What Is Money?

What is money, exactly? It’s anything valuable. It starts out as time, an idea, or a skill. But whatever you’re offering needs to seem valuable to other humans to translate into money. The starting place is always value. Without it, you’ll have a hard time convincing people to buy a product, subscribe to an idea, support a cause, or pay a salary.

But the hardest part of running a business or refining a proposal or polishing a skillset is finding out what other people consider valuable. Too many people – myself included – spend time and effort on things that just don’t resonate with other people. In your own mind, what you’re doing seems like the best, most evidently valuable thing in the world. It’s just so obvious to you. However, the hard reality is that it doesn’t always appear that way to other people. However, if you can crack that code and tap into what people consider to be valuable, that’s when success happens.

That’s the big challenge of business. Determining value. Whether you’re launching a new product or preparing for an interview, asking for advice or building a partnership, campaigning for a cause or convincing an audience, you need to start by figuring out what makes people tick. If you can understand what they consider valuable, what they need, and what they want at this moment, you’re all set to fulfill their expectations. And fulfilling expectations leads to an exchange of value and the achievement of goals.

But when you misjudge other people’s concept of value, that can be pretty disappointing. Many a chagrined marketing manager, frustrated small business owner, disheartened college graduate, and spurned political candidate can attest to the fact that the stars have to align between what you’re offering and what the market wants. You can have valuable things to offer, but that doesn’t translate into success if people don’t realize that. If they don’t want what you have to give, a gap exists which needs to be crossed.

There’s always the chance to change someone’s mind. But that also takes a deep understanding about what they’re thinking and what their priorities are. You can’t change a person’s mind to be like yours. You can only try your hardest to convince them to accept some new information that changes their perceptions. It’s a popular trope that if your idea is great enough, everyone will recognize that immediately. However, that isn’t usually the case. Especially if you’re interactions with them revolve around what you can do for them (as it is between businesses and customers). The more you can meet them where they’re at, the easier it is to convince them to invest in you or your product.

The upside to this is that if you’re able to gain insight into what’s driving people, and unock their goals, behaviors, and decisions, then there’s a lot of productivity and accomplishment that you can tap into. That’s what has created the successful businesses, political movements, and popular artists, influencers, and leaders of today. Whether they knew it or not, they cracked this code. They had a way of connecting with people directly, without requiring them to reorientate their whole life around something new. They’ve reached people where they already are.

There are several ways you can develop an appreciation, and a sense, for what other people think is valuable. You can ask thoughtful questions and contemplate the answers. You can try as hard as you can to walk in another person’s shoes, and perhaps get a glimpse into their background and mindset. You can try out other people’s lives, their tasks and routines, their wants and desires. You can ask yourself what other people want, not what you think they should want. You can take the time to stop and hang out with another human. And you can try forgetting yourself for a while and leaving your own ideas at the door. You may be surprised by what you discover.