The Support

A couple days I wrote about support and resistance.

Something to think about with the support side of things is that our decisions to learn new skills, invest in building assets for ourselves, and create connections builds resilience for ourselves. The stronger that support becomes the bigger the risks we can take, which when they pay off builds an even bigger support.

Let me give an example, when I was graduating from college with an engineering degree, the economy was in shambles. As an inexperienced engineer, in a market flooded with experienced engineers, I wasn’t able to land an engineering job immediately, instead I was stuck in a low wage retail job for a bit, and decide to pursue additional education during that time. That was my support level at that time, falling back down to minimum wage with a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering. It’s not a glamorous level of support, but it would put food in my stomach. I had no assets to speak of and was in debt at the time.

Today, I have more assets. A house, savings, retirement. More than that, I’ve been writing this blog for over three years with growing traffic. I have marketable skills as an engineer. I have sales skills. I’ve worked to build a large network of professional contacts. If I found myself out of work, I could likely land something much better paying than minimum wage (my old support level), and I could also likely put together a book (or multiple) from current writings on this blog and start selling them. If none of that worked I could rely on savings and assets for a while. I’ve invested in building up my own support systems in multiple ways. This isn’t something that is only available to me, but something far too many overlook. Most are spending their time figuring out how to smash through their “resistance” level, rather than focusing on building up their own support, however, these two go together.

Something many people lament is that other people maybe born into wealthier families who provide this base level of support from day one. Not everyone is that lucky, but everyone does have the opportunity to take it upon themselves to build their own support systems and grow them over time.

It’s interesting to me that most people choose to stop working right as their support system reaches a level in which they wouldn’t have to worry much about instant success in a business.

P.S. This idea can be extended to teams, companies, and more, even if the “support items” may be different. Think about it.