I’ve been thinking about money and value lately with the purpose of trying to uncover limiting beliefs that could be holding me back from winning the lottery.

Before I get into it, let me say one thing.  The book, The Richest Man in Babylon, by George S. Clason, is an unbelievably awesome book on money.  I highly recommend it - it’s one of my favorites that I’ve read multiple times.

So anyways… on thinking about money and business, I notice that a lot of businesses are based on lies.  And that bothers me.  Just watch some commercials.  Not skinny enough?  We can fix that.  Not getting enough sleep?  We can fix that.  Dick isn’t big enough?  We can fix that.  Clothes not cool enough?  We can fix that.  Not happy enough?  We got some pills you can take!

I mean… so many businesses are based on convincing the customer that they won’t be happy until they buy a product.  They target an insecurity and exploit it for profit.  That’s pretty fucking rude :-P.

But then I suppose I should be fair.  There are businesses that actually provide a useful service, that deserve their success.  For example, FedEx, Google, NetFlix, Amazon, etc.  They provide a service without preying on their customers.

So where is the value?  I don’t think there is any value in exploiting insecurities.  But I do think there is value in providing an honest service.

I want to say that the value of something is ultimately created in the mind.  But I can’t see it clearly just yet.  Or maybe I can…

After all, if no one was insecure about how fat they are, then diet commercials that tried to target a non-existent insecurity would be ineffective.  Should I be blaming the business, or should I be blaming the customer for having the insecurity in the first place?  Where is the value created?

It’s the customer who creates the value.  It is the mind.

A mighty general was holding and admiring one of his antique cups. Suddenly, the cup slipped from his hands and fell. Although in shock, he quickly caught the cup before it hit the ground. Somewhat breathless from this incident, he thought to himself, “I have led tens of thousands of soldiers into battle without fear. Why did a cup cause me to become so frightened?” He then realized that it was his mind of attachment and loss that caused him such fright. With this comprehension, he casually threw the cup to the ground and let it break.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 14th, 2007 at 1:24 pm and is filed under Lottery, Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.