BY TJ Walker
Real gurus don’t ever retire; they just raise their fees and become more selective on whom they work with and where they will travel. The whole concept of retiring has traditionally meant you got to quite doing some form of back breaking physical work in a factory or farm so you could rest and stay out of people’s ways. Then it evolved to you being able to quite a mind-numbingly boring job in an office so that you could spend your remaining days traveling and pursuing your hobbies.
Well when you are a true guru, you are already pursuing your hobby because your area of expertise is your hobby. You are already traveling the world because you are in demand because of your unique expertise. So what, exactly is it you’d be retiring from and to?
If you are a true guru, the only reason to retire is that your health or mental facilities no longer allow you to perform at acceptable levels.
As a guru, this means your golden years can be truly golden. Your ability to charge money for your speeches, insights and writings may be at an all-time peak. Henry Kissinger and Allen Greenspan are no spring chickens, but they sure are making a lot of money selling their expertise around the world. At a time when many senior citizens are feeling left out, irrelevant and unimportant, you as a guru or subject matter expert will be getting more attention, more accolades, more media coverage, and more psychic income because you will be helping people.
Commentator William F. Buckley and columnist Robert Novak wrote, opined, and appeared on TV pretty much until the days they died when they were both 80 years old.
The older you get, the greater your knowledgebase becomes and the more valued and appreciated your ideas and expertise will be.
Additionally, your spouse and children will appreciate you more because, unlike many senior citizens, you won’t be sitting around complaining all the time and spending all of their inheritance. You’ll be too busy growing, learning, traveling, and making more money.