Evidence to the Contrary

On May 6, 1954, a British man named Roger Bannister did what was formerly considered unthinkable: He ran a mile in under four minutes. Runners had been chasing this elusive goal “seriously” since 1886, and for 68 years, the most talented athletes around the world slowly convinced themselves it wasn’t physically possible.

Then Bannister proved it was. 

And just 46 days later, an Australian did it, too.

A year later, three more runners did it in the same race. “Over the last half century,” writes Bill Taylor for the Harvard Business Review, “more than a thousand runners have conquered a barrier that had once been considered hopelessly out of reach.” Bannister provided undeniable evidence that it could be done, and the psychological barrier of impossibility shattered. 

I noticed something recently in my comments section that concerned me, but it took me a few days to diagnose why. It was a certain posture; a commitment to finding reasons for why “it” just won’t work. (“It” can be any piece of practical advice that demonstrates financial progress.)

The tone approximated an accusation: How dare you suggest [insert example here] is possible? 

Call it cynicism. Call it pessimism. Call it being chronically online. But it’s an alluring strain of discourse that I fall into sometimes, too: economic doomerism. Over the last few weeks, I’ve noticed the “I’ll literally never afford a house and I’m going to work until I die!!! lololol” punchline of depressed resignation is wearing business formal now: “Saving for anything is literally impossible.” 

Doomerism works online because it can be fun. There’s a miserable solidarity cultivated in that humorous, hopeless soil. The problem is, many of the people digging their hands in the dirt have had their backs turned to untended greener pastures for so long that they don’t even notice they’re there anymore.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m aware 18% of the US population lives in poverty, for whom doing something like ‘saving money’ really is an impossible task in their current circumstances (our episode this week is about why poverty persists in the US, if you’re also curious why the rate remains so high despite the US’s relative abundance). I want to be very clear I’m not talking about this group, as I see this rhetoric most from those whose economic and career prospects are a far cry from the low-wage cycle.

Still, I know when people take a hostile tone, they’re not really mad at me. They’re mad at their circumstances, as they genuinely believe their situation (or The Situation, as in, the broader economic one, not Jersey Shore alum Mike Sorrentino) is hopeless—and I empathize with those feelings. 

The distressing thing about the prevalence of this attitude is that it shrouds opportunity. When you editorialize your life as a predetermined path with fixed parameters, that’s what life becomes. 

I know this because it’s how I used to think about my earning potential. 

There was a story I told myself—somewhat unconsciously—about what “people like me” could earn. I graduated from a big public university with a communications degree, I told myself. I don’t know how to operate Microsoft Excel, much less code, and I lack hard skills. A six-figure income felt so out of reach that it never occurred to me to strive for it. I’m an ad copywriter, and that just doesn’t pay well, I’d say. But that’s the path I chose, so I have to live with that, unless I go back to school and get a more valuable education.

This outlook doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. I usually employed it as a self-deprecating veneer, but it papered over an underlying skepticism of my ability to create something of value. I had vague notions about what types of skills did create value: Law degrees! Organic chemistry! Computer science! (I wasn’t aware of things like private equity or hedge funds at the time, so I didn’t yet know that hard skills are for chumps and ‘person with a job that benefits from the carried interest exemption’ was where the real money was, but I digress.)

Then I started (inadvertently) collecting evidence to the contrary. 

My friend—we’ll call her Bella*—graduated from a big state school like me. She studied a similar amalgamation of commsmarketising (communications? marketing? advertising?) that usually translates to generic job titles, $48,000 starting salaries, and long years spent at agencies living out an unglamorous version of the Andie Sachs fantasy with fewer chic outfits. 

But she took a hard left turn and vacated her underpaid agency gig to become a fitness instructor. After only a year or two, she was pulling in nearly $90,000 to teach two 45-minute classes per day, six days a week. (She ended up being named the top instructor in our city a few times over in the years that followed, a lululemon ambassador, and a development coach to other instructors, including me.)

Hm, I thought upon learning of her shockingly high income for roughly 15 hours of work she loved per week, that’s interesting.

Next it was another friend, Sarah*, who made $12/hour with me at our first internship. After the program ended, she spent a few months being underpaid at some local shop. Before long, she quit and started her own. Within a year or two, she was making $20,000 or $30,000…per month. 

Holy shit, I said when we sat down for coffee and she talked to me about her business model. It hadn’t occurred to me that that was an option, and I was foaming cappuccino at the mouth.

Then it was Shelly*, a friend who had worked as a public school teacher but did freelance copywriting on the side, since teaching didn’t pay very well and being on the receiving end of high school boys’ jokes was about as fun as going to the dentist. She shocked me one summer when she told me she was leaving this career she didn’t enjoy to pursue her copywriting business full-time, and it only took her two years to double her teaching salary. 

The final push was my friend Payton.* She had worked at a local megacorp similar to mine for a couple of years—but when I was doubling down and gunning for a raise that would take me from $53,000 to $60,000, she was leaving her corporate job to join a small business owner as the team’s creative director. She earned around $100,000 plus equity out of the gate.

I remember leaving a conversation with Payton one early morning in which she detailed the inner workings of her job, and I couldn’t believe how she had sculpted this high-paying role out of thin air that animated her zone of genius so perfectly. As I drove home to get ready for work, the lines on the road lulled me into a sort of hypnosis. I reflected on my rapidly accumulating evidence that maybe my story was bullshit.

All four women went to public state universities. They all graduated with the same degree I did, or another that’s associated with low pay. None of them worked for prestigious consulting firms or investment banks. They all held similar skill sets; that is to say, none of them could write code or perform advanced calculus. Yet I was the only one telling myself that those things necessarily dictated my earning potential. 

I began to see opportunity differently—which meant I started taking different actions. This was ultimately the awakening that led me to buy the domain for a site called Money with Katie Dot Com and commit to publishing two blog posts per week for a year. Four years later, that business has $1.5 million in annual revenue and is responsible for supporting not one, but two six-figure incomes. 

Because that’s one of the most unexpected byproducts of changing your story—in doing so, you don’t just prove yours wrong, but you can prove someone else’s limiting story wrong, too. 

I used to write off “mindset work” as frivolous bullshit—it struck me as pseudoscientific at best and out-of-touch at worst. You’re telling me I just need to think differently and it’ll solve wage stagnation? Yeah, okay.

And it’s true—changing your conscious thoughts is not enough. If I had simply recited the phrase “I’m worthy of making $100,000!” without proof, I wouldn’t have believed it, so I wouldn’t have behaved differently. I needed evidence. If you find yourself stuck in a limiting story, the best thing you can do for your subconscious mind is start seeking proof of the contrary. (Our brains love to engage in confirmation bias, so this will feel uncomfortable…at first.)

Thankfully, I watched as people I perceived to be my equals carve their own paths and find success, and it showed my subconscious mind that that was an option I could choose, too.

*Names have been changed to protect the individuals described, though I’ve probably given enough detail here that anyone who knows these people will realize who they are. If you do, shoot ‘em a “congrats” text.