Fear of Wealth

I think this is something worth examining from time to time. I remember there was a time in my life not long ago when I had been making about $12/hour, and I had never experienced what it was like to earn more. I had grown talented at making websites, and I met someone that wanted me to help them with their customers' websites.

I had been used to charging the equivalent of the same wages I was making at my full time job (customer service) to my website customers. Then my new business partner told me we would be charging our new customer $1500/month. This was HUGE to me. This was almost as much as I was making on my full time job.

The problem I had was I felt guilty. All we did was make a design and submit the site to some directories. Then the customer wanted some miscellaneous edits. My partner at the time said we would need to charge $300 more. At this point I protected. I said this will take me no more than a few minutes to do this, and it was not fair for me to receive $300 for this work.

Then I remember our phone conversation. My business partner told me that if I were there with you now I would grab you by the shoulders and shake you, and tell you its okay to earn this money. You have spent years learning how to do this work, and though it may only take you a few minutes to do this, the customer is also paying you for the commitment you have made in your life to reach this point where completing the work professionally can be done in only a few minutes.

At the time, I still didn't completely understand him or take it to heart, but in the years that followed, I learned to accept that the years I had put into learning about websites was worth more than I had ever imagined.

Now, software that I helped create is installed on 100,000 websites and growing, and there are tens of millions of pages on the web that were generated by the software I helped create. I am starting to realize the value of what I have learned. I don't have millions of dollars in the bank, a super sports car, or a big house, but I do have more freedom in my life that I ever could have imagined those years ago where my partner grabbed me by the shoulders (over the phone) and told me that I was worth something, and that I didn't have to feel guilty about making money, especially in light of all the time I had spent learning and helping people with their websites.

I still believe that I could improve in this area, and I believe that people's beliefs about money, as well as the value they can provide to others, is the main reason they are not as successful as they could be.

Your thoughts?