My Sabbatical

A year ago, I left the security of full-time work to explore my world beyond Corporate America. I’m not really sure if I should continue calling it a sabbatical, if I’m on a 2nd practice retirement or if I’m really retired.

Occasionally I’ve heard from former coworkers after retirement, but it was either a one-on-one conversation or a chance meeting. I feel like there are some important parameters and rules of retiring early that I missed. Luckily I had a few moments with different “elders” in my career where I actually listened and built a simple foundation that created “luck” for me as I let go of my corporate security blanket again last year. I’ve also had lots of time to read/listen to books on the topic and the ones I most liked are listed at the end of this article.

Of course, the financial aspect of retirement is key, but we know giving too much weight to that $ variable can lead to a dark, lonely place…think Mr. Scrooge. In the past year, I tried to find my motivations as if $ were not a factor. My world didn’t fall apart, well, the world kinda was already apart as we were in the middle of a pandemic.

I’m experiencing some non-financial aspects of retirement that might be useful to you or at least interesting so I thought I’d use LinkedIn again to share this quick update. Plus, I’ll share some on finances too.

Lightning Struck, Again

The jolt of a totally unstructured day without a job was real for me, especially in the middle of a pandemic. Still, leaving full-time work was self-inflicted this time. Was I crazy? This crazy thought replayed in my mind so I gave it some air time in another article. This helped. I’m still crazy, but it makes more sense to me now J .

Ironically, having been laid off in 2016 really helped make stepping off the cliff easier this time. I knew I didn’t want to replace my corporate handcuffs with an overly structured home prison sentence. So, I did some self-coaching to identify values that seem rooted in my DNA. Things like Service (sacrifice), Adventure (chaos) and Safety (order) kept coming up as I recalled key moments in my past, dreams of my future and awareness of my/our current state in the world.

There isn’t a hierarchical relationship between values and specific actions/accomplishments, but looking over my shoulder, my values always seem to be woven my stories. I could see it, but also realized that others were only seeing my actions and results.

In this round of retirement practice, I’ve been trying to share more of my own “why”s so that I’m a little less annoying, a little more present and maybe even a little more fun to hang out with. Thanks Jared Hawley for helping me out with this!

As I considered retirement early in 2020, here are some of the things I wondered about followed by the things I’m learning as I’ve wandered.

Wonderings

1. I wondered what would happen when I didn’t have to account for my hours, show progress & linkages between my activity and value to my company.
2. I wondered how much I’d miss my team, our clients and the countless friends at work, day-to-day, week-to-week.
3. I wondered if the budget my wife and I created would provide enough $ for us to live the life that we dreamed about.

Wanderings & Learnings

1. Unfortunately, I haven’t found the world where one does not have to show progress. It may just be a mythical place dreamed up by employees finishing status reports on Friday afternoons before leaving work.

• For the 32 years that we’ve been in our home, I had the excuse that my work and my career were a higher priority than many home improvement ideas and I didn’t want to pay someone else to do work of questionable quality that I could do myself. So the work needing to be done always grew faster than it was completed, until now!
• I set up a Kanban chart in my home office (below) to track all of the jobs around the house that I was working or contracting out. Especially as I started out, it provided much needed order/safety. Plus I liked having it on the wall so that I could actually move post-its around as things were planned and completed. Thanks for the suggestion Fernando Barrancos!
• Learning: In the idyllic world I built after leaving work, seeing progress related to results is still important. It keeps me focused and ensures I’m doing what’s important.

2. I miss all but a couple of my coworkers (haha, you know who you are!).

• Dunbar’s Number for the maximum social contacts for one person at one time is 150. The actual number is often challenged, but there is a limit. For me, my ~150 were mostly coworkers for the past 35 years.
• Lately though, I’ve been spending much more time with family and old friends. I think it’s helping me to reprogram some outdated code in my unconscious brain. We’re sharing stories, filling in plot holes, reminding each other who we really are and coming up with new dreams.
• Talking together and sharing love around campfires, dinner tables and on long bike rides/hikes has been amazing!
• Thanks to my siblings and so many old friends who have found time this past year for an active adventure or to just be together and catch up!
• Learning: If you build it many of them will come…even when they say they’re too busy. Creating a project or an adventure for others to get excited about increases their motivation and they find time. As long as you don’t have lame adventures/projects, they also find comradery, trust and can check boxes they care about such as climbing a mountain.

3. Growing up poor, I saw so many arguments over money and thought I could avoid this tension if I could save $ and be frugal. My goal in managing projects throughout my work career has been to spend less than we have while always taking steps to increase the resources we have available to us in the future. The same rule applied at home except that a good amount of the unspent $ went into a 401k.

• My wife and I learned a lot from a financial advisor last year as we created a financial plan for the 2nd half of our lives. We looked at the potential impact of inflation, tax rates, health care costs, … Our Advisor ran Monte Carlo simulations to account for risks and we played with different income needs/wants over the years.
• Like most plans, our financial plan had a short shelf life and is already outdated. Ok, in this day and age, with so many unknowns, financial planning may just be witchcraft. Still, it satisfied my need for structure/plan and helped us to include many factors we would not have thought of. Also, it can easily be updated. It’s a just clear line in the sand.
• A special thanks to Pat Noud who was my District Manager when I started my corporate career at AT&T in 1986. In a quick 1-on-1 meeting in my 1st week, I learned that the stock market was the best bet for the long haul and received a refresher on how compounding interest works. Pat suggested: 1) I should immediately contribute what the company matched into my 401k. Then, as I earned raises: 2) put half of each raise into the account until I maxed out the 401k contribution amount. I’ve shared that advice with dozens of young employees through my career and received a sincere “thank you” from many as they see the magic. I defer all credit to Pat Noud and the S&P 500 Index fund. 
• Learning: Money seems to have become a god in our society. It was a frightening god as I grew up and still scares me a little. However, like technology and power/authority, it’s just a means. In our material world, all three of these ($, tech & power) need some attention, but NOT our obsession. I think we’re meant for greater purposes. 

This is the Way! …wait, which way?

Every day, we sacrifice some of our life up for a greater purpose such as a family dinner, overtime work, a workout, a walk with our dog, volunteering, vacation, streaming videos, social media. At our best, we pay attention to how we are budgeting our life so we learn what we want and don’t want. I’m trying to consciously see more of these life choices in relation to my core values of Service (sacrifice), Adventure (chaos) and Safety (order). It’s hard as I often get distracted, but luckily it isn’t one-and-done so we can find our way back to our path. Plus, I'm finding that at our best, family/friends help each other to find our way back to core values…they listen and remind us how amazing we are (that's our best, other times we argue about who's fault it is that we're lost :)

I’m still averaging a few days a month hiking the Appalachian Trail with a goal to hike “highlights” in every state it crosses. I’ve hiked segments with many different friends/siblings but I’m adjusting plans repeatedly around weather and conflicting schedules. When others can’t make it, I go by myself and have solitude with nature (countless stars, trees, the wind, amazing smells and mosquitoes). Alone or with others, it helps me to satisfy a need for a little chaos/adventure.

Also, having the Tesla solar roof installed on our home this past winter was a nightmare for the more ordered project manager in me, but once I let go a bit, I saw where the project wanted/needed to go given the maturity of the industry. There was a happy ending. Here is more on that story if you’re interested: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/tesla-energy-solution-home-ed-hawley/

I’d love to hear your insights (in comments or by messaging me). If you’d like to catch up with an old fashioned phone call, please let me know, I’ll add that task to my Kanban board.

REFERENCES I'll recommend (I did these on Audible so I've factored in the voice performances):

• Money: Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom by: Tony Robbins (there are tons of books on this topic, but this was simple enough for me to understand, interesting enough for me to finish and use)
• How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free: Retirement Wisdom That You Won't Get from Your Financial Advisor by: Ernie J. Zelinski (lots of great practical tips that also help reduce fears and motivate)
• Travels with Charley in Search of America by: John Steinbeck (I want to do a similar road trip and love Steinbeck’s writing style)
• Through the Dark Wood: Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life by: James Hollis
• The Second Mountain: How People Move from the Prison of Self to the Joy of Commitment by David Brooks