How dare she

Gina hired me because she had a terrible fear of raising her prices. This fear was SO paralyzing, she’d been charging the same prices for five years.

Every time she tried to say the higher price to a potential client on the phone, her throat would close and she’d literally choke on the words. So she’d quote the old price and be stuck working with someone for way too little money. 

As we dove deep into her money and visibility capacities, we discovered her biggest fear. 

She was part of a tight-knit community. Often, the moms in her town would hire her. But she was terrified that one of them would think her new price was “too high” and then go and gossip about it to everyone in town. 

I’m no stranger to that fear, because I’ve actually had that experience.  Many, many years ago, I was invited to speak at someone’s conference. I gave an AMAZING workshop- blew everyone in the room away.  By the end, I had 15 people lined up to book sales calls with me.

I booked appointments with all of them.  My first three calls with the new prospective clients from that event went really well. They all signed up to work with me, from my lowest priced program to my highest, there was something in different price ranges for all of them.

Then came the fourth call. The caller INSISTED on working with me 1:1, and wanted the kind of attention that only my highest level VIP offering could give. So I quoted her the price of that offering. She pretended like it was fine with her, just needed to move some money around and would get back to me.

Little did I know, she got off that call and contacted ALL the people who had been interested in working with me at the event and told everyone that the ONLY price I charged was the highest one. I found out later from one of the organizers of that conference that they were all gossiping about my prices and clucking about how they would NEVER spend that much on a coach.

Suddenly the remaining eleven people who had booked calls with me canceled their appointments.  Thousands of potential dollars lost because of that ONE woman. So believe me, I KNEW what Gina was fearful of.

BUT THAT SHOULD NEVER BE ENOUGH TO STOP YOU. 

It didn’t stop me. 

I continued to fill my VIP offering and my other programs. In fact, the month after that incident, I sold out of spots for that VIP offering all those women were gossiping about and criticizing. 

Would you believe a few months later, some of them realized what they were missing out on by not working with me and tried to get into that program they claimed they’d NEVER pay for? Unfortunately, I was all full, so there was no space for them anymore.

Some of them even came to some of my one-off classes to see “what I was doing”. I’m pretty sure they wanted to see “how” I was so confident in my pricing and find some way to disprove it, instead of hiring me to help them gain that confidence. But going to one class doesn’t teach you that. You’ve got to do the work. Period. 

When I teach the things I teach, it’s because I truly understand what you go through on your journey to growth, impact and wealth. I’ve had to expand my capacity beyond many of the same fears you have. I’ve dealt with the craziest things these last 10 years in my business.

Here’s the thing I want to tell you, especially if you have similar fears…

Often when people cluck behind your back to others about your prices being “too high” or “ridiculous”, it’s actually because they’re secretly jealous they haven’t had the guts to charge the true worth of their work.  

OR they have major money capacity issues (and yes even if they make lots of money already, they can still have a money capacity issue and be in scarcity mindset).  

Otherwise, why be so offended by your price that they’d tell a bunch of people about what you charge and exclaim to them you’d never pay that for a coach? Why be so riled up by it that they have to stalk everything you do WHILE clucking about your prices to others?

They’re probably also wanting to increase their prices but they get held back by their own fears. So they get subconsciously angry when someone has the guts to do what they can’t. You come along with your aligned prices that you are OWNING and they get triggered. 

They cover up that pain and anger at your audacity by saying it’s “ridiculous” to charge the prices you charge and they would “never pay someone that much money.” It’s how they make themselves feel superior to you, after your pricing makes them feel inferior.  

It’s something I teach in my capacity work with clients constantly, which I learned from my studies in inequality and from one of my mentors, Voge Smith– it’s called “one up, one down dynamics”. 

Of course your price is just your price–you have nothing to do with them feeling inferior–that’s THEIR thing. It has nothing to do with you.

There’s an even deeper dynamic here if you’re a woman of color. 

As a trusted mentor reminded me, if you’re a woman of color, you’ll find many women (and often, it’s white women if you’re a WOC) are subconsciously thinking “how dare she” about your prices. For many of them, they don’t even realize they’re operating from “how dare she”. It’s in their blind spot, so they think they’re perfectly justified thinking that your prices are “ridiculous.”  

How dare she.

That was what was underneath that woman’s behavior and gossip about my prices  That’s what was underneath the motives of the other women who gossiped with her and spread lies to discourage them from working with me. That’s what my client, Gina was so afraid of coming out of the mouths of the women in her town.

This is the terrible non-gift toxic white male patriarchy has bestowed upon all of us. 

I talk about it with clients all the time-especially my white or light-skinned Latina clients.  The ways patriarchy has taught everyone they must always appear perfect, must always have the answer and never appear to “not know” something and to always appear cool and unfeeling because showing emotion is “weak.”  

The way it has taught white and light skinned women to further these dynamics in society and contribute to harm unconsciously by participating in these behaviors themselves, many times unconsciously.

That’s what those women who were gossiping about my prices were doing. Though I’m sure it was in their blind spot and they’d get defensive if I ever pointed it out to them..

It’s a part of the Capacity conversation that can’t be left out. Because capacity is about being the most powerful authentic versions of ourselves in ways that uplift and liberate others to do the same. NOT perpetuate oppressive BS.

That “how dare she” (charge more than me, be so big, so loud, so confident, so high priced, etc) reflex is one of the ways white supremacy and toxic patriarchy has been inculcated into our cells. In those systems, there always has to be one person up and one person down, a winner and a loser.

Many white women in particular have learned they must uphold the patriarchy or risk becoming the victims of white male patriarchy, so they become threatened when another woman dares to rise above the confines of the patriarchy they’re trapped in.

Both because of their own trauma endured from being in and upholding the patriarchy AND subconscious jealousy because they haven’t freed themselves of it like some women of color have.

And to be completely frank, I’ve never experienced a woman of color complain about or gossip about my or my clients prices. For me personally, it has always been a white woman who gossips about it behind my back. This has happened to me several times since that one story. It’s not an isolated incident. 

It always has that “how dare she” energy to it.

Now, I know if you’re a white or light skinned woman reading this you might be triggered right now. If so, I invite you to lean into that trigger–because it’s showing you where your capacity issues lie and where you have capacity work to do.

I don’t care how “woke” you think you are, toxic patriarchy is the system in which we were raised, so it’s in all of us. It’s in the ways you hide and don’t show up for your business because you’re afraid of not “looking perfect” or “having the perfect message”.

It’s in the ways you gossip about another woman’s pricing or put it down.  

It’s in the ways you put yourself “one down” by thinking you have nothing to contribute to a room full of women who make more money than you.  

It’s in the ways you try to act superior in that same room because you actually feel inferior and need to get yourself “one up”. It’s in the way you think you have to be “right” because being “wrong” or saying “I don’t know” feels terrifying to you.

If you’ve ever done that- I invite you to take a look at why. Especially if you’ve done it to a fellow woman, and even MORE especially if you’ve done it to a woman of color.

Because THIS, this my friend, is a Capacity issue.  

And part of the BIGGEST aspect of letting yourself BE SEEN authentically, making money from a place of alignment and impacting others in a positive way is to expand our capacity BEYOND toxic patriarchy and how it lives in us. 

Because toxic patriarchy is holding ALL of us back with its collective trauma that lives and breathes in our most hidden internal corners.

When we expand our capacity, it looks like no longer giving a hoot what anyone thinks about our prices, or not caring what anyone ELSE is charging either. Because when we have capacity with our money we find the pricing that feels most aligned to us and we own it.

When we dismantle how patriarchy lives in us by expanding our capacity we show up more authentically and feel freer. We don’t care that we might be “too loud” for others or “too big” because we’ve stepped OUT of that system that needs us to be small.

I believe these times are calling for more of this. We’ve been stripped bare of pretenses. You’re either going to make something of that or you’re going to go back to the same BS that secretly holds you back in so many ways.

If you’re a leader who wants to be showing up more like THIS and aren’t feeling quite right about how you’ve been showing up during this time, then join us at the Capacity in Crisis workshop.

Because this workshop is for you.

It’s only $99, only 90 minutes long and yes, you get a recording if you can’t make it live, though you really should try to be there live, because live, especially at my events, is magical.

We close enrollment in a week. I’ll see you there.