Photo: ColorJoy Stock
I’ve always felt chronically underpaid. With a master’s degree in history and a passion for social media marketing, I applied for 347 jobs in a single year before I got my first “real” job (yes, I kept a list)—working four part-time jobs at once during that time—and my first-ever salary clocked in at a whopping $30,000. I thought I’d struck gold, and I foolishly believed that my salary was going to be enough to pay for rent in Nashville, living expenses, insurance, my phone bill, building a savings, and the massive chunk of student debt I had after earning two degrees.
After my dream job turned out to be a nightmare, however, I started to get desperate. I took a part-time paid internship at a publishing company hoping to turn it into a full-time position and—surprisingly—it worked. A month later, the owner of the company pulled me into his office and asked me if I wanted a job taking over as the director of marketing.
Obviously, I said yes. I went from intern to leading a department overnight, and I happily accepted the $35,000 salary—completely unaware that it wasn’t anywhere near the industry standard—and clung to the promise of a raise within six months. Six months later, armed with countless spreadsheets and a report on everything I’d accomplished on behalf of the company, I walked into my boss’ office and asked for my promised raise.
And he laughed at me.
Even though I quit the job soon after, I’ll never forget that moment or the way it impacted my career (and more importantly, my salary growth) from that point on. Even though I knew I should negotiate, I found myself wavering in every conversation about money for years to follow. At my next job, when I discovered that my predecessor had been paid a whopping $25,000 more than I was, I accepted it—telling myself that they’d get me up there eventually—but after two years spent trying to prove myself worthy, I was told to “be grateful” for the amount I was given.
Eventually, I started believing that I would never break past $50,000. It was too much—too high to achieve—and despite ten years of experience, two director-level positions, speaking gigs, and a slew of clients who were obsessed with my work, that belief turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. No matter what I did, no matter how many books or courses or life coaching sessions I took, the line didn’t budge. And my self-worth tanked.
I’d always believed that something was better than nothing, so I found myself accepting every opportunity that came my way. A freelance writing gig that barely paid above minimum wage? I’ll take it. A $3,000 class that promised to teach me how to build a successful online business? I’ll buy it. An unpaid speaking gig? I’ll do it. I wrote and published my first novel. I launched a podcast. I created digital products. I sold an online course. I hustled and created and pushed myself to do more, but no matter how much of myself I gave away I felt like I couldn’t get anything in return.
I barely made $10,000 during my first year of self-employment.
Eventually, I knew something had to give. Work felt like I was attempting to lift a 500-pound weight, and—even though it wasn’t budging—I was constantly exhausted from the effort. Instead of letting myself continue to feel like a failure while half-heartedly juggling everything I’d built over the past several years, I made the difficult decision to let everything drop. I was grateful and privileged enough to have a partner who kept most of our finances afloat, so I maintained my core clients and said goodbye to maintaining my podcast, my writing, my social media platforms, my course, and more. I needed time to decide whether or not I even wanted to pick those things up again, or if I was ready to admit defeat.
Barely able to function, I remember telling my therapist that I was ready to give in, but that I wasn’t sure how I could survive a desk job. Over the last three years, I’d learned to love my independence and my ability to set my own schedule, and I was terrified that the only way I could be “successful” and hit that $50k mark was if I threw myself into a 60-80 hour a week corporate job that obliterated my free time...and my happiness.
“Forget the $50k thing, that’s a separate issue,” my therapist said. “What is your time worth? Not just the time you’re working, what is your free time worth?”
“Like, hourly?” I asked.
She nodded.
If I was honest, I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about my hourly rate. I accepted whatever was offered because I was grateful for the work, and the idea of my free time having a dollar amount next to it didn’t sit well. Why would it have an hourly rate attached to it? It’s just the time I wasn’t working. It doesn’t have worth.
Except it did. If my time had value—and even my free time had value—then that could change everything I did, and not just in my career. Later that day, I told my partner about the question and he asked if I had an answer. I laughed awkwardly and joked, “I don’t know. Seventy-five dollars an hour.”
It was more than double the amount that I was making as a freelancer, but it was a joke—it wasn’t real—so it felt safe to dream. It was just a post-therapy conversation, after all, not a quote for a potential client, so it didn’t mean anything...until I found myself watching a movie on Netflix that I didn’t even enjoy and wondered, “Is this worth $75 and hour?”
It shocked me when the answer was no.
Slowly but surely, I found myself asking that question more often than not. It shaped my decisions of how I spent my time, and I realized just how much time I was wasting on things that didn’t even bring me joy. It was like I was Marie Kondo-ing my free time, and—while sometimes the answer was a resounding yes, like when I took a much-needed break to play three hours of Animal Crossing on my Nintendo Switch—it changed the hobbies I engaged in, the people I talked to, and even my business.
I started saying no to low-paying work. I ditched the mentality that something was better than nothing and started looking for clients who could afford to pay me more. I quoted higher than I ever had, and within a month I doubled my income. Eventually, I realized that I was earning the same amount of money working part-time that I made at my first full-time job. I was ecstatic, and I even started turning away work that no longer fit my goals. Because my time had value, because I had value, the decisions I was making as an individual and as an entrepreneur started to change.
Slowly but surely, I stopped undercutting myself at every turn. Over the next few months, my business exploded. I doubled a massive proposal to a new client at the last minute—fully expecting them to negotiate for a lower rate—and was stunned when they accepted it as is. I hired an assistant, plucked up the courage to fire a client who was mistreating me, and even walked away from my lowest paying gig.
In the end, I realized that feeling underpaid was just that: a feeling. I didn’t have a $50,000 upper limit. I was my upper limit. I was the one holding myself back, I was the one consistently accepting less, and I was the one who let my imposter syndrome talk me out of tens of thousands of dollars. It was only once I decided what I was worth—and owned it—that other people could see it too.
“I ditched the mentality that something was better than nothing and started looking for clients who could afford to pay me more.”
—Jandra Sutton, Founder of The Wildest Co
About the Author: Jandra Sutton is a writer, entrepreneur, and founder of The Wildest Co, a creative agency specializing in content creation, branding, and marketing for busy entrepreneurs and small business owners. She's also the host of The Wildest Podcast, a weekly personal development podcast in 10 minutes or less. You can follow her on Instagram @jandralee.
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