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Busting Your Corporate Idol

Is the Era of Work Over People Is Coming To An End?

March 12, 2013 by 2 Comments

Chapter 10: The People-First Life Part 16 (Conclusion)

Busting Your Corporate Idol (Conclusion)

I’m incredibly optimistic that the era of busting corporate idols is upon us. Look to the millennial generation – they grew up watching their parents work all the time, and want something better for themselves.

And more and more, those of us in middle or the end of our careers want a better life too. Even senior executives are starting to publicly admit that it doesn’t have to be this way. Ten years ago, it would have been unthinkable that an executive from Goldman Sachs would condemn the company’s values in a public resignation letter. But that is exactly what Greg Smith did a year ago.

In 2007, it would have been unthinkable that Erin Callan, then CFO of Lehman Brothers, would one day write about the regret she feels for putting the company first. Yet that is exactly what she did last week. Callan wrote

“I didn’t have to be on my BlackBerry from my first moment in the morning to my last moment at night. I didn’t have to eat the majority of my meals at my desk. I didn’t have to fly overnight to a meeting in Europe on my birthday. I now believe that I could have made it to a similar place [CFO] with at least some better version of a personal life. Not without sacrifice — I don’t think I could have “had it all” — but with somewhat more harmony.”

None of us can have it all, but we all can have people who love us. It’s just a matter of values and priorities.

Wherever you are in your life, whatever you have done in the past, it is never too late to shift your focus, to bust your corporate idol, and to start putting people first.

The people are there, waiting for you with open arms.

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How To Think Less About Work and More About Life

March 12, 2013 by 1 Comment

Chapter 10: The People-First Life Part 14

Have I convinced you that there is something to this Corporate Idolatry thing? Maybe or maybe not, but in either case, I hope you see the world a little differently.

The first time I presented the outline for Busting Your Corporate Idol, the writing class was split. Some people thought it was an amazing idea that spoke to them. Others were viscerally upset, arguing that the book attacked the basic work ethic, and was anti-corporation. It took me only ten minutes to present the outline; we discussed the idea for forty-five minutes.

That class was a safe place to talk. I hope you can find a safe place to re-examine who you are and what is most important to you. An outside perspective can really help. If you play your cards right, you can get your company to pay for an executive coach, for “professional development.” Once you are behind closed doors, you can ask the coach to help you get your life back into balance. Coaches tell me this is very common.

Maybe you want to change, but are afraid to start. The first step is the hardest, so let me give you some help. Say to yourself  out loud “My company will no longer be my idol. I’m going to start putting people first.” And thereafter, begin each day thinking or saying “I am the kind of person who puts people first.” You’ll start to see the world differently, and you’ll start to make different decisions.

This may seem hokey, but if you really want to change, what do you have to lose?  Does it seem scary to pull back from work? That is understandable too. You may also feel like you are the only one who has doubts about the corporate life. Believe me, you are not alone.

There is a secret army of people who are starting to speak out, and starting to make changes.

What do you think about Corporate Idolatry? Please comment below, and then click through to read the conclusion to the book in the next post.

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Should Working Seven Days a Week Carry the Death Penalty?

March 11, 2013 by 2 Comments

Chapter 10: The People-First Life Part 14

According to the Torah, the basis for traditional Jewish law, the penalty for working on the Sabbath is death by stoning. Is this just another example of the grumpy, jealous God of the Old-Testament, or is there something we can learn today?

I don’t think it is a coincidence that the Sabbath was first introduced in the Bible when the Israelites were slaves in Egypt. (Moses asked that the Israelites be given a day off.)  As slaves, they did not have control over their time, and needed to do what the taskmaster asked them to.

And we can never forget that in Egypt the Israelites worshipped the idols of the Egyptians. It is amazing to me how often the Israelites tried to go back to Egypt. In fact, the Israelites made it all the way to the border of the Promised Land, chickened out, and tried to go back to Egypt. As a result wandered for 40 years in the desert. The story of the death penalty for working on the Sabbath took place during the time in the desert.

I see the Shabbat Laws in the context of cultural change. The Israelites were a people who would not change.

The draconian nature of the punishment for working seven days a week highlights both the difficulty of getting people to stop working, as well as the importance of a time to recharge for human health and welfare.

In addition, I know from firsthand experience how addictive the always-on experience can be. And from from a business standpoint, there is a competitive advantage, at least in the short run, of being open seven days a week. The death penalty solves both of these issues – it levels the playing field for all businesses, and for all people.

But punishment alone is tough sell for changing behavior. Jewish Laws and customs also describe the Sabbath as a taste of the World to Come (Heaven). Shabbat is a day of contemplation and life-affirming activities. For example, Jews are commanded to have a festive meal, take a nap, and have sexual intercourse.

Let me get this straight, once a week I am commanded to eat well, get extra sleep, and have sex?  Throw in watching a college basketball game and it really is heaven for me.

So the lesson for recovering corporate idolators is this: combine some hard and fast rules to limit work, and plan some fun activities in it’s place.

For me, a day without work means no email, no writing, and no social media. I’ll be honest, it is hard for me, even today. I try, and most weeks I succeed. Living in the post-idolatry world does not mean never making a mistake, or a problem free life, but it does mean a deliberate effort to steer towards the family.

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Is a Day Without Work Too Much To Ask?

March 10, 2013 by 2 Comments

Chapter 10: The People-First Life Part 13

Now that you are saying no to your boss, I suggest that you work towards a six day work week. One day with no email and no phone calls. I know, there is a perception that we are all expected to be on call all the time. Sometimes this is reality, but more often it is merely perception.

When I was interviewing people for the book, I sometimes pushed to understand why someone was working every day. Some people said “Don’t blame the company, I’m choosing to do this.”  I would smile and nod, but I wanted to scream “Yes, that proves my point! You are choosing to work all the time!” The other common answer went something like this “The more senior you are, the more there is an expectation that you need to be available 24/7.” Again I nodded, but inside I was thinking of the CEOs and senior VPs I interviewed who said that they felt a day away from work was critical to their success.

I’ve defined corporate idolatry as a company-first or work-first value system. And people who are caught up in corporate idolatry create illusions that support he company-first lifestyle. I think both of the arguments above are indicators of corporate idolatry.

Way back in Chapter 2, I pointed out that the first two of the Ten Commandments are prohibitions against idolatry. The Fourth Commandment instructs us to “Keep the Sabbath,” a day without work. Did you know that some Rabbis argue that the most important holiday in Judaism is the Sabbath? Yes, we are commanded to take a holiday every week. It was heresy in the pagan world.

For example, the Greeks and Romans criticized the Jews for the Sabbath, because leisure was something for the upper classes only, not to be shared with common workers. In an ironic twist, the corporate idolators of today think that the more senior are expected to work more than junior employees.

Is there a competitive advantage for a business that has people working seven days a week?

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The Secret To Saying No To Your Boss Is To Say Yes To Someone More Important

March 8, 2013 by 2 Comments

Chapter 10: The People First Life Part 12

Most of the time, your boss is the single most important person to you at your job. And given our propensity to obey authority figures, it is especially hard to say no to the boss – after all, it is part of your job to work on what they tell you to work on. And if you like the boss and like the company, saying no is even harder.

The trick to saying no in the post-idolatry world is to remember that work is no higher than the third priority in your life. If you are a believer, I don’t need to tell you that God is more important than work. And if you aren’t a believer, your health and the people in your life are more important than work.

So when your boss asks you to do something that you want to say no to, think of someone more important in your life, e.g a spouse, a child, or a friend. Now give that other person in your life more authority than your boss. If you say yes to the boss and work longer hours,  it will take away from a more important part of your life.

Imagine this other person is inviting you to be with them. Maybe it is a hike, maybe it is having dinner, maybe it is just sitting together. Visualize how they look at you. They see you for the person you really are, and love you for it. And because they are more important to you than the company, your mind is clear.  You are in the moment with them, free from the mental chatter of the work world.

Say yes to the other person, and then let your boss down easy.

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Why It Is Hard To Say NO To the Boss?

March 6, 2013 by 2 Comments

Chapter 10: The People-First Life, Part 11

When the boss asks you to do something, it can be hard to say no.  But saying no is one of the most important career skills you can learn. (And here is a good article with some tips on how to say no to the boss.) Over the next few posts, I’ll share the secret of saying no to the boss. But first, lets review why it is so easy to say yes, even if we don’t want to.

Humans have a psychological predisposition to say yes to authority figures. I’ve included a video that  shows footage of the obedience experiments run by Stanley Milgram, a social psychologist at Yale in the sixties. Milgram showed that ordinary people will give painful electronic shocks to other people if instructed by an authority figure. Participants thought they were testing memory, and started giving shocks of increasing severity. The recipient (who was really an actor) began to cry out in pain and beg for the experiment to end.

How did people react?  Participants got upset, asked to quit, but the man in the white coat told them “the experiment requires you to continue.” The shock was given, again and again, even when the recipient started groaning and no longer spoke. Watch the video; it’s shocking.

So if random people will hurt other people because a stranger in a white coat told them to do so, how much stronger is the impulse to obey when it is your boss asking you to do something less dastardly?

Living a people-first life provides an escape from the blind obedience described by Milgram. I’ll explain in detail in the next post. As a hint, for every yes to the guy in the white coat, there was a no to the guy being shocked.

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The Corporate Ladder Or Jacob’s Ladder?

March 4, 2013 by 2 Comments

Chapter 10: The People First Life Part 10

Which is more important to you, getting promoted or living a good life? In the last post, I wrote that Marissa Mayer’s top three priorities are God, family, and Yahoo.  My top priorities are health, family, and my book.

I won’t pretend that it isn’t hard for me to keep the book from creeping ahead of the other two. One thing that helps me remember my priorities is the story of Jacob’s Ladder from the Bible, which ultimately is about values and priorities.

Jacob, (grandson of Abraham,) dreams of a ladder connecting heaven and earth. He sees angels going up and down the ladder, hears the voice of God, and awakens to say “surely the Lord is in this place.”[i]  I interpret this story to mean that God is not just up in heaven but resides down on earth as well. As I argued in Chapter 2, in Judaism God’s teachings can be summarized by the Golden Rule, which itself is a universal value that transcends religion or the belief in God. The Jewish version of the GR reads “That which is hateful to you, do not do to another.”

Jacob’s Ladder is the story of a man who changes his priorities to put other people ahead of his own needs. When he went to sleep, Jacob was a selfish young man, fleeing after stealing his older brother’s birthright. After the dream, he quite literally fathers the Hebrew nation.

So for me, life on Jacob’s Ladder means a life where people are the highest priority – in this world and at this time. Why wait for heaven to be happy? Life on Jacob’s Ladder will bring greater happiness today. For example, in Paula Davis-Laack’s article “10 Things Happy People Do Differently“, three of those things prioritize people and NONE suggest material gain as a strategy.

This doesn’t mean that that climbing the corporate ladder is a bad thing, only that people should be a higher priority if you want to be happy. And putting people first doesn’t mean that you won’t be successful. In fact, Jacob becomes very prosperous, with “large flocks, [servants,] and camels and donkeys.”

Father of a people, and a large flock?  It didn’t get much better than that in the ancient world. And it started when Jacob put his priorities in order.

Have you ever had a dream that influenced your life?

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Marissa Mayer, Yahoo, and Idolatry

March 1, 2013 by 2 Comments

Chapter 10: The People-First Life Part 9

Busting Your Corporate Idol challenges each of us to make people a higher priority than the company.  The mishandled change to Yahoo’s telecommuting policy and the resulting backlash have a lot to teach about idolatry.

Was it Corporate Idolatry to remove the working from home benefit?

No.  Marissa Mayer, the Yahoo board, and many outside analysists perceive that radical change is needed to save the company.  While insensitively communiated to employees, more employees would be hurt if the company cannot turn around the trend of declining revenues.

Was it Corporate Idolatry for Marissa Mayer to build a nursery next to her office?

No.  Mayer was not doing what is best for the company, but rather was taking care of her own needs. In fact, Mayer has stated that her priorities are ‘God, family, and Yahoo! – in that order.’

CEOs always have extra perks. Mayer chose to use her perks to keep her son close to her. To me, this falls under the Rule of Self Preservation.

Mayer did, however, forget one of the leadership lessons shared by Robert Sutton in his book Good Boss, Bad Boss.  Namely, a good leader understands that everything they do comes under scrutiny. She’ll learn.

How about us?  Did we create an idol of Marissa Mayer?

Yes.  I think it was we who are guilty if idolatry, both when it comes to Mayer and Yahoo. Elissa Freeman captured it well in The Broad Side when she wrote “The decision to make Mayer the new face of feminism was ours, not hers. Yet, since her hiring, women have not been kind to Mayer.”

The anger and frustration with Mayer speak to the incredible longing for a better worklife balance among so many people. It speaks to the very real conflict experienced by many working woman who feel torn between career and family.  These normal and natural feelings become idolatry when we expect other people to solve these problems for us.

And in my opinion, we can’t expect the business world to solve a social problem.

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Marissa Mayer Busts Sacred Cows At Yahoo

February 27, 2013 by 3 Comments

Chapter 10: The People-First Life Part 8

Yahoo busted a sacred cow when it discontinued it’s current work from home policy. (See the last post for more.) Frankly, compared to IBM’s changes to its pension program in the early 90’s, this is small potatoes.

Don’t get me wrong, I support business strategies like ROWE, which gives employees 100% flexibility about when to come in to the office. Cali Ressler & Jody Thompson the inventors of ROWE, wrote a great open letter to Yahoo, explaining why reducing flexibility is a step backwards. The letter is a business case, as opposed to a moral imperative. As you know, I don’t believe a company is capable of moral agency for either good or ill. Therefore, I think it is far more effective to describe a moral imperative as a business case for good.

While ROWE has a very good track record of business returns, at the end of the day it is only a strategy. And ROWE is not the only good strategy for making money.  Google is decidedly not ROWE.  The “always on campus strategy” works for them, and will continue to work until it doesn’t.

So what can Yahoo employees who like to work from home do, now that they must start coming to the office in June?  If working from home is important to you, my advice is not to take the change personally and use the transition time through June to find another job.

There is another more interesting option for those who will be staying: Use the culture transition as an opportunity to solve The Problem in another way.  And what is The Problem?  Too much time and energy going into work, and not enough left for anything else. Data shows that people who work from home tend to work longer hours, and are more likely to feel “on call” all the time.

What if the tradeoff of going to the office every day is a firmer boundary between work and the rest of life?  “I’ll be in the office every day with energy and enthusiasm, but when I go home the email stays off.”

After all, doesn’t the strategy say that working from home is less effective for what Yahoo is trying to achieve?  And doesn’t the research show that rested, relaxed people are more creative and collaborative?

The previous post explains why I support the changes at Yahoo.

The next post offers some perspective for people upset with Yahoo or Marissa Mayer.

 

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Marissa Mayer’s Quest To Change Yahoo’s Culture

February 27, 2013 by 3 Comments

Chapter 10: Embrace People First Part 7

If you have been reading Busting Your Corporate Idol, you might expect me to be against Marissa Mayer’s decision to end telecommuting.  I’m not, and here’s why: I expect a good business leader to make strategic decisions that are best for the business, and not to consider a larger social movement or the impact on individuals. It’s the reality of the corporate world that strategies change, and benefits change even faster. My advice is to embrace reality, and plan your life accordingly.

From her first weeks at Yahoo, Meyer has worked to change the culture, to become a place where people work with energy to create synergy for innovation.  One part of the strategy was free lunches, to encourage employees to stay in the office. (See this post for a discussion of the downside of the free lunch culture.)

At the same time, Mayer has made no secret that she wants to upgrade the talent at Yahoo. In September, the Business Insider reported that Mayer was reviewing every hire at Yahoo to make sure high level talent was coming in. An internal source at Yahoo explained that

“one of Yahoo’s biggest problems over the past couple years has been “B-players” hiring “C-players” who were not “fired up to come to work” and were “tolerated too long.  I mean nobody gave a s— to come to Yahoo.”

So from a company perspective, anyone who leaves because of the telecommuting ban is another chance to hire an A player. And this policy change is a shot across the bow to send a message that anyone can be replaced; sacred cows of the old order will not be tolerated.

In the next post, I’ll explain why busting sacred cows at Yahoo offers opportunities for a better life.

And in the post after I’ll offer some perspective for people who feel let down by Marissa Mayer.

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The Secret To Kicking the Habit Of Overwork

February 25, 2013 by 2 Comments

Chapter 10: Embrace People First Part 6

Corporate idolatry brings a habit of overwork, and in many ways it can be looked at as an addiction. Part of the complexity is that working can feel really good.  For example, Flow is a state of immersion  and enjoyment doing a task, and the best parts of a job involve flow.  Healthy aspects of work turn into idolatry when the company becomes the most important thing in your life, and can become an addition when there are not sources of flow outside the workplace. And the body can become addicted to the constant adrenaline high of a hectic pace. (See this article for more on being an adrenaline junkie.)

So how to kick the habit?

I interviewed a man who worked for years at a hectic pace in corporate sales, and has struggled after he took a more relaxed job.  “I’m going crazy Greg.”  It’s called withdrawal, and it will pass. He went cold turkey for health reasons. He missed the early signals, and a health crisis hit in his late forties’. It is far better to take a slow and steady pace to recover your time.

It took me a year to go from 90 to 60 hours a week.  The more extreme your overwork, the faster you’ll start to see the benefits. It’s a tipping point kind of thing – retaking the hours at the extremes will help you feel better right away.  For example, if you review the 90 hour week time profile in Chapter 7, you’ll notice that I wasn’t getting enough sleep. So, the first place to recover time is around bedtime.

I suggest two practices to set boundaries:

  1. First, make your bedroom a sacred space.  No work, email, or electronics.  The bedroom is for sleep and sex. Less work in the bedroom is guaranteed to bring you more and better sex.
  2. Stop all email between 10 PM and 5 AM. If work wakes you up during these hours, jot a quick note on paper to clear your mind. Avoid Facebook or other electronics too (except Kindle for reading only.) I guarantee you most of what you are doing during this time is crap anyway. Every 2-4 weeks, expand the time of the “no email zone.”

It is important to have 1-2 hours without work of any kind before bedtime to allow you to unwind. This made a huge difference in my life, because it opened more time to spend with my wife after the kids went to bed.  And, it gave me more time to read and watch some tv shows I really liked.

Increasing the time every day for rest and renewal will make you feel better, AND more effective at work.

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The Secret To Avoiding a Fatal Mistake in the Office

February 22, 2013 by 2 Comments

No one can be told what the Matrix is

Chapter 10: Embrace People First Part 5

I love the movie The Matrix.  At the beginning of the movie, Neo had a feeling that something was wrong with his life, but couldn’t tell what it was. He discovered that his entire life had been a lie, an elaborate illusion constructed by a malevolent computer network.

Nothing so dramatic in my life, but I did get a signal that opened my eyes to my life of corporate idolatry. Many of the thing that kept me in a “company-first” mindset were also illusions. A spiritual teacher told me that I was smart to listen, because he ignored the signals he was given, and his life had to fall apart before he started to make changes.

My father once told me that he knew alcoholics who suddenly stopped drinking because they “heard something.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“They heard angel wings,” he answered. “The wings of the angel of death. They knew that if they didn’t stop drinking, they were going to die.”

Kind of creepy, but the image stayed with me.  Have you ever heard something, or had a quiet voice in your head saying that things are not ok?  Remember Sue, the VP who was secretly crying and throwing up every day?  She ignored a “nagging voice telling me it had gone too far,” and she ended up sick.

For some people, life won’t change until a crisis. One person suggested that I try to reach people who have hit rock bottom due to burnout.  She is a psychologist, who worked crazy hours until her father got sick, and her life went on tilt trying to deal with it all.  She took a leave and may never go back. “I would not have been ready to hear this message until I got to the breaking point.”

After telling my story at a writers meeting, a woman handed me a note that said “I just buried my 52 year old husband due to Karoshi [a Japanese word that means death by overwork].  He was a brilliant genius.” She told me her husband was a workaholic, driven by “inner demons” and couldn’t be reached. And a friend of mine had a coworker drop dead of a heart attack at his desk after he was laid off.

I refuse to believe that nothing can be done until it is too late.  I am the proof. I am convinced that I would have had health issues if I were still working 90 hours a week today.

It starts with listening to that little voice that says things should be different. It isn’t the voice of fear; it is the voice of hope.

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What Do You Want Your Legacy To Be?

February 20, 2013 by 2 Comments

 Chapter 10: The People-First Life Part 4

When 85 and on your deathbed, who do you want to be there with you?  The answer to that question can impact the choices you make today.  Think of it as a project plan – envision the end and plan backwards. Are the people you want to be there the people you spend time with now?

Ever see or read Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman? I saw it in my twenties. I thought the play was great, but I really didn’t understand it until years later.  I too had the same dream as Willie Loman, the protagonist, “to  come out as the number one man.” I wanted to be at the top of whatever I was doing – the best scientist, and the best product manager.  (Hey, part of me still wants to be number one, so if you could buy my book when it comes out and help make Busting Your Corporate Idol a best seller, I’d appreciate it.) I thought Lowman was a loser who couldn’t cut it.  Now I am more sympathetic, because I know how seductive the corporate life can be.

The play brilliantly depicts Willie’s struggle to hold off a lifetime of regrets by clinging to his illusions.  The vision of a salesman’s funeral is what keeps him going, a funeral attended by a lifetime of customers and buyers, crying and weeping at his passing.  Willie wants to be important and liked, and has sacrificed everything in pursuit of the relationship with his buyers. He sees himself as critical for his company’s success, but is fired from his job.

Willie Loman loved to use his hands, but eschewed that path for his life. His house was paid for, his friend offered him an easy job, and yet he chose suicide. And at his funeral, not a single buyer was in attendance, only his family.

Loman’s two son’s travel different paths: One chooses to work with his hands and be happy as a “dime a dozen” guy.  The other strives to “beat the racket” and achieve the greatness in business that alluded his father. Each brother has made a choice, a choice that may never have occurred to Willie Loman.

I reject the “dime a dozen” characterization as unnecessarily pejorative.  I think it represents the great fear of many high achievers – “If I don’t keep working this hard I won’t have any value.” It just isn’t true.

So, what do you want your legacy to be?

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Money, Lifestyle, and Priorities

February 18, 2013 by 2 Comments

Chapter 10: The People First Life Part 3

The idea of making less money scares people. Which is why in the last post I recommend finding out how many months you could pay your expenses if you lost your income. But the fear isn’t completely rational – there is a fear of deprivation.

Here is a story from “Brian,” a silicon valley executive who gets 150 emails a day, and accumulates over 1000 unread emails every month. He has grown accustomed to working in somewhat chaotic environments.  Here is how he describes his finances.

“I don’t like living my life with any financial uncertainty.  I have a very clear financial situation that I have become accustomed to.  I have a certain lifestyle I lead.  It’s not like I spend money lavishly, but I like to go on nice vacations, and I like being able to buy the things I want.  For example, if I’m in Sports Authority and I see something I want, I’m going to buy it. I was there for something else, and there was a driver on sale. I didn’t need a new driver, but it was like half price and last years model.”

Since the interview, Brian changed jobs twice, both because of layoffs. In other words, he stayed with the chaotic jobs for fear of putting his finances at risk, and ended up without a job anyway. There is no such thing as financial certainty in this world, so why not try to have a life you’ll enjoy?

My advice is to focus on the life you’d like to lead, rather than on having less money.  Do you want a job with fewer emails? Fewer emails means less push to work at home, which in turn opens time for family and friends. Think of it as a substitution. By analogy, I like the diet advice that says replace the bagel with fresh almonds and walnuts. Both taste good, and both can fill you up. Diet’s that just say “stop eating bagels” just make me feel bad.

In my experience, as I focused on the people in my life, I found that I no longer get cravings for that odd golf club purchase. It is a transition, and didn’t happen by itself. But as I focused on people, they focused more on me, a virtuous cycle that feels great.

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Money In The Bank Means Freedom To Choose

February 14, 2013 by 4 Comments

Chapter 10: The People-First Life Part 2

To give you a preview of the post-idolatry world, I no longer worry about money.  Ok, truth be told, I never really worried about money.  I grew up poor, and have always felt that I could get by with less.

But when I was making money, I sure spent a lot of it. Part of the reason I spent money was that I was stressed. I need that fancy dinner to forget the office, and as a visible reward for the hard work.  And I tended to make big impulse buys.  Like art. My late uncle always used to sat that your standard of living will rise to meet your income. He was right.  And the reverse it true too.

Before resigning from my job 3.5 years ago, my wife and I spent two months examining the finances. She is so much better at budgeting than I am, and was quickly able to pull together the numbers. What could we cut back on if we went down to one income? It was amazing how much money we  could save without depriving ourselves e.g. babysitting, dry cleaning, lunches and dinners out, commuting expenses,  library fines and un-submitted insurance reimbursements. It added up.  And our tax bill went down.

As I wrote in the last chapter, it is impossible to predict the future. But there is one question that I think everyone should be able to answer.  How long could you go without earning any money?  In other words, if you lost or quit your job tomorrow, how financially secure are you? If you are the sole or primary breadwinner, the answer may be different than if you are a two-income family.

As you conduct the exercise, assume your burn rate will be the same. It will almost certainly go down, but the purpose here is to understand where you stand without becoming anxious that your life will need to radically change. You may be more secure than you realize.

Are concerns about money holding you back from changing jobs or trying to cut back on your hours? Money concerns are legitimate, but they can be overblown.  What feels like a money concern may really be about something else, In the next post, I’ll talk more about money, lifestyle, and priorities.

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