Gandhi's sandals cause high drama in New York

This week the Dow hits 12 year lows and Gandhi's sandals hit 60 year highs. What price is our wealth? Auctions are always a great barometer of value. This morning, Gandhi's possessions (his sandals, glasses and other pieces) sold in a high drama auction for $1.8 million to Vijay Mallya - India's celebrity entrepreneur and their equivalent of Richard Branson.

In times of formation we measure what we change. In times of transformation we change what we measure.

We are in times of transformation. We began the week with a chinese antique dealer, Cai Mingchao, becoming a national hero for thwarting the Christies Auction of two Qing Dynasty sculptures by placing the winning bid of $30 million and then refusing to pay. He went on to say "Any Chinese person would stand up at this time".

We end the week with Vijay Mallya repeating the gesture (but with the money to follow through) for India. In both cases, the government and people in China and India complained that they had effectively been robbed of these national treasures to Europe and USA respectively. In both cases, it was individuals who stood up to make a stand on behalf of their people - whatever the dollar cost.

At a time when the value of 'things' measured by the imagined profit of their future are falling, the value of items of meaning measured by the stored profit of their past are rising. We are making a stand for things that stand for something: The symbols that remind us who we are more than the symbols that seduce us into who we want to be.

As you go about leveraging value this week - ask the question, what value are you leveraging? How are your customers and your partners changing what they value? What are you doing to contribute more meaning? To contribute greater identity? To remind us of what we already have and who we already are?

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."

- Mahatma Gandhi