21 Apr Don’t be stopped by money wounds: ask boldly
Don’t be stopped by money wounds: ask boldly. Here’s how–whether you’re fundraising, investment-raising, asking for a higher salary or higher hourly rate. Image: Edu Lauton.
Don’t be stopped by money wounds: ask boldly
It’s normal to have them, but don’t be stopped by money wounds: ask boldly even though you have them. You don’t have to wait til you’re fully healed to ask boldly. Whether you are fundraising, investment-raising, asking for a higher salary or higher hourly rate, let this post guide you. Do not let money wounds keep you from asking boldly.
Money wounds are no reason to be stopped
Everyone has money wounds. Money is often used to hurt people. It’s also used to reward us for things that don’t matter. Money is withheld from us when we need it. It’s very normal to have money wounds.
It’s understandable that you feel hurt, scared, angry, or other ways about money
When we feel controlled, oppressed, isolated, alienated from our work and results we produce for others it makes perfect, organic sense that we feel hurt and angry–this leads us to feel afraid as well. I can’t express how common this is, and how valuable it is to pay attention to it rather than denying or repressing it.
When we do this, we establish solidarity with ourselves and with the other people we want to ask boldly for more money! We actually establish a bridge with them because they have money wounds, too!
Other people are stopped by their money wounds
The weirdest thing is that other people have money wounds too. If everyone has them, it stands to reason the person you believe is controlling your ability to have more money also has money wounds! This is a revelation however if we are solely focused on our own money wounds.
The fact that your donor, investor, boss, or client has money wounds is very useful information!
I don’t mean that you should manipulate other people around their money wounds.
I simply mean that you now realize you have something in common with them!
This builds a bridge when you use the information correctly. Not to manipulate, because then you become the creepy oppressor around money. The information I’m sharing would help you do that but rethink if you are even tempted: don’t harm others. Information is power: how will you use yours?
Asking for (more) money is ok!
If you feel you want more money, chances are very good that you should have asked for more long ago. Your work is good. The results you create are good. Your business or nonprofit or project is good! You would not even be reading this post if you didn’t have good reason to ask boldly.
The ability to ask boldly does not come from reason, it comes from emotion
The reason you’re having a hard time asking boldly for more money is the same reason you feel wounded: feeling! emotion! Money is numbers but those numbers are tied to tremendous emotions, up ones and down ones. Money can jack us up and depress us, in the same day, sometimes from one moment to the next.
The key is awareness. Become aware of your own money emotions. Become aware of the gamut, the full range of emotions you experience around money. Chances are they range from joy to despondency. Crazy, right? But also true. Let’s face it, and use our awareness in facing it to become fiercer with our own truth about money.
In this exact way, you can learn to ask boldly for the money you want.
Use your emotion to help you ask boldly!
I hope I’ve convinced you so far:
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- to feel all your feelings around money
- to notice them with awareness.
Once you notice emotions, they change. They may melt away, or become easier to handle–highs as well as lows.
You are cultivating detachment when you do those two things
Detachment is the secret key after awareness.
Detachment is healthy! Just as wounds are normal, detachment is healthy. It’s a healthy way to relate to our wounds, which means facing our feelings and noticing that if we can see them, we are not them.
Your wounds are not you!
When you take time for awareness around your feelings, what you immediately realize is that you are not them. This is what I mean by “detachment.” Not alienation, not becoming an emotionless robot but becoming a person who has compassion for themselves.
This detachment stuff is powerful. You can watch yourself change if you use this approach. Stay committed to the awareness and detachment, however because it will bring up more emotions and feelings for healing. Be ready to keep working on your healing.
You can ask for money boldly even when you are wounded
You don’t need to wait, feel all your freaking feelings about money and then ask for money boldly.
Nuh-uh. You can start preparing to do it right now, right while you read this post.
Steps:
1. Think carefully about how much you’d like to ask for & prepare:
If you’re fundraising:
Do some research, and reflect on what size gift really makes sense to ask this person. Don’t hold back. Be compassionate. Remember they have wounds. They are a person, not an ATM. Don’t treat them as an ATM. Your new freedom in asking will instead empower you to ask more people, to take responsibility for asking enough people that you had been shying away from because of your wounds. Don’t try to make bank on one poor donor! Just reflect and research what would make sense as the next gift you’d like to ask them for, in context of the relationship you have with them.
If you’re investment-raising:
You of course must do the same thing and the relationship you have with your investor is every bit as important. Integrity, compassion, and boldness must be yours in equal measure. In balance.
Asking for a higher salary?
Hold your boss in your mind with compassion. Look at the situation from their perspective. Do your homework. And then ask boldly! Compassion is not putting others’ needs or wounds ahead of yours. It is just noticing they, too, have them.
Asking for a higher hourly rate?
My personal recommendation is to practice it til the words come easily and naturally out of your mouth. Journal how you want to ask. Practice in front of the mirror. Practice with a friend or soul-colleague who already supports you, and knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that it is ok for you to ask for a higher hourly rate. Every bit of this advice is designed to help you know beyond the shadow of a doubt that it is ok for you to ask for a higher hourly rate! Because if it feels natural and normal to you, your clients will feel it. If you are embarrassed, they will feel that too. This is not some tweak or instant alignment; it is embodied belief. Once you can casually tell people your new hourly rate, you’re ready. Practice, practice, practice.
2. And then make your ask.
In writing, in person, over the phone. We are mammals. And can smell fear even over Zoom. We can also sense ease, peace of mind, and calm confidence. All of those feelings come through loud and clear whether we are consciously aware or simply aware in the background of our mammalian minds.
3. Keep healing your money wounds.
I can help you. I’m a certified money coach. I’m an amazing nonprofit fundraising trainer/consultant. Here’s a post I wrote empowering everyone to fundraise who wants to. My “bible,” the book Money Magic by Deborah L. Price (who certified me as a moneycoach) is a great workbook and place to begin if you prefer to work on your own. But know this: I offer a free exploratory meeting to anyone and everyone who is serious about considering working with me, and wants me to seriously consider working with them. I don’t begin work for anyone I don’t already know without it! Here’s where to book that meeting.
Don’t let money wounds stop you
Having money wounds makes you normal; it doesn’t mean you have to shy away from money, or from asking for (more) money quite boldly.
Who would not be hurt or afraid of money?
We can heal our relationship with money
But money also belongs to you. Your relationship with money is one you can heal. Not before, not after, but while you are practicing and preparing to ask, and while you ask boldly. Your example will help the other person heal too! This is exactly my experience. I have learned and practice everything I am recommending you. Has my wounded boldness helped you begin to heal already–just by reading this post?
I thought so.
With love for you and your asking boldness!
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