You can be skilled, well-mentored, and in the right industry, and still sabotage the sale because some part of you doesn’t believe you’re worth the result.
Today I covered a topic almost nobody talks about: deserving. Most people work on skills, scripts, and strategy. Very few work on whether they feel they deserve the outcome. I learned this from Fredric Lehrman’s audio series Prosperity Consciousness, which I bought back in 1996. It also changed how I understand the word “prosperity.”
Prosperity Means Flow
To prosper is to be in the flow. You’re moving. You’re not resistant, procrastinating, avoiding, or getting ready to get ready. You’re in the space where things happen.
Deserving is what keeps you there. If you don’t feel you deserve it, you stay stuck in doubt, shame, and uncertainty.
The Pain: Copper Instead of Gold
Picture a $20 gold coin worth about $5,000 today because of the weight of the gold. Now picture a penny. It’s copper, and copper has value, but almost no weight.
When you don’t feel deserving, you get the penny even when the gold is sitting right in front of you. You live in what I call mistake consciousness, and it shows up in real ways:
You struggle to sell. Prospecting and connecting with people feel like a fight.
You don’t ask for what you want. You were taught not to be nosy, but fact-finding, building rapport, and small talk all require curiosity about other people.
You over-give. Your scale tips toward giving, obligating, and enabling, and you do too much for others and expect nothing back.
You feel disappointed, and the disappointment confirms the story. “See, I knew I didn’t deserve it.”
I see this constantly in direct sales, insurance, real estate, and network marketing. People land in great companies with great mentors and ideal products, but the anxiety about an outcome that hasn’t happened yet stops them. That’s worry about the future, and it turns into procrastination and avoidance.
Service vs. Serving
There’s a distinction here that changes everything. A waiter is serving. A business owner is providing service. Many people can’t tell the difference between the two, and the difference is a boundary.
When you’re servicing your clients, you deliver excellent value and expect fair exchange. When you’re over-serving, you do too much, expect too little, and feel let down when nobody rewards you for it. That disappointment then confirms your belief that you don’t deserve it.
My Story
Codependency was my sideline addiction for years. I didn’t understand it early in my recovery. Later I saw how I had sabotaged relationships because deep down I didn’t believe I deserved them.
A lot of our addictions, whether food, alcohol, spending, or compulsive debating, come from stuffing the feeling of not being good enough. In 1988 I was a rock-bottom addict and alcoholic in a clinic in California. That’s where I learned the lesson I keep coming back to: it’s not the people beside you that matter, it’s the person you become to stand beside yourself.
The Solution: Build Your Deserve Factor
1. Start with love. Love yourself and love God. Let go, and practice separating your feelings from the events that shaped them. Be present. Operating from love, joy, and certainty changes who and what you attract.
2. Watch what you’re attracting. If you carry buried feelings of not being good enough, you’ll keep attracting the people and situations that fulfill them. If you keep letting critical people define you, you’ll keep drawing more of them in.
3. Put a value on yourself. Take the painter who is skilled but doesn’t feel worthy of her work. She prices it low, and it doesn’t sell. I have a client, a world-class painter, whose paintings sell for six figures. People buy what they perceive as valuable, and that starts with how you perceive yourself. So what is an hour of your time worth? $300? $500? More?
4. Aim for the trifecta.
You deliver exceptional service.
You feel valuable.
What you offer is valuable, and people can see it.
5. Lead with love of the game. When you love what you do, love people, and love the process, people feel it. That’s charisma. I’ve spoken at events where 20 or 30 people lined up to hire me as their coach. I earned that by letting go of “not good enough.”
The Breakthrough
Between the over-sensitive, brooding side of us and the over-intense, angry side, there’s a middle ground. That’s where your deserve factor lives.
The breakthrough happens when you feel you deserve it. Then you stop needing recognition, you can dine alone, and you’re absolutely in your power.
Breathe. Release. Let go.
Jeffery Combs is the president and founder of Golden Mastermind Seminars, Inc.
(Optional CTA: Jeffery is speaking at the Miami Airport with Josh Waxman on Saturday, September 26, 10:00 to noon. Use code WAX100 for free entry. All Golden Mastermind clients attend free.)