So what’s wealth anyway? Is it having the most money? Or the most freedom?

Morgan Housel is one of my favorite financial writers. In the “The Highest Forms of Wealth” he explains how wealth is easy to measure but hard to value. He says one way to measure wealth is:

“A career that allows for intellectual honesty.

This includes: Being able to say, “I don’t know” when you don’t know. Being able to speak critical truths about your industry without fear of retribution. The ability to make reasonable mistakes, and be open about them, without excessive worry. And not pretending to look busy to justify your salary.

There are high-paying careers that allow all those things. But there are so many that don’t, and a lot of what people pass off as “hard work” and “grinding” is just finding ways to bury the truth. A job that lets you be open and honest pays a bonus that’s hard to measure.”

This spoke to me. I’ve had a long career in tech marketing, and always saved and invested so I could reach financial freedom. Freedom from a layoff when I was older, freedom to write fiction, freedom to quit a toxic environment. But I had never put into words how important intellectual honestly is to me. And as you grow in your career—in my case I became an executive of a small but well known open source group—this type of honestly is frankly harder. There are more compromises. As a leader, you have certain expectations. And if you speak out, it carries more weight.

It occurred to me that a new project of mine, a podcast called Hyped on PR and misinformation, was forged both from a striving for intellectual honestly about my profession and my financial independence.

In the podcast, I examine how I started my career in PR doing a project for Philip Morris that I found objectionable and unsavory, yet felt powerless to voice a concern. I was just out of college and barely making bills. No trust fund, no money gifted from my parents, age 21 and on my own. I really had no home to go to if I couldn’t make the bills. My parents were divorced and with new partners; our family house was sold. I needed that job.

Yet this short project for the “National Smokers Alliance” weighed on me. At the time, I asked to move to tech where I thought it would offer far less moral conundrums. (That seems funny now, but this was a different time.) And now, many years later it spurred the creation of the podcast to examine the industry, where our information comes from and finally voice my true opinions.

Here’s to true wealth and the opportunity to be authentic and create something just for the sake of being honest.

If you’re interested, I’d love for you to listen to Hyped and let me know what you think. And if you know of anyone who might be interested please share. It’s hard for independent creators to get discovered, so any help with sharing or reviewing is really appreciated.