10 Reasons Why 2013 Will Be The Year You Quit Your Job
Editor’s note: James Altucher is an investor, programmer, author, and several-times entrepreneur. His latest books are I Was Blind But Now I See and 40 Alternatives to College. Please follow him on Twitter @jaltucher.
People read TechCrunch because they want to create something, they
don’t want to follow orders all of their lives, and they want financial
freedom. I’m being blunt. The above three items feel good. God bless
you. Hopefully once you get the three things above, you get to keep
them. Most people (i.e. ME) have to ride a roller coaster for awhile
because we are stupid. But some people are smart.
Getting the things you want is hard but for reasons I explain below,
you now have no other choice.
The myth of corporate safety, of rising up through the ranks, of
getting the gold watch, of getting applauded by your peers is over. Not
because the economy is bad. But because innovation and the global
economy are better than ever.
But don’t wait for shortcuts.
You can’t make money without selling something real. You can’t make
something real without first imagination manifesting itself in your
head. You can’t have imagination without surrendering yourself to an
idea that you want to create something of value to other human beings.
And now it’s too late. Now the course of history has finally written
its next chapter. There’s no more bullshit. I’m going to tell you why
you have to quit your job. Why you need to get the ideas moving. Why you
need to build a foundation for your life or soon you will have no roof.
- Jabba’s newest employee
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.
- Robots are the new middle class
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.
- Another day on the job
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.
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