Finding where your true value lies — “your fortune is not in your furniture”
By: Tammy Guest
Tags: Values, Entrepreneurship, Talent, Spiritual Growth, Business

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It’s an interesting space that we’re in right now. So many things changing all the time. It reminded recently of a story I want to tell you about. This story happened back when I and my friend were helping another one of our friends out. If you’ve been to NatEx, you may actually know Naomi Findlay, who is an incredible renovation expert.

There was a time when Naomi had a huge shed full of furniture and she knew it was time for her to pivot and change things up a bit. But she kind of lost her way and she got really scared.

Which reminds me so much about what’s happening at the moment. We’re all trying to pivot and change and do things slightly differently. And we’re all a bit scared because we don’t know where our value lies.

For Naomi, at that time, she thought, “If I don’t own my shed and all of this furniture, how am I actually going to do business?”

I’ve seen the same thing with practitioners recently. Where we’re thinking, “What if I don’t have access to all the things? And what if all of this collapses? What if all of these things start to happen? How am I going to run my business?”

When Naomi was struggling with this, a friend said to her, “Well, your fortune is not in your furniture.” And it was an epiphany moment. Her face went blank and it was one of those moments when you hear exactly what you need to hear at the right time in the right moment.

So I want to dive a little deeper into how YOUR fortune is not in your furniture, and how that helps you to find and understand where your true value lies.

Your Fortune Is Not In Your Furniture

The things that we have:

clinics

furniture

walls

dispensary

all the “things”

That is not where our value lies as praccies or as business owners.

Where your true value lies is in who you are and who you show up as.

Back when I had my clinic, I learnt this. It was after this amazing huge day with back to back clients. With my final client after this massive day, I was there listening, hearing, empathising, and holding space. I didn’t really know what holding space was until that moment.

There was something about the way I spoke to people, and the way I made suggestions to them that I knew was helpful. I knew because they would come back and tell me. But that night, I sat there and just listened and listened, fed back what I was hearing, and gave small amounts of advice. That person paid me for the time that I spent with them and the change I created.

That client came back the following week with an amazing email all about the conversation we’d had and how it was a game-changer. It was exactly what they needed to hear at that moment in time. If you’ve been a practitioner for a while, you’ve probably had a moment like this, too.

The types of medicine that we’re seeing right now (especially if you’re in the woo-woo circles) is music medicine. It’s sun on our skin, curling up with the cat, creativity medicine. This is old school medicine — it’s us. It’s the traditional way of listening and conversing and holding space.

But I was reminded of this, this morning when one of our amazing Hubsters shared her experience of connecting with her client during an online follow-up. The connection that she had with that client and the conversation they had was therapeutic for both of them. It was just what the client needed to hear at that point in time and she felt so empowered as a practitioner to be able to contribute through conversation.

You Are Valuable Just By Being You

Through the smallest of seemingly insignificant things, we can help. And that’s where our true value lies.

It’s so easy to forget. Especially in the roller-coaster that we’re living in right now in this crazy world. With all of the talk going on about the economy, business, small business, and all of the things — it’s really easy to forget that you are valuable. Just you, being you.

You are valuable:

to be that space

as a listener

for having empathy

as a learner and acquirer of knowledge

for knowing where to go to give them information

as a place of resourcefulness for your clients

for knowing where that information lies for them

by knowing the things that will inspire them

for being an inspiration

by providing motivation

and sometimes just to be there without having to fix or change or anything else, just to be there. That’s of value.

So all the things that we’re worried about, that we can or can’t access, or that we do, or we don’t. These are the moments where your fortune isn’t in your furniture. Your fortune isn’t in all of the things that we have given external value to.

Discover Your Natural Talents

There’s a thing that we do in the Natupreneur Journey, which we do to get us out of our comfort zone. But the secondary effect of doing this task is that you start to hear the feedback about what your natural talents are. The natural ways in which you are helping start to appear. That talent is of value.

Here’s what we do. You pop a question up on your social media — yep. right there in front of everybody. The question is, “How have I helped? And what do you feel my talents are?”

I’ve done this with hundreds of mentees and there’s a range of things that happen. Sometimes people don’t hear, sometimes they do. Just by sending it out, you start to reflect back the natural gifts and talents that you have that you might not have recognised. But once you start hearing them over and over again, they start to sink in.

When I did it the first time, I heard the word “inspiration.” I didn’t have any idea what that even meant for people. I thought, how can that be a tangible, valuable thing, that I inspire people? But in actual fact, that’s exactly how NatEx came to exist, because of that particular talent.

So, although these things may seem intangible:

being empathetic

a good listener

being a placeholder or space holder

a place to find knowledge, being knowledgeable

All of these things are actually really valuable, especially now. And particularly in an online format.

Where Your True Value Lies

When you can be there for somebody in this isolation that we’re all feeling? By being there and reflecting back those particular unique talents that you have, that is absolutely where your fortune lies.

When all of these things start to shift and change, and you start to see opportunities where that applies, you can then share that talent in a way that’s going to be leverageable and create change for somebody.

We’ve become so dependent on things. People who are in the minimalist zone or living the van life understand that the value that we place on some of these things, these apparently tangible things, aren’t really all that valuable at all. Some of the most profound shifts I’ve had with my clients were because of the intangible stuff.

So my reminder to you today is to consider where YOUR value lies.

Are you a:

great listener?

motivator?

amazing accountability partner?

somebody who loves details and gets into all the research for your clients?

hoarder of all the knowledge? You’ve gone to all the seminars, you have all that information in your brain, or in your bookshelf?

one who knows where to send people for information

bit comedic, know how to have a good time, and send people videos or memes light up their day and nervous system?

Whatever it happens to be for you, start looking for the intangible but really valuable ways you help your clients. Because that’s exactly what people need right now.

Take Action

If you are up for the actionable challenge, pop this question on your Facebook feed, on a post, or on Instagram:

“What am I talented at? What do you see as my talent?”

And see what comes up.

Then, if you’re willing, come join us in the Natupreneur Hub and tell us what your results were.

If you got something out of this, please share it to make sure any other practitioner who needs to hear it today gets to hear it.

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