Is a Job Enough?
What a crazy question you say. After all, you’ve got your job and you even feel pretty secure in your job. What more does one have to do?
As we’ve learned in recent years, change is ever-present. Whether it’s the tech bubble or the housing bubble, the banking debacle, an earthquake and tsunami, a massive oil spill or a war, in today’s world, everything that happens affects our economy, our companies and the stability of our jobs.
What’s also changed is that losing one’s job is no longer a hallmark of failure. Instead, losing one’s job is more often the result of cutbacks, of jobs no longer needed, of jobs that are no longer a part of a company’s mission and revenue stream.
It’s easy to think it won’t happen to your company but that’s what the employees of Arthur Anderson, Enron and Lehman Brothers all thought, “it won’t happen to my company.” Each of those companies failed in an instant. One day thousands were employed at the firm, the next day there wasn’t a firm.
How many companies can you name that were started in your lifetime yet they no longer exist? How many products have you owned that were hot, must-haves that no longer exist? From audio cassettes and video players to walkmen, they’re memories. In the 80’s and 90’s, we shopped at neighborhood bookstores and record/cd stores; today, they’re kaput as we download or stream our books and music. For those who still want a book or CD, we shop for them online.
Today, companies reinvent themselves to stay current and to stay in business. Reinvention, however, means the elimination of entire job categories. At the same time, companies are finding ways to get jobs done more cheaply which means they send your jobs overseas to workers earning a third or a fourth of your salary. In 2010, the U.S. produced more goods and services than in 2007 but with 6.8 million fewer people working.
It’s time to take charge, to establish your personal economic vision, the personal vision that will keep you at the helm, making your life follow the financial path of your choice. When a job is your sole source of income, you are at risk. What other streams of revenue can you create?
Answers to these questions are found throughout the Money Matters section. Here are a couple of important links to get you started.