Worthy Wednesdays: Worth

Issue #46 - Explore how transactions transform when people operate from inherent worth and what becomes possible when no one is performing for validation or accepting scraps.

💡 In the worth economy, no one is performing for validation or negotiating from scarcity and that changes everything.

Most economic exchanges are shaped by hidden worth dynamics. Someone accepting less because they don’t believe they deserve more. Someone demanding discounts because they don’t value what’s being offered. Someone over-giving because they’re trying to prove their value. Someone undercharging because they’re afraid of seeming greedy.

The scarcity economy thrives on worth disconnection. It needs people who don’t know their inherent value because those people can be convinced to accept scraps, work for exposure, give away their expertise, or tolerate exploitative terms.

The worth economy operates differently. When you’re rooted in inherent worth:

• You don’t accept opportunities that require you to diminish yourself
• You don’t negotiate by making yourself small to seem reasonable
• You don’t over-give to compensate for imagined unworthiness
• You don’t under-receive because you’re grateful someone noticed you

Ask Yourself: What kind of economy am I building with each exchange I accept?

🔄 What if the exploitation you’ve experienced wasn’t just about greedy people, it was about your participation in a worth-disconnected economy?

We often think of exploitation as something done TO us by people or systems, but worth-disconnected transactions require participation. When you accept terms that undervalue you, you’re not just being exploited, you’re collaborating in the scarcity economy.

This isn’t about blaming yourself for exploitation. It’s about recognising your power to exit worth-disconnected transactions and create new ones.

Worth economy principles:

• Transparent value exchange: No hidden costs, no strategic positioning, just honest recognition of mutual value
• Abundance-based terms: Negotiations assume both parties deserve to thrive, not that someone must sacrifice
• Integrity in exchange: Each person honours their own worth while recognising the other’s
• Generative collaboration: Value flows multiply rather than divides. Both parties become more resourced
• Exit permission: Walking away from transactions that require worth diminishment isn’t failure, it’s integrity

When you operate from inherent worth, you stop accepting terms designed for worth-disconnected people. And that forces the economy around you to evolve.

🪞 Let This Land:

• Where in your professional or personal life are you accepting terms that require you to operate from worth disconnection?
• What transactions would you exit if you truly believed your inherent worth wasn’t negotiable?
• How have you been participating in creating a scarcity economy by accepting worth-disconnected terms?

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🚶‍♀️Step Forward

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🛠️ TOOL: The Worth Economy Audit

Examine your current exchanges across these dimensions:

Professional Terms: Are you accepting compensation, opportunities, or conditions that assume your worth is conditional?

Collaborative Dynamics: In your partnerships, is value exchange reciprocal or is someone chronically over-giving?

Financial Negotiations: Do your pricing, rates, or financial asks reflect your inherent value or your fear of seeming greedy?

Exit Readiness: Can you walk away from transactions that require worth diminishment, or do you feel trapped?

For each area, ask: Is this transaction built on inherent worth or worth scarcity?

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🌱 Small Challenge

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⚡ This week’s Worth Move: Design One Worth Economy Transaction

Create one new exchange from scratch that operates on worth economy principles:

• If initiating collaboration: Propose terms that assume both parties’ inherent worth from the start, rather than negotiating up from scarcity
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• If pricing your work: Set your rate based on value created, not on what you think someone will accept

The goal is to practice building worth economy exchanges rather than reforming scarcity-based ones. Notice how it feels to design from abundance instead of negotiating from lack.

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​WISDOM WHISPERER​
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Why this whisper? Because operating from inherent worth means refusing to lower your standards to make others comfortable with their own worth disconnection. The worth economy isn’t built by accommodating scarcity thinking, it’s built by holding the frequency of inherent value until others rise to meet it.

Your refusal to accept worth-disconnected terms creates permission for others to do the same.