The three most important currencies in your business

If you have been following me for a while, you'll know that I am not one for business speak. And I certainly don't wax lyrical on spreadsheets and key performance indicators (if that's what you're after I am going to leave you bitterly disappointed).

But I do concede that a successful business needs to make profit. It must receive more than it gives... and most definitely NOT solely in terms of cash flow.

The three most important currencies in your business

I propose that most important ingredient that requires a positive balance sheet in your business is your energy. And there are three vital elements (or 'currencies', to continue the metaphor) that contribute to the topping up of your wellbeing bank account.

Self-value.

Self-trust. Self-worth.

You do your best work when your tank is full

Each of these has a baseline rate. This was set long before you started your business: by the experiences, relationships, and throwaway comments that have shaped how you see yourself.

And like any currency, those rates fluctuate. Some weeks you're trading high. Other weeks the market crashes.

How does this manifest? Perhaps it's being a little quieter at the next networking event. Not putting your hand up for the question you know the answer to (or the problem you can solve). Not sending that quote because you're convinced they won't accept your price tag (or that someone else would do a better job)

The 'exchange rate' for these three 'currencies' is yours to set. But before we talk about how, let's look at each of them in more detail.

1. Self-value: What do you actually bring to the table?

Self-value is the ease with which you can reflect on your own strengths. Set aside the manicured wording on your website or your perfected LinkedIn 'about section' (that you've 'perfected' four times this month).

This is an honest reflection on what you do well – what sets you apart from everyone else – and how often you openly acknowledge those strengths.

As part of my Paseda360 advanced qualification in transformational coaching, I invite my clients to deliberately notice (and remember) these strengths. We look at four specific areas and I ask them to record as many positive attributes as possible in each category:

• Personality

• Talents and skills

• Relational strengths (what they do well when helping others)

• Their physical image (the one that everyone stumbles on)

Most people get going on the first two with relative ease and then begin to slow down somewhere around the third. The fourth is usually met with an almost deafening silence.

That silence is their self-value exchange rate in action. The point at which their initial level of 'proof' runs out, and the Mind Monkeys move in with their alternative assessment.

Carol Dweck's research on growth mindset is instructive here. People with a fixed mindset believe their qualities are carved in stone, and so evidence of strength feels like a fluke while evidence of weakness feels like a verdict. A growth mindset, by contrast, treats every strength as something cultivated and every weakness as something workable. Shifting from one to the other begins with being willing to look honestly at the evidence that already exists.

How do we break the silence?

With habit. We consciously begin to regularly look for those values. The more we notice, the more noticeable they become, and the more the exchange rate improves. And we're training our brain to grow both in terms of optimism, personal belief and resilience. Could you make a list of values in each of those four categories? Give it a go. Let me know how you get on.

2. Self-trust: Are you keeping your promises to yourself?

If self-value is about knowing what you bring, self-trust is about believing you will show up and deliver on it. Consistently. For yourself, as well as for your clients.

In my training with Paseda360, one of the UK's leading coaching academies, I have learned that self-trust is built across six core pillars:

• Protecting your own boundaries

• Assuming positive intent in others

• Speaking your truth

• Engaging in the tough conversations

• Doing what you promise

• Accepting accountability

(Notice the Paseda acronym?)

Give yourself an honest score out of ten for each. Ask yourself:

• How well do you protect your boundaries?

• Are you empathic to the actions of others?

• Are you genuinely honest with yourself and others?

• Are you ready to get your hands dirty?

• Are you true to your word?

• Do you put your hand up when you make a mistake?

The combined score gives you a picture of your self-trust baseline. Where it's high, you have solid ground to build from (a very healthy exchange rate). Where it dips, you have a specific, actionable area to develop.

This outcome is far more useful than a vague belief that "you're not a confident person".

Brené Brown's research adds an important layer here. Her work on vulnerability and wholehearted living found that the people who live and work with the greatest sense of worthiness are those who have the courage to be imperfect, to show up honestly, and to trust that their authentic self is enough. Self-trust, in Brown's framing, is about the willingness to act without certainty (and invite/embrace vulnerability).

3. Self-worth: the yield on your investment

Self-worth is where the first two currencies compound (i.e. this is where you can accumulate extra 'interest').

You can be aware of your unique strengths (observed self-value) whilst consistently acting in spite of them (low self-trust). It's a common pattern many of us slip into without noticing. We pull away from our values and our strengths because our low self-confidence betrays us.

• We drop our prices

• We say yes to the work we should be saying no to

• We avoid the important conversation in case we mess it up

High self-worth is what happens when our self-value and self-trust begin to align (through awareness, acknowledgement and practice). It is the learned acceptance that you are not only good at what you do but that you deserve the opportunities, the rewards, and the recognition that reflect that value.

Research in positive psychology confirms that self-worth is not a fixed trait. It is cultivated through intentional, consistent action: keeping promises to yourself, building a body of evidence through small wins, and gradually replacing the inherited narratives that set your original exchange rate with ones that actually serve where you are going.

Think of it as a savings account. Every act of self-trust makes a deposit. Every honest acknowledgement of your self-value adds interest. The balance grows. And from that balance, you draw the confidence, bravery, and resilience to move your business forward without waiting until everything feels safe enough to try.

Shifting the baseline

The default exchange rate, for the three most important currencies in your business, was set by experiences you didn't choose; conversations you didn't ask for (or that you misunderstood), and limitations you thought were placed on you by people who were probably working from their own depleted accounts.

It's your schema, your culture, the influence of those around you... it's someone else's story.

Someone else's exchange rate.

The transformational work, the deeper work involves going back to where those rates were set and disarming the limiting beliefs that have been running the numbers ever since. This is transformational coaching. It is deep work. But it is the work that creates lasting change rather than a temporary motivation boost.

In the meantime, the questions worth asking yourself this week:

• Where is your self-value exchange rate running low, and what evidence are you ignoring that should be pushing it higher?

• Which of the six pillars of self-trust needs the most attention right now?

• And what would you do differently this week if your self-worth account were fully topped up?

I'd love to know the answers – feel free to share in the comments.

Mark Franklin is The Four Fears® Guy: a transformational mindset coach, speaker and author working with creative professionals and small business owners who are ready to close the gap between the business they have and the one they actually deserve.

The Self-Value Baseline and the Six Pillars of Self-Trust, as created by Paseda360, are shared here with permission.