Are you ready for Early Retirement?

I picked up the term organizational ambition from Taleb in his book Fooled By Randomness. He uses it in a different context, but I think it has definite significance to those thinking of early retirement.

Let's assume that every now and then, you compute your net worth and idly contemplate taking early retirement and living a life of leisure. Here's one question you have to ask yourself: Do you have any organizational ambitions? In other words, are you excited by the idea of your next promotion, a new title, more responsibilities and the accompanying pay raise?

Answer this Yes/No question honestly. There are many valid reasons to want that success. You will be making your parents, your spouse, and your children proud by getting promoted. You may also want to prove yourself to your colleagues, or even to yourself with future professional successes in your field.

If the answer is Yes (i.e. you do have org. ambitions) then there is no point in getting frustrated about the lack of a life of leisure, because the time for you to quit is not imminent. Give yourself time, say 2 years or 5 years to re-evaluate things.

If the answer is No, and you indeed have no organizational ambition left, then that is one more thing out of the way. A lack of organization ambition is a necessary but by no means sufficient condition for early retirement.