One of my pet hates in business is the way people mindlessly abuse the word “value”. Anyone would think all we do all day is just talk abstractly about concepts and not do anything productive. A business is a money making machine and very little else. “Value” is almost a currency of its own now, and it drives me to the point of insanity. Terms like “added value”, “value-added”, “bringing/delivering value” and their invariably revolting variations mean very little to anyone else other than directors with too much money or middle managers with too little to do and who can’t communicate properly. Its even spreading to public TV adverts.

Value is the price we put on something, and our perception of what we believe it to be worth. It is an abstract concept which only becomes tangible with a monetary price. If something has value, it is valuable. Sounds obvious, but again it has been corrupted by over-zealous executive types who want to appear complex and accomplished. You have value, but the amount of it is different for everyone you know. You’re not an object with a price, naturally, but there is no point spending all day trying to project to everyone that you don’t have any.

Social value is when you have something that others admire or want. In layman’s language, it’s being a “good catch”. Girls are dreadful for it, as their entire existence seems to be devoted to envying what other girls have. Boys take note: you can have anything you want from a girl if you show her another girl wants it. They’ll also run a mile from anyone who looks desperate or unwanted by anyone else. If someone else wants it, it must be valuable. Too much circulation makes the price go down.

In this country we have a fucking obsessive fear of appearing arrogant. Arrogance by its very nature means you purport to have more than you do, which implicitly means you are lying or exaggerating. Understanding what you have to offer, your strengths and weaknesses, and knowing how to sell what you have are something else. Most people are apparently too dumb to know the difference.

You have to ask yourself what stops you from unashamedly celebrating your gifts and talents. Its not a criticism of anyone else, and someone takes it that way, then they have an inferiority complex they need to see a therapist about. I’m confident. I believe in myself. I know what I’m good and bad at, and I know how to sell myself. That’s what we call knowing what you can bring to the party, or bring to the table. It’s a gambling metaphor, but an astute one. If you don’t like someone round the poker table, you don’t let them pay by out-pricing them.

It all comes down to one thing. Knowing your value.

Its also a very difficult discipline when all your life you have been conditioned to be modest, self-deprecating and to stay anonymous in the crowd. In the face of others’ criticism and scorn its even harder to change tack. But watch successful people, like investors. They don’t have time to mess about and will explain very clearly why you should work with them instead of anyone else. You’re effectively giving yourself a golfing-style handicap on behalf of the other people around you who might not like you standing above them. You don’t owe them anything.

So my ruthlessness has gently spread into my personal life, and with very good reason. I’m not desperate as I have a lot of friends. Some are close, some I just met briefly. I’m not the prettiest picture in the gallery but I’ve always had a good choice of very beautiful girls out of my league who want to be closer than just an ordinary friend. But they are all people I can call on and receive a friendly smile in response. I know what I can offer them, and I choose them as carefully as I can. Inevitably I make mistakes.
And I’ve learnt my own value.

I have a fiercesome mind and a sharp wit, to the point where most people seem to be convinced that I’m a genius. I’m deeply passionate and adsorb knowledge like a sponge. Despite being only 27, I’m a renowned visionary who regularly gets 95% approval ratings for speeches, gets his writings published all over the world and is trusted by some of the most powerful people in the media, technology and financial industries. I have a headstrong personality and drive that leaves people breathless, and I’m highly respected in business.

I have a huge heart, am warm and compassionate, and considerably wise. I see things others don’t and people respond to me very emotionally. I excite, inspire and aggravate in equal measure. My mind, ambition, balls and vision are going to make me an extremely wealthy and powerful man. And I am equally ruthless and evil to those who attempt to harm me, directly or indirectly. I understand women better than any man I know, show my feelings and centre my life around my spirituality. I’m musical and artistic, and have the mystical x-factor charisma. I am entirely self-taught and self-made. I’m always learning, and reading about how I can make myself a better person.

And I’m the only person who can truly claim that when someone meets me, their life is never the same. I walk in and change the world. I tell you why you are important, valuable and special, when no-one else ever thinks of it. I put in more effort and time than anyone else. I’ve helped dozens of people get out of their situation or create things in their lives that will change everything forever for the better. I look for the best in everyone and find it. I’m very, very proud of that and it’s by design. No-one I know or have ever met has the same combination of gifts or has achieved the same.

I don’t cheat or betray. I don’t abandon those I love. I don’t lie if I can help it. I don’t bullshit or mess around. I give 5 times what I get back. I pay compliments and praise people honestly and sincerely. I don’t tell you one thing and mean another, or just tell you what you want to hear to keep you happy. I don’t use people or have a secret manipulative agenda. I don’t get angry or violent. I don’t get drunk, talk drugs or make those around me suffer with an addiction or problem. I don’t refuse to apologise or concede I’ve done anything wrong. I don’t take people for granted or treat them like a McDonalds burger wrapper.

Does that sound like boasting or exaggeration? Maybe to some. For me its just the feedback I get. I’m not selling to you. You don’t have to listen, read this, or even believe a word I say. Feel free to walk away. I know my value. I’m not writing any of this to prove it to you or seek your validation.

The people I don’t bother with are those that bring nothing to the table, or those who have no value to me or fulfil any purpose. That sounds pretty inhumane and cruel, but let me explain what I mean.

We all have value. Your good character is valuable to me as it means I can trust you. Your beauty leaves in wonder. Your jokes cheer me up and make me laugh. Your loyalty bonds me to you. The traits you have, your experience, the way you make me feel or the help you give me are all valuable to who I am, how I feel and the quality of my life. If you do the opposite, you have no value to me, and in my very busy world, you get pushed off the radar because you may actively hurt me, my interests or degrade the quality of my life.

Compassion. Inspiration. Beauty. Humour. Stimulating conversation. Wisdom. Knowledge. Expertise. Entertainment. Charisma. Money. Understanding. Support.

All of these contribute to my well-being and my life experience, so have value. I don’t think of people as a mechanical object or commodity, I just find it easier to deal with things in my life that way. It helps me get a handle on things and keeps me safe from harm. I give to you, and you give to me back. We trade like for like. Sometimes I give without wanting something back, and I remember all the things you gave to me that helped me.

I’ve found that the most precious resource I have is time. As the months have gone on, I’ve got less and less of it. I’ve got so many things to do that I’m forgetting my own soul. All things I mean to do get left behind, and I have less opportunity to think about the people I love because my mind is always on what else has to be done or the thing I’m working on. You get up earlier and earlier, before it always ends up that the todo list is bigger at the end of the day rather than smaller, no matter how much energy you put into trimming it down to size.

You see it starts when you take meetings with anyone and everyone, just for the sake that they might possibly lead to something down the line. You try and help as many people get as far as they can, hoping they will repay you or you will derive some benefit somewhere, sometime. But then you reach a point when you have to ask yourself how well you’re doing, and you don’t quite know how to measure it. It’s a horrid disease in corporate firms where realpolitik dictates that you have to look as busy as possible. If you are too busy, you clearly can’t manage your time properly.

Doing lots of things isn’t the same as making progress.

It’s at that point where you realise you need a yardstick, or a measure. Am I happier? Am I wealthier? How do I measure how far I’ve come? You eventually need to quantify. Keeping it vague is great scam marketing agencies use when they describe how advertising campaigns “raise awareness” but don’t supply any numbers. That’s a painful process because you come face to face with how little you’ve achieved in comparison to how much you wanted to. You avoid it deliberately and the vicious failure cycle cements itself. And when you start to measure, you automatically start to judge and police what comes your way.

That judgement is a form of very uncomfortable discernment that forces you to manage your time, because if you don’t, you’re on a queue to the dole office or mental hospital. I’ve been told god knows how many times that its wrong to compartmentalise, but in truth it’s the only way to tame the abject chaos that results without it. I’d go insane if I left it all to fate to organise. I’m chronically late because I find it impossible to cope with all the things I need to do and the demands people put on me. I take on the world and end up trying to save myself from drowning. My heart is bigger than my stomach sometimes.

So now my meetings are 15 minutes long. I don’t take them if I can do a phone call. I prioritise everything I have to do and try to organise as much as I can. I don’t suffer fools. I work only on things that are urgent or bring in money. I am direct instead of investing time in doing the detail. You don’t get my time unless I will profit from spending it on what you want or gain something from it. I give people a date, and crucially, a time for everything. I want to know the bottom line and to get things in the queue done so I can move onto the next thing.

Its all about execution, and delivery. It’s about doing what you say you will, in the time you allocate for it. About being a man of your word.

You need to be able to cut through the no-hopers, attention-seekers, mood hoovers and timewasters to be able to focus. Things need to get done and these people need to be ruthlessly cut down and swept aside like the distracting menace they are. If they all had their way, I’d be running their lives for them and wouldn’t have one of my own. And the terrible truth is that no-one really gives as much of a shit back or would really do the same for you, even despite how many times they claim they will.

I dream of the day when someone calls me and says this in 5 seconds.
“Alex, I want you to give me X. In return, I will give you Y. I want it done by Z.”

To which you get a simple “yes”, or “no”. We get it done and move on. We deal with the complications and do it all as efficiently as possible so we have more time to do all the fun and meaningful things we want to do, rather than just the stuff we have to do.

So if you are clueless, vacuous, pretentious, woolly, rude, monotonous or anything in that same personal ballpark of mine, you have no value to me. I have no time for you. I make no apology for that, because time is precious to me and it’s the only way anything gets done. You don’t offer me anything, so you’re background noise; the uninvited guest who won’t leave, and an unwanted passenger.

I don’t care if you like that or not. Or whether you think I’m an asshole for it. You’re either on my side, or you’re in the way. And I’ll happily walk in the other direction, not give you a second thought and forget you even exist. There are thousands like you and I can find hundreds of substitutes anywhere. I don’t care whether I live in peace with you or not. You can’t be at war with an enemy that doesn’t exist or matter to you.

If you want me to sit up and take notice, you need to have some value to me and show me what it is because I simply don’t have the time to ask or work it out. I don’t have a whole lifetime to decipher your hints, hidden messages, implications and inferences. You can do it directly or indirectly, I really don’t care. Just for fuck’s sake don’t be one of them, or like everyone else. It bores the shit out of me and I could be doing something else that enhances who I am or the chances of me getting what I want.

This is becoming about me taking some control of myself and my life, so I can have what I want. I won’t ever apologise my designing my life. If you don’t design yours, then you are missing out. I have X amount of seconds left, and its my decision who I live them with, and what I spend them on. I could spend decades tripping over myself to keep you happy and comfortable, but I would lose out. If you love me, you’ll let me fly to be free, want me to have everything I want in life and be everything I can be. If you don’t want that, then you will find yourself leaving my life into the cold.

One day I’ll calm down I think. I’ve just had nearly 3 decades of abuse, agenda and emotional pollution that has meant that everyone else than me has controlled my fate and feelings. I’m not a victim anymore and the world will rue the day when it tried to make me its slave. And you can hold me to it because I will die for it. Have you ever wondered how passionate a suicide bomber must be to give their own life? You say you’d die for something flippantly every day, but when it really came down to it you wouldn’t put yourself in front of the bullet as its just your figure of speech.

My speech is my heart, and I would die for those I love and what I believe. Its how I’ve chosen to live my life and those words will ring out across the heavens through everything I do. You will know me from the trail and wreckage, and you will never see anything like it again.