The phone calls were now up to multiple times a day but I still wasn’t answering. I knew it was the hospital and I was avoiding it, my usual tactic when it came to money.
It had been three months since our son’s surgery and we hadn’t yet received the bill. Until we did.
I finally picked up: $3.1 million dollars.
My bowels dropped to my feet and I think my soul left my body.
$3.1 MILLION DOLLARS?!
Our insurance argued they weren’t his primary coverage and we were the ones left holding the bag. A very empty bag.
It took a day, but finally, after my wife questioned them further, our insurance admitted there had been a “glitch in the system” and our son was in fact, covered.
During those 24 hours of terror, I went through the five stages of grief and emerged with a major realization (other than our healthcare system being fucked):
I needed to stop being afraid of making money.
Here’s the truth: I’m very good at telling women to get paid and very bad at telling myself.
Ever since I was six years old and immediately donated my first paycheck to charity, I’ve had a complicated relationship with making money. Giving to others and giving to myself always felt mutually exclusive. Like, more for me meant less for you.
Receiving this INSANE bill of $3.1 million broke that spell.
It was so outrageous, so laughable that it knocked the concept of money right off the pedestal I’d had it on for so many years.
I made a list of all the ways I consciously or subconsciously told myself (or was told) that I deserved less money, and then challenged myself to find a reframe. This one stood out the most:
“Charge less so you don’t lose the opportunity.”
I’ve done this FOR YEARS.
This mentality is detrimental not just to my bank account but to yours. It allows employers to take advantage of our scarcity mode and depresses wages for everyone.
Umm, why should WE be charging less when THEY should be the ones paying us more? Why are we doing them favors by taking less of a paycheck?!
(To be clear, I’m talking about charging the high end of our market range, or pay band, not some random number.)
Yet still, so many of us don’t charge that high end of the market range, rationalizing that it makes us more likely to be hired.
Bullshit. I think it’s because we don’t believe we’re worthy of it.
I used to tell people to “get paid what they deserve.” What I didn’t realize is that people don’t think they deserve that much.
We are so freaking hard on ourselves, we keep moving the goalposts of what we expect of ourselves. Always short of perfection means we’re always short on deserving a large salary. We are forever proving our value, trying to justify our worthiness, that we never catch up to the reward. Big Money is always just out of reach.
It turns out what I should’ve been saying was, “Get paid MORE than you think you deserve.”
Learning to own your worthiness is a lifelong journey (hello, therapy!), so please don’t wait for that to own your bag.
Instead, focus on the impact your work makes on the bottom line. Are your employers or clients profiting from your efforts? How much? I bet it’s WAY more than you’re giving yourself credit for.
One exercise that can help you is to imagine you have to defend your job to the board; in other words, why does investing in your salary help them make money?
And by the way, you can have room for improvement and still charge the high end of the market range. As I’m learning through this year of living fearlessly (or maybe more accurately, WITH fear), many contradicting things can be true at once.
My conclusion?
Receiving a bill for $3.1 million (even if I don’t technically have to pay it), was like the universe calling me to the Big Leagues of Big Money.
I’m ready to play. Are you?
x Claire
THIS WEEK’S ACTION STEPS
➡️ Make a list of ways you’ve denied yourself Big Money
➡️ Identify a core fear behind it
➡️ Challenge yourself to a reframe: if you were coaching a friend, what would you say? What’s another way to look at it?
➡️ Forward this newsletter to someone you know will benefit from it 💫
