First, however, he had to pass through his own private purgatory, of which he got his initial taste not long after he had completed his exit. He and his wife had decided to go away for a long weekend in Wisconsin. On the drive north, it suddenly occurred to him that, for the first time in years, he didn't have to worry about being reachable. Nobody wanted to reach him. Nobody cared where he was. "It felt weird," he says. "I hadn't realized up to then how important it was for me to feel needed."
The worst part was that he had no clue what to do about it. He knew that, for his sanity's sake, he had to find some kind of meaningful work, but he searched for it in vain over the next year. "I would get up at 6 o'clock, shower, get dressed, and go to the basement," Jackson says. "Then I would sit down and rearrange the pencils all day. It was like playing business." Even his church turned him away when he showed up to volunteer: There weren't any openings. Finally, out of sheer desperation, he took out a pad of paper and drew a T on it. On one side, he wrote down what he was willing to do; on the other, what he wasn't willing to do. "The not-willing-to-do list turned out to be really, really helpful," Jackson says. "I had things on it like not giving up control over my time, and not putting more than a certain amount of money at risk, and not forgoing vacations and other family things. That list really brought clarity to me." More to the point, it opened up a path he could begin to follow in his quest to move from success to significance.
It's evening in Inverness, and the group has moved to Jackson's dining room, where the discussion continues over dinner. The topic at the moment is money -- specifically, how important is it to sell your business for as much money as possible?
"I had quite a struggle with that," says Ed Kaiser, who went to work at his father's company, Polyline -- a distributor of recording tape reels and other media packaging products -- in 1976, became its sole owner in 1993, and sold it 12 years later. "Some of the potential acquirers might have moved the company and put all the employees out of work. Fortunately, I was able to find a buyer who met my minimum dollar amount and kept everyone employed."
"It's a struggle for me because I haven't sold yet," says Jean Moran, whose company, LMI Packaging Solutions, also was started by her father. It makes heat-sealed lidding, such as the foil tops for yogurt containers. "I don't want to sell now because I'm still growing, our people are growing, and the company is still making a difference in their lives. I can't remember how much money we've made each year, but I can tell you every person who has left and later come back and said, 'It changed my life.' Selling something like that for the most money feels repulsive to me right now. But we'll see. I may feel differently when the time for selling gets here."
"I don't think selling a company for the most money is a bad thing, provided you're mindful of what you choose to accomplish in the sale," says Le Monier, the serial entrepreneur. "You have to ask yourself, What are my priorities and goals? When I sell my company, my first goal will be to economically and publicly thank my leadership team for what they've done. I'm going to maximize the dollars, but that's in order to take care of the team. I want to send them on in the best possible way."
"The question is: What's a successful exit?" says Kathy Houde, who worked her way up from office manager to president of Calumet Photographic -- a supplier of professional photo equipment -- and participated in the leveraged buyout of the company in 1987. She cashed out in 1996 but stayed on until 2001. "I think it has to do with getting through the transition to a new life. I'm probably 80 percent of the way through it."
Dave Hale has been sitting across the table, listening intently but with a look of mild distaste on his face. At 73, he is the oldest member of the group. His company, Scale-Tronix, is a designer and manufacturer of medical scales, which he and his business partner founded in 1975. "I don't know," he says. "The idea of ending what I do is just a terrible thought. Exiting seems like dying to me. Maybe I'm weird, but to me, exit is a four-letter word."
"I'm not saying you shouldn't enjoy what you do," says Le Monier. "I do, but I've always separated my passions and investments. My wife and kids, my community, my church -- those are my passions. My business is an investment."
"My business is my passion," says Hale.
"Yes, but the frightening part for you and me is, 'What am I, if not my business?' "
"I can't help thinking about your friend who committed suicide," says Jack Altschuler, the former water treatment company owner. "I don't think we humans exist very well without a clear sense of purpose. If my only purpose is my business and I leave my business, I have no purpose."
"Yes, can I be more than my business purpose?" says Le Monier. "I believe I was put on the planet to do more than make a buck. But making a buck frees me to discover my purpose more deeply and more personally."
"Look at the age of this group," says Altschuler. "Yeah, you have to make a buck to live, but is that the primary driver for any of us anymore?"
There are two people whose membership in the group I find a little baffling. One, of course, is Dave Hale, who hates the idea of selling and leaving the business that his life has centered on for the past 35 years. The other is Joel Altschul (not to be confused with Jack Altschuler), who sold his company seven years ago and has, to all appearances, successfully made the transition to a new, and very full, life of travel and leisure.
If Hale's reasons for joining are somewhat mysterious, his resistance to exiting is not. He has a great life. His product innovations have had a huge impact on the quality of patient care in hospitals and medical centers, and he keeps coming up with new ones. That hasn't stopped him from having adventures outside the business. He and his wife of 49 years sail all over the world aboard the expedition ship National Geographic Explorer. He owns an airplane, although he hasn't been able to fly it since the FAA grounded him following a heart attack in 2007. He owns condos in Breckinridge, Colorado, where he skis during the winter and is a major investor in a company that turns scrap plastic into floor mats, carpet runners, and the like.
Then there's Scale-Tronix, which is built around an unusual partnership. His business partner handles sales and marketing from White Plains, New York, while he handles design and manufacturing in Carol Stream, Illinois. The two of them, Hale says, speak to each other once every few months. "She sends in the orders, and we make the scales," he says. "We don't need to talk on a routine basis." He adds that they meet in person once every few years.
