The Education of Millionaires - Michael Ellsberg [24]
It’s just so different—and better—figuring out how to make a difference in the world and find meaning in your life when your bills are covered and you have a secure roof over your head. It’s way less stressful than trying to do it when you’re broke. And, once the hurdle of supporting yourself is already passed, you’ll be much less likely to take a path that leads you to being broke again. Paying your bills on time is a seductive feeling, and once you get in the habit of it, you won’t want to go back.
Now, one problem you may encounter once you’re financially stable is that the time it takes to create that financial stability in your life is so great, there’s nothing left over for anything but following the dictates of your job. This is where Step 2 comes in.
You need to free up time and space for some experiments in leadership, innovation, making a difference, and finding meaning. If you’re working freelance gigs (as I was during this period), then there’s always a way to find a few spare hours each day for starting a pursuit that might feel meaningful to you. If you’re working seventy-hour weeks at a corporate job, however, there will be very little space left over for anything else but that.
In this case, you should begin taking some risks at work. See if you can get buy-in from your boss to focus more on results you achieve, rather than focusing on hours logged. There are some great books on how to make this transition, including Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: No Schedules, No Meetings, No Joke, the Simple Change That Can Make Your Job Terrific by Cali Ressler and Jodi Thompson; Chapter 12 of Tim Ferriss’s The Four-Hour Workweek, titled “Disappearing Act: How to Escape the Office”; and also The Custom-Fit Workplace: Choose When, Where, and How to Work and Boost Your Bottom Line by Joan Blades and Nanette Fondas.
Flextime, working at home, telecommuting, working from your laptop and your mobile phone—these just aren’t the foreign concepts they were even five years ago. There’s really no excuse for not creating some flexibility in your workday now if you want it. The only excuse is your own fear and lack of imagination—and those aren’t good enough.
■ STEP 3: With This New Space in Your Workday, Begin Experimenting!
With some increased flexibility in your workday and workweek, or at least some buy-in from your boss about the idea of getting evaluated based on results rather than hours, you can now experiment with taking some risks toward making a difference within your organization, workplace, or industry. Read Success Skill #7, and adopt an entrepreneurial mind-set at your workplace. Solve problems that you weren’t “hired” to solve. Contribute in high-leverage ways you weren’t hired to contribute. Leading always feels more meaningful, impactful, and creative than following.
Read Seth Godin’s Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? This is the best book I know on the topic of exercising more leadership within your organization—which Seth calls being a “Linchpin”—no matter what your formal title or job description is. Become a Linchpin in your organization. Most of the people featured in The Education of Millionaires worked their way up their early jobs by doing so even if they’d never heard of Seth Godin.
If you’re already working in the field you plan to stay in for the rest of your life, and you don’t want to become an entrepreneur within that field, then you’re right where you need to be in the Art of Earning a Living. Keep seeking out opportunities to exercise more leadership in your workplace (read Success Skill #7 and apply the entrepreneurial mind-set at your workplace). Keep looking for ways to stick your neck out, to take risks, to