Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or achievement and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.
Thomas Alva Edison

Image by Dan Shirley from sxc.hu

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Pimp Your Work

One of my high school friends, let’s call her Jane, wanted to meet up with another friend named Eric.  Here’s a little backgrounder on their careers:

Jane’s Career:

• B.A. in English, so she naturally went into the publishing world after graduation.
• After a few years working for a magazine, she decided to join the marketing team of a business process outsourcing (BPO) company.  But she also does some freelance writing on the side.
• Now that she’s leaving that BPO company, she wants to try a variety of options that may not have to do with marketing or publications (probably in the IT world).

Eric’s Career:

• B.S. in Biology, but moved on to get his Master’s Degree in Finance.
• Has worked in banks since then, and is now VP of some department in one of the biggest banks in the country.

Eric, after hearing that Jane left the marketing world, scolded her along the lines of “What do you want to do with your life? You don’t know what you want!”

I felt that in this case, Eric was judging Jane too harshly.   Especially since Eric’s job had such poor work-life balance, he didn’t know Jane as well as he used to.

But who’s on the right track, Jane and her diverse career choices or Eric’s calculated steps?

A Straight Career Path

A straight career path usually means that straight from graduation, you work for a company in a job that’s relevant to the degree you recently acquired.  From there, you go higher up the corporate ladder, and even if you leave one company for another, you are still somehow going up the ladder based on your job description and salary.  Nearly everything in your CV ties in neatly.

Advantages:

• It’s very easy to see what your specialties are.
• You can clearly position yourself as the master and expert of one field.
• Everytime you make career choices, it’s based on where the choice will lead.

Disadvantages:

• You limit yourself from finding golden opportunities in other fields and industries.
• You might not have as much creativity with designing your lifestyle and finding alternate activities to do with your time.
• A straight career path is often based on the false assumption that your personality, needs, situation, and desires won’t change (but they will).

A Varied Career Path

This career path tends to be more instinctive (or even impulsive in some cases) and leads you in unexpected turns.  You might have gotten an MBA, but now you’re working on your second novel!  If asked what you’ll be doing 10 years from now, your plans are dynamic - you have some ideas, but you’re not entirely sure.  When reading your CV, a stranger will see that you’ve been working at a variety of positions among several industries and businesses.

Advantages:

• Unlimited sources of learning and applying what you’ve learned.  Like the example of the MBA’ed novelist, he’d be able to apply his business and marketing knowhow to promote his books.
• You can easily adapt to changes in the business and economic world, giving you a wider range of opportunities throughout your career.
• Your make your career choices mostly because you believe that these choices have some value in your life, whether they bring you up a corporate ladder or not.

Disadvantages:

• To the untrained eye, you’ll look disloyal and non-committal.
• It’s hard to explain answers to the question “What do you do?”  People often expect a one word answer, not “I’m a freelance writer on the side, but I’m also a marketer, although right now I just got a job as a programmer.”
• You might not get enough comparative (when compared to the straight career path people) experience in one field to be considered as an expert.

Now what?

We’re living in exciting times where the word “work” and “workplace” are being so drastically redefined.  Work doesn’t have to stem from what you studied in college and it doesn’t have to be done in weekdays during 9am-5pm.  The workplace doesn’t have to be a cubicle in a tall metropolitan building.

At the same time, if you’re comfortable with the 9-to-5 setup and a pre-designed career path, there’s a place for you in the business world as well.  In fact, you’re still part of the majority.

In other words…

A straight and narrow career path isn’t necessarily better than a varied path, and vice-versa.  There’s only what’s superior for you.

What’s your career path like?  Is it straight or varied?  Or do you strike a balance between both?

Image credit: Photo by Reynaldo Ismael Morel from stock.xchng

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Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping

Actor Jamie Foxx hasn’t lived in his Tarzana, California home for a while, moving on to a 40-acre spread in Thousand Oaks. This three-bedroom in Tarzana had been his home since 1997 when he purchased the home for $930,000. As the Real Estalker mentions, the home has been the site of some of Foxx’s famous wild parties and the police were once called over a nude basketball game being held on the home’s half court. The home has been customized by Foxx with details such as aquariums in the living room, a game room in the basement, a media room and a recording studio. The home has since gone through a major renovation which explains the blandness of the current decor.

The backyard includes a large lawn, pool and pool home, sunken spa and that infamous basketball court. This home is listed at $2.23 million.

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Continue reading Jamie Foxx in Tarzana, Estate of the Day

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Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping

From the NY Post’s Gimme Shelter:
– Loews Hotel chairman and NY Giants co-owner Jonathan Tisch and his wife, Lizzie, have gone to contract to buy a full-floor co-op at 2 E. 67th St. for somewhere above its $40 million asking price.
–One of the most impressive properties in Southampton, New York has hit the market for $67.5 million. It was our estate of the day on Friday.
–Elisabeth and Tim Hasselbeck have sold their three-bedroom apartment on West 79th Street for $1.6 million. The couple bought the unit for just under $1 million in 2005.

From the NY Observer’s Manhattan Transfers:
–30 West 21st Street, the building famous for its old new-wave dance club Danceteria is now 11 luxury apartments listed around $5.8 to $7.9 million each, plus a triplex penthouse for $7.7 million and a townhouse apartment for $9.25 million.
–James S. Chanos, the president and founder of a hedge-fund group called Kynikos is in contract to buy the penthouse at the iron-fenced mansion 3 East 75th Street, which was listed for $24.85 million.
–Larry and Annette Everston, the owners of the high-end shoe shop Otto Tootsi Plohound, who decorated their loft at 285 Lafayette Street in a Moroccan theme complete with a citrus garden of lemon and orange trees in the sunroom, have sold their 7,000-square-foot apartment in the Soho condo for $7.35 million.
–The six-story mansion at 18 East 80th Street sold this month for $37.5 million, making it one of the largest townhouse deals ever in New York, even though its owners bought the place in 2001, when the asking price was just $8.9 million.

From Berg Properties Massive Time Listings:
–Actress Ronnie Claire Edwards has sold her Los Feliz home for $3.85 million. It looks like the owner might be a celebrity. The Real Estalker states it is Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
–Winona Ryder has sold her co-op apartment in Manhattan’s Gramercy Park for $2.2 million.
–Country singer Deana Carter has put her two-bedroom home in the Hollywood Hills on the market for $899,000. The listing is here.

From the Real Estalker:
–Oprah Winfrey has put a two-bedroom Fisher Island condo on the market for $2.09 million. The condo is located in the Seaside Village section of Fisher Island. The listing is here.
–Jamie Foxx has put his Tarzana, California home on the market. It’s our estate of the day later this day.
–Olympic medalist and Playboy model Amanda Beard has put her three-bedroom cottage in Venice, California on the market for $1.045 million, the price she paid for it in 2006. The listing is here.
–Pete Sampras may have sold his Beverly Hills mansion to Will and Grace co-creator Max Mutchnick and his entertainment attorney husband Erik Hyman.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
–John Cleese has finally sold his Montecito equestrian ranch was finally sold. It had been originally listed at $28 million and has reportedly sold for around $16.5 million.
–Sports agent David Falk has listed a Beverly Hills condo he owns for $2.245 million. The listing is here.
–A home in Beverly Hills which was owned by a friend of actress Valerie Harper,who is now acting as executor of the estate, has an accepted offer of $5.4 million even though it was only listed at $4 million and appraised for less than that.
–Katherine Heigl has put her Los Feliz starter home, shown above, on the market for $1.75 million. The listing is here.
–Television producers Kent and Susan McCray have listed their Malibu home at $3.8 million. The five-bedroom home’s property website is here.

From the Wall Street Journal’s Private Properties:
–Tennis Grand Slam champion Mats Wilander has listed his home in Sun Valley, Idaho for $8.5 million. Wilander and his wife Sonya bought the land in the 1990s and built the home. The listing is here.
–A condo in the Georgetown area of Washington D.C. has hit the market at $10.6 million, which may be a record for the area. We’ll be looking at it as our estate of the day on Monday.
–A Jupiter, Florida home owned by British World wide web entrepreneur Stuart Lawley has sold for $4.65 million which is around 22% less than he paid for it in 2001.

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Good question. You’re getting ready to retire in a few years. You have a fairly nice house, accompanied by a fairly large mortgage. Should you pay it off?

For: Paying it off will give you more money to spend in retirement. You’ll have money sitting around and available if you sell your home, which you’ll probably do eventually anyway. And houses traditionally increase in value over the long term, so you’ll receive more than if you had put the money in the market.

Against: Housing prices are going down. Who knows what your home will be worth when you want to sell it, and you might not get full value, which means you could have used that money in the market for a better return.

Another factor to take into account is whether you are using pre-tax money to pay off the mortgage. Probably not a smart thing to do.  Here’s one opinion from InRich.com.

I guess the decision depends on:

A. Your estimation of housing prices at the time you want to sell.

B. Your need for keeping your monthly expenses low.

I don’t know the tax benefits/drawbacks involved. If anyone knows, share with the rest of us, please.

Tags: baby boomers, housing values, retirement planning

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