VIM Executive Coaching recently had the pleasure of a conversation with the director of an investor relations firm. The shorthand version is that investor relations professionals are the sub-specialty of public relations who inform the market, and obviously the shareholders, about a corporation and its stock.
We asked her what “the essence” was of her work. While we realize there may have been several ways in which such a question could be answered, she unhesitatingly said: “My mission is to bring value to the stock.” It caused us to stop – and wonder – about the elegance of that statement to any executive coaching client.
Value is not Monetary
Of course, we understand that value is usually linked to some form of exchange; dollars, shekels, beads or Bitcoin. And that’s a shame. We often fail to value the most precious commodity of all – ourselves. While most of us could make a reasonable guess as to the value of a pound of salmon, a Manhattan condominium or a professional football team, it is easy to stump most people with the question: “What is the value you give to yourself?”
And isn’t that ironic?
Most of us can pretty well guess the value of a 2021 cruise to Cancun, but we seem to fall down when it comes to a self-valuation. Typically, we understand that the value question is usually met with a canned response. The answer is usually a self-effacing, “Not very much!” or a sarcastic, “Oh, I’m worth a fortune, all right.”
We think those fallback reactions are in place because we realize we are answering an emotional, even spiritual question, with a standard unit of measure: money. If we go back to the value examples given above, and we were to ask:
“What value would you give to a beautiful day spent with a loved one on a fishing boat, or how you felt when you received the keys to your first home, or even the joy you had when your favorite football team won the Super Bowl?” It is doubtful you could do it.
We are not able to assess emotions with dollar values. To that end, many executive leaders are unable to look at themselves and offer a realistic picture of self-worth. We often view ourselves through the unfair or over-inflated view that others have of us.
Start with the Breath
While we all wish we could bring more value to ourselves, much like the investor relations professional tries to do with a stock, it can’t really be accomplished. If we don’t know ourselves, if we are not mindful and authentic with ourselves as executives, how can we truly value ourselves?
Investor relations may come down to dollars and cents – stock price, the creation of a company story and such, but our self-value as effective leaders can only be judged within the context of our mindfulness.
VIM Executive Coaching strives to help executive leaders reach that state of mindfulness. The journey to greater mindfulness through exercises, meditation, conversation and exploration can be fun or it can be quite uncomfortable.
We are not used to assessing personal value in our society. We would rather avoid such self-survey and take an expensive on-line course with fifty others, or buy a set of books we may ultimately never crack open. But, the simple act of one-on-one discourse to explore ourselves as leaders may terrify us.
In truth, if we start the journey of exploring self-value at the breath, at the beginning, we can find the most incredible, most priceless commodity of all: ourselves.
As an executive leader, you have value beyond your imagination. The arbiter of that value is ultimately you.