My Retirement Plan
for
Retiring Happy,
Wild, and Free
by Ernie Zelinski
My retirement plan has always been quite a
bit different from what others think is the ideal retirement
plan. I semi-retired when I was 35 years old and had a net
worth of minus $30,000 (due to debts). Many people will say
that this is unreasonable, impossible, and stupid.
My retirement plan is to find
a shopping cart with good snow
tires.
- Patty Doy
I did the right thing, however. One of my
messages I give to people in my books is "You may be
reasonable enough to know your limitations but are you
unreasonable enough to exceed them." I know for a fact that I
am unreasonable enough to exceed the limitations that most of
the people in society place on themselves. That is why I have
been able to work at my leisure four or five hours a day
outside corporate life and make a great living.
“It [my
retirement plan] will involve living
on a private island, with a genius
chef, cigars and fine wines. Beyonce
[my wife] will be on the island too.
But I don't think she plan to get as
fat as me. I'm gonna be fat. That's
what I enjoy. That's the
payback for all the hard work."
— American rapper Jay-Z (talking about his
"Marlon Brando retirement plan" for himself
and his wife Beyonce)
My unreasonableness is also why my
retirement plan is so funky compared to that of other people.
Although I can't completely retire at this point, I can live
comfortably and continue to be semi-retired, working a few
hours a day on my creative projects. I don't have to keep
asking myself, "
How much do I need to retire?"
My
retirement plan is to get great
pleasure from living solely to enrage
those who are paying for my Social
Security and company pension.
- Unknown wise retiree
One of the things that I have done for my
retirement plan is place in it the things that I want to do
before I die. You should do the same since the
retirement activities that you indulge in should play as
big of part of your retirement plan as any financial
considerations.
Here is my retirement plan as it
stands today on how to retire happy.
1. Continue to work on fun, creative
projects such as the ones that I have worked on for the
last few years, including writing books, creating e-books
and putting together funky websites, that can generate tidy
profits while at the same time helping people to greater
heights at work and play.
2. End up selling over 1,000,000 copies
of my books (my books have sold over 650,000 copies so
far).
3. Sell the hard-copy book and calendar
rights to my latest creative work The
Joy of Being Retired: 365 Reasons Why You Will Love
Retirement to a
major publisher and also license the electronic rights
to a major corporation:
4. Sell over 500,000 copies of my
international best-selling
How to Retire
Happy, Wild, and Free which
has already sold over 125,000 copies and has been published
in 9 languages.
5. Create partnerships with organizations that
are interested in utilizing my expertise including my many
retirement-related websites and books so that I can help
them create AWARENESS, GOODNESS, AND COOLNESS with their
target market. In return the corporations will handsomely
reward me so that I can:
a. Live in Hawaii for two to
three months each winter
b. Own and drive a Aqua Blue
Porsche Boxster S just for the fun of it
c. Travel Executive Class to New
York, Toronto, London, and Hawaii once a year.
d. Get occasional
all-expenses-paid speaking engagements in
interesting cities such as Montreal, San Diego,
Paris, and Prague. In this regard, I was recently
flown executive class, provided with three nights
of first-class accommodation at the Ritz-Carlton in
Istanbul, and paid $3,000 to speak for an hour
about
The Joy of Not
Working to
2,000 executives, scholars, and students who belong
to the National Turkish Congress on Quality.
e. Share a bottle of 1982 Latour
wine and a great meal at a fine restaurant such
as Grille 23 in Boston with someone paying for
the tab in exchange for a one- to two-hour coaching
session with me on how to create a best-selling
book.
6. Fine tune
Life's Secret Guide for Having Great
Friends (already
published in French and Spanish in paperback) and license
the rights to a major corporation to be used a premium by
the corporation to create awareness and coolness for its
brand.
7. Revise my inspirational novel
Look Ma, Life's
Easy (already
published in five foreign languages but not in English) and
get corporate partnerships to help sell 500,000 copies of
this book which can inspire people to greater heights at
work and at play.
8. Finish creating my book
How NOT to Retire BROKE:
101 Principles for Creating a Prosperous
Retirement and sell over 100,000
copies by marketing it through the same marketing structure
that I have in place for
9. Have a book published by Workman
Publishing.
Note: Have you
noticed that my retirement plan does not include
winning the lottery (the retirement plan for
dummies)?
My advice to you is to at least semi-retire
early in your life even if you don't take full
retirement.
It is better to retire too early instead of
too late. Fact is, if you retire too late, you don't get
another chance to do it right.
Of course, everybody's retirement plan
should be to
retire rich but die broke which is part of
my retirement plan.
David
Letterman's "Top 10 Things to Do for My Retirement
Plan"
10. Get on city bus. Ride to
end of line. Change buses. Repeat
9. Bide my time 'til I'm 90; then marry Anna
Nicole Smith
8. Lead the New York Jets to a string of
last-place finishes
7. Go around helping Ed McMahon deliver those
giant checks
6. Take my old Spiderman suit out of moth balls;
do my damnedest to catch the real killers!
5. Stop getting speeding tickets in Connecticut;
start getting speeding tickets in Florida
4. Write a scathing expose of that ruthless
bastard Paul Shaffer
3. Drive cross-country with Richard Simmons
2. Break into house of the woman who breaks into
my house
1. Caddy for the Juice
Why My Home Will Not Be
a
Big Part of My Retirement
Plan
Many Americans came to think of their
homes not only as castles but also as their only nest
egg for retirement while real estate prices were
shooting up during most of the first decade of this
century.
Not me. I never did look at a house as
an asset. It's a consumer item just like a pair of shoes.
Thus I don't consider my house a big part of my retirement
plan. I tend to agree with Robert Kiyosaki, author or
Rich Dad, Poor Dad, who said that
"a house is not an asset.
It's a liability."
Now with the house price bubble having
burst (which does not come as a surprise to an
intelligent person), American homeowners are finding
that they have accumulated little wealth in the way of
home equity, leaving them almost entirely dependent
upon Social Security and Medicare.
In this vein, financial planner Robert
Doyle (CPA with Spoor, Doyle & Associates in St.
Petersburg, FL) not so long ago stated,
"When you retire, your
house is your home. Don't look at it as an investment.
You can convert it if you need to, but if you're
retiring because of the equity in your house, you
better get back to work."
As an aside, when it comes to buying a
house, always remember that "A
Small House Can Hold Just as Much Happiness as a Large One -
Often Even More!"
Excerpt from a Book Review That
Helps
My Retirement Plan Big
Time
|
By Nancy
Miller,
Quintessential Careers Book
Reviews
How to Retire Happy,
Wild, and Free, by Ernie J.
Zelinski, $16.95. Paperback. 240 pages,
2004, VIP Books;
ISBN:
096941949X
Planning for
retirement should start at the beginning of
your career rather than at the end. It's
never too early to plan for retirement,
writes Ernie
J.
Zelinski.
In his
book, How to Retire Happy,
Wild, and Free,
Zelinski says that the key to a happy
retirement is preparation.
I would not hesitate
to share this book with friends, colleagues,
or clients.
Although the ideas in the
book are not new, the stories about how
people are living them is unique and
refreshing. They bring out the importance of
living a full life now and not waiting until
retirement.
Things I re-learned
from this book are:
1. Plant a
Get-a-Life Tree. Among the
lists, activities, stories, and ideas
that Zelinski offers for brainstorming
retirement options, he illustrates how
to plant a Get-a-Life Tree. The tree is
a form of mind map to help people think
about retirement options.
2. Stay active before and
after retirement. Zelinski
emphasizes the importance of a healthy
active lifestyle. Being active and
healthy doesn't begin at retirement. The
author tells us to find our interests
and purpose long before we retire.
3. You don't have to be
rich to enjoy retirement. In
fact, Zelinski emphasizes the fact that
having a nest egg doesn't guarantee a
happy retirement. The book is rich with
stories about the many ways people have
found happiness in retirement.
|
Retirement Quotes
Relating
to Other People's
Retirement Plans
Retire? [My retirement plan is
that] I'm going to stay in show business until
I'm the only one left.
- George F. Burns
My retirement plan is to start
thinking about my retirement before my boss
does.
- Unknown wise personle
By the age of 65, most of us have accomplished
whatever work-related goals we are going to reach.
If you haven't done it by then, chances are you
aren't going to do it. Take the retirement, take
the pension, take the Social Security, and sail off
into the sunset.
- Sue Lasky
My retirement plan is to never
drink coffee at lunch because it will keep me up in
the afternoon.
- Unknown wise person
Eating's going
to be a whole new ball game. I may even have to buy
a new pair of trousers.
- Lester Piggott (b. 1935), British champion jockey
(On his retirement)
You know the Social Security they keep
deducting off your paycheck. Well, my retirement
plan is to retire early and have you pay for it for
a long, long time.
Thanks.
- Unknown wise person
I don't really have
any career goals at this point. I'm 35 and have no
need or plans to ever work again [in
retirement].
- Eric Kanowsky (of Santa Barbara, CA, who took
early retirement)
The sports car and sailboat are
investments for my retirement [plan]. I'm using
them to attract a woman who will support me in my
old age.
- Glasbergen talking to financial consultant in
cartoon
If my dreams could all come true
paradise/retirement would be - in a little bungalow
- somewhere by the sea.
- Unknown wise person
Everyone who does not work has a
scheme that does.
- Munder's Law
Age [along with retirement]
appears to be best in four things - old wood
best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to
trust, and old authors to read.
- Francis Bacon
Waiting until your
retirement party is too late to start
planning your [retirement] portfolio.
- Richard Wastcoat in the Telegraph
Grow old with me!
The best is yet to be.
- Robert
Browning
There's one thing I
always wanted to do before I quit . . . .
retire!
- Groucho Marx
Heaven, that’s my
retirement plan.
- Dwayne (Unknown last name) but Sam Smith's
Father-in-Law
Welfare is not a
retirement plan.
- from the international bestseller
How
to Retire Happy, Wild, and
Free
Purchase
the Latest Edition
of How
to Retire Happy, Wild, and
Free Today Through
These Direct
Links:
Copyright 2010 by
Ernie Zelinski,
Author of
The World's Best Retirement
Book
All Rights
Reserved
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