Creating Retirement Income
I had a post a few weeks ago about my past and the lack of sleep I got, I talked about the morning I almost crashed as a result of dozing off. I wish I could say that was the only time I’ve had a close call but there were several others.
A few years ago I purchased a motorcycle from a friend, it was a Yamaha R1 with a special racing motor. I didn’t realize how much power that bike had and how dangerous it was, I just really enjoyed to ride. The day I got it I was driving on a major Highway in our hometown, I decided I wanted to see how fast the bike could really go, so I punched it.
Before I even looked down at the speedometer I was going 115 mph (I’m dead serious) and it felt like I was flying. As I was driving along I was focused on watching out for cops, that would have been a huge ticket but as I was driving the wind really started to kick me all over the place. I started to get scared and had to slow down, as I was driving back home I had all kinds of thoughts rolling through my head.
First and foremost I thought of what would have happened if I hit something or dumped the bike: probably death. Then once I was thinking about death, I was thinking about my family and how they would survive, that thought was scarier then death. It really got me thinking about how stupid I was with some of the things I was doing and about what legacy I would leave behind.
The old ways don’t work anymore
Back before our economy got so messed up you could work for a company for forty years and retire with a nice pension and a nest egg, life was good back then. These days most people won’t last more than ten years at a company and pensions have become extinct, so we have to think about retirement in a different way, we have to find our own options.
There are few things available to us
Even for those of us that are self-employed there are a few good options out there, there are IRA’s, SEP’s, Self 401K’s and many more. There is one key thing that you must have in any of these plans: MONEY! Even if you work for a company more than likely the bulk of your retirement planning is going to fall on your shoulders, you will need money for any retirement plan.
Think differently about retirement income
When I started to think about my family, if I died they would be in a really bad situation. My wife would have been forced to support three kids with a low paying job and still have to worry about childcare from time to time. This thought broke my heart and woke me up, I needed to do something about it ASAP (and I am).
This is one of the reasons I worked so hard on my books and the things I was doing online, I wanted to create residual income. I know there are many people online who tell you that you can get rich if you buy this course or go to this seminar, I just wanted to make a comfortable living and leave something to my family. Residual income appealed to me because if I died, my wife would have to do very little, continue to have income and have freedom to just focus on raising the kids without having to worry about money.
For me, I’m going to keep pushing forward with my books, create products that help people, speak publicly, and coach people who need a little direction. I want to build something for my family and help people build something for their families, that’s what I’m working on.
How about you? What will you leave behind?
If you’ve never thought about it or have been too afraid to do something about it, this is your wake up call. If you listen to The Dave Ramsey show then you know the saddest calls you hear are the widow’s who call in and talk about how their spouse died and left them with nothing but debt, it’s absolutely heart breaking!
Is that a call you want your spouse to make?
If you decide to create some sort of residual income then I want to tell you it’s not going to be easy, but with some hard work and hustle, you can leave your family in an amazing position. I don’t want my wife making that call, I want her to have the freedom to focus on raising our kids after I’m gone.
If you need any help starting to think about creating residual income or just extra income in general, email me at kimanzi@talesofwork.com I won’t charge you a thing, I would love to help point you in the right direction. I started this website to help people, that’s my number one goal, so if you need help, don’t hesitate!
What kind of legacy will you leave behind? What are you doing about it?
