Me, Inc. by Mr. Gene Simmons Page B

and refocus the business plan; then workers can go off to their respective homes to implement the program.
    Working from home gives the worker a lot more flexibility and more usable hours to get the work done. Remember, anywhere from two to four hours a day are wasted on traveling to and from work.
    And if you work at home, maybe you don’t take a full hour off to eat. Maybe you only take half an hour.
    And you can stop work at any time to do something else, as long as you finish the work.
    The worker model of the twenty-first century is about going back to the basics: YOU are the boss. YOU make the rules. YOU, in essence, become the company.
    But that also means YOU are responsible for getting the work done.
    You may not realize it, but the Social Security system is a form of insurance. You pay “premiums” (a certain amount of money every month or every year) and later on, at “maturity,” you get to access those funds, which come to you in weekly checks. The Social Security system is your insurance that you will still be able to survive after you can no longer work. There are different forms of retirement security, including an IRA (individual retirement account) or Roth IRA. I urge you to find out what all of that is. Google it. It’s simple. Educate yourself.
    Your job will often automatically deduct a certain amount for your IRA. That’s good, because for the most part, you won’t do it. Mostly, you live in the here and now. Mostly, you spend what you earn. Mostly, you don’t save for a rainy day. Mostly, you think you will never grow old and won’t have a problem being able to support yourself.
    Mostly.
    Farmers are often smarter in their business model than the masses who work in the corporate system. And that’s because a farmer has only himself to depend on. If you work at a corporate entity, there is always the company there to pay your wages. Rain or shine. Always dependable, at least until the company becomes insolvent.
    Back to the farmer: He knows when to plant the seeds. He knows how much it costs. He knows what the price of goods is. And he can approximate his profit margin if all things go as planned. Of course, one bad winter or one flood can change all that. So, in a very real way, for a farmer, it’s feast or famine. Which is why he absolutely must have insurance of all kinds as a farmer.
    In a corporate environment, insurance isn’t necessarily the first thing on your mind.
    But perhaps it should be.
    Health insurance. Car insurance. Homeowner’s insurance. All sorts of insurance. It’s all worth considering. Do the research.
    You don’t want to sit and stare as your house goes up in flames, or your car is totaled in a wreck you had nothing to do with, and have no financial parachute.
    Farmers are smarter than you are. They have to be.
    A farmer will rarely plant only one kind of crop. He can’t. If he only plants potatoes, and the price of potatoes takes a huge dip in the marketplace, he will be wiped out. So he plants different kinds of crops (get ready for a Wall Street investment term—“spread the risk”).
    This is the most basic form of diversification . Simply put, this means never putting all your eggs in one basket. If you drop the basket, all of the eggs shatter.
    The same business model that a farmer uses is what’s often recommended on Wall Street: Spread the risk. Invest in a few different things. Never just one.
    A good piece of advice for all of you entering the corporate world.
    Is what you do for a living the only thing you know how to do? If so, that’s not good. What happens when that “thing” is no longer in demand? What’s your fallback position? What else can you do?
    Farmers also need to get along with their neighbors. It’s important.
    If a flood wipes out half of the farmer’s crops, while his next-door neighbor is left untouched, he can hopefully count on his neighbor to