Rummaging for riches.

There’s a story behind that.

This is your daily message from Chad number 1198 to upgrade your mental game today by telling yourself a better story, because the most important story you hear is the story you tell yourself. And this message is dedicated to Austin Anderson on his birthday.

Here’s the upgrade:

You may think your worth is whatever someone was willing to pay for you, but upgraded thinking knows you get to decide the amount you put on the price tag.

Here’s the story:

This July, a self-described treasure hunter showed up late to an estate sale in Michigan. Hanging in a dark hallway was a small painting of shells on a slate-gray surface. One of the shells is suspended against a black backdrop. The price was thirty dollars. He didn’t know who painted it. But down in the lower-left corner was a signature: “Abercrombie ’51.” He bought it, took it home, and got curious.

Later, he walked into the Milwaukee Art Museum, which was running an exhibition called Gertrude Abercrombie: The Whole World Is a Mystery. And there in the exhibition catalogue was an old archival photograph of his painting he just bought for thirty dollars at that rummage sale.

Gertrude Abercrombie was one of the leading American Surrealists of the last century, a fixture of Chicago’s art and jazz scene. Her leading scholar, Susan Weininger, authenticated the work. It’s called Alderman Merriam’s Shells, painted in 1951. The shells came from the collection of a Chicago alderman.

In early 1952, Abercrombie gave the painting to a doctor in Kalamazoo Michigan in exchange for medical services. And then it disappeared. For about 75 years, it just hung there until a few months ago. On October 1st though, Freeman’s auction house in New York will put it up for sale. Bidding opens at seventy-five thousand dollars. The estimate runs as high as a quarter of a million.

Back in message #930, we talked about treasure buried right under your nose. This one’s different. Nobody had to dig. It was hanging on the wall the whole time, and nobody knew what it was worth. Nothing about the painting changed. Not one brushstroke. It was worth exactly the same thing in that hallway as it will be on the auction block. The only thing that changed was the story someone told about it.

Warren Buffett put it simply: “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” Some of you are hanging in a dark hallway right now. A job that doesn’t see you. A relationship that prices you at thirty bucks. A season where nobody seems to notice the signature in the corner. That’s their pricing. It’s not your value. That was kind of my story. I worked for non-profits for twenty-five years and then went into sales. In the next five years in sales I made more money than I had the previous twenty-five. I didn’t know my skills were so valuable.

The better story to tell yourself is, “The hallway doesn’t set my value. I just haven’t been discovered yet.” And here’s the hard truth. Sometimes the person with the thirty-dollar tag in their hand is you. You haven’t discovered your own value. You’re the one walking past your own work. You’re the one who stopped looking at the signature. So stop it. Look again. Get curious about what’s actually there.

Tell me a story of something overlooked that turned out to be valuable to fromchadsmith@gmail.com. Send someone a text and tell them, “I think you’re underpricing yourself, and I want you to know what I see.” You can get a free copy of my book, The Most Powerful Story in the World, by going to fromchad.gumroad.com. The transcript of this message and hundreds of others are always available at http://www.fromchad.com.