What I Miss Now That I'm Retired, by Scott Stolz, CFP, RICP (week 35)

 

This past weekend I had dinner with a former business associate.  Amongst other things, he asked me what I missed now that I’m retired.  That question gave me pause.  When you retire, you mostly focus on the things you now have time to do that you couldn’t do while working.  I hadn’t really thought much about what I missed about working.

One answer did come immediately to mind.  I missed the people I worked with.  Many of them became, and continue to be, good friends.  While I still see them occasionally, it’s just not the same.  And it’s more than just a friendship.  We worked together towards common goals.  We were a team and we had each other’s backs.  We took great pride in the service we provided to our clients each day.  And we all benefited from our success.  We were in it together.  That’s virtually impossible to replace once you retire.  I get some of that same feeling in my softball league.  We too are a team.  And now 50 games (yes, you read that right) into the season, we have come together and we support each other.  But it’s not the same.  It’s still just a game.  Lives aren’t being materially altered like they could be in the workplace.  I just don’t get the same level of satisfaction.

And that leads me to the second thing I miss most.  What I did each day made a real difference in people’s lives.  Not only for the people I worked with, but for the financial advisors we served and the clients they served.  I know with certainty that a lot of people’s lives are better because of what my team and I did each day.  A 2024 Transamerica survey found that 27% of retirees struggle to build new routines outside of work that feels meaningful (10 Facts About the Financial Fragility of Retirees in the Post-Pandemic Economy).  I wouldn’t say I’m struggling with this.  But I do miss it.

I miss being relevant in my industry.  I spent over four decades building relationships, influencing events, and pushing objectives.  While I’m not yet irrelevant, I am certainly less relevant.  That’s just the way things are.  Once you have less influence, people are naturally less motivated to seek you out or answer your call.  There will likely be a day that no one reads this blog because other’s opinions will matter much more than mine (hopefully, that day hasn’t already arrived, but I just don’t know it).  Of course this is not all bad.  I now have the freedom to pick and choose what I work on – even if that’s nothing at all. 

The question of what I miss leads to the question of what I don’t miss now that I’m retired.  In no specific order, I don’t miss checking my calendar each night before I go to bed to see what time my first meeting is.  I don’t miss setting an alarm clock each morning (unless I want to).  I don’t miss budget season and IT Priority Steering Committee meetings.  In fact, I don’t miss meetings in general – especially Zoom meetings.  I don’t miss commuting to and from work – although I do miss going into an office (a little).  I don’t miss the seemingly endless number of compliance and legal rules that exist in today’s financial services industry.  I could never write this blog if I was still working.  If I tried, any column would take weeks to approve and would be pretty much useless once it was sanitized.

At the end of the day, everything is a trade-off.  There are positives and negatives with every decision we make.  But as I enter month nine of retirement, I can safely say that the positives heavily outweigh the negatives.