Part Five · 2 of 14

From “I” to “You”

One of the first lessons business taught me was that I had to shift from “I, I, I, I” to “you, you, you,” or “they, they, they.”

At its core, business is an exchange of value. It’s not about what I like to do, what I’ve done, or what I think, although those still matter. It’s about understanding what people need, offering it to them, and getting paid in exchange.

As an employee, my income was the salary my boss paid me. I exchanged time and labor for money.

In business, the value you create is priced by the market. You earn through the problems you solve and the trust you build.

So instead of asking “How can I make more money?” I try to ask “How can I provide more value?” Sometimes that even means spending money to create more value.

Making money and growing an audience matter. But they aren’t the end goal. The end goal of a business is to serve people.

When you do that really well, money and audience tend to follow as natural byproducts.