The mantra I was told was always 'add value' at your job.

When I read volume one of capital I came to understand that this was willingly giving more of my labour for free on top of the labour capital was already profiting from (after all I am only given a job earning x units/hour as long as capital, via management upwards, earns x+1/units from that labour). Thus wealth trickles upwards in capitalism. Not down.

Everyone bought the 'add value' line and repeated it in work as though the were doing something great - us humans tend to believe what we are told (and once those neural pathways are burned they don't change easily), which is in large part why those without empathy are able to succeed. We need to rely on each other and they don't give a fuck.

Another one is "always use other people's money" (from think and grow rich, or whichever popular book it came from). If you're Elon Musk looking to hedge risk when buying twitter then fair enough, otherwise you go cap in hand to capital, and pay it a portion of the wealth you create for the privilege of being loaned the capital to begin with. Capitalists want you to use other people's (actually their) money in order that they can take their cut of your hard work.