by Tara Joyce | Mar 27, 2015 | Cultural Creativity, Pay What It's Worth Pricing
Can you really know your value?
Is it a fixed thing?
Is it of value to quantify your worth?
These questions intrigue my mind.
To explore this curiosity, I developed a (business) practice of not setting prices. In this system of pricing, I place no limit on the value of my offerings, and instead I trust and guide my customers to fairly determine the value of what they’re receiving, and the price they pay for it.
In not setting a price on the value of my service, I’ve come to understand something powerful: the only real limits to your value are the ones you place on yourself.
Your value doesn’t have a limit, unless you choose for it to. It’s not a fixed thing; it changes, rises and falls, relationship-to-relationship, exchange-to-exchange, and it grows as you learn to value yourself more responsibly.
The heart of it is: your worth, and the value you place on it, sets your intentions for what you receive. You have the power to choose how limitless you truly are.
There is no need to fix or limit your value; rather there is a necessity for you to grow into your awareness of it and your boundaries around it. In my experience as you do you’ll find your world, and the value of it, grows graciously with you.
A version of this article was originally published on Fine Lines.
photo credit: Nicolas Raymond
by Tara Joyce | Mar 19, 2015 | Cultural Creativity, Self/Business Growth
You’re not going to make the difference for me: I am.
I’m not going to make the difference for you: you are.
You and I, can not and do not need to save anyone from anything.
However ardently you believe that I would be happier and more satisfied following your lead, you must resist the temptation to try to change me. You can not heal me. Only I can. There is a reason for where I am right now, and how you feel I “should” be or “could” be is not really relevant, helpful nor right.
No matter the richness of the life you’ve built, you are still not qualified to speak on behalf of the/my greater source. No matter what you feel you know, nor what I feel you know, you do not know better. What you know will never surpass what you do not know. Your understanding of my life must always be limited.
It is a disservice to me, and to you, to make assumptions about my intentions, preferences, and goals. Respect my right to be myself. If you find yourself feeling that you need to change me and save me, if you’re feeling that perhaps you know better, it’s an opportunity to look at what needs healing within. How can you really know better? What are you overcompensating for?
Just as my life is about healing and wholing myself, so too is yours. We both have the right to do so, at our own pace, without interference. In doing your own work, and allowing me to do mine, you’re making all the difference. For your changing the one person you actually can: you.
photo credit: wackystuff
by Tara Joyce | Mar 11, 2015 | Cultural Creativity, My Journey | What's On My Mind, Self/Business Growth
Are there things in your life that feel heavy and “work”-like?
For me, dinner has long felt like a task that really weighed me down. I didn’t like how it needed to be planned, I didn’t like how long it took to make, I didn’t like how short it took to eat, and I didn’t like how I didn’t appreciate how it tasted once I’d cooked it. The action was wholly undesirable to me. Yet I had to eat — and so did my family. What was I to do? I needed to find a way to enjoy the process of the action — the beginning, middle, and end — not just getting to the end, and the results it would bring.
To grow in my enjoyment of my heavy task, I began paying attention to the places in my life where I was able to “play” and enjoy the process of an action, and I paid attention to the places where I was not able to do this. I began noticing if I made time to “play” each day in those spaces that felt good, it supported me in bringing more play into the places that feel more heavy, serious and “work”-like. By contrasting my feelings of “play” and of “work”, I found myself with more space to “play” in the heavy stuff and the lighter it became.
This leads me to connect the “work” of making dinner to the “work” of business ownership; no matter what may feel like “work” in your life, there is immense support available to you through learning about the value of lightness, and how efficient it is in getting stuff done.
photo credit: Anant Nath Sharma
language inspired by Lama Marut’s “Be Nobody”
by Tara Joyce | Mar 5, 2015 | Cultural Creativity, Pay What It's Worth Pricing
I’m so intrigued by what I’m witnessing. With time, I’m learning of more and more business experimenting with not setting prices. Their individual approaches to doing so are wholly unique, with nuances tailored to meet their specific business needs. What is shared by each however, is their need to identify and communicate what exactly they are asking for their customer to do, if their customer is not paying a set price.
How exactly does the exchange work?
What are my needs as the seller and what role does the customer play in meeting them?
What does the buyer need and what role do I play in meeting them?
What is truly being exchanged and valued between us?
While their answers may change with experience, in order to sell now, these businesses need to determine what they are asking for their buyer to do, and how to communicate it clearly. For as the buyer, before I commit to make a purchase, I need to understand what I am giving in order to receive what you are selling. I need to understand my end of our agreement.
Whether I set prices or not as a business owner, I need to have clarity around the question, “What am I asking for in my business exchanges?” It fortifies my integrity (and my customer’s) to establish norms, accountability and disclosure around my system for giving and receiving with them. The closer I get to knowing what I need AND what I’ve been asking for, AND how they may differ, the closer I am to creating my most value-adding and harmonious business exchanges.
In every relationship, business or not, in order for it to be healthy and mutually beneficial, I need to be responsible to my needs by identifying and communicating them. It is of deep service to my Self and to the person I am in relationship with to do the work to recognize my needs and to share them compassionately. For in growing my own awareness, I create space for the other person’s needs to be recognized too — by them and by me. Only when both of our needs are recognized and fulfilled is our relationship a healthy and sustainable one. And one where we can both trust and grow wealthy in our exchange of giving and receiving.
In your own business, do you know what you’re asking for? Are you receiving what you need? If you find there’s a space in-between, please take note of it. The more you learn about and explore this space of lack, the closer you’ll be to whole-ing it. It’s from this place of responsibility (to your own needs and your customers) that you can and will grow harmoniously together.
photo credit: Fibonacci Blue
