How You Can Rewire, Not Retire

Where do you want to be in five years or 10 years is not the question remodelers should be asking themselves, according to industry advisor Mark Richardson. Instead, he suggests thinking about how you want to feel in the coming years. Do you want to feel stimulated? Healthy? Challenged? Relevant? 

This episode of the Remodeling Mastery podcast focuses on the process of rewiring, not retiring, and the 10 things you need to think about before transitioning out of your firm and planning your next chapter. And, remember, it’s never too early to get started!

TIMESTAMPS

5:23: How do you want to feel? 

6:25: How early should you start?

8:20: How much is enough?

11:03: Who will fire you?

12:40: How do you create a plan?

14:21: Can you trade time for money?

16:21: What will refill your cup?

18:00: How do you move forward?

19:20: How do you avoid being irrelevant?

20:34: Who are your truth tellers?

PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT

Hi I’m Mark Richardson, and this is remodeling mastery. Modeling mastery is a podcast series that's really designed to help you think about and reflect on your business. What I try to do is pick different themes and topics that I think are especially relevant for the last year, year and a half or so, many of the topics have been wrapped around, kind of the shifts in the market and having the tailwinds and the headwinds affecting your business, and focusing really on sales and marketing. 

Today, I'm going to be focusing on a little bit more of a broader topic, but a topic I know that's not only extremely important, but it's also one I'm hearing more of the folks that I interact with and work with talk about, and that's the whole focus of transitions and passages that we all go through in our business. And the title of my focus today is rewire. Don't retire. Now, I love that little theme. I actually heard that theme from one of my good friends, Tom Kelly, one of his key people came to him as a Top Gun salesperson in the latter part of their career, and said to him, here's my plan to rewire or not retire. And it really wasn't a matter of just ripping off the band aid and leaving the business. It was much more about how she was going to go about, kind of tweaking and adjusting and transitioning over a period of time out of the business. Now, in this theme, what you're going to hear, I think, is some themes, some insights, some questions that you need to ask yourself, and also some ideas and tips. So I encourage you, as you're listening this and maybe going back and listen to it, you know, jot down some notes, notes that might be useful for you to be able to, you know, kind of sort this out. 

There is not a one way, or certainly a one size fits all when it comes to this process. However, there are a lot of certainly wisdom and experiences out there that I'm certainly going to help to share a few things, but also I encourage you to seek others. I try on many of these podcasts to really drill into things I'm seeing out there.

But today, I'm going to be focusing on many things that, quite frankly, are my story as well, using them as an example. But at the end of the day, these themes are what you should be formulating and helping you create your story. Your story is what's critical, but you're going to hear or think a little bit more real world examples when it comes to my story. So I'm always to kind of begin this. I think that if you start to just change the words, change the paradigm, so to speak, and you start to think about this whole topic, you know, we're all born and we're all going to die, so therefore there's always going to be passages, and there's always going to be transitions. And this whole notion of rewiring versus retiring, you know, retiring, I think, for many, not all, but for many, has some real negative connotations. It's kind of a place that you're laying on the beach, kind of clipping coupons. And you know, it's not necessarily the the image of what you want to think about yourself moving forward. And I think it's a very scary kind of gray, black hole kind of place for many, many people. And I think coming from the remodeling business in particular, this notion of rewiring, this notion of taking something that is really sound and good and remodeling it so it's really, you know, kind of refreshed and rewired for the future. And I think it takes into account not only the things that you've done, but also the things that you're yearning for, and the latest and greatest technologies and insights that you have now. 

I'm a big believer that the rewiring is a process. It's not a destination. So for those of you that would like to sketch out, here's exactly what it looks like. I will tell you, just like when it comes to remodeling in your home, I've always said, projects get finished, but homes are never done. And I think if you think about kind of your passages in the same sort of way, I think it's a healthy way to look at it. So it's been said, If you don't know the answers to things, at least know the questions. Good example of that in home remodeling is that I always encourage in many of the trainings I do you have to know when it comes to clients three whys, why should they do this project? Why should they do it now? And why should they do it with you? And the reality is, if your client, if you don't know the answer to those questions for your client, then why would you expect them to know? So when it comes to, I think, questions for yourself, many of the things we'll be talking about today is going to be really trying to ask yourself the right questions. 

So the first kind of theme I want to give you, and want to talk a little bit about, is we have a tendency to ask ourself, you know, what do I want to do in five years? Where do I want to be in five years? I would change the question to be a little bit more. Ask yourself, how do I want to feel in five years, how do I want to feel in 10 years? Because if you focus on how you want to feel, I think more of the answers are going to come to you on how you want to feel. I want to feel stimulated, I want to feel healthy, I want to feel challenged, I want to feel free to do kind of whatever I want to do. All of those are feelings that you have. They're not necessarily what you're going to be doing. Because I think the reality is, if you're clear on the feelings, and you're marching along and kind of turning over, kind of some rocks, I think the answers to what you're going to be doing, I think, become much clearer to you. The second I think point I want to bring up is very important to start early. Now I know in my world, I started very, very early in the process, literally about 20 years before I actually left the business, started to think about the topic of what is, in fact, that next step. Where do I see myself going beyond kind of building and creating a very significant, important business, and so start very early in that process. Now, putting it more, quantifying it, I think for most people really having some real focus on this, maybe 10 years before you see some sort of transition or some sort of rewiring going on and process of you leaving the business. But, you know, at a minimum, you want to make sure at least five years. But I think if you think in terms of a little bit longer term, it's going to give you a lot more license to take inventory and really look at how to go about doing this. You know, Rome was not built in a day, so you've got to make sure that you're giving yourself plenty of time...