Personal Value - It's in Your Hands!

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We get paid not for the number of hours we put in but for the value we bring to the table. It's that simple. Hundreds of people put in a forty-hour work week. Yet we don't all get paid the same thing. We get paid according to the perception of value that is placed on the tasks we perform, The good thing is that we all have control over the value that others place upon us.

Now let's be clear. A man's (or woman's) value in the market place is a world apart from the value we may place upon him as an individual. A man may be a valuable father, husband, brother, and similarly, a woman may be perceived invaluable as a mother, a wife, sister or daughter. Yet that same man or woman may be perceived as of little value in an organization. His/her skills may prove insufficiently specialized, his talents easily acquired, his ideas (if he has any) nondescript and uninspiring.

The good thing in all this is that we each have the power any day and everyday to increase our value. That's entirely up to us. Creating personal value is something that every human being should be intentional and strategic about. Our value to the market will never change until we change. We will never secure personal competitive advantage until we become intentional about working on ourselves. Formal education is one route, That's good. But formal education merely makes us a living, self-education is what makes us a fortune, We must secure every opportunity that comes our way to self educate - to increase our talents, to stimulate curiosity, to continually work at maintaining interest in the world as life evolves round about us.

We owe it to ourselves to create and increase personal value and continually offer that to the market place. We must become more: BECOME. DO. HAVE. That;s the formula for increasing value. As we learn, we implement - we DO - for the benefit of others. As we DO,  our talents and abilities improve, our reputations precede us; inevitably we attract the success we seek; we command the salaries and benefits we crave - all the time focused only on increasing our value to the market place. These days learning is as easy as the next you-tube video. There is just no excuse for remaining where we are in life. The value we being to the market place is entirely ours to control. What value do you bring to the table?

Scratch Your Own Itch

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"Far from the madding crowd" is an expression I like to use. I find these days that withdrawing to this 'safe space' has become a personal imperative. Overwhelm has become far too familiar, whether that be my work day, my mommy-time or my down-time....there just always seems to be too much happening in my space. And if that is not enough, bumper-to-bumper traffic is the order of the day, any time of day. Trouble is, bumper to bumper traffic is threatening to become the order of my thinking. But I'm not about to let that happen. 

If the feeling is not familiar in your personal life, I'm pretty sure it has become a normal experience in your work-a-day world...even if you work from home. In fact, working from home has begun to feel, for some, like shark-infested waters. Every other teenager with a lap-top in a basement somewhere is likely competing in your space. What else can we write that has not already been articulated? Thousands, even millions of people are doing the very same things we spend our days dreaming about and planning for. Ideas are a dime a dozen, and no matter how novel we think ours are, we find that some other nifty mind has 'been there, done that." Makes you wonder if it's all worth it.

I have found that its worth it to find my own, blue ocean (as business strategists love to say); to create uncontested market space; to make the 'competition' irrelevant; to create and capture new value.  The truth is, if what you do is important enough to you this "crowding out effect" (to borrow a term from the economists) would not represent a stumbling block. In fact, it should force you to take a step back and do some evaluation.In a world where problem solving is cast as the die that gets us into the market place, we must learn to scratch our own itch.

Sounds counter-intuitive maybe. But here's why it works: At the most superficial level it causes us to give attention to personal problems we are able to solve. At a deeper level, it calls us to answer the all important question of 'why'. Understanding our why makes MEANING the currency of our operations. Meaning and purpose are what pull us back into the fray when we feel overwhelmed, crowded out, replicated, unnecessary. Scratching that itch of ours, doing what means the most to us, will get us going and keep us in the ring when others have long stopped stoking their fires. We have to learn to make the competition irrelevant, the crowd less madding, the noise less distracting. We must focus on our game, find our own blue ocean, scratch our own itch.....and that begins and ends with 'WHY.'