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Avoiding the Competency Trap

pvtpublic

Alfrescian
Loyal
Shout out to the PAP. Don't get stuck in the cycle of cheap labour and immigration to boost GDP.

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200608-what-is-the-competency-trap

COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE | INNOVATION
How to avoid the ‘competency trap’
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By David Robson
https://twitter.com/@d_a_robson
10th June 2020

Previous successes can stand in the way of new opportunities – and even lead to failures with big price tags.

***

If it weren’t for a monumental management failure, your computer, tablet or smartphone may well have carried Xerox’s logo.
In the early 1970s, the company’s photocopiers were ubiquitous throughout the world’s offices. The company’s name had even entered the English language as a verb – to photocopy was to ‘xerox’. But Xerox’s management were also interested in the potential of computing, and so they established a subsidiary to develop new technologies: the Palo Alto Research Center, aka Parc, in California.
By 1973, the scientists and engineers at Parc had invented a personal computer called the Xerox Alto. While the other early computers were cumbersome to operate, the Xerox Alto was very similar to a PC today, with a mouse to navigate an intuitive graphic user interface. Users clicked on icons and opened windows, without needing to type in commands to open a program. It included the first WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) word processor, called Bravo, that allowed you to edit text on screen – all features that we now take for granted. The device was apparently so appealing that relatives of Parc’s employees would often come into the labs at night to get a glimpse of the future technology.
Mysteriously, however, Xerox failed to commercialise the product. As the company dithered, two young entrepreneurs called Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were inspired by what was happening at Parc and incorporated elements of the Alto into their own designs. The rest is history.

The Xerox Alto was far ahead of its time – but ‘competency traps’ ensured it was a missed opportunity (Credit: Getty Images)

The Xerox Alto was far ahead of its time – but ‘competency traps’ ensured it was a missed opportunity (Credit: Getty Images)
“Xerox could have owned the entire computer industry, could have been the IBM of the nineties, could have been the Microsoft of the nineties,” Jobs later said.
How could the company have missed such a lucrative opportunity? Xerox had the funds to make a big investment as well as the brand recognition and the reputation – yet they failed to capitalise on the exciting new technologies.
How could Xerox have missed such a lucrative opportunity? The answer may be a phenomenon known as the ‘competency trap’
The answer may be a phenomenon known as the ‘competency trap’, in which a company’s entrenched expertise ruins its capacity to deal with a changing and uncertain market.
“The company is blinded by its past success,” explains Loizos Heracleous at Warwick Business School in the UK. The inertia can be particular problem when facing a disruptive technology, he says. “At that point, competency traps can become deadly for a company.” Rather than growing and evolving, they begin to rot. And learning from companies like Xerox may prevent other organisations from suffering the same fate.
Exploitation and exploration
The causes of competency traps are perhaps best understood by considering the two, sometimes opposing, forces that drive a company forward: the ‘exploitation’ of their existing products, and ‘exploration’ of future opportunities. Each will require its own resources and investments, but if an organisation can balance both, management scientists consider it to be ‘structurally ambidextrous’. Like a person who is both right- and left-handed, the company uses both arms effectively without one dominating the other. For researchers like Heracleous, structural ambidexterity is thought to be the best way to ensure long and successful businesses.
A competency trap occurs when the exploitation arm comes to dominate the company’s workings so that it is no longer structurally ambidextrous.
There are many reasons why this can happen. Successful organisations often end up with rigid corporate cultures, for example. “In order to be successful, a company has to develop efficient systems and processes,” says Heracleous. “And over time, it leads to particular paradigms of what the organisation’s identity and core business is and should be.”
If you can run the existing operation while still exploring future opportunities, chances are your company is ‘ambidextrous’ (Credit: Alamy)

If you can run the existing operation while still exploring future opportunities, chances are your company is ‘ambidextrous’ (Credit: Alamy)
These assumptions about the ways the company operate can become so deeply embedded, the employees are no longer conscious of the tacit rules, he says. And those rigid attitudes can blind them to the potential of any future innovations.
Given the large investments that lie behind those systems, managers can also suffer from the ‘sunk-cost bias’ – the reluctance to give up on previous investments, even when they are no longer paying dividends, because they feel too attached to what they have already achieved. With this mindset, it becomes hard to embrace new technologies that threaten to uproot those investments.
A fight for resources can also result from toxic politics. Rather than seeing an R&D group like Parc as valuable insurance for the future health of the company, the staff in the ‘exploitation’ arm begin to see them as rivals who hoped to cannibalise their market.
This is particularly common in bigger organisations. “Due to their history and the dilution of responsibility and accountability, larger firms are more likely to develop the kind of inertia that comes with sunk investments, destructive politics and embedded worldviews rather than small, entrepreneurial companies,” says Heracleous. A company that was once nimble begins to turn to stone, forever locked into just one way of carrying out its business.

Leadership potential
There are many other examples of competency traps throughout the history of technology.
The AT&T Bell System (which evolved from Alexander Graham Bell’s original telephone company) began work on mobile communication in the 1940s. Technical difficulties prevented immediate commercialisation, but even after these had been surmounted, an organisational competency trap meant that the AT&T Bell System fell behind other companies including Motorola, who created the first hand-held cell phones.
Then there’s the photography company Kodak, which invented a 1.4 megapixel camera sensor in 1986. “It was the first company to create a digital camera, yet it seemed to play catch up when confronted with digital technology,” says Jie Mein Goh at Simon Fraser University in Canada. “It had a strong focus on chemistry research, an analogue process,” she explains – and so many of its workers were so entrenched in that industry, they struggled to see and exploit the potential of digital processing.
Some divisions within Kodak were at the forefront of digital camera technology, but the company chose to focus on film instead (Credit: Getty Images)

Some divisions within Kodak were at the forefront of digital camera technology, but the company chose to focus on film instead (Credit: Getty Images)
“Another factor was the organisational structure, where an upstart division that had yet to show results, had to work alongside the traditional business providing the cash flow and revenue,” Goh adds. As a result, the company continued to play it safe while other companies soon steamed ahead with the new technology. “Kodak focused on milking its cash cow – film – and was developing products that were tied to its cash cow.”
In terms of the sheer number of innovations it created, and then ignored, Xerox may be the most striking example of the competency trap, however. “Parc is legendary, having produced many of the technologies that we take for granted today,” says Heracleous, who recently sifted through historical records and interviews with Xerox employees to write a paper outlining the competency trap of the firm. “Yet Xerox’s leadership could not see their potential. It all went over their heads.”
Heracleous’s research suggests that initial communication difficulties contributed to the competency trap. It was a struggle, apparently, for the researchers in Palo Alto to even meet with the senior management. One insider said that a meeting with the CEO was like a “state visit” from a monarch. “You’d get fifteen minutes to pitch but there’d be no follow-through, no delegation to anyone who could understand what we were saying,” the source said.
And when they did listen, the managers were wary of taking a risk on an untested technology that would require a completely different pricing structure from their existing products. Xerox were used to building expensive machines which they rented out and then charged additional fees for the paper, ink and maintenance. (They essentially saw themselves as being like a razor manufacturer, which makes its profit from selling replacement blades.) By remaining tied to this way of doing business, the management failed to understand how you could profit from mass-produced consumer PCs – bought for a relatively low, single sum – without also making a profit from replacement goods.
Parc has been the home to many inventions we take for granted today – such as the computer mouse and the  laser printer (Credit: Alamy)

Parc has been the home to many inventions we take for granted today – such as the computer mouse and the laser printer (Credit: Alamy)

At launch, the Xerox Alto sold for $32,000 – far beyond most customers’ price range. And despite repeated requests from the researchers at Parc, the management refused to fund the development of a more affordable version, instead spending their funds on the development of a new typewriter. Other companies quickly filled that void.
The firm’s failure to evolve led to many other missed opportunities, besides the company’s failure to capitalise on the Xerox Alto. Heracleous notes that a couple of the company’s researchers had also created some innovative publishing software, for instance. After Xerox failed to capitalise on the invention, the employees eventually bought the rights to their intellectual property for a mere $2,000, and founded their own start-up in 1982. That company, Adobe’s is current market value is around $191bn (£143bn). Xerox, in contrast, is valued at $4.2bn.

Lessons learned
Any company facing the competency trap may require an organisational overhaul, says Heracleous, to ensure that every manager is open to the potential of new innovations. One solution could be to encourage every employee to work within a research and development department for a few months, which should lead them to lose of cognitive rigidity that comes from their existing expertise, so they can be more open to new ways of doing things.
Leaders should make a special effort to listen to junior employees and new starters who might have a fresh viewpoint on the organisation procedures at the company, and to encourage all staff to question the underlying assumptions behind a company’s decision making. “What is crucial is to have ways to challenge the status quo, to inject variation in the corporate DNA,” says Heracleous.
To avoid fossilisation, you need to embrace evolution. And as Xerox learnt to its great cost, those lessons need to be learnt from the bottom to the top.


David Robson is the author of The Intelligence Trap, which examines why smart people (and businesses) act foolishly and the ways we can all make wiser decisions. He is @d_a_robson on Twitter.
 

tanwahtiu

Alfrescian
Loyal
Xerox was knocked down by the Japs than what the writer says.

Noisy machines, with toners fly all over the machine, it was a total shit machines. Xerox copier was all metals, heavy like fuck and was a curse to delivery and technicians...

When the Jap reinvented the light weight copiers under Fuji, US Xeorx and UK xerox under Rank Xerox fall flat. The Japs came with plastic gears which slashes the price of a copier by 60%. Light weight, 2 persons can carry the machine, table top to fit big and small offices.

All Jap enter the copier market slap US Xerox Copration and Rank Xerox into oblivion. Fuji, Canon, Tobshiba, Minolta, Sharp, Ricoh kicked US out of the manufacturing of copiers and dominate copiers till now.

In 1986, Fuji Xerox bought the whole region of Asia from Korea, China, Australia to NZ from CAM US for $460M.... ending the US domination.

This was when digital integration, networking with copiers set the trend of offices with MS ....

Today, Fuji Xerox still a leader in copiers with Canon...
 

pvtpublic

Alfrescian
Loyal
Xerox was knocked down by the Japs than what the writer says.

Noisy machines, with toners fly all over the machine, it was a total shit machines. Xerox copier was all metals, heavy like fuck and was a curse to delivery and technicians...

When the Jap reinvented the light weight copiers under Fuji, US Xeorx and UK xerox under Rank Xerox fall flat. The Japs came with plastic gears which slashes the price of a copier by 60%. Light weight, 2 persons can carry the machine, table top to fit big and small offices.

All Jap enter the copier market slap US Xerox Copration and Rank Xerox into oblivion. Fuji, Canon, Tobshiba, Minolta, Sharp, Ricoh kicked US out of the manufacturing of copiers and dominate copiers till now.

In 1986, Fuji Xerox bought the whole region of Asia from Korea, China, Australia to NZ from CAM US for $460M.... ending the US domination.

This was when digital integration, networking with copiers set the trend of offices with MS ....

Today, Fuji Xerox still a leader in copiers with Canon...

Since you cannot read properly, let me help you out:

By 1973, the scientists and engineers at Parc had invented a personal computer called the Xerox Alto. While the other early computers were cumbersome to operate, the Xerox Alto was very similar to a PC today, with a mouse to navigate an intuitive graphic user interface. Users clicked on icons and opened windows, without needing to type in commands to open a program. It included the first WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) word processor, called Bravo, that allowed you to edit text on screen – all features that we now take for granted. The device was apparently so appealing that relatives of Parc’s employees would often come into the labs at night to get a glimpse of the future technology.
Mysteriously, however, Xerox failed to commercialise the product. As the company dithered, two young entrepreneurs called Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were inspired by what was happening at Parc and incorporated elements of the Alto into their own designs. The rest is history.
 

tanwahtiu

Alfrescian
Loyal
And... what is it that u cannot understand.... uhhhh?

Yrs is cut and paste which was not yr research or article.... nor was there any opinion from yrself.....

What the fuck u want to paste this article for..... dickhead and ardehole....


Since you cannot read properly, let me help you out:

By 1973, the scientists and engineers at Parc had invented a personal computer called the Xerox Alto. While the other early computers were cumbersome to operate, the Xerox Alto was very similar to a PC today, with a mouse to navigate an intuitive graphic user interface. Users clicked on icons and opened windows, without needing to type in commands to open a program. It included the first WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) word processor, called Bravo, that allowed you to edit text on screen – all features that we now take for granted. The device was apparently so appealing that relatives of Parc’s employees would often come into the labs at night to get a glimpse of the future technology.
Mysteriously, however, Xerox failed to commercialise the product. As the company dithered, two young entrepreneurs called Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were inspired by what was happening at Parc and incorporated elements of the Alto into their own designs. The rest is history.
Since you cannot read properly, let me help you out:

By 1973, the scientists and engineers at Parc had invented a personal computer called the Xerox Alto. While the other early computers were cumbersome to operate, the Xerox Alto was very similar to a PC today, with a mouse to navigate an intuitive graphic user interface. Users clicked on icons and opened windows, without needing to type in commands to open a program. It included the first WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) word processor, called Bravo, that allowed you to edit text on screen – all features that we now take for granted. The device was apparently so appealing that relatives of Parc’s employees would often come into the labs at night to get a glimpse of the future technology.
Mysteriously, however, Xerox failed to commercialise the product. As the company dithered, two young entrepreneurs called Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were inspired by what was happening at Parc and incorporated elements of the Alto into their own designs. The rest is history.
 

Nice-Gook

Alfrescian
Loyal
And... what is it that u cannot understand.... uhhhh?

Yrs is cut and paste which was not yr research or article.... nor was there any opinion from yrself.....

What the fuck u want to paste this article for..... dickhead and ardehole....
I figure this poster an ah neh lah ...we spell Pte they spell Pvt
 

nayr69sg

Super Moderator
Staff member
SuperMod
This competency trap is everywhere.

The moment you have invested enough time money and effort in something then you dont want to look at other things.

People stick in their comfort zones.

In the case of Xerox the whole point of this discussion is NOT how Xerox lost the photocopier wars. But how they missed an opportunity to be the big leader in PC computing.

Timing is everything. Had the Parc PCs come on at the time the photocopier business was going very bad for Xerox and there were no competitors in the PC industry I am sure they would have worked on it.

It is the same for individuals too. A doctor spends a lot of time getting his degree and licence to practice. He makes good money but not fantastic money. The doctor and his friend work a new ecommerce business plan and get it started. It works but is not very lucrative. The doctor gets a job offer on the other side of the country. He leaves. The remaining friend works on the business and turns it into Amazon.

It is very hard to drop what is doing well or sacrifice parts of what is going well for something new and has only potential. Whereas if you have nothing it is easier to chase potential.

Even shareholders will be angry with you. What is the management doing? We are doing well with this business why throw money at this other thing that doesnt make money?

It is no surprise that Elon Musk can work on so many different projects at the same time because he is allowed to. None of his businesses are making big money.

The lesson to learn is if you want to be innovative you cannot be too successful in something existing.
 

Nice-Gook

Alfrescian
Loyal
This competency trap is everywhere.

The moment you have invested enough time money and effort in something then you dont want to look at other things.

People stick in their comfort zones.

In the case of Xerox the whole point of this discussion is NOT how Xerox lost the photocopier wars. But how they missed an opportunity to be the big leader in PC computing.

Timing is everything. Had the Parc PCs come on at the time the photocopier business was going very bad for Xerox and there were no competitors in the PC industry I am sure they would have worked on it.

It is the same for individuals too. A doctor spends a lot of time getting his degree and licence to practice. He makes good money but not fantastic money. The doctor and his friend work a new ecommerce business plan and get it started. It works but is not very lucrative. The doctor gets a job offer on the other side of the country. He leaves. The remaining friend works on the business and turns it into Amazon.

It is very hard to drop what is doing well or sacrifice parts of what is going well for something new and has only potential. Whereas if you have nothing it is easier to chase potential.

Even shareholders will be angry with you. What is the management doing? We are doing well with this business why throw money at this other thing that doesnt make money?

It is no surprise that Elon Musk can work on so many different projects at the same time because he is allowed to. None of his businesses are making big money.

The lesson to learn is if you want to be innovative you cannot be too successful in something existing.
Similarly IBM , was it the one who once said no market for computers beyond the few banks ? When mainframe as large as a whole room was used in computing ...than there is Ericsson and Ford and so on ..,in management we have this theory called promoted beyond your competency ...simply put , you have reached your stagnancy
 

nayr69sg

Super Moderator
Staff member
SuperMod
Similarly IBM , was it the one who once said no market for computers beyond the few banks ? When mainframe as large as a whole room was used in computing ...than there is Ericsson and Ford and so on ..,in management we have this theory called promoted beyond your competency ...simply put , you have reached your stagnancy

In simple terms victims of your own success.

Nokia is another story more recently.

BlackBerry.

But you know what? It is ok. Because those business had already made money. So what's so bad about it? Better to have been successful than never to have been.

I am personally living this competency trap myself. As a doctor I earn good money. But I hate my work. It is non inspiring. The college wants all doctors to be like lemmings all the same do the same say the same.

But if I ask myself what should I do different? I cant really think of anything. And of course the returns for any new startup business will be small at the start and hard to justify sacrificing my time from my work.

Anyone has any advice how you get out of this trap? Is it all or nothing?

What kind of business should I go into?
 

Nice-Gook

Alfrescian
Loyal
In simple terms victims of your own success.

Nokia is another story more recently.

BlackBerry.

But you know what? It is ok. Because those business had already made money. So what's so bad about it? Better to have been successful than never to have been.

I am personally living this competency trap myself. As a doctor I earn good money. But I hate my work. It is non inspiring. The college wants all doctors to be like lemmings all the same do the same say the same.

But if I ask myself what should I do different? I cant really think of anything. And of course the returns for any new startup business will be small at the start and hard to justify sacrificing my time from my work.

Anyone has any advice how you get out of this trap? Is it all or nothing?

What kind of business should I go into?
I have to fill you in about business having already made enough money bit ...since I was in thick of it for many years ...businesses making a bundle in good years Is not like a working man getting a big fat bonus which goes into his savings ...any money made in business mostly goes into its expansion ...thus increasing overheads like more rental for space , hiring more people and sinking more money in machineries and such ..,it’s ok if the business continues smoothly but if it did not than the business fall is even greater monetarily
 

nayr69sg

Super Moderator
Staff member
SuperMod
I have to fill you in about business having already made enough money bit ...since I was in thick of it for many years ...businesses making a bundle in good years Is not like a working man getting a big fat bonus which goes into his savings ...any money made in business mostly goes into its expansion ...thus increasing overheads like more rental for space , hiring more people and sinking more money in machineries and such ..,it’s ok if the business continues smoothly but if it did not than the business fall is even greater monetarily

True. But the CEOs got their payouts.

The shareholders got their dividends. Some shareholders would have sold out.

I find it hard to believe no one made big money with Kodak, Nokia, Xerox, Hewlett Packard, IBM.
 

Nice-Gook

Alfrescian
Loyal
True. But the CEOs got their payouts.

The shareholders got their dividends. Some shareholders would have sold out.

I find it hard to believe no one made big money with Kodak, Nokia, Xerox, Hewlett Packard, IBM.
Yes , indeed but it takes many many years to reach a level for the company to becomes corporatists ...in between a lots and lots of sacrifices ..ultimately when it reaches such a level , the management and equity holders are separated..now , this is when the passion for the original business becomes diluted ...than incompetency kicks in
 

tanwahtiu

Alfrescian
Loyal
Any biz is good biz if u are lucky...

Give u a parable...

A guy I know failed many times inhis biz. That is he get into the wrong biz. He is a serial entrepreneur .... keep trying....

Then he went to Bangkok, the begining of Thai whores biz spreading...

He got married one Thai whore.. bring her to be whore in Singapore. As his biz expand he get more Thai girls into Singapore.

The PAP knows him but he seems to be lucky got his gang willing ro go to jail for him.

Fortunately, PAP give up and get him to be licensed pimp becos they want to eliminate the spread of HIV and STD than to eliminate whore biz.... See virus again...

He prosperous thereafter...

What's the story of this parable, yr turn...

Lucky, opportunity or good timing...

We are nuturing our brain to empower our wisdom, to ensure that we keep and pass on the same quality of life style we have enjoyed
In simple terms victims of your own success.

Nokia is another story more recently.

BlackBerry.

But you know what? It is ok. Because those business had already made money. So what's so bad about it? Better to have been successful than never to have been.

I am personally living this competency trap myself. As a doctor I earn good money. But I hate my work. It is non inspiring. The college wants all doctors to be like lemmings all the same do the same say the same.

But if I ask myself what should I do different? I cant really think of anything. And of course the returns for any new startup business will be small at the start and hard to justify sacrificing my time from my work.

Anyone has any advice how you get out of this trap? Is it all or nothing?

What kind of business should I go into?

for generations to come after us...


A friend in need is a friend indeed .,,but we can go on fighting each other on the matter of politics ..but may sit and share a beer or two
 

nayr69sg

Super Moderator
Staff member
SuperMod
Any biz is good biz if u are lucky...

Give u a parable...

A guy I know failed many times inhis biz. That is he get into the wrong biz. He is a serial entrepreneur .... keep trying....

Then he went to Bangkok, the begining of Thai whores biz spreading...

He got married one Thai whore.. bring her to be whore in Singapore. As his biz expand he get more Thai girls into Singapore.

The PAP knows him but he seems to be lucky got his gang willing ro go to jail for him.

Fortunately, PAP give up and get him to be licensed pimp becos they want to eliminate the spread of HIV and STD than to eliminate whore biz.... See virus again...

He prosperous thereafter...

What's the story of this parable, yr turn...

Lucky, opportunity or good timing...

We are nuturing our brain to empower our wisdom, to ensure that we keep and pass on the same quality of life style we have enjoyed


for generations to come after us...

And then sometimes you hear other words of wisdom to stay the course dont get distracted. Stick with what works. Dont get sidetracked.

So you are right. Timing. Luck.

But I also know that if one doesnr get up to the batting plate to hit then you can confirm never get home run. But in the process will have many many strike outs.

I have no experience with business aside from my stint in MLM which ended when MOH clamped down on doctors doing it.

How does @Leongsam Do his business?

I have read that having mentors is important too.
 

Leongsam

High Order Twit / Low SES subject
Admin
Asset
I have to fill you in about business having already made enough money bit ...since I was in thick of it for many years ...businesses making a bundle in good years Is not like a working man getting a big fat bonus which goes into his savings ...any money made in business mostly goes into its expansion ...thus increasing overheads like more rental for space , hiring more people and sinking more money in machineries and such ..,it’s ok if the business continues smoothly but if it did not than the business fall is even greater monetarily

I retired early by starting a business and then selling it when the going was good. I learned this from my time in Silicon Valley in the early 80s.

In order to make money in business you have to cash out or go public.
 

nayr69sg

Super Moderator
Staff member
SuperMod
I retired early by starting a business and then selling it when the going was good. I learned this from my time in Silicon Valley in the early 80s.

In order to make money in business you have to cash out or go public.

Do you have any plans for your existing businesses? Or new businesses?
 

tanwahtiu

Alfrescian
Loyal
Simply put... follow the trend....

In this age of super high tech era.... follow their tech trend... every 10-15 years there is a newer technology superceded the outdated one....

Follow the CES, Consumer Electrnic Show Expose to see where the technology is hot...

In yr medical field follow the technology trend where they are now.... it wont goes wrong if u hv the knowledge of the industry.... more scanning machines to sell them... these school textbooks doktor dont hv clues one... so sell them scanners that the dont use, get them to carry debt.... then resell the units for them to anothet doktors....

Not saying to get u to cheat... its like that one, they are the ones that want kill competitions but instead kill themselves becos they are incompetent...

They make too much from selling drug commissions from drugs producers... they buy a Ferrari to drive 50km/hr in the city only... howlian ahh....


And then sometimes you hear other words of wisdom to stay the course dont get distracted. Stick with what works. Dont get sidetracked.

So you are right. Timing. Luck.

But I also know that if one doesnr get up to the batting plate to hit then you can confirm never get home run. But in the process will have many many strike outs.

I have no experience with business aside from my stint in MLM which ended when MOH clamped down on doctors doing it.

How does @Leongsam Do his business?

I have read that having mentors is important too.
 

Leongsam

High Order Twit / Low SES subject
Admin
Asset
Do you have any plans for your existing businesses? Or new businesses?

Whatever I'm doing in now is just pocket money. Personal expenditure is pretty low nowadays. Outgoings are mainly imposed by the government or council.

I used to enjoy traveling but it became progressively more of a hassle and now I hate the thought of going through any international airport. I restrict my travel to places I can drive to.

My biggest regret is not making enough money to buy a plane. :smile:
 

Nice-Gook

Alfrescian
Loyal
I retired early by starting a business and then selling it when the going was good. I learned this from my time in Silicon Valley in the early 80s.

In order to make money in business you have to cash out or go public.
yours and mine are the exact opposite ...you worked saved and did businees as a retirement option ...me ,was reluctantly pushed into businees ...my ambition was to be an academic ...but business was in the blood that ran in the family so as to speak ...and after much later in life started to work for corporations with deep deep deep pockets simply because I would not take such a risk myself ...
 
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