The Truth About High-Income Jobs

From an early age, this is what society tells you is the roadmap for success:

• Go to school.
• Get good grades in high school.
• Get into a prestigious undergrad school.
• Choose a high-paying profession.
• Get good grades.
• Take the entrance exam for your high-paying profession of choice (MCAT for doctors, LSAT for lawyers, GMAT for MBAs, GRE for PHDs).
• Get into a good graduate program.
• Get good grades.
• Complete summer internships, residencies, and fellowships, to further your skills.
• Get a good job.
• Work hard to climb the corporate or professional ladder.
• Save for retirement through a 401(k).
• Retire in your 60's.

The problem with society's roadmap for success is that what you think is a road to freedom turns out to be anything but...

Nobody wants to tell you that the pursuit and attainment of a high-income job can have the opposite effect of what you were seeking. Instead of freedom, you'll find restraints of all types - financial and time-wise.

A job - especially a high-paying way - is the quicksand where your hopes of retiring early and enjoying life today go to sink. Once you realize that severing your dependence on a high-paying job is the key to freedom, your financial mindset will begin to change. This year I've traveled to South America and other great places because I'm no longer tethered to a high-income job in Corporate America.

Isn't a high-paying job everyone's dream? Isn't it the road to financial freedom? If not, how exactly will a high-income job limit you?

Behind The Eight Ball.

Even before you set foot inside your first job, you're already playing from behind financially. With university tuitions and costs at absurd levels, many who land high-paying jobs are already in the hole to the tune of $100k, $200k, $300k in student loans. High student loan debt is the first nail in the coffin to not having financial freedom.

Makeup Debt.

After years of life as a poor student, new graduates and their families often make up for all those years of sacrifices by getting into a lot of debt. They take out mortgages on big, new homes; take out multiple new car loans, incur credit card debt for clothes, toys, vacations, and private schools. The list goes on. On top of the debt incurred to obtain these luxuries, these assets are diminishing assets. They diminish your net worth from the cost of upkeep.

All that new debt to keep up with the Joneses ensure that you will be working long hours to make those mortgage, car, tuition, and credit card payments.

Job Loss Stress.

High debt = high stress. High-wage earners know that they'll lose everything else if they lose their jobs when they can no longer keep up with debt payments. This added stress drives high-wage earners to work even longer hours - logging more facetime in at work to impress upper management to preserve their jobs and income. 

The ties that bind you to your job only get tighter and tighter.

Clouded Vision.

All those long hours exhaust you and limit your vision for ever attaining something higher. People with high-paying jobs figure this is as good as it gets. Many don't realize that there is an alternative. They don't have to live this way. Just look at the survivors of this single high-paying job lifestyle.

Many who have come before woke up one day and found themselves at a crossroads. Do they keep on the path society has dictated for them, or do they pursue something else?

Unsatisfied with the repetitiveness and limitations of their daily lives, many of these unsatisfied individuals decided to make a change. They wanted something more. They wanted to spend more than 2-3 weeks a year with their families. They wanted not to have to worry about ever losing their jobs again.

Breaking The Chains.

To break the chains of dependency on their high-paying day jobs, you have to find other sources of income. You already work 80 hours a week, so getting another job or side hustle is out of the question. What are your options?

As Warren Buffett once said:

"If you don't find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die."

Passive income is how you make money in your sleep. It's putting your money to work for you. How? Through passive investments that require nothing more than your investment capital.

By partnering with seasoned pros in a particular industry, you can let someone else do the work while you get compensated for your risk-taking (i.e., investing in a third party).

Once you create another stream of income, don't stop. Sophisticated investors generate multiple streams of passive income because their goal is to have the ability to replace their day job incomes. If you make $300k a year, and it all goes towards your expenses, then you'll need $300k in passive income in order to displace your day job and eliminate your dependency on it.

Financial freedom is achieved when your passive income exceeds your expenses. In other words, when you no longer depend on your job to pay for your expenses, you no longer need that job.

I was once like many of these people stuck in their high-paying jobs. How did I escape? I gathered knowledge then I applied that knowledge.

So what can people in high-paying jobs do to escape their situations without sacrificing their lifestyles?  

• Mentors. Learn directly from someone who has already walked the path.
• Education. Seek and learn from online and published resources by others who live the life you want to live and their advice for achieving it.
• Participate in mastermind events. Brainstorm with successful and experienced investors.
• Read books on alternative investing. Understand the merits of investing in alternatives to Wall Street.
• Partnerships. Leverage the expertise, time, infrastructure, IP, and efforts of expert investors through passive private investments that will allow you to make money in your sleep.
• Create multiple streams of passive income.
• Seek business relationships outside of work. This can lead you to unexpected and rewarding opportunities.

Corporate America and Wall Street want you to be stuck in your high-paying job. It keeps the machine running and keeps the Wall Street cats fat from all your 401(k) contributions. They want you to think there's no other way. There's no better way.

What they don't want you to know is that there are alternatives. You don't have to be stuck in your high-paying job.

If you're an engineer or other high-income professional seeking a way out, reach out to me, and let's talk. I mentor a few qualified individuals from time to time who want to escape. I can help.