To write or not to write…

When I began writing this column in 2013, I was not sure if I could write beyond a month. Thankfully, I have managed to continue beyond six years which means over 300 weekly columns. The only other person I know who writes almost every week is Richard Edelman – that is a blog, which means it gets published anyway. In my case I have a content director who has the right to pull me up for my content. So, this makes me the longest running weekly columnist in the world of Public Relations, possibly. In a few weeks we will enter the year 2020. My plan is to convert this column into something else. Either a weekly interview of India’s great Public Relations leaders or to make it autobiographical and share my professional journey over 52 weeks that will become a collection of chapters for a book.

There are times when I feel like discontinuing writing, in order to focus on couple of goals. But then I feel writing makes one think. Especially writing that gets published. And in the digital world it has the potential to go far and wide. So, what motivates one to write. There is no one answer to this question. Each one writes for a different reason. I write for joy. And I write because that is part of my retirement plan. I want to retire to write. I have been speaking of retirement for the last couple of years and I’m writing about it for the first time. I turn 40 next year and one of my goals was as a young professional in my early 20s fifteen years ago was to retire when I turn 40 with a few objectives achieved. Those include:

1. Buying a home and repaying the loan
2. Work overseas for atleast two years
3. Have a decent set of savings
4. Visit atleast 40 countries and
5. Support a dozen causes with decent annual grants from my earnings

I’m happy to share that I managed to do all of the above by just staying focussed and being an organised go-getter. I also define success as the ability to hit my head to a pillow each night and fall asleep in less than a minute which many of my peers struggle to do

Retirement does not mean stopping what one is doing and going into a retirement home. To me retirement means the following –

• To not work for money because one has planned well to ensure sustenance
• To be able to do the things you love without permissions from bosses
• To explore new avenues of learning and doing, focusing on a passion
• To give back to communities in ways one can’t when fully occupied
• To find the right successors and be assured they will manage well
• To live a dream life to the best extent possible in a meaningful manner
• To take risks that one cannot do when there are EMIs
• To have at least one home that does not have a loan that ensures peaceful shelter
• To make every moment count without sweating the small stuff
• To enjoy peace of mind that comes from knowing that there is nothing to worry about

If one can manage to do most of the above, he or she has attained a kind of retirement early on and can aspire to do so many things that are otherwise just dreams. I take pride in having chosen a career in Public Relations that enabled me to achieve what I set out do.

Amith Prabhu

Founder at PRomise Foundation

Amith Prabhu is the Founder of the PRomise Foundation which organises PRAXIS, India’s annual summit of reputation management professionals.

He is also the Founding Dean of the School of Communications & Reputation (SCoRe).

He can be reached at @amithpr on twitter.