A Worthy Tale

This month we celebrate small business. It's National Small Business month. It's a reminder to support your local small businesses.

However, there is always the two-sided question as an entrepreneur and as a customer of small businesses. As an entrepreneur, the reminders of struggle and trials on your journey amplify the inner voice of "Was it worth it?" whereas the customer-sided thought process asks "Is this worth it?"

Both ask the same thing only with different tenses in mind -- the past and the future.

As an entrepreneur: The late nights crafting a creative strategy. The bootstrapping your next outreach project. The perfecting your elevator pitch for the next presentation. Even if all don't reap the return or results one expects, we're always left pondering was it worth it?

As a customer: The price comparisons. The critique of quality materials/ingredients. Drawing upon memories of the customer experience. When faced with a multitude of options and on the fence of the next purchase to make, we're left pondering is it worth it?

When we think of worth, many have often internalized it to be synonymous with self. But worth is worth so much more than that. The Merriam-Webster definition of worth is

the value equivalent to that of someone or something under consideration; the level at which someone or something deserves to be valued or rated.

The key terms being value equivalent, under consideration, and deserves to be.

Let's focus on deserve for a moment. Deserve is a transaction of intent. You deserve to be successful so you will foster increased opportunities to create successful transactions. You deserve to surpass your quarter goal so you will take necessary steps to ensure your goals are not only met, but exceeded. Your intentions correlate to what you feel you deserve.

Notice how challenging it is to say, you deserve failure? You deserve no revenue growth? These are challenging because you don't take intentional steps to place yourself in a downturn. You may make mistakes but you quickly adapt and adjust. Why? Because you know you're worth it. You know you deserve success.

In life like in business, when we know our worth and recognize we are worthy of great things, we make actionable steps to achieve those heights of thinking. We usually do not actively seek out ways to construct our own demise. Maybe a business exit strategy but never an action plan for destruction. We do this because we've deemed we're worthy of something great. We recognize our greatness is the value equivalent of the effort put in. We draw from the core understanding that, ultimately, no matter what is thrown our way, we deserve success and are deserving of all the benefits success will bring.

How often do you ask yourself "What can I do to be deserving of this success?"