Value ((Please note that in this article, in all my articles about money, I will talk about extrinsic values, values that can be bought for money. Stuff, comfort, status. The other two types of values, Intrinsic value and systemic value cannot be bought. More in my articles about axiology.)) is in the eye of the buyer

I have had a great day. In a conversation with Sarah I started to see what are some of the things you need help with.

It’s become clear that creating an inventory is going to be difficult for you, so I am going to create detailed instructions to help you with that.

The second thing is this: In every interaction when you are operating from your own vantage point, you and your partner are like two trains passing each other in the dark.

What do I mean?

What you think is happening is NEVER happening… What you are selling is not what the buyer buys

A few years ago, Sarah answered my ad on Craigslist for a driver. I got hundreds of emails, and she was the only person I considered.

She wrote all the good stuff: clean, reliable car, reliable punctual person… but the reason I answered her application was because she wrote a sentence at the end of the email: “I am good company”.

She was the only person who addressed what I wanted: I wanted to spend my time with a person in an enjoyable way, while doing my weekly errands.

She never asked why I hired her until today… She is working on her resume: she wants to apply for some jobs, to supplement her retirement and to get busy.

Her example is perfect for all of you: she didn’t know what to say in her resume so she gets hired.

All the things that she intends to give won’t reliably get her hired. But what she really gives, and because it is her nature, she discounts it, she wasn’t considering putting it in her resume.

What she gives, in every job, in every relationship, is that people are happier about themselves and what they are doing AFTER they leave the interaction. This is who she is. I don’t have to teach her this beingness: this is who she is. This is why we have been spending every Tuesday morning together, for the fourth year… because she is fun, and she makes me feel good about myself.

It’s a talent. It’s a selling point. It’s a value in any business that needs a front person, someone who interfaces with their customers. She is a rare gem.

• Here is another example, me some 30 years ago: Some 30 years ago I was helping a friend out on Easter Sunday. She was a florist. She bought hundreds of pots for sale. I was to sell on the sidewalk, and she, with two other girls, inside.

I invented a context inside which to BE: that every single person will be happy with their purchase, feel good about themselves, feel like a hero taking the plant to wherever they were going to celebrate Easter.

I wasn’t selling flowers, I was “selling” joy, success, being a hero. These are perceived values. ((Perceived value is what the buyer hopes to get out of their purchase vs the price. It’s personal. When you are hungry, a hamburger has a higher perceived value to you than when you are just shopping food for next week! Once my mother, hypoglycemic as she was, found herself very hungry on the French Riviera, and went into a restaurant and blew our whole food budget for the whole trip on a plate of food, just for herself.))

I sold more products by myself than the three people inside the store.

• And here is another example, also from today: In one of the stores we ran into a woman who I used to coach in Landmark. She was so happy to see me, we haven’t seen each other for 13-14 years.She said that she thought of me often. I asked why? She said because she loved me… But why? I asked. “Because you are the kind of person that I could sit next to you in class and not feel less.”

  I gave her about 10 grand worth of coaching at the time. That is not what made her love me. What made her love me is that I wasn’t making her feel less.

  So, what did you learn from this lesson? Did you actually get that what you are giving is not what people are getting?

• Here is another example: people often thank me for my time. It always leaves me unappreciated. Because what I give them is my brilliance, the coaching, the energies, the help… But for them it is my time that they get.Get over it! Find out what people get from you, people who appreciate you, and start consider that that is the value that you can give more of…

Because all money is an exchange: value exchange.

Question: do you believe that, had you gotten a better education about and on money, value, you’d be able to have a more financially rewarding life? Please comment below:

Read the original article: Where is the Value? Money Series Part 3 Republished