Episode 35

Money goals that excite you

There are four layers of goals: the crazy layer, the control layer, the concrete layer, and the everyday. To work effectively towards a goal you need to break it down into output you can control and create steps you can build upon.

As entrepreneurs, we have to do things every day to get to our goals. But if “more money” is your goal, what will more money buy you?

Carlos and Ben explore setting financial goals that do more than help us meet our core needs, but actually excite us to do our best work.

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Transcript
Carlos:

Please, uh, share any reasons why you are here this morning other than to to kill time?

Carlos:

Saskia's here just to get a laugh.

Carlos:

That's good.

Carlos:

And Frances loves to wake up to money.

Carlos:

Well, well, we know why we're here then.

Carlos:

Just to make people laugh or maybe feel sorry for us.

Carlos:

pity

Ben:

waking up to pity.

Carlos:

So some of you actually do set goals around money, so if you do, I'd love to know what your approach to that is.

Carlos:

You know, is it like a monthly goal?

Carlos:

Is it like a yearly goal?

Carlos:

Is it an excitement goal?

Carlos:

Uh, or is it like a subsistence goal is like, I need to make this much money or else I will lose my home?

Carlos:

Or is it more like, I would love to do x, y, and Z and that's why, that's my money goal.

Carlos:

So I, I, um, love to hear if you feel comfortable enough just to share how you approach the whole money goal thing.

Carlos:

What sparked off well, so influence my ideas around the topic for today is like, uh, next week, next Monday, I'm back on Clubhouse.

Carlos:

I think it's next Monday it's a collaboration with Blinkist, uh, and we are taking a book and we're kind of discussing some of the topics of the book, which I like that idea.

Carlos:

I'd like to do that actually with the Happy, Startup School, kind of like a bite-size book club.

Carlos:

I think that's what they call it.

Carlos:

Anyway, we're talking about the book.

Carlos:

Will the, Will it Make the Boat Go Faster?

Carlos:

And it's a book that, uh, myself and Lawrence were made aware of.

Carlos:

Many years ago, actually, when the first summer camp, when, um, Jack Hubbard, an agency founder, talked about the book and how those principles about having a very simple mantra, you know, helped you focus the actions that you do every day.

Carlos:

Now with, uh, within that book, uh, he talks about these four layers of goals.

Carlos:

Essentially the, the crazy layer, the concrete layer, the control layer, and then the every day.

Carlos:

And so when he talks about the crazy layer, it's just like this big, amazing, exciting, bold vision goal thing that you want to achieve.

Carlos:

And in his case it was to win a gold medal at the Olympics.

Carlos:

And then there was the, the concrete layer.

Carlos:

It's like how do you break that down into actually specific things that you do?

Carlos:

And again, his case is like, I think to row 2000 meters in a certain amount of time, and then other very specific things.

Carlos:

And then the control layer was the things that they, he could do and the team could do.

Carlos:

So the set very concrete, uh, things that they can control.

Carlos:

So things outta the control, weather and timings and pandemics or things like that, can't do anything like that.

Carlos:

But there are things around setting the schedule of exercise or setting, uh, maybe some short to medium term plans around something.

Carlos:

And then there's the everyday, what do you do every day?

Carlos:

So that that's how you structure this idea of like, you have this amazing big vision, then how do you get it down to the every day?

Carlos:

And so I was curious about how we could apply this approach to the whole pricing thing because we have to do things every day in order to, to make some inroads, well actually take action.

Carlos:

But at the same level, one of the things that we talk about on the course is that whole thing of like, what more money will buy you.

Carlos:

And I, I would tie that too to this kind of, this crazy goal to a certain level.

Carlos:

It's like, what is that exciting thing that's gonna pull you through?

Carlos:

Because without that, something that's pulling you forward is a good chance that you and actually do the work.

Ben:

So I do set goals around money, but more, in kind of, in a number of different ways.

Ben:

So I have sort of children, conventional children, they like to eat and like a roof over their heads.

Ben:

Uh, and so there are some sort of cash flow requirements in order to keep food in their mouth, uh, and keep tiles above their heads.

Ben:

Uh, and so there are, there is some awareness around that in terms of what the kind of cash flow requirements are to sort of operate those kind of baseline things.

Ben:

So that has a kind of money thing to it.

Ben:

In terms of the other kind of other goals, so last week I went skiing, for example, and when I was thinking at the beginning of the year about things that I wanted to do, going skiing Was something I really wanted to do this year, cuz I hadn't done it for ages because the kids were eating the food and wanting to rub their heads and all the rest of it.

Ben:

So that was on my thing.

Ben:

So there were a number of things which come into, uh, my year, the things that I would like to do, place, I'd like to go things, whatever things you like to do, whatever.

Ben:

And these things, uh, oftentimes not all the time, oftentimes kind of require money.

Ben:

Uh, and so there is a, there is a kind of, sort of consequence of the things that I would like to happen or do over the year that impacts the money.

Ben:

So having an awareness of all of those things does then start to kind of translate to a kind of monetary goal, a financial target.

Ben:

Uh, and so for me, the, the kind of money thing is a, is a sort of secondary thing.

Ben:

It is obviously in service of a whole range of other things I might like to kind of do or place I might to go or things like whatever it might be.

Ben:

So in terms of the, I dunno, that kind of answers sort of explicitly the kind of crazy goal thing for me.

Ben:

I think it's less that, uh, at the moment, and maybe this is I guess is a different sort of times at the moment, it's less for me that there is kind of one crazy thing.

Ben:

There's more, there's kind of a range of different things that I would like to do or et cetera, et cetera, and those things often have some sort of monetary requirement and that does kind of point to a kind of figure then that I need to be working towards.

Carlos:

Yeah, well it, it's kind of illuminates some of maybe the, the, the realities around this because there's a, when you were talking about the, general maintenance of the money in terms of how much, you know, cash flow aspect, you know, that it's a very simple one to go to.

Carlos:

It's like, how much am I spending?

Carlos:

Can I make sure I earn more than I spend?

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

Very simple.

Carlos:

Not particularly inspiring.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

But on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, bottom two rungs trying to hit hard.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Ben:

Tick, tick,

Carlos:

Um, tick, tick, tick, tick.

Carlos:

And I think, and so, um, what springs up to me is like, I think that's very useful and very pragmatic.

Carlos:

But it could also be for some people quite limiting.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

Because that's, that's all they feel they're allowed to earn.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

Just to survive.

Carlos:

Yeah.

Ben:

Okay.

Carlos:

Then you talk about the skiing holiday, which is, I think that starts to talk to this okay.

Carlos:

All right.

Carlos:

What could more money buy me?

Carlos:

But, you know, I don't think it's ridiculously expensive.

Carlos:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

It's, it's an extra, it's a luxury, but it's not like, ah, okay.

Carlos:

I really need to change the way I think about the way, not only my money and my time, but also my time and my focus and what I wanna really commit to.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

I think part of this, I think is an interesting exploration is what are we wanting to commit to?

Carlos:

Because anything, anytime we commit to a goal, it means we're gonna say no to lots of other things.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

And I think that's one of the biggest struggles that I have personally and I see a lot of people having with setting goals.

Carlos:

And we had this conversation last week with David Papa, for those of you who are interested in that, please check out, um, the previous episode on Crowdcast here at some, at some point in the, in the future we'll have it on the podcast if I can pull my thumb out and sort this out.

Carlos:

But in the meantime, this idea of wanting a feeling of freedom.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

You know, not feeling constrained.

Carlos:

And sometimes we can be very myopic when we set a goal.

Carlos:

It's like very much, you know, Heading in one direction, which does mean that we focus, but for a lot of people, that feels really challenging.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

Because it's constraining and it feels like, you know, yeah.

Carlos:

It can feel boring nearly because you're just plotting towards the same thing.

Carlos:

I.

Carlos:

But I see, you know, this is why I was really curious about the book, and I think it's a very popular book for people in business particularly.

Carlos:

They love to think about themselves as winning and being the Olympian Olympic champion or winning a business.

Carlos:

Like have that goal, be really clear, be excited, and then everything works towards that.

Carlos:

And then I relate it to what we do with a Happy Pricing course is like, why would you do that if you're not interested in pricing more?

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

So you're either doing it on a survival basis, which is like, ah, I just don't, I'm not making enough money.

Carlos:

And so then to invest money to make more money feels like a risk anyway.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

Or you are able to create this picture of, oh, I'd love to be able to do this.

Carlos:

And in the case with David Papa.

Carlos:

Yeah.

Carlos:

Last week, he was very much, he wanted to, he wanted to, he wants to set up his own retreat center.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

Massive goal, you know, that, that isn't cheap.

Carlos:

It's gonna take some effort there, but it's, it's quite I think close to his heart, it's gonna take money, it's gonna take effort, it's gonna take some focus.

Carlos:

But it feel on one level, it's one something he says he wants to do.

Carlos:

He didn't follow through last year on trying to do it.

Carlos:

So I'm curious about this idea of like, how do we create these goals that excite us and in our case, talking about pricing and money that really get us motivated, really wanting to, to commit to something.

Carlos:

But then balance this idea for what I feel a lot of people in our circles, this need for freedom and ease.

Ben:

Mm.

Ben:

And I think, yeah, like whatever the thing is, clearly the feeling needs, you need to feel it.

Ben:

You know, it needs to be a kind of, the, the motivation needs to be kind of felt viscerally for it to be a motivation for it to compel you to, to kind of move forward.

Ben:

There's a couple of things which came to mind as you were talking.

Ben:

One.

Ben:

When I was running, uh, Free State, my last company, we had a chairman for a while, didn't really work out.

Ben:

Uh, but we had a chairman for a while.

Ben:

That sort of thing.

Ben:

Thought it would be sensible to have somebody around who kind of knew more what they were doing.

Ben:

I don't really know what.

Carlos:

Supervision.

Ben:

Adult supervision.

Ben:

And remember, we were on, uh, this kind of, sort of workshopy day with the, uh, the directors and him, and we were doing this thing with a facilitator, and the facilitator was asking the question, you know, what, what is the point of the business?

Ben:

And this guy, because he was sort of playing his role, but also how he kind of viewed the world, he said, oh, the point of the business is to generate profit.

Ben:

Uh, but actually I was kind of completely dis Good.

Ben:

That's not the point of a business, that is the outcome of a business if a business does something useful, right?

Ben:

So the point around that is the money becomes a kind of secondary thing.

Ben:

So I think money in and of itself is quite a poor motivator.

Ben:

Um, I think there are other things that we want that require money and those, so it becomes a, a secondary goal rather than the primary goal, uh, I think is, is the kind of, is is the most important thing.

Ben:

And I think to your point around the kind of freedom, one of the other things that I have in my, uh, in my sort of goals stroke plans, is that there's really only two days a week that I do work for money.

Ben:

Um, because the rest of the time there's sort of various failed podcast experiments, uh, and other sort of other adventures.

Carlos:

What are you trying to say?

Ben:

No, no, not this one.

Ben:

Um, and so there's a whole range of other things that I sort of do, which are not work for money.

Ben:

Now in order to be able to kind of have the freedom to explore those things, and lots of days I finish work when the kids get home from school, it's sort of 3:30.

Ben:

So there's all of these other sort of constraints which sort of come in today, which basically are my kind of the things around my freedom.

Ben:

Uh, and so when you start to kind of, sort of do that, again, it's not that this is gonna be right for everybody, but for me, When I then link that up to the things that I want to do or the places I might want to go, uh, and the amount of time that I'm willing to work and you know, what the expectations and requirements of kind of family are, actually, I do get quite a sort of compelling and kind of visceral set of motivations about what I will do when.

Ben:

And it also starts to point to what I need to kind of charge for my work, because if there's only 40% of the time, which I'm doing work, For money.

Ben:

The work for money needs to be at a certain kind of rate in order for, uh, it to be able to kind of pay and cover all of the other things.

Ben:

Uh, but yeah, to your, to your point, I think whatever the kind of goals or intent or feeling is of things you, you were kind of aiming for, it needs to be motivating and for it to be motivating, it needs to be felt viscerally.

Ben:

Um, you know, what's right for one person is not gonna be right for another, but some orientation, some direction of travel, I certainly find useful.

Carlos:

And, and, and this is, I think, the curious thing for me is like in absence of that clarity and that vision, what, what do we do?

Carlos:

You know, how do we, you know, get motivated to do some of the work when we don't necessarily have this big, exciting goal?

Carlos:

I mean, or this with real focus.

Carlos:

And, and it sounds like part of the, your approach seems to like, how do I wanna run my life?

Carlos:

In terms of how, what's the, what's the balance between work and play and creativity and all these things?

Carlos:

And there's that knowledge of what are, what are these things then?

Carlos:

So when we have this, I, when we can tune into what does success feel like?

Carlos:

And what is the cadence and the uh, and the rhythm, uh, and what, what lights us up?

Carlos:

Then there's like, and you can do that intentional design, then you can design the money around that.

Carlos:

That becomes the brief.

Carlos:

Rather than the money being the goal, it's like the vision is like, this is how I want to work.

Carlos:

This is how it feels.

Carlos:

Like this is the kind of the pattern of my week.

Carlos:

It takes this much money.

Carlos:

How do I, how do I then think about at the very first instance, what I do at the moment and how I charge for it.

Carlos:

Or there's then a deeper inquiry like, all right, if that doesn't work, if that those products and services aren't gonna achieve the, the money goals that I need, then what do I do about my business?

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

And how do I, how, how do I start to pivot and, and experiment, iterate towards the business model, the revenue model, the products and services that will allow me to work in the way I, uh, to live in the way I want to live.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

As opposed, I think a lot of people have, all right.

Carlos:

My work is nine to five, five days a week, how do I fit my life around it?

Carlos:

And that's, I think part of maybe the opportunity that we want to give people is like, how do we start thinking about the money and the pricing and the products and how we do this stuff at a very businessy level?

Carlos:

Because it then allows us to think about how we design our lives at the core of that.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

And that for me is maybe the difference in the aspect of like, when I see some of these other ways of people pricing, it's very much Alright target oriented.

Carlos:

I feel that's very important to have those targets and that, that specific specificity cuz you know that you're making progress.

Carlos:

But then if it just feels like money for money's sake is like, well, I'm not really interested anymore.

Carlos:

I like what Frances was just saying here, charging money pushes me to put myself out there.

Carlos:

So there's this thing about, okay.

Carlos:

I, if I'm, if I, if I make, if I have to ask money, people for money, it means I have to actually be a bit more, be a bit vulnerable.

Carlos:

I have to actually show up and deliver something.

Carlos:

And so I want to make more people happy.

Carlos:

So I need to design a product to transport my worth to people that could benefit.

Carlos:

So then there's that, you know, that extra motivation is like what transformation, what change can I make in people's lives?

Carlos:

There is of that so much value that they will pay me money?

Carlos:

And then how then that.

Carlos:

Satisfies our own needs and this, you know, what we've just been talking about.

Carlos:

You know, being clear about how do we want to design and live our lives, and then how that matches up with how the kind of impact and change that we wanna feel in the work we do.

Carlos:

And maybe that's part of that crazy, exciting goal that we need, or one way of looking at this exciting goal that we're trying to get people to think about.

Carlos:

I'm, I'm, I'm really torn between, on one level when it comes to money, it's a very objective measure that you can follow.

Carlos:

And it's a, it's a, it's a seductive measure.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

Because there's a sense of certainty and clarity.

Carlos:

It's like if the bank balance goes up, I'm doing well.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

And if the back balance goes down, goes down, I'm doing badly.

Carlos:

But most of us in our community and the people with.

Carlos:

Uh, it just still, that is not sustainable as an approach.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

Of just looking at the numbers.

Ben:

Yeah.

Carlos:

And so I think what I'm trying to search for is what is, you know, what is that approach that will help us work with the money better, but not get bogged down with the weight of, oh my God, is the money going up or down?

Ben:

Yeah.

Ben:

Yeah, yeah.

Ben:

Because yeah, that, that is a painful place to be because invariably at some point it's going up and at other points it's going down.

Ben:

And if you are kind of focused on that, you sort of feel okay when it's going up.

Ben:

But equally, I.

Ben:

You also know at some point it's gonna go down.

Ben:

So you're just sort of waiting, sort of anxiously for the time in which it, it kind of goes down.

Ben:

And, uh, I had this also when I was running Free State, we actually built up huge amounts of sort of cash reserves.

Ben:

I mean like a lot of money.

Ben:

But actually it, honestly, it didn't really, it made a little bit of difference to the kind of an anxiety levels, but actually, you know, it is a, it is a kind of fleeting thing, so it kind of doesn't really kind of help with that sort of anxiety and so in itself is not a good place to be kind of focusing.

Ben:

I think, you know, the thing for me, and this kind of links to how we do think about how we run our work, whether our work is kind of me or my own, whether it's me and sort of 3, 4, 5 others, or.

Ben:

Whether it's me with 50 others, whatever it might be, actually is, you know, what are the things that I should be focusing on that I can be focusing on that are the important things that I know if I do these things, the outcome of that is good work done for the right people, um, and that those things, if I know all of those things happen, then the kind of fruit of that journey will be money coming in.

Ben:

So it's kind of focus, it's keeping the focus on, you know, the kind of classic thing, what is the, focusing on the things that I know that I can control.

Ben:

But actually for me, I think to this point around kind of money, if free, you know, knowing if freedom is the thing and having sort of time and having balance and all of those sorts of things is the thing that you are kind of aiming for, because also that gives you the energy to be doing the work well as well, so it is an important kind of aspect is kind of is getting away from the money thing.

Ben:

And I think what we're sort of talking about a little bit on the course with the, the, the more money manifesto, the more you are connected to a range of other things which do motivate you, which do compel you forward, which are important to you, which you do feel kind of viscerally and you know, are kind of true energizing motivations, then they're the things that you were kind of working on and working towards.

Ben:

And it's also kind of going, well, how do I kind of set things up?

Ben:

What are, what are the important things I need to do in order to be making progress against those things?

Ben:

And then, you know, cuz then the mind kind of goes in its way and it starts to get sort of sucked back into the money thing.

Ben:

Is it going up, is it going down?

Ben:

And if you've kind of brought it back to a plan of things that you are kind of working on, there's an anchor for yourself.

Ben:

There's a thing to come back to.

Ben:

It's like, oh, I've been distracted.

Ben:

I'm being kind of pulled off into the kind of anxiety money place I'm coming back to here.

Ben:

I'm coming back to this thing of kind of focusing on, these are the things I need to just repeatedly focus on because I know and trust if I focus on these things, I'm going to do good work for the right people.

Ben:

And if I do good work for the right people, the fruit of that journey will be some money.

Carlos:

and and I think that's, that's an interesting.

Carlos:

Part of this, I think is, uh, the way I interpret that is understanding, uh, uh, the language I like to use is language of needs.

Carlos:

It's like, you know, this need for creativity or this need for impact, this need for learning.

Carlos:

If I know that's the thing that, energizes me by satisfying these needs, whether they make money or not, forget that for now.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

That's, that's the metric of success.

Carlos:

The more I'm sa I'm addressing these needs, the more I'm aware of them, the more happy I'm going to be.

Carlos:

And being aware that sometimes addressing those needs, for instance, I have, uh, a need for learning.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

Uh, and a need for connection.

Carlos:

And this is why I love doing these things, whether it's Working Up to Money, whether it's the Friday Fireside, I just love doing them and I love talking to people and exploring ideas out loud and sometimes, people will find that of value.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

Because we will learn something, we'll accumulate a bit of knowledge, we'll put together a way of thinking that will help someone else price better.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

Or make more money because we'll give them an opportunity and a space to actually focus on that work.

Carlos:

And so how I price that, how I then offer that and decide what the value is of that and to whom, can also help me meet my needs to do this.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

Because then I can use that as an opportunity, not because, oh, I can, I need to make loads of money on that course.

Carlos:

It's like, okay, how can I create more space, like you said, to just spend three days a week pursuing my own needs and how can I also pursue my own needs by offering stuff of value?

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

And that not being like, oh my God, if no one likes it, this work that I do is not of value.

Carlos:

It's like it's of value anyway, because I love doing it.

Carlos:

What I'm now doing is like focusing on other people and the outcomes they want to create and saying, okay, how does that fit into their lives and how does that fit into how much they wanna invest in terms of time, money, and energy to achieve the goals they want to do?

Carlos:

And, and me facilitating that.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

And you facilitating that and then that, then that becomes, okay, alright, I get to do more of the stuff I love and I get to play with money.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

And I get to try out these different approaches and, and be less constrained by maybe some beliefs and stories.

Carlos:

Like, oh, you can only charge this much.

Carlos:

Oh, there's a market rate.

Carlos:

Oh, you know, because they don't want it.

Carlos:

It's not of any value.

Carlos:

And actually, actually, no, there's, there's other stories at play here that I can play with because I'm not tied to having to get the money in order to have some self worth and, and feel like I'm a success cause I'm doing the stuff I love doing.

Ben:

I think cause it's interesting you kind of making the connection back to the, the needs thing.

Ben:

So when I think about my goals at the beginning of the year and they're not sort of comprehensive, so, right?

Ben:

It's just sort of like a range of couple of things in there, right?

Ben:

Two different pages, okay.

Ben:

?And when

Carlos:

That's all I've got

Ben:

So when I write them, but they are all linked to, they are all linked to kind of needs and feelings essentially.

Ben:

So it's like when I'm kind of asking myself, what are these things kind of important?

Ben:

Oh yeah, this does kind of satisfy my need to sort of talk randomly at people.

Ben:

Or my need to kind of learn or kind of need for, for, uh, connection or creativity and or kind of the need for kind of beauty or love or connection or whatever it might be.

Ben:

And so when I'm going back over the thing, just to kind of, to, to get a, a kind of a feeling sense check, if you like, of whether these things are important, I am connecting them back to an underlying need or an underlying feeling.

Ben:

Cause I'm kind of confident when I do that, that there is true kind of motivation in there.

Ben:

There is real motivation in there.

Ben:

Uh, and so I, I think that does give me the kind of confidence to, you know, it, the, the kind of link back then to, to kind of pricing and to, uh, to money and to selling.

Ben:

You know, again, this all has a, this has an impact on the work that I do, how much time there is and who, you know, how much it needs to kind of generate all of those things I was sort of talking about before, but we're not really clear what, how it fits into the whole kind of picture, how it fits into what's important to me, It kind of lends a confidence, if you like.

Ben:

It does lend me confidence to be able to kind of know, okay, this is the kind of work that I most want to do.

Ben:

This is the kind of work that I'm most effective at doing.

Ben:

And these are the kinds of people, uh, to kind of Frances's point and thing we are sort of talking about there, these are the kinds of people who, for whom I can deliver the most impactful change.

Ben:

Uh, and I know that that kind of symbiotic relationship of me doing work that energizes me in such a way for the people who kind of, uh, can benefit most from it, there is kind of goodness in that relationship, which is going to affect the money.

Ben:

And it does affect then how I sort of sell and the conversations I have and who and who I have those conversations with.

Carlos:

One of the, the things that sprang up yesterday, we just started our Vision 2020 program, One, on one, one of the participants said they wanna make meaningful money.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

So whatever they do, they wanna make lots of money, but it needs to be meaningful.

Carlos:

So it feels like one of the things to think about here is like, what does meaningful work mean to you?

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

And that's always a challenging topic.

Carlos:

Maybe that's something we can talk about next.

Ben:

Yeah.

Carlos:

It's like how do we, how do we, what does meaning mean to you?

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

And how do we think, talk about meaning.

Carlos:

And I've got a framework that I love called the map of meaning that we could talk through.

Carlos:

But then I think when we can tie that the work to meaning, then the money has meaning.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

And, and I think Lawrence talks about happy money.

Ben:

Mm.

Carlos:

It's like where it feels like the money you are earning is, there's a joy and an energy around it.

Ben:

Yeah.

Carlos:

Rather than a lack and a demand around it.

Carlos:

So Frances has a question here.

Carlos:

Do you guys price something according to how excited you are about delivering it?

Carlos:

Interesting.

Carlos:

So conversely what I've experienced is people who really love their work find it harder to charge more for it, because they feel like, well, I enjoy it so much.

Carlos:

And these are the circles I've been in and it's like, ah, it's, it's so nice.

Carlos:

I, I like it so much.

Carlos:

It's like, well, you know, I don't need to charge that much, cause I actually enjoy the work so much that I, you know, the money feels like it starts to sually it.

Carlos:

So there's an interesting question about, price something according to how excited you are about delivering it.

Carlos:

The way I would look at that.

Carlos:

Now, these days, given what I've learned on this Happy Pricing course and, and teaching it and learning from Ben is like, it's, it's more about how excited the other person is to, to doing the work.

Carlos:

Uh, and for me it's like whether I'm, I have to be excited to actually deliver it.

Carlos:

If I'm not excited to deliver it, then it feels like a slog and I think it will affect the pricing because I'm not so energized or confident or clear about the outcome.

Carlos:

I'm not, I'm not really talking about the value in the way that it needs to be talked about.

Carlos:

So I think on a tangential level, I, the excitement about delivering the work has an effect on the pricing, but I'm not sure about whether, how direct that is.

Ben:

I guess what I'd say, I think that is the invitation in that point.

Ben:

If people find themselves doing that, where they're basically saying, oh, I'm really excited, I really want to do this.

Ben:

Of course you have the right to not charge very much there, but everything that's happening in that moment is the person thinking about themselves, not thinking about the person who's buying.

Ben:

Like, oh, I really enjoy this.

Ben:

I don't wanna charge very much.

Ben:

Or I wanna, I, I am really excited about this.

Ben:

I'm confident to charge a lot.

Ben:

So both of those things may happen, but the important thing here is not what's happening here, the important thing is what's happening there in the kind of heart and mind of the person who is buying from you.

Ben:

Uh, so our excitement, yeah, hopefully we are excited about the work we do because that energizes us and it kind of powers us out of bed in the morning.

Ben:

And so that hopefully should be a prerequisite of what we are doing or why we're doing it.

Ben:

But then the important thing is to, to kind of suspend our own feeling about it a little bit and try and get into the heart and mind of the person who's buying, because they're the important one to determine what something is worth, how much they'll buy.

Ben:

All of those sort of things, not about us, but about them.

Carlos:

When it comes to the money, when it comes to the value, comes to the number and the price, totally agree with Ben.

Carlos:

It's nothing about us.

Carlos:

It's about them.

Carlos:

Because they're the ones who can dictate what makes sense to them in terms of how much they're gonna spend.

Carlos:

When it comes to doing the work, when it comes to the feeling of, of satisfaction and, and the outcomes.

Carlos:

Yes.

Carlos:

It's both of us.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

Because if we don't enjoy it, we won't deliver the best work.

Carlos:

And if they don't feel it, they won't feel like they got any value.

Carlos:

So at that level, totally, both of us are involved.

Carlos:

And you're talking about coaches deliver coaching because for their own mental health, they just didn't, you know, there's something around that process, that's great.

Carlos:

But at the same time, if you're not conscious of that and that leaks into the money conversations, then that's a problem.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

Well, that's gonna be a challenge, and you're gonna find, you won't be able to price well in that sense for one of the better.

Carlos:

So next week I think we're gonna talk about meaning.

Carlos:

What does it mean to do meaningful work or have a sense of meaning and then how we can blend that into meaningful money.

Ben:

On that podcast that I have, I have interviewed a guy called Jeremy Lent, uh, who's written a couple of books.

Ben:

One of them is called The Patenting Instinct.

Ben:

And so his second book, the Web of Meaning, which is a kind of brilliant follow on to

Carlos:

Yeah.

Ben:

to that, but yeah, so that book is was all a kind of consequence of his search For what?

Ben:

Search For Meaning, understanding meeting.

Carlos:

Awesome.

Carlos:

I love it.

Carlos:

Okay, well, uh, Let us know when it's out so we can share it with everyone.

Carlos:

I want to hear that interview.

Carlos:

Have a great day everyone.

Carlos:

Enjoy.

Carlos:

Thank you very much for your time and attention.

Carlos:

Until next time, ladies potatoes.

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