It’s OK to not afford it

Two large and well-known companies announce their financial results. Company A has made profits in billions and Company B has made losses in billions. They both announce their results at an expensive upmarket hotel.  The probably both spend the same amount of money buying their invited guests breakfast at this hotel. Leo, a mid level bank manager sees his CEO driving a new Toureg. He aspires to be like him and to have what the CEO has.  Six months later he takes a car loan to buy a Toureg. Everybody in the bank is talking about his new car. Njuguna and the CEO have the same car. Another six months later he has to take more loans to maintain the car. Mildred, an advertising executive is made redundant. Club membership was part of her benefits as she was working.  Her employer covered her subscriptions every quarter. She is now struggling to pay them from her savings even though the option of deferring membership until she is financially back on her feet is available.  Times have been tough this year for Steve. Every year he holds a Christmas party out of town for his employees.  He is considering taking a personal loan so that the company can still have a Christmas party. Looking at the above scenarios very logically, the company that made profits can afford that expense.  That company that made losses cannot afford that expense. The CEO of the bank can afford to buy a Toureg.  If he is indeed paying for it, the costs of maintaining a car are a minor fraction of his income. Most likely he does not even pay for it himself. Leo is now facing a monthly loan repayment that eats into a huge chunk of his income and this is notwithstanding the maintenance costs of the car. Mildred can no longer afford the subscriptions. The more she spends her savings on things that are absolutely not necessary at this point, the faster she finds herself in a position where she will not even be able to afford the necessities. The businessman cannot also afford that party this year.  A personal loan just expounds his problems.  But we have challenges admitting to ourselves and others that we can no longer afford certain things.  We have problems scaling down expenditure, lifestyle, image etc. when we have to.

Firstly we have to know we will not emotionally want to scale down even if we have to.  You will not feel happy about the discomfort you have to go through when any of the above scenarios or anything similar happens to you.  You will feel bad.  But guess what? You can feel bad, but still do the logical thing. Don’t wait to feel good about the choices you have to make. Secondly other people are not thinking about it as much as you think they are.  Believe it or not, people have better things to do than have committee type discussions about why you are not at the club.  Yes, they may talk about it for a short while but you will not be the headline news that long.   The scenario that is keeping Mildred suffer through paying her subscriptions is far much worse in her head than it actually is.  She is probably imagining all sorts of things that in reality are not happening. The other thing is that the people who truly matter will respect you more if you make choices that show you are actually dealing with the situation.  That you are on top of things rather than being in denial of what is truly happening.  If I was a shareholder in Company B, as much as I am concerned about future prospects of the company, it would give me some comfort if I saw management making an attempt to manage costs. Having a briefing at a high–end hotel just doesn’t give me that confidence. I’m worried about losing my money not the food. It makes me think that you do not have the guts to cope with the situation.  If I worked with Steve, I would learn true leadership lessons with him if I saw him making the hard choices and openly talk to his team about the situation at hand. We also need to know we will not die if we scale down.  We are fundamentally the same people irrespective of which car we drive and irrespective of any temporary challenges. Even though Leo buys the car that his CEO drives, it does not make him a CEO.  There are reasons that people do become CEO’s that have nothing to do with the car they drive.  Also even though the CEO loses his or her job today, they have not lost the character attributes that got them into leadership positions. Leo should aspire to those attributes more than the car. Last but not least we can still do the important activities even if we scale down.  Steve can have a simple lunch in the office.  The objective of bringing people together to celebrate or discuss the year is met.  Company B can still find an economic way to explain their results to key stakeholders. Mildred is not losing her membership.  Leo can still buy a car.  It doesn’t have to be the same one that the CEO drives. Many times objectives can still be fulfilled, just with a different wrapping.

So if you face a situation that requires you to scale down remember it is OK not to be able to afford it.  That does not define you.  What does is your response to it.  Be courageous enough to become uncomfortable.  Don’t let your emotions rule you and don’t let choices be influenced by what other people think.