Do you know what the number one way to build true wealth is?
With more people chasing money than ever before, I can tell you that building true wealth does not come by making a lot of money. It comes by discovering your values.
Society and the media might like to tell us otherwise, but that’s not what this article is about. Nor is it about the philosophy of money. While it’s very important, money should be used as a tool to build and expand even more of your true wealth. But what is true wealth?
Not many people know what they even value or have a hard time even finding what they value. But discovering your values is one of the most important things as you travel upon the road to freedom. It’s actually a sure-fire way to allow money to reflect your core values. When money is only a reflection of the value you put out, you will have cracked the code. You can now make an infinite amount of it in a deeply meaningful way.
Making lots of money isn’t the end all be all
Don’t get me wrong. We all need money to make sure we can improve our lives and provide for our families. But when it comes to the longevity of happiness and fulfillment, money should be seen as only a tool to help you expand upon whatever makes you happy and fulfilled. In fact, it often gets confused as a means to attain happiness. But this is where many people get it wrong.
Monetary success comes when you add value where there is a high demand for it. If you find a pocket in the market to apply yourself and your skills, you can go very far. But I think that still gets confused with the attainment of a lot of money.
When you can solve complex problems people can’t solve themselves then you’ve come across something that could potentially make you a lot of money because it’s regarded as highly valuable. We all want what we can’t have or can’t do ourselves. But in order to make sure we stick with what’s highly valuable and not get into other categories of things that can just make you money (working your minimum hourly wage job) then you must look at what you values are.
How discovering your values leads to real wealth
I remembered a long time ago when I first started brand building for companies. I was stumped on how to develop values for companies and individuals. It wasn’t until I read a blog by Scott Jeffrey on how to discover your personal core values that I realized for most of my life I never consider what I actually valued. I never assessed my peak experiences with direction and clarity and confidence.
In a way, values are like principles. They’re like a code you live by. Whenever you just follow these few simple words or phrases, you know you’ll be all right in life. You’ll get to where you need to go. Even more than that, you will have done it out of a personal vote of confidence for yourself and your own operating system. This can lead to so many rewards. You will know the actual value that you have within yourself. You will know how you can contribute through this simple expression.
Any entity will tell you that their success is a result of repetitively following their own code of core values. And it’s this kind of personal dogma that really displays what actually matters. Think about it: if money wasn’t a human construct and you had no way of measuring how much value you actually create, what would you do? I’d hope you’d say something along the lines of something that matters and what makes you happy. When this becomes your core focus, it’s the perfect time to discover what your values are. Articulating your values can lead you to use them in combination with the uniqueness of who you are.
When you should spend time discovering your values
I think humans can collectively waste a lot of time if they are not focused on the right things that will lead them forward. They can be put out for not only days, but weeks, months, and even years. We’ve all had something happened where the direction of our lives takes a turn somewhere we didn’t expect. It’s this moment in everyone’s lives that will bring them to the essence of their existence. It will make you want to do a bit of “soul-searching”. You can wait for that time period to come, or you can get ahead of your own curve. Do some active brainstorming. This leads to the puzzle pieces fitting faster for you so your progress isn’t halted for longer than needed.
I think it’s in this period that you should be discovering what your values are. For any entity, be it a human or company, will need to look at what their values are. There is always a common golden thread in all their workings. This allows us to be on the same page and to move forward with confidence even without a strategy. You’re never “lost” or “stuck” in a false state, but if you feel like you are, consider discovering your values.
The most important thing to look out for when discovering your values
I always get this question now when I teach people how to discover their values: How will I know I’ve found my values? It’s as if people are worried that if they choose a value that it might change or not even be what they actually value. I can understand the fear. The one thing that will be the biggest telltale sign if you’ve hit a core value is your own feeling.
No one else can tell you what your core value might be except yourself. They may be able to reflect it back to you, but they cannot sway you. Personal attachment to value is by far the most important thing to look out for when discovering your values. It leads you to claim them. Values only work if you truly believe them from your heart. Everything else stems from it.
The best way to know how you feel around your own values while you discover them is to practice centering yourself. Grounding is not a particularly effective balancing exercise because your values might be sky-high. But centering can allow you to come back to your own heart and decipher what is truly significant. Once you find what is really significant, you can begin to make decisions and act from this significance and start the process of building true wealth.
Where you can build true wealth
True wealth is not built in the bank, or with investments, or with predictable income. True wealth is built on the inside. And that means you’re doing the internal work to being as magnetic as you can be. If you want to be a monster magnet to wealth, you must do the hard work of discovering your values.
The internal game of finding who you are, what you like to do, why you do it is a long term game and the value of it compounds over time. In a few years, all that internal work you do on yourself starts to speak volumes about your character, style of expression, and the message you are spreading. And when someone engages in this consistent deep work of their inner being, they reap the benefits rather quickly. It’s because when we shift our paradigms and the way we think, our imagination can run loose and allow us to focus on what we want. By focusing our thought, it begins to unlock random events where we attract more of what we really value.
So how do we begin the game of doing this internal work? It starts by getting really quiet and calm. If that’s hard to do, try going somewhere without communicational technology and allow your surrounding to affect you. Most times our attention is orchestrated around our work the people we care about, or from those who are trying to steal it. Focus back on centering and you will find that what is most valuable within you to spring forth and spread.
Think of who you can be after knowing your values
Do you ever imagine who you could be if you tried giving yourself the room to be who you wanted to be? One of the biggest misconceptions around values is that “they’re nice to have”. This means they get discounted instead of being seen as the basis of brand building. We forget to focus on them when we’re so focused on the outcome like making money. We’d like to be that person with the sexy abs and Arab money in the bank, but the hard work to get there is not something we plan for. And if we do plan for it, we rarely consider the experience we want to have.
Sacrificing our own time is the name of the game here. But beware od sacrificing needlessly. Consider your intention and how you want to get to the outcome. This is precisely how your values will get used and why they are so impactful to your overall accomplishments.
Visions are what lead us to this far off destination that seems like a pie in the sky. But visions will pioneer the way forward for many people. Missions lead us to intend how we aim to get there. But values are the everyday grind we utilize day-in and day-out that make the journey worth it. When transforming ourselves to the people we only dreamed we could be, values are what keep us centered when there many things to distract us and steal our time. If we only have a finite amount of time to accomplish what we want and turn into who we want to be, values will keep us on the steady and narrow road towards this ultimate expression of who we are as human beings.
Your values will represent what you offer as a human being
Making money can be easy for some, but contributing in a way that is truly your own where you leave your mark every time is hard work. But with all hard things comes major reward. The values that you discover when you take the time to find them will create an opening for you to create the ultimate life on your terms.
We live in a world where many of our members of society have forgotten what it truly means to be a human being. The hunt to make a dollar has outweighed the pursuit of the development of the Self. And so we get confused with what’s most important when we try to exhibit ourselves. We measure if something is worth doing based on if it will make us money or something else we can validate transactionally.
We don’t really know how to represent ourselves outside of what it is we do. It can even be harder for some to explain how they do something or why they do it. This can lead to some really rough miscommunication and even more, can lead to extremes of expression. We can combat it, by learning to capture the value within us and sharing that as it represents how we contribute and what we offer.
A valuable and familiar story that shines light on what discovering your values can do
I told my father about why finding your values is more important than making money and his jaw nearly dropped. He started to disagree with me. To him, money was very important and we must make it even though it can be hard work. I agreed with him. It is hard to make money sometimes, and that it’s important to provide and improve our lives. He was confused and thought I didn’t value money and what it provides. But I clarified to him that it was a misconception.
My father was an immigrant and hard worker and has always remained steadfast in creating wealth slowly but surely. He values “hard work” when it comes to building his life and respects anyone else who showcases the same value. He can recognize that hard work when he sees anyone delivering day-after-day and contributing with vigor and focus even when the going gets tough. This definition of the value of hard work to him represents who my father is as a human being. If he didn’t have this value of hard work, he might be making money through other means, or may not even care so much about it altogether. He completely agreed with me.
Our values are a direct representation of who we are and how we consistently show up. It speaks volumes about the experience we have as humans. For me, one of my values is “mastery,” an extension of hard work but with discipline, focus, and excellence. If I didn’t value it, I would be completely fine making money by other means. Now that I know I value mastery, it makes whatever I do earn as a reward that much more meaningful.
Having values will guide you to attract more value
I hope that by now, you understand the importance of values and the imperative to discover them as soon as possible. Values lead to you understanding what you want to attract more of in your life. If you dedicate yourself to expressing your values as closely as possible, you will find that your focus begins to attract other things that are a direct reflection of your values.
Knowing what you value versus what other people value leads to the most interesting discussions around what matters to each of us. It leads us to speak rather frankly about what we want to create more of in the world. And it helps us open ourselves to receive exciting values from others that can help us down our path. Like attracts like. Those that are like you will come at you with full force. But this is only if you can do the work on your internal space where the wealth lies.
In the journey to building true wealth, your values are what will attract more of the life you seek to build. If you hold these values at the center of your existence, you will in turn create something so valuable in yourself that it will be undeniable for others to see it. Discovering your values is one of those keys that unlocks what you can make a lot of money on in the future, but in fact, holds you steady and fulfilled until you reach that monetary realization.
