Reap the rewards
The expression I want to share with you today is to “reap the rewards.” A lot of Tiger Woods’s sponsors dropped him in the middle of his scandal. They didn’t want to be associated with him any longer. But not Nike. Nike continued to sponsor Tiger Woods throughout his personal and professional difficulties. They remain a sponsor. And when Tiger won the Master’s, it was Nike’s logo on his cap, and Nike’s brand associated with one the greatest comebacks in sports. Nike reaped the rewards of sticking with Tiger. That means, Nike got the benefit.
The expression comes from the world of agriculture. You plant seeds early in the season, and then you reap the harvest later in the year. You invest something early, you get the benefits later. And so it is with the expression “reap the rewards.” When you get a benefit that is a result of some kind of effort or investment, you are said to reap the rewards.
If you win the lottery, you don’t reap the rewards. That’s just luck. But if you invest in a small business, and that business later becomes profitable, then you reap the rewards of your investment.
We also talked back in Episode 142 about millennials in the workplace. Companies that pay attention to the needs of millennials now will likely reap the rewards of those policies later, as they are able to retain more and better talent.
Let me confess something to you. I love this podcast, I love this audience. I love doing the episodes. I love writing them, I love recording them, I love talking with all of you about them. But there is one thing I hate, and that is SEO. Search engine optimization. All that stuff you have to do on the web site, all the metadata, the alternative text in your images, internal linking, keywords, all that stuff to boost your page ranking. I don’t really do it. I know I should. I know that if I invested the time in doing proper SEO, I would reap the rewards by reaching more listeners, but I just can’t bring myself to truly invest the time in SEO. Because I hate it.
Quote of the week
So you know on Thursdays, we are going to close the episode with JR’s song of the week. But on Mondays, we’ll close with a quote. Now, normally I’d choose a quote from an English author, but today I’ll pick one from the French author Victor Hugo, who wrote “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame,” in honor of Notre-Dame cathedral.
Don’t worry: I’ll give you the quote in English. Here it is, from the book: “Nothing makes a man so adventurous as an empty pocket.” In this case, if a man has an empty pocket, it means he has nothing. The quote is saying that if you don’t have anything to lose, then you’re willing to be adventurous. You’re willing to take risks. Sometimes the more you accumulate, the more you have saved, the less willing you are to be adventurous and take risks. So think about that one, “Nothing makes a man so adventurous as an empty pocket.”
And with that, we will close today’s episode. Remember that we will be back on Thursday with a new episode. And you can join our e-mail list, if you haven’t already, by going to PlainEnglish.com/mail . In addition to the episode emails, I’m also sending out interesting links and questions on the weekends, so watch for those if you’re on the list. Just another way for us to keep in touch with each other in English. PlainEnglish.com/mail . See you Thursday!
Learn more expressions like this
