The What's Your Price Test
Expose whether you are trading your truth for external reward by naming the number
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 72%
Borrowed from a Jim Carrey framing, this is a decision heuristic for moments when external reward is tugging against your inner truth. You ask a single escalating question: how much would you have to be paid to give up what you love? Fifty thousand, one hundred, five hundred million? Raising the number until you find where you would cave reveals what you are truly willing to trade. Dr Aria stresses there is no good or bad answer, only consequences, and that without awareness most people pay the price unconsciously. Crucially, choosing truth does not require radical destruction; you can be 'in the world but not of it' and take one strategic step closer, letting reality reorganise around the move. The point is to make the trade-off conscious rather than sleepwalk into it.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal, where Dr Aria attributes the core question to Jim Carrey and applies it to clients choosing between growing a company to a higher valuation and staying aligned with who they are.
Core principles
- 01There is no good or bad choice, only different consequences.
- 02Without awareness you will default to the external reward and pay the price unknowingly.
- 03You can move toward your truth one step at a time rather than blowing everything up.
- 04The mind wants safety, so it defends the money, status, and security.
How to run it
- 1
Name the crossroads
Identify the specific choice where an external reward (money, status, a bigger valuation) is competing with your inner truth.
Pro tip Watch for the tell that you already feel disconnected or discontent despite the external success.
Watch out If you skip naming it, the mind will rationalise the reward as the only sensible option.
- 2
Ask the price
Pose the question directly: how much would you have to be paid to give up what you love?
Pro tip Say the number out loud; it is harder for the mind to dodge a concrete figure.
- 3
Escalate the number
Raise the figure step by step until you reach the point where you would let go of your truth. That threshold is the real answer.
Pro tip For some the price is genuinely high and that is fine; the goal is honesty, not martyrdom.
Watch out Pretending no price exists is its own form of self-deception.
- 4
Choose with awareness and take one step
Accept both paths have consequences, then move one concrete step toward truth rather than forcing a radical rupture.
Pro tip Ask whether you can bring someone in, restructure, or do both, so the step is strategic not reckless.
Watch out Treating it as all-or-nothing ('quit everything') triggers fear and stalls the move entirely.
In the wild
Dr Aria describes clients whose company is worth two or three hundred million but who could go public and reach four or five billion. The mind insists on going public. Yet some, with awareness, choose not to, because they have lived years chasing more and found their inner life growing emptier and more out of alignment with who they are. They decide their life is not about keeping fifty people happy or doing what others say they are good at.
→ By naming their price they consciously trade a higher valuation for alignment, and often become successful in the truer path too.
Journaling on what he actually wanted from his business, Ali realised he no longer wanted to run his lucrative YouTuber course because he craved the freedom to explore new topics. Rather than pull the plug immediately, he and his team made the next cohort the last one, a strategic step toward truth. He feared the team would resist, but they were relieved to finally know what he wanted.
→ He moved toward his truth without destroying the business, and the team supported the pivot.
Common mistakes
Paying the price unconsciously
Without awareness you drift toward the money or status and only later notice you traded away something that mattered.
Forcing radical change
Assuming truth means quitting everything at once triggers fear and paralysis; a single strategic step is usually enough to start.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders, creators, and professionals at a career crossroads weighing a lucrative-but-hollow path against a truer one.
Not ideal for
Decisions with no genuine values conflict, where the choice is purely tactical or logistical.
From the transcript
“what's your price how much would you have to be paid to give up on what you love”
“there is no good or bad just both will have consequences”
From the episode
High Performance Coach: How To Build Psychological Resilience - Dr Aria
Dr Aria