Distractions and detours are profound threats to success. The world is rife with both. Because of this, having the ability to filter them out is crucial.
They come in many forms; bad advice, dead-end opportunities, and conventional wisdom dogmas are good examples. You must be able to recognize and discard them, because they will rob you of your most precious resource: time.
Let me share some context for how I learned this.
Knowing & Accepting Yourself Is Important
I was the first in my family for many things – I was the first to graduate college, the first to move to New York City to explore career opportunities, and the first to work in a corporate setting with all of the fixtures of organizational success (salary, 401k, health insurance, etc.). At the same time, I came from a family with a long history of small business ownership. So while I was very proud and excited to have followed a professional path, I found myself sitting at work and feeling somewhat unfulfilled. I wanted to control my destiny.
During my time as a corporate person, I learned some valuable lessons about my personality and beliefs:
- I don’t like asking permission for time off. If the work is finished and I want to close my laptop for the day, I need to be able to make that decision on my own, like an adult.
- Capped income doesn’t excite me. The more I produce, the more I should earn.
Fulfilling someone else’s vision can be a great learning experience, but I’d prefer to fulfill my own vision, instead. - I thrive on an unconventional schedule (evening or the middle of the night with Netflix playing in the background, please). I never adjusted to waking up early, getting on a subway, and walking into an office with hospital lighting. I’m more productive at night than during the day, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
- I like to learn and take on new projects, but without the noise (literal and figurative) that dilutes my focus in an office setting.
You’d be surprised at how controversial these points can be. Even if I caveat these statements as commentaries on my own personality & abilities, I will get some serious eye rolls. I don’t care, and neither should you.
Expect Social Pushback
As I made these discoveries, I wanted to share them. I was in for a rude awakening. I never imagined that merely saying, “I want to control my own schedule” could rub people the wrong way. It was surprising, to say the least.
Many of these people were family members, childhood friends, and coworkers. I soon realized there were subjects beyond politics & religion that riled people up. In some ways, beliefs about work are subsets of both.
As an example, when I became restless with the slogging pace of raises and promotions at my job, there was a universal backlash of characterizing my restlessness as entitlement. I didn’t see it this way – I was skilled at my job, worked very long hours, and yet the owners were reaping the rewards (Bigger accounts, bigger budgets, etc.). At one point, my company didn’t even bother staffing up my team because, as they characterized it, I could handle all of the work on my own and the clients loved me (Two glowing compliments that, while appreciated, couldn’t be included on a loan application or improve my credit score).
However, the honeymoon ended when I asked for a promotion – I had been with the company for 2 years, they were introducing me as a manager, and yet that wasn’t my title or pay grade, so I decided it was time to ask for a pay bump. Suddenly, there were criticisms on the table I’d never heard before.
I was no longer a “rockstar”, as many recruiters & employers flippantly say – as they put it, I arrived too late, left too early, and didn’t display some of the more subjective behaviors of the “passion” they look for in their managers. In reality, they just didn’t want to pay me more, and were willing to undermine my reputation and self-perception to prevent doing so.
Needless to say, the work relationship became awkward.
And yet… no number of anecdotes such as this one could move certain people from whom I was seeking guidance & validation. There were deeply embedded beliefs, essential to their own worldviews that were in conflict with my experiences, and that’s that. Their advice was generally, “Keep working and don’t worry about what your coworkers do – good things will happen!” and, “You millennials are so entitled!”
Fast forward. Good things did not happen. I never received that promotion no matter how hard I “leaned in”, and the relationship soured after fielding my requests. Then I moved on. It was the best decision I ever made.
Had I stayed, I’m positive it would have only served to waste more of my time. My only regret in moving on is that I didn’t do it sooner.
Key Takeaways & How You Can Learn From My Experience
- Get to know yourself. Learn what you like and don’t like, what stimulates you and what bores you, and channel those tendencies into a sustainable use of your time that you look forward to. You’ll work more efficiently and sustainably.
- Don’t expect others to readily accept your ideas. People are complex. Social conventions and established worldviews often limit peoples’ openness to new ideas or ways of thinking. Don’t be discouraged – listen, self-inspect, and move on. Finding success is a hero’s journey, and stretches of it are lonely.
- Recognize biases and bad advice. When people give you advice, it’s important to listen. However, you can listen and not follow. Before you follow advice, always think about whether or not it meshes with your core values, and whether or not it actually moves you close to your underlying goal. It can be helpful to think about the advice-giver’s worldview when assessing where the advice is coming from.
- Value your time by knowing when to quit. If you’re at a job or working on a project, and it seems to be going nowhere, it’s ok to move on. You may be quitting your job, but the job was never the goal – it was a means to an end, and if it’s no longer pulling its weight, fire it.
Knowing yourself, resisting social dogma, and valuing your time will help you succeed efficiently. Now, let’s move onto financial basics.
Click Here for Lesson 2: Basic Financial Management.