Our worth is not determined by dollars. But we are worth dollars. Our time, our energy, our passions all lead to dollars. When we capitalize on our strengths and values, when we dedicate our souls to the work that we are doing, we know our worth.

When our worth is questioned, ignored, disregarded, we pause. Turn everything off around us. The music stops. The movement stops. Passions pause.

Money is sticky. Loaded with emotion. Lots of shoulds. Fears. Vulnerabilities. We don’t talk about money because it’s awkward. We put off talks about money because we fear we’ll seem greedy, needy. Poor.

Here’s the bottom line. We are worth every dollar we know we are worth. We can’t, so we don’t compromise.

We work for money. We work to make change, improve ourselves, improve the world, too, but at the end of the day, we work to make money. Even if money is not our focus, we know that we need it for certain things to happen in our lives. It IS possible to do well and do good.

So why do we freak out when it’s time to ask for what we’re worth? When we stand up for ourselves and the value that we bring with us everywhere we go?

Our brains. They’re beautifully complex. Mixing emotions and feelings with our objectives, blurring our perceptions of our worth.

So we trick our brains. We create a list of everything that we do to add worth. We take the time to do due diligence. Online searches, mentors’ life wisdom and experience, conversations with new friends on planes.

We are not greedy. We are informed and focused to make sure our worth is regarded because we know our future selves depend on it. We know that our time is too valuable to be spent anywhere where our worth is undervalued.

We focus on solutions, not challenges. We work smarter, not harder. We have difficult conversations about our worth and take risks because we know our future health and wealth depend on it.

Our worth is not determined by dollars. Our time, commitment, hard work, and output are worth dollars.

Make moves.