For a stretch of years earlier in my career, I carried a slightly embarrassing hope. I wanted my company to let me go. Something with a severance package, and a generous one. (Not fire me.)
I was traveling constantly, working hard, and giving a lot, and somewhere beneath the busyness, I could feel a desire for a different life forming. I was sacrificing priorities at home because we needed my current income to afford the life we’d grown used to. I just wish I had more time to be present and enjoy it. The barrier: I didn't have the financial runway to reach it.
Every time the company went through a restructuring or a reorg, some small, guilty part of me wondered: Is this it? Is this my moment? It never was. The realization, when it finally came, wasn't dramatic. I didn't need my company to hand me that runway. I could build it myself.
Getting More Intentional
It sounded obvious written out like that. Maybe it sounds daunting to read now. There's something about waiting for an external solution to an internal challenge that can hold you in place for a long time. I had been so focused on the door I wanted someone else to open that I hadn't looked around for the one I could open myself.
What followed wasn't a dramatic overhaul. It was a series of deliberate, unglamorous decisions made over a few intentional years. My family and I caught a vision of how we could leverage a few years with high income into more optionality to direct the next season of life. There were a couple of key ways that I started to think more strategically about my compensation. I got serious about understanding my compensation beyond my salary and bonuses. I began to get very focused in two areas.
- How do I maximize the value of my compensation, especially by understanding how to best use things like company benefits or deferred compensation?
- How do we install a personal financial system that prioritizes building margin rather than sliding into more lifestyle creep?
I was, in essence, writing myself a severance package, one contribution at a time. It took patience and a little more saying no to things I could “technically afford”. I think it’s also worth mentioning that it required a kind of intentionality that's genuinely difficult during the years when life is fullest. For me, this included when kids need attention, parents need help, and work keeps asking for more. Those years have a way of absorbing everything you give them. Money included.
Financial Independence for Transitions
Eventually, the margin was there. When the moment came to step away and build something new, I could. The margin had bought me the opportunity to transition to a new career in financial advice, doing work I love, in a setting that was a much better fit for my family.
I think about this often when I sit across from professionals in the thick of their peak earning years. Those years are strange because income is at its highest ever. Careers are established, even thriving, and yet there's this persistent feeling that the amount of income doesn’t cure anxiety. It all goes somewhere, even if you're not sure where.
Unless your financial decisions are consistently aligned with your priorities, you generally won’t accidentally build the financial margin you need to expand what’s possible.
What I Ask My Clients Now
Here’s the question I ask clients that has unlocked so many transformative conversations:
If you wanted the option to step into a new direction in five years, what would need to be financially true for that to feel okay?
Most of them have never thought about it that way. They've thought about retirement, about college funds, about the next promotion, but not about building the financial strength to create the next season of life according to what’s most important to them.
If they’re willing to explore what that kind of planning looks like, the freedom to dream is incredible. The years when income is strongest are not just years to earn more. They're the years to build something that income alone can't buy later: the ability to choose.
You may never get the severance package (aka margin from someone else) you're waiting for. The reorg might not come, and the generous exit might go to someone else. You can build it yourself. It just requires deciding clearly, deliberately, and sooner than feels necessary that that's exactly what you're going to do.
What You Should Do Next
Yes, I help families plan their finances to and through retirement, but I strongly believe that financial strategy can unlock far more than a “someday” plan. My team and I are here to help you accomplish the here-and-now dreams, too.
If you’re looking to build more financial independence, even before retirement enters the conversation, that’s what we’re here to do.
Your next step: you can send me a message or schedule a time to chat anytime. This is what we do for families like yours.
All investing involves risk including loss of principal. No strategy assures success or protects against loss.