In my mid-twenties, after probably what amounts to more than 10 average lifetimes of philosophical & strategic thinking, I’ve extracted a principle that is so elegant & powerful.
I see it as being just as good or better than the timeless principle of human nature that is “pain/pleasure/meaning”.
I don’t know if I will ever discover a greater principle again for as long as I live.
This principle has to do with human achievement, and it is my pleasure to introduce the principle of “existing value” to you here.
My surface level explanation will not do it justice. I have been living with it crystallized in my head for over a year and its applications & value run very wide & deep throughout life.
I largely look at life through the perspectives of human nature & human achievement. Where human nature explains us and human achievement is the act of pursuing the outcomes we all want in our individual & collective lives. Both subjects are universal & fundamental, yet only human achievement is largely cared about by the mainstream, for their own individual objectives. Most all do not concern themselves with human nature or the deeper study of human achievement. So this principle is largely only going to serve those who invest themselves deeper into human achievement than the current mainstream. However, with it, innovations that serve others can be built & utilized throughout mass society. So it can act as intellectual infrastructure in that sense.
The principle of existing value, like many great principles, is something already in existence & being utilized throughout humanity, yet unconsciously so & grossly uncapitalized upon, relative to its full potential.
With this principle in your conscious mind, you will very likely have the personal power to do some real damage by achieving much greater results, in much less time, with much greater predictability.
Here we go…
The principle of existing value, on the surface, simply states:
Leverage existing value, in all forms, to efficiently & effectively achieve greater results without having to actually go build that value yourself.
That is it, overall, and it might not seem like much upon first consideration, however, if one seriously invests themselves into seeking it out & implementing it into their life, it can significantly change your achievement trajectory for the better.
Let me try to go a bit deeper with it…
I came to thinking up this principle largely through the help of two other achievement principles. These principles where “op leverage” & “repurposing”. The principle of op leverage, which unifies all of the individual one’s under it, says to utilize the resources of others for your gain, such as other people’s money (OPM), etc. The principle of repurposing, which I extracted myself, says to repurpose other things in life for your gain, such as resources, people, commercial offerings, social situations, etc. However, as great as these are, they were only the tip of the massive iceburg of wealth that is the principle of existing value. The concepts of op leverage & repurposing are largely one dimensional, where existing value is the multidimensional grandfather of this family.
You should explicitly know that “existing value” can come in all sorts of forms, including tangible & intangible.
Also, a deeper dimension of existing value, where there happens to be a lot of value, is that of meta concepts. This is where you don’t define an absolute concept that contains value, but rather define a relative concept that depends upon variable logic or opportunities to become a viable building block for you.
That word, “building blocks”, is a good way to look at this principle too. You are looking for existing building blocks to insert into your path of achievement, where the value is already established.
You see, I think most people look at results they want in a forward looking manner. Where they are in one position and need to take action to get over to the outcome they want, like setting out to travel across a country to their destination. That can be useful, but what is generally more powerful is the perspective of reverse engineering. Where you define the outcome and work backwards in your plan for what needs to happen to get to that latter stage. Now, where the principle of existing value comes into this is how you go about reverse engineering the achievement of your objective. Most of the time, people only base the requirements of their building blocks for advancement on the natural logical requirements & going out and build those building blocks for themselves. Instead, what is generally more predictably powerful, is to define & acquire those building blocks through existing value out in the world. This way, you are opening up the potential to secure & jump past that building block with efficient ease & certainty, where the heavy lifting was largely in the strategy and the implementation is largely or completely based on existing value outside of you.
Now, it is true that existing value is not always as valuable or viable as “new value”. Often, due to the nature of reality or the limits of one’s discovered solutions, going out and building new value will just have to be a part of your path of achievement. It would likely be more optimal to reroute around having to develop new value and efficiently discover & acquire good enough existing value, but this won’t always be possible or predictable. However, our economies & societies are always developing & growing overall, so the future will present even more opportunities for existing value. But, if doable, existing value is often the higher leveraged & more powerful position to take. It is like going to the convenience store versus growing all of your own food yourself from scratch for a lifetime. Yet, with custom strategic achievement in life, we are often unaware of all the convenience stores in existence, because they largely do not publicly advertise themselves as such for the notable outcomes we want out of life. So it often takes a deep search to find these sources of existing value, but when you do, it can be a bit like discovering a fountain of youth.
A big key in successfully implementing this principle is to be open to dynamically changing & adapting your plans based on existing value, which are often factors outside of your control. The best options for you might involve doing a total 180 from what you believe you should do or want to do. Being extremely results oriented, without loyalty to methods, is likely necessary here to be optimal.
An example in my life where this principle has really had a profound affect is in my business career. In the past year, I have largely shifted from an entrepreneurship model & identity to that of a direct marketing model & identity. Professional entrepreneurship is largely based on building new value, while professional marketing is largely about leveraging existing commercial platforms to redirect existing demand to a targeted offering. So I’ve turned myself into my genuine standard of a professional modern marketer and am capitalizing upon that paradigm of business. Also, I believe my outlook & approach on personal relationships in my life has been strategically shaped by the principle of existing value.
However, those are general examples of implementation in my life. This principle can & should be applied to all sorts of things, in all sorts of ways, on the full spectrum of macro & micro levels. That is how I’ve been able to discover & extract so much value out of this principle, call it the best I’ve ever seen, and have only just begun leveraging it in my life.
Like how the principle of pain/pleasure/meaning lead me to an extremely powerful & profound personal platform of understanding for human nature, I believe the principle of existing value may have the power to unlock such secrets of human achievement that actually work profound wonders in the real world.
