True Wealth

Do you have True Wealth? Have you thought about what it means, and what it takes to have it?

Leave aside questions of love, friends, family, health and passion — let’s talk about the popular use of the word. Wealth as in wherewithal, money, capital, freedom.

True wealth isn’t what you have, but what you can make.

Going broke isn’t the end of the world, if you have the capacity, the connections, the knowledge, the ideas, the gumption, the skills, and the habits to earn another fortune.

Getting laid off almost doesn’t matter, if you’re so useful and provide such great value that you can find another job any time you want and name your price.

If you’ve got that, you can do anything. You can quit your job and take a 6-month sabbatical. Or a year off. Or more.

You can negotiate a shorter work-week at your Day Job to work on a side project, or just on yourself and your family. Because they can’t afford to lose you.

I know, because I’ve been there: I’ve gone broke. I’ve been conned. I’ve had my car stolen without insurance, become too sick to work for months on end, maxed out all my credit cards, been threatened with a lawsuit, crippled with stress, and unable to make rent.

And that was all in the same 6 months.

The worst thing a moderately comfortable middle class kid feared on a daily basis — it happened to me. I didn’t have a family with money to back me up. And I didn’t have a college degree or even a real high school diploma, or even any real “connections”. I didn’t have anything particularly amazing in my portfolio, or great clients I could have pointed to. I’d never had a real job before.

All I had was a on-and-off passion for code, some skills, and the naïveté that meant I felt it was totally normal to ask everyone I knew for a job. And to take on work that was harder than I could do at the time, trusting myself to figure it out.

That time was the lowest I’d ever been, and it was crippling. But I clawed my way back. And by “clawed,” I mean, “asked around for a job, took it, and then took another job that paid more, and scraped every penny and paid off my debt.”

It wasn’t even that bad. And that was because, without me really realizing it, I’d created a kind of True Wealth for myself: a portable skill and a soupçon of streetmarts… and a total lack of pride when it came to asking for what I needed.

Nine months into being employed, at second real job ever, I negotiated a 4-day work week, way before anyone cool was talking about it. After a year there, I asked for another job — one that ended up coming with profit sharing, an all-expenses paid access pass to NYC and a gold card.

Yes, all thanks to the power of True Wealth and The Ask.

Today, I’m even better off. I’ve got nearly $50k in the bank. But that’s not why I’m better off. I’m better off because I know I could lose it all tomorrow — and then make it all again.

Because now I can make and sell products. I know how to make things that people will buy, and I know how to make them, and how to ensure they actually get out there.

I can raise money I need on short notice, not by begging or borrowing, but by selling — selling things that make the world a better place.

Maybe sometime I come across as glib, but that’s because I’m trying not to come across as religious. And I like to laugh. Laughter makes the hard shit go down easier — and being in business challenges so much about your worldview, beliefs & habits that it can be very hard shit indeed, as hard as it is rewarding.

Glib or not, let me go on record now: This is not a hobby for me. This is not me repurposing evil Internet Marketing magic for a fresh new audience. This is my life now. I’m still figuring out the details of my particular implementation, so undoubtedly terms, and designs, and approaches will change, but this fact won’t change. I’m in it.

Yes, this is the point at which I tell you, “You can have this too. Come to my Launch Class. I will teach you just about everything I’ve learned about getting through the hard shit to create and sell your first product.”

Yes, this is marketing. You got me.

But just because it’s marketing doesn’t mean it’s not the truth.

30×500 Launch Class: Relaunches Next Week

The 30×500 Launch Class is a 4-month online class with a 1-month break. It’s the sequel to the 12-week Launch Class I put on last spring, with Alex Hillman, and the 30×500 class I put on this past winter/spring. It’s Mark III, having seen a lot of revision and rethinking.

And, unlike this blog post, it’s serious–seriously funny. Students have described epiphanies, and told me that certain concepts from the materials have completely changed the way they think. Just in the past few weeks alone, two Launch Class alumni have launched an ebook on refactoring in Ruby, and the private beta for a web service that helps consultants deal with The Business Part.

It’s good shit.

Here’s a little more detail about the topic, the motivation, the size of the class (small – 75), and the hands-on help you’ll get from me.

If you’re a developer, or a designer with some dev skills, and you’re ready to change the way you look at wealth and work, ideas and value and commerce, really ready to commit to it and kick ass — even though you aren’t fully sure what that entails — then I want you in my class. I want to help you kick ass.

There’s no commitment, obviously, and this blog will always be free. But I hope I’ll see you there!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 12th, 2010 at 2:25 pm and is filed under Thinking like a Slayer. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a comment. Pinging is currently not allowed.