I have heard from different sources about value creation brings about wealth. You get richer only if you increase the value that you give to others. Zig Ziglar said, “you will get what you want if you help enough people get what they want.” Initially, I am not sure about this principle even when teacher Dennis mentioned about providing value and not to aim for financial freedom as a goal. If I give something to others, wouldn’t it make me worse off? As I continue to learn and inquire about money, that I start to understand this principle. When you provide a service or product that is needed by the society, you solve problems and people who need the service or product will pay you for it. They become better off consuming the service or product, and you become wealthier. It is a win-win relationship. The more value you can create, the more money you can make. Hence, it is contrary to what most people believe, in order to have more, you need to take more. Instead, in order to have more, you need to give more.
Thanks to La Papillion for recommending “Killing Sacred Cows” which gave me a better understanding of this principle. I cannot explain better than the author, Garrett Gunderson, so I shall quote his passages:
“Focusing on accumulating money is like wanting to harvest the fruits of a tree while ignoring the roots. As we accept the accumulation theory, most of us become frustrated with the lack of fruit on our tree – or lack of money in our bank accounts. And what do we do to solve this problem? We focus on the fruit only, rather than tracing the fruit to the branches, then to the roots. The real solution is to nourish the roots; then the fruit will naturally follow. This is the principle-based, rather than strategy-driven approach. Value and dollars follow value creation. Dollars are the effect; value creation is the cause.”
“The way for you to get what you want is to give others what they want; to make yourself valuable to others. When you create value for others, and they find it more beneficial to live life with you than without you, you create a true sense of security based on personal production, rather than on external, uncontrollable factors.”
“Wise stewards of money have power because of their applied knowledge and human life value; they don’t derive their power from money.”
“If we didn’t have currency, the only way to exchange would be the barter system. If I have wheat and you have pigs, and I want pigs and you want wheat, we can exchange wheat for pigs, and we both walk away from the transaction wealthier than before. I gave up something I valued less for something that I valued more, and so did you. But what do we do when you don’t want wheat, but I still want pigs? In that case, you and I have no basis for exchange, because you don’t value what I have to give you in exchange.
Now put currency into the equation. If we agree upon symbols of value (ones that other people in our society also agree upon), I can give you currency instead of wheat in exchange for pigs, and you can use the currency to exchange with another person for something that you actually value.
So what does the currency represent? The value that each of us individually want. People choose what denominations of currency are worth to them, because they choose what they want to buy with the currency. The value is in the minds of people, not the currency. Money does only what we tell it to do, and the things we tell it to do are based on the things that we value and want.”
“Nobody wants currency; they want the things that can be bought with currency.” Or “they want the prestige and image that they think comes with having money.”
“If you want to prosper, you must stop thinking about money and instead start thinking of ways that you can create maximum value for as many people as possible.”
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yes, as I mentioned, I do not aim to make money for money’s sake. To me, the amount of money I make is just a “score card”, I know that if I earn 10 times of what I earned in year 2000, I must have provided More Value than 10 times for this to happen.
I’m not a Christian, but Nature Law of “Law of Cause and Effect” really means that the more we Give, the more we will Receive. And whatever we Sow, so shall we Reap. So I don’t even need to think about the Receiving and the Reaping, becos it will just happen. What I focus on is What I give, How do I give, What I sow, How do I Sow. How can I give more? How can I sow more?
I think what you wrote is very meaningful and it’ll be good if you can share at my discussion forum so that more people can benefit from your sharing.
Cheers!
Dennis Ng
Thank you for your guidance!
Hi Alvin,
actually, I think you have alot of passion in learning about Investing and Personal Finance as well. What you’ve done in BigFatPurse in the last 1.5 years shows. Keep it up! I started my “learning journey” in 1998 (13 years ago), and looking back, I would not be able to reach where I am today, if not for this journey of 13 years. It took me 15 years to build my first S$1 million, but it might only take me 2 years to achieve my 2nd…..so there is a “compounding” effect in everything we do, including building up of our knowledge, not just our personal finances.
My journey was I started sharing when I started learning and I discovered that “sharing” is the best way to learn.
Of course, over years, we might discover that in the first few years, we have some misconceptions, so we must be mindful not to spread misconceptions. Which is why to me I find it very sad when Dr Michael Leong spread misconceptions such as “there is no such thing as a good debt” and “there is no way to be Win/Win” in his book “The First Million”. He is a multi-millionaire and some readers might take whatever he wrote in that book to be true.
I agree with most of his comments on stocks in the book, but these 2 things I mention stand out as “misconceptions”.
Remember “the Greater the Power, the Bigger Your Responsibility” (what Uncle Ben in movie Spiderman said to Spiderman…….so as you gain more knowledge, and as your website gain more readers, be mindful that you have a Great Responsibility to “enlighten” and not to “mislead” the public.
Thank you for your words of encouragement and advice!