Your RSUs Won’t Tuck Your Kids In
A CPA’s guide to spotting the precise moment time outperforms money, and why smart companies should care.
Prologue | The night the spreadsheet blinked first
Friday, 9:07 p.m. Slack pings: “Need Revenue Memo v19 for APAC before 6 a.m.”
A four‑year‑old calls down the hall: “Daddy, story time?”
“Give me fifteen minutes,” comes the reflex.
Forty minutes later the memo is pristine, the inbox clear, and the child is asleep on a cool pillow. The memo will be forgotten by quarter‑close; the missed bedtime is a debit on the emotional ledger that never fully zeros out.
If you sit anywhere along the finance stack, controller, CFO, VC partner, startup founder, you’ve brokered the same trade. The real question isn’t whether you’re making it but when the math flips from savvy to self‑sabotage.
1 | Why the default setting is “money first”
Before we reroute the GPS, we should understand the destination.
Work‑ism curriculum.
From childhood, we're enrolled in a mandatory course called “Workism”: the belief system that frames our life's purpose around career success, financial achievements, and outward status symbols. The syllabus reads predictably: work hard in high school, get into the best possible college, secure the biggest job title you can, buy the largest home, and work diligently until society permits you to retire (if you’re lucky, around age 65).
America embodies this narrative with remarkable discipline. Consider the astonishing fact that the U.S. remains the only OECD country with zero national paid maternity leave, compared to an average of 18.5 weeks among its global peers. The implication is bluntly clear: productivity and economic contribution are more valuable than early parental bonding or family stability. Young parents often have no choice but to outsource childcare immediately after birth, a tangible consequence of prioritizing money above all else. When my own daughter went into daycare at just a few months old, I remember clearly the gut-punch feeling of handing my baby to strangers simply because our economic culture dictated it was the only option. This moment crystallized for me how deeply we’ve internalized the idea that work and earning potential are more urgent than the irreplaceable early bonds with our children.
This narrative eerily resembles a haunting scene from George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Boxer, the loyal and tireless horse, spends his life chanting the mantra, “I will work harder,” believing that relentless effort and loyalty will eventually lead to rest and reward. Tragically, Boxer’s reward for his unwavering dedication is a grim betrayal, when he finally collapses from exhaustion, he's not cared for, but sold and turned into glue. Although our lives hopefully aren’t quite so macabre, many professionals are similarly blind to the harsh realities of workism until it’s too late, faithfully trading the best years of their lives for the illusion of future rest and reward.
Our cultural syllabus is linear: best college → bigger job → larger house → “retire” at 65. The U.S. is the only OECD country with zero national paid maternity leave (average elsewhere: 18.5 weeks) . Productivity wins; parenting loses.
The language trap.
Our very language betrays our assumptions. We casually talk about "spending" time and "making" money. Consider what this implies. "Spending" time suggests that our hours are as disposable as loose change in our pockets, something we can freely use and replace whenever we please. Yet, paradoxically, we "make" money, as if it were a resource limited by our creativity and ambition rather than the reality of abundance, money supply expands with economic growth, whereas time remains stubbornly finite for each of us. Each day, every person on earth is allotted precisely the same 24 hours, without possibility of renewal or extension. Our lives are framed by a non-negotiable expiration date, yet culturally, we still behave as if our precious time were inexhaustible and less valuable than incremental dollars.
We “spend” time and “make” money, implying hours are renewable and dollars finite. Yet everyone receives the same 24‑hour allotment and a one‑time expiration date.
Teen goal‑setting glitch.
One telling manifestation of this culture arises when we ask young people about their future ambitions. Posed with the question "What do you want to be?" nearly every teen responds reflexively with a job title: doctor, lawyer, engineer, CEO. But ask them how they want their daily life to feel, how much family time they hope to have, or what personal values they wish to fulfill, and you’ll likely receive puzzled stares.
Consider this: when was the last time you heard a teenager or even a young professional answer that question with something along the lines of, "I want to be a present, energetic parent who makes enough to enjoy life"? It's not that these desires don’t exist; it's that our educational and cultural programming rarely validates them as legitimate goals. Instead, students chase jobs, prestige, and salaries without ever questioning whether those achievements align with what genuinely fulfills human happiness over the long term.
We need to pause and rewrite the cultural script, to encourage young people (and ourselves) to pursue lives rich in meaning, relational depth, and holistic success rather than blindly chasing income benchmarks. Only then can we begin steering toward a future where our daily hours match our deepest priorities, not just our bank balances.
Ask a high‑schooler what they want to be. Answers are job titles, not lifestyles. No one says, “A present, energized mom who earns enough.”
2 | Upgrade the question
The key to better answers, in accounting, auditing, and especially in life design, is always asking better questions. The standard debate on LinkedIn usually centers around a seemingly straightforward inquiry: "When is time more valuable than money?" While it's a useful start, I’ve found that a more precise and thought-provoking question delivers significantly better insight:
"When is quality time with the right people more valuable than unnecessary incremental money?"
By introducing the qualifiers "quality" and "unnecessary incremental," we force ourselves to move beyond generalized philosophical musings and confront practical trade-offs directly. Now we're not just comparing vague quantities of time against an abstract pile of money. We're directly measuring and evaluating which relationships, moments, and life experiences hold genuinely irreplaceable value, and at what point additional income stops meaningfully improving our lives.
Consider an example from my coaching practice: I recently worked with a CFO earning well above $500,000 annually. On paper, his life was enviable, yet during our sessions, he admitted rarely experiencing genuine joy or satisfaction. By adjusting the question from merely valuing time over money to identifying which relationships and experiences he most cherished (like dinners with his teenage children, weekends away with his spouse, and volunteering at his community church), he saw clearly that his financial surplus was no longer providing real value. He began making meaningful calendar changes, reducing his commitments and carving out intentional space for these activities. Soon after, he reported something striking: despite making slightly less, his satisfaction skyrocketed. He didn't just save time; he improved its quality dramatically.
Businesses can also learn from this framing. Organizations frequently chase short-term incremental revenue, sacrificing their teams’ quality of life and long-term productivity. But consider this: if executives viewed business decisions through the lens of creating quality, engaged hours for their best employees, they might recognize the huge competitive advantage they’re overlooking. Top performers are rarely incentivized solely by incremental pay, they often value meaningful work, genuine autonomy, and authentic respect. By prioritizing quality work hours and relationships over incremental profit, companies retain their best people, foster innovation, and create sustainable long-term growth.
Asking the right questions makes all the difference. When we focus on the quality of our time spent rather than simply "spending" it, we unlock clearer, more actionable insights into how best to structure our lives and businesses.
3 | Two popular exit ramps, and their hidden potholes
Extremes are seductive precisely because they're simple. It’s easy to fully embrace one ideological camp or another, as they remove uncertainty and complexity. Real life, though, rarely fits neatly into black-and-white frameworks; instead, it unfolds in a nuanced middle zone that demands balance, thoughtful evaluation, and continual recalibration.
Two popular extremes dominate discussions around work, wealth, and happiness today: the “Forever-Work” tribe and the “FIRE-Forever” movement. Let’s unpack each, identify their appeal, and expose their hidden contradictions.
The Forever-Work Tribe
Rallying cry: “I’ll die at my desk, clients need me.”
Appeal: Work is identity, status, and purpose rolled into one neat package. High performance at work brings respect, admiration, and wealth.
Hidden pothole: If work truly delivered complete fulfillment, then why does each weekend email subtly drip with resentment, exhaustion, or even bitterness? Why do so many top earners, who "love" their work, find themselves privately confessing to profound feelings of burnout, emotional detachment, and regret for missing family milestones?
The FIRE-Forever Movement
Rallying cry: “Quit at 35, sip coconut water on the beach forever!”
Appeal: Extreme financial discipline promises total freedom from the constraints of traditional employment, theoretically unlocking endless leisure, travel, and relaxation.
Hidden pothole: Most early retirees quickly discover that idleness and endless leisure don’t deliver the purpose or sustained happiness they imagined. Within just a few years, many re-enter the workforce, often through consulting, mentoring, or entrepreneurship, not just for money, but for meaning, identity, and social engagement. Money alone, no matter how meticulously accumulated, can’t guarantee a meaningful existence. Humans thrive on purpose, connection, and contribution, none of which FIRE automatically provides.
Both camps mistakenly view money as the final goal rather than as a tool for building a meaningful calendar filled with worthwhile experiences and deep connections. They frame life as an either-or choice: either work without end or retire as early as possible. Yet, neither extreme guarantees fulfillment.
The wiser choice is navigating the middle ground thoughtfully. True freedom involves using our financial resources to design a life aligned with our core values, genuine purpose, and authentic human relationships. By seeing money not as an end but as a strategic resource, we can carefully choose how we invest our limited hours and who we invest them with.
In my experience coaching financial leaders, the greatest success stories aren’t the ones who retired at thirty-five or worked into their eighties, they’re the leaders who consciously recalibrated their lives and businesses to use wealth strategically, ensuring each incremental dollar translated into genuinely valuable experiences, deeper relationships, and meaningful impact on others.
Let’s learn from these extremes, avoid their hidden traps, and carefully chart our own path in the nuanced middle ground, using money to fund a richer calendar, not merely to pad our bank accounts.
4 | The data curve that ruins happy‑hour bragging rights
In finance and tech circles, salary benchmarks and compensation packages often dominate our casual conversations, becoming proxies for personal success. At networking events and happy hours, income and titles become an easy yardstick to measure achievement and self-worth. But here’s the uncomfortable truth, backed by rigorous, large-scale research:
Income alone has surprisingly limited power to continually boost happiness once basic needs and reasonable comforts are covered.
The pivotal 2021 research from Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman and psychologist Matthew Killingsworth sheds essential light on this issue. Their study reveals that subjective well-being certainly increases with income, but only to a point. For most Americans, happiness continues rising steadily up to an annual household income range between $120,000 and $200,000. Beyond this threshold, additional earnings rapidly lose their ability to enhance daily life satisfaction or emotional well-being.
Practically speaking, what does this imply for ambitious professionals who often pride themselves on incremental salary bumps? Above this income level, each additional dollar usually purchases little more than extra convenience or a fleeting boost in social status. The happiness gained from another luxury item or marginally nicer vacation is minimal and short-lived.
Compare this to the exponential benefits of reclaiming quality hours. Every extra hour invested in relationships, health, or meaningful experiences generates compounding returns in emotional wealth and long-term satisfaction. Time spent on family dinners, storytime with children, volunteering, or deep conversations with loved ones provides lasting dividends that incremental dollars simply cannot match.
In my executive coaching work, I frequently encounter successful professionals who initially underestimate this reality. Eventually, when their doors are closed, the spreadsheets shut down, and honest reflection occurs, they recognize their largest regrets revolve around neglected relationships and missed moments. Incremental income cannot repurchase lost hours with family or restore damaged health.
This powerful data insight demands a reframing of how we measure success and plan our careers. Once we surpass that critical income threshold, further increases become less meaningful. At this stage, time starts outperforming incremental money, urging us to adjust our priorities accordingly.
5 | The Time-Value Index (TVI): A Practical Formula for Finance Executives
Financial professionals thrive on clear formulas and precise data. When evaluating the trade-off between reclaiming valuable personal time and giving up incremental income, we often struggle to quantify that trade-off clearly. To help resolve this, I've developed a straightforward formula: the Time-Value Index (TVI).
The TVI aims to provide a tangible, numerical way to assess whether reclaiming hours of your life is financially justifiable, especially once you've already surpassed essential financial needs.
Here’s How the TVI Works:
Step 1: Calculate the hours reclaimed per week Determine how many hours per week you'd reclaim by adjusting your work arrangement (e.g., switching from full-time employment to consulting, reducing weekly hours, or negotiating a four-day workweek).
Step 2: Calculate your monthly after-tax cash loss Clearly identify how much after-tax income you'd lose each month due to this change. It’s critical to measure this in after-tax dollars, as this reflects your true spending power impact.
Step 3: Compute the TVI To keep things simple and comparable, the TVI is calculated by dividing your weekly hours reclaimed by your monthly after-tax dollars lost, and then multiplying by 1,000 to create a clean, comparable index figure.
The full formula is:
TVI = (Weekly Hours Reclaimed ÷ Monthly After-Tax Cash Lost) × 1,000
Why Multiply by 1,000?
The multiplication by 1,000 is purely to create an easily interpretable and intuitive index number. Without multiplying, the numbers are typically small decimals that aren't quickly interpretable. For example, a result of 0.012 doesn’t clearly show if it’s good or bad. By scaling up by 1,000, we convert this to 12, a clearer figure that’s immediately understandable.
Interpreting Your TVI:
TVI above 10: Strong indication that reclaiming these hours is highly beneficial. You’re gaining substantial personal time or autonomy at a relatively modest after-tax financial cost. High TVIs typically represent excellent lifestyle investments.
TVI between 5 and 10: Moderate indication. It’s likely a beneficial trade-off, especially if you value your reclaimed hours highly (e.g., for family, health, or significant personal interests).
TVI below 5: Indicates a less favorable trade-off. Your reclaimed time isn't substantial enough relative to your after-tax income loss. Unless you strongly need these hours for critical personal reasons, it may not be a wise financial decision.
Let's revisit the previous anonymized examples clearly:
Practical Examples Using the TVI:
Lena (TVI = 10.3): Lena reclaimed a remarkable 35 hours per week, dramatically improving her personal autonomy, family life, and overall health. Losing only $3,400 after-tax per month was easily justified. Her high TVI score shows she's effectively buying back a lot of her life at a small cost relative to her prior high earnings.
Chris (TVI = 3.2): Chris reclaimed just 15 hours per week while losing a significant $4,700 monthly after-tax. His TVI was just 3.2, indicating this was not a very favorable trade-off. He may reconsider whether there's a more balanced way to reclaim time, or if the personal benefits truly justify this sizable financial cut.
Dana (TVI = 10.9): Dana reclaimed 12 valuable weekly hours with minimal financial sacrifice of just $1,100 per month after-tax. Her very high TVI indicates this was a smart choice: modest earnings reduction, significant lifestyle upgrade, and much greater daily flexibility and satisfaction.
The critical insight here is that high pay doesn’t guarantee high satisfaction or good life choices. The TVI helps clarify trade-offs between financial and personal returns. Lena and Dana had high TVIs because they achieved meaningful lifestyle improvements at relatively small financial cost. Chris, despite his larger earnings, had a lower TVI because he sacrificed too much after-tax income for relatively minor reclaimed time.
Business Application:
For employers, understanding the TVI can help inform workplace policies. Companies can attract top talent by offering flexibility (e.g., four-day workweeks or hybrid arrangements) rather than incremental pay increases alone. This creates immense value for employees at a relatively modest organizational cost, significantly boosting retention, productivity, and workplace happiness.
Ultimately, the TVI isn't a magic formula, it's a practical tool. It quantifies what we often intuitively feel but struggle to measure precisely: that once our essential needs are met, additional quality hours usually outperform incremental income in genuinely improving our lives.
6 | Decision tree (run it tonight)
Analysis without action is just trivia.
You’ve done the thinking. You’ve read the research. You’ve seen the numbers. But unless you turn insight into strategy, this article becomes just another thoughtful read that doesn’t change anything. The goal now is to move from idea to implementation.
This decision tree is designed for busy finance and tech professionals, those who are used to structured thinking, scenario modeling, and decision frameworks. Run through these checkpoints to determine if it’s time to reclaim your hours, renegotiate your role, or recalibrate your career priorities.
Step 1: Survival Checkpoint
“Do I actually have enough to make a move?”
This is your financial foundation. Before you entertain trade-offs or lifestyle pivots, you must confirm that your basic needs are covered.
Do you have 6–12 months of living expenses saved, either in cash or accessible liquid assets?
Is your debt load manageable (ideally under 2x your gross income)?
Can your household survive comfortably with a smaller income if needed, either from reduced hours, a temporary sabbatical, or a transition to contract work?
If the answer is no, your next best move is to stay in income-maximization mode temporarily. Focus on building your emergency fund, trimming lifestyle inflation, and increasing your marketable skills.
But if the answer is yes, move on to the next step.
Step 2: Runway Years
“How far out could I coast if I stopped working today?”
This is the second filter, especially important for high earners who already have a substantial financial base but still feel trapped in the grind.
Calculate your Runway Years:
If your runway is:
When you hit that 10+ year range, your relationship with work changes fundamentally. At that point, if you're still saying yes to everything and burning out, it’s not about the money anymore, it’s about identity, fear, or habit.
Step 3: Season Audit
“What season of life am I in, and what does it require of me?”
This is where wisdom comes in. Money might be abundant. Time might be technically available. But what matters most is whether you’re stewarding your hours to match the demands of the season you're in.
Ask yourself:
Do I have children under 14 who will only need me this much for a short window?
Do I have aging parents who may need more of my time in the coming years?
Am I burned out or showing signs of chronic stress (e.g. poor sleep, low motivation, health issues)?
Am I creatively or relationally starved despite being financially secure?
Is there something I keep saying I’ll do “someday” but haven’t made time for?
Your season should shape your calendar. Most of us over-index on income during seasons that are actually calling for connection, rest, or investment in others.
Step 4: Calculate Your Time-Value Index (TVI)
“Is the time I’d get back worth the money I’d give up?”
Now apply the TVI formula from the previous section:
TVI = (Weekly Hours Reclaimed ÷ Monthly After-Tax Dollars Lost) × 1,000
If your TVI > 10 → You’re giving up relatively little money for a big gain in time. Green light.
If your TVI is 5–10 → Consider making the change, especially if you're in a demanding life season.
If your TVI < 5 → Re-evaluate. It may not be worth the financial sacrifice unless you’re in urgent need of reclaimed hours.
This is your conversion rate, how many hours of life you're buying back per dollar you're giving up. It gives you clarity on whether your time is truly undervalued, or whether you're just reacting to a stressful week.
Run this tree honestly. Run it again in 6 months. Run it with your spouse, your coach, or your future self in mind. The goal isn’t just to find a one-time answer, it’s to build a rhythm of reassessing what your money is for in the first place.
If this exercise helped shift your perspective, or if you want help applying it to your unique financial and professional context, send me a message. I coach finance leaders through these transitions with frameworks built for impact, peace, and legacy.
Your money should serve your life, not the other way around.
7 | Remember the seven‑year Sabbath
Ancient wisdom often solves modern burnout.
Some of the most radical ideas in productivity don’t come from Silicon Valley or management consultants. They come from much older sources. In the Hebrew scriptures, there was a mandate for farmers to let their land rest every seventh year. No sowing, no harvesting. The land was to lie fallow so that it could recover and regenerate.
That rhythm wasn’t just agricultural. It was philosophical. If soil needs rest to stay fruitful, what about people?
In today’s economy, we don’t rest. We sprint. We stack roles, max out calendars, and take pride in pushing through exhaustion. We mistake motion for progress and output for value. Then, years later, we wake up with brain fog, family distance, or physical warning signs that something is off.
That’s why I encourage leaders and high performers to reintroduce the principle of the Seven-Year Sabbath into their professional lives. It is not about disappearing or rejecting work. It is about planning ahead to step off the treadmill before life or health forces you to. It is a strategic pause, not a retreat.
A Practical Model for Modern Professionals
You do not need to be religious to benefit from this rhythm. You just need to be intentional.
Step 1: Build a Time Fund Over the course of six to seven years, accumulate 12 to 18 months of basic living expenses. This can come from bonuses, RSUs, contract work, or even lifestyle trade-offs. Think of it like personal working capital.
Step 2: Block a 3 to 6 Month Window In your seventh year, plan to take that window off. You might rest, travel, write, spend time with your kids, pursue a passion project, or just think. The point is not idleness. The point is to reset, recalibrate, and restore your mental clarity.
Step 3: Treat It Like Strategic R&D Use this time as research and development for the next version of your life. Reflect on what matters. Test new ideas. Consider whether you are still aligned with the direction you have been going. Some people launch companies during this window. Others reconnect with their health or their families. It is your runway to explore without the pressure to produce.
Why It Works
People who implement this come back with more energy, better ideas, and stronger clarity. Many end up commanding higher bill rates or attracting better opportunities, not because they worked more, but because they finally remembered what they wanted. What if this is all you needed to have your heart rate lower, your kids start opening up again, and to get back your competitive edge.
This is not about taking a year off because you are burned out. It is about building a rhythm that keeps your competitive edge. The most beautiful gardens need to be pruned regularly.
What Holds People Back
Fear of losing momentum But the world is slower than it seems. Your value doesn’t disappear just because you pause. In fact, it often grows.
Guilt about privilege Yes, being able to step back is a privilege. But if you are in a position to model healthier leadership, that is also a responsibility. Generosity starts with example.
Addiction to productivity This is the big one. If you have tied your identity to performance, rest feels uncomfortable. But if you never pause, you are not leading. You are reacting.
The Sabbath year is not a luxury. It is a principle. It teaches that rest is not a reward for productivity. It is the foundation of it. And it is often the missing piece between high output and long-term impact.
If you are entering year seven in your current season or simply feel the fatigue of running nonstop, start planning now. Build your financial buffer. Talk to your family. Choose a window. And when the time comes, step away with intention.
That space you create may turn out to be the most valuable investment you make in the next chapter of your life.
8 | What businesses miss: the Pareto power play
Treat flexibility like capital allocation and the ROI will be staggering.
If you're a founder, executive, or people leader, this might be the most important idea in the entire article. Flexibility is not a perk. It is a strategic investment in the people who create outsized value.
In nearly every company, a small group of top performers drives most of the impact. The Pareto Principle applies here. Around 20 percent of your team will typically generate 80 percent of your business value. These are the people who solve problems before you know they exist, hold client relationships together, launch products under pressure, and stabilize the culture when things get shaky.
When those people are overworked, under-recognized, or misaligned, they don’t always complain. They quietly disengage. Or worse, they quietly leave.
The mistake companies make is treating all people systems as if everyone is equally motivated and equally replaceable. That sounds fair. But it isn’t strategic.
Your best people are not usually chasing one more bonus. They are chasing a better life design. They want impact, autonomy, and time. They want to know they can sustain performance without sacrificing their health or their families.
And here’s the good news: retaining them is not about spending more. It is about spending smarter.
Flexibility as a Strategic Asset: The Numbers
4-day workweeks for top performers Costs roughly a 6 percent drag for coverage, but retains $5 to $10 million in enterprise value of high performer retention. Also increases engagement, creativity, and loyalty.
Extended parental leave (add 6 weeks beyond standard policy) Costs about $7,000 per employee but cuts post-leave attrition by up to 30 percent. Saves $25,000 or more per replacement when you factor in recruiting, onboarding, and lost productivity.
Seven-year sabbatical program Temporary contractor coverage or reallocated workload lets you offer 3 to 6 months off every seven years. Protects institutional knowledge, reduces burnout, and deepens long-term loyalty. Also strengthens your alumni network and increases high-quality referrals.
These are not theoretical models. These are based on actual programs implemented by leading firms. The cost is measurable, the benefit is repeatable, and the retention impact is far better than trying to fix things after a key player walks out the door.
Why It Works
When high performers know they have permission to breathe, think, and reset without risk to their role, they stay longer and perform better. You protect their energy before it turns into resentment. You give them space to grow without losing them to someone else.
What you avoid is the hidden cost of replacement. Losing a top performer is not just about hiring another person. It means lost intellectual capital, broken client continuity, cultural instability, and months or years of reduced momentum.
Think about the senior engineer who has been holding your product roadmap together. Or the revenue lead who knows every nuance of your top accounts. Or the finance director who keeps everything from falling through the cracks. You don’t just lose the person. You lose the compound effect of their presence on everything around them.
A Call to Leaders
If you control budget, headcount, or executive priorities, ask yourself this:
Are you investing in time flexibility with the same seriousness you invest in software, marketing, or recruiting?
Flexibility is not a cost. It is a form of capital. One that protects your top contributors, stabilizes your culture, and unlocks long-term productivity without increasing burnout.
If you want to keep your Pareto players, build systems that respect their lives, not just their output. Give them time to reset, space to think, and the option to slow down without stepping out.
That is what the best talent is optimizing for now. Not ping pong tables or free snacks. But alignment, autonomy, and the belief that their life is bigger than their job.
If you get this right, your top people will not just stay. They will bring others with them.
9 | Field stories (faces behind the numbers)
We’ve talked about the frameworks, the formulas, and the financial logic. But none of this matters unless it actually improves real lives. Below are stories from high performers who made intentional choices to trade money for time, and found that the return was far more meaningful than anything they gave up.
Just because you can earn more doesn’t mean you should.
Maria – Controller at a pre-IPO SaaS company Maria was earning $600,000 a year. Her role was high-stakes, high-speed, and came with three nannies just to keep her family life functional. One afternoon, her young son accidentally called the nanny “Mom.” That moment broke her. She negotiated a 30 percent reduction in cash compensation in exchange for a four-day workweek. RSUs filled part of the gap, but more importantly, so did time. Two years later, her total comp rebounded, the nanny bill dropped in half, and her son never made that mistake again. She reclaimed both her title and her identity.
Jay – Tech founder who exited at age 38 Jay sold his SaaS company for a mid-eight-figure payout. On paper, he won. But by month six of his post-exit life, he was restless and disconnected. The excitement of unlimited free time wore off fast. He quietly started a fractional-CFO firm, working three days a week with founders he believed in. He now earns about half of what he used to, but says the meaning and energy he gets back are worth far more than the difference. He wakes up focused, sees his kids every night, and feels like his work matters again.
Sam & Dani – Dual-income engineers Together, Sam and Dani made $425,000 a year and spent around $360,000 of it. They lived well, but realized they were building a lifestyle they didn’t even enjoy. Instead of chasing more income, they trimmed their burn rate to $220,000, banking the rest into a "Time Fund." With that margin, they now alternate three-month mini-sabbaticals. One of them takes time off while the other keeps working, rotating throughout the year. They haven’t touched their core investments, but they’ve built in breathing room to actually live.
Once your financial stability is secure, the highest ROI often comes from time, freedom, and the relationships you’re able to nourish.
Money is a tool. Time is the return.
10 | Three additional playbooks to reclaim hours
Choose one that fits. Iterate as your life evolves.
There’s no one-size-fits-all strategy for reclaiming your time. But there are proven models that work, especially for finance professionals, tech leaders, and operators navigating high-output careers. Below are three playbooks that I regularly use with my friends or clients. Each one gives you a structure to exchange unnecessary income or hours for greater freedom, impact, and energy.
Pick the one that best fits your season. Then commit to it for a year and adjust as needed.
1. Income-Cap Pledge Set a ceiling. Everything above it funds freedom. This is the simplest place to start if your income is already strong. Define your "enough", the post-tax number that covers your lifestyle, savings goals, and reasonable margin. For some people, that’s $200,000. For others, it might be $350,000 depending on family size, housing costs, or long-term plans.
Then make a rule: Everything you earn above that goes into a Time Fund. This fund can bankroll a sabbatical, cover reduced hours, subsidize a lower-paying dream job, or simply buy flexibility later.
This removes the illusion that more income always means more freedom. Once your enough is clear, anything beyond that becomes optional.
2. Career S-Curve Align your ambition with your life season.
Think of your career in arcs, not ladders. The early years are for stacking skills and networks. Go hard. Learn fast. Take on more. Mid-career is where the shift begins. You still aim high, but now you also consider family, health, and legacy. Later, your edge comes from leverage, wisdom, relationships, and selective output, not raw hustle.
Here's one version of the curve:
20s – Skill growth and reps. Say yes often. Build your foundation.
30s–40s – Balance. Trade some ambition for intention. Prioritize family, autonomy, and self-stewardship.
50s+ – Leverage and legacy. Teach, advise, invest, mentor. Protect your energy. Maximize your impact per hour.
Your priorities should evolve with your age and life responsibilities. Your time allocation should too.
3. Hourly-Leverage Swap Shift from salaried grind to high-margin work you control.
This is a strategy especially suited for consultants, coaches, fractional leaders, or operators with niche expertise.
Here’s the idea: Instead of working 45 to 60 hours per week in a full-time role, convert your expertise into high-trust, high-rate project work. This could be consulting, advisory, coaching, or fractional leadership.
Most of my friends who successfully make this shift earn $200 to $400 per hour while working 15 to 25 hours per week. The result? Similar income. Triple the freedom. And more importantly, they get to choose who they work with, when they work, and how their time is structured.
It’s not about being a solopreneur. It’s about finally owning your calendar.
You don’t have to overhaul your life all at once. Just choose a model that feels like a step in the right direction. Every playbook here is built to serve your next chapter, not lock you into someone else’s version of success.
Start small. Track your time. Define your enough. And remember: reclaiming your hours is not a rebellion against ambition. It’s a smarter, more sustainable way to protect the energy you’ll need to keep making a real impact.
11 | Closing the ledger
Money is the hammer. Time is the house. If you keep swinging without ever stepping back, you might wake up years from now surrounded by half-built walls, wondering where it all went.
The paycheck looks good. The title sounds impressive. The spreadsheet checks out. But the people you love, the health you’ve neglected, and the peace you’ve postponed will eventually send the invoice.
You are not just building wealth. You are building a life. And a life without time is a structure without a foundation.
Monday Action List
This week, run the numbers. Then run the conversation.
Step 1: Open your calendar and budget side by side. Highlight one recurring task or block of time that earns you marginal dollars at the cost of meaningful hours.
Step 2: Calculate your Time-Value Index (TVI). Use the formula:
Step 3: Draft one simple conversation. Choose a boss, client, or spouse. Propose a swap, a shift, or a pause. Make the ask within 30 days. Start the dialogue, even if you’re not ready to commit.
Want Help Running the Numbers?
If you need a CFO-grade sanity check on whether the trade-off is worth it, send me a DM . I’ll help you run both the math and the mindset, so your spreadsheets finally serve your life, not the other way around.
And if this hit home? Share it with a colleague who’s still swapping Saturdays for spreadsheet karma. Their kids, and their cortisol, will thank you.
