Retirement vs. Time Freedom

enjoy lifeWe get the privilege to help people achieve their financial goals, and most of the time the primary goal is to retire at some point. It is fascinating to me that we, as a culture, are programmed to trade our time for money. The average person’s plan is to work for someone else their whole life and when they get enough money and hit their magic number they will start living the way they want to. People normally spend about 43 years on average in the workforce, working for someone else.

At Uncommon Wealth Partners, once we hear that someone wants to retire we normally ask them this question… “What do you want retirement to look like for you?” Or, “What are you passionate about?” Normally the answers are the same. Why do we put off what we are passionate about in life to wait for tomorrow when tomorrow is not guaranteed?

For most people, the typical retirement looks like this – work for 43 years, turn 65 and then and only then begin doing what you’ve always dreamed of doing. Alternatively, time freedom is when your passion and your career are intertwined, where you can’t wait to get up in the morning because you know that the day ahead of you is exactly what you chose to do.

Where are you right now? Typical retirement has a defined timeframe around it, whereas time freedom doesn’t. We have clients who are 26 years old that are in the time freedom mindset and loving their life because they were willing to think uncommonly.

In fact, I just emailed a 30-year-old client and got this response…

Hey!

I’ve taken a spontaneous trip to see the world’s tallest building in person. And some man-made islands shaped like palm trees.

Can you guess where I am?

Upon my return – I’ll do my best to follow up.

Best,

You might be thinking that he is young and probably doesn’t have a family and kids to worry about, and you would be right. But I can nearly guarantee that he would still pursue his passions, no matter his life circumstances. He is locked into a way of living where he has a time freedom mindset.  Once you have that you don’t go back to thinking about traditional retirement.

One of the things we love to do at Uncommon Wealth Partners is to figure out how to get people income from what they are passionate about. For example, we have a client that loves airplanes. After some encouragement, he is not only pursuing his pilot license, but he’s also pursuing buying an airport which would pay him to do what he loves! Challenge yourself to think uncommonly and start having a time freedom mindset before you retire.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with going the traditional retirement route and we have many clients doing just that enjoying what they do every day. I am excited for each of them to walk out of their workplace for the last time before retirement. I am sure it will feel like the last day of school before summer.

Do you love what you do? Do you enjoy going to work in the morning? If you don’t, I would challenge you to start thinking of things that you can do that will get you to where you want to go. Don’t hate your job for 43 years to retire and hope that your next 20 years will be better. Start living your life now! What are you passionate about? What is your first day of retirement going to be like? And how can you start doing that sooner than age 65? Time is your biggest asset, enjoy what you do and how you do it! It just might take some uncommon thinking to get there.