Issue 24: What Are You Worth?

What are you worth? For all but 4 of my subscribers, the answer is “less than a billion dollars.” For the other 4, where are your donations? This publication is drowning in legal fees as most of our “sponsors” haven’t given us authorization to use their logos or likenesses. I have been sent multiple cease and desist letters yet I have neither ceased nor desisted. As I mentioned last week, I don’t cower to empty threats, however, apparently ZipRecruiter doesn’t make empty threats. They send very official looking documents and have people knocking on my door in suits and sunglasses. They are upset that I have, on multiple occasions, said they were a sponsor and “made a mockery of their service and its purpose.” It’s free advertising you cowards!! ZipRecruiter, are you scared because I’m a rogue author? Do you fear what you cannot control? Here’s the deal, if you’re not living life on the edge, you’re taking up too much room. I welcome you to join me on the edge, ZipRecruiter. If you choose not to accept, that’s fine, but don’t you dare threaten to push me. 

With that in mind, do you need a lawyer? Are you struggling to find a “fall guy” for your legal battle with a large corporation? If you answered “yes” or even “maybe” to either of those questions, you should check out this week’s sponsor ZipRecruiter! That’s right. I fear no man and I definitely fear no faceless corporation. Send your goons. ZipRecruinter, “Waaa waaa we’re big babies who don’t like nationally recognized newsletters goo goo gaga” Use code “IndeedIsABetterCompanyAnyways” for 100% off. 

Sorry for airing my personal grievances on this platform, but the first step in dealing with a problem is recognizing there is a problem. 

What are you worth? This is a very big, existential, and loaded question. If it would be helpful, feel free to grab a piece of paper, write “Who Am I?” on the top, and take a couple days to fill in every single thing that comes to mind. For example, I might write “Niki’s husband”, “David and Judy’s son”, “6’4”, “A liar”, etc… Once you’re done, feel free to return to this newsletter. Happy Tuesday! I assume it took you a few days to really look within and write all of who you are. Now that you are a zen master of introspection, let’s return to our original question: “What are you worth?”

I’m going to be honest and vulnerable this week. As my friend LaDayle says, “To be fully transparent..” I am not as famous as I tend to let on. Believe it or not, I have yet to be invited to any red carpet as a newsletter writer. Turns out, people don’t care that much about newsletter writers. That is why I am joining the newsletter writers strike (the lesser known writers strike going on at the moment, but still totally valid.) Ok, I’ve got to stop making jokes and just get right into the serious stuff. If you hear me make another joke from here on out, slap my hand. 

Have you ever watched The Emperor’s New Groove? Don’t slap me, this is not another joke, there is a point to this. In that movie, they follow the trope of starting with the end and then going back to the beginning to show how we got there. Well, really they start towards the end of the middle and then go to the beginning, work through where they started, and eventually get to the end. I have typed, deleted, and retyped the following many times, and for some reason, I feel following in Kuzco’s steps is the way to go here.

We are going to start in the year 2020. I find myself sitting in a Target parking lot having an emotional breakdown because I feel I offer nothing to the world around me. At this point in my life I didn’t have a job, certain friendships and relationship dynamics were complicated and out of my control, I was engaged but felt as if I was a failure in every way of eventually becoming the husband Niki deserved, and I had not recently done anything at all that I was proud of. I don’t remember what the straw was that broke the camel’s back. I don’t remember why it all culminated in a Target parking lot, but I remember how I felt, how I saw myself, and more importantly, what Niki said. 

So, similar to a llama crying in the rain in The Emperor’s New Groove, how did I find myself crying in a 2004 sedan in Chattanooga, TN? Let’s go back to the beginning.

I was born confident. From jump street I had a very strong sense of self worth. There have been moments where my view of my self worth was grossly inflated and moments where it has been dangerously low, but I was born confident. My mom tells a story about how when I was a child we would go to Gymboree, the children’s clothing store, and she would lose me. I would disappear. I was the first child, so there is obviously the extra panic of “my baby is gone”. Eventually that wore down as she would always find me in the story corner. I would have gathered adults and children alike, had them take a seat, and would be telling them my favorite story of all time; The Three Little Pigs. I had something to say, and I knew people wanted to hear it. When my younger brother was born (I was 3) I was given a speech from my grandfather as he took me to the hospital telling me hospitals were serious places and I need to be calm, quiet, and respectful. Understanding the speech perfectly, I kicked in the door of the hospital and yelled, “Where’s my baby?!” as I was so excited to meet my new best friend. I was born confident. 

I grew up believing I was someone special. I don’t know if I’ve admitted this here or not, but I can honestly say, there was a long period of my life where I truly believed my life would be a waste and a failure if I wasn’t written about in a history book when I died. That is a disgusting sentence to type because I remember who I was at that time and why I felt that way. I grew up being told I could do anything by nearly everyone around me. I had friends who would say, “when you’re a millionaire don’t forget about us.” I started a relatively successful business at 16. I never needed anything life didn’t give me. I never had a reason to look inside and see who I was because the world around me told me who I was: special. 

I bring this up because, most of my life, I’ve been sure of who I was. It came naturally. Yet, this guy who was born and raised confident and self assured has had many moments where I felt entirely worthless. I also know how little it took to bring me down. 

What are you worth? For the large majority of my life I was worth what the world around me told me I was worth. That isn’t to say encouragement is a bad thing. Don’t hear what I’m not saying nor read what I’m not writing. But if you asked me who I was back then, I would be a parrot repeating the praises I’d heard, never really considering the answer myself. 

Then it came crashing down. There was actually a time during the summer of 2015 where I felt entirely hopeless. I was working the business I had started at 16 and absolutely hated it. I woke up before the sun, worked all day outside by myself until the sun set, went home, watched Scrubs, and went to sleep. My friends were all out enjoying the summer activities, I was living at home but rarely saw my family. I felt entirely alone. That summer I went to a dermatologist about a spot on the back of my neck. She, with the worst bedside manner of any doctor in history, told me “It might be skin cancer, you’re the perfect recipe for skin cancer, but we will know the test results in a week.” For a week I lived in this Schrodinger’s cat reality where I both did and didn’t have skin cancer. That week I prayed a lot. I have mentioned before that my faith means a lot to me. This newsletter is not necessarily the place for a sermon but this is part of my story so I’m telling it. I say that summer is when my faith went from meaning “a lot” to meaning “everything”. I remember praying fervently that God just fix one of the things that was upsetting me. I remember feeling as if God was saying “I’m here with you.” I would respond, “Great God, while you’re here, please fix something.” I would feel as if He would respond, “I’m here with you”. To which I, again, would say, “Then fix something.” It went on like this for about a week before I finally asked myself, “If all of the worst case scenarios come true, and I’m alone with skin cancer but God is here with me and I have Him and He has me, is that enough?” The answer was yes and my faith has never been the same. I didn’t have skin cancer, by the way. Sometimes when I tell that story I forget to clarify that point. It’s an important point. My faith was never the same, it was infinitely strengthened, but I was still a man who drew my worth, my value, primarily from what I did or didn’t do. I was a guy who was successful, who won, and who was in control of the situations around me. 

In 2020 I sat in a 2004 sedan in a Target parking lot in Chattanooga, TN. I was not successful career wise: I had lost my job. I was not a winner: everything I touched seemed to fail. I sure was not in control of any situation around me. Niki patiently listened to me fall apart because I wasn’t providing value to the world around me and who am I if not a value add? She listened and finally responded by asking me a simple question, “Who does God say you are?” and then telling me all the things she loved about me that had absolutely nothing to do with what I could do, provide, or accomplish, but simply who I was. That’s when it fully began to click. This week’s featured article section will be a poem. Well, really it is song lyrics, but it can be read as a poem. It sums up a lot about where I was at that place in my life. 

I’m a 28 year old guy who has had a pretty easy life. I’m not going to pretend otherwise, but I have learned a lot from my experiences. I have learned a lot from my failures. I have learned a lot about how I responded to those failures.

What are you worth? According to the person who loves me more than anyone else, I was worth the same when I had no job as I am now. Are you? Absolutely. I know, and am close with, multiple people who have lost jobs in the last year. It is incredibly difficult. For me, personally, I felt like a failure. It didn’t matter to me how many people told me I wasn’t, I felt like I was. Sadly enough, if those same people told me I was an absolute success days before losing my job, I would have taken it as gospel truth. But the moment they say I’m worth more than any job, I believed it to be pity. How arrogant was I to think I determined what I meant to those who love me simply based on how I was feeling in that moment? That isn’t how truth works. Whether I liked it or not, whether I believed it or not, whether it felt good to realize it or not, people didn’t love me for what I did, they loved me for me. If you’re reading this and you are someone who feels like your value has diminished through job loss, financial strain, the end of a romantic relationship, or whatever else gets you down, know this: you are not valued by your output into the world, you are valued by being definitively you. That isn’t to say that everything that makes you you at this moment is perfect. As someone I know recently said, “If I was being my full self at all moments, I would be at Chick-Fil-A every night with fried nuggets and a milkshake.” That is obviously not what is best every single day. I believe in God. I know that is clear at this point, but it also means that I believe we were made intentionally. If you don’t believe that, you can still certainly look introspectively and see a unique blend of strengths and weaknesses and perspective. 

When we first meet people, what do we typically ask? “What is your name?” and “What do you do?” I don’t know about you, but what I do is not the second most important thing about me. It is far from one of the most defining characteristics of who I am as a man. If I were to quit my job tomorrow, I would still be Seth Winton. Nothing internal would change. Give it a little bit and I may no longer be Seth Winton – home owner, but my identity would remain. 

If I suddenly stopped writing this newsletter every week I would certainly miss it. However, it wouldn’t change the kind of husband I am or the kind of friend I am. 

I think a lot about what people will say at my funeral. It may be morbid, but it is true. I admitted to you earlier there was a time in my life where I believed my life would be a failure if I wasn’t written about in history books. Clearly I have always cared about legacy. At this point in my life, if I died and WAS written about in history books for all I accomplished, but my wife, friends, and future children weren’t better for knowing me, then I would consider my life a failure. Ideally, one day when I die, people will gather and talk about who I was and the legacy I left behind. My dream is that my job, my tangible accomplishments, or the money I made is not mentioned at all when people discuss the life I lived. What am I worth? Much much more than any resume. 

What are you worth?