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You’re Crazy – You Can’t Retire
When You’re 35!
1/2/00
Blaine Parks
If we had a
dollar for every time someone told us we were too young to retire, we
could have quit and gone sailing long ago! It’s unanimous. Everyone
thinks we’re crazy. Every age, sex, ethnicity, color, and religion has
been adequately represented in the fight to convince us that we’re too
young, we’re foolish, we’ll run out of money, we’ll get bored, or we’ll
be attacked by pirates. In general, telling us it just can’t be done.
And, we want to personally thank each and every one of them. We couldn’t
have retired at age 35 without their help.
Confused? Let me explain. I
have always been a dreamer. More importantly I actually believe I can
accomplish anything I set out to do. You’re probably saying, "So
what, there are lots of people who believe in their dreams". I agree, but
I carry it a step further so that I can’t back out. I tell everyone who
will listen about my goal. Why do I tell them? Because I can
always count on at least one person telling me that it can’t be done.
And right then and there, I commit to prove them wrong.
So, here we are once again.
Janet and I are retiring in less than 5 months, moving aboard a brand-new
sailboat, and charting our own course for a very slow world cruise. How
did it happen? It was actually easier than we thought because we never
factored "luck" into the equation. But, there was a little more
than luck to making this happen. I would submit to you that anyone could
accomplish the same thing if they put their mind and resources into it.
Here’s a simplistic 6-step
process of how we did it. Step One – We set the goal of retiring at age
45 on a used boat in the 35-40 foot range. (As I mentioned in "The
Dream", Janet had already told me that only an Island Packet would
do.) Step Two – Find someone to tell me it couldn’t be done (this step
took less than 30 minutes). Step Three – Talk to everyone we could about
the true costs, highlights, and pitfalls of cruising under sail. Step Four
-- Determine realistic financial targets to making the dream sustainable
with no means of income other than our investments. Step Five (after
recovering from the shock of Step Four’s results) – Spend fifteen
minutes a day working on the dream. Step Six – Never believe that it can’t
be done.
Yes, there are lots of
specific actions that we took. There are choices regarding investments,
standard of living, and quality of life while working on the dream that
might be different than the ones we chose. But the bottom-line is,
anyone can do this. All you need is a dream, a plan, and at least one
person to tell you it can’t be done. We can’t thank our group of
non-believers enough. Without them, we might not have ever achieved our
dreams.
See you on the water. |
