I remember the first time I worked in corporate America. I was hanging out with people who were simply there because they had nothing better to do after college. They looked at their first corporate job as some sort of "holding tack" for graduate school, getting married, or professional school.

As you can well imagine, these people that I worked with really did not take their work all that seriously. This should be clear that if you don't take whatever it is you're doing seriously, you have no business expecting to get rewarded to do what you're supposed to do.

That's precisely what happened. Most of my friend did not get promoted. In fact, a lot of them never managed to get a pay raise. Still, this did not prevent them from complaining about their lack of success. They're quick and eager to point the finger to things and people out of their control.

They convinced themselves that maybe their boss simply had it in for them. Maybe they were just in the wrong industry and there's something wrong with their situation.

This really is quite sad because what I saw with my coworkers is pretty much a microcosm of how most people look at their lives. We refuse to take ownership of our decisions. We refuse to see the connection between our choices and the lives that we are living.

Make no mistake, your life is a choice. How much money you make, what you look like, where you live, the size of the car you drive, the brand of the car you drive, the amount of respect you get, all of those are choices.

When you make a choice and you take action on those choices, things begin to change. That's how life works. That's how reality plays out. Unfortunately, a lot of people turn a blind eye to this. They're too quick and eager to blame everything and anything outside of themselves for whatever is going on in their lives.

Little do they know that they can't control these other people. It's hard enough to change yourself, can you imagine trying to change other people? If you want to achieve great things with your life, use the power of emotional ownership.

How do you do this? Well, please understand that everyday, you're supposed to produce results. Those results are judgments of your character. Get emotional over that fact. If you feel that you're not getting paid enough, well, this means that you have to take emotional ownership. This means that you have to produce more work of a higher quality at a faster rate.

This means that you have to network better. This means that you have to go the extra mile. If you still don't get paid what you think you should be paid, at least you learned enough skills for you to take to your next job and the next job after that.

Eventually, somebody will reward you because you know that your work is an expression or reflection of who you are. It's a reflection of your values, character and everything and anything that is fundamental about you.

If you look at your work life from this perspective, it's only a matter of time until you achieve the victory you are capable of achieving.

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