Leaving Your W-2 and What Year One Costs

I wanna start out with this idea.

This was, this was presented to me, uh, by, by a good friend of mine, uh, his name's Cody.

Uh, and, and he was one of the first guys I met who was, like, my age.

You know, we had, we had kids a similar age, married, all that kinds of stuff.

Um, and he owned a very successful, uh, still owns a very successful, uh, therapy practice, right? So he's, he's a counselor by trade and, uh, you know, he, he talked a lot about the illusion of safety, right? And just in general, but especially in W2 jobs, which I found really helpful because I was in this pivotal point in my life where, um, I'd, I'd kind of moved away from W2.

I was doing 1099 work, right? So I was a contractor, which was awesome 'cause I was kinda getting to set my own schedule and price my own services and do all these sorts of things.

Um, and it was actually with Cody under, under Rivertown Wellness, kinda doing more functional medicine stuff.

Um, and I, you know, I still had a, a part-time job and a W2, and there was this moment where I just, I just needed to transition, right, completely.

But I still had it so much ingrained in me that, you know, you wanna stick with the W2, you get the benefits, you, you...

It's super safe, right? O-o-owning a business is really risky.

And he kinda presented me this reality, the reality that a, a W2 position is an illusion of safety.

It's, it's basically a single point of failure, um, with the, again, the illusion of safety kind of baked in somehow.

You know, th-think about it this way.

If you're a W2, um, you basically have one client, right? That, that, that client can potentially, if they're not a very good client, restructure things.

They could cut your role or your position.

Uh, they could change your comp model.

They, they could add a bunch of administrative bullshit onto your plate, [chuckles] right? They, they...

Maybe they could sell through a private company or PE or something like that.

Um, and they could do that all in a year too, by the way.

Um, and look, I'm not saying that all W2 positions are bad.

Actually, I make the argument constantly that I think W2 positions are great, and I loved being a W2 personally i-in many ways.

But what I'm driving at here is, is W2 isn't necessarily safer, okay? It, it's not a safety contract, right? I-i, um, th-this is basically a, just a different way of doing, you know, job stuff, okay? So to, you know, again, to be super clear, ownership, business ownership is also not safer in any way, shape, or form, [chuckles] right? It's, it's just these are two different risk profiles.

That, that's what this is, okay? That's the best way to kinda describe it.

Um, you know, instead of, uh, one client who can fire you, you now have, like, many, many clients potentially, um, but not one of them who can totally destroy your income overnight.

So I, I liked that.