Changing Course at 50

Changing course at 50 and beyond is now pretty common. It’s a strange time in life. A time where many feel burned out. Others just realize that they have been doing same thing for 30 years and are just unfulfilled. It’s also a time unfortunately, especially in these days of ever evolving technology where many are laid off.  Some have been able to retire early but still feel they have plenty of gas left in the tank. In “the longevity revolution” they could have another 25 or even 35 years left. What to do?

Changing course at 50 or older would have seemed foolhardy to our parents or grandparents. Even if they felt unfulfilled at that age they’d just adopt a “that’s life” attitude. They’d stoically put the nose to the grindstone and trudge towards retirement. They at least had job security, hopefully a pension and savings they could live on and few if any debts or big expenses to worry about.

New World – Different Rules

Things are very different today. This brave new digital world we find ourselves in is both scary and exciting. Computers and technology are replacing many of the careers and businesses that were once considered safe. The possibility of just bouncing into a new career at 50 is a remote one. Starting a bricks and mortar business too is risky in a world where so many traditional businesses are disrupted by automation, technology and now Artificial intelligence.

The really good news however is that this has also created huge opportunities for those (of any age) who are willing to grab to them.

To be frank when I started researching for this article I was a little annoyed by what I found out there. I found a lot of fluffy stuff about de-cluttering your life, changing your internal story and creating personal themes around what the rest of your life is going to be. All very worthy I’m sure and no doubt valuable to some. But when I was laid off in my late forties I was looking for something a little more practical.

I wanted to replace, possibly even greatly increase the income I had just lost as quickly as possible. We were in the midst of the recession that had taken my career and finding a similar position “at my age” was not very likely. I needed to circle my wagons and take care of myself. For me that meant starting a business.

Changing Course At 50 – Using Past Experience

From what I could see back in 2011 the Internet was the only industry that was growing and that’s where I went looking.

Of course I found plenty of scams, false promises and pie in the sky, get rich quick schemes. My inbuilt west of Scotland scepticism and 12 years in sales and business development helped me avoid those.

But in the years leading up to my redundancy I had been doing some research into how money is actually made online. By then of course any business that wanted to be around for long had websites and a social media presence. In my own role I was using that fact to locate and contact potential new clients. Online marketing was obviously taking over from traditional advertising and cold calling.

Completely new Internet business models were allowing people to start businesses from home. E-commerce – basically websites instead of physical shops – was growing in popularity.  It now threatens the entire retail Industry.

Affiliate marketing, where you sell other people’s products for commission, seemed to me pretty much like an Internet version of what I’d been doing most of my working life. There were though some very attractive key differences: You could do it from anywhere; you could sell almost anything; your potential market was global and it never slept.

As a guy who had always worked by cold calling in person or by telephone this was incredibly attractive. No more phone calls, travelling, meetings, pitching or commuting. I needed to know how this worked.

Taking The Right Direction

As I continued to look for the answer I came across a series of videos from a guy called Stuart Ross. After leaving a successful career in real estate just before burning out in his twenties he had discovered affiliate marketing in 2008. He went at it with a vengeance, devouring everything he could find on the subject. Finding a mentor early on helped him find huge success with it and he’d made his fist million as an online entrepreneur within 18 months.

Years and multiple 7 figures later, recognizing the power of mentoring he teamed up with a guy from the other side of the pond called Jay Kubassek. Jay had been on a similar journey and was now well known stateside for his internet business training company Carbon Copy Pro. The two formed first The Six Figure Mentors then Digital Experts Academy.

The idea was to reverse engineer their success and experience and build an education platform to help entrepreneurs’ transition to the digital world.  The platform, built as an online community, contained all of the systems, tools and ongoing training an online entrepreneur would need. They also offered affiliate partnerships at various levels.

For some like me looking to change course at 50 this sounded too good to be true. But since the videos were free I went ahead and subscribed.

As they started to come through by email one at a time for 7 days I became increasingly interested. Until that point any of the “Internet Gurus” videos I’d watched had turned me off completely. They usually consisted of rapid fire, hard sell monologues interspersed with images of supercars and yachts. These guys were refreshingly different. They told their stories, explained the growth of the Internet economy and how affiliate marketing works.

Practical Help In Changing Course at 50

That was six years ago. Since then I’ve not only had some great results promoting SFM to people like me, I’ve also built and collaborated on a number of online businesses and websites. I should point out I’d had zero experience with websites prior to this.

Whatever your motivation is for changing course at 50 or over I’d urge you to do as I did and take a look at these videos. You can subscribe for them on the link below. There’s no charge, commitment or hard selling whatsoever and you just might find some serious inspiration for the change you need.