The Final Curtain Call: My Double Retirement

As a business owner, I was constantly required to be in the customer spotlight, which unfortunately meant adopting an extroverted façade—a sharp contrast to my naturally introverted self. My professional life, with its constant interaction and performative elements, was the biggest stage for this alter ego. Essentially, I was an entrepreneur with a separate, exhausting full-time job: character actor.

My favourite part of the day was 5 a.m., sitting in the sunroom with a coffee while my wife Suzie and the children were still asleep—the calm before donning my character mask and heading out for the day’s business. It was the only hour in which I was neither selling nor deal-making, a precious, unburdened pause before the day-long masquerade began.

In many ways, I was a prisoner of my own making. I created and draped the persona over myself early in my career to maintain a high profile within the business I worked for; it was the easiest route to promotion, as quieter people simply didn’t get noticed. A shortsighted bias I endeavoured not to emulate when I ran my own company.

When I founded my own business, my customers came with me. They were the initial lifeblood, so I was forced to continue the façade; that was the person they knew and trusted—the persona they wanted, not the introvert me. So the greatest showman performed for his audience of customers. Character prostitution was the name of the game—it paid the bills.

The years rolled on, the performance persisted. For me, it’s a strange truth: I really don’t think I could have operated my company as effectively without the performance. It motivated staff and made customers want to do business; my persona lubricated the machinery of business. I was too nervous to be myself, the storyline worked—better not change.

Retirement for me, when it eventually arrived, was twofold with twice the relief. I sold my business, and on the final evening, with my staff and new owners watching on, I walked out the door and didn’t look back. My second, uncelebrated and unnoticed secret retirement happened in my car during the drive home. I cast off the façade of thirty years, and the final curtain call of a typecast amateur actor took place without an audience, a final bow, or an encore.

Should I really have made it so difficult to be myself? I could have changed, I never really tried. I have no real answer, save for the best I can offer: I was just doing business; nothing personal. But I’m glad it’s all over—the introvert has freedom and enjoys contemplating the clouds from the sunroom windows.