Long time ago when I first started my career, I dreamed of being the best employee in the team and I did exactly that.
I was very proud of myself and I continued to do so throughout my career. I always do my best in every job and was always among the top performers when it comes to the yearly appraisal. It wasn't until the past 2-3 years that I started to have this feeling of boredom..... feeling lost... and unsure of how my life would turn out when I finally retire.
Paradigm Shift
Around the same time I was introduced to Multi Level Marketing (MLM) by a trusted friend of my spouse. Now, before you start thinking this is a post to promote MLM, I promise you it's NOT (I wasn't successful in it anyway). I'm sharing this as part of my life journey and the experience I gained from it.
Back to the MLM introduction, it was a reputable MLM company with good product supported by award-winning researches. I did my own research and found that it can be trusted and it's not some pyramid scheme. We discussed this as husband and wife and decided it's time to try something different, so we dipped our toes in it.
Fast-forward 12 months, we hadn't find success in it and because things in life catches up, we just couldn't afford the time to continue working on it. However, we did not regret the time, money, and effort that we invested.
What I got from this experience was an eye-opener and I'm determined that working for other people is not a long-term solution.
Given the current rate of inflation and the bare minimal increment that we are getting every year, we are not going to gain much ground financially (bear in mind we are both doing considerably well as salaried workers) till the day we retire.
It prompted me to think about the purpose of working as an employee, and if it makes any difference being best employee of the team / company. The answer in my heart is "No". I worked so hard throughout my career but have seen employers taking care of their own benefits while taking advantages of their employee. During bad times employee got pay-cut, or worse, retrenched. During good times the employer paints a picture that during times of uncertainty they still need to be cautious eventhough the numbers looked good.
At the end of the day, it's a lose-lose situation as an employee, but majority of the population is stuck as that is what the current education system drills into our minds since young:"Study hard, get good results, so that you can get a good job in future". The fact is, there is no such thing as a "good" job!
We are being price-tagged and told how much we are worth, and we save up a good portion of our salaries every month, just to be sure that we have enough money for retirement. Is it just me or something doesn't sound right here? Life should not be about working hard to survive retirement... should it?
If your answer to the last question is:"Yes, it shouldn't be that way", then read on as here are the 5 reasons that support that thought:
1. Your job offers no security
In the last decade or so, employers have become more and more cruel. The increase in competitions and the challenging economic outlook means it is all about numbers now. Don't get me wrong, numbers have always been important but in today's context there's nothing besides numbers. Employees have become commodities and to most of the employers you are a "number", not a "person". When they need to meet the numbers, no one is indispensable no matter how much that person had contributed to the growth and success of the company.
2. You cannot gain financial freedom by working for someone else
Financial freedom is when your passive income exceeds your expenditures.
As mentioned earlier, as long as you are an employee, you are being price-tagged. I'm not saying there is no good employers out there, but they are needles in haystacks, literally.
Your increment will not mean much after factoring in the inflation. If you are lucky, you gain a pathetic 2 - 3% after inflation (that's $30 increment for every $1,000 you are earning now), otherwise your increment may not even be on par with the inflation rate (which means you are earning less every year). All you think about is how much you'll need to save every month for you to have enough money to send your kids to school and to live an ordinary life when you retire, assuming you will live until 70, 80, or 90 years old (now how do we predict that?).
If you have done your calculation before you will know that the number terrifies you, as it will be in millions. Conservative way of tackling this, which majority of people are applying, is to save more, "30% - 40% of your salaries should go into savings", they said.
To do that, you will have to give up a lot of good things in life and probably miss out the best part of it. The worst thing is, the more you save, the less likely you are to invest, and least likely that you are ever going to have financial freedom.
3. Your kids will likely end up going down the same path
Monkey see, monkey do. If you believe in working hard for other people, you will consciously / sub-consciously drill that into your kid's mind from young. Young kids lookup to their parents, and choices you make, things you say, the way you treat others, will have great impact to your kids behavior and thought process as they grow up.
You work hard, save enough money to send them to school, and they end up doing the same thing as you've done for 40 years - to work hard and save money.
Now, I'm not asking you to not send your kids to school. They definitely should go to school, to gain knowledge, and should have a job after graduating, so that they learn to work and communicate with other people. What I'm trying to say is, your kids should be equipped with the mindset of entrepreneurship from young and always lookout for opportunity to do so when they grow up.
4. It is easier than ever to start your own business
While competition may be at all-time-high, it is easier than ever to start your own business or be self-employed. The boom of the internet in the past 15-20 years has really eliminated a lot of barriers and businesses that were previously impossible are now becoming some of the hottest. Besides that, it is much easier to research and learn from other people and follow footsteps of the successful ones.
The capital required to start your own business is now a fraction of what traditional businesses require. To name a few types of businesses that are easy to start with:
- Internet marketing
- Mobile applications
- Multi Level Marketing (MLM)
- Freelancing
5. You don't have to go full-time right out of the gate
Of the 4 examples listed above, none of them requires you to go full-time immediately. Unlike most traditional brick and mortar businesses, which requires your full attention and presence (at least at the beginning stages), these alternate types of business does not require you to give up your job right away.
You can continue having your day job, using that as a stable source of income, to fund your own business that you do during your free time. Until such time where income from your own business catches up with your day job income, you can then decide to probably give up your day job to go full-time on your own business.
I hope I'm able to give you a different perspective on looking at your life and career.
I can have separate articles elaborating more on the alternate business models mentioned in point #4. Let me know in the comments if you wish to find out more.
