The wake up call

At 48, I found myself at a significant crossroads in my career. A new senior management opportunity was presented to me, and I was faced with a decision: should I continue in my current CEO position, navigating the company through familiar waters and waiting for the day when retirement would naturally arrive, or should I take the leap, embracing a new challenge for the next decade? This new role meant I would end my career at 58, a nice, rounded age to step back from the workforce. After a lot of thought, I took the job. It was exciting, nerve-wracking, and yet, somehow, liberating—an opportunity to push my boundaries once more before the inevitable shift into retirement.

Yet, ever since I accepted that role, the idea of retirement has lingered in my thoughts in a way it never had before. Retirement is one of those subjects that, for much of our lives, feels distant, even abstract. It’s a destination we all know we’ll reach, but for many years, it remains hidden somewhere over the horizon. When you’re in the midst of a thriving career, your mind is preoccupied with growth, success, and the day-to-day challenges of leading a business and a family. Retirement sits somewhere on the back burner, a future problem, not a present concern.

But with this new position came a heightened awareness that I was now running my final lap. That knowledge triggered a whole new set of questions that I had previously ignored or conveniently postponed. What would my life look like after I stepped away from my career? How would I fill my days when they were no longer governed by work? Would I opt for partial retirement, continuing to contribute in some capacity, or would I fully embrace a life of leisure and reflection? And, perhaps most importantly, was I truly prepared for the financial reality of retirement?

Despite being a fund manager and continuously advocating for the importance of investing, I had assumed that my savings would automatically be enough when the time came. I thought that by the time I was ready to retire, I’d have more than sufficient funds to replace my income. Yet, the truth was more sobering. I realized that I, like many others, had neglected to carefully map out what my financial future would truly look like. I had fallen into the trap of assuming that the numbers would work out without really crunching them. Retirement planning, I came to understand, is not just about how much you save but about the longevity of those savings.

For some, a billion Rupiah might seem like a lot of money, but when you start calculating living expenses, healthcare costs, and the unknowns of the future, you realize that what seems like a large sum can quickly deplete. It wasn’t just about reaching a certain financial milestone; it was about ensuring that the money would last for as long as I would need it. This realization hit me hard. I had known about the concept of longevity risk for years, but it wasn’t until I started seriously contemplating my own retirement that it became clear I wasn’t immune to it. The risk of outliving my savings was real, and it was something I needed to address with a sense of urgency.