I just passed through the kitchen while my husband was talking on the phone to a friend of ours. She's a highly qualified professional (a psychologist, actually) with decades of experience giving talks to audiences of all sizes, yet as a single mother with two children she struggles to make ends meet.
Speaking is her passion and she spends more time on it than she does with clients in her office practice. Audiences rave about her work and she has so many community speaking invitations that she can't keep up with them all, but she doesn't believe that they'd be willing to pay her what we tell her that she's worth.
All this would change if she would be willing to see herself as the world sees her: brilliant, wise, highly educated, eloquent, a great storyteller, with a unique personal history and style that make her a category of one.
Though she's not at the beginning of her speaking career, it's common for newbie speakers to not value themselves and their content - I remember those days well. I also had this issue when I started out as a professional flamenco dancer, I'd get so excited if someone was willing to pay me anything to dance. My first gig at a local flamenco cafe earned me $30 for a 3-hour long evening, and I was thrilled to receive it.
I continued in this state for a couple of years, until my husband, who is Mexican, told me the story of a band who'd enjoyed great success in their hometown of Guadalajara and beyond. Though they weren't necessarily any better than the competition, they believed that they gave excellent value. They set a high price for their gigs, and stuck to it. They wouldn't compromise, and decided that they would rather be without gigs than work for peanuts. Guess what happened? The community began to see them as exclusive, they received the high rates they commanded, and whenever they did make an appearance the house would be packed.
With my husband's encouragement, I tried this out on a restaurant client in Cabo San Lucas. I was based there from 2005-2009, and at the time was just starting to develop my flamenco dance company there. This client, one of my first, had been paying me $50 for short gigs. He wanted to hire me for a special event at the usual rate, but following Armando's advice I informed him that my rate was now $300. You should have seen his face. First shock (his jaw really did drop), then laughter. I stood my ground, he shook his head in disbelief, and I went home. A few weeks later he called: we had a deal. From there, my price went upwards.
After listening to Armando sharing these stories with our friend on the phone, I began thinking about the fact that valuing yourself creates so many payoffs on different levels of your life. Here are some examples:
1) Dating/Relationships
Anyone who has been around the block a few times will hopefully have observed that whenever you pant after someone, make yourself available all the time, and betray yourself in order to please them or win their approval, the object of your desire will probably either treat you badly, ignore you, or dump you. When you value yourself, refuse to be walked on or abused, and maintain a healthy balanced life of your own, you will attract and keep more positive attention from the opposite sex than you even want or need. (added bonus: you won't need as much attention anymore because you'll already be full, confident and happy on your own steam!)
2) Your Body/Health/Looks
When you properly value your body, you listen to it and treat it well. If it's tired, you rest. If it's sick, you look for the lesson or message in it and give your body time to heal. If it's hungry, you feed it fabulous healthy foods. If it's not hungry, you don't cram fatty sugary destructive things down your throat. The result: good health, vibrant energy, and you'll look younger than your years.
3) Your destiny/life path
When you value your unique gifts and talents and the things in life that call to you, no matter what others think, surprising and fulfilling events will begin to unfold. You'll also experience the delicious self-esteem that comes from knowing that you've honored your innermost desires and hopes.
Throughout my life, few people seemed to value my talent for dance, a talent that I began to express as soon as I could walk. All the grown-ups ignored it and later, when I was in my 30's and determined to make a side career out of it, people laughed at me. Now, when they see all that I've created and experienced in my life thanks to valuing and honouring my dance dreams (at one point Armando and I were asked to teach Pink how to salsa - and that's just one example), the very same people are applauding. I can't imagine what my life what would be like if I'd listened to them and agreed that my dance dreams weren't of value and weren't worth pursuing.
Now that I think of it, my entire book Live A Life You Love: 7 Steps to a Healthier, Happier, More Passionate You is all about how to value and honor the most important aspects of yourself as you go through life.
Stand up for yourself, value yourself in spite of what anyone else says, and watch what happens. Though the world may resist you a bit at first, eventually the people whose opinions you truly value will value and love you, too.
