What Do You Actually Get Paid For?

We are compensated in three ways:

1. Economical: We get paid.

2. Educational: We learn and grow.

3. Emotional: We love the work and/or the people we work with—ideally, both.

When we have at least two of these, we feel good. When we have all three, we are fully engaged. At different points in our lives, each of these has varying levels of importance. Each can, depending on the moment and for different reasons, lead to discretionary effort. For most people, the emotional aspect tends to matter the most over a long period of time. Compensation isn’t just about money. It’s also about the learning and loving you do.

Economic Compensation

Economic compensation is important for everyone. The reasons are often different: perhaps you didn’t have anything as a kid, don’t have anything now, or want to take care of someone who doesn’t have anything. Regardless, the story is “real” to you and you want to get paid.

The quality of your decisions and the value you create usually correlate with the cash you receive. If that’s not true, you might be overvaluing yourself, or the market is undervaluing you. It’s crucial to find the truth here. Make sure you don’t lie to yourself. It’s easy to blame others for what you get paid.

Most of the people you know get paid for their judgment. Whether they’re leading a team, making investment decisions, or designing a brochure, it’s judgment. If you want to have a bigger impact or a bigger bank account, you need to have better judgment. Here are some thoughts on how to improve your judgment and ultimately get paid more, both economically and emotionally.

Gain Unique Knowledge

Unique knowledge is learned, not taught. It happens in apprenticeships, not in school. The curious and humble make the most progress here.

Your knowledge shapes your judgment (good or bad). If your knowledge is not unique, you can be replaced. If your answers are a commodity or can be found in a textbook or ChatGPT, you’ll get paid like a commodity. More likely, you’ll get replaced by someone who read the same book and will do the job for less. Increasingly, the chances are that someone won’t be human.

Learning Obsession

If you can spend your days obsessively learning what you’re obsessed with, one day, you will wake up, and you’ll be the best in the world at that thing. You’ll have better judgment than anyone else on that thing. You won’t love all parts of your obsession, but it’s the parts that you love that keep you coming back when things get hard.

Tom Brady, Taylor Swift, Kobe Bryant, Jony Ive, Julia Child, Mr. Beast, and Serena Williams— their judgment was/is unmatched, both in execution and in learning about their obsession.

You and I can make all the excuses why it’s too late for us to do this, but they’re just excuses. When you stop growing, so do your rewards—both financial and emotional.

If you were to wake up on a Saturday morning full of energy with no responsibilities, no pressures, and your family out of town, what would you spend your day learning? What YouTube rabbit hole would you go down? What stack of books would you tear into? Maybe your obsession lies somewhere in that answer.

Own It

Your willingness to fail publicly and under your own name is directly connected to the impact you can have and/or the wealth you create. Renting your time (i.e., a paycheck) is less risky than building your own organization.

There is a reason why owners get paid more—even inside a company. The people who “own it” take the risk away from others, and their actions say, “I got this. I’ll own this and make sure we don’t fail. It’s my responsibility, and you can hold me accountable.” They are a different kind of owner, but owners nonetheless.

Naval Ravikant originated the idea of “Specific Knowledge,” but I prefer “Unique Knowledge.” Ultimately, this is about being unique. Your DNA + experiences + will = you. No one can compete with you on being you. As he says, you “productize yourself.” Depending on how much time you spend refining that product over decades will determine how valuable you are to the world.

I hope you’re good. Take care. Bye.

-Kelly

Hummingbirds are the only birds that can hover in place, and they can fly in every direction, including backward and upside down.

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