One case on how to keep your life interesting after retiring (super) rich
"You know one fundamental difference between you are still working vs. you are not?"
One day, one of my old acquaintances, a person with very comfortable living means through her husband’s thriving business, and two high achieving grown kids asked me this question while we were gathering at a party.
I told her this was something I was dying to know from an experienced person like her, who stopped looking for a job when she was laid off many years back. Since then, I witnessed her pursuing all kinds of hobbies and eventually become a skillful ceramist artist. She was even commissioned once by a restaurant to make their dinnerware. She did not pursue further similar commissioning opportunities citing too much work involved.
"Every day you wake up, you need to figure out what to do for that day! It turned out to be more mentally stressful than you holding a 9–5 tedious job. I did not realize it almost a decade too late. "
Her story reminded me of the cases I heard left and right at the peak of the last internet boom at the turn of this century. Back then, new millionaires were mushrooming and popping up almost daily in the Valley, mainly through the out-of-control IPOs back then. Even the local newspaper Mercury News published special editions of articles about these new-rich people's mental illness on anxieties of what to do with the money and lack of motivation to keep old 9–5 jobs.
Fortunately, that boom was quickly busted, and I believe many of these new-rich people eventually went back to work and fought for surviving mortgages for their mansions or even to keep their 9–5 jobs, old or new.
But the last two decades indeed produced a lot of new riches.
Imagine that, suddenly you got a few hundreds of millions, even a billion dollars, in your bank. You are still in your mid or late 30s or early 40s. Your MIT or Standford math or physics degrees prohibit you from wasting your future life of super-rich-people-lazy-days on beaches and yachts.
Very few made it to pursuing extreme sports.
You are far less adventurous and physically capable. But you still want to live an enjoyable, meaningful life surrounded by brilliant and creative minds.
Here comes one lifestyle design idea inspired by a true event I am indirectly involved.
For one thing, you can throw parties with members handpicked globally under your own control.
First, you talk to your MIT, Stanford, Princeton, or Harvard professors who are still very fond of you. You tell them that you are willing to sponsor some super small unconference with handpicked most exciting people in the fields that they have connections with. Then you send these people to a French (or Italian or Scottish) well-renovated 300 plus hundred years old chateau for a week to brainstorm futuristic ideas and possible pathways to get there. You control the party size, preferably less than 20 invitees plus your professors and a few inner circle friends.
All expenses are paid by you, or at least you still try to be one of the primary sponsors (after your professors spread the word and some unicorn-want-to-be startups tried to squeeze in), so you have the power to pick and meet these fascinating people from all the corners of the global village.
You could even hire some Michelin-star chefs to prepare the meals for these bright and exciting people, young and old.
That’s one enticing way of living an exciting life after retiring from the routine 9–5 work, with loads of money and a super sharp mind.
