The Real Reason Two Women Charge Completely Different Prices

Here's something I learned recently from reading The Practicing Stoic that completely changed how I think about pricing.

There's a Stoic philosophy concept about how we create our own reactions to events — and it's not quite what most people think. Most of us believe the formula is simple: an event happens, then you react. But according to Stoic philosophers, there's a critical moment right in between those two steps. In that moment, you apply your own judgment and perspective to what happened. It's that judgment — not the event itself — that actually creates your reaction.

The event is neutral. Neither good nor bad, not deserving of any particular response. It's your judgment about the event that determines everything that follows.

The Pricing Gap That Isn't About Strategy

I started applying this concept to my coaching clients, and it completely reframed how I think about pricing. Because I see it everywhere: two women receive the exact same client inquiry — same situation, same potential on both sides. One charges $200. The other charges $2,000. Why? They may have the same skills, similar experience, comparable results. The only real difference is that they have completely different judgments about what they're worth.

I have a very personal example of this from my own story. I grew up in government-subsidized housing until I was sixteen, and I always remember my parents not having money. There wasn't excess or abundance. I remember wanting new clothes and only being able to shop at thrift stores — absolutely dreading running into classmates while school shopping. (Which is funny, because now I genuinely love thrift shopping. But back then, it felt like deprivation.)

That experience imprinted something on me, as similar experiences do for so many people and so many of my clients. It created a judgment that became invisible over time. I unconsciously believed that most people didn't have money — that people were struggling — and that if I wanted any yeses for my services, I had to make myself not just affordable, but the cheapest option available.

The Subconscious Program Running the Show

So years later, when I built something genuinely valuable, my judgment was still being filtered through that childhood belief. I had real skills, real frameworks, real results to offer — but I couldn't shake the subconscious program playing in the background. Using the Stoic framework: the event was I have something worth paying for. My judgment was but people can't afford it anyway. So my reaction was to undercharge, massively, every single time.

And I never thought to challenge it — let alone change it — because I didn't even realize that judgment was there. It was running the show completely unconsciously.

Here's the thing about judgment: it almost always operates below the conscious level. Neuroscience shows that your subconscious mind runs about 90% of your brain function. Your prefrontal cortex — the part that handles deliberate decision-making — doesn't even fully develop until you're twenty-five. So whatever money beliefs you absorbed before that age are deeply imprinted and have become automatic.

Research on financial behavior makes this even clearer. Studies show that financial literacy — actually knowing about money — accounts for only about 0.1% of actual financial behavior. Not even a full one percent. That means knowledge isn't what drives your money decisions. Your unconscious beliefs do. And those beliefs almost always trace back to childhood. Adverse early experiences directly correlate with what psychologists call maladaptive financial beliefs in adulthood — the stuff that happened when you were young shaped how you judge money situations now, and you're probably not even aware of it.

The Lever You're Not Pulling

So when you're undercharging — when you know you should raise your prices but can't seem to make yourself do it — it can be useful to look at your strategy. But it's far more useful to look at the judgment and beliefs underneath the strategy. Somewhere in your past, you made a judgment about money: whether you deserve it, whether people have it, whether it's safe to ask for it, keep it, make it. And that judgment has most likely been running your pricing decisions ever since.

Two women providing the same value but operating from different judgments will almost always charge different prices. And that difference can translate into vastly different business experiences — financially, emotionally, and in terms of the clients they attract.

The way out of this unconscious loop is to become aware of the judgment that's been running in the background. The one you absorbed so long ago that you don't even see it anymore. Because once you see it, you can change it.

The coolest realization is that your judgment is a choice, not a fact. And once you understand that, everything becomes possible.

Your event hasn't changed. Your skills haven't changed. But your judgment — that's the lever. That's where your real power is.