I’m trading in my car.
My car has 147,858 miles on it. It’s been driven hard. There’s a few tears in the leather now. And the passenger door makes a knocking sound when it opens like it might actually turn into an ejector seat.
But it’s worth 4 different prices:
An auction price. The lowest of the low.
A trade-in price. Low-ish to mid.
A private sale price. Mid to high.
A retail dealer price. Highest.
The very same car. Same condition. Same miles.
This illustrates the power of knowing your value.
When we’re employed, too often we pigeon hole our value by our salary. For example, say you’re a Manager on $75K a year. It’s likely you’re going to benchmark your value from there. Maybe you have a goal to become a senior manager with a $10k pay jump over the next few years. Nothing wrong with that.
But consider this.
I know a 20 year old who made $100k as an intern last summer. Yep, an intern. Now, he’s an exception. A highly gifted coder studying at one of the best and most preeminent schools in the US. But he’s also an exception that dramatically proves the point - because he’s still only worth $17 an hour to KFC. If he’d have started work at KFC, he may never have known his true value. His goal might have been getting to $20 an hour because that’s what someone else said his value should be.
Just because there’s a salary number associated with your current job, it doesn’t mean that’s your value.
Your value is what you can contribute to the world. It’s not ego or hubris. It’s your passion. Your skills. Your personality. Your drive. Your contribution.
Value goes beyond money.
Money is just an indicator of whether you got your value equation right.
When we focus on our value, when we look at all the places that our value can be rewarded, all the different businesses, industries, sectors, countries, business models, relationships and roles that could open to us over time, we widen our ambition and change our own value game.
With love and worth,
The Jolt.