Almost 16 months ago, I decided to leave a job I loved to try “new things”. My Vanguard career started on 12/12/1982, and lasted over 32 years. The decision to leave was a difficult one, I so loved the people, the culture and the purpose of the organization.
I am pretty sure my decision to leave started to percolate around my 30th anniversary. I began to wonder if I had become too comfortable in my situation. After 30 years, you tend to develop a “doctorate” in how an organization works. To use the often overused Vanguard sailing metaphor— I wondered if I was “sailing close to shore” because I was afraid the world might be flat. So, on 04/13/2014, my 54th birthday, Vanguard and I worked a great plan to transition me from the organization.
Enough background. This is not an advice post, it is a sharing experiences post. If you are considering early retirement or late career change due to whatever situation, listed below are a few things I experienced, and a few insights I have gleaned from the experience:
1. Separation anxiety is unavoidable, but goes away. I had anxiety before I left, as well as the first day I woke without a badge. I guess everyone deals with anxiety differently. I stay busy. I plan. I make lists. I decided to divide-up my next life phase into 6 month chunks. The first 6 months I traveled, visited friends and family. The next 6 months I started a 50/25/25 plan. Half of my time was dedicated to family and travel; however, I also introduced home improvement projects and networking activities. My current allocation is 50/50 work and fun, with a goal to end up working more.
2. People move on and it is a natural thing. I am an ESTJ and love / need to interact with people. I estimate that I knew the names and background of 2000 + crew members when I left. Whenever we did the “Gallup 12 question” survey, I would boast that I had hundreds of best friends at work. After a year away, it is clear to me how silly I was with that boast. Working together 60 hours a week, for over 1500 weeks, you meet a lot of nice people, and develop friendly acquaintances—Friendship is different. Just knowing someone’s name does not make someone a friend. I have gone from having lunch with Vanguard folks on most days, to now just a couple of times per month. It is not what I thought would happen, but it made me much more appreciative of those relationships where we did manage a friendship versus acquaintance.
3. Work that seemed so important at that time seems less important to me today. Goals and efforts around service adoption, project completion, and many other things were very important to me. I would work lots of hours and have many an intense conversation. I was often described like a dog with a bone. I spent at least an hour a day reading financial services publications, and listening to Bloomberg in the car. Now I read Philly.com, listen to sports radio, and never know what the market is doing. If I only knew then what I know now…
4. We are all replaceable. We all say it. I said it a zillion times; however, there is nothing like seeing it in action. My departments and my projects went on without missing a beat. Sure, the new leaders did it differently, some say for the worse, some say for the better, but the truth is everything got done.
5. Finding new work takes time, and the process is very rewarding. Meeting new people, learning new industries, and solving new problems is exceptionally rewarding. It turns out the world is not flat. Non-profits, businesses, and government all have interesting problems to solve, with rewarding outcomes. I am grateful have been blessed with enough resources to deprioritize a pay- check and prioritize working on meaningful things.
Early retirement is a major gift for me! I better prioritize friends and family, I only work on projects where someone cares about the outcome, and I have a much better appreciation of the daily simple things like walking the dogs. Early retirement was challenging, but it did teach me a few important life lessons during the transition.