This Week’s Power Topic – Money – Surrounding Context & Determining Value

One of the sub-notes that really stuck with me from Paul Graham’s Mind The Gap article was that you can’t measure anything without the context surrounding it, in this case value and buying power. Relativity of Money, (Einstein meets Warren Buffett), that you not only have to understand the picture but also the frame surrounding it.

What does that mean? It’s not only about what you have now, what you really want, or what you’re doing to get there; You also have to understand the system, or the rules of the game if you will. What are the rules? Do you understand them? Who makes the rules? Can you change the rules? Money is only a reflection of value. What creates value in our society at this point in time? What creates loss? Can you anticipate how that will change?

What’s fascinating is what happens when the rules are confused with opinions. For example:

Who determines how much you are worth, really?
An opinion from your parents? How much your boss says she’ll pay you? Maybe a teacher in school said you’re lazy or a trouble maker?

Think about it. If you had to write down on paper right now, the total of how much you’re worth, what would you write? Does that include what you could be worth? Who determines how big or little that number is? Is that the number that YOU would choose?

Some other thoughts:

• What determines what you really think you want? (which is relative to the time period anyway, right?)
• What are the steps you can take to leverage OPM, or maybe more importantly in the Information Age, Other People’s Time.