Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered
Whizzard, your path has been very similar to mine. Laid off during the global financial crisis, but after accumulating a lot of wealth at a global institution, I joined a local firm at a huge paycut and tried to cruise. Like you the boss soon figured it out and put a lot of pressure and I responded to it by delivering. Again like you, I was able to deliver without working nights and weekends anymore although I travel regionally (a few days in the middle of the week) every week. The ability to deliver easily was because the demands of local firms are much lower than global firms.
What is different from you is that the local company I worked for got taken over by a very large mainly Asian conglomerate. After a few months of integration, the consultants they hired decided that I should run a division of the conglomerate. Haha. Last thing I really wanted, but I was curious. It came with a few interesting perks and I insisted on being paid the same level as when I was working for the global firm, which they relented. Now I get Business Class everywhere, even KL, and a nice car and driver both in Singapore and at the HQ country. I went from managing a team of 30 to 300 professionals. I thought it would be a nightmare, but no. I found someone to replace myself and embarked on a new journey. Now I travel every week, but to HQ in a foreign Asian country for a LOT of meetings. Between various committee and board meetings, I think I do about 30 a month. It's very low stress. I just sit there in a conference room and give groups of people who wander in a hard time then am whisked off to a nice lunch. I'm relearning golf in order to play with board members and have had to make a few new suits. Interestingly, one small Singapore company has already approached me to be on their board. I can already see my future retirement as being on a few Singapore company boards, being paid $50-100K each.
Point is that after you rise to a certain point in a large organization, everything suddenly becomes low stress.
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Hmm.. I am now in a possibly similar situation. Only difference is that I sold off company to MNC and instantly quadrupled my net worth. Now MNC is asking me to run the region with perks like a CEO of smallish listed company. Agree that job is less time sensitive and operational when u are the main regional guy. But sense of responsibility is still strong and so will try to give my best. For me, it is about helping team win, personally keeping healthy , engaged intellectually and still having fun with family, friends, travelling, giving back to charity. Motivation is now a combination of those things and being kind is very impt to me. My portfolio returns makes twice of what i spend annually and my pay is about 1+ times of annual spend. I have already raised my living standards like whizzard and will find it obscene and wrong to raise it even more. I wonder why my friends who are worth much more than me bother with even more wealth accumulation, beyond 20m or so, the marginal utility is quite low for the next dollar.
I have a list of items to do. Watch and engage kids as they grow. Talk to parents more. Love wife more. Get that 6 pack and a gold in ippt. Write a book. Cook more. Read more. Catch up with old friends more. Be consistently a good person to everyone. And when I feel full with life, then use that energy and see what new obsessive adventure life has for me. New business, community work, stay overseas if kids are older by then? The issue of purpose in life is always the same regardless of wealth and income once our basic needs are met.