Now and then someone tells me I’m too expensive.

It’s mostly when we’re two or three emails into an explorative conversation, and I’ve dropped some fees for various coaching options because they asked me to.

Sometimes a person feels deeply insulted.

They tell me it’s unfair and ridiculous and totally overpriced, and that I withhold coaching from the majority of people.

It’s like I’m somehow part of a capitalist disease, and show an elitist attitude that keeps the golden key to freedom away from less fortunate souls.

Or something like that.

This used to really confuse me.

For a couple of years, I thought they had a point.

It was all quite overwhelming and disturbing, these attacks on my morality.

I felt an obligation to help the entire world.

So I used to defend myself extensively, or quickly lower my fee to accommodate the disappointed, angry, finger-pointing victims.

I didn’t want to be looked upon as greedy or ‘not from this world’.

And there probably was a sense of guilt involved too.

But that has changed quite a bit.

I’ve had some insights into these exchanges and this phenomenon.

At present, I see it as a form of entitlement.

A person doesn’t seem to do very well in life, maybe they’ve had a lot of setbacks, and now they claim powerful help without wanting to invest in it.

They feel they deserve it.

Life should give it to them to make up for everything.

And as soon as they come across a situation where their financial limits are painfully exposed, anger and disappointment are close by.

I guess it’s just a lot easier and simpler to blame the person who doesn’t give you what you want.

When they tell me that ‘I’m only catering to people who can afford it’, as if that’s some sort of vicious crime against humanity, I now tell them that’s simply not true.

Some people can easily pay my fees, for others it’s quite a stretch.

It’s just that if those others want it really bad, they’ll make it happen.

And if not, they just don’t hire me and try somewhere else.

No big deal, at least not for me.

I totally get it that for people who believe the world is deeply unfair by nature, a situation like this can be a rock-hard confirmation of what they already thought.

Money is bad, people with money are bad fuckers, and people who ask for ‘a lot’ of money are pure evil.

Makes total sense.

The striking thing is that this kind of disappointed behavior happened even at the beginning of my career when I charged 50 Euros for 90 minutes of coaching.

It’s obvious that most of us are constantly playing the confirmation game, where deep biases keep solidifying all the time, and it’s unavoidable.

If people want to be pissed off, if they want to blame you for their unhappiness and the bad state of the planet, they’ll do that no matter what.

Maybe it sucks to be the eternal victim, but it can also serve as the easy way out, or the wall that keeps you from moving on.

I’m just really glad that’s not me.

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(Photo by @mirzababic, for Unsplash)