Quiet_Quitting
00:00:00.000 | Hello everybody, it's Sam from Financial Samurai and in this episode I want to talk about the quiet quitting phenomenon
00:00:06.220 | It's all over the news
00:00:07.600 | It's all over social media
00:00:09.280 | The idea behind quiet quitting is to do no more than what's asked of you at work and then check out
00:00:15.980 | Once you're out of the office, there's no more responding to work emails slack
00:00:20.900 | Nothing a quiet quitter does not go above and beyond the call of duty. That sounds kind of bad
00:00:29.320 | But is it really you work 100% for 100% pay seems pretty fair to me
00:00:36.300 | so these quiet quitters have been able to create a strong boundary between work and
00:00:41.360 | personal life over the past two and a half years since the beginning of 2020 a
00:00:46.760 | Lot of the work and personal life boundaries have blurred because we're working from home
00:00:52.080 | Which means we're probably working more often. No commute do some work
00:00:57.800 | No, you know boondoggling at the water cooler do some more work check emails at 9 p.m. 10 p.m
00:01:05.080 | That's all work
00:01:06.040 | and so eventually after a long enough period of time we burn out and when we burn out we push back and we try to
00:01:12.560 | Think about better ways to do things now initially when I heard the term quiet quitting I thought to myself come on now
00:01:19.520 | That's just that's just another
00:01:22.800 | younger generation talking about wanting to do less and living a better balanced lifestyle and
00:01:28.360 | Since I grinded hard when I was in my 20s and 30s that just sounds ridiculous to be a quiet quitter, right?
00:01:34.680 | But now that I'm a parent
00:01:37.160 | I'm kind of going full circle and I'm thinking about my children and how they're gonna compete in this really really competitive world
00:01:44.240 | So I've decided to take the positive of quiet quitting and look at the positive and say look
00:01:49.360 | Quiet quitting is great to lower your anxiety
00:01:52.200 | about your own work
00:01:55.000 | Trying to get ahead and also if you're a parent to help lower your anxiety for your child's future
00:02:01.640 | So let me tell you a story about when I was growing up when I started working in finance in 1999
00:02:07.880 | I regularly worked between 60 to 70 hours a week
00:02:11.560 | It was basically 12 to 14 hour days and also 6 to 8 hours on the weekends
00:02:16.520 | There were no set hours folks instead. We worked every day and every evening because the work was never finished
00:02:23.480 | Once 7 p.m. Rolled around in New York City my colleagues in Hong Kong Taiwan and Singapore
00:02:29.200 | Started to trickle in at around 7 a.m. Their time
00:02:32.080 | Oftentimes I had to be online until 9 p.m. Ensuring my requests were
00:02:36.760 | Executed before I went to bed. Just imagine if you had a client request from a big fund manager in New York City and
00:02:44.640 | He wanted to know more about Hong Kong property
00:02:48.160 | So you go and contact the assistant or the research analyst about Hong Kong property to try to get some information
00:02:54.200 | Just imagine if you wake up the next day and you don't get any of that information
00:02:59.720 | You're gonna look like a fool or just incompetent in front of your client and you're not gonna do well
00:03:05.320 | So there's this constant anxiety and I knew it most the people in the international equities department
00:03:10.780 | We're always on and always trying to get information and data to help our clients
00:03:15.840 | hmm, so maybe the experience that millions of knowledge workers have experienced since 2020 is
00:03:22.360 | What I've been experiencing are what I had experienced for 13 years working in international equities and finance
00:03:28.120 | So I couldn't last folks, which is why I think the quiet quitting movement could be really good for all workers
00:03:35.840 | The main reason why I did more than the minimum was because I knew it just was just too brutal
00:03:41.520 | To get in at 5 30 a.m. And leave after 7 p.m. For decades
00:03:45.680 | Therefore I logically worked the maximum number of hours I could bear while trying to get paid and promoted quicker
00:03:52.680 | I figured if I averaged 65 hours a week for 20 years
00:03:56.400 | That would be like a 40 hour a week person working for 33 years
00:04:01.320 | It's not quite the same math obviously, but that's how I thought you work hard
00:04:06.440 | It compressed the amount of work to get paid and promoted quicker so I could leave
00:04:10.800 | sooner I
00:04:12.920 | Was I would say unlucky not to have landed a relatively low stress nine-to-five job that it enabled
00:04:18.920 | Workers to quiet quit for 30 to 40 years
00:04:22.280 | Look online look on tik-tok. It's pretty hilarious and pretty creative of these people who profile their days, you know coming into work
00:04:30.920 | Socializing eating vegan panna cotta. Yeah for free. Not bad for folks who work at LinkedIn and
00:04:37.160 | It sounds great and it's smart right? It's obviously
00:04:40.360 | Sensationalized as a creator you want to make things look better than it really is
00:04:44.880 | but the point is if you have the confidence and the ability to
00:04:49.680 | Highlight that you're working one to two hours a day while you're just socializing and fraternizing with friends online and not fearing getting laid off
00:04:58.600 | That shows the power of what your work-life balance is
00:05:03.160 | It shows that you actually really do have a pretty good work-life balance
00:05:08.000 | I know if I posted a video of how I was only working a couple hours a week at Goldman Sachs or Credit Suisse
00:05:13.440 | I would probably be set aside by my HR manager and maybe fired if I did it a second or third time, right?
00:05:19.740 | But things have changed and I think the dynamic of the work environment has changed and maybe our managers are younger now
00:05:27.120 | And they also want more work-life balance hence quiet quitting and at the same time
00:05:32.840 | I was also lucky to have gotten a job that had a strong correlation with performance and reward
00:05:38.600 | For at least the first 10 years the harder I worked the better
00:05:42.160 | I did with my clients the more I got paid and the quicker I got promoted and this broke down after the global financial crisis in
00:05:49.460 | 2008 to 2009 and then for several years after you know
00:05:54.460 | The companies a lot of companies in finance were hemorrhaging money
00:05:58.480 | We were struggling so we needed to build back our balance sheets and therefore the pay wasn't that great
00:06:04.120 | and so naturally workers got less motivated including myself and I wanted to do something new as
00:06:10.680 | Result by shutting the quiet quitting movement in my 20s and 30s
00:06:15.160 | I was able to break free from the corporate grind for good at age 34 and try to figure out
00:06:22.480 | What I wanted to do with the rest of my life and we know this term ikigai
00:06:27.200 | It's a Japanese concept meaning a reason for being and it's about finding what you love
00:06:33.000 | What the world needs?
00:06:35.640 | What you can be paid for and what you are good at so everybody spend time thinking about your ikigai
00:06:43.560 | What you love I love to write. I like to speak sometimes, but I love to write and connect with other people
00:06:51.320 | What the world needs I think the world needs more
00:06:54.840 | financial education better personal financial education
00:06:59.460 | Now ask yourself what you can be paid for
00:07:02.840 | Based on doing what you love and what the world needs
00:07:06.100 | I'm lucky because financial samurai generates advertising revenue or some companies want to sponsor
00:07:13.040 | Financial samurais newsletter or a post that's pretty cool
00:07:17.120 | Especially when I can find products that I really believe in and that I use and then finally
00:07:23.120 | What you are good at this takes time to get better
00:07:27.840 | but over time I've discovered I am good at writing making people think and
00:07:33.000 | Sharing stories and good education. So if you find four of these things
00:07:38.280 | You're gonna find ikigai and if you find ikigai
00:07:42.520 | You will feel less burned out and feel more purposeful every single day
00:07:47.640 | It's the reason why I've been able to publish three times a week since July 2009
00:07:53.000 | It's not easy folks writing 1,000 to 4,000 word articles three times a week plus a weekly newsletter
00:08:00.520 | But I love it and it helps people and there's an income component and I'm good at it
00:08:05.720 | So find your ikigai now, let's go back to quiet quitting again
00:08:09.920 | There are two main ways to get ahead. The first way to get ahead is to work harder than most people
00:08:15.320 | Eventually, you hope your results will bring you the rewards you think you deserve
00:08:20.000 | Going this path is for someone who strongly believes in meritocracy and a lot of corporations. They talk about meritocracy
00:08:27.520 | However, as we all know the best or the hardest working people don't always rise to the top
00:08:33.240 | due to nepotism
00:08:35.800 | Advertisement bad luck and systemic issues. That's just the way the world is folks
00:08:40.880 | The second way to get ahead is to convince other people to try less hard than you
00:08:46.400 | Encouraging a movement for quiet quitters who do the minimum on the job relieves the stress of the average worker and by definition
00:08:54.480 | Most people are average
00:08:56.760 | 70 to 80 percent of people are on the average part of the curve the bell curve
00:09:01.240 | For example, maybe the average worker works only eight point five hours a day when they are only required to work eight hours a day
00:09:08.520 | Right, that's above and beyond what is required technically
00:09:12.200 | But they feel bad because they know they can do so much more they can work probably ten hours a day
00:09:17.600 | But you know what eight and a half so long as they're averaged above average, they're okay
00:09:21.900 | But if more colleagues start checking out after seven and a half eight hours, then the average person will now outperform
00:09:30.000 | Without having to change their ways and if you're feeling burned out
00:09:34.480 | That's pretty great. If the collective can lower that bar
00:09:39.120 | The main reason why so many of us experience burnout is that there's this arms race for ever-increasing
00:09:46.840 | Desire for corporations to sell more widgets and make more and more and more money
00:09:52.200 | Capitalism is great for achieving improvements in technology safety health food and education
00:09:59.080 | However, there comes a point where there is enough enough is enough
00:10:03.160 | But there is never enough in a capitalistic society. We've got shareholders to report to board members
00:10:11.280 | employees to feed and
00:10:13.760 | This is the cycle of life. So we have to figure out how to break that cycle and accept enough
00:10:20.120 | Because besides feeling permanently on call other reasons for burnout include feeling like your work has no impact, right?
00:10:28.040 | No matter what you do, it's the broken steering
00:10:30.520 | Well, you can't steer the car the way that you want to go and you don't believe the company's mission
00:10:37.420 | I mean if you are working at a sugary drink company
00:10:41.360 | I mean, do you really believe in the mission of pumping 200 calories worth of and 16 tablespoons of sugar in each can of
00:10:49.320 | You know soda. I don't I don't think that's that's the not the mission that you probably believe in
00:10:55.800 | But you do it because you need the money most of us work because we need the money and that is acceptable
00:11:02.120 | But eventually you're gonna get to a point where you have enough money where you can do other things for less pay
00:11:08.960 | Or maybe retire early or just at least take a break
00:11:12.560 | and so that is that gray area where hopefully we all eventually come to where we
00:11:17.120 | Reconsider what we want to do with our lives how we want to make money and what kind of impact we want to leave in
00:11:23.040 | This world so that is eeky guy again now quiet quitting I think is really good for working parents as well
00:11:30.320 | I would say if there's one demographic group that has suffered the most amount of anxiety and worry during the pandemic
00:11:36.840 | It's parents of young children and that's me
00:11:40.620 | So I'm selfishly talking about how I've been experiencing a lot of work stress and anxiety since 2020
00:11:47.880 | Just trying to be real with you all because when you're a new parent
00:11:52.040 | Everything is new and when you have a helpless person depending on you, you don't want to mess that up
00:11:57.520 | You definitely don't want them to get hurt or God forbid die on you. That's the worst nightmare
00:12:02.920 | and so for parents just struggling to balance work and
00:12:07.480 | To balance child care and love it's been really difficult. And so quiet quitting
00:12:13.640 | Enables parents to think about the future and maybe a less stressful way
00:12:18.880 | Because if you realize how brutally competitive the world is you also realize how much you have to do as a parent to prepare your children
00:12:25.960 | To compete survive and hopefully thrive in the future. The world is just getting smaller. Thanks to technology
00:12:32.360 | better economic international cooperation and
00:12:36.240 | Companies are going to where labor costs are the lowest and the most efficient, right?
00:12:42.040 | So if you don't have that knowledge and that skill
00:12:45.880 | To compete in a developed country like America then life is going to be much more difficult
00:12:50.640 | so with quiet quitting if we can lower the bar and have people not grind as
00:12:55.980 | Hard or at least keep the bar in place
00:12:59.320 | This provides more hope for parents and their children
00:13:03.260 | I have a three-pronged plan to help my children and this includes step one
00:13:09.240 | Providing supplemental homeschooling because we have more time I can homeschool them in English Mandarin
00:13:15.760 | math science writing speaking
00:13:17.760 | entrepreneurship marketing investing real estate stocks and overall personal finance
00:13:22.240 | Something that is missing in schools step two is keeping financial samurai going for a while
00:13:28.720 | You know a small business to provide real-time real-world education is quite impactful
00:13:35.480 | That's something that I wish I had when I was growing up and I finally got when I went to business school part-time at Berkeley
00:13:41.600 | I was working in finance and I was studying finance. So all that I was learning was really really helpful
00:13:47.120 | That was the most accelerated time of learning in my opinion when I could do and learn at the same time
00:13:53.400 | And then three build a rental property portfolio, which I've already built
00:13:57.960 | But I might want to accumulate more over time and real estate is about security. It's about stability. It's about income
00:14:05.880 | the portfolio can be managed by them if they need work and
00:14:09.800 | The portfolio can provide shelter if they need a place to stay if they can't get a job that pays enough
00:14:15.460 | So the irony of doing these three things is that it helps lower my parental anxiety
00:14:21.200 | because it gives me hope that they're not gonna fall through the cracks and
00:14:26.320 | Just end up doing nothing with their lives because we're gonna be involved right taking action feels good
00:14:32.560 | Because you feel that you're improving your situation
00:14:36.000 | Maybe you're not but at least you're taking action to hopefully change the course of the future for the better
00:14:41.920 | Now if quiet quitting takes off no longer will parents have to worry about the children
00:14:47.640 | Getting straight A's or not getting straight A's and if they get a B in a subject your kid doesn't like it's okay
00:14:55.020 | Don't have to stress out. It's fine and no longer will kids have to pursue endless
00:15:01.080 | Curricular activities and sports and music and arts to the point where they're falling asleep in class the next day
00:15:07.760 | They don't need to cure cancer as a teenager anymore. I mean that's gone
00:15:12.080 | I mean, hopefully teenagers will cure cancer but having to cure cancer to get into a good school
00:15:17.760 | No longer required and come on now these good schools that talk about trying to educate the world while keeping the admissions rate
00:15:25.760 | The same and keeping the number of spots the same even though they've expanded
00:15:31.000 | That's pretty hypocritical folks. Come on now and the reason why schools do that is because they are
00:15:37.840 | Also in the arms race for status and prestige
00:15:41.760 | Right, it just never ever ends until we make it end and we decide what's enough for parents
00:15:48.320 | We no longer have to spend as much on expensive music and sports lessons
00:15:54.080 | bribing college officials, you know that all goes away all that money can thus be saved and
00:16:00.440 | Go towards our own
00:16:02.960 | Retirements now in addition. Thanks to quiet quitting parents won't feel a need to spend a fortune on college or college at all
00:16:10.240 | The reason why many elite colleges are winning is because they know many parents are willing to pay anything for their children's education
00:16:18.320 | the less
00:16:21.080 | Important a college education is for getting a job
00:16:24.400 | The lower the price of college tuition should be but it's not happening that way even though there's the internet
00:16:30.400 | Podcasts blogs and everything and it's because of this
00:16:33.440 | Heightened anxiety by parents to just spend anything because they don't want to screw things up for their kids
00:16:39.240 | But if you read by this not that my book you will hopefully see through the absurdity of paying any amount for college
00:16:47.440 | Instead the chapter on education provides a really great framework for how much you should
00:16:52.960 | comfortably spend
00:16:54.760 | based on your household income and based on the logic of the importance of education how you can attain
00:17:01.000 | education and the jobs you can attain with that education as well in conclusion as
00:17:06.480 | a parent and as someone who is observing what's going on in society with work and
00:17:13.240 | Life, I hope the quiet quitting movement grows
00:17:16.080 | I hope it gets to the managers who also probably want to get but also probably feel crushed by this
00:17:22.620 | Blurring of boundaries between work and personal life and if more workers can sustain a longer career
00:17:29.400 | 20 30 40 years and not just peace out and see you later
00:17:33.720 | Like I did after 13 years that actually might be good for corporate profits that might be good for our country
00:17:40.280 | Just accept that everything is rational though folks
00:17:43.880 | So if you want to partake in the quiet quitting movement, you've got to be okay with the results
00:17:49.120 | Whether it's good times or bad times your promotion and pay
00:17:52.640 | please be congruent with your actions and your beliefs about what you deserve and then if you don't want to
00:17:58.960 | Participate in the quiet quitting movement and you want to grind ahead further you can use this opportunity to get further ahead
00:18:04.720 | Make more money get paid and leave work altogether sooner if you want
00:18:09.960 | There's two sides to this situation and I think there are great benefits to both
00:18:15.480 | I'd love to hear your thoughts about the quiet quitting movement in the post leave a comment or shoot me an email
00:18:21.600 | I think it's gonna be an interesting time for the next two years or longer
00:18:26.520 | And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd appreciate a positive review
00:18:30.140 | It keeps me motivated and going and also shout out to new retirement for creating a wonderful retirement planner from the ground up
00:18:37.760 | They've come a long way over the past couple years since I last reviewed them and they've got some great new features to help you
00:18:44.640 | Plan for a better future. Thanks so much everyone