Ridiculously cheap seasonal produce deals can help to perk me up sometimes. These apples are perfect for my green smoothies and they have a good shelf life, so yes, I bought a few bags!
Over the last few weeks, my day to day life has grown brutally demanding and I’ve been pushing myself very hard, including a few consecutive days of working nearly around the clock. As a result, I started getting pretty run down. Exhaustion set in and with it, some weak thinking that led me back down the path to my old nemesis, depression, which I had not experienced in quite a while. All my problems seemed to have grown to insurmountable sizes and new ones were popping up faster than I could deal with them. I was really letting things get to me until Saturday night, when I made a conscious decision to get the situation under control.
I determined that in my overloaded state, I had fallen into
three main forms of self destruction. I chose to focus on attacking just those items.
First, I had been getting very little sleep to the point where I wasn’t even physically
able to get up at my usual time (lately between 5 and 5:30). As a result, I
would be behind schedule before my day even started. I had even missed two
workouts – something I try extremely hard to avoid. This was happening partially
because of the very high demands on my time, but also due to something I was
doing. When I get too stressed out, I tend to get stuck in a state of mental
paralysis and waste a bunch of time browsing the internet on my phone, and I
had fallen back into that habit. So that was the second thing. Third, I was
making everything more difficult by indulging my sweet tooth too often –
another habit I’m prone to when I’m overstressed. Each of these things was
causing problems on its own, but each was also making the others worse in some
way. I had trapped myself in a negative feedback loop.
So I resolved to get those three things under control. I
would force myself to get to bed by 9:30 each night so I could be up by 5:30
and still get enough sleep. I would limit myself to only browsing the internet
on my phone during my time on the cardio machines throughout the week. And
finally, I would limit myself to a maximum of one “treat” per week. I didn’t go
extreme on any of these items, but set goals I felt were both reasonable and
adequate to improve things dramatically.
Getting up this morning was brutal, but I did it. I suspect
it will be easier to fall asleep tonight (I’m writing this on Sunday). The phone
item proved too difficult on fantasy football day, but I only had a few quick
lapses, which didn’t waste more than fifteen minutes or so total. And I successfully
got through the day without eating any treats. It helped that I made myself some
delicious, but healthy meals to enjoy. And the results? I do feel much better.
Things aren’t completely back under control yet, but I believe I’m well on my
way to getting there. Of course, it remains to be seen how I fare with Monday
morning, as I’m sure the stress level will be cranked right back up to eleven.
But hopefully I will be able to keep myself mindful of the fact that the way I
respond to things is extremely important. Plus, I only have to make it through
three days this week and then I have four more to use for further recovery
purposes.
Do you have any preferred methods for snapping yourself out
of it when you lose sight of things? Please share them in the comments or email
them to admin@healthwealthpower.com.
And have a great Monday!
Believe it or not, this tranquil scene of water and mist is on a little trail at a rest area only a hundred or so feet from a major highway between Houston and Dallas. Spots like this offer a great opportunity for travelers like me to “sharpen the saw,” if only for a few minutes.
Happy Monday! If you haven’t read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, I highly recommend it. Most likely, it will either help to explain some of the trends you’re seeing in your life or it will give you some ideas that will improve that life dramatically if you implement them. Simply put, it’s an absolute classic in the world of self help, success oriented books. I could easily write posts about every one of the habits and how they’ve helped me, but right now I feel compelled to write about the very last one: sharpening the saw.
The reason I want to write about this concept is that
although last week was pretty rough, today, I feel better than I have in a
while heading into a new one. What did I do this weekend that brought this
about? Yes, I did some work on both of my side businesses (I’m working on a
brand new second one; I’m sure I’ll talk more about that as it progresses),
this blog, and my W2 job. But mostly, I sharpened the saw. What does that
entail? Instead of focusing on production, you focus on doing the things that
support it.
In my case, I got some fresh air while playing tennis, did
my usual weekend cardio, cleaned up my apartment, read, drank delicious coffee,
talked to some good friends, made and enjoyed some delicious food, watched some
quality football (unfortunately the Packers won, but at least it was a good
game), and just generally relaxed and recharged. None of this is revolutionary
stuff, and none of it will directly result in anything measurable. But that’s
not the point.
The point is that on a Monday morning, I feel energized and
ready to attack my workout and get my week going. As always, there are plenty
of challenges ahead. Plenty of things I would rather not do, or even think
about. But take away that weekend I had, and rather than feeling ready to take
all of it on, I’m feeling run down and nowhere near in the right frame of mind.
So that’s about it for today. When you get a chance in your life, I encourage
you to sharpen your own saw.
Here’s to an awesome start to the week for all of us!
Getting out in the woods can be a great way to quiet your mind and figure some things out.
Today I’m going to write about something that is breaking my
heart because I see it happening way too often, resulting in devastating
consequences in people’s lives and subsequently, for society at large. There
seems to be an epidemic involving people thinking they can have whatever they
want without paying any cost at all. I’ve succumbed to this siren song at times
in my own life so I know it’s very powerful. But I’ve learned that everything
on life has a cost. Everything. Want to be in great physical shape? You pay for
it by spending a lot of time in the gym and eating well. Want to live in a big,
beautiful house? You have to pay a lot of money. Want a good career? You have
to dedicate a lot of time to it.
What I’m describing ought to be considered a law of nature
at this point. If there were no costs, what would anything be worth? Everyone
would have the best of everything and none of it would have any meaning
whatsoever. But the world doesn’t have the resources to support that and even
if it did, we would all be living terribly unfulfilled lives. Why? Fulfillment
comes from facing challenges, overcoming them, and growing as a result. You get
none of that when you take the easy road. Imagine if you had everything you
wanted right now – a big mansion, millions of dollars, a fleet of expensive
vehicles, a beautiful and loving family, the admiration of many people, etc. Your
vision probably includes you being happy. But what happens if you stay in that
vision as the days, weeks, months, and years go by? I believe that smile is
going to fade. Why do you have all those emblems of success? Why do those
people love you? There isn’t a reason. You didn’t earn any of it. And that
element is crucial. So many people don’t understand this and it crushes them in
life. They fetishize the material rewards of success but that’s nothing but
fool’s gold. The value of success isn’t in rewards; it’s in the process of
earning it.
And beyond simply depriving yourself of fulfillment, making
the easy choices in life will actually make things worse for you. By bypassing
paying the cost of something, you increase the cost you will eventually have to
pay. If you just make the minimum payment on your credit card bill today
instead of paying the full statement balance, that bill is going to come back
bigger next month. If you keep doing it, eventually you are going to drown in
credit card debt. If you skip the gym today, tomorrow you’re going to have to
work even harder just to get back to where you could have been. If you stop
going to the gym altogether, eventually you are going to have health problems
you otherwise wouldn’t have had.
Most people aren’t very future oriented and as a result,
they see substantially higher long term costs as a perfectly acceptable trade
off for somewhat lower costs today. This is how obese people are built – one bad
decision at a time. This is how people in their sixties with no choice but to
work until they drop dead got there – “I’ll start saving tomorrow.” Please do
not choose that kind of path for yourself. I highly recommend The Time Paradox
by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd. That book explains this concept brilliantly in
scientific terms.
Think about who you would be in life if there were no limits.
Whatever that looks like, I’m here to tell you that you can have it. Maybe not
exactly what you pictured, but you can make your life look much more like that
than it does now in ways that you will never believe. But you have to start
doing the work. Not next week, not tomorrow, NOW. You are building your future
with every decision you make. Instead of what is easiest right now, think about
where you actually want to go in life and make the choice that is going to move
you in that direction. It won’t be long before those little, good decisions
will start to add up to big, positive changes and you’ll realize how important
every one of them really was. And from there, it will get easier and easier to
make more of them – and bigger ones too.
Or, you can stop working on something important because it’s
too hard. You can have a Twinkie because vegetables don’t taste as good. You
can sit on your increasingly fat ass and watch mindless garbage on tv because you
don’t feel like doing anything productive. You get the idea. But don’t blame
anyone else when you have gone nowhere in life in twenty years. Don’t demand
that successful people pay for your mistakes. Don’t try to force your
bitterness on others who have made better choices than you have. Whether or not
you want to earn anything in life, I can assure you that you will. But it might
not be an outcome you, or anyone, would want. Please choose something better
and make something out of your time on this earth.
No matter what your goals are with the opposite sex, you
will probably have to play the numbers game. And since my divorce a few years
ago, I’ve done just that. Not long ago, I met a woman who seemed pretty
worthwhile at first. She was attractive and clearly intelligent. But my
assessment changed in an instantaneous and permanent manner when she said
something that absolutely appalled me. “I wouldn’t want to be with someone like
you because you clearly live a healthy lifestyle and I don’t want to feel
pressured to live that way too.”
One issue with dating women in their early to mid twenties is
that you can’t necessarily assess their lifestyle very easily. Sure, some of
them are already significantly overweight at that age and others are showing
signs of aging prematurely, both of which are indicative of consistently poor
choices in one or more areas. But many of them still look great thanks to
nothing but a combination of age and genetics. And that was clearly the case here.
She went on to describe her party girl lifestyle, which sounded like it mostly
involved staying out drinking at bars, clubs, etc until the wee hours of the
morning, rather proudly. This was clearly a woman who is well on her way to hitting
the wall head first and at full speed.
But it wasn’t even the fact that she’s squandering every resource she has – her health, her money, and the time her very life is made up of – that shocked me. I see women her age still living that way all the time. Consequently, the reason I tend to date women that age, as opposed to younger than that, is because the smarter ones tend to be starting to realize that they aren’t going to be young forever and adjusting their choices accordingly. The reason I usually avoid women thirty and above is that many of the ones who are single at that age have never made those all important adjustments, but now want kids regardless – with whoever is foolish or desperate enough to attach himself to that mess for a couple of decades at a minimum.
Anyway, don’t get me wrong. I’ve suspected plenty of women
of harboring this “I don’t want to be with someone who looks like he might have
even modest expectations” mentality. I’ve just never met one who was actually
willing to admit it before. She apparently wants to date a man with no more
drive or self discipline than she has. And the crazy part is that she went on
to talk forlornly about being single as the minutes, which started to seem like
hours, passed. Of course she is single! What kind of man would be attracted
enough to someone with an attitude like that to have anything beyond casual sex
with her? What are the odds that she herself would find a man like that
attractive? It’s amazing how self destructive people can be. But in this case,
she has an almost unbelievable combination of awareness of what she’s doing to
herself and insistence on continuing to do it.
The lesson here, of course, is to live exactly the opposite
way this woman is. Make the right choices, not the easiest ones. Surround
yourself with people who motivate you to be better in every area of your life.
Avoid people who are going to drag you down to their level with their mere presence.
I’m sure you have all heard the quote about being the average of the five
people you spend the most time with. While I don’t think it’s quite that
simple, I’m a big believer in the basic concept. Clearly the woman I met was,
too. She just had a very perplexing vision for what she wanted her “average” to
be. More power to her, I guess. But I strongly recommend you choose the best
life you can for yourself. Why would anyone want a crappy one?
Happy Friday! Here is the conclusion to Wednesday’s post.
Waiting our turn to taxi. Jets are usually prioritized and with good reason – they’re burning hundreds of dollars of fuel in just minutes!
I’ve discussed how I got here plenty over the life of this nearly year old blog so I won’t revisit that here. This would be a good post to check out if you’re interested in the cliff notes version. Over the last few years, I’ve met all sorts of people and seen all sorts of things – a whole world I never would have experienced if my old life hadn’t ended so catastrophically that I decided to start over nearly from scratch. And one thing I’ve learned is that you aren’t defined by your current circumstances. You can be anything you want to be. If you don’t like your current circumstances, change them. It will probably require making some changes to yourself, but that is possible as well.
In fact, beyond being just possible, it’s inevitable. Remember those “cool kids” from high school? The quarterback and the hottest girl, who were always at the center of everything? Well, they changed too. They got married and had kids. Now he’s fat, bald, and trapped in a crappy job he hates while she’s fat and bitter and sits at home watching daytime tv all day. Obviously, that isn’t what always happens, although I do think peaking too early in life can be disastrous. But every person on this planet will change and so will their circumstances. Winners today are definitely not guaranteed to be winners tomorrow. And blessed are the “late bloomers” among us. We had to fight through significant challenges before the sun would shine in our worlds and as a result, today it’s shining brighter than we could ever have imagined it would.
So who do you want to be and what do you want your life to look like? You do have a say in these matters. Look around you. Do you see the people you DON’T want to be? Those people had a choice too. Chances are, their attitude was that they didn’t. Life just “happened” to them. And look at them now. They didn’t decide what they wanted and force it to come into their lives, so they got the leftovers no one else wanted. Not making a choice is still a choice. I strongly suggest that if you’re a pessimist, you make changing that your first priority. I’ve recommended some great books on the subject in the past, but anything by Martin Seligman is probably the best recommendation I can possibly make.
From there, think about what you want your life to be.
Envision it. If you were who you wanted to be, and you lived exactly the life
you wanted, what would that look like? Now don’t just let it fade away like another
daydream. Write it down. Next, figure out what steps you need to take in order
to make your reality look like the one you just imagined. This may require some
research. Finally, break the necessary changes down into small, actionable
items and start doing them. Don’t get caught in the traps of perfectionism or “analysis
paralysis.” Starting imperfectly is much better than never starting at all.
That’s it. You should start to notice changes in both your
life and yourself almost immediately. Taking action is very powerful. It’s one of
the main differences between people who life “happens to” and people who mold
their lives into what they want them to be. I know someone who bought his first
rental house five years ago and now has over seventy of them and a seven figure
net worth to boot. I know someone else who has gone from a beginner sales rep
to one of the best and most successful in our company in about that same
timeframe. You really can transform your life, and in a lot less time than you
would probably guess. But it won’t happen unless you decide to make it.
The very coffee machine referred to in the post making the very coffee I was waiting for when I conceived the idea for it.
The other day, I heard a song that reminded me of a very different time in my life. My then fiancé and I were both working what felt like dead end jobs with few prospects for anything better. We lived in Wisconsin, suffering through the standard six months of hellish weather on an annual basis. Everything I did in life, including staying in Wisconsin, was dedicated to her – something I now know was a terrible mistake and would have been whether or not our eventual marriage had only lasted two years. But how could I know that? I hadn’t been with many women before her, so like most men in that situation, I held on for dear life and smothered any chance of her remaining interested in me out of existence. Anyway, we lived in a decent, but modest apartment, and we each drove a 10+ year old vehicle. We had some fun, but mostly it amounted to hanging out with family and friends. Every spare dollar went to paying down our student loans. From an objective perspective, our life together wasn’t much to look at. However, I was naively happy and didn’t expect any of the fundamental parts of it to change too dramatically from there. There’s a powerful sense of security in that, albeit a false one in many cases.
But as I waited for the fancy coffee machine in the
clubhouse of the luxury apartment complex I live in to finish brewing the
amazing coffee I enjoy every morning I’m in town, I marveled at how vastly
different my life is today. While it can certainly be stressful, and is particularly
so lately given the current state of the industry, my job pays about three
times what I made back in the time I was referring to in the last paragraph. My
side business adds almost as much as I was making back then with very little
time commitment required on my part, bringing my total income to about four
times what it was. I still have friends and family, but now instead of a long
term relationship, I tend towards enjoying being with someone while it’s mutually
enjoyable, then moving on when that passes. I appreciate every experience and I
look forward to the next. I have no trouble finding women who want to spend
time with me, so there isn’t any over-committing on my part and as a result, my
relationships tend to be much better while they last. I fly planes and write
for this blog in my spare time, and enjoy both activities immensely. Oh yeah.
And I’m enjoying all of this stuff from the comfort of my favorite state, over
a thousand miles from bitter Wisconsin, and I get to spend regular time in four
of its biggest and best cities – Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin. Why
choose just one?
Problems that used to seriously worry me aren’t even problems at all now. I was having some trouble with my computer the other day. And while I was able to get it fixed with the help of my teacher turned IT professional mother, it occurred to me that if I had needed to replace my year and a half old computer, I could do so and I would barely have noticed the difference in cashflow that month. I’m considering going on a nice vacation early next year and it has already occurred to me that once again, I can pay for it out of monthly cashflow and not really think twice. Oh. And I just bought myself a luxury sports car – although I did stay true to my principles in the way that I did it. I’ll get into that next week; I promise this time! The point of this isn’t to brag. The point is that there is a night and day difference between these two periods in my life. I’m going to guess what you may be thinking here. There must have been a decade or more of hard work separating these two almost polar opposite chapters of my life, right? Wrong. Try six years. And if you’re going from the demise of my ill fated marriage until today, when things still weren’t dramatically different from the first paragraph above, you can make that three and a half. I have wasted much of my life so far as a pessimist. I still struggle with it. But it is much easier to challenge that way of thinking now that I’ve seen the seemingly miraculous changes that are possible in life.
Good morning everyone! Today’s post is the conclusion to my post from last Monday. Whereas that one exhibited more of an “old testament” tone, today’s is more in the “gospel” direction. It felt good to write it and I hope it feels equally good to read it.
I believe I’ve used this picture before, but I don’t even care. It’s an awesome message that tends to come true more often than not.
But just like with anything else, too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing. I’m on track to be a millionaire by forty if I continue to work that long and I still spend sleepless nights envisioning what might happen if I lose my job. I get worked up over relatively small setbacks that pose almost zero threat to my long term success in any area of life. Through hard work on my mindset and rapidly improving actual circumstances, I have gotten better about this. But my desires are still way too close to the security end of the spectrum. As far as I can tell, there are at least two antidotes to this problem.
One is to assess your position and worst case scenario from
a rational viewpoint. Think about things as if an average, unbiased observer
was watching your life on tv. In my case, if I lost my job, I could live on
cash for at least six months without that income and if I needed to go further,
I could liquidate enough in other assets to extend that by years. It is pretty
difficult to imagine a scenario where I wouldn’t have another job by the time
all my assets were exhausted and it wouldn’t even have to be a remotely
comparable job to my existing one since my living expenses are less than $30k a
year and I could cut them by half and still have everything I technically
needed. But if none of that worked out, I have friends and family. I’m not the
easiest guy on earth to get along with, as you may have guessed by reading my
blog, but there is almost a zero percent chance that no one would take me in
while I worked to get back on my feet. Even if no one would, there are
organizations and programs dedicated to people in such dire circumstances. And
even if none of that helped me, I see homeless people on the streets every day;
they are surviving somehow. Almost the entirety of this analysis is absurd
because I’m relatively unlikely to take the very first step down the path I’ve
just described. I’m well educated and intelligent, I have a good work ethic,
there is a (generally) high demand for people with my skillset, and thus far,
my income has increased rapidly and consistently.
Another approach is to look at things from the opposite
point of view. Since graduating from college, my income has risen over 20% on
an annualized basis and while obviously not infinitely sustainable, the rate
has only increased as the years have gone on. While I’m on a strongly upward
trend in my current job, it is fairly common knowledge within my industry that
my employer offers more of an experience building opportunity than a wealth
building one and as such, the pay is on the low end of the market. I
occasionally get calls from recruiters throwing out numbers $50-100k higher
than my current total compensation in an effort to get me to interview for
positions I’m getting more qualified for every day. Those calls are getting
more frequent over time and in the next year or two, it’s likely that the right
one will come. I have a profitable side business that I will likely be able to
scale up as large as I would ever want to. My investment account balances grow
pretty rapidly since I’m adding a huge portion of my income to them on an
ongoing basis. I have a great network of past and current coworkers, many of
whom I count as friends. And I have talents besides the ones I’m currently
using to bring in money that I have only barely begun to explore. A strong
argument could be made that I am likely to have substantially more resources
for the foreseeable future – not less, and certainly not none.
All in all, I’m an extremely fortunate guy and a hell of a
lot would have to go wrong in this world before I’d be on the street. Your
situation may be better or worse than mine but working through the analysis
would likely make you feel better if you’re a chronic worrier like me. If it
doesn’t make you feel better, then figure out what would and start setting some
goals that will help you move in that direction. But the bottom line is this:
time spent worrying irrationally is time that could have been spent enjoying
the buffet of happy experiences and growth opportunities life offers every day.
This is actually from Hurricane Ike, but last week’s tropical depression and subsequent flooding caused substantial devastation in Houston as well. Image courtesy of Jean-Marc Buytaert
I’ve reached a critical point. The stress of my situation has increased to such a degree that I need to address it in a very purposeful way in order to keep it from destroying me. It has literally begun to manifest itself in physical symptoms – terrible headaches that refuse to go away, shortness of breath at times, my heart rate speeding up for no apparent reason, etc. Obviously, I need to first acknowledge that I’m creating the symptoms by handling things the way I am on a psychological level. Then I need to figure out exactly what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, and what changes I need to make. I have the entire day (I’m writing this on Sunday) to dedicate to doing just that while I also work on the usual chores everyone has to do to keep life moving along smoothly. As part of that, I decided to write a post about the situation. I’m hoping that it will both help me to see things in a different way and inspire someone else to work through something of their own.
The heat is up about as hot as it can go. My employer’s
firings have continued and while we’re being reassured that anyone left is safe,
that, of course, means nothing beyond that the company has an interest in
tamping down the panic among its remaining employees as much as possible. Already
a couple they didn’t intend to lose, including our perennial number one rep,
have escaped and the consequences to the bottom line will be severe. They’ve
done it to themselves with their panicked reaction to the circumstances – and it
goes way beyond simply firing a large percentage of the sales force. I’m very
happy for him because it sounds like he is in a genuinely better situation with
enormous potential. But guys like that will always have employers lining up to
pay them basically whatever they want. For me and most of the other reps who have
neither been fired, nor found the door on our own, better options aren’t
necessarily available, especially at a time like this.
Every last one of us is looking, of course. But it’s not so
simple. Over the last year or so, our broader industry has been absolutely devastated
by a massive oversupply problem that has crushed revenue, putting hundreds of
small, medium, and even large businesses under and thousands of people out of work.
If one of us were to find a job at another company within the industry, we
would very likely be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. You never
know the reality of a job until you’re actually doing it and under the current
circumstances, that reality is very unlikely to be a good one – no matter where
you go and no matter how much a biased recruiter gushes about how great the
opportunity is. Every company is dealing with its own version of the same
problem right now.
So how about getting a similar job in a different industry?
No dice there either. First off, most of us are finding that there is very
little interest in our services in other industries because even though our skillsets
are extremely valuable in the right circumstances, we are not exempt from the fact
that most employers these days want someone who is already doing exactly the
same job they are applying for. While this is obviously a short-sighted attitude
that has made hiring quality people more and more difficult and caused significant
structural problems in our workforce, it’s still reality. Besides, even if I
could get into a different industry, it probably wouldn’t solve my problem for
long.
Why not? I’m in a barometer industry. When things get ugly,
we tend to get hit first. When things improve, we also tend to see that first. So
if I leave now after fighting a year of industry wide recession, I will
probably find myself in rapidly worsening conditions as the recession spreads
to my new industry. And to make matters worse, my current industry will likely
be in recovery mode by then. But having just changed jobs, I would be taking a
huge career risk at that point by doing so a second time in a short timeframe. It
is best to be in that 3-5 year tenure range before you make a switch if at all
possible. Anything less is likely to produce a suboptimal outcome in a variety
of ways.
So what should I do? I believe my best option is to continue
to stand and fight. I’ve made it this far and besides, bailing out doesn’t appear
likely to be possible, or even profitable. Going back to the beginning of this
post, since I can’t adjust the outside circumstances, I need to look inward to
improve the situation. I’ve already made the disappointing decision to stop
taking flying lessons. I was really enjoying them, but I simply can’t afford
the time the overall process was taking up anymore and it’s not something that
can be “half-assed.” I’ve also cut back on writing for this blog, although I did
so a little more than intended, dropping from three posts a week to one. I
intend to get that back up to two as I had planned.
The biggest thing I need to work on is to focus on
optimizing everything I can control and not letting the things I can’t stress
me out the way they have been. That means doing all those things that I know are
crucial to my continued success to the best of my ability every day. It also
means shutting out the noise. Or, as one of my more senior colleagues told me,
in times like this, you just have to keep your head down and work. This is one
of Stephen Covey’s seven laws and if you haven’t read his book, I strongly
recommend that you do.
I have to be as mentally strong as I possibly can right now.
The pendulum is going to swing back the other way for us. It always does. For
all I know, it could happen as soon as a few months from now. Even if it doesn’t,
it is almost certain that we’ve seen the worst of things. It would be a tragedy
to fight so hard for so long and then fall apart so close to the finish line –
the equivalent of being among the last soldiers killed in a battle that has
already been materially won. I’m not going to let that happen to me. And on the
other side of the finish line? A scenario where the market is improving again
and anyone who survived the purge is well positioned to take advantage. Every
hardship I’ve ever faced has made me a better man in some way. This one isn’t
going to be any different.
By the way, it appears this is my 100th post on this
blog. Thank you to everyone who has been along on this journey with me and I
hope you all have a great day!
One day, all evidence of this “mighty civilization” will be gone.
Good day to you, folks. I’ve got some serious philosophical rambling to do today, so let’s get right into it! I don’t care what the context is; security is no more real than the fairy tales people tell their kids where everyone lives happily ever after (the American versions, that is; the German versions are a whole different ball game!). A bike locked to a rack is a bolt cutter away from being stolen. A lifetime employee is a disappointing trip to the boss’ office from being unemployed. A decades long marriage can be ended by divorce or death on any given day. No matter how secure a home may seem, it can still be robbed, burned down, hit by an asteroid, etc. Even something as big and powerful as a country can, and eventually will end. And of course one day, we will all die. In my case, this was, and still occasionally is, a very difficult concept to accept. But it is an integral part of life and in fact, without it, life might not even be worth living.
When I was a kid, I remember the kind of fantasies I would
have about my future. I would be a pro athlete, a rock star, an astronaut, the
usual stuff. But for me, there was a unique element. Instead of romanticizing
the excesses or glorious moments of these “dream” lifestyles, as I’m sure many
people do, I lusted after mostly one aspect – the security. Sure, I would have
whatever I wanted. But that was a footnote. The real draw was that no one could
ever take my dream life away or put me in any real danger at all. I could
cordon myself away from the world and never be exposed to any problems again. I
would simply be too rich, too famous, too powerful to take down. Obviously this
wasn’t realistic. Living any of those lives, I could still have been taken out
by a plane crash, a car accident, or cancer. Rich and famous people are killed
by all of these, and by plenty of other things, on a regular basis.
As a young adult, I had similar, but more scaled down
dreams. Gone were the fantasies of fame and fortune. I didn’t need admirers or
a mansion or a fleet of Italian sports cars. I just wanted a decent house with
a decent car and a wife who loved me for who I was. I thought the fact that I
only wanted “enough” made me enlightened. But I still had the same illusion
that one day I would have this elusive security, if only I could accumulate
enough money to protect me and provide for a reasonable set of wants and needs
for the remainder of my life. And make no mistake; this is a personal demon
that I have to contend with to this day. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind,
enough money will buy me security. And that has led me to chase and hoard money
relentlessly. I have been very successful in this pursuit; but at times I’ve
taken it to an unhealthy degree, especially in my thought processes. There is a
word that sums this all up well – fear. My mind tries to tell me I’m not strong
enough to win out against the problems I face in life. It tries to tell me my
only option is to outrun them.
But that option doesn’t really exist and even if it did, it
wouldn’t be the right one, or even a good one. The people who get closest to
having no problems at all have bad outcomes at several times the rate of people
who don’t. Lottery winners often squander their newfound wealth in a matter of
years and end up less happy than they were in the first place. Genetic lottery
winners (pro athletes) often suffer a similar fate once they’ve retired.
Musical lottery winners (rock stars) destroy themselves with drugs at a much
higher rate than that of the general population. What goes up will inevitably
come down and if the ascent is abrupt and rapid, the descent is likely to be
the same way.
Of course, balance is crucial in life. Just because security isn’t possible, it doesn’t mean you’re going to leave your car running in the driveway with the doors open or visit the darkest alley in the most dangerous part of town at 2am with neither a weapon nor a companion. It also doesn’t mean you adopt the “I might die before retirement anyway so why bother saving anything” attitude. There is a reasonable range of security levels in life and your ideal point within it depends on your unique situation. But step one is to get to a point somewhere within it.
Sure, these guys make a lot of money. But they have to take enormous risks and literally mortgage their health, both physical and mental, for the remainder of their lives to do it. And those are just some of the obvious costs.
I don’t want to send the wrong message. I’ve chosen the path I’m on, I take full responsibility for it, and knowing what I know now, there is a good chance I would still do it again. But if you’re frustrated with your income, I want to pull back the curtain and give you a taste of what it really costs to make six figures and up. I don’t want to trivialize your situation. I spent years of my life in circumstances of scarcity to the point where I still struggle with strange personality quirks that are probably rooted in those experiences. I don’t want to go back there. So in the interest of presenting both sides as fairly as I can, I’m going to write a second post to follow this one called “Why You Want to Make the Big Bucks.” But today, we’re looking at why you wouldn’t want to. Here are my reasons, in no particular order.
You will have very few friends at work.
Sure, people might act friendly to
your face. But nothing happens in a vacuum these days. They may not know the
exact amount you make, but they know it’s a lot more than they do. And jealousy
can definitely make people treat you differently. You may even have people
trying to take you out in an attempt to get what you have for themselves. Additionally,
in order to survive in a very high income position, you have to do unpopular
things. If you’re in management, you will have to fire people, you will have to
tell people NO all the time, and you will have to choose between options that
seem terrible to everyone below you while ignoring the options they prefer
because they simply aren’t feasible. If you’re in sales, you will have to fight
for your deals. Hard. You can do all you want to try to maintain a relationship
with an office employee. But when he is standing between you and payday, you’re
going to roll over him or go over his head. If you don’t, you not only won’t
make money, but you’ll eventually be fired for lack of production. Having more
power may appear to give you more options. But once you have it, you realize
that those options are limited by factors people on the outside rarely see.
You will have a difficult time knowing if you
have friends at all.
I have some wealthy friends who you
would never think have more money than anyone else. If you were to meet one of
them in a day to day situation, you’d see someone driving a normal car, wearing
normal clothes, living in a normal house, etc. This isn’t just an effort to
save money, or even to live modestly out of personal preference. It’s also an
effort to hide. Lottery winners and sports heroes often don’t have that option
and that is one reason so many of them wind up broke. They’re human beings just
like anyone else, and they want to have normal relationships in their lives.
But bad actors know that and they work their way in, taking advantage of any
trust that is placed in them. Of course, there is a big difference between
Adrian Peterson, who everyone knows has (or had) tens of millions to his name,
and someone who has a mere one or two million in the bank. But the concept
works similarly for both. Is that new girlfriend with you because she likes you
and enjoys spending time with you, or is it because she can smell a payday if
she can only get herself married, pregnant, etc? You want to trust her. But it
is very difficult to know if you should. Often you won’t find out for sure
until it’s too late.
You will have a huge target on your back.
Like most companies in our
industry, my employer has been under serious financial stress recently. Cost
cutting has become necessary. And guess what? Firing highly compensated
employees is a much quicker method of accomplishing that than firing low or
average paid ones. I’m not saying people in the latter group will never lose
their jobs. But if you make a lot of money and you’re not an elite level
performer, you’re definitely the low hanging fruit. Even some of our most
successful sales people are feeling the heat now.
You will be in high demand…until you’re not.
I wrote about how a lot fewer people than you think make big money just last week. That means that especially within a particular industry, most people near the top will at least be aware of each other. If you’re fired, word will get out quickly along with all sorts of rumors and theories about why it happened. If you want to move to a different company, you will probably wind up working with people you know from the past. This can be either a good thing or a bad thing. But in a world where even the nicest people have to do some pretty ugly things to get to the top, it is bad more often than it’s good. And if you lose your job as a result of your industry tanking, it’s going to be very difficult to find another one because the other companies that could best utilize your skillset probably aren’t hiring. There are plenty of those people in my life right now, whether they’ve been fired or are just at the point where they feel a switch is their best option.
You will be expected to give absolutely
everything you have and it will never be enough.
There is no clocking out when you
make six figures. You can’t really even go on vacation. You would basically
just be working from home, except from a different place. If you have a family,
friends, or other personal commitments, they will come second more often than
not. The other option is to find another job. And remember, you’re a highly
compensated employee. So when you succeed, well, of course you did. That’s what
we pay you for and frankly, you still should have somehow done better. And when
you don’t, you’re crucified – whether it was a result of factors under your
control or not. Simply put, you’re paid to win, that’s expected, and anything
less is a failure even if you did the best job you possibly could have.
You will make a lot less money than you
think.
Political pandering aside, the
reality is that unless you’re part of a small fraction of the top 1% of income
earners, you don’t have access to most of the accounting tricks that allow the
truly rich to avoid some of their tax liability. And even if you are, the
numbers don’t lie. In 2016, the top 1% of income earners made just shy of 20%
of income in the US, but paid nearly 40% of the taxes. For the top 10% of
earners, those numbers were about 50% and 70%, respectively. Meanwhile, the
bottom 50% made almost 12% of the income, but paid only 3% of the taxes. Keep
in mind that these statistics are just for federal income taxes. Making a lot
of money is very expensive just about anywhere the government is involved. Long
story short, the more you make on paper, the less of your income is actually
yours.
When people talk about money, they tend to focus on the
benefits and ignore most of the costs. The grass is always greener on the other
side of the fence, as they say, but things are never quite as easy or wonderful
when you make the effort to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and view them
objectively. Like I said at the beginning of the post, my personal verdict is
that I’ll take the money – at least for now. But everything has its cost.
Plenty of people would be capable of making very high incomes, but they choose
not to make the sacrifices required. And that’s fine – perhaps even admirable.
There are definitely more important things in life than money and the higher
you go on the income ladder, the less of any of them you tend to have. The most
effective decisions in life are made when all costs and benefits are factored
in. If I’ve given you a window into the costs of something very few people
actually get to personally experience, then I accomplished my goal with this
post. And it isn’t all bad by any means. Stay tuned…
