Redundancy Advice: Is a new job right for you?
There’s a frightening phrase you’ll hear all over the personal and wealth development field: “J.O.B. Stands for ‘Just Over Broke’”. In some respects, it’s true – if all you’re doing is holding down a steady job and somehow hoping that it will look after you when you’re too old to swap time for money, then you are probably setting yourself up for a pretty lean retirement. Nonetheless, I think the ‘Just Over Broke’ concept is one of the most dangerous out there, because it turns a job into a kind of dirty word. And leaping out of paid employment before you’re properly prepared is a very good way to end up completely broke!
With my clients, I prefer to describe the J.O.B. as a “Judicious Opportunity to Breathe” – to take time to identify and refine their offer, and build up some reserves for their start-up period. When it’s being done to fund a dream, even the most annoying of jobs becomes tolerable in the short term.
In any case, for many people, a job is what suits their temperament best (but see F for ‘fractional working’ for a viable alternative). Many people love elements of their job, and certainly love the freedom from financial worry it provides. And the finance for training and investment it brings. There may be some elements of it that they’d change – the boss, some of their colleagues – but on the whole they’re happy with how they spend their workdays.
The right answer for them isn’t to throw in the job because of some self-help fallacy. It’s to understand how they can become well-rewarded for what they love, within the context of an employment contract. And then, how to invest the proceeds effectively. While it’s true that very few people achieve financial freedom from a job alone, there are loads who use their salary to fund the investments that will give them that freedom in the fullness of time. And that might be the freedom to enjoy their job!
All in all, the J.O.B. is a great way to bank some cash to fund an eventual – and planned – move into your dream life.
There’s a theory called Enjoyment-Performance Theory, derived from behavioural theory. What it says is that we perform better at tasks that we enjoy. And, we enjoy tasks we can perform well – that’s why we can perform them well, otherwise we would never have done them enough to become practised at them. And because we enjoy them, and we do them well, we practice more – and become even better at them. And the virtuous circle continues ….
For many, the work that we really love falls into a very narrow band. So narrow that the only way to do that and nothing else is to work for a very very large business. And many of us just aren’t suited to surviving in really large companies. In fact, if the work that really lights you up is very specialised, it’s probably not even possible to make a full-time job doing just that in any company.
What Gina highlighted was that it’s “Dealmakers” who are the best at managing key relationships; “Traders” (my secondary) are good at ‘doing a deal’, but less so at handling the egos and relationships that are needed for a long-term customer – they’re better buyers than they are sellers. And “Accumulators” (my main profile) are great at analysis and seeing the opportunities hidden in data. Which is exactly what was required for my new Category Manager career. Doh!
) And most importantly, I’m really engaged in my work, and I help real people make a real difference to their real lives. 
We’ve all heard it said so many times it’s almost corny, and it’s still true – you get what you focus on. Not magically – by a lot of effort. And that effort is directed by what you focus on.
The first issue comes from US Professor of Psychology and Management 
