Last week was about clearing debt. This week is about growing what’s coming in, because increasing your income is what actually fuels everything that comes after debt: investing, saving, building real wealth. Managing what you already have well matters, but growing your income is what gets you there faster.
🎻 The $32 Violinist
On a Friday morning in January 2007, a man in a baseball cap set up in a Washington D.C. subway station and started to play.
That man was Joshua Bell, one of the most decorated violinists alive, with decades of training and experience behind him, playing a violin worth $3.5 million. Two nights earlier he’d sold out a concert hall where seats average $100. Over the next 43 minutes, 1,097 commuters walked past him. Seven stopped for more than a minute. He made $32, and $20 of that came from one woman who only gave because she recognised him from the concert the night before.
Take her out of it, and one of the best violinists in the world made about $12, playing for over a thousand people who walked within feet of him. Nothing about his skill or experience had changed between the concert hall and the subway platform. What changed was the room he was standing in.
💡 Why This Matters for Your Paycheck
It’s tempting to hear “increase your income” and think it’s purely a skills problem: get better, get paid more. But Bell didn’t lack skill; he was in the wrong environment for that skill to be appreciated. Two people can do the exact same job at the exact same level and earn very different amounts, because one of them is standing in front of people willing to pay for it, and the other isn’t. Increasing your income isn’t only about becoming more valuable. It’s about being valuable somewhere that’s paying attention, and that’s what the list below is about, not quick cash. Selling things you don’t use or picking up overtime will raise money faster, and that’s worth doing when you need it now, but those are one-off boosts. Here’s what actually grows your income for good:
1. 🌍 Change the Room
The same job, done in the same country, can pay wildly different amounts depending on the employer or the city, and the gap widens further once you look abroad: the same skill set can be worth multiples more in a different country entirely, whether that’s the US, the Gulf, or parts of Europe. It’s a big part of why relocating, at home or abroad, has become such an appealing lever for so many people: same skills, different room, different outcome. Before you assume you need a new title or a new skill, check whether you’re simply playing to the wrong crowd. As my mentor Emmanuel Asuquo puts it: you are not a tree, you can move.
2. 🧱 Spot the Bottleneck
Some industries have a low ceiling built into the structure of the business itself. If the most senior person above you is only earning a little more than you, that’s not a personal failing; it’s a sign the whole room has a low ceiling. Worth knowing before you spend years climbing toward it. It might be time to see what the same skill set is worth in a different industry.
3. 🎓 Upskill
This doesn’t always mean a formal qualification. It can be a course, a new tool, or a skill your industry is starting to pay a premium for. Right now, the clearest example is AI: people who can use it well in their field are already commanding a premium, the same way a mandatory certification would. Whatever form it takes, the goal is the same: sharpen what you’re already good at, or add something adjacent to it.
One thing worth knowing: sometimes a certificate matters less for what it teaches you and more for how it’s perceived. I’ve seen people command a noticeably higher rate simply because they held a qualification the market treats as mandatory, even when they already had the skill behind it. Perception moves pay almost as much as ability does.
4. 📈 Talk to More People
If you’re in sales, business, or freelancing, your income depends directly on how many people you’re actually pitching. A great offer and a great close rate can only convert the pool you’re speaking to. Widening that pool is one of the most direct income levers you have, and one of the easiest to under-invest in.
5. 💷 Raise Your Price
A lower-priced offer tends to attract a lower-value customer: more price sensitivity, more hand-holding, more stress per pound earned. Entrepreneur Alex Hormozi’s advice is simple: sell to people with money. Selling something for £5 can be harder than selling something for £500 or £5,000. People with money tend to value their time more than they value holding onto their cash. Improving your offer so it justifies a higher price often means less stress per client, not more.
6. 🚀 Start a Side Hustle
A second income stream that isn’t tied to your employer is a pay rise you control entirely yourself: no negotiation, no waiting on a review cycle. It doesn’t need to replace your main income to be worth doing; even a modest, consistent side income changes what you can save, invest, or clear debt with each month. We covered how to actually find one worth your time a few months back: How to Find a Side Hustle That Works for You💰.
7. 🤝 Monetise Your Day Job
This works best when it’s the exact same thing you already do in your 9-to-5, just sold to someone else on the side. You already have the credibility and the track record from doing this work daily, which means you skip the hardest part of starting from scratch: proving you can actually do the job. The next stage is finding one client willing to pay for that same skill outside your employer, and the easiest place to start is usually people already in your network: former colleagues, friends and family. Check your contract for anything about outside work first, but for most people this is the lowest-risk way to test whether there’s a market for what they do beyond one employer.
8. 🔗 Become the Connector
Being the person who knows the right people and puts them together, for a fee, counts as a real income lever in almost every industry: recruitment, property, sales introductions, deal-making. You don’t need to be the expert doing the work: just the trusted link between two sides who wouldn’t have found each other otherwise.
9. 🙋 Negotiate
This isn’t really about asking and hoping. It’s about starting the conversation from a position of demonstrated value: what you’ve delivered, the results tied to your performance, then negotiating better terms on what you’re already doing from there. A raise, a better rate, or improved terms on a contract you’re renewing rarely land because you simply asked; they land because you showed the value first and gave someone a reason to say yes. Start the conversation, then reassess based on the feedback you get.
10. 📚 Package Your Knowledge
Different from monetising your day job (point 7): instead of trading hours for money with one client at a time, you turn what you know into a product: a course, a guide, group coaching, a paid workshop. Build it once, sell it repeatedly. It’s slower to set up than taking on a freelance client, but it scales in a way that hours-for-money never does.
11. 📱 Build an Audience
Social media, content, personal brand. We’re in an attention economy now, and a consistent audience converts: into brand deals, products, new clients, or straight-up ad revenue, often from nothing more than showing up and posting. This isn’t limited to hobbies or entertainment. Showing your work, your results, or how you think, done publicly and consistently, builds the same kind of following in any industry, whether that’s finance, the trades, fitness, or law.
Find Your Room
Not every audience is your audience, and that changes how you should think about your income. Offering something valuable to people who were never going to pay for it doesn’t grow your income, no matter how good the offer is. Bell proved that with world-class music pouring out of a $3.5 million violin, and 1,097 people who walked straight past him. Every lever on this list works the same way: the value has to be real, but so does the room you’re offering it in.
Increase what you’re worth. Then find the room that’s actually paying attention.