Financial freedom is outdated; try optimism instead

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I am sick of advice about how to achieve financial freedom. Freedom from what? I have asked some people, who I will not link to, since I’m dissing them, and the most common answer is that they want to be able to make decisions about their life based on what they want, not on what they can afford.

HELLO???? Can everyone standing in line to buy a Lear Jet please get a reality check? You do not need a plane to be happy, you need a plane to go visit the people who make you happy. A jet is not an expression of financial freedom. It’s an expression of your decision to not live near the people who mean the most to you.

I think the root of the idea of “financial freedom” means freedom from having to do a job you don’t like. But this thinking comes from the baby boomers who felt compelled to climb ladders doing jobs that destroyed their personal life.

Today we don’t do that. Many people of ladder-climbing age today don’t believe it’s worth the trouble. Today you can hold out to get a job you love at the beginning of your career. Financial freedom is not a prerequisite.

Financial freedom is becoming an outdated goal for today’s workers. Jim Buckmaster, chief executive of Craigslist, mystified Wall St. analysts when he explained that he’s not interested in building a megacompany, and he just wants to maintain Craigslist as a company that gives people what they need (via the tweney review).

But I think most people are not so much mystified as just plain grateful for the down-to-earth attitude at Craigslist. And plenty of research shows that the people at Craigslist have the right attitude; it’s futile to make money a career goal since you’ll never feel like you have enough.

You know what really determines our happiness levels? Not money, but how optimistic we are and how often we have monogamous sex. Money cannot solve big problems, like cancer or world hunger or happiness. Money solves small problems, like, can you have a big wedding, can you go on a good trip. Small problems are what people talk about when they talk about “I can help you get financial freedom.”

But why spend your life figuring out how to get rid of small problems with money? You can work hard to make yourself a more optimistic person, and then you will be able to overcome most small problems. So let’s stop talking about financial freedom and start talking about learned optimism.

Optimism is the ability to see the world in a positive light. Optimists are happier people, and there is no reason why everyone shouldn’t attempt to think more optimistically. Don’t tell me a happy outlook will squash your creativity. Part of creative production is the manic optimistic self-confidence that what you are thinking of is a great idea.

How does this relate to careers? Once you make the switch to thinking like an optimist you will have real freedom — freedom to do what will be fulfilling and accommodate your personal life instead of what will make you rich.

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Knowing when to make your move

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Just because you’re adamant about making sure you have a personal life doesn't mean you can't be top in your field. Top is different today than it was even ten years ago. Top doesn't mean climbing a ladder to make the most money. Top means having influence in discussions that matter to you, and having interesting problems to solve.

How do you get that? One way is by making a move when you can't get any further on the path you're going. A good example of this is Billy Cunningham, medical professor at UCLA. He made a name for himself by documenting that upper-middle-class people of color in the United States were 37 percent more likely to have poor health than upper-middle-class whites, and by making revolutionary recommendations in front of Congress like dispensing medical information in church. His recommendations worked. But then he was faced with the question of what to do next.

“I thought about what is coming down the pipe where we might see the same disparities and can anticipate it and prevent those gaps from occurring. I also thought about what I could be the first to study. I started focusing on adherence to AIDS cocktails and then I realized I was late to the game because several others had started working on it before I did and they had laboratory expertise that I didn’t which would make it hard for me to compete.”

The topic he settled on was the AIDS vaccine. He was in a position to study ways to distribute it and to put himself in a position to be a key member of the community that launches the vaccine (when it is discovered) in South Africa, where the infection rate is as high as 50% in some populations.

Cunningham knows he wants to bring better medical treatement to minorities, but he knows the best way to make a difference is being the top in his field. He consciously plots to find a space that is open for him to rise to the top. You should be doing this too, in your career. This is how you have the most influence to ask important questions, seek meaningful answers, and make a difference in peoples’ lives.

Another good example of making a move is Alex Ohanian and Steve Huffman, who just sold their company, Reddit, to Conde Nast. When I interviewed them last February, they had received a buyout offer from Google, but they turned it down. At that point, Reddit was on an exciting and seemingly limitless path. Today, though, Reddit’s path as a stand alone company might be a dead end because Digg, their competitor, is now an industry standard, and Reddit is second fiddle. Taking the buyout offer now, from a premier publishing company with enthusiasm for building out Reddit, makes good sense for Ohanian and Huffman. After all, Ohanian told me, “We do this because it is fun and interesting.”

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Make the world a better place from the job you have right now

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At some point in their work life most people start wondering about the bigger questions: How can you support yourself with enjoyable work and still make the world a better place?

I have had discussions about this topic with my husband. He was working at a grassroots agency that struggles to save people from poverty and prison. I told my husband that since I was supporting our family while he worked for a nonprofit that pays peanuts, I was doing enough to save the world.

He said, “You're not saving the world. You're saving us.”

“I know,” I said. “I'm an enabler. I'm enabling you to save the world.”

He said, “You can do what you want. But grassroot action makes an immediate difference.”

Grassroot action. This is the kind of language you hear all the time if you live with an activist.

To be honest, I wouldn’t be able to handle seeing the sadness my husband saw every day: Like the juvenile offender who was not going to school because the prison forgot. But I still want to make sure my work has meaning.

And I am not alone. In the book, The Altruism Question, psychologist Daniel Batson reviews approximately twenty-five studies that all show that people have an inherent need to help others out of a sense of altruism — to make other people feel better. And Stephan Bodian, who often writes about Buddhism, explains, “Each of us must find our own right livelihood by following our hearts while facing the reality of our unique situation.” What I take this to mean is that we all want to do good, but you have to take care of yourself first, then your family, and then the world. Most of us have enough trouble with the first two.

For some people right livelihood will mean a life of environmental activism. For other people, it might take the form of creativity. “For many of us, it might simply involve doing what we can, at the jobs we currently have, to add to the world’s collective store of peace, love, happiness and material well-being,” writes Bodian in Yoga Journal.

In case you are wondering, my husband is typical of social activists in that he has a spouse working in a more lucrative sector. We found this out the hard way, when we tried to depend on his job for insurance. The human resource person actually told my husband, “The premiums are sky-high because no one here needs to use the insurance.”

Fortunately for those who do need insurance, the business world offers a surprising range of opportunities to honor one’s need for right work. I have mentored people who have been able to make huge changes in their lives, and I have changed corporate policies to accommodate single mothers and gay job applicants. These have been high points in my career because I felt like I was doing good.

But you don’t actually have to make a monumental contribution to the world in order to feel good about yourself. Small acts of kindness add up.

Sonja Lyubomirsky, professor of psychology at University of California at Riverside, found that being kind makes you feel more positive about yourself and the world. She has an exact prescription for how to be kind that reminds me of my husband doing good at the grassroot:

“In our daily lives, we all perform acts of kindness for others. These acts may be large or small and the person for whom the act is performed may or may not be aware of the act. Examples include feeding a stranger’s parking meter, donating blood, helping a friend with homework, visiting an elderly relative, or writing a thank you letter.” In order to optimize the good feelings that come from good acts, Lyubomirsky’s research indicates that you should load up your acts of kindness so you do five in one day.

You can follow these instructions from any job, no matter how big or small. Write a note to yourself on one day each week, and count your deeds until you get to five. Your job will bring deeper meaning to your life because you will be using it to directly cause positive feelings in the world.

As for me and my husband, I am never going to work in a prison, and he’s never going back to corporate life. But we are striking a balance. Winston Churchill once said: “Make a living by what you get, make a life by what you give.” The best careers can combine both, and this is true of a marriage, too.

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Where to work if you want a personal life and stability

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It’s hard to find a list of large, stable companies with good perks that will let you tour with your rock band once a month. So here is a very useful list with a very bad title: 100 best companies for working moms. For one thing, the title is insulting to dads. But also, these companies have qualities that apply to a much broader spectrum of workers than just parents.

Things like flextime, stable paycheck and good insurance plan are actually hard to come by and are also great for someone like Bill Hewett, a guy I interviewed a while back who had been in a rock band for years living without insurance and needed to get his diabetes under control but didn’t want to give up his music.

It is no secret that most workers want a job that accommodates their personal life. And it is no secret that people like stability in their lives. Sure there is a huge trend toward entrepreneurship, but many people, like surfer Matt Rivers, are starting their own companies so they can live the life they want.

This is a list of companies that might allow you to live that life without having to accept the instability of starting your own company. This is a list for people like yoga maven Sarah Kenny who focus on a passion that is necessarily outside of their work.

So take a look: You don’t need to have kids, you just need to have a dream.

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One example of why it’s great to be a mentor

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One of my best experiences as a mentor was when I inherited an IT department where the average age was 18. There were many men and one woman and no leaders. I sniffed around for who might be good at what in preparation for a departmental reorg. The woman, Sari, looked homeless at best, a drug addict at worst.

I started taking steps to fire her, but she kept turning in the best work each week. So when I met with her alone, I asked her a little bit about her situation — what does she want to do, what sort of experience does she have.

It took only a little prodding for her to tell me that she was 16 and a high school dropout and she ran away from home. I made it my mission to get her back into school. I gave her responsibilities that she would succeed at to show her that she was smart and capable. For months, I met with her each week: She told me that her family had drug and alcohol problems; I told her if she would look like she could command authority then I could make her a supervisor. Miraculously, almost overnight, she had a new haircut and a new wardrobe.

After two promotions, Sari gained enough self-confidence from work to apply to college two years later. I couldn't have been more proud writing a recommendation. Today Sari is a rising star in the software industry. And while she always thanks me for helping her to get back on solid footing, I am always thankful to her for teaching me how much we can do for each other, even in the workplace. Sari single-handedly gave my work meaning.

9/11: Digging myself out of the debris

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I was at the World Trade Center when it fell. At each anniversary that passes I write my story, and each year it changes a little. This year, I have been thinking about that moment when I accepted death.

I was at the corner of Liberty and Broadway when the first tower fell. I was too close to the building to be able to see what was happening. It sounded like a huge bomb, and it felt like a snowstorm of dirt. Everyone ran. But in just a few seconds, the world became dead silent and no one could see. I crawled over piles of people. My mouth was full of dust and I could barely breathe. I had no idea where I was or how to preserve myself. I thought I might be the only person alive. As breathing got more difficult, I settled into the idea of dying.

Time got very slow and I seem to have had an hour’s worth of thoughts in seconds. At first I worried that my family would be sad. But then I was disappointed. I would not see my brothers as adults. Would not know what I was like as a mom, or what it was like to grow old with my husband. My to-do list was overflowing with things I wanted to achieve, things I had been looking forward to. But the minute I thought I was going to die, that list didn’t matter. I was sad that I would not get to hang out and watch family life unfold.

It’s surprising because like almost all New Yorkers, I was not the hang out type. And in case it’s not clear from the obituaries and essays that have come from 9/11, the World Trade Center did not attract the slow-lane types.

Like many New Yorkers, I went to a World Trade Center recovery group. The groups were divided into the kind of trauma you experienced. People who watched the scene on TV were not in the same group as people whose spouse died. I was in a group with people who were there the ten minutes or so before the Tower fell. Some of the people in my group felt the impact of the plane while sitting at their desk. Some of the people ran from their building and were splattered by body parts from jumpers. All of us felt lucky to be alive.

All of us vowed to make life more meaningful after 9/11. Almost all of us changed jobs to do something that gave us more personal time. The few of us who could, had a baby.

Now I know that if I die tomorrow, what I’ll regret is not getting to watch my life unfold. So I have been changing my life, a little at a time, to give myself more time to watch life go by. I made a career change from Wall St.-based business development to home-based writer, I had two kids, and I encouraged my husband to reject jobs with long hours. We vowed to cut back our spending 70% to create a more simple life.

But cutting spending is not so easy, especially in New York City. It required making a lot of difficult choices. Finally we decided we could not reach our goals without moving. So this year, on the fifth anniversary of 9/11, I am making a new home in Madison.

Sure, I’m still competitive and ambitious when it comes to my career, but what 9/11 gave me the strength to make the scary decision to slow things down. Slowing down means missing opportunities, missing a chance to shine or a serendipitous meeting. It’s hard to simplify life because a complicated life is so stimulating. But nearly suffocating in the rubble showed me that what I want most is to be present: Consciously watching while my life unfolds.

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The new stay-at-home dad paves new paths for moms

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As more men call themselves stay-at-home dads, they redefine for both men and women what it means to stay home with kids. Men have learned a lot from watching women struggle with home life. The super-woman syndrome of the 1980s has squashed the desire to juggle committed parenting with a sixty-hour workweek, and Rolling Stones lyrics about Valium as “mother’s little helper” do not fall on deaf ears; 24/7 with kids for eighteen years is too hard.

So today’s stay-at-home dad probably has some kind of work outside of the kids. He might not be earning much money, but he has the wisdom of generations before him to know that the money isn’t what matters. Ted Castro is a stay-at-home dad with his daughters, Giselle, six, and Claudia, eighteen months, while his wife, Nicole Faulkner works full-time managing a genetics lab. But if you ask Ted, “What else do you do?” he’ll say, “I’m an artist.”

Since the onset of feminism, stay-at-home moms have been incensed by the question, “What else do you do?” as if being home with kids were not a full-time job. But today, few people question how difficult and full-time taking care of kids is. So stay-at-home dads welcome the question. “I think the question really means, What did you do before you had kids?” says Castro. “Everyone went through a certain amount of schooling. So the question really means, What was your other choice?”

Castro’s other choice was making stained glass. After a degree in fine arts and an apprenticeship, he built up a business making stained glass commissioned by architects. Now he “makes only two or three pieces a year,” but he still calls himself a working artist.

After at least a decade of feuding between stay-at-home moms and working moms, the argument about which is better is dissipating. And in part, this is because men add a fresh perspective to the decision-making process. For dads, staying at home is not so much political as practical. “It just grew that way,” says Castro of his family setup.

In fact, most men do not set out to be stay-at-home dads. They just want to make sure they get to spend time with their kids. A survey by American Demographics revealed that eighty percent of men ages 18 to 39 said that a flexible job to accommodate kids takes a higher priority than doing challenging work or earning a high salary. The new stay-at-home version of dad is how they reach this goal.

On web sites such as slowlane.com, which cater to dads who put family first, stay-at-home dad and work-at-home dad are used almost interchangeably. And it’s a gray area as to how many hours per week a dad needs to work outside the home to disqualify himself as an at-home dad. (Stay-at-home dad Jeff, for example, designs stay-at-home dad apparel and operates the store that sells it.) Most significantly, though, the dads don’t seem to care about that number.

Some people will say, “Big surprise. Men staying at home with kids is just like men vacuuming — they do the living room and bedroom and never get to the kitchen and den before they get distracted.” But others will see a synergy of the sexes: Just as women in the workplace show men how life can be better there, men at home show women a few means of improvement as well.

So both men and women can benefit from learning how to create a life that is conducive to the new stay-at-home and accommodates a new sort of work.

1. Think part-time. Lisa Levey, Director of Advisory Services at Catalyst says, “Usually you have to earn the opportunity to work part time. Work at the same company for a while, and develop a certain niche. Over time, you can craft something that will work for you.” She would know: For years her husband has worked an abridged work schedule so he can be home with the kids.

2. Aim for high-level. “We have in our mind that lower status or lower paying would be easier to balance, but this is not the case,” says Phyllis Moen, professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota. “If you think you are taking a job that would give you more time, talk to people in that job.”

3. Save, save, save. Castro buys clothes at thrift shops and even frequents garbage dumps. “I got a Concept-II Rowing machine off the street,” he says. “I’ll never pay for a piece of exercise equipment again.”

4. Have faith. “People say my husband is so lucky,” says Levey, “But he negotiated and made compromises. Fear dominates the work world now. People need to push back and try to get what they want.”

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Your family would be better off with a housewife (so would mine)

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Men should not marry women who have careers, according to an opinion piece at Forbes.com. The statistics are clear:

“Marrying these women is asking for trouble. If they quit their jobs and stay home with the kids, they will be unhappy (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2003). They will be unhappy if they make more money than you do (Social Forces, 2006). You will be unhappy if they make more money than you do (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2001). You will be more likely to fall ill (American Journal of Sociology). Even your house will be dirtier (Institute for Social Research).”

There is a response from a woman, who, big surprise, has a big career. But to me, she just sounds like she’s whining. And she’s definitely missing the point.

The point is that marriage and family work best when one person is taking care of them full time. Duh. Everything in the world is best off when it is cared for very carefully. I wish everyone would stop trying to deny this. It’s barking up the wrong tree.

There is little evidence that the role of housewife is any more frustrating than the role of housewife and careerist rolled into one. (I have done both roles and both are very difficult and not totally satisfying.)

The conclusion, that marriages and families work better with a full-time housewife, is hard to swallow but hard to deny. It’s just that not every woman wants to take care of a family and marriage full time, and even fewer men do. And increasingly few people want to give up almost all child-rearing responsibilities in order to be a single breadwinner. So this is a piece of advice that’s useful to only the small percentage of households in the world. But still, the advice is good.

Many people will say they’d rather face the challenges of a dual-career marriage than the challenge of a stay-at-home-spousedom. Fine. Just know the statistics are not in your favor.

Before I get accused of throwing stones from a glass house, let me come clean with the fact that my husband and I are constantly restructuring our work life in response to these statistics. Also, I believe that the woman being the primary caretaker of both family and marriage is BS, but I don’t see many marriages working any other way, even with two, powerhouse careers.

Please, do not send me emails about your perfect marriage because I don’t believe it. In my marriage we have tried everything, and everything is hard in its own way.

Meanwhile, it’s good advice to men to pick a woman who will be a full-time housewife, but I have some advice for women who are shopping for husbands: To find a partner who will support your choices both financially and emotionally and who will be around enough to participate as an equal parent, marry someone with a very large trust fund.

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How to sort through career advice

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When it comes to career advice, it seems that everyone has some. The trouble is figuring out who to listen to. Most people field advice from friends, parents, teachers and significant others. John Clark, a music producer and sound engineer, even found information technology consultants tossing advice his way.

Before you tell everyone to shut up, consider the idea that there is no bad advice, just people who are bad at sifting advice. Which means if you want to figure out the career that's right for you, get good at sifting.

Rosalind Hoffa, director of the Amherst College Career Center says, “Approach many people and gather all sorts of information. No one has the absolute answer. So the best way to proceed is to explore and experiment.” When it comes to finding the right career, “Everyone has the answer inside them and unlocking it is the question.”

Clark reports that, “The best advice I ever got was from my parents. They told me to follow my heart. They also showed me where my talents are by recognizing a love for music and giving me piano lessons early.”

When sorting through input remember each person has their own perspective, including your parents. Someone who values power gives advice that leans toward the acquisition of power, and someone who values work-life balance steers people toward that. You need to know your own values to figure out how each person's input applies to your situation.

The advice Clark received in college was about performance, because at Tufts, where he was, that's what studying music is all about. Clark tuned out the advice and took pre-med courses with a big paycheck in mind. But sometimes career advice comes in odd packages, and for Clark, it was an award. The first piece of music he produced received national honors, and he realized he had talent for advising musicians artistically and arranging music.

If you know yourself very well, sorting through career advice will be a breeze. The problem is, how can you know yourself that well before you are 70 and your career is over? Even people like Clark, who were raised to focus on their inherent skills, still have trouble figuring out their true calling: After college he took a job creating PowerPoint presentations.

For some people, especially those with patience to spare and money to burn, trial and error will work. And even if you are surrounded by friends who are as lost as you are, you still might find them useful: Hoffa says, “Friends can be a great resource. Sometimes just hearing yourself talk it out with friends is helpful.” Eventually, Clark's friend told him to take an internship at a music studio.

A faster way down the difficult path of career self-knowledge is to take an aptitude test. Deirdre McEachern, of VIP Coaching, says that a career aptitude test can tell you where your strengths lay. She gives her clients the Highlands Ability Battery, which takes three hours to complete and generates thirty pages of information. Other popular tests are the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Strong Interest and Skills Confidence Inventory, each of which you can administer yourself via the Internet, though McEachern recommends you have a professional help you interpret your results.

McEachern's clients are generally people in their forties who wish they had come to her in their twenties, but some clients are as young as eighteen. “These people come to me to get help picking a college major,” she says. “Highlands test results don't change after age fourteen. Interests and motivations shift, but one's natural abilities are the same throughout life.”

But McEachern cautions that aptitude tests recommend a wide range of professions. So you also need to understand “your core beliefs and values.” To do this, McEachern asks questions such as: “If you could solve one world problem what would it be? What are the most proud moments of your life? What makes you angry in the world? What are traits you admire in other people?” And she doesn't just write down your answer. She also listens for intangible things like tone of voice and rate of speech. From this process she recommends a career you'd be good at doing that would satisfy your soul.

For those of you who cringe at the thought of hiring a coach or even sitting down for a test, trial and error might be right for you. The more experience you have making career decisions — good and bad — the better you'll get at making them quickly, effectively and on your own. Clinical psychologist Jason Greenberg advises people to go with their gut more often. “People don't listen to their gut. They listen to their head and other peoples' advice. The greater impact a decision has on one's life, the less likely the person is to trust their instinct.”

But the advice never stops, really. And you need to learn to take it. Because the biggest factor in career success, after education, is how effective your network of advisors is. And here's a piece of advice about taking advice from Clark, who now has a thriving business in a career he loves: “Have some humility.”

Three more ways to think about career happiness

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If you ask most people if they like their jobs, they’ll say yes. Alan Kreuger — scintillating economics professor at Princeton, whom I interviewed this morning — says that this is not because people have jobs they like, but because people have cognitive dissonance and are hard-programmed to like what they have.

On the positive side, this hard-wiring to be happy means that we can get through our days. Life is really difficult, and if we weren’t predisposed to think it’s fun, we would all jump off bridges. But Kreuger says that the cognitive dissonance could harm us in our work world if we could actually make a better decision for ourselves.

And, of course, most of us could choose better. If nothing else, you could look at the reams of new research I spew on this blog and make a decision about your job based on that. And here’s a little more research. Three more ways to think about career happiness:

1. Many people want fame, but it’s bad for you.
An article in today’s New York Times (read it now, because you’ll need a subscription in a few days) says that fame is a key motivator for people. Forty percent of people think they’ll be famous, but in reality, only one or two people in a hundred achieves fame.

Additionally, seeking fame will probably make you unhappy. “The participants in the study who focused on goals tied to others’ approval, like fame, reported significantly higher levels of distress than those interested primarily in self-acceptance and friendship. Aiming for a target as elusive as fame, and so dependent on the judgments of others, is psychologically treacherous.”

2. Rich people are not happier but they say they are.
Kreuger and a bunch of other economists and psychologists developed a new way to find out how happy people are — instead of asking them, have them report how they are feeling at short intervals throughout the day. The findings, published in Science magazine: More affluent people say they are, on balance, happier and less affluent people say they are, on balance, not as happy. But in fact, day in and day out, ones level of affluence does not make one happier.

3. Keep your commute short and your TV off.
Duh. These are so obvious, but so few people really do it. Which is the core problem with all this research. If you want to increase your happiness, you need to make significant changes in your life. Sorry. It’s bad news, but it’s true.

But it may console you to know that when I was talking to Kruger about how few people make changes –even though the advice stems from strong, scientific, psychological research — Kreuger said that when it comes to following advice “the psychologists are just as bad as everyone else.”

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