Is it possible to add too much value?

I have been thinking about the phrase “adding value” a lot recently. On the surface it sounds like a great idea to add value to something, but the more I have thought about it a question has surfaced:  Is it possible that we can add too much value?

There are two traps that we can fall into:

1. Getting up-side down.
When I was 23 years old I learned what up-side down meant when I went to turn in my first leased vehicle.  The ad had promised that we would pay $139.00 a month on a vehicle that should have been a $400 a month payment and after 2 years all we would have to do is turn that bad-boy in…free and clear.  Except for the very small print that said we were allowed to drive this vehicle about 6k miles a year.  We missed that fine print.  We drove it about 40k miles in 2 years.  Oh yes, the other fine print was that we had to pay about .15 per mile.  So our choice was this, we could pay a fine of 5k dollars fine and then walk away “free and clear” or we could buy the vehicle, skip the fine and owe more money on a car than it was worth.  We have bought used ever since.  We were upside-down.
When we add too much value to a project, worry, situation by giving it too much attention we can find our selves upside down.  We owe way more in the amount of value we have added to the project than it is worth.  Just because we have the time to write the email one more time, worry about our daughter who is safe in her bed at college or meet one more time on the project does not mean we should.  That’s adding too much value.

2. Getting into debt.
Because of the car, a house that I talk about in my first book, making $1.85 an hour at my first church job and the fact that I was wicked unwise with money 14 years ago I had to break the news to my very wise wife that I had gotten us into some debt.  By some I mean a lot.  By a lot I mean a ton.  By a ton…you get it. (my wicked wise wife got us out of debt in leass than 5 years by the way…I way married up) Debt stinks.  It happens when you give more value to something than you have.  It may be worth that value, in fact you may be even getting a deal but the truth is you just don’t have that time, emotional energy, talent, human resource or budget to add the amount of value you do.  So you work long hours, your expend every ounce of energy you have, you hire talent (sometimes choosing talent over character), you add staff yout can’t afford or you go way over budget.  This is adding too much value.

We should add value.  When we do though we have to make sure we add the value to something of worth and deserving of the value (would be better to invent a new way to make remarkable things rather than becoming the local apartments Wii champion) and that we indeed have the time, talent and treasure in reserve to pay for that value.

Have you struggled with this?  How have you been able to assess your value reserve?