The Career Question You Must Answer to Get the Rest of Your Life Right

On 15 April 2016, I RETIRED FROM WORK… NOT FROM LIFE

ON 15 April 2016, I RETIRED FROM WORK… NOT FROM LIFE

I LOVE MY WORK… My most recent assignment was with a visionary and inspiring Chairman. He was on 24/7 and assumed that the rest of us replicate his work ethic. Yes, he was hugely demanding but tempered it with a humble, generous nature – that was both real and endearing – and a wicked sense of humour that I preferred to stay clear of. I was surrounded by colleagues that excite, inspire, touch and frustrate all at the same time. We loved the country (Go Indonesia!), its gracious and warm peopleeeeee, culture, fooddddd and the adventures it offered to a couple of urbanites from Singapore. And the fooddddddd – oh did I mention it already? Yes, we were very comfortable.

And, so it was very difficult to hand in my resignation at the ripe old age of 57. And it was very tempting to agree with my Chairman when he made a charming pitch about the merits of working to 65.

I LOVE MY LIFE AFTER WORK MORE… I was unrelenting about retirement because I can’t wait to get started with life after work. My wife, who retired 10 years ago, gave me the room and support I needed to explore this.

For me, retirement boils down to making a choice: move forward into a next phase of life that offers glorious promises or step back to the comfort of a current life that offers work, challenges, stimulation and security. I choose moving forward. I choose to live where we want, and chase after anything we want and be accountable only to ourselves – my wife and me (well mostly).

I am inspired by JK Rowling who wrote books to occupy her kids. Cora Coralina who started her career as a poet at 60 and published her first book at 75. And my mother, who at the age of 83, decided to move out of her home of 25 years because “it’s time for a change”. They demonstrate you can do anything and that age was a number, not a factor.

I think there is another David Wee waiting to emerge. Nothing flamboyant – but maybe a children’ storybook writer or the best friend or the greatest customer of Airbnb or the composer of a musical or thought leader of something or who knows? I want to quench my desire to do something I previously could not. I want to be the best I can be at anything that matters to me and can hold my attention.  Which means I can also drop something instantly – with no accountability and just because I choose to. I never had that kind of freedom. It feels a bit self-indulgent….but how cool is that?

SO HOW IS LIFE AFTER WORK SO FAR? I always knew retirement is the toughest and most important transition I will ever face in my life. Living a meaningful life after work is a full-time affair and so I stayed clear from work and work-like activities. This means walking away from consulting assignments, assignments from my previous company and a partnership. Work is limited to quarterly meetings as an advisor to a NGO in India and an employee lifecycle company in Singapore.

I have time. So much timeeeeeee. Initially it was … weird and a bit scary and then both. I found it difficult to fill each day meaningfully and got tempted to start doing work assignments. But I stuck to the game plan and started working hard on doing things I never did before. And one of these was LinkedIn.

Wow I learned so much – digitisation, the Uber saga, activist investors. But even more appealing were the people of LinkedIn – a noble soul who is passionate about the healing power of music in special education, an ex-colleague who works on eradicating poverty through sustainable funding for UNICEF and an entrepreneur who became a millionaire at 29, lost everything a year later and is starting over. To add spice, I gave myself a target of getting ONE 30,000 views for one post goal (the top 1% LinkedIn influencers garner an average 30,000 views for each post). In my first three months, the biggest number of views was a paltry 398. But after a hundred so failures, the needle moved. My best performance to date is 25, 219 views for one post. Will I get to 30k? I don’t know. Best part is I don’t have to care – but I do, ha ha, a goal is a goal. Somethings you just can’t change.

We wanted to live our lives differently. We have homes in Singapore and in Kuala Lumpur. I thought of getting an apartment in one of our favourite cities in the world, Melbourne. But my wife decided we should have as many homes as we want and live in anywhere in the world. And we will do this by being global nomads, going where we want, whenever we want, using budget airlines and Airbnb to provide economical transport and comfortable shelter.

We want a quality life – mentally and physically. The lifespan of Singaporean men has increased from 59 to 80 years of age. With healthcare advances, an extension to age 90 and more is not improbable. But an elongated lifespan does not equate to a corresponding health span. So, I have committed to exercising and reluctantly, eating better. And I have. Who would have thought my best physical years would be after 57? But what’s also exciting is research that demonstrate men and women in their 70s and 80s can have memories and attention spans that are on par with healthy, active 25-year-old. They are called superagers and you can become one by doing challenging physical (swim) and mental activities (tournament mahjong). The phrase “No pain, no gain” is especially relevant. You need to set a punishing pace and bear the temporary discomfort of intense effort to get the benefits that are needed to become a superager. So, doing Sudoku is fine but it won’t make you one but learning the violin, writing a book or taking up a coding class will.

I understand if you have doubts about superagers but there are numerous examples. Take John Goodenough who at age 94 invented a battery that got Google’s Eric Schmidt tweeting about it and promises to be light, cheap, safe and revolutionise the electric car.

I did something I wanted to do for 40 years but never found the courage to – Quit smoking. The question was how? Stopping is easy – stopping permanently is the challenge. I imagined a lifetime struggle of not relapsing. But why is it a struggle? It was then that the solution became apparent – why enjoy smoking? If I enjoy smoking, then stopping is a deprivation and hence a struggle. But if I hate smoking, stopping becomes a celebration. With this insight, everything became simple. Aside from nicotine withdrawal, there was no physical discomfort and mostly I don’t miss smoking. Why did it take me 40 years to quit? The answer is fear – fear that stopping is too difficult, fear of disappointing loved ones, fear of a life without smoking. All my fears were self-made and when I realised this, I became free.

I did miss work and the part of me that was defined by what I did for a living. But I knew I could thrive without work. So, it was puzzling that I felt something was still amiss. I could not quite put a name to it until I read an article about retirement by a wise man – Jeff Barnes. That’s when I figured out that I was lonely – I yearned for the friendships a younger me living in Singapore took for granted. I never felt this hole when I was working because I had company. Plus, I am an introvert so being limited to a few friends worked for me. But recently I reconnected with a dear friend who just returned to Singapore. It has been 15 years since I said goodbye to him. So, he has changed: a new life, new wife, new kids, new business. But we still laugh at the same jokes, enjoy the same drinks, share the same views on the incompetence of governments and – most importantly – we both have our hair.

It’s been 14 months since I retired. One big lesson stands out.

Retirement is the biggest decision you will ever make and how you manage the transition will affect the rest of your life.

I know for some, figuring out the retirement plan is as fun as putting together your last will and testament – so we procrastinate. But please do the thinking and have the conversations you need with your love one(s) on this most important of matter.

Who knows what the future will bring? I don’t. So why obsess? Ironically, Marilyn Monroe was right, “keep your head high, keep your chin up, and most importantly, keep smiling, because life’s a beautiful thing and there’s so much to smile about.” Tomorrow I may learn a new skill, give something back to community, savor a new experience. I can’t wait for tomorrow!