Three Ways to Get Paid

Jason Zweig, back in 2018:

My father, who died in 1981, was an inexhaustible font of wisdom and wit. I don’t know when he told me this particular three-part rule, but I’ve never forgotten it. I tweeted it three years ago, but people keep asking for it in one place, so here it is.

There are three ways to make a living:

  1. Lie to people who want to be lied to, and you’ll get rich.

  2. Tell the truth to those who want the truth, and you’ll make a living.

  3. Tell the truth to those who want to be lied to, and you’ll go broke.

The rest is commentary.

Pairs well with Om Malik’s remarkable line about the success of “the grifters and the hucksters and the influencers selling impossible things” in his “We Are Living in Pinocchio’s World” essay that I linked to yesterday.

★ Tuesday, 2 June 2026