I went from software developer to minimum wage bike messenger. The tri folks of my age if not younger who stayed in the industry have grey hairs or are balding. Retiring younger with wealth but lack of health not worth it. I am doing fine living a minimalist life style. Sure I cannot afford the big races here anymore. Glad I am close to the border, competition in Mexico is tougher (in the running world at least ). It is cheap to race with prize money even for AG
This probably isn’t your first crossroad nor will it be your last. What you base your decision on today will be influenced by events of tomorrow. Some of which you don’t control, many you will control. So whatever you decide now can be changed if you want to down the road. Or, someone else may change their decision that impairs your initial decision. Be flexible. Know what you want. Pursue your happiness. Life is short. I chose advancements earlier in the career. Actually opened opportunities I never knew existed for work, family, and triathloning. Trained and raced more intensely in shorter and fewer events when work required more time. Met new people and raced in new places. Family joined me more often than before and we experienced new everything. A few years down the career path, took lateral positions. Allowed more time for tri training, racing, and traveling. Raced at longer distances in further off locations. Experienced and enjoyed new things at different levels and different places. Some with family, some with friends established early in life and those developed along the way, some with co-workers, and some solo. Training, racing, family relations, social occasions, and more all ebbed and flowed over the years. Life should be colorful based on grey decisions, not black and white ones. Adopt polarity management to smooth out the disruptions and minimize the fallout. Answers change overtime based on your needs, wants, opportunities, risk tolerance, and how the world plays out around them.
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One job move i would caution against is one i’ve seen many times: Where a technical guy, engineer etc moves into management and then spends his days looking at spreadsheets about other people doing engineering instead of doing it himself and he gradually loses his skills and becomes old and unhappy.
I always took the path of increasing techncal skills and firmly keeping out of management…
Another point to keep in mind is that if you’re making the decisions from the perspective of youth without a wife and kids then you might think that you’ll never really need to earn very much to be happy. Wait until you have a family and see just how fast money pisses out in all directions. It’s a lot easier to be a happy dad if you aren’t constantly in the shit moneywise.
I have purposely sacrificed a significant salary increase to accommodate my lifestyle, not one specific sport or aspect of my lifestyle, but the work/life balance I enjoy. I was recruited by another company and would have enjoyed about a 30% increase in salary to do so. But, the work hours were much less flexible, there would have been more travel, and it would have had a significant impact on my personal life, including my own activities as well as my ability to participate in and attend my kids’ activities). I like my current job and I’m paid well, but having the additional 30% bump in pay would have been really nice. My current employer has a culture where work/life balance is important and the it is much less so at the prospective employer. I wasn’t willing to make that sacrifice as I value my personal life and time with my family too much. Work to live not live to work.
I would say for me after college (was not into triathlon at that time) I looked for jobs and roles that allowed flexibility as I’ve never been one to sit at a desk for the whole day…I Interned and did that and knew I wanted to do something different. The one that consistently came up was outside sales. I am now in medical sales and been the past 5-6 years and its been great. Outside sales in general is a great option because as long as you’re where you need to be you are mostly able to go as you please. Most Fridays are your “planning” days and at least for me (work specifically with internal medicine, family practice, etc) are not open on the weekends. With that being said…if you are not where you need to be it can be a bit difficult and you will need to put in more hours.
It’s kind of like the above me posted with quality of life. I think to many people put their self worth and identity into their career/what they do. Personally, I will do a good job with the tasks assigned to me, but I value my free time (time I can ride my bike) a lot more right now. I’ve reached a point where consistently my job requires 40ish hrs a week from me and does not have a commute (I live in a large city that can have an hr commute each way). I value not having a commute as a $25,000 a year benefit that I get in terms of time. I’ve also reached a point where I feel like I’m making enough to live pretty comfortably. As long as my salary increases to match inflation, I don’t think trying to advance my career is worth an extra 10-20,000 in terms of time I’ll be asked to give up. I kind of rambled there, but I hope it makes sense. As far as age demographic, I’m in the 35-39 range.
I was offered a job with a salary increase of about $13k. Turned it down. 13k is peanuts. Plus I currently have 28 days of PTO (not including holidays) and I’d be going back to 10 days starting with a new company. I can’t spend 13k if I can’t take time off so I stayed. To be fair, it was more of a lateral move anyway. That just didn’t make any sense to me unless I have a new title.
I’m currently looking for a career shift to better accommodate my hobbies (tri) and my family. I work around 50 hours a week, so not too bad work wise but my commute to work is an hour both ways. So a 50 hour week becomes a 60 hour week. I didn’t realize how much of a toll that commute would take on me when I took the job, but it eats up so much valuable time. I would totally take a cut in pay just to work closer to where I live. Wish I could move closer but there’s No civilization between the city I currently live and the chemical plant I work at.
I always took the path of increasing techncal skills and firmly keeping out of management…
exaccctllyyyy who needs management or spelling - just run
How do you want to live today, and how do you want to live tomorrow?
The ideal choice gets you both. But only today comes with a guarantee.
I passed on working my way up the corporate ladder. Spending my life on an airplane or in an office away from my family (and hobbies) wasn’t worth it for me. The one good thing I got out of my dad passing away younger was the blunt reminder that living to work and for money isn’t really living. I work to earn what I call “fun coupons.” I regularly cash them in for my family and I.
As another post stated here. Once I got to the point where I could come and go as I pleased, made a great living, and was fulfilled in my job. I didn’t see the need to sacrifice more just to have more fun coupons. I I knew lots of people with big jet boats, giant houses, and fancy cars that they almost never got to use because they were working all the time.
I found an employer who was supportive of my philosophy of work-life balance. They might not pay as much as the other place around the corner but they also recognize that when I have 1.5 hours blocked out in the middle of my day for a workout…that it makes me a better employee and that much more productive.
Which is all a long way of saying that, yes - I could probably work more instead of having more free time. But I don’t consider that a sacrifice at all.
Yes, I do. There’s more to life than working all the time. I find that triathlon gives me a great balance, But, in my current role, to get to the next level requires a much larger time investment. I’m a software engineer - but the next level requires much more cross-team “collaboration” and many more meetings. To get to that level would easily be another 10+ hours a week in time. I’m already full time and commute ~2+ hours each day. To me, adding another 10-15 hours a week is not worth a 15-20% pay increase. And, I’m already in the bay area where pay is crazy high to start with and everything is stupid expensive.
“I’m not talking about whether your career has suffered as a result of your sport. I suspect everyone to some degree would agree with that.”
I do not agree with that. Triathlon has clearly ***enhanced ***my career advancement. I don’t think they are mutually exclusive and I don’t believe that is the right perspective to put yourself in. The exception would be if you are trying to race pro . . . if so, I would think the question would be different.
“I’m not talking about whether your career has suffered as a result of your sport. I suspect everyone to some degree would agree with that.”
I do not agree with that. Triathlon has clearly ***enhanced ***my career advancement. I don’t think they are mutually exclusive and I don’t believe that is the right perspective to put yourself in. The exception would be if you are trying to race pro . . . if so, I would think the question would be different.
This
I have been promoted amogst other things because of tri. It have helped me priotize my time, and the training is flexible.
Age 35, manager of 30 persons, in a department I have built. I train 8-12 hours a week, and is home early most days to be with wife and 3 kids…
I’m the 42 year old dude that rolls up to the tri in a 2011 Honda Civic with a 2012 Cervelo P3 that I bought used and tricked out myself. I don’t have anything fancy, but I have stuff that I made work well for racing and my bike is as good as the $10K bikes you can buy today. I also have a relatively high paying job where I work 40 hours/week and don’t have to travel. Why don’t I have a fancier car/bike/bling? Well it’s because I spent my money on rental properties that are all paid off now. I have 15 rents coming in/month that go straight toward my retirement/kids college/buying more properties. I feel the peer pressure every day at work to aim for that next title and promotion, but I feel like I have a really nice balance at the moment and don’t want to mess it up. That equation works for me and my family, but it might not be for everyone. As long as you are happy, that’s all that matters.
The questions I always ask when I’m interviewing for a new position are
“Do you feel like you can leave work at work or do you feel like you are always taking it home?”
“Is there an expectation for me to be available when I’m not at work?”
“How many of your employees regularly work more than 40 hours? And how many hours do they typically work?”
I’ve turned down jobs where the answers to those questions weren’t acceptable to my lifestyle.
I agree that advancing your career doesn’t always mean more time, but I know at my company, going into management means more time and more availability. For that reason alone, I’ve steered my career away from management and into more technical roles that allow for (slower) advancement but less time. It has lowered the ceiling I can reach within the company, but it’s still a high enough ceiling that I’d be happy.
This is an important question and could be analyzed as a part of more general question about values and time we spend on them. Usually analysis looks like this.
Assign a numeric value for how important (1-10) each of those for you:
Marriage / couples / intimate relationsParentingOther family relationsFriendships / social relationsCareer / employmentEducation / training / personal growthLeisure / recreation / hobbiesSpiritualityCitizenshipHealth / physical wellbeing
It’s ok to have multiple 10s or 0s. Then assign a numeric value for how much time and effort you’re actually spending on each of those.
If you have large discrepancies, it’s not very healthy and can lead to a lot of negative stuff.
Your original question ‘career vs triathlon’ looks for me like an artificially reduced one, and thus difficult to answer. You most probably don’t have 10 for those two and 0 for the rest.
I myself did not have to make this kind of choice. I love my work and it allows me to train as much as my body can take. If I really had a vocation that required time sacrifices, I probably would have chosen the vocation. But not money.
The questions I always ask when I’m interviewing for a new position are
“Do you feel like you can leave work at work or do you feel like you are always taking it home?”
“Is there an expectation for me to be available when I’m not at work?”
“How many of your employees regularly work more than 40 hours? And how many hours do they typically work?”
Those are great questions!
I turned down a promotion as the $$$ was not much more, did not give me the skills I want in 10 years, AND – despite being assured flexibility is there – is not as flexible as my current position. Right now, I can leave if the kid is sick, or my mom needs to see the Dr, or something else happens. That lets my wife stay at work, which reduces her stress (she teaches and doing sub stuff is always a pain).
If the raise was significant, I may have gone another direction with my answer.
I think the answer to this question varies with age. I’m 48. I am in a position now where I may be able to retire well before 60. My house will be paid off in 2 years. I raised 3 kids who are going through college with no debt (one is already done and in the workforce). I still enjoy triathlon and race 8-9 times a year. However, there are things I have had to give up such as $10K bikes and over 10 hours of training a week. I would never, ever, give up financial independence and an early retirement for more time eking out a tough existence for me and my family.
TRIATHLON IS A HOBBY! If you don’t prioritize the well-being of your spouse and/or family your life will be crap. No way 'round it…
In this case your definition of well being includes drive that “better†car and ride “bike more expensive than their cars†and “buying more toysâ€. I agree if you can and want to do both, do both. At the same time to some the definition of well being does not include a fatter wallet to buy stuff.
100% agree with this one. Well said!