Ever wonder how people end up in dead end jobs at 40?

[GlobalWealth]

mmmmmhmmmmmm

not going to engage, but I agree with some of your sentiments.

Dont be a pussy @Vigilante...engage....[emoji6]

And I do understand how hard that was to type that you agree....even if only a little

Sent from my SM-G900FD using Tapatalk

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Bouncing Soul]

I'm getting very, very rich reading all this Gold ! I love it ! Thank you !

Hey @Vigilante , so when I read about some company where the owner and/or employees are raving about how they love working at blank...that the 'freedom' is great, the money is good, and they love who they work with...are they just blowing smoke ? Do they gain something by saying these things ?

When I got out of college and went to work I told people I felt like I'd won the lottery and I meant it. I'd gone from cleaning toilets to traveling all over the world doing international business and they paid me enough money to race motorcycles when I wasn't on the road.

I turned down more money multiple times.

 

[Delmania]

I'm getting very, very rich reading all this Gold ! I love it ! Thank you !

Hey @Vigilante , so when I read about some company where the owner and/or employees are raving about how they love working at blank...that the 'freedom' is great, the money is good, and they love who they work with...are they just blowing smoke ? Do they gain something by saying these things ?

In some cases, they are trying to avoid getting fired. In other cases, it may be they really do like where they work. I've worked in what could be considered a well funded startup. It was small, only 12 people, and we had to put in a lot of hours. It was probably the best job I've ever. The reason was because I could experience the impact my work had. It's quite a rush when you release a new feature that you've put a lot of work into, and then you hear your users rave about how much they like it.

 

[ToniLene]

http://www.ryot.org/gallup-poll-70-americans-disengaged-jobs/376177

Just so you know I didn't just pull it right out of my a$$:

In Gallup’s 2013 State of the American Workplace study, 70 percent of those who participated described themselves as “disengaged” from their work.

As often as I threw that statistic out there in this thread, thank God when I went back to find the survey at least the % was what I remembered.

From the article "Of over 150,000 people surveyed only 30 percent admitted they honestly enjoy their job and their bosses."

Ironically, last I read, the rate of Americans with college degrees is around 30%. Makes sense as the higher your education level, the higher your income potential. Odds are you're more likely to enjoy your job if you're being well compensated.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Vigilante]

I'm getting very, very rich reading all this Gold ! I love it ! Thank you !

Hey @Vigilante , so when I read about some company where the owner and/or employees are raving about how they love working at blank...that the 'freedom' is great, the money is good, and they love who they work with...are they just blowing smoke ? Do they gain something by saying these things ?

I think they are sincere.

When I had never had a bar-b-que on a snorkel sail watching whales jump in Maui, I thought my hot dogs at my local beach at a local lake in Minnesota was pretty great.

I had a friend that worked 20 years from Best Buy. He LOVED IT. Loved the company. Loved the flex time. Loved the money. Loved his co-workers.

Then...

they moved him to a new job. Took the flex time away in a corporate cost cutting measure. Laid off many of his peers. Increased the pressure. And finally laid him off.

His opinion is different now.

So I don't begrudge people who either have no other experiences, or are in a position of comfort and happiness.

But you know that ALL bosses/owners will say that, right? What boss/owner says the place sucks, morale sucks, and his workers suck and their business model sucks? To a certain degree, all OWNERS promote the highlights. The owners have much to gain, and in many cases ignore reality.

I talked with someone this week who said he loves his job and never plans to leave it. For all the reasons you mentioned above. For his sake, I hope the management team never changes, is as an "at will" employee he's one human resources decision on a white board away from his opinion changing.

 

[Vigilante]

Makes sense as the higher your education level, the higher your income potential.

The income gap is a myth, but that is another topic for another day.

 

[Bouncing Soul]

When I had never had a bar-b-que on a snorkel sail watching whales jump in Maui, I thought my hot dogs at my local beach at a local lake in Minnesota was pretty great.

So good...yet, so dangerous in other ways...

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Nicko]

http://www.ryot.org/gallup-poll-70-americans-disengaged-jobs/376177

Just so you know I didn't just pull it right out of my a$$:

In Gallup’s 2013 State of the American Workplace study, 70 percent of those who participated described themselves as “disengaged” from their work.

As often as I threw that statistic out there in this thread, thank God when I went back to find the survey at least the % was what I remembered.

It's interesting that the study shows a large % of that disconnect employees feel is attributed to poor management (bosses from hell).

I have a number of employees who have been with me for 10 plus years (doing a great job) because their former employers treated them like shit, and they're thrilled to finally have one that doesn't.

 

[Vigilante]

So good...yet, so dangerous in other ways...

I am opening up more Pandora's boxes here than I can possibly juggle. Might be time to go to the track.

 

[Vigilante]

It's interesting that the study shows a large % of that disconnect employees feel is attributed to poor management (bosses from hell).

I have a number of employees who have been with me for 10 plus years (doing a great job) because their former employers treated them like shit.

And as @GlobalWealth said, those may end up being your best employees... as long as they remember how shitty things used to be. We tend to forget over time. But those that truly appreciate what you do may be the exception, and your best workers.

I always encouraged my best workers to go out there and get MORE for themselves. Not to settle.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Bouncing Soul]

I am opening up more Pandora's boxes here than I can possibly juggle. Might be time to go to the track.

I'm gearing up to go ride my bicycle. I've been thinking about this exact topic almost exclusively for 3 mos, and just this week committed all in to what I'm going to do. I don't need to get back to thinking about it. Hehe.

 

[Paul David]

A couple of years ago I made myself 'dispensable' to my business. I wrote an operations manual for each role in my business.

I have step by step instructions for each task that needs to be performed. I can literally pull someone in off the street and they would be able fully trained with a few days. Maximum of 1 week.

I've gone from performing 75% of every task in my business to 1%. The 1% being the most important.

I now work from home most of the time and only go into the office once a week. Whenever I decide basically.

My wife was sick last week and had to take 2 weeks off work. She's an management accountant for a large fashion company in the UK. She was advised to take 4 weeks off but she was so worried that her boss would find a way to get rid of her because of the time off she went back after 2 weeks.

My wife and I currently earn similar amounts of money. I don't however have to drive 40 minutes every day to work and back and I don't have to be at the same seat in the same place year in year out, day in day out. My income is passive and if I didn't work for next 5 years I would get the same money.

I purposely set up my life a few years ago to get to this point. It was something I 'manufactured'. My Wife went to university and got a degree in accounting which means that unless I can double my salary (which I'm working on) or she tries something new, she's 'manufactured' a life of working until retirement age.

It's as simple as that really.

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

 

[Vigilante]

A couple of years ago I made myself 'dispensable' to my business. I wrote an operations manual for each role in my business.

I have step by step instructions for each task that needs to be performed. I can literally pull someone in off the street and they would be able fully trained with a few days. Maximum of 1 week.

I've gone from performing 75% of every task in my business to 1%. The 1% being the most important.

I now work from home most of the time and only go into the office once a week. Whenever I decide basically.

My wife was sick last week and had to take 2 weeks off work. She's an management accountant for a large fashion company in the UK. She was advised to take 4 weeks off but she was so worried that her boss would find a way to get rid of her because of the time off she went back after 2 weeks.

My wife and I currently earn similar amounts of money. I don't however have to drive 40 minutes every day to work and back and I don't have to be at the same seat in the same place year in year out, day in day out. My income is passive and if I didn't work for next 5 years I would get the same money.

I purposely set up my life a few years ago to get to this point. It was something I 'manufactured'. My Wife went to university and got a degree in accounting which means that unless I can double my salary (which I'm working on) or she tries something new, she's 'manufactured' a life of working until retirement age.

It's as simple as that really.

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

Your post. Is. Life.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Nicko]

Getting back to the original question posed in the title:

Ever wonder how people end up in dead end jobs at 40 ?

I really find myself looking at people very differently now, and I often have mixed emotions. I'll see a line of people waiting to catch a bus to work and they either have their heads buried in their iPhones, or they have this weird distant stare, and more often than not they just don't look happy.

Part of me feels a little sad for them, and part of me wants to back hand them and say "Not happy ? Then do something about it FFS"

 

[Nicko]

A couple of years ago I made myself 'dispensable' to my business. I wrote an operations manual for each role in my business.

I have step by step instructions for each task that needs to be performed. I can literally pull someone in off the street and they would be able fully trained with a few days. Maximum of 1 week.

I've gone from performing 75% of every task in my business to 1%. The 1% being the most important.

I now work from home most of the time and only go into the office once a week. Whenever I decide basically.

My wife was sick last week and had to take 2 weeks off work. She's an management accountant for a large fashion company in the UK. She was advised to take 4 weeks off but she was so worried that her boss would find a way to get rid of her because of the time off she went back after 2 weeks.

My wife and I currently earn similar amounts of money. I don't however have to drive 40 minutes every day to work and back and I don't have to be at the same seat in the same place year in year out, day in day out. My income is passive and if I didn't work for next 5 years I would get the same money.

I purposely set up my life a few years ago to get to this point. It was something I 'manufactured'. My Wife went to university and got a degree in accounting which means that unless I can double my salary (which I'm working on) or she tries something new, she's 'manufactured' a life of working until retirement age.

It's as simple as that really.

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

Thanks mate. This is exactly what I'm aiming for. My wife and I actually work together (I should get massive Rep for that one alone !!!) so our goal is to both step back from our business and have someone else run it for us.

 

[Vigilante]

Getting back to the original question posed in the title:

Ever wonder how people end up in dead end jobs at 40 ?

I really find myself looking at people very differently now, and I often have mixed emotions. I'll see a line of people waiting to catch a bus to work and they either have their heads buried in their iPhones, or they have this weird distant stare, and more often than not they just don't look happy.

Part of me feels a little sad for them, and part of me wants to back hand them and say "Not happy ? Then do something about it FFS"

It's why so many MLM and get rich quick schemes succeed. A lot of people don't have the initiative/drive, won't spend the time taking the 10,000 practice hours, or feel economically handicapped or enslaved. There's a lot of external factors people point to as to how they ended up where they are at. You see them come here to the forum as newbies almost every day. A google hit linked them here, and they come looking for a formula. They leave when they don't find one that will generate instantaneous results, because their show starts in 2 hours.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[RadioActive]

I feel like anybody that is on the verge of giving up, should read this thread. This thread gave me nightmares last night.

 

[Andy Black]

I feel like anybody that is on the verge of giving up, should read this thread. This thread gave me nightmares last night.

This gave me nightmares:

• www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html

@Vigilante

Tremendous thread. Tremendous insights. Thanks for the wake up call.

 

[Andy Black]

My daughter is at school today, and maybe sick. My wife left them my cell phone number.

If she is sick, I go pick her up. I don't have to check with anyone, tell them I am leaving, or have them use my PTO.

Pretty much all my time is PTO. I won't punch out.

^^^ This is what it's all about for me.



I've not detached my income from my time yet, but I at least don't have to report to anyone.


This Wednesday I was able to drop one of my little lads off to a class before school and go for a little walk before picking him up and taking him up to school.

I took the picture below at 09:20am, on a Wednesday morning, when everyone has settled into their cubicle.

I didn't ask for permission to walk around that lake.



If I have to take a job to keep the wolf from the door, I will.

If I have to flip burgers to stay in the game, I will.

But I'll miss taking my little lads to school.

And I'll miss crisp October mornings like these.


Thanks for the shot in the arm @Vigilante.



.
.
.
.
.
.


A Crisp October Morning In Ireland

I sat on that bench on the far right for 10 minutes just taking it all in and being grateful I was able to be there, at that time.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[SYK]

This gave me nightmares:

• www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html

A truly terrifying read.

Especially this bit: "One time I didn’t sleep for four days straight,” said Dina Vaccari, who joined in 2008 to sell Amazon gift cards" Four days of no sleep because of freakin gift cards?! Right there is the point where one must start questioning their purpose in this world.

This thread reminds me of the question I ask myself any time I am feeling frustrated/dejected/disheartened in the pursuit of business: "What's the alternative?"

Asking myself this question makes me think forward to the grizzly concept of working for someone else in 30 years time.

My alternative isn't as low as selling tacky suits. But contemplating the alternative to having my own successful business is scary enough to push me through whatever challenge I am facing. To get my focus back where it needs to be.

Great reminder. Thanks Vig.

 

[hellolin]

It's why so many MLM and get rich quick schemes succeed. A lot of people don't have the initiative/drive, won't spend the time taking the 10,000 practice hours, or feel economically handicapped or enslaved. There's a lot of external factors people point to as to how they ended up where they are at. You see them come here to the forum as newbies almost every day. A google hit linked them here, and they come looking for a formula. They leave when they don't find one that will generate instantaneous results, because their show starts in 2 hours.

Because they are in for the product, never the process and the growth.

 

[evlttwin]

This is a really good thread. Thanks.

Makes me a little mad at myself, because I'm not exactly this guy financially, but in spirit I guess I am close.

I make around 90k a year at my day job (Telecom), which is just enough to keep me tethered to that leash.

Lately we have been "asked" to work overtime damn near every day, which really kills my family time. I get off work at 630pm, get home at 7pm. Family time is the most important thing to me at this point in my life, so needless to say I am looking for an exit strategy.

I am 41, which is basically the same age as the man in the story. I guess its time for a midlife crisis.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[juggler619]

@Vigilante i really don't know what to say here, running high with different emotions reading your post, unable to come up with words - just anger against me self.

Being dead,Being trapped & the tetris games with high scores is exactly what i have been doing for the past 9 yrs .

Been here for more than 3 months reading the forum & the millionaire fastlane - I know the secret sauce is "Taking Action" and i have started but not with the same commitment as you did.

Thank you for the post - My legacy has to look legendary!

 

[Vigilante]

@Vigilante i really don't know what to say here, running high with different emotions reading your post, unable to come up with words - just anger against me self.

Being dead,Being trapped & the tetris games with high scores is exactly what i have been doing for the past 9 yrs .

Been here for more than 3 months reading the forum & the millionaire fastlane - I know the secret sauce is "Taking Action" and i have started but not with the same commitment as you did.

Thank you for the post - My legacy has to look legendary!

The fact that you made your way here means you are different. I don't care if it takes you a week, a month, a quarter, or a year… But a year from now everything can look differently for you and your family and your legacy. It's not too late.

You don't need a big declaration, or huge unobtainable goals. All you need to do is stick a stake in the ground today… A turning point.

The fact that you can recognize yourself in my original post and have it reflect back on you like looking into a mirror means that you're not dead. Most people don't have enough self-realization or honesty to look into that window. You're different. Hope comes from that difference.

Here's what's different. From today forward, you're not going to allow yourself to slip back to the obscurity of the game. From today forward, every waking moment to have is going to be spent working on your midterm to long-range game plan.

It's OK if it takes you a while to figure out what that needs to look like. At least now you have the start of a vision for where you want to go. Today is a different day than yesterday. Today you are one step closer towards freedom.

Today should be a day full of hope for you, not despair. I despair for the people that are not here… The people that don't have the chance that you have to create for themselves a different outcome. Not you. Not this time. Your story is going to end differently.

"Life is like a movie – write your own ending."

 

[Vigilante]

This is a really good thread. Thanks.

Makes me a little mad at myself, because I'm not exactly this guy financially, but in spirit I guess I am close.

I make around 90k a year at my day job (Telecom), which is just enough to keep me tethered to that leash.

Lately we have been "asked" to work overtime damn near every day, which really kills my family time. I get off work at 630pm, get home at 7pm. Family time is the most important thing to me at this point in my life, so needless to say I am looking for an exit strategy.

I am 41, which is basically the same age as the man in the story. I guess its time for a midlife crisis.

When I worked for Walmart corporate, I would get there at 6:30 AM. Even though the workday didn't officially start until 8 AM, if you got there at 7:30 AM it felt like you were late. After getting there at 6:30 AM, you'd think you could leave at four or 5 PM for a kids softball game or whatever. Most people worked until 6:30 PM. If you left at 5 PM… The normal end of the workday… Your boss might look at you with raised eyebrows the first day and talk with you about the corporate culture the next day.

At Walmart, at all levels of being an executive you were required to work at least every other Saturday. The philosophy was that as long as the stores had to work on the weekends… The people at the corporate office should also be working on the weekends.

They truly owned me. When you get to the point where you mortgage or willingly give up the years that your children are growing up in exchange for a paycheck, the depth of the trade you made of your time and your soul for that paycheck are out of kilter. I've been there in the exact position you are in.

I then took everything that I had learned – everything I acquired in terms of knowledge gained while on somebody else's payroll, and figured out how to leverage that unique skill set into something that could make me money. My pivot point came out of desperation one Saturday morning when I came to the same realization you did… That I looked exactly like the guy from the original post. It didn't matter what my salary was (it was about the same as what you're making now). To the rest of the world my salary looked pretty good, but the rest of the world had no idea what I mortgaged for that paycheck.

I didn't quit that exact Saturday, but that was the day that I made my decision that I had to get out. From there, it was simply planning my strategy and working on my plan towards my exit. But from that Saturday forward, everything was different. Now it was a game, and only I knew the ending. I could face my day to day bleak existence easier knowing that I had an exit strategy I was working towards. Nobody knew my secret plan but my wife and I. Nobody knew I was working on breaking out. The plan itself, with the red date circled on the calendar was enough to allow me to breathe and be excited and survive the window of time in between that Saturday and the day I sprung myself from the prison I had voluntarily committed my life to.

I was in my mid to late 30s when I broke out of corporate America.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Vigilante]

As a sidenote, I hate writing all the shit with Siri. I always have to go back and do about 15 grammatical edits.

 

[Andy Black]

The last two posts really resonate @Vigilante.

While my kids are really young, my priority is to spend time with them, not even grow my business. Maybe it will always be that way.

My thinking is that I don't want to see less of my sons now so that I can see more of them later.

It means I currently earn less than I could, and yes, even less than some jobs I’ve had.

But I am not beholden to anyone, even clients.

I am designing my own lifestyle, centred around what is important to me.

We all have different priorities. That's ok.

We can be in a job too. Nothing wrong with having a job if it helps you get where you want to go.

What I love about this thread is that it shows how important it is to control and shape our own destiny.

Our legacies are ours to create.

We're all on our own journeys. We might be at different stages in that journey, we might want to go at different speeds, and we might have different reasons for travelling.

What we all have in common is that we don't want to be hitch-hikers in someone else's journey.

We all want to control our own steering wheel (even if we veer off in the wrong direction occasionally).

 

[Vigilante]

The last two posts really resonate @Vigilante.

While my kids are really young, my priority is to spend time with them, not even grow my business. Maybe it will always be that way actually.

My thinking is that I don't want to see less of my sons now so that I can see more of them later.

It means I currently earn less than I could, and yes, even less than some jobs I have had.

But I am not beholden to anyone, even clients.

I am designing my own lifestyle, centred around what is important to me.

We all have different priorities. That's ok.

We can be in a job too. Nothing wrong with having a job if it helps you get where you want to go.

What I love about this thread is how it's made us all realise how much it means to us to control and shape our own destiny.

Our legacies are ours to create.

We're all on our own journeys. We might be at different stages in that journey, and we might want to go at different speeds and have different reasons for travelling.

What we all have in common is that we don't want to be hitch-hikers in someone else's journey.

We all want to control our own steering wheel, even if we veer off in the wrong direction occasionally.

We only have one life.

Enjoy the journey.

It is a lie I allowed myself to believe and delusional to think that you can recover or pay forward any lost time.

There's only going to be one third grade Christmas concert, one age 10 first soccer practice, and one first dance you get to take pre-pictures for. You don't get any do overs when you voluntarily let other things take priority over moments you can't get back.

I have two grown children. I would sacrifice nearly anything I have to be able to go back in time and make different decisions than the ones I made in their early childhood. I convinced myself I was sacrificing on their behalf – but in reality what I was sacrificing was them.

I struggled to write that last sentence.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[juggler619]

Thank you @Vigilante .. Thank you for the support & inspiration. Each word u wrote here is gold.

The fact that you made your way here means you are different. I don't care if it takes you a week, a month, a quarter, or a year… But a year from now everything can look differently for you and your family and your legacy. It's not too late.

You don't need a big declaration, or huge unobtainable goals. All you need to do is stick a stake in the ground today… A turning point.

The fact that you can recognize yourself in my original post and have it reflect back on you like looking into a mirror means that you're not dead. Most people don't have enough self-realization or honesty to look into that window. You're different. Hope comes from that difference.

Here's what's different. From today forward, you're not going to allow yourself to slip back to the obscurity of the game. From today forward, every waking moment to have is going to be spent working on your midterm to long-range game plan.

It's OK if it takes you a while to figure out what that needs to look like. At least now you have the start of a vision for where you want to go. Today is a different day than yesterday. Today you are one step closer towards freedom.

Today should be a day full of hope for you, not despair. I despair for the people that are not here… The people that don't have the chance that you have to create for themselves a different outcome. Not you. Not this time. Your story is going to end differently.

"Life is like a movie – write your own ending."

 

[MTF]

^^^ This is what it's all about for me.

I've not detached my income from my time yet, but I at least don't have to report to anyone.


This Wednesday I was able to drop one of my little lads off to a class before school and go for a little walk before picking him up and taking him up to school.

I took the picture below at 09:20am, on a Wednesday morning, when everyone has settled into their cubicle.

I didn't ask for permission to walk around that lake.

Made me think of the last Friday when I went with a friend (employee, but setting his own schedule) to play tennis at 11 AM.

It was a pleasant, sunny and crisp October morning. We played for an hour and then went to a spot overlooking the city to chat for a while. Nothing could beat the feeling of freedom I had when I realized almost everybody in there was at work while I could take the entire day off and it wouldn't affect my business at all.

Granted, I made many sacrifices and suffered my share of frustrations, doubt, failures, and depression to get to where I am now. Still, I would do it all again (and then some), because nothing is better than this.

I wouldn't exchange time freedom for any amount of money. Better to make less (but enough to support your ideal lifestyle) than a boatload but be broke time-wise. Money is only a tool for freedom.

By the way, I find it fitting for this thread:

Only entrepreneurship can get you in the right direction - the direction of FREEDOM.