A friend messaged me recently. After more than a decade in mergers and acquisitions at a top-tier US investment bank, he had finally quit. Attached was a screenshot: “Legendary Pacific Sailings” it read, advertising three superyacht itineraries. He was trying to put together a group for the trip. Now, I’ve never sailed, I don’t know if I’d enjoy it, but I’m sorely tempted.
When I retired, aged 55, from investment banking three years ago, it felt like slamming the brakes on a race car. I suddenly found myself standing still while the world whizzed past. For decades, my life had been dictated by the grind of finance: the ceaseless buzz of the BlackBerry, back-to-back meetings, conference calls, PowerPoint decks, the pitched battles for deal mandates and, of course, the relentless deluge of emails.
Then it all vanished. The torrent in my inbox turned into a trickle. My phone lay silent. I was no longer in the game. I wasn’t even on the sidelines.
The early days of retirement were disorienting. I’d spent my entire career working towards this moment. Finally, I had financial independence, autonomy, control over my own time. Yet, when it arrived, I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Theoretically, I could do just about anything. “The world’s mine oyster,” as Pistol said in The Merry Wives of Windsor. But prising it open proved more difficult than I’d expected.
Sleeping-in was a novelty. Making coffee in my pyjamas felt like a small rebellion. The gym filled an hour or two. But then what? More coffee? Lunch alone? A podcast, perhaps? My friends, still caught in the throes of their careers, had no time for midday meet-ups. When we did catch up, they inevitably asked, “So what’s your next gig?”, as if stepping off the corporate treadmill were merely a prelude to another structured pursuit. Headhunters called to see if I was interested in taking senior positions at more niche financial institutions. A long-lost colleague hoped I’d invest in his start-up. Another asked if I could help raise capital for his company. None of it resonated.
My life until retirement had followed a rigorously plotted trajectory: top schools, prestigious firms, well-connected mentors, high-profile deals. Success came in neatly packaged increments, with promotions, pay bumps and ever-grander job titles. Of course, there were setbacks, and I could have climbed higher. My brothers certainly have. One is a bestselling novelist whose books have spawned over a dozen film and TV adaptations, the other is a CEO and chair of a Fortune 500 company. But I’d done well enough.
Investment banking had once delivered an unmatched adrenaline rush; the victories were hard-fought and deeply rewarding. At my peak, I strode into every pitch convinced I could help clinch it and turn a brutal competitive battle into a triumph. It was mostly wishful thinking, but I believed it. Every so often, we’d score a massive win. Fuelled by the high, I’d charge straight into the next challenge, fired up for more. That was the power of real passion — the kind that makes performance feel unstoppable.
I lived for the dealmaking, the kinetic intensity of an all-nighter before a major announcement acting like a narcotic. By morning, I’d be glued to my Bloomberg terminal, heart pounding as I waited for the news to break. But over time, the thrill dulled. The sameness of it all wore me down. The arrival of a “request for proposal” stirred more fatigue than fire, more ennui than energy. My once-crisp presentations began to fray at the edges. Like a priest who had lost his faith, I found myself reciting the liturgy out of habit, not conviction.
One moment crystallised this disenchantment. I was in Italy, pitching for a major mandate. We’d prepared a comprehensive presentation, but the moment we started, the senior executive at the client, palpably bored, cut us off. “You’re the 10th bank to come through,” he said. A few minutes later, in the middle of our pitch, his phone rang. He answered and proceeded to have a long conversation while we sat there like silent props in a film.
At that moment, I had an urge to kick back, put my feet up on the meeting-room table, and let out a long sigh. But, of course, I didn’t. I quietly accepted the humiliation, and a part of my professional self died that day. Not that I took offence. The client wasn’t being rude for the sake of it. He was simply reminding us that, notwithstanding our glossy slides and expensive wardrobe, we were just another set of salespeople. And he had his pick.
Retirement, then, wasn’t just an escape; it was the natural end point of a passion that had faded. At 58, I can’t ignore the ticking clock. My parents died young: my father at 59 of a sudden heart attack, my mother at 63 after a long battle with breast cancer. They had both worked hard and believed in hard work, and they had looked forward to reaping the rewards of retirement. Their early deaths still loom large in my mind, a reminder that time is both the greatest asset and the most pitiless constraint.
I am in good health but don’t know how much runway I have left. An online life expectancy calculator tells me I should live another 34 years, though my answers may have skewed the results. Four units of alcohol a week? Close enough. So, the question remains, what would I do with those years? In his 2015 song “The Nights”, the late, great DJ Avicii recalls his own father’s advice: “Live a life you will remember.” That’s not a bad mantra, is it?
I dove headfirst into adventure the moment I could. It started with a friend’s call — an invite to a Solomun gig at Printworks in London. What the hell, I thought. I might as well go for it. The pulsing beats, the hypnotic lights. I was loving it. At least, for the first five hours. Unlike everyone else around me, I hadn’t taken anything to keep me going, and so eventually, my energy crashed.
Then I stumbled on an article about the Faroe Islands. I had barely heard of the place, and its obscurity made it all the more intriguing. Within minutes, I’d booked a flight and hotel. After some arm-twisting, I convinced a buddy to tag along. It rained a lot, mostly sideways, but when the clouds cleared, the landscapes looked almost surreal, like stepping into another world. And Tórshavn, the tiny capital, turned out to be full of pleasant surprises. Not bad for a spur-of-the-moment trip.
That first taste of adventure whetted my appetite. Since then I’ve trekked high-altitude trails in Peru and Ethiopia, snowshoed in Slovakia’s High Tatras, camped under the stars in the Sinai desert and kitesurfed the windswept shores of Essaouira. I’ve swum with dolphins in Zanzibar, manta rays in Bali and sea turtles in the Galápagos. I even tried pole-dancing in Girona on my daughter’s dare and went ecstatic-dancing in Ubud on my own initiative. I’ve hiked the West Highland Way, scaled Snowdon and Ben Nevis, cycled around Mallorca, zip-lined over Ecuadorean canyons.
The modern world offers an overwhelming buffet of experiences; the challenge isn’t finding adventure, it’s choosing. I haven’t slowed down yet, but the wear and tear is real. Surf camp in Lombok was a blast, until my shoulder started aching from the paddling and my feet got shredded on a reef.
It can get lonely too. Solitude is a tax on carefree independence. My wife is supportive but has her own projects and isn’t always up for globe-trotting at short notice — though she was a good sport when it started snowing while we were camping last year at 4,000 metres in Kyrgyzstan. Most working friends can manage short escapes but not extended expeditions to far-flung places. My kids have jobs or are in school and have their own lives.
This is the paradox of post-banking life: you can, in theory, have it all, yet a nagging anxiety remains. The more freedom you have, the more aware you become of what you might be missing. No matter how much you do, there’s always a lingering “What else is there?” Another mountain to climb, another thrill to chase, another skill to master, another person to meet.
These days I juggle a mix of “pursuits”: I’m a non-profit trustee, occasional expert witness, freelance financial pundit, gym rat, global flâneur. These activities genuinely interest me. Yet sometimes, two contradictory thoughts creep in. Shouldn’t I be doing something more? Advising companies or sitting on corporate boards, perhaps? And, conversely, aren’t these roles just crude proxies for the professional identity I’ve shed, stand-ins for the 30-year career that’s now over?
One of the toughest challenges in investment banking is mastering the art of focus. The temptation to chase every opportunity is a trap you must avoid. At work, senior management steps in to provide some structure. Bankers are instructed to create target lists, ranking clients and projects based on revenue potential, deal likelihood and the odds of success. The reasoning is simple: the costs of misallocated time are steep. Some clients will drain your expertise without offering a return. The trick is knowing which clients are worth your energy and steering clear of the time-sinks.
It wasn’t until I retired that I grasped the ramifications of this: that freedom isn’t about doing everything, but rather choosing what matters most. I still need to unlearn the habit of equating busyness with productivity, to be more selective about how I spend my time. I want to invest in what matters, rather than just ticking off my bucket list.
The highlight of my post-banking life hasn’t been the exotic getaways or the thrill of seeing my byline in a newspaper. It came last Boxing Day, at Fulham FC’s away match against local rivals Chelsea. Fulham, the modest club I’ve supported since moving to the UK in the 1990s, overturned a 1-0 deficit with two late goals, securing their first win at Stamford Bridge in 45 years. Rodrigo Muniz’s stoppage-time winner sent us into a frenzy of ecstatic, unrestrained, unbridled joy.
We stayed long after the final whistle, singing and celebrating, lost in the moment. I’ve never hugged so many strangers in my life. In that instant, there was nowhere else I’d have rather been.
Find out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend Magazine on X and FT Weekend on Instagram
