tl;dr: Never stop looking for another job. Never give 100% to your employer. Always be building your own business on the side.

If You're Employed

I'm going to assume that many of us on this board are employed by others. There's nothing terribly wrong with that. If you're not born into wealth, this is almost certainly your only option for the first 10-20 years of your career.

But don't make the same mistakes I did those first years. If you're a "10xer," that is, someone who achieves on the order of 10x the output of another employee, then the last thing you should ever do is give 100% effort to your employer.

Gauge how much work others are performing that make the same salary as you (in the USA, discovering others' salaries is a bit of a challenge, but you can infer if you don't get outright knowledge). Once you've figured that out, deliver no more than about 10% more quality/quantity than the other similarly-paid workers.

If, like me, that means you literally spend 1/10th of your day working, that's good. Spend the other 9/10s of your day working your way up the ranks with social prowess and, whenever possible, work on your own business, side projects, or other businesses.

Never Stop Looking

If you're on LinkedIn, you might get recruiter emails a lot. Many professionals I've known mistake this "spam" as an annoyance. It is not. It's an opportunity. Never tell a recruiter "no." Simply do a quick mental calculation: how much would you require to work at that oversized soul-less corporation in a position that bores you? You're making $100k/yr now in a job that's pretty fun and relaxing. $200k? $300k? Surely there's some number that'd make you make the move.

Now take that number, multiply it by 1.2, and reply to the recruiter that's what it'd take to get you to move into their company, and you're looking forward to the phone interviews.

This will 99 times out of 100 make the recruiter go away, just like if you'd said "fuck off," but that 100th time they don't go away? Well, just imagine how many trips to Rome you can afford on a $300k/yr salary after 1yr.

When Someone Bites

Sometimes you'll find yourself with the opportunity to interview with another employer that you think you would actually enjoy working for. Let's say again you're currently making $100k/yr. Tell them you need eg $130k/yr. After the interviews and negotiations, let's say they finally settle on $120k/yr as their final offer.

Go back to your current employer and tell them:

  • You love working for them, and do not want to move on,
  • Were approached by another company, you weren't even looking,
  • Have been offered $130k/yr to work for them (not $120k/yr),
  • You really want to stay, but the money is tempting,
  • What should I do?

Your current company should counter $130k/yr. In my experience, they rarely counter higher than the number you say the other company is offering. At this point, you should probably make your decision. Only go back to the other company and try pushing up their number if you strongly suspect you're dramatically underpaid and $150k/yr is more your worth.

Work for Yourself

A common theme in TRP (and anywhere wealth matters) is that you never want to work for someone else. Always be working for yourself. This is something I wish I'd learned 20 years ago, but alas, I was a slow learner and had poor peers my whole life. So learn from my mistakes: build your own business.

If you are working for someone else, your mindset should 100% be that of "these people get my bare minimum input, and I devote 100% of my remaining energy to my own endeavors."

In the post-2000 work world, no employer will ever appreciate more than about 110% effort. If you achieve 10x what everyone else around you achieves, you will not receive anywhere close to 10x the compensation, bonuses, or "loyalty" from your company.

A company, like a woman, only gives you the amount of loyalty you earned that pay period. All previous pay periods are in the past and not important. You can and will be laid off, fired, or otherwise sent packing whenever it's convenient.

So devote a minimum energy to performing slightly better than your peers, to climbing the corporate ladder, and especially (and mostly) to building your own side businesses.

Lessons Learned

If you don't practice this from your early 20's, you'll be way behind everyone else. Don't wait. When you're in your 40's and you're tired of the 60-hr weeks and the popularity contests at work, and want to check out, you will have no option but to keep playing in the rat race. You don't want to be there. You don't want to do that.