Hello and welcome to another episode of the Working Conversations podcast where we talk all things leadership, business communication and trends in the future of work. I'm your host, Dr. Janel Anderson.

Today we are diving into a topic that might just challenge how you think about your career, your time and even the structure of your life. The topic, mini retirements. Let's just let that sink in for a moment. Mini retirements. Have you ever fantasized about putting your career on pause? Not retiring forever, but just stepping away long enough to breathe, to rest, to reset, and to rediscover what really matters? Well, picture this.

You walk away from your job for six months, maybe even a year. Not because you're burned out. You're not running away. You're stepping back because you want to explore something bigger. To travel, to learn, to create, to react, to rest or just be. Well, that's what today's episode is all about. The growing trend of self funded mid career sabbaticals. Or what the author Tim Ferriss popularized as mini retirements.

Now I want to be upfront. This is an aspirational topic. Mini retirements are often available only to people who have built or are intentionally building the financial flexibility to make them happen. So yeah, it's not going to be for everyone. But here's why you should care. Even if you're not planning one. Your co worker might be, your employee might be, your friend might be. And if you want to stay on top of today's workplace trends, you need to understand that mini retirements are becoming part of the conversation about the future of work.

And they're only going to come more and more into that conversation if they're not already. And here's the fun part. I'm not just talking about this as theory. A friend of mine from college, Steve, he did this way back in the early 2000s, long before it was trendy, even before Tim Ferriss was writing about it. Now I'll tell you more about his story a little later on in this episode, so stick around for that.

So what is a mini retirement? Well, let's break it down. A mini retirement is a self funded mid career break designed for rest, exploration or perhaps even reinvention. It's not just a long vacation and it certainly is not quitting forever.

And it's not the same as an employer sponsored sabbatical. And we'll refer to those a little bit later on too. Those often have formal rules, time limits and very specific criteria for eligibility. Mini retirements, on the other hand, are about pressing pause on the traditional work timeline. Instead of working non stop for 40 or 50 years and saving all of your leisure and exploration time and money for retirement, you intentionally carve out chunks of time during your career for meaningful breaks instead. Hence mini retirement.

Now again, the term gained traction and really first came into the vernacular with Tim Ferriss book the Four Hour Work Week which came out in 2007. But the idea, as we'll see, certainly predates him.

We've long seen versions of this gap years, creative sabbaticals, study leaves, career breaks, even adult Internships. Now if you're not familiar with the idea of someone taking on an internship as an older adult, you have got to see the movie the Intern where Robert De Niro plays the role of a 70 year old retiree and widower who goes back into the workforce accepting something called a returnship as they called it. In the movie he's assigned to hard driving CEO of an E commerce fashion company played by Anne Hathaway. It is absolutely worth a watch if you haven't seen it, and there are great lessons learned by De Niro's character and by Hathaway's character. It's just a beautiful unfolding of the relationship between the two of them, which, as you might expect, does not start out very amicably.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Mini retirements. Now, the core shift here is about rethinking your life and work as a series of cycles. Work, learn, rest, repeat, rather than one long grind followed by retirement. Now, why are many retirements on the rise? Well, there are a number of reasons why people are considering this today. First of all, burnout is rampant. Gallup reports that about 67% of workers say that they're experiencing burnout sometimes or often in their work life currently. And a two week vacation just doesn't cut it when what you really need is rejuvenation. Now, mini retirement is not necessarily predicated by burnout and in fact you should probably take a mini retirement before it becomes burnout so that you can mitigate burnout. But burnout sometimes is a reason for people to take on that mini retirement. And that was definitely a big reason for my friend Steve way back in 2001 when he did his but I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm saving that story for a little bit later on.

Now a second reason is that the old linear career paths are breaking down. According to LinkedIn's 2022 Global Talent Trends, workers are increasingly valuing flexibility, purpose and growth over staying in one lane on one career track or one ladder for their whole career. Now, it used to be the case that people thought about their lives in three phases. Phase one is education, say K through 12, and then for many people, that also included going on to technical school or college, maybe even grad school. So phase one, education, Phase two is your work and your career. And again, that's going to span the bulk of your lifetime in this three phase model. And then phase three is retirement.

And hopefully you've saved up enough money to be financially secure after that big phase of career so that you can go into retirement comfortably and still live a life where you can travel and spend time with grandchildren, friends, extended family and so forth, whatever it is that you want to do. And hopefully you have the financial resources to do that and the health to be able to enjoy that. Now again, phase one, education, Phase two, your working years or your career, and then phase three, retirement.

Now, many people still think this way, of course, and maybe it's just implicit in one's expectation of how their lives will unfold, rather than something that they think about explicitly. But that three phase model is quickly becoming an outdated model. So a few years back, Linda Grattan and Andrew Scott wrote a book called the 100 Year Life, which I just recently read. It's a fascinating book. I might do a whole podcast episode on it because I just love the ideas in this book.

They're so relevant to the future of work and the way things are changing in the workplace and just in people's lives. Well, in this book they argue that increased life expectancy necessitates a fundamental rethinking of how we live and how we work. They share data that shows that our life expectancy is increasing by approximately one year every decade and that it won't be long until it will be very average to live to be 100. It won't be novel at all. About half of the population will live to be 100, and half of the population will die before they get to 100. But 100 will be sort of that median age that people will live to. And the authors make the case that in fact, like the ages of my children who are the younger two are teenagers and then the older ones is in his mid-20s. But it is very likely that it will be average to be 100 at the time that they are turning 100.

So given that longer lifetime, the authors predict a move away from this traditional three stage life of education, work and retirement that I was just talking about towards a multi stage, very flexible and fluid approach with repeated transitions and different types of learning opportunities and things like mini vacations. They emphasize the importance of embracing change, continuous learning, and focusing on non financial aspects of well being like relationships and health in the book. And they predict that our lives will be comprised of many more stages than just the traditional three, education, work, and retirement. They talk about continuous skill development, which is something that I've been talking about here on the podcast.

In fact, just a couple of episodes ago I was talking about the need to be continuously reskilling. But they talk about that need means that we have to head back for more education periodically as well as taking breaks like mini retirements that people will want to do periodically instead of saving it all up to the end, and especially because living so much longer, saving it all up to the end won't nearly be as meaningful as taking some of those mini retirements to do things while we have the youthfulness and the vitality and so forth to do those things as well. So taking breaks like mini retirements at various points during our working years, and again noting in the book as they do, that people will be working longer and longer in order to financially support a longer life, but also having greater health and vitality throughout that longer life. People will just probably going to want to continue to work, especially if they are doing work that they enjoy and that they'll be experimenting with different things, different career paths, things that were once divergent, very divergent career paths will become much more commonplace.

And finally, we're living in a world where remote work, the gig economy and digital tools make it much more feasible to pause. You know, hit that pause button on our career or reshape how we work entirely without necessarily falling off the map and not having a career and not being financially stable and viable. So in short, it's these cultural traditions that are falling away and, and structural shifts are happening and lining things up such that mini retirements are much more imaginable and in some cases much more possible than they were even a generation ago. So you might be now wondering, oh, my interest is piqued, Dr. Janel, what do people actually do during a mini retirement?

Well, people take mini retirements for all sorts of reasons and so they fill them in all sorts of ways. Some people use the time to travel or live abroad, immersing themselves in new cultures, maybe to become proficient and conversational in the local language. Others will pick up a new skill or maybe complete coursework. Maybe they finally learn how to paint or take that language immersion program or get certified in a brand new field. Many people will use the time to volunteer or work on social impact projects that they care deeply about.

Others might focus on deepening family relationships, connections, caregiving, or tending to their own health and well being. Here's the kicker. A 2010 study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology found that people who engage in purposeful activities rather than pure leisure during those sabbaticals and mini retirements return to work with significantly higher engagement and lower stress. So it's not just time off, it's time off on purpose and with purpose. So how would you go about doing this? What do you need to take into consideration if you really wanted to plan for this? And remember I did say it was something intentional that you would have to plan for, not just logistically, but especially financially. Well, you will need to have enough money saved to cover your expenses for the time that you are in that mini retirement. And you should also budget about a 20% cushion to account for the amount of time that it will take you to find a new job. So again, you need to have the money set aside for the time that you're going to be away so that you can basically pay yourself what you would have gotten paid had you been working in order to afford the things that you're doing as well as a 20% cushion.

So that when you come back, unless you have prearranged something with your existing employer, let's say you've been gone for six months, it may take you a month or two to become re employed. So you need to budget for that as well. And when we get into Steve's story, you'll completely begin to understand why that is the case. Now Steve also says that you should budget another 20% for extra things that you might not be planning for while you're on your mini retirement or your sabbatical. We'll talk about those, what those things might be when we get into Steve's story as well. Now again, depending on the economy or uncertainty in your field or industry, you might even want to budget for more than 20% in that cushion. So if you're currently getting health insurance through your employer, you want to make sure that you figure that out as well. And if your employer is matching some of your contribution to a retirement plan and you're going to be stepping away from that contribution, you'll want to plan for that either to make that additional matching yourself or to just understand that during the time of your mini retirement, you won't be saving as much towards that actual retirement, be that a 401k or whatever sort of vehicle you have set up to save for retirement.

And you're also going to want to think about how you position this both while you're away and after you return. Because, again, it is not that common yet, but it is increasing in frequency and in commonality. But you'd want to determine how you're going to explain this break while you're having it to friends and family and people that you meet during your mini retirement. And especially, you're going to want to be thinking strategically about how you position it and how you explain it for future employers. You really want to have a good narrative around it. So that it doesn't sound like you are sort of flaky and just run away from your job from time to time, you'll want to really be able to share how intentional you were, how planful you were, how you looped your former employer in with lots of time to spare. So it wasn't just like you quit on a dime and ran away.

Okay. All right, now let me tell you about Steve's story. I promised you the personal story. Steve is really a pioneer in this space. Now, Steve and I went to college together, and we were good friends in college. And like many people, we stay in touch on LinkedIn. And, you know, we were, like, at each other's weddings and things like that, like decades and decades ago. But we're not on very regular touch.

So I needed to make a phone call to Steve to refresh myself on his sabbatical. So in addition to being able to share Steve's story with you today, today I also got the wonderful opportunity to catch up with an old friend in the preparation for this episode, which, if you're watching on the YouTube video here, I'm kind of, like, tearing up because it really was cool to reconnect with, you know, with an old friend in doing the research for this episode. All right, so Steve was a total pioneer in this space. He took his sabbatical way back in March of 2001. March of 2001. Okay. And he took a full year. So here's just a little thumbnail snapshot of Steve and his life at the time.

So Steve was married to Amy, and they lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, And Steve was in finance and specifically an analyst in the tech sector in investment banking. And of course, he's living on the West Coast. Markets here in the United States are on the East Coast. So Steve's daily life was an absolute grind. He's getting up really early on the West Coast. In order to participate in work life in that happens on the East Coast. So he's getting up, you know, markets are opening at like 5am on the East coast or 5 or 6am on the East Coast. And so he's let me redo part of that.

So markets on the east coast opening and Steve needs to be awake for that opening market really early on the West Coast. And Steve was living like that. And of course just because the markets are closed on the east coast and that seems like mid afternoon on the west Coast. Well you still stay at work until 5, 6, 7pm Especially when you are an analyst and kind of early in your career. So Steve is working the grind at this for five years and his pay was really good at the time. He and Amy didn't have children yet and Amy was a nurse. So she's making a good living and they're, you know, happily doing the grind on the west Coast. Now they knew they wanted to relocate back to the east coast eventually because of family reasons.

Steve's family's in the mid Atlantic slash East coast and Amy's family's on the east coast and so they knew they wanted to eventually relocate back to the East Coast. Well, Steve's getting really burned out in his career. And so again, with a fair amount of foresight, Steve had saved up a bunch of money. They decide together to take this one year sabbatical. And in part it was because Steve had always wanted to be a ski bum for a full season. Now that's my term, not his, but he did want to be on the slopes for a full ski season. So they took their sabbatical in part in leaving in March because Steve's bonus paid out in either late February or early March, as a lot of bonuses do.

I remember when I was in corporate, my bonus paid out in February. So I fully understand him wanting to stick around until that bonus paid out. Now he had some transparency with his employer. Again, it wasn't like he was quitting on a dime. They knew this was all going to happen. So he decides to take this one year sabbatical. They leave in March of 2001. Again, I told you he was a pioneer.

This is a long time ago, way before Tim Ferriss was even talking about it. Okay, so here's how they spent their time. Now Steve had done the backpacking through Europe as a college student, but his wife Amy hadn't. So that was something that she really wanted to do. And so together they planned the first six months of trekking around Europe. So they left in March. And so for six months they were gone to a whole bunch of different countries across Europe. Now what Steve says about planning financially for, and you know, he's a financial analyst, so we want to listen to his financial advice as well.

But what he said is in addition to the money that you plan to spend, budget extra money. Because he, he said once you get to these various destinations and you find out like, oh, there's this concert or there's this event or, oh, we have to go to this place, we couldn't, here's this once in a lifetime experience of being in this different country. And then there's this other cultural thing that we should really take in while we're here. And maybe you hadn't planned on that, hadn't thought of that. So the extra tickets, food, expense, various cultural events and so on, it's going to cost you some extra money. So please plan for what you think you're going to spend and then budget, he said, an extra 20% for that. So they did their six months of trekking around Europe and then they came back. They very intentionally came back to the US they weren't quite sure what they were going to do at that point for the next several months until ski season started, but they came back and they rented a house on Nantucket for a month.

So if you're not familiar with Nantucket, it's an island right off the coast of Massachusetts. It's part of Massachusetts, but an island off the coast of Cape Cod. And they invited their family, extended family and friends and stuff to come and hang with them for different parts of that month. And so they were there. And it's probably a good thing that they were there during 9, 11. So they were there for the month of September. And I think Steve found it very, Steve and Amy found it very, very comforting to not be abroad during the, during a time like that, but, you know, a scary time for all of us. And so they spent the month in Nantucket and during that time then they started to put together the plan of what were they going to do until ski season started.

And so they planned for a half a dozen different countries to go visit in Southeast Asia, which is then what they did in October. November, December. And then they came back at the end of that experience and got to spend those three months being a ski ski, being ski bums. So they were in Telluride, Colorado, where they were able to experience the full ski season. Then they came back east as planned because that was, you know, part of the grand Master plan was relocating back to the east coast, so they moved back to the Boston area. And Amy easily gets re employed as a nurse. So if you are a nurse, an educator, an accountant, I don't know some of those fields that are constantly in demand, it may be very, very easy for you to get re employed. Well, Steve on the other hand, didn't have quite such an easy transition back into the workforce.

And to be fair, he was making a bit of a career transition in finance. So there's buy side and sell side and he was switching from one side to the other and looking for that different type of employment when he came back to Boston in the, you know, financial services arena. So he didn't have that immediate opportunity to get re employed. And so he ended up doing a fast track mba. He already had a master's degree, but he did another master's degree and after essentially a two year journey, finds his way back into the world of the employed and into a satisfying career that he is still in today. And it's been what, practically 25 years. So again I asked him about that, you know, that cushion for, you know, would you plan 20% extra for landing? And he said absolutely, for sure. And if you're making a career transition like he was absolutely plan even more.

And he said it worked out comfortably for their family because Amy was a nurse and it was so easy for her to get re employed because nurses were in demand then as they are now. And again, he also said to allow extra money, more than you had planned, probably an extra 20% cushion for while you're traveling because you came all this way, you're gonna need to try this once in a lifetime experience here in this other country. So if you are planning to travel, you're definitely gonna wanna budget more money than you think you're gonna spend now. So that's Steve's story again. 20, you know, way back in 2001-2002 is when he did this. Just absolutely fascinating. What a pioneer in this space. Now I asked Steve towards the end of our conversation as he was, you know, I learned about this not long after it happened.

I, you know, caught some bits and pieces of it as it was happening, but it's been 20 plus years, so that's hence my reason to call and reconnect with him. And I mean it was great to reconnect too, but I wanted the, the details for this episode as well as wanting to genuinely catch up with him as well. But so I asked him towards the end of our conversation, would a Two month sabbatical or mini retirement have scratched that same itch. He said at this point now in his career, it probably would. But back then his burnout was a big factor and a significant part of what led to that one year sabbatical. Now maybe if he had caught that earlier, instead of waiting five years to get really burned out and done many sabbaticals or many retirements along the way, maybe he wouldn't have needed a full year. He said right now he's, you know, his career is busy, he's got a big team that he manages and so on, but he doesn't necessarily feel that sense of burnout. Now, would he like a short break? Oh, absolutely.

In fact, currently he works for a large investment banking company that has one month fully paid sabbaticals as a benefit. And what was fascinating is as we're having this conversation, he tells me that he's got one of his direct reports currently on said sabbatical, who is like away from their regular job for one month doing whatever they want now in his organization. And I alluded to this before, that if an organization has this as a benefit, typically there is a fair bit of structure around it. So it's a one month period of time that you can take off and you have to have worked there at that company for a 15 year solid block of time. So Steve's not been in that role with that company for a full 15 years. But he said when he hits that 15 year mark, he absolutely will take advantage of that, of that benefit. And again, it was just fascinating to find out that somebody who works directly for him is on that current said sabbatical right now. All right, so that's Steve's experience and hopefully that gives you some motivation and courage to take this on if it's something that you want to do.

But let's, before we wrap, let's take a quick look at the downsides and risk because let's be honest, there are some real downsides and some real risks to taking a mini retirement or a self funded sabbatical. So first there is career risk. Just like Steve, you heard in his story some of the career risk and again, career transition happening there too. But career risk. Now a 2016 Harvard Business Review article pointed out that there, that resume gaps are still penalized in some industries, in some cultures, especially here in the United States. And though this is starting to change in more progressive sectors and in more creative sectors, it also really points to the, to the point I was making earlier about how are you going to position this, what is the story you're going to tell about why you did it, what benefits you got from it and to really put a future employer at ease that you're not just going to like disappear on them. Okay, so that's your first thing is career risk. And second, there is a legitimate financial strain.

Even if you have saved for it. Extended time off means no income and possible resource depletion. Especially with rising cost of living. And as you are embarking on your mini retirement or your self funded sabbatical, if you are traveling, there is a good chance you are going to spend more than you had budgeted for. So there's a definite financial strain. And then third, you do risk losing momentum or you know, current career position by stepping away from that career track. Especially if it is like a year long, maybe if it's just two months or something like that, it's going to be, it's going to not have as much of an impact on your career momentum. But stepping away for even six months in industries like tech, finance, healthcare, maybe not necessarily for nursing, but healthcare in general, you really can feel like falling behind.

And finally there's cultural resistance. Even though this is getting some traction in a hustle heavy environment, stepping away and then stepping back can be seen as indulgent or that you're not taking your career seriously. Even if it's ultimately a very smart and strategic move for you. The positioning as I keep mentioning is so, so important. So these are the real challenges of this. And anyone considering a mini retirement needs to weigh these challenges carefully. But here's the flip side. The research supporting mini retirements and sabbaticals is very compelling.

Studies from the sabbatical leave program at Tel Aviv University show that people returning from sabbaticals report improved psychological resources and reduced stress. The research in positive psychology absolutely shows that there are some definite benefits. A 2018 article in the Journal of Positive Psychology links novelty, rest and autonomy to increased life satisfaction and creative process problem solving. So if you are putting together a mini retirement or a sabbatical that includes things like novelty, so getting to different places, even if they're not far flung places like Steve and Amy went to, just getting into different locations, even here in the United States or practically in your backyard, rest and the autonomy to make those choices for yourself, those criteria or those things are going to set you up for more life satisfaction and better problem solving and more creativity when you get back into your work. So in other words, a well planned break often results in higher post return productivity. More innovative thinking and that could actually propel you forward in your career. So it's not just about recovery, it's about renewal. All right, so as we close, why does this matter? Well, here's the bottom line.

Whether or not you're personally ready to take a mini retirement yourself, understanding this trend helps you see the future of work more clearly. These shifts are reshaping how we think about careers, well being and purpose. And if you start thinking about that 100 year life, well, that three phase process of education, a really long career in order to support some retirement years at the end, and hopefully you have a good quality of life and health at that retirement phase, well that's becoming outdated and outmoded. So we may just need to be rethinking that phase three phase approach and have it be more of a multi phase approach. So again, these shifts are reshaping how we're thinking about careers, how we're thinking about well being and just showing up with purpose. It also helps explain why your colleague might take a six month break, why your employee might negotiate a sabbatical, why you might someday decide to step back and take a rest. And for those of you who are hiring managers, and it might also explain those six month gaps on a resume or one year gaps on a resume. So to future proof your work and your leadership, you need to be understanding how the landscape is changing.

So staying aware of trends like mini retirements doesn't just help you dream about your own possibilities, it helps you lead, support and connect with others who are navigating this space in the changing world of work. Because ultimately, seeing the future coming is how we prepare to thrive in it. Now, if you enjoyed today's episode, I'd love to hear from you. Have you taken a mini retirement or dreamed of one? Reach out to me on LinkedIn or drop me a message on any of the social platforms. I'd love to feature some listener stories in future episodes. Thanks for tuning in and until next time, I'm Dr. Janel Anderson, helping you stay ahead of the trends that shape our work of world. As always, stay curious, stay informed and stay ahead of the curve.

If you learned something on this episode or you simply enjoy the content, please subscribe to my channel on YouTube, subscribe to the podcast on your podcast platform of choice and follow me over on social media. These are all excellent no cost ways for you to support me and my work and you'll find links to my social media over on the Show Notes page for this episode, janelanderson.com/218 for episode 218 until next time my friends. Keep thriving and keep working toward the future of work that we all want and deserve. Be well.