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FIRE - Now What?

It's nothing shy of terrifying hanging it up. I have an excellent thing going, I work for a great company that pays me well, I've been able to work with amazing clients and over last decade create a symbiotic relationship that creates enough time for me to both services them with efficiency and allows me the time I wanted with my family. And I'm giving that up?!

I even do what I love, and the difference is, I feel I can do better. I believe I can do what I love more efficiently and "fill my gas tank" as a coworker says. It used to be that when I got through to A participant, my "gas" tank was refilled for weeks, getting through to a young new employee and getting them to max out their retirement plans lit me up! I was such a rush, the fact that I had just implemented a butterfly effect in their lives kept me going through the mundane client meetings of the hopeless/listen less/thankless meetings that tend to fill a day.

The good news is I've been so very consistent with my messaging that those folks that come in to discuss things that don't matter have diminished significantly as I learned not to take the bait. However, those "light me up" meetings have also diminished as I've gotten through to the vast majority of the clients I have access to. Thus rock and a hard place, I'm skating on thin ice, If I don't continue to improve I'll get left behind, I'll no longer be helping my clients and helping as many people as I can help.

I have, for years, wanted to assist a more substantial population through plan level nudges and influences via enrollment and plan design. The time has come, but it's terrifying. The reason why it is so terrifying is that to help more folks, I have to branch out in a way that I'm not familiar with, change is hard! I have not "sold a plan" ever in my life. The only way I know to get the ability to make plan level changes is to sell the plan. Yikes!

Once I'm invited to the table, I feel very confident I can "win the business" as my message is vastly different than what they are getting hit with. But how do I get invited to the table?! How do I make sure to keep my independence and absolutely objective view on plan implementation? I have the ability to grow the business as slowly as I need, however, If I grow too slowly, will opportunity pass me by? I have this anxiety of a need for "critical mass" in other words always be growing or you are effectively shrinking. I need to set reasonable goals, but what are they?

I had a young man marketing for the company for a month he called and stopped by locations trying to get them to come to a free lunch, a seminar, he didn't get one single taker. OK, TERRIFYING.

So here I sit decision has been made, can I undo the decision? Probably, however, my assumption is I'd never forgive myself. Thus the decision has been made it's time to get my wings and fly, and the leap out of the nest happens sometime in April. Game on!

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