About a decade ago on a trip to the US while I was living in
Shanghai I bought a book called “The Number” which was advertised as “the top
personal finance book of the year”. I didn’t care that much about the financial
advice but was interested in the “life style” angle of thinking through how I
would spend the time remaining in the “3rd and 4th
quarters" of my life. I knew my time as an ex-pat was in the final chapter and
was confident I had become one of the many expats that “can’t go home” again.
At least from a work perspective.
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| My dog-eared copy |
During my eleven years overseas a series of well-crafted
ex-pat agreements enabled me to save north of 80% of my income. I wasn’t
worried about survival when the axe inevitably fell but I was concerned about
keeping my life interesting. On evening walks with our then puppy Yuki, I
circled the gated community we called home amazed that I actually had lived the better part of
a decade in two Asian countries. My 25-year-old self could never have
contemplated that possibility. Nor could I have imagined that my older daughter
would ten years later have written one of the “top personal finance books” of
the year. After all that was the year I encouraged both my kids to put some of
their savings I held for them in stocks. My younger daughter said “buy China
Mobile and SQM”. A year later she had doubled her money. My budding financial
guru responded pithily: “Dad I am too busy to think about stocks; I will just
leave my money with you or in the proverbial mattress”. I digress but my point: life is full
of surprises.
Regular readers of my blog already know that I became
repatriation statistic within two years of returning to the US. My twenty-one
months as a “dead man walking” before the curtain came down on my corporate career was one of the
most difficult periods of my adult life. In a vain attempt to cling to ex-pat life I made many trips back to Asia that were not absolutely
necessary from a business perspective but were mainly to escape my unhappy
circumstances back at HQ. I liked to think of those trips as “mental health
weeks”.
Despite not feeling I needed the investment counsel in the
book “The Number” I actually did calculate my personal “number” as it became
more and more obvious a “career change” was imminent. I still had one daughter
in a very expensive college and was only in my middle 50s so if my family
history was any indication, I was likely to have another 30+ years on the
planet.
I had made only one decision about life after I left my long
time employer – I would never be an employee again. I hoped my knowledge of the
lithium markets and time in Asia would enable me to eke out enough income to
pay the bills. I was not confident.
Looking back to the future
income/savings assumptions I used when I crafted my “number” is a great
illustration of how we put limits on ourselves. The spreadsheet is almost
laughable now but the fear I felt at the time was no joke.
So when I was told on 9/10/2012 that I was being cast to the
curb at the end of the month, I spent several uncomfortable days contemplating my “number” and running budget scenarios based on my severance
package and extremely conservative assumptions about what I could make working
for myself.
I was very fortunate that customers from Asia came to town
the week I got fired. Of course it was embarrassing to tell them I was on my
way out the door but sharing my story with them while playing golf led to
further discussion of what I would do in the future and ultimately my first
consulting offer. That agreement which has been renewed five times at a annual “signing” ceremony dinner in Japan is financially the smallest agreement I have
had but was critical in helping me believe I was going to be fine. Within 60
days my new client had arranged a meeting with a major Japanese company that
led to my second contract at 4X the compensation of my first agreement. Within
another 90 days I signed three additional agreements with companies in China
and Australia.
My departure from corporate life could not have happened at
a better time. Lithium was at the beginning of a boom period. Because of my
ex-pat years, I was uniquely positioned to benefit from the sudden growth in
lithium demand.
I was very thankful so many friends I had made over the
years came to my aid but during the first couple of years working for myself, I
spent a lot of time thinking that “this can’t last”. Fortunately, I was wrong –
the past five years have been among the most interesting, fulfilling and
profitable of my work life.
I plan to continue to ride the lithium wave for the
foreseeable future. The current challenge I have now is a classic first world
problem. Recently I have spent too much time working and too little time doing
other things like spending time with my wife, hiking, playing golf and skiing.
I had to go back and read “The Number” again to get perspective on how to split
time between work and play in the future. What originally attracted me to the
book was the combination of dialog on “Second Acts” and lifestyle/balance after your first career was over.
As the child of depression era parents I grew up with a
constant worry of the proverbial “wolf at the door”. I found myself working to work instead of
working to live. I wouldn’t make a very good millennial…..
This week I was approached by a major global company – you
would all recognize the name. They wanted to have a conference call to discuss
retaining me to help them decide their lithium strategy. It was five of them
from three different countries and just me. They grilled me about my company,
Global Lithium, wanted to know about my organization, services I provide and
“success stories”. I laughed said, “well you guys found me, my organization is
small, in fact my two partners Yuki and Fiona can’t talk and have four legs.”
After a pregnant pause they changed gears and focused on what they wanted me to
do for them. As they talked I started having a “corporate flashback” – too many
people involved their project, a lot of MBA speak and obvious politics among
the participants. What I like to call the “corporate buzzwords and BS” syndrome. A few years
ago I would never have walked away from a potentially lucrative opportunity (read: "large number") with a big name but now I am finally realizing it is ok to “just say no”.
Based on timing, luck, having good friends and some hard
work, my financial “number” is no longer an issue. How to spend time over the
“number” of days I have left on the planet is the next frontier. Being a slow
learner, I leave for Japan tomorrow, come home for three days and then depart
for Argentina. Yes, it is work but it is also enjoyable so the temptation to
work too much is hard to manage. Yesterday I decided to take the better part of
a month “off” – working only a couple days a week from mid-March to mid-April
and hopefully lowering my golf handicap and getting in a couple ski days.
Time will tell if that works out.
