His premise seems flawed to me. He says people should forget about F@#$ You Money because you can't depend on it to grow in this bad economy. That's reasonable.
But then he suggests you aim for “f@#$ you influence and credibility” because it "allows you to charge $30k+ for a 1 hour speaking engagement". But I know people who used to make $10k per speaking engagement and they aren't getting much work lately. In my experience the first thing people cut in a bad economy are the expensive speakers and while influence can probably get you a magazine column I wouldn't expect that to pay much at all.
So if the problem was finding a stable income in a bad economy his solution really didn't solve it.
I agree with you fully, the first thing to go when the economy isn't all that great is the stuff that you can do without.
So, no more lavish all employee trips to tropical islands and no more expensive speakers.
Time to get up and do some more work instead of talking about your previous successes.
And about dying penniless, who cares, you can't take it with you anyway. If you plan on passing your wealth to your kids better do it while you are alive and scale back accordingly. In plenty of countries that's the better strategy tax wise anyway.
Isn't the general point more along the lines of not earning much on savings now quite possibily implies a need to do some work at some stage in future (even if its really easy lucrative engagements), and therefore staying in touch with the industry is probably a good idea unless you hit really big.
Personally I'd like to see influence and credibility more as an end than a means to speaking engagements and high-billing consulting though...
eh, I dono. To a certain extent, credibility can be transformed in to money... e.g. if you write a technical book, you will have a much easier time getting a job later on.
On the other hand, I think most things that get you a lot of money also gets you a lot of credibility, so going from just f-ck you money to f-ck you money plus f-ck you credibility isn't going to take much effort; you just have to be a bit more public, a bit more vocal about what you are doing.
I wouldn't base your career change on the experience of your friends. You assume that because your friends are cheaper, that they'd have more business. I'd argue the opposite:
1. If you are bottom-end expensive, you get cut quickly. (e.g. $10k speaking engagement)
2. If you are middle-end expensive, you get cut... but not as quickly. (e.g. $20-30k)
3. If you are high-end expensive, you get cut dead last.
My husband and I did very specific, highly sought-after freelance services in the realm of visualization design/JavaScript. We are definitely high-end expensive.
As the economy went into the shitter, we only got more and more work.
Why? Because clients/customers often feel that the low-end and mid-end expensive people don't fully pay for themselves. Those people are basically getting "excess" budget, as opposed to being truly sought after.
Or they are a consolation prize: "Well, we could get Tony Robbins but he's $80k, then again, there's this dude, he's kinda interesting, how do you feel about $10K?"
Once even that $10k may be a stretch, they decide not to hire anyone at all.
I don't think it is what he's saying. He specifically says "give up on F@#$ You Money." Not "Go for a billion dollars because a million isn't enough F@#$ You Money"
What he's saying is influence is a better strategy than money and I'm disagreeing with the truth of that statement.
But then he suggests you aim for “f@#$ you influence and credibility” because it "allows you to charge $30k+ for a 1 hour speaking engagement". But I know people who used to make $10k per speaking engagement and they aren't getting much work lately. In my experience the first thing people cut in a bad economy are the expensive speakers and while influence can probably get you a magazine column I wouldn't expect that to pay much at all.
So if the problem was finding a stable income in a bad economy his solution really didn't solve it.