How much money do you make?
In the men's work I do I spend a lot of time with men who are committed to speaking openly.
We often share stories about our families and our challenges raising kids. We talk about topics others don't - sex, addictions, even choices we've made and ways we've behaved that we feel deeply ashamed of. That vulnerability is a big factor in the power of these conversations.
But money is, in my experience, the hardest topic for men to talk honestly about.
I'm not sure why this is. It may be that money is so closely linked to status in our societies. In evolutionary terms, status is a matter of life or death.
The alpha male, leader of the tribe, got to father many more offspring. Acquiring status enabled his selfish genes to survive. We have deeply entrenched psychological and cultural alarm bells that go off when our status may be under threat.
When I circle up with other men I judge that we often tell ourselves that it doesn't matter what another man earns, or what he does for a living - such shallow concerns are beneath us. We rarely speak about it.
For me, at least, this is an elephant in the room. I wonder if we're avoiding the subject for less pure reasons.
I wonder if really we don’t talk about it because we fear judgement on this final taboo of the conscious men.
Stepping off the treadmill
I made a decision in 2012 to get out of the rat race. I was on the Partner track as a strategy consultant at Bain & Company.
If I'd stuck it out I was pretty certain to be making £250k+ p.a. by my mid-30s and much more beyond. I was good at the job and getting promoted quickly but I was burning out, exhausted by travel, hours and stress.
My wife was the catalyst for my decision. She asked me some blunt questions about my life, specifically my physical and mental health, and the quality of my relationships. I couldn’t answer any of her questions with more than a 3 out of 10.
So I left. I chose “whole ambition” - a balanced life, rather than single-minded pursuit of wealth and status. (see this great post from Andrew Lynch for more on that)
I’ve been through a few different work set-ups since then but have finally landed on something that works for me. These days I'm my own boss. I work flexibly, with no politics to worry about. I'm boot-strapping a business I'm proud to be building.
But, I have a large (and hungry!) family to support with no salary, no guaranteed income. My business has to make money, and no-one else is responsible for that in the way I am. Some months are good. Some are not.
The pressure can be intense when your kids are relying on you, especially when you get bad news.
Like I did last week.
An uncertain outlook
I have a long-standing client. We've been working with them since our business was six months old. They've grown rapidly and needed more from us over the years. It’s been a great relationship and they are a decent chunk of our revenue these days.
In a small business like ours, that means they are a decent chunk of the money my family lives off.
Both our businesses have changed a lot in that time. I’ve known for a while that our work with them wouldn’t last forever - it wasn’t unexpected when last week they decided to take most of what we do for them back in house.
It's the right decision for them and how their business, and ours, has evolved. The work we do for them is a legacy of our old business model, it's an outlier for the consulting skills training we focus on now.
I have a superb team helping them and I let them get on with it. Frankly, for me, it's as close to passive income as I've got.
3 months from now that passive income will stop. I'll have to part ways with some of my team. Others will no longer bring in money directly and their roles will change.
We'll have a £70k hole in our 2023 revenue - material for a small business like ours. Some of the money my family lives off will disappear.
I'd be lying if I said that wasn't scary.
My role, my responsibility
With 4 kids, my wife and I faced a choice. For both of us to work full-time we’d need to employ a nanny. We didn’t want that for our kids, so we chose to split our responsibilities between earning money, running the house and managing the logistics of the kids.
An aside: When you get engaged people talk about romance. Falling in love. It’s rare for anyone to mention that a marriage - a life together - is also a financial and logistical partnership that requires ongoing communication & negotiation. But that’s a subject for another post.
For a bunch of reasons we landed on a model where my primary responsibility is to bring in the money we need, while Jo is in charge of the house and kid logistics (whilst studying 3+ days a week - she's Superwoman). There is balance in the detail around that but those are the broad areas we've agreed.
Now, and not for the first time, that responsibility for bringing the money in is staring me in the face. I need to replace that lost revenue, and quickly.
My imposter syndrome is running wild…
Maybe I'm not cut out for this?
Maybe I've just been lucky so far?
Maybe this is when it all blows up?
If I can’t fix this problem then we’ll start eating into our reserves. If that goes on long enough, I’ll have to consider some more fundamental changes - like any business, cash is king. If our pipeline runs dry we'll eventually run out of road.
That would have major consequences for the way I work, and the way our family lives. And for my status in the world. We men know how painful that lost status can be, even as we strive not to let it affect us.
If I do fail I hope I'm brave enough to talk honestly about it - man to man.
Deri.
Money - William Henry Davies
When I had money, money, O!
I knew no joy till I went poor;
For many a false man as a friend
Came knocking all day at my door.
Then felt I like a child that holds
A trumpet that he must not blow
Because a man is dead; I dared
Not speak to let this false world know.
Much have I thought of life, and seen
How poor men’s hearts are ever light;
And how their wives do hum like bees
About their work from morn till night.
So, when I hear these poor ones laugh,
And see the rich ones coldly frown
Poor men, think I, need not go up
So much as rich men should come down.
When I had money, money, O!
My many friends proved all untrue;
But now I have no money, O!
My friends are real, though very few.