Is there an age after which you shouldn’t think of starting a business of your own? What a dumb question! Of course not! Entrepreneurs have started something brand new in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, and some in their 90s!

For example, Harland Sanders founded the Kentucky Fried Chicken empire at 65. Tony Bennett is reaching young people with new music at age 73. Lee Iacocca of Chrysler Corporation fame is putting his marketing muscle behind the electric-powered bicycle at age 75. Dr. Robert Ross, commodities broker, founder of Ross University School of Medicine in Dominica and the Ross School of Veterinary Medicine on St. Kitts is again in the limelight at 82 with his third and fourth careers, bringing nurses and aides into U.S. hospitals and marketing a new way to educate the world!

Golden Years Are Not The Boring Years
It’s no longer acceptable for men and women in what society calls their ‘Golden Years’ to quit living and become bored to death sitting around staring at the trash we call television entertainment. That magical age of 65 inching up to 70 is something government has arbitrarily put out there as ‘the’ retirement age, and it’s a waste of lives and talents.

People over 55 (the age at which we become ‘Seniors’), which includes many of you reading this right now, were brought up to be contributing members of our society, not gourds destined to wither on the vine. Sitting around and watching the paint of life dry on the wall is not something we expected nor wanted to have happen, so let’s do something about it!

Get active! There are precedents for action like that taken by Sanders, Bennett, Iacocca, and Ross, so let’s collectively get up off our relax-o-chair and do once again what we love to do, whatever that is!

Improving Your Life
Improving Your Life I’m going to talk a bit more about Dr. Ross, a poster person for success over 55! At 82, Dr. Ross is a man who doesn’t understand the word ‘quit’. For example, if you wonder why you can never find a doctor in your area, ask the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, a regulatory agency sponsored by the American Medical Association of American Medical Colleges (an accreditation group) why they enforce a limit on medical school enrollment to around 16,000 a year in the U.S.

In 1989 there were 24,000 applicants for those 16,000 positions, and this grew to 49,000 in 1999. Ask them why there are only 125 medical schools in the United States. Ask them why they absolutely refuse to allow foreign medical universities and schools to open branches in the United States.

Dr. Ross asked, and has been told, “No.”, the same answer given to the Kigezi University in Uganda. Wait, that’s not quite what Dr. Ross was told . . . he was told that he should close up his foreign Dominica University, move it lock, stock, and dollars to Casper, Wyoming (the state’s highly supported site planned for the Ross University branch), and then the committee would look favorably on accrediting the new university as a U.S. school, but not if it was in any way connected with a foreign school.

I translate these actions to mean, “None of those foreigners are going to take over OUR purvey! Keep those foreigners out! We have a monopoly, and we intend to keep it that way.” As I said, that’s my interpretation of their actions.

In 1999 Ross University was sold to the same group of investors that started the Edison Group schools in New York, and is doing fine, producing physicians and veterinarians that take the U.S. tests and practice in the U.S. should they desire.

So what’s this octogenarian doing now? He’s started a new online state-of-the-art university called International Distance Learning Inc. (www.idlco.com) devoted to teaching the curricula of U.S. universities to students throughout the world, particularly in Eastern Europe, Far East, Africa, Middle East and third world countries via the Internet, using stand-alone modules or other electronic methods. Students can obtain degrees from U.S. universities and from universities in their specific country. He is also working to bring qualified nurses and aides into the U.S. to relieve the shortage of nurses in hospitals. If you want more information on Dr. Ross, and what he’s doing, first check the website, then contact him at 561-547 1327, but have your ducks in line … at 82 he’s sharp!

Improving Your Life
Now back to you, me, and everyone over 55 who hates being labeled a ‘Senior Citizen’. You’re experts in something, so do something with your knowledge. Start a new business, set yourself up as an expert mentor, join SCORE (the Small Business Administration’s Service Corps of Retired Executives), or find something else where you can use those talents you developed over the years. Whatever you do, get with it!

I urge you experienced citizens out there to let me know what you’re up to. Are you using those years of banking experience to help others understand the power of money? Are you still teaching, but teaching privately what you know works instead of what some union or bureaucrat says you must teach? Are you teaming with a 20 something youngster to use your marketing experience and their energy to get a dot com off the drawing board and into mainstream America?

What ARE you doing? What’s keeping your life exciting? E-mail me the details at paul@tulenko.com, and check out the hundreds of tips and ideas at http://www.tulenko.com, or write to me at: Paul Tulenko, 2320 La Vista Court NW, Albuquerque, NM 87120.