Never Say This to Your Boss If You Want a Promotion

TTTatyana Tsvetkova

Never tell anyone that you need money to feed your family.

AVAlexander Volchek

Mm-hmm.

TTTatyana Tsvetkova

‘I need money to feed my family.’ Who has ever used their children as a reason to squeeze out a raise?

AVAlexander Volchek

Yes, it's a very common phrase. People come to work and say it, tell it to themselves, or use it when discussing with others how much they want to earn: ‘I need money to feed my family.’ How does this play out? I've had an enormous number of employees who did it. Here's a typical business situation. Let's take a specific example: two salespeople meet their targets and come to their manager asking to be paid. The manager says, ‘I'll pay you a little later.’ One of them says, ‘I need money to feed my family, so I need you to pay me urgently.’ What's the problem? If both people met their targets, they did all the work they agreed to do. The reason they should be paid isn't that they need to feed a family, have five children, or have a wife, as though someone who lives alone shouldn't be paid. It's that they did the work. When someone does this, they put themselves in an incredibly weak position.

That's what we'll examine closely today. On one hand, why you shouldn't do it for the sake of your own development; on the other, why you shouldn't do it if you want to maintain a firm position socially and keep other people from taking advantage of you. As a manager, hearing that phrase gives me something I can use and the freedom to manipulate the person further. I know exactly where to apply pressure when communicating with them. There are two broad areas here. One is your own development: why shouldn't you think or speak this way? I'll show you where this internal approach makes you regress, stop progressing, and lose enormous numbers of opportunities. The other is that in the social world—and the business world is very harsh—you absolutely, one hundred percent lose ground to the person you're negotiating or discussing things with. Again, this could be a conversation with your boss or with your business partner. It's common for one of two partners to tell the other, ‘We need to take money out of the business,’ or ‘I need to earn money from the business because I need to feed my family.’

You're already losing ground in that situation. Let's return to the example of two people earning money by doing the same work. They agreed in advance that they'd be paid if they made, say, a hundred sales. They've made those hundred sales. When someone says, ‘Pay me because I need to feed my family,’ they're violating the original agreement. It said they'd be paid for making a hundred sales, not for needing to feed a family. You need to stand by the specific agreement with your manager. These additional circumstances don't matter and will never give you an advantage. Now put yourself in the position of the manager or whoever pays. How should they respond? Why should they pay you and not the other person? You need the money to feed your family; the other person might not need it because they were born into a rich family and have millions or billions of dollars. Does that mean they shouldn't receive their salary because they have a million or a billion dollars at home?

No. You made an agreement, with specific terms, and the person fulfilled them. Bringing in something else is manipulation. We'll discuss why someone uses this phrase in the first place; there's a reason they frame it this way. We'll also address the objection: ‘What if the person really does work because they have to feed their family?’ They have no other options. They need to earn five hundred dollars a month to pay for housing, their children's school or textbooks, and food. It's a fixed amount they must earn in any case. What's wrong with that? I immediately remember a sales director whose salary was between five and ten thousand dollars. My partner came to me and said, ‘We absolutely have to pay him seven thousand because those are his family's regular expenses.’ Alongside ‘I need to feed my family,’ there's this idea of regular family expenses. Someone earns seven thousand and says, ‘I need seven thousand to feed my family.’

Very often, the manager spends, say, two thousand dollars on their own family. They think, ‘I spend two thousand to feed my family, and you need seven thousand? That's strange.’ Yet it is perfectly normal that even seven thousand might not be enough for that person's family. Seventy thousand might not be enough. But the amount starts raising an incredible number of questions. The same happens with two partners who started a business together. They even agreed that they're doing it to earn a profit and meet their targets. They miss a target or run into problems, and one says, ‘We have to take money out anyway because I need to feed my family.’ The other's focus shifts: ‘Wait. We're not working in this business to earn money so you can feed your family. We're working to make the business successful—to grow by ten percent every month, for example, and generate a good cash flow. Nowhere does it say that I work on the condition that my family gets money.’

Or, ‘I have to earn at least a certain amount because my family gets that money.’ Conflicts begin. ‘Then don't buy those things. You bought your wife a ring, went on vacation, or have fifteen children. Why should that be my problem? You have fifteen children; I have none, for example. I don't need those circumstances.’ It creates a huge number of problems, which we'll discuss today.

TTTatyana Tsvetkova

So, to put it more briefly, the person comes in as a victim: ‘Here's my situation; I'm so poor and unfortunate.’ Where there's a victim, a persecutor always appears. That seems to sum it up. I have two questions. First, what if you're in a strong position and see your children as a motivation—as I think you do? Your children are a source of strength and energy, not an unbearable burden you work twenty-four seven to support. Can you approach business from that position? Second, what can someone in the victim position do? I think many viewers will say, ‘But what am I supposed to do? I really feel this way. I can't just come in tomorrow and slam the door in my boss's face. I really do need to feed my children.’ What thoughts or steps could help them move into a stronger position?

AVAlexander Volchek

You've raised two parts. The first is about your own development: how to be a person who doesn't regress by approaching life this way. ‘What else can I do? I have to feed my family. I have to pay for my apartment. Do you realize how hard it is? I have so many different problems and things to deal with.’ The second is how to make decisions in the social environment that produce a good outcome for you. This isn't a question of manipulation; it's a question of the social world. In social and business life, we live amid cruel games, lies, and deception. People rarely hear each other or understand the situation. At the same time, I often make decisions as a manager or owner in various businesses. However reasonable and kind I am, and however humanely I treat people, I always look at the situation we're in. If we agreed that I pay someone only when they deliver a result, and they don't deliver it but come in asking, ‘How am I supposed to feed my family?’ that's an entirely different arrangement.

I can say, ‘In this situation, you've lost. You certainly haven't earned the money.’ I can give them money as charity, lend it to them, or offer them other work. But don't tie that to the original business situation. So you immediately put forward a really—

—excellent idea and solution. Why live as a victim, constantly in fear and problems? You can say to yourself, ‘I have children. I have housing and travel to pay for, and plenty of needs and desires. They simply exist, and it's great that I have them. Let there be even more. I'll work and put in the effort, live with all of it, and balance those things.’ That's a strong position, and it isn't easy to maintain. I have four children, and I often say that the arrival of each additional child created practically no anxiety for me about money. I wasn't saying, ‘I'll have this child only if...’ In American culture, for example, parents often want to know before having a child that they have a certain amount of money to provide an education. In Russian culture, there's a widespread idea today—I mean now, not in the past—that first you must earn money, get on your feet, and establish a career, and only then have children.

People don't understand that these things can happen in parallel. A child can be born when you're eighteen or when you're forty. Some say it's too late, some too early, some ‘I'm not ready yet,’ and later, ‘Now I'm ready, but it's too late.’ They keep creating endless rules. Could you live in a way that lets you have a child at any point, if you have the strength in terms of your health, responsibility, and sense of life? Could you keep changing jobs and looking for something, understanding that you might have one job at forty, a different one at twenty, and a completely new profession at sixty that you're comfortable living and working in? That doesn't happen when someone chooses a job at twenty and tells themselves, ‘That's it. I've written off the rest of my life.’ Returning to the number of children: I've never found that a new child created a particular financial burden for me.

There is some practical calculation involved. If I earn X and have one child, then earn the same X and have two children, I'll buy a toy once every two months instead of once a month—or I won't buy a toy at all.

UPUnidentified participant

Yes.

AVAlexander Volchek

I'll divide things up differently or skip a restaurant, for example. I understand that some people will say, ‘We earn two hundred dollars a month and don't have enough for anything.’ That's a different situation, with different causes and circumstances. There's a very good explanation in the spiritual worlds: the biggest change in your life happens when you have a child. It changes your whole map and your entire life, incredibly. A second child changes everything again; a third changes it again. You can't even imagine what will happen, how it will happen, or what will shift where. Again, it's a matter of your inner approach. Some people wait, saying, ‘I need to get on my feet before having a child.’ Others simply have a child at eighteen. Honestly, I don't want to change my life, but I would have been absolutely happy if my wife and I had married at eighteen and started having children then. I sincerely would have been happy. I don't regret what happened, and I'm not saying I should have changed my life. I simply see no problem with it.

Some will say of people with the ability and strength to do that, ‘They're being unreasonable. They'll get divorced.’ What are you talking about? How many people marry at forty and divorce six months later? I wouldn't be surprised if more people who marry at forty divorce six months later than people who marry at eighteen. But the world tells a different story and creates endless restrictions and difficulties. The difficulty isn't simply that you've had children. I have four, and I hear this constantly: ‘Oh, four children. That must be so hard!’ Ninety-nine people out of a hundred say it, both those with four children and those without. ‘We know how hard it is to have small children.’ Polina and I look at them: ‘You certainly don't know how we live. You don't understand. I'm happy. I'm glad I have children now, and honestly, I'm in no hurry for them to grow up.’

They will grow up. A child wakes you at night, and you say, ‘Don't wake me. I have work tomorrow.’ A couple of years ago, one of our children came in at night, and I told Polina, ‘Look at our oldest daughter. She's fourteen now. Not only does she no longer come to us, she doesn't hug us and keeps her distance. She might not even come and sit with us in the kitchen. Let's always let the children sleep with us when they come in, whether we have to get up in the morning or not, whether it's hard or not. This will end. It's guaranteed to end.’ It's happiness. At times it is work—real work—but I can't say it's easier or harder than the work of being alone. Being alone at forty, for example, also seems tremendously hard to me. Living through it and being in that situation takes enormous effort. Approach having children and bills to pay as something natural in life, not as a weakness.

It's like thinking in terms of expenses versus income—a very familiar idea. Are you thinking about how much you spend and need to spend, or how much you want to earn? There's a huge, fundamental difference. Before I come to your second question, there's another point: people start deceiving themselves. ‘I absolutely must be paid this money because I have to support my family.’ In ninety percent of the conversations I've encountered, I knew the people could reduce their household expenses: rent a cheaper apartment and spend less on vacations, clothes, food, restaurants, and going out. But they say, ‘No, I have to support my family. I'm not cutting my expenses.’ In ninety percent of the cases where I've heard that phrase, people could have cut their spending. As a manager, hearing it does something strange to me. I also know many business owners who don't spend money themselves or are accustomed to a particular lifestyle, and they don't understand you. ‘Why are you, an employee, living in style and throwing money around?’

They think they've worked forty years to earn their money. They pay you nothing—or might pay nothing—while putting away billions themselves, yet drive an Audi A4 or a Toyota and hold back. ‘When the time comes, we'll see and decide. For now, we still need to work. We've cut everything back and done everything.’ They don't spend, and they look at you thinking, ‘How do you justify this?’ That isn't a healthy position either. It's unhealthy. But if you're dealing with such a person, understand that there are endlessly many of them in the world. And business owners who do spend on themselves often think they have that right and you don't. They can spend; you're there to earn. ‘If I decide to be generous, I'll pay you.’ This is especially developed in the Russian-speaking environment, where the whole chain works that way, from bottom to top. It operates automatically, all the time. It's ingrained internally, genetically—everywhere. You're constantly being given this message.

‘If you don't study now, you'll struggle at university. If you don't do this, things will go badly for you.’ Your schoolteacher tells you that. You look at her: ‘Marya Ivanovna, did you go to university?’ ‘Of course.’ ‘Then where's the connection? As far as I know, you have problems. Your son drinks, someone got divorced, or you don't have enough money. Explain the connection.’ A person senses deception: their parents deceive them, their neighbors deceive them, their grandparents deceive them. Everywhere they look, people are deceiving them. A false situation develops. To return to your question—what should you do when you approach an employer? How should you behave? Again, any employer, absolutely any of them, and any business partner—this is important, even though businesspeople are a smaller part of our audience—who hears that you need money to feed your family will enter into manipulation, no matter what kind of person they are. It goes both—

—ways. There's manipulation in both directions. On one side, they can completely walk all over you and squeeze as much as possible out of you. On the other, they can think, ‘I'm a sweetheart; I'll help you,’ and forget about the business. That's manipulation too. They can't forget about the business; there are rules. If they're your manager rather than the owner, they also answer to someone higher up. They have no right to make such decisions unless your employment contract says, ‘If my family has problems and I need to provide for them, my salary is paid regardless.’ Could a contract say that? Yes. Then put it in writing. That's a different matter. Specify that you're paid no matter what, that we always pay people in that situation, and that those signing the contract accept it. Again, many people simply won't accept that connection. They'll have an allergic reaction to it, including many employees: ‘Why was he paid when he didn't do his job? Why did the company pay him when it was having problems but didn't pay me because apparently I can wait?’

‘On what grounds? What do you mean, I can wait? Who decided that?’ If you want to make a separate arrangement with me, come and negotiate it. Say, ‘Alexander, I owe you money. I can't pay you now. I'll pay you at another time.’ Make an agreement with me. You can treat it as though you paid me and I immediately lent the money back to you, interest-free, with interest, or on some other terms. That's the only arrangement that works. What should the person themselves do when they meet with their manager? Under no circumstances, no matter what, should they use that phrase. Never. Always base your position on the agreement the two of you made. That's the only thing you can do, the only ground on which you can win: your original agreement. There are many approaches. Perhaps we'll make a video about how to—I want to say squeeze out as much money as possible—earn as much as possible and negotiate the best possible deal at work. You can always negotiate the best deal possible. There are many strategies for that.

I help enormous numbers of people negotiate with business partners, with their employees, and upward with their managers. There are many psychological techniques involved; most of them are psychological. One definite technique is never to enter what you called the victim position, the lower position, saying that some outside circumstance is the reason you need the money. That reason is no better than, ‘You have to pay my salary today because this evening I planned to buy a Louis Vuitton bag or suitcase for ten thousand dollars. Pay me because the suitcase is waiting for me. I've arranged it.’ Structurally, there's no difference. In fact, that version is better: at least it throws the manager's perceptions off. They don't understand what's happening. ‘Where did this person come from? Who are you? Why do you allow yourself that? How can you even think that way? What are you talking about? Maybe there's something I don't know about you.’ And so on.

At least that might take you somewhere. I'm not saying you should act that way, but it is one way to send someone down some strange lines of thought. You might think that if they find out you're buying a Louis Vuitton suitcase, they'll be more likely to pay someone else. That's not true. When you take this position with anyone at all, you're introducing manipulation into the business. Manipulation of this kind in a company will have a negative effect on you. It will also affect your inner state and development very strongly. Then everyone around you starts using the same phrase. A husband comes home and says, ‘They didn't pay my salary.’ His wife says, ‘What do you mean? You have children to feed!’ He should say, ‘Wait. I'm not paid because I have children to feed. I'm paid because I do the work. Darling, I'm sorry, but my level as a professional was such that I couldn't earn five thousand dollars. They didn't pay me five thousand; I couldn't make it happen.’

That's the only right answer: ‘I didn't do it,’ ‘I can't do it,’ or whatever the situation is. You're taking control of the situation back. At least you're explaining to your wife, husband, mother, grandmother, or friend what's really happening and telling the truth. Or you say, ‘I did my work. They didn't pay because the business has problems right now.’ That isn't quite a sound way to see it. Again, the other person says, ‘But you need to feed your family!’ You answer, ‘Yes, I do. But this is ordinary life. This is how life works.’ Then you're seeing life realistically. Why does that matter? When there's a hurricane or tsunami, missiles are flying, exchange rates change, stocks fall, artificial intelligence appears, and professions change, you respond appropriately instead of looking for an outside cause. ‘I must be paid. Pay me for the work I've done under an employment contract that says I'm supposed to do marketing’ turns into ‘Pay me because I have to feed my family.’ It's the same situation: someone else is to blame for all my troubles, never me.

You look for the cause of your trouble outside yourself. Can another person be to blame for your trouble? Yes. Let's be honest: if an earthquake starts now, we aren't responsible for it. We can invent an explanation: ‘We happened to be in Los Altos Hills at that moment; we chose that path.’ We didn't choose to be in an earthquake, but at least we can take a reasonable, realistic approach: ‘There's an earthquake. Now we need to do one, two, three, four, five, six.’ Instead of sitting there saying, ‘Another earthquake; everyone else is to blame. My wife dragged me here,’ or ‘My husband came here,’ or ‘It's Volchek's fault because we came to him for filming.’ You switch that off. People need to learn—and it's very hard for people today, particularly young people—not simply to take responsibility but to understand causes and effects correctly: who is responsible for what, where, and when, and how the world works. Unfortunately, the world works in such a way that a boss can often say, ‘You're fired.’

They can say, ‘I'm not going to pay your salary,’ and do many other things. You need to understand that it can happen. Laws can change. Money can be taken from your bank account at someone else's discretion. In the morning they invent a law, pass it, and carry it out themselves. You wake up, and the money's gone. There have been many situations like that, including the very well-known one in Cyprus. Everyone woke up, and the money was gone. ‘Where is it?’ ‘We simply decided to take it.’ It happens a lot. Or you have money on an exchange: ‘Oh, the exchange went bankrupt.’ You say, ‘But it wasn't supposed to go bankrupt. You promised!’ Well, they promised, and it went bankrupt anyway. I often return to the world of promises and what people say. I suggest putting everyone in prison—all of them—because they all lie and deceive, saying one thing, then a second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth. There's deception all around. But what do we do in the meantime? We don't deceive anyone? People themselves are being deceptive when they agree to work under particular conditions and then come in saying, ‘You have to pay me because I need to feed my family.’