I would like to think that people who cheat never win but it’s usually only when they get caught that we find out what they have been up to.  Cheating is indeed a what of life for some people.  When you are honest it pays fairly at least for a while… until you are exposed to corruption.  Would you take a bribe?  I would love to think that people who cut corners, take money, rip off people and stab people in the back would pay for it.  But ultimately it’s unfair to say that cheaters never prosper… they often do and wind up owning large corporations.  Those of us who have a sense of fair play don’t always wind up where we should.  Sometimes we wind up dead or in jail!  Life is pretty far from fair.   A sense of fairness and justice it’s a good thing but it’s a misconception to say that cheaters NEVER prosper.  They often do… with devastating results.

I have had my fair share of back stabbings in my short life… more than I would want to count.  Given that I am typing… I can’t count and I too overweight to see my toes.  It has been my experience that the road to hell is not paved with good intentions… it’s paved with people trying to steal my stuff.  People trying to take my job… (get off it’s mine!) and people undermining me at every turn.  People murdering other people and so on and so on. Where is the good intention in that I tell you!  Sure, this saying has merit.  Many a good deed does actually backfire and create hell for the intended.  But most of the time my dear friends you find people are, as the great Nick Cave postulates, just no good.  The good intentions people may have had usually end up in something that has small consequences even though sometimes it does not.

We live in a world where ambition rules over love, good taste is blinded by mass appeal and people like Ghandi are shot in the street.  This world leaves a taste so foul in your mouth at times that you want to surgically remove your tongue so at least it can be clean.  Sure, I am ranting and sure it’s late.  But you know what I find myself shortchanged more often by people who mean me harm as opposed to people who’s heart is in the right place. I could labour this but you know what I think I made my point.

Gentlemen we can rebuild him… haha.  Right, there is a saying in this business, the business of life and problem solving, that you make a dollar every day.  Another day, another dollar.  Well, that’s another one of my now relativity unfamous Common Misconceptions.  You see, as each day passes you are making less and less.  Allow me to explain.  If you add up what you made (as in earned) you probably have spent that money on something by now. AND… if you really earned a dollar each day you would be broke.  Especially considering the world is a dire economic state at present. I know of people who earn lots more than that.  John Chow reports earning $30,000 a month!  How much does Elvis make and he has been dead for years (at least according to the media).   We must not limit our earning potential to a dollar!

There is a saying with age comes wisdom… I am here to tell you that is a croc.  It’s built on the assumption that you will get smarter as you get older.   Of course you will… IF YOU LEARN.  If you don’t learn from your mistakes you will be as dumb as you were 50 years ago.  I know plenty of people who have aged and are still dealing with the same issues on a daily basis.  From a distance you can just see they won’t learn from their mistakes.  Hey, before you say anything I am in the same boat.  You only get ‘wisdom’ through the learning you get when you reflect on what you have and move forward.  Don’t look at what you have done, milk it for the lessons and don’t make the same mistakes again.  You will get wisdom ‘with’ age at an alarming rate if you have the capacity to learn.

I have heard it said that success is a matter of hard work. Hard work is definitely a matter that relates to success (there will be hard work… I am sure) BUT is it the only thing that assures success? Let’s take an example of my favourite entrepreneur… Richard Branson. Compare Richard Branson to yourself. You work hard like him? If this was the way success is measured then you should be as rich as he is… but you are not. Are you?

Let me extend this question and ask you if you could work harder would it bring you success? Probably not. You may be working hard at a job that has limited prospects (like I am at the moment) or you may be someone who has endless potential. My great aunt could play the piano by ear for example. She had one lesson in her entire life and could hear any piece and then play it back knowing intuitively where to put her fingers. She never became a famous musician, neither did she go on to become the world’s greatest piano player. She died.

She had a natural inclination to music that was freakish yet she never stepped out of her world to do anything more. I think success is a matter of conceptualisation. What you think you have to do in order to obtain it, ironically, is what you will do in order to obtain it. I cannot speak beyond this point because it would make me a hypocrite. What about being in the right place at the right time… *coughs* Digital Research DOS… *coughs*.

So what can we do to obtain success? I don’t know. But what I can tell you is this… if hard work is the only thing that brings success then I would be a billionaire eight times by now.

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.