Two ideas converged for me this morning that have me thinking…

First, during my morning drive, I listened to a section of Thomas Sowell’s, Basic Economics. It’s not the DaVinci Code. I didn’t find myself unhappy that my drive had ended and I would have to wait for another time to listen to Sowell’s ideas. But, alas, it’s a good beginning point into economic theory.

At one point Sowell, when talking about resources, said this:

                     Resources tend to flow toward the place of greatest value.

Second, I read Seth Godin’s Labor Day post over at his blog.

At one  point, in the post, he wrote, 

——–
Sure, you’re working long, but "long" and "hard" are now two different
things. In the old days, we could measure how much grain someone
harvested or how many pieces of steel he made. Hard work meant more
work. But the past doesn’t lead to the future. The future is not about
time at all. The future is about work that’s really and truly hard, not
time-consuming. It’s about the kind of work that requires us to push
ourselves, not just punch the clock. Hard work is where our job
security, our financial profit, and our future joy lie.
——–

After listening to Sowell and reading Godin, I had a Reeses Pieces moment. If you put Godin’s "hard work" concept into Sowell’s "resources flowing" idea, you get a really important question:

Is your hard work flowing toward the place where it creates the most value for others and for you?

The intersection between hard work and maximum value is similar to what happens when you put your chocolate into my peanut butter.