Imagine that you're dead broke, sleeping at a bus station, and you sell your beloved dog Butkus for $50 because you can't afford to feed him. Then someone offers you $75,000 for a movie script you've written in 3 days. Do you take it?
If you're Sylvester Stallone in 1975, you say no. Not once, not twice, but three times. Even when the offer climbs to a whopping $350,000; enough to solve all your financial problems and then some.
Why? Because sometimes, you've got to bet on yourself, especially when you know what you are worth!
Stallone's journey to stardom wasn't just rocky, it was a full-on obstacle course designed by sadistic Hollywood gods. Born with a partially paralyzed face due to a forceps accident during birth, young Sly was bullied relentlessly. School? A nightmare. He bounced between institutions like a pinball, including a stint at a school for "troubled kids." I remember my brother's friend who used to work out with Stalone said he was voted "most likely to go to jail," by his classmates.
But Stallone had a dream, and he wasn't about to let a few (okay, a lot of) setbacks stop him. He ditched college in Miami and headed to New York City with stars in his eyes and lint in his pockets.
Fast forward to 1975. Stallone's living on the edge of homelessness, his acting career going nowhere fast. He's so broke he can’t feed his dog so he is forced to sell his beloved bulldog Butkus for $50.
Then, like lightning from the sky, inspiration struck. After watching underdog Chuck Wepner go 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali, Stallone locked himself away for three days and emerged with the script for "Rocky."
Pleased with his work, he started shopping it around. Producers loved the script, but they want a big name for the lead. They offer Stallone $75,000, a fortune for a guy who's practically living on the streets. But Stallone says no. The offer goes up. $150,000. $250,000. All the way up to $350,000. Here, the producers are saying, nice work, here is $350k; take a hike; we'll give the lead role to Burt Reynolds.
But Stallone stood his ground. He knew his worth. He knew this was his shot, his one-in-a-million chance. So he made a counteroffer: He'd take just $35,000, a fraction of what was on the table, if they'd let him play Rocky, forefitting over $300,000 of certain cash.
The rest, as they say, is history. "Rocky" was made for about $1 million and grossed over $225 million worldwide. It won three Oscars, including Best Picture, and turned Stallone into a superstar overnight.
Stallone's story is a quintessential example of believing in yourself and knowing your worth. As Rocky Balboa himself would later say: "Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody."
Sylvester Stallone's audacious bet on himself implores a question we should all be asking: What am I worth?
It's not just about money. It's about your time, your skills, and your dreams. We're more than happy to price everything, but how do you calculate the value of your potential?
Valuing a Qualitative Resource
We all get 24 hours a day, but boy, those hours aren't created equal. An hour spent binge-watching TikTok videos (guilty as charged) isn't worth the same as an hour spent honing your craft or building your business.
If you had to put a dollar value on each hour of your day, what would it be?
The simple and knee-jerk response is to take a 40-hour work week and multiply it by 52 weeks, giving us 2080 hours per year to work with. Now divide your compensation or salary by those hours and bang, your worth per hour.
And in my opinion, that would be wrong, or only partially correct.
We just calculated compensation per hour, but there is a difference between compensation and worth. Stallone knew he was worth, and it wasn't $350k for his script. Taking a lower financial reward, he wrote the agreement to give him creative control and rights going forward. As of August 2024, the Rocky franchise is estimated to be worth $1.7 billion; well played Sly!
When we think about worth, we're not just tallying up your current skills and slapping on a price tag. We're projecting into the future, considering market demands, and yes, even challenging some long-held assumptions about work itself.
Take a good, hard look at your skills. Not just the ones you're using now, but the ones you're developing. How do these align with the market demand?
Are you building expertise in AI while everyone else is still trying to figure out how to share a screen on Zoom? Are you developing soft skills that machines can't replicate, such as emotional intelligence? That's not just foresight - that's future worth.
Now, let's talk about time, specifically, how much of it you're willing to dedicate to work. The standard American model of 50 weeks a year, 40 hours a week? That's so pre-pandemic.
What if, and stick with me here, you decided to work only 40 weeks a year? I can hear the gasps from here, but hear me out. Post-pandemic, this is becoming a reality for many. Want to get more radical? How about a 20-hour work week? Use that reduced work time to improve your worth through study, practice and reflection.
By reducing your total work hours, you're not diminishing your worth; you're concentrating it. You're essentially saying, "I can deliver more value in less time." And that, my friends, is how you increase your worth per hour.
Crunch some numbers:
1. Estimate your annual salary based on your skills and market demand.
2. Decide on your ideal work schedule (weeks per year, hours per week).
3. Divide your salary by your total work hours.
For example:
- Annual salary: $100,000
- Work schedule: 40 weeks/year, 30 hours/week
- Total work hours: 1,200
- Hourly worth: $83.33
Compared to the traditional model (50 weeks, 40 hours), you've just increased your hourly worth by 56%!
Putting Your Worth to Work
Let's apply this to the day-to-day. Here's a simple but powerful exercise:
When planning your day or week, ask yourself: "Would I pay [your calculated hourly rate] for the work I'm about to do?"
If the answer is no, it's time to delegate or eliminate that task. Your focus should be solely on high-value work that justifies your new worth.
This might mean:
- Outsourcing administrative tasks
- Automating repetitive processes
- Saying no to projects that don't align with your expertise or goals, or things that distract you from them.
- Investing time in skill development that aligns with future market demands
Remember, when Stallone turned down those six-figure offers, he wasn't just evaluating his worth at that moment. He was betting on his future potential, on the value he knew he could bring if given the chance.
You might not be writing the next "Rocky," but you are the author of your profession. By calculating your worth based on future potential and ruthlessly aligning your time with that worth, you're making the same bold bet on yourself.
So, what are you worth? Not just today, but tomorrow, next year, five years from now?
Now go out and claim it.
PS—Oh, I almost forgot. After he made his money, Stallone bought Butkus back from the owner he sold him to for 60 times the buying price, a mere $3000. And yes, the dog got a role in Rocky!
