THE DAY THE DOOR CLOSED

For years, I told anyone who asked that I would retire someday. I said it the way I intended to read War and Peace or learn Spanish: sincerely, repeatedly, and without any real urgency.

Retirement was something ahead of me, visible but distant, a place I assumed I’d reach without ever easing off the gas.

What changed wasn’t a birthday or a financial calculation. It was structure. Early in 2023, as Simploy implemented EOS, something subtle but decisive happened. The business stopped feeling like an extension of my nervous system and started behaving like a machine that could run without my constant touch. That’s when retirement stopped being theoretical. Somehow, I just knew I could leave at the end of 2024. And more importantly, I knew the company would be fine.

Still, knowledge has a way of remaining abstract until it acquires a prop.

Mine was a nameplate.

On a quiet weekend late in 2024, I moved out of my office of almost 20 years. No speeches. No lingering. Just a few boxes and the practical decisions that accompany them. That Monday, my son Carson moved in.

Before that happened, my wife Sharon was with me as I removed the nametag from my office door. Then I replaced it with another: Carson King – CEO.

I treated the moment with more ceremony than I might have expected. Sharon took a photo, as if we were documenting a historical event, or perhaps guarding against disbelief later. I felt no fear. No regret. Just a profound sense of arrival. Wow, I remember thinking. It’s really happening.

And then came the weight of it. A curious mixture of emotions that resisted hierarchy. Pride and sadness. Relief and something like grief, though quieter. If that day someone had watched us from the hallway, they might have assumed the moment was celebratory. They would’ve been wrong. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling yet. I only knew that when those names changed, I no longer had an office. And I was gone in a way that couldn’t be undone.

It took a few days to tie up some loose ends. But the first real weekday of retirement arrived without ceremony as well.

I woke up to a morning that asked nothing of me. No meetings. No problems waiting for attention. No inbox judging my response time. For decades, the business had occupied my thoughts the way weather spreads across the sky: constant, often unnoticed, but always there. Growth, clients, people, systems, reputation. Even in bed at night, these would all queue themselves neatly, afraid they might lose their turn.

And then, too suddenly, they didn’t.

The day felt empty. Not lonely. Not unneeded. Sharon was there, and we never doubted our place together. But empty in a way that was both emotional and mental. The hours stretched without shape. Time, which had once been parceled into urgent blocks, now lay open and unassigned. It lost its punctuation.

At first, the quiet was unsettling. After spending a lifetime responding to alarms, some audible, most internal, the silence felt suspicious. My thoughts kept returning to a single question, delivered without punctuation: How will I handle this? I never truly doubted that I would. Part of that confidence came from my faith in Jesus, and part of it from a hard-earned faith in myself.

I didn’t rush to fill the space. I didn’t volunteer for boards or invent projects to justify my calendar. Instead, I sulked.

There’s no better word for it. I was crabby. Restless. Irritated by nothing in particular. Sharon noticed long before I admitted it to myself. Eventually, she called me on it, which was fair. I wasn’t ashamed, exactly. Nor was I confused. I was simply unoccupied in a way I had never been before, and my temperament didn’t know what to do with that freedom.

Owners, I’ve come to believe, are especially bad at stillness. We carry weight for so long that when it lifts, we instinctively reach for it again, just to be sure it’s not still there.

In time, the vacuum began to close. As nature abhors emptiness, so does the mind. Thoughts I once dismissed as indulgent began to move in. Watching the news and the weather. Letting a day unfold without commentary. Doing nothing for longer than the occasional stolen afternoon. I had always enjoyed those moments, but they never lasted.

Extended stillness felt neither undeserved nor entirely earned. I’ve lived with a case of imposter syndrome most of my life, and retirement did nothing to cure it. Still, doing nothing never felt like failure. It simply felt unfamiliar.

Watching the company continue without me has been unexpectedly gratifying. It turns out they don’t need me much at all. That, I learned, is not a slight but a success. Seeing Carson lead something I once carried has been the most rewarding experience of my professional life. I expected a steady stream of questions. There were plenty at first, then fewer, spaced farther apart, like popcorn slowing in the pan. He still calls now and then, perhaps partly so I feel included. But, except for a little advice to him, I stay out of operations. I stepped aside almost immediately, and I’ve stayed there.

The pride I feel now is different from business pride. It’s more personal. More durable.

Do I miss being needed? Yes. But not as validation. I never relied on that. I miss it the way an actor might miss a role after the curtain comes down for the last time. There was no single moment when I realized no one was waiting for my decisions anymore. It arrived gradually, like dusk. I expected it. I thought I was prepared. And still, it required adjustment.

Time itself changed character. In the early months, days blurred together. Urgency evaporated. Tuesdays lost their edges. Rhythm returned eventually, though not in the old way. Sharon and I always traveled, but trips were more frequent. I began to see friends more often. I worked on a few personal projects. I napped more than I ever had. There was more Sharon. More quiet. More Nick, the trainer. More willingness to let the day be what it is rather than what it demands. More time with grandkids.

And one day, without announcement, I realized I was fine.

Not exuberant. Not reinvented. Just settled. Lighter and quieter at once. The fire that once burned in my belly, hot, constant, and necessary, had turned to embers. For a while, I worried about that. But I’ve come to understand something essential: a fire doesn’t have to burn forever to keep you warm.

If I could speak to the man I was on that first empty morning, I wouldn’t offer advice or reassurance dressed up as wisdom. I’d simply say this: Give it time, Jay.

Retirement, for me, hasn’t been about escape or reinvention. It’s been about acceptance. Acceptance that seasons change. Contribution doesn’t always require control. Purpose can widen rather than disappear. I still know that my work mattered. I still believe in legacy. I also believe there is value in learning when to change the nametag, close the door quietly, and trust that what you built knows how to stand on its own.

There is life after the noise.

It just takes a while for your ears to adjust.

Jay King switching out the nameplate on his former office door.