EP #64 | 3 Mindset Shifts to Grow a Successful Interior Design Business

Welcome to the Designers Oasis podcast. I'm your host, Kate Bendewald. If you're tired of one-size-fits-all all advice to running your interior design business, you're in the right place. Join me each week as we dive into topics to help you run a thriving interior design business. Without the hustle. We'll talk about the business of design, but also mindset and mental health because I know when you thrive, so will your life and business. It wasn't that long ago that I stepped away from my corporate interior design job to build my own design business so that I could realize my own creative dreams, have more time with the people I love, and serve my clients at the highest level, while making more money than I ever could have working for someone else. It wasn't always easy, and I made my share of mistakes along the way. Fast forward to today. And I've learned a thing or two. Since then I've built multiple six-figure interior design businesses on authentic word-of-mouth referrals with many repeat clients. And I want to share it all with you the ambitious, inspired, and I get it occasionally overwhelmed interior designer who shares this dream of transforming lives through the art of interior design, You can do this. Thank you for letting me spend part of this day with you. Let's get to it.

Well, hello there. And welcome back to the designers Oasis podcast. I'm your host, Kate Bendewald. I am so happy to be back with you hanging out today. So thanks for showing up.

Today, we are going to be talking about three mindset shifts that are really powerful. And these are these are mindset shifts that are if you can start to develop these as habits, you will only see your business and your personal satisfaction with your your your career, grow and thrive. And these are things that I will say, first and foremost is something I'm constantly working on. Right? It's not, it's not a place where you arrive to these are things that we're constantly practicing, day in and day out. But I truly believe that these are three mindset shifts that can help you grow a successful interior design business. It's about being expansive, and taking up space as you navigate the complexities of working with clients, with vendors, with trades with your staff, and of course, with your own personal relationship with yourself. So we're gonna get into it. But before we do just a couple of quick reminders. It's coming up real quick. The annual master planning workshop for interior designers is November 16. I really want to see you there. This is the fourth year in a row that we've done this and it has been a hit every time and it's just getting better every year. So this is a 90 minute workshop masterclass, where I'm going to help you to plan for the year ahead, plan for 2024. So I want you to keep in mind that if you are an existing member, if you're already inside the interior designers business blueprint, this is included with your program with the membership. If you're not you can join us go to designers always to talk comm forward slash plan to get access to to this workshop. It is the one workshop each year that I open it up to the public. So we would love to have you our dear Kate, our new advice segment is going to be kicking off as soon and so I want your questions. I want you to submit your questions to me and I'm going to chat about them here on the podcast. Either my solo episodes or if I have a guest I would love to pair some questions with some of our guest experts that are going to be joining us in the coming months. So if you've got a question that you would like to submit anything really about interior design business, whether it's, you know, mindset work, whether it's how to deal with a tricky situation, how to do something how to how to run something in your business, send it to me, go to designers voices.com forward slash dear Kate, and send me your question.

All right, let's get into it. So again, we're talking about the

Three mindset shifts that can help you grow a successful interior design business, the first shift is moving from being passive to being assertive.

Let's dig into this a little bit, because I know that the word assertive can sometimes to have a knee jerk reaction I can give maybe some weird vibes of, you know, what does it mean to be absurd have a sort of, first let's talk about what passive behavior is passive behavior is the kind of actions or inaction that puts others in the driver's seat. It's the kind of behaviors that say, I'm just along for the ride. Why do we do this, we do this when we're afraid of what people will think we do this, when we're questioning our own authority, we're not standing in our space. Because we don't want to rock the boat, right? Women and particularly, are socially trained to be sweet, to cooperate to be good. And sometimes, if you are assertive, you're a bitch. But if a man is assertive, he's a boss. And so we have to dismantle that you may not agree with me on that. But that is oftentimes the feeling that women have when they are taking up space, right at a meeting in a social setting, and in a professional setting. And so I want, I want us to sort of re Train the brain, about what it means to be assertive. Really, it's just showing that you care, you really truly care about something. And in I think, if you can switch from thinking, Oh, Being assertive is going to make me disliked, you know, and set that aside for a minute. It's like, well, when you really care for something and you want to fight for something, it's just showing how much you care. So the problem with passive behavior, if you're consistently letting others call the shots and manipulate situations, then your business and your life is going to lack predictability and control of situations. Am I saying that you can control everything? Of course not. There's so many things we can't control. But there's so many things that we can control. You know, and especially when it comes to our reactions to things. So I'm going to tell you a quick story about a contractor that I had a long working relationship with for many years, when we first met, he, so he was about maybe 15 to 20 years older than me. So he and he has been in this industry for a really long time. And he knows a lot he really does. He is very smart. He's very good at what he does. And,

you know, he gets stuff done. And he knows that about himself. And he's a very confident business person and contractor for good reason. But the problem was that every time we had a phone call or a meeting, he would talk down to me, he would kind of treat me like a child and and interrupts me. And I had to decide early on that I couldn't let that continue. Because if I did, then that's how our relationship would always be able to continue to be that way because I allowed it.

And so very early on, I had to lay a new foundation with him. One that said, we're going to work together as a team. And we're going to talk to each other with respect. And I just simply said, Hey, listen,

I want to hear what you have to say, but you cannot interrupt me, you need to let me finish. And you may not talk to me like that. We I expect you to be respectful to me, we're in this together and work we have, you know the same motivations and goals to have this be a successful project for our client. And the only way for that to happen is for us to be on the same team. And that's going to require you to shift a little bit how you a lot how you talk to me. And he got it. And I was I was like, you know, I was trembling inside. I had butterflies. I had butterflies in my stomach. Now I'm just rethinking it. It was scary. It was it was not a it was not a fun conversation to have, if I'm being honest. I didn't know how he would take it. And I honestly I didn't proper plan for that conversation that had just happened on a day where I was like, You know what, we gotta nip this in the bud. I'm done. You know, I'm just done. I'm not going to not going to keep doing this. And so I'm grateful for that. Because if I had sort of planned or rehearsed this conversation in my head, I don't know that it would have gone the way that it did. Because there was a little fire in my belly when it happened. So anyway, his response was really great. You know, I was grateful for that. He, he knew himself well enough. He was self aware enough to realize, oh, yeah, I do that to people out of habit. And, you know, I just feel like not a lot of people call him out on it before this moment. So I was grateful that he took it well, and he did shift he did try to do better. Did that mean that he was always 100% Pleasant all the time? No, of course there were days where I'm like, Oh my God, here we go again. You know, bye

But it completely transformed his expectations for me and his view of me and in our relationship. And so all in all, it was good. So the moral of the story there is, you know, this was an opportunity very early on to set the stage for how I wanted to interact and how I wanted to work. And we have lots of opportunities to do this. In our business, you can be assertive without being aggressive without being an asshole, okay? They're not mutually exclusive. So how else does being passive show up? Let's think about business development for a minute. Not following up. That is passive behavior. It is inaction, pick up. Anytime you've not followed up with a prospective client, after you send a proposal, maybe it was a big proposal, maybe it was something outside of your comfort zone, and you were not sure how they were going to respond or react to it. Or, you know, if it was in alignment with what they were thinking. If you just let it go, and you don't follow up, that is passive behavior. Thinking about not following up with past clients, I've had many clients over the years who have said, one of these days, we're gonna get to our kitchen and renovation, and we want your help, you know, following up with them, and taking action, being proactive, to think about, who are the people in my world that I can reach out to actively and take the rage, they control guide the conversation, following up with prospective clients, you know,

if you sit around thinking, well, they'll just come to me when they're ready to do that kitchen renovation, they might, they might sit wait on it for five years unnecessarily, because they're too busy to think about it, or they don't have the bandwidth to think about it. But maybe you get them on a on a good day, and you've got all of a sudden a new project on your hands. So that has happened to me so many times in business where, you know, just simply the act of following up sparked a new conversation, a new project, a new scope, whatever the case may be, okay, how else does being passive show up in business? making concessions for clients making major concessions for clients, of course, there's always going to be opportunity and time and business to be flexible. And I think being flexible is a very important aspect, and asset and strength of a leader. But consistently making major concessions for clients is a problem. Maybe you have a client who asks you to modify or change something in your contract.

Maybe they asked you to start working on a project sooner than you're ready because you're trying to wrap up some of their projects, you want to give it your full attention and you give them a start date. And they push back and say well, can you start sooner? You know, sometimes you got to weigh the pros and cons of weigh the situation and understand only you know what is right in that particular moment. But if in your gut, you're just like, oh, I cannot make this work. I just like it's going to be so difficult to get this started. Until we get past these other milestones with these other clients. If that's your feeling, but you still make the concession you are setting yourself up for a lot of disappointment and a lot of stress and headaches. So putting your foot in the ground, putting your foot down sometimes, you know on things where you just can't you just can't make it work.

Is it is it important muscle to flex and it gets easier with time? You know? And but I think really weighing those concessions thoughtfully, and not making it a habit that just simply because somebody asks you say, Well, sure, I'll do that. Okay.

This is another sort of passive sales technique, if we're thinking about that.

Thinking about when someone first initiates a conversation with you, if your call to action on your website is here, download my services and investment guide. Versus here book a discovery call with me, that is a passive approach to sales. Now, I'm going to pause for a quick minute and just say that there are nuances and exceptions to all of this. There was a period of time when, you know, I was already consistently bringing in clients who were ideal clients. And that was something I'd worked really intentionally towards that I was confident in.

And we got really busy and we had about a six month lead time for any new projects to start. It was in that moment that we temporarily swapped our call to action on our website, and we did put our services and investment guide first before booking a discovery call. And so that was an exception and that was that was what we needed at that moment in time. But typically, I would suggest that your call to action is your discovery call because otherwise, you're putting the sales conversation you are putting the sales responsibility

On a PDF guide that you're sending them, and that is just never going to have as much effectiveness as having a one on one conversation with you in that discovery call, you can sell yourself way better than a PDF, can I don't care what's in it. Now we'd like to send that PDF, the sales, excuse me services and investment guide, immediately following the discovery call. So on that discovery call, we are engaging them, we're ensuring their right fit, we're putting them in the right service that we think is the right fit, and we're gonna get a verbal, our goal is always to get a verbal yes to whatever the next step is, which is typically a consultation. And it's immediately after that discovery call that we send the services and investment guide to fill in the details. Does that make sense? All right. So a passive approach if you're feeling icky, yucky around sales, is to put that discovery services investment guy out first, before the discovery call, get your clients on the phone, get comfortable selling and have those sales conversation. Sidenote inside the interior designers business blueprint, we have an entire masterclass on selling, and how to take the icky feeling out of it. Because I know it's not natural for everybody. It's not everybody's cup of tea. It wasn't mine for a long time. But now I actually really love sales. So that's just an aside. But thinking about how you can be more assertive when it comes to your sales process is a really important mindset shift that you can start to take. Right now. Another one is presentations thinking about when you are in a client presentation, and you are selling your ideas, you're sharing the vision with them, and you get some pushback, right? You get some feedback that isn't.

They don't like something right? Of course, have we never want that to happen. But clients are entitled to have their opinions. And I'd much rather have a client who's going to speak up and talk to me about that in person rather than taking it back with them. So in that moment, you have an opportunity to not just say, oh, okay, no big deal. We can reselect, right.

Instead, you can say, Well, tell me more, what is it specifically that you that that falls flat for you? And then shut up and let them talk? See what they say, Don't do like I do and over over verbalized. I had nobody ever accused me of being succinct. But I've had to learn that for myself. It's just like, just shut up and let them respond and see what they say. After you hear what they say, consider yourself whether you know, if they can't if they're not, sometimes clients might not be able to say why. Specifically, they may struggle to explain why they don't like something that is a really good opportunity for you to explain why you made a specific selection. Well, we're thinking about materiality and what's around it, or how does it function or the price point of the lead time or the materiality, its durability, whatever those assets of that selection was that made you put it in there, right, you've done the research, you are bringing them the absolute best possible selections for them to prove right? You've put so much thought into that. You have an opportunity to sell your ideas, sell your selections to them, use your judgment and decide, you know, if somebody is just like, they had a like reaction to something that they just didn't like, don't worry about it, move on. Okay, let's get some feedback. And then that way we can provide you with the Reselection that makes more sense, or decide no, you know what, I think this is really the right thing. And here's why. That's another way that you can start to shift in your business from a passive approach to how you engage with people to a more assertive approach that is confident and stand your ground when when the time is right. Okay, you know, you you will, you'll feel it inside, you'll know when, when is the right time to push back and when, when when not to do that. Before we move on to the second mindset shift. I want to just tell you a quick story. It's a it's a sales story that involves me and a client that I worked with. And I basically didn't take no for an answer. This is the moral of the story. But the here's the situation I had a client reach out to me who brought in historic renovation project, Whole home renovation and addition and popped up it was a huge project. And I love historic homes and I wanted this project so bad. I knew the neighborhood. I loved the neighborhood. The house was charming it they were you know they had the budget to do the fun things that we wanted, but she had been working with a contractor who so we got on a on a discovery call. She said okay, yes, let's do a consultation. I was going to do my typical two hour pay had a consultation, I was just moving through the the typical sort of steps. And I hadn't heard back, she hadn't booked the consultation after she verbally said on the phone, she went. So I reached back out and I said, Hey, I just wanted to check in, I'm really excited. And I'd love to get the opportunity to, to have this consultation with you. And her response was lovely and kind. But she basically said, Well, we've talked to her contractor, and he's recommended a designer who he already has a relationship with, and we're, we're gonna just work with her. And my initial reaction, when I read that it was I was gutted, I wanted that project so bad. And it had been a while since I had gotten a project. And that was really, like, yummy, like something that I really wanted to sink my teeth into. And so I was just, I was super excited about it in it, and I was gone. And I chose to not respond immediately. But instead, I don't I don't know if I slept on it, or if I, you know, waited till the end of the day or what but anyway, I gave myself some time. And something hit me and I thought to myself, no, no, no, I'm gonna go get this project screw that, I want it, I'm gonna get it. And so I sent a response. And I, you know, said, Hey, I respect you know, respect your, your decision. I've worked with a lot of contractors and architects and builders over the years, and I've had really great relationships with them. And I have no doubt that whoever you decide to work with it, I can build a good relationship with them too. And make it you know, have a really successful project for for you. I'd like to give you the opportunity, instead of doing the full two hour consultation, how about a 30 minute meeting, meet and greet, I'll come to your house, see the house you can share, and it's complimentary. And she said, You know what, okay, let's do that. And so I did. And I said, Hey, I'd still love to give you a proposal, I've seen enough to be able to put something together that I think will work. What do you say just said yes. And the proposal, guess what, I got the job, okay. And it was a super cool, fun project that we really enjoyed putting together and it turned out that they were very good friends with some of our very good friends. So it all worked out. And we laughed at that we just said, you know, this was meant to be this was meant to be. So anyway, my point is, that is an example of how you can be assertive. Without being aggressive. You can just say, hey, no, I really want this, I really want this and then go after it. Go get it. Okay, moving on mindset shift. Number two, we're gonna talk about moving from a fixed mindset to having a habit of curiosity. Alright, so people with a fixed mindset, there tends to be this undercurrent of negativity, you have a habit of saying or feeling well, that's that's just the way that that's just the way it is. So here, how does this show up? Right? You might find yourself saying things like, Well, I'm just not good with money. I'm not good at managing my money. Or I'm not as good as insert the name of a famous interior designer on I'm never going to be as good as Nate Berkus or Kelly wearstler, Jake arnaldur, Anna Spiro, or, you know, Phil, and whoever it is that you really admire.

Or you might say to yourself, I don't have what it takes to take on a project that big or or of that size, or that substance, you know, just I don't have what it takes. The problem is when you find yourself stuck in this fixed mindset, that I'm not good at this, or I don't have what it takes to do that, or I don't know what it's going to take to blah, blah, blah. It prevents you from having the opportunity to learn from mistakes.

Okay? A fixed mindset prevents you from having the opportunity to learn from mistakes. Mistakes are inevitable in any business, but especially interior design, where there are so many moving parts, right? We know this, the work we do is complex, it's it's, there's a lot of moving parts, there's a lot of players involved, there's a lot of stuff to keep up with. So, you know, the faster you can come to the realization that mistakes are gonna happen, you know, then you can start to move move more confidently just knowing that that's just a part of it. So what if, instead, you started to shift into having a habit of a of having a habit of curiosity.

Building a habit of curiosity is one of the most empowering things you can do for yourself and your business. So let's chat about this for a little bit. I'm gonna tell you another story about a third relationship that I had with a repeat client it so I had a client come back to me for the third project with them. I had already worked with him twice before in the past, and it was always good. Their personalities were a little bristly, but it was something that I always managed, I was navigated it just fine. They gave me a beautiful testimonial, they shared my name freely on this shared neighborhood Facebook group that we were in, and we're constantly recommending me and I was getting our clients from them.

You know, so our experience together had been good, even though personality wise, they were a little, a little rough around the edges in terms of their communication style that that I'm comfortable with, but we made it work. Anyway, so they came back to me for a third project. And it's sort of a long story. But but basically what ended up happening, the relationship went sour, because we started to uncover once we were already into the midst of the project that their budget and their wish list, were not in alignment, their budget, and our wish list wasn't in alignment. And, you know, I did so many things to try and find a solution that would work that was based in reality that, you know, was either, you know, here are your options, if you want to phase in some things so that you can get everything you want. But maybe it's not all at once, or here are some scenarios where we could adjust the expectations for quality, or simply digging a little deeper and expanding your budget, right, I gave some different scenarios to them. And I said, any of these three options, or blend of these three options can work, we can make this work if you're willing to do that. And they were not willing, they were not willing. And we were at an impasse and, and so I just the writing was on the wall. And I just, you know, we were at a clean breaking point in the project where we had sort of presented all of the options, etc. And I just knew that there was no way for this project to be successful beyond this point. And so I was going to have to let them go. And it was a very, very difficult decision. With a fixed mindset. The response is, that's a them problem. It's their fault. They were inflexible. They, they they they they they right.

And don't get me wrong, there was a little bit of that that was going on with with me, but I had to take a step back with a little bit of curiosity and ask myself, sure, maybe that's true. But how did I contribute to this? I have to have, I have to be really honest with myself with how did I allow it to get to this? How did we find ourselves here. And when I really started to get honest with myself, and look back at how everything played out from beginning to where we were now,

I began to realize that I had made an exception to my design process, right, we talked a minute ago about making concessions for your clients. In this case, they didn't even ask for this. I just offered it and this was this. So my typical process is discovery call consultation proposal, right?

Because I had worked with them before. And I thought I knew them I thought I knew, you know, like their style and what they want and more or less kind of where their budget range would be and their expectations for quality.

After that discovery call said you know what? I mean, I know exactly the space you're talking about I I've been in this house plenty and I understand it. And I felt like I knew enough that I could skip the consultation, because let's just skip the consultation. And I'll give you a proposal. And I did.

That meant that I did not have enough information moving into the project to be able to say to them, this all sounds good. But your wish list now is a little long for the budget that you're setting out. So what's gonna give, is it the wish list or the budget, it's got to be one or the other. Right? I didn't have the chance to learn from that mistake, because I didn't, you know, to catch that ahead of time. You know, I wavered in my process, a process that I have known for years works really, really well. And so I've had to be honest and say to myself, you know, that was on me. I screwed that up. Right. So we we broke up and we moved on and it was fine. Right? And but it was a really tough lesson and it was so stressful.

But the difference, again in this situation, isn't the fact that I couldn't control that but I was able to control my response to it because I was curious and curiosity. Anytime you're you're dealing with a tricky situation, whether it's a bristly client, whether it's something that arrived damaged or broken or whether you made a huge money mistake and you're trying to figure it out.

Start with curiosity. instead of just throwing your hands up and saying, well, that's just the way it is, okay? And when you're intentional about this and you start to build up make this a habit and the way that you think about things and the way you approach projects and challenges, then you'll start to reveal a lot of lessons that that can help prevent these challenges from from coming up again. Okay, a couple of other quick examples, before we move on, instead of saying,

I'm not good with money, I'm not good at managing money, you can start to say, you know, what, I'm learning how to manage my money. And I'm getting curious about where my bad habits developed. And that awareness is going to help me do things differently. Instead of saying, Well, I'm, I'm never going to be as good a designer as so and so yeah, you probably aren't going to be as good a designer as Kelly wearstler.

But does that mean you don't have a seat at the table, many of the most famous interior designers didn't even go to school for interior design, but that didn't stop them. Now, I'm just gonna say real quickly. I'm not saying that a high quality education and interior design is invaluable. I highly, highly recommend it, getting interior design education, no matter who you are, or where you are, but you still have a seat at the table, even if that isn't the path you take. And I know many successful designers, I named a few earlier who didn't go to school for interior design, okay. You do have a seat at the table. There's a lot of room in this world. For the work you do the work you want to do. You don't need an invitation, you just need to step in, okay? You put yourself in the role you desire, the world needs that thing you have, okay?

So you can start to just let go of that expectation, that fixed mindset that I'm never going to be as good as so. And so. And you can start to get curious and say, Yeah, you know, I'm probably not, but I can have a seat at the table, and I can learn and I can listen, and I can be a sponge, and I can absorb this as much as I can. And I can hire people to help me do the things I'm never going to be good at.

Have you ever gotten yourself a big project or call from a big deal client and thought, oh, I don't think I have what it takes to take on this project. I hear this a lot. It's like, well, what if instead you got curious and ask yourself?

What would it take to be successful with this project? Who do I need on my team? What do I need to learn? And start asking yourself questions and run your business through a lens of curiosity and you will expand and thrive and grow? I promise. I absolutely promise that I will die on that hill.

Are you ready to make 2024 your best year yet? Are you ready to stop flying by the seat of your pants and move into the new year with intention and clarity? If you're ready to escape the feast or famine cycle, don't miss my upcoming masterclass the annual planning for interior designers workshop. This is the fourth year I'm hosting it and it's going to be better than ever. Join me live on November 16. For this interactive power packed workshop. The truth is, most successful interior designers are the ones who can cast their vision, and then make a plan to get there. But that's not always easy to do on your own. And I want to help. I have dedicated my career to helping interior designers build thriving businesses. And I'm inviting you to join and Learn how you too can enjoy a business that supports you personally, creatively and financially. We'll talk about the power of intention, how to set your intentions for the year and then put them at the center of decision making in your business. We'll take a look back at your past year and help identify opportunities for growth and improvements to refresh your business. I'll help you design your ideal year so you can build a business that supports not competes with your personal time, vacations rest and play. I'll give you the tools to reverse engineer your revenue plan so you have clear strategic goals broken down into bite sized and manageable pieces. And finally, we'll dial in on a marketing strategy that factors in your personality, budget and time into the equation. I want you to get in the right mindset so you can achieve the results you want in your interior design business. Get ready to design your year with intention. Head over to designers oasis.com forward slash plan and register today. Again, that's designers oasis.com forward slash plan and register today spots are limited so don't wait. I can't wait to see you there.

Number Three mindset shift for major growth is moving from being fragile to being more resilient. All right now, this is a tough one. And I'm really going to be vulnerable here and open up to you about something that I honestly haven't shared a whole lot publicly. But I think it's a really important

thing to talk about, with with resiliency in mind. And building resiliency in business is very powerful. I am not the most thick skinned human. In fact, I am actually a highly sensitive person, or HSP, which isn't a diagnosis, but it is a type of neurodiversity. And part of the reason I have been so successful with my clients is exactly because I'm highly sensitive. One of the hallmarks of highly sensitive people is that you have a depth of processing. So what that means that the processing means that HSPs typically notice things in more detail. It also means that I have the ability to tap into other people's emotions and feelings very quickly, I can really sense what someone's feeling and what's their what they're going through. This also means that I'm predisposed to being more reactive to situations and having stronger emotional reactions. It also means that I have a lower tolerance to stress, which can lead to burnout. So this being an HSP is kind of my superpower. But I also have to protect my energy and I have to really work hard to disassociate myself and other people's sort of views or perceptions or opinions of me from from how I actually how I actually feel now. So how does that show up? Well, typically, it shows up as a shame storm, right? It means that I'm going to play small. And now whether your HS peep identify with being an HSP, or not a highly sensitive person or not. This a lot of these things can still ring true, you know, when when we

operate from a place of fragility, it's really a place of fear. And that is what happens. That's the precursor to playing small, not taking on that big project, not calling that lead back, not pushing back and say, No, I really want this project. Right. And, and that's something that I've really had to push hard on. And I'm always I'm still to this day finding, you know, opportunities where and seeing things for like woof was a playing small moment. I wasn't, I was, that was a fear based decision, right? How long does it show up, taking forever to write an email because I'm overly concerned with how it's going to come off or what the tone is going to be and how it's going to be perceived. When things go wrong in business, let's say a damage arrives, or another thing goes on back order or something wasn't installed the way it was supposed to be. It can really take the wind out of my sails, whether you're, again, consider yourself to be highly sensitive or not. I get it if this has happened to you, and it resonates for you. It's hard when when stuff goes wrong, I just want to move on.

We can allow those moments to just take us over and kind of ruin the day. I know, I whenever I've run into these situations, it's hard not to just let it make me come unraveled. So this is how that fragility shows up. If I'm not careful. Think about if you've ever had a project, excuse me a proposal rejected from a from a client with you know, how did you take that? Was it hard to not take it personally? Or did you move on or fight back? Or what? How did you respond to that? Making costly mistakes? Right? Again, it's hard not to beat yourself up over making a mistake that cost you money, your business money. So how do we move forward or move towards resiliency and away from fragility? Here's a question I want you to get in the habit of asking yourself because this has been really helpful for me is what are you afraid of happening specifically? Like if I'm struggling to make take action or move something along or it's, I'm hiding under my comforter? Kind of day? You've got to ask yourself, what is it that you're afraid of? Why are you stuck in inaction? getting it out there whenever you can start to talk about it and shed light on it. Once you get it out there once you say it out loud, call a friend. Call a mentor, a sibling whoever you trust somebody that you can trust and talk about it and get it out there because once you get it out there and you say it out loud Okay, so now we know we work

Anyway, now now we know what we're dealing with. And now you can start to shift things in a different direction. The famous psychologist Carl Jung said, keep your shadow in front of you. It can only take you down behind it was a quote that was popularized by Bernie Brown. But what he means by that is, when you, when you keep your shadow in front of you, when you when you speak truth to it, when you when you say it, say it out loud, what it is that you're afraid of happening. When you say it out loud, you put it in front of you, okay, now you can see it now. Now you can call Brene Brown again, I think it speak truth to bullshit, you know, say, Okay, I know that I'm afraid I'm not going to get this project because I'm not ready for it. And that's why it's taking me forever to put the proposal together or to whatever the case may be. So asking yourself, What are you afraid of specifically? Is it rejection? Is it fear of being judged? Is fear failure? Are you afraid you're not going to succeed? What is it you are afraid of? And, and get it out there and start talking about it. Because when you do that, then you can, then you know what you're dealing with, and you can start to shift and move away from it and into resilience.

Remember your superpowers, I strongly believe that intuition is one of my super superpowers, maybe yours is your imagination, or your ability to empathize with others, or your organization skills are your self awareness. And keeping those superpowers in the light can also to help you build more resilience. You know, remember that, when mistakes happen, that doesn't define you that's, that doesn't mean you're not you're no longer a disorganized person, you're like looking for something to point to, to prove, prove your point, rather than looking at all of the other examples of where you got it. Right. You know what I mean? I, I know this has been true for myself, but I sometimes find myself Oh, I'm looking to prove my case subconsciously, of like, why I'm not as good as this person or that person or whatever. So keeping those super powers, front and center, you know, and keep, remember those. Ask yourself, what's the worst thing that could happen? Right? You get what you get rejected, or somebody doesn't like something you post a client doesn't like something you presented?

You know, there's so many opportunities to think about what's the worst that can happen. And when you do you realize, well, the worst thing that could happen is actually not not the worst thing that could happen. Let's say you decide I'm not cut out to be an interior design business owner does that. And you're gonna go back to a different job. Does that make you a failure? Or not talented or not creative? Of course not. Of course not. You could throw the baby out with the bathwater, just to find another metaphor, you know, when I was going through a real hard period of burnout. In the very early stages of running my business, there was a moment where I thought to myself, I don't think I'm cut out for this, I don't think I have what it takes. And thankfully, I had some time to get curious and to dig in. And what I realized was, I was trying to do too much myself, and I wasn't letting go, I wasn't willing to outsource and give somebody else who's better at that aspect of running the business control, let go the reins and let somebody else do this part. Because there's a lot of hats to wear as a as an interior design business owner, there's a lot, you can't wear them all you're just not meant to, we have to rely on other people to pick up the areas. You know, where we're not as strong. It's just a fact. Okay, normalizing mistakes, mistakes are going to happen. Now, whenever I had a new designer working for me, and we got to that stage of procurement ordering.

This happened so many times where I'd have a designer who was responsible for placing some orders on behalf of the client for the business, and they would get frozen with fear, they would get everything in the cart, they would get the purchase order put together everything but the actual transaction. And like what is going on? Why is this not ordered yet? And what I realized was, there was this perpetual fear, especially with like, highly custom items that they were gonna get something wrong, something was there, we're gonna make a mistake. And so I eventually started to have this standard spiel, when when I was first training somebody on how to how to go through the procurement process, like look at the end of the day. There's no mistake you could make that isn't fixable. Simply put, no mistake that's not fixable. I don't care if you order an entire custom sectional sofa that cost $20,000 And you get the orientation backwards and it was supposed to be left hand facing versus right hand facing like this.

It's just not, it's not a deal breaker, it's not the end of the world. The, you know, nobody's going to die from that happening. Is it going to be a disappointment? Yes. Is it going to maybe cost some money and time to fix and repair the situation? Yes, are the clients going to be disappointed? Probably.

But we can always resell that sectional to someone and get back most, if not all of our at least our initial money back, we can always order the right thing and get it in place, right, there's just literally nothing that you could do, that's going to be so bad that it takes it takes down the whole thing. There's just not, it's just not that there's just nothing we do. That's, we're not in medicine, you know, we're not in we're not in law. I mean, you want to protect yourself, you want to avoid this kind of mistakes. Absolutely. You want to have safe safeguards in place where things are getting double checked, you want to minimize those. But at the end of the day, if you're so afraid to make a mistake, that you are stuck in inaction, something else has to get, you've got to snap out of it. 54321, go do the thing, make the transaction and know that it doesn't matter. What you do, it's gonna be okay. It's just gonna be okay. Want me to say that to me, everything's gonna be alright. It's fine. We'll figure it out. You know.

And just remember, you are the only one that gets to decide. It if you get to be in this game or not. Nobody else does. You get to walk through this door to be interior designer, the interior designer you were meant to be. So pull up your seat at the table, put your shoulders back, speak up. Even if your voice is shaking, be seen. Share your expertise. Know that a 10% edge is the only is all you need to be an expert in your field. Start normalizing mistakes, everything is fixable, write that shitty first draft, have a sense of humor. Don't take yourself so seriously. This is what it takes to be a more resilient business owner. Just keep moving. Just keep going. You know, when mistakes have been stopped, get curious, figure out how it happened. What safeguards are in place to prevent it from happening again, this is how we learn. This is how we grow 95% of the things that work in my business work because they didn't work the first time. Okay. How's that? All right, this has been fun. Let's recap. All right, three big mindset shifts.

To help you be a better interior designer, a better interior design business owner, just generally more successful in the work you're doing. Number one, moving from passive to be more assertive. Number two, working from a fixed mindset mentality to having a habit of curiosity. And number three, moving away from fragility that that keeps us stuck in an action or crumble and you know, what hits the fan and moving into a place of being more resilient. And realizing that there's, there's just not a whole lot that you could do that's going to totally break it. Totally shut the whole thing down. It's just not, you know?

Sure. Your Business Insurance, right? I went too long without having business insurance. And as soon as I did, things felt a little lighter, like okay, well, at least we're protected, you know. So. Alright, thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I look forward to meeting you back here. real soon. Bye for now.

Hey, friend, thank you so much for letting me spend a part of this day with you. I'm so passionate about helping designers like you. And I believe in a rising tide that when one of us does well, we all do better. So if you share this attitude of abundance with me, I want you to do just one little thing. Please share this episode with someone using might love it. And if you're feeling extra generous today, go ahead and take just 30 seconds to open your podcast app and leave us a five star rating and review. It's free for you to do and it helps me to be able to keep making more episodes and resources for you. However you choose to help please No, I appreciate you so very much. Thank you, my friend. Have a wonderful rest of your day. I'll see you soon.