The back nine....or back four.

This is the longest time I have gone without posting on Muddy Boots. The last being 12/26/2025.

It has been 28 months since I stepped down from ECS, 12 months since stepping down from the Drexel board, the Academy, and several for-profit and non-profit boards. For the first time since I was twenty-three and could argue fourteen, I was not on a 40-60-hour workweek schedule or personally responsible for employees, customers, or an I-95 commute.

Jacqui is clear that 47 years in, she still loves me, but not for lunch.

So, I reflected on how I wanted to play the back nine, or as my forum buddies pointed out, the last 4 or 5 holes. I am a fan of Margaret Mead and her quote, “I know I am going to die; I am just never going to retire.”

So, I laid out some ground rules.

1.      Nothing further than a 2-hour drive.

2.      Focus on giving back what people gave you in the experience and advice arena as you came up through the ranks. Note what worked and did not.

3.      Rather than tell, be a coach and ask great questions.

4.      Focus on family businesses that are in transition. In my case, what I knew.

5.      Focus on non-profits that are in the transformation business, not the maintenance business.

6.      Learn to listen and ask great questions first.

7.      Teach the lesson of never being low-priced but always being low-cost.

8.      Keep wearing muddy boots, go into the field, learn, listen, ask questions, and go where it may be uncomfortable. Truth helps make better decisions. Find the pain and fix it, (See#7).

9.      Be on a retainer, never per hour fee. People need you when they need you.

10. Think about legacy, and when the time comes, what will you leave behind? What will folks remember?

So, for now, no home lunches unless it is the weekend. Working with a family business firm, sitting on a few family boards, still involved with Modern Group and its board, after all, I am an iron guy, and volunteering with organizations that call to me as a force for positive change.

Add the kids, grandkids, the dog, and a fly rod, and the back nine feels surprisingly good.

This retirement thing has some good, no great, holes left to play.

Join me.