You Are Worth It

Written By: Lauren Howard

I lied about how much I was making.

And not in my favor.

I was up for a new job after closing our practice in the mid-2010s. I was referred by a friend, and it was my first true start-up experience. 

It was also my first job after I had been the boss for a long time at a role that I had all but created for myself. 

I started running my dad’s practice right out of college. Even though I turned it from an operation with a handful of patients to a multi-site clinic with an additional million-dollar-a-year consulting arm, I was very much convinced that none of that mattered because I didn’t go to school for any of it. 

I spent a lot of time terrified of what would come next because I didn’t have any marketable skills. I mean, my resume looked great, but those didn’t matter, right? 

I. Made. Those. Up. 

At least, I was convinced that I did. 

The voice in my head said that I would never get another job when the practice closed. The fact that anyone was interested in me boggled my mind, and I thought they would be mortified to know how grossly overpaid I was. 

And who said I was overpaid? Why, I did, of course! I made this all up, remember? Results don’t matter when you’re figuring it out as you go, right?

WRONG.

When they asked me how much I needed to make, I undercut my salary. By a lot. By like $20K and still told them I would work for less. 

I took a pay cut to work harder than I had ever worked before, and I did it voluntarily because I didn’t think I was worth more than that. 

Remember that THEY never questioned what I was worth. I did. 

Let me serve as a bad example.

Your skills are yours, all of them, no matter how you got them. You are worth the years of your experience in any field, even if you are changing fields. 

Don’t be embarrassed that you’re worth it. You are. 

---

Lauren "L2" Howard

Founder & CEO at elletwo