Try This Idea: The One-Year Retirement

MOST OF US have similar career arcs — we spend the first 25 years of our lives learning, the next 40 or so working, and then the final 25 in retirement.

Designer Stefan Sagmeister suggests eliminating five years from your retirement and scattering those years throughout your working career. So, every seven years, he closes his design business and does something different — travels, lives in a new place, experiments with new projects.

Could you do the same? Obviously, shutting down completely isn’t an option for most jewelers. But it may be possible for more jewelers than you imagine. Could you perhaps serve just your best customers by appointment for a year? Could you train and build the skills of a manager to the point where your business could run without your presence for a year?

Think about it. It could change your life.

(Anybody ever do anything like this? Share.)