The wisdom and benefits of non-retirement

The recent Guardian study on how small business owners are less likely to retire puts me in mind of George Burns, a vaudeville comedian who died in 1996 at the age of 99. Old George was way ahead of his time in defining a positive view on getting older and staying on the job. People kept asking him about his retirement in his 60’s, and 70’s, and 80’s, and 90’s. His answer: “I looked up retirement in the dictionary. It’s when you stop doing what you hate and start doing what you love. I’ve been retired since I was six.” What got George to nearly 100 was the simple fact that he always looked ahead at least as much as looked  back on a career that started when Teddy Roosevelt was in office and ended with Bill Clinton’s presidency. Although he didn’t quite make it, George had a long-standing engagement to play the Palladium Theatre in London on his 100^th birthday.

I have had the pleasure of meeting literally thousands of small business owners, many one-on-one. There is one aspect of a personality that stands out in the successful ones who thrive in their roles as business owners, founders and leaders. They actively look forward to the “next good thing” in their lives and especially in their businesses. They get their “juice” from looking forward to something new and different. Retirement, as they perceive it, is far less challenging and stimulating than what they do and what they get at work.  Interesting enough, the study found that fewer than 10 percent of small business owners foresee themselves retiring, in the traditional sense (in their mid-60s). In my experience, there is a world of difference between running a business that belongs to a group of check-writing, dividend-driven stockholders and running one where you get to make all the decisions, take all the risks and reap all the rewards. That difference is looking down the road ahead and over the next hill and being “pumped” by successfully dealing with new challenges and enjoying new opportunities. To people with this mindset, retirement can be so predictable as to be boring by definition. If you love what you do most days of your life while you’re working, like George Burns, how can you possibly see the benefit of trading that in for a life of aimless bliss? Besides, many of the small business owners I know (and I am one myself) get far more out of what they do than they put in. In that world there’s no rational reason from cutting yourself off from that which fuels and energizes you.