As this calendar year begins, I am facing a moral reality that I can no longer ignore. It was a splinter that started out small but then began to wedge itself so deeply in my skin that it’s actually started to cause pain. After almost 2 decades of getting really good at what I do, I’ve decided to give myself a big paycut.
But how can making a lucrative hourly wage cause pain? And doesn’t earning more just make everything better?
Let’s back up a bit; In 2009 I moved to Berlin with little more than I could carry and made everything up from scratch. I had worked a million jobs in my other life, but when I arrived here I had the opportunity to do something beautiful: integrate. I started to write content for websites and blogs and handle marketing and communications for small businesses, then I founded a full service agency and started to initiate and manage larger projects all the while helping hundreds of small businesses (authors, chocolate makers, photographers, multimedia projects, training programs) to improve the way they worked and how they communicated it with the online world. I started my work at 20 euros per hour and incrementally – only as I acquired new skills and felt ready – raised my rates year after year.
In 2023 after leaving a toxic work environment where I managed a large international team, when I returned to the freelance consultancy work that I loved, I raised my rates again. I had just spent some time in “start-up land” where Capital is really just a game of what you can make people believe you can do (read: so little actually getting done and yet so much money floating around!) And after working in communication design, project management, and team building – adding so many skills to my toolbox – a higher rate seemed like something I had “earned”.
But making 250/hour has made me miserable. It took a while to figure it out, but I finally realized why: I had lost site of my original mission to build beautiful and important things in this world. And what’s more the people I want to work with most simply can’t afford me.
I have worked hard over the years to become insanely creative and strategic – sharp yet flexible – able to jump in anywhere, see what needs doing and help make things happen. But as I heal from this Capitalistic machine we are all suffering under the weight of, as I really start to make space to reimagine wealth instead of just subscribing to the rat race, as I am reassessing my needs and dreams – the way I make my money has to shift. I can’t just wish for change, I need to become it.
Getting honest about how our unequal world works and how I want to show up in it has produced the following unexpected results:
- Any illusions about money equalling happiness, are gone
- I can more quickly identify toxic working relationships (and remove myself from them)
- I am more protective about where my energy goes
- Taking less for granted, I am deeply grateful for all the resources I have in life
- The list of things I want to have is getting smaller and smaller
- I have less FOMO and more JOMO
- Rest comes to me more easily (without guilt)
- I have found an actual feeling /experience of “enough-ness”
I have said for many years that our life’s work gives us an incredible opportunity to meet parts of ourselves that we might otherwise miss. This idea that making more makes us worth more is simply just not true. And after spending enough time in that currency bound mindset, I have come to honestly need more value.
I want to help people bring their dreams into form. I want to be a bridge between the things people are doing to support others and the people who really need that support. I want to spend my life with people who genuinely want to make this world a better place and who are willing to do the inner work to become the change.
So, effective immediately, I am lowering my hourly consulting rate from 250 to 125 and I am setting a pay-what-you-can sliding scale pricing 30/hr – 80/hr for anyone with limited financial resources.
If you have an idea you need to figure out how it works, or if you are already working on something and need support, I would love to be by your side. Just send me a message.
I want to spend my life doing stuff that matters.