Saying No to 100,000$

A few days ago, I was offered more money than I had ever had made before. More money for a few months of work, than I'd ever made in a single year or even two years for that matter. The work was legal, but borderline unethical. My job would simply have been to setup the infrastructure and the payment on the platform. I was explained what was needed, and it seemed doable in a few months time.

As I was listening to what it is that I would be doing, for a brief moment in my gut I knew my decision, it was a no. Yet, I thought I should think it through, and I did. I'm not exactly swimming in money at the moment. As an indie dev, I'm trying to bootstrap projects and living off my savings. This money could have funded all the software I'd want to create for two to three years. I live in Thailand, so this money would go a long, long way.

Why?

This is not the first time, I've made a decision that's cost me money. About 4 years ago, I had to shut down my previous company, was in debt and was in the process of learning how to write code. After about 6 months in, I got a job offer, I said yes, went over to the office and 15 minutes in, I felt this gnawing feeling in my gut that said, this is not the right path for me. But I had no job, owed my friends money, how do I say no to this? I did not finish my first day there, I had a chat with the person who hired me and said, this is not going to work out, and I won't be coming back tomorrow. I cried all the way back home and all night. It was by far the hardest decision I had made. It took another 3 months before I got my first job and it was everything I wanted and even paid a lot better too.

There are a couple more, very personal decisions like this I've made in the past. Like deciding to move to a new country not knowing anyone, without even having a job. Being homeless for 3 weeks and so on. I cannot explain, why I make these decisions, except that I have this feeling in my gut that I choose not to ignore. It's always been for the best, even though it did not feel like so in the moment.

A core belief

I've believed that ethical wealth creation is possible, I use my gut to tell me when a decision sits right with that core belief. As I was making this decision, I thought about this core belief, and I was like: "If I say yes to this, what does that say about my core belief?" I have complete faith in myself to achieve all that I want to achieve, by my rules. I've done this enough times to know. In the end the decision was easy, there are certain things you cannot undo, like saving your core belief. That would be a lot harder than making a 100k.

Thank you for reading this far. Hope, I never loose this courage to live life on my own terms. Hope you don't either.

If you have a similar story, I would love to hear it, you can reach out to me on twitter (opens in a new tab) or linkedIn (opens in a new tab)