Many business owners latch onto the concept of Half-Retirement™, buy a t-shirt (yes, you can get a Half-Retired T-Shirt), and adopt a Half-Retired™ Mindset. Half-Retirement™ works best as a team sport, not an individual one.
Yes, there is the rare business owner with so much discipline, consistency, and determination who can join the Half-Retired™ Hall-of-Fame (apply here) without a team. For the rest of us, we need help. Some of the areas where a team can help accelerate Half-Retirement™ or can be the difference between accomplishing the goal and failure are:
- Capable employees. Employees with the time, energy, and talent to take on higher-level responsibilities.
- Bonus level, Employees who support your quest for Half-Retirement™ and will do whatever is needed to help you achieve it.
- Accountability partner. You can’t hold yourself accountable. You can try hard to, but you need a non-employee, non-friend, non-spouse to truly provide accountability. If you want to accomplish Half-Retirement™ on schedule, your odds go up dramatically with proper accountability.
- Fellow business owners and peers. Best practices, success stories, and failure stories can greatly aid in removing speed bumps and make Half-Retirement™ go smoothly. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel.
- Friends and Cheerleaders. Unfortunately, Half-Retirement™ is not a bump-free process. There will be frustrations and times that you need a pep talk. Having someone who cares about your success and who can motivate you can be invaluable.
- You would not climb Mount Everest without an experienced climbing guide, because you can die. If you try Half-Retirement™ without someone who “knows the way,” you won’t die, but you might cost yourself a million bucks.
- Travel agent. Half-Retirement™ is about doing more of what you enjoy outside of work without experiencing financial pressure. Engaging a travel agent, golf coach, or yoga instructor will help create “pull” to do more of the things that you enjoy .
Business owners are great bootstrappers. This skill has probably served you well as you grew your business. If you can resist this bootstrapping/do-it-yourself inclination in Half-Retirement™, you can accomplish your goal faster and dramatically increase the odds of success.
