10 reasons why we should quit our job.
1)
The middle class is dead. A few weeks ago I visited a
friend of mine who manages a trillion dollars. No joke. A trillion. If I
told you the name of the family he worked for you would say, “they have
a trillion? Really?” But that’s what happens when $10 million compounds
at 2 percent over 200 years. He said, “look out the windows.” We looked
out at all the office buildings around us. “What do you see?” he said.
“I don’t know.” “They’re empty! All the cubicles are empty. The middle
class is being hollowed out.” And I took a closer look. Entire floors
were dark. Or there were floors with one or two cubicles but the rest
empty. “It’s all outsourced, or technology has taken over for the paper
shufflers,” he said. “Not all the news is bad,” he said. “More people
entered the upper class than ever last year.” But, he said, more people
are temp staffers than ever. And that’s the new paradigm. The middle
class has died. The American Dream never really existed. It was a
marketing scam. And it was. The biggest provider of mortgages for the
past 50 years, Fannie Mae, had as their slogan, “We make the American
Dream come true.” It was just a marketing slogan all along. How many
times have I cried because of a marketing slogan. And then they ruined
it.
2)
You’ve been replaced. Technology, outsourcing, a
growing temp staffing industry, productivity efficiencies, have all
replaced the middle class. The working class. Most jobs that existed 20
years ago aren’t needed now. Maybe they never were needed. The entire
first decade of this century was spent with CEOs in their Park Avenue
clubs crying through their cigars, “how are we going to fire all this
dead weight?” 2008 finally gave them the chance. “It was the economy!”
they said. The country has been out of a recession since 2009. Four
years now. But the jobs have not come back. I asked many of these CEOs:
did you just use that as an excuse to fire people, and they would wink
and say, “let’s just leave it at that.” I’m on the board of directors of
a temp staffing company with $600 million in revenues. I can see it
happening across every sector of the economy. Everyone is getting fired.
Everyone is toilet paper now. Flush.
3)
Corporations don’t like you. The executive editor of
a major news publication took me out to lunch to get advice on how to
expand their website traffic. But before I could talk he started
complaining to me: “Our top writers keep putting their twitter names in
their posts and then when they get more followers they start asking for
raises.” “What’s the problem?” I said. “Don’t you want writers that are
popular and well-respected?” When I say a “major news publication” I am
talking MAJOR. He said, “no, we want to be about the news. We don’t want
anyone to be an individual star.” In other words, his main job was to
destroy the career aspirations of his most talented people, the people
who swore their loyalty to him, the people who worked 90 hours a week
for him. If they only worked 30 hours a week and were slightly more
mediocre he would’ve been happy. But he doesn’t like you. He wants you
to stay in the hole and he will throw you a meal every once in awhile in
exchange for your excrement. If anyone is a reporter out there and
wants to message me privately I will tell you who it was. But basically,
it’s all of your bosses. Every single one of them.
4)
Money is not happiness. A common question during my
Twitter Q&A, asked at least once a week, is “should I take the job I
like or should I take the job that pays more money.” Leaving aside the
question of “should I take a job at all,” let’s talk about money for a
second. First, the science: studies show that an increase in salary only
offers marginal to zero increase in “happiness” above a certain level.
Why is this? Because of this basic fact: people spend what they make. If
your salary increases $5,000 you spend an extra $2000 on features for
your car, you have an affair, you buy a new computer, a better couch, a
bigger TV, and then you ask, “where did all the money go?” Even though
you needed none of the above now you need one more thing: another
increase in your salary, so back to the corporate casino for one more
try at the salary roulette wheel. I have never once seen anyone save the
increase in their salary. In other words, don’t stay at the job for
safe salary increases over time. That will never get you where you want –
freedom from financial worry. Only free time, imagination, creativity,
and an ability to disappear will help you deliver value that nobody ever
delivered before in the history of mankind.
5)
Count right now how many people can make a major decision that can ruin your life.
I don’t like it when one person can make or break me. A boss. A
publisher. A TV producer. A buyer of my company. At any one point I’ve
had to kiss ass to all of the above. I hate it. I will never do it
again. The way to avoid this is to diversify the things you are working
on so no one person or customer or boss or client can make a decision
that could make you rich or destroy you or fulfill your life’s dreams or
crush them. I understand it can’t happen in a day. Start planning now
how to create your own destiny instead of allowing people who don’t like
you to control your destiny. When you do this count, make sure the
number comes to over 20. Then when you spin the wheel the odds are on
your side that a winning number comes up.
6)
Is your job satisfying your needs? I will define
“needs” the way I always do, via the four legs of what I call “the daily
practice.” Are your physical needs, your emotional needs, your mental
needs, and your spiritual needs being satisfied? The only time I’ve had a
job that did was when I had to do little work so that I had time on the
side to either write, or start a business, or have fun, or spend time
with friends. The times when I haven’t is when I was working too hard,
dealing with people I didn’t like, getting my creativity crushed over
and over, and so on. When you are in those situations you need to plot
out your exit strategy. Your hands are not made to type out memos. Or
put paper through fax machines. Or hold a phone up while you talk to
people you dislike. A hundred years from now your hands will rot like
dust in your grave. You have to make wonderful use of those hands now.
Kiss your hands so they can make magic. One can argue, “not everyone is
entitled to have all of those needs satisfied at a job.” That’s true.
But since we already know that the salary of a job won’t make you happy,
you can easily modify lifestyle and work to at least satisfy more of
your needs. And the more these needs are satisfied the more you will
create the conditions for true abundance to come into your life. Your
life is a house. Abundance is the roof. But the foundation and the
plumbing need to be in there first or the roof will fall down, the house
will be unlivable. You create the foundation by following the Daily
Practice. I say this not because I am selling anything but because it
worked for me every time my roof caved in. My house has been bombed, my
home has been cold and blistering winds gave me frost bite, but I
managed to rebuild. This is how I did it.
7)
Your Retirement Plan is For Shit. I don’t care how
much you set aside for your 401k. It’s over. The whole myth of savings
is gone. Inflation will carve out the bulk of your 401k. And in order to
cash in on that retirement plan you have to live for a really long time
doing stuff you don’t like to do. And then suddenly you’re 80 and
you’re living a reduced lifestyle in a cave and can barely keep warm at
night. The only retirement plan is to Choose Yourself. To start a
business or a platform or a lifestyle where you can put big chunks of
money away. Some people can say, “well, I’m just not an entrepreneur.”
This is not true. Everyone is an entrepreneur. The only skills you need
to be an entrepreneur: an ability to fail, an ability to have ideas, to
sell those ideas, to execute on those ideas, and to be persistent so
even as you fail you learn and move onto the next adventure. Or be an
entrepreneur at work. An “entre-ployee.” Take control of who you report
to, what you do, what you create. Or start a business on the side.
Deliver some value, any value, to anybody, to somebody, and watch that
value compound into a career. What is your other choice? To stay at a
job where the boss is trying to keep you down, will eventually replace
you, will pay you only enough for you to survive, will rotate between
compliments and insults so you stay like a fish caught on the bait as he
reels you in. Is that your best other choice? You and I have the same
24 hours each day. Is that how you will spend yours?
8
) Excuses. ”I’m too old.” “I’m not creative.” “I need
the insurance.” “I have to raise my kids.” I was at a party once. A
stunningly beautiful woman came up to me and said, “James, how are
you!?” WHAT? Who are you? I said, “Hey! I’m doing well.” But I had no
idea who I was talking to. Why would this woman be talking to me? I was
too ugly. It took me a few minutes of fake conversation to figure out
who she was. It turns out she was the frumpish-looking woman who had
been fired six months earlier from the job we were at. She had cried as
she packed up her cubicle when she was fired. She was out of shape, she
looked about 30 years older than she was, and now her life was going to
go from better to worse. Until…she realized that she was out of the zoo.
In the George Lucas movie, THX-1138 (the name of the main character was
“THX-1138″) everyone’s choices are removed and they all live
underground because above ground is “radioactive.” Finally THX decides
better to die above ground than suffer forever underground where he
wasn’t allowed to love. He wasn’t free. He makes his way above ground,
evading all the guards and police. And when he gets there, it’s sunny.
Everyone above ground is beautiful, and they are waiting for him with
open arms and kisses. The excuse “but it’s radioactive out there!” was
just there to keep him down. “This is easy for you to say,” people say
to me. “Some of us HAVE to do this!” The now-beautiful woman had to do
it also. “What are you doing now?” I asked her. “Oh, you know,” she
said. “Consulting.” But some people say, “I can’t just go out there and
consult. What does that even mean?” And to that I answer, “Ok, I agree
with you.” Who am I to argue? If someone insists they need to be in
prison even though the door is unlocked then I am not going to argue.
They are free to stay in prison.
9)
It’s okay to take baby steps. ”I can’t just QUIT!”
people say. “I have bills to pay.” I get it. Nobody is saying quit
today. Before a human being runs a marathon they learn to crawl, then
take baby steps, then walk, then run. Then exercise every day and stay
healthy. Then run a marathon. Heck, what am I even talking about? I
can’t run more than two miles without collapsing in agony. I am a wimp.
Make the list right now. Every dream. I want to be a bestselling author.
I want to reduce my material needs. I want to have freedom from many of
the worries that I have succumbed to all my life. I want to be healthy.
I want to help all of the people around me or the people who come into
my life. I want everything I do to be a source of help to people. I want
to only be around people I love, people who love me. I want to have
time for myself. THESE ARE NOT GOALS. These are themes. Every day, what
do I need to do to practice those themes? It starts the moment I wake
up: “Who can I help today?” I ask the darkness when I open my eyes. “Who
would you have me help today?” I’m a secret agent and I’m waiting for
my mission. Ready to receive. This is how you take baby steps. This is
how eventually you run towards freedom.
10)
Abundance will never come from your job. Only
stepping out of the prison imposed on you from your factory will allow
you to achieve abundance. You can’t see it now. It’s hard to see the
gardens when you are locked in jail. Abundance only comes when you are
moving along your themes. When you are truly enhancing the lives of the
people around you. When every day you wake up with that motive of
enhancement. Enhance your family, your friends, your colleagues, your
clients, potential customers, readers, people who you don’t even know
yet but you would like to know. Become a beacon of enhancement and then,
when the night is gray, all of the boats will move towards you,
bringing their bountiful riches. – Don’t believe me. Stay with a boss
that hates you. A job that is keeping you locked on a chain around your
neck, tantalizing you with incremental increases in pay and job title.
Stay in a culture that is quietly replacing the entire middle class.
This is not anyone’s fault. These are the tectonic plates of economics
destroying an entire suburban culture that has lasted for almost 100
years. Until you choose yourself for success, and all that choice
entails, you will be locked into the prison. You will stare into your
lover’s eyes looking for a sign that he or she loves you back. But
slowly the lights will fade, the warmth of another body will grow cold,
and you will go to sleep dreamless in the dark once again.
Taken from :
http://www.jamesaltucher.com/
