Tough economic times and downsizing have adversely affected the employment outlook for just about every generational cohort: from new college graduates with much slimmer prospects of employment and Gen X’ers being furloughed and rethinking their careers to Baby Boomers having to postpone retirement and retirees dealing with having to go back to work.
I’m no exception. After 40-plus years of work, I’m still at it - mostly motivated by a reawakened passion for putting my skills to use, but also influenced by a substantially battered and bruised retirement nest egg. I've spent the past few months reflecting on it all through my lens as an asset-based thinker and have come away with some insights and advice worth sharing. So here's my story.
The Journey
My journey to and through the corporate boardrooms took 38 years. I’ve been in the Barnyard at The Concept Farm for about five years. In these five years I have been blessed with more meaningful work, productivity, personal fulfillment, determination, confidence, and humility than I could ever have imagined.
I worked all my life because I thought I had to - starting at age 12 for spending money, during high school to help with tuition, at college to pay off student loans, graduated college, got married and started a job in advertising in the same week. Then, I started a family shortly thereafter, worked a second job in a rock band to pay for a night school MBA; after the MBA there was a night job as adjunct professor of Marketing at Pace University and kept that up for 25 years in whatever city my day job took me to.
I had some great jobs at that: VP at 26, President at 34, a few other CEO gigs, even a partial early retirement at 49. I just kept on going, never looking back, and always seeing my career as a means to specific ends; to provide a great life for my family, as validation that I was good at what I did, and a vehicle to accumulate the means to retire comfortably.
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