We all think we know what it will be like when we…

Transcript

I've had a few people mention, actually probably hundreds of people mention, that there's no way they could just relax in retirement and how they would have to find something to keep them busy. And I totally understand this. There was a time when I was younger where I thought I was going to be laid up for a while with something, nothing too bad, but that I would be like out of commission for a bit. I was thinking the whole time like, okay, I'll get a monitor set up over here. I'll get my computer here. That way I can keep working even though like I'm laid out for a bit. In my mind, I thought I'm going to want to stay super busy the whole time I'm like recuperating. And then I got the first really bad flu I've ever had, like maybe years later, and it knocked me on my butt for about a week. I had zero interest in working. All I wanted to do was sleep. And try to shut out all of the discomfort. And I'm not saying retirement is like getting a really bad flu or getting really sick, but we have no idea what something's going to be like until we experience it. And what happens, I think, in retirement is a lot of us will retire and we'll try and recreate that work life. We'll try and reintroduce all the stress, all the anxiety, try to bring back in all the feelings of validation and success. And just trying to like relive our work life through retirement. And like I was lucky in that I started slowly realizing that all I was doing was recreating my work life. And it started with my brother asking me, what are you doing here? Why are you trying to start another business? What like you don't need to do any of that. Why don't you just relax? And it got me thinking about it. And then I realized I could just rest and relax and just enjoy my work life. And I was like, I'm going to do this in my retirement. But you're going to see this and you're going to say not me, not me. The thing is, you're not there yet. So when you're there, it all changes. It's like any other big life change. You don't know how it's going to hit you until it happens. So the one thing I hope that I can accomplish with these videos is that that people will start thinking like, okay, what if I'm wrong? I'm not going to be like super motivated to start a new business or get another job or be a consultant. What then? And I would think about that because you can be like, I'm extremely happy in retirement. Now I do videos about all the little things that I've struggled with and still struggle with. Just because I like to talk through my thoughts. And I hope that you know, someone might benefit from what I've been through. But I just heard some big crashing sound in the woods. But that doesn't mean I'm unhappy. I love my retirement. But I was completely unprepared for what it was going to be like in retirement. I had all of these ideas and all of these plans and notions. And then once I retired, right out the window, they all went and I had to figure it all out pretty quickly. So it's something to consider. What if what you think it's going to be like when you retire isn't that at all? What if you're completely surprised by retirement, and you need to learn to relax and rest and recuperate, quite frankly, it's just something to consider.