A business owner was approaching retirement with trepidation. At 70, they had worked over fifty years, built a successful business, taken few breaks and still went in six days a week. They had yet to consider how to reframe retirement, having few outside interests and not knowing how to relax. So, like many entrepreneurs they wondered what to do if they were not working.
They might need a mind-shift to reframe expectations – take a look through a different lens and change the picture. What if they were to think of retirement differently, not as sitting around doing nothing or playing golf all the time? They might think of it as the freedom to do only things they like to do, then deal only with people they enjoy.
There’s a bonus to being able to sell your business: you have choices. You can continue working full-time, part-time, or not at all, or perhaps you can take five day weekends. You can delegate everything you don’t enjoy to someone else. Maybe, you can walk away and put your time and money into activities that give you pleasure or pride. You can:
- Mentor young entrepreneurs
- Invest in promising start-ups
- Travel
- Start new hobbies
- Take courses about subjects that pique your curiosity
- Read those books for which you’ve never had time
- Join boards of directors and offer your expertise
- Volunteer in an area of interest
- Schedule regular lunches with friends, family or former business contacts
- Become a philanthropist
Reframe Retirement
It’s not easy, because it depends on you. Some entrepreneurs regret selling their business, while others feel a great weight lifted from their shoulders or blessed to be financially independent and done with the responsibilities inherent in owning a business. It will be emotional, because it will be different.
This owner did sell their company, however, unfortunately, since they’d had their nose to the grindstone all those years, they did not pay attention to what might happen next. Perhaps the change will be hard on them, because they would have had more time and more options if they had started the process sooner.
The event of selling your business doesn’t determine if you are happy or sad. You do. Reframing allows you to decide – at least to a degree. There could still be times when you feel lost or out of sorts because you’ve lost your routines. Even positive change can be stressful.