Read This If You Think You Should Be Paid What You're Worth
This has come up a few times, recently, so I figured I should talk about it.
There is nothing wrong with believing in yourself.
There is nothing wrong with getting paid what you're worth.
But here's the issue I'm seeing:
Just because you have 10 years of experience and a master's degree doesn't mean that the business will need to pay you for it.
I know that's upsetting.
Here's what I mean:
If you have 10 years of sales training and then you want to be a news anchor, the news station can't pay you what you used to make in sales.
Why not?
- Sales is a different industry that values a different skill set.
- The news team has a budget for the position they're trying to fill that maps to the value that position provides the news station.
That means that even if you were a news anchor with 500 years of experience and a gazillion 5-star references, that news team has to decide how much the news anchor position is worth to the station.
You might be overqualified.
You might be underqualified.
Understand that this has nothing to do with your value as a human being. That's different.
What we're talking about is your monetary value to a company in a mostly capitalist economy.
In this case, the market decides what you're worth--not you!
This is pretty disorienting to some people because many of us were told that we'd be more marketable with an advanced degree, or that this particular certification would ensure we'd earn more.
That might be true in some cases or industries, but it's because that's what the business has chosen to value--not because you've earned a skill that the entire economy values.
Please do not conflate self-worth with your position's worth to your company.
2 Minute Action:
Instead of asking yourself "am I getting paid what I'm worth," ask yourself "how valuable is my position?"
If you're an entrepreneur, this is still true for you. You are still accountable for out-earning everyone else in your company.
You can answer this in 2 minutes. The answer is your salary.
If you don't think it's enough or aligned with your value to the company, it's time to talk to your supervisor.
Start with "I'd like to make $xx.xx. How might we make that happen in our company?"
The answer might be "that's not possible in your role," which is great news! You just found out that you need to change paths.
That's way better than spending 10 years in a position that's not valued.
[SERIES] 2/7 Unpopular Belief: Be Good At One Thing
In his list of directives, Derek Sivers refers to this idea as pursuing market value instead of personal value.
Part 2 of the 7 Unpopular Beliefs Series
Don't be a starving artist!
When I was I college, I spent a lot of time studying and training for what I wanted to do: brain research.I was studying the neuroscience of the developing brain. I wasn't thinking about how much money I'd have later, or the value I was worth as a researcher. I was just thinking "hey, brains are really important and really interesting. I bet I could help a lot of people if I understood how they develop and how they work."I was sort of right.It turns out, researchers can bring a lot of money for their institutions. At Penn State, a top research institution, people are often surprised to find out that the amount of money researchers bring in far exceeds that of the football program. It's not even close.Anyway, the point is that what I wanted to do and what was valuable had a great overlap. This is called "an opportunity."If you're in love with the idea of being a starving artist, don't be mad when you are starving and can't help anyone else because you need to take care of yourself.
Go where the opportunities and money are.
If you are trying to help people, this can only lead to good outcomes. Your hard work in combination with opportunity will yield.Here's an equation for success that I pulled from a book Michael Johnson (the Olympic gold medal sprinter) wrote:
Success = Hard Work (Talent + Opportunity)
The notable part of this equation is realizing that if Opportunity is 0, the whole thing nulls out.Also notable, is the understanding that Hard Work is the multiplier. This means if your effort is distributed across many projects you're less able to drive up the success of any one of them.
Focused, deliberate effort applied in a single direction can lead to a hefty multiplicative factor.
The tricky part is that I truly believe that if you want to develop personal value, you need to be good at lots of things.Here's the conundrum:If you want to make a difference to the world, you're going to have to build something the world values--not just something that you personally value.It's up to you to pick and adjust. It's not that you can only do one thing for the rest of your life. It's just that if you choose too many, you will have a hard time getting the flywheel moving.
In fact, it's not always a good thing to make a career out of the things you really like.
Examples might include and are not limited to: sex, drugs, rock/roll, etc.
2 Minute Action
Make a list of the things you love to do.Make a list of the types of impact you're making.If you had to choose only 3 in each category, which would they be?Great. Now pick one in each category.Remember, each of these is fighting for its life for your attention and hard work.You don't have to decide your entire future in 2 minutes. But you do have to start with a change.