“I am a member of a species that thinks working five days a week for 40 years
to pay off a debt created on a bank’s computer screen is freedom.” — Anonymous
Somehow, we got it all wrong in our culture. It’s engrained in us that we have to work a minimum of 40 hours a week for at least 40 years.
As the plan on paper goes, we save a portion of our income and invest it for retirement. At retirement age, we’ve accumulated a pile of cash, which we invest conservatively and then live off the interest.
This plan is broken because the mindset is flawed and because it doesn’t even work in practice. Whatever benefits may be achieved come at too high of a cost.
The primary fear of retiring Baby Boomers is the fear of running out of money while they’re alive during retirement.
Baby boomers were sold the dream of going to school and getting a job they don’t particularly like, so they can work hard for 40 years, and then retire. They work five days and are paroled for a two-day weekend. They have no employment contract guaranteeing future employment.
In most cases in retirement, they seek the sanctuary and security of government social welfare programs. They’ve contracted financial diabetes due to poor financial decision-making or a broken financial system. Government programs are their shot of insulin to temporarily keep them above ground. Others work well into their golden years just to merely survive.
5 Day Weekenders see life through a completely new perspective. Instead of working hard for someone else for 40 years, you work hard for yourself for five to 10 years so that you have the rest of your life for adventure, meaning, and joy. Instead of looking forward to a “someday” retirement, you create and live a grand purpose today. You don’t invest in retirement. You never fully retire. Instead, you retire from things you hate and embrace living a life you love.
You don’t hand your money over to someone else to manage, where your risk is high and you have little or no control. Rather, you stay in charge of your own money to reduce your risk and dramatically increase your control, cash flow, and profitability. Instead of accumulating over long periods of time, you leverage and utilize to create exponentially greater returns.
Making these changes in your actions and habits requires embracing a new mindset. With a 5-Day Weekend lifestyle you declare your entrepreneurial independence and earn your freedom. It’s an entirely new outlook on life. Your unshackle yourself from the outdated 5-Day work week life and escape financial mediocrity.
It’s a matter of freedom and control vs. security and servitude. I discuss this in my next post. In the meantime, tell me: where are you in your thinking about retirement? Are you eager to break free of conventional thinking? Or are you tied to what you do because you don’t know any other way? In either case, I’d love to hear from you. Thank you for sharing.
Secure your copy of the “5 Day Weekend” book. 5 Day Weekend: Freedom to Make Your Life and Work Rich with Purpose [Nik Halik & Garrett Gunderson]
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