If you want to know a secret for living well and achieving greater success both personally and professionally, I have one simple and effective tool.

Add perceived value.

There were two candy stores across the street from an elementary school.  When a child ordered a quarter pound of candy from the first store, the employee filled the bag, then poured candy out of the bag until the weight was down to a quarter pound.

At the second store the employees were instructed to put a little candy into the bag, then add more until the desired weight was reached.

Even though each store offered the same candy at the same price, the second candy store thrived.  The first store failed simply because its young customers thought they received more candy (greater perceived value) from the second store – the one that added candy to the bag, rather than taking it away.

This analogy applies well to our lives. I contend that we do not respond to “value.”  Rather, we respond to “perceived value.”  You might buy a dress for $50.00 when it is marked down from $100.00 because it sounds like a good perceived value – fifty percent off the original price.  This is exactly what the seller intended.  But suppose the next day you find the same dress in a different store at the full, not marked down price of $42.00?  Which is the greater “perceived value” now?

“Perceived value,” not merely “value,” is our actual hot button.

When I was a kid, my mom sometimes answered the doorbell to our home to find a vacuum cleaner salesman who walked right in and dumped a sack of dirt on our living room carpet.  He then demonstrated that our old vacuum cleaner couldn’t pick it up, but the new handy-dandy vacuum cleaner he wanted to sell us could easily do the job.  Mom never bought a new vacuum cleaner, but I did develop a dislike for both salesmen and salesmanship.  To my young mind sales meant that you knocked on a hundred doors a day trying to sell a mom something she didn’t want, and you were rejected a lot. I knew that whatever I did later in my life I would never become a salesman.

But I was wrong.  We are all salespersons, all of the time.  We have to sell ourselves every single day – at work, at lunch with a friend, and even, sometimes, to our family.

In your work, I suggest you find your niche. Do something you enjoy, and learn to be good at it.  Then, to really succeed, bring perceived value to your customers, your co-workers, and your boss.  Give them the perceived value they want, consistent with your own values.

And with your friends and family the same rule applies.  Never take them for granted, and always aim to listen carefully and to be helpful.  Listening carefully and being helpful are the two perceived values that each of us can bring to everyone who makes a difference in our lives.

And if you perceive value in this blog, please pass it along to others.

Thanks.

Alan

My absolute deadline for completing my blog each week is five pm when Lauren, who posts it on the website, leaves for the day. And yet, here I am at two pm just beginning to write.  So why did I start so late? I am always trying to understand my own process (as well as the process of everyone else). I like to know why people behave the way they do, perhaps because it makes them more predictable (and for that reason more safe). So here are some insights into my process:

Why did I start so late?

1. Starting at the last minute makes it more exciting. My adrenaline is rushing, my fingers tingle, I wonder if I will make the deadline, or will I miss it for the first time in more than four years?  Yes, excitement is definitely one of the reasons I start at the last moment.
2. I focus better when I have limited time. If you gave me a two-hour project and I began to work on it three days in advance I would find it difficult to focus because, perhaps like many of you, there’s always tomorrow.  Until, of course, there isn’t.  Not everyone is like this.  My friend Susan once stayed up until three in the morning to finish a term paper.  I asked her if that was because it was due the next day.  “No,” she said.  “It’s actually due in three weeks, but I didn’t want to have it hanging over my head.”
3. I write faster when I have a limited time to complete my work. This means that the writing is more unfiltered and that often enables me to get closer to saying something true I might otherwise have avoided .  So if I write this blog in thirty minutes instead of my usual two hours not only will I have ninety minutes available to do something else, but I might be more authentic and share something meaningful that I might not have written about if I’d taken more time.
4. This reason is a little embarrassing. When I rush my work I have a more credible excuse for not doing my very best. That takes some of the pressure off of me (and maybe I write even better that way). I can easily sell myself the “story” that I didn’t really have enough time, so less than my best is more acceptable.  Of course, there are many other excuses for failing to do my best, but since I don’t own a dog the “dog ate my paper” isn’t available.
5. I can write more concisely. You will understand that I don’t have time for six hundred words, so you and I can settle for five hundred.  And maybe you’ll be happier since I’ll be brief and more to the point.

I think my blog next week may be titled, “Rationalizing for fun and profit.”  Or maybe, “How to create an excuse which will at least satisfy you.”

Gotta go now!

Alan

Two weeks ago my blog began with a joke, and ended with a challenge.

The joke:

How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?

Only one.  But the light bulb has to want to change.

The challenge:

I gave myself two weeks, until November 21, 2017, to neaten up my workspace.

My report today, November 21, 2017, will begin with a joke.

How many psychiatrists does it take to neaten up my workspace?

None.  I hired someone else to do the job.

As for the challenge, I’m happy and relieved to report success.  See the photo of my desk that I took yesterday.

I knew I was too attached to all of the loose papers and folders cluttering my desk, even those I haven’t looked at for years, and since I’m not very good at organizing physical things I hired my friend Jeanne to do the job.  Over the years Jeanne has successfully organized my books and papers at home, and last week she did a great job organizing my desk.

My personal reaction to my neat desk is:

1. I think I’m walking into the wrong office.
2. I’m afraid I will not be able to find something I need. But for the past week I have found everything I need.
3. I’m concerned that Jeanne has set a standard I will not be able to maintain, and that my desk will soon be a mess again. But that hasn’t happened yet.
4. After more than fifty years in business, I’m still learning to delegate assignments — those I either don’t like to do or those I’m not good at. Next time I won’t wait twenty years to ask Jeanne to take over for me.
5. I feel a sense of freedom, and it’s now easier for me to focus on the task at hand.

So the challenge I gave myself worked – especially because I made it public.  One colleague whom I’ve worked with for more than thirty years mentioned that she will be stopping by my office today to inspect my desk for herself.  I hope she will be pleased.

Just for fun, if you have any kind of clutter that you’d like to neaten up, send me a photo and I’ll post it.  I will not reveal names – just photos.  It would be interesting to see what kinds of physical chaos other people face in their lives.

I wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving, and in the words of my mother, “Finish everything on your plate.”

Of course, after years of practice, cleaning everything off my plate, if not my desk, is something I’m pretty good at.

Alan