A few years ago I was in Manila, Philippines on a humanitarian trip to get a firsthand look at a non-profit that provided survivor care for kids rescued out of the sex trade. Heavy stuff.
Before I went, they briefed me on some of the systemic causes behind why this was going on, especially poverty and the economic conditions that made desperation a way of life.
One afternoon I hailed a cab. The driver charged me three times what was advertised and his meter was off. He could tell I was a foreigner and figured I wouldn’t know better.
I was about to argue with Mr. Cabbie but did some quick math. This guy was ripping me off for the equivalent of $0.75. Then I remembered during the trip briefing that the median income in the country at the time was around $350 USD per month.
For me, the cab fare was nothing. For him, maybe an hour’s worth of wages. To him, it meant survival. To me, it meant respect and fairness.
I let him keep the money but that moment stayed with me.
Much of what we fight for isn’t really about the thing itself. Money might mean security, freedom, or proof you’re not your parents. Success might mean validation, belonging, or distance from shame. Followers might mean mattering, being seen, or finally being enough.
What we fight for on the surface are often placeholders. The real chase is usually underneath.
A Brief History of What We Value
Every economy is built on what people value. Businesses have always had to find ways to make money based on what’s important to a market.
The Industrial Economy built physical things people needed for everyday life.
The Knowledge Economy made education the path to prosperity. Credentials and expertise became currency.
Then the Digital Economy changed the rules. The internet made knowledge shareable at scale.
The Creator Economy made it necessary to learn new, creative ways of expressing your knowledge. (I was annoyed when Instagram blew up because suddenly writing wasn’t enough. I never expected I’d have to learn how to edit photos or video to share my knowledge, but that was the price of staying relevant.)
The Attention Economy came through short-form video platforms like Vine, Snapchat, Instagram Stories, and TikTok. A million views isn’t that special anymore.
Even the NBA isn’t immune to declining attention. Commissioner Adam Silver recently delivered a pretty tone deaf message in response to complaints from fans about the cost of attending games and the need to subscribe to multiple streaming services to watch their team.
Silver said, the NBA is a “highlights-based sport” and fans could catch them on social media… that’s what younger viewers do anyways. (I’m sure he wishes he could take that back.)
***
Up until two years ago, we believed what we were seeing and reading was real. We knew writing books was hard work, excellent animation was a labor of love, and a great film took years of vision, collaboration, and craft.
AI has changed that. There’s an abundance of content, images, animations, but abundance doesn’t create meaning. If anything, there’s more noise, less signal. More consumption, less understanding. An abundance of content, but a poverty of orientation.
If your work involves guiding, mentoring, or coaching people in anyway, this is worth thinking about.
An Economy of Meaning
I believe we’re heading into something that, for now, I’m calling an Economy of Meaning.
Meaning isn’t one thing. It’s relationships, work, health, wealth, presence, legacy, gratitude—all feeding into each other. It’s an ecosystem where meaning is built from many disparate but interconnected parts.
None of this is new, of course. The problem is we’re terrible at recognizing this. We can’t see the forest for the trees. We treat meaning like we treat social media: isolated hits of dopamine instead of a sustained, integrated way of living.
An Economy of Meaning requires us to see the whole picture. No, that doesn’t mean we need to sell everything to everyone. What I mean is that we need to help others understand and embody meaning, even if our specialty is in one particular lane.
So far, we’ve gotten by with optimizing individual aspects of meaning (make more money, get more followers, look better). We’ve been able to get by without helping clients understand how those things fit into the larger economy of a meaningful life.
I think those days are numbered.
Money will obviously continue to be a way to keep score. But what happens when money becomes easier to make, or when it’s just given to through something like universal basic income? Money is a lousy way to measure the whole of your life. So is power and status.
In earlier eras, we understood this a bit better. “The best things in life are free. The best things are what money can’t buy.”
We’re too distracted to even think about that. Distraction is part of human nature: we flip through Netflix for 20 minutes trying to decide what to watch, or open the fridge and stare at what we have to eat for the third time, or surf mindlessly through Amazon.
The algorithm didn’t create this behavior, it industrialized it. More than that, it institutionalized, monetized, and yes, even weaponized it. Sometimes the weapons are sharp, divisive, and exhausting (hello, modern politics) and other times it’s slow and silent. For example:
Starting Over vs. Starting Honest
The past year, I’ve been watching a lot of sports podcasts on YouTube: retired athletes talking about their playing days and “spilling the tea” about what really happened on the field during their glory days. I was revisiting games and players I watched as far back as a kid.
I finally asked myself one day, “What do I care about how the locker room prepared before the Super Bowl ten years ago?”
I’ve since made intentional decisions to stop watching those kinds of programs. I was feeding on past-oriented energy instead of future-oriented vision. It’s a subtle and insidious lull that can seep into other areas of your life.
For those of us who help others find their way, we have to be able to do this work for ourselves first. Share how we’ve actually done it. Share the stories of what we’ve struggled with, where we’ve gotten stuck, how we found true north. I think this is the way personal branding and marketing are going to have to go.
There’s a real need for this. There are a lot of people asking deeper questions. They’re not just trying to start over, they’re trying to start honest. Guides, mentors, and coaches will need to embody that honesty.
The tired promises of “bridging the gap between where you are and where you want to be” or life coaching fluff from people who aren’t really whole and integrated enough to be more open about stuff won’t cut it. Lived experience is going to matter.
Share the Stories the Cost You Something
It’s nice to see that people are trying to curb the noise and find signal. There are college campus movements where students get together technology-free to listen to socialize, listen to records, and play board games. People are buying flip phones to disconnect.
The skill most people lack isn’t technical, it’s the ability to make meaning. To realize that the simple presence of a person is meaningful. To practice gratitude or reframe the stories that held them back. To understand that some of the better things in life are free, but also that opportunities and memories often sit on the other side of making money and commerce.
I predict there will be a trend of reframing money beyond just status and worth and couching it in meaning. And yes, you should grow your ability to create wealth for yourself and your loved ones… and be bolder about connecting it to more meaningful reasons.
I love my Mom and we always have a great time together, but it meant a lot to take her to Maui for the first time last summer. When we got to the resort, she just stood staring at the ocean for 15 minutes while I checked us in. She said she never imagined she’d ever see something like this. Every night, we just gazed at sunset with my nephew. This is now a core memory for me. Money made this happen.
These kinds of experiences help me put money, follower count, and status in their appropriate place on the totem pole of life.
I look forward to sharing how I’ve been doing this first in my own life, and second in the way I’m making meaningful shifts in how my businesses help people do the same.
There’s a line in scripture that has always meant a lot to me. In 2 Samuel, David says, “I will not give that which costs me nothing.” It’s what I’ve try to embody in this newsletter each week, and how I try to show up for my clients: to really give. It’s a principle I’ve tried to live by, the cabbie in Manila notwithstanding.
The stories worth sharing are the ones that cost you something to live through and now cost you something to tell. That’s what I’m trying to bring to this work, and that’s what I’m challenging you to bring to yours.
So, here’s a question for you:
What is one experience from your life—a moment of struggle, a hard-won lesson, a story you’ve told friends but never shared publicly—that could help someone else find their way?
Not a framework. Not a technique. A real story that cost you something. If you can’t think of one, dig deeper. If you can, but you’re holding it back, that’s where the work begins. The work we’ll need to do for others starts with us.
Know what I mean?
***
Writing books has been one of the most meaningful parts of my work. I’m hosting an accelerator this November to help aspiring authors ideate, write, and market their book. Details are coming soon, so get on the waitlist here:
Get on the Waiting List here »
If you’d like to connect on any other channels and content formats, my links are here: