This is a common expression with athletics. It means to arrive with your top attitude and ability. In life, every day is game day. You simply can’t achieve what you really want with a B-effort.

Including the owners and management of most businesses, people go to work, do their job well, and ask for nothing more in return than their pay. Others complain that they hate their job and that they’re not getting more of a return for their time spent. This is partially their own fault: most people will never get what they’re looking for if they spend their efforts trading time for dollars. However, it will pay off if you’re consistently on your A-Game because that’s the magic key which can open doors to other opportunities. 

When those that unknowingly play the B-Game make fifteen dollars an hour and get a raise to eighteen, the satisfaction will only last a week or so, probably less. And worse, your lifestyle will most likely not change. The problem doesn’t reside within a three dollar pay increase, the problem is a habit you’ve developed. 

Ambitious people often think about making more money, having their own business, or maybe becoming a partner one day. If you know how to do something, you’ll probably always have a job. If you know and understand why it needs to be done, you have a better chance of being among those that advance. 

Working attitudes are often something like “Why should I care about the good of the company when they don’t care about me?” This is minimum wage thinking. The issue on the table is not about them or how they treat you, it’s about your character. Your results are a reflection of your integrity, and you need to be playing your A-Game, no matter what. 

If you feel you deserve more from your job, consider this:  A company can’t pay you more than you’re making them. Find a way to reverse that and watch what happens. Or, do nothing different, and watch what happens. You’ll be watching one or the other; which would you prefer it to be?

Many people do the bare minimum at work and, after six months, they get a pay raise because a company policy requires it. Others find ways to earn it. That minimal, undeserved pay raise will not change one thing in your life.  If you can’t live on $16 an hour, you won’t be able to live on $18 an hour, especially if it only occurred because of a company policy. Hope is a powerful thought, and your only hope at this point is to wait until the next company policy interval. Is that what you’d like to teach your kids?

If you don’t separate yourself from the herd and think differently than “the average person,” you’ll never make partner, never run the company, most likely never be successful at your own business, and you’ll likely never have the opportunity for other advancements that could change the course of your life. 

People that get promoted without earning it are easily identified; they’re retired, sitting in coffee shops, complaining that they never got their big break…..  In your later years, that feeling of regret will haunt you. 

Successful people are always looking for others to associate with, to hire, and to partner with. The secret is to always be playing your A-Game. Think of it as making deposits that are gaining interest. You never know who will notice it or how it will pay off, but it will.