If you’re good at something, never do it for free!
The letter to myself: there’s no shame in making money!
Recently I’ve been thinking more and more about one of my many weaknesses. And that’s the ability to negotiate. Or the lack thereof, to be precise. I’ve never been money-driven (to my own detriment). I’ve always believed in financial independence though which is about building a water pipe rather than lugging buckets full of water several times a day. In a rare act of intended schizophrenia, here’s the letter to myself to address this issue.
Dear Arman,
If you look at your entire career trajectory, you seem to agree to whatever terms offered just to avoid the confrontation. That often leads to regressions. The introspection would result in dwelling about the past, regrets, ‘what-if’s and other totally unproductive thought travels.
We drank way too much kool-aid already by listening/reading to numerous talks/books on following your passion, building products for yourself and changing the world. We listened to the reasons not to be an entrepreneur by Phil Libin where making money is listed as one of those wrong reasons. Following all this advice literally without understanding the context from which the speaker derives his/her lessons has more significant downside than upside. In the beginning we shouldn’t emulate what Richard Branson did to go from $1M to $10M, rather we should do what he did to go from $0 to his first $100K. That’s a totally new game!
There’s nothing wrong and anti-humanitarian in the act of making money. Money is the indicator that you’re providing something useful to the society. If you’re going bankrupt, you deserve that since what you built wasn’t useful for the market. Product-market fit wasn’t there. The natural selection in action. The Universe tells you to start working on something else.
Don’t be nice. Never postpone unenjoyable negotiations for later. Figure out all the unpleasant details in advance before pursuing the project. You haven’t yet gotten to the point when your agent can do all this heavy-lifting for you. So defend your time and agree on all the terms before jumping into the boat (or the rocket — preferably). If by shutting your eyes to the elephants in the room, you’ve got yourself into trouble of successfully finishing what you promised, but not getting anything in return, listen to this. Being shameful about asking for the compensation for the successfully completed project means that you don’t find what you did useful. If you did, you wouldn’t have any hesitation to demand what you find fair. Asking for the pay is not an act of dishonesty. The act of dishonesty is not getting what you deserve!
Creative endeavors are all good. But you have a better shot on changing the world with your book, a movie, a company or anything else you want to do if the material and financial base of your Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is satisfied. So build that base now! Do your best to be financially independent as soon as possible. That’s the state of freedom when you don’t have to worry about exchanging your time for money and can focus on whatever truly excites you and leaving the mark on the world.
Lastly, seriously consider adopting the regret-minimization framework which means working on things and under conditions so that during the journey (and, consequently, at the destination) you have as few regrets as possible. That will ensure that you’re happy with where you’re. Plus, focused and productive as the result.
Good luck!
P/s: Start reading these two books: ‘Secrets of Power Negotiating’ (Roger Dawson), ‘Getting Past No: Negotiating in Difficult Situations’ (William Ury). You bought them almost a year ago. Go and finally read them!
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