Don’t just retire/resign from something, retire to something – Passion and purpose in your life.
In fact, get rid of the word retirement. Get rid of the notion of traditional retirement.
Too many people are now discovering that it’s an empty promise and are regretting it. Whether it’s early retirement (FIRE) or at retirement age. There is so much more than just retirement financial planning and getting away from something. It’s really about your life and what to do with it in the decades ahead.
Retire/Resign to something not just from something.
As New Way Forward’s Paul Long lays out, think of it as transitioning, transforming, or pivoting your life to something you can be passionate about. One that gives your purpose, is fulfilling and keeps you relevant. One that leads to the best years of your life.
Contact Paul: info@NewWayFWD.com
Video sources from Evan Carmichael’s channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKmkpoEqg1sOMGEiIysP8Tw
John C. Maxwell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVvk9-mslx4
Arnold Schwarzenegger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl7JZlau3wo
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Podcast Transcript: Retire/Resign to something: Passion & Purpose
Helping you find your new way forward to the best years of your life. This is a new way forward podcast with Paul Long. Here is one of the most important questions you literally could ever ask yourself in your life is retirement what you want? Or is it something else? Case in point, a while back here at this gazebo, a little informal neighborhood gathering, it was much warmer back then. Two guys that I was talking to, two neighbors there. Well, they’ve got both have young children still in elementary school or junior high school or stuff. Both have great jobs, you know, happy with their jobs. Very grateful for them. But they said to me, Hey Paul, I bet you can’t wait to retire. And I said, I’m not going to retire. I have zero desire to retire. In fact, I’m working on the next version of myself. And they were incredulous. They’re like, Are you kidding? Oh my gosh. I think about the day when I can retire. And I said, Well, don’t let me ask you this is it retirement that you’re thinking about or just not doing what you’re doing now anymore, or maybe doing something where it’s like really, really, really what you want as opposed to what you have to do to support a family and further a career? Well, that gave them pause, they really thought, Oh, I never really thought about it that way.
That’s the question to ask yourself this notion and be careful, because for most people, it’s this notion of retirement, oh, I don’t have to do this anymore. But are you really asking, what do you want to do? You might say, Oh yeah, man, I want to travel. I’m going to have grandkids. I want to be with them. Oh, I’ve got these projects that I want to do. How long is that going to last and how in the long run meaningful? Is that going to be to you? I mean, if you go on a vacation for a couple of weeks, how many of you are like, you know, by the end of the two weeks, I’m ready to get back to life and do something more purposeful, as well as the things that you need to do. Don’t take my word for it when it comes to this perspective. Listen to Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I mean, the worst thing I think you can do is to retire. Retiring means that you maybe have hated something that you did your whole life and now you retire. And finally, you get rid of this pain or this horrible kind of like being on the assembly line in some car factory or something like that. I don’t know what it may be, but people just sometimes look forward to retiring. I mean, I cannot imagine why would I want to retire?
Define retired is that when you give up, you know?
Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, some people just look forward to that. And like I said, it depends. I believe those understand one thing. Seventy four percent of the American people, that is a poll that was done do not enjoy their work. So this is why it is very tough. It’s easy for us to say, why would I retire? Because I love everything I do, but there’s a lot of people that don’t like their work, and they’re just doing it because they need to make a living. They have a family to feed and said they take the next best job, but they don’t really like the job and they don’t know then how to switch over to another job and stuff. So it’s very tough. That’s why I always tell kids and my success seminars have a clear vision where you want to go, what is it that you’re really passionate about and then go after that no matter what it takes? Go after that. As crazy as it may sound, because you got to do something that you really enjoy doing.
Now we know Arnold Schwarzenegger is a very successful box office movie star, former Mr Universe bodybuilder, governor of California. Oh, which means the guy knows how to be successful. And if you’ve ever listened to any of his interviews on insights on how he’s been successful or read his book, you know that he’s very good and knowing fundamentally what he’s going after, what it is that he wants and the ways to get there. And the megatrend that’s happening right now is that people are not retiring. They’re viewing this phase of life as my turn. Some of them are staying employed, but not necessarily 40 hours a week. Traditional job. It might be one of the hundreds of variations that are going on, or they’re pivoting careers or they’re starting their own businesses. They’re looking for an opportunity to say, Hey, you know, when I graduated college, I kind of did what I was supposed to do, but I saw this road ahead. That was exciting. Well, that road ahead still there. And you know, even better, what you might want or not want and how to achieve it. And the mega trend is that more and more baby boomers and those older and now Gen Xers are setting themselves up to make these decades of healthy, active life ahead to be some of the most successful and meaningful of their lives. I mean, here is a really, really, really, really good analogy from author and speaker John C. Maxwell, Switzerland.
There are some mountains that can be climbed by people like you and me. We got to get a little bit better condition, but I mean, it’s not like the mountain climber mountains that would be way beyond our skill level. But, but but some of these mountains that can be climbed by you and me. It takes a day to get to the top and then you camp up there and you come down the next day. And on many of these places where in Switzerland, where you can do that about halfway up the mountain is what they call the halfway house, halfway house, halfway up the mountain. So a group of people starts off with a guy in the morning and about noon. You’re kind of tired and you’ve been walking now for four or five hours. And here comes you’re coming up to the halfway house. It is just it’s it’s a wonderful sight because as soon as you enter in the halfway house, you can smell the food and they’re getting ready for a good lunch and you sit down, there’s a fire in the fireplace and there’s nice soft chairs and you can just rest your body and refresh your body and. And so the people go in the halfway house and they eat and laugh and enjoy and and just really, really just kind of take in that that wonderful, refreshing atmosphere. About an hour and a half after being the halfway house, the guide gets up to his will gang a sign to put on your gear.
We we got a hike. We’ve got to get on up to the top. This is a fact. About half the people decide not to go on up to the top. They’re sitting around the table and they’re just saying, you know what? Go on up. You’re going to come by here tomorrow are going to be having lunch here again tomorrow. We’re just going to hang here and. And so the people that want to get to the top, they put their stuff on and they kind of leave and the rest of the people stay behind. They, you know, eat a little bit more food, get around the piano, sing some songs, get it out in the fireplace, enjoy the fire, warm themselves by the fire. No, I’ve played games all afternoon. Kind of enjoy themselves, but about 4:30 4:45 in the afternoon without anybody saying a word. The people who stayed in the halfway house. They slowly go over to where the window is the big window. And they start looking outside and they start looking up at the top of that mountain and as they look at the top of that mountain. They see their friends. Their friends are now getting the tents out, and they’re getting ready to prepare for the night and it becomes very quiet. Very somber. Because everybody in the halfway house realizes the mistake they’ve made.
They’ve they’ve they’ve they’ve sold their mission for a little bit of comfort for a few hours. Next morning, down come their friends, and by noon they come into the halfway house, when they come in the half way, they are laughing. They’re high fiving. They’re talking about what they’ve seen, where they’ve been experiences, the fact that it was almost impossible to get up there. In fact, they had to help each other get up there and how they join teams and held hands. And and they just telling all these stories and talk about the pictures they’ve taken and the yeah, they got the group picture up there with the flag at the top and the people who remain behind. They don’t say much. They just eat their lunch. And then follow the rest of them down to the bottom of the hill. Where their friends are waiting for them. And those who paid the price and went to the top. Who understood now is the time to reach the mission. They hug and tell stories and celebrate. And the others, they just kind of slip off and get in their car and go home because they realize. They’re never going to be what they wanted to be, they’re never going to see what they wanted to see. They’re never going to do what they wanted to do. Because they fail to realize when there’s the halfway house. Now’s the time to rest. And they go on.
I don’t know about you, but I want to be with that group that went up to the top and had that experience and did it as opposed to being down cozy by the fire and regretting it, that comes back to the original question that it started with. Are you really wanting retirement? I mean, think it through traditional retirement? Or do you want to reinvent, reimagine what this phase of life could be and do something entirely new or keep doing what you’re doing or some manifestation of it in some way, shape or form? That is an ultimate critical question to ask yourself. And hey, if you say I want traditional retirement, Paul, I validated it. Well, then you validated. Godspeed, good luck. You’ve earned it. Have a great life. There are one hundred and ten million Americans over the age of 50, so that means there’s one hundred and ten different hundred and ten million different answers to this question. And for my neighbors, now’s a good time for them to be asking themselves the same question because now they’ve got years to really start thinking it through and identifying it and planning for it. And, quite frankly, really, really looking forward to it. You’ve been listening to a new Way Forward podcast with your host, Paul Long.