It's Time To Retire | Dan Sawatzky | TEDxChilliwack

good evening what I want to talk about tonight is retirement and I'm an expert in retirement I've been retired for 34 years I'm 62 that means I retired at 24 and believe me it is time to retire before we talk about retirement let's talk about work because retirement in my mind is the opposite of work that's why we work our entire lives is to retire now when I think about work and I remember I had a real job work number one was commuting and I hate commuting work man I had to be away from my family and I love my family I like spending time with them work Manta I had to do what the boss wanted and sometimes I had to work with the boss I didn't like sometimes I had to work with people I didn't like work took me away from things I really wanted to do and I wasn't about to wait 35 or 40 years to retire I had a different plan my plan was that I would simply enjoy life now I started drawing when I was very young that's my first drawing is also my wife my mom said it was awesome and I believed her and I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be an artist I didn't know what an artist was until age 14 I painted my first Christmas window and I got paid $50 now this wasn't 1969 it took my dad a long time to make that kind of money and I made it in an hour I had life figured out I could do what I wanted and I could have fun and I could get paid well then when I was 17 I met my wife Janice she was 16 we were in high school and I fell madly in love I mean totally madly in love she was the first girl I ever dated and I dated her for a few weeks and I knew what my plan was I asked her to marry me and she said no so I'm a patient guy I waited a few more weeks we went on some great dates and I asked her again and she still said no so this went on for a while and eventually she said yes thankfully but Janice was from an accounting family and I was an artist now accounting family they believe certain things you get a good education you get a good job and being an artist did not qualify and then you worked hard and you saved your money put in RSP and you worked those years many many years and then you retired to the good life so I got a job I in those days I worked at Safeway it was a grocery store great money was a good union job great benefits dental medical and a retirement plan and life was good Janice and I got married we had two lovely children but something was horribly wrong and what was horribly wrong I was working I was working at a job I did not enjoy I had to commute all those things I listed that was me and I had to retire I simply had to retire so I made a deal my accounting family would willing to negotiate with me and the deal was this when I could make the same money doing what I loved I was allowed to quit I was allowed to retire because I didn't want to sit around I wanted to simply do what I loved so my definition retirement went something like this I wanted to work at home it would be fun I would do what I loved I would have a nice little backyard shop where I could go and make stuff my children would be involved my wife would stay at home not go to work because why would I wish on her something that I chose not to do so we're making it tough now we got all these requirements and I had the first picture is of my granddaughter Phoebe so I have to show my other granddaughter this is the latest one juniper and she is now learning to be what it is what it means to be retired so she's learning we have ear protection for her I would be challenged every day I wouldn't do what I did yesterday we're gonna go one step further and we would travel together as a family now we call this work we build theme parks and so what's logical what is research and so this was a trip we took the young child there is Phoebe she's now 11 and we are doing market research for theme parks because it's important my wife is with me and you can see we're calmly assessing the situation there this is Splash Mountain my daughter is there because she is our resident painter she can study that and it's important I see the world through the eyes of an 11 year old so I can truly design good parks so this is part of our research traveling we have never taken a vacation we have only done business trips nobody believes me now it's important if you want a lifestyle like this I was told by my family that you you put away money and you invest and hopefully there's enough this my plan requires the same kind of investment it's not a cheap plan it's not a plan that just happens it's not a plan that doesn't work without a great deal investment starter was what I knew my dad was a carpenter and so I started with what I knew from him and so we were building houses now right away we take it one step further he taught me to build plumb and level and square we're not going there so and then I had to learn new skills I had learned to weld I had to learn all kinds of skills CNC skills all kinds of stuff we have to do our research this is my library at home this is actually one third of my library at home is it years of gathering knowledge and it's easier than ever but it's important if you're passionate about something you talk to people you learn every day I learned something new and of course you have to practice and practice and practice because you don't get good unless you practice you have to believe in yourself when I first started in the sign business back in the 80s I picked up a magazine and it was a contest issue and I I looked at the signs there and I was very very impressed and I said someday I will be good enough to be there and I believed it I truly believed it in my heart it took 20 years since then we've won many many awards because I believed and I did the work to make it happen and I illustrate this by what I call the Great Train Robbery now I believe that every grandpa and I'm a grandpa every grandpa should have an electric train to share with her kids so worthwhile goal only I wanted a big train I wanted to train that I could ride in and it would go all around our yard now anyone that wants a train on your yard is crazy they're horribly expensive that's a pretty silly dream but I still wanted one but I couldn't afford it and I didn't have the time to build it so what do I do start by drawing it out so I drew a picture here's what I want and then I went to town and I went through a scrap bin of a local machine shop and I picked out three things of Steel and I held them up and the owner says 20 bucks now I got 20 bucks and I have time to weld three pieces of Steel together and over the next ten years I would buy more steel as I could afford it and I would weld it together now we have a train that goes around our yard this is how careers are built is if you sit and wish it will not happen if you do it one small step every day something the massive things can happen never settle you decide who you want to be and then be that person be it today because tomorrow you will not be great at whatever it is you want unless you decide to do one small thing today and this is important every project we do we ask a series of questions because we don't let our customer decide who we are and the questions go something like this first question does the project excite us in other words is it going to get me out of bed this more tour tomorrow morning and will I be excited about all day and through the months our projects often take will it be fun not just for me but will it be fun for everybody involved will the project build our reputation not the reputation of my client although that's important will it build my reputation will it take me closer to my ultimate goal will we have creative control not the customer although we want to do our best work for them and our and we will if we have control because we are the experts so do we have creative control do we have time I don't like working overtime my staff doesn't like working overtime so we ask do we have the time and if we get an O at any step the project's a no-go the last question we ask is will we make money now notice here the cart is before the horse because most people ask that question first and if the answer is yes they do it and they end up being driven by sales instead of being driven by projects tomorrow you will be known for what you did today you determine that today what's going to happen tomorrow it's not the big things those are easy it's the little stuff don't procrastinate do what you do do what you want to do tomorrow stay out of the right now most people I know and I know some great truly talented people they start doing something and it's fun and it's talented and it drives them but eventually they've been there and they've done that and then they say but it's safe and I'm only this many years from retirement that's silly so when I started I was a fine artist but eventually my work was in 40 galleries we're making a good living and I Drive my wife crazy I said I'm tired of this and I don't quit we morph into the next step then I painted historical murals we traveled as a family all over North America we did 120 murals but eventually I'd painted enough murals it's time to switch and now we're into scene parks I don't think I'll ever get bored because it's so challenging and we've done work some crazy jobs all over the place help others along the way I've heard it said that good staff is hard to find I find the opposite to be true because I have a list of people that want to work when I'm doing an interview I'm not looking for talent or skill I'm looking for people with a passion show me a person with a passion and I will show you somebody who's motivated to work and my deal is simple with them help me with my dream and I will help you with yours I know I'm gonna lose him we lost a good guy this week he's on to his dream how can I stop people from doing that stop and smell the flowers a number of years goes I'm wearing a giggle rich hat we had a mini golf up at the lake I was called up there when something broke my daughter and my granddaughter ran it and at the time she was about four years old Phoebe and a pump broke and I got called and I was a bit annoyed because I'm either busy or I'm resting and it was an interruption so I ran up there to fix the pump and I did fix the pump but as I ran past the clubhouse Phoebe called out grandpa let's play golf now I'm busy guy and I was tempted to say no but I didn't and so we started on hole 14 she couldn't count and we got to 15 and we got to sev or 16 and then she put her club on the ground and she said grandpa it's time to smell the flowers now we planted 15,000 annuals up there and so we smelled and we smelled and we smelled and we smelled and it went on for considerable length of time and I agreed they were awesome and then we finished our game and I almost missed that so this is how I define retirement is what I wish for all of you first of all find your passion dream big huge make a plan start today become an expert at what you love never settle for less than the best help others to achieve their dreams and they'll help you don't leave those you love behind along the way don't get so wrapped and give your passion that you forget why you're doing it and have fun along the way thank you so much you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 27,738

Rating: 4.7837839 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Canada, Life, Achievement, Creation, Purpose, Self, Success

Id: boYq2QwNbJE

Length: 14min 53sec (893 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 03 2016