Good people get crappy rewards

Most people can intuitively understand how a person doing a poor job at work, in their relationship, or in their self-care are not deserving of rewards. Be a poor partner and your spouse will break up with you or your boss fires you.

Much less intuitive is the idea that good people doing good work, only yield poor rewards. Managers who yell at you, spouses that bother you, we hear all the time about good people who’s husband or wife is seeking a divorce, or good employees that lost their job. It’s a movie trope by now.

Only excellent work will get you a good reward. A decent job, an okay relationship. It’s not everything you ever wanted, but it’s not bad even if not entirely satisfying. But how do you get more?

If poor people get no reward,
good people get poor rewards,
and excellent people get good rewards,
then it requires being truly outstanding to get the whole pie.

There is a giant leap between being poor and good, good and excellent. But the difference between excellence and outstanding, literally standing out from everybody else, is only inches apart. It’s not usually a matter of skill at that level, but of caring. Outstanding people have higher and/or different standards. Sometimes they care more, sometimes they care about different things than excellent people.

Whereas the excellent employee might stress about making their boss happy, the outstanding employee cares about the health of the organization and the cohesion of their team. Whereas an excellent partner might care about placating their partner’s feelings, an outstanding partner might be worried about making sure both theirs’ and their partner’s core needs are being met - both physical and psychological.

The standards are higher yes, but the compass is usually better attuned as well.. Making sure both is true is essential from going from excellent to outstanding. Most people who are excellent but still frustrated often have a broken compass, they are trying to move North faster not realizing they are actually going East.

This idea was taken out of Tony Robbins’ audiobook Unleash the Power Within. It’s an extremely insightful book and posted free on Youtube. Worth listening to