Why Am I Doing This, Part 2
Welcome back to Afterburner Success Partners' weekly blog! Before we get going with this week’s message, I want to make sure you’ve signed up for the email list if you have not already! And don’t forget to sign up for any of the various courses in a format of your choosing.
A resource to help you
ASP was established as a resource to help you define and achieve your dreams so you can live your best life. If you are a little skeptical about why I would choose to spend time and effort doing this I can understand that and I would suggest you please read on, that’s the purpose of this week’s post! This will be the last post of “laying the groundwork” before we get into the meat of things next week. Yes, I know you are anxious to learn how you can develop and achieve your own dream plan!
There is so much disinformation and people trying to take advantage of others that I feel it’s important to establish my credibility with you before I try to teach you anything. I admire and follow Jim Stovall a fellow Tulsan, and he says you should never accept advice from someone who does not have what you want. If you are not following Jim, you should be, he is loaded with good advice. And talk about overcoming the odds and succeeding? His story is inspirational! Follow him, read his books, and watch his movies, they are inspiring and reinforce what we are trying to do at ASP. You can find him at https://www.jimstovall.com
We don’t always get what we want
Last week I provided you a rough outline of my journey from an E-1 enlistee in the Air Force at 20 years old to a retired Fortune 500 executive. Let me build on that a bit for you. In 2015, after almost 8 years in the Air Force and 27 years with American Airlines, I “retired” at age 56, having reached the position of Managing Director seven years earlier at age 47. One of the key concepts we will learn in these blogs and when you take the course in any one of the various forms is that we don’t always get what we want when we want it, and we need to plan for when things do not go our way.
I have long known this and had been preparing myself for that possibility. The fact is, somewhere between 40 and 60 percent of men in their 50s do not leave their career positions on their terms. That’s right, a large percentage of males unwillingly enter unemployment or early retirement against their will and before they are financially able to. You can Google it to see for yourself what I am telling you is true, but it’s a pretty unhappy story for a lot of people. Because I volunteer with a group called Overcoming Job Transition in Tulsa https://ojttulsa.org, I meet a lot of those folks who unwillingly enter job transition. We help those folks get back on their feet and in the 14 years the organization has been around, they have a very high success rate helping people with dedicated, selfless volunteers. I’m a bit of a newcomer, but I am proud to be associated with them, nonetheless. I’m happy when I can encourage someone.
Opportunities abound
And so it was with me. In 2014, American Airlines and USAirways completed their merger, and as often happens in mergers, things change. For me, my position was moved to Dallas-Ft. Worth, and I was offered an opportunity to retire. If you had told me 5 years before I would be retiring at age 56, I would not have believed you. Even though I had always dreamed of retiring at age 55. Fortunately, all the years of planning paid off and I was financially able to take this step. It took a little while to sink in, that I had actually completed the journey I had set out on so many years before. But, when I got there, it just did not feel right, and I elected to continue to work for almost 5 more years. I mean, heck, who retires at 56 anyway? This brought me to October 2019 when I decided to leave the full-time workforce for good. I had accomplished, actually exceeded, all of my financial and professional goals. My personal goals were, and still are, a work in progress. As you will see later, even when we enter “retirement” (oh how I hate that word!), we still have things we want to do! This means we need to plan for them, so we can.
To continue with my story about being prepared, we need to digress a bit. When I was in my early 20s in the Air Force during the late 1970s and 1980s, I knew I needed to complete my formal education if I was ever going to be able to do the things I wanted to and provide for my family the way I wanted. As a result, I spent seven of my eight years in the Air Force in college earning three associate degrees, a bachelor's degree, and a master’s degree. All this was done in the evenings and weekends while I worked full-time, was married, and had children. Yes, these are the sacrifices we sometimes must make to get ahead. Fast forward to 2011 and I had advanced quite nicely through the organization but American entered bankruptcy. Expecting the worst, I decided to upgrade my skills by obtaining two professional certifications from the American Society for Quality. This took almost a year of intense study and sacrificing a lot of fun time on the weekends. I would tell you it was well worth it as the knowledge, and indeed the certifications themselves have paid dividends ever since.
Entering Halftime
After leaving full-time work in October 2019, I entered Halftime (Note 1) where I decided it was time to give back to others. Because I enjoy learning and teaching, I developed a course in setting and achieving goals so that others could learn to make their dreams come true and live their best life. When the pandemic hit in early 2020, life got busy, and other things, such as writing my cookbook, (link here) came up. While I was able to offer the course through a local adult education program and help a few people, it was just not the right forum for this program to help people on a larger scale.
So that brings us to today, 2024. I have completed my cookbook, a several-year effort, my wife and I are small group leaders at our church, I substitute teach at Tulsa Technology Center, volunteer at OJT, enjoy life traveling and spending time with others, and finally, I’m establishing this website making these resources, and myself, available to all of you. I’m also working on my second and third books. You will hear more about them down the road.
I hope I have established that what I want to teach you is something that you too can do, and I have provided an example of my own life so that you can be confident that if you follow the steps I am laying out, you too can achieve your dreams and live your best life! What are you waiting for? To quote Jim Stovall “Today’s the day!”
What’s in it for Me
I have developed a proven, very low-cost way to set you on a path to achieve your dreams and live your best life for you and your family. I’m not aware of any place else you can get so much for so little. Consider, that this is about you and your best life, so think hard about this opportunity. Remember what they say, opportunity only knocks once!
Call to Action
Sign up for the next available class or the online version today. Ponder: What if I lost my job today? Could I recover? What if, at a future date, I am forced into retirement before I am ready? Visit Jim Stovall at https://www.jimstovall.com and sign up to receive his weekly blog.
Recommended Resources
Purchase and read as many of Jim Stovall’s books as you can. Purchase or watch as many of his movies as you are able. Everything Jim produces is not only educational but often entertaining and will help you on your journey to living your best life. These are resources that will not only educate you but also encourage you in your journey to living your dreams. And in case you are wondering, I’m not getting paid to recommend Jim, I just think that highly of him and want you to benefit from his knowledge and wisdom.
Up Next
The course agenda!
Notes
Please note that as an Amazon Affiliate, I may earn a small commission on the sale of any of these recommended resources.
Halftime is a book by Bob Buford. You can read about it and obtain it here: https://amzn.to/409XSeF
Jim Stvall.com: https://www.jimstovall.com