There is no dependence that can be sure but a dependence upon one’s self. John Gay
Dependence is the modern form of slavery
One of the things I hate most in life is to depend.
Dependence in the broad sense: on someone, on an organization, or worse, on something.
If you depend on someone, that someone has power over you to such an extent that it could become the modern form of the feudal lord and the feudal serf or the master and the slave.
So heavy?
Yes, so heavy.
And it is so because although there is no violence or abuse involved, as in the cases of past eras, there is a relationship of ascendancy by the person on whom you depend so great over you, that you really have no freedom.
You have no choice and, therefore, no freedom.
Think about it for a moment...
Now.
That's pretty close to civilized slavery.
You may not have thought about it this way, but if your only option to generate income is to work in a certain company: you depend on that company.
If your only option to survive is to keep your boss happy, no matter how he/she behaves: you depend on that person.
If your only option to maintain your way of life is to keep being approved for the research grant through which you develop your scientific work: you depend on who gives the grant.
You are dependent.
If you don't like to be dependent either, then you have to approach this differently. You have to keep your options open.
You need to have more potential than the one you are running at the moment.
The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Potentiality and actuality, said Aristotle.
Then you need to add more potentiality.
Put yourself in a position where you can say no
The antidote to dependency is to create a situation where you can afford to say no.
Say no to that company.
Say no to that boss.
Say no to the ministry program that funds your research position.
Say no to whatever it is that you're doing now or that you've been offered.
And it's about being able to say no even though it would be good for you to accept it because you keep good conditions, or because you improve them. But you can say no because, however well it suits you, you can live without it.
You are not dependent on it.
At that point you're free.
If you can't do that, you're not.
Think about it another moment...
Now.
- I am not convinced.
In my life I will always depend on someone because just by working for someone I am already a dependent, according to your approach.
No, my fiery and impatient friend. It isn't.
There's as big a difference as David Hasselhoff's chest mat and laser hair removal between someone paying you a salary and depending on that someone.
- Keep talking... you've got me nervous.
And pissed off.
That you have more options.
That you can say no.
Let's see: you decide to work for someone.
If it is your decision and you have not taken that option because you are desperate and you need it at any cost, then you are not a dependent.
Then it is a voluntary cooperative relationship that you have decided to establish. That's very different and that's virtuous.
In fact, the virtuous relationship between two parties is one that is voluntarily entered into by both parties.
What does a relationship between an organization and its employee, who is there not because he wants to be, but because, even if he dislikes it and has a hard time, he has no choice but to stay there to maintain his livelihood, look like?
Well, apart from being a relationship of more or less implicit submission, where both parties know that one of them has all the power over the other, it is also a relationship where at least one of the parties does not give his best because he does not want to be there.
Chances are that neither party gives its best because under those conditions virtuous cooperation rarely occurs.
It may be a "while we're at it, let's see if we can do something", but it will be very difficult for it to be like:
- Shall we stay a little longer and finish this?
Says the employee.
- You're a junkie, I want to rest... By the way, have you seen the video I sent you yesterday by Whatsapp?
Replies the boss (who is another employee and has another boss).
This type of virtuous relationship only happens when two parties decide to work together (or relate in any way, because it is the same in any area of life) voluntarily.
Then that relationship produces the best results because both parties are happy to be in that relationship.
They are looking forward to seeing each other again in the office (or on the video call) to continue spending that good time learning, getting things done and cooperating for a purpose that motivates them both.
In that relationship there is voluntary cooperation and both parties know it.
What is the condition for that to happen?
That both parties know that they are both there because they choose to be, but they would have other options if they wanted not to be.
They are there because they want to be.
That changes everything.
That's the relationship model you want to establish.
That's the relationship model that everybody should want to establish, whatever party they're on.
- I'm getting less pissed off.
You are suggesting a possible life that doesn't include dependency, the modern slavery, and that's starting to relax me, but....
How do I do that?
Create a situation that allows you to be able to say no.
Obviously, to be able to say no to something or someone you have to work hard first. That doesn't happen on its own.
Have you seen anything good that you can make happen on your own?
If so, tell me about it by sending me an email.
You know what it's going to take, as always, because if it were easy anyone would do it:
You can't just have one card to play, you have to have more. You need to expand potential options that you could execute in order to have outlets.
You need to create a life situation that allows you the freedom to be able to say no.
To do that you have to do the following, from easier (and more dependent) to more complex (and less dependent):
1.- Work hard to create a good and, better yet, scarce professional profile for yourself.
Scarcity is what makes anything in demand expensive and/or has bargaining power.
If you have bargaining power, you have some degree of freedom, but it may be only within a very short range of companies/organizations.
If you have been working for some time, remember to keep your professional profile competitive and don't let the environment make you obsolete, as happens if you don't take care of it.
But.... let's improve this.
More aggressiveness.
2.- Expand your range. Learn to do more than one thing. And practice it.
If you only know how to make one, you have little range. Low range gives you few options. Few options give you little freedom.
You are more dependent.
Whatever you are studying or have studied, whatever your profession: expand the range of your options.
If you are an architect, but you know about online marketing, you have more range.
If you could also run a bar room because you have a good deal and you would leave the diners happy, even better.
If you have given private classes and you know that you can have income from there if you activate it, much better.
You get the idea, right?
It's all about expanding the range of options you can put in place.
Nothing that you learn to do and, even better, put into practice, is unnecessary. It all adds up to build you the situation in which you can say no.
Playing an instrument.
Give private lessons to high school kids.
Work as a stock boy in a supermarket while you study.
Learn how to set up eCommerce with tools for non-programmers.
It all adds up.
Obviously, put it into practice, don't just leave it to a summer reading.
You have to know that you can do it because you already have or do it.
If not, it won't do you any good.
You can do this while studying, but also while working (by choice, without desperation and happily) in your company.
How?
By choosing the path of more effort and growing:
If you never visit customers: visit them and develop commercial skills.
If it's not your job to look at the numbers, look at them with your finance buddy and learn from him.
If you never get to present projects, ask to present projects.
Come up with a solidarity project to help your community, persuade and involve several colleagues and your boss and get it going, lead it.
All this and more you can do. And all this is what gives you range.
But...
More aggressiveness.
3.- Don't live on the edge of your income. Have savings.
It saves time, not money. But we'll forge that tool another day.
For now practice this:
You need to have a financial buffer that allows you to say no because, even if you say no, you can still fill the fridge for a reasonable amount of time.
Don't take in 100 and spend 100, don't do it.
Force yourself to have a minimum financial capacity to... be able to say no.
If you think it's more virtuous to earn 100 and spend 100 because you're having a great time, even if you can't last three months out of the market without a handout, then remember that you're a dependent on that paycheck and think about whether it changes your perspective.
You're not in a better position where you enjoy life. You are in a vulnerable position that makes you dependent.
With these three steps you have enough to set you on the path to being able to say no.
If money is your hope for independence, you will never have it. The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability.
Henry Ford
Arnold put himself in a position where he could say no
Arnold Schwarzenegger does not recite Shakespeare in the best tradition of English theater.
Arnold is not a method actor who has created a new school of acting.
Let's face it, Arnold doesn't act, he's just Arnold.
But that's precisely why we love his movies. It's a guilty pleasure. It's the yellow flowered shirt you like even though you know it's tacky.
What Arnold is, however, is someone who put himself in a position where he could say no, and worked it for a long time from different angles.
Just as I indicated to you above: expanding range, from capitalization in the form of knowledge, skills and experiences to capitalization in the form of... capital.
Check this out:
Arnold is born in Austria and arrives in the U.S. with hardly any knowledge of English, but with ample pectorals, that's for sure.
He had already won several bodybuilding championships in Europe and had $27,000 at the time (1970s) saved up.
He didn't spend it all on supplements.
His popularity as a bodybuilder at a time when this was an underground and marginal activity begins to rise and he is one of the reasons why the sport gets notoriety.
A man can be an artist at anything. His art was iron.
That was his main activity.
New option 1:
Arnold took advantage of the opportunity provided by his notoriety and his appearances in specialized magazines to start a weight training course by mail.
Every morning he would send out his course booklets and reply to his clients.
In the COVID-19 pandemic, he recovered some of his mail-order workouts and published them so that people could exercise at home.
With a sweeping brush, if necessary:
New option 2:
At the same time, apart from being a professional bodybuilder (the only one who received a salary paid by a third party for going to the gym in those days), he starts working as a builder with his friend Franco Columbu, another immigrant, Italian in this case.
Another hard worker.
They promote themselves as "European builders" specialized in chimneys and things more sophisticated than building a wall (it seems that in California they thought that being European was better for those tasks).
They make being immigrants an advantage.
New option 3:
Arnold studied at night at Santa Monica College to improve his English. He then completed a degree in Business Administration at the University of Wisconsin-Superior.
New option 4:
And, finally, Arnold invested, with what he saved, in bricks.
Not the brick that he had laid on the other side as a builder, but the brick that someone else had laid, and now there were apartments and buildings.
He bought his first building with 4 apartments and put them up for rent.
Arnold wanted to get into movies and pursue a career like some of his muscular heroes of the black and white Hollywood era, so he was renting these apartments to actors, screenwriters and people in the business to get to know them and start getting into the business.
He was putting himself in a position to get in where he was interested.
Options, options, options.
Arnold relentlessly, in a systematic way, dedicated himself to opening up options and creating a situation in which he could say no. He worked hard to do so.
He made an effort to do so.
Say no to what?
To being thrown a handout as an actor and having to take it because he was desperate, as so many other aspiring actors do, because he was living on a friend's borrowed couch and eating only cereal and canned beans.
At less than 30 years old Arnold was already a millionaire, he owned 100-story buildings that he rented out and had done a series of buy-sell real estate deals where he generated profits that he reinvested to buy larger assets.
He did not become a millionaire with Conan. He was already a millionaire when he got into movies.
Think about it...
Arnold knew that a mountain of muscle with an Austrian accent that defied all good taste and without Robert de Niro's dramatic ability would have a tough time in an industry where the new leading men were 1.67 cm and 60 kg, such as Dustin Hoffman or Woody Allen.
Knowing this, he created a situation where he could say no when he was asked to play the role of a circus monkey just to flip him a coin. Which he knew was what he might be asked to do.
Having that situation created, not being a dependent, having met the director Bob Rafelson in the meetings that he set up in the courtyard of his apartment in the building he rented to movie people to interact with them and waiting for his opportunity, he managed to participate with two important young actors (Jeff Bridges and Sally Field) in Stay Hungry and win a Golden Globe (yes) for best film debut in 1977.
After that, what he would earn in vast amounts would be money, not acting awards.
Somewhat later came Conan, The Terminator and being the highest paid actor in the world.
Then he was Governator of what was then the world's fifth largest economy, California.
But first came non-dependence and the possibility of saying no.
If he had not been able to choose which roles to appear in, he surely could not have had the Hollywood career he later had.
If an immigrant who barely spoke the language and who played a fringe sport that 99% of humanity didn't know existed, could save up, create three or four different lines of income for himself and put himself in a position to say no in preparation for his improbable assault on the movie business, I suppose you can create a situation where you can say no too.
José Fortes - La Forja
josefortes@substack.com
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