On Auckland’s Queen St there’s an artist at work.
He sits there on the pavement expertly crafting his work.
The skill and the outcomes and amazing. His tools are just paper and small knife.
He crafts them into animals and famous characters.
My son was drawn to them and we stopped to looked.
I struck up a conversation. The kiwi he was making has 190 pieces. Individual pieces of folded paper expertly put together.
I noticed a card beside him that had the average time it took to complete each animal.
The kiwi takes 9 hours.
The price?
$20
Our super talented artist is working for the princely sum of $2.22 an hour.
He’s not alone.
There are business owners all over the country working for effective hourly rates that barely exceed what they earned at part time jobs in their teens.
You might be one of them.
It’s simple to fix. But it’s not easy.
It requires you to place a value on yourself. To break the habit of undervaluing yourself and your skills and matching those to a market who are prepared to pay whatever you ask.
Breaking habits is challenging.
You’re worth it. You just need to unlock the value you’re sitting on.
