This idea of making more money from your work could be likened to the concept of Trade Marking. The willingness and persistence in consistently producing excellent output ensures that people will always see your mark in your work. It is a great asset for one to be associated with quality output and the reverse is also true.

A successful manufacturer says “if you make a good pin, you will earn more money than if you make a bad steam engine.”

“If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mouse trap than his neighbour,” says Emerson, “though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a path to his door.”

This is the power of trade marking. Why would they come to you even if you live in the woods? You would have created a trade mark for yourself. People would only part with their hard-earned money to purchase value.

To do what you do well as the motto of my alma mater Saint Mary’s University has it “age quod agis” that is the key to success. This is of tremendous importance because it builds for you a great reputation that could earn you tons and tons of tangible and intangible rewards.

Even if you feel that your employer is not paying you enough for the job you are doing, it behoves you to keep on working and to even work harder, for you will surely be paid for it; not necessarily by your current employer but surely some day you will be rewarded, if you persist in making a trade mark out of your work.

In his book The Master Key to Riches, Napoleon Hill says “an important principle of success in all walks of life and in all occupations is a willingness to Go the Extra Mile; which means the rendering of more and better service than that for which one is paid, and giving it in a positive mental attitude.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson also supports the habit of going the extra mile as he succinctly put it in his essay on compensation, “if you serve an ungrateful master, serve him the more. Put God in your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is witholden, the better for you; for compound interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer”

What we gain from our work is much more than the money we are paid, the greater reward is contained in the intangible rewards of experience and value. You never know when an alternative employer will come across your work and hire you; or better still you might apply for another job and if your unjust employer knows that you are going to quit his establishment, he would surely pay you more to stay but that will only be the case if you give the work your best in spite of being underpaid.

In his book, “Pushing to the Front” Orison Swett Marden advises that one should not dwell too much upon the salary you are paid, for he says that you have something of far greater value at stake: “your honour, your whole career, your future success, will be affected by the way you do your work, by the conscience or lack of it which you put into your job. Character, manhood and womanhood are at stake, compared with which salary is nothing.”

So what is stopping you from creating your own trade mark? Make the work that comes from your hands unique in quality and supply it to the fullest possible quantity. Success will be yours!

Momodou Sabally
www.mlsabally.com