0:00:00 - 0:00:21 So I want to talk a little bit more about value and the Ministry of Angels. I'm going to continue to expand your understanding of these topics. It's excruciatingly important to get the most out of mortality. I want to start with this graph. This is a Pareto distribution and what we have here. It's a 0:00:21 - 0:00:45 histogram which means the Y axis represents the count of something. In this case, what we're talking about are options, choices that you can make. So in any situation, you have a certain set of options, each with different costs and benefits and low value options are much more numerous than high value 0:00:44 - 0:01:14 options. And what happens is that most people see and choose options of low enduring net benefit. So they choose things that might look really good in the short term, but look really bad in the long term or things that don't look that glamorous at all uh compared to alternatives. And the question is 0:01:14 - 0:01:39 why the answer is varied. You could boil the whole thing down to say it's a lack of faith. That's why I wrote a book called True Faith. It addresses this uh at length, these tendencies at length. But often it's because people don't see options of greater value or they don't recognize that greater value 0:01:39 - 0:02:06 . Sometimes it's as simple as dealing with the fact that people strongly prefer benefits up front rather than long term benefits. Pretty much anyone, you know, is currently engaged in behaviors and choices that have a clear detrimental long term effect or a short term positive effect that absolutely 0:02:05 - 0:02:30 will not last long term and they know it and they believe it and they do it anyway. That's a lack of faith. Ok? But in some cases, like I said, it's just that people miss appraise or miscalculate the value of the option or don't see the options. So what it's like is if you go to a restaurant and you 0:02:30 - 0:02:59 get the menu and the best meals are not on the menu and so you just pick from what you see. So there can be tremendous value in situations or people that expose you to alternative options or help you see a more accurate appraisal of the cost and benefit of the options before you. So this is important 0:02:57 - 0:03:27 because all of the greatest things in life lie on the right side of this distribution. Things of great value are rare and so you need to develop the ability, however, it comes to see those options and accurately estimate their cost and benefit and develop the faith to choose them, which means the the 0:03:27 - 0:03:54 choice, develop the tendency to choose what has the greatest value, long term to make the calculation and go with what rationally has the greatest value rather than what feels good for right now. So here's the question, what is the value of someone who consi consistently helps you to do this? Who shows 0:03:54 - 0:04:18 you options that you hadn't thought of before or who helps you better understand their true cost and benefit or who helps give you the, the confidence or whatever other motivation you need to choose what you see as best. What's the value of that kind of person? Well, to understand this, you first have 0:04:18 - 0:04:44 to understand how good decisions, compound value. What do I mean by that? If you make three good decisions, one right after another, the value of those three decisions isn't the value of each of them added together a more technical way of saying this is that the value of good decisions is not independent 0:04:43 - 0:05:12 , one from another. It compels it's multiplicative. If you make good decisions in a chain, the combined value actually grows a lot faster than just the sum. It explodes, it goes geometric, it rises very quickly. It's like 11 real world example of this is if you make three really good investment decisions 0:05:12 - 0:05:42 in a row, you don't just increase your money by a little, maybe you've doubled or tripled or 10 Xed your money. That's what three good investment decisions in a row looks like. So apply this to other aspects of your life and the results can be shockingly large and extreme. The value of someone who helps 0:05:41 - 0:06:10 you see more valuable options than you'd otherwise see. That's a typo or to choose more valuable options than you'd otherwise choose is enormous. It's absolutely incredibly huge. And we're going to go through just a few examples of that to prove that point. Why does this matter? Here's why? Because the 0:06:10 - 0:06:33 value that you perceive in something fully determines the price you're willing to pay for it. If you went to the grocery store and you saw a pack of bubble gum in the checkout line and the price was $10 million you absolutely positively would not buy it because no one values bubble gum at that higher 0:06:33 - 0:06:59 price and the same applies to every single decision that we make. There's no guarantee that you will choose something even when you see or, or, or when you, when you appraise something at a higher value than its cost. There's no guarantee you'll do it. That's a, that's a question of faith. That's what 0:06:59 - 0:07:31 faith means. Do you do what is reasonable? However, you absolutely will not choose it. If you think that the price is greater than the benefit. So accurately, perceiving value is super important because remember the greatest blessings are only available for those who pay the greatest price. God is just 0:07:30 - 0:07:58 and you can't break that you can't get around it. You also can't enduringly obtain what you're not willing to pay the price of. That's an eternal principle. It's one that is shockingly um unpopular with people who claim to be Christians, but that's just because they don't read or understand the scriptures 0:07:57 - 0:08:29 as Paul said, God will not be mocked. You reap what you sow. Another reason, it's so vitally important to have an accurate perception of value is that our joy comes from value. And so if you don't understand, if you don't have an accurate appraisal of the value of something, you won't have as much joy 0:08:28 - 0:08:57 in receiving it as you otherwise would. So how does this affect your life today? Well, anything in your life that is currently out of alignment with how you believe God wants it to be talking about the choices that you make any time you act differently than you sincerely believe God would in your place 0:08:56 - 0:09:22 . That is a likely example of you not understanding the value of what God offers to you. Because if you did understand it, you'd be much more inclined, you wouldn't be forced to, but you'd be much more inclined to obey him and trust him and to do so joyfully, not just begrudgingly. So anytime you see 0:09:22 - 0:09:48 resistance in your life to what you believe, God would do in your place, that's a good place to dig and find what the disconnect is between how God values something and how you do. So how do you fix this Well, it's very simple. You increase the accuracy of your appraisal of value through living up to 0:09:48 - 0:10:16 the value. You already see God will increase your ability to accurately see the value of things as you live up to the value. You already see. Now, I hope that doesn't seem cryptic because it's as practical as you can get as you look out across your life. You should frequently ask yourself why you do 0:10:16 - 0:10:42 what you do and why you don't do something differently. Then when you have that reason, you should actively think about what alternative actions you could take to reach the same ends. So as a for example, if I go to work to make money, I should think, is there a better way to make money? And if there 0:10:42 - 0:11:04 is, I should change, if I, I work out to lose weight, say I should ask, is there a better way to lose weight? And it turns out there is, it's called fasting. And so I should shift. That exercise is not a good way to lose weight. There's a much better way, it's called passing. And so if you go through 0:11:04 - 0:11:19 your whole life like this, and I mean, in every little detail and, and this will absorb all the effort that you're willing to throw at it. So don't be overwhelmed and think that you just need to lock yourself in a room for three months and then come out and you'll be all fixed you just take this a little 0:11:19 - 0:11:43 at a time and as often as you take this to the Lord, he, he will give you changes to make and eventually that list is going to empty and then it'll just be from time to time that you learn a better way to do something. OK? That's the process. And the, the scriptures describe this in many different phrases 0:11:42 - 0:12:15 such as um taking hold of every good thing through searching in the light of Christ. That's what this is, this is what that's talking about. OK. Incremental improvement through living up to what you already can see. So how do you show that you're doing this? How do you show that you appreciate the value 0:12:14 - 0:12:44 that you currently see? This is also very simple. You look at the price you pay to fully live up to what you've received. I just described an exercise to you. So you could ask yourself how often you conduct that exercise and how fully you implement what you learn or if someone comes to you and suggests 0:12:44 - 0:13:08 a potentially better action or option in your life in some aspect of your life, you can look at the price you're willing to pay to implement it. Now, just to be clear on this, it's irrational to implement a change that has a higher cost than the expected benefit. So that's not something you should do 0:13:08 - 0:13:31 . That's what the world describes as faith, which is just sort of willy nilly doing crazy things just because you have a feeling or something or you wish it were true. That's not what God describes as faith God describes as faith, what you have sufficient reason to believe. But there is this question 0:13:31 - 0:13:55 of how much of a price are you willing to pay? Because what you're going to find is that almost all people have a limit, an absolute limit of the extremity of what they're willing to do, whether that's measured in absolute effort or how much pushback they'll get from others or whatever other thing, they 0:13:55 - 0:14:19 have an absolute limit. And it doesn't matter how much perceived benefit might result from that thing. Faithful people have no limit. Their only limit is sufficiency of evidence. Meaning if you can make a solid case that something is worthwhile, they will absolutely do it. They don't ask how much does 0:14:18 - 0:14:58 it cost? They ask whether it's worth it. You have to become that kind of person to receive what God wants to give you. You have to because all of those things require a tremendous price that is beyond what anyone who has a limit will pay. So one very practical example of measuring the price you pay to 0:14:58 - 0:15:22 fully live up to what you've received is how you respond to an invitation to improve a sufficient invitation to improve. And it can be on a small thing. I used to have a, a wonderful teacher in college who said I don't have to ask you hard questions to see what, you know, he is a wonderful teacher. And 0:15:21 - 0:15:42 you know what, even though we, we sometimes feel like we're facing very hard trials from God in a more eternal perspective, more correct perspective, we could see him saying the same thing. He just doesn't have to ask his hard questions to find out what we, what we know. Or maybe it's more important 0:15:41 - 0:16:10 to say what we want, doesn't have to put us into crazy situations is very evident even in the small things. And so the perennial example I use is that uh you know, and there will be some dispute on the amount of value that is contained in these materials that I continuously present and give you. But 0:16:10 - 0:16:34 I have asked for things from you in return for this and some of those things are very small, like write an Amazon review. If you appreciate the value of a book that I've given you for free. How seriously have you taken that? Have you paid the price? There are more important things that I've asked for 0:16:33 - 0:17:00 and some of them involve me and some of them don't, they're just about changes that you can make in your life. What price are you willing to pay to fully live up to what you've received? It's a measure of your appreciation of value. The next measure I'd like to talk about is the the price you pay to 0:16:59 - 0:17:28 receive more from the same. What do I mean by that? Well, if a person has helped you see options of greater value or giving you more persuasion to choose them or helped you develop a more accurate sense of the value of the options before you? What do you do to receive more of the same from that person 0:17:28 - 0:17:55 or from someone else frankly or from someone else? You see once you start to see patterns, like if some random person shows you some option in life, whatever the situation might be that has much greater value than any option you were looking at before one honest takeaway from that is that this might 0:17:55 - 0:18:19 be the case in other situations in life. And so you'll go and start looking in places that you wouldn't have looked before we're talking to people that you wouldn't have talked to before. We're considering any other of many possible new ways of looking at things or places to look because it makes sense 0:18:19 - 0:18:46 that if you were unaware in one thing, you might be unaware in others and you'll live your life differently. But zooming into a specific person, I refer you to the interactions between Jesus and the woman at the Well, in the book of John, and you see this successive increase in what she's willing to 0:18:46 - 0:19:12 receive from Jesus based on her reflection or recognition of what he has already revealed to her. It's a brief conversation. It's such a wonderful example because there's such a change in what she's willing to receive. And how do you know that you look at, you, look at um that that advancement of allowance 0:19:11 - 0:19:43 . So he starts as some random Jew asking her for water and he ends by telling her that he's the Messiah, the whole thing proceeds step by step. And if she wasn't willing to continue that conversation and allow him to say more extreme things with evidence, with strong evidence, they never could have reached 0:19:43 - 0:20:08 that point. And so as a practical example, if you were, for example, to, to watch a video that I've made or read a book that I've written, well, let's go with this. If you watch a video that I make and you find it valuable, an honest reaction to that would be, hey, I don't just read random books, but 0:20:08 - 0:20:25 this video was valuable. Maybe I should read one of this guy's books. And if you read that book and it totally changes your life and it contains all these things that you could spend a lifetime searching for and never figure out the only honest reaction to that is to read another one and probably to 0:20:25 - 0:20:49 tell other people about some of the stuff that you're learning. And certainly to make changes in your life, to align yourself more with this greater understanding of Christ that you've received anything less than that would be showing a lack of appreciation of the value that you receive. Another way 0:20:49 - 0:21:15 you could do that is by supporting this work and donating. It's absolutely absurd. Unless you are uh very poor. It's absolutely absurd to say, hey, this book absolutely changed my life. Thank you so much. These are things that I never would have learned in a lifetime of seeking for them myself and then 0:21:14 - 0:21:42 not help support the continuation of this work when you've been asked to do so. if you have the the capacity to do. So, the final way, I'd like to talk about uh of how we show appreciation for values, the price you pay to share what you perceived with others. We're gonna talk a lot more about this in 0:21:42 - 0:22:03 the future, but there's a general unwillingness to share these ideas with other people. There are a million different ways we can do that with modern technology. And in general, people just won't do this. They won't spend five minutes to share something that someone spent 10 years developing, even if 0:22:03 - 0:22:26 it's changed their lives, we're reluctant to share the value that we find. And that is a sign of a lack of appreciation of value. All right. So let's get back to developing a sense of the value of someone who helps you make these choices better than you could otherwise makes, be, make better choices 0:22:25 - 0:22:56 than you would otherwise, let's use a practical example of being at work. So suppose you're at work and you, let's say you're on a team of people who all do the same thing and there's some measurable metric for your value there. So, if you're a salesperson, how much sales, how many sales do you, how 0:22:56 - 0:23:19 much in sales do you generate over a certain time period? Well, let's say that you're the best person. What does that make you worth? Well, in sales, it's actually easy to directly quantify this. But in most jobs odds are, you will only be paid a little more then the second best person. And that's if 0:23:19 - 0:23:45 you're lucky, a lot of companies, you're actually the, the pay is even less fair than that. But if you're lucky, you'll get paid a little bit more than the second best person. OK. What is your value? If beyond this objective metric of your individual contribution, you will also help everyone else on 0:23:44 - 0:24:12 your team to be better than they would otherwise be. Well, then the math changes because it, it's not just the absolute difference between what you bring in and they bring in, you get a piece of their productivity. Your value includes their productivity, the, the specific increment that you're responsible 0:24:11 - 0:24:43 for. And so if you enable the people on your team to be 10 times more productive and there are 10 of them, then your value is 10 times the sum of their value. That's crazy. Right? That's enormously larger than a small increment over the second most valuable person. Do you get that now, this might seem 0:24:43 - 0:25:08 silly. But I tell you as a person who's had a career in software engineering and worked in various aspects of that. It's absolutely the case that these people exist. There are people who can help other people be 10 times more productive. It's not even hard to find examples of this. Now. Unfortunately 0:25:07 - 0:25:31 , they're never paid anything close to the value that they add and there are reasons for this And it's just another example of how unjust the modern world is. But it happens, this is a real thing. And if it can really happen at work, where else could this happen? Well, I'll tell you that this same principle 0:25:31 - 0:25:59 applies to couples. So married people to families. So add in the kids to communities and to kingdoms. Now, what do I mean by kingdoms? I mean kingdoms in God's kingdom. It's absolutely the case that there are people in God's kingdom who multiply the value of other people. They enable other people to 0:25:59 - 0:26:31 be much more productive, invaluable value in God's kingdom isn't just a question of productivity, but that is definitely one of the aspects, the quality of a person. They can enable a person to be of a much greater quality, a multiple even. So as evidence to this, I invite you to think about the examples 0:26:30 - 0:26:56 in the scriptures. Here are just some of them. But there are many as an example of how an individual can multiply the value of their spouse. Think about Leigh and Soraya think about what examples or evidences there might be of Soraya being exceptional and how exceptional she was. And then think about 0:26:56 - 0:27:25 Leigh, think about the times that Lehi helped Soraya be much better than she was on her own or would be on her own. Think about the value that Nephi added to the, to the family of his father. So he wasn't the dad, but he multiplied the value of everyone else in Lehigh's family, including Leigh, what 0:27:25 - 0:27:45 about Abdi and what he did for the kingdom of Noah? So that's no one was a king. But I'm using this as an example of a community. It was really just a tribe. It was a group of people that went off and no one was a king. But you know, he was just the guy appointed by everyone else to lead rather his father 0:27:45 - 0:28:15 was. And then as an example of one of God's kings, what was the, the value added by David to Israel? And you could make long studies of these examples would be a fruitful pursuit to see just how valuable these people were to the entities described. And that is the potential that each of us has in the 0:28:15 - 0:28:43 scope in which we operate. Now. It's, it's no coincidence or accident that you come up to that value by recognizing those who already have it and by responding appropriately, which is something that most people just don't do. Now, let's go through some more examples here. I want you to think about the 0:28:43 - 0:29:06 perceived value of a person and the price paid by the person who perceived it. That's kind of a mouthful. But it's actually a simple idea. How did Elisha see Elijah? So back in those days, they had these things called schools of the prophets or Children of the prophets. It just meant disciples of the 0:29:06 - 0:29:32 prophet. And so, for example, Elijah had a bunch of people who were his disciples and they followed him around. Sometimes they stayed in one place. But these are people who um who followed him at least partially. You know, it's interesting here to look at his lament to God that he, he just doesn't feel 0:29:32 - 0:30:00 like he's helping anyone and that no one's listening. But um notwithstanding that there were people who thought that they were listening to what Elijah was teaching and this is a common situation for people who seek to serve the Lord. So how is Elijah different than all these other people who thought 0:29:59 - 0:30:29 they were followers of Elijah? Well, look at his response when Elijah calls him to follow him, Elisha says goodbye to his parents and then he takes because he was plowing his fields. When Elijah comes, he immediately breaks up the yoke and uses it the wood to make a sacrifice. He kills the oxen and makes 0:30:29 - 0:30:58 a sacrifice to God. So not only does he leave everything he consumes everything that was in his life before as a, a sort of a propulsion into the next phase of his life. It's so poignant. And then you look at the episode when Elijah is about to leave and they all knew it. And all these people who allegedly 0:30:58 - 0:31:22 followed Elijah, they, they literally didn't follow him across the Jordan river. He said, oh, well, he's leaving and whatever and Elisha just kept going, he wouldn't leave his side. So what was the result Elisha saw much greater value in Elijah than the other people? So what did he receive a double portion 0:31:21 - 0:31:46 of the power that Elijah had? What did the other people receive? They received Elisha, right? That's what they got out of. It was Elisha, you see the difference pretty big? Why? Because Elisha saw value in Elijah that exceeded what everyone else saw in him and he actually lived up to it. He actually 0:31:46 - 0:32:13 lived according to the value he claimed to see in Elijah. We could do the same thing with the value that Peter saw in Jesus. This one's interesting because we can see Peter's limit. So he left when Jesus said, come, follow me, Peter left his business and his family, his business was substantial. Well 0:32:13 - 0:32:32 , he ended up going back to his business and we we don't know in the first place how extensive his separation from his family was. At one point in the story, Jesus heals Peter's mother-in-law. So it's not like Peter disowned his family. That wasn't what was going on. But Jesus has this interaction with 0:32:32 - 0:32:59 him after his resurrection. And he asked if Peter loves him more than, than fishing, which was his, his profession. And he says, feed my sheep. So then he leaves his business for good. So what did he receive? What did Peter receive in exchange for the value he perceived in Jesus and the decisions he 0:32:59 - 0:33:27 made accordingly. Well, he received the power to preach with power to powerfully preach and the power to perform miracles. So you see that in the book of Acts, he also received the honor of dying, a martyr for his faith in the Lord. That that was quite the honor, not just because we should all, we should 0:33:26 - 0:34:00 all be grateful for such an opportunity to be considered worthy of that. But also uh it was quite a redemptive situation for Peter because he had denied Jesus three times. And here is his opportunity um to maintain his, his profession of Jesus, even though it cost him his life, which is a source of great 0:34:00 - 0:34:35 joy in heaven. Martyrs in heaven. There are, there are special properties that they have. There are gates of glory in heaven that only those who have given their life for the Lord can pass. These people also look different. We have a a bias as humans to minimize the difference, the positive difference 0:34:34 - 0:35:01 that others make in our lives. We also have a complimentary bias to inflate the negative impact that others have on our lives. We like to blame other people for our misfortunes and a lot of that is due to our own choices, not what other people do. However, uh let's talk about the first one I mentioned 0:35:00 - 0:35:25 . So we have this bias where we ignore or minimize the influence of other people in the good things that we receive. This is a constant thing. We really, really have to recognize it because to the extent that we don't, we won't appreciate the value that others add and we won't pay as great a price to 0:35:25 - 0:35:55 retain or increase their influence in our lives because whatever you don't live up to will be taken away. So until we sort this out, we'll never have the joy that we could otherwise have. Because again, joy comes from value. We won't receive more because this is supposed to be an incremental process 0:35:54 - 0:00:00 where we become willing to pay a greater and greater price through receiving greater and greater value and this works in and through all things. So you'll, you'll notice that as you live this, you'll run to the end of the value that a situation or object or accomplishment or person or idea provides, 0:00:00 - 0:36:45 you'll run to the end of the value and then you will jump to paying a greater price for something more. So you'll incrementally progress through receiving more and more value from something until you reach the end and then you'll go find something better. But that will never happen if you don't see and 0:36:45 - 0:37:11 recognize and appreciate the value that you have that you have already received. So, here's a real world example of this. If you have read any biographical information about Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, you'll notice that everyone has strong opinions about him, the people that knew him, either loved 0:37:11 - 0:37:38 him or hated him. There's nothing in between and you'll find some interesting things said about from the people who loved him. They'll say something like it was really hard to work for him. But when I was working for him, I performed better than I ever had before. Or since people will say things like 0:37:38 - 0:37:59 Steve Jobs expected the impossible from you. But when he was around, you really felt like you could do it and you did, you will find multiple people say this as if they were trained to say it because that's how consistent the experience was. Now, people that hated him just say that he was a jerk or worse 0:37:59 - 0:38:26 things, right? So here's the interesting experiment of the founding team of Apple. The I should say the early team weren't co-founders, but the early team that Apple, all of them became massively rich because of their stock in Apple and all of them went on to do other things. And so it's a really rich 0:38:26 - 0:38:49 data set of people who went on and tried to, to start their own companies. Guess how many of them encountered anything close to the same success they had when they worked for Steve Jobs? Zero is the answer zero of them. In fact, you've probably never heard of any of them. Why? Because Steve Jobs had 0:38:49 - 0:39:11 this enabling effect on those people. Then he did it again because he was ousted from his own company. He came back, he did it again. I'm not trying to set him up as some kind of hero. Um I'm, I'm choosing him because he's, he's not regarded as that, but it's still a very clear demonstration of this 0:39:11 - 0:39:38 principle that we tend to minimize the effect of others. People will say, oh, he didn't do anything to deserve all that money. Oh yes, he did check the receipts. There's objective evidence that in fact he was the critical factor. Ok. How does this apply to your life? I guarantee you that you're not seeing 0:39:38 - 0:40:03 and taking advantage of all the opportunities you have to see better things and choose better things or to value those things that you choose that are better. And I can also guarantee that other people have had massive effects on the quality of your life which you have not adequately recognized. And 0:40:03 - 0:40:35 all of those things are part of why you don't have more and better than what you do. The solution to this is to get better at appraising value. And where it comes from. It's extremely important. So summary, I invite you to be more honest and accurate about the good that others enable for you. You should 0:40:35 - 0:40:59 do that in your marriage. You should do that in your family. You should do that in your community and you should do that in your kingdom. If you don't recognize that you're in a kingdom, that's part of this same problem. Because remember there is no space where there is no law and every kingdom has a 0:40:59 - 0:41:13 law, there is no space where there is no kingdom. So if you don't realize that you're in a kingdom, then there's an awful lot of awareness that's lacking. I hope this is helpful.