It's interesting how much this topic seems to be coming up to me lately. It didn't start with this post by Scott Sweeney called How Much Is Your Writing Worth, but it's just another in the line of things that have been thrown in my face, in a way, over the last week or so.

I was listening to a interview conducted by David Goldsmith of Metamatrix Consulting, via the Virtual New York National Speakers Association website, with Jeffrey Gitomer discussing speaking engagements, and Jeffrey was saying how people still contact him asking if he'd do free seminars for them when he knows they have money and know what he's all about, and always gets his fee or else he doesn't do the presentation. He was saying how people always seem to value their own organization above the speaker's needs, telling speakers it would give them good exposure, all while these groups rake in big time fees on the back end.

And finally, a conversation I've been having with a young man on Ryze about wealth and value and what it all means to every person, where he asked why people wanted to be wealthy when they could be happy without it, and I said the only people who say that are people who don't have money, and those with money who say it wouldn't ever think about trading places with someone who isn't wealthy.

Anyway, I've been thinking about this thing called "worth" a lot. I wonder how it is that someone like me can offer certain services, proven winners mind you, and have an overwhelming majority not understand just what it is I do, even when it's in their field, nor understand that they get what they pay for. As a quick for instance, in my best financial year, where I got paid pretty good for where I live, I helped a hospital increase their yearly revenue by an extra $750 million a year. Had I been able to get even 1/10th of that amount I'd be sitting pretty. Not only did I not get close to that amount, but I didn't even get the credit for it, since I was a subcontractor instead of the main guy; ugh!

A few months ago I was having a conversation with a recruiter of services who asked me what my rate was. When I told him he said he thought it was a little bit high. I told him that, based on my track record, it was actually very low. Based on that track record I have determined that, for that particular service, the rate will only go higher, because it's a service that not many people offer, or can back up with results as I've proven I can. For other services, I might adjust my rate. For instance, on the contract I just finished, my rate was lower than I might normally accept, since it was for something other than what I normally do, and yet I still was able to solve a problem for them that will increase their actual cash by at least 300% for one of their specialty services. How many other people can say they did that for a client this year?

Still, worth isn't only about money. If you saw my last newsletter, you saw where I talked about how I felt by some things that had happened for me, and that helped me feel a great worth also. Worth can be about feelings; having both that kind of worth and the monetary kind of worth, though, is a wonderful thing.

Overall, our self worth really is the most important factor for our lives. How we decide to value our own worth, whether it's money or something else, determines our goals, dreams, and lives. And who wouldn't love feeling worthy of all great things that are able to come our way?