The Art of Living by Design

Finding Fulfillment After Your Exit

As a business owner or executive, you’ve likely spent years, even decades, building something remarkable. Your business has been your mission, your purpose, and often what feels like your identity. But what happens when you step away?

The transition from running a business to life after an exit is one of the most significant challenges high-achieving leaders, like you, face. And yet, it’s also an unparalleled opportunity to design a life of greater fulfillment, freedom, and legacy.

Too often, this transition is met with uncertainty or a sense of loss. Why? Because many leaders haven’t clarified their highest values and aligned their lives with them. Instead, they find themselves drifting, reacting to outside expectations, or pursuing activities that lack true meaning.

As Dr. John Demartini explains in The Values Factor, living in alignment with your highest values is essential for achieving fulfillment. He writes:

"If your actions are aligned with your highest values, you automatically 'walk your talk,' so that you tackle ever greater challenges over increasingly large amounts of time and space. The process of pursuing your mission and living your destiny makes your brain become ever more capable and causes the magnitude of space and time in your mind to expand." *

When you live by your highest values, your mission expands, your influence grows, and your sense of purpose deepens. Let me repeat that. When you live by your highest values...

• Your mission expands
• Your influence grows
• Your sense of purpose deepens

But when you subordinate your values to those of others—whether those others are family, peers, or society—you feel unfulfilled, disconnected, and driven by short-term gratification instead of long-term impact.

This insight is critical for anyone navigating their post-exit life. Let’s explore how aligning with your values can transform this next chapter into one of the most rewarding phases of your life.

The Power of Highest Values

At its core, your highest values are the things you care about most deeply—the priorities that inspire you, energize you, and drive your actions. These values are unique to you and form the foundation of your identity.

When your daily actions reflect your values, you experience a sense of alignment and integrity. You naturally “walk your talk” and feel empowered to take on bigger challenges. Your focus expands beyond immediate concerns, allowing you to think long-term and make decisions that create lasting impact.

But when you live according to someone else’s values, your sense of purpose diminishes. You may find yourself chasing external validation, seeking short-term wins, or feeling restless and unfulfilled. Over time, this disconnect erodes your confidence, limits your vision, and prevents you from fulfilling your potential.

Life After an Exit: A Critical Turning Point

For business owners and executives, life after an exit is a time of transition. The structure, routine, and purpose that defined your working years suddenly shift. This can feel liberating, but it can also be disorienting if you don’t have a clear sense of what comes next.

Here’s the hard truth: financial freedom alone doesn’t guarantee fulfillment. Many leaders assume that stepping away from their business will automatically lead to happiness, only to discover a void they didn’t anticipate. That’s because the real key to fulfillment isn’t wealth—it’s alignment with your values.

Post-exit life is your chance to redefine success. It’s an opportunity to design a life that reflects who you truly are and what matters most to you. But this requires intentionality. Without clarity on your values, you risk filling your time with activities that are busy but not meaningful, satisfying but not fulfilling.

How to Live by Design

Living by design means crafting a life that aligns with your values, purpose, and vision. It’s about stepping into a new kind of leadership—not in the boardroom, but in your own life. Here are three steps to start:

1. Clarify Your Highest Values

Take the time to identify your core values. What matters most to you? What inspires you? What are the principles you want to live by? Tools like values assessments or coaching can help you uncover and articulate these priorities. [Subscribe for more information]

2. Align Your Actions with Your Values

Evaluate how you’re spending your time, energy, and resources. Are your actions aligned with your values? If not, what needs to change? Alignment doesn’t happen by accident—it requires conscious choices and a willingness to say no to things that don’t serve your mission.

3. Design Your Legacy

Post-exit life is an opportunity to think beyond success and focus on significance. What legacy do you want to create? What impact do you want to leave behind? By anchoring your legacy in your values, you can build something truly meaningful.

The Path Forward

Living by design is so, so much more than merely finding fulfillment. Living a designed life will expand your very destiny. When your life reflects your highest values, you gain the clarity, focus, and drive to create a lasting impact. Your influence grows, your purpose deepens, and your post-exit years become some of the most rewarding of your life.

If you’re a business owner or executive preparing for life after an exit, I can help. My work is dedicated to guiding leaders like you through this transformative phase, helping you align with your values, reduce regret, and design a life that matters.

Your next chapter is waiting. Are you ready to live by design?

Let’s start the conversation.

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* Demartini, John F. . The Values Factor: The Secret to Creating an Inspired and Fulfilling Life (p. 113). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.