Team Member Episode: It's Your Life. Don't Wait for the Business to Save You.

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How are you? I'm Chris Plackey. If we haven't met before, I'm glad you're here. This recording specifically is actually for team members. Now, the majority of the work I do in the world is for founders, female founders, entrepreneurs, and small business owners. But today I want to make a recording and a lesson specifically for the team members out there who may work for my clients. But whether or not you do, if this found you, I want this to be my love letter to anyone who works in a company. I have worked for a long time. 55 years old. I started working when I was 14. I started working when I was fourteen because I wanted to make money. In 1984, when I was fourteen, I lived with my mom, single mom. We had a college student who lived with us to sort of be around and help me while. Because my mom traveled a lot and I wanted to be able to get to the mall on my own, which at that time in life, we took the bus. And so I needed bus money and I needed and spending money. I liked to buy snacks when I was at school. There were just things I wanted to have my own money for. So I wanted a job and I got one, got a permit, and I worked at 14 at a shoe store down the street from my house, and I worked with my best friend. It was super fun. So all of us at some point in our lives, realize that we have to work to make money. Now, how we choose to invest in ourselves in order to work to make money is such a unique experience. Some of us are really, really driven to pursue a high level of education, a high level of certifications, a high level of licensure, to be able to do the work that we want to do. Sometimes we're really driven by passion, and we have a big vision for what we want to solve in the world. So some of us don't have that, and that's just fine. I think that some of us really do believe that our work should be aligned to the way we want to live our life. And it should be an expression of who we are. Like, it's attached to a purpose. It's like, I do this work to achieve my life purpose, right? Some of us just want to have a really good job and make good money and live a beautiful life. And we're not really inspired by, like, changing the world or changing an industry or any of that. And that's okay. I think both are fine. I hope you do too. I just mostly want for anyone. For you to do whatever it is because you want to do it. And one of the things that I have come to believe over the years I think is a little, maybe risky to say and potentially goes against the grain of what a lot of people think. But I want to share it with you in the hopes that it might give you something to think about.

I know for myself that the very, very, very, very, very last place I would ever put my economic.

Mental, emotional or physical well being is in the hands of an employer. I would never, ever, ever give over my personal agency over those three, four things I just mentioned to an employer, to a company, to a boss. These are people I hardly know. Why would I turn over my livelihood, my success, my health, my emotional and personal and mental well being to a company? I have thought this for a very long time. Maybe it's because I've had a few really crappy managers and it sort of made me realize like, oh, heck no, this is not what I'm doing. You are not in charge. But what we have right now in our world is a belief, a very, very insane, insidious, systemic belief that companies are responsible for your emotional, mental, physical and financial well being. Now, I believe if we were to go through the annals of history, this all sort of started after the war, the big war, the World War II, when there was such a shortage of labor. And in order for employers to attract people to come work for them, they started to create whole systems of benefits. Health benefits, pensions, bonuses. I mean, it's gotten to be the, the benefits are quite extensive. Life insurance, you know, disability insurance, Keurigs, you know, was the big hot thing in the early 2000s in the coffee room, being able to wear jeans. Like all sorts of things have started. Like employers just kept trying create enticements to get you to come work for them. And what we've created as a result is a society that inherently believes that employers are responsible for providing benefits to you. Health benefits, dental benefits, vision benefits, retirement. And so what started as a talent attraction strategy has become an entitlement, an expectation. And a lot of people have been raised to believe that they go from their home to their education or training to a job, and that job's job is to take care of you. If you do your work, you will be cared for. Now, in defense of that model, that has been the offer. And we're at a time right now where we are watching absolutely what I believe to be a moral, unethical, random cuts to federal agencies that are having a systemically horrific effect on real people. I think if we Make a commitment, then we've made that commitment. And the federal government, who hired these people, made a commitment to them, they extended an invitation to them. And I think the way that a hacksaw is being taken to this is absolutely antithetical to what leadership is that aside, there's a reason we're in the predicament that we're in. And the reason we're in the predicament that we're in is that for 70, 80 years, this society has had a belief that employers are responsible for the well being of their employees. And we have, as a result, extended this parent child relationship between employer and team member. And I believe it has debilitated people's agency, personal agency. We have abysmal financial literacy in this country. People do not know how to manage their money, save their money, save for retirement. We have abysmal engagement in health management. People abdicate health, they do not take responsibility for their health. We have abysmal mental health in this society. And in my view, and that's what this is, I do believe that we have been lulled into believing that if you just get a good job that has all these benefits, you're going to be fine. But I don't think that's why you were born, is to be raised by someone and then go work somewhere and have them take care of you. I think you were born as this capable human who is infinitely more powerful than she or he may believe. And that the structure that we have in place in this society right now has cut you off at the knees in terms of you accepting ownership and accountability for your health, your mental health, your emotional health and your financial health. You have become dependent, not because you chose it overtly, but because you were taught it and then believed it. And then you have become a victim of it. Because what would happen if there was no health care benefit in the company that you worked for? And I think a lot of people listening to this will say there isn't one. I don't have one. I'm my own business. Guess what I have to do. Get it. What would happen if there was no one who was figuring out how you save money for retirement? You'd have to learn it or you wouldn't have it. What would happen if there was no actual structure to you taking care of yourself? You had to figure it out. What if that's what we taught people? How to be financially literate, how to be literate about your own health care, how to be literate about your own retirement, how to be literate about your own mental health and your emotional health. What if we taught young people, it's your life. You are the asset. Not the company, not your salary. You. And you would never ever if you knew that you were the asset. This is your frickin life, not the employer's life. Stop giving them ownership and authority over what your life looks like now. Am I saying that to you? And that's probably impossible for a lot of people. Of course I understand that this is not a blame the team member recording, but this is meant to see and set to help us all see. We have been part of a system that I believe we need to step out of. You have talent, skill, experience, ability that is a marketable resource and you should be the one who benefits anytime you deliver that on exchange. But I would say you do that based on compensation in terms of money and let the rest go. You be in charge of your benefits. You be in charge of how much money you save. Get educated on what you need to know. There would be so much more buying power if we all assumed ownership and responsibility for the life that we live and it wasn't cloistered inside these huge companies hidden behind these huge insurance agencies. We think they're giving us a benefit. They are not.

We are. We are paying insurance companies and we're letting our employers do it for us. And we think we're getting the benefit. We are not. We have lost who we are as humans. Agency, connection, personal power. And it has been taught to us. And I just want to invite you to consider that there might be another way to think about who you are, what you do, who you're doing it for, and how you accept personal responsibility for the results you get in your life and no longer abdicate those to anyone else. Ever. Thanks for tuning in.