Invincible Tip - Know When to Bounce
⏱ Invincible Career Tips are quick actions you can take to become a little more invincible in your work and life.
Try this today
Pick a future date when you think you’ll be ready to leave the daily 9-5 grind and semi-retire to a better lifestyle (sooner rather than later). Write it on a sticky note and put it on or near your computer screen as a daily reminder.
I know I’m a little biased, but if I had to summarize a successful corporate career in 2 steps:
💰 Make bank
🏃♂️ Bounce
I didn’t make crazy bank during my corporate career, but I did ok. I also have some long-term investments I try not to touch. I took a little too long to bounce, but I finally bounced before it was too late (i.e., I didn’t die on the job, and I’m still healthy enough to enjoy life).
Unless you are someone who thrives inside a corporation and enjoys working for a new manager every 6 months, I think it’s way healthier to create a semi-retirement plan and live a better life while you can still enjoy it.
Where do most people go wrong?
They don’t create a plan to “make bank” (e.g., aggressively pursuing promotions, moving between companies to boost your compensation every 2-4 years).
They get too dependent on one source of income and never feel safe enough to “bounce” (e.g., no other income streams).
They don’t manage their expenses well and can’t afford to bounce (e.g., they upgrade their lifestyle every time they get promoted and have some extra money).
They get greedy or addicted to a certain lifestyle, so they keep chasing more money (e.g., more and more is never enough).
Over the past 20 years, I’ve watched people ride their corporate careers down to the bitter end. Ageism is real. Health issues are real. Life is too short.
I watched some people become less relevant, get worse jobs each time they moved to a new company, and make less and less money.
I watched other people climb to the top, and they couldn’t stop, until a serious health issue took them out of the game (and almost out of life).
I watched other folks ride their careers to a successful end, but they didn’t bounce while they were still healthy and young enough to enjoy life.
Finally, in the saddest scenario, I watched people who just couldn’t stop working, kept going until they finally accepted that retirement was inevitable, and then died within a few months of leaving their last job.
I saw this happening to others. I saw this coming for me, too.
So, I said, “Hell no. Enough is enough. I have enough. I can make enough.”
I went out on a high note, defined a new path forward, and now I get to enjoy the rest of my life while I’m still healthy enough to be active, physically fit, and motivated to pursue the next phase of our lives.
Ask yourself these questions:
Are you pushing hard to make the money you deserve, so you can invest it in your future and freedom?
Are you building a nest egg, so you can feel confident enough to leave your 9-5 job and semi-retire to a better lifestyle?
Do you have a date in mind when it will be time to bounce to something better for you, your family, and your health, wellness, and happiness?
I hope so!
Larry Cornett is a Personal Coach who can help you optimize your career, life, and business. If you’re interested in starting a business or side hustle someday (or accelerating an existing one), check out his “Employee to Solopreneur” course (launching later this year).
Larry lives in Northern California near Lake Tahoe with his wife and children, and a gigantic Great Dane. He does his best to share advice to help others take complete control of their work and life. He’s also on Twitter @cornett.
There are two things that I see as huge risks that today's society strongly incentivizes. One is "the when/then trap," which is the idea that once you have achieved some accomplishment, you'll "finally" be happy/content/etc. That's a trap because true, durable happiness is intrinsic, yet society programs us from an early age to believe that happiness is extrinsic by showing us advertisements and other success narratives.
The second is simply taking on too much debt. If you are going to do the "grind" or "hustle" thing and your goal is to work your way out of having a job, don't backpedal by paying tons of interest to banks. Literally everyone offers some kind of financing now, for everything. It's become the norm to take out loans for cars, or to furnish a home, and to carry a balance on multiple credit cards. Avoid these whenever possible.