Pricing Your Value: is money Your Enemy or Savior?
TL;DR: Money isn’t proof of your worth. It’s a relationship. Through Creative Adaptive Intelligence (CAI), you can shift from scarcity and control to clarity, flow, and partnership.
Raise your hand if money has ever made you feel free.
Now raise your hand if it’s ever made you feel trapped.
Yeah. Same. Which is funny when you think about it, because those are the exact same words we use to describe our human relationships.
Free. Trapped. Loved. Ignored. Supported. Abandoned.
The truth is, most of us are already in a relationship with money. We just don’t admit it. We ghost it when we don’t want to look at our bank app. We cling when we’re scared there won’t be enough. We flirt when a big check lands and suddenly we feel on top of the world. And sometimes, we fight with it and angry that it never seems to give as much as it takes.
Money isn’t the villain or the hero in this story. It’s the mirror. The way you talk about money tells the story you’re really living. Much like the way we talk about our relationships, what are we actually saying to others, and to ourselves, about money?
When I was eight years old, my dad had a heart attack. Up until then, we were what people would call an affluent family. Money flowed. Vacations, dinners out, no real worry. Then my dad was laid off. He tried to pivot, even looked at buying a company. But just a month after his severance pay and health insurance ended, he collapsed. That heart attack didn’t just change his life. It bankrupted us.
In that moment, money wasn’t numbers, it was another presence in the room. It was the worry in my mom’s voice, the whispered conversations about bills, the way everyone seemed smaller, tighter, holding their breath. Money wasn’t neutral. It was emotional.
Survival, responsibility, fear, and care, all tangled together.
And once you’ve felt that, you don’t forget it. You start to see how money acts like a partner you didn’t choose sometimes supportive, sometimes suffocating. Sometimes it feels like freedom, sometimes like a trap. It whispers doubts. It makes demands. It shows up at family dinners uninvited.
And that push-pull—the love and the resentment, the craving and the fear that’s what leaves us spinning. We hustle harder, complain louder, make promises to ourselves we can’t keep. We tell money, “I’ll never let you control me again,” only to feel the knot in our stomach when the bill hits or the payment doesn’t come through.
But what if it didn’t have to feel that way?
What if there was another way to hold this relationship without the drama, without the power struggle?
What if instead of treating money like the boss of us, or the proof of us, we could treat it like part of the flow of our lives?
Like any relationship, the shift happens when you stop waiting for the other person to change, and you start changing how you relate.
That’s exactly what your Creative Adaptive Intelligence (CAI) is asking for.
CAI is the practice of meeting uncertainty with clarity, adaptability, leadership, and momentum. It doesn’t promise to “fix” you or your bank account. What it does is shift the ground beneath you, so instead of reacting from fear or habit, you begin to respond from alignment. That shift feels like relief. Like exhaling after you’ve been holding your breath too long. Like remembering: oh right, I get to choose how I show up here.
Clarity: Naming the Story
Ask yourself: Am I treating money like my controlling partner? Or like my unreliable fling?
The controlling partner says: “I can’t take a day off, or I’ll lose everything.” Money dictates every move.
The unreliable fling says: “Every time I get a little extra, it disappears.” It’s thrilling in the moment but leaves you scrambling when it ghosts.
Naming the story out loud is powerful. It pulls money out of the shadows and into the light.
So, what’s your story right now? Where does money feel steady? Where does it get messy?
Adaptability: Shifting the Rhythm
Once you name your story, Adaptability asks: how else could I relate to it?
If scarcity is your old script: “There’s never enough”
What happens if you try sufficiency instead: “This is enough for me right now”?
If comparison is your trap: “They’re doing better, so I must be behind”
What if you tried alignment: “I’m not behind, I’m just on my own path”?
If perfection is the block: “I can’t raise my prices until I’ve earned another degree”
What if you let growth lead: “Every dollar teaches me something. I can adapt as I go.”
These shifts are small, but they’re everything. They’re how you turn panic into choice, scarcity into sufficiency. (And trust me—there are plenty more stories money tells us. These are just a few I see most often.)
Leading Yourself First (Leadership)
Here’s the truth: if you don’t lead this relationship, money will. And money doesn’t always make the best boss.
Self-leadership sounds like this:
Instead of people-pleasing prices, you say: “This is what it costs for me to do my best work.”
Instead of avoidance, you say: “Looking at my numbers is a form of care.”
Instead of over-giving, you say: “Generosity has to flow both ways.”
Leadership with money isn’t about control, it’s about alignment. It’s you deciding the tone of the relationship instead of letting money call the shots.
Rhythm Over Hustle (Momentuem)
Healthy relationships breathe: give and receive, speak and listen. Money is the same. When it only flows one way, resentment builds. But when it circulates, momentum feels alive.
I’ve lived both sides of this:
The toxic version: underpricing, burning out, saying yes to everything.
The healthy versions: pricing in alignment, receiving payment as appreciation, letting money move without shame.
Scarcity whispers are everywhere: “There’s never enough.” “If they win, I lose.” “Money makes people greedy.”
But what if that’s just programming? What if there’s actually more than enough and the real freedom is choosing how you let it circulate?
Momentum is what happens when you practice that choice. It’s not hustle. It’s rhythm.
When you return to yourself your values, your boundaries, your clarity you shift the entire relationship dynamic.
Clarity names the story.
Adaptability shifts the rhythm.
Leadership anchors your values.
Momentum is what flows when all three align.
Money isn’t your enemy or your savior. It’s a partner. And how you show up in that partnership changes everything.
And like any relationship worth having, there’s always space to make it richer, lighter, more aligned. Not because you’re doing it wrong but because you’re already enough, and you can choose even more.
What would shift if you treated your relationship with money the way you treat your closest relationships with curiosity, clarity, respect, and room to grow together?
This is the work I love guiding people through in workshops, talks, and one-on-one. If this essay sparked something, come explore with me. There’s so much more waiting in the conversation.
Baton Rouge friends!
On October 9th (3–4 PM), I’ll be leading The Currency of Clarity: How Values Redefine Money + Creative Successat the Louisiana Arts Summit (River Center Branch Library).
This isn’t a quick-fix money talk. It’s a space to return to yourself. We’ll explore how values, boundaries, and creativity reshape the way money moves in your life and work. Think of it less like a lecture, more like a hands-on conversation.
Grab your ticket here and join me for an afternoon of clarity, connection, and a new way of seeing your relationship with money.
