On Making Money 1-15-2011

Anderson, South Carolina

I think all of us who paste words together or do other creative work secretly hope Oprah will invite us onto her set and make us famous in ninety seconds. Given most of us will never get past her screeners; we can then hope our creative work will go viral on the Internet. Failing that we can hope an agent or publicist will do the hard work of promoting our profit-generating potential.

I haven’t been contacted by O and there is not any excess bandwidth being consumed to view my writings or photographs on line. I may receive ten hits on a good day; not exactly a viral phenomenon causing my Internet Service Provider any angst. What did happen recently for me is coming to the attention of a highly successful and very expensive publicist who agreed to take me on as one of her pet projects. In her stable of projects is a well-known billionaire. Life became suddenly far larger. We agreed the terms of a contract and it seemed I was to be essentially branded as a product – specifically as an artisan photographer. A fifteen minute initial consultation turned into more than two hours and we set up other meetings. She was already pulling together printers, videographers, graphics designers, and even lawyers to make all of this work. It seemed I would soon be very busy doing extensive photo work and lecturing for amazing sums of money. I thought this could be the fulfillment of a dream I had twenty years ago. For certain, this publicist had me thinking far outside the box, or did she?

The prospect of suddenly hustling to make a lot of money is overwhelming. The idea that I might wrap my life and energies around making a lot of money is suddenly abhorrent to me. For decades I’ve embraced the idea of building community, using my abilities and resources to build cooperation, wanting to facilitate non-transactional models of interaction between people and organizations. The idea that I might suddenly withhold my abilities and resources unless well compensated for them goes against everything I am about. For a long time I’ve had the great luxury of not doing work for money, instead giving away my talents.

One of the most powerful models of financial behavior for me has been the concept of paying it forward, doing things of great material value for people who cannot possibly compensate me in any fashion. In fact the pay-it-forward model insists on the giver declining any kind of compensation in return for an act of generosity. In the past four years I have built about nine houses, not receiving a penny of compensation for the work. The non-transactional model of building was infinitely more satisfying than working as a paid general contractor ever was.

I am being told more and more that I am really good at photography, that I ought to charge big money for it, that I could make a princely living at it, even ought to be working for National Geographic. Other photographers get incredible sums of money as ‘tuition’ to take people around with them, showing them how to use their cameras. Perhaps the fact I am perhaps getting really good at it is an even more compelling reason to nearly give it away. There is little merit in giving away something that is of little or no value.

The reality is I’ve often found magical activities completely corrupted once I started doing them for money. Working as a volunteer in a Chicago emergency room during my pre-med days as an unpaid volunteer was a wondrous thing of which I could not get enough. The minute I started getting paid for doing the exact same work what had once been wondrous became unskilled grunt work at low pay. My dynamics with physicians and nurses changed for the worse in a nanosecond. When I started doing construction work for money instead of as a community-building effort, it became toxic work that stressed me greatly. Members of the theater board recently attempted to get me to accept money to build sets for pay. I found the idea of going into that black room and building for pay loathsome. Building for free allows me to give a great gift to the community instead of being just one more guy hustling some spending money. I once worked for money in institutional kitchens to survive financially in college. It was just plain old sweaty hot work. I now work in one every week for Meals on Wheels, for free, and it’s magical; something I look forward to each week.

When I photograph a small mom and pop restaurant for free I’m creating good will in the community. The better the work I give away, the better the goodwill I create. I do not need the money I could obtain from my photo work and there is something very satisfying about being able to give something of very high quality to those who cannot afford it. The better my work becomes, the better my gifts become.

Jesus gave us gifts of inconceivable value. He made the choice to stay out of any entrepreneurial dynamic. One cannot conceive of Jesus charging tuition to those who followed him around to learn everything he could teach them. Jesus did a number of things profoundly well. He charged for none of them, often relying on others for his basest needs, even borrowing a donkey for His final ride into town.

Certainly, making money is sanctioned by the sacred texts of many faiths. The parables of the talents found in the New Testament even chide those who would not invest them for good return. I would suggest there are ways of investing talents that will produce great returns on behalf of those around us in our own communities. For me the idea of paying it forward is imperative. If my work will empower others to do their work well and generate streams of income to stimulate our beleaguered local economy, then perhaps I have obtained the greatest return on investment possible. Knowing it is possible the owners of a struggling mom and pop restaurant might get a tiny added economic stimulus from my work needed to survive, keep their business, and their house is a huge payback in my thinking. To challenge these dear people to pay me well for my work would only push them further into despair and perhaps more quickly into closure and foreclosure. As I watch businesses and houses shuttered and foreclosed around me, I can’t but wonder if I am not already receiving a vast return for my work.

After a couple days of agitated thinking I went to meet with my new publicist/agent to tell her I cannot proceed with a plan that has me seeking maximum financial return for my gifts; explaining that paying it forward is the only plan that will work for me. I immediately had great relief and now feel like I can focus on spiritual matters and things much more important than the generation of finance, things like taking really good pictures of restaurants.

I just sold a restaurant image at a very fair price to a retired friend and left the proceeds in a tip jar, in a restaurant. For certain, I have not missed any meals today. I hope those around me don’t have to either.

Mom and pop might be really glad to see you today. They will give it to you your way.