Would You Trade A Dime For A Dollar?

Written by Dave Navarro on September 20, 2006

When somebody’s running a successful business, I try to listen to to the advice they give to help my own ventures.

But when somebody is so financially successful that there is only one person on the planet with more money than him … well, then I really listen.

Warren Buffet, the second richest person on the planet, once said, “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” This is the ultimate statement on leverage. It proposes that how much something costs is irrelevant. How much you get in return, well … that’s everything. But it’s not how we tend to think…

We tend to look at things strictly from a cost perspective, because we live in a world that conditions us to focus on scarcity. Just think of the last few products you’ve seen that made you say “Wow, I’d really like that … but it just costs too much.” Or think of the life-changing project you’d love to pursue … if it only didn’t require so much time, or so much effort ….

Sound familiar? We all think like this from time to time (some much more than others). But it’s a mindset that does nothing but hold you back. It’s opposite of the way Warren Buffet advises, the way that made him wealthier than anyone (Well, there is that one guy).

When I decided to break myself of the scarcity mindset - the idea that I had to think about cost rather than value - I came up with a saying I’d repeat to myself: “Would I trade a dime for a dollar?” In other words …

• Would I spend ten hours developing a skill that could save me 100 hours over the course of a year?
• Would I spend a hundred dollars learning something that could net me a thousand dollars (or more)?
• Would I spend ten times more effort developing the one contact who could increase my network a hundred fold?

This “dime for a dollar” thinking is what moved me out of the scarcity mentality and into the “leverage mentality.” Once I made that shift, things began to open up for me and my life at a rate much faster than it had ever before. I saw opportunities that had been staring me in the face … but until now only looked like “costs.”

Now I invite you to take the leap with me. Decide that you’re going to abandon the scarcity mentality and embrace the leverage mentality. When confronted with something you know you need to do in order to accelerate your journey towards success - whether personal or professional - decide that you’re going to look at things from a benefits perspective rather than a cost perspective.

Give it a shot for just three days straight - as your own personal experiment - and let me know what results you experience. Shoot me an email at dave@davenavarro.com - I’d love to hear from you.

And if doing this simple 3-day experiment seems like too much work to you, ask yourself …

Would you trade a dime for a dollar?