Years ago, I had a colleague who was retiring, and I remember him talking with his own retired clients at the time. He always had the same advice:
‘Remember to retire TO something, not FROM something.’
As I moved through my own wealth management career, I repeated that advice, and got a front row seat to a number of retirements myself. Most were great. A few were not, despite my advice. Interestingly, what made a retirement successful vs. not successful never had anything to do with money. The good ones were experienced by people that had hobbies, a great circle of friends, and the desire to keep learning and doing things to make the best of their remaining years.
When I retired early from my practice, one reason I did so was because of an overwhelming desire to do something different. I wanted to learn new skills, try new activities and meet new people. Shortly after packing up my office for good, I made that my new job description. It was important enough to me that I wrote it on a post it note and stuck it to my computer monitor:
‘Try lots of stuff. Meet new people.’
I have a colleague who talks a lot about the role of luck. Yes, luck (or, as I prefer to call it, ‘good fortune’) can play a role in someone’s success. But, as he says, ‘You don’t get lucky sitting on the couch waiting for something to happen.’ I’m a curious person by nature. A continuous learner. I’ve taken some of this downtime to explore some new things and meet as many interesting people as I can. I can’t take credit for the phrase, but I’ve heard it called, ‘Playing in traffic.’ You gotta get in the middle of where the action is.
As my downtime started to take shape, I took as many opportunities to try new things and learn new skills.
For example:
- I took a bartending class and tended bar at a high volume restaurant and a local winery
- I participated in two amateur endurance automobile races
- I tried fly fishing for the first time
- I took up golf in earnest
- I got a job teaching business classes at my local community college
Even though I’m technically ‘retired,’ each of these experiences has been a fantastic learning experience. By sticking one’s neck out to try new things and meet new people, you start to get a real sense of what your values are, the kind of people you want to associate with, and what is truly important to you – All things that will help contribute to a satisfying, and enjoyable retirement.