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Recently, I had a dream where I had a conversation with Jackie Chan. We were talking about business and career growth, when I nodded along and commented:

“Oh, yeah … I know what you mean … value extraction, right?”

To which he replied “No … Kate… it’s value transformation!”

Once I woke up, I realised what an epiphany this is - the focus on transformation as the way to increase the value of things.

Say for example an ordinary orange:

I could extract as much value as I can from it:

Or, I could look at it from a ‘value transformation’ lens. An orange could be:

By focusing on value transformation, we can focus on elevating what we already have, into something much more valuable.

The first, and only time I played Black Jack, I went all in.

The story went like this:

One of the players was losing money after hours of play in a match, and rapidly losing interest in the game, due to his lacklustre luck. He feebly made attempts to keep up his game, when he threw down his cards and decided to let me sit in for him, and finish the rest of the game on his behalf.

I did not know how to play card games, so after the winning player kindly explained the rules of Black Jack, I sat down to play the next round.

To my surprise, I received the best possible hand from the dealer - a Natural (21 points). So, with an unattached curiosity, I asked the players to explain the rules of the game again, just to double check that I did indeed get the best possible set of cards.

When I got the confirmation, I promptly said, “All in”.

The other players did not know what to make of this.

Some questioned my bluff, some appeared pleasantly surprised at my ‘big appetite’ on the first round, and others still, wanted to wait and see what my next move would be. A few players called, matching my bet.

Finally, it came time to reveal the cards, and I revealed them with quiet confidence, knowing that I had won that round.

One player sighed, while folding his hand. One player decided to go take a smoke. One player waged me to another round, vowing to beat this newbie that ‘just got lucky’.

After that experience, I have found that many times in life, I have done the same. I went all in when I had rapid confirmation and reasons for my confidence. This has served me well, as it allows me to rapidly test out an idea and get feedback. Cycle through these a couple of times, and it will lead to big wins on big bets.

Of course, sometimes I also play it safe. I take small, calculated steps, with much planning and research. However, I also like to ‘take a leap of faith’.

When the stars are aligned, and the time of opportunity right in front of my eyes, I reach out immediately, and grab what I can.

Book: How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams (the creator of the Dilbert comic strip). I love his humorous writing style and witty stories!

Article: How Much Do You Value Your Time At? Here’s a quick 2 min post I wrote, as I experiment with becoming a thought leader.

Do you follow any thought leaders? If so, who are they and why do you follow them? I’d love to know more as I start to produce more materials for publishing.

Kind regards,

Kate

P.S. My favourite thing about you is {{ My favourite thing about you is | your smile }}