In Hindsight, I Should Have...

The Boston Sunday Globe and Monday's Wall Street Journal both have articles about people who have been laid off from their jobs and are turning to entrepreneurship to try to make a living. In most cases, they have to invest a lot of their own (and other people's) money to fund the startups. Then they go through a period of time when they are earning significantly less than they did in their corporate jobs. In several of the examples, the newly minted entrepreneurs may never earn as much as they did before they were laid off, although job satisfaction appears to be generally high. 

The recession has taught us a lot about how insecure our investments and employment can be. And people have learned to be creative about employment alternatives, given the fact that they may not be able to find a job in their (now-dried-up) areas of expertise. 

It struck me that, in the case of career changers as well as entrepreneurs, keeping fixed living costs on the low side (mortgages, rents, cost of cars/transportation etc.) gives them the flexibility to go with a lower paying job or launch a business in response to a volatile job market. It may be that a silver lining of this difficult time is that people will spend less, save more, and, in some cases, seek job fulfillment over financial benefits. 

If even Warren Buffett didn't see this one coming, perhaps the rest of us should plan our lives in a way that allows for down as well as up markets, lean as well as flush times, winter as well as summer, droughts as well as abundantly rainy conditions. And to consider planning our lives in such a way that we are not so wedded to a high-salary lifestyle that we can't change careers or break out on our own to find the job fulfillment we've always wanted.  

Comments

[Clare]

This is a timely article!

I think the ideas expressed here have always been held as valid by those who've made their own career path: the freelancers, entrepreneurs and all-round free thinkers who aren't "company" people. The lower your living costs, the greater the freedom to experiment.

[Account Deleted]

Clare, that's interesting - that living a life keeping costs low is something non-company people do - those who don't regulate their lives by the herd mentality - not an easy thing to do at all. So many young people gravitate towards what their parents or culture around them want them to do - only to find at 40 or 50 that they are not fulfilled and have a lifestyle that prevents them from making radical change.

[Clare]

Well, I don't think this mentality is exclusive to non-company people (plenty of frugal living through all sectors of society) but if you don't have a regular pay check and are comfortable with that level of uncertainty, then keeping costs down is vital. The lower your outgoings, then the greater the potential to turn down uninspiring or even "unethical" work so you can go after projects you are passionate about.

It's definitely true about the mid-life career crisis too, but few people want radical change in their lives! It's hard to give up all those luxuries...

[Account Deleted]

So true. The motivation has to be pretty strong to give up the luxuries. Interesting to me is how many examples there were in those articles of people who did just that and were really happy.

[The Big HR Fraud]

http://thehrfraud.blogspot.com/