This chapter is about taking ownership of your work and being independent.
Employers will steal your work, exploit you, for as long as they can – until they can find someone younger and more talented who will work for less money. If you are dependent on others, then you will always be in a fragile situation.
Curtis Jackson never met his father, and his mother died when he was 8 years old. He grew up in a poor neighborhood, and sold crack to survive. When he had a boss, he realized that he was investing labor for a small wage. He wanted ownership, so he decided to hustle. The other dealers who worked for the same boss were all desperate for money and accepted their fragile position.
50 Cent made a deal with them. While he was dealing, he learned how to make the canisters seem full after removing some of the crack.
He offered the drug dealers he worked with the salary he got from his boss at the start of the month in return for their surplus crack, after he taught them his method. He sold the surplus crack on the side to make more money.
50 Cent was then discovered by Eminem, who signed him to his label, Interscope. But Curtis Jackson wanted to be self-sufficient, so he learned everything about the business by insisting on shooting his own music videos and creating his own marketing campaigns – he even paid for them himself. To Interscope, this was less work for them, but 50 Cent used the knowledge he gained to start his own label.
If you are interested in reading books about unmasking human nature, consider reading The Dichotomy of the Self, a book that explores the great psychoanalytic and philosophical ideas of our time, and what they can reveal to us about the nature of the self.