Want to be paid a lot more money at your job?
Well… Let’s first get a clear on what it is that you’re asking for…
Money is a very interesting concept…
Ever since the Lydians of Mesopotamia invented the “shekel” – the first known form of currency – nearly 5,000 years ago, we have been using it as a tool to organize our civilization. And whether you like it or not, it has been the lifeblood of progress.
You see… During the era of tribal life, barter was sufficient for people to trade and coordinate their affairs. When you have just a few dozen people living together, it’s easy to keep track of who does what. Because everyone does everything in clear visibility of each other, you can easily assess whose contributions are valuable and whose actions are a drag.
But as soon as you arrive at the city, all of it changes. With it’s specialization of labor and enterprises that require hierarchies of command, cities are hard to organize. You have no idea if that semi-stranger next to you is creating food, helping the city prosper, or eating through the stockpiles. With so many people, you just don’t know.
Therefore, as populations increase above a few dozen, money becomes an absolute necessity to keep track of people and their contributions. At the individual level, money might feel like a lot of things. But at the collective level, money is how we keep track of the value produced by an individual. We have no other known effective or efficient way of doing so.
In fact, one could easily argue that money is merely the symbolic manifestation of value exchange, but only in systems where individual contributions are combined to achieve greater ends. In other words, money is a collective endevour. It has little to do with you. It has a lot to do with how you serve the collective.
When you see this, unlike the subjugated subconscious of most modern humans, you’ll realize that money is neither an evil, nor it’s love the root of all evil. It’s merely a representation of the energy of collective action, directed toward the achievement of value.
Money = Value
Money is a representation of energy and a store of value. The money you’ve accumulated in your bank account is simply the track record of the trades you’ve engaged with the world – the trades where you have contributed value.
Therefore, if you want to make more money, you must contribution more value. So simple, right 😄… Right…
What then is value?
Well… There is a right answer that some economists have settled on, and a wrong answer other economists propagate for ideological reasons. And changes are, if you are like most people, and if you had to endure anything close to the typical upbringing or the K through 12 education system in the West, you have been indoctrinated with the wrong definition of value.
What Exactly Is Value?
The two definitions of value are the labor theory of value and the exchange theory of value.
Labor theory of value, first proposed by Adam Smith, and later promulgated by Karl Marx – the father of communism – argues that the value of a good or service is determined by the total amount of “socially necessary labor” required to produce it.
If for instance it takes you ten hours to forage for food, build a fire, prep and cook a meal; the value of your dish, in a grossly oversimplified manner, is ten hours – or whatever that happens to be translated to dollar figures. And in case there are any stickler economists here, yes, there is even a formula that incorporates the required capital into the equation, but for the sake of simplicity, let’s leave that aside. Besides, it is inconsequential to the point I’m about to make.
The point here is that the labor theory of value states that labor determines the value of a good or service. It claims that work is valuable.
The exchange theory of value, however, takes a different position. It states that the value of an object is what it can be exchanged for in the market for other commodities, goods or services.
For instance, if you agree to trade me your cooked dish in exchange for a knife I made, your cooked dish is now worth a knife – or whatever the equivalent happens to be translated to dollar figures. It’s the market value of what you produce, not how long it takes for you to produce it.
Note that in these two definitions, labor theory puts an emphasis on effort and assumes that effort determines the value. Whereas the exchange theory of value disregards effort and states that only how much someone is willing to pay for it determines value.
In simpler terms: according to the labor theory of value, how hard the cook worked determines the value of the dish, whereas according to the exchange theory of value, how much the patron is willing to pay sets the value of the dish.
For the sake of the normal (non-economist) reader who might be getting confused; Let me put it in unequivocal terms:
When it comes to the common English understanding of the word “value“, and as a guiding principle for career development, labor theory of value is wrong, exchange theory of value is right. This is because the market operates with the exchange theory of value, and not the labor theory.
If you operate a business with the labor theory of value, you’ll go bankrupt. If you operate a business with the exchange theory of value – you are much more likely to prosper. The same applies to your job.
That being said, due to our evolutionary baggage of having lived the majority of our time in egalitarian tribes, despite the fact that it is wrong, the labor theory of value “feels” right.
Here’s why understanding this is crucial:
What High-Value Looks Like
When individuals are toiling endlessly, like spending their entire day digging ditches, or carrying sacks, or answering phones in a call center, or flipping burgers, or talking to irritating retail customers; they “feel” like they are putting a lot in. They feel like they are being “valuable”.
They definitely labor, physically as well as emotionally, to do their job. And it’s only natural that they want to be compensated at a rate that “feels” fair and makes all their trouble worth it. That’s how things would work in a tribe.
What’s worse is that when these low-paid individuals who work back-breaking jobs, compare how little they make with how much someone who has a high-value job makes… And when they observe the high-value professional at work – which is sitting in a high rise corner office, looking over the scenic cityscape, sipping $17 lattes brought by their gorgeous assistant, sending single word emails, having loud phone calls where they do most of the barking, attending meetings as the center of attention, making most of the decisions and basically at every step of the way, telling other people what to do… The low-paid individuals start to think that the system is grossly unfair!
And how could you blame them…
It looks and feels like the low-value worker toils for very little, while the high-value professional “rules over others” for a LOT of money.
Unfortunately, or depending on your perspective, fortunately, things are not always how they seem…
How To Make Your Time, Attention & Presence Highly Valuable
In this dynamic, we need to recognize that the productive output of the most draining work and the most laborious jobs, tend to be quite low. And that’s because, while the work is useful and necessary, and it has high labor value, it has very little exchange value – a lot more people are willing to do the job than the number of employers who are willing to pay for it.
Comparatively, the work of a high-value professional has low labor value (requires little, sometimes no effort), but very high exchange value (Disney CEO is making ~$46M this year) – very few people are capable of doing the job, and a lot of employers are willing to pay for it.
And THIS is the crux of the matter…
How much you make has nothing to do with how hard you work, how busy you look, what your boss thinks of you or how educated or competent you are. There are a lot of low-value workers with masters degrees out there… So… Do not for a second fall to the trap that it’s all education.
What really matters is… In fact, ALL that matters is… The relationship between supply and demand in the job market.
Getting Demand On Your Side
When you have demand on your side, which means, when you operate in a work environment where you have little competition and lots of options, you can get away with tardy behavior, lousy education, and an annoying personality and still rake in more money than you know what to do with.
But when you fight against demand, you can jump through all employer hoops, be a perfect obedient worker and break your neck bending over backwards; it won’t matter a cent. You will be paid exactly what the market tolerates, and perhaps even less.
If you want to upgrade your paygrade and actually make what you prefer… (Note: I’m not saying what you deserve, because as I explained, how much you make has nothing to do with the feeling of deserving)… If you want to make what you prefer to make, I want you to take a moment, pause and think…
And I want you to recognize that it’s not about working hard or being skilled. It’s not about the networking, the credentials or the incessant boot licking either.
It’s ALL about meeting market demand and becoming pursued rather than the pursuer.
Until you swallow this pill, and until you internalize this notion, I can’t help you.
But once you make peace with this fact, and once you disregard all the social conditioning that’s designed to keep you put in your place… I can get you a job that feels like “I should have no business doing this, but wow, I can’t believe I’m here!”
Here’s how to get such a high-value job:
There is a game being played in the corporate world, and if you’re reading this, you’re not in on it. The rules are not what you think they are. The rewards are sufficient to retire your grandchildren. And the journey is an adventure that makes you rise up to the challenge and become your best self.
If you think you have what it takes… Start today.
Try to join our newsletter (if it’s still accepting applicants). Get some of our publications. Attend one of our events. Doesn’t matter what you do…
Just start. And let’s take you behind the curtain and show you what your successful career looks like.