How to create REAL value
This is one of the things that crosses every successful person’s mind at some point. It crosses my mind every time I sit down to write a new blog, every time I undertake some new project in my life, or just when I’m interacting with people in general. This is the one thing that truly matters in life. It’s not necessarily money, although money is always considered in this category, but money will always be paid in kind and then some to the person who can create this, create a lot of it, and create it often. Sometimes it need only be so impactful that it only needs to be created once. If the title of this blog caught your eye, then you already know I’m speaking about REAL, AUTHENTIC, and total VALUE.
I’ve heard this word over and over again throughout my life, and I’ve always taken it for granted until probably the last 5 years or so. At that point, I was just a young man who didn’t really think that far in advance and value was just another concept to me. Go to college, get job skills, offer value to your employer, and make money. But now value is off the charts and its something I seek constantly. I seek it and I seek to provide it. What changed my perspective? I began seriously studying pickup theory (as one can tell from my tendency to refer to Neil Strauss, The Game, NLP, and Personal Development quite often), and that lead to Evolutionary Psychology, which lead to more self-help and personal development (which I have been into from a young age anyway). After the Rich Jerk party, my passing interest in internet marketing gained a little steam. I began studying marketing in addition to the business and management classes I was taking in college. If you are going to sell a product, it has to offer value. If you are going to attract customers, you have to give away your most valuable information for free. I kept hearing it everywhere I turned. VALUE VALUE VALUE. Be a value-giver, don’t be a value taker. Whether it’s a woman, a new group of friends, or a potential customer for your business, you have to provide VALUE.
So this begets a few questions:
What is value?
Where do I find it?
How do I go about creating it over and over?
The truth is that before I wrote this blog I was still grasping for these answers for myself.
Of course there’s the dictionary term. Dictionary.com defines value as relative worth, merit, or importance. And that was just the first out of 18 listed definitions! It seems even the dictionary has trouble pinning down just a few words to encompass what the actual value of value truly is.
Beyond this though, we’ve all seen the definition, but do we truly think of it that way? Value was more of a feeling to me than something that I could put into words. I’ve come to discover during my life and through many interactions I’ve had with people that they react in much the same way. I know that I am, as is everyone, drawn to that which has value and repelled by that which has no value.
Of course value can be quantified, by way of money, manpower, time, and the like. But at the root of this list of things is perception. Money is just paper that is assigned a perceived value by its issuer. Of course that piece of paper with George Washington’s face on it is worth a dollar. It always has been! But the fact is that the perceived value of that dollar now is not the same as it was 30 years ago. It’s not even the same as it was 30 minutes ago! It’s worth less in some countries and worth a whole lot more in others. Manpower is just a number of men that you perceive can get a certain job done in a certain amount of time. Time is a manmade concept as well. Every bit of value that we know is perceived value.
We still have to figure out how to create value at this point, but since we’ve established that value is just perception, then the real question is how do you increase your perceived value? And how do you increase the perceived value of what you can offer to others?
I found an excellent outline created by Daniel Tigani on how to create value. You can find the original article here. This is what it says about value:
I. Value is:
The subjective meaning that things have to satisfy human needs or give satisfaction.
The quality something has which makes someone give something of equivalent value in order to possess it.
The quality some things have which makes them worthy of respect or admiration.
The significance or importance that something carries.
The efficiency or ability of something to produce results.
Any one of a variable number of possible decisions.
Size.
This is an excellent compilation of the possible traits someone may perceive as assigning value to someone or something. This clarifies a lot of things. Looking over each of them, I can think of an area or story in my life or some that I know of in someone else’s life where one or more of these traits would apply to something considered valuable. Match each of the seven up with this simple list:
1. Food, Clothing, Shelter
2. Barry Bonds 70th homerun ball being auctioned off for an astronomical price
3. A beautiful woman or a Nobel Prize winner
4. The Statue of Liberty
5. Salesperson of the Year
6. The satisfaction of all 5 senses by the object, an emotional attachment
7. A mansion, Shaquille O’Neal as a basketball player, A petite man as a horse jockey
Now notice how I structured each of these examples as things that OFFER perceived value. Now try to create your own examples that do not offer value or TAKE VALUE AWAY. An easy way to do it would be to just think of the opposite of the examples or of something entirely different. Notice how if Shaquille O’Neal traded places with the horse jockey that neither would succeed in their chosen sports? I don’t care how much Vitamin Water he drinks!
This is an easy baseline to creating real (perceived) value. Just take this list of 7 and start thinking of situations you or others have been in, in the past where you could have provided more value in one or more of these areas. You can’t change the past but you can increase your situational awareness and be prepared for any similar situations in the future.
Now start thinking of ways you can apply this list to your own life TODAY, RIGHT NOW. How can you offer more perceived value in your life and to the lives of others in each of these 7 categories? Can you write more, learn more, do more? Can you improve what you are already doing? This is the importance of constant refinement, personal development, and self-improvement. Not only can you gain more perceived value for yourself in all of your health, wealth, and relationships, but you can offer that value (knowledge, experience, resources) to others. In all likelihood you will be handsomely rewarded for it by another form of perceived value (money, power, or respect anyone?).
In closing I will create my own list of how I can create and continue to create more value for this blog, its posts, its readers, and myself.
1. Read, study, contemplate, and think as much as possible about personal development concepts which are beneficial and valuable to me so that I may spawn new ideas for my readers.
2. Continue to improve my writing and provide as much great content as possible so that my readers will want to give their time and attention in return.
3. Through my writing and in life, demonstrate work ethic, awareness, proficiency, respect, passion, and charisma.
4. Remind myself daily of my goals with this blog and in life and let those fuel me into showing my readers and the world the importance and meaning of personal development.
5. Produce quality posts, announce new ideas, innovate, learn more efficiently, and teach others how to do these things as well…on a consistent and frequent basis.
6. Write on subjects that hit home on an emotional level…connect with the reader…think about problems that I have or have had and discuss my creative solutions
7. Bigger, better, more posts….A giant article with a lot of good points….Or a smaller article with one very important point…
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope it is as valuable and educational for you to read it as it has been for me to write it. Now go create some value!
Clark
