She was feeling shaky about asking to be paid what she had earned before.
Why? Because she had a story in her head: “I was probably overpaid in my last job.”

So she considered playing it safe, asking for a lower number—just to get her foot in the door.
But it didn’t feel good—or right.

As with so many hard-working, conscientious professionals I've had the privilege of working with, the real challenge wasn’t the logistics of securing multiple offers. It was socialized guilt. Guilt is a learned emotion. It got ingrained in us by authority figures who wanted us to be—let’s be blunt—easily controllable.

Armed with confidence-boosting tools, my client aced the technical and behavioral interviews. When it became clear an offer was on the table, she reached out to me: "How should I negotiate this?" Here's how we approached it with three key steps…

If getting better paid and promoted were simply based on being excellent at what you do, you'd have been a millionaire CXO years ago.

So why shouldn't you be paid at the top of the pay range?