How can I ensure that my retirement will be fulfilling?
Straight-talking common sense from the front line of management
QFor the last 40 years my life has been my business – a company I started as a tiny start-up that now employs three dozen people. At 70, I am rapidly approaching the time when I must hand over the keys to the castle to my niece, who has been both HR and operations manager for the last 12 years. The problem is I am struggling to confront the looming years of retirement, which I fear will be goal-less and unfulfilling. How do I prepare for the next stage of my life?
A
There isn’t a golden rule that says that your working life stops at 70, there are plenty of people who carry on working. President Biden is 80, Mick Jagger is 79 and King Charles III didn’t take up his role until he was 73. Some successful entrepreneurs show no sign of slowing down in their 70s.
Sir Richard Branson is 72, Sir James Dyson 75 and both Warren Buffett and Rupert Murdoch are in their 90s. In the business world, age is just a number – you can continue to play a full part as long as you have the respect of your colleagues.
However, now is the time for you to make some important choices and set goals for yourself and for the business. Having spent 40 years building a successful organisation you shouldn’t just walk away and ignore it. You might consider selling the business, which would concentrate your mind on personal goals, but it seems a sale isn’t on the cards.
Presumably you have a major financial interest, so continued company success is important to you and you have a special responsibility to your colleagues to provide a secure and prosperous future. Much depends on your niece, who has played a big part for some time. It is time for her to become the chief executive (perhaps she has been the boss in all but name for some time) but you still have a valuable part to play.
Make no mistake, your niece is in charge and must be trusted with the freedom to run the business in the way she wants – you would be her sounding board and perform a role that I call “Young Mr Grace”, after the owner of Grace Brothers in the TV comedy Are You Being Served?. If the role develops for you, as it has for me, you will continue to walk round the business, present the long service awards and keep an eye on the cash flow. The company and its colleagues will benefit if you keep this casual contact by playing a passive part with a permanent smile on your face.
You could become chairman, but it’s not a full-time job, so, as well as setting up the new way your business will be run, you need to work on your personal plans for the next decade or so. It helps to have a few hobbies, plenty of friends and a bucket list that takes you around the world, but workaholics may not have had the time or inclination to develop a full leisure programme.
To get myself going, I devised a “geriatric gap year” (following in the footsteps of my backpacking children, but taking 10 times as long and favouring five-star hotels instead of youth hostels). The plan went well. Alex and I went to California, Colorado and New York, before a 25-day trip to New Zealand. We were thinking of our next adventure when Alex was diagnosed with terminal cancer – the schemes you make as a senior citizen don’t always go according to plan.
A conversation between octogenarians often covers hips, backs, knees and other bits of wear and tear that appear just when they aren’t wanted.
By the time you can play golf every day you may find it difficult to complete 18 holes without a buggy and your best drive goes half the distance it did in your youth. Have one hobby you can pursue whilst seated – bridge, painting and writing all qualify. Singing in a choir only requires a limited amount of standing and you can play bowls at a leisurely pace.
Being retired brings the perfect chance to help your community. This can entail being a committee member, a trustee or a governor, but if, after a life full of meetings, you never want to see another set of minutes, instead look for something that gives you a hands-on role – edit a community newsletter, run the village summer fair or organise a charity half-marathon.
Gail, our payroll controller, retired in December. She popped into the office recently and reports that with all the decorating, gardening and travel planning she has never been so busy.
Enjoy your retirement.