Don't chase f*** you money

When I was younger, I had one clear goal.
I wanted to be a millionaire by the age of 30.

I didn't know it then, but this wasn't even MY goal. It was something inherited from the tech-entrepreneurship culture of the early 2000s.

Remember this?
A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion dollars.

Though this tech bubble has burst, many still dream of becoming filthy rich. They talk about 10xing their goals or founding a unicorn (a startup valued at $1B or more).

Truly, though, what many of them aspire to have is "f*** you money."
They long for some complete, utopian freedom.

A freedom that expresses itself mildly aggressively.
As if they were out for revenge. As if they had been forced to do or work on things they didn't want to.

No more! They want to be able to say f*** you.

Of course, the paradox of this mindset is that building this kind of wealth requires a lot of compromises; you have to do what you want to avoid in order to get there.

What's worse? Success is not guaranteed and you might spend your life enslaved instead of free.

A better strategy is to forget about f-you money and aim at what I call "No, thank you!" money.

The kind that doesn't turn you into an a-hole.
The kind that doesn't burn bridges.
The kind that doesn't seek revenge.
The kind that won't make you do things you will regret.

The kind that inspires you without enslaving you.

The kind that won't require you to sacrifice everything else to get it.