The cash and prizes in self-worth...

Holly Gottlieb is recruiter & connector for purpose-driven businesses. This article is part of a Substack series exploring the intersection of consciousness, business and careers: https://www.wholecollective.net/

I have a friend called Chris that works in sales. He is regularly closing $40k+ profit deals. He is going to make millions in the next couple of years.

He told me this week that it all comes down to work ethic. It’s not the deal or the numbers but the ethics that drive it all. It is the one thing he has that can’t be taken from him. He can hit all the way back down to zero again, but that work ethic will still remain.?

He calls it a god-given gift, that provides him with all the things nobody else can do for him.?

I’m listening.?

Work ethic: a belief in work as a moral good : a set of values centered on the importance of doing work and reflected especially in a desire or determination to work hard

He tells me that as long as he sticks to the same set of values, it’s been a good day.

Close $100k worth of business, a good day. Approach another day with exactly the same behaviour and values, but nets out at $0, a good day.

We are not in the results business after all. The only thing we have is to approach each day with the set of values that we choose to define our lives with it.

Everything comes back to values, and how we spend our time and money reflect those values in a very tangible, measurable way.

Chris gets up at 4am, has a spiritual / self practice, and is the first one in the office by 6.30am. I challenge him with the feeling I had back in London. 14 hour work days, behind a desk, numbers on the wall, PICK UP THE PHONE AND GET DIALLING kinda vibe.

I was miserable.?

That’s not work ethic. That is senseless living. Those were living by someone else’s values, not my own.?

The shift in perception where all that ‘hard work’ is in service to your own set of values, combined with a structured, disciplined approach, THAT is the cash and prizes baby.?

It seems the ten million business and money and abundance coaches on the internet are pretty much telling me the same thing.

But what came a bit of a smack in the face the last couple of weeks was the realisation of how little I am undervaluing my SELF.?

It turns out most of us do it. I think this whole inner work, self-development journey can pretty much be boiled down to simply learning how to love and value ourselves more.

Self-love. Self-worth. We’re into the hippie shit over here.?

Last week was a week. At the start of it, I thought there was this dream job thing that was going to go through. And then it didn’t. Or at least, it’s been delayed. But for a moment it felt so good. To have the clarity of THIS. This is what I want. These people, this work, this life. And then it’s simply not.?

And I’m kicking myself, because I’m waiting around for other people’s decisions, rather than valuing what I still have to offer and create.?

I got another lesson from Chris that week. Nothing is a done deal. Just keep batting them out. Bang bang create. Repeat.?

WE ARE NOT IN THE RESULTS BUSINESS!

It’s not my job to know which deal or opportunity is going to land, but to just keep showing up to each day with the same work ethic and desires and values, and information gets revealed in the process.?

And it’s ok if I end up face down on the carpet again in the middle of it all, because I have this EMO Substack I get to bring it back to.

JUST KEEP CREATING.

One of the things I have struggled with is what my business actually is. Yes I have a decade plus of experience of helping recruit and grow teams for high-growth companies, but really my business is people. And I keep saying again and again that I want to get paid to connect people.?

And sometimes that just feels so vague and ridiculous and nothing seems to work and I go through these emo phases, but I keep following this breadcrumb trail and showing up to the next thing and more just keeps unfolding.??

And last week I got to see that although it has felt so ridiculous to say I want to get paid to connect people, I was actually making that happen. I was just forgetting to ask to get paid.

In one case I connected a client to a professional services agency, which resulted in a business contract.

AND BECAUSE I AM ON A JOURNEY OF LEARNING HOW TO VALUE MY SELF AND MY WORK IN THE WORLD, I AM BEING FORCED TO LOOK AT HOW UNCOMFORTABLE IT IS WHEN I DO NOT VALUE MYSELF.?

I didn’t ask for the referral fee. Wtf Holly. This is literally the business you keep saying you want to build.?Oooof that stomach contraction feeling. YAY.

WE GOTTA FEEL IT TO HEAL IT YO.

In this case, it wasn’t about the money, but the shame in realising how can I expect anyone else to value me and my work, if I can not do that myself?

Another business exec friend commented that men are very good at negotiating for themselves, women for other people.

Big lesson learned. Thank you thank you thank you.

In another instance I connected a company I wanted to work with to an investor, which had it gone through, means I would have created myself a job. It’s still in the works… we shall see, we shall see.

Last week didn’t look like how I wanted it to look. But it was showing me very clearly, that my business of CONNECTING PEOPLE, is very real, it IS tangible, it IS translating to business deals.?

And the biggest blocker is me getting in the way of monetising that.?

Asking for what I’m worth. Requires me to believe in that first.?

Then bringing that self-belief and sense of worth into that work ethic, Chris tells me, is everything.

When I was grinding out those 14 hour work days in London, my self-worth was in the basement, so of course no amount of hard work would amount to anything. I never truly believed it was possible in the first place.

Things are changing over here.

ROAR.

—Holly Gottlieb (Founder, Whole Collective)