Retired

What is retirement, and what does retired mean to you?

Does it mean you’re done? Finished? Time to go off to an old age home and die?

It has all these negative connotations. Like somehow you’ve reached the end of your useful life, and therefore have changed from an active participant in society, to a burden of society.

The thing about life I’m discovering is you only have so much fully functional time. Only so long that your eyes work properly, and you can see the world.

Only so long that your knees work properly, and you can walk where you want to go unaided.

Only so long you can hear the birds chirping and enjoy time on your own. Before someone else has to help you eat.

Everyone at some point in their lives will need help. You can’t be young and strong all the time, or forever.

Back to my original question: What is retirement, and what does it mean to you?

For me, there is no ‘retirement’. There is always something else to do. There is always another way you can contribute, even well into your sunset years.

So for me, I’m technically retired right now. I get to control my time. I get to choose what I do, when I do it, and how long I do it for. I am free to choose and I have more than enough cash flow coming in to sustain my lifestyle.

So let me propose that you you as one potential definition of retirement. That you get to spend your time doing what you want to do.

Now don’t get me wrong, all of us have some things we HAVE to do, but the vast majority of the time, getting to do WHAT you want to do means you’ve won this game called life.

So, having won, but still having obligations as we all do, what’s next for you?

Let me give you a perspective to consider.

By having all of your obligations met, you create time and space to think. Time and space to analyze what’s coming next. Time and space to see around corners, and position yourself well for the future.

You now have the time to take what’s happened in the past, and see how it might impact on the future.

See how what you’re doing today, thoughtfully, will impact your results tomorrow, because when you take the time to analyze what the future may hold, make bets, experiment, and learn.

Let me give you one other example. My mentor Warren sold his first really successful business in his 30’s for a couple of hundred million dollars, back in the early 70’s. Think about how much money that is in today’s dollars.

He was done. He’d won. He could have sat on a beach for the rest of his life and done nothing.

But he didn’t. He started more businesses. He battled and won in politics. He mentors and shares what he’s learned having worked his whole life and consistently challenged himself to be, and have, more.

Now, in his 80’s, fifty years after becoming rich, he has more love and joy than he did all those years ago. He is constantly trying to live up to his fullest potential.

And that potential is in all of us, and all of us includes you.

So to have more, is to be more. To be more, is to learn more. And once you’ve learned, to give that knowledge to others is the highest form of gift you can give.

I don’t think ‘retired’ is in my vocabulary anymore. You might want to consider removing it from yours.