Sarah Tucker gave a room of senior finance professionals her best thinking on artificial intelligence. Questions kept coming. Some people took notes. Then she went to send her invoice for 1,000 pounds, roughly $1,340, and learned the hosts hadn’t seen the talk as paid work. To them it was a chance to get noticed and meet people. Tucker, Edward de Bono’s biographer, has a one-word name for that currency: exposure.
Nobody Mentioned Money
Her description of exposure: “The last refuge of people who have a budget but suddenly develop philosophical objections to using it.” Then she’s generous. She doesn’t think anyone was malicious, and she suspects a peculiarly British mix of vagueness, assumption and awkwardness. Creative people, in her view, would rather talk ideas than fees. So nobody raised money. She assumed a speaking engagement was professional work, and they assumed she’d come to network.
She sees it as lateral thinking in miniature: two bright groups looking at one event and seeing different things. De Bono’s tools helped her understand it — reversal views a problem from the other side, extreme stretches an assumption until it cracks, and po tests a provocative idea without defending it. Her conclusion: “Value unspoken is value undefined.” Leave the price blank, and the other side fills it in, often with a smaller number.
Price Your Time First
Her practical rule is plainer: settle the terms before any substantial professional work. As AI splinters traditional careers and more people work across several fields, she argues, knowing your own value becomes a core skill. So does invoicing for it without apology.
That goes double for anyone consulting, teaching or speaking in semi-retirement, when a warm invitation can feel like a compliment rather than a contract. As an illustration, four talks a year at her invoiced fee would come to about $5,360. Your time is an asset with a limited supply, so price it before you spend it. Nobody shops for an umbrella in a downpour, and nobody should raise the fee after the talk. If side income is part of your retirement plan, fifteen minutes and a recent statement can show how it fits.