🙋♀️ The year I nearly became a postie
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Hey Reader, I grew up in a house where money disappeared as fast as it arrived. Flush one week. Empty the next. Some months my mum would hand me the sugar bowl and send me next door. "Go ask for some sugar and a fiver," she'd say. I hated it. I'd paint on a smile I didn't feel and hope the neighbours weren't looking too closely. Even now I feel a flush of shame being open about this! I got myself through night school. Then university. Then twenty years in IT and project management, doing well, looking the part. Then 2009 happened. The housing market crashed, the business I was consulting for folded overnight, and I was right back to no plan and no safety net. That's when I found the work that actually mattered to me. Ten years running a social enterprise, taking wellbeing programmes into UK prisons. I loved it. I created over £750K in revenue in the first 5 years. I was also giving a lot away for free. Over the last (many) years I've tried more or less every version of getting paid for good work.
When I finally closed the non-profit business in 2025, I had no idea what came next. One evening I found myself scrolling job ads for the post office, working out if I was fit enough to be a postie. "Why don't you just get some clients?" Rob said, from the other end of the sofa. And so I did. The next 18 months I turned my expertise into my offer - I'd worked out how I could help other women like me. I've experienced the money wounds, the niche struggle, the freebie hunters, the wince at naming my price. What I landed on, in the end, is the simplest version of all: we should get paid for our genius, not just our time. That's exactly what I'm teaching on an impromptu call this week: How to actually charge your worth, in practice, with real numbers, not just the mindset shift. No slides. No funnel. Just a proper conversation. If you want in, reply and let me know. I'll send you the details. Love and activation, MamaJ 💫 |