Thoughts on getting ahead, specifically in your career and earnings. This is the blunt, direct advice I give employees one-on-one, and what I'm sharing with my kids as they head off to college.

1. GETTING
AHEAD
BOB PRITCHETT
http://bobpritchett.com

2. WHAT DO YOU WANT?
Money? Fame? Power? Purpose? Happiness?
It is easier to get ahead when you know what you want

3. MONEY CAN BUY
HAPPINESS!
But only to $75,000 / year
Some more money helps with life’s problems
Lots more money creates new problems
• “When prosperity increases, those who consume it increase.
So its owner gains nothing, except to see his wealth before it
is spent.” – Ecclesiates 5:11 (LEB)

4. DEFINE YOUR
SUCCESS
Tips:
• Who you are and what you do aren‟t the same thing
• Your character matters more than your job function
• Outward orientation beats inward orientation
• Do for others, not yourself
• Doing beats being
• Write, don‟t „be a writer‟
• Giving beats having
• Aim to contribute, not accumulate
• Money, fame, and power are corrupting goals
• But they often accumulate as side-effects of better goals

5. REMEMBER
Success is getting what you want.
Happiness is wanting what you get.
-- Dale Carnegie (and many others)

6. ALWAYS TURN TO
GOAL
• Every move you make should be a turn towards your goal
• When possible, move directly
• If you can‟t move directly to your goal, take the move closest
to the goal

7. KEEP MOVING
The space between here and your goal is not filled with time
• People have gotten ahead faster than you
• Very little happens on its own
The space between here and your goal is filled with changes
• Between here and your goal things must change
• Increase the rate of change to arrive at your goal sooner

8. DESPISE COMFORT
Get comfortable with being uncomfortable
• Ignorance and incompetence are descriptive terms for a
temporary state, not character failings
• People who are learning and growing are by definition
ignorant and incompetent
• When you acquire knowledge and competence, seek another
level of ignorance and incompetence
• If you are comfortable now you aren‟t moving ahead

9. DISTINGUISH
YOURSELF
Serving time and paying dues aren’t worth much
• The value of a diploma is roughly equivalent to that of a
“limited warranty” on a refrigerator
• 20,000 high school valedictorians each year
• 323,000 living alumni of Harvard University
• 53% of all college graduates under/unemployed
• Job titles are interesting in inverse proportion to the number of
holders
• If you sit in a room full of people with the same job title, you
had might as well replace your name plate with a bar code

10. DOING
DISTINGUISHES
Labels (diplomas, certifications, titles, etc.) are commodities
• It wouldn‟t be a recognizable label if it weren‟t common
• Limited usefulness; a form of warranty for basic competence
or experience
• Most are awarded for little more than attendance
Distinct and useful activity isn’t easily labeled
• Do stuff that you couldn‟t represent by checking a box on a
form

11. EVERYTHING IS
RELATIVE
You don’t have to do something different from everyone in
the world, just different from everyone in your current
position

12. ASK QUESTIONS
Ask anyone who can help you achieve your goal
Ask anyone who has already achieved your goals

13. WHAT TO ASK
Direct questions
• What do I have to do to make more money?
• What do I have to do to be promoted to this position?
• Is there anything I am doing that is holding me back?
Rapport-building questions
• How did you get to this position?
• What do you like best about your job?
• What‟s the most important lesson you‟ve learned along the
way?
• What is the hardest thing about your job?

14. INCREASE YOUR
VISIBILITY
Familiarity bias advances people
• People prefer people they are familiar with
• Even simple exposure increases familiarity
Doing things increases visibility
• “The one who did that thing” is promoted before “the one in
the fourth cubicle from the back”
Asking questions increases visibility
• People remember people they have a conversation with
• People are flattered to be asked questions
• People like people who flatter them
Simple availability increases opportunity

15. CONFRONT FEAR
Fear is the fence that bounds our success
• You must decide if your fence is big enough
• You can choose to expand your fence
Everyone is afraid
• Fear causes us to consider risks
• It is healthy to consider risks
Getting ahead involves risk and setbacks
• Don‟t risk what you can‟t afford to lose
• Do risk everything that isn‟t part of your goal
Every decision is a risk
• Inaction is a decision, and as risky as any action

16. GET ON THE RIGHT
BUS
Only ride a bus that takes you closer to your goal
• Join organizations with opportunities aligned with your goal
• Get out of an organization where you don‟t see the next step
forward
Ride safe buses
• You should feel safe asking how to advance
• You should feel safe asking for feedback
• You should feel safe making a mistake
• You should feel that your boss wants to see you succeed
• If not, get off the bus – you are wasting time

17. MAKING MORE
MONEY
You -- not your mom, boss, professor, or the president of the
United States -- are the only person involved in determining
how much money you make
• In a market economy wages are set by supply and demand
• You have monopoly control over the supply of your labor
Own the responsibility for your wages

18. PAY IS INFORMATION
What a job pays is information about the supply of people
who can do the job and the demand for the job to be done
• Air Traffic Controllers: $108,000 / year
• Not everyone has the training, or can handle the complexity
• The job is stressful and difficult
• Hand Laborers and Material Movers: $22,000 / year
• Almost anyone can do it, many people will
• Hazardous Materials Removal: $37,000 / year
• Almost anyone can do it, fewer people want to
• Fine Art Landscape Painter: $0 / year
• Requires training, unique skills, can be done by few people
• Approximately zero positions need to be filled

19. CUSTODIANS AND
TEACHERS
First-year New York City school teachers without graduate
degrees make about $45,000 a year. The minimum pay for a
first-year custodial engineer is almost $80,000 a year.
“On what theory do custodians get paid more than senior
teachers? It’s outrageous,” said former New York City
Schools Chancellor Harold Levy.
• It‟s supply and demand

20. MONEY IS ONLY PART
OF PAY
Compensation includes intangible benefits
• Location
• Safety
• Job security
• Autonomy
• Purpose
• Community
Determine what you value and what it is worth in money

21. FACE THE FACTS
The default annual raise for any position is zero
• Your employer was willing to pay x to have this job done
• Unless something changes in the overall market, there‟s no
reason to expect the job will be worth more than x next year
• Employers want to make more money, too, and reducing, not
increasing, the cost of labor is one way to do that
Everyone is paid for the value they add
• You are always in competition with everyone in the world who
can add the same value for the same, or less, cost
• Time in a seat adds very little value to the performance of
most jobs

22. CAN YOU AFFORD
THIS JOB?
Learn the range of pay for the position you have
Would you be happy to make the top of this range?
• If so, ask about what‟s required to move to the top
• If the answer is “only time”, change jobs
• Otherwise, start doing what‟s required to move up
• If not, change jobs

23. PLAN FOR THE
FUTURE
Would you be happy to never make more than the top pay
available for the job you have now?
• If so, congratulations! You have arrived
• If not, identify the next job you want to pursue
• Most likely involves knowledge or skills you do not yet have
• Most likely involves doing something you don‟t presently do
• Jobs others don‟t, won‟t, or can‟t do pay more
• You are more likely to succeed if you enjoy it

24. STEP ONE
Turn off your television
• You can‟t think when it is on
• It fills the time you need to get ahead

25. START SAVING
Save something – anything – starting now
• Savings give you time
• Savings create opportunities
• Savings prevent a job from holding you hostage

26. KEEP LEARNING
The sum of human knowledge is available to you at no cost
• For the first time ever in history
• An unprecedented opportunity
Get online and research your next success
• Use free online classes and training videos
• Don‟t just read blogs, email the bloggers
• Every online writer wants to know someone read their stuff
• Find a community of people doing what you want to do

27. DON’T ENROLL YET
Don’t pay to learn what you can learn for free
• Paying for more education is not the first step to a better job
• The cost (or debt) of education can even set you back
• If a job requires a diploma or certification, seek that after
exhausting all the free education you can on the subject
• Your diploma will take less time, effort, inconvenience, and
likely less cost if you have studied ahead
• You will get more from formal education if you have prepared
with informal education

28. START DOING YOUR
NEXT JOB NOW
You don’t need anyone’s permission
• Do it as a volunteer
• Do it for a blog
• Do it to build a portfolio
• Do it as practice
• Do it for your resume
You are more likely to be hired to do something you have
already done than to do something you might be able to do
• Prove you have done the job to get the job

29. STEP UP OR SHUT UP
The employer’s point of view
• We agreed that I‟d pay you x if you did y
• Not much has changed since yesterday
• There may be small increases over time
• Experience makes you incrementally more valuable
• There are transaction costs in replacing you
• Only a significant change in the market, or your
contribution, warrants a significant change in pay
The market point of view
• If you aren‟t doing something different than the people around
you, don‟t expect to be paid differently

30. IT IS OKAY TO BE
HAPPY
Ambition is a treadmill
There isn’t a right or wrong job or pay rate in and of itself
Own your responsibility for yourself
• To make money
• To provide for your family
• To honor God in your work
• To be happy
You can choose to make more money
You can choose to be content with the money you make

31. EMBRACE FREEDOM
We have more actual freedom and opportunity than any
generation in the history of the world
• There is no excuse for feeling trapped by circumstances
• Choose to live the freedom you are blessed to have

32. WANT MORE?
Follow me on Twitter @BobPritchett
Read my blog
Join my mailing list at http://firesomeonetoday.com
• I‟ll mail you if I turn this into something longer
Read my book
• 5 stars at Amazon.com
• Free chapter and summaries online
http://about.me/bobpritchett