Asking a group of business owners what they will do when they retire, you get a lot of quick retorts:
“Who me, I’ll never retire!”
“I’ll start another company.”
“I’ll play golf every morning, and spend the rest of the day making trouble.”
“I have no hobbies, I”ll go volunteer.”
Seems like when you are deep into work that is your passion, or most likely “what you do” for most waking hours, thinking outside that box is not very deep. Escape fantasies like go live in Hawaii on a beach, or travel around the world are the most common answer after a few minutes of thought. My personal favorite is live in the mountains winter and summer, and by the beach the rest of the year. I took that picture in Mammoth yesterday.
Deeper thinking scares most business owners – contemplating a life with too much time on their hands.That gets down to purpose. What is my value in this life? It is easy to see your purpose when you are working hard to grow a company, providing a livelihood for 10 or 250 people, providing a product or service that people want. Who are you if you are not doing that?
If you want to play with figuring this out, write what you want to accomplish in your life. What have you accomplished so far? What else you would like to do?
Then decide on one or two you would like to pursue. What is the first step? Try accomplishing that. You may find that the thought of retirement is not so scary.