How Context Multiplies Your Value The Secret to Explosive Growth

 

This law explains how you can get paid multiple more for the skills you already have, and how all the value comes from the context, not the skill itself.

Four ending lessons about the value of any skill sets:

1.       Our skills hold no intrinsic value – our skills are worth nothing; value is what someone is willing to pay.

2.      The Value of any skill is determined by the context in which it is required. Every skill holds a different value in a different sector.

3.      The perception of a skill’s rarity influences how much people value it.

4.      People will assess the worth of your skill based on how much value they believe it can generate for them.

A common misconception is that people feel the only avenue for securing a pay increase is either via promotion in one’s current position or job place, or to seek a similar role within the same industry.
However, a more effective or potentially rewarding approach may lie in transplanting one’s skill set to an entirely new context in a different industry where it can deliver greater value for employers.
By doing so, your current abilities may be seen as a rarer commodity, increasing their worth and, in turn, enhancing your value.

A stark example of how context creates the perception of value can be seen in a social experiment conducted by The Washington Post in 2007. The experiment was designed to explore how people perceive and value talent and art in an everyday, unexpected setting.
On a bustling January morning, Joshua Bell, a world-renowned violinist, dressed in ordinary attire, disguised himself as a street performer and positioned himself at a Washington D.C. subway station. He played for about 45 minutes, performing six (6) classical pieces on his Stradivarius violin, which was worth $3.5 million at the time.
Despite Bell’s immense talent, skill, and the beautiful music he played, very few of the thousands of commuters passing by that day stopped to appreciate his performance. Only seven (7) people paused to listen for at least a minute, and Bell collected a mere $52.17 – a stark contrast to the thousands of dollars he typically earns per minute when performing in the world’s most prestigious concert halls.

The story highlighted how people often overlook value in certain contexts, raising questions about how good we truly are at appreciating and rewarding talent in our daily lives.
This also serves as an apt metaphor for a lot of people who may have been selling their set skills in a particular industry and find it difficult to explore a different sector.

The author shared what this story taught him to one of his best friends, who was at an impasse in his career, barely surviving at that time. A graphics designer, designing nightclub flyers and local company logos in Manchester for $100–200 a piece, with an average of about $35,000 a year income.
A few weeks later, after their conversation, he made a bold decision to sell his skill set in a new context.

He moved to Dubai and repositioned his design service to focus on luxury brands and blockchain tech companies. In his first year in Dubai, he generated $450,000 in revenue, and in 2023, alongside new business partners, he is forecasting more than $1.2M in revenue.the same skill of graphic design but in a different context, earning thirty times more.

Different markets will place different values on your skills. If an employer or client sees your expertise as rare or unique, they will be willing to pay more for it than those in an industry in which your skill set is more common.

Context is key – you can significantly boost your earning potential by offering the same skills to a different industry.

 

Culled from:  ‘The Diary of a CEO