“If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now.
For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is a grass in the beginning.”
Van Gogh wrote that line in a letter to his brother, years before anyone bought his paintings.
He was living on bread crusts and borrowed money,
painting fields he couldn’t afford to walk through.
Most of his work was done in cramped rooms that smelled of turpentine and hunger.
He sent his canvases away to a world that wasn’t ready to look at them.
But he kept painting anyway.
That’s what conviction looks like before recognition.
And that same blindness runs through our industry.
The real operators, the ones who build slowly, methodically, with pride,
they’re the ones no one’s watching while everyone else is shouting.
They’re too busy fixing the service model,
retraining the team, resetting standards,
trying to make something feel effortless when it never is.
They’re running point on a coffee machine before dawn.
They’re switching out chairs because one squeak breaks the rhythm of a room.
They’re holding it all together while everyone else is chasing the new amenity trend and headlines.
The market rewards the noise.
It loves a launch photo, a city expansion, a brand refresh with the same old story underneath.
It claps for the presentation, not the performance.
But the quiet ones, the ones who still write names on coffee cups,
who still notice when the energy’s off on a floor,
they’re the reason this industry still has a pulse.
Because if you’re worth anything later, you’re worth something now.
Wheat is wheat, even if no one’s paying attention.
A full building doesn’t make you great. It just makes you good.
Great is the team that remembers names without the CRM.
Great is consistency without applause.
Great is when the lights work, the coffee hits, and the community still feels alive after the tour leaves.
Great is when you’re too tired to care and do it properly anyway.
That’s value.
Not the number on the board.
Not the desk rate.
Not the headline about a record quarter.
Value is the work no one posts because they were too busy doing it.
It’s the pride that doesn’t need proof.
The kind that sits quietly in the corner, knowing exactly what it’s worth.
Worth isn’t a vote.
It isn’t something the market decides when it’s done chasing the next thing.
It’s the unseen standard that outlasts everyone who ignored it.
It’s the thing you build long before anyone claps.
So keep building. Keep refining. Keep showing up.
Keep doing the thing no one notices until it’s too late to copy.
Because if you’re worth anything later, you’re worth something now.
And when the market finally catches up,
make sure you’ve built something it can never own.
James Panepinto is General Manager for Clockwise Offices Manchester, England and UK Chair / UK Chair for FLOC (Future Leaders of Coworking)
We’re building something with Future Leaders of Coworking (FLOC) — for the people who care enough to change this industry from the inside out. For the next generation of leaders in Coworking.
If that sounds like you (or someone you know), reach out.