45! now what?

Well, I've done it, folks. I done gone ahead and turned 45 on you.

So... what now?

Thought you'd never ask.

There comes a point in a man's life where you have fought all the foreign battles you can, as a mercenary. Time is precious, the clock keeps ticking, and with every cycle of the hour-hand you see yourself getting older, not younger.

More tired, not less tired. Less enthusiastic about other people's business, not more enthusiastic. Less patient with hypocrisy, not more patient. Less tolerant of disrespect, not more tolerant. Less willing to invest your precious little time in tasks and activities you will not be able to claim as your own. Investing blood, sweat and tears to build assets for other people. Assets you won't be able to call upon in your time of need; that bear someone else's branding, IP (intellectual property) and residual income.

With time (trust me, when you reach 45 you've had the time), your sharp clarity and insight into the vanities of modern secular culture augment, they don't contract.

I can hear you now, "Uh-oh, Luis... looks like you're knee-deep and getting deeper into Bitter Old Man territory!" Just wait till you turn 45, and tell me if you feel any different. Because you see, bitter old men understand something about life that is almost impossible to grasp while you're young and still have your best milage ahead of you: the runway runs out, and when it does, life smacks you in the face real hard.

You can do everything right at a corporate job, and still be let go because of budget, or restructuring, or re-alignment. It happened to me at the best-paying job I've ever had, after 3.5 years of loyal service; after losing sleep because I'm up tossing in bed, thinking of ways to make things better for that company's clients, with my creativity, my initiative and my sacrifice. Thinking of ways to turn things around for their bottom line.

If you think your company will value you more as you age and accumulate wisdom, experience and field-expertise, I hope you're right. In most cases, you'd be quickly replaced by someone with an eighth of your experience for a third of your salary. Someone with less family obligations. Someone with less sick days. Someone who won't have to take the occasional morning off for a teacher-parent conference. An afternoon off for an elderly parent's doctor appointment. Someone who will gladly donate their off-time to the company, because they believe their efforts will be rewarded with loyalty, upward momentum and increased salaries, eventually.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that having a traditional job is evil, or some type of failure of initiative and independence. For most of us, there is no better place to start. But that's just the point... I'm not starting. I'm all of 29 years into my working life and I'm no longer young, cute, energetic, easily-manipulated, dumb and happy to settle for less. I've paid my dues in the corporate world, and it's time to build an empire I cannot be (easily) dislodged from.

Perhaps most pertinently, I'm exactly 20-yrs out from official retirement age, and it's time to be in charge of the map of my own destination and family's security, because old age brings almost anything except increased employment opportunities. Again, my message is not anti-corporation, it is pro-security and dignity of the aging professional. It is pro-mapping your own life on your terms. In truth, if the main takeaway of this essay is not perceived as positive, then I have failed as communicator.

Employees get paid to solve the problems their bosses assign them on a predetermined schedule.

Entrepreneurs pay themselves to solve the problems of their choosing, on their own schedule.

So what I'm looking for is not just an off-ramp. I don't want out, exactly. I need into something else. Something that is my own. Where I can only fire myself. Where I know my family's needs will be met because of my own efforts and time investment, versus the whims of ivory-tower corporate strategy, made thousands of miles away from the dining room where I break bread with my wife and son.

Here, age can truly be leveraged as a badge of honor because I'll be investing right back in myself. I'll be putting my decades' worth of experience to work on my behalf. I'll be solving the problems I choose to solve, on the schedule that is amenable to me, and earning handsomely while doing so. It's time for Luis Herrera to become LuiFer the White, an elusive wizard you'd be blessed to have rapping on your door to call you out for an adventure.

Wizards don't punch a clock. They certainly don't attend company All-hands meetings. They don't lose sleep worrying that a corporate re-structure will render them jobless overnight, despite stellar performance. And never, under any circumstances, do they answer to a power higher than their own sense of duty and will.

And if you want to know just exactly what I mean, where it is that I'm going, it is spelled out clear as day, here.

LuiFer (the White)