“Money doesn’t motivate me in the least. It’s an integral part of our life sure, but the day it defines you – you lose your other values.” (Day 13 – August 14)

http://www.maxacrossamerica.com/blog/day-8-14/day-13-august-14/

Maxim Hatton is a Queensland doctor.

Right now, he is just a lonely human being on a Giant doing a solo ride across USA. Whilst most of us ride for fun, Maxim is doing this to try to discover what the word ’value’ in life is all about…

I joked to Ian Jackson last week that while other cycling clubs have their club houses, the Waratahs just have an old van. But we organise the best masters racing in Sydney.

Currently, to get our van to our races, we have a dentist having to get up early every Sunday morning so that the race circuit and race management can be put in place. Then he has to wait until all the packing up has been done after the racing… so that he can get home late.

I am sure that if James Tan billed us his dental rate for the hours spend providing this service, we will have to charge a lot more for race entries. When we work out that we only pay $4.80 to participate in quality racing every Sunday (and with a chance of a prize at the end for some) – that is value.

The deputy Mayor of Auburn made news today. His lavish wedding shut down the entire street. People with money should be entitled to spend it whichever way they wish. The question is whether the money spend will bring any more value to the marriage. I guess only time will tell.

When Tom Cruise screamed Jerry Maguire’s ‘…show me the money!’, he voiced our fixation with money rather than value. Somehow the alternative ‘…show me the value!’ does not carry the same emotional energy.

Value and money are two totally different things (although they follow each other around all the time). The reason that value gets mixed up with money is because some smart economist started to use money to measure value. The reality is that there is no measure for value. Just like there is no measurement for ‘the stink of a fart’.

…or how do you value the Waratah Masters Cycling Club?

Our lonely cyclist Maxim Hatton has escaped the clutches of the money magnet and his blog as he pushes himself through the American landscape makes for some interesting reading. It is a look of the world from a set of eyes with a clarity reserved for those who have been through life and back.

A tiny start up company called Google set about to make it easy to search the vast resources of the internet. For a long time, it made no money. It just kept piling on its value for successful relevant searches for anyone who wanted to use its services for free.

Now it is worth a third of the whole of Australia!

The secret is not looking for the money. Value is where it starts. Money just seems to follow it.