Seek values, not discounts

He spent hours searching for coupons and discounts to make sure he’d get the lowest possible price on each item he bought. He searched from one website to the next. He woke up early to make his orders during what was called “the golden time” and got so upset when he could not place his orders timely. He went on and on complaining to us about that negative experience. He considers himself a smart buyer. The point here is the total amount of his orders was relatively small. My concern for him is that whether that smart buying behavior hurts or helps him.

I have seen a lot of smart buyers like that. They want the best deals for themselves, and there is nothing wrong about that. You might say a business deal is a business deal and people will only trade their products and services for the prices that they find fit. But if we look at a bigger picture of this smart buying, something is not right. On the other end of the stick are those who made the products and services. A great deal for one person means someone else will have less. And if we are always searching for greater deals, many will have less. It limits our views on small and little things. And what we focus on grows, right? Even though we might save some money here and there, it ends up costing us more because our focus now isn’t on something bigger. My friend didn’t see his hours of searching could be used on making something better. Maybe he could work extra and make some additional money. Maybe he could do some charitable works. Maybe he could spend that amount of time with his loved ones. Reading something useful perhaps?

What gets worse is the spreading of such smart buying behavior. When we run a survey asking people whether they think such behavior will make us less generous or more, majority of people answered yes. However, I doubted that finding so we went on and asked people directly. The answers we received were different. They believe that if we focus too much on the dollar and dime, we tend to see the cup half empty instead of refillable. Such mentality impacts on how we see, feel, and interact with people. It does not help us to build the abundant mindset but to create the scarcity mindset instead. And the world creates by scarcity mindset, it is hard for us to think well and do well for others. Generosity is less, not more.

Here is the message we want to share: Don’t seek for good deals but seek for good values instead. So our question for you is “What values are you seeking?”