In this article I will use ‘deserving factor’ and ‘your worth a damn factor’ interchangeably. Do they mean the same thing? I don’t know. My clarity, even after having written this article is 70%… Compared to the 10% it was when I started writing it.
I just came back from climbing the steps for the second time.
I went back to step 1 on my 67 steps. I am finding that the foundational steps are really foundational, and I better hang out there a few times, to really harvest the value of the whole 67 steps.
The first step is about your deserving factor.
Tai says that you have what you have deserved.
But I noticed, that instead I hear something else: I hear “my value…” or “how valuable am I?” so my precious I starts worrying.
Very confusing… So I muscletest my deserving factor. On a scale of 1-10 my deserving factor is 5.
If feels kind of low… so I do a little comparison.
Charlie Munger: deserving factor 5
Tai Lopez: deserving factor: 5
OK, I need to do some serious looking, because something doesn’t compute.
What would be a 10 deserving factor?
It is not intrinsic value. It is something else…
And then I look: everyone’s 10 probably looks very different.
If you have little to offer, but you capture its value fully, would that mean that their worth a damn factor is 10? Muscletest says: NO.
Here is another question: if I had one million followers, would my worth a damn factor go up? it would go up to 7. Hm…
Not clear yet, not at all.
If I had a million people buy my stuff and I’d make a million bucks a month, would my worth a damn factor go higher? Yes.
Is there a way for anyone to be a 10? a 9? an 8? even an eight is a rarity.
The average worth a damn factor in the world is 1. Of my readers? 2.
So, if I understand correctly, it has an element of
- being a value producer… through having lots of skills, capacities, and doing something that others value….
- and another element that is capturing the value or some of the value you produce with those skills and capacities.
For me, to raise my number, I would have to get better at getting the word out, not improving the word, says Source
But no matter what, having a deserving factor, a worth a damn factor, includes both activities: produce value and find the people who want it, value it, and willing to fork out money for it.
When we hear value, or being worth a damn, or having a high deserving factor, we, automatically, look at it as an intrinsic indicator… we feel we are judged summarily. As in “do you deserve to live?” way…
But because there are three levels of value: both the evaluator looks can at value from three different vantage points and the evaluated can have three levels of value.
The value Tai and Charlie Munger are talking about are the extrinsic value: usability, monetary value, esthetic value, life quality value… worldly. Things that people are willing to pay for. Things that can be bought. 2
You may consider these extrinsic values reflecting on your Self, which is an intrinsic value, or your “Judge, Jury and Executioner” your systemic value judge, but honestly, that is a confusion and a sign that you can’t tell a thing from another, that your power of Sight is weak, your power of accuracy, your power of distinguishing is poor.
You think everything is the same as everything else, except that not always.
The moment you start distinguishing things, seeing them for what they are, you start to become intelligent.
Tai’s vibration is 170, because he can’t. Can’t distinguish well.
In the example he uses in his talk, Step 1, where parents ask how to tell if they have an exceptional child, the answer is accurate.
Observe if your child can see, distinguish, accurately, things other children don’t see.
Like seeing their own value different from what they do, or whether others like them or not…
I understand, that you probably weren’t one of those exceptional children. Maybe you felt that someone looking at you crossly meant something about you… Or when they smiled, you thought that meant you were OK.
You may have thought that getting attention means you are deserving.
The question is: can you see these differences when someone points it out?
Can you see that your value as a human (intrinsic value), your value as a value provider (extrinsic value), and your adherence to right and wrong (systemic value) are three different things? Until you do, you’ll be ineffective in real life.
The reason people don’t make as much money as the value they can produce is simply not having and not applying this distinction.
If you don’t produce value, then you are a step behind!
I assert that your unwillingness to even test if what you provide is valuable to others is the biggest issue.
- I see people who produce then don’t sell.
- I see people who produce and then talk about themselves… never finding out what is the value.
- I see people who jump from one thing to another, never producing enough value to sell.
- I see people who are working on the value, but never find out if it will sell or not.
- I see people who are afraid to jump and make their living from the real value they are providing.
I see all kinds. The only thing I don’t see is people who see things accurately.
- I am me, and I am valuable… so what… people don’t pay you your value!
- This is what I do. I have tested and the world wants it and is willing to pay for it… this is someone who is a winner
- This is what I do and the world doesn’t want it… the world wants something different. I am willing to be poor, because what the world was doesn’t resonate with me… that is someone in the middle, like myself. A “Forget Thyself” person
Obviously there are more to it, like the capacity of surrendering your own will to the will of the market, or finding the needle in the haystack: the value you can provide that people want, the capacity of giving up that it is all about you.
But essentially, unless and until you get the three levels of value, and that it is your job to “sell it”… you are going to be poor, alone, and miserable. With a worth a damn factor that is low.
Guaranteed.
- If you look at this picture, it explains all of your life. People, things, habits, and why you have what you have and don’t have what you claim you want.
People. habits. opportunities. eating. All act exactly the same way as buyers. Butterflies. True Friends. Strangers. Barnacles. Where you add input, invest energy, will decide the value you capture.
All these are like spinning plates… most that COULD capture a lot of value drop and shatter for lack of energy investment.
- Neither intrinsic value cannot be bought, nor systemic value can be bought. Buying something won’t make you a better person, neither intrinsically nor systemically. Bummer, eh? I’d love to go to a store and buy either… no such store.
Intrinsic value can only be increased by awareness and a lot of work, systemic value is not up to you… so don’t even try.
My mother didn’t like me, didn’t love me. No matter what I’d do, she would see the same old “ugh” person she had always seen.
