I have been doing a lot of work on this subject area, and I'll have to disagree with Steve here, even though I realize that his post is aimed at people at a certain point in their lives.
Yes you have to provide value in order to make money if your beliefs are centered around that, however, it is possible to transcend that path and make money without "providing value" as most of you would define it.
Before all of you jump down my throat for saying that it's not only possible but fulfilling to be able to experience financial abundance without "doing anything for it", why not consider it as a possibility for a while first.
Meaning...ask yourselves "How COULD I make money and feel fulfilled even if I don't 'do' anything for it in the traditional value sense?" and sit with that for a while.
Just to spice things up a bit, for die hard "value for money" advocates, I have some questions.
Who exactly is it that determines how much "value" you're offering? For example, who decides that Steve's blog articles are worth ~$40k/month?
Why does Steve make more than the President of the United States? Ok, Bush might be a no-brainer, but pick someone else who was a president. Does a blogger really have more responsibility and provide more value than the job of a president? How do you incorporate the fact that a president's life is always in danger into the "value" equation?
If StevePavlina.com was renamed to JUE79JDUWYNJDKEI83772KJJDFH.COM tomorrow, with NO difference in value of the blog, just that the link changed and Steve was not allowed to advertise the new domain name, would his revenues continue to be $40k/m? I doubt it. What happened? Did the value of the content on the blog diminish? No, but now it's not as visible on the Internet because nobody can find it. But then if the value of the blog is $40k/m worth, then why would it diminish just because the name changed?
Is it because it's less visible on the search engines? But then that would mean that the content isn't really the value, it's the visibility in the search engines that's the value? What would happen if instead of doing that we left the domain as is, except now we replaced all the articles with REWRITTEN articles by someone else here. Meaning, we leave all the links and the titles to the posts, but we replace the content within the articles to say something different on the same topic. Would the site generate less money? More?
When a person in one country gets paid $200/month to be an English teacher and $4,000/month in a different country to be an English teacher, how does value work there? You can't attribute everything to standard of living being cheaper because if either of them want to buy an iPhone for $500 one teacher has to save 2.5 months salary to afford one while the other one can afford it in a week or so.
How does Coke sell water for money? Where is the value? Is it really different from tap water? Or is it really just the belief that it's different that they are selling.
Anyway... All I'm saying is that the whole world is trying to sell us that you MUST provide value to make money. It's on TV, it's in books, it's in the newspapers, etc. However... if you really start looking at people who make a lot of money out there. Like multi-millionaires and billionaires, you might discover some strange things. It might not be as clear cut as you think.
I do, however, believe that as long as you believe you must provide value, you WILL have to provide value. So sitting around doing nothing when that belief is still installed in your mind's "operating system" will leave you homeless.
However, I'm somewhat surprised that Steve hasn't experimented with the possibility of upgrading his operating system to remove the "I have to provide value to make money" or "I have to provide value to feel fulfilled" beliefs.
I kind of see it as:
Steve Writes Blog Posts > Steve feels he provided value > Other People Visit His Site > Steve Sees Traffic > Steve feels deserving of making lots of money > Steve Feels Fulfilled > Steve Makes Money
What if Steve just DECIDED to feel fulfilled without all the things in between first?
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