June 11, 2006

• Awesome Sundays

  
  

  Sundays have been just plain awesome for the past 6 months.  Today was a prime example of such.  Youngest J and I go to Whataburger for breakfast and play “football” with the little number tent that they give you with your order.  It is played much the same as the little triangle football that we used when I was a kid.  We bat it back and forth across the table making touchdowns when we get the tent to pause with a portion of it poised at the edge of the table.  The only difference is that we do not kick field goals with the little tent number like we did with the paper footballs.

  
  

  We get in at least 5 minutes of football before our meal arrives because I usually get pancakes which take a little longer than everything else.  From time to time we only get a couple of minutes of football in because the cook sees us drive in and starts pancakes for me knowing that I will order them.  I am such a creature of habit in some things.

  
  

  I had a meeting with a mentor yesterday about the idea I have had about building a retirement community in the country of Honduras.  This man is in his late 70′s or early 80′s and has been very successful in many ventures throughout his life.  He was very excited about the idea I have about providing an alternative option for the multitude of Baby Boomers that are approaching retirement.  He gave me some advice on what to do next and I will be taking said advice and continuing the journey toward a goal that has to be achieved.

  
  

  I told him that I was hesitant to “let the cat out of the bag” about the idea and he said that competition in an endeavor is actually a good thing especially in something as cutting edge as shipping retirees to 3rd world countries to enjoy their golden years in luxury on limited incomes.  He said that he had embraced competition in every endeavor he had peruse because competition often provides the exposure he needed to succeed knowing that he could do anything anyone else did better.

  
  

  So with that, I will be telling everyone and their brother about my dream of providing comfortable retirement options to “gringos” in communities that I build down in Honduras.  He even told me that the market is not limited to gringos and that there would be a market for people of other nationalities to take advantage of the inexpensive dwellings I build as well.  I had not even thought of that market.

  
  

  The first thing I am to do is define the target market.  Knowing who to market this new way of retiring is critical to getting investors to buy into the idea.  He actually said that the 70′s hippy group would be the first that came to his mind.  This segment of the population has lived just outside the traditional model of their parents and would be the most likely group to target first.  I just missed that generation but have seen firsthand the different lifestyle many of them have embraced.  There are others that fit the profile and I will be spending some substantial time in the coming weeks identifying who would be likely to take advantage of the opportunities I will be offering.

  
  

  Another important piece of advice he gave me was to take extreme care in choosing the team of people that will help me accomplish this goal.  I know the wisdom in this piece of advice.

  
  

  My ultimate goal in this endeavor is to create an affordable alternative to retirement for the masses that have not prepared beyond what the government has promised.  Beyond this ultimate goal is the added benefit that will occur in the towns in Honduras surrounding the retirement communities.  Jobs will be created and lives will be affected by the influx of revenue that the retirees bring.

  
  

  I created retireinhonduras.com to begin the journey and will be updating it as time goes on.  I will be populating the site with search words soon so that Google searches will lead people there.

  
  

  This is so far outside my comfort zone and I am feeling it to my bones.  Scared and excited are the only words I know of to describe my feelings.  There is also the nagging doubt that says that I will not follow through with this idea because it is so much bigger than I am.  Only time will tell if this dream will end up as an unfulfilled wish or as reality.

  
  

  I am banking on reality revealed that is destined to occur through the vision that I was given.

  • 11:33 pm
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