Like most people fresh out of college, I dreamed of landing a job with a Fortune 500 company. Most of us wanted to get a good company on our resume so we could begin building our careers. The thought of working your way up the ladder was truly exciting, and when you met your first big boss with the cushy corner office it got you motivated even more to work harder for your dreams. Many of these big companies flashed fancy trips, stock options, and powerful titles at you. In return, you follow the bouncing ball and drink whatever Elixir the powers at be were serving for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
So what’s this movement we are beginning to see here in the United States? Is it the loner movement? Is it a trend of more people that want to work in their pajamas at home? Is this a monumental shift in the course of time that your friend isn’t your cube mate next door but rather the noise coming from your computer? What’s happened to all of those hard charging bulls that wanted to become Senior Vice President and rule the world someday?
I’m not sure at what point it happens in someone’s career, but it happens quicker today than it did a few generations ago. It’s not exactly being ‘burnout’, because walking away from a quarter of a million a year job isn’t all that easy to do, especially when it comes with all the holiday fixings. It’s more a point of utter saturation with babysitting whining employees, dealing with your incessant HR department, and shaking hands with faces to whom you cannot put names. Wow! I just can’t wait for next year’s national conference to hang out with my 2,000 closest friends! You say that to yourself on the plane flight out only to count the hours down until you get back home.
For more meetings than I can remember, I keep hearing this from friends and clients alike. The passion to wake up working morning out of bed and say, “I just want to be in charge of me!” No employees. No headaches. No reporting. No mid-year reviews. No unplanned sales conferences. Just the ability to take care of you and your own destiny. The trend is that many people would rather have a consulting job making $100,000 a year than the dealing with all of the B.S. to make a few bucks more if they could figure out a way to do it.
So I offer this up to you. We will see a quantum shift in the next ten years on how people handle their financial planning. I’ve shared before on your smart money moves that retirement planning in some sense was going to bite the dust. Today, I simply call it exit planning. How can I exit what I don’t enjoy doing today and maximize my financial resources to build a bridge so I can get to the other side of what I would love to be doing every day.
Getting in charge of you once in for all won’t be easy, but with a little bit of planning and forethought, it may just be you, your computer, and morning television for next year’s daily roll call. As Al Pacino would say “Hoo-hah!” That’s the scent of being in charge of me right down the hallway.
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