Guy Reams (00:01.39)
Today is day 179, value comes after commitment. So I've come to the conclusion after several decades of life that a decent idea executed well is infinitely more valuable than any number of ideas that have never been attempted. Throughout the course of my career, I've seen this over and over and over again.
People will sit around and debate the merits of an idea. Meanwhile, one person will take an idea and turn it into a process, a method of business and be successful. While everybody else is lamenting on how simple the ideas or how stupid the idea is, somebody's taking an idea, executing it and producing something of value. We have to conclude that there is no intrinsic value in ideas by themselves.
All the value comes from building, creating, forming the idea into a process that we can generate value from. The building is what creates the value, not the idea itself. A good example would be real estate. Take, for example, a broken down, dilapidated property in a high rent area of your neighborhood. You might look at that property and say, hey, I could fix that property up and make some money. But that's just an idea.
somebody will eventually come along and borrow the money, buy the property, fix the property up, clean it up, do all the necessary repairs, fix all the problems, put it back on the market and sell it. So what was the value? Was that the idea of renovating the property or was it the actual execution? Clearly, this is an example that's very simple to see, that it's the process that creates the value.
not just the idea. Now, this gets harder when we apply this to our lives, right? It's really easy to see in a real estate example, but it's harder to see in our own lives. I think probably the fun one to poke out is marriage. I've met a lot of young, you know, I've worked with a lot of young men that are up and coming in their careers. And many of them have talked about, you know, getting married.
Guy Reams (02:19.342)
And there's a hesitancy to get married. And as I dig into their thought process, I realize their hesitancy is they want to see if something better will come along. Now that sounds horrible, but it's actually the thought process. It's like they're looking for value in the mate that they select. So they want to make sure that they have the most value possible in the person that they're selecting to marry.
And what they'll end up doing is spending time with, getting to know somebody, even living with somebody with the idea that, hey, maybe there will be some value here for me. But reality is when you're first getting, when you're young and getting married, you have no value. I mean, seriously, you've got very little value and you have very little value separately and you certainly don't have a lot of value together.
But you gain the value over time as you build it together. That's the whole point. I take a look at my grandparents who were almost married 70 years. Now, my grandfather died before they could make it to 70, but they were pretty close. And if you look at their lives, you think, wow, there is a lot of value there. You look at the family they built, all the grandkids, you look at the property they acquired, you look at their business they grew.
You look at all the friends and family and community belonging, all those things put together, you think, wow, that has a lot of value. And you look at their lives and you think, wow, wow, I wish I could have that. Well, you don't get that handed to you. You're never going to find anybody that you're going to get married to and you're going to instantly have that. It will never happen. The reality is that you have to spend time at it, energy at it, work on it.
You got through the ups and got to go through the downs, right? All of those things, a lifetime of commitment is what creates the value. So where does the value come in a relationship? Does it come because you picked the right person? Or does it become because you committed to and had a relationship with a person and you built value over time? So you can look at any aspect of your life. Whatever you're picking a new home, a new car, a new investment.
Guy Reams (04:41.614)
or new job you want to accept. All these are just ideas. They hold zero value until you commit to them. Once you commit and you start putting work into the idea, then you start realizing idea. We are impatient fools. Really. We expect to see all the value upfront when that just never happens. Value is built. Value is accumulated. Value is earned.
Value can only start that process of accumulation once you commit. Thank you.