We’re obsessed with success stories. We love to read about the latest IPO or overnight success and dream about it. We say “why can’t that happen to me?” while we sit on our couch covered in Doritos Locos Taco crumbs, getting annoyed when Netflix asks “are you still there?” Of course I am Netflix, now get on with the next episode of Parks and Rec.

Between episodes we look at our Facebook or Instagram feed and see our friends climbing a mountain or sitting on a beach somewhere. “Don’t they ever work? They got really lucky to get the job they have.” The last trip we took was to Iowa last year for a friend’s wedding, which was also the last time we negotiated a 3% raise at work.

Why do we expect extraordinary results when we’re doing the same ordinary things as everyone else?

The best way to get what you want

Here’s a harsh reality that shouldn’t be too surprising for anyone. The things worth doing in life are hard.

Learning a new skill. Asking for a raise. Getting a new job. Improving on your weaknesses. Having a tough conversation with somebody. Building something of your own. All difficult, and all worth it because they’re difficult. I’m not saying they’re worth it because of some sense of achievement, but because they actually get disproportionate results.

In terms of getting what you want, the easy stuff doesn’t do it anymore. Let’s talk about why.

The things worth doing are hard

What does it mean for something to be “worth doing?” I mean that certain activities get disproportionate results – you get out something bigger than what you put into it. You’re investing something (usually your time and resources) and receiving something bigger or more important (money, visibility, credibility, recognition). This is getting disproportionate results.

If my time is worth $20 an hour and I spend an hour working, I get $20. Every hour I work I get another $20 – that’s a proportionate result. Work more hours, get more money.

I could submit 20 job applications in a day and get one response. I could submit 100 more applications and get five more responses. Submit more applications, get more responses. That’s a proportionate result.

What’s the other option?

If I’m tired of being worth $20 an hour, what can I do? Plenty of things:

1. Learn a new skill that makes me worth more
2. Negotiate a raise up to $30 an hour
3. Learn to sell my existing skills for a higher rate

I may have to invest some time and money into those things, but they’ll pay off quickly. If I spend 5 hours ($100 worth of my time) learning how to raise my rates, I’m going to make up that difference in a little over a day of work. Everything above that is a disproportionate result.

If I’m tired of submitting 20 applications to get one response, what can I do? What if I spend a few hours researching the company and its problems and then write a pain letter directly to the hiring manager instead? Now I can submit two really good applications and get called back. I’ll get double the results for my time and effort. That’s a disproportionate result.

Getting disproportionate results

Keep in mind that disproportionate results might not happen immediately. It could be the case that you’re building a platform for yourself now that will help you get those results in the future. You may not see results now, but if you’re doing the right things you’ll see the payout for your efforts later on. If you start a business you may use your money to start it (negative results so far) but once you’re profitable all of those profits belong to you. Compare this to working for  someone else’s company where you’re getting a fixed amount of results (salary).

The hard things in life get disproportionate results. Writing a blog. Cooking better and eating well. Working out. Establishing habits that get you closer to where you want to be. None of these are easy, but the results you get can be bigger than the time and effort that you spend on them.

A finance major’s perspective on disproportionate results

In finance, there’s something called arbitrage. Here’s an official definition:

the practice of taking advantage of a price difference between two or more markets: striking a combination of matching deals that capitalize upon the imbalance, the profit being the difference between the market prices. – Wikipedia

So arbitrage is basically getting disproportionate results really easily. You buy an apple, turn around and sell it to someone else for more money. You buy euros for $1.50 in one foreign exchange market, sell them in another foreign exchange market for $1.60 and your transaction fee is only $0.05. Free five cents for every euro you trade! That’s arbitrage – getting profit or results risk-free, almost effort-free.

Sounds easy right? Follow these three steps to immediate wealth:

1. Find arbitrage opportunity
2. Execute on arbitrage
3. PROFIT!

So why isn’t everyone doing this and sleeping on beds made entirely of money? Three reasons:

1. Shredded cash doesn’t provide a very comfortable sleeping surface
2. Efficient markets tend to absorb new information quickly and change prices accordingly. When people find out about the difference in euro prices, the prices will naturally come together to eliminate the free money scheme you’ve discovered
3. Executing on an arbitrage tends to make it less effective. If I start buying euros in market A, prices will go up. If I start selling euros in market B, prices will go down. The prices will eventually become the same

Arbitrage opportunities are short-lived because people discover them and use them up. In financial markets, companies spend millions looking for arbitrage opportunities to be the first to act on them.

In life, there are an infinite number of disproportionate opportunities out there but the easy ones have certainly been gobbled up. What’s left may be hard, but it still gives you disproportionate results.

A real world arbitrage example

When I graduated and took a job in consulting, I was ecstatic. I was excited about the work and the idea of getting a paycheck, but I was most excited about the lavish lifestyle I’d be living with my expense account and all of the free airline miles, hotel points and credit card points I’d be raking in. Soon I’d be flying all over the world for free with my miles, so I started to read up on the best ways to get and use them.

I immediately found a bunch of news articles about people who had been running a pretty genius little scheme for a while. The government wanted to get more of the Sacagawea dollar coins into use by the general public, so they would let you buy them for $1 each. Makes sense. Buy enough of them, and shipping is free. At the same time, a frequent flier gets one mile per dollar they spend on their credit card. They buy $5,000 worth of Sacagawea coins on their credit card, take the package directly to their bank, deposit the coins and pay off their credit card bill. The end result? No net change in their credit card or bank balance, but they just got 5,000 points to use for cash back, airline miles or hotel stays. Rinse and repeat. That’s arbitrage.

Some people got hundreds of thousands of credit card points using this clever little scheme. Spending a few minutes ordering coins, driving to the bank and depositing them in exchange for thousands of airline miles is a great example of disproportionate results.

Just like an arbitrage in the financial markets eventually gets used until it is no longer valuable, the dollar coin loophole got closed so that you can no longer buy coins with a credit card, putting an end to the free travel miles.

Why are the hard things worth doing?

If you want disproportionate results, you need to do the hard things. Why is that?

Just like easy money gets arbitraged out of the financial markets, easy success gets arbitraged out of our choices in life.

• Fad diets may help you lose the first 5 pounds, but they’re rarely sustainable enough to last forever
• 15 years ago you put .com on the end of your company and got millions of dollars in your IPO. Just a short-term opportunity that was overplayed

The bad news is that the stuff that’s easy to do has been overplayed and lost its value. The arbitrage has been priced out of the market. The good news is that there are still opportunities for disproportionate results out there – but since the easy stuff is gone, now it means that the hard things are what get you disproportionate results. When the most effective things to do are easy, that opportunity disappears quickly. The hard things are worth doing because that’s where the disproportionate results still live.

This principle is everywhere in life. Where in your life have you noticed that doing the hard thing often means doing the right thing?