After more than 30 years in the mining industry, and celebrating his 60th birthday this year, Jubilee Mines founder Kerry Harmanis has ruled out an entry back to the sector and suggested the possibility of a career change.
He is one of the richest people in Australia after selling his 16 per cent stake in Jubilee, a company he founded 20 years ago, to global mining giant Xstrata in a cash takeover worth $3.1 billion last year.
The sale boosted his personal fortune to $470 million, ranking him fifth in the recent WA Business News wealth creators list behind Andrew Forrest, Multiplex's Andrew Roberts, Kerry Stokes and Aquila Resources' Tony Poli.
While retirement may appear to some as the next likely option for the cashed-up, recently unemployed Mr Harmanis, his address to delegates at the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies conference last week indicated he was not content to put his feet up yet.
However, he has ruled out rejoining the resource sector, citing the current regulatory environment as an impediment to any thoughts of accepting a directorship for a publicly listed company.
"In some ways there's really nowhere for me to go in business after Jubilee. I really can't top that, nor do I want to," he said.
Instead, Mr Harmanis is intent on sharing his personal experiences and life lessons on a deeper level, where qualities such as faith, humility, love, care and compassion come from and cannot be measured scientifically.
"It is paramount in our lives that we find that other part to us," Mr Harmanis said.
"The 'being' part; that part's real and that's the path that we as a civilisation of people have lost contact with.
"I can say that my life has been easier the more I tap into this, into my heart rather than the mind."
Mr Harmanis said it was all about striking a balance, something he has wrestled with at times.
"My deeper emphasis is in helping make changes to the world by, I'm not quite sure how this is all going to gel yet, but by speaking about the greater awareness and consciousness I have today," he said.
"I start with myself, by balancing myself in my outward activities by involving myself in all contemplative aspects from things like tai chi, meditation, spiritual practices, prayer.
"I'm not woosy, I haven't gone silly or mushy, I'm just saying these are the things that I do that I like and that all of us can do.
"I know there'll be those out there who say 'oh it's easy for him to say all this with all that money', but I do know that the more I open my heart (not having to be right, to be arrogant, to be greedy etcetera), the more came to me."
Mr Harmanis said he planned to donate some of his fortune to charitable causes.
