5 Critical Ways To Shift Your Mindset After Receiving A Pink Slip
A recent data analysis by ProPublica and the Urban Institute shows more than half of older workers are pushed out of longtime jobs before they choose to retire, suffering financial damage that is often irreversible. Americans are facing an increasingly difficult working life in their later years, as more workers are asked to finance their own retirements, and age discrimination laws are blunted by U.S. courts in favor of employers, says ProPublica.
The report says that 56 percent of Americans who arrive in their 50s working full time and full year in long-held jobs get laid off or pushed out on their way to retirement
ProPublica and the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank, analyzed data from the Health and Retirement Study. Since 1992, the study has followed a nationally representative sample of about 20,000 people after they turn 50.
The report says that 56 percent of Americans who arrive in their 50s working full time and full year in long-held jobs get laid off or pushed out on their way to retirement. Some pick up other work, but only one in 10 ever again make what they did before their employment setbacks and their household incomes show signs of the damage even years after the fact. When you add in those who have to leave career jobs because of their own poor health or that of family members, almost two-thirds of Americans retire involuntarily. The reality most people face today as they age isn’t anything like the happy story of sailing off into your golden years.
That said, it’s possible for those over 50 to build a brighter path by becoming their own bosses, leveraging their know-how, skills, talents, and work ethic by starting their own businesses. While this transition offers purpose, autonomy, location independence, and unlimited earning potential, like any career direction, it takes grit and determination.
It’s not easy to become an entrepreneur overnight but here are Five Critical Shifts that are necessary for success. When these 5 critical shifts are made, 50+ers are uniquely suited to build truly autonomous, rewarding, purpose-filled and financially successful new futures.
5 Critical Shifts
- Mindset Shift
This first one is huge, fundamental. Folks must learn to shift their internal thinking from “paycheck mentality” – seeing the only safety and success in a “guaranteed” paycheck to “empowered entrepreneurial thinking” – a mindset of determination and belief in themselves, and the future they are committed to creating. It takes deep mindset work, often at the subconscious level, much like professional athletes use, in visualizing success, and believing in their own potential and financially prosperous future.
- From Powerful Solution to A “Killer” Problem
Most new business owners make the mistake of identifying a market need as the basis for a new business. People buy from emotion (want), not logic (need). Identifying a “killer, deeply painful” problem, one that the marketplace wants a solution for badly enough to pay to have fixed, is a key marketing shift that must be made in designing a new business. Research and testing are important in helping make this shift successfully.
- Own A Rich Niche
Identifying the right targeted slice of the market is a much more lucrative approach then being a generalist in one’s new business. Most new business owners fear limiting their business to just one segment. While this may seem counterintuitive, being focused, and defining your business as a go-to resource for the right market niche/segment, yields higher, returns faster.
- Create One Secret Sauce, One Unique Value Proposition
Too often new business owners want to offer too many things to too many people for fear of missing out on potential business. Focusing and offering unique solutions for the right niche in unique ways pays off faster and bigger.
- Invest In High Quality Mentorship
New business owners find themselves lonely and self-doubting. Too often, they try to figure things out alone, cobble their business ideas and strategies together from free stuff they read or see on the internet. This scarcity-minded Band-Aid approach usually leads them down incorrect paths, fragments their efforts, and just delays lucrative results. Guesswork leads to overspending on the wrong things, being stingy in the right places.
Experienced mentors support, guide, and assist 50+ business owners in developing a focused, lucrative success path and direction. The faster one gets results, the more encouraged and confident one becomes, and the faster the business gains momentum.
Nancy Fox, founder of The Business Fox, is a leading high-performance business strategy and confidence coach for entrepreneurs at 50+, creator of The Business Fox Start Up School and Discover My Business Idea Method. www.thebusinessfox.com