Retirement Isn’t My Goal

I am going a different direction this morning with my weekly newsletter. Most of my coaching practice is comprised of financial advisors. One might think that would mean that I am focused on my own retirement as well, given that in addition to coaching advisors, I was one of them as well.

As Lee Corso on ESPN College GameDay says: “Not so fast my friend!”

Retirement is not in my family plan. There are several reasons for that and one of them is primary: My wife and I have a severely disabled son that will not be able to live independently. He has several challenges, but, the most destructive one for his future is severe autism.

Our biggest goal as a family is to have the ability to care for our son in our home as long as possible. We will never ‘retire’ because the work will never end...until we do. All of our planning for the future revolves around maintaining our ability to provide for his daily needs and for the financial planning to attempt to provide the financial resources that will allow him to have the best quality of life after we are gone.

If we are able to accrue the resources to be able to not require working for income...we will still not be retiring. Each and every day will be about providing and caring for our son.

Candidly, it is ironic that my entire career is focused in and around this concept of retirement that I realistically cannot every afford do mentally entertain for myself. Madness is the path that has me thinking of having what so many people dream of as a retirement. There will be no grandchildren (Robert is our only child) and all the other events that everyone else we know sets their life up around.

Why do I share all this?

I am sharing it in the hopes of providing some perspective, some conviction and some purpose. This life I did not choose or expect almost destroyed me and my family. I didn’t have a mindset that was resilient or designed to provide the endurance for the path that God called me upon at the beginning of this journey 17+ years ago.

That passive and prosperity based mindset that served me well when times were good...fell apart when times were not. This is the point of my post today: life is not fair.

On this platform (LinkedIn) and so many other digital communities there is a pervasive strain of what in churches we would call the ‘Prosperity Gospel’. The version here on LI is seen in the #workharder, #embracethegrind, and other themes that center around a vision that if you just do more/better that you will get the same.

That is simply not the case.

You do have a big role to play in your future, but, all your talent and effort is not a guarantee of smooth success. Instead, what you can do is determine how you will respond to your life. Instead of focusing on the end goal of #success, I would encourage you to develop on a daily basis the mindset of the person you would want to be...even if you didn’t achieve the world’s definition of success.

I have found that humility and meekness is attractive as concepts up until they are expected and required of us without an associated social or economic benefit.

Ironically, #humility is the key component of a disciplined life. You have to be humble enough to possess the patience and vision to build habits and behaviors slowly and surely so that you will end up with a disciplined mindset.

My friend, Brian Sexton, in his book about legacy and sales “People Buy From People” has a chapter on Meekness. That chapter, for all the shallow influencers is going to be very, very hard and unpopular. To be frank, I have never read a more challenging call to action in any sales literature during my entire career. The salespeople and, quite frankly any human beings that read and implement what he writes there, are going to be significantly better for having done so.

Meekness is a value and one that can very effectively be a component of a Values Based Mindset. You can develop your character intentionally, or, you can allow it to be developed by others for you passively.

My clients are probably tired of hearing me say the following:

Choose the mindset and path for your life that even if you don’t reach all your goals...you will never regret the decisions you made along the way.

Myself and my clients are using something called the Values Based Mindset. In short, I believe that a life worth living will be done so intentionally based upon executing on their values as much as possible. Additionally, that tracking and improving upon essential actions every single day is the only true accelerant that we can count on to trust that our responses are consistently creating the best version of our own unique expression of humanity.

The only special thing about our system is the people that are committed to using it to become more of who they were designed to be. Less than an hour a day focused on WHO you are instead of WHAT you are doing. We have experienced a crazy truth: if you focus really hard on building your character...every thing else gets easier.

I really don’t care if you become a client or follower of mine up and until you decide to really, really become intentional about your life. We aren’t promised anything other than death and we should really start thinking about living our lives (as much as we have left) with that in mind.

As a Christian, my enemy has a name. For all of us, we share one common foe: mortality. Life isn’t fair because it will end. Politics, power struggles and all the evil in the world is wrapped up around this fear of death.

Retirement, to bring it back around is also about fear of death. The purpose for your existence isn’t to be able to not work.

Don’t retire. Live.

I am interested to see how this is received because, admittedly, it is not the typical “You Can Do It!” #Waterboy movie inspired commentary. I think, however, that there is a sufficient volume of content being shared to cover that false reality. Instead, I want to share as much truth as I can, for as long as I can, about designing your mindset and your life around things that last: your values.

By the way, I am not saying to give up. Instead, build a foundation that will serve you in any situation and then go after the dreams that your values inspire.

I am always open for conversation and, of course, professional engagements to share and apply our Values Based Mindset Model to you and your company. Comment below, send me a direct message through LI, or email me at [email protected] to begin your journey toward a life of your own design.

All the best,

Mike Garrison