Pam Slim on valuing yourself

Let's now talk about undervaluing ourselves. This is something that, it's chronic among creatives. I believe it's chronic among coaches in particular. It's. I mean, I undervalued myself with my $4.95 E book.

I remember that you were sweating bullets.

Oh, I was so scared. You know, the sales copy is still online. It's horrible. It's like, hey guys, like, I know you could probably get this for free, but. And I'm like, I look at it and I want to vomit. I can't believe I wrote that. So let's talk about undervaluing ourselves. I want to talk about undervaluing ourself as an employee and then as a self employed person. And I'm curious if you can share any personal insights and also any insights you've got from coaching people as well.

Yeah, a couple. That has been one of my things for sure. So when I was making a career transition earlier in my 20s when I was working for companies, I remember, I'll never forget this advice that I got from somebody that really helped me to think differently about undervaluing myself. And I had been asking, was interviewing at different places and it was a woman who had been on her own for a really long time. And she said, well, what salary are you asking for? And I said, well, I probably need something like $50,000. That's probably pretty good at that time. That's more than enough. I don't need any more than that. And so she told me, she said, when it comes to compensation, especially if you're a female, so this may resonate more for females rather than males, but I think also males can have this. You must charge what the market will bear, especially in relation to your male peers. And the key is though, is then if you choose, you can give it all away.

Oh, how interesting.

And this was, it was very interesting for me because, you know, and she wasn't saying it in that you don't deserve to have a good life. You know that What I was saying is, you know, I'm not like a fancy person. My son Josh. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, like it's nice to stay at a nice place to go on a nice, you know, vacation.

Right.

But like, I'm a woman of the people. Like, I don't like to be. I would be nightmare for me to only be like rubbing elbows with like fancy rich people.

This is so interesting. Right? This is a total invisible script.

Yeah.

Which is to say, if I get paid, let's just make up a number here, 70,000, which is a lot of money. Then I'm gonna have to buy a Mercedes, and I'm gonna have to give up all my poor friends, and I can only go and eat, like, with a white napkin. It's ridiculous. It's totally ridiculous. But it's one invisible script that we use so that we don't have to step up to the plate and ask for what we truly deserve.

Exactly.

And as we say it, it's so comical. I mean, it makes no sense. Like, if you make 70 or 80 or 100, whatever, you could give it away. I love that idea. You could save it. You could give it to your parents. You could do whatever you want with it. But it certainly doesn't mean that you're going to have to drive a certain car and live in a certain apartment. That doesn't mean it at all.

No. Well, I mean, because at the time, you know, I was here in San Francisco and I was a volunteer executive director of a capoeira group, right? Working with youth who were being abused, whose parents were in prison, who had no money. Right? And that's part of what was feeding into it, too, is I'm like, what am I doing? You know? Why is it important for me to be making money? And that was a real light bulb of. I've always had a strong social conscience. I want to be doing things to better a situation so I can do more. The more money that I attract into my life, and that was a big, gigantic light bulb for me. The more influence that I have and the more money that I can attract, you know, I'll cover what I need to for my family. But then beyond that, I can do really good things with it.

Huge, huge mental shift. That mental shift took me years to make. I mean, my $4 example is a good one. But what I realized was by charging premium prices, first of all, I'm attracting the kind of people that I want. And second of all, I can take that. It doesn't mean I'm, like, living on some fancy yacht and this and that. I hate boats. North Indian people don't know anything about water, okay? We don't eat fish. We don't know anything. You know, the fish that I ate, the only fish that I really like, do you know what it is? Catfish. Do you know why?

Because it's battered and fried.

No, it's the cheapest fish. And the only fish my mom bought was catfish when we were kids because we didn't have enough money to buy real fish. That's. I seriously Love catfish. So, okay, so the point is, yes, I can attract the type of people that I want, but more importantly, the more that I make, again, I'm not just sitting on money bags. I'm taking it and investing it in having the best video team, the best product designers, the best engineers to give back, to get more and more and spread the word. Right. And so if. If you're an entrepreneur, that makes a lot of sense. If you work for a company, what you're saying is, the more you make, the more you can have influence. Right? My. I have friends who are like. They have this, like, making money is evil kind of mindset, and yet they. They were like, oh, man, I wish I could get a personal trainer. Like. Like, you have. And I'm like, well, you can, but it's a mental thing which allows you to buy your time back, buy additional resources, you know, whatever it is that you want to do with your money, you can do that.

Yeah.

So I appreciate your perspective on that.

It's really. It's been very powerful, you know, and I had prob. The biggest, like, veiled insult that was also awesome is when I was. My second client that I had as a consultant. My first was Hewlett Packard, where I worked with on a big project. My second was 3Com, the networking company. And my client actually offered to pay me more per hour. Who does that? He oversees the budget for his corporate division. So you think he'd want to minimize expenses, but he probably was like, this is, like, absurd. You're so far under market.