People don’t like to feel pigeonholed. They like to be able to have options laid out before them and then make a choice. Having ownership and making decisions tends to lead to happier outcomes. Yet, too often people settle for the status quo and don’t seek out other options. Take people’s occupations and job situation. How many times do you hear people complaining about the rat race? Most people head off to work every day as though on a treadmill. Statistics tell us that a lot of people don’t really enjoy the work they do, but they do it because they have to survive, because they have to feed the family, or because they feel caught. Other people continue in thankless or unhappy jobs because it’s what they saw their parents do or what society has deemed is necessary to succeed. Their job was not necessarily something that they loved. Regardless of whether or not people love their jobs, they want to know that somewhere along the way, they have options. The money keeps them going, but they want to know they aren’t stagnant, that they’re working toward something and they’ll have a choice about the direction their lives take. But what does that actually mean? A good example was an executive at a nationally known pharmaceutical company who came to us many years ago. She wanted what I call a “checkup.” She was about 52, and she wanted to make sure she was going to be financially independent—in other words, that she’d be able to retire or do something else—by the time she was 60. We reviewed her cash flow needs, stock options, and financial holdings, and we were able to show her that, yes, she was going to be fine by 60. Then I said to her, “How would you like to be financially independent by 55? Instead of 60, how would you like to know that when you walked into the office after your 55^th birthday, being there was your choice?” You could see her eyes widen. “Wow, that would be really neat.” She happened to like what she did, but knowing that there was going to be a time when going to work would be wholly her choice sounded to her like a great option. We started exploring some financial choices she had; she had told us that as much as she liked the company at which she was working, she was getting phone calls from executive recruiters and other pharmaceutical companies to come and join them. Working with their offers, we showed her that if she earned a little bit more or had this much more in stock options or benefits, she could in fact accelerate her progress such that she would be financially independent at 55—or sooner. Alternately, she could go back to her employer and start renegotiating her contract.

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