Five years ago this past week I took a very special work commute into Downtown Raleigh. After a nice lunch provided by my co-workers at The Brass Grill, my favorite downtown lunch place, I took off early for the drive home and along the way contemplated just what the next few years would bring in a way I had never done before this commute home. You see I had reached that point in my life where as my former colleague Jack Andrews once named it I had "go to hell" money. That is enough to tell your boss to go to hell and get away with saying it. To be honest I really did not want to retire early, but the situation at work lead to the decision and the fact I had prepared for just such a situation offered some pleasure. What I did not know at the time that within the next month the bottom would fall out of the stock market and I would lose about one quarter of of my retirement portfolio value the next 90 days. Retirement out five years has been a interesting journey and this posting is my "Michael Jordan moment" in that like his comments at his induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame he got a few things off his mind, here is some final bridge burning on my part too.
Ok, Warren Buffet I am not, neither am I Barack Hussein Obama, but I am blessed to be much closer in life accomplishments, learned skill sets, and certainly humility to Mr. Buffett than Mr. Obama and for that I remain eternally grateful. Yes, I did build that contrary to what our unaccomplished President current says. Take your passion and make it happen.
People who knew me back when I was employed by newspapers can tell you I was one competitive person. Loss was something I did not deal with well and I tended to be a bitter loser. That was not an enduring trait and as I have grown older some of that attitude has faded into accepting some outcomes as they come. I still want to make times, people, and events, bend to my approach, but now know sometimes these situations are hills you do not want to die on. In the past I considered every hill worth dying for. Frankly I should have seen this sooner as one of my former employees had a saying about me that was not favorable, even though I thought it favorable at the time.
What I am getting at here is something that dawned on me since I retired. Real success comes in the form of retiring early and simply trading additional income and wealth for free time when I am younger to enjoy it. Frankly many people would like to do this, but few can at my age of less than 65 years old or even older with the assurance of future income, I did it at 55 years of age. Savings and investments are important, but maybe even more so is using one's time to learn new skills that can be used to add income once retired. If you read my blog you know I am a options trader which is a skill I learned part time over many years. That skill has offered me the opportunity to make money sitting at home at a computer as a hobby so to speak.
I worked in newspaper advertising for over three decades and frankly was overlooked, under appreciated, and not promoted to higher levels for many reasons. Certainly my stubborn nature and willingness to take positions that were not acceptable to upper management hurt. I am also very aware that my flat out refusal to violate my own value system of honestly, integrity, and most often stand for customer value got in the way. Those stands are known in the corporate business as "he is not a team player." In the last decade the then and now PC idea of diversity hiring cost me at least two promotions. So needless to say I was not a happy camper went I left and retired due to diversity hiring practices. Add to that no one who I worked for ever knew I was what would be called in today vernacular "a special needs child". Yes I have a significant disability, but my parents never allowed me to use it as an excuse for not succeeding. Whining by others who thought they were treated unfairly due to their "diversity" did not sit well with me due to that fact.
Many of those people who would not consider advancing my career, many of those who got promoted before me due to diversity, and many of those who thought I was just "not a team player" are now still working in an industry that is fast in free fall. Many have lost their jobs and had to find employment elsewhere outside there expertise. They work a worried existence in their positions due to possible layoffs and downsizing and many have at least another decade of this miserable work life.
I consider this next point one of the most important lessons to learn in life...... "Success is not what you have or what you have achieved in life, success is what you did with what you were given in life.".... Elites and people who have been given much by inheritance or just plain luck and not improved their lot have accomplished little other than to enjoy their life at the expense of others on the back of someone else's prior success. Warren Buffet describes that as inherited lifetime welfare. There was a time early in my working life when I did not, as they say in the south, "have a pot to piss in".
The best part is that I am fully retired now for five years. Financially better off than when I retired and that given the financial mess that occurred in late 2008 . Add in that now my experience and expertise on newspapers and management are now sought by others in the industry. Maybe I am the one who actually got the better deal by being forced by the non-promotions and my willingness to stand my ground on standards to find other ways to succeed. My father who cautioned me time and again to be patient and good things would happen was right. In the end "Success" in being to retire early and well might be the sweetest revenge. Not that I was necessarily seeking "revenge".
Personal success is something I did build and no government had anything to do with that. The freedoms and liberties God gave me and secured by a constitution so far made that possible. Today I fight for my children, their children and your children to have the same opportunities via liberty passed on to those generations. Here is another lesson I have learned as well... Being able to find values and goals bigger than one's self are also a late in life sign of success and the last calling of a liberty loving patriot.
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