You know the dream - the one where we retire with enough money to do as we please, regardless of cost.

Although the dream differs for each of us, it usually involves one or more of the following pursuits:

• Traveling
• Golfing
• Helping charitable organizations
• Fishing or hunting
• Working on our investments
• Spending time with our family
• Running our company until our health no longer allows us to.

Unless you are planning on never retiring, you are going to need a sizable financial nest egg. You know that. I know that. Everyone knows that.

But, most of us are so preoccupied keeping our businesses going that we never fully consider whether our business is on course to create the wealth we need to reach our retirement goal.

So a question arises - "Are you choosing your retirement or is it choosing you?"

When you created your plan for the nest egg you need, (you've done that right?) what price did you assume you would get for your business? Three times net income? Five times net income?

Did you consider whether you OWN a business or whether you ARE the business?

For the sake of conversation, let's call individuals who ARE the business "self employed" and individuals who OWN the business to be "business owners."