REFERENCE CHANNELS

Retirement

On a bright sunny day, in snowy Steamboat Springs, Colorado, a successful banker walked into a hardware store. Upon checking out, he noticed that the owner followed him to the door and flipped the "open" sign to "closed." It was 2:30 in the afternoon.

"What are you doing?" the banker asked.

"Well," replied the store owner. "I need to gross $1,200 a day to support my family. Now I'm going skiing for the rest of the day."

The banker said, "Do you always close at 2:30 p.m.?"

"No," said the hardware store owner. Some days I can close at 10 a.m. and spend the rest of the day skiing, go home, play with the kids and make love to my wife. In the evening, I go down to Mollie's Saloon and do a little guitar picking and singing with my friends.

The banker thought long and hard, then said, "Just think how much more money you'd make if you stayed open from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m."

"Sure," said the hardware store owner. But what would I do then?

The banker offered to buy him coffee and they sat down at a local coffee shop. The banker got an intense look in his eyes and started sketching sums on napkins. As he mumbled, the store owner heard "Five million gross by 2002…clear $2 million in 2003, open a chain of ski area hardware stores, roll-out. Aha! If you work 90 hour weeks using my business plan for the next 15 years, you will personally be worth $30 million dollars!"

With a stunned look, the hardware store owner said, "But what would I do then?"

"Well, then you sell the company or hire a professional management team for it. You find a nice place in a resort location, maybe start a hobby business, and spend your time skiing or playing, traveling, spending time with your family and maybe take up a hobby, like playing guitar!"