Our Problem is 80% of parents don’t have life and career plans for themselves and a major part of the drama is just the shear complexity of life. I did one of my recent Leadership Videos on breaking work into manageable chunks—it works in business and it works in life. The 5 chunks of Life are outlined in “Five Major Life Decisions” discussed in this blog.
The Solution to the Problem is to look at this complex life planning puzzle around 5 Major Decision Points or Seminole events:
The Earliest Big Life Event You Will Face is Education
We start with education because typically it is the earliest big life event you will face with your parents and many times on your own. This is Hole #3 of your Life Journey—age 11 to 16. Your parents are still in charge but the baton is being slow handed your way. Your child or you, the child, will be graduating from high school at the end of this hole and you know I like the number 5 but at this juncture you will have 5 major options:
The classic four- year college degree path which is becoming more and more less popular and even if you do choose this path you may do it in a distant learning classroom, not the old traditional college campus dorms and classrooms,
The two- year junior college or community college pathway, which is becoming more and more popular. There is more flexibility, typically closer to home, lower cost, and lots of great trade choices where you know you can get a good paying job right out of school—and it is also a great educational platform from which to start your own business.
Two- year degree with entrepreneurship is option number three and it is increasing in popularity—no college debt, a certified trade degree or associate degree—and an excellent pathway to entrepreneurship and being your own boss. The VERGE between trade education and starting your own business is, in my opinion, the hottest trend in post-high school education. There are probably 50 career options around this VERGE, ranging from HVAC, home security and automation, to home health care.
Joining the military is option number 4. You can build confidence and character, gain all kinds of skills, including leadership skills, get a free education with no debt, and see the world—and even get paid for all these benefits. A lot of people overlook this very solid opportunity. 80% of the people in the military never see a hostile war environment.
The fifth pathway is the old fashion way—get an internship or just go to work for someone—get your degree of hard knocks on the job. Many waiters and cooks have ended up owning their own restaurants. This pathway may not be so glamorous to start with but you earn every promotion, you know the business as you climb up the ladders, and someday the business can be yours. This is how many family businesses are built, generation after generation. You can always augment your education with classes at the local community college or online.
Making a Career Choice
The EDUCATION choices you make in Event #1 above, will drive this decision to a large extent. When you pick a course of study or enter the work world (including military service) you are making a career choice. Nothing is forever, you may make several career or work choices over the next 15 Holes of Life, hopefully most driven by choice but some may be driven by circumstance or an expected event. That is the beauty of 5 AT A TIME 5-year planning—you can look at those Holes of Life ahead of you and begin to map out how and where you would like your career to work out.
It all begins with you: what do I want to do, what will make me happy, what are my personal goals, how will I measure success? A big decision is “do I want to start out working for someone else where I can earn a paycheck or do, I want to plot a course to be in business for myself”. That is a big decision and it can change over time but there is actually a hybrid where you start out doing both. That is what is making co-working space so popular and so many larger enterprises are hiring contractors versus full-time employees. There is much to think about as you plan your career or work destiny.
Planning Two Lives With a Conscious Plan
Marriage or Partnership is our third Seminole event of 5 and the one where life and career planning really start to get complicated. It is like two people, two lives, and two careers equal 10, and again, it is further complicated if you don’t have specific endpoints in sight. Now 5 AT A TIME becomes even more important as you plan two lives with a conscious plan and try to avoid conflict and unwanted overlaps or entrapments.
This may explain partially why many younger people are putting off this decision, living with someone without a marital commitment, or even living at home to a much later point in life. When commitments are made, they are often weak. Bonds witness a 50% divorce rate and many multiple marriages.
What are the criteria to consider before making a commitment? It is often said that “opposites attract” but I think that idea may be worn out. It is much more important that you have common goals and values. Also pay attention to behavior. Most people demonstrate their values without even being aware of it. When people say one thing and do another there is a conflict. No one is perfect but words and actions should match.
Having Children is a Major Decision
Having your own birth children or adopting children are major decisions. This is a very personal issue with many combinations available, but children have an enduring effect on parents—they are not like pets—you can’t give them away when you are tired of them or they become an inconvenience.
Having children involves a tremendous commitment. There is great joy in becoming a parent and great responsibility. Think it through carefully and it is obviously not a one-person decision.
Blended families are increasing in numbers. There are lots of challenges associated with larger families, particularly when bringing two groups of children together. The cost is another major consideration. Now is a great time to utilize 5 AT A TIME as a planning tool to manage the additional responsibilities and personal goals, while at the same time preparing for unforeseen stressors and challenges that could significantly affect your marriage and family ROL.
Retirement Can Better Be Referred to as Repurposing
Retirement or now it might better be called REPURPOSING is the fifth decision. Twenty or thirty years back, it was standard for a working male and possibly some working females, to take a full retirement package at age 55 from the corporation or business they had worked for most, if not all, of their career. At that point life expectancy for a male was 72 and 78 for a female and the retirement plans had real value or buying power. Many people I knew who were around my age did that and 5-10 years later they were bored to death or literally dead.
That picture has changed now in at least five ways:
1. Current workers do much more job-hopping and wouldn’t think of staying with the same employer for 20-30 years.
2. Retirement packages are weakened by job-hopping and you are never in one place long enough to create any value in a retirement package.
3. Today you must build your own retirement package and that means planning, saving, and investing wisely.
4. Life expectancy is now 78 for a male and 82 for a female.
5. It costs more to live longer.
I anticipate in the 18 Holes of Life, as spelled out in my book 5 AT A TIME, that in the future with good diet and exercise we are more likely to live to be 90. 90 divided by 5-year life and career planning periods equals the 18 Holes of Life. And surprise, just as very few people have built life and career plans, probably most of the same people don’t have a savings plan or a well thought out retirement plan. That is a dangerous situation, when you don’t have an employer providing a solid retirement plan and perhaps no long- term health insurance, and we can no longer count on the government to provide a social safety net. And almost every day you read about a new chapter 11 bankruptcy caused because the Company cannot cover its “old style generous” pension benefits.
As CEO of Lienhart Leadership Consulting (www.bradlienhart.com), I have many people approach me in their 50’s and 60’s thinking about a business to start or a new career opportunity. North Carolina is full of 55 and older citizens who need to keep working to pay their bills for the next 30-40 years. North Carolina is a fast- growing state with 100,000 net new residents each year and 65% of them are older than 55. It is also not surprising that the fastest growing segment of the population wanting to start their own business is 55 to 64.
Forget retirement, with just a few exceptions, it doesn’t work anymore. Think about repurposing or re-engineering yourself for the last 7 to 5 Holes of your Life. Now we hear people talking about life and career transition, lifestyle adjustment and geographic moves to lower cost living environments. How are you going to do any of that without a five-year plan? Matter of fact if you if you start this thought process at 55, you have 7 holes to play, or 65 you have 5 holes to play. This is not casual stuff to think about, particularly if you are doing it with a spouse and potentially have other offspring that still need some of your help.
Planning for these last holes of your life should start as soon as you begin earning income. ISN’T THAT A FUNNY CONCEPT WHEN I AM CLIMBING THE LADDER, WE WANT A BIGGER HOUSE IN A BETTER SCHOOL DISTRICT, RAISING CHILDREN GETS MORE EXPENSIVE, WE LOVE OUR VACATIONS, and I WANT ONE OF THOSE EXPENSIVE ELECTRIC CARS. Though it may be difficult to envision yourself at 70 or 80, when you just turned 30, a good golfer and a good planning knows you need a picture of the whole course before you start the round—that is why it is called the score card and has a picture of the course you are going to play.
Repurposing oneself is a big project and without a plan (I propose a 5-year plan) you will fail and the consequences of that are not pleasant and most likely can be deadly from one cause or another. Lienhart Leadership Consulting can help you think through Holes 12 through 18. You can learn more at www.bradlienhart com and fill out the contact form or my email at lienhartb@yahoo.com. I am working on another blog just focused on Repurposing, re-engineering, later life transition, “the Second Mountain” to climb, using 5 AT A TIME principles and techniques.