The Morning at the Breakfast Table

I was 11 years old, sitting at the breakfast table on our family farm in Wexford.

My father looked at me and asked: “What happened with the ditch?”

“Frank did it,” I said.

“Who’s going to pay Frank? I didn’t authorise that.”

“I am.”

He stared at me. “Why would you pay a workman to do a task that was yours?”

I looked him straight in the eye and said: “Daddy, that’s not economically viable use of my time.”

He put his head in his hands. The disappointment he felt in that moment was crushing. I was not just letting him down. I was doing it defiantly

And in that moment, something broke between us. Our relationship deteriorated for years after that. Because he knew—he absolutely knew—that he wasn’t going to have a son to take over the family farm.

But here’s what I didn’t realise until decades later: That 11-year-old boy understood something about value, pricing, and economic thinking that would take me until my 40s to truly believe about myself.

This is the story of knowing the answer and spending a lifetime learning to trust what you knew all along.

My First Job – Breen’s Fruit & Veg

Let me back up a few months.

When I was about 11 years old, I got my first job working in my friend’s family business—Breen’s Fruit & Veg, a fruit and vegetable distributor.

They had no idea that an 11-year-old could be as hungry as I was.

For every box of apples I packed, they’d give me 25 pence. For every box of oranges I packed into smaller bags for distribution to the shops, they’d give me 25 pence. For every bag of potatoes I packed, they’d give me 25 pence.

Piece-rate work. And I loved it.

It motivated me to find quicker, more innovative ways to get the work done. I was walking out with what felt like significant money every week. At 11 years of age it was a significant amount of money. They had created a piece packing beast!!!!!!!

Growing up on a dairy farm, you didn’t get paid for the work you did—it was expected. You milked cows. You fed animals. You did your chores. You kept the ditches and cut the lawns. That was just how family farms were. Everybody worked. That was just life.

But at Breen’s? At Breen’s, my time had a price. My output had value. The faster I worked, the more boxes I packed, the more money I earned.

For the first time in my life, I understood the direct connection between effort, value, and compensation.

The Ditch

Now, there was one particular job on our farm that I absolutely hated: cutting the ditch in front of our house.

It had to be trimmed with a slash hook four or five times a year.

When you think about it now—an 11-year-old using an implement like a slash hook—but that’s the world we lived in back then.

This particular time, my father asked me to do my normal chore of cutting the ditch. It usually took anywhere from half a day to a full day.

And I sat there thinking about the math.

By my reckoning, the time it would take me to cut that ditch, I could earn £12 working at Breen’s.

We had a local workman named Frank who used to do occasional work for us. I knew his day rate:

• Full day: £15
• Half day: £8

So I did what, to me, seemed completely logical:

I cycled over to Frank’s house and told him I needed to hire him for a half day’s work to cut the ditch. I’d pay him £8.

He agreed.

Frank went over to cut the ditch while I went to Breen’s to do my work.

That day, I earned £15 at Breen’s.

I came back and gave Frank his £8.

Net profit: £7.

More importantly: I’d just learned how delegation, outsourcing, and economic value worked.

At 11 years old.

The Conversation

The next morning at breakfast, my father asked what had happened with the ditch.

I told him Frank did it.

“Who was going to pay Frank? I hadn’t authorised that.”

“I’m going to pay Frank.”

“Why would you pay a workman to do a task that was yours?”

And I said those words that I can still hear myself saying:

“Daddy, that’s not economically viable use of my time.”

My father put his head in his hands.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.

In that moment, he realized his son wasn’t going to take over the family farm. His son wasn’t going to be the fourth generation working that land. His son thought like an entrepreneur, not a farmer.

And our relationship changed that day.

It took years to recover.

My mother supported me in my actions. It caused a huge row and I became a mammy’s boy for many years after.

What I Knew—But Didn’t Believe

Here’s the thing that strikes me now, more than three decades later:

That 11-year-old boy knew something that took me until my 40s to truly believe.

I understood value. I understood pricing. I understood economic leverage. I understood that my time had worth, and that paying someone else to do work so I could do higher-value work made perfect sense.

I understood that I only had a limited amount of time and I needed to make the best economical use of that time

But somewhere between age 11 and age of 40, I forgot to believe it about myself.

now don’t get me wrong I am still finding more economical use of my time today and I will never reach the end of that journey but I really lost sight of it somewhere in growing up because I definitely had when I was 11 in that moment.

I spent decades:

• Underpricing my services
• Undervaluing my time
• Doing work I should have delegated
• Keeping clients who didn’t respect my worth
• Apologizing for my fees
• Justifying my prices
• Feeling guilty for charging what I was actually worth

Why? Because deep down, I didn’t believe I was worth it.

I knew the economics. I understood the math. I could explain value-based pricing in my sleep.

But I didn’t believe it about myself.

This is what I encounter when I work with firm owners and their pricing journey.

This is what we saw this year when we did our Practice Benchmarking Survey

The Long Journey to Self-Worth

It took exposure to people who were further down the journey than I was for me to begin to truly believe in my own worth.

Michael Port (Booke Yourself Solid) taught me about personal value.

Jeff Walker (Product Launch Formula) taught me to believe I belonged in rooms with extraordinary people.

Dan Sullivan (Strategic Coach) taught me about Unique Ability and the economic value of focusing on what only I could do.
Stu McLaren (The Membership Experience) taught me “Love me or hate me but there is no money in the middle

These weren’t new concepts. That 11-year-old boy already knew this stuff.

But I’d spent 30 years unlearning what I knew because my father, my teachers, my employers and the society I grew up in didn’t agree with that thinking.

It took another 10 years of intentional work  for me to believe it again.

To believe in my true value

To believed in always looking for the most long term economically viable use of my time

The Pattern I See Everywhere

Now, when I work with accounting bookkeeping and tax advisory firm owners, I see this pattern constantly:

They know—intellectually—that they should charge more. They understand value-based pricing. They can articulate why their experience, expertise, and insight are valuable.

But they don’t believe it.

They apologise when quoting fees. They discount at the first pushback. They keep clients who don’t value them. They do work they should delegate because “no one else can do it like I can.”

Jeff Walker always says to me “ Des you can’t sell from your heels”

We have to lean in and believe but often when I ask firm owners why, they can’t really explain it.

Because knowledge and belief are two completely different things.

You can know something for decades and still not believe it about yourself.

What Changed

So what finally shifted for me?

A few things:

1. I stopped comparing myself to who I thought I should be and started valuing who I actually was.

That 11-year-old boy knew he wasn’t meant to be a farmer. He knew he was going to be an entrepreneur. He disappointed his father. But he was right about himself.

I spent too many years apologising for not being someone else’s version of me.

2. I surrounded myself with people who believed in their own worth.

You become who you spend time with. When you’re in rooms with people who know their value and charge accordingly, it gives you permission to do the same.

3. I realised that underpricing wasn’t humility—it was self-sabotage.

Charging less than I’m worth doesn’t serve my clients. It doesn’t serve my team. It doesn’t serve my family. It serves no one.

The best leadership I can give to my clients is to be profitable. The best care I can show my team is to have a profitable business.

4. I finally understood: pricing is branding.

When we raised our prices, we didn’t lose clients. We attracted better ones. We attracted clients who valued what we did, who respected our expertise, who engaged at a higher level.

Low prices attract people looking for cheap solutions. High prices attract people looking for value.

The Lesson

If you’re running an accounting business, ask yourself:

What do you know about value that you don’t believe about yourself?

Do you know you should be charging more—but you don’t?

Do you know your experience is valuable—but you apologise for your fees?

Do you know your time is limited—but you spend it on work others could do?

This connects directly to The 4 Ps (Pricing) in the ProfitPro 6-Step Success Pathway.

Because pricing isn’t just about what you charge. It’s about what you believe you’re worth.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth: You’ll never price yourself correctly if you don’t believe in your own value.

The single biggest indicator of underpricing is profitability and cash flow difficulties.

But the root cause is usually the same: you know what you should charge, but you don’t believe you deserve it.

Questions to Ask Yourself:

• What did you know about value when you were younger that you’ve unlearned?
• When did you start apologizing for your worth?
• What would you charge if you truly believed in your value?
• Who are you trying not to disappoint by staying small?
• What’s the real cost of underpricing—not just to you, but to your clients and your team?

And the hardest question:

What would change if you finally believed what you’ve always known?

YOUR TURN

Be honest:

What do you know intellectually that you don’t believe about yourself?

Where are you still apologizing for your worth, your fees, your value?

And more importantly: what would it take for you to believe what you knew all along?

I’m curious: Have you ever known something for years but not believed it about yourself? What finally shifted? Or are you still in the gap between knowing and believing?

Let me know. Because sometimes the longest journey we take is from our head to our heart.

Tomorrow: Letter 7/21 – Letter 9: ✅ “Caroline’s Belief – ‘You’re Really Good at Finding Money'” (2013-2014) – Partnership & Permission

The Partner who believes and who enables leaps and recognises your gift