Is Your Job Killing You?

In: Education By: Brian Armstrong

5 Nov 2007

Ask someone what the three most important things in their life are, and in some order you will probably hear: health, wealth, and relationships. The later includes friends, family, and lovers.

Is your job helping you improve each of these areas?

Health: Chances are your job is the biggest source of stress in your life, could be preventing you from getting enough sleep, and forces you to eat unhealthy food while on the go.

Wealth: The story that we’ve all been told as children (work hard in school, get a good job, work and save for 40 years) is a lie. More than 80% of Americans end up flat broke in old age, totally dependent on others, and praying that they die before their money runs out. Having a job is a way to make a living, not build wealth.

Relationships: Spending 1/3 of your life at work means you can form great relationships with colleagues (although you rarely get to choose which colleagues you spend time with), but also means your time is limited with the others in your life.

Starting to work for yourself instead of being a slave to your job poses some interesting opportunities:

A chance to build wealth as a business owner instead of being a wage slave
Reduced stress, no rush hour traffic, no boss, no annoying colleagues
The time to exercise regularly, shop for healthy food, and eat without being rushed
The ability to get enough sleep
More time with your family, friends, and lovers
The chance to meet more new people
An opportunity to work on what you want, instead of what is assigned to you
As many vacation days as you’d like
More control over what you do with your time every day of your life!

3 Responses

PHP Encoder

November 6th, 2007 at 9:01 am

Thanks for this interesting blog!!!

Tom Volkar

November 7th, 2007 at 3:49 pm

Your last point is the most powerful for me.
“More control over what you do with your time every day of your life!”

This principle of self-determination that allows us to work when we want to, on what we want and with whom is the essence of freedom.

Nothing tastes sweeter!

David

February 20th, 2008 at 2:14 am

I just got fired and I am so happy…. Well at first I was a little shocked. I have been at my current company for 7 years; It was the best place I have ever worked. 23% to 34% growth sales over the past 6 years we went from 267 to 1400 employees. Top promotional products supplier in the USA. Some great travel, even went to Hong Kong and China to see all the amazing growth there. At Leeds I supervised this industry leader in consumer product development with thousands of products a year. The people were cool, even the owners. It was fun and work. But it just drained me, I never wanted more money. I always thought there would be a big reward, or pay off or some kind of something that never was there. Others felt the same way but they said its work Dave. Not sure what really happen. I am not and (over) over-time person, I am a family first, balance health. I stopped loving to design products a year and a half ago. At Carnegie Mellon University we learned how important it was to” have your heart in your work” Andrew Carnegie. I even tried interviewing at other companies.

So just over a year ago I started my own “dream job” company and even though it does not make much money for the work I put in. It has been the most rewarding exciting, job I have ever done. I picked the most outrages thing I could think of. Took a year to research and write a full 26 page business plan. A crazy dream I have had my who life to start a car company. It’s now an obsession. Every day is a new unknown adventure when a customer calls me, sends a letter or e-mails from anywhere in the world. They tell great stories and order parts from me to build their dream cars. I have had high highs and low lows of devastation. I just try hard to deal with whatever opportunity pops up. I ship parts to places I can even read the address or pronounce the names. Every month the sales double, ok so the first months sales were only $4.00 a year ago. I have been trying to find time to grow this business from part-time. My electric car division is really heating up now too. Well now I have the time, I need to be strategic and really go for it……sift through the opportunities to grow Sterling Sports Cars LLC.

Breaking Free

Is Your Job Killing You?

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