The Definition of Creating Value
create: bring (something) into existence; cause (something) to happen as a result of one’s actions
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value: consider (someone or something) to be important or beneficial; have a high opinion of
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create value: bring (something) into existence that’s important or beneficial to someone
Who isn’t afraid to bring something into existence?
a) That means it didn’t exist before
b) That means you’re the first to try or at least the first to try in this particular instance
And on top of creating something out of nothing, you have to bring value. Not only does your brand new idea, product, or service have to be a creation, but it also has to be a beneficial creation to someone or for something.
There’s no wonder people would be fearful of creating value.
Fear of Failure Highlighted When Creating
Creating something out of nothing always comes with the chance of failure. No matter what, if you’re trying something new, or unchartered, you don’t know what the result may be. It could be an immediate success, a far-off success, or a complete failure, but when creating you don’t know which. Instead, you have to do whatever it is to the best of your ability and hope for a good outcome.
Conveyor Belt Mindset
From a very young age, most of us (except lucky homeschooled kids) have been taught to follow rules, do as the superior wishes, and make sure to study the prescribed material. Very little of education rewards creation, and absolutely no benefits come from failing (well, getting kicked out of school is probably a benefit). Instead, we’re trained to do as the previous did before us, sometimes even learning the same coursework that’s been taught for decades.
Over time, the education system has taken away our mindset for value creation and replaced it with staying the well-traveled path. We’ve been trained that failing is bad and only bad things will happen if we try something outside the norm. The conveyor belt mindset changes our ideas from creating value to keeping the status quo. In order to start creating value, we must first break the bad habits ingrained in our minds over the past 20+ years.
Becoming a Value Creator
Thinking about value and creation separately will not deliver you at the gates of value creation. Instead, you must co-mingle the definitions and realize it’s one part creativity (art, engineering, etc) and one part value (benefits, money, time) for any project you’re involved in. It’s not enough to create art for the sake of creation but to create art because someone else will benefit from it, and will see the value you’ve bestowed upon them.
You also have to make sure to eliminate the fear of failure from your mind. Although you were trained from a young age to follow the rules, the biggest changes in the world won’t occur from following rules. You must be proactive in creating something out of nothing, even if that means falling flat on your face. Putting yourself out there with a new product, idea, or service may be a failure, but you will grow from it. Upon the lessons learned from failure, you will achieve another step to success, and in time, bring value to something or someone.
Creating value requires throwing the trained mindset out the window, becoming averse to the failures that may occur, and continuing to provide benefits to people.