Has someone ever said to you … if you work you will make money?  I can tell you it’s not true.  Yeah I know… just about everyone you know works to earn money.  In reality, they are not working in exchange for money, they are offering a service that is of a certain value.  That value is perceived.  The work you do is paid in arrears.  Hence, the money you make is a value exchange.  Now I promise you this: work for the rest of your life and see if you ‘make’ money.  I guarantee you won’t.  You will exchange your life for perceived value.  Here’s an experiment. Look at the value inherent in something popular and ask yourself… did they work any harder than you did?  I know people who are chefs that worked very hard but are no Gordon Ramsey.  Yet I have heard it said… if you want something you have to work for it.  True enough I suppose.  I think such a sentiment would be better expressed as: Whatever you want will require work but don’t fall into the trap of working and not building or growing.  If you want to make money you need a system that generates it while it provides ‘value’ to people’s lives.   That value will be exchanged for money … over and over and over again.

When you exchange something of value for something else of value that’s a ‘value’ exchange.  When you go to work you are trading your time, energy, creativity and personality for money.  Ask yourself this question: what could I do to exchange what I know now for more money?  What value could I add to someone’s life through what I know?  If you can answer these questions then you already know you don’t work to make money… you make money by exchanging value for value.  Think about it!  It’s not about hard work … it’s about smart work.  Creating value propositions for exchange is how you ‘make’ money.  It’s how your boss makes money from you and how you make money for someone else.   Think about what you can do to create your own value proposition.

According to They Might Be Giants… the sun is a mass of incandescent gas… a giant nuclear furnace. Ernest Hemingway told us ‘the sun also rises’. Yet, this is not the case… it’s a common misconception. The sun never moves. It’s kind of like me during one day cricket: a stationary ball of anger, rage and heat. Living in a hot climate I have often been stung by it’s heat. Yet, during my 30+ years I have never seen the sun rise. It remains a mysterious hot ball of non-moving fury.  In ‘reality’ our language makes fun of us… it betrays us and makes us believe what is not true.  If the sun were to rise… by now, surely, it would have hit the roof off space.   Why am I mentioning this?  Often in life we accept taken for granted assumptions as though they cannot be questioned.  They can.  As I once heard it said… the unquestioned assumption is usually the one that holds the key to solving problems… think about that… it may just unfreeze your brain.