How to Get Ahead in Your Career
You don’t have to do something extraordinary to grow your wealth.
Everyone thinks that if you want to know how to get rich, how to get ahead in your career or how to find fulfilling work, you must do something extraordinary…
Invent something, market something, launch a business, write a bestselling book, bet your life savings on a risky stock you barely know anything about.
I interact daily with people who want to make 6 figures as a freelancer.
The truth I spare them from (or what they don’t listen to when I do share this) is that they have a substantially better chance of growing their wealth either in or starting within an organization…
And they have a substantially better chance of finding fulfilling work that way, too.
The gurus and flashy influencers and multimillionaire entrepreneurs are the exceptions — the very rare exceptions.
Their stories are exciting because they are so extraordinary.
The reality is the great majority of multimillionaires grew their wealth the way I am and the way almost every rich person I know did: slowly, cautiously, mundanely.
And largely, especially in the beginning, under the employ and mentorship of someone else.
They did not become wealthy by being really good at hitting home runs suddenly overnight. But by being very good at bunting singles (if you’re into baseball metaphors).
These folks impress their bosses and become invaluable parts of an organization. (Later, they can leverage these skills into their own businesses and startups. But that’s a conversation for another day.)
There are just over 21,951,000 millionaires in the U.S., according to the latest Global Wealth Report from the Credit Suisse Research Institute.
That’s a little over 1 out of 20 people in the U.S.
Do you think they all got that rich by being Mark Cuban? Tai Lopez? Robert Kiyosaki? Dan Lok? Or some other publicly rich figurehead?
These folks aren’t inheriting their wealth, either.
What you need to do is become something called an intrapreneur.
How to Get Ahead in Your Career as an Intrapreneur
First, what is an intrapreneur?
Now, you’ve probably heard of an entrepreneur, which is someone who uses risky and innovative approaches to go out on their own and start a company.
An intrapreneur, on the other hand, is someone who uses similar tactics as an entrepreneur but has the ability to grow a business, or several, without the risk of going out on their own.
While many people believe that in order to get rich they must do something extraordinary on their own, the truth is that you have a much better chance of growing your wealth in or starting within an organization. (Check out this article on how to make more money than Wall Street wants you to make.)
You’ll soon find out that this change to getting ahead in your career doesn’t take too much time.
So, if you are ready to find fulfilling work and grow your wealth, you are ready to become an intrapreneur, and you need to do the following:
Intrapreneurship Step 1: Stop Thinking of Yourself as a Wage Slave
I’m not going to go all woo woo “all it takes is a flip of the mind-switch” on you…
But you need to stop thinking of yourself as a functionary, with a defined role or job description.
The first step to being an intrapreneur and climbing the ladder of an organization begins before you even get a job:
You have to adopt a different mentality… a different identity entirely than what you’re used to.
If you’re the type of person who thinks you deserve more pay for doing the same amount of work…
Ask yourself if you’re happy paying more rent for the same apartment.
Or to put it more directly: A business doesn’t want to pay more money for the same labor.
To justify a higher wage or better position…
You need to see your work and yourself as something of value...
And you need to see what else of value you can do to enhance your worth to the business.
If I had to sum up the mindset you must adopt to become an intrapreneur, I suppose I’d put it this way:
To earn significantly more than the average person doing the same work, you must perform at a significantly higher level. So long as your work performance is ordinary, you shouldn’t expect any more than an ordinary salary. But if you change your work habits and contribute more, you can rightly expect to be paid substantially more.
Few people make the leap and accept this mindset. They spend their lives trudging along a path of mediocrity, wondering why they haven’t gotten their “big break” yet.
Most people think things like, “Well, if I’ve been in a position for a long time, I should get paid more.”
So they end up spending 10 years in a low-to-mid-level position, wondering if this is all there is.
They don’t have the awareness... meaning they don’t see themselves as valuable or what they can do to bring more value to their organization.
And because of that, they never learn the skills or acquire the traits that will allow them to get wealthy as an employee.
So the first step, as I said, is to stop thinking of yourself as being stuck at the bottom of some corporate hierarchy.
Promote yourself—if only in your mind at first—to becoming a partner in the business that employs you.
What’s shocking to most who do come around is: It doesn’t take much extra time, resources, or energy to make this change.
I have one colleague, L., who was a diehard entrepreneur and freelancer. Hated the idea of hitching his wagon to one company.
He got one client on retainer that eventually became his boss, and he loves it.
Within six months, he’s become a high level manager, in talks to become a partner with an equity share of the business.
I have another friend, B., who wasn’t getting paid for all the work she was doing at one job. She felt unappreciated and like she wasn’t earning enough based on the value she was giving to the organization.
So she put out feelers, received several job offers, and eventually landed in a better position with higher pay and more work fulfillment.
But both L. and B. had something and common. They asked themselves…
Intrapreneurship Step 2: What, Where, With Whom?
These are three of the most important questions everyone needs to answer in their lives:
What are you going to do?
Where?
With whom?
It’s a good nugget of wisdom and a good way to assess the job you have or the work you want to do…
Especially if you want to get wealthy as an employee.
If you work for someone now, you have to ask yourself: “Am I doing what I want to do? Am I getting the benefits I want and need? Am I where I want to be, geographically and financially? Am I working for and with the people who will help me get rich?”
If you say “No” to any of the above questions, or if you’re not happy with your what/where/whom, then you might have to make a change.
The same way you should drop a relationship, marriage, or friendship if you find yourself consistently unhappy and unfulfilled, you need to drop an employer that does the same.
No matter how long you’ve been with them.
So let’s work through the what/where/whom together…
What
If you can say the following three statements truthfully, you might have the perfect job already:
● I would be happy to do the work I do for free.
● I believe my work has value—to me and to the people who pay me for it.
● My work is challenging and engaging for both the logical and the creative sides of my brain.
It’s entirely possible that what you’re doing is not perfect.
That’s ok, to an extent. If it pays the bills for now, it is something. If it supports you and your family, it might be enough for now.
But if your work falls short in other areas…
If, for example, it doesn’t challenge you, or if it doesn’t afford you the opportunity for advancement and financial growth…
You should think about making some changes.
Oftentimes, you can change what you’re doing within the organization you’re currently working, through slight modifications and lateral moves.
Where
When you’re starting out, you must go where the work is.
But as you move up the ladder of success, you gain more freedom in this regard.
This is especially true now, since remote work is becoming the norm.
But if you’re going to work in a position that requires a commute, you need to factor that into your assessment.
Some people profit from an hour-long commute. They use this time to listen to audiobooks or work on side projects or conduct meetings.
But if you’re just schlepping to work and can’t benefit, you need to treat that as time you’re devoting to your work that you’re not being paid for (and which, if you’re driving, can be an additional expense).
Personally, I work in a home office now that I built to my liking, but one of the periods of my life I was most personally fulfilled occurred when I was a five minute walk away from my office, my gym, a park, my barber, my favorite coffeeshop, the library, and a concert hall.
What I’m suggesting is that, even if there’s a position closer to you that pays less initially or if you can move closer to your work, it might actually be more financially beneficial and more fulfilling to you in the long run to switch your “where.”
With Whom
There’s a common cliche that holds a kernel of truth:
“You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
If you work full time, you’re going to end up spending more active time with your colleagues and bosses than your friends and family.
That means that a great degree of your life’s satisfaction and success will be contingent upon the people with whom you work.
You might think you don’t have much choice in this matter…
After all, you can’t hire your boss.
But in fact, you can.
In choosing the business you work for, you are choosing your future colleagues.
If you find yourself in a toxic work environment, riddled with politicking… don’t hesitate to look for a better company.
No matter what, though, your bosses and coworkers should have the following characteristics:
● They respect you.
● You have their back.
● They have your back.
● You don’t expect them to change. You are happy with them the way they are.
These four characteristics may seem obvious, but I’d bet only one in 20 people feel that way about their colleagues or bosses.
Once you find yourself in a position or job that you’re happy with, then you’re ready to move on to the third and final step of the intrapreneurial process…
Intrapreneurship Step 3: Putting Yourself on the Profit Side of the Ledger
Every business has a book…
There’s a profit side and an expense side to this book.
A business, looking to grow, is always on the lookout for ways to increase profits and reduce expenses.
Most people don’t think about their work this way. They collect a paycheck and that’s it.
They don’t understand (or care) that money for them is an expense for someone else.
And people in low-level or functionary roles often don’t understand that, just because their position might be integral to the function of a business, that doesn’t mean that they’re on the profit-generating side of a ledger.
Ultimately, their job is just an expense. Just something to keep the lights on so the profit generators can do their magic.
If that’s your job… then your boss is always looking for a reason to fire you.
Your head is always going to be on the chopping block when it comes time to review a business’ financials.
So if you want to make serious money and justify promotions, you need to switch what you’re doing so that you’re helping to produce long-term profits for whomever you’re working.
The better you get at the skills businesses perceive as financially valuable, the more money you will make.
It’s as simple as that.
And what are the financially valuable skills you should develop?
There are only five (shoutout to Mark Ford for teaching me this):
● Sales
● Marketing
● Profit management (think: capital allocation, investment, and accounting)
● Personnel management
● Product creation
Each one of those activities has the ability to expand and streamline a business, generating more profit for the owners.
Everything outside of those roles is just a bill a business needs to pay.
So if you ever have employee reviews with a supervisor and you want to ask for a raise or promotion…
Go in knowing what you delivered and also what you did in excess of your day-to-day job.
Don’t be abstract: try to go in with specifics.
Say: “By doing this I saved the company $48,000 per year” or “Making this change improved sales by 3%.”
Do this and you’re effectively advertising yourself to your managers as someone who’s thinking about the main thing a business cares about: the bottom line.
(Side note: Want to ask for a raise? There’s a simple calculus to it: A business wants to see 5 to 10 times the revenue over what they pay you. So if you can prove you singularly helped generate or save an extra $200,000 per year for your employer, you should feel comfortable asking for a $10,000 to $20,000 raise. Likewise, if you’re singularly generating $10 million in new business each year, you’ll easily earn a $500,000 to $1,000,000 salary. If you don’t know what you brought to the table, your employer is going to have a hard time justifying paying you more.)
But if you’ve got your head screwed on right… and you’re making big moves that expand the profitability of your employer…
And they’re still not paying you more, treating you well, or giving you a path to advance your career?
Time to go back to Step 2.
But even if you don’t want to be a ladder-climber…
Stop Accepting and Internalizing Mediocrity
If you want and expect an exceptional life, with exceptional wealth and abundance and excellence in your career…
You can’t ever accept mediocrity. In yourself, your work, or your surroundings.
So if you want something better, it often involves quite a bit of work before you even get hired…
Work on yourself, and work on choosing the right career for you.
Mediocre jobs often come from mediocre effort in this regard.
To get a great job, here’s something you can do, starting today:
Choose an industry that interests you. Research the top 50 businesses in that industry. If possible, try to find out which of those businesses are growing.
You have a much better chance of getting a job and moving up in your career by getting involved with a growing company, rather than in a mature business or government bureaucracy.
Out of the 50, target a limited number of employers you’d like to work for—three or four.
Then, make it your goal to learn everything you can about each business.
Research the company’s history, its practices, its products. Research its competitors and identify in each case the differences between them.
Read all the press releases and annual reports available for each business.
Determine its goals, problems, and challenges.
While you’re at it, try to figure out the secret to the company’s growth.
Here is the absolute minimum information you should know about a potential employer:
● The company’s annual sales (approximately)
● Its primary source of profit (how it really makes money)
● Its greatest business strength
● Its greatest business weakness.
You won’t get this information from a brochure or website.
You’ll have to make a few phone calls and do some reading.
Get in touch with employees, competitors, and industry analysts. Email or message folks on LinkedIn. Get on forums and ask questions.
Find out what it takes to excel at the job you want. Look into what your prospective employer looks for when hiring entry-level people. And figure out the tricks and skills the successful people in that field use to get to the top and stay there.
After doing this, you will understand the important facts about your chosen industry, and you will have learned something about how your target company works.
It’ll be much easier to make yourself attractive to an attractive company if you know what they want to see.
Once you do that, you can land pretty much any job you want…
And then you can quite easily begin moving up in that role as an intrapreneur, and you’ll be on your way to getting ahead in your career.
