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The Backup Plan (Escape Hatch Series)
Show Notes:
In your line of work, you are trained to be prepared for the worst. You train for the worst case scenarios, you anticipate and plan for these, so that anything short of this will be easy peasy. All I’m asking us to do is the same as it relates to your career plan. When people go into front line work with the conscious, or not-so-conscious expectation that they are going to stay in it until they retire, they tend to get caught in a stuck place when they discover that their mental health, their physical health, their relationships and their lives are increasingly suffering as a result. I’m not saying that everyone ends up here and that it’s impossible to make it to retirement age working in this field, but what I AM saying is that putting all your eggs into this one basket is treacherous when we know the stats.
During this series you will be hearing from some fantastic guests who are sharing their individual paths to creating their own escape hatches. Some of them have pulled the rip cord and exited the work, opting to shift gears into other passions; and others remain in the work and seek to balance out the weight of the work by having some side-hustles that give them an exit for if or when they might need it. For today, I want to open the topic and make the argument for why we need to be considering our own personal escape hatch. I also want to offer a few suggestions for what you can be thinking about to help apply this in your own world.
When I talk with First Responders and Front Line Workers in my daily life – whether it’s clients in my office, or friends in my personal life – I tend to hear about a few major stumbling blocks when it comes to the work. These are the things that suck us into the work and can keep us stuck, even when we’re noticing that it’s coming at a significant personal cost.
1. The benefits tend to be pretty good. While never ideal or perfect, many front line professions benefit from pretty decent extended medical plans that feel hard to turn down or walk away from, especially if you have kids in braces!
2. The vacation time. Most front line professions operate under a seniority system, so the more hours you’ve put in the more prioritized you are when selecting vacation days. It is hard to imagine giving this up to start back at 1 in a different career or with a different employer.
3. The pension. The ever-present yet elusive carrot dangled to keep you in for as long as possible. I hear about this one a LOT. If I just put in 5 more, 7 more, 12 more years, then I’ll get that sweet, sweet pension and I will be able to live my dreams…travel, spend time with my kids and grandkids, do fun activities… Someday.
Now let me say that none of these are bad things to anchor to or bad reasons to stay in whatever kind of work you do. These are legitimate factors that absolutely need to play into your decision making. That said, so does your health and wellness. Because none of these things are going to matter much if you aren’t well enough to benefit from them.
This is the thing that really gets to me: how often I hear front line workers who were a couple of years away from retirement how have had to go off due to PTSD or related OSI’s, share that they realize now that while they will have the pension (or close to what they planned for), their ability to enjoy it will be compromised due to their symptoms and related limitations. Their plans to travel feel tripped up by their acquired panic related to being in enclosed spaces. Their interest in connecting more with family is compromised by their persistent triggering in social situations. Their desire to do more activities feels turned on its head thanks to chronic agitation, hypervigilance and tension that limits enjoyment of most pursuits. I also hear, all to often, about reflections of others in their professions – how so and so retired and then was almost immediately diagnosed with cancer or some other terminal illness; or how such and such co-worker retired and three months later died of a heart attack. The amount of time I spend in a week hearing stories of feeling baited by the dangled carrot of the pension will never cease to amaze me…because somehow it continues to lure and trick people into sacrificing so much of their lives in hopes that they will be the exception.
So, when we talk about considering what it looks like to craft your own personal escape hatch, we’re talking about finding ways to lean more intentionally and strategically into your values in an effort to reap the payoff that helps to balance out your life and energy more effectively and sustainably. I think there are three primary reasons to consider an escape hatch:
1. Your mental and physical health. We have talked SO many times on this show about the impacts of persistent stress, both on your mental health as well as on your physical wellbeing. In addition to stress and high degrees of exposure risking things like PTSD, you are also in a line of work that is more exposed to actual physical threat and are more likely to suffer from work-related illnesses or pain concerns. Investing in an escape hatch, whether you ever pull the rip cord and really make the leap from your front line work all the way into something else, or not, allows you to consider what matters to you and to invest intentionally into aspects of you that can support more global health.
2. Your financial health. I often see people off work and on reduced income due to being on WorkSafe or Long Term Disability. They never expected to be faced with this limit on their income earning ability. They are used to picking up overtime whenever something breaks down and needs fixing. And suddenly, they are in a big pickle. Now the pressure is even higher to get back to work and stay in the work at all cost, because the losses of a time off work have been so high. Having alternatives and investing in other areas of your life that have some kind of financial reward can be huge in supporting you through a time where your income is reduced. Not only that, having interests that aren’t necessarily paid (for example, coaching a sports team or volunteering with an organization) can again contribute as a buffer to the impact of the work you do, keeping you more balanced and less likely to need to go off work.
3. To be a legitimate plan B. I hope you never need it. My wish for you is to have a long and rewarding, fulfilling career… But just in case you need it, it would be good to have an alternative you could jump to if you really needed to. And it would be great to have it there and ready to go instead of being in a desperate moment of realizing that you have put all your eggs in a basket that is tumbling down and crashing.
With all of that in mind, let’s talk about how you can start considering what an escape hatch might look like for you. There are 3 steps you can start taking right now that can help set you in the right direction.
1. Talk with a financial advisor. Every person on earth, no matter how much or how little they make, should speak with a financial advisor. I don’t care if you invest or don’t, if you have a lot in your bank account or just a little – the reality is that financial advisors are able to help you anticipate and make reasonable guesstimates better than you are likely trained to do on your own. I have heard many stories of people believing they had to work another 10 years to be able to retire, only to speak with a qualified advisor and learn that all of their goals would be possible in 2-3 years if they made a couple strategic choices. Do...
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By Lindsay Faas
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Show Notes:
In your line of work, you are trained to be prepared for the worst. You train for the worst case scenarios, you anticipate and plan for these, so that anything short of this will be easy peasy. All I’m asking us to do is the same as it relates to your career plan. When people go into front line work with the conscious, or not-so-conscious expectation that they are going to stay in it until they retire, they tend to get caught in a stuck place when they discover that their mental health, their physical health, their relationships and their lives are increasingly suffering as a result. I’m not saying that everyone ends up here and that it’s impossible to make it to retirement age working in this field, but what I AM saying is that putting all your eggs into this one basket is treacherous when we know the stats.
During this series you will be hearing from some fantastic guests who are sharing their individual paths to creating their own escape hatches. Some of them have pulled the rip cord and exited the work, opting to shift gears into other passions; and others remain in the work and seek to balance out the weight of the work by having some side-hustles that give them an exit for if or when they might need it. For today, I want to open the topic and make the argument for why we need to be considering our own personal escape hatch. I also want to offer a few suggestions for what you can be thinking about to help apply this in your own world.
When I talk with First Responders and Front Line Workers in my daily life – whether it’s clients in my office, or friends in my personal life – I tend to hear about a few major stumbling blocks when it comes to the work. These are the things that suck us into the work and can keep us stuck, even when we’re noticing that it’s coming at a significant personal cost.
1. The benefits tend to be pretty good. While never ideal or perfect, many front line professions benefit from pretty decent extended medical plans that feel hard to turn down or walk away from, especially if you have kids in braces!
2. The vacation time. Most front line professions operate under a seniority system, so the more hours you’ve put in the more prioritized you are when selecting vacation days. It is hard to imagine giving this up to start back at 1 in a different career or with a different employer.
3. The pension. The ever-present yet elusive carrot dangled to keep you in for as long as possible. I hear about this one a LOT. If I just put in 5 more, 7 more, 12 more years, then I’ll get that sweet, sweet pension and I will be able to live my dreams…travel, spend time with my kids and grandkids, do fun activities… Someday.
Now let me say that none of these are bad things to anchor to or bad reasons to stay in whatever kind of work you do. These are legitimate factors that absolutely need to play into your decision making. That said, so does your health and wellness. Because none of these things are going to matter much if you aren’t well enough to benefit from them.
This is the thing that really gets to me: how often I hear front line workers who were a couple of years away from retirement how have had to go off due to PTSD or related OSI’s, share that they realize now that while they will have the pension (or close to what they planned for), their ability to enjoy it will be compromised due to their symptoms and related limitations. Their plans to travel feel tripped up by their acquired panic related to being in enclosed spaces. Their interest in connecting more with family is compromised by their persistent triggering in social situations. Their desire to do more activities feels turned on its head thanks to chronic agitation, hypervigilance and tension that limits enjoyment of most pursuits. I also hear, all to often, about reflections of others in their professions – how so and so retired and then was almost immediately diagnosed with cancer or some other terminal illness; or how such and such co-worker retired and three months later died of a heart attack. The amount of time I spend in a week hearing stories of feeling baited by the dangled carrot of the pension will never cease to amaze me…because somehow it continues to lure and trick people into sacrificing so much of their lives in hopes that they will be the exception.
So, when we talk about considering what it looks like to craft your own personal escape hatch, we’re talking about finding ways to lean more intentionally and strategically into your values in an effort to reap the payoff that helps to balance out your life and energy more effectively and sustainably. I think there are three primary reasons to consider an escape hatch:
1. Your mental and physical health. We have talked SO many times on this show about the impacts of persistent stress, both on your mental health as well as on your physical wellbeing. In addition to stress and high degrees of exposure risking things like PTSD, you are also in a line of work that is more exposed to actual physical threat and are more likely to suffer from work-related illnesses or pain concerns. Investing in an escape hatch, whether you ever pull the rip cord and really make the leap from your front line work all the way into something else, or not, allows you to consider what matters to you and to invest intentionally into aspects of you that can support more global health.
2. Your financial health. I often see people off work and on reduced income due to being on WorkSafe or Long Term Disability. They never expected to be faced with this limit on their income earning ability. They are used to picking up overtime whenever something breaks down and needs fixing. And suddenly, they are in a big pickle. Now the pressure is even higher to get back to work and stay in the work at all cost, because the losses of a time off work have been so high. Having alternatives and investing in other areas of your life that have some kind of financial reward can be huge in supporting you through a time where your income is reduced. Not only that, having interests that aren’t necessarily paid (for example, coaching a sports team or volunteering with an organization) can again contribute as a buffer to the impact of the work you do, keeping you more balanced and less likely to need to go off work.
3. To be a legitimate plan B. I hope you never need it. My wish for you is to have a long and rewarding, fulfilling career… But just in case you need it, it would be good to have an alternative you could jump to if you really needed to. And it would be great to have it there and ready to go instead of being in a desperate moment of realizing that you have put all your eggs in a basket that is tumbling down and crashing.
With all of that in mind, let’s talk about how you can start considering what an escape hatch might look like for you. There are 3 steps you can start taking right now that can help set you in the right direction.
1. Talk with a financial advisor. Every person on earth, no matter how much or how little they make, should speak with a financial advisor. I don’t care if you invest or don’t, if you have a lot in your bank account or just a little – the reality is that financial advisors are able to help you anticipate and make reasonable guesstimates better than you are likely trained to do on your own. I have heard many stories of people believing they had to work another 10 years to be able to retire, only to speak with a qualified advisor and learn that all of their goals would be possible in 2-3 years if they made a couple strategic choices. Do...