In my e-book The DIY Retirement Plan, one of the first discussions I start is WHY you need to seriously consider building a business on-line.

In my other posts this week, I have discussed the two most obvious reasons for developing an on-line business.

I have recently come to the realization, however, that there is a third, and very powerful, WHY that comes with pursuing an on-line business.

Last month I read Simon Sinek’s “Start With Why“.

The strange thing for me is that I knew all the stuff Sinek talked about – I had just never formalized the concepts in my head. Here’s an exerpt:

“What if the next time someone asks, “Who’s your competition?” we replied, “No idea.” What if the next time someone pushes, “Well, what makes you better than your competition?” we replied, “We’re not better than them in all cases.” And what if the next time someone asks, “Well why should I do business with you then?” we answer with confidence, “Because the work we’re doing now is better than the work we were doing six months ago. And the work we’ll be doing in six months is better than the work we’re doing today. Because we wake up every day with a sense of WHY we come to work. We come to work to inspire people to do the things that inspire them. Are we better than our competition? If you believe what we believe and you believe that the things we do can help you, then we’re better. […] Our goal is to find customers who believe what we believe and work together so that we can all succeed.”

I’d like to share a little history you now, if I may.

I have worked in ElderCare for over 20 years. In the beginning the residents in my residential care facilities were like my parents and my grandparents. Now-a-days they are more like my parents and my siblings. There has been a disturbing thread through all three generations of the women I have met in this career. It is by no means universal but it happens often enough to be distressing.

It is a fairly sure bet that the older we get, the higher the chances of us remaining single or getting divorced or becoming widowed. (I am going to use the term “widowed” to apply also to those women who have lost their husbands to dementia.) The dilemma I have seen all too often is women unprepared to take the financial reins of retirement.

Many single women are being faced with health issues with no real supports in place, and no real education about how to cope financially with the extra monetary burden a critical illness can place on them. Whether they need special treatments that are not subsidized; if they need to travel to appointments and treatments in another city; if they need to hire help around the home – these are all expenses that many single women have not factored into their retirement incomes. I have seen some of these women do without the help they need and end up in care… still struggling to lobby for their own needs on a budget that will not stretch far enough.

There are a surprising number of women who have let their spouses handle all aspects of the family finances. If they find themselves divorced or widowed at an advanced age, they are completely confused about taking the reins. Sometimes they don’t even know which banks hold their savings, or how the bills were paid, or even if they have investments. They are suddenly trusting complete strangers to talk them through concepts they don’t have a clue about. It is an education they are not prepared for, nor do they have any background to ease the learning curve. In the case of women whose husbands are now in care, they are not struggling to learn how to finance a household and plan for the future – they are overwhelmed trying to cope with two!

In each scenario, the women are scared and confused and often make themselves sick, or sicker.

In the beginning these women were a surprise to me, but as more and more of them came into my life – even still in this day and age – I have run the gamut from surprised to concerned to frustrated to angered.

This is where my WHY has come from.

My goal – my mission – is to help as many women as possible create their own retirement incomes. Not only does this enable them to live their WHYs like I discussed in Pt.2, but it necessitates they learn the skills necessary to run a business, hence their life, thus their retirement.

I am not a financial advisor! I can give no advice on any financial planning. I can, however, coach and assist people to create an on-line business that will create potentially impressive incomes and afford them the retirement they dream of. I can recommend products and services and opportunities… if they are compatible with my clients, great! If they discover their own, fabulous!

I want all of us to be better tomorrow than we are today. I want us to better next month, and by next year having success. By the time we retire, I want us to be awesome and spreading the word!

That’s my third WHY.

I hope you’ll join me.