Until you value yourself don’t expect anyone else to

Until You Value Yourself Dont Expect Anyone Else To
Dr. John F. Demartini

Ever since I was seventeen years old and almost died of strychnine poisoning, I had dreamed of being an inspired teacher, healer, and philosopher. The dream came when I had the opportunity to meet an amazing teacher who inspired me to tears, as he had millions of others around the world.

I decided then that I wanted to step foot on every country on the face of the Earth and share my research findings with millions of people to help them live amazing, abundant lives. Today, after thirty-four years of persistent effort, I am certainly living my teenage dream. My life is blessed, and I have been greatly rewarded. But along the journey there were many lessons to be learned and many challenges to be faced.

One such lesson that impacted me deeply and permanently was the time I finally began charging fees for my various teaching services. I had to overcome the fear of being rejected for requesting and receiving money, and for amply valuing my fledgling educational services. I was unquestionably minimizing my financial destiny.

There I was, twenty-three years of age, already teaching and tutoring other students “freely” out of my apartment, but one night something began shifting my financial perspective. A great lesson concerning money, fair exchange, and self-value was about to be revealed.

In my one-bedroom apartment in Pasadena, Texas, twenty-one students crowded together in my living and dining rooms, eager to listen to my inspired ideas concerning mind/body interactions, specifically those involving inner healing. That night, because my college tuition and living expenses were mounting and I had a growing desire to build a vast library of books, I experienced a psychological and soon-to-come financial shift.

I decided to place a bowl on my dining-room table with a small sign on it stating: “Love Donation.” At the end of my three-hour presentation, I watched everyone begin to leave. Only five dollars had been placed in the Love Donation bowl. I looked at the bowl with some despair since I was hoping to receive much more, but the bowl had been ignored or overlooked by most attendees when they were departing. That night I thought that I was not going to be able to afford to buy more books, pay my rent, or continue classes unless something shifted.

At first, I became mad at the attendees, and then I ­realized it was all about my fear of asking for what I wanted and feeling unworthy of receiving it. At the next class, I decided to aim for a love donation of ten dollars. At the end of the night, ten dollars remained in the bowl. I decided to raise the amount to twenty dollars for the next class. By the end of that class, twenty-five dollars was left in the bowl.

I finally become more bold and decided that I was going to charge a minimum entrance fee of twenty dollars for each of my evening classes and do away with the love donation idea altogether.

On that night, once I firmly declared to myself and my attendees that I was charging a minimum fee, I was amazed to discover that 85 percent of the attendees gratefully placed their twenty dollars in the bowl. I looked at the bowl at the end of the evening with amazement and tears of gratitude, for I somehow knew that I had discovered a great lesson along the road to my dreams.

What an amazing lesson! It was as if the world was trying to tell me to value my teaching services, and myself, but until that night I had been unwilling to listen. The moment that I did is the same moment that I received. From that night onward, I have remembered this great financial lesson, and I have raised my fee every year since. Today, I receive a lovely honorarium for my teaching services, which have spread throughout the world.

No one valued my services until I valued myself. Wow, what a great and yet simple financial lesson to finally learn!

Until you value yourself, don’t expect anyone else to. Until you pay yourself first, don’t expect anyone else to. Until you allow yourself to do what you dream of, don’t expect anyone else to encourage you to.

Once you declare your fee—with a no-turning-back certainty—the world will respond with a level of prosperity and abundance like never before. Today, I do what I love and love what I do. I get handsomely paid to teach and travel across the world, and I am abundantly prosperous in many more ways than one.

Reprinted by permission of John Demartini © 2007 from Chicken Soup for the Soul Life Lessons for Mastering the Law of Attraction by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Jeanna Galbellini, CPPC and Eva Gregory, CPPC. In order to protect the rights of the copyright holder, no portion of this publication may be reproduced without prior written consent. All rights reserved.