Working with business owners over the last 20 years, there is certainly a changing approach to retirement. Thanks to technology, work isn’t as physically demanding as it used to be for most of us. Even being able to work from home saves people the need to commute to work all the time. What that means for a lot of people is that they don’t want to retire.
The business owners I work with aren’t naive though. They don’t think “I’m going to work until I am 75, I don’t need money until then”. They still want to be in a position that they can stop working if they want to. They may change their mind in the future or the decision may be taken out of their hands through illness or being replaced themselves by AI or a younger version of themselves.
What people want now is what we call financial independence. That is you work because you want to and not because you have to. They like having the routine of having a job to go to but want the flexibility of being able to take lots of time off if they want to. They want to carry on doing the work that they love doing without the pressure of meeting deadlines all the time. Knowing they can pick and choose the projects that they work on and being able to say no to ones that don’t fit their schedule or the kind of work they are now looking for. If you are still reliant on an income to fund your lifestyle, you may have to take on those projects that will disrupt your plans. Why would you carry on working if you don’t need the money?
For a lot of people, it is relationships. When my dad retired, he got upset saying goodbye to his customers. People who had come into him for decades and they’d chatted about everything. The link they had was my dad’s business and that was now broken. He would never see them again. As we get older, we have less friends. Work is a great way for us to connect with people on a daily basis, people we know well. I know myself I have lots of clients that if they phoned me on a Sunday morning, I would answer the phone immediately. They aren’t just clients.
Another reason is status. As we get more experience, we become experts in our field. People come to us for our opinion or to solve problems that they have. I have clients who are top of their field in the country and are highly respected in their profession. At home they are just mum or dad.
You still like your work and it fills time. We spend almost 40 years with somewhere to go Monday to Friday. Most of our time is filled. The jobs around the house are kept for the evenings and weekends, so between work, jobs around the house and relaxing, we can easily fill our waking hours. Then we stop working and 40 hours needs to be filled. There are only so many jobs that need to be done around the house. How are you going to fill that big gap that has just been created? By making it a small gap. You still like doing what you are doing so why not carry on doing it but less often?
Owners of small businesses are doing this as they have low operating costs and they are able to pick a handful of clients; clients they have worked for for years who will understand if you tell them you are going to Spain for a month but are contactable if needed. Or because you are an expert in what you do, people want to pass on that expertise to their staff and hire you on contract, so you can work for 4-6 months of the year.
Work has become a lot more flexible over the last few decades and that provides a lot of people to reduce their work load as they near the traditional “retirement” age and carry on doing something that still brings them enjoyment. Just make sure you aren’t reliant on it for your income and you are doing it because you want to do it.
Steven Barrett
20 April 2026