Retirement

BLOG 7:  RETIREMENT
  80 is the new 60
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Ok, you have either just been fired and are over 50 or you lasted long enough to retire in the company for which you worked for 20+ years or you may have recently sold or merged your own company. In any of the preceding scenarios you are facing the challenges of vocation vs vacation and the former is what you have become accustomed to, not the latter, which may be completely foreign to you; especially if you were the type that had to contact your business on an hourly basis every day while on your vacation.

However, you find yourself thinking about or functioning in RETIREMENT you are in the mode of considering what you will do when that day arrives or has arrived; regardless of either, you will or you are about to do all your due-diligence; such as, cashing in on the house, payoff the car(s), update your health and asset insurance coverage, established an effective investment portfolio and savings account but what you did not plan for is your idle time and proper use of brain matter or lack thereof, which may be worse than poor financial planning.

We live in an age where we live longer and enjoy better health even though companies themselves are still bent on giving you a gold watch and/or a modest retirement fund, while suggesting to you that you have reached the age wisdom and are of no use to them any longer (sarchasm).

Yes, your once dream of playing wall to wall golf or travelling the world has become a burden even a “pain-in-the-ass;” in spite of not having to worry about snow removal, lawn grooming and home maintenance, as the loss of any of the above chores have not been able to fill the mind with replacement cognitive thought; such as, continued accomplishment or success as we once defined it.

In addition to the above there is the simple fact that you may need to work well beyond your designated retirement age even if you did plan moderately well as the cost of living keeps creeping up and the grandchildren or even your own kids need financial help, even the car that you paid for is not working just right as it too needs to be retired, more so than you, so back to work we go!

We can work for dollars or volunteer, even some of you have contacted my business consulting firm looking for a company to buy and/or in which to invest with the idea being you can serve as a quasi CEO or Board of Advisors keeping your brain active while possibly improving your net worth and that feels good!

That is what happened to me since I retired after I sold my bank. I played enough golf to buy a new car only to witness no improvement in my game. Armed with 50+ years of business experience and savvy, I decided to restart my teaching graduate courses in entrepreneurship and finance at several West Coast, where I was living, Universities, only to be asked for after-hour advice from many of my adult graduate students, which became the catalyst for me to once again start my fourth business venture, which has morphed into my current business consulting firm.

FYI: I have been doing considerable speaking on the subject of RETIREMENT and preparing to write my third book on the subject as an extension of my first two books on Entrepreneurship.