I have to be upfront from the start. I never liked to return my books to the library. Not because I was lazy, but because I liked to own the book or feel as though I own it. Only once have I ever leased my car. Once did I borrow a cocktail dress and it is still hanging in my closet 30 years later. In my defense, the owner said it no longer fit her. I didn’t try all that hard to return it although I wore it only one additional time in all those years. Get the drift?
When Rent the Runway or any other borrow-wear-pay-return option became the rage I looked upon it as a spectator sport. The same way I watch a football game. Fun to watch, but I have no desire to play. That is why it is called a spectator sport.
You might convince me that it is worthwhile for ONE TIME formal or semi-formal wear. Even at that, I would argue that you could purchase on sale for close to the price you pay to rent. The only argument you could make to rent is the same argument I would make to own. You would say it cuts down clutter, cuts down on the need for space, and perhaps even helps the environment as a whole.
Here’s the problem: I think your job in life, my job in life, is to BE READY. READY for whatever option comes your way. If you are asked at a day’s notice to fill in at a Gala event, you are ready. If you are asked to attend a conference at the last minute, you are ready. You don’t have to say, WAIT, I need to order clothes from Rent the Runway before I can attend. Or WAIT, I can’t go because it takes a day for delivery and the event is tonight.
There are people that plan and dress for the day they think is scheduled. And there are people who plan and dress for the day they could have. Clients cancel but clients and opportunities also show up unannounced.
Your closet is figurative also. Your figurative closet of Intellectual Property needs to be ready for any opportunity also. Your job is to keep adding skills, perceptions, degrees to your closet. Sometimes you add them when you know an event is coming up and sometimes you add them just to have them for the unknown or unplanned event.
Several years ago I worked with a woman who was a VP. She decided to get her MBA although she was a VP, had been at the company for 15 years, and was in her late 40’s. The same month she graduated, her company got a new CEO. He never knew her as anything other than an MBA. She did not know when she started the program 18 months earlier that she would have a new CEO. She filled her closet in order to be prepared for the unexpected.
