Joel Busboom - Developer(ish) of the FIREd by 50 Program

The FIREd by 50 Program has roots in many areas.  None of it was created by me.  However I am the one that bundled it and am trying to make it easy for people to understand and implement.  That's why I say "ish". 

This program really started about 25 years ago when I got interested in helping people self-actualize.  This is a Maslow's Hierarchy term for "achieving your potential".  Maslow's Hierarchy is a great picture to show people and it's funny to watch them check it out.  They go up the pyramid and say "yep, yep, yep"...then come back down and realize they are stuck at the second level, which is Health and Wealth.  Credit to Maslow on that one.   

I'm an engineer by degree and was in the energy/facilities industry for about 15 years.  Eventually, I became a Financial Advisor.  In this position, I learned about compound interest and saw how most people didn't understand it at all.  I also saw that it is very easy to understand if you just see the graph of it.  Most importantly, I saw the look of hope on people's faces when they understood they could be a millionaire if they just got started investing and stayed with it for long enough.  For what it's worth, I have used the graph to teach the compound interest to middle school kids.  And they get it.  Credit to the Romans, I believe.

The first 2 Cs, Compound Interest and Career Progression, come from the above.

I joined the military in 2005 and have been trained on leadership for years.  I now teach the Military Decision Making Process.  Through that training, I learned about the power of coaching people along their career and the power of process based decision making.  To many, these two concepts seem to be a little less important inregards to being FIREd by 50.  I think they are more important.  This is the support piece that we all need, but don't get a lot of the time.  That being said, everyone knows that when they feel supported, they are happier, more likely to be engaged and more likely to be supportive of others.  To me, coaching and a culture of continuous improvement are key to unlocking the potential of ourselves and those around us.  Credit to the Army.

The 3rd C comes from this experience.

Now is that the program is built, it's time to bring in the students, schools, employers and vendors to help make FIREd by 50 happen for many, many people.  Please consider getting involved so we can continue to build on the current momentum.

Sincerely,

Joel Busboom