True Value - How To Create Success Out Of Nowhere
By Leo Gura - April 7, 2014 | 6 Comments
A key distinction that will help you extract the maximum potential out of every object in your life.
Big Ideas
True Value vs. Apparent Value
- Right now you are squandering many opportunities in your life because you aren’t good at seeing the true value of things.
- It’s critical to make a distinction between the true value of a thing and its apparent value.
- True value is the thing’s actual utility to you.
- Apparent value is the thing’s perceived important in society, culture, your social circle of friends, your family, or even you own warped thinking.
- True value is always relative to the individual — to you! It’s not important what society tells you the value ought to be, or what the value is to someone besides you.
Missing Opportunity Right Under Your Nose
- For example, take one client of mine who was pessimistic about his advancement at work.
- He is a video game designer, and he felt like he wasn’t learning enough at his job. His skills were stagnating from lack of opportunity.
- But after questioning him, we find out that he has access to the entire GDC vault through his company for free.
- The GDC vault is a collection of audio/video files of all the lectures and round-tables of the best video game designers and develops in the world, recorded from 15 years of the annual GDC conference.
- When I was a designer I would pay up to $50 per lecture from just a single year of GDC and I got enormous skill development from just a handful of audios.
- But here is my client, with a literal treasure-trove of lectures and discussion about game design all at his fingertips, for free, and yet he’s not capitalizing on the opportunity.
- It wasn’t until I prodded my client to see the true value that he finally realized what a huge opportunity he was missing.
- This is happening in your life too!
- Right now there are dozens of powerful, free, or cheap resources lying around that have enormous true value, yet you discount them because their apparent low value has you fooled.
Digging For True Value
- It’s a fact of life that you have to dig around for value.
- Often times the value that you see on the surface of an object, person, or situation, isn’t anything near what its true value is.
- When my client starts to really dig deep into that GDC vault, he will find even more value than what he’s imagining right now.
- A single right insight, from a single lecture in that vault might lead to him creating his own business, or designing a new type of game, or advancing his career.
- If he could get such an insight, how valuable would the vault be then?
- All of the sudden, $50 per sounds like a bargain. And the hours invested in listening to many lectures will pay off in incalculable ways.
- But it takes digging and critical thinking to see this. It takes a keen eye for spotting true value.
How Much Is A $15 Paperback Actually Worth?
- In my own life I too miss out on tons of opportunities because I fail to see their true value.
- I’m always complaining about how I want to be more knowledgeable about self-help, yet I’ve got books and audio programs and videos that I already know are amazing, but I just let them collect dust.
- For example, I have dozens of unread books right now sitting on my bookshelf.
- If we just take the apparent value of a book, we can say it’s worth about $15 — that’s what the sticker says. That’s what the market say’s it’s worth.
- But if we look deeper, we can easily see how the right book, at the right time, can literally be worth millions of dollars to you. This is true value of the book!
- How can a book be worth $1 million dollars?
- Easy, just imagine you pick up a book that inspires you to start your own business.
- In the long-run, that business might earn you millions of dollars, and you would not have started it unless you got inspired in the first place.
- This might seem farfetched, but think about your own past. How many times in your life did your success or failure hinge on a seemly mundane detail like reading a particular book?
- A single book may be enough to hit a tipping for starting a business, or end a bad marriage, or finally getting into shape.
- Of course this isn’t just limited to books.
Society’s Role In Creating Value
- Be very careful! Society will carry you along and push you to value things based on its standards.
- For example, you might spot a Ferrari while walking down the street with your friends, and you might say, “Damn! That’s nice! Wouldn’t it be great to have that?”
- You say that, in part, because you know that a Ferrari is a status symbol and also because it costs a couple hundred grand.
- Then you see a Toyota Camry, and you don’t even give it a second thought.
- That’s a perfect example of apparent value that comes naturally within society.
- What is the true value of that Ferrari versus that Camry?
- Actually, the Camry might have MORE value because it’s much more economic, fuel efficient, and practical for everyday use.
- If you have a family of 4, that Ferrari has very little value to you. You’ll get much more satisfaction with a Camry because you’ll be able to take your kids to the beach.
- True value is: what a thing can do for you, and how successful and happy it can make you.
- Yes, there’s no denying that a Ferrari gives you lots of status. But you have to ask yourself, is that status really doing anything for you?
- Will owning a Ferrari actually make you happier? For most people, very likely not. In fact, it will hinder your happiness by diverting attention and resources from where they’re truly needed.
- A confused businessman might work extra-long hours to pay for his Ferrari when in fact what’s really valuable to him is spending more time with his friends.
Important Questions
- Start closely examining how you valuate things in your life.
- Think about the following:
- What is the true value of eating more vegetables?
- What is the true value of doing meditation?
- What is the true value of waking up on time every morning?
- What is the true value of having a career that you’re really passionate about?
- What is the true value of doing personal development?
- What is the true value of reading that book lying on your coffee table?
How To Change Your Valuations
- What does it take to see true value? Conscious awareness.
- Sit down and start to think about what is actually valuable to your life.
- Start looking at various aspects of your life and asking yourself, “What is the true value of that?”
- Inspect your: health, diet, gym routine, job, business, relationships, hobbies, projects, etc.
- Is the value that you think is there, really there?
- Is that activity you’re doing actually promoting your happiness, wealth, health, or peace of mind?
- Is so, look for ways to capitalize on it even more. If not, look for ways to disengage.
- This won’t be easy or natural because you’ll have to go against the flow of mainstream society and friends.
- Be on the lookout for value traps: things that seem worthwhile but actually aren’t.
- Successful people have to be independent-minded because otherwise they get caught up in value-traps. You have to be independent-minded to fight the flow of society.
- Don’t get caught up on the low-consciousness values promoted by media and society.
- Societal values are: shallow, superficial, and aimed at mediocrity.
- Your values should be: deep, meaningful, and aimed at excellence.
Bottom Line: Break out of conditioned thinking and start to look for the true (rather than apparent) value of things.
Evelyn says: unless the banana is green. Just depends on how you see it. Leo, you are doing something powerful here. Please keep up the EXCELLENCE !
Smiles!
Ev
Am enjoying your works. Have been using the laws since I was young. Knowing it is one thing……Applying it has been difficult to keep the frame of mind. Once in ‘the mode’ amazing things happen, things that others may not believe. Out of mode, things are difficult when trying to control them myself. ‘Let it be’ is one keyword I use to let go and let the universe carry me thru. It’s an incredible feeling. Others will know when they let it happen. Thanks for your dedication, Leo
Hasan says: Dear Leo,
Nice video. The true value of your channel is priceless. I’m introducing your channel to my family and all of my close friends. My sister recently subscribed and she is very impressed by your channel
Leo Gura 
Zane Chesivoir says: Leo, at my college, I discovered true value through the Counseling Center and the Learning Commons, which provides learning accommodations for students on the Autism Spectrum and also tutors. Tutors are an amazing example of true value! The Counseling Center helped me deal with my initial academic frustrations and tutors helped me maximize my academic performance. I struggled a lot during my academic career but I’m discovering my life purpose and I am realizing how multifaceted my purpose is. Thank you so much Leo for your videos!
Max Gron says: Literally a gold mine, not metaphorically? Well, if value is everything I will get my hands dirty on money, spirit and drinks, devalue the doctor’s criticism, after all his opinion didn’t change the reality that I don’t need vitamins, I don’t need a puffer to help me to breathe. If your health is so good the nagging doctor’s opinion is seeing no value in my diet. And people seeing no value in me disparaging me and not taking the morals serious, why should I listen to them? They’re seeing society’s stamping me as crap in me and not the minority’s true value in me and my norms, that’s the problem, they see what’s normal as contemptible instead of seeing its true value. I devalue people like that, people who celebrate how sick I am by those artificial treatments whether talking, vitamins or otherwise when I don’t care what they think, it didn’t change the fact that I’m not perfect, I’m in error and I’m proud of it, I’m not getting perfect for anybody.