A business owner I’ve coached for three years said to me, “I had a lull in my week, and my first thought was, ‘Uh-oh! If I’m not busy, I’m not going to make enough money!’”
But then she laughed, “James, that’s ridiculous. Busyness doesn’t make me money.”
“What makes you money?” I asked.
She paused. And then she said it, like she finally meant it, “My value.”
When I was growing up, I lived in a little town in Sonoma County, the wine country of California. I rode my bike all over those hills, but it was the general store that had my bike parked out front most often. Red Vines for 5 cents. A nickel was everything to me back then—small but significant.
As a kid, I believed value was tied to something tangible, like the nickel I could trade for what I wanted most. I spent hours collecting cans or mowing lawns, thinking that effort and busyness were what gave me worth.
“But James,” this woman said, bringing me back, “I just realized something, that big for me: I have to stop thinking that if I’m busy, I’m valuable.”
That struck a chord. So I asked her, “What makes you valuable?”
There are questions in life that don’t have quick answers. They’re the kind of questions that shift your perspective—where you realize there’s more to your worth than what you do or how much you accomplish.
What makes you valuable?