Like most people, I always wanted to retire early. Trying to figure out what is the best retirement plan posed to be a serious challenge though. For me, early was 50. I could not see any benefit in working until my health started to cave in and I could no longer enjoy the fruits of my labour.
There had to be a better way and I was determined to find it!
Yes, I steered the course and did like most of you. I finished secondary (high) school, went on to university but left early to embark on that dreaded daily-grind roller coaster that the majority of us find ourselves on.
My roller coaster took me across careers and the globe. Satisfaction was hard to come by and disillusionment seemed to follow me wherever I went.
Life Takes Unexpected Turns
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Life never takes us on a straight path. If it did, things would get very boring, very fast. Have you ever driven along a straight highway for miles on end? It is one of the most non-engaging things that you could do, especially if the scenery is mundane. It seems to go on forever and saps the energy out of you.
On the other hand, a winding road up a mountain or through the countryside is much more engaging and motivating. There is a lot more to see and you may even find picturesque places to stop along the way.
Our life plans takes us on that engaging, winding road, with lots of turns, crossroads and junctures. We are e called upon to make decisions that determine if we stop, turn left or reverse. Sometimes those decisions may result in us having to walk away from plans that we had made and dreams that we were determined to achieve.
If you do that often enough, you soon start to see the rainbow on your horizon slip further away, rather than come into clearer focus. That may result in you losing sight of where you are heading.
Resilience Keeps You Going
That winding road has its purpose. They take you through adversity and hard knocks and those experiences teach you lessons that make you stronger, wiser and better able to appreciate the positives and goodness that befalls you.
Without resilience, you would become overwhelmed and disappointed. Instead of appreciating the value in failing, you would consider yourself a failure and quickly fall down a path of destruction.
It is thanks to resilience that I was able to retire at that early age and begin to transition my life away from the traditional public expectations. There was one proviso.
I was not yet ready.
There was no nest egg, no retirement fund, no bottomless pool to dip into. To top it off, I had a beautiful 5-year old daughter to single-parent. Thank fully I had made some fairly okay investments, mainly in property but, I did not take the beaten track. There was no fixed pension safety net to look forward to.
I walked away from public, corporate life with only myself to fall back on. So now, after the choice I made sank in, it was time to figure out how I was going to do this.
My search for the best retirement plan began.
My Search Took Me Online
Lifestyle is very important to me. I am not referring to the “shiny object syndrome”. I may have gone through some of that in my younger years but my preferred lifestyle revolves around travel. Not 5-star travel either.
I have an affinity towards exploratory travel. The kind of travel that takes you into the heart and soul of a place. I like to meet the grassroots people and experience how they live and how the fabric of their environment is woven together.
That requires you to leave the 5-star hotels behind, step onto less travelled pathways and explore. One of my objectives in retiring early was to do just that. Spend most of my time travelling the world, discovering and exploring places that I had not yet had the pleasure to do.
I wanted to do that while not only earning an income to fund it, but also having enough to continue to save and invest in assets. That, in my humble opinion, is the only way to ensure that I could maintain the lifestyle I had grown accustomed to.
A fixed income pension just wasn’t going to cut it for me.
For 4 years, I searched the internet. Along the way I learned about being a Copywriter, Blogger, Web Developer, Virtual Assistant, Social Media Strategist, Researcher, SEO Expert, Dropshipper and Affiliate Marketer.
I learned about everything but still was not clear about how I was going to establish a permanent and consistent source of income growth.
Then, one Sunday afternoon, quite nonchalantly, I stumbled upon Wealthy Affiliate!
An Investment That Offers Sustainable Growth
Something about having one more cup of coffee caught my attention and the next thing I knew, I was inside of this amazing platform. I had started with no money – NO money! There is absolutely no better investment than that. All I did was enter my email address to get started.
That one click opened up a whole new world for me and began my career as a Digital Entrepreneur. I have not looked back since and am now enjoying multiple streams of unlimited income online.
There are 2 primary reasons for the success I now enjoy, after 1 year At Wealthy Affiliate.
1. The Training
It is unprecedented!
Wealthy Affiliate is a university. The only difference is that I will not be graduating with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student debt. I will be graduating with successful, revenue generating online businesses.
The Online Entrepreneur Certification (OEC) begins with 10 FREE lessons, taught by one of the Founders, Kyle. Having built one of the largest and most powerful platforms for Content and Affiliate Marketers, over 15 years, he knows what he is talking about!
Before I had completed my first lesson, I made a decision to upgrade and invest in being a Premium Member. The potential oft the platform was immediately embracing and I could tell this was not a scam.
Integrity resonated throughout.
2. The Community
One of the most difficult things to do is to establish yourself in something new on your own. From the moment you join WealthyAffiliate, you are a valued Member of the Community – and you feel it!
Everyone welcomes you warmly, (including Kyle and Carson, the Founders). You are never alone. With over 2 million Members around the world, you can find over 23,000 active on any given day or night.
The platform runs 24/7 and even Site Support never sleeps.
You learn to blog and support each other within Community. This teaches you about online engagement and prepares you to interact with your visitors as you build out your websites.
This is how we lift each other up at Wealthy Affiliate.
Choose Well To Retire Well
Time and time again I kept asking myself what is the best retirement plan. I am so happy that I found it and can now choose to continue to enjoy the lifestyle that I want – on my terms.
There will be no worry about outliving my pension or inflation eroding my income. Quite the opposite. My income will continue to grow and diversify.
Do you want to retire on a solid foundation?
Then give yourself the opportunity to build a successful online business – or 2. Join for FREE, now.
I am Cassandra, the Founder of Live Well Affiliate, my first online venture, started in 2019. When I started my online journey, I knew very little about how this all worked. Today, I am an Ambassador, Coach and Trainer at Wealthy Affiliate and on my way to becoming one of the top Content and Affiliate Marketers in the world. It affords me the opportunity to be a devoted, world traveller and educator to my 10-year old, ballet-dancing, stilt-walking daughter.