Our brains are at their best, and so is our attitude.
One of the greatest questions we ask is some variation of,
"At this age, do I have the chops to start and run a business?"
Friends, colleagues and family members ask why we aren't retiring or taking it easy. The media either ignore us or tell us we are getting older and should be planning for financial retirement--only 20 years late with this message! We hear all the clichés about forgetting where we left our glasses, that old dogs can't learn new tricks, and on and on.
The truth is very different, as keynote speaker Gene D. Cohen, M.D., made clear at the JWT LiveWire: The Summit conference in San Francisco. Cohen is director of the Center on Aging, Health and Humanities at George Washington University, and the focus of the conference wasmarketingto baby boomers.
What Cohen taught directly relates to us as After 55 entrepreneurs.
He outlined two very important concepts for this time of life, and each has great impact on how we see ourselves as women entrepreneurs. That's true whether we're starting a newbusinessor continuing to run an established enterprise.
The first is the Age of Creativity. According to Cohen, studies indicate that "the parts of the brain involved in information processing, integrating thoughts and emotions and initiating the process of memory storage . . . reach their greatest levels from our early 50s to our late 70s."
He went on to say that this area of the brain is also the seat of creativity. Even more exciting is that the challenges of starting and running a business are the kind of exercise that keeps our brain cells sprouting and making new connections. For entrepreneurs, our businesses are much more fun than learning to do Sudoku or playing Scrabble.
The second concept is the Age of Liberation. This is an age when we feel increased self-confidence, freedom and liberation from what society thinks about us.
Have you ever asked yourself, "What can they do to me?" or "If I don't do this now, when do I think I will do it?" If so, you are in the liberation phase. What a wonderful time, when we step into the person we've always thought we can be. We've paid our dues, perhaps lived to please or accommodate others, and now it's our turn. We know who we are, and we're willing to take a risk to bring our visions to reality.
Walt Disney said, "If you can dream it, you can do it."
Science now supports what we have instinctively known for a long time: Our place at the middle of life's timeline tells us this is exactly the right time to give life to our entrepreneurial visions. Let's show them what we can do!
