My Dream Job

Business Week's annual retirement guide focused on retiring early. One chapter titled And Now For That Dream Job shares how four early retirees created their dream jobs after retiring. It started me thinking about what might be a dream job for me. Here as some of the characteristics:

Work-life balance. My dream job would truly be a balance and not a work-life choice. I would be able to spend desired time with family and friends. It wouldn't be a trade off between work and personal life, in order to be successful at work. For me, a good work-life balance would be concentrated bursts of work (say 1-2 weeks) several times a year or being able to pace thework at 2-3 hours per day maximum.

The work and people interactions energize me. Examples of types of work that energizes me: making a difference on an individual level and personally learning a lot. People interactions that energize me: colleagues that are energetic, committed, and collaborative; customers that are appreciative.

Compensation is sufficient return on effort invested and augments lifestyle. It provides sufficient income to offset the effort and increases our activity options in retirement. Otherwise, it would be just a hobby:-)

Here are some examples that I would consider a dream job after retiring:

College application coach to Ivy League schools. Having attended an Ivy League school and being a hiring manager, I have the experiences to help candidates identify the right stuff for an application. I have also interviewed applicants for my Alma mater. I would only take on 5-10 clients a year and provide about 40 hours of coaching per client per year.

Family finance facilitator. I would want to help families creatively solve their personal finance challenges and connect them with reputable local advisors and experts. I would do 5-10 local half day seminars that would be sponsored by local financial institutions.

Home based Internet related work. Blogging has enabled me to see that there are viable home/Internet based businesses that are legitimate. I would investigate creating a business in this space.

For now, these are hypothetical dream jobs, which I hope to make one of these a reality in the future :-)

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This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

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