Make Value Instead of Just Taking It

As tax season is here, I’ve been thinking about money and finances. I am in a new tax situation since I moved back to the US last year, so I searched for the most effective CPA (Certified Public Accountant) for my needs, and that offered the lowest rate.

I’ve made some mistakes when it comes to hiring companies in the past. I repeated a pattern many times of looking for the one with the best reviews. Unfortunately, I’ve come to find that reviews are often bought and paid for. Many businesses like myself do things the right way, but unfortunately, the ones that do not end up casting doubt on all of us.

One time, I spoke with the marketing consultant of a car shop. She gave me a ride home while my car was being repaired. On that ride, she offered me $50 to write a positive review for the car shop. I ended up declining, as it didn’t feel right. She had so little faith in the business she worked for. If she had just asked me, I probably would have done it for free. The business did provide a good service, after all.

Lately, whenever I buy anything from Amazon, the manufacturer sends a note to my address asking for a review. One even had the gall to send me a link that would automatically fill in a 5-star rating for them. I quickly unclicked the 5-star rating and left the site. As an author, I know the dire need for reviews. We must get noticed, or we are destined to fail. But there is no need to trick people into leaving a positive review.

Have a bit of patience. If your product or service is truly that good, people will notice.

So if not reviews, how do we decide on who to hire? Well, I have twice hired big roofing companies to do some repair work. In both cases, I realized that all these companies did was hire independent workers to get the job done. I’ve noticed this pattern with other big companies I’ve hired. They end up hiring people who will do the work cheaply. And often, much of the rest goes to advertising or potentially even paying for reviews to ensure they have a steady stream of customers willing to pay the big bucks.

One of these roofing companies failed to complete much of the work properly. I noticed mistake after mistake and called them back so they would finish the job properly. Even if you pay a lot of money to a company, you should still check their work. Sometimes receiving their pay is the primary concern, rather than doing a good job.

Recently, when I hired my CPA, I avoided big companies or firms with a variety of CPAs and tax advisors working for them. Instead, I looked for an independent worker. The one I ended up going with only had one review on Google, but I figured maybe his rates would actually be reasonable. When I gave him a call, he immediately found a deduction I can take that will actually more than cover the fee I end up paying him. I did call some bigger companies to see what would happen. They charged twice as much as him, and none of them mentioned this large deduction I was eligible for. He has spent at least an hour of his time just on phone calls with me and will not charge me for this. A big company either won’t offer that at all or will charge for such consultations.

The real topic I want to discuss today is making value. What does that mean? The way society works now, many of us want to funnel as much money into our own bank accounts as possible. Realistically, who wouldn’t like to have more money? And who wouldn’t like to get it without having to work more for it? The problem is that this mindset isn’t about making value. It’s about taking it.

The “taking value” mindset at its worst becomes about putting in the minimum effort, shifting blame onto others when things go wrong, taking credit when things go right, charging for every possible thing you can charge for even if it burdens the client, and generally putting your income first and the client last.

When we do this, who are we shortcutting, exactly? If significant chunks of the population work this way, then society itself is being robbed.

If someone pays $1,000 for a CPA that will have his assistant do the taxes cheaply, for a true value of about $200, then that CPA is just considered smart in our society. If he does this and it works, and clients continue to pay him, it seems no one is really losing here. But what if that CPA goes to the market, and he buys some apples that are on sale. They’re half price. But when he gets home, half of them have worms in them. The other half are fine. So it turns out he paid full price for these apples because half had gone bad. And if it were me, I’d throw them all out, as I would have lost faith in them.

You may think that these two scenarios demonstrate the same idea, but one involves much more money.

But it’s not the same thing at all. In the scenario above, the CPA who charged $1,000 for a $200 service got away with taking value. No one really noticed that he sucked $800 into his pockets without doing the work.

With the market scenario, a business that sold apples on sale with worms in them would probably lose customers quite fast. I would certainly doubt the quality of my market if that ever happened to me. So, the value hasn’t been taken there. Not in the long-term, anyway. The market owner may have made extra money on a transaction but lost a customer for the long haul.

But lately, I wonder how many people in society have successfully found ways to take value from us? They take value from society, but of course, it is legal because clients have willingly paid up. In some cases, this taking of value may be seen in what we call “hidden fees,” where you sign a 20-page contract with a company and then are surprised at all of the fees you unknowingly agreed to pay. Another example may be with companies that take your money upfront for a service, then they do not provide the promised service, and they refuse to give a refund. And, of course, some companies try to hook you on recurring fees, then if you stop using the service, they still happily keep charging you.

The above cases are clear cut and involve taking value. But unfortunately, sometimes, it can be difficult to know when value is taken and how much of it is taken. The simple argument I always hear is that if someone is willing to pay a certain amount for a service, then that is what it is worth. Well, sure, but it’s not always that simple. If you are an expert, you are supposed to know what your service is truly worth. A naïve client with a lack of experience in a field will have difficulty knowing whether he is truly getting what he paid for. Sometimes, a naïve client will pay more than a service is worth, but he would never have paid it if he had known that.

I would urge us to look for more ways to make value, rather than always needing to take it. This is an odd thing to even think about because phrased another way, I’m asking you if you can find a way to make less money.

Most people I know, especially business people, are focused on earning more, which becomes a key motivator. But to make sure we are making value rather than just taking it, sometimes we should ask if we could earn less money and if that would still be okay. Or, to view this a different way, can you provide more value than what you are getting paid for, and is that still okay?

I’m sure that my proposal of “making value” can become frustrating for those paid at the lower ends. Perhaps you have a boss that already pays you low wages. To go the extra mile and provide more value seems practically foolish. Why would you do this? Well, in that situation, I wouldn’t think about your boss as much as I would think about the clients involved. The clients are real people who need your help, presumably.

Set aside thoughts about whether you are being paid properly, and be a real person for the clients that you are there to help. Perhaps you don’t work with clients directly – that is fine too. If you work with products, those products will eventually make their way to clients. Then focus on making the best products that you can.

We are in a pandemic right now. I hate to see that some of us will lose our humanity, striving to take value rather than make it. People need our humanity to shine through now, more than ever.

One of my insurance providers connects me with the same real individual every time I have any concern or question. And this person, Trevor, treats me like a real human being. He is there to help me with anything and make me feel comfortable and happy with the service. The service he provides extends beyond just being about the insurance itself. It is about being a real person and providing a positive and valuable experience. Sometimes when I call him, it feels like I’m chatting with an old friend who happens to work in insurance.

I have gotten about 10 messages from competitors telling me that I qualify for a lower rate than what this insurance provider is giving me. But I decided that I trust Trevor and the service he provides. I’m convinced that Trevor and his company are about making value and not just taking it away. And by the way, Trevor works at a very large company, so it’s not impossible for big companies to make value. Unfortunately, it’s just rare.

Ask yourself if you’re making value or just taking it away. Generally, those who earn less money are making more value. Those who we find the need to thank for their work are often making more value than they are paid for. If this is you, keep looking for ways to make value.

Those who make more money should consider if they are making as much value as they can. Are you more focused on billing for everything that you possibly can, perhaps with hidden fees, or are you focused on actually providing a service that makes clients happy and feeling good about the work you provided?

Something intriguing to me about our society is that often the ones making the most value for all of us will be the ones who receive the least compensation for their efforts. And the ones who focus all their energy on taking value at every step of the way are often rewarded for this, earning more and more. But that pattern does not make it right. We should consider if we can make a change, somehow.

As we are in a pandemic, one way to make value is to consider if some people cannot afford your service due to their personal hardships. In such cases, can you offer a lower rate to some people who are in need? Can you afford to work for free in a few rare cases? If you work at a company and cannot work for free, can you offer free guidance or help on the weekends? Even if you do this occasionally, it is still a way to make value.

Every day, I aim to put my dollars in places that focus more on making value, not just taking it. I would urge you to spend your money on givers, not just takers. When you see a business that does not seem to care about the customers and wants to make a lot of money without caring how they do it, start looking for another place to spend your money.

Working on my Perennial Seller

“Yet far too many people set out to produce something that, if they were really honest with themselves, is only marginally better or different from what already exists. Instead of being bold, brash, or brave, they are derivative, complementary, imitative, banal, or trivial. The problem with this is not only that it’s boring, but that it subjects them to endless amounts of competition.” – Perennial Seller by Ryan Holiday

I have read Perennial Seller already, but I am rereading it because I hope for my next book to become one. Essentially, a perennial seller is a book, product, or service that continues to sell in time as more people discover it and realize the true value that it holds. You may also think of these as classics.

The creative approach that aims to build a perennial seller is unique because many industries are based on creating the next fad. Many of them want to build something hot right now and are not concerned about a decade or more into the future.

For example, the popular music on the radio today is unlikely to be played at all in ten years. A trendy new restaurant may not exist in five years. A book that is the “must-read” today may be a distant memory, no longer relevant in a few years.

Many industries are used to the idea that you crank out the work at a breakneck pace, and if it quickly ends up in the waste bin, that is fine as long as some profit was made. Authors or creators are eaten alive and spit out, and it doesn’t seem to matter because there is always a new line of authors and creators, ready to make something new and trendy that will also quickly end up in the trash.

Instead of going down that mad road, perennial sellers will keep on selling, being discovered, rediscovered, shared, and enjoyed for 10 years or perhaps much, much more.

Sometimes I think that the goal of an author, or perhaps anyone, is to become immortal. The goal of immortality is built into us, as when people have children, they pass on their genes onto someone else, who can then pass them onto someone else, and in a sense, reach immortality.

When an author writes a book, I think he has reached true success if his books are still relevant decades or perhaps even centuries after his death. This would be something that truly stands the test of time.

As the quote at the top of this post suggests, I aspire to create something daring and bold at this point in my career, something that does not just rehash or reinterpret the work of someone else. The goal of originality can be self-defeating, for any idea can often be traced to a prior one and a prior one. Everything comes from something and is therefore not truly original. Nonetheless, when my next books are read, I don’t want someone to be able to say: “These books are just saying what another author already said.” Even if they do not like the book, I want them to be able to say:

This was different… this was an attempt at greatness… even if it didn’t work out in the end.

Whether I actually can achieve a perennial seller is secondary to me. The primary objective is to truly create something worth reading, something that will help people to understand and perceive in a new way.

As a regular reader, if I see a book that is similar in style or content to many others I have read, I tend to put it down and look for something else. At a minimum, I need a new perspective on an old issue to consider reading a book. And the books that are most attractive to me are the ones that push me in new directions and open up paths for me that I was not even aware existed.

Whether I succeed or not in writing a perennial seller, I will enjoy the attempt. I will change things in my approach this time. I will strive to get more feedback on my work, spend more time making improvements, seek out higher-level professionals for my cover design and formatting. I may ask my audience, authors, or experts for their opinions if I should reconsider a chapter, a cover, or even a promotional plan.

By now, you may be wondering, what will my next book be about?

It will be about finding our personal truth. I completed the first draft last week, but this week I have set aside the manuscript to approach it with fresh eyes next week and continue to work on it. I will be discussing it in future posts here and on my mailing list.

I plan for the book to be published in June, but I will take the time required for this project. Creating a perennial seller cannot be rushed. I must be patient so that I can create my best work.

After having said all the above about wanting to write a perennial seller, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I’m not particularly concerned with the number of people who buy a book or even whether it qualifies as a perennial seller and is still selling well in 10 years. I suspect I will do fine in life either way. I will continue to write many books, and if one book fails, it will not affect me in the grand scheme.

My main objective, rather, is to be able to say:

I wrote the best work that I could, and I broke new ground for myself, pushing myself in new directions, discovering something new along the way. Writing this book was worth it because I learned deeply about myself and the universe. This book is one that I can honestly say: “I think the world would be better if everyone owned a copy.”

These may seem like grandiose comments, but if I can’t say the statement above sincerely, then I doubt I will actually write that perennial seller.

Essentially, the highest standards need to come from within myself. I am not worried about the critics around the world who may or may not like my books. I am more concerned with what I think of it. I am the one who knows all of my background. I am the one who knows what I should be capable of producing. I am the one who knows if I went all the way, pushed myself as far as I could go, and told the full truth, the full story as it needed to be told. Was it a success, as much as I could have ever hoped for? Only I can know. So only I can be the true judge of the work I produced.

This isn’t to say I will discount anyone else’s opinions. I will surely listen to them. But I feel that I am the final judge of my work. I need to know how to judge my work because if a thousand people tell me a thousand different things about my work, who am I supposed to believe in the end?

Ultimately, I must have my own inner compass to know what is real and what is not.

But of course, it would be nice to achieve a perennial seller – that would be a dream come true. No one can deny that.

As a last note, my advice for the new creators is to put in your time. Learn your craft, practice it, hone it. Take the time to do it right. I have 12 years of experience writing, starting with graduate school. Funny enough, I don’t count elementary, middle school, high school, or even college in my 12 years of experience - because I wasn’t working at a professional level yet.

So I have 12 years of professional writing experience. In graduate school, I focused on writing academic articles and book chapters. That is where I learned how to organize my ideas, be concise, and truly write. After that, I have written some fiction and poetry, but most of my work has been self-development books. After 12 years, I am just now feeling like I may be ready to write a perennial seller.

I would encourage you to take some time to build up your expertise before you can hope to create a work of true perennial value. Have fun in your first years, and allow yourself to explore new ground. Learn about yourself to figure out what your true perennial value will be. What can you offer to this world that will still matter in 10, 20, 30 years?

Will I be able to create my perennial seller? Will you? Only time will tell.

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The book I discuss in this post is now available. It is called Your Personal Truth: A Journey to Discover Your Truth, Become Your True Self, & Live Your Truth.

Today, I Stand Still (and I ask, “Who are you?”)

I was wondering if just sitting still would be the highest moral ideal to strive for.

For the most part, all our human activity and busyness is actually just making things worse for the planet – requiring more food, fuel, production, and creating more waste. And so, a high moral ideal may be to sit still and do nothing all day.

We all assume that a hard worker is valuable, but perhaps just as valuable would be the one who did nothing.

It seems that everywhere we turn, we are being urged to do more, accomplish more, sell more of our own widgets, and buy more of other people’s widgets - of course, this relates to The Busy, Entertained, Exhausted Cycle that many of us get caught up in. The fear that strikes us deep inside is that we must operate at the highest level of efficiency and productivity, or we may someday learn that the widgets we helped create have a higher net worth than we do.

Actually, when we reach an artificial intelligence higher than our own, then it is logical that we will have produced something with a higher value than ourselves. Imagine when we have an artificially intelligent machine that can build improvements upon itself, and then that one creates new improvements, and so on.

Is our destiny to render ourselves obsolete?

Speaking of value….

What is the value of your home? Not in dollars, but lives.

Our homes are worth too much, to where the bank will happily take it from us when we cannot pay. The home is worth more than the lives inside, it seems. Out of the house, out to the street if you cannot pay. Wherever you go, no one knows, no one cares. Stripped of a home, then of humanity and dignity. This is the fear that drives us to do what the boss says, whatever it is, no matter how backward or senseless – we do it and live to be human another day. That is the hope – to cling to the empty shell of our human selves, just one more day, and hopefully, everything will turn out okay. The prior sentence is written from the perspective of what someone may feel when they have been worked to the bone, only with the mere hope of keeping their home.

It’s quite a downfall to do what is expected of you, just not quite as efficiently as a well-oiled, artificially intelligent machine, and then to find yourself without a home.

Sometimes…….

I want to clear my mind and pretend for a moment as if every message that came my way during the day was actually just a trivial bit of nonsense. I want to pretend as if everything everyone said were a virus that had been repeated ad nauseam out of habit and not for any reality of the content itself. That way, I can comfort myself that everyone has just been repeating silly little lies, and there was no reason to waste any of my brain space on it. If I could ignore it, then maybe I could focus on figuring out what actually mattered on my own. Then I ask – but is this pretend, or is this actually true? Am I just pretending that things are as they actually are?

I’m a writer, and my books are in paperback, and I wonder, am I just contributing to more dead trees out there? Could some animals have lived and sheltered inside the trees that ended up becoming my books? Will the knowledge in my books be worth more somehow than these trees? Is it possible for something to be worth more dead than alive?

When I pump my gas, sometimes I imagine that I am pumping my tank full of dead and decomposed and liquified dinosaurs. And then I think, maybe that is our fate too, for some distant alien civilization to find us in time and to use our remains to fuel their spaceships. (By the way, even though I imagine dinosaurs, actually the fuel is made up of other plants and lifeforms from before the ages of dinosaurs.)

I have meandered, but here is the Thought I started the post with: I was wondering if just sitting still would be the highest moral ideal to strive for.

I thought perhaps I would take the high road today and sit still. And then I realized this is what I do every day, since writing and managing my business is mostly done sitting down and with stillness. And doing the same thing we do every day in habitual fashion couldn’t possibly be the highest moral ideal, could it?

So rather than sit, today I am going to stand and meditate in stillness.

Today, do something still, even if it’s just for five minutes. Then ask yourself, is this going to make things better or worse for all of humanity? Then ask yourself, what would happen if all humans sat or stood still for a full 24 hour day? Would we go mad, or sane, or both?

In stillness, perhaps we can let go of some of the insanity of our ways, and just for a moment perceive the actual truth as it is.

In our stillness and lack of productivity, would the world notice that we hadn’t helped produce a new widget? Would the world starve more because of our personal absence from it, or more from the absence of our widgets?

When we meet someone new, we often ask what they do, not who they are. Is that because we all know the widgets that we make (e.g., I make books, or at least the writing inside them), but few of us truly know ourselves or our own value independent from what we are making?

I once had a great fear that a stranger would one day ask me, “Who are you?” and I would stumble and blabber like a drunken fool, spewing incoherent syllables that led me nowhere, and the stranger would laugh and walk away.

Do any of us really know who we are?

As we approach the new year, imagine that a stranger has walked up to you and asked, “Who are you,” with a smug grin. He seems to know that you couldn’t possibly produce a worthy response, despite all your travels, book learning, friendships, and widget-making. How do you respond?

WHO ARE YOU?

¿QUIÉN ES USTED?

QUI ÊTES-VOUS ?

QUEM É VOCÊ?

CHI SEI?

КТО ТЫ?

你是谁？