You are worth whatever price you put on yourself.

The greatest lesson of my life.

My grandfather gave me a piece of advice in my early 20s when I was talking him to about a work problem.

”Jess,” he said in his beautiful Irish accent, “You are worth whatever price you put on yourself.”

It has stayed with me. It made its way onto Willow & Blake’s very first marketing materials. In many difficult moments it has come to the forefront of my mind and provided me the clarity I needed to make the right decision. And of course, on other occasions I suffered acute memory loss and did not remember this piece of advice when it would have been extremely helpful.

You are worth whatever price you put on yourself.

When considering this statement it naturally conjures up thoughts about financial worth, and yes that’s part of it, but this piece of advice is about so much more. Our worth is multifaceted and the price we pay, or expect others to pay, to access the multitude of parts of ourselves that make up our “worth” is complex to deconstruct and even harder to protect.

What do I consider my worth (and by extension your worth) to be made up of?
I’m glad you asked.

Energetic worth.

Simply existing in this wonderful world takes effort. But existing in the world surrounded by people who don’t make life easier, or more interesting, or more worthwhile, well, that’s even harder.

So ask yourself: Who is worthy of your time and energy?

The realisation hit me like a tonne of bricks one morning in the shower about 2 years ago. I was feeling particularly frustrated about something work related and it finally dawned on me (or rained from the shower head) that it was my fault.

As an anxious person who is currently working on letting go of my need to be liked, I realised I was letting people and their problems take up space in my mind rent free. I was letting them dampen my good mood or my enthusiasm for an idea. I anticipated roadblocks before they even happened based on past experience. I felt guilty asserting what I needed and often backed down easily letting other people continuously have things their way. It was bring my vibrations down, down, down.

For almost everyone on planet earth, this isn’t just a scenario that occurs at work, but in every aspect of our lives: romantic relationships, friendships & family dynamics. We all have an ex who didn’t give a damn about us, a friend who only calls when they need something and a family member for whom you’ve considered having a DNA test to confirm if this person is actually a blood relative because you’re just that different.

People are not perfect. I have let people down and will again in the future. I will frustrate them. I will not listen well enough. I will struggle to regulate my emotions. So will you. This is the human experience. We will all undoubtedly be the person that makes someone else the way I described above. But in our moments of calm and clarity, of which there are many, we can use that time to cultivate more calmness and clarity and create more space to validate our own needs which ultimately helps everyone else, too. Why?

Because our energy is our most precious gift; a finite resource we all but waste on people and things that don’t matter. This isn’t your sign to quit your job because you had a bad day, but it is your sign to get better at creating healthy boundaries and kindly asserting them for the right reasons. When you can calmly assert a boundary without thinking about it again, you’ll know you’re operating as someone who truly values their own energetic worth.

TLDR: Say no to people or things for the right reasons. You’ll know you’ve done it right when you don’t give it a second thought afterwards.

Monetary worth.

What $$value do you place on your skills, your time, your expertise, your opinions?

I love the locksmith analogy to accompany this question:

A man locked himself out of his house and needed a locksmith to open the door.

He found a locksmith who was available to come to his house straight away, and once he arrived he had the door unlocked within 15 minutes.

The cost? $350.
The man baulked. “$350 for 15 minutes of work, are you kidding me?”

The locksmith simply replied: “You are not paying me for the time it took, you’re paying me for the time it didn’t take.”

I’ve always loved this analogy when dealing with clients who want to kick up a fuss over the cost of services. You’re not paying for the one hour of time we have together, you’re paying for the 20 years of experience I have and can download to you in that hour. You’re paying for the countless expensive mistakes I can help you avoid. For the strategies and ideas that will propel you forward and for the stones I will show you that you’ve left unturned.

Ironically, the wealthiest clients are often the ones who are the most reluctant to pay what you’re worth. For me, not one but two AFR rich listers still haven’t paid their overdue invoices from 2013.

When it comes to negotiating your salary or your freelance rates, price yourself reasonably and fairly. Ensure it’s reflective of your experience. Value yourself highly, but also be honest about the room you have to learn and grow. Continuously take on challenges that make your expertise more valuable. Experience is worth a lot and you have to earn it. You will be paid accordingly in time.

If you’re going into a new role as an employee, do your research and find out what others with similar experience can and have earned for the role. But simultaneously, don’t try to justify a salary that comes with an extra 8-10 years of experience you do not have. Equally as important, do not accept a salary that does not value your unique knowledge and experience. Finding the sweet spot that allows for personal financial growth whilst also accepting that just because someone else earned a certain salary does not mean everyone should earn it from the outset is key. Employers have to invest time, effort, training, redo work that isn’t up to scratch, and take on the risk of losing clients/accounts/opportunities in the midst of growing their employees into more senior roles. I know this because I’ve experienced it first hand as an employer of over 300 people in the last 15 years. I’ve accelerated people into senior roles because they deserve it and I know that in time they will be able to do the job brilliantly and I am happy to manage the consequences of their short term missteps as they grow, but the key part of that sentence is “In time”.

Understanding your monetary worth requires a lot of self awareness and a decent dash of humble pie to find the balance between where you are and where you want to be. Once you understand the value you offer now, charge accordingly and do not waiver. As you grow in experience and knowledge, your prices/fees/salary should grow also. If clients or employers don’t understand that then perhaps you are not value aligned and it’s time for a change.

Idealogical worth.

It’s a noisy, noisy time out there in the world and it’s okay if you feel that you’re not always able to participate in the dialogue. I found myself struggling to deal with the trauma in Gaza throughout my early postpartum months and swung between total fury and total numbness and avoidance. I couldn’t parent my new baby properly whilst taking in so much horrifying information. I would rant nightly to my husband about the injustices of the world and go to bed exhausted and scared for the state of humanity. I took solace in the fact that I was safe and my children were safe, but it wasn’t enough to calm my increasing anxiety. I firmly believe we each owe a duty to humanity to defend the rights of others and create a better world, but it is not a requirement that we do this all the time. It is okay to be honest about the fact that we do not always have the mental capacity and emotional strength to take on the consequences that come with defending or protecting our ideologies. Consider the environment you have created for your brain based on the information it is taking in each day and how much strain this is placing on your self worth; then decide whether your mental environment needs to be curated.

Are you doom scrolling every night and filling your brain with useless stuff, trauma, nonsense etc? Delete social. It really is that simple. I deleted social for all of 2023 and am about to delete it again after developing an unhealthy scrolling habit over hundreds of hours of breastfeeding.

Are you reading the news every day and feeling triggered? It is okay to stop reading the news for a while to protect yourself and your priorities, so long as you do so with the understanding of the privilege that comes with being able to make that choice. Taking in one traumatic event after another and the compounding feeling of total and utter helplessness is not going to remedy any of the issues impacting many of us so deeply. Recalibrate, decide how you can help, give yourself the time and space to make a plan, then focus on executing it. Your mental energy wasted on countless saddening and distressing issues is of no help to anyone despite the naysayers who insist you must always be informed. Being informed with no energy or ability to create change is about as helpful as being a car with flat tyres.

Are you taking in positive, impactful and inspirational stories? Do you have a meditation practice, a self care practice or a reading habit that lights you up?

What is worthy of your attention and mental space? Where do clashing ideologies progress us forward and when do they simply put us into a state of flight or fight? Only you can decide what is right for you.

Ultimately, after reading todays newsletter I want you to think about all of the ways you are valuing your own worth (financial, energetic, ideological) and find ways curate your world based on what you authentically need.

Then watch some Emily in Paris to lighten the mood.