I spent 33 years in the computer industry. Twenty of those at Trader Joe’s, managing large teams, navigating corporate politics, and building a career that looked successful from the outside. Then I walked away from all of it at 53 to become a professional writer.
That decision taught me more about happiness and prosperity than three decades of climbing the ladder ever did. Not because the corporate life was bad. It was not. But because I had been living someone else’s definition of success without examining whether it was mine. For more, see what freedom means to a writer.
Here is what I have learned since then, distilled from 113+ published books, two books that deal directly with these questions (God is Everything and The Ethical Workplace), and a career change that forced me to figure out what actually matters.
Your Choices Ripple Further Than You Think
One moment of kindness ripples through lives you will never know about.Share on X
Every choice you make affects people beyond the ones directly involved. Be kind to a cashier, and they treat the next customer differently. That customer goes home in a better mood and is more patient with their family. The family carries that patience into their own interactions. One moment of kindness ripples through lives you will never know about. For more, see life lessons i’ve learned.
The reverse is equally true. Rudeness, impatience, and selfishness spread through the same networks just as efficiently.
That is observable reality. When I managed teams of dozens of people, I watched this play out daily. A manager who started the morning angry created an entire department of stressed, defensive employees by noon. A manager who treated people with respect created a team that solved problems instead of creating them.
Your mood, your words, and your behavior are not private. They radiate outward into every interaction you have. Knowing that changes how you approach even trivial moments.
Treat Other People as If They Are You
Every major religion has some version of the Golden Rule. Treat others as you would want to be treated. Most people interpret this as a nice idea that makes society work better.
I think the real reason it works is simpler than that. The person in front of you is dealing with the same fundamental experience you are: trying to figure out life with incomplete information, managing fear and uncertainty, wanting to matter. When you treat someone with respect and kindness, you are acknowledging that shared experience. When you treat someone as an obstacle or a tool, you are pretending they are fundamentally different from you. They are not.
This applies everywhere. In the workplace, in your family, in a grocery store checkout line. The people around you are not background characters in your story. They are living their own story with the same complexity and difficulty you face in yours.
How Do You Build Financial Independence?
This is not a feel-good topic, but it is essential. Financial independence gives you the freedom to make ethical choices even when they are costly. It gives you the ability to walk away from toxic situations. It gives you options when life delivers the unexpected.
I could not have left my corporate career to become a writer if I had not built financial stability first. That stability did not come from a windfall or a lucky break. It came from decades of living below my means, avoiding debt, and building skills that had market value.
Financial independence does not mean being rich. It means having enough that you are not trapped. The person who cannot afford to lose their job cannot afford to stand up to an unethical boss. The person drowning in debt cannot take a risk on a career change. Money does not buy happiness, but financial insecurity makes happiness very difficult.
Eliminate Toxic Influences
During my corporate career, I worked for racist, lying, micromanaging, and psychotic bosses. I wrote an entire book about it (My Boss is Insane). The single most important lesson from those experiences: you cannot fix toxic people, and staying in their orbit damages you.
This applies beyond the workplace. Relationships that consistently drain you, friendships built on obligation instead of mutual respect, social media feeds that leave you angry or anxious. These are not neutral. They actively degrade your ability to think clearly, make good decisions, and enjoy your life.
Removing toxic influences is not selfish. It is a prerequisite for everything else. You cannot build a prosperous life while people and systems are actively tearing it down.
Pursue What Genuinely Interests You
Your authentic interests are not random. They are signals pointing toward what you are supposed to be doing with your time. When I was managing computer departments, I was competent but not fulfilled. When I started writing, I found the thing that made 10,000-word days feel like freedom instead of labor.
This does not mean quit your job tomorrow to follow your bliss. It means pay attention to what energizes you and what drains you. Move toward the energy. If you are drawn to art, make art. If you are driven to help others, find a way to do it that sustains you financially. If you love building things, build.
The things that interest you will change over time. What fascinated me in my twenties is not what drives me in my sixties. That evolution is natural. Do not cling to outdated purposes. Allow your interests and goals to shift as you grow.
Create Something of Value
Heard elsewhere
For a business, the return on a book shows up as leads, speaking, and authority before royalties, the case Richard made on Business Innovators Network.
One of the most reliable sources of fulfillment is producing something that matters to other people. For me, that is books. I have ghostwritten 54+ books for clients whose ideas deserved to reach an audience. I have published 113+ of my own. I coach fiction writers through the process of creating their first novel. Every one of those projects created something that did not exist before.
The medium does not matter. Write, teach, build, design, cook, repair, organize. The point is to add to the world instead of just consume from it. People who only consume are never satisfied because consumption is inherently temporary. People who create have a relationship with their work that outlasts any single moment of pleasure.
Stop Waiting for Permission
I waited until I was 53 to pursue writing full-time. I spent decades telling myself the timing was not right, the finances were not there, the risk was too high. Some of that was legitimate caution. Some of it was fear disguised as practicality.
If I could go back, I would have started writing seriously a decade earlier. Not quit my job earlier, necessarily, but started writing alongside it with real commitment instead of treating it as a someday dream.
Whatever you are putting off because the timing is not perfect, start now. Not recklessly. Not without a plan. But start. The perfect moment does not arrive. You create it by beginning.
The Practical Summary
Happiness and prosperity are not destinations. They are the result of consistent choices made over time. Choose kindness in small moments. Treat people as if their experience matters as much as yours. Build financial stability so you have options. Remove toxic influences that drain your energy. Follow your genuine interests. Create things of value. Stop waiting for permission to live the life you want.
None of this requires perfection. It requires intention and persistence. Every day you make choices that either build the life you want or maintain the one you have by default. Choose deliberately.
For deeper exploration of these ideas, see God is Everything and The Ethical Workplace.
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