So Long 2024 and Hello 2025

This is a bit of a different post for Unconventional Wisdom, but I thought a quick post-retirement update and some life and career reflections were in order as we close out 2024.

A long time ago, I made a promise to myself that I would try to retire no later than 55, and hopefully, before the age when my father died in a SCUBA accident at age 52. I also wanted to give my child fantastic experiences before that age so that if I did, unfortunately, pass early, there would be ample memories of me on fun adventures around the world. We traveled extensively to Turkey, Greece, Spain, France, Switzerland, and the UK. We ventured to the Galapagos, and on safari in Kenya twice. I got over my trepidation for SCUBA because my kid wanted to see the Great Barrier Reef before it wasted away, and dove three times in Bonaire as a family. We dove with octopus in the med. I captained us around the Chesapeake, and all over New England on bareboat charters. We skied, and I taught her to hunt, fish, and enjoy the outdoors. I worked hard and had so much drive to be sure I left her and my wife with a lifetime of memories, experiences, and skills.

I will turn 52 in July of 2025, the year that starts tomorrow. I am incredibly proud of what I accomplished in service of this goal I set way back in December of 2004 when my daughter was born. I also was lucky enough to retire in August of 2024, well ahead of my goal and a year ahead of my stretch goal. A series of changes put me in a spot where an exit just made sense. Many were surprised, but many also did not know of my goal and what motivated that goal. I was not a career-minded person before the age of 22 when I joined the workforce. I had no idea what I wanted to do, but out of tragedy just months after I graduated from college I was given a shot at a career I could not have imagined. Intel and Dell offered me an opportunity to become something I could never have imagined. For this, I am eternally grateful.

I remember leaving college convinced I would never earn more than $40k a year. After all, I had a double degree in English and Political Science. Not the training typical of a tech career, but I can again thank my father who also gave me wonderful experiences and skills before his passing. We owned a computer in 1979, and like me he was a serious hobby guy. A computer was always available for me. I took programming classes when I was eight, operated bulletin boards with friends, and was into early PC gaming. Later, while hunting for sunken Spanish treasure off of the coast of Maryland (the Juno), I maintained and ran computer-based side scan sonar, differential GPS, and underwater ROVs. All of this gave me a pretty good leg up on tech-based systems.

I am now five months into my retirement (semi), and it has been a blast. I have enjoyed a dozen or so short-burn consulting projects. I am still mentoring many whom I have mentored for a few years now. I try to keep in touch with my old colleagues with regular meet-ups, emails, and texts. I am often asked if I miss it, and my typical response is that "I miss the people the most". I do miss the puzzles and challenges. Michael Dell has posted many times over the past few weeks saying "it's all math and puzzles", and I do miss that part of the job.

What I don't miss is the stress and the internal pressure I put on myself for all of those decades. The last three years were super rewarding, but they were also the hardest three years of my career for a variety of reasons. I think 99.9% of the people I worked with over the past 30 years were focused, dedicated, and largely kind folks. However, 1/10th of the people fall into the category of bad actor, and in business, we tend to allow bad actors to sow rot across organizations because they are "smart" or "results-oriented". The impact of this rot is underappreciated by many senior leaders. I wish we would do better. I did my best to call these folks out, and sometimes paid a fairly heavy political price for it. However, I earned plenty of political capital and you cannot take that capital with you into retirement. This was true across the full 30 years of my career.

What I miss the most are those colleagues that I grew very close to over the 30 years of my career. Many of whom I count as close friends. There are a few I know I could call in the middle of the night for help, and they would go to the ends of the earth to help me and my family out. I would do the same for them. A dear friend that I met nearly 20 years ago at Dell said something to me that nearly brought me to tears earlier this year. I drove to San Antonio to attend his brother-in-law's wife's funeral who sadly died in her early 50s of pancreatic cancer. The brother-in-law said to him privately, I cannot believe that Matt drove down for the funeral. I had spent a fair amount of time with him while hunting, and allowed him to use my beach house in Port Aransas...a place his wife loved to visit. My friend said to the brother-in-law, "That is just what Matt does. He shows up and he shares". My friend then said to me, "You have taught us all that. How important it is to show up for one another and to share the bounty freely and without expectation for anything in return." I tried to do the same thing in my career as well, especially for those whom I worked with most closely and/or who worked for me directly. I think that is why many of my close colleagues are close friends beyond work. Some are just friends on non-work social media, and some attend weddings and important life milestones. This is what I am most proud of.

True, I am also very proud of my career. Few have the honor of becoming a Senior Vice President at a Fortune 50 company. Few get to work on many multi-billion dollar and a few multi-tens-of-billion dollar deals, that is something I am proud of. I love that I have a few patents in my name, an R&D 100 award, and many other achievements I could not have dreamed of at 22 years old.

However, it pales...pales in comparison to the people. The world moves on very very quickly when you step away from the game. Trust me, I don't think many people think "Boy, I wish Matt was still here to work on project X". The only thing that people will remember when you are gone from the industry and ultimately gone from this world is the people and relationships in which you left a lasting relationship. This is why you should ALWAYS show up, and you should share the bounty. It's the only thing you can carry into the next realm, whatever that is. Not money, not titles, not rewards, none of that. The only thing that you can take with you is your accumulated karma and your memories. That is why you want the accounting of your life to be positive. You can both take that forward with you, and you can leave it behind as your legacy. Always do your best to be positive and leave a positive impact on the lives of people.

So what have I done since retirement beyond the part-time consulting via my LLC Broad Reach Partners? I have enjoyed time on the water with family and friends aboard the boat I bought in late 2023 (still a great time to buy a boat by the way). I have spent time with friends fishing and hunting. I have continued to show up for family and friends facing hardships this year. Cancer again creeps into the lives of those close to me, and the added free time that I enjoy in retirement. I am a good two-thirds of the way through the book I started shortly after retiring and hope to complete the manuscript with final edits before the end of the year. The stretch goal would be to have it published before the year is out, but that might be a super stretch. The book is part memoir and transformation story, part industry history, and part career advice. I also had a chance to travel a bit to visit with cousins on Nantucket and attend the great Nantucket Conference in October. Many have remarked, "No moss shall grow below your feet Matt" and I now wear the title of Professional Vagabond.

What is in store next year? Before I started my book, I wrote down a fairly long list of goals for myself post-retirement. I never planned my life or career but without the structure of relationships and employment...I thought this phase of life might benefit from some structure and rules of thumb. The list is a bit of a list of lists. I have a bucket list of hunting trips and plan a big hunting excursion to Alaska next fall and potentially a pronghorn hunt in Colorado. I have a bucket list of experiences for 2025 that includes attending the Oshkosh Airshow in July, cruising coastal Maine, and finishing that book. I have a vacation bucket list, and seeing the Northern Lights with my wife is planned for February in Iceland. I have some financial goals that are more like guardrails that are well under control. I have some lifestyle goals, of which continue to cultivate the show-up and share legacy is a part. I have some activity goals that include much of the above but with some modifiers about friendship. Last, I have a list of friendship goals for which I am always looking to keep on top of.

The one unexpected thing about early retirement. You can feel relatively isolated. Work is all about people and relationships, and when you step away from work those not retired keep moving forward with that pace and urgency that work life demands of you. That is why the book project has gone quite a bit faster than I expected, focusing on those memories and filling that pocket of time with memories of those people. It's also why I write this note. I still want to engage the working world and those I left behind in it. I do expect that my nature as a rolling stone, gathering no moss, will also continue in service of filling up that time previously filled with work and work relationships. I expect quite a bit more part-time work as well, which is nice.

Last, I have really enjoyed spending more time with my dear wife. We have started visiting more sites and museums and plan to have more lunch dates during the week, which is fun.

I hope you all had a rewarding 2024 no matter what you are up to and have an even more rewarding 2025. Thanks for reading and following along. I hope to post more as this new journey unfolds.