Why Business Networking & Residual Income is Essential for Your Retirement

We are in a much different world today compared to your grandparents or even your parents world was like prior to 50 years ago. 

Back then, one parent worked full-time at one job or ran one business and was the primary breadwinner while the other parent stayed at home and took care of the household.   The family can easily survive on one income and the parents were able to retire knowing their company pension & Social Security was all they need to have a nice retirement of golfing and sunshine.  There was really no such thing as business networking in the format it is in today and if you had a side hustle, you may been classified as a greasy old car salesman and did not fit into the norm.   Honestly, it was a good life since it seemed there was less stress and family values were a priority.

Today, there is a lot of more pressure and the norm is change, whether it is your job, business, financial situation.   Less than 5% of professionals stay at a job more than 10 years and 60% of Americans live check-to-check and are not saving for retirement.  Most professionals are in a state where they need to be proactive about their career and their success and not rely on their company to be loyal to them and build their career path.  Everyone today needs to be the CEO of their own domain and those that don't, are left behind and fall into that "check-to-check" and "no retirement" demographic.

The good news with today's world is that there are more options than ever to build your own domain.    The options that stand out today are Business Networking and Residual Income.  There are more opportunities than ever to build your own legacy and retirement success using these tools.   You can networking offline at events, especially in big cities and online via social media platforms like LinkedIN.  In terms of Residual Income, whether you earn residual income via real estate, network marketing or online learning, the sky is the limit to build a financial component that makes you money while you sleep.   Residual Income used to be a dirty word back in the days of the one income family, but now it should be part of every professionals financial plan to stability.

I wanted to share my story.  Prior to 2007, I had one source of income from one job and once the work day was over, I did the typical activities like watching TV, going to the gym or hanging with friends.  In 2007, I went to my first networking event and then in 2008, I was introduced to residual income.  It was a whole new world, but slowly but surely it caught on, and now today in 2019, I run a successful business networking group and currently have multiple sources of income (most residually) with the goal to retire from the typical corporate job in a few years, much earlier than most of my colleagues I graduated with.

The model I have built for me and my family in order to have an amazing and financially free retirement is my business networking and side hustles I am doing alongside my primary job.  Now don't get me wrong, I still want to have a "working retirement" focusing on my passion of helping others whether is with their health, their business or their financial situation.  However, I feel like it is absolutely essential to build a residual income today.  Social Security is good enough to buy your monthly groceries.  Nobody has a pension anymore, and you how your retirement portfolio is doing.   The stock market today is absolute drama and most companies don't even match your 401k contributions anymore.  You are essential on your own to make sure you are not a Walmart greeter just to make ends meet at the ripe old age of 82. 

So where does business networking come in?  It is the referral base, the lead generator that introduces you to the right people that can use the products and services you provide via your side hustles.   Hopefully, you are building side hustles that truly provide you with residual income.  Real Estate investing is the most popular, but network marketing is the least risky.  I encourage you to take the idea of building a residual income seriously and if you are approached with an opportunity to build something, don't close yourself off, since it may be your path to controlling your own domain.