ValueIn the past few months I have been thinking a lot about value: self-value, and how we value others.

It started when someone was very happy to find me in one of the Facebook groups I’m a part of. She was looking for speakers in a topic I’m an expert in, and I immediately volunteered to speak. At first she was very grateful to have me at her event. Then, she asked about my “Klout” score (if you are not familiar with it, it is a type of social media ranking), and mine is not great, but it’s not that bad either. I checked and the average score is 40, and mine was 55 the last time I checked. Unfortunately or maybe very fortunately, that was not enough for her, she never even responded to my email after I sent her the score.

A few weeks later, someone else contacted me to be a guest on her tele-summit, which would cover a specific topic on self-love. I also said yes, until she asked how many subscribers I had on my email list. It wasn’t the number they were looking for, so no deal. Although I understand the need to bring more subscribers to everyone’s lists, I would rather build a summit on the quality of the speakers than on the size of their lists. I have found that at times having a huge list may or may not represent the actual quality and value of one's work.

The fact that I was an expert and had something important to share with both audiences wasn’t as of much value as my ranking or email list. Maybe my expertise and my rankings could somewhat be related to my value, or maybe it could simply mean that my focus hasn’t been on building my list or improving my Klout.

Finally, the other day I noticed how a friend’s impression of me shifted, when he learned that I knew someone whom to him seemed high profile, and not the kind of person I would know, at least according to his perception of me. At this point, I could have dropped names of many others I know, yes, you reading this article could have been one of them, but I didn’t. I also didn’t have the heart to tell him that when I run into celebrities, after being star struck for a second, I think that they missed out, since they just ran into me, and they have absolutely no idea who Elisa is, or how awesome I am. Or obviously, how very humbled I am.

I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t hurt to reach a higher score or to increase the number of email subscribers, or to know more high profile people. However, after much thought and self-inquiry, I came to the conclusion that I much rather be valued by who I am, in the deepest sense, and not by online statistics, or by whom I know or don’t know.

Is one’s professional value different than the personal value? Are they related?

Could we value ourselves and each other on how we behave, on who we are, on our authenticity, on how we are or not ourselves around others? Or are we supposed to be valued by who we know, how many followers we have, or by the size of our tribe?

I asked the photographer Wander Aguiar about what he values the most in others, and here is what he had to say: "I value honesty in people, the rest is props ... To me it's one of the must important values, if someone is honest with you upfront you are off to a great start on that friendship/relationship. And that's how I'd like to be value by others as well, once you are honest not just to others but to yourself you build a solid confident level that makes you able to take the world."

How do you measure your value? And how do you value others?

As long as within ourselves, we have a deep knowing of who we are, and of our value, no matter what our “ranking” says, nobody can take our value away from us.

Namaste,

Elisa Balabram