Effort Isn’t Value

The Hotpot | December 2025 | By Lisanne

21.12

You’ve spent a week designing the “perfect” logo—every detail is perfect: the colors, the pixels, every kerning detail. You’re proud. You hope the client will love it.

Then the client looks at it… and shrugs.

To your surprise, a friend creates something simple in an hour, and the client immediately says yes.

It stings a little.

But here’s something important: clients aren’t paying for the effort you put into your perfectly designed logo. They aren’t paying your late nights, or for the digital tool you used that only a few people master.

They’re paying for something that helps them do their job with less friction, something that makes their life easier.

Your hours are important to you, and understandably so. They should, but what matters to the client is whether your offering solves their problem.

We love the myth of hard work, but in many cases effort doesn’t automatically equal value.

The work that matters isn’t the work that shows how hard we tried.

Effort is yours to give; value is theirs to receive.

Thank you for reading! The journal prompt of today:

When was your hard work received the way you hoped — and what made it land so well?

Let me know in the comments.

Curious to see more reflections like this? Click through to see the rest of the series on entrepreneurship. I’d love to hear what resonates with you.