There Is Only One Way To Make Money

A guest post from the best-selling author, Jim Stovall:

I�ve received a unique blessing many will never enjoy as a writer: to work closely with a proven, prolific author on a collaboration at the very beginning of my writing career.  This year, I had enjoyed co-authoring my second book with Jim Stovall, best-selling author of The Ultimate Gift.  Our collaboration is The Ultimate Financial Plan: Balancing Money & Life (John Wiley & Sons, 2011) and Jim has been especially generous to share some regular guest posts with us here on my blog.  Enjoy this first one!

Everyone wants to get ahead, create wealth, and succeed.  There have been countless speeches given, books written, and courses taught on the subject of how to make money and be successful.  In the final analysis, there is only one way to honestly and honorably make money over the long term, and that is to deliver value to others.

People will trade their money, which is simply stored up value, for products and services that they believe to have value to them.  The person who receives the money in exchange for those products and services can then go out and purchase things that they find valuable.

Some people create value while others find it and deliver it to the marketplace.

Creating value is the process of taking something or nothing and turning it into a product or service that will benefit others.  As I dictate these words, I am hopefully creating value.  There was nothing here when I started other than the desire to write this column and create value for you.

People who find or recognize value and deliver it are a critical link in the process.  After I finish writing this column, newspapers, magazines, and online publications around the world who are aware of my work and believe it has value will repackage and deliver this column to you.

Some people argue that those who create value are more important while others believe those who find, package, and deliver value to be more significant.  I believe it�s like arguing whether the engine or the wheels are more important in your car.  There are probably good arguments both ways but, in the final analysis, no one�s going anywhere until they have both the engine and the wheels, and then they can travel anywhere they want to go.

While both creative people as well as those who discover and deliver value are important, they are rarely interchangeable.  The editor of my very first book had aspired to be an author himself for many years without success.  Then out of frustration and necessity, he accepted a job as an editor and only then did he find his true calling.  Editors discover, refine, develop, package, and deliver the creative works of others.  My editor, who had failed as an author, was responsible for bringing more books to the marketplace and bringing more value to more readers than any single author has ever done in the history of the written word.  This gentleman, who could not succeed as a writer himself, was responsible for bringing more value to readers than he could have done had he been the best writer of his time.

As you go through your day today, realize that value is the only marketable commodity.  Find your place in the world, either creating value or delivering it to others.

Today�s the day!