Member-only story
You Really Only Have Two Ways To Get Rich: Your Boss, Or Entrepreneurship.
There are some careers where you simply can’t get rich.
I worked in corporate America for five years. After 60 months working for The Man, I realized a blunt, brutal truth that cannot be denied:
The only way I could make more money was if my boss allowed me to.
And most of the times, my boss hated me or was so dysfunctional no one could rise through the ranks.
This lesson has several blunt caveats, too.
First: You’ll never make more money than your boss. Their ceiling is your ceiling. If your boss isn’t rich, you certainly won’t be getting rich at the company, either.
Next: Effort usually doesn’t scale. As best-selling marketer Seth Godin put it: “The eager-beaver employee expends extra effort to make a mark but soon learns that it doesn’t scale.” Twice the effort usually doesn’t mean double the money.
Finally: This is how most people’s careers look like. Most people work traditional jobs, and make about the same as everyone else, give or take a few tens of thousands of dollars a year.
How depressing, I thought glumly.
