One of the biggest pieces of advice I’ve been getting from people who have either retired or have made significant changes in their lives (and are living their ‘what happens next’ life) is…

Plan Early.

“Oh I know” you might be saying “That’s a statement of the blinking obvious…Of course I need to start planning early. I probably need to start planning for financial independence decades before I actually achieve it”

That’s where you’re wrong. It’s fair to say the most people who manage to build enough wealth to achieve financial independence do so over decades, slowly but incrementally building their assets and wealth…and interestingly the conversations I’ve been having, be it our clients or people who I’m learning from about this journey into what happens next, have considered and planned for the money side of their next stage really well.

However, to a man and woman, those on the other side of making the decision to sell their business or end their successful career told me exactly the same thing. Whilst they considered the money question and made decent provisions to having enough money in the ‘what happens next’ period of their life…they didn’t plan for the other bits. So, in this video I want to consider the three biggest questions people are telling me they wished they’d asked themselves earlier and some context on why these questions are important.

Who am I if I’m not this?

We’ve all got multi faceted identities. I’m a dad, a business owner, a financial planner, a proud Londoner now living on the Essex coast, an advocate of kindness and much much more. The challenge we face when we are at our ‘what happens next’ moment is we lose dimensions of our identities, and if these dimensions have played a prominent role in our lives, replacing them immediately is incredibly difficult.

The reality is that if you’ve built and then exited a business, often through sale, you’ve often invested blood, sweat and years into that project. You’ve put the time in to build, often sacrificing other part of your life to achieve this goal of building a business worth a decent amount. If you’ve had a decently senior role in either industry or a profession the same thing applies. Your identity is often wrapped up in your work.

The people I’ve spoken to about this subject tell me that thinking about your values, your purpose in life and how this will look in the next stage of your life is key…but thinking about what you’re going to do in this phase of what happens next is something definitely worth both doing and considering.

Where are my friends?

Often our social relationships are at work…and it makes sense that they are. After all we spend a decent chunk of our time at work during the potential four decades of full time work, of course we’re going to build friendships with people we work with.

However one thing which comes up time and time again during conversations about ‘what happens next’ is how thinking about who and where your friends are is worth thinking about. 

If you’ve got people you like where the only connection isn’t work, then that’s great. However I spoke to one ‘what happens nexter’ who told me that because of all his friendships being work related he found himself going to work even though he was officially ‘retired’. The challenge with this, is that he wanted to do lunch, whilst the colleagues and friends he worked with still had work to do.

So, thinking about how you’re going to spend your time in this phase of your life is definitively important. However the more important questions is who you’re going to spend your time with, and whether you need to cultivate more friendships if you’re thinking about the next stage of your life. However this takes time, which brings me onto the most vital question you need to ask yourself…

How long do I need to plan and prepare for What Happens next?

It’s interesting. We’ve all got different timescales when we think about what we need to do to plan for “What happens next?” however the biggest thing you want to avoid is to sail into retirement or ‘what happens next’ without a clear plan on how you’re going to spend your time, and how you look after yourself in different aspects of your wellbeing, including how you’re going to maintain intellectual engagement, purpose and physcial wellbeing among the things you want to consider…

There’s no definitive answer here…but for a starting point I’d suggest you watch our recent video with Damien Stancombe who talks about the concept of planning and preparing for what happens next using the ’60 paydays rule’ as it’ll definitely give you food for thought…

You can find the video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc5PCAZnVBo&t=2787s and I look forward to hearing what you think!