Archives for May 2014

Busting the Pricing Myth of “Charging What You’re Worth”

May 28, 2014 by influexwp Leave a Comment

Please join me in busting the myth that the answer to pricing is knowing your value or charging what you're worth.

It's such crap and screws so many people up, keeping you stuck in a paradigm of feeling unappreciated, undervalued, and not truly understanding the value of the work you are doing in the world.

YOU are priceless. And your pricing is not based on YOUR value or YOUR worth at all.

Pricing your services is a progressive journey…

In the beginning (when you are just starting to provide a service and don't really understand who your market is and the value of your outcomes to your ideal clients)… your pricing is based on what you need to earn to provide your service in the time you have available. This is the foundation of our Money Map program.

When you are just starting out you do not know the value of what you are providing — market value is variable based on your market and the value they (the people you serve) place on the outcome you provide. This cannot be determined until you provide your service and get a clear understanding of that value based on actual experience.

So, the starting place must be the least you can charge without doing yourself the disservice of going negative to provide someone with your services. Unless, you are doing it consciously to build up your experience, get testimonials or tithe your time for a good case and because you have the available resources to do so.

The foundation of all of this comes from knowing what you need to earn and how much time you have to earn it and calculating what we call your Money Map number so you can price your services on a foundation of truth.

Over time, as you understand the value of the outcomes you provide (to the people you are providing it to and what it is worth to them)… your pricing is based on the value of what you provide to the people you provide it to. And it's STILL not based on your worth or your value at all.

Because the value of your services are different from someone who has $1m in the bank than they are to someone who has $10 in the bank. That's why choosing your ideal market is so important.

Are you with me in changing this continuing fallacy of “know your value and charge what you are worth?”

I would love hear from you about where you feel stuck around these issues yourself, so be sure to leave a comment below.

In the next few weeks, I'll be sharing more on pricing, debt, investing and more in my weekly newsletter (I already shared a juicy bit this week). So if you're not signed up, get it here.

How to Handle Haters With Eyes (and Heart) Wide Open

May 14, 2014 by influexwp Leave a Comment

I knew it would happen, but I didn’t think it would be so intense so quickly…

I’ve always had a polarizing personality and over the last several years decided to stop hiding from that and instead step into it fully.

During the analysis of my decision about whether to file bankruptcy or whether to keep working a business model that required me to suck as much money out of the marketplace as possible so I could pay back $500,000 of debt (not a way I was willing to live anymore), I had to face the reality that if I decided to go bankrupt, I would one day be derided for that choice.

My decisions would be torn apart and I might even be villain-ized.

I decided to do it anyway.

I decided to ruin my reputation, kill my brand and withdraw into a two-year journey into “who am I if money is off the table?”

What I discovered in that space not only transformed me, but it allowed me to discover a truth I had suspected, but hadn’t actually lived, which I now understand as the path to financial liberation.

As a financially liberated being, money no longer rules your life. It’s a tool and nothing more. – Tweet It!

How much money you have or how you have chosen to use your resources is no indicator of your worth.

Money is a tool to use to do as much good as you possibly can in the world by living in alignment with the truth of who you are and how you want to be, your personal money map number and your entrepreneurial archetype.

As I went through the journey to my own financial liberation and dropped the old paradigm ways I was raised in and by, I became available for relationships, community, connection with my kids and myself. Those connections simply were not available when I was working 12-16 hours a day to hoard as much as I possibly could so I could one day be financially free.

I broke free and there’s a lot of people who not only don’t like it, they have decided they full on HATE me and have made it their job to try and make sure as many people know it as possible.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been hated before, but it’s quite the powerful experience.

For years, I avoided it. I did everything I could to be liked by everyone. And, I was quite successful at it. But it was so damn unfulfilling because there was a way I compromised to keep from pissing people off.

So I decided to stop and face what I was most afraid of, again. (I used to be most afraid of running out of money, so I faced that. Then, I was afraid of living alone on a farm with my kids, so I faced that. And, now, it’s time to face not being liked, and even worse, being hated.)

Facing my greatest fears and diving in has time and again proven to be my most direct path to liberation. – Tweet It!

So, here it is.

The thing I’ve feared (for eons perhaps), villainized and hated. They hate that I’ve filed bankruptcy, that I allowed my CA bar license to lapse for three years while I chose not to take on private clients or practice law. They say I’m a horrible parent. That I’m in an abusive relationship. I’m ugly, not aging well and … I’m sure there’s more. I’ve stopped reading.

Through this experience of facing my biggest fears and diving in and being willing to he hated publicly, I have learned that I am okay if not everybody likes me, I feel sure it's pulling me into an even deeper experience of life and I've learned how to handlehaters and why I’ll even welcome them in more in the future, even though it hurts.

How can you turn around the experience of being hated publicly into a positive growth experience instead of something to hide from and do everything possible to avoid?

First and foremost, see it as an opportunity to really look at the decisions you've made and the way you are appearing from other perspectives. I read some of the negative things people write about me so I can take in and digest what's true and as Nicole Daedone says, “poo out the rest.”

Try to read what people write about you that is disparaging with an open heart and mind, feel their perspective and see where there might be truth. Can you learn and grow from their perspective?

Once you've taken it in, let it go. I'll admit it, this is hard, but it's a powerful practice because life is all about letting things go and not holding on to what's yours.

Sure, some of what a hater says might be true, but it's not all true — master the part of your mind that is drawn to the negative again and again and retrain it to take that energy and fuel it into creative pursuits and endeavors you can control.

This is a powerful practice you can use whenever anything disheartening is happening.

I used it first when I was being audited on my 2005 taxes. I was devastated, in tears, beating myself up for two days. Until I decided to harness all that energy into building my business because I could control that. So each time I felt that energy of despair and self disdain, I asked myself — what can I do now that is within my control?

And I did that. Within a year, I had built another million dollar business impacting thousands of people with that energy. Far better than crying in my soup. Oh, and I handed the audit off to my accountants and it resulted in a no-change, no additional taxes due.

Make changes that feel appropriate.

One of the things I saw from what my haters wrote is that it was time to reactivate my bar license. I let it lapse by not submitting my CLE because I wasn’t practicing law or taking on one on one clients in anyway anymore, I needed to cut my expenses and this was one expense that simply didn’t make sense.

And, now that I’m back in the world of business, to avoid any confusion and now that money isn’t as tight as it once was, I’ve reinstated my bar license. Why not? All I had to do was an additional 2 credits of CLE and pay my dues. So I did. I wouldn’t have done that without the negative reflection. And maybe now I’ll even start to work with people one on one again. Maybe.

I’m even considering whether there is some benefit to paying back the debt I discharged in bankruptcy and if that’s the best, most responsible use of resources, when I do have an extra $500,000 on hand. I have no requirement to do so, but if it serves the message and mission more than using that money for something else, I’ll do it.

I won’t do it to quell the haters and not even because I think the banks who invested in me deserve or need the money back; I’d do it if that’s of greatest service to the world.

Here’s what my experience is of when I’ve “hated” in my own life (and it’s certainly never been to the extent these folks hate, so maybe it doesn’t apply), but when I’ve hated anything in the past, I was actually attracted and energized to what I thought I hated and secretly (it turned out) I really wanted what I thought I hated. I wonder if it's the same for you.

How does all this help you to build your life and business awake, aware and on your terms?

Ideally, you’ll stop compromising any part of yourself to avoid being hated or even just to make sure you are liked by as many people as possible. Instead, perhaps inquire into the possibility of what would you do if you weren’t afraid at all about being hated, but instead saw it as an opportunity for more impact? It doesn’t mean you have to act on it, but just asking the question could be a life-changer for you.

Release the Shame of Too Much Debt, Bankruptcy, or Any “Poor” Money Choices (and be radically prepared for the New Economy)

May 2, 2014 by influexwp Leave a Comment

For years, I protected my credit score at all costs because what I really wanted to protect was my image, my reputation and my “credit”.

Not just my access to credit, but the form of credit represented by credibility. Good will. Trust.

Back in the old days, when consciousness was low, the only measure of whether a man was trustworthy was whether he remained faithful to his wife and paid his debts.

If he did, you could trust him. If he didn't, you could be sure he would try to rip you off, first chance he got.

And women? Well they were, de facto, not to be trusted. Women didn't have credit or credibility.

I wouldn't have fared well back in those days. I'm both an adulterer and failed to pay my debts. Plus, I'm a woman.

An unconscious, conditioned mind screams “Scoundrel!”

Of course it does. It has been passed on for generations, hard-wired into our neurology.

And if we want to survive the coming shortage of what we hold near and dear as the planet heats up to temperatures not seen by us or our ancestors…

It's time to break free of the old conditioning and find new measures of trust and credibility.

Our only hope for thrival (beyond survival) in the new economy that will fully emerge when droughts, tornadoes, hurricanes and earthquakes become ever more regular (and good food becomes even more hard to get) will be our ability to get along, knowing how to exchange based on actual value (rather than current false measures of worth), and the personal attitude and energy we bring to the collective.

I pretty much suck at all of this right now, and yet I'm way, way better than most.

The only thing that makes me better is that I sacrificed my credit (and some would say credibility) in favor of something far more valuable.

I learned to surrender, adapt and connect.

From the seat of a million dollar business superwoman, I couldn't learn that. What I kept learning from that position was to separate myself more, suck as much as I could out of the collective to hoard in my own private bank accounts, and trust no one.

But I knew those lessons were lies. They hurt my insides. And I couldn't perpetuate them a minute longer, even if it meant sacrificing everything I thought was important.

What I discovered is that there is a greater form of responsibility we have now, against which we would be well served to judge a man or woman's credit and credibility, if we want to live and thrive in the new world we are creating.

What action are you taking to create more harmony, more sharing of resources and more goodwill in the lives of your immediate community?

How are you contributing to that which we will all need as the climate shifts beyond our control?

What skills are you learning (and passing on to your kids) that will ensure we can live, work and love in harmonious community?

How are you becoming more and more enjoyable to be around? More purposeful? More generous. More aligned and infused with true integrity, far beyond the immediate moment. How are you BEing in the world?

Today, we no longer need to rely on false measures of credit and credibility, such as “did you pay back the bank?” or “did you earn your investors back many multiples of their investments?”… when there are far more important and meaningful measures.

Money, the giving and taking, the exchanging and saving, is no longer a reliable measure of what it means to be noble and good. Tweet this!

Rather, I invite all of us, to step into a new level of awareness here. Money is nothing other than the meaning we give it. It’s the current method of societal exchange; it’s fungible, but not edible, and instead begin looking to other measures for how we determine the worth of a man or woman, including ourselves.

Debt should be paid back, not because it’s the “responsible” thing to do or to preserve your credibility or credit-worthiness, when paying it back serves the world in a real and meaningful way. If paying the debt back won’t serve the bigger picture, let it go, release it, and do the more responsible thing.

Debt, and all resources, should be leveraged, used and invested in what really matters, our personal well-being and self-reliance first, then in our community (ability to be with others, especially in stressful situations), our creativity (ability to make more than we take) and resourcefulness (ability to procure what’s necessary to accomplish one’s aims even, and especially, through non-traditional means).

Our quality of life now and our future both depend on it.

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