HOW SKIPPING SCHOOL HAS IMPACTED MY RELATIONSHIP WITH MONEY AND IMPACTED MY BUSINESS.

Listen via Podcast

Do you struggle with charging people money?

Do you struggle with pricing yourself?

Do you struggle with accepting money?

Do you struggle with the idea of charging too much money, worry, and have fear and doubt?

I want to share a story with you. A client of mine is a graphic artist and made a beautifully painted project for a police department. And when it was time for them to pay her, she undercharged herself. And the and the person was like, but you're not charging me enough. That's not a fair price. Like you're, you're undercharging. And she kept trying to offer more money and offer more money and offer more money. And my client didn't take it. She couldn't take it. She has something that is keeping her stuck in this place.

And it got me thinking as I was processing this… I love to give pep talks, they are one of my favourite things. But it landed on my own self-realization, which is what I wanted to come and share with you today.

So the story is two years ago, I went on a retreat. And I was in this funky place as a photographer. I was struggling with ‘do I want to still be a photographer?’ I was just not feeling it anymore. I was really honestly looking for permission to let it go. And instead, I was challenged to go around the room and introduce myself as charging $50,000. And that made me want to barf.

I've had the Self Realization today, which is why I have to talk about this because it's fresh on my heart.

Why did I struggle with the idea of charging someone $50,000 in my business? I help so many people in so many different ways. Why do I struggle with charging people what I'm worth?

And here's what it boils down to… Telling someone that I charge $50,000 led me to this realization today… What are the expectations that are going to be put on me by this person who I'm charging that kind of money? $50,000, 25,000, 100,000… It could be a million dollars, it doesn't really matter.

The expectations that I was putting on myself sounded like “What if I can't meet the client’s expectations of what they believe about the transformation they will receive?”

What if I don't meet THAT expectation? What if I disappoint them (the client)?

That statement of “I'm going to disappoint them” goes back to my fourteen-year-old self who skipped school got caught, which is a whole other story. Nutshell: My dad told me that he was disappointed in me. Because I was the good girl. I was the oldest. I was the only girl. I was a straight-A student. I didn't really get in trouble. And here I was at fourteen with my best friend… ‘Let's skip school and go hang out with our boyfriends’.

My dad was disappointed. He said “I'm not angry. I'm just disappointed”, which you know, as a kid that is horrible. Take away my birthday, but don't be disappointed in me. And I carried that story with me. And it only came from up a few years ago as I started doing personal development work with an EFT practitioner, that's where it came from.

Is my dad disappointed in me today? Hell no. My dad is extremely proud of me. And he has told me on numerous occasions that he is proud of me. So why am I so focused on the disappointment?

Well, let's, let's break that down a little bit. How many times does it take to break a negative comment? You have to say multiple positive things to break a negative comment. And I didn't really, truly realize the depth of that feeling until today, which means I have some work to do.

And it's just absolutely fascinating to me how we can walk around, all having all these feelings and deep-seeded emotions that we don't want to deal with. Because dealing with them means we have to feel the feelings. Who wants to do that? I don't. But it's what's necessary. In order for me to move through this, I have to come to terms with it.

And I have to ask myself, even if my father were not proud of me, I have to be proud of me. So even if you grew up in a home that did was not full of love, or compassion, or empathy, or maybe there was addiction, maybe there was poverty, maybe there was homelessness, maybe there was abuse… we all got something…. but here's the thing, we get to choose the story that we want to live with, we get to choose how we want to show up in the world. We get to choose whether or not to allow our past, to dictate our future, we get to choose.

And I am choosing to not allow the fear of disappointing someone to dictate my success in my business any longer.

Today is a new day. Today is a new day.

I was talking with my husband and telling him about the epiphany that I’m sharing. And he says, “Wow, I feel the same way”. I've been trying to encourage him to start his own little business with football coaching. And he's terrified. And he said, that's how I felt too, what if I'm charging people money, and I don't meet their expectations? What if I disappoint them? What if they say that it's not worth it? What if, what if? What if?

We can live in what-if land and get nowhere. What if land brings me zero value. Shoulda, coulda, woulda, we can’t change it. So let's get out of what-if land, let's move to possible land. What's possible for you? If you were to shed the shit and move into a place of choice, and intention, and purpose, and impact and confidence and empathy and compassion.

What happens if we move from what if land to possibility land? What changes for you? Everything changes for you. Everything would change. I know that change can feel really scary. And I know that there can be a lot of fear involved with change, and it's possibly out of our comfort zone.

I want to share another revelation that I had with you recently.

I am writing a chapter in a book about this new personality type called the endotype formula. And I am a clarifier. My personality type identifies as the Stubborn Peniel Clarifier. (Take the test here to discover your own endotype personality)

The interesting thing is that I've kind of made jokes around having a self-saboteur named Sally. Saboteur Sally… her job is to keep me safe. She's a nag in my ear, and sometimes says negative things, challenges me, questions me, and is an annoying bitch. Like she just won't shut the hell up. And so I have created this visual where Sally and I are in a car together. I'm driving, she's trying to drive and I'm like, “No Bitch”, and I put her in the passenger seat. Well, now Sally still has access to the radio, and she really wants to listen to country music. And I'm not jiving with that. That's just not my jam. And so I put her in the backseat. Well, now she becomes the backseat driver. And the backseat driver is just in your ear… “Why don't you turn there? You should have gone there. This is no you're supposed to turn here”. I don't want to listen to it. So I pull over and snatch her ass and I put her in the trunk. Now, Sally can't say shit. I can't hear anything that Sally is saying.

And I was challenged recently to think that it’s possible that Sally is not here to hurt me or to keep me from obtaining my goals. Sally, is there as a tap on the shoulder to say, “Are you sure?”

But I was too busy trying to shut her up. Because I thought that she was going to tell me that I couldn't do it. I wasn't willing to even listen to her and hear what she had to say. I wasn't willing to hear her out. Because I automatically assumed that she was trying to keep me from obtaining my goals. When she was in the backseat and becoming the backseat driver and trying to get me to turn here and turn there. I was too busy on my own path that I wasn't willing to consider another way.

So I've decided to change Sally the Saboteur into Shifting Sally. Instead of trying to sabotage me, her job is now to help me shift my thinking. And I encourage all of us to really examine what is really, truly going on. If you were really to stop and listen to that voice in your head. What are they really trying to say? Are they really trying to hurt you? Or are they actually trying to help you and keep you from danger and keep you from? I thought she was trying to keep me from life experience. I thought she was trying to keep me safe in a bubble where I never got hurt. And never learn anything. And I wanted to learn. And sometimes that means we have to learn through mistakes. (I don't believe in failure, I believe I believe in learning opportunities).

I thought Sally was trying to keep me from learning. Because I'm going to make mistakes. And then I'm going to learn from it. But she had other opportunities, and she had other pathways to get to the same destination. But I wasn't willing to listen. And one of the things that I'm working on is to be a better listener. I want to be a better listener to my clients. And I need to be a better listener to my own intuition.

I allow everyone else to borrow my own intuition. And I silence my own. Why is my intuition Elaine the Brain and my Pop Rocks good enough for everybody else, but not myself? What is the absolute hell is that about?

Time to do some shifting!