Are You Getting Enough?
Take the word “profits” for example.
Originally an accounting term that meant money in compared to money out.
A business spends a hundred bucks, and makes a hundred and ten bucks.
Or they spend a hundred bucks, but only got back ninety bucks.
Positive profits is a signal that whatever they are doing is good, and they should keep doing it. Negative profits is an indication that they’d better do something different.
So why did “profits” become synonymous with “evil?”
It’s not the profits themselves, it’s how they are obtained. If everybody has choice, the ONLY way you can make any profits is to make something that other people want. That they are willing to pay for, based purely on their free will.
Positive profits are a signal that you are providing something that people, in general, subjectively value.
Big Business Wrecks Everything
But the basic description (devoid of any evil-ness) is very instructive.
Because, in a sense, businesses and people behave the same way.
There’s never any sure fire way of doing business, or behaving. We never REALLY know what’s going to happen. All we can do is try, and see what response we get.
Just as the best businesses are ALWAYS testing new products, measuring responses from their customers, and trying to consistently tweak themselves to MAXIMIZE their profits (and therefore maximize the amount of value they are providing to customers), individual people do the same thing.
We are never sure what’s going to happen. All we can do is take action, and see what the results are.
If the results are GOOD, we do more. If they aren’t so good, we do something different.
What are GOOD results? That is completely up to you. Generally speaking, anything that gets you closer to achieving your dreams.
No matter what your dreams are, no matter how big they are, if you consistently take action, measure the results, and then use THAT to take BETTER action next time, you will not fail.
This is the strategy that will get you anything you want in life.