It's Women's History Month and Tuesday marks Equal Pay Day. To honor the occasion, Laura Gassner Otting, author of Limitless: How to Ignore Everybody, Carve Your Own Path, and Live Your Best Life, spoke with Cheddar News' correspondent Shannon LaNier about how to properly value yourself and get the pay you deserve, regardless of your gender. 

It's Women's History Month and Tuesday marks Equal Pay Day. To honor the occasion, Laura Gassner Otting, author of <i>Limitless: How to Ignore Everybody, Carve Your Own Path, and Live Your Best Life</i>, spoke with Cheddar News' correspondent Shannon LaNier about how to properly value yourself.&nbsp;

Wake Up With Cheddar

Author Laura Gassner Otting Offers Tips on How to Achieve Equal Pay 

Welcome back to Cheddar News, everyone. It's Women's History Month and today marks equal pay day. Recognizing the extra time the average woman must work to earn the same yearly wage as men. So joining us again is author Laura guest odd ng Thank you so much for coming back with us here. Now, we want to talk more about this because what are some of the reasons that you've seen people accept pay below what they believe they deserve? I think there are three main reasons. I first think the first is a lack of salary transparency. They don't understand what other people are being paid or they'd probably ask for more money. The second is that they assume that once they get on the job, they'll prove their worth and they'll get paid more when really the time when job seekers have the most power is when they're negotiating for the job in the very first place. And then third, maybe they value other things. So we know that money is an impor factor in your work satisfaction, but it is often not the only one. And so we have to think about getting paid in lots of different ways that include money but aren't just money. Yeah, I know a lot of people struggle with trying to figure out how much they should get paid. So how do you actually calculate how much you should be getting? Well, I think that we can look at what other people are making, we can do market research, we can see what other like, jobs and like organizations are paid. But I also think it's important to think about price versus value. So prices, what they pay you to show up for work every single day. But the value that you provide is actually everything that you've brought to date. So your education, your experience, what you do inside of work, what you do outside of work, maybe you've created some skills in your place of worship or your children's school through volunteering, all of those things go into the value that you provide. So when you go in to negotiate for a pay increase, really think about not just the price, right? What is the salary, what is the paycheck? But also what is the value of the solution that you're bringing to bear and talk about what you should be paying in those terms as well? So once you have that value figured out you have the amount you want, what's the right way to approach your manager or boss to discuss your pay? It's really important to remember that our problem is that we need to get paid more money. Their problem is not the same as our problem. And so to think about approaching them at the right time when it makes sense to them, maybe, you know, not do this just at the end of every year when they're stressed and they're trying to figure out just how to get through all those end of your conversations. But setting up a conversation and saying, when we finish this project, I'd love to have a conversation about what this means for my future organization, right? When that value is super clear to your boss, having that conversation about what they want to be paying you to make sure that they keep you and you can keep delivering that value. That's a good point there. Now, your latest book and TED Talk, by the way, congrats are all about how success doesn't bring happiness. Now, I know a lot of people may disagree with that. So, are we focusing too much on how the paycheck and is, you know, I guess being given to us and how that's gonna fulfill us and not enough on the aspects of the other things and, and the job itself. Yeah. Well, I know from 20 years in executive search that money is only one of those factors. There's like eight or so factors. It's the mission of the organization, it's the leadership. That's how much am I gonna learn? How broad is the impact going to be, how prestigious will this job. Look on my resume. There are so many factors in addition to money. But in my new book, I talk about this idea that every time we achieve success, the reason that we don't feel happy is that it shows us this other version of who we might become, who we can be. And we think I was able to do this. What else can I do? I didn't know these doors were even available to me. So now that I know they're available, what else is out there? And part of that is money. So one of the ways that we determine whether or not we're keeping up with where we want to be, how we're measuring against our own version of success is money. So money is a super important factor. But just to remember that every time you get to that next level, there's gonna be a new devil and we're gonna want to keep making sure that we're, that we're keeping up. That's a good point as well. So how do you make sure you're saying those good career goals that are gonna help you get to that next level without stressing so much about the paycheck? Yeah, I was given a definition of success when I was in fourth grade that I was really argumentative and I'd make a good lawyer. You won't be surprised to find out. The first thing I did was tell that teacher who said that to me that she was wrong because, you know, I was argumentative. But each one of us at some point in our lives was given a definition of success, maybe by a teacher, maybe by a parent, maybe by a boss, maybe by a counselor who said this is the path that you should be taking. And so, and while we're thinking about setting our own future goals, we should ask ourselves, does that definition of success still work for me or did it work for somebody else? And is that dollar they gave me that dollar sign, the number that I want to go for or do I want to make less? Do I want to make more? How am I going to value all the rest of the things in my life that give me a definition of success? It's actually meaningful to me. Well, you definitely have achieved that success to a lot of other people. So thank you so much, Laura Gaster auditing. And by the way, her new book, Wonder Hill is out on April four. Make sure you check that out.