Relevant Links
- How Do You Build Self-Worth? by Andy Frisella
- Don’t Discount Yourself, with Andy Frisella – MFCEO248
- How to Effectively Ask for a Pay Raise – Prof. Jordan Peterson
- Why We Need More Christian Billionaires – Got A Minute? Podcast with Rich Lusk and Larson Hicks
Recommended Episodes
- Ep. 40 | Key Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting My Business (3 Lessons)
- Ep. 9 | Stealing from Your Kids: Why Profitability Matters
Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome back to the Life On Target podcast. I’m your host, Nathan Spearing, here to talk to you today about knowing your worth, but maybe unique in the sense that that phrase is often used. When one broke person on the weekend tells another broke person, you need to know your worth. And they’re oftentimes bitter about where they are in life because they’re not getting paid as much as they think they’re worth, and they hang out with other broke people. And those broke people say, yeah, you’re right. He doesn’t appreciate you. He doesn’t know what you do for him. You need to tell him. And they’ll sit there and they’ll. About how much more money they think they should be making than the next guy.
[00:00:47] And they’ll hate on billionaires and they’ll talk about how that’s evil, et cetera, et cetera. And this is not something that’s done just in non-Christian circles, but Christians do this kind of stuff [00:01:00] as well. And I’ve lived, if you will, on both sides of the coin. This episode is coming to you from someone who got to the non broke side of the coin and wants to kind of elaborate on that phrase a little bit.
[00:01:17] So this is gonna be for people that want to get more money at their current job and how to do that, but also how to accurately plan and know your worth as you start your own business, because that’s essentially what we’re talking about here, is how to start your own businesses, how to have sovereignty in your own.
[00:01:36] There’s also takeaways that can be applied for those of you that are employed by someone else, and I’m gonna get to that as well. When I was on my way out at less than 14 years of service, my bosses were also on their way out of service after serving 25 years, 20 years, 30 years, et cetera. And two Sergeant Majors, were talking, they’re cutting up at a [00:02:00] party and one of them said, my boss actually said to the other one, there is no.
[00:02:05] That we can’t walk into any company and be CEO and make at least 250 K a year. I was thinking to myself, “you are crazy.” I had seen how these guys operated obviously better than the average guy treated me right, et cetera. But to make a comment like that about just waltzing in and being a ceo, After being a government employee for 25 years was pretty ridiculous because government employees can destroy value like nobody else because honestly, the government takes money from citizens, too much money from citizens and takes some of that money and direct deposits it on the first and the 15th into hundreds of thousands of lazy government employees, accounts, and special operations is maybe less [00:03:00] immune, but is not immune from this burnout, coasting mentality at all. And honestly, I was not assessing my own situation very well either at this party. So I’m looking at him, I’m thinking, dang, like, how could you say that? That’s not true, but I. Secretly, I’m thinking, yeah, I could do that. I can go be a, a ceo.
[00:03:22] And I knew I was gonna have to work my way up to it and I couldn’t just waltz in and get it. And I knew it was gonna be a hard climb. I didn’t know how hard a climb was. I actually talk about that on episode 40 “key things that I wish I knew. For starting a business”, but I was thinking crazy. That guy’s crazy. I’m gonna do it though. But I didn’t realize how much it seeped into my own mindset and the ways that I felt like that I had it all together and I did not.
[00:03:49] This whole podcast is knowing you’re worth and to the very beginning.
[00:03:54] That means realizing that you are not worth very much, or at [00:04:00] least acknowledging that the what you’re getting in compensation and what you’re being paid by your clients or what your hourly wage is, is actually a pretty good indication of what your real worth. or you’re an idiot because you’re worth a lot more and you’re sticking around with somebody who doesn’t know.
[00:04:20] We’ll get to that more in a minute, but knowing your worth and knowing that you don’t know a dang thing, and that you’re gonna have to do the work to be able to figure out how to provide more value to people. And I had to do that at the beginning and I can remember back, I think I was like, man, I wanna make 50 bucks an hour.
[00:04:40] I was thinking that was. Hourly wage, and I want, I’m paying some of my guys, at that time, I think it was 10 bucks an hour, 12 bucks an hour, something like that. I was like, all right, I’m, I’m gonna charge five extra bucks on, on these guys, so I’m gonna be making five bucks on this guy and five bucks on this guy.
[00:04:56] Now I’m not even gonna be having to do work there, so I’m making 10 bucks an [00:05:00] hour on top of my 50 bucks an hour that I make, and that’s 60 bucks an hour. That’s pretty good. And I wasn’t calculating overhead, I wasn’t calculating what it costs to put gas in the trucks to pay the accountant, the insurance, the rent, the licensing fees and all these kinds of things.
[00:05:15] And we’ll talk about that in a later episode, how to assess overhead and, and put that in there. And, and I would get to the end of the month and I’d be like, what the heck? I gotta like, No money left after paying everybody, after writing all the checks, after gassing up the vehicles, after, all that kind of stuff.
[00:05:32] And I was like, man, I gotta, I got up my rates, all right, I’ll do 60, you know, and it, it took a while. And then my, one of my mentors was saying, Hey, send me some guys. I need some help on some stuff. And I told ’em, my rates say, wait a second, what are you doing? What, what, all right, right now, changing your rate that’s, that’s the cover of the vehicles, that’s the cover of the, you know, the calling out. You know, that’s all, all in cost or just start doing that right now. And I’m thinking to myself, man, gotta really charge that much money. [00:06:00] Honestly, there’s not a lot of people out there that wanna work. There’s not a lot of people that want to go in a crawlspace and jack up a foundation and pour concrete and do these things. We’re doing that for people and they can’t, they can’t do it themselves and they can’t find somebody to do it. and we’re also still trying to do it faster, still trying to do it more efficient.
[00:06:14] We’re trying to create that value for people so that we are worth more to them because of the value that we’re delivering.
[00:06:23] This brings me to a really good article by Andy Frascella and I’ve shared a lot of his episodes. I’m gonna link the article, I’m gonna link a couple podcasts cuz he has some great content regards to self worth. He calls Self-worth:
[00:06:39] “Self-worth is an honest evaluation of your ability, your potential, and the value you provide. Self-worth can be increased or decreased based on your daily actions. Daily rents due every day. That’s my note into this. Based on your daily actions, values, and standards, if you push yourself every [00:07:00] day to live up to your potential, you are going to increase your self. If you’re not living up to your potential, you are going to decrease your self-worth. The question is, how do you value yourself “
[00:07:14] and whether are you gonna be able to do that work? That’s, that’s the question. And he moved down and he prescribes five steps and they’re great. And I wanna riff on these a little bit:
[00:07:27] “take on difficult tasks”. So if you’re an employee, You’re working for somebody, you look for the hardest things that need to be done in the business, and you take those upon yourself and you get ’em done.
[00:07:42] What you’re really doing for your boss or the owner of the company is taking that upon yourself and taking it off their plate. It’s difficult and likely if they own the company, they got tons of things going. If you are owning your own business, literally [00:08:00] looking for difficult things that people hate to do and doing them and hiring people and building a network of people that will do those things and make it happen for people, and that’s why construction’s so awesome.
[00:08:10] People don’t think it’s that sexy. They don’t like crawlspace, they don’t like getting dirty, they don’t like working long hours. They don’t like sweating. If you’re willing to do that, you’re increasing your self worth.
[00:08:21] “Keep promises that you make to yourself”. So if you are saying, I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna wake up, I’m gonna make this happen, I’m gonna do it.
[00:08:28] And then you just don’t do it again. You’re actually decreasing your self worth and your own ability to believe in what you’re capable of, and that’s not okay.
[00:08:36] And you have to surround yourself. Number three, “surround yourself with winners”. And that’s basically getting back to kind of my opening thing here.
[00:08:43] If you’re hanging out with broke people on the weekends, and now this is broke. It’s not monetarily, just monetarily broke. Right. I know some of y’all get triggered when we talk. Christians talk about money and how it’s evil and Jesus said it’s evil to ever own it, have money or be successful. Ridiculous.
[00:08:57] It’s a great podcast that Rich Lusk [00:09:00] and Larson Hicks did about needing the world needing more Christian billionaires. I’ll link that. I haven’t quite finished it, but it’s, it’s so good y’all. and this is why you should increase self worth because we need. Christians that are worth something worth more.
[00:09:16] So anyway, don’t surround yourself with bankrupt people, spiritually ban emotionally bankrupt and actually just flat out broke people. Don’t surround yourself with them. That is going to decrease your self-worth. It’s gonna decrease what your value. You are able to provide the world because they’re gonna bring you.
[00:09:36] They’re gonna hang out at that current level of self-worth, and they’re not gonna try to increase and get better, and that is poisonous to your life and your daily battle to increase your self-worth and value that you provide to the world. It’s gonna prevent that.
[00:09:52] “Never quit.” That’s number four from Andy’s article here, and it’s awesome.
[00:09:56] It’s okay to fail. Jon Acuff talks about, I’m pretty [00:10:00] sure I mentioned this in a podcast before. The way that you stay in absolute control of an outcome is to never start that outcome. Just think about it in your head and imagine how awesome you’d be. But then never do the work. Never go and get started.
[00:10:13] Never actually form that LLC and start trying to do those things. For people and provide that value because you could just hang out and get this paycheck and be safe and stay until retirement and get this check, and then get fat and sloppy and then depressed because you worked really hard and then you stop working and you think that, that your life’s gonna be better if you don’t work anyway.
[00:10:35] And then Andy also prescribes that if you don’t know any, you don’t know where to start, start with 75 hard. I’ve talked about this before, this ability to build self. The ability to understand that you have to execute core tasks every single day. Phenomenal program that he’s set up.
[00:10:53] And that being said, Jordan Peterson, I’ll link a video here, also says, has a video about how to effectively [00:11:00] ask for a pay raise.
[00:11:02] And this is where I’m at in business now and talk to you about this. He talks about, you know, you’re paid on your skills and your ability and your position, your social network and stuff, but also on your. Disagreeableness and he basically linked that to why women get paid less than men is cuz they’re just generally more agreeable and they’ll just work for less pay.
[00:11:20] But that if they actually train themselves and said, Nope, this is what I’m worth. I know I’m what I’m worth and pay me this or I’m gonna go somewhere else. This is the the negative action that you’re gonna experience if you don’t pay me more money. And the way that you do that way did I do that in construction?
[00:11:35] Is I have somewhere to go if the clients don’t wanna pay my. They don’t, they think, oh man, that hourly rate’s pretty expensive. We Okay, fine. Sounds great. Sounds like you should do it yourself. And it sounds like I’m gonna go to the next person on the list that’s already paid me for two or three weeks of work, or one, in this particular case, one January, I’m starting another big remodel, and then another person’s gonna be wanting me to start at the same time.
[00:11:56] So I’m booked into the summer. You can [00:12:00] whine to me about my rates and about how expensive it is and that you don’t like it. I got people lined. Out the door. I built a superior brand. I’m not a commodity. I’m providing something. No one else is providing a type of service. And in construction, there’s so many ways to cut corners, so many ways to give a cheaper product, and I just don’t do that.
[00:12:22] Try to find the best people in town. I use the best materials and my, my tagline is, A is a near perfect result. And that sometimes means it takes a little longer, sometimes means it costs more, sometimes means it’s harder, but the end. What I tell my clients is that when the hiccups and little things that happen along the way and the, and the miscommunications and stuff when you’re in this kitchen or this master bathroom in 10 years and it still hasn’t had an issue and it’s still working, and that it’s essentially going out of style before it breaks.
[00:12:58] You’re not gonna care what it [00:13:00] costs back then. You’re only gonna care if it breaks 18 months into it, which is what some of the shotty work that everyone else is doing. Andy makes a good point in, episode 2 48, MF ceo, 2 48, and I’ve talked to y’all about this. Andy cusses a little bit. He, he spits fires.
[00:13:14] One of my favorite podcasts, though still. The MF CEO project now, real AF podcast. when you play in the cheap pool, you have no competitive advantage over.” Don’t play in cheat pool. Maybe that’s number six on the list. And make sure that you have done so much work and you got money coming in from other places that if when somebody says, that’s expensive, see you girl.
[00:13:38] Have a good one. We’re not your guy. I, I think it is expensive. You’re right, it is. It’s worth it. somebody else has already paid me, three other people have already paid me. I’m gonna go work for. Have a good one.
[00:13:50] And that is what happens when you tow the line on. When you tow the line and you don’t give discounts and you don’t change your service and you know what you’re worth, and [00:14:00] that’s the side of the coin that you want to get to. Not the broke side where you’re sitting around squabbling about the people, but you’re the person that’s continuing to provide value and continuing to get it done and taking difficult things upon yourself and hanging out with other people that are trying to do the same and growing and learning and not quitting, and ultimately having a life on target, hitting the mark every single.
[00:14:23] And getting it done. Thanks for staying with me this week on this episode. Super pumped. Spotify just released their, year review stuff, made a little quick post on Instagram about it. 96% of other podcasters in the business category on Spotify produced less, less minutes than I did in podcasting.
[00:14:47] Thanks for being with us. Share this episode with somebody that maybe needs to realize really what they’re worth, needs to realize that maybe they’re just being lazy and entitled and a little.
[00:14:59] They need to do the [00:15:00] work, share it with them. Tell ’em that you think it’ll help ’em out, and that Nate’s gonna give them hugs and tell ’em about unicorns and rainbows and all these things that just make them feel so good. Nah, I’m not gonna do that, you know, thanks for being here. Another episode, as always.
[00:15:22] Have a good one.
