The Desert of Arizona
Sun 40 Degrees
Do you have a firm grasp on the true value you bring to your clients and to the world? If you don’t, you’re going to charge too little for it.
It took me a long time to figure out how to get that grasp. For many years, I looked in exactly the wrong place for that.
I looked out into the world searching for the proof. I looked to just about anyone in a position of power or authority or wealth.
When I’d get a “hit,” it would make me feel good. Something would go right, a client project would do well, whatever. That little jolt of validation was enough to keep me going, to give me energy to search for even MORE proof that I was valuable.
It’s like being a Porsche but never taking it out of first gear because you’re convinced the thing can’t go faster than a Yugo. You look down at the gear shift and you’re completely blinded to any of the numbers higher than 1.
You look out into the world waiting/hoping for someone to come along and say, “Open that thing up on the highway man, you’re in a Porsche, you’re made to fly!”
But no one comes to say that. Why? Because they’re paralyzed with their mouths hanging open at the sight of someone in a Porsche doing 10 MPH down the highway.
If you’re looking out into the world for proof you are valuable, if you’re trying to find that reflection out there, stop it.
You don’t set a piece of coal in front of a mirror and expect to see a diamond in the reflection do you?
The truth of your value must be in you first.
As Steve Hardison says in his TBOLITNFL presentation (short version here, long version could easily change your life)…
“If you ever got inside you who you could be, it would be what I call a personal internal commitment, and getting that inside you would operate everything you do.”
When that happens, you don’t NEED to look out into the world for proof of your value. You’ll have it inside you. You’ll charge accordingly.
As Steve said, “When one is committed, the world finds its way to the commitment…”