Today I was reading some fascinating stories about wrestling and how two wrestlers left the organization, WWE, to join one of its competitors, AEW. The fascinating thing was how successful these two actually were. One of them was Austin Creed, and the other was Kofi Nahaje Sarkodie-Mensah.
Essentially, WWE wanted them to take a pay cut because the company wanted to reduce their roles to more of an ambassador-type position rather than keeping them as active in-ring performers. After weighing their options, they decided to leave and join the competitor.
What really stood out to me in the interviews was when one of them mentioned that one of the first things that came to mind was whether they could still afford to pay for things like their homes. After running the numbers, they realized they were perfectly fine financially. That gave them a real sense of freedom — they could do whatever they wanted without extreme debt or financial pressure.
It’s interesting that their first thought was whether they could afford their home in order to decide whether they should take a different career path. A lot of people wonder the same thing: Can I quit this job and try something else? Usually, the big question is whether they can still keep a roof over their head.
It makes you wonder, though — when you’re just starting out, it’s usually not about affording a home, it’s about being able to pay rent. So it makes you wonder, especially in entertainment and artistic fields, whether your first financial threshold should actually be higher. Should the question be “Can I afford to own a home?” instead of just “Can I pay rent?”
These guys had clearly built up enough stability that they could walk away with confidence. It raises the question of whether we should set a higher standard for our lifestyle so we can demand more from our careers, especially once we’ve proven our value.