It is understandable to expect that exiting your business signifies the end of the road, but this is not necessarily true and in fact whether it is or it is not is completely up to you. If you apply the lessons in this book and create your own maximum exit you will create a rare level of freedom and genuine choice in your business life and in your life in general. When one has freedom and choice and can afford almost anything, ideas such as travel to exotic locations and luxury holidays may come to mind, but this is only the beginning, there is much, much more to enjoy…
Exiting your business only means the closing of this one single chapter, in a way that gives you the opportunity to enter the next phase in your life (entrepreneurial life or life in general) at a much higher and much easier level.
Some of your options:
This next phase can involve whatever you would like it to include. It could involve:
- Giving back (to your community or to an underprivileged group within society that you have an affinity for),
- Buying or founding a new venture,
- Becoming an angel investor… in one or multiple businesses
- Helping your children acquire or build their own businesses,
- Mini-retirements (explained below),
- Becoming a Portfolio Entrepreneur (explained below),
- Retiring rich and happy at any age you choose,
- Etc.
Two great new options you now have:
Below are the fuller explanations of two options that are open to you when consider creating your own Maximum Exit.
Mini-retirements:
In his book, “The 4-Hour work week”, Tim Ferris introduced the concept of a new type of vacation, in fact he described it as “the anti-vacation”. He explained that these “mini-retirements”, as he called them, are not an escape from your life, but rather a re-examination of your life, a chance to re-evaluate, re-assess, etc. He suggested relocating to one place for 1-6 months versus packing too much into a given vacation, as this will be much more relaxing and introspective, and importantly, it will “be at a speed that that lets it the experience change us”. Mini-retirements are different from sabbaticals in that sabbaticals are usually one-time events.
For you as a business owner, having mini-retirements could be the perfect way to spend some of that time you have created for yourself by applying the lessons in this book. This works whether you are still in the business, have executed a succession plan or exit plan and a mini-retirement may help you identify your next business adventure or your next life adventure.
Portfolio Entrepreneur:
You are no doubt familiar with the idea of the serial entrepreneur, he/she starts or acquires one business, builds it up, sells it and then begins or acquires another business, builds it up, sells it, and then starts the cycle all over again with a new business, and so on and so forth. Well, thanks to the skills you will develop in creating your maximum exit, you will soon have the ability to become a “portfolio entrepreneur” instead of a serial entrepreneur.
A portfolio entrepreneur owns several businesses that he does not need to personally run, and so instead of having one major source of income, he can actually have several sources of income. An additional bonus is that if at any time the portfolio entrepreneur either receives an attractive offer or wants to sell one of his/her businesses they can go ahead and do so creating another massive payday
