Stop Shrinking and Start Invoicing

How I Stopped Shrinking and Started Charging My Value

I started my business with a broken wrist, neck, and leg. My lover had been talking about marriage. When he gifted me a laptop instead of the diamond ring I had hoped for, I was disappointed. A mix of gratitude and frustration, I declared I would use his gift to get rich and buy my own diamond. Three laptops later, I’m still working on that goal.

Social media feeds were filled with self-proclaimed six-figure earners, and that felt like a good place to start. I wasn’t sure how ring lights, perfect feeds, and professional headshots would pay my son’s college tuition, but I was determined to try. So I jumped in wallet first, taking this class and that one, chasing the blueprint for success.

I took the scenic route to my strengths. I didn’t know how to measure the value of my skills, and I didn’t have much confidence, so I said yes to everything. Being able to charge thirty dollars an hour felt like striking gold after welfare and food stamps. It was even more than my certified teacher’s salary. But I was still selling myself short while others earned three or four times as much.

I was teaching classes, updating websites, running social media pages, and writing press releases. My office was the bed, and my only coworkers were Google tabs. I wasn’t trying to change the world. I needed to work, live, and get well.

I sold what I could, how I could, until I figured out the best business model for me. To me, it was just common sense to put out the simplest thing I could offer. My Minimum Viable Product gave me the chance to test my ideas, refine my pitch, and improve my work without overspending or overcomplicating my deliverables. In the process, I learned what I loved, where I could shine, and how I could be a real solution for my customers.

At the end of the first month, I realized I had grossed a few thousand dollars. I figured out where I was a subject-matter expert and began to position my products in a way that didn’t devalue me or my skill set. I learned that charging competitively wasn’t just about me. It was about respecting my craft, honoring the industry, and setting a standard for other professionals in the field.

But instead of celebrating, I told myself it was a fluke. By refusing to celebrate my accomplishments, I made it harder to plan my path. I drifted into contracts instead of steering my own course. I was letting survival disguise itself as strategy.

Making thousands of dollars in my first month should have sent me into scale-up mode, but instead it sent me into retreat. I didn’t know how to be happy for myself or how to count my wins. That pattern stuck with me and caused me to miscalculate my worth more times than I care to admit.

Even at the height of my career, I found ways to shrink my wins. When I served on the president’s cabinet and wrote and sold the Lenoir-Rhyne Equity and Diversity Institute, I didn’t even add it to my résumé. I edited myself out and made it harder to negotiate the income and contracts I deserved.

So many of us are taught to be humble, to give our best but not bask in the results. For Black women, that message runs even deeper. I think I have played small to fit in spaces I had no business being.

Being soft enough to celebrate my wins, big or small, is a practice. To acknowledge my power, my process, and my particulars as value is how I take myself seriously. I had to learn that I am the diamond.

My brand is polished and planned, and I have to admit my feed looks more confident than I actually am. The truth is I’m almost always doing the thing teeth clenched, scared, eyes wide shut, learning as I go. Entrepreneurship is hard. Sharing ideas and dreams makes me vulnerable.

I had to learn to face my success. Some months I made so much money I felt guilty. There were nights I sat staring at an invoice on my screen, pointer finger hovering over “send,” as if asking for the money I had already earned was too much. I called it thriver’s guilt.

I taxed my own success because it felt easier than asking for what I was owed. In some ways, I robbed myself before anyone else could. I wanted to succeed, but I worried I would outshine my friends or the people who had helped me. That hesitation drained my cash flow and made it harder to push myself.

I also had to get intentional and positive about money. Money will not be a root of evil for me, but a branch of love. I send those invoices now to fuel a good lifestyle for my family and to do good in the world.

That is what makes me a jewel: living as well as I can and doing the best I can to be good to others.