Big Sis Briefing: I Was Terrified People Only Liked Me Because I Was Free

There is the business plan…
There is the strategy…
Then there is the quiet identity crisis you never saw coming.

I've been running my own business for almost six months now and I thought I had my head around the hard parts. The inconsistent income, sure. The loneliness of working alone, yes. The fear that creeps in when you're no longer trading on a corporate title and “lawyer” identity, absolutely. I expected all of that.

What I didn't expect was the full-body recoil that happened the first time I quoted a price for my coaching services and waited for someone to say yes or no. My throat tightened. My chest got hot. Every cell in my body screamed at me to backtrack, to offer a discount, to make myself smaller and cheaper and easier to say yes to.

No one tells you that the scariest part of building something from scratch is not the revenue projections or the client pipeline or the systems you need to set up. It is the inner work. It is the reckoning that happens the moment you ask someone to pay for something you poured your heart into and you realise you're not just selling a service - you're declaring that you have value. Out loud. In dollary dos.

For months, I told myself I was being generous by keeping my prices low or offering things for free. I told myself I was building trust, creating goodwill, giving lawyers what I wished someone had given me when I was struggling in my own career.

All of that was true.

But there was something else running underneath, something I couldn't see clearly until I was sitting in a Zoom room with six other women who were brave enough to name their own versions of the same fear.

It was a Wednesday morning session with my Founders Table mastermind - this small group of women entrepreneurs that Mollie from The Fulfilment Lab brought together. We meet every two weeks, and on this particular morning, we were talking about pricing strategy. The kind of tactical, practical stuff that feels safe to discuss. Revenue models. Market positioning. Value propositions.

But when I was put in the hot seat, I said something that cracked me open. I'd finally figured out why I was undercharging in some areas of my business. I was terrified that once I charged what I was worth, people would realise that I wasn't worth it. That they only liked working with me because I was “cheap”, or even free.

The silence that followed was telling.

I felt my eyes sting. Because there it was. The belief I'd been carrying around like a stone in my pocket, the one I hadn't wanted to look at directly.

I was terrified that people only liked me because I was free. Ouch.

That the moment money entered the relationship, everything would change. They would see me differently. They would realise I wasn't actually that valuable. They would ghost me or make excuses or just quietly disappear.

Underneath that fear was something even more primal: the idea that wanting to be paid fairly meant I was greedy, difficult, unfeminine or ungrateful. All the things I'd spent my whole life trying not to be.

Mollie asked us a question that I haven't been able to stop thinking about since. She said: "When you pay someone to help you with your business - a coach, a consultant, a service provider, me - how do you feel about them? Do you value them less because you're paying them, or more?"

The answer was obvious. I value the people I pay. I take their advice more seriously. I show up more committed. I invest in myself through them and that investment changes the relationship. It elevates it.

So why, Mollie asked gently, would it be any different when someone pays you?

I didn't have an answer. Or rather, I had an answer, but it was just fear wearing a cute logic costume.

That session became oxygen for me. It steadied me when my brain tried to pull me back into old patterns, back to the safety of being liked rather than valued. The women in that group gave me permission to test the belief instead of just accepting it as truth. They reminded me that being open and curious about our fears is how we disarm them, not by pretending they don't exist or white-knuckling our way through them.

So I tested it. I raised my rates. I stopped offering free "pick my brain" sessions.

I created clear boundaries around what was included in my coaching packages and what wasn't. I quoted prices without immediately following them up with justifications or apologies.

Here's what happened since: nothing catastrophic. Actually, the opposite. SURPRISE F*CKING SURPRISE!

People value the work more. They show up more prepared. They implement what we discussed. They told me it was changing their careers. They asked to work with me again. They referred their friends. Not a single person said, "I only liked you when you were free”.

The fear was never true. But I had to walk through it to know that for sure.

I still want a business that's grounded in accessibility. I still want to meet people where they are. I have full flexibility to offer reduced rates or pro bono work when someone is genuinely in need and I have the capacity to help. That alignment matters to me. Heart-led work matters to me. Not feeling like a capitalist vulture matters to me.

But I also know now that those things aren't mutually exclusive with being fairly compensated for my expertise, my time and the transformations I know I deliver. I can honour it all. I can build something sustainable without betraying my integrity. I can rewrite the story I believed about women, money and worth.

This is the real work when you start your own thing.

The work under the work. The part you can't outsource or delegate or skip over. The part that reshapes you from the inside out.

If you're at the start of your own chapter - whether that's a business, a side project, a creative practice or just a different way of showing up in your career - I want you to know this: You're not broken for finding this part hard. You're not alone in the wobble. Starting something new will always bring your beliefs about worth and value and deserving right up to the surface. It's supposed to.

It's how you find out what you actually believe versus what you were taught to believe.

Stay open. Stay honest with yourself. Find your people and let them hold up a mirror when you can't see yourself clearly. Let yourself be changed by the work.

Your worth isn't up for debate. The only question is whether you're ready to believe it.

I’m ready now.

Mel

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