I sold my business but it was not as simple as pass over the keys and walk away. There were clients’ details to be transferred, stock of books to count, abn and trademark –all seemingly simple tasks but they added up to time lost.
The most difficult part was that the new owner wanted my help to set up the training product to fit his system so there was consult work to be done. We had arranged that as an add-on to the price of the business but when I sent him the bill he started arguing and became most difficult.
I guess there is a lesson here but that is for you to work out.
I decided that I was going to enjoy my retirement so I signed up for singing lessons, started organising the changes I wanted in the garden, caught up with friends for coffee and chat and generally took my time doing everything . But there was still something missing. The singing was a great challenge and totally enjoyable but the rest took no effort at all. I was missing deep and meaningful conversation. I was missing the challenge to my brain.
A friend had been complaining for months about the total lack of assistance in managing her webpage. I had heard her but not responded – I was still working through my ‘business’ issues. I also thought that I didn’t have the expertise to do the job she needed. To make matters worse I had been in business for over ten years and could not name one website person I would recommend for the task. They all wanted the big jobs of putting together a website for the big money but no one wanted to do the little tasks like minor changes to text or prices etc.
I was lucky that the lady who put my website together had trained me in how to make changes and over the years I had learned more about the back end of my site. I remembered spending hours checking the stats, finding a keyword and going back and working it into the text to strengthen it for the Google search. It all gave me great delight as I watched my ratings improve.
Then this morning I woke thinking that maybe, just maybe, if I could get a look at the back of my friend’s site I could work out some of the knots for her. She gave me the passwords and I floated through the site for a short while. It became obvious that the biggest problem were dated documents. It took five minutes to change the most prominent ones and I managed it easily. (Now people would know she was still in business.) I had surprised myself. It was great – my brain was in motion and I was on the edge of my comfort zone learning new stuff.
I breathed deeply and moved forward. I have been there where there is no air, where a past life is grinding to a slow, more painful than it needed to be, ending and I’ve come through the middle.
Today is a new day, new thoughts, new friends, new things to do, new challenges to meet. I love it.
My doctors comment was ‘You are always reinventing yourself’ and my comment was ‘yes I can always find work when there is none’.
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