An excerpt from
Aji Notes, Volume 1, written by Toby Hecht.
Aji Notes, Volume 1
(pages 225-233)
What Is “HELP”?
It is money.
HELP people are willing to pay a purchase price for = Money
Human beings are animals. We are primates who speak. We make sense of our situations and design action to fulfill our intentions to survive, adapt and live a good life with language.
We are a social species whose individual members are unable to think and act autonomously to survive.
Consequently, people need HELP in every moment (even if they don’t realize it) to take care of their most fundamental human concerns, e.g., food, housing, medical care and transportation, as well as family, work, educating children, socializing, play and dignity.
To get the help they need to survive, adapt and live a good life,
… or to avoid increasing hardships, suffering, despair, illness and death,
… human beings will transact, or give something in exchange.
Common help is priced low in the marketplace and produces Normal IR#3 Incomes that are too low to live a good life in IR#4.
HELP that is fresh, new, highly valued and scarce relative to demand produces Normal IR#4 Incomes that are twice as high. It compels Buyers to:
1. Accept quickly to produce the lowest possible transaction costs
2. Increase their willing to pay a premium to produce the highest possible purchase price or compensation
Both are used to double productivity, value and income.
Businesspeople can only transact and generate the highest possible purchase price (income) if, and only if,
… the offers, practices, narratives and strategies (OPNS) they design to HELP people are:
1. Fresh
2. New
3. Highly valued, important, useful and worth paying for
4. Scarce relative to demand
Businesspeople “make money” (literally), or double their productivity, value and incomes,
… and earn Normal IR#4 Incomes,
… when they design and execute OPNS that fulfill these four competitive conditions.
When their OPNS are common, traditional or ordinary, which means they define mediocrity,
… the marketplace will price them much lower
… and businesspeople find themselves earning a Normal IR#3 Income that is half as much as they could be earning.
Popular culture misleads businesspeople about the true practical importance of earning money. It shows heroes who don’t need help to take care of their non-discretionary concerns for food, housing, medical care and transportation.
They never have to stop for food because they are never hungry or too tired, sick and unable to fly wherever they’d like.
Housing is just always there or isn’t mentioned.
They shrug off injuries like bullet wounds as well as illnesses and the weaknesses they cause.
Transportation is always available just when they need it, or they can fly. They never have to wait a couple of hours for a bus.
They don’t have to earn money to get what they need. It appears.
This isn’t a problem when businesspeople remember they are watching simple high-concept fantasies and that in real life everyone needs a lot of money and help to survive day-to-day and adapt over time as their body ages in a marketplace that is competitive, complex and rapidly changing.
When businesspeople think they don’t really need money and help, they drift through their jobs, decline to learn to increase their value, don’t give or accept help that isn’t shallow and cliched, and rely on their common sense.
This makes them weak, prideful, arrogant, jerky, untrustworthy and unable to lead in today’s intensely competitive global marketplace.
How businesspeople think, what they believe to be true and their action packages are simple to hear when you know what to listen for.
There’s a group of businesspeople who don’t really think they need any help to make money, earn a living or become rich.
They work alone even when they work around hundreds of others because they don’t allow anyone to affect how they think or what they do.
They don’t learn. They don’t succeed at saving enough money for their old age. They only pretend to have enough. Their family suffers the consequences of their arrogance, pride, too-low income and savings, and lack of dignity.
There’s another group who participates in Aji IFPs so they can earn and save enough money to live a good life with their family, including saving enough money to afford 25+ years of old age with their spouse.
They work to help one another every day with their OPNS to build networks to increase their tactical, strategic and competitive capabilities and advantages.
They win. They succeed. They earn a living or become rich.
Their family prospers.
This is a fact of life for every human being.
In real life, no one can:
1. Survive from day to day
2. Adapt over time as their bodies and circumstances change
3. Live a good life with their family
… without enough money to afford the HELP they need for food, housing, etc., every moment of every day.
From the food we eat, to the cars we drive, to the medicine we use, to the house we live in, to the clothes we wear, to the entertainment we enjoy… we need HELP.
To transact for the HELP to survive, adapt and live a good life that we all need from grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations, utility companies, local governments, etc.,
… we all need to have something of value to offer in return,
… such as currency, trading something, doing a favor or giving a gift of help.
“HELP”
… is fulfilling any of four intentions people interpret as HELP
All customers, employers, employees, colleagues, vendors and competitors organize themselves around buying and selling the most helpful goods and services, or offers, practices, narratives and strategies (OPNS) they can find and produce.
Put another way, exchanging different forms of HELP such as paying the purchase price in a grocery store in return for dinner, or paying an employee in return for a service, is how human beings make money so they can survive, adapt as life changes and live a good life.
Here are the four fundamental intentions that people interpret as “HELP”:
1. Increase the likelihood, or make it possible, for people to produce an outcome that fulfills their intentions
2. Lower people’s costs, or reduce the time, energy, money or lost opportunities required to fulfill their intentions
3. Produce, or assist people, to produce a better outcome than they could have otherwise
4. Produce an outcome for people, or fulfill their intentions for them
The marketplace, as well as the underlying purpose and value of money, is based on transacting for the help people need to:
1. Survive in the moment
2. Adapt over time as their bodies and circumstances change
3. Live a good life
HELP exists and is valued because human beings are a social species who can’t survive without it.
We did not evolve to be capable of taking care of all their concerns, situations, capabilities and strategies without help from others.
All OPNS, and goods and services, HELP people fulfill their intentions, or people decline to buy them.
Human life at home and at work is organized around the production and acceptance of HELP.
The more HELP people are able to afford to take care of their concerns, situations, capabilities and strategies,
… the higher their standard of living.