If your employer asked you do do something unethical or something you would not want to do for any other reason, would you tell them “fuck you” an leave?
What would have to be true so that you could do that?
Intro (TL;DR)
In the last video, I started a new mini-series about why people are feeling stuck in bad jobs. And I want to talk more about what exactly “stuck” means and what a “bad job” is - but in a later video.
Today I want to show you something you can do to feel less stuck: Creating what some people call “fuck-you money”.
My name is David and I am an independent trainer, consultant and coach. I spend a considerable amount of my time and effort on not getting stuck, because I sometimes feel stuck. And when I heared that other people feel stuck too, I decided to talk about it.
Question / Problem
What would you do if your employer wanted something totally unacceptable from you? Would you tell them “fuck you” and leave?
You would need some money for that. Money to push through a few months, while you try to find something better. I always had such an “emergency fund”, because as a freelancer, you have to prepare for bad times.
And then, a few years ago, I learned that some people call this money “fuck you money”.
Solution
The idea: Calculate how much money you need per month to support your current life style. Then calculate how much you need to support a “minimal viable life style”.
Create a savings account and start building up that money. It’s only there for emergencies, don’t touch it when you want to go on holiday or buy a slightly more expensive car! If you want to save for those things too, create a second savings account.
And then, when you saved enough money for one month, you’ll see how liberating it feels. Or three months. Or, when at some point, you have enough money to “survive” on a minimal life style for 6 months.
Conclusion
Once you have enough money to survive for a few months without a job, you are not stuck anymore. Now you can start to think about how bad your job really is - or not? - and what you want to do about it.
So start saving what you can. Try to build up the first one or two months as quickly as possible, and aim for 6-8 months of “runway”.
Most people in our industry, in Western Europe, should be able to save at least something…
But what if you cannot save anything? Well, that’s a much more complicated problem, and I have no experience so I probably should not talk about it.
CTA
If you liked this video, please subscribe to my channel and share it with your friends and followers.
And I also still need your stories, your experience: Were you ever stuck in a bad job? Why was it bad? How were you stuck? What did you do about it?
DM me on Twitter, my name there is @dtanzer. Or send me an email to business@davidtanzer.net.
Read / watch all parts of this series here:
