My Members Only/Generation One Jacket

Have you ever wanted something just so badly you had to have it? Everybody else had it, so why couldn’t you have it?

You thought about the thing you wanted, and maybe even prayed about it, and you asked your parents, or you asked the universe, or you asked God, “Can I have this?” But even though you asked with all your heart, you didn’t get it. Have you ever gone through that?

My Members Only Jacket

For me, that was my Members Only jacket. Any of you that grew up in the ‘80s probably know what a Members Only jacket was. It was just a windbreaker: nothing very fancy, but it had a little tag that said it's Members Only.

All the cool kids had one, all the kind-of-cool kids had one, even all the dorky kids had one, but I didn't have one. This was one of the only things I think in life that I ever really wanted in this way.

I begged my Mom for one, in any color, but she told me “Wade, these things cost like $80. I can get you something so much less expensive at another store.” She came home a few days later and gave me a windbreaker. The only thing was, this one said Generation One, not Members Only. I told my mom that it wasn’t the same, and this is what she told me in return:

“Here's what's going to happen: you're going to go to school, and some of your friends are going to look at your jacket, and they're going to see, you look good in your jacket. They're going to look closer, and they're going to notice the tag's different, but you're still going to look the same. Maybe they'll make fun of you for a day, but that's it, and life's going to go on.”

Of course, she was right. Just like anything else I’ve done that might be foolish, people poked fun at me for a little bit, and then life went on. I think she paid $20 for the jacket, instead of $80. She just paid a quarter the amount for the jacket, and she was able to buy some groceries with the other money, rather than just a jacket.

No One Cares What Brand of Jacket You Have

Now, there might have been a quality difference between the two products, I don’t know. I wasn’t concerned with that; I was only concerned with the label and with fitting in.

But my mom taught me one of the greatest lessons I've ever learned about wanting things just to fit in: everybody gets over it very quickly. Nobody really cares.

And so anytime I look at people who are in a situation where either they're house poor or they're driving a car that I just know they can't afford, I don’t think “Wow, look at their car,” I think, “How much is it costing the person?”

And, very often, it's costing the person either money they can't afford so that they're building up debt and they're going to pay many times more than they actually paid for it, or it's costing the person in other ways. Maybe they’re working a job they hate because they need it to pay for their house or their car. Maybe they’re working more hours than they want to, even if they do like their job.

There’s More to Life Than Appearances

And yet all of it is really just over about appearance. Maybe in a bigger house you can entertain more people, or a more expensive car is a little comfier, but most of the time people have these things to look good. But what are they giving up for that?

If you’re aiming for a 4-Day Work Week mindset, this is one of the questions that you're going to have to ask yourself. For you, the trade-off might be that you're working extra hours, or it might be that you're missing out on time with your family or kids, or it might be that the side hustle, or the business that you want to start, maybe you don't have the money to do that.

If you want to build a business, or if you want to be a freelancer or an entrepreneur, chances are at some point you're going to have to invest some of your own money. What if, without really impacting your lifestyle, just impacting the label, you could change how you do things and create that freedom for yourself?

This is simply a way of looking at what you want, and how to get it. I want you to consider: what are your Members Only jackets? What are the things that you're spending so much more money on, and really, you're not getting a lot of value for?

Think about that and, more importantly, if you want to take this a step further and start creating your own 4-Day Work Week lifestyle, whether you want to do that over a 5-year period or a 10-year period, then go to 4daygameplan.com, where you can start creating your roadmap to a 4-Day Work Week. There are 12 simple steps that you can follow and there's software to go with it that you can do in Excel and have it do the math for you, or you can just do it in a PDF. There are a few training videos to walk you through too.

This isn't going to get you there magically, but it's going to help you create a plan. It took me 22 years to get where I needed to get, and if I’d have had this plan before, I know I’d have got there in at least half the time, simply because I would have had an idea of where I was going.

As always, if you have any questions on this, let me know. I look forward to helping you make more money in less time and doing what you do best so you can spend time with your friends, your family, your loved ones, and just enjoy life more.

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ABOUT WADE

Wade Galt founded 4-Day Work Week Academy with the goal of helping 4,444,444 employees, entrepreneurs and business owners create and maintain a 4-Day Work Week lifestyle. He is the author of Put Your Money Where Your Soul Is, Mommy & Daddy Love You Exactly as You Are and 8 other books on business, personal growth & spirituality. Learn more about him on LinkedIn or connect with him at [email protected].