A viral tweet was making the rounds this week:
The whole thread is worth reading, but this part in particular stuck out to me:
Reading the thread brought me back to a concept I first realized when reading Robert Kiyosaki’s book Cashflow Quadrant: job security is an illusion.
This goes against conventional wisdom. “Go to school, get good grades, get a good and safe job” is the standard mantra. And that’s exactly what I heard growing up. My mom would also throw in that I should look for jobs in or around the medical field, since those were really “safe.”
But even if you went to a good school, got good grades, or work in a high-demand field, you’re still not insulated from a job loss. If you work for someone else, the cold, hard reality is:
You’re a number in a P&L. As soon as that number doesn’t make business sense for your employer, you’re out. Loyalty doesn’t matter. It’s a math problem.
Most people, especially Millennials and Gen Z, don’t want to acknowledge this. It’s uncomfortable to think about. It’s happier to believe lies like “my job is too important” or “they can’t afford to get rid of me” or “that won’t happen here because we’re a family.”
And for most of the last decade, it’s been easy to believe those lies. There was little evidence to the contrary. With free money sloshing around everywhere, layoffs were virtually nonexistent.
I spent the early part of my career in large companies where some kind of reorg was always happening. And reorgs usually bring small-scale layoffs. So I was exposed to the idea early and at least knew it was something that could happen.
But I fell for all the standard lies and thought it was highly unlikely to happen to me. I was working in the good part of the company, after all. My job was safe. I didn’t need to be prepared for layoffs.
All that changed when I read Cashflow Quadrant and realized that, as an employee, I had zero control over my employer’s decisions. I realized just how exposed I was.
I took action immediately, with the goal of ensuring that any potential future job loss would have almost no impact on my life.
Long term, this meant investing in real estate to create streams of income that would fully support my lifestyle. Short term, it meant creating a Dave Ramsey-style “emergency fund” cash cushion to weather any intermittent storms.
So, if your W-2 job is your primary income source, my question to you today is: are you relying on “job security” to protect and provide for you and your family?
If so, I urge you to take a look around and realize how perilous that approach really is.
True security comes when you take full ownership of your situation and don’t trust your employer (or, heaven forbid, the government) to provide for your financial future.