselves?

“Boomers are bad at bragging. The hardest thing for many of them is toot their own horn - brag about their skills. The younger generation is far better at self-promotion. Workers in this age cadre somehow feel someone will look a their experience on their resume and get why they would be a great person to hire.”

Is it wrong to assume that your resume should let people know why you’re a strong candidate for a job?

“Experience doesn’t get you a job. Skills do. That’s what people need to sell hard and shamelessly. Employers want someone who can solve their problem right now; no handholding, no investment needed in training. If you can show how your skills can do that, whom you worked for five years ago is a sidebar.”

In other words, talk about what you can do more than what you’ve done or where you’ve done it.

“It can even be soft skills. One woman I met with recently said she landed a job by simply saying one of her old bosses told her that her best skill was her ability to get along with people. That throw-away line is what caught the hiring manager’s attention and she got the job. If you aren’t sure what your best skills are. Ask someone. That’s what’s transferable.”


Read more: http://business.time.com/2012/11/19/jobs-guru-spills-secrets-about-older-workers/#ixzz2CxBH3eyj

Robert Kiyosaki – How you can survive the coming financial catastrophe

I’ve provided a lot of posts lately here and to my Twitter followers which describe how the financial crisis is escalating. I’m very concerned about this because we baby boomers are particularly vulnerable. This is because of high borrowings, falling incomes, rising costs of living and increasing job insecurity.

But most of all we are vulnerable because we don’t know how to respond to these economic conditions. And that’s because the education system in the western economies hasn’t provided us with the right knowledge about how we can do this.

I wanted to get Robert Kiyosaki’s view on the current global crisis and what he thinks we can do about it. Here he describes at length (so grab a coffee before you hit play!) how he sees the next few years unfolding.


His prognosis is very similar to my own – we are likely to see a collapse in Europe, due to the unsustainable burdens of failed Eurozone economies on Germany and the ECB, whilst the US is setting itself up for further devaluations of the dollar by continued printing of more money.

But most importantly he describes how we can survive and prosper over the next 5-10 years if we start to think totally differently about how we see our place in the world and how we direct our careers in what is already a massively changed society.