So what’s next?

My dad is a serial entrepreneur. As such he never saved for retirement and has a long string of poorly performing LLC's in his name.  I didn't want to follow in his foot steps ablnd wanted to ensure that I'd have a plan for my family.  So I did it. I've had safe corporate job after corporate job. I made enough money to make sure my wife could stay at home for 8 years with the little ones and I saved for retirement( while paying off 4 student loans).  If I keep saving this I'll have enough to retire around 60ish(+ or minus a few years). 
 

I've got a job which is interesting enough, but I have enough corporate scars that I know when to draw the line and walk away.  I participate in my kids activites(my dad struggled with this as he was always busy).   
 

Basically I'm 43 and achieved my goal( or aM on a solid path for it) and I'm bored. I've had great fun and great satisfaction building and growing global teams and this current role isn't super exciting.  Sure it's on a sexy startup team, but it's an IC role and not complex.  There are three.goals, continue to build wealth for me and my family, help people through volunteering or mentoring, and finally being intellectually stimulating.  First goal is to just keep Performing well at work and balance with kids activites vacations. 
 

I once had a mentor say, if you can't find what you want inside work, find an outside/after work activity thst fills the hole.  so. I'm looking for the next thing or a side hustle.   And would like your opinions/advice, I'm sure some of you have been there  

Thoughts include 

1) adjunct or lecturing in operations 

2) real estate/Airbnb ( would really want to wait for prices to fall) 

3) volt unerring at local food bank more( I really should just do this)

4) find a different job. (Not super interested right now)

5) I dunno. 

So I'm in a similar position honestly. I'm leading the companies biggest growth initiative, crushing my goals, but the job is just so boring to me. So I've been doing a lot of self reflection. 

I am doing more of 3 right now and looking at rental opportunities once the market eases up.

What I have found looking back is I've been working for goals defined to me vs goals defined by me. And because of that it didn't really bring me a lot of joy. So now I work to keep the nice salary and the good benefits but It's not been the primary focus of my life. It's an enablement to those pieces of my life I enjoy. That realization has made my life a lot better. 

1. Figure out how to get people to pay you for something they do everyday.

2. Do that.

3. Win.

I honestly  think all gen x and very early mallinials feel the same way.

I'm 52, just got promoted to management in IT and have no aspersions beyond this work wise.

My third child is 16 and two and a half years from now she'll be done with high school.

Every day looks, feels, and acts like the last.

I feel all this. Hopefully that's not all there is...
 

 I've been thinking about just starting to write stuff and post it on my LinkedIn page. See what kind of reactions develop. 

Mentor me?

Buy a project car, spend hours and dollars on it. Push it off to the side and buy another project car. 

Pretty sure that's how things work around here, isn't it?

I got nothing. As someone in business for myself, every day is different. Today I bought carpet and a vacuum to keep my admin happy. 

Tomorrow, finish moving into a new building. 

That's it my man.  

I'll be 60 years old this year and I'm making great money and my company doesn't want me to do anything else but keep my territory profitable.  Nothing unless I move on.  

Bored?  I shared my linkedin resume with my boss at my last review and I told him I get bored at the 5 year mark and I'm open to new things (going on 9 years).  

Do you have a hobby?

You need a hobby.

And that hobby has to become more and more important in your life such that the day job becomes more and more in the way of the hobby.

This makes the transition into doing strictly what you love much easier.

Unless you just love working.

In which case.... I don't understand.

I totally understand where you're at...  I felt like I had maxed out my corporate job, and I hadn't gotten a raise in 5 years due to company restructuring (I had negotiated really well when I got hired, about 5 years in they put in a "grade" system, which meant I was over grade for 5 years) and I wasn't quite 40.   I decided I didn't like having someone control my financial future, so I put it all on black, so to speak, and tried to partner with a machine shop owner and modernize his shop for a share.   That didn't quite work out, so now (as of 1/2/2022), I'm a contract CNC programmer.  

We'll see how that works out!  So far, so good.   It's definitely been interesting!

Don't start mowing lawns.

Start composting

Make a YouTube channel documenting the life of worms that live within your compost pile. 

Make thousands of dollars a month via YouTube monetization. 

Have us all jealous as we should've seen the writing on the wall after the grocery store rescue lobster. 

WRT the "boring" corporate job- my underlying question is- do you work to live or live to work?  If you work to live, the boring corporate job should let you live a lot richer life with more flexibility and time to do what you want.

For FbC, the FUN side hustle or hobby is what you want, even if that's spending better time with your family.

The boomer generation called this mid life crisis.  Why so many porsches and harleys were sold in the 90s!

Very close to you in age, situation, and thought process.  I've started consulting on the side which has been fun and seems like it could be a good fit post-corporate life.  I'm hopeful to retire in my early 50's and do some combination of volunteering, consulting, real estate, or maybe something touristy (aka jet ski rental somewhere warm).  

I'm trying to focus all my efforts on the kiddos as they are growing up fast.  It's worth remembering how short a time they are really young and impressionable.

Trying to refocus my efforts on personal projects in addition to being Dad.

porschenut said:

The boomer generation called this mid life crisis.  Why so many porsches and harleys were sold in the 90s!

I now understand. 

For hobbies,  I like to ride mountain bikes. I coach just sons mountain bike team and do a few races on the side.  winter is tough as 1) it's cold here and 2) I don't have a fat bike yet. 
 

the idea of consulting on the side is interesting.  The idea of turning my job into a more portable /work from anywhere type position is super interesting.  moving to a semi-retired type job is very interesting in the near future.   I don't see myself every fully retiring. Hence the thoughts about teaching.  My father in law sits on his a all the time for 20 years now.  It's not what I want. Edit(maybe that's harsh.   He is a deacon at his church and travels once or twice a year.). If love my retirement to be "let's go live in Belize for two months" or something like that.

 

I don't want my own company, yet   I mean I want one  badly, but not until after kids in college etc  

alfadriver said:

WRT the "boring" corporate job- my underlying question is- do you work to live or live to work?  If you work to live, the boring corporate job should let you live a lot richer life with more flexibility and time to do what you want.

For FbC, the FUN side hustle or hobby is what you want, even if that's spending better time with your family.

Yeah. Not to brag but I make good money and work 100% from home.  I basically have unlimited vacation.   Its more of a work to live deal.  I did the live to work thing, it didn't end well in a corporate merger.  F them guys. 

In reply to mtn :

I'm happy to share. 

One other thought is starting an e commerce marketplace type business on the side.   This is what I do for a living.  The amount of money to be made is silly. 
 

Anyways. Last post. I promise.  My buddy sent me this video the other day. It spoke to me. The point isn't to win the game. It's to keep playing 

Move the family to some place not the Twin Cities where you can be outside more. That will help a lot. I love Minneapolis in the summer but man it can be a tough winter. 

I just did that myself moving back to Austin. With no winter, you can get out daily if you want to. I know it made winters tough for me personally. Cabin fever got real for me.

Between that and now being able to get out to the SCCA races in January (Did 2 this year already) has made a huge difference in my mental well being. Can't wait to get settled as my new place is 1 block from the trail to the MTB park so I can ride regularly. 

bmw88rider said:

Move the family to some place not the Twin Cities where you can be outside more. That will help a lot. I love Minneapolis in the summer but man it can be a tough winter. 

I just did that myself moving back to Austin. With no winter, you can get out daily if you want to. I know it made winters tough for me personally. Cabin fever got real for me.

Can't wait to get settled as my new place is 1 block from the trail to the MTB park so I can ride regularly. 

Wife loves it here and I might not move again.  I dragged her all over the country for work so. Something has to give. 
 

2nd piece. Geez. I want that. I work for Walmart and the hq is mountain bike heaven.  I search homes near trails constantly. 

I think teaching at a college would maybe give you the fullfiment you want. 

I spent way too much money on cars and motorcycles when I was younger (I'll be 40 next month) so I didn't save like I should have. I do pretty OK now, but I don't have nearly as much in retirement accounts as I should. 

The professor thing is something I've been thinking about lately as well. I'm sure it's hard as well, but I'm starting to be over the corporate grind. 

As someone with a side-hustle, beware that it's not over-consuming. I could make an OK living at it if I wanted to, but I don't. This can make customers have unrealistic expectations and you need to tell some of them to piss off. I do biz development for my living so telling customers I don't want to have to go pound sand is very liberating. 

Maybe take up gardening?

As far as side hustles....

https://letscampsmore.com and my wife's full time:  https://dianarambles.com

It started ass a hobby blog, then got monetized, now just a pain in the ass to keep up with.  Camping is *almost* not fun anymore.  I still camp and travel, but I am tryinhg to scale back the amount of "work" it has become.