• A college degree may lead to a lucrative career, but the cost of tuition is putting some people so far in debt that a even decent job can't fully lift the burden.
• Companies big and small — including IBM and fitness startup Peloton— offer student loan repayment benefits to employees.
• Research shows employee financial stability is linked to overall well-being and work performance, and workers overwhelmingly prefer companies who offer help with student debt, often over retirement benefits.
• This article is part of Business Insider's ongoing series on Better Capitalism.

A lucrative career typically relies on having a college degree. But all too often, expensive tuition costs lead to debt that even a decent-paying job can't cover.

In 2018, 44.2 million American borrowers owe $1.48 trillion in student loan debt — $620 billion more than Americans owe in credit card debt, according to Student Loan Hero. And student loan debt rises annually. The average debt for student borrowers in the class of 2017 was $39,400, 6% higher than the class of 2016, Student Loan Hero reported.

"The crushing weight of having to pay a student loan off coupled with low entry-level salaries creates a recipe for financial stress that can snowball," Jeremy Straub, CEO of Coastal Wealth, told Business Insider.

"Financial stress will affect your mood, concentration, and overall performance [at work]," Straub said. "Ultimately, this stress costs the employer money through loss of productivity."

More and more companies are starting to recognize this and are implementing benefit programs to help employees manage and pay down their college loans. In some cases, it may help with employee recruitment, too.

Financial stress can lead to work stress

Companies including PWC, First Republic Bank, Penguin Random House, IBM, Peloton, and Honeywell also have benefits in place to help with student loans, in an effort to retain quality talent and boost employee performance.

"Any benefit that you can offer which creates a 'people first' mentality and shows you put purpose before profits in your company culture is a good thing," Straub said.

"Employees who are happy and free of worries can do their best," Barbara Brickmeier, vice president of benefits at IBM, told Business Insider. Multinational technology giant IBM's program, MoneySmart, offers confidential financial coaching for employees.

"They can bring their best selves to work and they can work more productively for themselves and for the company, so with that in mind we believe [MoneySmart] does help the bottom line for IBM."

The MoneySmart program began over 10 years ago and 25% of IBM employees partake in the program annually, according to Brickmeier. While IBM pays for financial counselors to assist employees in strategizing their finances, it does not make direct contributions to employee student loans. The program helps employees refinance their loans and negotiate discounts off their loan rates, Brickmeier said.

In the past three years, the MoneySmart program at IBM has helped employees refinance about $50 million worth of student debt — a total savings of about $15 million over the life of the loans, she said.

Brickmeier says IBM recognizes that employee financial health is a crucial aspect of overall well-being, and some research backs that up.

A 2017 survey conducted by Willis Towers Watson asked 31,000 United States employees in 22 markets about health and well-being related to work. In the study, over one-third of employees reported their financial situation is negatively affecting their lives.

Additionally, the study found employees who are struggling financially describe their health as "poor" and 31% say their money concerns affect work. In contrast, workers who did not report financial unrest say they are in good health, with only 5% claiming high stress levels.

And it turns out that the companies putting programs in place to remedy widespread financial stresses among employees are more attractive to potential candidates.

A 2017 study by Oliver Wyman surveyed over 3,000 households with a bachelor's degree or more — about one-third of which had outstanding student debt — to gauge the importance of student loan repayment benefits offered by employers.

The research found 45% of employees say student loan repayment is the most desirable benefit, placing it above retirement contributions and health insurance. When it comes to choosing one job over another, 90% of employees said a student loan contribution benefit would positively impact their decision to accept an offer. Currently, only 4% of employers offer help with student debt as a benefit, according to the report.

Fitness startup Peloton puts over $15,000 a month toward employees' student loan debt

Meanwhile, billion-dollar fitness startup Peloton, known for its bike that streams live cycling classes, offers $100-a-month contributions to individual employee student loans.

"[Student loan debt] is a huge issue and lots of people come out [of school] with hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loans and come into a job and have to keep paying that — potentially for years," Amy Stoldt, vice president of people at Peloton, told Business Insider.

Peloton introduced Gradifi, an online financial assistance program for employees, to the employee benefit package last spring. More than 150 of Peloton's 800 employees participate in the program — that's over $15,000 in contributions to student loans every month. Gradifi reports a 30% reduction rate in student loan repayment time among people employed by companies which use the platform.

"When Peloton first introduced this benefit, I had about $35,000 left [in loans]," a Peloton employee who already paid off one loan through the program told Business Insider. "I've been paying off pretty aggressively because I feel like it's just this dark cloud that follows me around. I finally feel like I see the light at the end of the tunnel though."

The employee continued: "This benefit makes such a difference both physically and emotionally, especially with the support that comes with Peloton acknowledging that this is a burden."

SEE ALSO: AOL cofounder Steve Case is betting $150 million that the future of startups isn't in Silicon Valley or New York, but the money isn't what's making his prediction come true

DON'T MISS: A Silicon Valley VC firm just invested $10.5 million in an app that helps companies like Slack and Reddit make working parents' lives easier

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A finance expert shares advice on whether you should save for retirement or pay off your student loans

• Some of the most dangerous jobs have a much higher risk of fatal or non-fatal injuries than others.
• Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we found the 34 jobs that had the highest rates of fatal injuries in 2016.

Some jobs have a much higher risk of fatal or non-fatal injuries than others.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics documented how many people died on the job in 2016 for the equivalent of every 100,000 people who held that job.

To find the most dangerous jobs in America, we identified the jobs from the Bureau's list with the highest fatal injury rate. Each of these jobs has a fatal injury rate above the national average for all workers of 3.6 per 100,000 full-time workers.

Overall, the greatest number of fatal work injuries resulted from transportation incidents, followed by violence or other injuries by persons or animals; falls, slips, and trips; and contact with objects and equipment.

Here are the 34 most dangerous jobs in America, along with their 2016 fatal and non-fatal injury rates per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers, and a description of what workers in these jobs do from the Department of Labor's O*NET careers database.

SEE ALSO: The 47 jobs that are most damaging to your health

DON'T MISS: Here's how much the typical millennial, Gen X, and baby-boomer worker earns in every US state

34. Pipelayers, plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters

What they do: Lay out, install, or maintain pipes, plumbing, and sewer systems.

Fatal injury rate (per 100,000 workers):  4.1

Non-fatal injury rate (per 100,000 workers):  1,629

33. Hand laborers and freight, stock, and material movers

What they do: Manually move freight, stock, or other materials or perform other general labor.

Fatal injury rate (per 100,000 workers): 5.2

Non-fatal injury rate (per 100,000 workers): 3,068

31 (tie). Firefighters

What they do: Control and extinguish fires or respond to emergency situations where life, property, or the environment is at risk.

Fatal injury rate (per 100,000 workers): 6.1

Non-fatal injury rate (per 100,000 workers): 927

• The White House unveiled an initiative to promote education and job re-training to prepare workers at all stages of their careers for computer and data-based jobs.
• The "Pledge to America's Workers" seeks to help workers and employers adapt to increased automation and the phasing out of manual labor jobs.
• It will enlist state and local governments, as well as major corporations, to commit to funding and enabling such education and re-training. 

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday afternoon to unveil a "Pledge to America's Workers," a multi-tiered effort to train and prepare workers at all stages of their careers for the increase in data-based jobs. 

While nationwide unemployment is at a low 4%, the White House's new initiative is looking to help close a labor shortage employers are experiencing for jobs such as advanced manufacturing, many of which require computer and data training. 

"The larger employers are having trouble finding employees to fill their job vacancies, and the small businesses are struggling even more because they’re competing with the larger business," White House advisor Ivanka Trump told CNBC's Joe Kernen on Thursday morning. 

"As a country, by and large, all investment in education stops at the age of 25, and that doesn't work in such a fast-changing, increasingly digital economy," Ivanka said. 

As more and more manual labor jobs are being phased out in favor of technological and data-based ones, the White House's plan seeks to both prepare high school students for vocational careers in those areas, as well as re-training older workers to fit new technology-based roles being created in their current companies, as opposed to those workers losing their jobs.

The pledge will enlist governors, local governments, and corporations, who will commit to funding and expanding job re-training for workers. At the signing ceremony Trump was joined by executives from a number of corporations including IBM, Lockheed Martin, and FedEx.

"Today, we’re lifting Americans off the sidelines, out of the margins, and back into the workforce," Trump said. "By signing the Pledge to America’s Workers, these great companies... are affirming their commitment to train American workers for American jobs, because America’s strength, America's heart, and America's soul is found in our people."

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: North Korean defector: Kim Jong Un 'is a terrorist'

• Mike Maples, founder of Silicon Valley-based venture firm Floodgate Fund, says that people in the tech industry need to reconsider the language they use to describe their ambitions.
• Maples says that phrases like "Move fast and break things,""Robots are eating the jobs," and "Software is eating the world" are problematic and pervasive.
• Maples says that as tech has grown in to the mainstream culture, it needs to use more responsible language. 

When Mark Zuckerberg first coined Facebook's early company motto, "Move fast and break things" in 2009, Silicon Valley was in its heyday.

Back then, the slogan was a bold acclamation of an industry propelled by change and unhampered by convention. 

"On the one hand, 'Move fast and break things' is a great rallying cry to go fast, to cut through the BS and get things done," Mike Maples, founder of Silicon Valley-based venture firm Floodgate Fund, tells Business Insider. "But 'moving fast and breaking things' is the same thing that causes fake news to happen on your platform.'"

Maples, an early investor in companies like Twitter, Twitch, and Okta, has been involved in Silicon Valley's tech scene for nearly three decades. He's seen the industry evolve from what he describes as a "counter-culture fringe movement" to something much bigger: A global behemoth that's impacted nearly every conceivable industry today.

Tech may have rapidly matured into an economic mainstay, but Maples says that there's one tenet of its culture that's been left behind: The language people in the industry use to describe their ambitions.

Problematic and pervasive language

"The tech industry uses immature language in society," Maples says, firing off a number of popular slogans: "'Move fast and break things,' 'Software is eating the world,' 'Artificial intelligence' — whatever that means — 'Robots are gonna eat the jobs,' 'We're going to disrupt this or that...' This type of language is problematic. It's pervasive."

At best, says Maples, these catchphrases are disconnected from the tech industry's ethos at large. At worst, it's jargon that alienates not only potential consumers, but people who are involved in any industry other than tech.

Fundamentally, says Maples, this language inspires fear.

After all, big tech's potential to "disrupt"  the livelihoods, education, and way of life of millions of people isn't always a comforting notion.

"We need to do a better job of helping people see the future through a lens of optimism and hope rather than insecurity and fear," Maples says. "Imagine if Thomas Edison said, 'I'm disrupting kerosene oil lamps.' That's not leadership — I don't know what you'd call that. The tech industry will succeed if the way we describe abundance is so exciting that people want to get in line and wait for it, the way they get in line for a new iPhone."

Rather than framing tech's ambitions in doomsday jargon, Maples says that the industry should position itself in terms of liberation.

You can't talk like a pirate if you're the one running the pirate show

"To me, tech empowers people," said Maples. "It's inspiring an ownership economy. Rather than 'robots eating jobs,' tech has the potential to let everyone be a venture capitalist in the future. It can liberate people to pursue their passions for profit and not be beholden to the constraints of having to work for 'the man.' If the tech industry lets the narrative be framed this way, rather than in terms of 'the robots are taking the jobs,' people will see that we're going forward and that we're headed to a place of opportunity."

When tech was a small, burgeoning industry, this sort of language wasn't as problematic, says Maples. But as the industry has grown into the mainstream, it's time for entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, computer scientists, and engineers to reconsider how they describe tech's future. 

"Tech used to be an industry of counterculture folks who 'raised the pirate flag,'" says Maples. "That works when you're in the counterculture. But tech has become incredibly embedded in the culture at large, so it's time for the industry to take on responsible language. You can't talk like a pirate if you're the one running the pirate show."

The best founders aren't disrupting things — they're creating things

While some industry titans are taking note (after all, Facebook modified its motto in 2014 to the more responsible but clunkier-sounding "Move fast with stable infrastructure"), Maples says that there's plenty of entrepreneurs who are modeling their ambitions on dated industry jargon.

In conversations with entrepreneurs, Maples says that he's quick to interrupt when a prospective CEO says that they hope to "disrupt" a given industry. Usually, Maples says that most entrepreneurs will tell him that they've been advised to speak this way by other investors.

"When an entrepreneur says, 'I'm going to disrupt 'X,' I think: Why are you trying to disrupt anyone?" says Maples. "If your advisor told you to say that, then you're getting bad advice. Advisors who talk that way are doing a bad job. The whole ecosystem from entrepreneurs to advisors to venture capitalists writ large need to do a better job at understanding the raison d’être of startups in the first place."

For Maples, this raison d’être of startups is straightforward: "The best founders I know aren't disrupting something, they're creating things," says Maples. "It comes from love and passion and innovation. True innovation doesn't come from eating someone else's business." 

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A diehard Mac user switches to PC

• Ryan Serhant is the star of Bravo's "Million Dollar Listing" and the head of one of the top real-estate teams in America.
• He moved to New York City in 2006 as a struggling actor and applied skills useful in show business to real estate.
• Good salesmanship isn't about forcing people to buy things they don't want, but guiding them to a choice they're genuinely happy with, he said.
• He explained how he's learned to better balance his priorities in the past year to make himself a stronger leader. 

"Million Dollar Listing" star Ryan Serhant told us how he defines success: "It's not about money. It's not about lifestyle. It's not about building a bigger team or anything. It's that I set goals for myself, and I write them down every year, and if I hit those goals I have been successful that year."

In an episode of Business Insider's podcast "This Is Success," Serhant told us about his unlikely rise from a struggling actor — he even had a hand-modeling gig — to the top of the New York City real-estate world in just about a decade.

The Serhant Team, part of Nest Seekers International, is the top real-estate team by sales volume in New York and No. 2 in the country, according to Real Trends' rankings for 2017. The team closed deals worth $838,237,545 in 2017. Serhant also recently got his own show, "Sell It Like Serhant," and a vlog where he shares the best lessons he's learned.

In September, he'll also be a published author. I had a chance to read a copy of his upcoming book, "Sell It Like Serhant," and it's full of sales tactics anyone can use in their career. We started our conversation with what he considers the fundamental rule of selling.

Listen to the full episode here: 

Subscribe to "This Is Success" on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or your favorite podcast app. Check out previous episodes with:

• Business coach Marie Forleo
• Skinnygirl CEO Bethenny Frankel
• GOAT CEO Eddy Lu
• Girl Scouts CEO Sylvia Acevedo

Transcript edited for clarity.

Ryan Serhant: People don't want to be sold, but they love shopping with friends. If you can remember that, it'll change the way you go into any sales pitch for the rest of your life. And you won't put on your salesperson's hat. You won't walk up to someone and say, "Can I help you with something?" You'll start every conversation the way you did the first time you met your best friend, right? And every friend we have, at one point in time, started as a stranger, but then we met them, and we became friends with them. And people like shopping with their friends, and they will spend money. So if you just remember that people hate being sold but they love shopping with friends, you will change your sales game.

An unlikely path to real estate

Richard Feloni: What do you think it is about your personality that drove you into sales?

Serhant: Oh man. I mean, I was not born a salesperson whatsoever. I think a lot of people watch "Million Dollar Listing" or watch "Sell It Like Serhant"— I think what people's mindset was of me was based on what they see on Bravo, which is young, successful, money money money money. But that's what people like to see on the show.

But I was the shyest, weirdest, most awkward kid ever growing up, and it was the last thing in the world I thought I would ever do. Like, if you had told 10-year-old me I would grow up to be a real-estate broker in New York City, I probably would have thought that you were on crack or something. Like, it made no sense. But I moved to New York City to be an actor, which didn't work out, and then I hand-modeled, which worked out, but I didn't want to be a professional hand model the rest of my life.

Feloni: How did you find those gigs?

Serhant: Hand modeling happened because someone saw a headshot of mine where I had, like, my hand up on my chin, and an agent called me and was like, "Hey, AT&T wants to see you." I was like, "Oh, wow, awesome. Like, a modeling gig, that would be great." They're like, "Well, sort of. It's for your hands." I was like, "For my hands? What are you talking about?" I was like, "Like George Costanza? Or like David Duchovny from 'Zoolander,' something like that?" And they're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's a big business."

And so I went into this casting call for AT&T when they were doing this ad campaign where they were painting people's hands to look like different countries and then holding BlackBerrys in the middle of them. Long story short, they really liked my hands, and that paid my rent for a long time.

But yeah, so I was very, very socially awkward and very, very weird, but I was forced because my back was up against a wall. I was forced to develop a thicker skin and to come out of my shell and really try to create a personality that was OK with talking to strangers, which totally freaked me out when I first moved to New York. And I think that that kind of ability of mine to just go up to anybody on the street and ask them their name and how they're doing, without feeling any shame whatsoever, has really helped me in my sales business.

Feloni: Well how did you start that in the first place?

Serhant: I was broke. It's very important for all people who are commission-based, who are incentive-based that way to really figure out what their wall is, right? I call it the four W's: your work, your win, your why, and your wall. And that wall is really important.

So for me, I was trying to act in a city. I was doing a lot of free theater. I was playing a clock. I was playing random stuff on, like, the west side—

Feloni: What do you mean playing a clock?

Serhant: I was in a free play that was like off-off-off-off-off-Broadway in a basement in Union Square where literally I played a clock in, like, this rendition of Edgar Allan Poe stories. And so I stood there for like half an hour with my hands going tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock. It was, like, the worst.

Feloni: Oh, wow.

Serhant: It was so hard.

Feloni: That's not a good role.

Serhant: No, it is not a good role. But it was New York City. The word "Broadway" was in there somewhere. And I just ran out of money. I ran out of money.

I didn't want to get a quote-unquote survival job, meaning that I didn't want to wait tables or bartend, because then I'd be stuck doing that. I knew a lot of actors in the city who were 50 years old and still on their survival job, right, which then isn't a survival job — I mean, that's now your job job, and now you're trying to act as a hobby, because you get used to paying your bills. And I didn't want to do that, so I literally pushed myself to the point where I just ran out of money and had my debit card declined at Food Emporium on 59th Street trying to buy a pack of tofu, and then cried on the subway. And that was my wall, right? That was, like, that moment for the rest of my life that I wanted to run away from as hard as possible, and I had to be shameless about it.

So I got my real-estate license because a friend told me to, and my first day in the business was September 15, 2008. So that was the day Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy.

Feloni: That doesn't sound like a good time to get into real estate.

Serhant: In hindsight, it was the best time. At the time, it was probably the worst time ever. I say in hindsight because a lot of people got out of the business because they had a lifestyle to uphold, right? They knew business when it was good, and then all of a sudden you stop doing deals and stop making money. How are you going to pay your mortgage? How are you going to make your car payments? How are you going to put your kids through that private school?

Feloni: You had nothing to lose.

Serhant: I had no money.

Feloni: Yeah.

Serhant: So all these brokers were getting out of the business, and I was, like, by myself. And I had nothing to lose, so I went into the Starbucks on 49th and Madison and talked to people. I would go up to pregnant women and I would ask them if they needed more space. Like, I would go up to people coming out of Saks Fifth Avenue, because our office was right there, and if they had more than two shopping bags I'd go up to them and ask them if they wanted to invest in real estate, just because I had nothing to lose. And if I completely failed in New York City, it meant I had to move home to Colorado and paint fences for the rest of my life, and that was hell to me.

Feloni: I mean, if you're being motivated by fear, does that ever become — did it ever feel toxic in a way?

Serhant: Sure. It's a mixture, right? You kind of ride, and I think everyone rides this seesaw every day of fear on one side and confidence on the other. And you can't sit and just hold the seesaw down on one end. Because if you're just afraid all the time, you're never going to do anything. And the flip side, if you're just totally confident all the time, you're going to be an a--hole, and no one's going to ever want to work with you.

So you have to find that balance of where the fear in you to succeed pushes you enough to find a confidence to do what you need to do every single day — to, over time, become successful. And the definition of success then changes, because it becomes relative. Like, success to me when I first got into the business was paying my rent on time, and it was like $1,100 a month, every month. If I could do that and maybe, like, save a month's worth of rent, I was a freaking success.

Now things have changed. And so I use that fear of not having money and needing to make money, but I balanced it out with this kind of confidence of building my personality and coming out of my shell, and kind of treating it like an acting job, like an improv class. Everyone I met I was going to adapt to the way they wanted to see me, and I was going to sell them real estate, even though I had no idea what I was doing.

Feloni: Can you tell me about this phone call that you had with your brother that you had talked about before?

Serhant: You did read the book.

Feloni: Yeah.

Serhant: So that was kind of an aha moment for me, because the first couple of years in the real-estate business in New York City are terrible — like, you make no money. And there was this one guy in the office who was crushing it, like, every day, and he was about my age, right, and he just did so well, and I had no idea how he did it, because we were basically like the same person. And I thought: Well, I went to a better school. I did this. I did that. Why is this guy so much better, and why do I suck?

And I stepped out onto the fire escape and I called my older brother one day — I think this was in like 2009 — and I was like, "You know what, this sucks. I want to quit. I shouldn't be a real-estate broker. I'm not from New York." I just gave him every single excuse possible, and what I really remember from that phone call was him saying to me, "Stop being such a little b----. If he can do it, you can do it. Stop wasting my time. Go out and work harder." And I was like, "Wait, what? Can you make me feel better for, like, one second here? That's why I called you." And he did not make me feel better whatsoever.

But I have that kind of thing that he said to me ringing in my ears all the time, which is — and I know it's a little profane — but him saying to me "stop being such a little b----" reminded me that I was crying and giving excuses for something that I could just take care of on my own. And that really woke me up to figuring out kind of how to build a career instead of just having a job where I was showing apartments.

Learning how to be a salesman — and a TV star

Feloni: So you kind of approached from going from a shy kid, as you were explaining, to just — I mean, if anyone sees you on TV even, you just exude confidence. So, like, from A to B. At that point, did it start just because you almost took it like an acting role, like of yourself?

Serhant: Yes. Because I had to figure out something that I could control, right? When you first get into the sales business — or any business really — you're nervous. Like, you're freaked out. "I'm not going to do well.""My boss is going to fire me.""Everyone else is better than me." And I had all of those feelings. I had no confidence in what I was doing, because I had never done it before. I'd never rented someone an apartment and taken their financial information. I had never sold an apartment before. I was dealing with money that made no sense to me, because I had never had it before.

So it was important for me to try to figure out what I could control at that stage in my life, and what I could control is what I knew. And so I would go on these broker tours, and I would watch other real-estate brokers give tours. And because they had been in the business for 10, 20 years, they didn't really know everything about the building or the block or the neighborhood, but they really rested on their confidence, because they had done a lot of deals. Like, that's what they knew. So I didn't have that. But what I had was the ability to memorize information, because I had spent my whole life trying to be an actor, so I could memorize information really, really well. So what I told myself was: Listen, I'm going to rely on what I know, and no one is going to say, "Wow, you're too new to this business," or "You're too young," because I'm going to know more than anybody else.

And so I would memorize as much as I possibly could about the building I was going to show, the block that I was going to be on. I'd do my research on that entire neighborhood so that no one would ever look at me like a young kid doing business. Like, I could tell you that on the corner of 12th Street downtown and Fifth Avenue, that building on the corner has 142 units in it, and it was built in 1911, right, and the super's name is Tony. That was good information for me to have, that all I had to do was figure it out and memorize it, and that was then my confidence. So that's what helped me balance out that seesaw.

Feloni: At what point did you realize that, hey, this might actually be something more than just a side gig?

Serhant: Yesterday. I mean, I could tell you about every deal I've ever done, but it took years of doing them over and over before I really figure out, you know what, maybe this thing is going to work. Like, even after "Million Dollar Listing" started. Like, I got cast on "Million Dollar Listing" in 2010. We filmed the whole first season in 2011. I almost died because I was so stressed out the whole time. And then it came out in 2012. And even then the market was so terrible. It was so hard. I still didn't know, like, was I going to do this the rest of my life? Was this really going to be my thing?

Feloni: Even when you were on TV doing it?

Serhant: Yeah, because the show hadn't come out yet, and I was still trying to figure out what I wanted to do. Maybe I went back and got my master's, I don't know. I came to New York to do theater, and I hand-modeled a little bit — now all of a sudden I'm selling real estate on TV. Like, this was not the plan.

But it kind of was the plan in a weird, backwards way. Like, there is no path, right? That's why I try to say yes to as much as possible, and you figure out the path along the way. When people ask me, like, what kind of mindset I had going into this business, I really think back to when I was a little kid, and I made the decision when I was a little kid to be successful, and hopefully it would be through acting because I think I could be the next Brad Pitt. Clearly didn't work out. And it ended up being as a real-estate agent, and a real-estate agent who's on reality TV.

But I chose success first and let the career come second. A lot of people have problems, and they get depressed, and they move out of a city, or they call their parents every day crying because they chose a career first and success second. And when that one career doesn't happen or doesn't happen the way you think it is, then it's not a speed bump — people treat it like a brick wall. But speed bumps are there for a reason. And maybe you go down a different road. Maybe you figure something else out. And everyone can be a great salesperson if they really think back to, like, everything they learned when they were in fourth grade.

Feloni: How do you mean?

Serhant: Meaning that, like, in fourth grade, third grade, fifth grade, you learn to share. You learn to talk to the person next to you. You learn to talk to the girl for the first time or the boy for the first time. You learn deadlines for homework. You learn everything that is intrinsic in being a good businessperson when you're 8, 9, 10, 11 years old. And holding on to those attributes, as well as kind of pushing out your personality as much as you can, makes you a good salesperson.

Feloni: You're talking about "Million Dollar Listing." How did you end up on that show in the first place?

Serhant: How did I end up on "Million Dollar Listing"? I went to an open casting call in March of 2010 with 3,000 real-estate agents at the Hudson Hotel, and they picked three.

Feloni: At that point, were you even, like — did you feel qualified to be on the show as, like, a—

Serhant: No.

Feloni: Yeah.

Serhant: No. But, like, I went into the audition on that fear side of the seesaw really hard — like, scared sh--less that, like, what am I doing, how am I going to do this — until I saw all these people. And then I said: You know what, I've been in front of cameras before. I've done some TV before. I was Dr. Evan Walsh IV on "As The World Turns." I can do reality TV. I might not be the best real-estate agent. I might not have the résumé that all these other people do. But I'm going to flip that seesaw over, and I'm going to ride the confidence side for a heartbeat here.

And that's exactly, I think, what they wanted to see, was someone who was steadfast in their beliefs. So I just went in there and sold myself hard, and then they bought it, and here I am.

Feloni: So you played the role of being one of the best agents in the city.

Serhant: Yeah.

Feloni: And then just kind of led to it.

Serhant: Yeah. I mean, I think they asked me, like, "Who's the best real-estate agent?" And I think my answer literally was, "You're looking at him." Not necessarily true, but also not untrue. Like, I can believe that I'm the best, and no one — who's going to tell me something else? It's really going to come down to kind of the way I portray myself, right? It's like that classic PR story that advertising is now dead and PR rules the world of promotion. And so if I scream my own success from a mountaintop, people will hear it, and that's how you'll build your persona, your personality, your career that way.

Feloni: In growing into this role, even now being on TV, is there ever a chance that you would lose yourself in a role where it lacks some authenticity?

Serhant: As a salesperson?

Feloni: Yeah.

Serhant: No, I don't think so. I think I use the skills that I learned in improv and acting school and in college to build my personality. And when I say build my personality, I don't want people to think I created, like, a fake persona to go out and sell. What I mean is that I was shy and overweight, and I really liked watching movies in my apartment by myself, and I didn't want to go out and talk to people, because people made me nervous. But because I had to, because my back was up against a wall, and I needed to make money, and real estate was now the thing that I was going to do because a friend told me to do it, I had to improvise. I had to be OK with going outside and talking to people on the street and in Starbucks and meeting strangers and showing them apartments I had never seen before. And I had to figure it out, and you do that by saying yes. You do that by kind of putting on a protective shield a little bit and not going out there as the Ryan who just wanted to Netflix and chill, but the Ryan who is going to be an awesome salesperson today, who can Netflix and chill a little bit later.

Feloni: I think a lot of people, when they think of salespeople, they think of the used-car salesman, or they think of the monorail guy from "The Simpsons."

Serhant: Yes.

Feloni: Kind of, like, just selling you something you don't want. By the end you feel tricked, and it's all about just flattery and fakery.

Serhant: I think every business has some stereotype. Whether you're an attorney or a banker or a doctor, there's some negative stereotype that goes with it. So a lot of salespeople are like that. They put on their salesperson's hat and they just sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, which can work here and there, but it's not going to work in the long term, because you'll build bad relationships.

Sales isn't about pushing. It's not about convincing somebody, right, which is what the used-car salesman and the "Simpsons" character kind of make you think. What a good salesperson is able to do is to assure someone of a choice that they were going to make anyway, or of a choice they should make because it's better for them than an alternative choice.

Even if it's selling shoes — like, you went in there to buy a $100 pair of shoes, and you want to start running on the West Side Highway because that's what your friends do. The salesperson could just sell them to you. He could take you to the $200 pair of shoes and sell you those because those are more expensive. Or he could say, "Have you run before?" And you might say no. "OK, well, the $100 pair of shoes here are for more advanced runners; they don't have much of a sole. There's a $125 pair and a $150 pair that have a more cushion to them, and this is what more first-time runners wear, but it's up to you." Now you all of a sudden feel assured in your decision to spend a little bit more money, so the salesperson did their job as a salesperson, but you're also making a purchase that's probably better for your knees, better for your ankles, better for your Achilles tendon, because the salesperson assured you of a choice that you were going to make anyway, but a better one, right?

That's what a good salesperson should do. And on my other show on Bravo, "Sell Like Serhant," that was so hard to teach people, because they would come into the store every day with their salesperson hat on and they just wanted to sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, when it's really not about that.

Building and managing a team

Feloni: How did you learn to be a leader?

Serhant: Through failure. Through, like, terrible, terrible management skills.

Feloni: Because at this point, hadn't you only just started to figure yourself out?

Serhant: Yeah. I think I saw that, as a manager and as a leader, people, what they really want, is two things.

They want business. Everyone wants to succeed. So I needed to help my team get business and succeed, the same way a football team can't exist if the quarterback doesn't throw the ball somewhere, right?

And I needed to be a nice person. I saw teams that failed and companies that failed because they were run by people who were just dicks, and they just were mean. And I kind of took — what do you call it? What's that saying? Like, "Do unto others as you wish they would do unto you," what is that?

Feloni: Yeah, the golden rule.

Serhant: Yeah, the golden rule. Right.

Feloni: Yeah.

Serhant: Like, that's the best leadership advice I could give to anybody. Otherwise, people don't want to work for you, and there's so many places people could go to work. Like, they don't need to work for you. There's a lot of places to go. And so as long as I was putting business out there, working harder than everyone who works for me so that I could lead by example and practice the golden rule, my team just slowly, naturally started to build.

Feloni: And then having a TV presence, I would imagine that that can be seen as kind of, like, a running ad for your business and for your team's business. But on the other hand, I would imagine that at some points it could work against you if someone would be like, "Oh, this is just the guy from TV."

Serhant: Yeah. I mean, I have to pitch against that attitude every single day. I mean, "Million Dollar Listing" helped me open doors, but it didn't open any doors. It wasn't like the show came out and then all of New York City called me to list or help them buy an apartment. I mean, when was the last time you picked up the phone and called the Kardashians? Like, you don't do that, right, because they're on TV.

And so that's what I thought was going to happen. Did not happen whatsoever, but it helped me open doors by being able to say, "Listen, I'm a real-estate agent, and I think I'm pretty good at what I do. Also, I'm on a television show that airs to 25 million people around the world. I would love to meet you to talk about selling your home." And some people — not all, but some people — would then add me into the mix. And I still had to do my thing when I was in the room; I still had to pitch really hard.

And the show is a great kind of advertisement for me, but by the time it comes out, everything that we've put on there has either sold or not sold, so it's not like "Million Dollar Listing" helps me sell individual properties. It helps me build my business so that I can better sell the properties that I have today.

Feloni: Why do you think that your team has become so successful in this market?

Serhant: We are very disciplined, honestly. We're probably the most disciplined team out there. I think I can be very, very tough, but I trust everyone to do their job, or they can't work for me. Everyone who's on my team is relentless and incredibly aggressive and also very empathetic, and they're all great people.

And so we work incredibly hard, but we have very, very strong discipline. We're not just real-estate agents who list a property, hope to sell it, maybe get another one, hope to sell it. There is almost kind of like a military aspect to it, right, which works for us.

Feloni: Yeah. I saw that last year the magazine The Real Deal, it was saying that, after a few employees left your team, they were trying to connect it to rumors that maybe your TV career was getting in the way with your team. How do you respond to that?

Serhant: My TV career did get in the way a little bit, because, I mean, in 2017 I filmed one season of "Million Dollar Listing," I filmed an entire season of "Sell Like Serhant," which took a lot of time, and I wrote a book all at the same time. It was tough on certain members of the team who are used to me being around a lot more. And so those people who wanted me to be there every single day decided to go and do their own thing, which is fine.

But it was just I think The Real Deal caught on to, like, a couple of them left at the same exact time, which for me, like, just opens up desks, to be honest, and it opened up finding greater new talent. And now, like, I can't imagine my team without those new people that I now have who have helped me grow my business exponentially.

And I still sold more than anybody else last year, so that's kind of that discipline that I've built into the team, that it's not surviving or succeeding based on any one person; it's everyone working together to sell as much as possible.

Feloni: Have you found a way to balance doing — as you say, it's kind of like juggling, like, having so many things at once?

Serhant: Yeah, it's the power of leverage. It's the power of leverage and trusting people to do what they're supposed to do. I remember, well, I don't know, five years ago, six years ago, something like that, as my business was really starting to take off I was super stressed out. I was busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, and I think I was complaining to my wife, Amelia, who was my girlfriend at the time, and just saying, like, "I can't just do this right now. I'm so busy, busy, busy, busy, busy." And she was like, "You know what, you say that all the time. You know who's busy? Obama. You're a real-estate agent. You're not that busy."

And when people say they're busy, it just means that they're really bad at time management. I know people say that all the time, but it really is true. And they try to do too much by themselves, which is what I was trying to do, because I thought that that's what I was supposed to do.

And so I brought in more admin staff. So my team alone has six admin staff members who just help my team. No other real-estate team has that. And I really, really leveraged myself onto my team members, and really pushed them to be better than I am, and really brought in team members who were honestly better than me so that they were able to do the things that I could do — just happen to be better — so that way I could do the TV shows and spend the time to write a book without business failing.

Feloni: So that's almost like the other side of your lesson of "always say yes."

Serhant: Yeah. Well, it's "say yes to help," right? Say yes to help. A lot of people in my situation — and you see it too with the other guys on the show — they do a lot by themselves, and then they're busy all the time. And then when they decide to go on vacation, all business stops. Like, that's not what I want. When I'm away, I want more things to sell, right? That's like what a good boss creates within any kind of company.

And so I really kind of said yes to leveraging myself, said yes to letting go, said yes to bringing on more business and figuring out how to do it later. Like, that's really been a key to my success over the last 10 years, saying yes to business that I didn't know how I was going to handle and figuring it out.

Defining success

Feloni: We talked about, like, at that point how you defined success when you were desperate — at this point, when you're at the peak of your success, how do you define it now?

Serhant: Now I define success by hitting goals that I set for myself. And it's not about money. It's not about lifestyle. It's not about building a bigger team or anything. It's that I set goals for myself, and I write them down every year, and if I hit those goals I have been successful that year. If I don't hit those goals, then I have failed that year.

That way, success isn't this big lofty thing that's up there in the clouds, and it's not just like, "I want to be a billionaire." Like, that's stupid, right? There's no plan of action that's set there. There's nothing that drives me crazier than someone who comes to me, says, "Yo, I'm an entrepreneur. This is what I do. This is what I sell. I sell this. I do this. I'm building this company." I'm like, "OK, what did you do last week?" They're like, "Well, I was in the Hamptons last week, played golf on Sunday, but, like, Monday through Friday." No, no, no. Like, if you want to build your own business, you do it seven days a week. I did not take a single day off for three years. And it's easy for me to say now: It's really, really hard to do, and it's really hard for a lot of people to do as well. So you have to figure out what you really, really want and stick to it.

The other thing I would say is: You don't have to do it by yourself when you start. That's probably a mistake that I made. I think I would've grown faster, but I started by myself because I didn't have that intuitiveness to real estate. I didn't really know that that's what I wanted to do. It was kind of weird. I didn't see myself as being a real-estate broker. I didn't even like real-estate brokers. And so I was doing other things at the same time. If I had maybe worked on someone else's team, if I had maybe worked for another company, if I had maybe learned by watching successful people do what they do instead of just trying by myself to do it, it would've been better.

Feloni: Well, thank you so much, Ryan. I really appreciate it.

Serhant: Thank you for having me.

SEE ALSO: Business coach Marie Forleo explains how she created her dream job and got hundreds of thousands of fans

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 'MILLION DOLLAR LISTING’ STAR: I understand why people hate dealing with NYC real estate brokers

• Billionaires don't all follow the same path to success, but some of them look pretty similar.
• Of the world's 2,754 billionaires, more than 560 hold an undergraduate or graduate degree from one of 10 American colleges.
• Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, and the founders of Google are all part of this group.
• The top-producing billionaire colleges are Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Pennsylvania.

The world's total billionaire population grew by nearly 15% from 2016 to 2017, to 2,754 people, according to Wealth-X's latest Billionaire Census. 

While the path to mega-riches certainly isn't the same for all, more than 560 of those billionaires — 567, to be exact — hold a degree from one of 10 top American colleges. That includes Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, and the founders of Google.

In its tally, Wealth-X counted alumni with both undergraduate and graduate degrees, counting alumni of multiple institutions more than once, but left out those with diplomas, certificates, honorary degrees, and those who dropped out.

According to the report, 188 living billionaires are Harvard University alumni — and that doesn't include Harvard dropouts Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, two of the richest men in the world.

The next highest-billionaire producing school is Stanford University, with 74 known billionaire alumni, including Nike cofounder Phil Knight. Notably absent from the list is Princeton University, the alma mater of Jeff Bezos, the world's richest person.

Below, check out the 10 US colleges that have minted the most billionaires.

SEE ALSO: Jeff Bezos is so rich that spending $1 to the average person is like $88,000 to him — here's what spending looks like when you're a billionaire

DON'T MISS: Hong Kong could overtake New York as the world's billionaire capital very soon

10. University of Michigan — 26 billionaire alumni

(TIE) 8. University of Southern California — 29 billionaire alumni

(TIE) 8. University of Chicago — 29 billionaire alumni

• A New Zealand company, Perpetual Guardian, experimented with a four-day work week, The New York Times reports.
• Seeing that employees were happier and more productive, the company wants to make it a permanent change.
• Other companies have also tried shortened work weeks and seen similar results.
• Researchers say people can only do concentrated work for a limited amount of time.

A New Zealand company is making headlines across the globe for a recent experiment that it conducted among its staff.

In March and April, the 240 employees at Perpetual Guardian worked four-day workweeks (32 hours instead of 40) — and were paid for five.

Now, according to The New York Times, Perpetual Guardian, a firm that manages trusts, wills, and estates, is hoping to make the new work schedule permanent.

During the trial, Perpetual Guardian had researchers study the effects on its employees.

"Supervisors said staff were more creative, their attendance was better, they were on time, and they didn't leave early or take long breaks," one of those researchers told The Times. "Their actual job performance didn't change when doing it over four days instead of five."

Perpetual Guardian posted a video clip on YouTube of CEO Andrew Barnes announcing the beginning of the trial. At first, employees are gathered around Barnes for what must have seemed like a typical staff meeting — but when Barnes makes his announcement, eyes widen and you can hear murmuring and giggling.

Perpetual Guardian staffers who spoke to The Times said they found strategies to be more efficient during the workday. For example, two-hour meetings were cut to 30 minutes.

Executives and researchers alike say people can only do concentrated work for a limited number of hours

A blog post on Perpetual Guardian's website hails the trial as a "world-first"— but in fact, other companies have made similar changes.

Business Insider previously reported on a Swedish government study on shorter workweeks. Results showed that employees were happier, less stressed, and enjoyed their work more. The only problem was that the program was rather expensive, since the government had to hire additional employees.

Meanwhile, Amazon has experimented with having employees work 30 hours a week, while earning 75% of their normal salary and keeping all their benefits.

And technology education company Treehouse has had a 32-hour work week since 2006.

There's science behind these changes. The research of psychologist Anders Ericsson, who studies the development of expertise, suggests that people can only do concentrated work for about four or five hours at a time.

"If you're pushing people well beyond that time they can really concentrate maximally, you're very likely to get them to acquire some bad habits," Ericsson previously told Business Insider.

According to OECD data, New Zealanders worked an average of 37.6 hours per week at their primary job in 2017. In the United States, it was 38.6.

Barnes told The Times that the results of the trial suggested that results are more important than face-time.

"A contract should be about an agreed level of productivity," Barnes said. "If you deliver that in less time, why should I cut your pay?"

SEE ALSO: Planning every minute of your workday can backfire — here's what the most successful leaders do instead

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 4 ways to make your workday more productive

• Kathleen King, founder of Tate's Bake Shop, recently passed her legacy into new hands when the company sold to Mondolēz International for $500 million.
• King didn't reach this level of success without a few setbacks, which taught her two important lessons about being an entrepreneur.
• To build a business, she says, you need to keep your emotions in check and persevere.

Kathleen King knows a thing or two about building a successful business. 

She's the founder of Tate's Bake Shop, the baked-goods empire that sold for $500 million to Mondolēz International, maker of Oreo and Chips Ahoy, 18 years after King rebuilt the remains of her first baked-goods company, which nearly failed after a business partnership went awry.

It's a success she didn't achieve without a few setbacks, she previously told Business Insider. King — whose baking roots date back to age 11 in the kitchen of her childhood home at North Sea Farms in Southhampton, New York — bought her first bakeshop in her early 20s, in 1983. She sold homemade cookies as Kathleen's Bake Shop and quickly became a local favorite.

But in 1999, she fell into a bad business deal when she brought on two partners to help expand her business, she said. After producing baked goods at a lower quality and refusing to pay some of the bills, the partners ultimately fired King and locked her out of the very bakeshop she founded.

King took them to court, and the partners walked away with the rights to use the name Kathleen's Bake Shop and she walked away with the rights to her property, as well as a third of the debt the partners had accumulated — roughly $200,000.

In 2000, King took what was left of her business and turned it into Tate's Bake Shop. Within three years, she had paid off the debt and brought Tate's back to its $3 million annual revenue mark, she said.

'Count on it being four times harder than you dreamed'

King doesn't view her setbacks as total failure. In fact, she credits the loss of Kathleen's Bake Shop to the success of Tate's today. "I had the gift of dying and coming back, learning what didn't work in that lifetime and what will work in this lifetime," she previously told Business Insider.

Learning things the hard way instilled in her two important qualities, which she says are crucial to starting a small business: perseverance and emotional control.

"Count on it being four times harder than you dreamed," she said of being an entrepreneur. "Get up and move forward, and don't stay attached to mistakes and failures."

She also stressed the importance of learning to keep your emotions in check. She says you can care and have passion, but being too emotional will crush you. 

"I put everything I had into Kathleen's Bake Shop and lost it," King said. "When I started Tate's, I said I'm not giving blood again, I'm not being emotional — I didn't have time or money. I had to be a business manager. I wasn't ruthless, I was fair and passionate, but when you get dragged down as low as I did, you become somewhat fearless."

King continued: "If I didn't have my epic failure I wouldn't have had my epic success; they go hand in hand."

SEE ALSO: The founder of a $500 million baked-goods empire says the failure of her first cookie company taught her a crucial lesson about hard work and success

DON'T MISS: What a dream retirement plan looks like for 12 of the richest CEOs in America

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This couple created a money challenge to help them save despite their very different spending habits

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, reached a new milestone recently: his net worth reached $150 billion, making him, as Bloomberg put it, the richest person in modern history.

As his Amazon empire continues to expand, Bezos continues to amass his fortune. He first nabbed the title of world's richest person last summer, and is now worth $55 billion more than Microsoft founder Bill Gates, according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index.

But Bezos' rise to the top is has taken decades. He got his start in the hedge fund world, then left a cushy job to launch his own startup. 

Here's how Bezos got his start, and built one of the largest tech companies in the world.

SEE ALSO: Everything I loved and hated about the $120 Fire TV Cube, Amazon’s ambitious vision for the future of TV

Jeff Bezos' mom, Jackie, was a teenager when she had him in January 1964. She had recently married Cuban immigrant Mike Bezos, who adopted Jeff. Jeff didn't learn that Mike wasn't his real father until he was 10, but says he was more fazed about learning he needed to get glasses than he was about the news.

Source: Wired

When Bezos was 4, his mother told his biological father, who previously had worked as a circus performer, to stay out of their lives. When Brad Stone interviewed Bezos' father for Stone's book "The Everything Store," Bezos' dad had no idea who his son had become.

Source: The Everything Store

Bezos showed signs of brilliance from an early age. When he was a toddler, he took apart his crib with a screwdriver because he wanted to sleep in a real bed.

Source: The Everything Store

• An effective boss lets employees tackle problems on their own, according to a classic article in the Harvard Business Review.
• But too many bosses are inclined to take on their team members' burdens, so that the employees are effectively supervising the manager.
• The authors of the HBR article say it's important for bosses to let their employees know that they can't and won't solve their problems alone.
• More recently, other experts have shared similar advice, about not answering your employees' questions directly.

One of the most widely read pieces of management advice published by the Harvard Business Review has to do with a monkey.

Specifically, the monkey on your back.

If you're a people manager, you likely have (at least) one on you right now. The monkey is a metaphor for a burden that one of your team members has, ever so subtly, transferred to you.

The HBR report was initially published in 1974, by the late William Oncken, Jr., who was chairman of the William Oncken Corporation, and Donald L. Wass, who heads the Dallas-Fort Worth region of The Executive Committee. When HBR republished the article, it noted that it has been one of the publication's two best-selling reprints ever.

The article tells a rather amusing story about a disgruntled boss who winds up having to deal with four different employees' problems at once. When the boss comes into the office on Saturday to work on these issues, he sees the four employees engaged in a casual game of golf nearby.

The boss falls into this trap as easily as most managers do.

For example, when one employee presents him with a problem, the boss says, "So glad you brought this up. I'm in a rush right now. Meanwhile, let me think about it, and I'll let you know." Just like that, the burden of solving the problem — the monkey, if you will — has been transferred from the employee to the boss. As the article implies, the employee is now "supervising" the manager.

The article also lays out guidelines for what the manager should instead tell employees who come to him with problems:

"You may ask my help at any appointed time, and we will make a joint determination of what the next move will be and which of us will make it. In those rare instances where the next move turns out to be mine, you and I will determine it together. I will not make any move alone."

The main point here, the authors write, is that "before developing initiative in subordinates, the manager must see to it that they have the initiative." That is to say, if the manager agrees to solve employees' problems on his own, he's effectively preventing them from ever becoming autonomous actors.

Many experts agree that you shouldn't answer your employees' questions right away

HBR later published a commentary on the article, by the late Stephen R. Covey, who wrote that many managers are afraid that "a subordinate taking the initiative will make them appear a little less strong and a little more vulnerable." That's something they need to work out if they ever want to tackle the true "gorillas" in their job.

More recently, experts have shared similar advice for managers at any level of an organization. For example, writing in Fast Company, psychologist Art Markman says an effective manager will put off answering their direct reports' questions right away.

Markman writes: "By encouraging [your team members] to solve problems on their own before coming to you, you're developing them into more efficient, high-value workers and reinforcing the fact that you have your own priorities (which they should respect)."

And leadership expert Simon Sinek recalled the best boss he ever had, who taught him the virtues of "self-reliance" by never answering a single question. As Sinek previously told Business Insider, "What he taught me to do was trust myself, and if I made the wrong decision, he always had my back."

SEE ALSO: Even the smartest bosses are prone to a management mistake that makes everyone's job harder

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: How to work with a narcissistic boss

• The perfect way to start an email, especially when you're writing to a stranger, is to keep it simple.
• Email greetings you should avoid are ones that could be construed as too casual, too formal, and even insulting.
• Here's how to start an email the right way.

Figuring out how to start an email — especially when you're writing to someone you don't know very well — can be a real challenge.

Is "Hey" too casual? Is "Dear" overly formal? Is "Morning!" too cheery?

If you're thinking the email greeting isn't all that important and that it's silly to overthink it, you're wrong. How you begin an email sets the tone and may shape the recipient's perception of you. It may also determine whether they keep reading. So, yes, it's very important.

"Many people have strong feelings about what you do to their names and how you address them," Barbara Pachter, a business-etiquette expert, tells Business Insider. "If you offend someone in the salutation, that person may not read any further. It may also affect that person's opinion of you."

We had Pachter and Will Schwalbe, who coauthored "Send: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do It Better" with David Shipley, weigh in on a handful of common email greetings.

Of course, the perfect way to start an email will depend on who you're writing to, but in general, when you're writing a business email to someone you don't know well or at all, they say there's one safe choice — and a bunch you should usually avoid:

SEE ALSO: 22 email-etiquette rules every professional should know

DON'T MISS: 21 unprofessional email habits that make everyone hate you

WINNER: 'Hi [name], ...'

If you want to make it a little more formal, you can always use the person's last name: "Hi Ms. Gillett, ..."

"The reason I like this one is that it's perfectly friendly and innocuous," says Schwalbe.

It's also Pachter's favorite. She says it's a safe and familiar way to address someone, whether you know them or not.

ALSO ACCEPTABLE: 'Hi everyone, ...'

If you're addressing a group of people, Pachter advises you write, "Hi everyone."

GREETINGS TO AVOID: 'Hey!'

This is fine to use with your friends, but the very informal salutation should stay out of the workplace. It's not professional — especially if you're writing to someone you've never met, says Pachter.

Schwalbe agrees: "I can never get out of my head my grandmother's admonition 'Hey is for horses.'"

• Success isn't just a result of hard work — it's also a result of seemingly random factors.
• Some, like birth order, are out of your control. Firstborns are likely to earn more than later-born kids as adults.
• Other factors are within your control. For example, bosses look more favorably on employees who show up to work early.

Sure, we all know that an Ivy League education, a stint at a blue-chip firm, and stellar sales skills can help us get ahead. But it may surprise you just how many other, seemingly random variables can contribute to your professional success. 

From the month you were born to your comedic timing, the weirdest quirks can affect how successful you'll ultimately be.

We combed through research on success to identify 26 surprising things that can influence your career trajectory. While some factors can be sought out, others are beyond your control.

SEE ALSO: 18 habits of highly successful people

DON'T MISS: Parents of successful kids have these 12 things in common

Defiant, rule-breaking kids often grow up to earn higher salaries

Recent research suggests there's a connection between rebelliousness in adolescence and earning a high income later in life.

In 1968, nearly 3,000 sixth-graders living in Luxembourg took intelligence tests and answered questions about their feelings toward school. Their teachers also filled out questionnaires about the students' behavior. At the time, researchers assessed the students' family background as well.

In 2008, researchers revisited this data in order to see which childhood traits predicted career success and income. They were able to get in touch with 745 of the students, who were now about 52 years old. Perhaps unsurprisingly, more studious kids (as rated by teachers and by the kids themselves) went on to land better jobs.

But the researchers were surprised to find one childhood characteristic — beyond IQ, parents' socioeconomic status, and the amount of education the students attained — that predicted higher adult income: rule-breaking and defiance of parental authority.

Parents' high expectations for their kids tend to matter more than income or assets for their child's success

Using data from a national survey of 6,600 children born in 2001, University of California at Los Angeles professor Neal Halfon and his colleagues discovered that the expectations parents hold for their kids have a huge effect on attainment.

"Parents who saw college in their child's future seemed to manage their child toward that goal irrespective of their income and other assets,"he said in a statement.

The finding came out in standardized tests: 57% of the kids who did the worst were expected to attend college by their parents, while 96% of the kids who did the best were expected to go to college.

That parents should keep their expectations high falls in line with another psych finding — the Pygmalion effect, which states "that what one person expects of another can come to serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy" — as well as what some teachers told Business Insider was most important for a child's success.

Being married is linked to higher salaries for men and lower salaries for women

A recent study finds that men experience a "marriage premium": Their salaries generally go up when they get hitched. Women, on the other hand, tend to see their salaries go down when they tie the knot.

Specifically, married men between 28 and 30 years old earn about $15,900 more per year in individual income compared to their single counterparts, while married men between 44 and 46 years old make $18,800 more.

And although these findings were not statistically significant, married women between 28 and 30 years old earn $1,349 less per year in individual income than their single counterparts, while married women between 44 and 46 years old earn $1,465 less.

• At a time when Uber is weathering a new round of HR troubles, and Google is seeing employee revolts, Patty McCord's advice seems more pertinent than ever.
• McCord is Netflix's former chief talent officer — the person who helped hire Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos, who has become one of Hollywood's most powerful figures. 
• She says HR execs have to stop worrying about lavish employee perks, and start thinking more about how they can make a difference to the bottom line — just like every other department.
• Asked about handling the employee revolt at Google, McCord says "I might go: 'okay, quit.'"

If the events of the past couple of years have taught us anything, it’s that if company leaders treat human resources as an afterthought, then they risk running into troubles like those of Uber.

Patty McCord — former Netflix chief talent officer, and the co-architect of the streaming video company's famous corporate culture policy — has some thoughts on the proper way to run an HR department.

Had McCord not helped Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings piece together his original management team, we might all still be standing in line to rent movies. Or worse. We might still be forking over late fees. 

During her 14 years there, Netflix's management team included Barry McCarthy, now Spotify’s CFO, and Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer and one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood. These are some of the people who helped Netflix prevail in home video over the much larger distributor, Blockbuster.

Since departing Netflix in 2012, McCord has become a sort of sage for startup founders and human resources execs, coming in as a consultant. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg turned McCord's famous Netflix culture document into a sacred text for startups when she said it "may well be the most important document ever to come out of the Valley."

In her book, “Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility” McCord has included a lot of advice that seems more pertinent than ever.

In two recent interviews with Business Insider, McCord speaks frankly about the lack of innovation in Silicon Valley HR departments, and the need to sometimes say 'no' to employees. She also offers some encouragement and advice to startup founders and job seekers.

SEE ALSO: Here's the memo Uber's CEO sent after the company's chief HR officer resigned following an internal investigation

Job seekers: Don't be passive about the process. Do your due diligence about potential employers.

McCord has interviewed thousands of people for jobs, but she hasn't forgotten what it's like to be the applicant. She says one of her worst career decisions was taking a job at a certain software company, so she could stay closer to her home and children. 

"I’m a recruiter so I made them want me," she said.  "I spent so much time and energy convincing them that I was the one, that I spent almost no time finding out who they were."

That would cost her. Her new employer put her desk right outside the men's bathroom. They gave her an outdated Wang 286 computer and a rotary phone.

Then came her first meeting with her new boss. 

"She said, 'You know, Patty, you have a lot of ideas and we’ve had them all, and they don’t work so it would be really helpful if you’d just stop having them. You know you’re making the other people uncomfortable. You’re too aggressive and you know [HR is] here to make the rules and make sure that everybody follows them.'" 

But that disaster would lead her into two important areas that would help shape the rest of her career. 

See every job, no matter how unpleasant, as an opportunity to learn.

Though McCord didn't find much satisfaction at that job, it was there that she learned a lot about computer engineers and how they think. That was good, she said, because she would over the years eventually need to hire scores of them. 

"Because it was so awful I had to find solace somewhere," McCord said of her time at the company. "So, I discovered software engineers and I just started hanging out with them all the time."

The experience meant she "discovered my love for technologists and technology." From there, she would follow one of her bosses to a startup that made software tools for other software engineers. 

"By that time I had a little geek cred, and I went to Pure Software and that's where I met Reed [Hastings]," who founded Pure, and would go on to become the founder of Netflix. 

In interviews, the best thing to be is sincere.

McCord remembers interviewing Ted Sarandos back when Netflix was exclusively a DVD-by-mail business.

Sarandos has become a star at Netflix, rising to the role of chief content officer. Along with Hastings, Sarandos is the architect of Netflix's film-production strategy, which has made the company less dependent on Hollywood, even as its original movies and TV shows become huge hits in their own right. Now, Sarandos hobnobs with the biggest names in film and TV. 

But back in 2000, Sarandos was a vice president at a chain of video-rental stores and seemed the unlikeliest of future movie moguls when he interviewed with McCord. But she remembers he had two attributes that stood out from the other candidates.

"So, I had been interviewing people for Ted’s job," McCord recalled. "And they were just nauseating. All they did was name drop. I remember one guy said,: 'Yeah I just came down from the city and I was having lunch with Francis Ford Coppola and yesterday I was out at Lucas Ranch cause George (Lucas) and I are like this.' I looked at him and said 'I slept with Bill Gates.' And he said 'Did you?' And I go, 'No, but you didn’t have lunch with Coppola either. Why are we having this stupid conversation?" 

Sarandos took a different tact.

"I finished interviewing Ted and we're standing in the hallway waiting for Reed to get out of a meeting," McCord recalled. "And Ted’s telling me that his son is going to his first dance and I go 'Oh man, are they going to disco? And then Ted starts singing Disco Duck and we’re dancing in the hallways. Reed comes out and says 'Oh, you guys have met.' Ted is sincere and genuine."

SoftBank's Vision Fund, a $100 billion behemoth that is upending the insular world of technology investing, doesn't operate like other venture funds. 

Sure, they want your pitch, but what SoftBank founder Masa Son is really looking for is futuristic technology — even if it requires your company to do something it hadn't considered before. 

For example, Light CEO Dave Grannan met with Son three times in Tokyo and California on its way to landing a $121 million Series D led by SoftBank Vision Fund. 

"He's very quickly pushing you on 'where else can this technology go.' He gets the basics about what computational imaging is and what it enables. His mind spins incredibly fast into: In the whole world and all the things he sees, how do you apply that," Grannan told Business Insider. 

Light is best known for a $2000 camera that uses "computational imaging," or using software and machine learning, to stitch together photos so that they're higher quality and have 3D data. 

But when Son heard Grannan's pitch, his mind moved past cameras to another, bigger market: the race for self-driving cars. Son believed that Light's camera technology could replace the expensive, fragile laser-based sensors that self-driving cars currently use to see the world around them.  

"That's really unique in the VC world. Most investors, you come in with a point of view on a pitch, and they're going to drill down to the 18th level of detail about your target market, your margin, runway, and time to profitability," Grannan said. "Certainly those things are important to SoftBank Vision Fund writ large."

"But that's not Masa. Masa is going to focus on the very, very big picture and conceptually where things go," he continued. 

Face-to-face meetings

Light's experience with Son lines up with what other entrepreneurs have said about meeting the Japanese mogul.

Cohesity, a software storage startup, recently secured $250 million in funding from investors including SoftBank, and it had a Son story to tell, too. 

"I was naïve," Cohesity CEO Mohit Aron told Business Insider's Julie Bort. "I know investors and the way they work, but I don't know how SoftBank worked."

He found out that Son personally approves every deal, and traveled to a highly secure mansion in Portola Valley, California, to finalize the details and meet the man. 

"He obviously trusts the team that does the work [on the deal] but he believes in a personal connection with all the founders," Aron said.

Son's lieutenants find the deals and pitch him on them, but he's the decision maker. The SoftBank founder typically knows whether he wants to invest before he meets with entrepreneurs, and due diligence is mostly finished, according to a profile in Businessweek. So Son spends his time asking questions to founders and encouraging them to think more broadly about opportunities. 

Brainstorming sessions

That's the kind of meeting Light's founders had with Masa. They were connected to the fund through their network of founders and investors, including Akshay Naheta, a partner at SoftBank.

But they had to meet Son before the deal was finished, because he likes to be "intimately involved" with his investments, including participating in brainstorming sessions. 

"We met with Masa three different times before we closed the round," Grannan explained. "It was always about, you know, not a litmus test, but brainstorming and getting comfortable with where this technology could go, and did we all believe in it collectively?"

Light eventually decided to take a crack at the self-driving market with its camera technology, armed with $121 million in funding, in addition to its L16 camera and pending deals with smartphone makers.

"[Masa] believed what we call our passive optic system, our regular cameras, versus LIDARs, could actually solve a lot of the problems that LIDAR suffers today," Grannan continued. "As we studied the problem, we were convinced that Masa was right, that we could build a better sensing or seeing system for cars."

Ultimately, for Light, it was an eye-opening experience. "I think he's a very non-traditional investor blazing his own trail," Grannan said.

SEE ALSO: A company that makes a crazy camera with 16 lenses just got $121 million from SoftBank to build eyes for self-driving cars

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This hands-free crutch takes the strain off your hands, wrists and arms

• A summer capsule wardrobe could help eliminate decision fatigue, save you time in the morning, or just save you some money.
• A capsule wardrobe is a collection of just a few dozen clothing pieces that can be combined to make hundreds of outfits.
• It might make choosing what to wear to work this summer less of a hassle. 

A capsule wardrobe is a collection of just a few dozen clothing pieces that can be combined to make hundreds of outfits.

Think Mark Zuckerberg's allegiance to a t-shirt and jeans, but with a lot more style. 

If you want to save money or just pare down your possessions, creating a capsule wardrobe might be the ideal move for you. It can also cut down on decision fatigue, the exhaustion we feel as we use up willpower making mundane daily choices like what to wear and where to grab lunch. 

But building an entire one from scratch may be intimidating. Image curator Scarlett De Bease, style coach Stasia Savasuk, and Lauren Bowling, an editor at the Financial Best Life and author of "The Millennial Homeowner: A Guide to Successfully Navigating Your First Home Purchase" shared their tips on creating a capsule wardrobe. 

Here's how to make a capsule wardrobe that can keep you professional, sweat-free, and stylish this summer. 

SEE ALSO: 13 things you should never wear to work in the summer

DON'T MISS: How to dress for your first job without blowing your paycheck

Women can choose three to five bottoms and five to 10 blouses

Men can buy three to five pairs of pants and up to 10 shirts

For men, Savasuk said to choose three to five pairs of pants with five to 10 high-quality button-downs.

"If ties are required, purchase a few that reflect your character and personality, so you can bring your own flavor to 'business professional,'" Savasuk said.

Stick to a few colors

Whether you're buying new pieces or just shopping your closet, sticking to mostly neutral colors is important. 

Griffin recommended picking a neutral base like black or gray for most of your pieces, and a few articles of clothing in accent colors like blue or red.

"Everything should work together," Griffin told Business Insider. "You shouldn't have any closet singletons."

It might seem boring, but it's important so you can mix and match pieces. Having tops and bottoms in all shades of the rainbow is exciting until you realize you can only wear your striped yellow pants with the one black shirt you decided to buy.

• Walmart-owned Sam's Club will pay $7 more per hour to employees who complete a new martial-arts-inspired training program. 
• The program, which aims to improve Sam's Club's fresh-food departments, has four levels of training: a white belt, orange belt, blue belt, and black belt.
• Earning an orange belt will raise employees' hourly pay by $0.50. A blue belt will add another $1.50 per hour, and a black belt will result in a $5 hourly raise.

Walmart-owned Sam's Club is giving massive pay increases of up to $7 more per hour to employees who complete a new martial-arts-inspired training program designed to improve the company's fresh-food departments. 

About 25,000 employees, or about a quarter of Sam's Club's workers, are eligible to enroll in the program, which should take about 18 months to complete, the company told Business Insider. 

The program, which Sam's Club launched in March, has four levels of training: a white belt, orange belt, blue belt, and black belt.

Earning an orange belt will raise employees' hourly pay by $0.50. A blue belt will add another $1.50 per hour, and a black belt will result in a $5 hourly raise.

That means employees who complete all four levels of training will get an extra $7 per hour added to their paychecks, which represents a pay increase of more than 60% for some workers.  

"We made a strategic decision to win in fresh and an equally important decision to invest in our people to get there," said John Furner, president and CEO of Sam's Club. "We’re growing talent internally to develop fresh experts – building the expertise we need and helping our associates build their careers."

The program is only available to employees who work in Sam's Club's fresh-food departments, which include bakery, produce, meat and seafood, and prepared foods.

It will train workers in skills specific to their departments. Butchers, for example, will learn knife skills, and bakers will be trained in cake decorating. Workers in the produce department will learn how to more accurately measure the shelf life of various fruits and vegetables. 

The higher levels of the program will provide training in other aspects of the business, such as budgeting and managing profit-and-loss statements.

"This program is about giving people skills to be great merchants," a company spokeswoman said. 

SEE ALSO: 'I ultimately am not afraid to get fired': Leaked audio captures Whole Foods CEO John Mackey describing clashes with Amazon

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why this cactus is listed for $250,000

• David Solomon will succeed Lloyd Blankfein as CEO of Goldman Sachs, the firm said Tuesday.
• Solomon will officially take the reins from Blankfein, the longest-serving Wall Street CEO after JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon, in October. He'll also join the board.
• Blankfein will serve as chairman through the end of year, and Solomon will add the title in January. Blankfein will become senior chairman when he retires, the firm said.

It's official: David Solomon will succeed Lloyd Blankfein as the CEO of Goldman Sachs. The Wall Street firm made the announcement Tuesday, saying Solomon would become CEO and join the board on October 1.

In a staff memo, Blankfein said that it had been hard to imagine leaving but that by his own "convoluted logic, it feels like the right time."

He also praised his successor, saying: 

"He was an outstanding division head for more than 10 years, helping cement Investment Banking's leading franchise. And, as a chief operating officer, David has demonstrated strategic insight into all of our businesses, focusing on the key trends that will shape them and what our clients will most value from us in the years to come."

Here's the full memo:

July 17, 2018

To the People of Goldman Sachs

Today, our firm is announcing that I intend to step down as chief executive officer at the end of September and remain as chairman until the end of the year, and that David Solomon will succeed me in both roles. After I retire, I will be honored to serve as senior chairman to support our firm where I can.

I always knew this day would come. But, of course, the reality of it prompts many thoughts and emotions.

When I've been asked about succession in the past, it's always been hard for me to imagine leaving. When times are tougher, you can't leave. And, when times are better, you don't want to leave.

Today, I don't want to retire from Goldman Sachs, but by my own perhaps convoluted logic, it feels like the right time. I am very optimistic that our firm has tremendous opportunities ahead and will continue to earn its distinctive position. Few things in life are granted, but I'm very proud that dedication, drive and focus continue to define this institution on the eve of its 150th year.

Thirty-six years at Goldman Sachs and over 12 years as chairman and CEO is a long time. As I get distance from my role, I suspect people will ask me what I miss most about the firm and the special opportunity to lead it.

I already know the answer: all of you. The people of Goldman Sachs have always been our most differentiating strength.

When we've had tough days (or a crisis or two), I could count on you to bear down, help our clients and focus on solutions and getting better. In better times, I have fed off your excitement, ideas and passion. And, there were times when your support got me through my own challenges. 

I want to congratulate David. He's been a terrific partner to me and I look forward to watching him lead Goldman Sachs for years to come. He was an outstanding division head for more than 10 years, helping cement Investment Banking's leading franchise. And, as a chief operating officer, David has demonstrated strategic insight into all of our businesses, focusing on the key trends that will shape them and what our clients will most value from us in the years to come.

I want to especially thank my wife, Laura, and our children, Alex, Jonathan and Rachel. It may be hard for some of you to believe, but I'm told that sometimes I'm not the easiest person to live with. I could not have gone through the ups and downs of the last 12 years without their patience, love and constant support.

I hope to pursue other interests in my life, but I will never do anything that will be as much a part of me as working with all of you in such a special place.

Lloyd

See also:

• Goldman Sachs just named its next CEO — here are the execs who will be in and out, according to a dozen insiders

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: An early investor in Uber, Airbnb, and bitcoin explains why it's actually a good sign that no one is spending their crypto

You don't need to be technical to land a job at one of the top tech companies. But for those who develop their technical skills, the rewards can be vast. 

In Glassdoor's latest report, the company broke down the highest-paying tech jobs in the industry, based on average salary. It could give you a good sense of what to focus on, if you're interested in pursuing a job in Silicon Valley and beyond. 

Here are the top 10: 

10. Information security engineer: $131,300

An information security engineer works to protect the company's data and other assets from hackers and other malicious parties. That could be through strengthening encryption or generally working to close any security gaps in the company's infrastructure. 

9. DevOps engineer: $137,400

A DevOps (development and operations) engineer  is a specialized role that involves delivering a lot of code, quickly.

8. Enterprise architect: $144,400

An enterprise architect develops the plans and workflows for deploying and maintaining servers, software, and other IT assets. In other words, an enterprise architect is on the hook to come up with (or at least, contribute to) the IT strategy. 

• Clara Brenner is an up-and-comer in Silicon Valley tech investing. Her firm, Urban Innovation Fund, just raised $22 million to invest in startups.
• Brenner says something that "grinds her gears" is when founders and CEO say, "Hey, girls," in emails to her and her female cofounder.
• While calling women "girls" may not be intended to be patronizing, according to Brenner, words matter in the workplace.

"Hey, girls."

It's a simple email greeting.

Clara Brenner sees those two words land in her inbox at least once a week.

She and Julie Lein cofounded a venture capital firm, called Urban Innovation Fund, that puts money into startups building the future of cities. The firm has only the two female partners, and according to Brenner, that means they get addressed as girls a lot.

Brenner and Lein are both 33 years old. Neither of them are girls.

"Don't call women investors 'girls.' We get called 'girls' a lot, which just grinds my gears. They'll be like, 'Thanks, girls, for having us.' Because it's me, my cofounder Julie, and our associate, who's also a woman," Brenner told Business Insider.

As Bustle, a news site aimed at millennial women, once put it: "A girl is a person under the age of 18 who still lives with their parents. So when you use that term in reference to a successful woman who has worked hard to get where she is today, you're ignoring her accomplishments and diminishing her maturity."

Five years ago, Brenner and her cofounder Lein set out to help companies who are solving important challenges for cities raise funding. These startups are a tough sell for venture capitalists, because their products often require a lot of money to launch, and they face regulatory hurdles from local authorities who prefer the status quo.

Brenner and Lein launched an accelerator program called Tumml that works with early-stage startups on urban innovation. The duo is widening their impact with the new venture firm, Urban Innovation Fund, which closed a $22.5 million seed-stage fund in June.

While calling women "girls" may not be intended to be patronizing, according to Brenner, words matter in the workplace, where women have historically earned less than their male peers and have fewer opportunities to advance to the top ranks.

Founders should think twice about how they address women investors in an email.

"It's not going to kill your chances, but it's just sort of alienating. You're asking us for money. At least act like you take us seriously," Brenner said.

SEE ALSO: 6 charts show how much more men make than women

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Former Wall Street CEO reveals how most financial products designed for women completely miss the point

• You might be underpaid and need ask for a raise.
• Glassdoor.com found in a survey that the majority of its users are underpaid — by $4,700 on average.
• Here are some signs that your salary is too low and you ought to ask for a raise, as well as steps to do it.

Feeling like you might be underpaid can be one of the most disheartening aspects of work.

"It stands to reason, because for many, compensation is a concrete litmus test of how well you're performing and progressing on the job — and how highly you're valued," said Lynn Taylor, a national workplace expert and the author of "Tame Your Terrible Office Tyrant: How to Manage Childish Boss Behavior and Thrive in Your Job."

What's crucial, if you realize you are underpaid, is to ask for a bump— not suffer in silence.

"The important thing to remember is that if you don’t ask the answer is always no," career and wellness coach Joanna Echols told Business Insider. "Even if you don’t get the raise right away, and you are an exceptional performer, the raise discussion with your boss is a great opportunity to reinforce your accomplishments and explain your future plans of adding more value to the company."

Here are 16 signs you're not being paid your worth, and what to do to boost your salary:

SEE ALSO: 5 major mistakes that can derail your salary negotiations

DON'T MISS: People are quitting their jobs in droves this year — and getting record-setting pay boosts because of it

A similar job listing on your company website offers higher pay

"If there are multiple positions like yours at the company, the job description closely resembles yours, and the salary is higher, that's one of the most obvious signs," Taylor said.

Stay on top of this by occasionally searching your own company's job postings to monitor what new employees are being paid, "and to see if that feels reasonable given your current level of experience and role in the company," said Michael Kerr, an international business speaker and author of "The Humor Advantage."

Your firm's revenue has taken off, but your salary has barely budged

If your company isn't public, it's harder to obtain hard numbers about revenue growth.

But you likely have a sense of whether your company is booming or busting. If it's the former, you have a good reason to argue for a raise, Taylor said.

The salary for your first job was below market, and it hasn't changed much since

Think back to the salary you accepted for your first job — maybe you accepted a salary you knew was low because you were desperate.

Now consider how your pay progressed from there. If it hasn't changed much, you're probably underpaid. 

"It can be difficult to play catch-up if you started low," Taylor said.