About Us

The FIREd by 50 Program has roots in many areas.  None of it was created by me (Joel), but I am the one that bundled it up and am trying to make it easy for people to understand.  That's why I say "ish".  The program now has many partners that are ready, willing and able to help your employees get FIREd by 50. 

This program really started about 25 years ago when I got interested in helping people self-actualize.  This is a Maslow's Hieararchy 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 that 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 undestand 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 compound interest graph to teach the power of compound interest to middle school kids.  And they get it.  Credit to the Romans, I believe.

I also joined the military in 2005 and have been trained on leadership for years.  I now teach the Military Decision Making Process. (You can see my article on that in the Program Overview section.) Through that training, I learned about the power of coaching people along thier career and the power of process based decision making.  To many, these two concepts seem to be a little less important with regards to being FIREd by 50.  I think they are  more important.  This is the support piece that we all need, but don't articulate very well.  That being said, everyone knows that when they feel supported, they are happier and much more likely to be engaged and 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.

So that's the story.  I took what I learned from these areas and bundled it up into the FIREd by 50 Program.  Now there are FIREd by 50 Vendors that are helping people get their personal and professional house in order.

If you are a manager, I think you will be very happy with implementing this program with your team.  There are resources all around you, so don't get hung up on going it alone.  You really just need to facilitate getting those resources introduced to the people that need it.  To that point, please contact us anytime if you want help getting started.

All the best,

Joel Busboom