"I explained that my goal is to live a debt-free life, and therefore I wanted to give value before receiving compensation."

Why? If someone is hiring you to do something, they're taking the risk of you not delivering enough value, but they're also entitled to whatever rewards they can get from your work, which can be several times what they're paying you. Basically the author wants to take all the risk, and if he doesn't have a substantial bonus, very little of the rewards.

Well, of course anyone can live to make other people profit more, but it's a bit strange to tell everyone to live like that.