I Retired Early, Got Bored and Returned to Work — and Now I’m Happier Than Ever
Written by
Laura Bogart
Edited by
Kristen Mae
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For many people, retiring early is a life goal. They work hard and make sacrifices so they can clock out of the workforce well before their peers. In many ways, Christine Landis was living that dream. She started out as a processor at a fintech company in the casino industry and worked her way up to quality control, manager, vice president, and eventually president and CEO. Landis eventually found herself in a position to sell the company — originally founded by her mother in the 1970s.
“It happened very quickly — I was not looking to sell. In fact, I had five companies approach me over the years to buy us and, in so many words, threatened to compete with us — and I always said no,” she said. “I was quite content. I had a great team working with me, we were producing exceptional products, and our clients believed in us. But one company made an offer I couldn’t refuse, and within three months of an letter of intent, I sold the company and walked away.”
As it turned out, early retirement wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Landis found herself wanting to flex her creative and entrepreneurial muscles again, eventually founding Peacock Parent, a resource that helps busy parents manage their households more effectively. Her story offers a fascinating look at the intersection of work and purpose, and we’re happy she shared it with GOBankingRates.
Refining Her Entrepreneurial Skills
Landis inherited the company in 2010 when her mother passed away from recurring breast cancer. She understood that the company she inherited operated in a niche industry with only one product. Over the next eight years, she invested heavily in technology to help her business expand and innovate in the credit and gaming space — eventually enabling it to compete with a publicly traded company.
“I loved creating new products. It was truly a joy to recognize a gap and figure out how to solve it,” she said. “I’ve always been an ‘efficiency-first’ type of personality, and being able to quantify the ‘win’ of a product not just in units sold but in time saved became really gratifying.”
Then came the offer she couldn’t refuse. While the new owners asked her to stay on, she knew she wouldn’t have the same level of autonomy. She also had another reason for selling and stepping back: She and her husband were trying to start a family. Within three months of the sale, she was pregnant.
Learning To Appreciate Downtime
Once she no longer headed to the office every day, Landis realized she’d never not worked. The experience of having so much downtime was jarring — she recalls driving to a yoga class at 10 a.m. on a Monday and being baffled by all the cars on the road. She wondered why everyone wasn’t at work.
It took effort to figure out how to use her newfound freedom from work in a way that felt meaningful, especially as early motherhood now consumed much of her time and energy.
“Once I adapted to having more control over my time and seeing that as a privilege, as the goal we all aspire to, I was able to embrace the gift of being able to choose how I spend my time,” she said.
Ironically, not working helped teach her a lesson about the value of her own time — and that insight would become the seed for her next business endeavor.
Inspiration To Step Back Into the Workforce
Though she was technically a stay-at-home mom, Landis realized she needed to carve out time for herself and her own interests outside of motherhood. She found that her experience delegating tasks as a corporate leader served her well as a parent.
“It was very natural to me to hire experts and empower them to transfer knowledge in a more efficient and meaningful way so that I could be a better parent or help with some of the physical tasks that depleted my energy — the ones I just dreaded doing — so I could be freed up to have more energy to show up for tummy time and floor play,” she said.
Aware of what protecting her own time and peace of mind meant to her — and realizing that many of her friends who were also parents lacked the same freedom — she came up with the idea for Peacock Parent.
Through Peacock Parent, as well as Proxy by Peacock Parent, parents can access pre-vetted resources and assistance that help them tackle the challenging parts of managing a household and show up as more present parents for their children.
Getting Back to Work
Inspired by her new idea, Landis rented a separate office space to focus on creating content — ensuring her creativity could flow without interruptions. Her passion for returning to the workforce was immediate; she loved how everything felt possible.
“I had no experience with social media or B2C marketing, so exploring that space and learning was like sending myself back to business school — in the best possible way,” she said. “I had so many ideas, and trying to get those on paper and decipher what was meaningful and helpful to others was the most fun phase — when you let your mind expand to all possibilities, no limits, and dream big.”
Landis says having permission to think big again was one of her favorite parts of re-entering the workforce.
“I’ve always been a problem solver, so to have a new puzzle to solve and tinker with in the back of my mind was a gift,” she said.
Pondering Re-Retirement
Landis began Peacock Parent with a five-year plan, and though she’s roughly halfway through it, she’s not too worried about the prospect of retiring again in a few years.
“The plan was never about making money — it’s about what I wanted to accomplish. And I am on target for what I want to do, create, and imprint on this world,” she said. “Rather than money being the indicator of when to ‘retire,’ it will be my own personal fulfillment — knowing that I took a risk, I created something that’s never been done before (Proxy) and impacted people’s lives in a meaningful way.”
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