Welcome to a paid-subscription edition!
One day before the Lunar New Year, I saw the tech layoff news all over the media. Although I already left my position last year, reading layoffs posts from people - some are my friends - really touched my heart.
It was a mixed feeling of disappointment and a bit of sadness.
Despite the strong culture and the bonding that tech companies have successfully built in the last two decades:
A company is always a business.
Your company is not your family.
It's a wake-up call for everyone.
Max Weber shared his view about a "traditionalist" view of work is once where people work as much as they need to maintain their current lifestyle, and once that aim is achieved, they stop working.
However, the way we approach work - including our parents and even our grandparents - is working until we retire or even our whole life.
Sometimes, it's not really our default choice. The way any business operates is that they often pay you for the values you bring to work at or slightly higher than the minimum.
Some workers have a higher salary base than the others because the values they bring to the company is higher than others.
For example, if your salary base is around 5,000 USD/month or roughly 60,000 USD/year then probably the actual revenue impact you deliver to your company is probably 5 to 10 times of your salary base. And the amount of money they pay you is treated as business variable cost.
So as we are producing more value to the business, you will earn higher income. But to the point that you can stop working is completely a different story.
The longer you work, the more you will realize that work will feel like it never ends. When we are younger, we want to invest our savings in ourselves. Slightly older, we want to invest in housing and other properties. When we have kids, we want to invest in their future.
As companies always pay us at or slightly higher than the minimum of their business expense ratio (to optimize for a profit), and at the same time your lifestyle keeps upgrading over time, you will find your new level of income will soon be caught up with your new lifestyle.
When you read to this part, you probably may think that you want to become a minimalist, try not to upgrade your lifestyle and save up as much as you can while level up your income.
It's a fair thought. Indeed, that's how many financial advisors could possibly advise you. By working hard to earn higher income and minimizing your unnecessary expenses, you will be able to save enough to a point that you can get out of debts, buy assets and live a better life.
I'm going to tell you this:
That strategy works well when you are consistently deliver values to the business growth.
But remember that things can change very fast in a blink of eyes during an economic downturn or when you go through some unexpected hardship events such as health issues.
You are replaceable at work.
But you are irreplaceable at home.
The wake-up call happens when you really understand where your values stand in your life, and what drives you to do things.
While I help people gain corporate success in life, I believe that working in the corporate is just the first phase of your life.
Working for a business is for your learning. You can earn knowledge, experience, relationships and income from it.
But it's very hard to earn wealth and freedom from just working in the corporation.
Now you probably understand why the high income working group is called "HENRYs" (High Earners, Not Rich Yet) mainly because their source of income comes from working.
They can afford expensive lifestyle, but they are not rich. Many of them are stuck in the system: working hard to maintain their high income to meet their dream lifestyle.
It's far from achieving wealth and freedom.
I believe that it's never too early to think about what you want to do in the rest of life to achieve your wealth and freedom.
And it's also never too late to start something that matters the most to you.
While you are working for any business, leverage your learning and network to look beyond your current scope to search for opportunities.
Starting from 2022, we're seeing the shift to creator economy where individual voice matters.
In this creator economy, it's no longer just about having a 9-5 job, but instead, it's about creating value and income streams through one's unique skills and talents. The possibilities are endless, and it's exciting to see how individuals are taking control of their careers and financial futures through creative endeavors. ~ Abhinav Rastogi
If you ask me what you should do right now, I think it includes 3 steps:
Phase 1: Accelerate your expertise and savings through your 9-5 jobs.
Phase 2: Start building your personal brand around your expertise and interests.
Phase 3: Grow your personal brand, turn it to a side hustle and exit the 9-5 job once your side hustle can scale to replace your 9-5.
For the next edition, I'm going to share about how I started building my personal brand and my key lessons I gained over the last 2 years.
Written by
