It sounds odd; but first we Grow Up and then we Grow Down. We spend 30 to 60 years accumulating relationships, skills, knowledge, assets, and responsibilities, only to have them successively removed until at the end of another 30 to 60 years we leave with nothing. That's assuming everything has worked out well; but even working out well doesn't seem to be in today's forecast.

Our culture prepares us to grow up. As we become capable, opportunities to expand our purposes are presented to us. We become used to "adding" more to our lives, a family, friends, an education, a career, our own family, financial and other assets. The challenge is adjusting to adding onto yet another part of our lives. But somewhere at some point, we all shockingly find ourselves losing an unrecoverable part of our life.

It could be loss of a career, a loved one, financial assets, or even our health. Not an opportunity to move on; but a real unrecoverable loss. Years of growing up leave us completely unprepared. No one has ever taught us how to handle the challenges of going "downhill".

If life has a purpose (and we all have to take a position of this), then we are faced with the conclusion that this process is one of personal focus. Life narrows itself to focus us on our extended purposes. Removing any significant piece of our personal life system causes everything else to lose its former purpose. The resulting emotional turmoil is often debilitating.

The process of Personal Reinvention has helped many facing this life crisis. Some have worked through this themselves, others have taken advantage of self-help, and many are now trying Personal Reinvention Workshops. The methods start with the remaining pieces (resources) and views them through the lens of your life history. A new, more focused, purpose can emerge if you seek it.

Although we use Personal Business Models as our tool, the results may not relate to business at all. We often find our purpose in service to others. Finding that service will put the meaning into Growing Down.

The 70's Best Seller, Future Shock, predicted that by now the social changes brought about by advancing technology would leave us all in a state of "shattering stress and disorientation". This is not a bad way to describe how the career displacement and burnout so many experience feels. The good news is that the future has also produced a way to deal with it - Personal Reinvention and to achieve that, Personal Business Models.

Personal Business Models are an outgrowth of the organizational Business Modeling techniques complied in the best selling workbook, Business Model Generation. Self-described as "a handbook for visionaries, game changers, and challengers ...", the manual introduces a new tool, the Business Model Canvas, as a way to visualize the dynamics of how an organization supports itself. The canvas then becomes a place to create possible futures and judge their effectiveness. The process is both engaging and enlightening, which has lead to its international popularity.

It would seem that applying this technique to an individual could be equally as engaging and enlightening, and another international community has been developing that idea which will be available in early 2012 when Business Model YOU will be published. The deliverable here is a version of the canvas called a Personal Business Model.

While developing an organizational model has many similarities to the Personal Business Model, they start in very different places. The heart of any organization is the market it serves and the value it gives to its customers. Without giving value to customers, there is no reason for the organization to exist.

You and I are different. We exist anyway. Why is that? The heart of a Personal Business Model is an answer to that question. An organization develops or utilizes whatever resources it needs to deliver a value. We have our natural and earned resources without regard to any value proposition. What are we supposed to do with them? Starting here is the challenge of developing a Personal Business Model.

Once your purpose has been articulated and applied to your career using the methodologies in the book, its time to investigate possible change. Your current situation can (and most likely will) change. Business Model YOU  teaches you ways to move your perspective and see what happens. Reinvented career possibilities can then be tested and validated. A new way to finance life will emerge.

Yes, the times are disrupting everything as Future Shock predicted. What used to work in our lives may have already stopped working. If not, it's in danger of that. Change is being forced on us, like it or not. A Personal Business Model provides a purpose-based basis for discovering how to reinvent yourself in meaningful ways to address a new future.

A warning, its not easy. The book will take the reader on a careful step-by-step journey of self-discovery and then reinvention. For many, the book alone will be sufficient. Others will struggle on their own. For those, Personal Business Model workshops are becoming available. Either way, all of us will face Reinventing our futures more and more. It's now a part of life.

_Baby Boomers were proud to be a generation of change in their youth. They also thought they would be able to retire just like their parents did; but that just isn't going to happen. They're still going to be leaders of changing ways, like it or not.

Retirement planning based on historical stock market growth isn't working. The up-and-down sideways movement of investments are being described as "the new normal" by today's analysts. Savings are not going to allow for most employed Baby Boomers to retire with the same financial assurance they had assumed. Rising health costs, especially for aging Americans, are also making Baby Boomers an attractive target for corporate downsizing. So what can they do when faced with being unable to retire and rapidly becoming unemployable?

The Emotional Challenge is also the Opportunity

There is an emotional dynamic to seeking retirement. Most look forward to it when they're just tired. Not physically exhausted; but emotionally tired of facing issues they cannot resolve day after day. Counselors call it career burnout. The opposite of burnout is career engagement. That's what everyone really wants. Something in our lives that gives us meaningful work as well as income. We enjoy facing problems every day that we are good at solving.

Here is the opportunity. As Business Brokers we know that at any given time 10% to 20% of small business owners in any category are ready to sell their business. Why? They're just tired. It's not that business is bad. Burnout is everywhere. The opportunity is to first find what will engage you; and then find the person who is experiencing burnout doing that because it should be you doing it rather than them. This is easily seen with business ownership and is the strategy we use in the Executive Advocate program for individuals; but the effect is everywhere. The business model approach can be used by anyone, even if it doesn't lead to starting or buying a business.

Business Model YOU

A community of international business and human resource advisers are completing a Do It Yourself Reinvention manual for release early in 2011. The title is Business Model YOU, after the best selling manual, Business Model Generation. Once available, anyone can work through a systematic approach to discover their career engagement opportunities and develop an approach to making a living with them. Tim Clark has written several introductions to the Business Model YOU process. Jumpstarting your career is a high level overview; and there is another where he likens it to working on an MPA, a Masters of Personal Administration.

Those in North Texas are also able to attend Personal Business Model Workshops.  These introduce Personal Business Models and then the development of your own Personal Brand by applying life experiences to your model. From that perspective, it's easier to see if any opportunity under consideration makes good business sense. The results can be a simple as a renewed perspective of a current position to opening-up entirely career vistas.

A Reinvention Community

At 25 or 30 it's easy to start a venture and not worry too much about it. If things don't work out, it's good experience and there is plenty of time for another career. Baby Boomers don't have that luxury. A career transition at this point in life has to work. There cannot be too much put into mitigating the risk. In addition to the individual programs and small group workshops already mentioned, an online community can provide valuable feedback. Recognizing this growing need, the AARP has started one they call The Reinvention Group. There is no cost to join. Expect to find many more over time.

Reinventing yourself at over 50 starts as a scary proposition; but if done with care, it succeeds in being the right thing at the right time. Consider how much of America's wisdom and experience is contained within the Baby Boomers. Not only do they financially and emotionally need to stay engaged, our country still badly needs them

Career burn-out is inescapable when the individual and their job have become mismatched. This insidious condition presents itself with 6 well known symptoms.
1)  No time - The demands of your work exceed your capacity to handle it.
2) No authority - Others have control over you.
3) No rewards - Money and recognition have become insufficient.
4) No community - You are becoming more and more isolated in your job.
5) Unfair to You - You are being treated unfairly
6) Unfair to Others - You are being asked to treat others in ways you believe to be unfair.

There is a mistaken belief that these are symptoms of someone who just isn't "tough" enough to make it in the real world. A problem with career burn-out is that by the time the misalignment between your strengths and your career has reduced your effectiveness, your self esteem has also been worn to the point you start believing this fable. Rounds of renewed personal effort continue as your career leads nowhere.

Starting a career change is tough. It means going into the unknown without any assurance that life will actually get better. Most don't have the heart for it unless pushed by circumstances (like a health problem or job loss). But it is possible to match yourself to your career. A powerful way to do this to see yourself as a personal business.

You don't need to quit your job to begin the process. The new guide being published in early 2012, Business Model You, goes through the process. For those tried of working for others, Business Franchise counselors also offer similar guidance in examining your personal business strengths. In the end, everyone needs answers to not only what you do and how you do it, but most importantly, why.

I was reading Exodus 20 this morning and saw that things really haven't changed. With apologies to the original author............

I A business career is the vehicle used to accomplish life goals. Never allow it to be the driver.
II. Keep in mind the image of who you really are. This is leads to your life's purpose, not a collection of status symbols.
III. Money is necessary; but it also leads to vanity. Learn to recognize when you are "in vain".
IV. Find a way to rest and recover and religiously keep it separate from business. The penalty is early burn-out.
V. There are always new business opportunities but family opportunities will never repeat. Honor them.
VI.Competition is about making you and your business better, never about killing others.
VII. Your commitment to your mate is singular. You cannot have it and another primary relationship, either with another person or a business career.
VIII. You will know if an act is stealing. Even if successful, you now have to live with a thief you cannot trust.
IX. Personal integrity will carry you through the most difficult of circumstances. It's always a mistake to trade it for a momentary career convenience.
X. Even if the grass on the other side of the fence is greener, it's not your grass. Take pride in your grass and that focus will drive your success.

There is a spiritual side to career reinvention. This isn't religion, which is a belief system. Spirituality is deriving meaning from life experiences.  The development of a Personal Business Model uses very modern approaches to help us find that meaning from our lives; however, the importance of meaning in life is both sacred and centuries old. It's always comforting to see the connections between where we are trying to go and where mankind has always been.