Losing out to low prices? Stick 'em up!

OUR money man, ROBIN CURRIE, has found that most people’s money problems are based around shame, fear, greed, guilt, loss or lack - but they can be overcome...

SO what's your problem? Long experience indicates that whatever it is, once you translate it into money terms it increases about eight hundredfold and assumes a slightly skewed aspect. This is the equivalent of erecting a huge distorting mirror in your bathroom and then asking who’s the fat sluggard whose face you are attempting to wash.

I was reminded of this recently. A highly-successful client revealed that she was impelled to keep working at something she didn’t enjoy for fear of the money-flow seizing up. Given the size and scope of her financial success, this was improbable to the point of absurdity. However, she was stuck in a loop where she felt that she had to keep going. If she didn’t, she would forfeit her right to any income. Money, she was clear, has to be earned and ideally through discomfort.

We discussed this at length and it became clear that she was able to understand the issue - but not to tackle it.

This in turn reminded me of the work of a distinguished American educationalist. Kolb Learning Theory says that everybody asks the same four basic questions: What? Why? How? and What if? However, each of us has one we favour over the rest.

So a teacher whose fascination is with why things happen will lecture the students on that, satisfying some but leaving the remainder bored or baffled. Equally, someone who wants to concentrate on 'what?' questions will find a majority of their students gossiping and passing notes under the desk.

What's even more interesting is that each of these questions seems to relate to a specific time-frame. 'Why?' deals exclusively with the past; 'What?' analyses the present without really participating ;and 'What if? looks to an (almost always negative) future. The question 'How?' covers the other three, but has two aspects - an impotent 'oh poor me, how am I going to manage?’ and an empowered 'okay, we know exactly where we're going - now, let's look at how we proceed.’

And as you will remember, when it comes to money everything feels hugely inflated and bizarre. So the questions we ask relate to a grotesque exaggeration of our issues around shame, fear, greed, guilt, loss and lack. And occasionally joy, freedom and abundance, although those people don’t often come on my workshops.

And further, each issue is held within an impervious time-frame which we have cleverly (and unconsciously) constructed.

This doesn’t sound particularly optimistic, does it?

I mention the apparent difficulties because the lady I refer to above was highly successful in resolving her issues. She realised that she was effectively backing into the future, taking her experience of the past and projecting it forward - this on the basis that if it was predictable then it was safe. And for her (as for many of us) it was more important to have a feeling of safety than to have what she said she wanted. In her case, safety was a dysfunctional relationship with abundance where she felt that she had to have a nasty experience in order to deserve to receive any income.

It is often believed that money is a compensation for having a rotten employment experience. If that was true then dustmen would be multi-millionaires and people like Rupert Murdoch (who patently loves what he does) would be starving in the gutter. Of course, it’s the other way round - money is a reward for having a wonderful time.

And it’s reciprocal. The more you earn, the more it’s possible to enjoy your work, and the more you enjoy your work the more it’s possible to earn. All you have to do is to break the link between suffering and reward. As my lady client did.

So why the title of this article? Because I have another lady client who works in complementary therapy and who hasn’t put up her prices since 1990. And she is in some financial difficulty. I asked her if she was a better practitioner now than 14 years ago and she agreed cautiously that this was the case. We discussed inflation and she accepted that the value of her income had reduced by about 30%. But she still didn’t like the idea of increasing the amount she charged her clients because, she argued, they wouldn’t be able to afford to see her.

I responded with a story from my own past. When I started running workshops I was fortunate enough to work with a wise man. I was proposing to charge the (to me enormous) sum of £15 for a full day. I expected about 20 people. My mentor asked what would happen if I doubled the charge and I said that I’d only get about half the numbers. Who would then get twice the amount of my time.

"Well," he said, "then who would suffer?"

I have often observed a belief among us old hippies that you can’t be spiritual and financially successful. I would argue that you can be a renunciate if you like, in which case you should have nothing to do with the physical universe at all and you don’t need a pension plan. But if you’ve chosen to incarnate in a world of abundance, it’s an insult to the Creator to throw his gifts back in his face and pretend that you’re above it all.

So here’s my message to all complementary therapists and alternative practitioners - particularly those who are experiencing financial insecurity because they aren’t charging proper prices: Stick ‘em up!



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Robin Currie is an Independent Financial Adviser specialising in green finances. He has offices in Exeter and Totnes. For an appointment, call him direct on 01392-411630 or e-mail robin.currie@btconnect.com.