Friday, February 26th 2021 marked the end of a career lasting 35 years and spanning over 6 decades. That math may look sketchy, but it is true. I started the summer of 1977 and finished in the winter of 2021. My oh my, how time flies. Coincidentally, my oldest (time not age) friend Don retired the same day. We can go months without a word and then have a flurry of messages which was the case here. I had crafted various “Changing career” messages to post or send to different sites. I had one specifically for LinkedIn, one email to business colleagues and one to family and friends. Don received the latter. As the texts started I realized his day was coming soon and he had planned his well in advance. Unlike me, he had worked his entire career as an attorney for a large insurance company and also unlike me, he had this date circled on a calendar for a long, long time. My date was decided early January. His day was filled with parties and many good wishes, mine was a short email to corporate that included the word “retire”. I still struggle with the implication and accuracy of that word retire. In a sense I understand; I did start receiving social security benefits in January and I did send that “retirement” email… In one fashion or another, I have answered to someone somewhere all my adult life. That said, from a motivational standpoint, and for those familiar with commission sales, you can appreciate in many ways there isn’t a tremendous difference between my old and new life. No one is, or was standing over me telling me to get out of bed. Obviously, not getting up back then would mean you starve eventually, so you get up and go. Today might not be that different actually, I think Lisa would get tired of me laying around and smack me—and not feed me.

If you are reinventing yourself career wise like my friend Don said about me, why not consider reinventing the whole package? I was killing time browsing Barnes & Noble while waiting for a business appointment and this book caught my eye. I thumbed through it and put it back on the shelf and continued my perusal, but kept getting drawn back to it. Not sure if it was the title or the color of the jacket but I bought it. I have gotten to the homework section; WORKVIEW and LIFEVIEW. The goal is to write about 250 words answering several questions. After completing both, you compare for any conflicts. I saw none. So good so far. My Lifeview hasn’t changed and I am not expecting it to. My Workview however, has changed dramatically so I am curious to see what direction Mr’s Burnett & Evans take me.

March 1st was my new beginning. By mid-week I felt like a lost soul. Prior, I had been running, finishing up lost ends and then doing classwork for real estate so I felt energized with plenty to do. This week was sitting at my desk punching the keyboard wanted to look busy and failing miserably. Not used to this. I have been unemployed before, 1975 I think, but other than that I have never stopped working. Technically, I’m not unemployed now, I am a REALTOR© or an independent contractor as they say…or, I’m retired. We’ll see.