If you’re like most, you’re probably glad it’s Christmas right about now. You’ve been working hard and you’re enjoying a little break. Or perhaps you don’t care for any of that and you’re still ploughing along. Whatever your philosophy, let me wish you a Merry Christmas.
You know, people tend to look forward to their holidays and often it’s not just about rest, it’s about freedom. We want to have the ability to do what we want, when we want. However, we also tend to self-sabotage, shooting ourselves in the foot and costing ourselves our own freedom. Let’s give a couple of examples.
Recently I saw an episode of Grand Designs, with grey-haired TV presenter Kevin McCloud – no relation to Connor Macleod, in case you’re wondering. This time they showed a family wanting their home to be built like a lighthouse, nearby the sea. Now, the typical Grand Designs’ family underestimates what it’s going to take to finish their project. Their budget’s off by about fifty percent and it takes about double (or even triple) the amount of time they initially expected. This time it was much, much worse. The costs kept going up and soon they found themselves in the hole for many millions of pounds.
Unlike many other families who previously appeared on the show however, they didn’t have some magical money tree lying around. So they got into debt, accepting large loans. To try to get out of debt, they accepted a second building project closeby. You got it, they wanted to sell the second building, to pay off the debts of their first building.
It eventually ended in shambles. After years of this, the couple decided to divorce. Having said that, the house has been completed. It’s called Chesil Cliff House and it’s on the market for ten million GBP – which includes both buildings, only seven and a half for the lighthouse.
What’s the point in telling this story? Well, let me add one more in case you didn’t quite get it.
Recently Elon Musk bought Twitter. You might’ve noticed. He sold a bunch of his Tesla stock, borrowed money from banks, went to investors who wanted to give him a couple of billion… and so on. So after using a big chunk of his wealth to buy Twitter, what does he do? Well, figuring Twitter is in massive debt, he starts laying off staff. Ignoring his blunt way of going about it, you’d probably say that makes sense. Then followed one mad experiment ater the other, to the point of big time companies getting sick and tired of the whole ordeal. With these massive advertisers deciding to back out, he now finds himself a hole of his own making.
And as if it couldn’t get any worse, he put up a poll, asking the public if they wanted him to remain Twitter’s CEO, with a majority saying no. So basically, he’s used up a ton of moeny to buy a company he no longer wants himself.
See the parallels between these stories? I do. Make sure you draw the right lessons out of this, because this is about your freedom. Food for thought.
Kind regards
Vincent J. Dancet