Are you dreaming about life after your liquidity event?
You think about your financial freedom and what you’ll do with your time and money. You’re feeling excited because the world’s your oyster.
All those years of building the business, the sleepless nights, and the stress have paid off.
You smile as you think about your happily ever after.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.
The irony is you’ll spend more time planning your liquidity event than life after the event.
But what if I told you that the “happily ever after” will never happen unless you do five specific things?
Who am I, and how do I know?
I started my eLearning business right out of my MBA program with no money, experience, or team.
My new best friend was failure which happened every day. My grit and determination were the saving grace to welcome success.
When my business was successful, I received a 7-figure offer from an experienced buyer.
To everyone’s dismay, I said “no” to the 7-figure offer. Instead, I said “yes” to mastering the art and science of a liquidity event. Two years later, I said “yes” to a 9-figure offer.
Today, I pay it forward. I help business owners through the Deep Wealth Experience. At the heart of the Deep Wealth Experience is the 9-step roadmap.
One of the biggest mistakes I made was not planning for life after my liquidity event. Lesson learned.
A happy life after your liquidity event has you focus on five strategies.
What are these strategies, and how can they help you?
Keep reading.
Happily Ever After Doesn’t Happen Unless You Plan It
A goal without an action plan is a daydream – Nathaniel Branden
A happy life after your liquidity event doesn’t happen unless you plan it.
Read “9 Life Lessons You Should Know If You Want To Be Rich And Happy.”
Let’s perform a thought experiment.
Congratulations, you’ve had the liquidity event of liquidity events!
The day after your liquidity event, you wake up, and you realize something.
What do you realize?
You’ve lost your structure.
When you were running the business, your days, weeks, quarters, and year, fell into a rhythm you enjoyed.
Industry events had you network with old friends and make new friends.
Life after your liquidity event says goodbye to your rhythm. Your non-compete ensures you stay out of the industry.
For most business owners, they are the business, and the business is them.
Before your liquidity event, you looked forward to being part of the team. You and your team solved those challenging problems and saved the day for clients.
Life after the liquidity event takes away your structure and identity.
Since you didn’t plan for life after your liquidity event, your highlight of the day is dinner.
You’re now bored at home while your friends are busy at work. So when you call to “play” with your friends, they’re too busy.
When you’re at social events, people ask what you do, and you don’t have an answer. As a result, you feel uncomfortable tension in the conversation.
Yes, it’s a depressing sight. To make matters worse, don’t expect empathy from anyone. After all, to the world, you’re wealthy.
And if you think life after your liquidity event is about the money, think again.
What should you do with your money?
Keep reading.
Life After Your Liquidity Event Should Have You Do Nothing With Your Money For A Year Or More
While money doesn’t buy happiness, it can make you comfortable while you’re miserable. – Jeffrey Feldberg
Life after your liquidity event is not all about the money.
Yes, money can make you more comfortable.
Read “Revealed: The Only Question To Ask Before Selling Your Business.”
Money buys many things, but money does not buy happiness.
After your liquidity event, your mission is to optimize for joy and happiness.
If life after your liquidity event is not about creating more wealth, what do you do with your money?
After your liquidity event, invest your money into a safe but boring investment such as a bond for a least a year.
The one exception is celebrating your liquidity event. So do one thing that’s over-the-top to acknowledge your accomplishment.
Some business owners take their families on an extravagant trip. Others buy a watch to commemorate their liquidity event.
With your money parked away, you avoid the temptation to jump into another business. Remember, your immediate goal is not creating wealth.
Take the time to re-evaluate your life.
Some of the biggest mistakes I’ve made came right after my liquidity event. I had no business being in the businesses that I started or bought.
A good rule of thumb is as follows. Even though you can write the check doesn’t mean you should.
I found a year after my liquidity event that I had changed as a person. Had I taken the time to explore my “what’s next,” I would not have made those costly mistakes.
Do you want to know one strategy that you can do today that paves the way for a better tomorrow?
Keep reading.
Life After Your Liquidity Event Is Looking Forward So You Can Optimize For Joy Today
It is better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret – Jackie Joyner-Kersee
Life after your liquidity event is looking forward so you can optimize for joy today.
Your mission for life after your liquidity event is optimizing your life for joy. All-day. Every day.
Life after your liquidity event has you do one powerful exercise to help you optimize for joy.
Fast forward to the end of your life. As you look back on your life, ask yourself the question of what you want to achieve.
An excellent resource is a case note written by a business owner who had a successful exit.
After selling his business, A.J. Wasserstein didn’t find the happily ever after he imagined.
A.J. is now a professor and the Eugene F. William Jr. Lecturer in the Practice of Management at the Yale School of Management.
Read A.J.’s case note “What’s Next: The Entrepreneur’s Epilogue and the Paradox of Success.”
Look forward so you can look back, and ask yourself:
- Which activities do you enjoy?
- What activities do you do that have you feel energized when done?
- What can you do that makes a difference for those around you?
You may surprise yourself and discover that what gives you joy has nothing to do with creating money. You are looking for a purpose in life that gets you out of bed each morning excited and energized.
Your “happily ever after” is out there waiting for you to discover it. From this perspective, the world is your oyster.
Once you’ve identified what activities bring you joy, do you know what to do next?
Keep reading.
Why You Must Experiment With Activities Today So You Can Optimize For Joy Tomorrow
All life is an experiment – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Preparing for life after your liquidity event has you experiment with activities today.
In the previous section, you identified activities that bring you joy. Your mission is to find activities that you can do on a consistent basis.
Read “Why You’ll Be Happier And Richer When Your Company Runs Without You.”
These daily activities optimize joy. Also, a daily rhythm sets you up for success through rituals.
Your daily rituals form your weeks, months, and years.
Most business owners don’t plan for life after their liquidity event. The days following the liquidity event often lead to a sense of loss and unhappiness.
Most business owners search for and don’t find that happily ever after.
Experiment with activities today helps you optimize for joy tomorrow.
Treat your experimentation with activities like a dinner buffet. At a dinner buffet, you sample various dishes.
Experiment with many activities to find what works for you. In other words, you’re not committing to one activity right away.
Take your time.
Your journey will have you find what works, and at the same time, what doesn’t work.
Part of your experimentation is finding quiet time for your daily schedule.
For most business owners, quiet time is a foreign concept. After all, when running the business, you’re busy solving problems and saving the day.
Quiet time is an essential ingredient. It’s your quiet time that leads the way in helping you find fulfillment.
When it comes to life after your liquidity event, do you know your mission in life?
Keep reading?
Your Mission For Life After Your Liquidity Event Is To Optimize For Happiness
To optimize the whole, we must sub-optimize the parts – W. Edwards Deming
Your mission for life after your liquidity event is to optimize for happiness.
Read “Create A Life Worth Living If You Want To Be Successful And Happy.”
After all, you built your business to both make a difference and create a lifestyle for you.
Over the years, you’ve paid your dues through your time and effort. Life after your liquidity event is the time to reap the rewards.
How do you optimize for happiness?
Smart business owners prepare well in advance for their liquidity event. It’s the same smart business owners who prepare in advance for life after the liquidity event.
Here’s something to consider.
Success without fulfillment is failure.
All the awards, accolades, and money in the bank mean nothing if you’re not fulfilled.
To welcome fulfillment, follow these three strategies:
- Build activities into your daily life that bring you joy and happiness.
- Embrace and accept your new purpose and mission.
- Welcome quiet time into your daily life and schedule.
What you end up doing is as unique as you. The point is that you know well in advance of your liquidity event what you’ll be doing.
There is no “right” or “wrong.” Instead, it’s participating in activities that bring you joy.
What’s the best gift that you can give yourself?
While running your business, find the time to plan for life after your liquidity event.
Planning for life after your liquidity event is one gift that keeps on giving for the rest of your life.
Spend the time today so you can welcome fulfillment for life after your liquidity event.
Conclusion
Your liquidity event and life after your liquidity event are two crucial phases.
The 9-step roadmap I created for my 9-figure exit helps you maximize your liquidity event.
Preparing for life after your liquidity event in advance helps optimize for happiness.
Some of the biggest mistakes I’ve made happened after my liquidity event.
Why?
As successful as my 9-figure exit was, I didn’t prepare for life after my liquidity event.
Before starting the Deep Wealth Experience, every business owner does one thing.
That one thing is starting to prepare for life after the liquidity event.
Know that preparing for life after your liquidity event is as vital as the liquidity event. You have a golden opportunity to set yourself up for both a successful and fulfilled life.
Where do you start, and what do you do?
Start with the first strategy I revealed in this article. Stay with this strategy until you’ve mastered it. Then, move on to the next strategy and repeat.
Before you know it, you’ve mastered all five strategies. You have begun the process of preparing for life after your liquidity event.
In the process, you’re optimizing for happiness for life after your liquidity event.
Here’s to you and your success!
Your Raving Fan,
Jeffrey Feldberg
Today, Feldberg's passion is helping you extract your deep wealth. The 90-day Deep Wealth Mastery program helps create a solid foundation for three areas: increasing profits to enterprise value and optimizing post-exit life. Deep Wealth Mastery offers strategies and insights drawn from Feldberg's rich experience. The strategies from the trenches get results. Jeffrey's vision is to increase the social fabric of society one entrepreneur at a time.
Learn more through https://iapdw.com/prosper
