KNOW YOUR WORTH — THEN ADD TAX

Nobody taught you how to charge what you’re actually worth.

You were taught to be grateful for the opportunity. Do not rock the boat. To take what’s offered and work your way up. And if you were first-gen, immigrant, or both  asking for more felt dangerous. Like you were one counter offer away from losing everything you’d worked so hard to get into the room for.

So you took the number. Every time.

And somewhere in the back of your mind, you wondered if someone else someone who looked different, came from somewhere different, carried less of the weight you carry walked into that same room and left with more.

They did.

HERE’S WHAT NOBODY NAMES OUT LOUD

The gap between what you’re offered and what you’re worth is rarely an accident. It’s a calculation. A bet, placed quietly, that you don’t know the range that you’ll be so relieved to be considered that you won’t think to push back. 

That your gratitude will do their negotiating for them.

And it works. Not because we’re naive. But because nobody showed us the range to begin with. 

No one in our family had sat across that table before. 

No one had modeled what it looks like to hear a number, pause, and ask for more without flinching.

This isn’t just a salary problem. It shows up in every room where value is being assigned boardrooms, freelance contracts, partnership conversations, business deals. Wherever there’s a number on the table, there’s usually a bigger one that never gets named.

ENI POPOOLA FOUND OUT THE HARD WAY

Harvard undergrad. Columbia Law. Big Law associate. By the time she was building her career on the side, she was negotiating her own deals and playing it small. 

It felt like a bonus on top of everything else, so any number felt fine.

Then someone stepped in on her behalf. 

Same work. Same value. Same Eni. 

They went back to the table and returned with ten times what she’d agreed to.

$700 had become $7,000. Overnight. Without her doing a single thing differently.

That moment didn’t just change her bank account. It changed the number she held in her head the floor she refused to go below, the value she stopped apologizing for, the room she started walking into differently. She realized she hadn’t been leaving money on the table. She’d been handing it over.

The thing is, this happens everywhere.

In salaries negotiated too quickly. In raises never asked for. In expertise offered for free because it came naturally and therefore felt like it shouldn’t cost anything. 

In partnerships entered on someone else’s terms because the opportunity felt too important to risk.

We discount ourselves in the exact same proportion that the world has historically discounted us. And we call it humility. We call it gratitude. We call it knowing our place.

It isn’t any of those things. It’s a habit. And like most habits, it can be unlearned.

WATCH THIS ONE IF YOU'VE EVER TAKEN THE FIRST NUMBER

Eni doesn’t just tell you to ask for more. She shows you the exact moment her understanding of her own value shifted and what it took to hold that new number even when it felt uncomfortable. 

If you’ve ever walked out of a negotiation knowing you left something behind, this conversation will show you what to do differently next time.

SO HERE’S THE QUESTION WORTH SITTING WITH THIS WEEK

What number are you currently performing below? 

And what’s the story you’re telling yourself about why that’s okay?

Your value is not a reflection of what someone decided to offer you. It’s a signal you set before you walk into the room. Know the range. Hold the number. And when someone comes in below it, pause. 

Because the first offer is rarely the real one.

And you were never meant to settle for it.

ENJOYED THIS?

Forward it to someone building something. And if you haven’t listened to the Eni Popoola episode yet…. Start here

Watch the full episode

Eni breaks down how she built her content business while working Big Law hours, the exact moment she knew it was time to leave, and the mindset shifts that made the transition possible.

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Warmly,
Chika & Eche
Co-Hosts, Afropolitan Podcast