You're Not Underpaid. You're Under-Aimed.

Here’s an unpopular truth: Your income isn't a measure of how hard you work. It's a measure of the problem you're brave enough to solve.

If you’re like most people right now, you're grinding harder than you ever have. More hours, more skills, more discipline, more energy drinks. And the number in your bank account has barely twitched.

So you reach for the only lever you know: grind harder. Hustle more. Bolt on another skill, another side hustle, another sixteen-hour day fueled by ambition, fear, and spite.

Wrong lever. 

This convo actually began with this post, where I told you that bigger problems equal bigger income. Judging by the responses that followed, I should've made a whole post just on that insight.  So here we go…

Because there’s a huge difference between busting your ass for table scraps like millions do…and actually getting rich.  I posit that it’s highly likely you're not underpaid because you're doing too little. You're underpaid because you're solving problems that are too small. Or — and I hate to say this, but someone has to — you’re trying to baffle people with your bullshit and you’re not actually solving any problems or adding any value. 

If you want a participation trophy, join a Toastmasters Club.  If you want to make some serious dosh, you’ve got to solve problems or add value.  Or ideally, both. Because:

The market doesn't pay for sweat.

Nobody — and I mean nobody besides your mother or spouse — has ever cared how hard you worked. The market pays you for exactly one thing: the size of the problem you take off its hands. How much pain you erase, times how many people feel that pain. 

Solve a small, cheap, anybody-can-do-it problem and you'll pull small, cheap, anybody wages. (No matter how many hours you bleed onto the floor.) Solve a big, expensive, screaming problem and the ceiling jumps overnight. Same you. Same twenty-four hours. Bigger target.

Small problems are the hiding place where your dreams go to die.

Here’s the truth about why people aim low. It's not a strategy they mindfully attempt. It’s their Inherited Memeplex Encoding (limiting mind viruses they don’t realize are there) subconsciously misdirecting them toward behaviors that cause self-sabotage. 

A small problem is cozy. You already know how to solve it. Nobody can call you arrogant for chasing it. Remember the prosperity thermostat from a few posts back? Aiming small is that thermostat doing its dirty work: keeping you busy, keeping you safe, keeping you exactly as broke as you secretly believe you deserve to be.

Here's where the math ain’t mathing…  

Everybody can solve the little problems, so everybody does. That stampede of competitors drives the price straight through the floor. 

The big problems? The scary ones, the ones that turn your stomach and keep you up at night? Almost nobody will go near them. Less competition. More value. Premium prices. The exact discomfort you keep running from is the vault where the money's been hiding the whole time.

Solve the problem behind the problem.

Want to aim higher without blowing up your life and starting over? Go upstream. Don't sell the medicine, cure the fucking disease. Don't answer the question, obliterate the reason they had to ask it. 

Every problem is standing on the shoulders of a bigger, more expensive one. The person who solves “help me create an Instagram story” earns lunch money. The person who solves “help me create build signal so the whole market chases me” earns a fortune. Same field. Different altitude.

If you feel a little tinge of imposter syndrome... Frequently question yourself... Feel like you may not be "quite" ready... Perfect. 

Any problem big enough to actually move your income is going to feel one size too big the first time you grab it. That's not a stop sign; that's the Universe letting you know you’re finally stepping up.  

You don't wait around until you feel ready to solve big problems. You grab the big problem, and it drags you kicking and screaming into becoming the person who can. Same move I gave you with the thermostat: act above your old setting, and your self-identity scrambles to catch up.

You're not too small for the ideal life you desire. You've just been aiming at problems too small to pay for it.

Peace,

– RG

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