Hard Habits to Break

Before I get into this post, I need to make it perfectly clear: I am NOT retired.  In fact, I’ve grown to cringe at the word.

About three years ago I was blessed to be able to exit from the company I had built.  Covid had changed my outlook on many things, and it simply was time.  Like many exiting owners, I wasn’t overly concerned with what the future would look like.  I just knew it would be different, with less responsibility, and more freedom.  How crazy an outlook that is. 

I don’t know that it’s truly possible to see what the future will look like with 20/20 vision after you exit the company you built.  In fact, I believe that a certain amount of “blur” is inevitable.  It is for that reason that I wanted to write this post. 

At least for myself, there are four key habits, or "paces", that I have had difficulty changing.  Should this article apply to you, I suspect you may have some slight differences, but I also suspect there will be a lot of similarities. 

• Email pace.  Whether your professional communication is largely phone calls, texts, or email like mine, it’s hard to adjust to checking in less.  When you have been used to checking messages several times a day because you receive them all throughout the day, it’s odd when there suddenly aren’t many to check.  This may have been different with me since I exited into a part-time consulting role as opposed to fully into the r-word.  However, although the quantity is definitely less, I still find myself checking Outlook just as much. 
  

• Time pace.  When you are used to going at full-speed, or even greater-than-full-speed, it’s hard to slow down.  Even though there are days when you can wake up much later, it takes a while to learn to take advantage of that, and many of us don’t.  I’ve found that although with my part-time consulting there are days when I could get up much later if I wanted, it’s hard to not feel like I'm wasting the day.  Sure, initially there is a “vacation feeling” after you exit, but that goes away pretty quick.  The need to get up and get the day going is something that has stayed with me even after almost three years. 
  

• Financial pace.  Most of us dream of not needing to think about money, and even though some business owners achieve that far before they exit, many still anticipate that they will feel differently about money after they sell.  The reality is that it’s a mixed bag.  Some days you don’t have a financial care in the world, and other days you start to wonder if it might be wise to be conservative.  In either case, unless you work to push yourself outside of your normal spending habits, they will likely stay with you which is a good thing.  At least that has been my case.  Will you have a thought of buying something crazy at times?  Yes, of course.  But will you actually do it?  Probably not. 
  

• Connection pace.  This is another dynamic that changes greatly post-exit.  As many owners aren’t incredibly involved in social or community efforts outside of their business persona, it’s not unusual for people contact to suddenly decrease post-exit because you no longer have that responsibility per se.  Yes, do business owners get involved in community efforts?  Of course, but it’s typically as the ‘owner of XYZ company’, not simply as an individual.  In my own case, I realized that I still had the desire to attend many of the same business functions I had in the past.  As luck would have it, it made sense given my new consulting work.  But even without the consulting work, I've come to realize that it is a need I would have had to fill in some form or fashion.  The need to connect. 
  

I hope this list is in some way beneficial to you.  If you are considering an exit and want to talk to someone that has gone through the same thoughts and emotions, please reach out to me on our Contact Page. 

Until next time, I wish you the best in all your efforts. 

Mark Goldman 

PS: If you now find yourself with an 80’s music hit from Chicago playing in your head... I’m sorry.  It was necessary.  😊