The High Cost of Being a "Warrior" in 2026: Why I Finally Walked Away

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:01]Are you a warrior or are you a sage?

[00:00:05]Because the warrior is dead. For 30 years, we've been told that the grind, the high velocity output, the relentless pursuit of more, more, more was the only way to win. But look around. In 2026, that path no longer leads to promotion.

[00:00:27]It just leads to burnout, a systemic breakdown. People are going to make you redundant anyway. Companies are closing.

[00:00:36]Companies don't care. If you're in your 50s and you're feeling the urge to quiet quit or walk away entirely like I did, you aren't failing, you're evolving.

[00:00:48]Today I'm talking about why the workforce is losing its warriors and why it's time for you to become the sage because it's time to stop being that warrior who burns out and start becoming the sage who thrives post 50. I'm talking about the soft exit or how early retirement maybe can be the tactical reset that saves your sanity and your true identity. Reality check time.

[00:01:20]Burnout is structural. It's not personal. Before we get to the how.

[00:01:25]Let's look at the why. If you feel exhausted, burnt out, lackluster, that sense of ine, you're not alone. I felt like that for a few years before I retired, especially since the pandemic. And in 2026, a report found 91% of workers reported extreme stress. This isn't just midcareer fatigue. It's a structural failure of how we work in this modern world. And post pandemic when for a brief while thanks to working from home, we may have discovered a new way to work to reduce the stress to reconfigure that work life balance. Corporations slowly regressed to that old school way back to the office edicts and presenteeism in senior management who hated not seeing their minions in their office like a king likes to see his kingdom and the peasants to feed his ego and sort of feed his selfworth. But there is a hidden cost to this presenteeism. In a US report I came across, research shows that burnout is estimated to cost employees between $4,000 and $20,000 per employee annually. With a vast majority of these costs, approximately 98% of the costs stemming from this presentism.

[00:02:46]When you look from the sage perspective, the sage realizes that that raw output is a young person's game. It's a young man's game now. And research shows already that burnout is hitting Gen Z as early as 25. That's 17 years before the historical average. You know that sort of midlife crisis of our 40s, but it's happening to Gen Z in their late 20s.

[00:03:14]That's crazy. Well, if like me at 50 plus, you're thinking, nah, we've already run that race. It's time to change the game. So, is early retirement the solution? Well, I say it was for me, but I recognize that we're all unique and maybe not in that position financially. Most people think retirement is this kind of hard stop.

[00:03:37]You're a senior executive of sales or it on Friday and then that guy staring at his lawn mower on Monday. And that's a high-risk event for your identity. And that identity issue is a theme that crops up on this channel a lot. So, please like and subscribe. But it crops up a lot for a good reason. That identity crisis is real. I bound this path here. Should I go up there or up there? No. No. I'll keep walking. So maybe what's actually needed is a soft exit. This is a strategic move to phase down your hours or take a temporary step back to reclaim your mental health while keeping your professional skin in the game. Now, of course, this can be done several ways. And I would argue that quiet quitting, see my video here, is a possible option. If you can pull it off, that is. Now, I had some controversial comments when I talk about quiet quitting. Some people go absolutely, and other people go, I always give 110%.

[00:04:39]Well, that number doesn't exist, but yeah, fine. This is basically doing your job competently, but almost on autopilot, not going above and beyond and all that. After all, no one is paying you extra for doing that little bit extra. Just seen a man walking his cat on a lead. Don't see that every day.

[00:04:59]So, working on autopilot, thus freeing up your brain for more interesting things. I think if you're experienced in your role, this quiet quitting is a lot easier to achieve. And and if you're in your 50s, well, you should be experienced in your role by now. You should know it. Inside out, upside down, round and round. I'll be honest, I coasted for the last few years, still delivering the same output and in fairness sometimes more than all the headless chickens in the office running around me produced. Just I did it with less frenetic activity and panicking.

[00:05:34]I'd hacked the process of my job so that the process itself just ran like a welloiled machine without me thinking.

[00:05:41]My experience gave me the confidence in my results which meant I didn't have to sort of triple check be paranoid or worry whether it was good enough or too nervous to present it to the senior management you know I just did it with confidence with the experience with efficiency here's my analysis here's my conclusions these are my recommendations any questions approved bish bash bos this gave me autonomy as I wasn't thinking about my job 24/7 and all of that I wasn't even thinking about it 9 to5 if I'm brutally honest as I got the work done comfortably within the time frame. I mean, with a bit of effort, I could probably cram my job into three days. And I challenge a lot of people, especially office workers, whether once you give up all that chitchat, the door stepping, the tea breaks, and all of that, the gossip with Sharon from accounts, you could probably cram all your work into 3 days. Really, not everyone, no, but I reckon there's a lot who could. So yeah, I could cram it in within three days, still fulfilling my contractual requirements and targets because at the end of the day, you still get paid for the 9-to-F5 days a week.

[00:06:52]And so this freed up time along with working from home. This freed up time for me to work on my projects, my YouTube hobby like streaming, live streaming in the evenings because I wasn't tired from working so hard. And at the same time, I had the chance to think about what I really wanted in life, what my priorities were now, and how I might get there and achieve those sort of dreams and priorities and values in my life. Why did this approach work for me? Autonomy is king. For the 50 plus demographic, for the level 50, the Gen X's, autonomy is a much bigger predictor of happiness than your actual net worth. Now I'm retired. I'm the master of my own autonomy. I really see the value in that autonomy. It's worth so much more to your soul than your money in the bank. Yes, you need money in the bank to achieve autonomy, of course, but the dividend return, the real value is the time you give yourself.

[00:07:58]Priceless. To me, it's about moving from controlled behavior, doing what others demand of you, to autonomous behavior, doing what aligns with who we actually are, who we actually want to be. And that is when you hit sage level. And as ever, there's real science behind why being a sage is actually a competitive advantage.

[00:08:24]Psychologists talk about two types of intelligence. There's fluid intelligence, the warrior. This is about speed, solving novel problems, raw processing power, and it peaks in your 20s and declines after your 30s. And then there's crystallized intelligence, the sage. This is wisdom, accumulated knowledge, pattern recognition. This actually increases through late adulthood. When you think about it, that pattern recognition is often what makes being able to do your job on autopilot a lot easier because you recognize the patterns, the reoccurring themes that happen in your day-to-day role that younger people might not really know yet. You kind of know what's going to happen when you roll the dice sort of thing because you've been there, done that, and got the t-shirt. So, the basic strategy is to try and stop trying to outrun a 25year-old on processing speed. You'll lose. Just like me trying to compete with my 16-year-old in CS:GO or Call of Duty. I have no chance. He obliterates me. You're such a noob, bro. The sweet spot for emotional intelligence and financial literacy is actually between 55 and 60. So far from declining, you're actually peaking. You're just peing differently. So sensei, I hear you cry.

[00:09:48]How do we truly become the sage? Well, it's interesting you should ask. Please like and subscribe. And that's a start.

[00:09:55]There are two key areas for me. And I've mentioned it before on the channel, mindset and health. What we need is the sage daily playbook. Becoming the sage isn't about hitting a specific financial number. you know the magic number to retire and then switching your brain off. No, it's about pivoting your sort of internal operating system. It's about seeing that early retirement is not an exit but an upgrade to manage this transition. We can use the hover framework and yeah, it's a little bit corporate babble inspired by site cap strategist Kerry Hannon. And I've adapted the concept for early retirement and life post 50. The Hover Framework can help with the mindset needed in retirement, especially early retirement.

[00:10:45]H is for hope, designing future relevance. Early retirement isn't the end of the road. It's the beginning of act three. Hope is the tactical belief that your level 50 lifestyle would be more fulfilling than your corporate one.

[00:10:59]O for optimism, curiosity over fear.

[00:11:03]Trade the what if I run out of money anxiety for what can I actually do with 43 hours a week. Imagine that. What would I actually do with that time?

[00:11:14]Approach retirement as an open world game, not some closing door. V is for value. Leveraging crystallized wisdom that I talked about earlier. You're more than your job title.

[00:11:27]There's a metaphor about how we feel in life sometimes.

[00:11:32]This old boat's had its day, but not us.

[00:11:37]Oh no, we ain't had our day. Where were we? Oh, yeah. You're more than your job title. The sage recognizes that decades of problem solving and industry knowledge are crystallized assets that can be applied to, I don't know, consulting, volunteering, passion projects, helping others, planning your garden, whatever. You have a set of these crystallized skills. E, enthusiasm, energetic learning. Retirement kills the bored, not the busy. Maintain a beginner's mind by learning new skills, whether it's, you know, mastering AI in your older life, learning a language, learning that guitar, learning DIY like I'm going to try and do a bit more.

[00:12:23]Whatever it is, do this with genuine vigor. And finally, R resilience, the soft exit. Use soft exits. Phasing out work or taking sbaticals or quiet quitting to protect your mental energy.

[00:12:41]Resilience is knowing that a bad market in investment terms or whatever or a failed hobby doesn't define your success. The shift to becoming a sage is to move from defending the past success to designing future relevance. Say look look in football terms soccer stop parking the bus. That's uh prevent defense I think for my US friends with your bank account and start playing attacking football. That's offense for my US cousins. you know, with your life.

[00:13:16]In soccer, in football, if you park the bus for too long, you invite constant pressure. In retirement, if you park the bus, you invite boredom, isolation, and the health tax of inactivity. And the net result, yeah, you might keep a clean sheet or keep your savings, but it's a miserable game to watch or live. Then of course there's your general health which I've talked about before on this channel post 50 and in early retirement health is the only currency that doesn't inflate. You can have the perfect nest egg but if you can't move you can't spend it. This is the sage's vitality protocol. Rule number one movement not exercise. The warrior tries to beat the body into submission with highintensity grinding. High rocks crossfit ultramarathons.

[00:14:06]Yeah. Look at me. The sage treats movement like a snack. Frequent, light, sustainable. We're trading the gym floor for the pickle ball court and the daily walk like this as I do. Get yourself some dumbbells or as somebody in my comments recently suggested, a kettle bell or whatever. And do some training, you know, at home. Watch a YouTube video three times a week. The goal isn't a six-pack. I mean, sure, that'd be nice.

[00:14:34]is the community and the longevity to actually enjoy the life that you've built. And we need to track our health a bit more. A bit like my cbo method of tracking your money a bit more and being on top of it a lot more just for peace of mind. The same is true with health.

[00:14:50]You we need a kind of coobo of health.

[00:14:52]The sage stops guessing and starts tracking. We're moving from reactive medicine and all that nonsense, being in denial about that leaky bladder or, you know, being out of breath when you're walking up them stairs to proactive intel. Think of those wearables, whether it's that phone, the smartwatch you thought was cool to have as your sort of vitality dashboard, HRV, sleep cycles, the steps. All of these aren't just stats. They're early warning systems.

[00:15:25]When you think about it, I mean, you can pick up a really effective, cool, simple smartwatch for about 20 quid. Good ones.

[00:15:33]It doesn't have to be the top of the range Apple Watch, you loser. And let's get real about the honest scale. For years, we've treated the weighing scale in your bathroom like an enemy or a judge, imagining the device is sort of going or every time we go near it. I used to not have a weighing scale in the house out of principle as I've seen younger people obsess over it and their weight and stuff like that in an unhealthy way. And when you're young, I think that can lead to sort of dangerous paths. When you're young, just enjoy yourself. Your body can handle it. And just look in the mirror now and then and check yourself out to see if you just look healthy. Be honest with yourself. But when you're older, yeah, now is the time to pay attention and monitor your weight because you're not young and your body cannot handle it like it once did. The sage treats it like a data point. It's not about vanity or any of that. It's about diligence. Weight creeps up silently after 50. I mean, tell me about it. And I don't even drink anymore. But daily tracking allows for a tiny 1% course correction today. So you don't have to face a radical desperate diet six months from now. Just little alterations because you're monitoring your health and your weight and stuff like that. The sage keeps their health account full by making sure this cash is always top priority. 2026 researchers ditching the warrior hustle for the sage vibe is the ultimate cheat code against burning out. We spent 30 years being the warrior. We fought the battles. We've climbed the ladders. and we've survived the systemic shifts. But level 50 is different. It's the watershed moment where you decide if the rest of your life will be a slow fade out or a strategic upgrade. Don't just park the bus and wait for the clock to run out.

[00:17:30]That's a miserable game to play. Switch your operating system. Become the sage.

[00:17:37]Start making those 1% course corrections today in your work, your mind, your health so you can play attacking football with your future. Because while the world has had enough of tired warriors, what we need now is your wisdom. So there you go. Are you still grinding? Are you ready to evolve? Are you ready to make the transition from warrior to sage? Let me know in the comments down below. I'm always interested to hear what people have got to say. And of course, if you like this video, please hit the likes because I like it, YouTube likes it, and it helps people like you find content just like this. And of course, if you're new to my channel, do me the great honor, please.

[00:18:18]Could you hit that subscribe button?

[00:18:19]Toggle that notification bell. And that way, you'll know when I go live with videos just like this. Talking videos just like this. Why don't you check out the videos here? See the ones here and there? Oh, check them out. You'll love them. Thanks for watching. Cheers.