But my body feels like it might be. And the lines on my face are getting clearer. I’m closer to 50 than I am 21, although I lie and tell myself I’m Peter Pan. As a finance guy on the internet, I get lots of questions about money.
What may surprise you is many of them are from 50-somethings. Here’s what I tell those readers about making money after you’re 50.
The marketplace doesn’t care how old you are
If you go on LinkedIn you’ll be told getting old is a death wish.
“Once you turn 40 nobody wants you anymore. The hiring manager won’t say it to your face, but they’ll be thinking it.”
Who made these LinkedIn gurus mind readers?
No one knows what a hiring manager or recruiter is thinking. Half the time we talk ourselves out of financial opportunities because we’re afraid, then we use our age as an excuse.
Businesses, people, customers — don’t care how old you are. It has nothing to do with whether you have the right to be paid or earn the big bucks.
The marketplace is really saying “I don’t understand your value.” Communicate how you help people in a simpler way. Money will overflow your bank account when you do.
Fixed income equals fixed mindset
As someone who makes money on the internet, I hear this too often: “I’m on a fixed income so I can’t do X.”
There’s no such thing as a fixed income.
Every one of us can add another income stream if we choose. Or we can go from by-the-hour-pay to outcome-based pay. The idea a fixed income exists is really just a concept that comes from people who have fixed mindsets.
They let victimhood and pessimism run their financial life when, instead, they should read a few books on growth mindset and understand human potential is limitless.
You can do whatever the heck you want at whatever age you want.
One of my favorite examples is Jon Morrow.
He is paralyzed from the neck down and lives life in a wheelchair. He should be living on a fixed income disability pension and never leaving his house. Yet, somehow, he got out of his rut, started writing online and built a massive online empire.
The guy types words on his keyboard with his tongue.
We can drown in excuses or we can just make money. Money doesn’t discriminate. It goes to those who put in the work, understand how currency works, and dare to ask to be paid well.
No one cares if you’re an expert
I’ve found the 50+ age bracket seems to be obsessed with the idea of being an expert. It doesn’t mean other generations don’t think it too, but it appears to be a bigger factor in the 50+ group.
My parents are the same. They think letters after your name, Harvard, and professions like doctors and astronauts are the holy grail.
In the age of the internet the idea of an expert is pointless.
Anyone can be an expert. We can learn a new skill for free on Youtube and reach mastery in 90 days if we want.
There’s no official accreditation for “expert.” It’s a made-up idea made up by the elites to talk people out of their dreams so they’ll build someone else’s.
You don’t need to be an expert.
I’ll take it further. Dare me? Non-experts get paid more. Why? They’re more like you and I.
They’re normal so they’re relatable. Their egos are smaller and they just get on with the job and quit banging on about their experience.
Your mindset will make you more money than “experience” ever will
The book “The Psychology of Money” is one of the best-selling books of the last few decades.
Accident?
Hell no, amigo. How you think about money determines more about how much you’ll make than “experience” ever will.
Just because you can learn a simple skill once and repeat it every day for years, doesn’t mean you’ve mastered the skill or earned the right to make a million dollars a year off it.
Mindset is your programming. It’s the code that runs your mind. You can brainwash yourself to believe anything, including that you deserve to be paid $100K a month for your work.
If you want to make more money after age 50, reprogram your mind. Divorce yourself from the current relationship you have with money. Remarry and find a new honey.
You never have to stop earning
There’s this weird idea you hit 64, retire, then stop earning until you die.
Why? I don’t get it. There isn’t a magical age when you should stop working for money.
Making money is fun. It’s an art. It’s something to do. What else you going to do … sit around and play chess with the old folks in the nursing home? Come on. Life can be better than that. We’re built for more.
I know this guy who is 85 years old. He started making money on social media 6 months ago.
He can barely turn on his laptop but he’s trying. He launched a paid newsletter. He’s not making $1B a month or anything … although he’s made around $7000 so far.
Not bad. That buys a helluva lot of movie tickets on tightarse Tuesday. The funniest thing is, the money hasn’t changed him but his outlook on life has. He thinks he can run alongside the younger folk.
He even wants to launch a TikTok about fiction writing. Go get ’em, I say.
Earn until you’re 110 if you want to.
We all have value (even over 50s)
This one hurts the most.
It’s the one that makes me emotional. Too many 50+ folks think they don’t have value. That their life doesn’t have value.
It’s so damn sad because it’s a lie.
“Value” is often misunderstood. It’s this idea you need to be special or wildly different. Like you need to be Justin Bieber dressed in flip flops alongside a supermodel wife in a red cocktail dress. That ain’t cool.
Value is far more simplistic:
- Save people time
- Curate ideas and strategies for them
- Share stories from your life
- Entertain people. Make them laugh, cry, and go aha!
Even raising a family = Value
People like me suck at that. We have no clue. You dismiss raising a family like it’s nothing, but it’s actually a huge deal. See what I mean? “Value” needs a new marketing campaign. Hollywood messed the message up.
Once you understand value, you can make more money from it.
Making money is hard at any age
Making money is a video game.
It’s not easy at any age in life. Making money as a fresher straight out of university at 21 is just as hard as making money at 55 after you’ve been made redundant from your job in the middle of a downturn and wondering if you’ll ever be able to get another one again.
Making money is hard because it tests everything we’ve learned. It tests our fragility, mindset, beliefs, and even our relationships.
If money was easy to understand, we’d all be billionaires hanging out with Jeff Bezos in a hot tub and saying “Life is good, man.”
Money is hard to understand because humans are hard to understand.
The reasons we hand money over for a product/service are complicated. Unless you understand human psychology you’ll never understand the psychology to make “F OFF” money and start an “F OFF Fund.” (trademarks: Reddit [joking not joking]).
The challenge of making money is what keeps life interesting. As you figure out more of life, more levels of the money game get unlocked. And if you get too cocky, then you lose all your money and have to start again.
Choose hard. Learn to love hard.
This article is for informational purposes only, it should not be considered financial, tax or legal advice. Consult a financial professional before making any major financial decisions.
