How to Have Your Job Work For You

My good friend Jake P recently wrote a blog post on Maximizing Time for Your Self Development, and it has inspired some good discussion on the 30/30 Club Forum.

This topic is near and dear to me. I've worked for the same Fortune 500 company for the past decade, during which I've gotten some big raises, bonuses, and promotions, all while:

- working on an expat package in Asia for a year and a half

- "working remotely" in LA for a year

- backpacking for 3 months as a break after a project was cancelled (paid)

- working remotely a couple times a year for 1 to 2 weeks (paid)

- working from home a day or two a week (like today)

- meeting with CEOs and CTOs of other major companies

- having a big pink beard and wearing whatever I want, including giving a major presentation to a partner company while wearing a T-shirt that says, "Sorry Girls, I only date models"

None of this was offered to me. Nobody said, Hey Nomad, would you like some more money and to work remotely? I asked for it. The first answer was always no. The 2nd and 3rd answers were also usually no.

I always asked the reasons behind the "No" and then came back with proposals that would address those reasons. In the end, for the most part I always get what I asked for. Sometimes I get more than I asked for.

Here are my secrets

Mindset

Have you watched the movie Fight Club? In one scene, Tyler Durden says:

"You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis."

Hopefully nobody here owns khakis, so you have that going for you, but what about your job? Is it a key piece of your identity? Does your life revolve around the demands of your employer? Does the man define when you can take vacation, for how long, what time you have to be at your desk, how often you need to check your email, what kind of clothes you need to wear, and where you need to live?

This is pretty normal for most people. I consider it to be insane. There is so much more to life than working in a cubicle 50+ hours a week, so when people ask "What do you do?" you can say "I'm a lawyer" or "I work on Wall Street" or "I'm a corporate wage slave."

The key here is having the mindset that there is more to life than work. What that is will be something different for everybody. Maybe you want to get better at picking up girls, or more time to pursue a hobby. In the 30/30 Club we help people work on their identity so that your job isn't what defines you.

At one time, I was a corporate wage slave, but then one day I woke up and decided I wasn't happy with my life and I wanted to do more travel. Recognizing that I wanted more than a job was the beginning of something beautiful

Why do I Work?

Once someone decides they want to do something else in life besides sell their soul to some CEO making $100 million a year, they will often ask what else they can do for work? I'll take that one step further, "Why do I work?"

Most people say they need to work to make a living, but it doesn't take a lot of money to meet your basic needs of food/clothing/shelter. I know people that live on less than $500 a month for everything. In truth, most people work for a paycheck so they can buy stuff, like a TV, an iPhone, a car, vacations, etc... I've seen Will Smith credited with this quote: "Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like." It's important to recognize that some things are worth spending money on. I continue to invest in guitar lessons, but don't own a TV or an Xbox. Developing a skill improves my life in the long term, hours spent in front of the boob tube do not

Buying less stuff enables you to save more. In my case, spending less also meant a better quality of life. At one point I had a mortgage for my house and a loan for my car, and my weekends involved working on one or the other. Now I rent an apartment and walk or take a bus. All of my non-working hours are my own, and I don't have any long term ties to one physical location.

Saving more also means that you have a cash cushion, so if you lose your job tomorrow you don't starve. In other words, you need your job less. The day I realized I didn't need my job was the day that my value to my employer went up tremendously. I could say no, I could disagree, I could skip the useless/busywork and focus on the things that had real value, and I could ask for more for myself. In a world full of yes men and people that are scared to lose their job, this has a ton of value. It also makes work much more enjoyable. I had moved to the point where my job was starting to work for me

Reduce your expenses, cut ties to one physical location, and save up a cash cushion of several months. Spending less makes this easier. If you are comfortable to live the freegan lifestyle, you can skip this step

Make Change

It takes some balls, but this is the point where you ask for stuff. In fact, this is the point where you ask for way more than you think you can get. This is what I did:

I had been traveling to Asia for work several times a year, and decided I really wanted to work their full time and learn some local culture and language. I asked around in my company about some people that had done this before and gained some good insight into company policies and suggestions on how to propose this to my boss. The general consensus was that this would be difficult, but people wanted me to make it happen and wished me luck

I suggested to my boss that I start to work in Asia full time, and he said No. Actually, he said no fucking way. Clearly this wasn't a good time, so I waited a week and asked again. This time he told me that I didn't have the skills to work by myself in Asia, so maybe I should take some additional classes or do some extra work after hours to develop those skills. (Yeah, right.) The next time I asked about it, my boss started to realize that I really meant I wanted to work in Asia, and that the interest was so strong that I would find a way even if it meant that I didn't work for him any longer. At this point, he had a decision to make. Fulfill my needs, or go through the long and arduous process of hiring somebody else and then getting them to the point where they were as productive as I am (maybe never). It can take months, during which time his workload would be heavier. In the end, he worked with his boss to make it happen

It was at this point that things got amusing. Because this is a Fortune 500 company with presence all over the world, they have specific policies about people working overseas, and a specific group that manages the whole process. My proposal had been to just continue to pay me and I'll work from Asia. Because of the corporate policies, they couldn't do that. Instead, they had to pay my rent in Asia, give me a raise as a "hardship allowance", give me extra spending money for taxis, and give me an additional extra pay to provide tax equalization. Clearly, my job was really starting to work for me :)

Never Work Again (unless you want to)

There are a ton of blogs on the internet that talk about how to invest your savings. Only one blog I know of tells you how to become financially independent by saving 75% of your income for 5 years. It has a ton of good information, particularly the 21 day makeover, but be wary of being a KJ. Work 5 years, save a lot of money, never work again. Sounds pretty good to me.

At this stage, work is purely optional. You can work because you enjoy it, or take on jobs to build a skill, or even to gain additional savings for a specific purpose. You have complete control over your time in every way.

If you are able to adopt the mindset that work is only a tool, save a large percentage of your income, and ask your employer to make changes that benefit both of you, then you have the option of never working again. 100% of your time can be dedicated to whatever you wish: self-development, travel, banging chics, etc…

That is the path I took. Realizing that I could retire at any point with just 5 years of focus, I would have done it faster, and I would have asked more of my employer sooner

Realize that your more valuable to your employer than what they are currently paying you. You can always get another job, but this is the only life you have. Live it to the fullest. Make change, now.