Lisa is a life balance specialist and coach at Craving Balance Coaching, and Head Coach and Course Leader in the Craving Balance Learning Community. She believes that the quest for balance points fundamentally to a crisis of purpose, not time management.
In her spirited work with women executives and entrepreneurs, she rigorously guides women to make choices that connect their intrinsic value with their economic value to create thriving lives—and livelihoods that shatter the glass ceiling. In May I listened to Lisa’s mini-negotiating course with Victoria Pynchon. They were so spot on!
In clear language they discussed why women are resistent to negotiating better salaries, perks and benefits…and how they can improve their skills. Several women on the call indicated that didn’t know they could negotiate a higher salary. These women soon learned what most men already know… nearly everything is negotiable.
1. Why is it important for women to negotiate their salaries and benefits packages?
First of all, thank you for asking me fabulous questions, and for being a pragmatic “light worker” in helping women see the true value of their work in the world. You’re performing an amazing service.
The statistics tell us that women stand to lose $1.2 million over the course of their career if they don’t speak up and ask for what they want in their first job out of college. If you think about what women choose to do with their money, this is a significant loss. When we have economic well-being, we start businesses, we launch nonprofits, we lobby for clean water, we stand in front of tanks to stop genocide. We don’t go out and buy stockpiles of guns, we change the world. So it’s important to the survival of the planet that women get who they really are and what they’re capable of generating.
What experience tells us is that when women stay asleep to their personal and economic power they are more likely to live life as the victims of one oppression or another. To live small. We tolerate jobs we hate with pay that’s beneath our value. We tolerate loveless marriages because we know we can’t support ourselves. We fail to engage our children in chores and household contributions and waste our breath complaining about how nobody lifts a finger. We say yes to projects and activities because we’re “supposed to” rather than choosing what goes on our plate based on our own intrinsic values. We hear these stories day in, day out, and flat out, it’s debilitating.
2. What’s the biggest fear that prevents women from asking for a pay raise (or raising their fees)?
Women fear being associated with the words “bossy, bitchy, assertive, aggressive, demanding, expectant, deserving, willful and powerful.” So instead, we choose the disease of “looking good” and suffer bitterly. I would have to say the runner up is fear of not being able to measure up (the Fraud Factor). Because we so undervalue ourselves, we think we have to work twice as hard as everyone else before we deserve even our sub-par salaries. We keep thinking someone will notice how amazing we are and wave a magic wand of zeros to our paychecks.
3. Describe your relationship with money.
How trite is this saying: Do what you love and the money will follow. I love it, I agree with it 100 percent, but after years of striving, my experience showed me the exact opposite. I would whine, “What the hell am I doing wrong that I can’t make a living doing what I love? Why is everyone lying?” When I learned that it wasn’t all magical thinking, but required a bit of practical research to find my value, like marketplace comparables, and staking a claim for what I was worth, my entire life changed. Now I change it up to add, “Do what you love, ask for what you’re worth, play with people who are better than you, and the money will follow.” Somehow money keeps showing up.
4. What is the most important lesson that you’ve learned about earning what you’re worth?
It’s all about recognizing opportunity. A little story…
When I was an employee, I had to learn that I was actually in a negotiable relationship. Everything about my work-life was negotiable, but no matter the title or responsibility, I typically took the salary offer, the benefit package, and all the other pieces and parts as the domain of my employer rather than things I could bargain with and claim some control over.
Before I started coaching I was an education director for a national nonprofit hard hit by the repercussions of 9/11. When they told me they needed to cut my salary by 20 percent, I said, “Okay, and I will need to end my day at 3 p.m. to take advantage of my 3/4 time status. Don’t worry, I’ll get my work done.” Leadership agreed to my offer. I made serious changes to things like my committee work and team meetings, and as a result I was able to pick my son up from school and watch his soccer practices and take him to piano lessons.”
Bottom line, there are abundant opportunities to design the shape of your work and life. It’s like seeing a sentence with a comma at then end instead of a period.
5. How does increasing her income impact a woman’s self-esteem and quality of life?
I think I addressed this in the first question, but I’ll add here that women typically don’t go out and buy Corvettes and Rolexes to show off their new found wealth when they get it. They turn it into good. So when women prosper personally, the world prospers. In turn, this boosts our self esteem, and our “perceived value” in the world. We’re worth it, and now we know it. We experience it.
