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Hi, I'm Alex Cantrowitz. I'm a longtime journalist, CNBC contributor, and the host of the show.

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Hey, everyone. We have a different type of episode today.

We're going to share a show from the Ted Audio Collective called Work Life with Adam Grant.

Adam is an organizational psychologist, and he's been on Hello Monday with us. You should check out the show.

Now, on this episode, he raises the question, what if we rethink pay and let people suck their own salaries?

Tune in as he peeks inside workplaces that have reinvented their pay structures to give employees their worth and more.

And explore the science of how it can pay off for everyone in the long run.

Find and follow Work Life with Adam Grant, wherever you listen.

In spring 2006, Rosita Barlow was excited to graduate from college with a finance degree, and find a job as a financial analyst.

But competition for jobs was stiff, and she had bills to pay.

And I needed a job right away. So I started as a data entry specialist making $10 an hour.

I grew my responsibilities pretty quickly, and in a couple of months, my salary had become about $30,000.

Rosita started working at Gravity Payments, a financial services startup.

She quickly discovered that $30,000 a year was not enough to cover her living expenses and student debt.

To make ends meet, Rosita had to find a second income.

I would leave work at 5, and I would start work at McDonald's at 5.30.

And I would go 5.30 to 11 every night on weeknights.

Wow, oh my gosh, you did that for a year and a half?

...