"It's time to step away, listen to what the universe wants to tell me, and leave room for what wants to happen." April 2023

It's been a little over a year since I retired from a 35-year career with John Deere. Below are my top 10 takeaway's. 

1. It's good to have a plan.  My plan was to divide my life into 4 primary quadrants - Tony time, family time, community time, and professional development. I've reconnected with my nephews on an annual fishing trip to Canada, have nearly daily walks with my wife, spend more time investing in relationships in my community, and help others as an executive coach. It's not a perfect plan, but it's my plan. I've found it's just like creating a strategy in a business - there is the strategy as designed, and then there is the adaptive feedback loop as you live it out in real time. 
2. Relationships are the true north of happiness and fulfillment.  I kind of knew this all along, but it really came into focus for me over the last year. Some work-related relationships go dormant or stop altogether, while some become richer and more meaningful. New relationships have emerged that bring more richness to my life. Facebook is wonderful for keeping up with others form a personal basis, and LinkedIn is great for professional parts of our life. But nothing beats talking to someone face to face, and I doubt anything ever will. 
3. It takes a village to lead a successful and fulfilling life.  It's astonishing the impact other people have had on my life and continue to have on it. I also see more clearly the impact I have on other people, and the opportunity I have each day to do this. In the past, I was just too busy to see and sometimes appreciate it at times. The bottom line is we each impact others on a daily basis, and we ourselves are impacted by others. To me these interactions are what makes life....."life", no matter how big or small the interactions may be. 
4. There is a sense of loss in identity.  This is something I knew would happen and of course I planned for, but it's entirely something else to experience it. It's not the same as losing a loved one, but it kind of rhymes with it. I loved my company, the history, the legacy, the people, and the product. I loved what my company stood for in helping feed the world, fuel the world, and help humanity leap forward in so many parts of the world. I believed in our mission deeply. I fully bought into the program from the day I stepped foot in the factory as an intern in 1988. In the end there is a sense of loss, but I wouldn't have done it any differently. 
5. The pace of the working professional is impressive. I don't think this matters what industry or profession you are in. The commitment to have a career, and answer the call, whatever that may be, year in and year out, is really something. How hard people work and the momentum that people create to solve problems, move the company forward, take care of customers, and get the job done is something to behold. 
6. Retiring isn't "recession" or "reduction" in any way.  It's fully accretive in that everything we've ever done has put me in a position to continue to grow. It's just different now. I'm growing in different ways, in different dimensions, and starting to branch out more with a wider array of interests and things to do with my time. But I honor the past, and everything I did in my career, by building on what I have learned to help others. 
7. My perspective on life has changed.  Part of this is I have invested in who I am over the last year. This included a 3-day silent retreat, and I took a personality-based assessment to better understand how I respond while under stress, fatigue, or boredom. The upshot? I think I have more patience for situations and people in life than I had in the past. I am more patient with myself also. I'm still working through this and will probably be for the rest of my life, but the aperture of what I see in my life has certainly widened since retiring. 
8. Contributing to life is important to me.  While stepping away from a full-time career was the major decision, it was important to me to contribute professionally in some way. To me, this meant executive coaching, writing, board work, and consulting. This is a journey of discovery for me, but the common denominator is to help people in their careers by having less stress and anxiety where possible. 
9. I need to hold myself accountable.  By design I've divided how I invest and spend my time into 4 quadrants. My time in each has varied from 20-40%, and yes, I do keep track of my time with an app called HOURS that makes it super easy to log into different activities throughout the day. The reports aren't really that great, but it does export to excel so I can manipulate from there easily. The key to me is if I'm not keeping track of my time, I'm probably wasting a lot of it. 
10. It's all about Hope, Love, and Something to Do.  I once attended a birthday celebration and a speaker said the key to happiness was having "something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for". After the last year, I have to say those are pretty wise words indeed. I have something to do, I have people in my life I love and meet more and more people every day, and I have hope for the future, one day at a time. To me that's a good life indeed. 

Wherever you are in your career and life, I hope you have a sense of fulfillment and meaning for your personal and professional pursuits. Like a river there are lots of twists and turns, some smooth areas and some rapids, but forever moving forward. As life should be for all of us.