My Friend Said No to a $2,500 Promotion and the Position He Had Dreamed of for 10 Years — Here’s Why

It’s not all about the money, the career and the pride

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A few months ago, I wrote about a friend of mine who went from $0 to $100K in cash, in 5 years. We’ll call him Alan. While building up his wealth, Alan kept his 9–5 job as a graphic designer, and because he’s really good at what he does, he was recently offered his dream position at the company he’s working for.

Ever since Alan graduated from his graphic design school, he wanted to become a creative director. A creative director is like a graphic designer, except he’s in charge of bigger projects and oversees a team of many people. The usual trajectory for this kind of position is to first start with a normal graphic designer position, and be promoted once you’ve shown what you’re capable of. The difference with a lot of other corporate type of promotions is that many stars have to align. Either a new team is being formed for a specific project/customer, and somebody needs to be the manager, or an existing creative director is leaving the company and a spot becomes available.

Long story short, a creative director position is a pretty rare opportunity. Yet when Alan got offered the job around 3 weeks ago, he decided to not take it. Intrigued by his decision, I decided to have him over for coffee once again, and talk about his decision. Why in the world would you say no to something you’ve worked towards for nearly 10 years?

“I’m working on my own stuff”

“Back 10 years ago, if somebody had offered me a creative director position straight out of school, of course I would have taken it, but it might actually have been a mistake. The number one reason I said no to this right now is because I see the other creative directors in the office. They have zero time, first one in, last one out, and they don’t do it to look good in the eyes of the boss. They actually have so much to do, no time for anything else. Now that I have my business on the side, I need to be able to dedicate time to it, and I know I wouldn’t be able to if I said yes to this job.”

Alan’s business makes anywhere between $5,000 and $10,000 per month, but not…