How You Get Paid

You don’t get paid to discover and keep track of the reasons you can’t do something. Deciding you can’t generate the outcomes you need by naming all of the things that make achieving those outcomes difficult doesn’t help anyone, least of all you. In the end, you are alone with your excuses. You create value worth paying for when you figure out how you can do something.

You don’t get paid for being the devil’s advocate. You may have the purest of intentions when you count off all the reasons that an idea won’t work, how it’s failed in the past, and why it shouldn’t be pursued at all. You aren’t serving anyone by pointing out what won’t work and why. Exploring what will work and how it will work is necessary is a better role to play.

You don’t get paid for helping people retain a too small vision of themselves. No one needs to be told that they can’t do something. No one needs to be discouraged. They don’t need to have their fears and insecurities reinforced. You can be the person who inspired someone to be more by encouraging them and believing in them, or you can be the person they proved wrong.

You don’t get paid for giving up, giving in, or going home. Lots of people quit close to the finish line, but you don’t know their names. Giving up is being beaten by doubt. It’s forfeiting the game with time left on the clock. You get paid for persisting until you succeed.

You don’t get paid for losing. You’re not supposed to lose. You’re not supposed to be dispassionate about what you do and the value you create for others. You’re supposed to compete. You get paid for learning from your failures, setbacks, missteps, and losses, and changing your approach. Eventually, you win.

You don’t get paid for complaining. Whining doesn’t do anything to help you or anyone else. Commiserating with the cynics isn’t something that brings you success on any scale. You get paid for making things better.

You don’t get paid for doing what you’ve always done. You get paid for growing, developing, taking greater accountability, and producing greater outcomes. If you want to be more, do more, have more, and contribute more, you have to grow more.