Or what's your money mantra?

I remember visiting a doctor for a minor ailment as a child during our annual trip to Meerut.

A family friend, she ran a charitable hospital to serve the poorest of the poor.

There were throngs of the needy and the unwashed outside her door. They would visit her, and pay for medicines at the cash counter right outside her door.

I wished my parents would take me somewhere else but they trusted her advice. She was good at her job.

"Why did you open a charity hospital? " I asked her once as she checked my pulse.

"We are blessed and want to help the poor. And we have enough money " she had replied.

(She remains one of the very few people who I've heard say this)

"Why not give the medicines free to the patients then ?" I asked her the question that had perplexed me.

She smiled and shared a remarkable insight into human behaviour that I was perhaps too young to understand at the time.

"I charge them a token amount for medicines. Just enough to make sure they not throw them away. I have found that there is no value for what comes free" she concluded.

Many years and experiences later, this advice remains remarkably true.

In marketing, where the surest way to devalue brands is to get consumers used to freebies and offers, buying sales is the easiest way to turn a brand into a commodity.

And then there is professional life. Where the dance between giving and taking is eternal.

Where we must learn to value our skills, our time and our ability to provide something worthwhile.

Where it's easy to feel used and unappreciated.

A friend who bakes well volunteers to get a cake to a gathering.

It happens once. Twice. And soon she's under the ever so gentle pressure to be the free cake provider for the group.

Another friend offered to drop a colleague halfway home once. This became an unspoken obligation that caused him delays and heartburn. When he finally worked up the courage to leave on his own one day, the colleague stopped talking to him in anger.

Most times we volunteer help out a person making a request of us because we hold them in regard or want to help someone in need.

Yet, at others we let unreasonable demands take over and resent it.

A friend was approached for marketing advice "over coffees" over some weekends by an unacquainted start-up founder.

He was not bootstrapping ; his recent funding was in the news.

Also, the request was not just for a single coffee to point him in the right direction but for detailed strategy building which a consultant would have charged a pretty penny for.

When my friend asked what was in it for her, the brazen gent reminded her that she could not accept anything since her employer would forbid it. Hence the joy of supporting an Indian start - up should be enough compensation.

My friend turned down the request.

And yet, we do extend ourselves for causes and people we care for.

People donate their fortunes for the needy in countries they seldom visit.

People give their time for those that can't possibly pay them back.

Not all we do needs to be compensated for.

The advice from Joker is true. Except for the time when it isn't.

And as we walk our roads, only we get to decide what gives us greater joy.

I have summed up my working philosophy as follows:

"Do ask for the fair value for what you are giving. Except for the time when doing it for free would fill your heart with much greater joy"

We do what we do because of deeply held personal motivators. We give and take. We negotiate. And we get better and wiser at it with experience and time at recognising what makes us happy.