I was riding in the car with my oldest daughter, Emma, when she was about thirteen years old. We would often have long drives in the car together as we traveled to her soccer games. I would try to utilize that time to influence her thinking and plant seeds to help her succeed in life. I would often play YouTube videos, podcasts, or audiobooks with self-improvement gurus sharing the “secrets to success.” It wouldn’t be long into our trips before she would throw her earbuds in and listen to her own entertainment, blocking out those personal development messages playing over my car speakers.
There was one trip in particular when she had forgotten her earbuds, which you would have thought was the end of the world. I cued up a short, but powerful video featuring Jim Rohn, the well-known author and motivational speaker. I asked her to listen, as she acted as uninterested as she possibly could. He was speaking about creating more value. He said, “We get paid for bringing value to the marketplace.”
Many have the incorrect belief that we get paid for our time. The hourly wage is why so many people think that it is their hour of time that is what people are paying for. If an hour was worth a specific amount of money, everyone would make the same amount of money. So, how is it that one person will make the minimum hourly wage (in Ohio) of $10.10, while another person will get paid $35 per hour? It isn’t the time that they give, it’s the value that they provide. The more value someone provides, the more money they can get paid.
As Jim Rohn poignantly points out, we are talking about value here in terms of services provided and dollars exchanged. There are many aspects of value a human can provide outside of this model, as a brother, as a church member, as a friend, etc. So, someone may not be capable, physically or mentally, of providing much value to the marketplace, but can provide immense value to a parent, family members, or community members. But for this post, I am talking strictly about value as it relates to money and the marketplace.
The Jim Rohn clip was an old one, and when he brought up minimum wage, I believe it was $5 an hour. To explain the difference between working for time versus value, he noted that the marketplace will pay a person $5 per hour because their skillset brings that much value. If all they can do is flip burgers, then the marketplace says their value (monetarily) is $5 per hour of work they provide. He then asked, why would someone get paid $50 per hour or $500 per hour. It was at that moment that my seemingly uninterested daughter perked up, leaned forward, paused the audio, and asked… “You mean there are people that make $500 per hour?”
I told her yes. I then told her that there are people who make $50,000 per hour. She had a look that combined confusion and excitement.
The recent contract deal between pro baseball player Shohei Ohtani and the Dodgers rocked most people. He will get paid an incredible $700 million over ten years. Why would anyone pay someone that much money? Because they feel he brings enormous value to their organization… that’s why. If he is capable of creating a huge increase in revenue for that organization through ticket and product sales, advertising dollars, and ultimately a World Series championship, and that all adds up to several billion dollars in revenue, then $700 million is worth it to that team. This is an extreme example, and I do have a tough time wrapping my head around that crazy number, but it is this specific contract that prompted me to write this blog.
So, if someone wants to make minimum wage, they have to pretty much just show up and provide minimal value. If someone wants to boost their income potential, the most effective strategy is to improve their skillset, abilities, and the value that they can bring to their company, the community, or the world. The more valuable you can become, the more money you can command.
A dentist tells a patient that their pain and misery is due to a bad tooth. They tell them that it will cost $1,000 to pull the tooth. The dentist leans over, reaches into the mouth, and yanks the tooth out. Then tells the patient that they are finished. The patient, looking bewildered, asks how it could cost them $1,000 for something that only took two minutes. The dentist explains that it wasn’t his time that the patient was paying for, it was his expertise in knowing that the tooth needed to be pulled.
Working on yourself increases your value. Increasing your value increases your earning potential. Invest more time, money, and energy into becoming more valuable to the marketplace, and you’ll see more people willing to pay you much more money for the work you do.
You can watch that Jim Rohn clip by clicking here.