Category Archives: entrepreneur

The B.S. of Paying Your Dues

Paying Your Dues

The idea of a young person having to “pay their dues” didn’t offend me when I was a young person.

Like school, taxes and a mother-in-law that I could never please, I not only accepted the idea, I believed it. Now I’m calling bullshit on that cliché.

When Hannah discovered two months into an apprenticeship with her Praxis business partner that she isn’t built for 9-5 behind a desk,  she decided to leave 7 months early. A few people threw out the phrase. “She’s gotta pay her dues“.

I nodded my head on the outside and shook it violently on the inside.

I’ve been watching Hannah navigate the minefield of other people’s expectations and vague ideas of how to become successful.

So many of those same people invested 30+ years at a job they hate or have dreams that they’ll never pursue. They paid their dues, alright, but most are still paying in the form of dreams that died, relationships that were ruined or health and wellness.

James Altucher recently tweeted this:

What image comes to mind when you think about “paying your dues”?

Long hours, low pay, shit assignments, other people taking credit for your work and years at one place in order to climb up a ladder that you shouldn’t have been on in the first place.

That model doesn’t apply anymore. A traditional path doesn’t even guarantee a job, let alone a lifelong career with a pension.

I’m not sure paying dues according to someone else’s expectations makes sense anymore. Sure, put in your time at a low-paying job or do the grunt work if you’ll come out on the other end with transferrable skills.

When you stop learning or the work isn’t challenging, it’s probably time to move on. Decide for yourself when the dues have been paid.

Hannah launched a company this week. She most definitely paid her dues (and will continue to pay them)…into her own escrow account.

She built a reputation and a relationship with her new business partner that made an impression so he invited her to help him build a company.

I guess that’s the difference. Dues are unavoidable but should be deposited in the right place.

Dark and Quiet-Glad I’m Home

election 2016 aftershock

I’m stunned but not surprised if that makes sense. When some were so sure that there was NO WAY IN HELL that Trump could possibly be the next president, I worried that there WAS A WAY in this country.

I feared what some wouldn’t admit out loud but would freely express in the privacy of the voting booth.

When the no-brainer, game-overs were not ending Trump’s game, I knew it could be possible. But I’m still in shock.

Here we are. Thoughtful people are wondering what they can do.

My son, who voted for the first time and who might have written in Harambe had the GOP selected a human, asked a few times last night, “What are we supposed to do?”

Truth is, I don’t know. I have no idea how to convince my friends who are truly and systemically invisible under a Trump presidency (you know, minorities, non-Christians, women, girls, immigrants, the poor, the jobless, sane people) that this country or the world is safe.

I don’t feel safe.

But here’s what I plan to do in the next few days:

Besides medicating myself with all the leftover Halloween candy in the house and praying the Rosary incessantly (there is palpable calm and peace there), I’ll be….

Keeping the TV off. I’ve had enough of the chaotic ratings-chasing, soap-selling, vertigo-inducing “news” media that helped create this mess. Clearly, the talking heads and experts don’t know any more than I do. They did not see this coming.

I don’t care how it happened. It happened. I’m filtering and censoring what plays in the public spaces in my home. It’s not informative and it’s not entertaining.

Second, I’ll do my best to encourage civility in the family. We are all on edge and stressed about this terrifying  and depressing turn of events. Last night found us snapping at each other.

election night tweet

Exhibit A

I’ll try to be positive and calm and see if that rubs off. I’m hoping my kids (or Jodie) will make me laugh about something. See exhibit A, above.

Third. I’m declining to engage about this topic in the next few days, except to the extent that my kids need to talk about it to calm their own anxiety.

Outside of my family, no offense. I can’t talk about it. It’s too depressing. But really, what is there to say? Most people I know are reasonable and we all feel the same so do we really have to pontificate? No.

It sounds selfish and maybe it is but I need to regroup. It’s my way of staying out of the soup of despair. Total self-preservation move. Eventually, I’ll reengage but I’ll wait for the aftershocks to settle.

Finally, I’ll encourage my kids to double down on their gifts and interests and not to rely on gatekeepers, institutions or conventions to move them forward.

Two political parties were disrupted last night (though, if you read this prophetic piece by Naval Ravikant, it was really one). Get used to disruption and maybe take Jay Samit’s advice.

It’s time for me to go dark and quiet for a while. #blessup.