“Draw a crazy picture,
Write a nutty poem,
Sing a mumble-gumble song,
Whistle through your comb.
Do a loony-goony dance
‘Cross the kitchen floor,
Put something silly in the world
That ain’t been there before.”

- Shel Silverstein, “Put Something In,” A Light in the Attic

Yesterday was Shel Silverstein’s birthday. He died ten years ago, but his words live on.

Think of what you can do today to put something silly in the world. Then tell us what you did.

At well over 5,000 words, this post is an absolute monster. I’ll hold off on posting for a while, to give you enough time to absorb it. And I hope you will, because this is definitely an issue where you want to know where you stand.

Are you a lightworker or a darkworker? You’d better know the answer. After all, it’s one of the most important decisions you could ever make. It affects everything about you, from how you see the world, to how you treat people, to how you make a living, to possibly what awaits you in the afterlife.

But are lightworker and darkworker the only two options? Could you simply be unpolarized, not having chosen one or the other? Or could you be a third type that hasn’t been mentioned yet?

OK, let me slow down here, because I know I’ve lost some people already.

The terms lightworker and darkworker have different definitions depending on who you ask, and I think it can be helpful to look at the distinction from multiple angles. For example, if someone with a lightworker personality resorts to doing a darkworker job because they need the money, what is their real type?

Anyway, lightworker and darkworker are roughly synonymous with good and evil. They reflect the orientation of your morality, and therefore how you live your life. (I sometimes call them whitelighters and darklighters, but I’ll stick to the more common terms here.)

While these terms are sometimes used with spiritual connotations (i.e., “you have a lightworker soul”), I’ll be talking about them from a more down to earth perspective, mainly in terms of how we make a living. (If you’re interested in the spiritual side of this, I can refer you to Akemi Gaines. Start with her recent post Soul Shifting And the Light Ascension Of Maybe 2012. While it’s not exactly about lightworkers and darkworkers, it’s relevant enough, and it’s certainly drawing lots of attention.)

We’re all here on this earth to do something. Everyone is different, but we all want to do our work, or fulfill a purpose, or create value, or if nothing else, then at least live our life. And while it’s important to figure out the specifics of what you want to do, it’s even more important to determine your intentions that set the stage.

In whatever shape or form, lightworkers are here to serve the greater good, though they also want to take care of themselves. On the other hand, darkworkers are here only to serve themselves, and have no problem with sacrificing the greater good if it gets in their way.

The concept of polarization refers to how far you lean to either side. Most people have both lightworker and darkworker tendencies, but they don’t mix well together. If you try to be both a good lightworker and a good darkworker, you’ll be terrible at both.

A mass can be positively charged, negatively charged, or neutral. Whether it’s positive or negative, it can only become stronger by polarizing further in that direction. If it mixes with some of the opposite polarity, its charge weakens. Too much of the opposite polarity, and it becomes inert and powerless.

Many people are quick to call themselves lightworkers, but they’re not really polarized in that direction. Someone who’s just a little bit lightworker is no lightworker at all. That doesn’t mean they’re a darkworker; they’re just unpolarized.

So that’s how it goes, according to most people: you’re either a lightworker, or a darkworker, or unpolarized.

I’d like to propose another type. This kind of person is halfway between lightworker and darkworker. And they aren’t unpolarized; this is actually a third direction you can polarize in.

For lack of a better word, I’ll call these people neutralworkers. Yeah, it’s not catchy, but it will do. Zombieworker sounds insulting. Grayworker sounds cheesy, and also sounds like it means “a little dark,” which isn’t the case. Clearworker sounds good, but it’s confusing because it implies mental clarity, not to mention that clear technically means transparent, not colorless (cherry jello is clear, even though it’s red). Transparentworker and colorlessworker both sound ridiculous. Plainworker isn’t bad, but it sounds like someone who works on planes. So I’ll go with neutralworker for now, but feel free to suggest another word.

It’s easy to understand the difference between these types when you look at how they make a living.

• Lightworkers focus on earning money.
• Darkworkers focus on taking money.
• Neutralworkers focus on getting money.

Said another way,

• Lightworkers focus on creating value.
• Darkworkers focus on stealing value.
• Neutralworkers focus on hacking value.

Simple enough, right? Let’s take a closer look at these types.

Lightworkers

“In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.”

- Mother Teresa

Lightworkers love creating value. While they want to benefit from their work, they want to feel that they earned their money by doing something good for the world.

If somebody gets a paycheck, then they must have created value. Otherwise, what is the other person paying them for? However, to a lightworker, it’s not enough to just do what their boss considers to have value. Their work needs to be meaningful to them.

Lightworkers aren’t so “holier than thou” that every single thing they do has to have an earth shattering grand purpose, but they’re generally focused on making the world a better place. What exactly does that mean? We’ll see later that this is very subjective, but what matters is the lightworker’s intention.

Being a lightworker doesn’t have to mean being a martyr. If you want to make everyone better off, remember that “everyone” includes you. Lightworkers should strive to meet their own needs as well as society’s.

Darkworkers

“Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong.”

- Adolf Hitler

Darkworkers are always looking out for themselves, so they don’t care about creating value. If they happen to create value, so be it, but they’re just as willing to mooch it or steal it as they are to create it.

They’re not necessarily set on destroying society, but their only desire is to serve themselves. Whatever gets them what they want, that’s what they’ll do. If innocent people get hurt, that’s perfectly acceptable.

Think of it this way. Most people think it’s perfectly fine to eat animals. We’re at the top of the food chain, so we’re supposed to eat lower forms of life. But darkworkers take this concept and apply it to other people. They see everyone else as lower forms of life, available for their consumption.

To some extent, I can agree with that. Just now, while I’m typing this, I got an email from a reader. This person had opted into my newsletter, so of course he automatically got an email asking him to confirm his request. You know, the usual double opt-in deal. But instead of clicking the link to confirm, he replied with this:

GO **** YOURSELF *****

Yes, it was large bold red font in all caps, only his version didn’t have any asterisks. What a perfectly reasonable response to an opt-in confirmation. Do I think people like this are a lower form of life? You know, I might even put them below snakes. It would be justifiable to become a darkworker who targets people like this, but I wouldn’t do it. I’ll explain why later, when I give an argument against darkworking.

Neutralworkers

“Another day, another dollar.”

- The Neutralworker’s Motto

This is a term I’m just making up, but it’s hard to deny that these people exist. They don’t feel the need to create value, and they won’t resort to stealing it. Instead, they’ll just hack it, playing the system and taking the path of least resistance.

This is based on the idea that the value you provide is judged by other people, not by you. If someone hires you to do something, it has value to them, so they’ll pay you for it. It doesn’t matter if you think it has value. A neutralworker does a job just for a paycheck.

One example of this is often seen in the “make money online” crowd. Lots of people want to make money online by doing whatever works best. So instead of doing something they think is valuable, they find a high-paying keyword like mesothelioma, and base their life’s work on that. They set up a site that looks like my funny quotes pages. They make the site as ugly as possible so visitors will want to leave immediately, hopefully by clicking on an obnoxiously placed ad. (Incidentally, I created my quotes pages long before AdSense existed, so this isn’t a pure example of neutralworking.)

Is creating spam niche sites useful to society? No, but it works, and no one was hurt. No one did anything wrong or illegal. Why do you need to be a hero, when an easier way is available? In fact, the neutralworker path is the easiest way to make money, as long as you have the emotional deadness required to avoid wanting to do something useful with your life.

“If you don’t monetize a visitor one way, convert her into dollars another way!”

- Affiliate Masters Course

Years ago, someone I worked with was trying to get a top secret clearance, thinking that it was the best way to get ahead. But you can’t just go out and get a top secret clearance; you have to find an employer who (1) will hire you without one, and (2) will pay to get you one. Not easy to do.

This guy was staying in contact with his friend, an accountant who was close to getting his top secret clearance. One day this friend called. He had just gotten his clearance, and his salary had gone from $80,000 to $140,000, literally overnight.

These results aren’t typical, but to a neutralworker, this shows that clearly the best career move you can make is to get a top secret clearance. So you do whatever puts you in the path of one, accepting jobs based on their likelihood of ultimately leading to it. Forget about learning how to do your job better. Anything you do that you think makes you a more valuable employee has a negligible effect compared to being in the right place at the right time.

Another example of a neutralworker is the husband in Rosemary’s Baby. In exchange for a much-needed boost to his acting career, he agreed to let Satan impregnate his wife with the Antichrist, on the condition that she wouldn’t be hurt. Lovely.

Counting cards in blackjack, day trading, black hat SEO techniques, moving piles of money around–this is all about finding a way that works. No real value created, but none taken away. They’re just exploiting gaps in the system.

“Stop going for the easy buck and start producing something with your life. Create, instead of living off the buying and selling of others.”

- Carl Fox, Wall Street

It’s all about intentions

Sometimes it’s obvious whether someone is a lightworker, darkworker, or neutralworker. But many times it’s not. Where exactly do you draw the line?

“It’s not our abilities that show what we truly are, Harry. It’s our choices.”

- Albus Dumbledore

Paul Piotrowski at Inspired Money Maker has thought a lot about the difference between lightworkers and darkworkers, and concluded that it comes down to the intention you hold. In other words, there’s not an official list of lightworker jobs and one of darkworker jobs, because it depends on your perception of your work.

That seems right to me. For one thing, it explains why two people can perform the same job and see it completely differently.

You may have heard this story before. There are different versions of it floating around, and sometimes the moral of the story is different. But here’s the first version I heard 12 years ago, from Randy Pausch:

A gentleman walked past two guys who were laying bricks. He approached the first bricklayer and asked “What are you doing?”

The first bricklayer said, “Well, I pick up bricks from here, and take them over there. I get cement from over there, mix it with sand and water to make mortar, and use it to hold the bricks together. Then I come back here to get more bricks.”

He then asked the second bricklayer the same question.

The second bricklayer said, “I’m building a cathedral.”

Both were doing the exact same thing, but their intentions were different. The first was a neutralworker, doing the job to make a living. The second was a lightworker, doing what he could to create value. A third bricklayer could potentially have been building a fortress from which to launch a war against all living things, and that would make him a darkworker.

So bricklaying or any other job isn’t inherently light, dark, or neutral. It’s up to the intentions of the person doing the work.

The stock market is mainly used for neutralworking. People put money in, let it sit there, and make a profit (hopefully). It’s not good or bad, it just is. And yet it provided perfect opportunities for both lightworker Warren Buffett and darkworker David Schirmer. It all comes down to intentions.

(Intentions are sometimes a fuzzy measure because evil people often don’t think they’re evil, and because sometimes it’s necessary to kill for what is arguably the greater good. Were the Jedi evil for attempting to dethrone the Republic’s democratically elected leader without cause? What about someone who assassinated George W. Bush to end the war in Iraq? What about the European settlers wiping out the native Americans? The American colonies seceding from Britain? America dropping the bomb on Japan? What is the greater good? It’s hard to say, but let’s try to keep it simple here. (He says in a 5,000 word post with nested parentheses!))

Splitting your polarization

This picture is sending mixed signals, an example of split polarization.

People are often tempted to mix lightworking and darkworking. This is really dangerous. You’re much better off making a choice and sticking with it.

“Daniel-san, must talk. Walk on road, hmm? Walk right side, safe. Walk left side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later, get squished just like grape. Here, karate, same thing. Either you karate do ‘yes’ or karate do ‘no.’ You karate do ‘guess so,’ squish, just like grape. Understand?”

- Mr. Miyagi

You can’t build homeless shelters by day, and kidnap billionaire heiresses by night. It doesn’t work that way. You can’t shift your intentions from one extreme to the other and expect to do well at either end. Splitting your polarization that much will cause you to suck at both lightworking and darkworking.

One of the most unpolarized people of all time is Homer Simpson (son of Abraham Simpson). And because he was all over the place, he was horrendously ineffective. He started his own security company because he saw it as “a way to combine my love of helping people with my love of hurting people.” It was no surprise that he got mixed results, making lots of friends as well as lots of enemies, being good enough to replace the police force but greatly overstepping his bounds, and receiving lavish praise as well as death threats from the mob.

OK, but what about being mainly a lightworker, and just doing a little harmless darkworking on the side? Maybe you’re generally a good person, but now and then you see an easy opportunity to break the rules for your own gain, without really hurting anyone. Should you do it?

The real damage is not in the act itself, but in the effect it has on your intentions. A lightworker can’t act as a darkworker “just this once,” then go back to how they were before. Once you cross the line, you’ve become unpolarized. You can repolarize in time, but now there’s a risk that you might not.

“You can look the other way once, and it’s no big deal, except it makes it easier for you to compromise the next time, and pretty soon that’s all you’re doing; compromising, because that’s the way you think things are done.

You know those guys I busted? You think they were the bad guys? Because they weren’t, they weren’t bad guys, they were just like you and me. Except they compromised…once.”

- Jack Bauer

An argument against darkworking

Let’s say you’re trying to decide whether to become a lightworker or a darkworker. Your sense of ethics is very flexible, so you think you could go either way. And you decide to become a darkworker. Specifically, a car thief. You think you’d be good at it.

But deep down, you’re really not fully polarized as a darkworker. You can rationalize stealing cars by saying that it mainly just hurts the insurance companies. Occasionally someone catches you stealing their car, so you have to pull a gun on them to scare them off. And while you don’t like doing that, you figure that it’s not really that bad.

But what happens when the cops come after you one day? Are you going to kill them? Because that’s what you’d have to do. But no, you couldn’t possibly bring yourself to do that. And that’s the problem. Because to be an effective darkworker, you need to act like a darkworker all the time.

Tony Montana and Darth Vader were both highly effective darkworkers because they were highly polarized. They never hesitated to do what a darkworker would do in any situation. And they were both brought down because they slipped up once, by acting like a lightworker.

If you think it would be cool to be Al Capone, before doing anything, first ask yourself if you’re capable of being that polarized as a darkworker. Are you willing to do whatever it takes to help yourself, no matter who it hurts? Because that’s what you’d have to do.

Society and its laws are highly biased against darkworkers. You can only go so far down the darkworker path without breaking the law, because the law is meant to protect the society you’re trying to abuse.

There are some exceptions. A darkworker can be very successful as a politician, if they can learn to gain a lot of power within the confines of the law. But generally, the law will greatly hinder your darkworking efforts.

When you go partway down the darkworker path, and you reach a point where you can’t proceed legally, you have a choice to make. You can either stay there and accept the limitations, or you can keep going. But if you decide to keep going, you can’t ever change your mind and expect society to welcome you back with open arms.

Here’s a spoiler alert, as I’m about to reveal the ending of The Fatal Equilibrium, a 1985 murder mystery novel by Marshall Jevons. (And as a side note, it’s a very interesting book. Marshall Jevons is the pen name of economics professors William Breit and Kenneth Elzinga, and this entertaining but educational murder mystery is actually used in college economics classes.)

In this book, a professor of anthropology decides he needs to write a terrific book to become famous. When he finds he no longer has the time or the dedication to do the necessary research, he decides to just fabricate his data, figuring no one would have any way of knowing. Thus, he commits a single act of darkworking.

Except it doesn’t stop there. A whiz kid in the economics department reads the book and figures out that the data doesn’t make sense, so he decides to blackmail the professor. The professor is thereby forced to commit more and more acts of darkworking to maintain his cover. At last he realizes that he just can’t polarize himself enough to be a good darkworker, so he jumps off a ship into the cold, dark ocean, having left this confession letter behind:

“…The terror of being exposed as a fraud outweighed the terror of murdering others to keep from being discovered. Once the decision was made to protect myself, my career, and all that had any meaning to me, I went about the business of murder in the most systematic and disciplined manner. Killing another was not pleasant. It was simply necessary. As I saw it then, and as I see it now, there was no other recourse.

I had, of course, hoped Dennis Gossen’s dispatch would end the matter…But I was not yet totally secure…I had to put Bell out of the way quickly…Barrett had to go too…Your party provided the opportunity for me to steal Melissa Shannon’s gloves in order to implicate her…After Melissa Shannon was convicted, I thought the danger to me was over.

…[But] I noticed you reading and I saw you suddenly sit bolt upright. When you left the Reading Room, I looked at the book you left behind and realized you were reading the same pages in my book that had aroused Gossen’s suspicions. I still do not understand how economics could uncover the fact that I had falsified my data, but I knew you were onto me.

…I thought briefly of killing you, Henry, to protect my reputation. But sooner or later my duplicity would be discovered again by another Spearman or Dennis Gossen who happens upon my book. So I have come to an end. Once again there is only one clear alternative.”

So instead of doing a lot of harm as a darkworker, only to quit that path after you finally admit that you don’t have it in you, do yourself and everyone else a favor, and resolve never to start down the darkworker path. If you have any sense of ethics, this should be easy.

Choosing between lightworking and neutralworking

OK, if darkworking is off the table, what are your choices? Being polarized as a lightworker will make you the best lightworker you can be. Being polarized as a neutralworker will make you the best neutralworker you can be. And being unpolarized will let you freely drift between them, experiencing some benefits of each, but without becoming optimal at either.

While it’s potentially dangerous for a darkworker to do some lightworking, and it’s extremely dangerous for a lightworker to do any darkworking at all, it’s much safer to do some neutralworking. Both lightworkers and darkworkers are free to dump their money into an index fund, passively collecting money without jeopardizing their polarity. Your polarization simply indicates your overall focus, rather than dictating every single action.

Being unpolarized offers the most flexibility, so that might seem appealing. However, choosing to be either a lightworker or a neutralworker would let you direct your efforts consistently, and would theoretically lead to better results and life satisfaction. Still, it’s hard to choose one, because they both have significant downsides.

The downside of being a lightworker

Although it’s easy to think that lightworking is the best path, it has a very definite downside. That downside was shown quite well by Mary Ulrich (no URL given), in her comment on Leo Babauta’s The Culture of Free, and The Power of Less. Leo said he was a proponent of free information, but he meant free from copyright, not free of charge. For example, he sold an ebook, but gave his customers the right to distribute, copy, and reuse it.

Many readers, including Mary, misunderstood him, and thought he was saying that people should work for free. But while this comment was based on a misunderstanding, it demonstrates a common plight of lightworkers:

“Sorry Leo, but I still don’t understand your concept of FREE.

I’ve been a volunteer most of my life because my oldest son with the label of autism needed me to do the things I did.

Now as I am approaching 60 years old, I have lots of plaques and awards of appreciation, but no retirement income. If I am lucky, I might manage enough social security quarters to get the minimum payment and be able to afford some health insurance.

I am often in a room of professionals who are all paid to be at the meeting, and I am the only parent–the non-paid person. I know what I do is important, I know I have made a difference in people’s lives, but I can’t seem to be able to make a salary to save my life. There are advantages, I can say things that need to be said and not worry about my boss censuring what I say. Because of that I have made significant change. Fortunately, my husband supports my ‘volunteer habit’ and we are doing OK, it’s not like we are living on the street. We recently went to visit my youngest son’s new in-laws in another country and saw poverty like I have never seen before. I know I have many things to be thankful for.

I understand Mother Theresa, the joy of service, and have heard all the platitudes about being rewarded in the next life…. But, If I am going to write a book, this one time I want to get paid. Our society measures success with dollars. Somehow, I have to figure out how to support my oldest son after we die. So, even if it is just once, so I can know that my life work has had value in the traditional sense, I would like to be able to get a paycheck.

Another parent friend always kids me, ‘Even prostitutes get paid.’ and then I always feel like a doormat because I know the professionals are using me.

Leo, I am benefiting from your ‘free’ advice, so I thank you, and I am thrilled it is working for you, but my perspective must be upside down or something, because I can’t figure it out.

Thanks for any suggestions. Mary”

- Mary E. Ulrich

Wow! I don’t fully understand her situation, but clearly she resents some aspects of being a lightworker. Although her work has value to her and some other people, it’s not received well by society overall. Let’s look at what she said, and see the pros and cons she’s experiencing as a lightworker.

Pros:

• Doing what her autistic son needs her to do
• Knows she’s making a difference in people’s lives
• Can say things that need to be said
• Has made significant change

Cons:

• Can’t seem to be able to make a salary
• No retirement income
• Might not be able to afford health insurance
• The only one in the room who’s not being paid
• Resents that society measures success in dollars
• Resents that her work has not had value in the traditional sense
• Doesn’t know how to support her autistic son after she dies
• Even prostitutes get paid
• Feels like a doormat because she’s being used

Unfortunately, just because your work is valuable in your eyes, that doesn’t mean society will agree. Lightworkers are generally the most underpaid group, from their perspective, because other people don’t necessarily share their values.

The downside of being a neutralworker

By being a neutralworker, you’re optimizing your life around what society wants. Although your work has no particular value to you, apparently it’s really valuable to some people, and they’re the ones who write the checks. Neutralworkers are generally the most overpaid group, from their perspective. After all, if they don’t think their work has value, they’re lucky that some people disagree.

Still, if you have a need to actually do something with your life besides just getting a paycheck, neutralworking will really wear you down. If your job is just a machine for converting time into money, you’re living like a robot. Or like a bank robber, where the plan is to get in, get the money, and get out (the only difference from a real robbery is that you’ve been invited to rob the bank). Maybe one day you’ll wake up and wonder, “Is this really all there is to life?”

So, what’s it gonna be?

It would theoretically be best to polarize as either a lightworker or a neutralworker. There are disadvantages to both, but if you commit to one direction, you’ll do a much better job of following it. A lightworker can’t be such a great lightworker if they’re constantly distracted with learning the money-making secrets of neutralworkers. And a neutralworker can’t be such a great neutralworker if they always feel guilty about not doing enough with their life. Both of them need to tune out any impulses that would weaken their polarity, or they’ll end up chasing two rabbits, both of which will escape.

But so far, I haven’t been able to polarize as either a lightworker or a neutralworker, because when I think about how they’ll play out, neither one is acceptable. Consider this hypothetical tombstone:

“Here lies neutralworker Hunter. He did a satisfactory job writing software. Good attendance record. Slight attitude problem.”

Gee, that was worth incarnating for! On the other hand, it could look like this:

“Here lies lightworker Hunter. He did what he thought was important, but it wasn’t valued by society. Still, he was one of the nicest homeless people you’ve ever met.”

Now that’s even worse. I’m not going to be a martyr.

And while I’ve ruled out darkworking, the corresponding tombstone might look something like this:

“Here lies darkworker Hunter. He showed promise at first, but eventually he found that he didn’t have the resolve to follow through, and he was brought down by his own people. P.S. We don’t like darkworkers anyway.”

Steve Pavlina says to do what you love, even if you end up homeless. Sorry, but that’s not an option for me. Some “make money online” types say that links are what matter, and nothing else. Maybe they mean that’s all that matters for making money, or maybe they mean that’s all that matters in life. Anyway, it’s better than being homeless, but it’s a shame to waste your life on something so shallow.

If there’s a readily available job that lets you do your lightworker work, great. But there might not be. I bounce back and forth between lightworker and neutralworker, trying to do what I can with both. But constantly shifting your focus between creating value and getting money is extremely disruptive. It’s hard being a double agent.

The most direct solution would be to make money as a lightworker, but that’s easier said than done. However, these resources will help:

• How To Finally Find What You Love To Do And Get Paid For Doing It (ebook)
• Greatness Without Genies: The Law of Attraction for Realists (ebook)
• Career Renegade: How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love (book)
• Online Business School (ebooks/audios/videos)

Tim Ferriss found a different way to solve the problem. I’m not a mind reader, so I can’t be sure about this, but it seems that he automated his paid neutralworking to free up time for his unpaid lightworking.

He created an automated system for running a nutritional supplement business in a way that would provide passive income. I’m guessing he would see this as neutralworking. Not having to trade his time for money, he’s now free to do what he would probably consider lightworking; conducting experiments in lifestyle design and sharing them with the world.

If you want to learn how he did it, he has a great book called The 4-Hour Workweek. But be warned that it’s much harder to do this than it seems. Before you get your hopes up, read Why We’re Failing The 4-Hour Workweek!

Here’s the part where I’m supposed to wrap things up with a neat conclusion, but I don’t have one. As Ashley Brilliant said, “I don’t have any solution, but I certainly admire the problem.”

At least I can clearly see why I feel torn between different things; it’s because I have a mix of lightworker, neutralworker, and even some darkworker tendencies, and I haven’t been able to polarize.

What is your polarity?

This post is part of Jeremy Day’s group writing project on creating value.

Photo by cambodia4kidsorg

After reading my post What The Hell Is Value?, you might have been thinking about what it means to create value, or how we can add more value to the world.

Jeremy Day is organizing a group writing project about creating value. See that link for details, but essentially you announce that you’re going to participate, you write a post about creating value by February 1st, and Jeremy will link to all the posts for everyone to read.

He says he’s been thinking a lot lately about how we can become more of a value driven society than a profit driven society. If you want to participate and need an idea for a post, you might consider tackling this question:

If money is what we receive in exchange for providing value, then how exactly does being value driven differ from being profit driven? Discuss.

“I love Steve Pavlina. He is my dearest friend. If I had to spend the rest of my life on a desert island with only one other person, it would be Steve Pavlina, no doubt about it. I mean, you should see the way my face lights up when he walks into a room.

But at the same time, he’s also dangerously unbalanced. I mean let’s be frank, Steve Pavlina–and again, this is a man I would take a bullet for–is bad at his job, and mentally unstable. As my mother would say, God love him, but he’s a raging maniac. And a dear, dear friend.”

- Fake Joe Biden (paraphrased)

Steve Pavlina – now there’s a guy who polarizes people.

The National Debt Clock in New York ran out of digits on September 30, 2008, being unable to track the U.S. national debt once it passed $10 trillion. Since then, the clock has been used to track Steve Pavlina’s monthly visitors. He certainly gets a lot of them, and it seems that they all either love him or hate him. Sometimes both feelings occur in the same person.

I knew he had some critics, but until recently, I didn’t realize there were so many perfectly nice people who aren’t fans of Steve Pavlina. And while this puzzles me, it also offers a ray of hope for those who want to provide value.

About a year and a half ago, I had been reading ProBlogger for a while, and I was thinking about starting a blog. But what would the topic be? Darren said that while many people were starting blogs about blogging itself, most of them were failing because it was a severely overcrowded niche. He said there were niches like digital photography that paid much better, and didn’t have a lot of competition.

So I thought about starting a blog about digital photography. There were only two problems: (1) I didn’t know anything about digital photography, and (2) I didn’t intend to. Would that be a show stopper?

But when I came across Steve Pavlina, I saw that you don’t necessarily have to decide on a tightly focused niche. You could blog about “personal development,” which is basically anything that makes you a better person. Now that was interesting to me.

Still, I ran into a problem. Steve was already dominating that niche, and continuing to get better every day. He was an expert on some concepts I hadn’t even heard of before. How could I possibly compete with him?

I decided that I didn’t have to be better, just good enough. I wasn’t going to beat him at doing what he does, but maybe I could do things a little differently, and maybe there was room in the blogosphere for two blogs on personal development. (It now seems absurd to me that I was ever concerned about that.)

In her ebook How I Built A Profitable Freelance Business for Under $50 (And How You Can Too!), Christine O’Kelly said that there are people who are willing to pay for every level of expertise. Even if you’re not the best, you might be exactly what someone needs. You might not get the highest possible rate, but you could still be successful.

That was specifically about freelancing, but it’s also true in general. There’s room in this world for multiple skill levels. You don’t need to be the best parent to provide value as a parent, or the best comedian to provide value as a comedian. Most positions have multiple openings, so you don’t need to be the best. You don’t want to simply be a worse version of the best, but if you’re somehow different from the best, or cheaper than the best, then sometimes good enough is good enough.

So I figured that I could start a personal development blog, and while I wouldn’t be Steve Pavlina, maybe I could be good enough that I could provide value anyway. This is important, so I’ll put it in bold.

Major point #1: You don’t have to be the best, or even close to the best, in order to provide value.

That seems obvious to me now, and perhaps it seems obvious to you as well. But at the time, my thinking was clouded because I was projecting myself onto my potential readers. At the time, I was subscribed to maybe 5 blogs, and I thought that was plenty. I certainly had no interest in reading another blog that was remotely similar to those 5, especially if it wasn’t as good.

But that’s not how my readers were thinking. They were thinking “I want to be nice and support this new blogger,” or “I want to read as many blogs as I can,” or any of a number of other things that would make me “good enough” in their eyes.

There are lots of people devaluing themselves by saying “my idea has already been done” or “nobody would hire me when they could hire him instead.” But remember that your value is not judged by you, it’s judged by the people you’ll offer it to. What you see as being worse than the absolute best may very well be good enough to them.

But what really came as a shock to me is this:

Major point #2: People can have completely insane opinions about who the best is.

I’m not talking about matters like chocolate vs. vanilla, where there’s no right or wrong answer because it’s just a matter of preference. I’m talking about all the people who think Steve Pavlina is a bad blogger. It makes no sense.

It’s like saying Britney Spears is a better singer than Frank Sinatra, or Timothy Dalton was the best Bond. I guess these are technically valid opinions, because we can’t objectively disprove them. But how could anyone agree with them? And yet, plenty of people do.

In the same way that less is sometimes more, worse is sometimes better. Of course, no one would actually see it as worse being better. They’d just disagree about what “better” means. Value is highly subjective.

The good news: Putting both of these major points together, we see that anyone can provide tremendous value.

Even if you think lots of people are better than you, that really doesn’t mean anything. If you don’t need to be the best, and if people have all kinds of opinions about who the best is anyway, that means you always have a chance.

OK, but what is value? We’d all like to know what it is, so we can provide it. Here’s a definition:

Value is whatever people are willing to pay for.

That payment need not be in the form of money, though that’s an easy way to understand it. If you pay $3 for a hot dog, then clearly the hot dog is worth at least $3 to you, or you wouldn’t have bought it.

Maybe you’re really hungry, so you pay an outrageous $10 for a hot dog. Maybe you say the hot dog’s not really worth $10, but you’re just really hungry. Still, in your state at the time, the hot dog was worth $10 to you, or you wouldn’t have bought it. No one ever voluntarily buys something that doesn’t have greater value to them than the money it costs. (Well, at least expected value. Sometimes we make mistakes.)

Besides money, you can pay for something with your time. You don’t have to pay money to read this post, but you do have to pay with your time. Obviously you think this post will provide more value than the time it takes to read it. (If not, then why would you read it?)

You can pay for something with your attention. If you’re stuck in traffic, the time is lost anyway. But you can still decide what you do with your attention. If you turn on the radio, you expect it to provide more value than just sitting there and thinking. Whatever station you put it on, you expect it to provide more value than the stations you’re not listening to.

You can also pay for something with your reputation, security, self respect, or whatever it costs you to make that choice. Whatever the method of payment, the thing you’re buying always has greater expected value than what you’re paying for it, or you wouldn’t buy it.

So then, how do we create something that people are willing to pay for? How do we create value? I’ve thought about the rules for providing value before, and it’s tough to figure this out. For one thing, people don’t really know what they want.

On The Simpsons, when ratings for The Itchy and Scratchy Show were down, they ran a focus group to figure out how to make the show better. The guy asked the kids, “Okay, how many of you kids would like Itchy and Scratchy to deal with real-life problems, like the ones you face every day?” The kids all cheered. The guy then asked, “And who would like to see them do just the opposite – getting into far-out situations involving robots and magic powers?” Again, the kids all cheered. So what did they really want?

In January 2008, if you asked a bunch of people what kind of blog they wanted to read, I doubt any of them would have said they wanted to read a scientific approach to highlight and explain stuff white people like. And yet, when Christian Lander launched his blog Stuff White People Like, it was an instant success, getting 20 million hits in the first couple of months. It’s been described as “more viral than the flu,” and Christian reportedly got a $300,000 advance for his book deal.

I was subscribed to it for a while, trying to figure out why it was so popular. Yes, it was funny, but it was a one trick pony. You would read one post and laugh, then read a few more posts and laugh less, because they’re all the same joke. And then it seems that you’d be done with it. I could see why some people might become loyal subscribers, but why did it take off so much faster than the automobile, or Google, or the cell phone? Even Christian Lander says he isn’t sure.

We know the value must be there, or people wouldn’t pay for it with their time. But it’s hard for me to see it. Maybe you can see it, but you can probably think of other extremely popular things where you can’t figure out what the value is. If we don’t know value when we see it, how can we create it?

In How to Create Real Value, Steve Pavlina says you know you’re creating value when you see tangible positive changes in the world as a result of what you’re doing. He gives these examples of changes his readers experienced because of his blog:

• One couple started a successful business selling inspirational t-shirts, because of a post about not having a job.
• Someone’s father lost 70 pounds, because of some posts about raw foods.
• A reader finally got a girlfriend, because of a post about soulful relationships.
• Another person moved to Las Vegas and loves it, because of a post about the city.
• And someone else had their first lucid dream, because of a podcast about that.

As opposed to comments like “great post,” these are tangible positive changes, and clear signs of strong value. However, what if the outcomes had been different?

• What if the t-shirt business failed, and the couple got divorced?
• What if that person’s father gained 70 pounds and became diabetic?
• What if the reader lost his girlfriend and started hating women?
• What if the person who moved to Las Vegas hated it?
• What if the person who had their first lucid dream went into a coma?

Some of these aren’t too likely, but my point is that things can go either way. If something doesn’t work out, are you responsible for creating a tangible negative change?

It wouldn’t be right to blame Steve for a negative outcome that was triggered by his blog, because the ultimate responsibility rests with the reader. So if he can’t be blamed for negative outcomes, how much credit can he get for positive outcomes?

Another thing is that strong value does not necessarily produce tangible positive changes. Stuff White People Like provides strong value, judging from its tremendous popularity. But what tangible positive changes does it create? Making millions of people laugh is strong value, but it’s not a tangible positive change.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t aspire to create tangible positive changes, just that it’s not a perfect judge of value.

I can’t say that I’ve experienced any tangible positive changes from Steve’s blog. But I’ve definitely experienced intangible positive changes. I’ve also experienced one tangible change (starting this blog), but its success or failure remains to be seen. Yet I know for sure I get strong value from his blog, which is why I continue to pay for it with my time.

In a comment on my post Being Emphatically Wishy-Washy, Akemi Gaines said:

“I was thinking about you, Hunter, when I was reading Steve’s recent posts on how to make money in recession by creating and delivering value and what it is to create strong value. In the latter article, he insists to make your point — in other words, to not to be wishy washy. Because wishy washy doesn’t deliver much value.

I mostly agree with Steve (yes, my blog will have a stronger edge!), but at the same time, I was thinking about your blog and why I like it.

You deliver different kind of value. I hope you don’t take offense about this, but I don’t read your blog to get another personal development tips. I know all the tips you discuss (except about SEO and tech stuff). But I like your blog because you have a way to lighten up my mood. I LOVE your sense of humor. That is value.

It doesn’t matter whether you take what you call a “strong tone” as you say in this post. You are still funny.

Now think about it. In this stressful time, is delivering a few moments of smile valuable? Absolutely. Steve doesn’t make me smile, and I don’t go there to smile. I go there to learn. Two different objectives.”

What I got from this (aside from the fact that I need to increase the difficulty level for Akemi) is that people are free to decide what value they get from something.

I didn’t start this blog with the intent of making people smile, but if that’s what someone gets from it, great. If someone gets something different, that’s great too. I’m not going to say that someone’s getting the wrong kind of value from me. If they get something, anything, that’s wonderful.

However, I wish I had a better handle on how to create value, so I could do more of it. Which brings me to another point.

Major point #3: You might not be sure how to create value, but let that be your goal anyway.

Christian Lander, creator of Stuff White People Like, said that if he were given a budget of $500 million and told to duplicate his success, he couldn’t do it. He just doesn’t know enough about what went right the first time.

He doesn’t know how to create major value, despite having done it before. So for those of us who haven’t created something like the pet rock, Pokémon, or Harry Potter, how can we possibly learn how to do it? How can we figure out a game where the rules seem so random?

We might not have a roadmap, but we can try stumbling in the right direction. Try doing something that you think people will like. If it doesn’t create tangible positive change, maybe it will still make them better off in some way. If something works, do more of it. If something doesn’t work, try to figure out why. Maybe you need to change something. Maybe you just need to try it again.

If you maintain the goal of creating value, you’re bound to keep getting better at it. Just remember that you’re not the one who decides what has value – it’s the other people. Unfortunately, they don’t know what they want.

The good news is that nobody starts off having any idea how to create value. Even people who create strong value once often can’t do it again, hence the term “one-hit wonder.” If there were a simple formula for creating value, everyone would do it. But since there’s not a formula, you can be one of the few who tries.

Homework for Akemi only:
Prove that there is no rational number r such that r² = 2.