Change How You’re Paid, Change Your Life
Your life undeniably revolves around the way you are paid.
Believe it or not, the key to reinventing yourself is reinventing how you get paid.
I’m going to explain this statement to you so plainly, so painfully, so truthfully that it’s as good as gospel.
But it’s not.
It’s not Jesus or Buddha gospel.
Not that kind of good news.
What this article preaches is lifestyle gospel.
Lifestyle news.
The gospel according to Payments.
I’m not making a case here for what is good or bad or better or best.
This statement is a fact of life:
HOW you get paid dictates (LITERALLY) your life.
— I’m not even talking about how much you get paid.
— I’m talking about what you have to do to get paid.
The HOW of getting paid determines the quality of your life, the abundance (or lack) of time you enjoy and whether you get to coach your kids baseball team or go to that ballet recital or not.
Frick. (Soft cuss?) That’s a hard pill to swallow if you think about it.
Are you a Doubting Thomas?
Consider this disgusting piece of info:
HOW you’re paid determines WHEN you get to go on vacation with your family!
Come on.
(Ridiculous 19th and 20th Century managers ruined the world…thanks to the railroad and retirement plans. But I digress…)
The relationship between your pay and your life is a case for both correlation and causation — it is just plain truth whether you believe it or not — like gravity.
Change the Way You’re Paid, Change Your Life.
Consider these questions and self-reflect. Not all will be applicable.
…think how it applies on both a micro and macro level, globally.
— When do you get up in the morning? Why?
— When do you come home? Why?
— Do you have to ask someone for permission to do anything, anytime, ever? Why?
— If you had a different job…you’re ideal employment (or self-employment), would your lifestyle change…at all? Why?
— Where do you live? Why?
— When do you go on vacation? Why?
— Do you dread Monday or is it like any other day of the week? Why?
— Who do you hang out with 9–5, M-F? Why?
— Are weekends a thing for you? Do you like them or dread them or just…whatever? Why?
If you’re a thinking person, you realize these are all loaded questions. Sorry about that. You get the point though, yeah?
These questions directly tie back to your job and HOW you get paid.
Not how much you get paid.
…how much you’re paid is irrelevant for the purposes of this article.
— I know billionaires (personally) strapped to a chair by choice because their business model revolves around the revolving chair they sit in.
— I know people in poverty (personally) who hate life because they can’t make ends meet.
— I know multi-millionaires that do whatever they want, whenever they want because their business model is mobile and has nothing to do with an elevator or swiveling chair.
— I know people barely making ends meet who do whatever they want, whenever they want because they can and they are happy.
Don’t joke yourself — you know (or know of) these people too.
Can you think of other types of people, how they are paid and how they can use (or not use) their only real resource…their time?
Of course you can.
There are myriad ways to make money, yet regardless of how much you’re paid, how and why you get paid dictates your lifestyle.
Reread that last line.
Internalize it.
This is important because even those that leave jobs to become entrepreneurs mess it all up when they create another job for themselves.
Idiots.
WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?
Entrepreneurs think in a box (an office) and live in an echo chamber of parrots.
(Sorry, entrepreneurs. You know it’s true. We do. Until we don’t!)
Why not own your business rather than be owned by your business?
See the difference?
HOW you get paid…
…no matter how much money you make…
…or whether you’re a freelancing-self-employed-consultant-author-webinar-guru-dude…
…or you’re some radical-world-changing-tech-loving-entrepreneur…
…or you’re a 9–5-grinder-work-for-the-man kind of person…
HOW and WHY and WHERE you get paid DICTATES your life.
The good news?
The gospel of pay is that you can change your life by changing how you’re paid.
If you want to change your life, you must change how and why you get paid.
— You can change your mindset,
— You can change your fitness level,
— You can change what you read and listen to,
…You can change ALL things in your life, but until you take action on a new business model through employment or entrepreneurship, you’re day-to-day lifestyle remains the same.
That’s the gospel of pay.
You know this is true. Let it sink in. Make adjustments as necessary.
Your lifestyle is directly tied to HOW you are paid and where you are expected to be and how you deliver on that obligation.
Background on the Modern Human and Your Current Job Obligations, Golden Handcuffs, Retirement Plan
People did not work for other people the way we do now for THOUSANDS of years.
You get that right?
This whole slave-to-the-cubicle thing is new.
You realize that, right?
The modern job is a zoo-like experiment on the human race.
Ever see monkeys fight over a banana? Ever see coworkers fight over a promotion? Yeah. Samers.
The modern job is just that…new. And it sucks.
People sitting all day for hours looking at a glowing light are bound to get ran over like a deer in headlights.
What happened?
In the late 1800s, organizations in countries such as Germany and the United States began to offer pensions to meet the needs of the people.
Often they put a restriction on the disbursement of retirement benefits and unleashed them only to the people who met the company’s or the government’s special requirements (such as reaching the age of sixty-five).
Companies and governments essentially said, “If you do what I want you to do today, I’ll give you money tomorrow.”
The result? Tens of millions of people receive social security benefits every year.
But now, more than a hundred years after that first wave of pensioners, we have several generations of people who have actually been incentivized to put off their dreams until age sixty-five or later.
(And they say Millennials are entitled. lol)
With a promise in hand (from management or government or retirement planners) that life-after-work will be better, we crumple up our dreams like a paper ball and toss them out the window, hoping that the wind will blow those dreams back our way when we finally hit retirement.
Then, 2008 happened.
Remember that?
Dang, dude.
We were lied to.
No one saw it coming.
(Or did they?)
Agendas change.
Hidden agendas are uncovered.
We lost to “the man.”
Today, people don’t trust corporations. They work at a company for 4.6 years statistically (in the USA) and we have to create our own currency (Did someone say Bitcoin?) because we’re rapidly losing trust in the almighty dollar.
AND YET,
The ability to retire is great!
The unintended consequence of retirement planning, however, is that while people plan for future financial savings and investments (a good thing), they get it all mixed up with saving their dreams for later (a bad thing).
Save your money, not your dreams!
Retirement confusion has talked people in their twenties into believing that they need to wait until their sixties to do what they really have in mind with their lives!!!!! (Yes, five exclamation points!) What is that? It is absurd. But after interviewing too many people who fell into the retirement mentality trap, I feel a responsibility to warn you: it’s a slippery slope, and it can happen to you.
I have a business that is mobile. It’s global. I create both digital and physical products for myself and clients. I write books and do deals and all that jazz from the beach in Hawaii or camping in the Sierras or from the Great Wall of China. All these statements here are not exaggerations.
Everything I do runs from my cell phone. This is a constraint I gave myself.
Ask a better question, get a better answer.
This statement came from a mentor of mine, Mark Willes.
I’ve learned that if I ask myself something like…”How can I do ABC, without XYZ happening?”…then my mind works until I find an answer.
I test and experiment to find a solution and employ that strategy with aligned tactics to make it work.
For Example
It just dawned on me today how global my businesses run…from my cell phone.
I get paid by using my cell phone as my computer, my office and my talking machine.
I met people from Tonga, Samoa, Marshall Islands, Tahiti, Australia and New Zealand yesterday in person.
Then, that night I got a call from a business partner in China.
Then, this morning I got a call from Spain.
Then another from Germany.
All while another service I have is being fulfilled by people in Lithuania.
This all happened in the last 12 hours.
I work with freelancers.
I find them on the Internet.
It’s awesome.
It’s like this every day from Hawaii on my cell phone walking the beaches of the North Shore.
Don’t limit your life by borders.
Legit Questions
What would you do if you didn’t feel like you needed more?
Like you weren’t waiting?
Like you weren’t stuck?
I have a FIRM belief that if we don’t share our stories, our experience, our knowledge, our skills, our gifts, our talents that those around us (now) and future generations will repeat our same mistakes.
Share with others what is working and not working and watch magic happen in your life as you help others.
If you want to change the way you’re paid so you can change your life…DEMAND it from yourself.
Think of what you want your life to be like and then find a job or create one that meets your criteria.
Too simple?
Yes. I agree. Way oversimplified.
So what?
I don’t know what you want to do. YOU DO.
PAY A MENTOR IN YOUR IDEAL INDUSTRY TO TEACH YOU HOW TO GET PAID DIFFERENTLY
Can’t afford a paid mentor?
SERVE SOMEONE WITH REAL VALUE.
I’ve discovered that if I ask people for help they tell me where to go.HOWEVER, if I serve people first, they bend over backwards to help me make my ideas happen.
This will be true for you.
FINAL THOUGHTS, BUT IT IS NEVER FINAL
Many of my clients before I meet them have tragically given way to the notion that waiting was the wisest course of action:
“When I have more money I’ll finally _________”
or
“When I retire I’ll be able to _________.”
The common conversation in my interviews with people about life was,
“When I’m sixty-five — but hopefully sooner — I will be able to relax, travel, donate to charity, spend time with my family, and give my time to the causes I care about. I will finally live the dreams I’ve waited for and worked my whole life to live.”
Friends, that thinking doesn’t work as planned.
I’ve interviewed over 300 people and asked them about their lives, money and whether they felt successful or not. I’m bold. They love it. It’s raw and real.
Many of the people I’ve interviewed followed a life-plan that went something like this:
— Be a kid.
— Have dreams.
— Grow up.
— Finish school.
— Go to work.
— Make millions.
— Retire.
— Live dreams.
They prepared. They worked hard. They invested time and resources. Then they waited, for years, only to discover that life at the end of the retirement rainbow wasn’t exactly what they thought it would be. Sometimes a spouse had passed away. Sometimes their health had declined. The market had taken an unexpected financial downturn, and many of them didn’t have the money they’d expected to have (and on and on and on).
These wonderful, conscientious, patient, dedicated individuals had invested all their time, effort, and/or savings into a sinking ship, and now their treasure lay irre- trievable upon the ocean floor. The tragedy isn’t merely the treasure lost; it’s the forty years of dreams postponed. Forty years of waiting—and those days are gone forever.
The concept of retirement planning is a good thing that has simply gone too far.
Sadly, retirement planning, in many circumstances, has become nothing more than planned procrastination.
DON’T LET THAT BE YOU. WHATEVER AGE, YOU CAN LIVE YOUR IDEALS IN THE NOW…CHANGE THE WAY YOU’RE FREAKING PAID.
I don’t say this lightly…
YOU CAN DO THIS.
Cliche much?
Shut up.
Just go do something.
When you decide, really decide, to move on ideas that you want to pursue, you’ll no longer be the person that says:
“I’ll do it later.”
“Maybe someday.”
“I wish I could, but I can’t because . . .”
Those are the words of non-achievers and regret-mongers. Instead of wondering when you’re finally going to start, decide to act today.
— Don’t get lost in waiting.
— Don’t live a life of regret.
— Don’t lose out on opportunities that can influence your life and the lives of others for good.
Henry David Thoreau said,
“When it’s time to die, let us not discover that we have never lived.”
I personally challenge you to internalize that.
DO YOU FEEL STUCK? WANT TO GET UNSTUCK?
Want to change your life…the way you’re paid…your job…your business model? Why am I getting so personal? How will we do this together?
I personally challenge you to get unstuck.
I’ve written an effective micro-book / checklist / guide with Whitney Johnson — Top 50 Thinker, LinkedIn Influencer with over 1,000,000 followers, bestselling author of Disrupt Yourself and partner in a fund with THE Clayton Christensen of Innovator’s Dilemma who coined the term disruptive innovation.
Grab your free copy of this checklist to “self-disrupt” and get unstuck immediately.
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Grab your free seat for the limited time training where two bestselling business authors will show you how to work from anywhere, create your dream job, and become financially free.
I agree with you Richie. And, I do the same, running my business mobile and using my cell phone. Smart!