Eight Skills Ramit Sethi Says Separate High Earners From Everyone Else
I Will Teach You To Be RichRamit Sethi, author of I Will Teach You To Be Rich and host of Netflix's How To Get Rich, argues that people spend too much energy on spreadsheets and investment research and too little on the skills that actually shape their income. Drawing on what Sethi describes as more than 20 years of helping people with their money, the video lays out eight such skills. The first five concern how people present themselves: speaking, fitness, a money system, appearance, and posture. The last three concern how high earners think: asking good questions, setting priorities, and negotiating. Sethi's underlying claim is that the way high earners approach money is the same way they approach their posture and the way they speak. None of these skills shows up on a spreadsheet.
Skill 1: Speaking Without Rambling
Sethi opens with communication. Many people have good ideas at work, but listeners tune out when they speak, and they don't understand why. Sethi's diagnosis is blunt: they're rambling, and people stop listening to someone who can't speak effectively.
To illustrate, Sethi recalls a sales job as a teenager. On a client call with a colleague and a prospect, the prospect asked how the company would help with something. Sethi gave a nice-sounding answer lasting two minutes, and the prospect replied, "well, you just said a lot of words, but what did you actually say?" Sethi calls it a dagger to the heart. The realization was that 15 seconds of succinct speech would have done better than two minutes of talk.
Sethi names several failure modes. Some people speak too fast. Some use so many filler words that the words camouflage their point. Others never speak up and simply get ignored. Sethi acknowledges this may feel unfair but says it is how life works. The key claim is that people judge your competence by how you deliver an idea before they judge the idea itself.
The prescribed exercise is simple. Record yourself talking for 60 seconds, answering a prompt such as "What are you working on right now?" or "What do you do for fun?", then watch it back. Sethi jokes that watching yourself will make you want to die, and that this pleases Sethi because it means improvement is coming. While watching, note where you ramble, where you use fillers like "um," and what you do when you lose your thread. Each of those moments is a place to practice stopping, gathering your thoughts, and finishing the point.
Skill 2: Fitness as a Way of Rewriting Your Story
The second skill is one Sethi says most people would never connect to income. People tell themselves they'll get in shape when they have more time, and the longer they wait, the harder it gets. Sethi calls it tragic to meet people who have built significant wealth but for whom health is not the first priority, or even the tenth.
Sethi admits to telling the same story for years. Sethi was "the skinny Indian guy" and genuinely believed genetics made building muscle impossible. Sethi says that anyone who had claimed muscle would help with career or wealth would have been laughed at. The change began with a bet with a friend that Sethi could gain weight, which forced Sethi to actually learn how. Later, after moving to New York, Sethi hired a personal trainer, learned how nutrition worked, and for the first time started putting on muscle.
Sethi stresses that the muscle itself was not the critical part. What mattered was discovering that a long-held belief was just a story, not a fact, and then asking which other stories might be untrue. In Sethi's view, becoming someone who shows up, follows a system, and makes consistent physical progress transfers to many other areas, including money.
The advice follows from this. If you can afford it, hire a trainer, even for one or two sessions, to learn how it works. Sethi notes that successful people tend to keep trainers on an ongoing basis. If you can't afford one, choose a proven program online, many of them free, and follow it exactly for 12 weeks before judging whether it works. Sethi also calls the $30 spent on a food scale one of the most impactful purchases of Sethi's life. Seeing what a normal serving actually was, compared with how much Sethi had been eating, was genuinely shocking.
Skill 3: A Paycheck System That Runs Itself
Sethi next criticizes the habit of compulsively checking banking apps, which Sethi says does nothing for us. Sethi cites a study finding that one in three households earning $100,000 to $150,000 a year still worries about paying bills. Sethi adds having spoken with people earning $400,000 a year who feel the same way.
According to Sethi, people at the highest income levels have a system that handles their money without them opening a banking app. When a paycheck arrives, it is automatically split among investments, savings, and bills. The only money they really see is what's left over, and that is theirs to spend guilt-free. High earners, Sethi says, don't track the price of asparagus. They also don't rely on memory to recall convoluted payment rules, such as an account due on the 14th except under special conditions. They set up the system and let it run. Sethi names the core of this system the "conscious spending plan" and points viewers to a separate video for details.
Skill 4: Taking Physical Appearance Seriously
Sethi says it's useful for a man to address appearance, because few men discuss it. Men are often raised to see attention to appearance as frivolous compared with the work itself. Sethi calls this an "invisible belief" of Silicon Valley, where wearing even a button-down shirt might mark you as not a real engineer, since real engineers wear T-shirts.
Sethi disagrees, and not only because Sethi appears on TV. Thinking about how you present yourself to the world is a different kind of work from focusing on a spreadsheet or an email. Appearance covers how you carry yourself and what you wear, and it gives people clues about who you are. Sethi acknowledges that people dislike admitting to snap judgments but insists they are real. Everyone makes them, and they color how people perceive everything you say afterward. The encouraging part, Sethi says, is that appearance is something you can change in many ways.
As an example, Sethi describes preparing for the Netflix show. Sethi and wife Cassandra spent a lot of time planning outfits. People picture a "money person" as an older financial advisor in an ill-fitting suit who lists everything you can't do with your money. Sethi wanted to show a different view: money can be youthful, fun, and comfortable. When Sethi asks someone what they love spending on and answers, unapologetically, "I love sweaters," the answer helps build that image. Sethi's point is that how you show up is a core part of how you communicate. It isn't vanity. It's a willingness to go beyond what feels comfortable.
The biggest lever, according to Sethi, is finding clothes that fit properly, which most people were never taught. Options include following style accounts, hiring a personal stylist, or visiting a store like Nordstrom to talk with its free personal shoppers. Sethi says this dramatically changes the impression you make every time you walk outside.
Skill 5: Posture as a Trainable Skill
Sethi considers posture important enough to have hired a posture coach. Sethi calls it one of the most visible signals of authority and confidence. When you see someone with remarkable posture, it takes a moment to register what makes them look so good, and Sethi notes that such people have often been dancers. Sethi demonstrates the opposite, slumping and saying "I'm living a rich life," to show how hard it is for others, or for yourself, to take someone seriously in that position.
Posture wasn't on Sethi's mind until a side-view photo left Sethi horrified. From then on, Sethi decided to treat posture as a trainable skill, like money or style. There are two suggestions. First, fix your work setup: adjust the chair and desk height and consider a footrest. Sethi uses one while recording, so good posture becomes more automatic instead of something to force. Second, build body awareness, which Sethi says can feel revolutionary for people never taught to be in touch with their bodies. Sethi sometimes asks Cassandra to take unannounced photos over a few minutes, then reviews them and sees what still needs work. Sethi describes posture as a skill that amplifies speaking, style, and presence.
A Shift From Presentation to Thinking
At this point Sethi marks a transition. The first five skills are about how high earners present themselves. The remaining ones are about how they think differently. Sethi says learning these earlier would have transformed Sethi's financial life.
Skill 6: Asking Amazing Questions
Sethi tells a story from a launch party for a friend's company, which helps college students start social media careers. While Sethi and Cassandra were having a snack, a young attendee walked up and asked, "So what's your hot take?" Sethi found it a great question because it forced real thought. Then a group of college students from a business organization asked what Sethi would have done differently early in Sethi's career to accelerate it, based on what Sethi knows now. Sethi called these some of the best questions Sethi had ever been asked.
The principle is that amazing questions can produce amazing answers, while generic, vague ones produce poor answers. Sethi contrasts this with DMs asking "What should I do to start investing?" Sethi has written about that in detail in a book, and there are countless YouTube videos on it. A vague question like that doesn't make anyone want to answer, because it shows the asker hasn't done basic research.
Sethi also argues that better questions can open possibilities you hadn't considered. Instead of "How do I get a new job?", you might ask how to build the skills that make it easy to get a higher-paying job. Other examples include how to surround yourself with encouraging people rather than people who drag you down, and how to build a life that lets you be with your kids all day at least three days a week.
Invisible Beliefs About Money
Sethi then turns the idea of questions on the viewer: what invisible beliefs do you hold about money? Examples include "I can never be rich," "I can never get ahead," and "money comes, money goes." Sethi argues you can fix your posture, change your style, and ask great questions, but if you still believe you don't deserve much money, none of it matters. According to Sethi, the world's highest earners believe they deserve their money.
Sethi recalls a college conversation with friends about careers and earnings, in which Sethi declared, "I will earn over $100,000 in a month. It's just a matter of time." The friends were incredulous that anyone would talk that way. Sethi presents this as an example of believing you deserve to earn more, while acknowledging that knowing this and acting on it are two different things.
Skill 7: Setting Ruthless Priorities
Sethi calls this a skill that takes a long time to learn but is worth it. Many people obsess over inbox zero and elaborate morning routines. In Sethi's experience, the highest earners are far more relaxed about such things, because inbox zero isn't the point. The goal is to live a rich life. High earners often do less. They give up on a perfect system, pick the right thing to prioritize, and prioritize it ruthlessly.
Sethi walks through the practice. On Monday morning, ask: what is the one thing I could finish this week that would actually move my career, income, or family forward? That item goes to the top of the list, and you block calendar hours for it. Everything else arranges itself around it, and some of it may not get done. When someone asks for a quick call, or something breaks while Sethi is recording a video, Sethi's response is that it isn't going to happen, because it's their problem, not Sethi's. Prioritizing, in Sethi's framing, means not taking on everyone else's problems and staying focused on the Monday-morning priority.
Skill 8: Always Negotiate
Sethi calls the final skill the one that generated a huge amount of money, worth seven figures. The premise is that people don't voluntarily pay you more. They pay what you ask for and what the market allows. Yet Sethi cites a figure that 55% of Americans never initiate a salary negotiation, usually because it feels awkward. Sethi rejects that concern: important things are often awkward, and avoiding a few minutes of discomfort can cost far more than people realize.
Sethi works through an example. Someone earning $80,000 negotiates a $25,000 raise to $105,000. With a 3% annual cost-of-living increase over 30 years, Sethi calculates total earnings of $4.99 million, compared with $3.8 million without the raise. That is $1.18 million more from one conversation. Even a single $5,000 raise, by Sethi's figures, adds nearly $238,000 over a 30-year career.
From this Sethi draws a broader contrast. Clipping coupons, canceling subscriptions, and agonizing over whether you can afford cheesecake squeezes pennies out of a salary, when the effort could go toward earning more. No one will show up with a wheelbarrow of cash; you have to build the skills and, more importantly, believe you can earn more.
The practical first step is to spend a weekend researching the market rate for your role, experience, industry, and location. Sethi reports that when Sethi's audience has done this exercise, 40% discovered they were underpaid by $10,000 to $15,000. That research becomes the foundation of your case.
Sethi insists you don't just walk into your boss's office and ask for a raise. Preparation takes months. You build a record of real wins, meaning specific results with numbers. You agree with your boss in advance on a detailed plan with specific ROI milestones, and you hold regular check-ins. The goal is to shift the conversation from "I want more money" to "here's how I'll become a top performer," with the understanding that top performers are compensated accordingly. Sethi adds that timing matters: at some moments you have more leverage, and at others the company does, and you need to account for that.
Sethi cites results from students who used this approach. One secured an $80,000 raise. Another landed an 18% salary increase plus a new role with a $40,000 pay bump. Sethi closes by arguing that learning to negotiate uncaps both your career and your wealth potential, and points viewers to a separate video on how to conduct that conversation.
The way you are sitting in your chair right now might be costing you thousands of dollars over your career. And it sounds ridiculous until you realize the way that high earners think about money is also how they think about their posture and the way that they speak.
Because after over 20 years of helping people with their money, I've identified eight specific skills that separate high earners from everyone else. And these do not show up on a spreadsheet. The last skill, by the way, is worth seven figures, but 55% of Americans never even try it.
So let's get into it, starting with how you speak at work is costing you money and promotions. Maybe you have ideas at work, but when you talk, people start tuning out. And you notice that they're not looking at you anymore. You can't figure out why. I'll tell you why. You're rambling. If you cannot speak effectively, people stop listening. They don't care if you are rambling.
I remember when I was a teenager, I had a sales job. I was on a client call. There were two people from my company and the prospect. And he asked, how would we help them do something? And I told them this really nice-sounding thing for two minutes. And at the end he goes, "Well, you just said a lot of words, but what did you actually say?" It was like a dagger in my heart because I realized I had just talked for two minutes, but it would have been better if I had simply been more succinct for 15 seconds.
People who lack communication skills often speak too quickly or they use tons of filler words that actually camouflage the thing they are trying to say. And the people who never speak up at all, they get ignored. This might feel unfair, but this is life and you better accept it if you want to excel. People decide how competent you are based on how you deliver your idea before they ever judge the idea itself.
So here's what I suggest you do to improve your speaking this afternoon. Record yourself talking for just 60 seconds. Here's a question you can answer. What are you working on right now? What do you do for fun? Watch it back. When you watch yourself talk, you're going to want to die. And I love that. Your feeling of wanting to die fills me with joy. Because I know you're about to get better.
Notice when you ramble. Notice when you use filler words like "um." Notice what you do when you lose your way. Each moment you identify is an area that you can practice simply stopping, gathering your thoughts and finishing your point. And the next skill on this list is something you would also never connect to your income.
Skill number two, your fitness. You tell yourself you'll get in shape when you have more time, but the longer you wait, the harder it is. And that's why it's so tragic when I meet people who have accumulated a lot of money, but their health is not their first priority. Second, not even 10th priority.
I used to tell myself the same thing too. For years, I was the skinny Indian guy. And deep down, I genuinely believed I could not change. I thought it was my genetics that kept me from building muscle. I just didn't think it was possible. If you told me that building more muscle would contribute to my career or to building wealth, I would have laughed in your face.
I made a big change. I bet a friend that I could gain weight. I finally had to learn how to do it. Fast forward, moved to New York, hired a personal trainer, learned how nutrition worked. And for the first time in my life, I actually started putting on muscle.
What was critical about this was not the muscle. It was in taking a story that I'd been telling myself and realizing it's just a story. That's not actually true. It's just something I've been telling myself. Then I started to look around: what other stories might not be true? When you become someone who shows up, who follows a system, and who makes consistent progress in their physical life, that shift transfers over to lots of other areas, including money.
If you can afford it, hire a trainer, even once or twice, learn how it works. But I find that people who are successful hire trainers ongoing. If you can't, that's okay. Pick a proven program online. There's lots of them for free and follow it exactly. Commit to the 12 weeks before you judge whether it is working or not.
One of the most impactful uses of money that I have ever made in my entire life was the 30 bucks I spent on a food scale. When I found out how much a normal serving size is and how much I was eating, it blew my mind. I genuinely was shocked. If you can, I would encourage you to really lean into this fitness part and realize you might be able to change the story you have been telling yourself. Fitness changed how I saw myself forever.
And the next skill can change your entire life in a single afternoon. But before we get to that, I want to give you one of the biggest wins for your money, reassurance. If something happened to you tomorrow, would your partner, would your kids be okay financially? They need to know where the accounts are, what to do next, how to cover the bills. Are you sure you have everything you need in place?
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Skill number three, your paycheck system. It's interesting how addicted we are to checking this little financial app on our phone, even though it does nothing for us. One study showed that even among households earning between 100 and 150K a year, one in three still worry about paying their bills. I've spoken to people making $400,000 a year who still feel the exact same way.
To get to the highest income levels, successful people have a system in place so their money is handled without ever having to open up a banking app. Your paycheck comes in, the system splits it automatically: investments, savings, bills, all handled automatically. The only money you really have to see is what's left and that is yours to spend guilt-free.
High earners are not spending time tracking the price of asparagus. They're also not relying on memory. "Oh, this account has to get paid on the 14th of the month, but only in this case and not if the moon is blue." No, they set up the system and the money handles itself. The crux of this system is something called a conscious spending plan. And you can see that in my previous video linked in the description below.
Now here's another one you're probably ignoring. Skill number four, focusing on your physical appearance. I'm actually glad that I'm a guy talking about this because not many men talk about this topic. We often are raised to believe that spending too much time on our physical appearance is frivolous and I just need to focus on the work. This is kind of the invisible belief of Silicon Valley, which is that if you wear even a button-down shirt to work, what's wrong with you? You actually must be stupid because real engineers only wear a T-shirt.
I have found this to be very untrue and not simply because I appear on TV and in the media, but because the idea of thinking about my appearance and how I present to the rest of the world was totally different than focusing on a spreadsheet or focusing on writing an email. It fundamentally focuses on how you present yourself. And you know the coolest thing of all? You can actually change your appearance in so many ways.
Your physical appearance is the way you carry yourself. It's what you're wearing. It gives clues to people about the kind of person you are. And although we hate to acknowledge these snap judgments, they are real. We are all human beings and we make snap judgments. Importantly, those snap judgments then affect how people perceive everything you say afterwards.
When I was preparing for my Netflix show, my wife Cassandra and I spent a lot of time planning the outfits. It was important because when people think about a money person, they think about some older financial advisor in an ill-fitting suit that's going to sit down and tell them all the things they can't do with their money. And I was determined to show them that is not how I see money. Money can be youthful. Money can be fun. Money can be comfortable.
So when I tell them, "Hey, what do you love to spend money on?" And I go, "I love to spend money too. I love sweaters." And I'm unapologetic about it. That creates an image. Remember that how you show up is a core part of how you communicate. It's not vain. It's not superficial. It's actually just going beyond what might be comfortable for you.
When it comes to physical appearance, biggest levers, finding clothes that properly fit you. Most of us don't even know what that is because we were not taught. Find some of the accounts or hire a personal stylist or even go into a Nordstrom and talk to their personal shoppers for free. You have lots of options. It will dramatically change the perception that you are communicating every time you walk outside.
Skill number five, fixing your posture. I actually hired a posture coach because I found this to be so important. Posture is one of the most visible signals of authority and confidence. And you will know it. If you've ever seen someone who looks incredible with their posture, you will be like, "Wow, what do they have?" And it takes a second for you to register that their posture is incredible. Often when I see somebody like this, they were a dancer.
Now you see this when you're collapsing in a meeting. Look at this. "Hey everybody, I'm living a rich life. So cool. I love it." It's hard for anyone to take you seriously. It's hard for you to take yourself seriously.
I didn't think about this really. Posture was the last thing on my mind until one day I saw a photo of myself from the side. And let's just say I did not enjoy that experience. I was horrified. And from that day on, I decided that I'm going to treat posture as a trainable skill. Just like my money, just like my style.
Couple of suggestions I want to make for you. Number one, you can improve your work setup. You know your chair is messed up. You know the desk height probably could use a little adjustment. Get a footrest. My feet right now are on a footrest so that my great posture is not something I have to try to do. It becomes a little bit more automatic.
Next, you can build more body awareness. I find that a lot of us who are not taught to be in touch with our bodies, this is quite revolutionary. Paying attention to how I hold myself. And even seeing photos, asking my wife once in a while, "Hey, can you take a photo of me just standing here over the next five minutes without me knowing?" And I look and I go, "Oh God, I got to really work on that." It's an improvable skill that amplifies everything else you're doing. Your speaking, your style, your presence.
Now we've covered how high earners can present themselves differently to get ahead. But the skills coming up are different. Not just what they do or wear, but how they think differently. I wish I had learned some of these earlier because it would have transformed my finances, my money life completely.
The next is, skill number six, asking amazing questions. My friend runs a company that helps young kids in college start a social media career. We went to her launch party. So my wife and I are having a snack and just looking around, "Oh, this is so cool." And this young person comes up to us and goes, "So what's your hot take?" I go, "Wow, that is a great question." So now I'm like, "My hot take?" Really forced me to think.
Then another group comes up to us. These are all college kids in a business organization. They go, "Based on what you know now, looking back on your career when you first started, what would you have done differently to accelerate your career?" I said, "Wow, these are some of the best questions I've ever gotten asked." If you ask amazing questions, you might just get amazing answers. If you ask generic vague questions, you're going to get horrible answers.
Sometimes people DM me and they ask me, "What should I do to start investing?" I don't know. Read my book. I've written about it in detail. Look online. There's a gajillion YouTube videos. Asking that vague question does not make people want to answer you because it shows that you've not done some of the basic work of foundational research.
I also think if you ask the right questions, it can unleash this thing you may have never considered. For example, instead of asking, "How do I get a new job?" you might ask, "How do I build the skills that will make it easy for me to get a higher-paying job?" You might ask, "How do I surround myself with people who are going to encourage me instead of trying to drag me down?" Or you might ask this question, "How do I construct a life that allows me to be with my kids all day, at least three days a week?" Asking the right questions will never show up on a spreadsheet, but it is an incredibly important skill.
Now, let me ask you an important question. What invisible beliefs do you have about money? For example, do you believe, "I can never be rich. I can never get ahead. Money comes, money goes"? What are some of those things that you believe? Because as we've talked about in this video, you can improve your posture. You can change your style. You can ask great questions, but if you still believe that you do not deserve to have a lot of money, then none of the rest of this matters.
The world's highest earners believe that they deserve to have that money. I did since I was a college kid, having conversations about our career and our earnings with some of my friends. And I said, "I will earn over $100,000 in a month. It's just a matter of time." And they were like, "What the f***? Who talks like that?" And I did. And it is important to know that you can have the confidence to believe you deserve to earn more.
But knowing it and doing it, those are two different things. And that is exactly why I created Money Coaching. In my Money Coaching program, I'm going to help you build your entire money system, your savings, your investment, your bills, and your guilt-free spending. All of that automated and running within 48 hours.
High earners are decisive. They do not wait until someday. In the program, you're also going to get live calls with me to answer specific questions, plus a community of thousands of people that are on their path to a rich life. You do not have to do this alone and you don't have to spend another year overthinking it. Scan the QR code right here or click the link below and join us inside Money Coaching today.
Now, back to one skill that takes a long time to learn and it is worth it. Skill number seven, setting ruthless priorities. I find that a lot of people are obsessed with inbox zero and going through this elaborate ritual every single day of their morning routine. In my experience, the highest earners are much more easygoing about this stuff. They're not spending tons of time optimizing for something like inbox zero because inbox zero is not the point. We are here to live a rich life, not to have inbox zero.
High earners often do less. They give up on having a perfect system and they do something totally differently. Listen closely. They pick the right thing to prioritize and they prioritize ruthlessly.
Let's do it right now. It's Monday morning. I want you to start with one question. What is the one thing that I could finish this week that would actually move my career or my income or my family forward?
That one thing is the thing that's going at the top of my list, and I'm going to plan the hours in my calendar, and everything else is going to fall around it. Everything else might just not get done, but this thing is going to be the thing I focus on.
So if somebody comes at me with a quick call or something is not even working as I'm recording one of these videos, I just go, okay, it's not going to happen because it's not my problem. It's their problem because remember, when I prioritize things, I am not taking on everyone's problems for myself. I'm focused on the thing that I set Monday morning.
And now there is a skill I haven't shared yet, one that actually generated a huge amount of money. But before I get to that, I noticed about half of you watching right now are not subscribed to this channel. So hit that subscribe button, turn on notifications. I want to continue sharing specific ways that you can build wealth and live a rich life. That way you're going to hear as soon as new videos come out. Hit subscribe.
Skill number eight, always negotiate. People do not voluntarily pay you more. They will pay you what you ask for and what the market allows. But it's interesting that 55% of Americans never initiate a salary negotiation. Too afraid. "Oh, that's so awkward. So awkward." I hate the word awkward. You think I care if things are awkward? That's good. Important things are often awkward. And avoiding a few minutes of discomfort can cost you way more than you realize.
I'll give you an example. Let's say you currently make $80,000. You negotiate, let's say, a $25,000 raise. Now your total salary is $105,000. With a 3% cost of living increase every year after that, for 30 years, you've earned a total of $4.99 million. Now, without that raise, you've earned $3.8 million. Do you see? That's $1.18 million more from one conversation. Even a $5,000 raise negotiated just once is still a difference of nearly $238,000 over the course of a 30-year career.
If you want to make more money, you have to focus on increasing your income. And the only person who can change your income is you. No one else is going to walk over with a wheelbarrow full of thousands of dollars and hand it to you. You have to build the skills and more importantly, believe that you can earn more money.
If you are instead doing what a lot of people do, clipping coupons, canceling subscriptions, agonizing over whether you can afford cheesecake, you are squeezing pennies out of a salary, whereas you could be focusing on actually earning more.
My suggestion to you, spend next weekend researching the actual market rate for your current role in your experience, industry, and location. When I've done this exercise with my audience, 40% of people discover they are underpaid by $10,000 to $15,000. And this is the groundwork that you can use to start building your case.
Remember, you do not walk into your boss's office and say, "Hey, can I have a raise cuz?" No, you want to spend months preparing. You set up the conversation. You create a record of real wins. That's specific results with numbers. You create a plan that your boss and you agreed to ahead of time. And that plan is detailed. It reflects specific ROI milestones. And you are doing check-ins. You shift the conversation from, "I want more money," to, "Here's how I will become a top performer at the company. And if I become a top performer, they are compensated accordingly."
Of course, timing matters. There are certain times when it is better to negotiate, when you have more negotiating power. And there are other times where companies have more negotiating power. You've got to know that and incorporate that as well.
But as an example, one of my students used this exact technique to secure an $80,000 raise. Another used it to land an 18% salary increase and a new role with a $40,000 pay bump. Learning to negotiate uncaps your career and your wealth potential.
Now, once you are ready to dive in and learn exactly how to have that conversation, check out this video next.
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