Know Your Worth: Sometimes Someone Else Has to Remind You

Some relationships settle so deeply into your life that you stop thinking of them as business at all.

I've known these clients longer than I've known my husband.

And I've known my husband a very long time.

When you work alongside people for that many years, the word client eventually stops fitting. You know their families. You know their stories. You've walked through hard seasons and good ones together, and somewhere along the way—at least in my heart—they became family.

Which also means I haven't always been the world's most disciplined businessperson where they're concerned. I've handed out hours of advice without charging a cent. I've made myself available when I probably shouldn't have. I've been generous with my time, my knowledge, and my rates—sometimes far more generous than made any sense.

I knew that.

But when you love people, you don't always keep score.

Then last week, I got a phone call that stung more than I expected.

I'd recommended something that would require a relatively small investment with another woman I've worked with for decades. She's in an entirely different industry, but our work overlaps, and over the years we've built the same kind of relationship. We've both been endlessly generous with each other.

She's family to me too.

My clients told me that once they added up what working with me would cost, it simply wasn't in the budget.

I got quiet.

Then I told them to do whatever was best for them.

And I meant it.

This really wasn't about the money.

But I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt.

Trust me, it wasn't a money thing for them. It was a choice.

There was something uncomfortable about realizing that after years of phone calls, advice, favors, time, and a relationship I'd handled with so much care, my part had somehow become the easiest piece to cut.

Still, I wasn't about to sit there and argue for my own value.

So I let it go.

Later, I called my longtime colleague and asked whether they'd reached out to her.

They had.

They'd also tried to negotiate her fee—a fee she had already kept unusually low, precisely because they'd come to her through me.

She held her line.

Then she said something I never saw coming.

"I won't work with them if they don't work with you."

And just like that, my heart melted.

I told her right away that she didn't have to do that. I didn't want her walking away from good work on my account. Truly.

But this was never about whether she ended up taking the job.

It was what she'd just told me without quite saying it.

I see what you bring to this.

I know your value.

And I won't take part in pretending you don't matter.

She didn't owe me that. There was nothing in it for her. If anything, holding that line could cost her money.

And maybe that's exactly why it landed the way it did.

She stood up for me when I wasn't even in the room. Not loudly or because I'd asked her to. She simply knew what I brought to the table and refused to treat me as optional.

Sometimes love looks like that too.

I think what really got me was the contrast. Here were two relationships, both stretching back decades, both built on years of generosity, trust, favors, and showing up for each other. And within a matter of days, one had quietly left me wondering whether I'd made myself too easy to undervalue—while the other reminded me, without my ever asking, exactly what it feels like to be valued.

I wasn't angry with my clients. I still loved them. That didn't vanish over one disappointing conversation.

But I was paying attention.

Because sometimes the moments that sting aren't really telling us who someone else is. Sometimes they're showing us something about ourselves—where we've let a boundary blur, where generosity has quietly hardened into expectation, or where we've grown so used to giving that even we've stopped treating what we give as valuable.

Then someone says a single sentence, and suddenly you see it all differently.

Know Your Worth Without Having to Prove It

I've been turning her words over ever since.

Two relationships. Both measured in decades. Both full of history, trust, generosity, late-night favors, long conversations, and all those small things that pile up when people have been part of each other's lives for a very long time.

And somewhere between the two of them sat a lesson I probably needed.

Sometimes we get so used to giving that we stop noticing how much we're giving away. Our time. Our expertise. Our attention. Our availability. We do it because we care. We tell ourselves it's only an hour, only a phone call, only a favor. And when you've known someone forever, it can feel almost strange to suddenly attach a value to things you've offered freely for years.

But generosity and worth aren't opposites.

You can be generous and still know your worth. You can love people and still honor your time. You can care deeply about a relationship without quietly discounting everything you bring to it.

And sometimes, apparently, another person has to remind you.

What moved me most wasn't that she was willing to turn down the work. It was the loyalty underneath it. The reciprocity. After years of the two of us helping each other, she had a chance to take the easier road—and instead, without a beat of hesitation, she stood beside me.

That kind of thing stays with you.

For the last few days, I've been writing about helpers.

On Day 221, in Faith in Humanity Restored: There Is Still So Much Good in the World, they were hundreds of strangers standing shoulder to shoulder on a beach, searching for a little boy they'd never met.

On Day 222, in How to Protect Your Peace When the World Feels Heavy—or Just Plain Cranky, it was a man in a grocery store who spotted a 5'2" woman practically climbing into a refrigerator and decided to lend a hand.

Today, the helper looked different.

She was someone who knew my history. Someone who knew exactly what I'd given over the years. Someone who saw my value clearly, right at the moment I was feeling the sting of someone else not seeing it the same way.

Maybe helpers aren't always the people who rescue us from something.

Sometimes they're the ones who reflect back something we've forgotten.

I thanked her and told her again not to worry about me.

Then we hung up.

But I kept thinking about that sentence.

"I won't work with them if they don't work with you."

After decades of generosity flowing back and forth between us, she handed me something I didn't even know I needed that day.

A reminder.

Not that I should be worth more.

That I already was.

And there's something quietly beautiful about someone else remembering that for you.

About the Author | Day 223

I'm a soul-led coach, writer, entrepreneur, mother, and recovering perfectionist. For 223 days straight, I've shown up here to write about life while I'm still in the middle of living it—not from the tidy far side of having everything figured out.

I write about healing, faith, motherhood, growth, business, relationships, uncomfortable realizations, and the ordinary moments that sometimes teach me the biggest lessons.

Day 223 is about generosity, loyalty, and remembering that knowing your worth doesn't make you any less giving.

Sometimes the people who love us simply remind us not to give ourselves away in the process.