Book 153 - A Year of Magical Learning

Reflection Title: Let’s Network Effect Living Your Values!

Book – Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets are Transforming the Economy and How to Make Them Work for You by Geoffrey Parker

Book Description: A practical guide to the new economy that is transforming the way we live, work, and play.

Uber. Airbnb. Amazon. Apple. PayPal. All of these companies disrupted their markets when they launched. Today they are industry leaders. What’s the secret to their success?

These cutting-edge businesses are built on platforms: two-sided markets that are revolutionizing the way we do business. Written by three of the most sought-after experts on platform businesses, Platform Revolution is the first authoritative, fact-based book on platform models. Whether platforms are connecting sellers and buyers, hosts and visitors, or drivers with people who need a ride, Geoffrey G. Parker, Marshall W. Van Alstyne, and Sangeet Paul Choudary reveal the what, how, and why of this revolution and provide the first “owner’s manual” for creating a successful platform business.

Reflection:

Hands down, the best “business” book I’ve ever read! This book had my mind racing with a million ideas.

Over the past 2 years of my life since my daughter passed away, I’ve spent the first 6 months in pain, suffering, questioning, searching, and ultimately discovering my own values and purpose in this world. The next 18 months have been spent in action. I have been spent every day honoring my daughter in all that I do and trying to live up to the vow that I made to her that I would live a life that she showed me how to live and would be proud of me to show her friends in heaven. For me, that has been what I call Living for 2. That is living our shared values of ones I discovered for myself and the values she demonstrated to me in her fight for a chance at life in this world.

The most interesting discovery I’ve made thus far in living my values in as much as I can each day is the incredible power that shared values has to bring people together to connect and create.

The Platform Revolution is all about how to leverage the power of the network effect to build a successful exchange of values that keeps growing and growing. The network effect is a phenomenon whereby increased numbers of people or participants improve the value of a good or service. THE NETWORK EFFECT IS INCREDIBLY POWERFUL! As more people join in the exchange, the value explodes for everyone. Just look at Facebook, Google, Salesforce, Uber, Pinterest, Etsy, Amazon, Airbnb, etc. These businesses have taken the world by storm overnight by creating functioning marketplaces where value can be exchanged and all parties gain.

I want harness the power of the network effect for what I feel is most important in this world, growing people’s access to real meaningful work and meaningful relationships.

What do I mean by this, when we make an earnest effort to live our personal values everyday, we naturally end up coming across others that share similar values on our journey. When these journey’s combine, the value is multiplied in ways that I can’t even put in words. It is like magic starts to happen.

I’ve personally witnessed the power of this phenomenon so many times over the past few years of my life.

Living for 2 has taken me to some weird new worlds, meeting and connecting with all kinds of new and interesting people and creating meaningful works of art that I’ve never dreamed possible and that I’m proud to show off to my daughter. Minus the first 6 months of utter pain and misery, I’ve been loving every minute of it since and I’m on a mission that will power the rest of my time here on Earth. Hell, this project is the perfect example of the network effect of living your values. We’ve started to turn these reflections into podcasts with groups meeting to discuss, online meetup groups where we are meeting new people from around the world, our own nonforprofit, etc.

I want to help others to harness the power of living their values if that is what they wish. My dream is to build a platform where people can connect and exchange their own personal values in a quest to bring the power of meaningful work and meaningful relationships to as many people as I can in this world. This is my infinite game in this world, and I can’t wait to see the places that this takes me in this world. It should be a fun ride.

Question: What magic could you create if you had a place to find interesting new projects or people that share your values?

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Links:

What is The Year of Magical Learning? An Introduction

YOML Podcast Discussion - Coming Soon

YOML Bookstore - Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets are Transforming the Economy and How to Make Them Work for You by Geoffrey Parker