The New Business of Consulting

2 Talents and Tolerance

Whether you believe you can or you can’t, you will prove yourself correct.

Henry Ford

Shawn had been toying with the idea of retirement for a couple of years. Well, retirement. How did you define it these days? At least half the people he knew who had retired had gone back to work—part-time or freelancing. What were people calling it now? Hucksters? Hasslers? Side hustles! That was it. He’d always thought about being a consultant. But thinking about it was as far as it had gone. Yesterday he had learned that the company he worked for was offering early retirement. It was tempting to consider taking it. He’d been with the company long enough to qualify, and the daily grind of the same-ole, same-ole was getting tedious.

He rolled out of bed and staggered to the kitchen to start the coffee. One of these days he was going to figure out how to set the autobrew on this contraption his sister called a DeLonghi Nespresso. DeLonghi? Wasn’t that the name of an expensive car? No, that was DeLorean. He just needed coffee to lift the fog. He glanced outside and saw there was fog outside his condo, too. And the leaves were turning colors. Autumn was here. Coffee. Finally.

Sipping his coffee, he sat at the window watching the leaves fall and realized that autumn represented where he was in life. He was nearing the end of his career. He gazed across the street, where the bright yellow chrysanthemums were blooming. He didn’t feel like those falling leaves. He felt ...