The Happiness Equation: Want Nothing + Do Anything = Have Everything

4

How does a teacher or retail assistant manager make more than a Harvard MBA?

Time for a scribble.

Here’s how much a Harvard MBA makes compared to two very common jobs: an assistant manager at a retail store and an elementary school teacher.

They all make $28/hour.

Where did I get the numbers from?

Well, teachers are scheduled for seven-hour school days (usually 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.) with typically an hour off for lunch. Let’s round that up to thirty working hours a week. But we all know how hard teachers work. We know it’s way more than that! My dad is a teacher, my wife Leslie is a teacher, and they bring work home. The average teacher does an hour or two of work every single night! Marking, prepping, coaching a team. So I added ten hours a week for that.

Retail store assistant managers are typically scheduled for forty-hour workweeks, but it’s a tough job. They end up working before or after shifts sometimes. There are questions, issues pop up, people call them at home. So I added ten hours a week for that.

And the eighty-five hours for Harvard MBAs? It’s a ballpark average figure based on my data, research, and personal experience. Working on consulting gigs in a Chicago hotel room or slaving away on an investment banking deal doesn’t exactly give you free evenings or weekends.

Although these numbers are generally accurate, of course there are exceptions—maybe you’re a teacher who works eighty-five hours a week or a Harvard MBA who works forty. But stick with me here, because this secret still has meaning for you.

What’s the bottom line?

They all make $28/hour!

So how do you make more money than a Harvard MBA?

Two ways:

Work more hours and make way more per year.

Work way less hours and make less per year.

This works because when you overvalue your time you make more money by working less hours and earning more dollars per hour.

But wait: Am I telling you to work less? Absolutely not! My point isn’t that you should suddenly dial down your interests, passion, or career. My point is to calculate how much you make per hour and know this number. Remember this number. Have this number in your head. I have friends who work around the clock as downtown lawyers and they joke, “When I do the math I actually make less than minimum wage.” They’re right! And, frankly, I don’t understand them.

Do not make less than minimum wage.

The way to make more money than a Harvard MBA isn’t to get your annual salary over $120,000 or $150,000 or $500,000. It’s to measure how much you make per hour and overvalue you so you’re spending time working only on things you enjoy. The average life expectancy in our world today is seventy years, and we sleep for a third of that. That means you have four hundred thousand waking hours in your life total. You have four hundred thousand hours to spend in your life total.

Understand how much a Harvard MBA really makes and overvalue you so every single hour of your working life is spent doing something you love.