Self Worth is More Important than Net Worth

When I was fifteen I found out my mother had left me on a doorstep when I was a small baby and I chose to have a pity party for many years to come.

As I write this I am on the Gold Coast in Australia getting ready to deliver a keynote to a room full of driven, passionate real estate professionals at the first ever wellness and well being conference this industry has experienced.

My heart is to serve the room by being vulnerable and drawing experiences from my journey of imperfection in sales and people leadership positions I held just like a lot of my audience are involved in.

So back to the story about me and my mum.

Just like everyone else on the planet, I have no recollection at all of being a small baby, yet on hearing the details second hand it devastated me. It added evidence to what I already thought about myself. Let me explain why.

Nothing has meaning in life except for the one we give it and I made this mean "my mother didn't love me". Nursed and rehearsed it quickly elevated to "therefore I am unlovable".

Now there are some other details in the story that I chose to sweep under the rug and eliminate from the equation. I mean you can't let the truth get in the way of a great story right?

When I was born my mother almost died having me. I was premature and had no sight in one eye. My dad was told to light matches in front of my eye as therapy. Times were different and the medical field was not as advanced as it is today. My mum suffered from what we now call post natal depression yet in those days there was no diagnosis or support. You just took your baby home and did your best.

Well here's the whole truth I conveniently left out of the story.

My mother loved me so much that she was willing to give me up to a family who she thought, in her state of mental health, would give me a better life. My dad went and got me when he got home from work and we were a happy little family again. I mean no harm was done anyway.

So why did I leave out those rather important details? I'll tell you why. Without them, my story matched what I already had formed as a belief about myself anyway. "I am not worth much so why would anyone love me".

You see it's not what happened to me it's what I chose to make it mean.

This is more about the value I put on myself than what my parents thought about me. I was lacking a commodity that is way more valuable than all the money in the world. Self Worth.

During this pity party I was not a nice person to be around so my belief became a self fulfilling prophecy. You see our beliefs become our thoughts, our thoughts form our words and orchestrate our behaviour. I believed I was unlovable so the way I reacted to other people was focused on making that true.

As each year went by the belief grew stronger. The lack of self worth turned into an unhealthy search for significance as I desperately sought approval from others. As my journey continued I started to get some great results in my career. The challenge with that is that my success didn't match my self worth so I subconsciously did whatever I could to sabotage things. This meant several changes in careers and a lot of stress. That stress facilitated several physical and mental breakdowns and I slowly but surely got very sick.

All this spiraling down came from a single choice. I had enough information to make a couple of decisions. I chose the negative one. Just imaging how different my life, and the lives of those around me, would be different if I had of chosen the other one.

So what are you believing about yourself that isn't the whole truth and why?

Remember, your Self Worth is far more important than your net worth.

Have a great week...you deserve it!

Cheers Grant