Hi. Hope you are well.
I’ve taken a few months to map this notion out in my noggin and in my heart. As you might know, when I closed my business, I sold off some of the assets and gave the lot to charity. I set up a philanthropic trust. See below for the gist of this.
I know that it is a fundamental part of our makeup, critical to survival, that we share our excess, our abundances. And that to fail to do so goes against what feels right (which is why too much money, say the studies, makes us sad). It takes 25,000 years to change our genes. We strayed from our communal, non-accumulative ways a mere 10,000 years ago (I read recently that anthropological studies have shown our ancestors used to punish and cast out male hunters who didn’t share). What I’m saying is, I’m not being particularly noble in all this…it’s actually quite selfish because it feels right.
Anyway, today I want to be transparent about how I will charge for my services going forward as I move into my next projects. I write this post to set boundaries.
I have to confess I’m inspired by an approach Seth Godin taught me eight years ago. It also speaks to an awakening I had shortly afterwards about “giving first”, which informed my I Quit Sugar business very heavily. I ran the business for free for two years, and continued throughout to give 60-80 per cent of the content produced for free. The vibe is this: You give first. You be generous first. Then the rest follows. I want to continue to do this for the rest of my life, because it feels right.
My Wage Manifesto
1. I charge for anything that requires my bespoke time and hard slog: writing books, doing corporate keynote talks and consulting.
2. However, I donate $500 from keynote talks to the philanthropic trust, and invite the corporate client who books me to match this. The principle behind this is that corporates who book me will be kicking in to enable me to do the same talk to communities in need. More on this to come.
3. I donate profits from any spin-offs of the IQuitSugar.com business to charity (the philanthropic trust). Including the sales from the I Quit Sugar eBook store. So, any abundance that stems from the abundance I’ve already benefited from gets spread.
4. I donate all assets derived from the IQuitSugar.com business to charity (the trust) and invite purchasers of the assets to kick in, too. 28 by Sam Wood did exactly this, so you know. And have committed to supporting my charity work going forward. Great, hey.
5. Thus, I also donate profits from the I Quit Sugar Recommends Tick to charity (the trust).
6. I blog for free.
7. But I fund my blog via affiliates relationships with like-minded businesses doing the right thing. I only work with brands that I personally use myself and can endorse authentically. I always offer a discount for readers. Win. Win. Win.
I’ve shared all this so that folk approaching me about what and how I do what I do are all nice and clear and respect the boundaries I will have to impose. It will also serve as a convenient link to which I can point journalists who sometimes make incorrect claims about my motivations. Help me out, if you like, by pointing any authors of incorrect reports to this link.
Finally, I’ve also put all this “out there” in the hope I might inspire others to think differently about their attachment to money and things and stuff. If I’m to be perfectly honest, I’m really very pumped by this idea.
My Philanthropic Trust
This has been set up and is “housing” the funds I’ve been collecting from selling off my assets. This philanthropic trust is a Public Ancillary Fund and will be supporting and working with registered DGR 1 status charities, funding bespoke social programs and co-created campaigns. In coming months I’ll be including you guys in how it works and how you can be involved. I think it will be a lot of fun.
Any questions?
