#135 What should you do when you know you're underpaid?
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In a way, yeah, you have to prove your value. I understand how that might also be read as frustrating. Like, look, do I really have to convince people that my work is valuable? Why can't they just see the value in the product? Why isn't there a sufficiently mature design culture in place that understands the value of design without me having to fight for it? But sometimes we need to fight that fight. However, I say fight, but I don't mean confrontation. So I think what's very important is when you have that conversation, don't frame it as a

confrontation don't go in saying look i'm unhappy i've learned that my salary is much below the market or my team i want to raise and don't give ultimatums don't go in like with this offensive defensive attitude but be very professional and calm and clear and say something like look i really enjoy the work i'm doing here and i love the company would love to hear how i can improve but also i would love to have a transparent conversation about how my compensation aligns with my role

Hello, design friends, and welcome back to another episode of Honest UX Talks. As always, I'm joined by Anifisa, and today we will be diving into a topic that so many designers silently struggle with. What to do when you know you're underpaid. Maybe you've done the research, seen the salary benchmarks,

and realize you're earning less than others in similar roles, or maybe it's just that nagging gut feeling that something's off. Either way, it's a hard pill to swallow and even harder to navigate without burning bridges or doubting your worth. So in this episode, we'll talk about the first steps to take, how to prepare for a salary conversation with your manager, and how to approach the situation with both tactics

clarity and self-respect. So if you ever feel stuck in this situation, this one's for you. So yeah, let's get into it. But before we do that, I just want to take a moment to thank our amazing sponsor, Weeks Studio. I've been experimenting a lot lately with creating the website for my design studio, AR. It's actually called AR Design Studio, and it's a consultancy studio mostly where I do both educational work, supporting companies in upskilling,

in AI, but also I'm doing consultancy for product decisions. So I'm having a lot of fun trying to build a perfect website that instills that futuristic vibe and very future-proof and future-oriented, but also ethical and mindful. And I'm very excited that I'm building it on Wix Studio because I found that Wix Studio has evolved a lot over the years and now I have a lot of controls.

to achieve that vision, right? And so in a previous episode, I was talking about WebGL effects and how they kind of gave me this very easy to implement, but professional looking high-end animation for the homepage backgrounds.

And it really gives an instant effect of this was made by an agency. It's not made by a person. It must have been made by an agency. So, and you want that when you're on your own, right? Running a business. But also I am discovering a lot of code-free animations and effects. So you can add a lot of movement types and draw attention to certain points on your website. So this helps you communicate parts or information that's more important to you in a much better way. And I'm experimenting with scrollytelling and

and a lot more, right? Code-free options from Hover to Loop, Mouse Parallax, and a lot of extra options via Lottie. And I also discovered that you can create gradient backgrounds right in the editor, which is amazing because now I'm playing live with how the website feels. It gives me a lot of control.

And yeah, it's super flexible. You can design custom linear, radial, conic, fluid gradients with unlimited color points. And you do that directly in the editor, which gives you a first direct feel of how it looks. Yeah, so it's been a very fun process. I can't wait to share my agency website once I finish it. And thank you, Wix Studio, for supporting our design conversations. Now let's get back to today's episode.

So let's unpack this. How can you tell if you're for sure underpaid? Maybe you have a feeling, but how can you really figure out if that's the case? What's your experience with that? I love this topic. I think we need to talk more about these themes because indeed there are a lot of nuance in our work and value in ourselves that after all also impacts our productivity and self-esteem, if you think about it. Now let's jump right into how we might figure out this.

I'm not going to focus on obvious tips. I just go to Glassdoor, compare, use market research, use AI to compare and understand the market benchmarks in your area, blah, blah, blah. I think up

after all, people talk. I don't know if you talk to a mentee or to a student or your friend, but whoever you talk to definitely did it right. In my opinion, it's the best way to figure it out. I mean, all the gossip talks, that's where the market is being tested, honestly. People talk, people share. And honestly, very often you have to take it with a grain of salt. So while you hear that maybe some other people in a similar position is being paid more,

What I immediately will jump right into is that you have to always balance it out with the conditions in which these people work, right? Because very often you sometimes have more challenging work, more challenging colleagues, but at the same time, you're happy at work, right? So is that the cost that you're paying for being happy and fulfilled at your job, but not getting like, let's say, full package that you hope to get? It's always the balancing act.

So while the money and the whole package you're receiving might differ, at the end of the day, it's always the question of what you're able to sacrifice, what's more important to you. I do remember, for example, when I was looking for a job three years ago now, there were better offers. Actually, I had like four offers and two offers were better than the offer I took.

And I didn't took it because, I mean, honestly, even now this offer would be better than my current pay. But I chose the company that I felt more connected to and the challenges I wanted to work with and the people I wanted to work with. So for me, it was like a balancing act. But at the end of the day, it's more about what you think should be prioritized, what's more important to you personally. So how we can figure it out, I personally see this most importantly through the people, also through kind of nuanced packages, because there are

could be stocks there could be different other perks that could combine your ultimate packaging sort of but um at the end of the day it's a balancing act what's your take on figuring it out but also like deciding on what to do with it i resonated mostly with your point about talking to other people so i think that's how it starts that's how the kind of feeling creeps in and so on so we do have a lot of information out there but sometimes it's very generic so if you go on glass or or if you go on um

I don't know. Indeed, sometimes you would get these very large margins. Right. So a senior salary would go from 50K to 150K. And that's like a huge difference. And some companies also started posting their salary ranges publicly on LinkedIn or when they're publishing the role they're hiring for.

And you can also see that sometimes it's just a huge difference between the entry level salary for that role and how much it can go up to the ceiling of the salary for that role. And in reality, you can also sometimes negotiate over that kind of benchmark that's made public or communicated initially if you are the right person. So it's

It's really hard to tell from the public information out there what their reality is. And I know that even in my job at Miro recently, we had to discuss at some point, of course, informally, like, what's your salary? Is that because I think I'm underpaid? And so it turned out that I was, I wouldn't say overpaid, but I was paid well. And other people with the same role were paid less significantly. So it felt like it's very arbitrary. So how can you find overpayment?

out maybe i negotiated better or maybe just having a very good recruiter help me i don't know but yes it's weird and i think the only way to really figure it out is through the grapevine but then there's two dimensions to it one is your current employer like are you being underpaid within your org and your company

Or are you being underpaid in relationship to the market situation? And both can be true or just one of them can be true. And so how do you figure that out? So inside a company, it's really tricky. It's weird. Like go to your colleagues and say, how much do you earn? Can you please tell me? Because I want to like benchmark my salary to yours. And it can feel weird to say the least.

I don't know. This is also kind of just human relationships 101. I think it's also not always legal to say this. People don't want to risk their jobs, right? So, I mean, totally understandable. But that still doesn't stop people from talking. So just who you trust, I guess. I forgot about the legal aspect.

I mean, I'm not sure I ever considered it. But yeah, true. And then when you want to talk about outside your company, again, I think it's just a conversation that you need to have with people, real people. I've recently done a pricing research. So now we have new instruments, right? Now we can ask.

chat GPT what is the correct payment for a senior designer in my location with these traits and so on and it turns out that this very large intelligence model doesn't know either so it's pretty hard to get the information

I just remember there was one website, which I will attach to the show notes later. But there is a website where people can anonymously report their salaries. Like, honestly, this is my role. This is my level. This is my location. That's the salary. And it helps a little bit to just like double check whether maybe they're having a bias within your like role or something like just double check. I mean, there is probably no direct role to your, but it helps to at least benchmark it more closely when you're at least negotiating the job offer. Yeah.

Is it called blind? Yeah, I think blind is one of them. And there is another one. I can't remember, but I sure will attach those under the show notes.

Just a very quick disclaimer I want to make. Sometimes we feel underpaid, but we're undervalued. So sometimes we just have an emotion that might trigger this feeling that I'm not getting enough. I'm so burnt out. I'm putting so much in this company's hands and work. So you really have to make a distinction if you're feeling underappreciated or if you're actually underpaid. And then you do that with data, with real information that you grab.

for the site will attach in the show notes or friends, people in your network, maybe go to a design meetup and talk about it in a comfortable, safe circle. So the thing is that, yes, sometimes we might think that we are underpaid when what we mean, what our feeling, emotion internally tells us that we're actually undervalued. But let's assume that you figured it out. You are underpaid. So the data shows it.

the websites show it, GPT confirms it, your gut feeling as well, your friends, family, network. You know you're underpaid. What now? What would you do? That's a great question. I think if you double checked on every level that, just like Joanna said, that it's also not an emotional response and also you put basically like in your brain, in your mind, put together this like

balance is shit like is this more important than the rest of the factors that I'm being fulfilled by if yes if the answer is still yes and you still feel like you're underpaid and it's not fair and you're not willing to be the best person if you're sold to be the best IC or whatever manager as in the company that doesn't really value then you have obviously two options either you

act upon it or find a better option. I mean, I know market is tough today because honestly, I sometimes feel like, and I talk to a lot of people, obviously, we have pretty extended networks in the design community, but I do feel like a lot of companies, if they have really healthy cultures where people are happy, good people, maybe sustainable work-life balance, great benefits, etc., but

Maybe the actual salary comp is not there yet. I feel like it's an intentional choice for some companies. And the market is ruthless today. Sometimes you're in the position that you have to say yes to this position because you know that other companies, they might pay better, but they're not healthy cultures that they will lead to burnout. Or there might be other factors that will impact your mental health in a way or portfolio, whatever it is.

So in my opinion, companies who understand they build good cultures, they actually could take advantage of that and don't really propose really high salaries. And again, that's a balancing act. You have to choose intentionally. There is no perfect work today. There is no perfect company today that has it all. So you have to choose. That's the first question. If you're not happy and the answer is still, nope, I cannot settle for this, then in my opinion, when it comes to preparing your case for it, there could be multiple strategies and multiple ways to confront it.

I think first things to acknowledge is that in the recent, maybe let's say, let's take a timeframe of five years recently, the market was so dynamic and volatile. It was changing so awkwardly that it led to a lot of inconsistencies on the market. First, if you remember, and we talked a lot about it already, but

First, there was a high demand for design. There was more companies looking for designers than the actual designers. So basically that inflated the salaries. It was up until 2022. And then suddenly boom, market crisis. Now suddenly the ball is on the company's game and the company is built. Now they could actually decrease the offers and actually increase

have better talents, but again, for less money. The dynamic was changing. And I feel like if you were looking for a job in the last two or three years, it's quite likely that you were not receiving the same offer that people who landed jobs during the pandemic sort of bubble. And so it's important to acknowledge that, that sometimes it really depends on

And it might be also inconsistent if you were, let's say, found a job five years ago when the market was still not so booming. You might have really low offer. Then in the next two, three years, the offers were higher. Now, again, they're quite lower and the market is taking advantage of this. It's just natural in the capitalistic world.

But I think at the end of the day, especially if you have been in a company for a little while and now you have your sort of internal portfolio project in that company, what you are left with is go and present that project, right? So I think the natural things to do if you decide to confront it and you feel like it's worthwhile

fighting for, there could be multiple tactics on how you can build your sort of internal case and confront it to whoever could help you out with the case, right? So it could be either HR or your direct leadership, direct manager, et cetera. There could be multiple sort of tactics to approach that. I'm not going to go into too much details, but I would say that I think one is possibly trying to reframe your role.

I've seen this work for a couple of people I personally know. You know, when you try to expand your role, for example, if your official role today is UX designer, but you know that, for example, product designers in your company, your team actually getting paid a little bit more or product people, PMs in a way, getting paid a little bit more.

You can act upon that insight and decide whether you want to actually sort of merge your role with the bigger, broader scope of opportunities while probably you're already doing all those things, you're just being called differently. So that's one way to do this. And you can do this probably from HR perspective, from people team perspective, where they could try to adjust whether your role is like addressing your label. Another one is to build this case where you would be able to sort of build a portfolio explaining the value you have provided for the

company. And obviously this is just the same case we're building typically when we're up going for a promotion. But in my opinion, it's probably similar path to try to build like these are the things I have achieved. And I understand that maybe it still falls under my responsibility. But given the let's imagine you have numbers in a perfect world, given the numbers you brought up,

And given that this is the research I also did, I understand I'm underpaid. Confronting it, seeing if you can still get out of it anything. Even sometimes I see people do radical moves of like, I'm leaving if I'm not getting comped in any way I need it to be. Or showing another offer on the table and saying, look, this is a situation. Unfortunately, I think I have to go for that situation because I feel like I will be valued more there. Hence, I will be more productive.

as well. So having this kind of radical conversation, but I think sometimes it works. It's a risky one. I don't know if it needs to be done, but finding a way to build your case and put your value out there, it's one of another strategies I feel still works these days. Anyways, any other ideas, Ioana, that have come across your mind?

Well, I think you touched on a lot of things. But yeah, I don't think I have much to add to that. But I think the first step when you realize you're underpaid is to start building the case, right? So I don't know, gather receipts, if that makes sense. Just make a mood board of proof that that's the case. Just don't get out of it.

Like manage your emotions. If you really realize that that's the case, I think it's an opportunity for getting very angry and frustrated and then building up that energy of feeling like somebody's mistreating you and you're furious and like try to

regulate your emotions around this topic because it's business in a way, right? It's just, it's a job. It doesn't really say anything about how appreciated you are. I mean, it could say, but don't make it an ego problem because when you make it an ego problem, you have less chances of fixing it properly or thinking about clearly, right? You get emotional and so that puts you on very strange decisions or I'm going to quit. I'm going to search for another job when in fact this job was pretty good and you could start

thinking about negotiating your salary to fix this part that's not ideal. So I would say don't get too angry, don't get too emotional, try to dissociate from the topic like this doesn't say anything about my value as a designer but let's see what I can do about it and then come up with a plan and the plan might depend on your context, the company context, like are you in a supportive environment, can you bring this up without feeling like you're gonna get shut down or

Right. How do you feel about starting to talk about it? And I think the next step would be talking about it with your manager or the manager of your manager. And so I think you need to have a salary conversation. And my follow up question to you on if you would be how do you prepare for a salary conversation, which even just saying the words salary conversation makes me feel uncomfortable. So it's an uncomfortable odd.

weird kind of situation. But how do you prepare for a salary conversation? And it shouldn't be uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong. I think we should be uncomfortable by it. Yes, absolutely. I agree with you. I feel so weird every time I feel nervous. I might like, huh,

Have my voice a bit shaky or start rumbling in the middle of that conversation or get emotional even. I don't know. I kind of feel like, I don't know, it's one of those like hidden topic nobody needs to talk about, right? It's just like we are living in a moment where we need to be like wishy-washy about it, honestly. Because yeah, maybe legal constraints, whatever.

it feels like a taboo so yeah so it shouldn't be taboo and it should be transparent and in the open so i love when designers share their salary on linkedin like it doesn't feel like bragging necessarily to me it feels like making something that feels behind closed doors making it transparent and public so how do you prepare for that conversation without burning bridges

Yeah, indeed. I mean, honestly, I'm also all in for transparency. I wish it could become a legal thing that just like with Accessibility Act, it needs to be transparent. People don't need to become scared of this or there should not be inequality there. Anyways, coming back to the question and how do you prepare for this? I think the preparation doesn't start like one week before the actual conversation. Setting up the context here. Remember that typically companies have their pay review cycles mostly. I mean, if you work in a startup, it's a bit fluid and all over the place and chaotic.

mostly. But if you are more in an established company with some certain structures, most likely you will have yearly sort of pay review cycles, either quarterly, twice a year or every year, whatever it is. I think mostly companies follow like yearly cycles. Most importantly, it's important to acknowledge that your work, it's like building your own internal portfolio. It doesn't start one week before the actual conversation. It starts way before that.

First of all, I think the most important strategy is to be visible and build some sort of internal branding around the value you're bringing. So maybe start brainstorming about the different possible ways for you to build value so that the value is being acknowledged by the company, not only your internal team and your direct peers, but also across different multidisciplines, right? So for example, marketing people, customer success people, business people, especially business people, especially...

especially if you can break through and get your messages or your sort of case studies, if you will, reached out directly to your CEO, whoever is like in the C-level position. So this way, you definitely try to explain what you have to offer on the table. And especially if, let's imagine, your VP of your product or CEO, whoever acknowledges you,

good at you or have even in the screenshot or some sort of Slack conversation, that's a big, big, massive props that HRs will definitely remember when it comes to like deciding how to move forward with you. Or you will actually prepare this and show it up front. Or your maybe direct manager could also vouch for you showing the receipts like Ioana mentioned.

So it's really about building that internal branding and that case upfront, long-term upfront. So tactically, what it could be manifested in is, for example, some sort of show and tell videos. In my company, that's what we try to practice. Like every month, we would record a show and tell. And not just like in the simple walkthrough, like here's my messy Figma file and this is the flow. Not like just like abrupt and direct output kind of way. But what we try to do with my team is try to do this in a storytelling way because we expect not only

the direct peers who knows the context to see those videos, but to try to target like the whole organization with these videos. So setting up the context, explaining the user story, explaining the impact these user stories you're building for provide for the business moving forward long-term and how the decision you're making today and thinking behind that is impacting that, right? So setting up the scene and really trying to lead with impact rather than this is my flow, this is the UI and

that's all trying to be strategic basically about how you communicate your work that's important because i think in the current market landscape again capitalistic market landscape we must be very strategic about what we are selling and telling basically selling telling kind of the anonymous force for me right now so yeah preparing yourself position yourself in the most lucrative possible way using opportunities shooting looms showing impact maybe having not just show and tells but

also preparing slides with metrics, cooperating with data people, cooperating with research people to help you build in those cases and measure those cases. And then even if it's a small update that you have pushed to the market, still show the before and after and lead with numbers. That's important these days. At the end of the day, you're a resource and you're being paid proportional to this. And if you can build the case that's

that resource is not equal to the value provided to the company, when you will have a counter offer to show that, hey, I was offered the better job opportunities and you now are perceived as a strong team player, company player, they will not let you go and they will find a way to comp the offer in a similar manner or even better. At least that's my perspective.

What do you think about it? I think I align fully with what you said. In a way, yeah, you have to prove your value. I understand how that might also be read as frustrating. Like, look, do I really have to convince people that my work is valuable? Why can't they just see it?

the value in the product. Why isn't there a sufficiently mature design culture in place that understands the value of design without me having to fight for it? But sometimes we need to fight that fight. However, I say fight, but I don't mean confrontation. So I think what's very important is when you have that conversation, don't frame it as a confrontation.

confrontation. Don't go in saying, look, I'm unhappy. I've learned that my salary is much below the market or my team I want to raise and don't give all the matums. Don't go in like with this offensive defensive attitude, but be very professional and calm and clear and say something like, look, I really enjoy the work I'm doing here and I love

the company I think everything is doing great would love to hear how I can improve but also I would love to have a transparent conversation about how my compensation aligns with my role impact whatever so just be very nice be polite it's a negotiation it's not a confrontation and it's also something that in a way you're getting off your chest but it should be in a very

let's say, controlled, non-ego, non-historical manner. I've heard all sorts of stories. And yeah, bring the case in, like to Anfi's point. Looms, whatever...

Show your impact in a short deck. Maybe add some screenshots from the websites that show similar salaries. And then just treat it as a dialogue. Like ask your manager or your manager's manager, how do you feel about it? Is this something that you were aware of? What is your context? Do you have budget constraints? When was the next opportunity where I could might explain?

expect or raise, and then also translate it into like career next steps or your, let's say, action items as a transform them into the answers to the question, what do I need to do in order to earn more? Or is there anything that you're expecting from me that's preventing me from reaching that point and so on? Tie it maybe into your evaluation and so on. I have another idea, actually. I don't think it will make sense in many contexts, but in some, in the companies where

the marketing and the brand image of the company is important and is sort of aimed to extend and like grow as the brand perception sort of what I've seen also works in some companies and take it with a grain of salt is building some sort of an attraction asset outside of your direct work

So, for example, I know a lot of people do today LinkedIn. Again, I don't want to encourage people to start being LinkedIn gurus or anything. And also, it's important to acknowledge that not every company has like non-NDA policy. So if you cannot post about your work, that's not going to work for you. But what I've seen that some companies allow doing by extending their company branding, especially if you're a B2C brand, especially if you're growing, if you're in early stages, sort of a startup.

scale up and you need more visibility, maybe establishing yourself like in a way niche person, being expert in this area would help you to also reach to the people that you even work with and establish yourself more as the, you know, strong voice at least or somebody who knows what they're doing. So you can even possibly, for example, post something

micro case studies with clear before and after nuggets, I don't know, UX tear down carousels or whatever, FinTech onboarding, hospitality flows, whatever you work at, right? To show that you really are excited about what you're working on. And like, even if it's not directly related to your work,

If, for example, it's under NDA, you can at least show expertise of your thinking outside of your direct Slack conversations, which is, again, not going to work for every single company, but it could definitely reach to the right people outside of your work for sure.

Another tiny thing that came up to my brain right now is that you can also try to be more proactive. For example, we all have those like role competencies, metrics. They're pretty classic, pretty well-defined. There is like a checklist of things you have to follow to be evaluated well enough. But I think what really stands out typically within the work itself is when you are proactive and you're trying to see how else can I help the business company, whoever, whatever. Don't just like follow those checklists, but try to see

How might you, with your personal strengths, craft your own job scope that they didn't even know they needed? Sometimes proactivity is what really touches people, gets remembered within the company itself. So yeah, these are a couple of things, a couple of ideas that might spark your wheels running. I don't know if it will. Hopefully it is. But I'm pretty sure there could be more ideas, but...

think on the dimensions where you can try to build your case. At the end of the day, our work doesn't speak for ourselves. It's unfortunately, but it is what it is. And we have to find a way to make our cases visible.

So lastly, I would like to address a more dramatic question to close this conversation on a theatrical note. When is it time to walk away? How do you know when it's time to just start searching for another job? Because we all know that you get those big salary increases by switching jobs. And even if you get a raise within your company, it's probably going to be 5%, 8%, 10% something. But when you switch jobs, sometimes you get as much as 50% more.

Sometimes you double your salary. I've heard all sorts of cosmic stories. So how do you know when it's just not worth pursuing this conversation internally and you just might start looking for a job and it's time to invest time and energy and effort in crafting your animated sexy portfolio? And then how do you strategically start deciding that it's time to walk away? What would be the key indicators of that for you?

Honestly, you have to work on your case studies already and not even thinking if you want to start looking for a job or not because the market is unpredictable. You just never know. It helps to reflect after every single project you work on. Even I would argue you have to document everything you're doing in the moment of doing it. It helps not only you to remember what you worked on and then building the case study in a more effective way, but also, again, it helps you to build your internal

portfolio of projects within your company so it helps in any dimension being job hunting or no job hunting question is what are the signals that can give you clarity that you should start looking for a new job I mean first things first I don't want I think it is important to not just like be again emotional that you want to mention slam the doors and quickly like I don't know I'm out of here I'm

down don't let yourself get into that mindset honestly it's important because it's not going to position yourself up for a success not only locally but also once you start looking for a new job you're not going to be in the right mindset you'll be still in this again defensive mindset so it is important to work on on the emotion and i love that we have these kind of conversations for this point perpetuating through our conversation but if you feel like ongoingly you're unhinged

happy. Ongoingly, if you feel like something is not going on right, it doesn't hurt to consistently work on your portfolios for yourself. It doesn't mean that you have to quit the job right now yet, but just having kind of slow preparation just in case would help. So also buying a time for yourself while you're not happy and it grows, the feeling is growing. Don't do it in one day, do it progressively, slowly. And again, by still trying to find a way internally to

match what you need to be offered. And then when it comes to like, okay, it's actually no turning point and I really need to quit and I tried everything and I think it doesn't work for me. Honestly, I personally haven't been in this place. So I cannot tell you like what feelings will have to decide on this, but you would have to trust your own instincts and gut, right? When it feels like it's just ongoingly not happy, you're not a happy person, you're not yourself, you're not performing well, the work is creeping into your mental state and

I feel like many of us are experiencing those signals and I'm not here to tell you what you should be feeling, but for sure, if you're not feeling yourself, if that's not a healthy job and it feels like also you're not paid well and the pay is so important now that it doesn't even add up, then I feel like it's just inevitable. You must change the work, right? When it's a personal choice for every single person, but maybe you want to have more

signals to share, I guess, because again, I haven't been in this position. I have been in positions of unfairness, but I was able to balance it out with, I guess, fulfillment at job. But I think it's a cumulative effect of multiple factors, not just pay at the end of the day. I completely second that.

I feel I'm perfectly aligned with this takeaway or like final way of putting it, right? So it's not just about how much you earn. You have to factor in multiple things. And of course, the way you factor them in, like the percentage of how much they impact or matter in your decision depends on where you are in your life. So for me right now, something that's really important is flexibility and freedom because I want to enjoy it.

my daughter and she's growing up very fast and 10 years ago that wasn't the case 10 years ago I was all about growth adding names to my CV performance competition being famous and I don't know I never cared about being famous it was a byproduct of all the work I did but just an idea like very competitive

Right. And what mattered was constantly progressing and making more money and being more successful. And now I've completely reshuffled the way I look at things. And those things really are not as important as they used to be. So a metric for me now is not money, is how much freedom and peace of mind and calm does this work I'm doing bring in my life.

Does it bring me joy? And so, of course, to your point, it's like a lot of things that need to be factored in. And it's absolutely OK to say it's just money that matters for me at this point in my life. So I feel like I have to make as much as I can. I want to start a family or I want to buy a home or I want to travel the world. So I need to earn as much as possible. And I don't care about doing meaningful work or being in the perfect team or being in a mature culture. I just want to make more money. And that's fine.

fine, that's what you're driven by at this stage of your career. And you can just say, this is what I'm going to optimize for. But again, just this is a very personal conversation. It's a self-reflection exercise. And I want to just encourage everyone to understand their own unique combination of criteria and things that go into making such a decision. And

To your point, you need to have your portfolio. You don't need, but it's ideal to have your portfolio optimized at any moment in time. And I've always had one, two conversations per year on the side. So you could start doing it lightly, flirt with other job opportunities, search LinkedIn for posts, talk to people in your network. It doesn't have to be something that's immediate. Like I'm gonna switch my job tomorrow.

But you can start easily teasing this possibility and exploring it. So I think with that being said, we can wrap up this conversation. Big thanks to everyone who listened and make sure to listen to our past episodes and of course our future episodes. If you want to participate in what the future episodes will be about, leave us a comment, reach out to Anfi or me anywhere and tell us what you think.

you're struggling with or what you're curious about and we will try to make our conversations as relevant as possible also make sure to give us a nice little review it will help us if you would spread the word about our podcast or just leave a review or support us and in any way you feel what comes natural to you so thank you for joining and see you in the next and maybe past episodes as well bye