Wednesday, September 22, 2010

CEO Salaries - You Would Not Want Them

We all know that cash is merely a means of facilitating barter. It was invented tens of thousands of years ago to bridge the gap between the stuff I need now and the time when I can provide something back of value. The objective is to effectively value the services provided by the various participants in the economy. Is it perfect? In the huge picture it is pretty darn close.

Every participants in the system makes elections. "Work-life balance" is today's catch word for some of those elections. Those elections effect economics both globally, locally and personaly.

CEOs of Fortune 500 companies make certain elections that cause them to be extremely rare commodities, which in turn makes them very valuable. They often obtain advanced degrees but uinversally they train for years. They fight their way up the corporate ladder winning the difficult political battles, creating loyalties and building a reputation. They give up a great deal of if not all of their family lives. They seldom see their children's games or spend quality time with their spouses. They work ungodly hours, travel relentlesly and bear the wrath of nearly everyone - shareholders, workers, lower management, the Board of Directors, the media, politicians and certainly their often many spouses.

Not surprisingly, they get paid handsomely for it. Certainly most are very bright, but there are lots of very bright people who make a completely different set of elections and would never elect to become a CEO. Some are born into the right family, but there are many people born well who elect not to become the CEO even of the family company. There are plenty of savvy but not genius CEOs who have led major corportions very well who were born into extremely humble settings. None of those things drives the result.

Only those who are deeply passionate about doing what CEOs do can make it. You and I would not take the job if offered and we would never work hard enough to get it. Those elections are not worth it for us. So we are not paid millions, but that was OUR election.

People often find themselves doing jobs they do not like, much less have a passion for. When people find their true passions, dig into their passions and become experts, they can learn how to create value in the economy based on their level of passionate expertise. When they find that nexus, they never work another day in their lives and their elections drive the maximum amount of cash to them for those services. They are happy. We can all be happy.

Services are always valued from the perspective of the buyer. But services provided with deep passionate expertise are always valued more highly than services merely performed. We must stop criticizing those who made different economic elections than we have made and start looking at how we can make the best economic elections for ourselves based on our own passions.

Follow your heart is more true now than ever.