---
title: "The Bigger the Problem, the Bigger the Pay | Robert Nikic"
description: "Rule 13 of Problems Pay by Robert Nikic: once you can collect on your own problems, you get to collect on other people's. The ladder and the rails."
canonical: "https://problemspay.com/rules/the-bigger-the-problem"
author: "Robert Nikic"
author_url: "https://robertnikic.com/"
type: "Article"
---
RULE 13 OF 13 · PART 4: THE TRANSFER

# The bigger the problem, the bigger the pay.

Once you can collect on your own problems, you get to collect on other people's.

WHERE YOU ARE · ALL SIX MOVES, POINTED AT BIGGER PROBLEMS

CHAPTER 13THE BIGGER THE PROBLEM, THE BIGGER THE PAY0:00

## Think about the biggest problem you've solved so far.

Notice one thing about it: it was yours. The pain was yours, the price was yours and the payment was yours.

The pay changes when you point the same skill at problems that aren't yours. One man's problem pays one man. A problem shared by a thousand men pays everyone who solves it, and it pays the solver most of all, in money, in reach and in the kind of respect you can't buy.

Chapter 13 lays out the seven-rung ladder, the five kinds of payoff, and the rails: the basic systems that decide whether a small business can run at all.

FROM PROBLEMS PAY BY [ROBERT NIKIC](https://problemspay.com/robert-nikic)

![Illustration: a man with his boot on the first rung of a tall ladder, each rung reaching a bigger scene](https://problemspay.com/assets/plate-ladder.webp)

PLATE · CHAPTER 13THE BIGGER THE PROBLEM, THE BIGGER THE PAY

THE LADDER

## You don't skip rungs.

Yourself, your home, one stranger, your first customers, strangers you'll never meet, other founders, whole systems. Each rung pays more than the one below it.

[See the ladder and the rails](https://problemspay.com/the-rails)[Find your rung](https://problemspay.com/tools/find-your-rung)

THE RULE, AGAIN

## Every problem has a price, and every problem pays.

THE DEBT

THE PAYMENT

A problem that costs one man a little, left standing in millions of men, is a debt nobody prices.

The bigger the problem you can solve, the more people it pays, starting with the ones within your reach.

NOBODY GETS TO NOT PAY. YOU ONLY GET TO CHOOSE THE COLUMN.

SAY IT OUT LOUD

> The bigger the problem I can solve, the more people it pays.

DO THIS TODAYRULE 13

Write down one problem that isn't yours but is sitting within your reach: under your roof, on your team, in your neighborhood. Don't solve it yet. Just name it, and name who it's costing. That's the first move on the next rung.

 I DID IT. SWITCH THE LINE.

![Robert Nikic, author of Problems Pay](https://problemspay.com/assets/robert-nikic-author.webp)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert Nikic

Robert Nikic is an entrepreneur, author and TEDx speaker, and an advisor on innovation and economic growth to an international council working on United Nations SDG 8 & 9. He made his first dollar at thirteen. Problems Pay is his six-move method for handling problems at work, at home and beyond.

[About Robert Nikic](https://problemspay.com/robert-nikic)[robertnikic.com](https://robertnikic.com/)[Robert's journal](https://robertnikic.com/blog)[Robert Nikic quotes](https://problemspay.com/robert-nikic-quotes)

THE NEXT MOVE

## The full chapter is in the book.

The stories, the objections and the teaching behind Rule 13 are in Chapter 13 of Problems Pay.

[Find your rung](https://problemspay.com/tools/find-your-rung)[Get the book](https://problemspay.com/book)

---

Source: https://problemspay.com/rules/the-bigger-the-problem
Problems Pay by Robert Nikic. Author site: https://robertnikic.com/

The content of this publication has not been approved by the United Nations and does not reflect the views of the United Nations or its officials or Member States.