009 How to know your job’s hidden fees

We take a job to earn an income. And in exchange we also pay a price. In this episode of Reinventure Me, Leary and Armin examine three hidden fees our jobs extract from us.

In this episode, you’ll hear Leary and Armin check-in on their progress from the new beginner challenge they took up in episode 6: How to be a better beginner.

The show’s Inspire Me quote is a prayerful reminder from an unknown author:

“From the laziness that is content with half truth, from the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth, from the fear that shrinks from new truth, O God of Truth deliver us.”

Leary and Armin discuss three fees that we all pay at our jobs. These are not optional—they affect us all. But often we don’t give much thought to the price we are paying.

• Availability fee.  This is the cost we pay when we haven’t set healthy boundaries between our work and our personal life. Flexible work environments and always on mobile technology can add pressure to be always available for work.


• Creativity fee.  We all become conditioned to our environment. We learn what ideas are embraced and those that aren’t worth the effort. Over time our creativity suffers as we succumb to group think.
  
  


• Income fee. We keep doing what we’ve been doing because we need the income, or at least think we’d suffer greater loss if we didn’t keep at it. Handcuffs, green or golden, can take a toll on our professional growth and vitality.

Leary and Armin suggest a very simple Challenge Me for this episode: Identify one boundary you can erect to protect your personal time. Let us know what challenge you pick for yourself by leaving a comment below.

Resources mentioned or related to this podcast that may be helpful to you:

• Three hidden fees your job extracts from you, Leary Gates, blog post on this topic


• Why I gave journaling another try, Leary Gates, the first of a series of posts on journaling


• How to journal daily, Leary Gates, video post on journaling