One of the most painful lessons that life in the working world teaches you is the complete lack of proportionality between the effort made and the reward for it. Any creative profession requires a certain sacrifice that translates into quality; The more sacrifice, the more quality. This proportionality is what differentiates masterpieces from botched attempts. This proportionality is vital in all the creative work we do for ourselves, for those closest to us or, rarely, for a dedicated audience that will know how to reward our talent.

Almost all first-time workers make the mistake of believing that clients, bosses, or the final recipients of our work will appreciate the value of our talent. And we ignore that, in the capitalist world, the fruit of our work is just another commodity. In the real world, good goods go bad if they don’t sell. We want to think that good products will sell better than bad products; that the good company succeeds, that the bad company fails and that the best employees always get their reward. If the world were that simple and fair, marketing would not exist.

In the real world, marketing is as important or more important than quality itself, because the end customer does not always know how to recognize that quality. We could say that marketing is the makeup that serves to improve the image of a product, even if it is a bad product. History is full of terrible products that became bestsellers thanks to an aggressive marketing campaign. In the same way, history is full of illustrious failed personalities full of talent, but lacking in marketing.

Van Gogh, Mozart, Tesla and many more… Wonderful people who were able to change the world after they died only because humanity was too blind to understand the true dimension of their talent. What do you prefer? To be remembered with sadness after death or to triumph in this uncertain and unfair world?

I do’nt consider myself experienced enough to show you the path to success, but I can help you achieve it by saving many hours of useless effort. The key is in the client or the final recipient of your work. Avoid working more than your client deserves.

How do you know what your client deserves? Take enough time to study his personality. Read what he writes on social media, try to talk to other employees who have worked for him, survey the opinions of his clients, try to get an idea of ​​his capacity for sacrifice… A person who produces poor quality work will not know how to value a job well done. A person who despises other people’s work will rarely value your effort. A person who doesn’t keep their commitments won’t know (or want to) reward your effort.

Does it mean you have to refuse to work for a bad client or a bad boss? NO.

Just keep that in mind and don’t try too hard. Save your precious time by delivering mediocre work on time, because they will surely prefer that you meet the deadline than that you do it well.

Surely you feel empowered to do better. Do it!, but not for that boss. If you have to waste your time, let it be on your own projects. Make an effort, work very hard, increase your level, but not in the projects of people who are not going to value them, but in yours. Sometimes assertiveness is not about saying no, but about deciding how far you are committed to going.

This simple tip will save you thousands of wasted hours and will help you value your efforts based on the benefit you hope to obtain from them. If you stay working longer hours than the rest of your colleagues on a project aimed directly at a person who is not on the Forbes millionaires list, or is not your friend, or has not asked you to work as hard, stop working and find a better project.

If for any reason you prefer to continue wearing yourself out uselessly and end up devastated, don’t say I didn’t warn you.