As I wrote this book, I established a set of rules for my writing. One of the first rules was that I had to name specific sums whenever I talked about money. Another rule was that I had to talk about money. These rules were a direct refusal of what I understood to be the rules of polite conversation around money: 1) Don’t talk about it. 2) If you do talk about it, don’t be specific. 3) Minimize what you have. 4) Emphasize that you’ve earned it. 5) Never forget that work is the story we tell ourselves about money.
