Well, it most certainly can be.<\/p>\n
This morning I was asked to do some coaching, and to come up with a fee for the sessions.<\/p>\n
I did, and it wasn\u2019t very much appreciated.<\/p>\n
The person who approached me wanted to negotiate, and came up with a couple of arguments why my asking price didn\u2019t make sense.<\/p>\n
\u2018It doesn\u2019t feel good, can we somehow make this work?\u2019, they asked.<\/p>\n
And I said \u2018Sure we can make it work!’<\/p>\n
‘Just pay what I suggested and we\u2019re off to enlightenment!\u2019<\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t the answer they were looking for, and the tone of the conversation kinda changed.<\/p>\n
So that was that.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s funny: sometimes people get really angry or disappointed when I mention my fees.<\/p>\n
Like it\u2019s ridiculous that I just want what I want, even if they have the right and freedom to disagree and take their problems elsewhere.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a bit like walking into an art gallery, looking at an amazing painting, and then tell the artist it\u2019s too expensive.<\/p>\n
\u2018Here\u2019s what I am willing to give you for it, Vincent!\u2019<\/p>\n
Money is a funny beast, AND a dark monster.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s scary and complex and difficult to get by.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s also easy to create, and awesome to use, and lovely to flow with.<\/p>\n
Money is the most neutral thing that isn\u2019t neutral AT ALL, and most people have a completely fucked up relationship with it.<\/p>\n
I did too.<\/p>\n
Oh man.<\/p>\n
For years I was very much afraid of money, afraid of not having enough and being in lack of it, so I conveniently started to hate it, just like I hated the people who obviously were doing great, financially.<\/p>\n
But this fear was not getting me anywhere except for a place of disappointment and worry.<\/p>\n
Fortunately I recognized this truly unhelpful belief, and I changed it, banknote by banknote and Euro by Euro.<\/p>\n
It took me almost a year to no longer connect my self-worth to whatever people are prepared to pay for my services.<\/p>\n
If they say \u2018no\u2019, it\u2019s just a transactional decision, and it\u2019s fine.<\/p>\n
I no longer haggle, I don\u2019t negotiate, and I don\u2019t care if what I ask is more than what people expected, because that is not an argument for whatever.<\/p>\n
And this might be a good thing for you to realize:<\/p>\n
As long as you do shit that you want to get paid for, especially as an entrepreneur or freelancer or any other situation where you are your own boss, you will encounter people who don\u2019t agree with your fees.<\/p>\n
And you HAVE to get over that, because otherwise you will keep lowering your prices and start to feel more and more resentful.<\/p>\n
There are millions and millions of potential clients out there, so the idea of scarcity is just a load of crap.<\/p>\n
If you give in the moment people play the disappointment card, or whenever you start to think things like \u2018well, it\u2019s better than nothing\u2019, you are not helping and empowering yourself in the long run.<\/p>\n
This is something to really take seriously, to work on and to reckon with, at least eventually (because I get it that we all have to start somewhere, somehow, and we need to get some hours under our belt, no matter what, yeah, yeah, yeah).<\/p>\n
The person this morning who was dissatisfied with my offer, actually did me a huge favor: they helped me realize in a very profound way that this is a game, that it\u2019s all made-up and completely arbitrary, and that you can do whatever you want, all the time.<\/p>\n
You can ask $5 for a session or $50,000, and you will always find people who find either of those amounts ridiculous or expensive or unrealistic.<\/p>\n
So what?<\/p>\n
I know what I can do for people, I know what I did to get into that position, and I also know what I want from life, and people who don\u2019t get that or don\u2019t appreciate that are simply not fit for my world (nothing personal).<\/p>\n
I totally get it when people are in a tight spot, when finances are tight, but it’s also not really my responsibility.<\/p>\n
Like you, I am an artist in my own way, and I am not selling my pieces for cheap.<\/p>\n
And knowing this, my friend, is totally priceless.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
(Photo by @ @dsvi, for Unsplash)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Is NOT getting money positive for your financial situation? Well, it most certainly can be. This morning I was asked to do some coaching, and to come up with a fee for the sessions. I did, and it wasn\u2019t very much appreciated. The person who approached me wanted to negotiate, and came up with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32689,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[97,117,114,100,116,113,103,112],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32688"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32688"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32691,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32688\/revisions\/32691"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}