Tony Abou-Assaleh

During my first real off-campus consulting job, my client asked me a simple questions, “are you enjoying working on this project?” My answer was less simple:

I wouldn’t do for money what I wouldn’t do for free.

Ever before and ever since, this principle has been my guiding principle in all that I do for money. I wouldn’t take on a project if it wasn’t interesting enough that I wouldn’t mind doing it for free. I follow this principle in my consulting work, in my employment, and in my volunteering work. But only in the latest that I actually do it for free.

This principle is about loving what you do and enjoying it beyond the material reward. It is about contributing to the project and wanting it to succeed because it is interesting and valuable, not because there is a pay cheque waiting for you. And it is about selecting projects that provide you with additional benefits and rejecting projects of limited personal and professional value.
Continue reading ‘Don’t Do For Money What You Wouldn’t Do For Free’

People often ask me, what does the hand in my avatar mean? Here are 3 interpretations, feel free to send me others:

1. A picture of an alien
2. My hand before the operation
3. It represent the suffering of human kind and our inevitable salvation; or, more elaborately,
4. The 3 turned down finger show how most of the world is dying and the 2 fingers on each side show how separate we are in the wold and they point away form each other showing how we are all on the wrong path/direction. The hand having 6 fingers is about how the world is full of freaks and how pollution and our lives are causing birth defects and DNA problems.

Thanks to Stephen for suggesting some of the interpretations during a philosophical conversation.

The first incarnation of this articled appeared at 451s.com