The Fear That Keeps Your Best Work Hidden
There is a moment most experts never say out loud. It is the moment you decide to charge for the work that sits closest to your heart. Not the skill you are simply good at. The one you would do for free, and probably have done for free, for years.
Christine Hakkola described that moment in four words I have not been able to shake. Shocking. Terrifying. Overwhelming. She added that she wanted to throw up in her mouth, and I believed every word of it, because I have felt the same thing standing on the edge of putting my own work into the world.
The Fear That Does Not Leave When You Succeed
Here is what makes that fear so strange. Christine has built real things. She built a company, sold it, and built again. And yet she will tell you plainly that the fear never left. She still does not watch her own video recordings. The little voice that says you are not qualified did not disappear when she succeeded. It just got quieter, and easier to recognize as a liar. That honesty is the whole point. We tend to assume the fear belongs only to us, that everyone else figured out how to silence it. They did not. They just stopped letting it decide.
The Assignment She Almost Refused
For a long time, Christine did the work for free. She got on the phone with friends and walked them through the thing she knew how to do, over and over, dozens of times, without ever naming a price. Two coaches she trusted finally asked her the questions that changed everything. How much are you charging. Nothing. How many people have you done this for. No idea, dozens. How long would it take you to teach all of it. A few hours, maybe three sessions.
So they handed her an assignment. Post it on Facebook. Charge 250 dollars for three weeks of coaching. Her first reaction was the one most of us have. I will never do that. I am not going to put myself out there and charge for the thing I have been giving away. But she trusted the people telling her to do it, so she did it anyway. By her account, she earned 2,000 dollars and filled the first cohort in under 24 hours.
That is the light bulb moment everyone wants to hear about. The part worth sitting with is what came right after it. The fear got worse, not better. Now she had to show up and deliver. Now she was accountable. Now there was a real question hanging in the air. What happens if they pay me and I am not good enough and they do not get the result.
The Real Reason You Have Not Named a Price
This is the layer almost nobody talks about. Christine put words to it better than I could. There is something particularly vulnerable about charging for the thing that is closest to your heart. She used an analogy that has stuck with me. If someone offered her 20 dollars to cut their hair, fine, she would take the money and figure it out, because cutting hair is not her passion. But owning that she had a real gift to help people build something sustainable, and putting a price on that, was terrifying. Because if it failed, it would feel like failing at the one thing she was most passionate about.
Read that again if you are someone who has been sitting on your best work. The reason you have not put a price on it, the reason you may not have put it into the world at all, is probably not that you lack the skill. It is that this work matters too much to risk. The passion is exactly what makes it feel dangerous. Your silence is not humility. It is protection.
The Phrase a Six Year Old Taught Her
So how do you move when the fear is that real. Christine gave the best answer I have heard, and she got it from her six year old. The kindergarten taught the kids the idea of taking a responsible risk. That is how Christine has built everything since. Not one giant leap. A series of small, responsible risks, one after another, each one earning the confidence to take the next.
Look at how that actually played out. First a free call with a colleague. Then a small group of eight people who paid 250 dollars, and she was fully prepared to refund every one of them if it was no good. Then she did it enough times to know the thing actually worked. Then a course. Then a membership program. Then a business. Christine says that business went on to serve over 6,000 practitioners before she sold it, a number she never would have believed if you had told her in 2016. Looking back, it was just responsible risk stacked on responsible risk.
Hitting the First Domino
I think of it as hitting the first domino. You do not need to see the whole chain fall. You just need to find the next logical step and take it, and notice that there is almost always a safety net built into it. The 250 dollars Christine charged could have been refunded. Worst case, she gives the money back and is out nothing. That is the move. Make the risk small enough that you can survive being wrong, and real enough that being right actually counts.
If you are the best kept secret in your field, this is your invitation to stop staying silent. Not to bet everything tomorrow. To take one responsible risk this week. Name a price. Send the post. Make the offer. Let one person who needs you find you.
The people who need what you do are already searching. Right now they are finding someone with less expertise and less care, not because that person is better, but because that person showed up. You can be the one they find instead.
Create your art. The world is waiting.
Watch the full conversation, and if it moves you, send it to one person who needs to hear it. If you want to build a thought leadership platform of your own, visit 1898creative.com.
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Full Transcript
Christine: When it comes to visibility as a service professional, putting yourself out there, whatever that means, whether it is networking or being on Instagram, whatever channel suits you, that fear has never gone away for me. I still do not watch the video recordings I put out there. I know that little voice saying you should not do that, you are not qualified, is old, and it is lying. So I do it anyway, and it is something I am still working on today.
Darren: That is always good to hear from someone who is seasoned, someone who has built something, exited it, and built something again, and you say it still happens to me too. I think we can often feel like it is only us. When you stay isolated, when you pull back, that is why joining coaching groups or communities in that like minded space is so beneficial. You get to hear someone else say, I am struggling with that too, and you go, thank God, I am not alone. I am sure you have seen that time and again with the clients you have worked with.
Christine: Yes. As I have gotten more into group coaching and small group work, one of the most powerful things I have seen is folks learning from other people’s stories. It is one thing for me to name it one on one with a client. It is a whole other thing, and sometimes a hundred times more powerful, for someone going through it themselves to hear it from a peer. I cannot describe the power that comes with that. Not that it should be enough on its own, but sometimes it is enough, or at least enough to bring awareness so the rest of the healing has a chance to occur.
Darren: That is good, Christine. I love that. I think that speaks to a lot of people, myself included, who might be saying, I know I have more in me. I know there is an impact I want to make. Around here we say there is art you need to create. That does not mean literally painting or music. It is the thing inside you that you need to get into the world. So talk to me about when you started. You had people asking you to help them, you were battling a little imposter syndrome, and you decided to start a business because it is what you knew. What was it like when you actually charged people for the first time, when you said those numbers out loud and realized this is a business now.
Christine: It was shocking, terrifying, overwhelming, and I wanted to throw up in my mouth, to be honest.
Darren: I know that feeling. [SPOT-CHECK: brief interjection, confirm speaker against audio]
Christine: I have to give credit, because I do not believe I ever would have done it alone. I had the great fortune to meet two wonderful coaches who I am still friends with today. I told them what I was doing, which was getting on the phone with my friends and talking them through it. They said, how much are you charging. I said, I am not. They said, how many people have you done this for. I said, no idea, dozens. They said, how long would it take you to teach all of this. I said, I have no idea, a few hours. They said, well, format what you want to teach. I said, maybe three sessions of 90 minutes. They said, okay, Christine, here is what you are going to do. You are going to go on Facebook and post that you are charging 250 dollars for three weeks of coaching on how to open your private practice. I was so shocked and appalled at the idea. My knee jerk reaction was, I will never do that. I would never put myself out there or charge for this thing I have been doing for free all this time. But I trusted them, and I knew they had my back, and I knew they were onto something I had no idea about. So I did it. This was back in 2016, and I earned 2,000 dollars and filled the first cohort in under 24 hours.
Darren: That is amazing. [SPOT-CHECK: brief interjection, confirm speaker against audio]
Christine: That is when I knew I was onto something.
Darren: That was the light bulb moment. You realized it actually works. Did you have the feeling afterward where you went, oh no, now I actually have to teach them this stuff?
Christine: Oh yeah, I was even more terrified. Now I had to show up and do this thing. I was accountable, and I was so scared of what would happen if they paid me and I was not good and they did not get the result. All the fears, Darren. It was awful. It was exciting and awful all at the same time.
Darren: Anybody who has built something can relate to that emotion. I am now using my voice. I am now telling somebody I can do this. When you keep it to friends and family and you are not charging, if they say it did not work, you can take it or leave it. But once there is business and finances involved and you have to take someone on this journey, it is a whole other thing.
Christine: If I could add, I think there is something particularly vulnerable about moving into the space where you are actually charging for the thing closest to your heart. If somebody said, I will pay you 20 dollars to cut my hair, okay, because cutting hair is not my passion. But there was something about stepping into that space of really owning that I had a gift to help other people build a profitable, sustainable business. That was so scary, because if I failed, it was like failing at the one thing I felt most passionate about. That was the scary part about putting myself out there.
Darren: That is a protection thing. If I do this and it does not work, it is going to hurt me beyond what I want. Your analogy of cutting hair, it is like, I do not care about that, so I will charge for it and we will figure it out. But when it is something you are passionate about or on mission for, all of a sudden there is another layer. There is that fear of, I do not want to get hurt. That resonates. [SPOT-CHECK: “that resonates, that resonates” repetition may be transcription duplication, confirm against audio] That is where I think imposter syndrome, fear, and insecurity come in the most, because we are so passionate about it. So what do you tell the people you work with who have that passion and that mission and are freaked out? What did your friends tell you? What do you say in those moments?
Christine: I will draw on a phrase my six year old recently taught me. She goes to a wonderful school and just graduated from kindergarten. One of the phrases they instilled in the kids this year was the idea of taking a responsible risk. I really love that. That is the way I have approached it, and the way I encourage my clients to approach it, because there is a level of responsibility that comes with charging for a service and claiming to deliver a result. There are cases where we can claim too much or put ourselves out there too quickly. So an approach that has worked really well for me is baby steps. I did not do this on purpose, but in hindsight I took multiple baby steps, probably hundreds, looking back. First a colleague called me and I got on the phone for free. Then a small group of eight people I knew paid me 250 dollars, and I was fully prepared to refund them if it was no good. I did it again, and I did it enough times to know the thing worked, to feel confident, to see that what I was offering actually solved the problem and produced the result I claimed. Then I turned it into a course, and then a membership program, and then it was a business, and then I sold it. If somebody had told me in 2016 that I was going to create and then sell a multi six figure business that served over 6,000 practitioners, I never would have believed them. But in hindsight, it was just a series of responsible risks, one after the other, as I gained confidence.
Darren: I have heard it said to hit the first domino, because it builds upon itself and you step into it that way. What I hear you saying is, sometimes it is just the logical next step. And there is a little bit of safety to it. The 250 dollars, you could have refunded it. That is the worst case scenario. I get the money, I refund the money, and I am out nothing. So what is that logical next step? That is good advice right there. me. So at that point, you go down swinging.