Latest / Ambitious Podcast / EP.97: How To Set Boundaries & STOP People Pleasing In Life and Business

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EP.97: How To Set Boundaries & STOP People Pleasing In Life and Business · Ambitious Podcast

• 0:08
  Hello and welcome back to the Ambitious podcast.
• 0:10
  Today we are talking all about what it actually looks like to
• 0:15
  just say no and not know to just anything but no to things that
• 0:21
  don't actually support you or support your business in scaling
• 0:25
  to the next level. We're gonna be diving into all
• 0:27
  things boundaries today. And as someone who I feel like
• 0:30
  myself has always most of my life been like a notorious
• 0:34
  people pleaser. And I will transparently share
• 0:37
  that I have been in therapy for boundaries for a very long time.
• 0:43
  I'm going to be talking a lot today from not only just
• 0:46
  structure and strategies, but also first hand experience as
• 0:50
  someone who myself still to this day feels like I really have to
• 0:54
  flex a muscle to have boundaries.
• 0:56
  Because I had someone recently in the last year who said to me,
• 1:02
  they said, Kate, it's not really serving if you're sacrificing
• 1:05
  yourself in the process of that serving.
• 1:09
  And I realized that I was someone who was always just go,
• 1:13
  go, go or like give, give, give to other people.
• 1:16
  But oftentimes I was giving from a place when I didn't even have
• 1:19
  it to give, or I was giving from a place of obligation or the
• 1:25
  belief that I had to or it was the right thing to do.
• 1:28
  So even though I didn't want to do it, I needed to.
• 1:31
  There was all these layers underneath.
• 1:33
  And it's really become this skill that as I practice this
• 1:37
  not only in a business setting, it's changed things, but it's
• 1:40
  also changed things and dominoed into other parts of my life.
• 1:44
  So today we're going to be talking about a couple different
• 1:47
  things #1 the signs that you may be someone who is struggling
• 1:50
  with boundaries that you, you know, might have these, call it
• 1:54
  indicators or red flags that are happening in your life that are
• 1:59
  an indicator that maybe we do need a little bit of boundary
• 2:01
  work here. We're also going to be talking
• 2:03
  about what it actually looks like in business situations
• 2:07
  because I think many of us see or understand that we struggle
• 2:11
  with boundaries, but often times in the lens of our personal
• 2:16
  life, right? So when someone says, hey, I'd
• 2:18
  love to have you come to this family function and you're like,
• 2:22
  oh, I really don't want to go to that, but we say yes.
• 2:24
  So in those moments, that's how we usually think about, oh, I
• 2:28
  lacked boundaries, but do we really know what those look like
• 2:32
  and how they show up in the business settings?
• 2:35
  So we're going to go through specific business scenarios that
• 2:37
  are very common indicators and situations that present lack of
• 2:42
  boundaries. I'm also going to teach you a 5C
• 2:45
  framework today, which is a framework that has been, I guess
• 2:48
  I would say the grounding force, the underbelly of what has
• 2:51
  really allowed me to feel supported in starting to enforce
• 2:55
  better and more consistent boundaries.
• 2:57
  And also with that, I'm going to leave you with some things for
• 2:59
  you to take away to execute in your own life, in your own
• 3:03
  business when it comes to starting to flex this muscle of
• 3:06
  getting better boundaries. So one of the things that I will
• 3:09
  say is that I, I really think looking at any entrepreneur and
• 3:12
  looking at their business, you can usually tell how someone is
• 3:16
  going to scale and how someone is going to grow as an
• 3:19
  entrepreneur based off of how easy it is for them to integrate
• 3:24
  boundaries. And most importantly, when they
• 3:27
  do integrate those boundaries, how consistent are they with
• 3:31
  doing that? Because all of us have had those
• 3:33
  moments right where we get fed up and something happens and we
• 3:37
  go, enough is enough. I'm not doing X again, whatever
• 3:41
  it is, Maybe a client has overstepped.
• 3:44
  Maybe it's a family member. You have these moments where you
• 3:48
  just have, you hit this peak of frustration or you hit this peak
• 3:52
  of stress and you just say to yourself, I'm never doing this
• 3:55
  again. Like I'm just not doing this
• 3:57
  again. And then time passes, things
• 4:01
  start to kind of simplify and go back to normal.
• 4:05
  And with that streamlining and that kind of going and fading
• 4:09
  away also typically fades away are reminder of the intensity of
• 4:14
  why we wanted that boundary in the 1st place.
• 4:16
  So boundaries are something that are very much, I would say, a
• 4:22
  skill. It is not just a knowing.
• 4:24
  A lot of us have awareness that we need better boundaries.
• 4:27
  We have this understanding that maybe we put other people's
• 4:30
  needs or desires or what they want more than what we want or
• 4:35
  what we need. And we have that awareness.
• 4:38
  But is having awareness really enough?
• 4:40
  Is having awareness that we're bad with boundaries enough to
• 4:44
  truly change it? And no, but it's the first place
• 4:48
  for us to start, right? To say, how do I even know if
• 4:51
  I'm someone who's struggling with boundaries?
• 4:53
  How do I even know if this is something that I am doing, you
• 4:57
  know, on the spectrum of not so great to great, Where do I fall
• 5:01
  on this, right? And so I want to talk a little
• 5:03
  bit about how do you even really know that lack of boundaries are
• 5:08
  presenting in your life? One of them is the aspect of
• 5:12
  constantly feeling exhausted and constantly feeling resentful.
• 5:16
  So I was actually talking to my therapist and I was saying to
• 5:21
  her, you know, that I was just feeling in these certain
• 5:24
  situations, which we then distilled down to the fact that
• 5:26
  there was lack of boundaries. When we distilled it down, I
• 5:29
  said, you know, I was really just exhausted.
• 5:31
  And she explained the situation, which I was like, I've never
• 5:34
  felt so seen. She said, have you ever made
• 5:37
  commitments with somebody? And you told him that you were
• 5:41
  going to go for dinner, You were going to go to a birthday party,
• 5:43
  You were going to go do X. And you booked it two weeks ago.
• 5:47
  Right now, two weeks passes. The Saturday you're supposed to
• 5:51
  go out is here. You are now designed to, you
• 5:54
  know, go meet up with friends, go for dinner, go for drinks.
• 5:57
  And you are at home in your sweatpants.
• 6:00
  And you're like, I do not want to go, even sometimes to the
• 6:03
  point where you wish someone would cancel because that's how
• 6:09
  much you don't want to go. And she said the lack of
• 6:13
  boundaries is an indicator of one of two things.
• 6:17
  When people are booking, they may know that they're like, oh,
• 6:21
  I really don't want to do that. But they say yes out of this
• 6:24
  feeling of obligation that they have to go to the dinner or they
• 6:26
  have to go to the birthday party, or there is this at the
• 6:31
  moment. They really did want to go.
• 6:33
  So in the moment when they booked it, they were like, of
• 6:35
  course I'm going to be there. Yes, let's do it.
• 6:38
  But then the day comes and the lack of boundaries.
• 6:40
  That day comes with the fact that you physically,
• 6:43
  emotionally, mentally do not have what it takes to show up in
• 6:47
  that moment. And yet you do because you
• 6:50
  believe on some level that your needs, desires, and how you're
• 6:55
  feeling are not nearly as important as the fact that you
• 6:57
  said you were going to go, so now you have to go.
• 7:00
  So the boundaries can present themselves in a bunch of
• 7:04
  different ways, but one of the ways that we see lack of
• 7:07
  boundaries in business and frankly in life is that you're
• 7:11
  very exhausted all the time. And often times you're
• 7:14
  resentful. I see this in business.
• 7:16
  People will get resentful of the fact that, you know, a client
• 7:20
  has messaged them again, or they will get resentful that someone
• 7:23
  needs another call. They'll get resentful that a
• 7:26
  client has another round of feedback.
• 7:28
  And we're not really upset about the call or the message or the
• 7:32
  feedback. We're upset about all the
• 7:34
  instances of the endless messages and the endless
• 7:37
  feedback or the endless calls that have been provided where
• 7:41
  you did them. Because you're like, it's kind
• 7:43
  of like, you know, happy wife, happy life, happy clients, easy
• 7:47
  business, right? And like streamlined business.
• 7:50
  Well, yes. But then when that moment comes,
• 7:53
  you hit this peak where you're like, I've ignored my boundaries
• 7:55
  for the 32 times before this. And now this message, this call,
• 8:00
  this piece of feedback is now what's put me over the edge.
• 8:04
  And so that message, that e-mail, that feedback is not
• 8:09
  actually the thing that is frustrating you.
• 8:11
  What's frustrating you is the endless countless times that you
• 8:14
  have allowed said client to break the boundary.
• 8:18
  And only now are you feeling at a threshold where you realize, I
• 8:23
  got to do something about this because I'm just not doing this
• 8:25
  anymore. And interestingly enough, we
• 8:28
  become not even frustrated with a client, but we come frustrated
• 8:31
  with ourselves, right? Because there's an aspect of the
• 8:35
  client is, you know, doing this to me and sending this to me,
• 8:38
  yes. But there's also a frustration
• 8:40
  with ourselves to say like, Oh my God, how much longer am I
• 8:43
  going to have to do business like this?
• 8:44
  How much longer do I have to experience it this way?
• 8:48
  And it's interesting with the resentment because when I ask
• 8:51
  people about the things that frustrate them within their
• 8:53
  business or I, I kind of unpack, right?
• 8:55
  I dive into those areas where they are feeling resentful.
• 8:59
  I often hear something of a similar phrase, which is, yeah,
• 9:03
  but you know, it is my fault. It's like I do technically, I
• 9:07
  have definitely answered messages after hours or I have
• 9:10
  definitely answered messages even when she sends me 12
• 9:13
  minutes worth, Right. So it's interesting because once
• 9:16
  we start to unravel the resentment, often times we do,
• 9:20
  you know, discover that there's a part of this which has been
• 9:24
  created by us, which is part of also why we get so frustrated
• 9:28
  and exhausted because we realize we have a role in this too.
• 9:32
  Another indicator that I see is the fact that your calendar
• 9:35
  feels completely out of control. This is something where you feel
• 9:41
  like you maybe have no bumper lanes.
• 9:43
  So like maybe you don't have really work hours is how it
• 9:46
  might feel. You feel like I work in the
• 9:48
  morning, I work in the evening, I work nights, I work, you know,
• 9:52
  all day everyday. Like it just feels like there's
• 9:55
  no rhyme or reason to your calendar.
• 9:57
  You're not having a specific structure.
• 10:00
  And I start my day at this time, I end my day at this time.
• 10:02
  It kind of just feels like it's a mishmash of everything.
• 10:06
  And for me, the calendar one came up as a symptom for me
• 10:09
  because I realized that I am notorious for over booking
• 10:15
  myself. Like, you know, wanna do a
• 10:17
  podcast? Yes.
• 10:18
  Wanna take an extra call? Sure.
• 10:20
  Do you wanna hop on a meeting for X?
• 10:22
  Yes. Do you wanna go for dinner?
• 10:23
  Yes. Like do you wanna go to that
• 10:25
  workout Saturday? Yes, Like I was just a yes, yes,
• 10:28
  yes, yes, yes person. And I don't know if you resonate
• 10:32
  with this, but have you ever had those moments where it like kind
• 10:34
  of like that dinner example? You're feeling really energized.
• 10:38
  You're feeling like full of just like vibrant, like let's go.
• 10:42
  I could run through a wall type of energy because you're just so
• 10:45
  lit up and you're so excited about the energy in the state
• 10:48
  that you're in. And then another week comes and
• 10:52
  you're like, why did I do this to myself?
• 10:53
  Why did I book all these commitments?
• 10:55
  I don't want to do all of this for me.
• 10:57
  I was notorious for overbooking and just saying yes to
• 11:01
  opportunity, but sometimes so much so that there was never
• 11:05
  space for me. And that space for me sometimes
• 11:08
  showed up as not having space to rest, not having space to just
• 11:13
  have space, meaning having no commitments.
• 11:15
  There was no space for that for me.
• 11:17
  I realized there was just no space even for like deep work.
• 11:22
  Like I would just say yes to a podcast, yes to a connection
• 11:25
  call, yes to all these things. And then I would realize like
• 11:28
  the work that I needed to do, like just me with my headphones
• 11:31
  on doing deep work. There wasn't really a lot of
• 11:33
  capacity from which to do that because my calendar was so
• 11:37
  booked. And with that, it kind of leads
• 11:40
  to the exhausted piece. My calendar was so booked that I
• 11:44
  would be so go, go, go that I would then in turn be so
• 11:47
  exhausted that even when an opening opened up, I needed to
• 11:51
  like recoup from all the calls and meetings and interviews and
• 11:54
  things like that, that I might have done that when I had a day
• 11:57
  off or if I had even a a long block from which to do deep
• 12:01
  work, I would have no energy to do it.
• 12:04
  And I would just be sitting there being like, I need to rest
• 12:07
  and basically like Rev my energy and my, you know, engine
• 12:11
  basically back up in order to have capacity to be able to go
• 12:17
  back into another block of meetings, interviews, podcast,
• 12:21
  etcetera, right. So there's this kind of cycle
• 12:25
  that happens. And here's the thing with this,
• 12:27
  it often becomes our routine. It starts to kind of become
• 12:31
  ingrained in the way that we behave in business.
• 12:34
  It starts to become ingrained in the way that we make decisions
• 12:36
  every day. And it really leads to another
• 12:39
  sign of lack of boundaries, which is the easiest I would
• 12:43
  think of of everything that I ever see with myself or with
• 12:45
  clients. To distill it down, you're
• 12:48
  saying yes when you really mean no.
• 12:52
  That's really what it comes down to is like when someone asks you
• 12:54
  for something, whatever it might be, like it could be, you know,
• 12:59
  an editing of a contract. It could be, can you quickly
• 13:02
  look this over? It could be, can I have a quick
• 13:05
  meeting or a quick call with you?
• 13:07
  There's these things that people inquire about or that they ask
• 13:11
  about. And in your body, in your brain,
• 13:15
  you go, no, of course not. But then somehow you end up on
• 13:19
  the call or somehow you end up answering the message or
• 13:22
  somehow, you know from that point onward, that know that you
• 13:27
  felt in your body, your brain, your emotional state, you're
• 13:31
  like, no, no, no, ends up becoming a yes.
• 13:34
  And when we deny the natural response that we have to
• 13:40
  something that's really to me, what's been my compass of like,
• 13:45
  whoa, whoa, whoa. Boundary work here.
• 13:47
  Because I think that the interesting part about lack of
• 13:50
  boundaries is that we know that's the hard part about it,
• 13:54
  is that you know that you're doing and saying yes to
• 13:57
  something that you really meant no to and you were doing.
• 14:01
  And you're kind of putting yourself out there for something
• 14:03
  that really still is not really what you wanted to do in the 1st
• 14:06
  place. And it becomes so frustrating,
• 14:08
  right? Because when we experience this
• 14:10
  time and time again, we see ourselves as the core culprit.
• 14:13
  And we're like, man, why can I not just enforce this?
• 14:17
  Why can I not just flex this muscle and this, you know, shows
• 14:20
  up with a lot of different requests, right?
• 14:22
  It could be one of the key ones I see a lot with people is that
• 14:25
  they over give and they under charge and it's because people
• 14:31
  often will be pushing around things, for example like scope
• 14:33
  creep. So maybe you usually only do one
• 14:37
  call a month with people, but because they're pushing you
• 14:40
  somehow are now doing 3 calls a month with that person or for a
• 14:44
  certain deliverable for your service.
• 14:46
  Maybe you're supposed to give 2 of something but this client has
• 14:50
  somehow along the way got you from giving two of a deliverable
• 14:54
  to now you're doing 5 and you have been for the last four
• 14:57
  months. You go, what is going on?
• 14:59
  That is when you were over giving.
• 15:01
  And the other part which creates a lot of resentment is when not
• 15:05
  only do you over give, but in that over giving you under
• 15:10
  charge. Like the amount of people that I
• 15:12
  will talk to who say, you know, Kate, I'm giving them this,
• 15:15
  this, this, this, this. And the worst part is they're
• 15:18
  not even on my highest rate. They're on like a low rate.
• 15:21
  I'm not even making any money off their service.
• 15:24
  And so not only are you frustrated because you're
• 15:28
  crossing the boundary of what you have to give and your
• 15:31
  delivery, but you're also frustrated because for that
• 15:34
  delivery, for that support, you're also under charging what
• 15:39
  you know you could have charged. So you're just frustrated on all
• 15:42
  sides and on all accounts. And so boundaries are going to
• 15:45
  come across with you're exhausted, you're resentful,
• 15:48
  your calendars out of control, You're saying yes when you mean
• 15:51
  no. Your clients or your team are
• 15:53
  constantly kind of crossing over those lines that you've
• 15:56
  established constantly. You're over giving, you're under
• 15:59
  charging. And here is the easy, easy, easy
• 16:03
  sign and symptom in my opinion, which is that you are avoiding
• 16:08
  addressing these situations. You're avoiding having the
• 16:11
  conversations. You are avoiding dealing with
• 16:15
  the situations that are rooted in lack of boundaries because
• 16:19
  you believe that it is a difficult conversation that's
• 16:23
  going to be uncomfortable, that it is maybe even in some
• 16:27
  situations or instances that it's mean for you to do that.
• 16:31
  And what I often find is that there's this underbelly of like,
• 16:37
  under the surface, there's this belief that you fear what will
• 16:41
  happen. Like, I had a client who came to
• 16:43
  me recently and she had a client who, again, she took full
• 16:46
  responsibility. But she said, Kate, this client
• 16:49
  slowly has been, you know, pushing back on requests and
• 16:53
  inquiries for me. And as a result, I have said yes
• 16:58
  along the way. So I've created and conditioned
• 17:01
  this belief that this is like a normal way for things to be done
• 17:04
  or that this scope that I've been providing is normal, when
• 17:07
  in fact it's not. And basically shared with me
• 17:11
  that she's like, I need to harness this client in because
• 17:14
  it's just gone way too far. Like it's just gone really out
• 17:17
  there in the sense of way outside scope, way under
• 17:21
  charging, just like every aspect of lack of boundaries of
• 17:24
  timeline, expectations, deliverables, investment,
• 17:28
  everything has been ignored and neglected.
• 17:31
  And so she said now to think about resetting it.
• 17:33
  I don't even know how I would do that because there's been this
• 17:36
  really deep, deep, deep culture basically that's been created
• 17:41
  around the fact that this is just the way that it is or this
• 17:44
  is just the way that it's going to be.
• 17:46
  And I said to her, listen, I need you to ask yourself a very
• 17:51
  simple question. And there's no right or wrong,
• 17:54
  there's no judgement here. But you have to ask yourself, in
• 17:57
  this instance, what's more important to you is keeping the
• 18:00
  client. And therefore, you know, the
• 18:02
  revenue, all of that that is associated with the way that
• 18:04
  you've been providing to her. Is that more important to you or
• 18:09
  is what's actually more important to you you finally
• 18:12
  being able to live within the boundaries of how you want to
• 18:14
  operate your life in business? Because this client out of her
• 18:18
  other clients was the main thing that was really, you know, if I
• 18:22
  could put it candidly, like sinking the boat.
• 18:24
  Like this was the reason that she was feeling frustrated.
• 18:27
  It's the reason that she was feeling overwhelmed.
• 18:29
  And that was because this was the main client that was
• 18:32
  stretching her boundaries versus any anybody else that she was
• 18:35
  serving. And so when we basically
• 18:38
  unpacked it, she goes, well, Kate, like I, I really need the
• 18:42
  money. I said, yes, but if you, if you
• 18:43
  need that because it was a big client in sense of how much they
• 18:46
  were paying a month, she said, you know, I really need the
• 18:48
  revenue of that client. Like I, I don't want to lose
• 18:51
  that. And I was like, OK, well, but
• 18:53
  again, are you willing in the accepting of that revenue each
• 18:58
  month? Are you willing to also accept
• 19:00
  that it would mean that you might not be able to enforce
• 19:03
  your boundaries because I needed her to come to terms with, if
• 19:07
  you enforce this with the client, you may very well lose
• 19:10
  the client, but you're losing the client because you're
• 19:12
  enforcing the boundaries for yourself and you're sticking up
• 19:14
  for yourself in what should have been the basis of it the entire
• 19:18
  time. And is there a possibility that
• 19:20
  the client doesn't leave and that they just say, hey, you
• 19:22
  know what, totally understand, you're right.
• 19:23
  I get it. Like I've kind of noticed along
• 19:25
  the way we've kind of, you know, adjusted things.
• 19:27
  Let's get back to how we agreed to it at the beginning.
• 19:30
  That's also possible. So she goes and she talks to the
• 19:33
  client. I said, get on a call with her
• 19:34
  and just table all of this in a respectful, you know, direct
• 19:38
  way. So she gets on the call and the
• 19:43
  client says you know what, listen, thank you for bringing
• 19:45
  us up and I totally understand because you're right, this is
• 19:48
  not in our contract and you have been over giving and you know I
• 19:52
  would like to compensate you if we are going to continue for
• 19:55
  these extra services to understand what would that
• 19:58
  investment be if we did want to maintain the same service, but
• 20:01
  obviously at a fair investment with obviously structure of
• 20:04
  communication and boundaries and all of that.
• 20:06
  Like what would we? What would it look like if we
• 20:08
  did this right? And so she came and she was
• 20:11
  like, hey, I was so scared because I was going to have this
• 20:14
  conversation. I didn't know how it was going
• 20:16
  to end. And then yet here she is.
• 20:18
  And her and her client are now on totally new terms.
• 20:21
  And it was because of the fact, number one, that she
• 20:23
  acknowledged for herself finally that these boundaries were not
• 20:26
  going to work long term. 2, We created basically a structure of
• 20:30
  how she was going to bring us up to the client.
• 20:33
  And as a result, 3, she now has way more capacity because this
• 20:37
  client for the investment is not sucking up a lot of her time.
• 20:41
  She's able to really harness that delivery.
• 20:44
  So in turn, she's also created opening and created opportunity
• 20:48
  where she can now fill in other clients or to sign another
• 20:51
  client and all of that. So all of us to say, the other
• 20:55
  thing is addressing the situation of boundaries is not
• 20:59
  comfortable by any means. It's often very uncomfortable
• 21:02
  for us if you are someone who's struggling with boundaries, but
• 21:05
  it's also uncomfortable because in our head, I think we create
• 21:09
  all of these situations of, well, how is that person going
• 21:12
  to respond and how is that person going to handle it and
• 21:14
  how is that person going to do XYZ?
• 21:17
  And I think the important anchor for us when enforcing boundaries
• 21:20
  is to recognize that our goal is just to enforce our boundary.
• 21:25
  It's not to control how someone else is going to receive said
• 21:28
  boundary. And a great quote that I heard
• 21:32
  was that when you are someone who enforces A boundary, that is
• 21:35
  a healthy boundary, and someone else has a negative reaction to
• 21:39
  that enforcing of it, it typically means that the person
• 21:43
  you communicated that to in some way, shape or form was
• 21:47
  benefiting from the fact that you didn't have boundaries.
• 21:51
  So when you explain a boundary to someone in your life, in your
• 21:56
  business, a client, a partner, A-Team member, a friend, it
• 21:59
  doesn't matter and they have a negative reaction to you
• 22:03
  enforcing A boundary that's important to you.
• 22:05
  That is a healthy, normal boundary.
• 22:07
  It means that that individual in some capacity was benefiting
• 22:12
  from the fact that you didn't have boundaries in that area,
• 22:16
  right? So it creates a reaction in them
• 22:19
  because they have to now go regulate themselves and they
• 22:23
  have to go figure out their new way of being.
• 22:27
  But when you're someone who is typically an empath, typically
• 22:30
  maybe even in some buckets of people pleaser, when you are
• 22:34
  that individual and you think through like before you even
• 22:36
  have a conversation, you're playing it in your mind of,
• 22:39
  well, what if they say this? And they could say that and they
• 22:41
  could be like, well, this is how it's always been.
• 22:43
  Why is it changing now? And all of these, you know,
• 22:46
  things could come up. But at the end of the day, kind
• 22:50
  of similar to what I asked that client, the choice for you
• 22:53
  becomes, would you rather live with the lack of boundaries or
• 22:57
  would you rather live through the 30 seconds of upset that
• 23:00
  this person may or may not have, but then having years and years
• 23:05
  and decades later of finally feeling like, OK, I enforce my
• 23:09
  boundary. So like you kind of have to
• 23:12
  accept all in one way or the other.
• 23:14
  And for me, every time I've asked myself that question, I
• 23:17
  never go back to not having boundaries because I'm like,
• 23:20
  yes, this is a, a difficult conversation or a difficult day
• 23:23
  maybe depending on the severity of what you're enforcing.
• 23:27
  But at the end of the day, it means after that we get to move
• 23:29
  on. Whereas if I live in this kind
• 23:31
  of like, you know, middle state of knowing I need boundaries,
• 23:36
  not enforcing them, they know that I'm breaking my own
• 23:38
  boundaries. They're not changing it.
• 23:40
  You kind of live in this just really resentful, exhausted
• 23:43
  world and who wants to do that? So when we think about
• 23:47
  boundaries in business specifically, there's a variety
• 23:50
  of ways, right? Like there's the symptoms of how
• 23:52
  you feel around boundaries, but there's also the situations that
• 23:55
  tell us, OK, well, this is definitely coming up in my
• 23:58
  business. So as I mentioned, one of them
• 24:00
  is for sure scope creep, right? Which is the fact if you want to
• 24:04
  kind of scope creep defined is really when you sign a client
• 24:09
  and you bring somebody on and you have a set amount of
• 24:11
  deliverables or support or what basically you provide as part of
• 24:15
  your service. And that person over time says,
• 24:20
  hey, can I get a little bit of this?
• 24:21
  Can I get a little bit of that? And over time, it feels like
• 24:26
  what used to be two deliverables became 3, which then became 4,
• 24:29
  which somehow became 6. And it kind of feels like it
• 24:32
  happens these little micro moments.
• 24:34
  So we're not in this moment of like, well, this was the
• 24:37
  contract and now this is the contract.
• 24:39
  It's just a, hey, quick question.
• 24:41
  Can I get this or could I quickly ask you a question or do
• 24:43
  you mind just for this week, I do XYZ.
• 24:45
  And these little accommodations, these little adjustments, if not
• 24:49
  harnessed, can actually create scope creep, which is the fact
• 24:52
  that you almost over time set a new expectation of deliverables
• 24:57
  for your service, for your business.
• 24:59
  And then the client becomes accustomed to those, so they
• 25:02
  start to believe that that's normal and that they also should
• 25:05
  expect those deliverables. Another one as well is discount
• 25:10
  requests, right? So like sometimes when you have
• 25:13
  clients that have been in your world, there's kind of this
• 25:17
  belief of like that they get special treatment.
• 25:19
  And special treatment can happen in a variety of ways.
• 25:21
  It could be discounts, for example, that they believe
• 25:23
  because they're a long standing client or they believe because
• 25:26
  they've been with you forever that they should or they expect
• 25:30
  to receive ABC, whatever that is, that as a result of that as
• 25:33
  well, there's kind of this also desire for constant access.
• 25:37
  Like there's this this need or this curiosity about having just
• 25:41
  this unlimited access to you. And with that, that's something
• 25:46
  that starts to chip away because there's not these boundaries of
• 25:50
  hours, these boundaries of communication over time, we kind
• 25:53
  of train to see that this person doesn't understand your
• 25:57
  communication hours. They don't understand what's
• 26:00
  required in the sense of timeline in order to get a
• 26:02
  certain outcome. And because they're a long
• 26:05
  standing client, you might even be accommodating that.
• 26:08
  You might even be allowing these things to happen because you're
• 26:11
  like, yeah, they be with me forever or Oh yeah, this client
• 26:14
  has, you know, been a client for a long time.
• 26:16
  And so you don't feel confident or clear to set those firm
• 26:20
  boundaries as a result. The other thing that I would
• 26:23
  also say happens with most businesses at some point or
• 26:26
  another when they're scaling is failed or late payments.
• 26:30
  So people who owe you some kind of investment owe you some kind
• 26:34
  of payment either on a payment plan or you just agreed to
• 26:37
  payment by X date. And in doing so with that,
• 26:42
  you're seeing late payments come in, you're seeing this like lack
• 26:45
  of consideration basically when it comes to payments for you,
• 26:48
  for the business. And So what this all ends up
• 26:52
  doing is all of these boundaries of scope creep.
• 26:56
  Maybe they're asking for special treatment around financial or
• 26:59
  investment or discounts. Maybe they have late payments or
• 27:01
  they're more flexible with payments because they're like,
• 27:03
  Oh yeah, we have a relationship, it's fine.
• 27:06
  Or they have this kind of belief that they should have constant
• 27:09
  access. As I said, it just leads us to
• 27:11
  be resentful. And frankly, it leads us to
• 27:14
  actually dislike the experience with the client, which is
• 27:18
  keeping their experience from being positive and their results
• 27:23
  from being positive. Like it's kind of, if you think
• 27:25
  about it out of the business context, like in a personal or
• 27:28
  interpersonal relationship, none of us want to be in an
• 27:30
  interpersonal relationship with someone who feels resentful
• 27:34
  toward us. And so if you are in a
• 27:37
  relationship in whatever capacity that is with your
• 27:40
  client and you are resentful because you're so frustrated
• 27:43
  that this client keeps breaching your boundaries, the invitation
• 27:47
  is not to maintain and just kind of push it down.
• 27:52
  No, not acknowledge it. I don't want to go there.
• 27:54
  And it just is what it is. And then from that point, you
• 27:57
  just kind of move on with the client because underneath the
• 27:59
  surface are all of these brood feelings and unacknowledged, you
• 28:04
  know, thoughts and situations that just start to pile up over
• 28:08
  time. And what it does, as I mentioned
• 28:11
  in the previous example, it leads to there being this one
• 28:14
  moment, this one day, this one e-mail, this one thing that they
• 28:18
  ask for and you just go, this client is killing me.
• 28:23
  And it's not because of the one thing they ask.
• 28:26
  It's about all the times they've asked that you actually said yes
• 28:30
  when you really meant no. And this just brings it to a
• 28:34
  boiling point that now it forces you to actually acknowledge it
• 28:37
  and feel it and gives you that opportunity to change and do
• 28:40
  something different. The other thing that we see when
• 28:43
  it comes to business and boundaries is team, which is
• 28:48
  being the bottleneck, can also be an aspect of it blurring.
• 28:52
  For example, like friendship versus professional
• 28:54
  relationships. And then like overdoing it.
• 28:57
  Like I often will hear from people who have teams that they
• 29:00
  feel like they're doing their team's job or they're saying,
• 29:04
  you know, yes, I have someone to do that, but like I'm having to
• 29:06
  carry XYZ of that project or I'm having to carry XYZ of this
• 29:12
  thing that we're working on. And they get frustrated because
• 29:15
  they're like, why am I paying these people if I'm going to
• 29:18
  have to do XYZ if I'm going to have to be so deeply involved?
• 29:21
  And typically when we really start to unravel it, the team
• 29:26
  not truly being quote UN quote self-sufficient or really like
• 29:29
  on their own, doing their own thing is not often because of
• 29:32
  the team members. In some situations it is, but
• 29:35
  rarely is it about the team members.
• 29:37
  I actually find that more often than not, what's happened is
• 29:41
  there's been this culture that's been created where there wasn't
• 29:45
  really a clear boundary of this is mine and that is yours.
• 29:48
  It's kind of like this big group project that everybody's working
• 29:51
  in. And so in some moments you're in
• 29:54
  the kind of, yes, we're all doing this group project type
• 29:56
  mindset together. And in other moments, you're
• 29:59
  like, man, I really wish you know, Sarah would just go handle
• 30:03
  this. Well, OK.
• 30:05
  But there's probably some lack of boundaries that have been
• 30:07
  established, which is why she's maybe not fully owning it the
• 30:10
  way that you want her to. And even when it comes to being
• 30:15
  the bottleneck, right? Like, and even I've experienced
• 30:17
  this in my business, there's been for sure moments where I
• 30:22
  was the reason that things were not happening.
• 30:23
  I was the reason that we weren't ahead on things.
• 30:25
  I was the reason that we had to move a deadline because I was
• 30:29
  supposed to do something or fulfill something and I didn't
• 30:31
  get it in on time. There's all these moments where
• 30:35
  you go like I'm the bottleneck, but when you realize you're the
• 30:38
  bottleneck, What I identified anytime in the bottleneck in my
• 30:41
  business is usually an indicator that I'm lacking boundaries in
• 30:45
  some other area, which is why it has dominoed into team.
• 30:50
  So let's just say, for example, I need to film social content
• 30:54
  and my team needs us from me in order to maintain our production
• 30:58
  calendar. Well, if they need me to record
• 31:02
  talking videos and I don't do it, now, I'm the bottleneck.
• 31:05
  They can't move forward with their marketing plans because
• 31:07
  I'm the person who they're waiting on to give them the
• 31:09
  media. But then I usually reverse
• 31:11
  engineer and I say, OK, well, why haven't I filmed the media?
• 31:14
  And that can come from a couple different places.
• 31:17
  It could be genuinely that I don't have what I need to go
• 31:20
  film it, which is never really the case in our situation.
• 31:23
  But in some businesses, that is our team prepares me very well.
• 31:26
  But usually what I find more often than not within my
• 31:30
  business when I become the bottleneck and something is that
• 31:33
  boundaries in other areas of my life or business have become
• 31:37
  blurry. And as a result of that, it has
• 31:40
  dominoed into my business and into my team.
• 31:44
  So it means that it's domino to meaning that I'm behind on
• 31:48
  things, which is now why I'm the bottleneck.
• 31:50
  So usually when I see that I'm behind on something that my team
• 31:54
  needs for me, it's a very large wake up call to me that there's
• 31:58
  something else in my life or business that is sucking my
• 32:01
  energy and that is taking away time.
• 32:03
  Because if I had boundaries, this used to work very much in
• 32:08
  flow. I used to be able to get this
• 32:10
  done on time, easily produced, you know, ahead of schedule,
• 32:14
  etcetera. So if I'm not doing that, there
• 32:16
  must be a reason that this is getting drained.
• 32:19
  And I find that in a variety of places.
• 32:21
  Sometimes it's, you know, for example, right now I just bought
• 32:24
  a house and I'm renovating the whole thing basically from top
• 32:28
  to bottom. So because of that, if let's
• 32:30
  just say I'm supposed to write an e-mail this week and I'm
• 32:34
  finding it, Oh my God, I have no time.
• 32:36
  If I go back, it's like, well, maybe I had too many house
• 32:39
  meetings last week or maybe I had to go visit the house too
• 32:42
  many times, which was a disruption to my work, which is
• 32:45
  why I don't necessarily have what I usually have done right.
• 32:50
  So this is really an opportunity for reflection is what I would
• 32:53
  say. If you're ever getting to be the
• 32:54
  bottleneck, it could be because the lack of boundaries
• 32:56
  elsewhere, but it also could be when people are the bottleneck.
• 33:01
  There's an interesting thing that I see with people who have
• 33:04
  teams, which is that often times you want to be involved in the
• 33:10
  day-to-day things because it gives you an aspect of purpose.
• 33:14
  So because you don't have boundaries with yourself, you
• 33:18
  also are kind of like wheezing your way into the business
• 33:21
  because that's where you feel purpose.
• 33:22
  That's where you feel like you have a reason to be there.
• 33:25
  You have an intention, you have a, an outcome of what you're
• 33:29
  meant to be doing that day. I find when people grow their
• 33:32
  team, they offload all this stuff, they delegate all these
• 33:36
  things, which is good. That's the goal.
• 33:38
  But then when you do that, you have to also recognize, well,
• 33:41
  what is my next task? What is my next goal?
• 33:43
  What is my next purpose within my role as CEO?
• 33:48
  And if you don't know what that is, and if you haven't defined
• 33:50
  that, what you're going to find is that you're going to go back
• 33:53
  and seep into your old ways, which is you're going to go back
• 33:56
  into your business activities. So what that does is it means
• 34:02
  you have no boundaries with yourself.
• 34:03
  And again, you become the bottleneck.
• 34:05
  You become the person who's stuck in the middle.
• 34:08
  The other thing that I think is, is something that I feel like
• 34:11
  I've done pretty, I don't say very well, but I feel like
• 34:15
  pretty well. And I've talked about this very
• 34:17
  briefly in other episodes, but I would say that the dynamic
• 34:20
  between interpersonal and friendship type relationships
• 34:24
  versus professional relationships.
• 34:26
  One of the things that I really respect about all the women that
• 34:28
  I work with is that like, I know a lot about their life and they
• 34:33
  know a lot about my life on a interpersonal friendship level.
• 34:37
  And I really would have it no other way.
• 34:39
  Like, I, I do think that like having a relationship with
• 34:41
  people that you work with is important, but some of them over
• 34:45
  time, truthfully have gotten to become very, you know, I, I
• 34:49
  think of them as very close friends.
• 34:50
  Some of them are my best friends.
• 34:52
  And with that, these different variances of friendship in the
• 34:57
  sense of different levels of intensity of friendships, means
• 35:00
  that I have to be very conscious of understanding how do we
• 35:05
  really have a boundary between what is work and what is
• 35:08
  personal. And what I think is a really
• 35:11
  important skill for people to have is to know how do I have a
• 35:15
  relationship with someone when they also work with me?
• 35:17
  It is possible. The boundaries are the only
• 35:19
  reason that it is possible. So if you find, let's just say
• 35:23
  in your business that you have team members that maybe are
• 35:26
  family, maybe they're friends, maybe they're just someone who
• 35:29
  was a team member who over the years became a very close
• 35:32
  friend. I think the important thing to
• 35:35
  note is do you find that the friendship or that the the kind
• 35:40
  of camaraderie that you guys have or the communication that
• 35:43
  you have is becoming so casual is becoming so, oh, she gets me,
• 35:48
  she's a friend, she'll get it or she won't care.
• 35:51
  Are you almost abusing that to the point where you are ignoring
• 35:55
  the professional expectations that you have of one another?
• 35:59
  And I think it happens over time.
• 36:02
  And I think it's also an invitation for one of you in the
• 36:06
  relationship to reset, to say, hey, I've been realizing over
• 36:09
  time, like, I love how friendly we are.
• 36:11
  I love how, like, you know, our relationship is like, I would
• 36:14
  have no other way. But I feel like over time we
• 36:17
  become a little bit less professional in the business
• 36:19
  setting. So I would love to create a
• 36:20
  little bit more structure around when we talk business and when
• 36:23
  we kind of talk and just openly share, just so I can kind of
• 36:26
  make sure that we have some good lines there when we enforce
• 36:29
  these things. They don't have to be difficult
• 36:31
  conversations. I think we make them to be
• 36:33
  difficult conversations, but we don't have to have them be
• 36:36
  difficult. I would probably submit that if
• 36:40
  you feel like a relationship that's in your business right
• 36:43
  now with a team member or someone that works with you is
• 36:45
  too casual and that it's kind of changed a lot from what it once
• 36:49
  was. My gut would tell me based off
• 36:52
  all the situations that I've seen, that they probably have an
• 36:54
  inclination that that's the case as well.
• 36:57
  So you're most likely not feeling or experiencing that
• 37:00
  entirely on your own. There's a high likeliness that
• 37:03
  that individual is also feeling something along that line too.
• 37:06
  So this really leads to, I would say when you have lack of
• 37:10
  boundaries with team, you're going to feel like you are a
• 37:13
  firefighter and that you are constantly handling things and
• 37:17
  managing things and that there's a lot falling on you, on your
• 37:20
  shoulders, a lot of pressure on you, but yet you have this team.
• 37:24
  So you start to ask yourself, why do I have this team if I'm
• 37:26
  feeling all this pressure? Because it just feels like if
• 37:28
  you have all these people, you shouldn't be feeling this way is
• 37:31
  a lot of what most people will share.
• 37:33
  Now, the other thing that we see, which is a classic one in
• 37:36
  business is time, which is the fact that you do not have
• 37:39
  boundaries with your time. You have a packed calendar.
• 37:43
  You have no individual time for ACEO day, for ACEO hour or
• 37:47
  couple hours. You say yes to every meeting,
• 37:50
  yes to every collaboration. And I myself, as I mentioned
• 37:56
  earlier, I'm notorious for this one.
• 37:58
  This is the one that I, I would say I'm the most, I, I identify
• 38:01
  the most with. And that is because I really
• 38:05
  have always struggled with this idea of like, there's so much
• 38:07
  opportunity in saying yes, right?
• 38:09
  Like it's kind of like if there's situations in your life
• 38:11
  that you thought, man, if I hadn't said yes to going on that
• 38:13
  date, I might not have met my husband.
• 38:15
  Or if I didn't say yes for me, even going to my first business
• 38:19
  conference, I'm probably wouldn't even be here recording
• 38:21
  this today. So there's so many things that
• 38:23
  I've said yes to that have completely opened doors in my
• 38:26
  life in my business. And with that, I think then
• 38:31
  about, OK, well, if I say no, what could I down the line be
• 38:35
  saying no to? And so because I've seen all the
• 38:37
  things I've said yes to that have worked, I conveniently
• 38:42
  don't look as much of the stuff that I've said yes to that
• 38:44
  didn't work out to be anything. And the thing that I've learned
• 38:49
  is that there are seasons maybe where you can say yes, yes, yes.
• 38:54
  And this is a little different because in those seasons when I
• 38:56
  said yes, my body didn't tell me to say no.
• 38:59
  That's the hard part about this one is that you're just saying
• 39:02
  yes, cuz you're like excited. And you're like, yes, OK, let's
• 39:04
  go. Like let's build, let's grow.
• 39:06
  And that's amazing. But this one's hard because your
• 39:09
  body is not even telling you. You're not even having awareness
• 39:11
  when it happens. You're just like, yes, yes, yes
• 39:13
  to everything around you, but your body never said no.
• 39:16
  So because of that, you're not getting the cue that OOP, this
• 39:19
  is a boundary potentially being crossed.
• 39:21
  You're just like, OK, great opportunity, let's go.
• 39:24
  The thing is to take up time somewhere.
• 39:29
  We have a capped amount of time. There's no endless amount of
• 39:32
  hours, which is why, you know, when I've talked before about
• 39:35
  scaling a business, people will say, well, there's just not
• 39:37
  enough hours in a day. I feel like there's just not
• 39:39
  enough hours in a day. And truthfully, there are lots
• 39:42
  of hours in a day for us to get things done.
• 39:44
  It's really a matter of how you're using those hours, how
• 39:46
  are you using that time? And so the invitation, I think
• 39:50
  is not about that. You need more hours.
• 39:53
  It's a really flawed way of looking at scaling a business.
• 39:56
  Instead, what we want to say is what are my work hours and how
• 39:59
  do I leverage those? The word I want you to think of
• 40:02
  is leverage to say, is this me doing this a leverageable hour
• 40:08
  that I'm spending on my business?
• 40:09
  Is this a leverageable meeting? Is this a leverageable
• 40:12
  interview? Is this a leverageable time
• 40:15
  spent on blank? Whatever that thing is, you want
• 40:19
  to ask yourself, is that truly leverageable for you and for
• 40:23
  your business? Now here's the tricky part.
• 40:26
  Sometimes, even when it's leverageable, it's supposed to
• 40:29
  be a no. And that's because there's a
• 40:31
  boundary again being crossed with something else.
• 40:34
  So when I say yes to everything, it's typically means that
• 40:38
  something else falls off. So let's just say I say yes to a
• 40:42
  podcast interview. That might mean that I don't get
• 40:45
  to go for my morning walk. Or am I saying yes to a meeting,
• 40:48
  which means I don't have my heart stop at the usual time
• 40:51
  that I stop taking calls? Those are things that are going
• 40:55
  to present to us that if we're giving time to one thing, the
• 40:59
  time has to come from something else in that day.
• 41:02
  And often times, especially with really ambitious women, that
• 41:06
  time comes from rest. Or that time comes from us
• 41:10
  working on our own businesses, just building and growing and
• 41:14
  creating because we're pouring into all these other
• 41:16
  opportunities or things that we feel might potentially one day
• 41:21
  create or turn into something. And so with all of that, the
• 41:25
  invitation then becomes, how do you really protect your time?
• 41:30
  And I had to start asking myself, what is the value of my
• 41:35
  time and where do I value my time going?
• 41:39
  Like I was just saying to somebody this morning, I don't
• 41:41
  personally take calls before 10 AM And like I, I won't get on a
• 41:45
  meeting. I won't, you know, do a sales
• 41:47
  call. I won't do a coaching call.
• 41:49
  Like unless someone is in like dire, dire strengths and like
• 41:51
  they are really like in an emergency state at that point
• 41:54
  I'm like, OK, fine, I'll do a 9:00 AM maybe.
• 41:57
  But that's like, I want to say like once every quarter Max.
• 42:01
  Like it's a very rare occurrence that I take a call before 10 AM.
• 42:05
  And I was just saying to someone this morning, I said, you know,
• 42:07
  I never really truly realized how much opportunity there is in
• 42:15
  space and stillness. And I was saying, like, I'm so
• 42:18
  glad that I set up my schedule to never take a call before 10
• 42:21
  AM because it means if I want to sleep in a little bit, I can.
• 42:24
  And if I want to have a slow morning and like this morning, I
• 42:26
  sat out on the balcony and I had a coffee and just soaked in the
• 42:30
  sun, You can do that. And I used to be the kind of
• 42:34
  person that was like, openings mean opportunity.
• 42:37
  Take the call at 9:00 AM, Book the podcast at that time.
• 42:40
  Like if there's openings, you should be using it, but I was
• 42:43
  using it not acknowledging what it was also taking from me,
• 42:47
  which was space. And recognizing that it's OK to
• 42:50
  have space. And space is not something that
• 42:53
  stalls your ability to scale. If anything, space is going to
• 42:56
  support you in scaling because it allows you to finally have
• 43:00
  breathing room to think and to process and to regulate in all
• 43:04
  the opportunity that's around you.
• 43:07
  And so I would say when it when it comes to time and boundaries,
• 43:10
  it's important that you ask yourself, am I being reactive or
• 43:14
  am I being strategic? And I again, I don't say any.
• 43:18
  It's from like my high horse, like I am still someone to this
• 43:21
  day who finds that I constantly am reminded of this because in
• 43:27
  moments where I want to lean into opportunity and I want to
• 43:29
  lean into the things around me, I also recognize that there was
• 43:35
  parts of me that fell off in the pursuit of doing that, that like
• 43:38
  what I needed, what I desired was the thing that actually fell
• 43:41
  off when I was trying to go for all this opportunity around me.
• 43:44
  And so strategic meant, you know, literally designing
• 43:49
  Mondays and Fridays are my no call days.
• 43:51
  I don't do one on ones. I don't do any client facing
• 43:55
  anything on the Mondays and the Fridays I only do Tuesday,
• 43:57
  Wednesday, Thursday. And with that, I typically only
• 44:00
  do Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays every other week.
• 44:03
  And that's been like a structure that I've had for a very long
• 44:06
  time now, but it's been very helpful because it created these
• 44:10
  bumper lanes. And again, like there's a one
• 44:12
  off situation or a 2% of Max 5% of the time that I will go
• 44:18
  across those boundaries. But the regular, you know, 95%
• 44:23
  of the time we are operating in those bumper lanes.
• 44:26
  And I think my invitation would be if you are someone who feels
• 44:29
  like your time is constantly, your calendar goes from empty
• 44:32
  and then a couple days later it's booked, recognize that
• 44:35
  you're the one booking those. You're the one saying yes to
• 44:38
  that call on that day. You're the person saying, yes, I
• 44:42
  can be that guest trainer on my day off.
• 44:45
  Yes, I can take that call outside my business hours
• 44:47
  because the client asked for it and they said that's the time
• 44:49
  that's most supportive for them. You have to acknowledge that
• 44:53
  there is also an aspect to your of responsibility, which is that
• 44:57
  it is possible that while you might feel caged in with your
• 45:00
  calendar that you've actually, and I guess it's not for
• 45:03
  judgement of yourself, it's just awareness.
• 45:05
  You've created it that way. It was one of the best things
• 45:09
  that anyone ever shared with me when we were having a
• 45:11
  conversation. I said, you know, I just feel
• 45:13
  caged in and they said, is it possible that you're building
• 45:16
  the cage from the inside out? And I'm like, Oh my God.
• 45:20
  So I remember sitting there and thinking of all these situations
• 45:23
  that I'm like, you know, this feels busy and this feels booked
• 45:26
  and this is too many calls. I am not even kidding to you.
• 45:29
  There was season of business where I was Tuesday, Wednesday,
• 45:33
  Thursday, and I'm talking all day from like 9:00 AM until like
• 45:38
  6:30 at night. I was on calls every half an
• 45:41
  hour and I was just not have a break to even have lunch.
• 45:44
  I wouldn't have a break to run to the washroom.
• 45:46
  Like I was just constantly go, go, go.
• 45:49
  And then I'm like Kate who booked the calls me, who says
• 45:54
  there about availability for the calendar, me who literally
• 45:58
  decides when the openings are for these calls me.
• 46:01
  So why would I be frustrated of like this, you know, packed day
• 46:07
  when truthfully I am the one who created the schedule in the 1st
• 46:10
  place. So it was also about some
• 46:12
  radical ownership. And the other part that I will
• 46:16
  say requires radical ownership when it comes to boundaries,
• 46:19
  because this is going to come up in your business is money.
• 46:21
  And you know, there's lack of boundaries that happen when
• 46:25
  people, for example, let invoices slide.
• 46:27
  Someone you know should pay you or maybe you should pay someone
• 46:31
  and you don't rush to pay that person or they're not rushing to
• 46:34
  pay you. That's a lack of boundaries that
• 46:36
  they're not fulfilling or upholding their end of the
• 46:40
  bargain as to when they're supposed to pay you and why.
• 46:43
  The other thing that is also, you know, a lack of boundaries
• 46:47
  at times is also over investing. There was a season where I felt
• 46:52
  like I was spending a lot and I started to become very
• 46:55
  resentful. And I don't know if you've ever
• 46:56
  had this, but you feel like you spend and you invest and you're
• 46:59
  like, where's my outcome because I invested X amount?
• 47:03
  But here's the thing like that was a lack of boundaries on my
• 47:06
  behalf because it was the fact that I had this really steep
• 47:09
  expectation that when I invest that I stretched myself outside
• 47:16
  of my boundary as of what was comfortable outside of my
• 47:18
  boundary of what I knew. And then when it didn't work out
• 47:21
  or when it didn't get me the outcome that I wanted, it made
• 47:24
  me frustrated when really the issue, the root of it was that I
• 47:27
  shouldn't have gone outside of my boundary of whatever that
• 47:32
  thing was. So I think that there's a with
• 47:35
  money, with the spending and investing, there's this kind of
• 47:38
  like really fine line between when we spend, even though it's
• 47:42
  scary and we invest, even though we're like, OK, 321 go.
• 47:45
  Like this is really a leap of faith.
• 47:47
  That does happen. And I've done that many times.
• 47:50
  But I think there's also the other side, which is is a
• 47:53
  certain investment, whether into team, it could be a coach, it
• 47:56
  could be a service. Do you feel like you're doing it
• 47:58
  out of obligation? Do you feel like you're doing it
• 48:01
  out of pressure, which could be the root of you truthfully going
• 48:05
  against your own boundaries? Like, I think all of it is just
• 48:07
  this constant recalibration of of awareness.
• 48:11
  And the other thing, which I will say is like a cardinal
• 48:13
  thing for so many entrepreneurs is the fact that they under
• 48:17
  charge. There's so many entrepreneurs
• 48:21
  right now as we speak. Maybe you even yourself are
• 48:23
  like, oh, that's me are under charging.
• 48:26
  You're under charging for what you provide.
• 48:28
  And it's causing you to have resentment.
• 48:29
  It's causing you to be frustrated.
• 48:31
  It's causing you to feel like, what is the point?
• 48:34
  This is so much work for how much money I'm making.
• 48:36
  I had someone say to me yesterday, like Kate, I'm just
• 48:39
  like thinking about throwing in the towel.
• 48:41
  Like what is the point? I just feel like these clients
• 48:43
  are needing this and needing that and I'm only getting paid X
• 48:46
  amount. And there's so much feedback and
• 48:48
  there's so much critique. And I said, hey, who set up the
• 48:51
  process? Who set the investment amount?
• 48:53
  Who set up whatever is that? They're paying you, you.
• 48:57
  So if you feel like you are doing too much for how much
• 48:59
  you're being compensated, maybe the invitation is not to say,
• 49:03
  OK, we'll then never mind this is a flawed model, but to say
• 49:06
  adjust the compensation or adjust the deliverables like
• 49:09
  there just needs to be some kind of recalibration of things.
• 49:12
  And so I think with that, there really is when it comes to the
• 49:18
  boundaries of money, this this need to say, what are my
• 49:21
  boundaries around spending and saving and prices and
• 49:26
  overcharging, undercharging deliverables.
• 49:28
  Like you really need to understand what are those bumper
• 49:31
  lanes for you when it comes to money.
• 49:33
  And so like we know that there are in general these kind of
• 49:37
  signs that we are struggling with boundaries, the emotional
• 49:40
  impact, there's these situational things that happen.
• 49:43
  But then obviously comes the question of how do I enforce
• 49:49
  these, right? And so like one of the ones that
• 49:52
  used to be difficult for me, I struggled, I'm talking for
• 49:55
  years, for years to say no to people.
• 49:59
  And I remember my therapist, I'm just going to share this with
• 50:01
  you. He, he said this to me.
• 50:02
  And I was like, that's not that complicated, but it worked very,
• 50:04
  very, very well. I used to when someone's like,
• 50:07
  Hey, do you mind giving me like a quick, like, could you come by
• 50:09
  for a quick visit? Could you like quickly help me
• 50:11
  do this? Could you meet me on this day to
• 50:14
  do XYZ? And I'm like totally, totally.
• 50:18
  And meanwhile my body, I'm like, no, no, I cannot meet you.
• 50:21
  No, I cannot do that. No, I cannot do X.
• 50:24
  And I would always say yes. And I said, well, what am I
• 50:26
  supposed to do when someone asks for this?
• 50:28
  I'm just supposed to say no. And he's like, you can't say no.
• 50:31
  So like for example, say someone asks you to do a call and you
• 50:34
  decide again, we're talking about bumper lanes.
• 50:36
  So we decide our bumper lanes are no calls on Mondays, no
• 50:39
  calls on Fridays, just like my schedule.
• 50:42
  Now some people might think because I technically work
• 50:46
  Mondays, but I don't take calls on Mondays, that it's not fair.
• 50:49
  It's not. I'm not allowed to say, oh, I
• 50:51
  don't take calls on those days, but I don't say that I don't
• 50:54
  take calls on those days. Like if someone asks me, I'll
• 50:56
  tell them, I'm telling you right now, but I'm not hiding it.
• 51:01
  But if someone says to me, hey, do you have an opening on
• 51:03
  Monday? I'd say no, I actually don't.
• 51:04
  But I could do a Tuesday, a Wednesday or Thursday.
• 51:08
  I will literally just say I don't have anything that day
• 51:09
  because I don't take calls that day.
• 51:11
  Now if someone says is there any chance we could do a Monday and
• 51:13
  they really push it, I will. Which is the line he gave me?
• 51:16
  I prefer not to. I'd prefer not to.
• 51:20
  So this line is like a one liner, which seems so stupid
• 51:24
  because it's so simple, but it's so effective.
• 51:28
  I had somebody over the weekend who had asked me, hey, I would
• 51:31
  love if you could come by for a quick visit this time to this
• 51:33
  time is what I'm thinking. I could really use your help
• 51:35
  with blah, blah, blah, blah. Any chance you can come by at
• 51:37
  that time? And my plans when they messaged
• 51:41
  me were literally nothing. I was planning on baking.
• 51:44
  I had some laundry I need to do. Like it was not like I had
• 51:46
  anything crazy, books that would be a reason I couldn't do it,
• 51:50
  other than the fact that you simply didn't want to.
• 51:53
  So I said, hey, I would love to see you.
• 51:55
  Like I would love to obviously come for a visit, but to be
• 51:58
  honest, I would just really prefer not to leave today.
• 52:00
  I have a lot of stuff that I want to do at home, so I just
• 52:03
  would really prefer not to today.
• 52:05
  But if there's another day that would work best for you, I would
• 52:07
  love to do that. So it was literally just saying
• 52:10
  like I would prefer not to. If someone says like, hey, I'm
• 52:13
  going to be arriving in at the airport and I was wondering if
• 52:15
  you could pick me up. I arrive at 4.
• 52:16
  AMI would say, listen, like I really would prefer not to.
• 52:18
  But if you are OK with it, I would be happy to send like a,
• 52:23
  you know, an Uber, a limo or something to come get you just
• 52:25
  because like, then obviously when you get here, I'll be
• 52:27
  rested and ready to go. Like it's just saying in a
• 52:31
  gentle way, no, versus being like, hey, do you want to come
• 52:34
  over? No, I don't want to, right?
• 52:36
  Or hey, do you want to pick me up at the airport at 4:00 AM?
• 52:39
  Nope. Like obviously it's very harsh.
• 52:42
  So my thing with boundaries was how do I deliver the boundary in
• 52:46
  a way that doesn't feel uneasy? And typically for me now, it is
• 52:51
  the fact that I would prefer not to.
• 52:53
  And here's why this is supported for me.
• 52:56
  But here's what I would recommend instead, or here's
• 52:57
  what I would be open to. And it's really helped me quite
• 53:00
  a bit. So let's talk about enforcing
• 53:02
  boundaries, OK? These are the five CS that I
• 53:05
  feel like I've anchored into, which have been really, really
• 53:07
  helpful for me and starting to see some massive of progress
• 53:09
  when it comes to boundaries. The first C is clarity.
• 53:14
  You need to know what it is that you are protecting.
• 53:18
  In some instances, it's just going to be your energy.
• 53:21
  Like that day when I was baking, I didn't have anything crazy I
• 53:24
  had to do. I just didn't feel like
• 53:27
  energetically up to going and doing that.
• 53:29
  Like I just thought like, I just don't want to do this right now.
• 53:31
  So I, it didn't, it just didn't. And so I was protecting my
• 53:35
  energy. I knew that my energy at the end
• 53:37
  of the day was going to feel better if I didn't go than if I
• 53:39
  did go. So I was protecting my energy.
• 53:42
  You might even also be protecting, let's just say if
• 53:44
  you don't want to offer extra hours or extra deliverables to a
• 53:47
  client, you might just be protecting your profit margins.
• 53:50
  Maybe it's just like, hey, like I recognize that if I go do
• 53:52
  that, I'm spending more hours for my team member to go do X,
• 53:56
  which means I'm spending more money, which means I'm eating
• 53:59
  into my margins. So that could also be protecting
• 54:02
  your profit. It could just also be protecting
• 54:03
  your time. So ask yourself when it comes to
• 54:06
  clarity, what is the result that I'm looking to work toward?
• 54:11
  So you want to define what actually matters to you.
• 54:15
  And I think the times that I've struggled the most with
• 54:17
  boundaries and even when I see clients struggle the most, it's
• 54:20
  because they don't really have a compass and a focus in that
• 54:23
  moment or in that time frame of what is important to them or
• 54:26
  what they do care about. And when you don't have that
• 54:30
  North star of what is important to you in your business or in
• 54:33
  your life, it means that it becomes very easy to step over
• 54:38
  that boundary because it's not really been acknowledged or
• 54:41
  established in the 1st place. So for example, my mornings are
• 54:47
  for me. So like I am protecting my
• 54:50
  energy space in the morning. So someone said to me, well,
• 54:54
  like, oh, I, I just take calls at 8:00 AM, right?
• 54:57
  Like it's like a nine to five or 88 to 4:00, yes.
• 55:02
  But those morning calls for me, I don't find that does help my
• 55:06
  energy. I like to be able to get up at
• 55:08
  like a 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning and not have to be on a
• 55:11
  meeting until 10 AM. Like that two hour window for me
• 55:14
  is priceless. So because of that, I am
• 55:16
  protecting my energy, not just protecting the business.
• 55:21
  So I recognize that I have to value my energy as much if not
• 55:27
  more than whatever's being asked of me.
• 55:30
  So I had to really set intention that that's just my space.
• 55:34
  It's not a negotiable thing. I'm not open to doing calls at
• 55:37
  7:00 or 8:00 in the morning. I am just always going to have
• 55:40
  that space. And this is even seen with all
• 55:44
  different types of CEO's. You know, Jeff Bezos as well was
• 55:47
  someone who had really strict boundaries when he was building
• 55:50
  and scaling, which is that he didn't take meetings after 3:00
• 55:53
  PM. And that's because his whole
• 55:55
  thing around taking meetings after 3:00 PM was that he didn't
• 55:59
  have energy. He was a morning efficiency
• 56:01
  person versus the opposite, which is me.
• 56:03
  I'm an afternoon efficiency person.
• 56:05
  He was so efficient in the morning that he's like, I want
• 56:08
  all my meetings there because I don't want my drained brain at
• 56:11
  3:00 PM to be doing these meetings.
• 56:13
  So he protects his energy so intentionally that he books his
• 56:17
  stuff during the moments where he knows he has the most and he
• 56:19
  doesn't book anything in the moments where he's needing to
• 56:21
  recoup. So it's really understanding 1st
• 56:24
  to get clarity. Know what it is that you're
• 56:27
  looking to protect. If you're saying no to
• 56:29
  something, you want to ask yourself, well, what am I
• 56:31
  looking to protect in the pursuit of saying no?
• 56:35
  If I say no to this person, what am I looking to protect by doing
• 56:38
  that? And have clarity of what that
• 56:41
  thing is. Because otherwise it's going to
• 56:43
  be difficult for you to say no because otherwise you're just
• 56:45
  kind of thinking or feeling. I feel like I'm just saying no
• 56:48
  to say no, right? Like there's no reason to this.
• 56:51
  There's usually a reason. There's a reason because you're
• 56:52
  protecting your time. You're protecting some kind of
• 56:55
  resource. Could be financial, could be
• 56:57
  energy, could just be emotional capacity.
• 57:01
  Like there's a bunch of different things.
• 57:02
  It doesn't have to be business and money.
• 57:04
  It could also just be you. You're protecting yourself.
• 57:07
  The second C is confidence, which is that you have to
• 57:12
  believe now that you know what it is, you have to believe that
• 57:16
  you have the right and the ability to protect that right.
• 57:20
  So I think for me, my ongoing lack of boundaries initially
• 57:24
  came from the fact that I had no clarity of what I was trying to
• 57:27
  protect, but I also didn't have confidence that I deserved it.
• 57:30
  When I would always want to book things, I would always think,
• 57:34
  you know, for example, when I had a target, I hadn't hit my
• 57:37
  target yet in in business revenue.
• 57:39
  I would think, well, I'm not allowed to rest until I hit that
• 57:41
  target. I'm not allowed to rest until or
• 57:44
  I'm not allowed to have these boundaries until.
• 57:46
  So like I remember I had a target and I wanted to take a
• 57:49
  Friday off. Like I just wanted to take the
• 57:50
  day and go like shopping and walk around and grab a coffee
• 57:54
  and just have a good chill day. And I thought, like, how do you
• 57:58
  say no to a interview for a podcast or doing these things as
• 58:01
  opportunities for growth when you know you have a goal you
• 58:04
  need to reach? You shouldn't be resting.
• 58:06
  So I thought to myself, I didn't give myself the confidence.
• 58:09
  I didn't empower myself to see why taking space was actually
• 58:14
  the most leverageable thing that I could have possibly done.
• 58:17
  And instead, what I did is because I didn't have confidence
• 58:21
  on why I deserved the space or why I deserved to say no.
• 58:24
  I just was like, OK, I guess I have to.
• 58:27
  And I just kept saying yes. And I kept leaning in.
• 58:31
  Boundaries require you believing that you are worth protecting.
• 58:40
  So there's like the logical thought process of like, OK,
• 58:43
  well, what am I trying to protect?
• 58:44
  But there's also why do you not just simply deserve to be
• 58:49
  protected? Why does your energy and time
• 58:52
  not simply just deserve to be protected?
• 58:57
  And the thing that I would kind of invite you to is that saying
• 59:01
  no does not mean that you are being difficult.
• 59:06
  It means that you are being decisive.
• 59:10
  So for example, when I say to someone that these are kind of
• 59:18
  like the days that I take calls, I recognize #1 clarity.
• 59:22
  I'm doing that because I'm protecting my energy, but I also
• 59:25
  deserve the right to run my business as I see fit.
• 59:31
  And with that, to do so in a way that helps me to be able to
• 59:35
  perform my best so that I can support people the best
• 59:38
  possible. And so with this, I tell people,
• 59:41
  here's how I work with clients. Like I'm very transparent to my
• 59:44
  clients about my schedule because this is just how I
• 59:48
  operate. It's always how I've operated
• 59:50
  with the Mondays and Fridays off.
• 59:52
  And so technically I work client facing three days a week.
• 59:56
  And so I I let them in on that process, which is like I'm
• 59:59
  sharing with you what's important to me and why it's
• 1:00:03
  important to me. And I do so in a way that
• 1:00:07
  transfers the confidence of here's what's important to me
• 1:00:10
  and kind of a non negotiable, right.
• 1:00:13
  So another thing that's a non negotiable for me is that I
• 1:00:16
  always say this line to clients and on this podcast, which is
• 1:00:20
  that. Your urgency is not my
• 1:00:22
  emergency. And you can also put the other
• 1:00:25
  way, your emergency is not my urgency, whichever way it lands
• 1:00:28
  easiest for you. And that is because I often
• 1:00:33
  times wouldn't have the confidence to say that my time
• 1:00:38
  was valuable enough to not get sucked in.
• 1:00:40
  So if someone had something happen which they perceived to
• 1:00:44
  be an emergency, I would urgently run and want to go fix
• 1:00:47
  it. But the reason I was doing that
• 1:00:49
  is because I didn't actually have the confidence that my time
• 1:00:53
  was valuable. And I didn't have the confidence
• 1:00:56
  that I had the right to say no, that I had the right to say I
• 1:01:00
  will get to this tomorrow, right, 24 hours later.
• 1:01:03
  And I think that it really like enforcing boundaries is a very
• 1:01:06
  reflective process because it makes us really understand why
• 1:01:08
  we don't have them in the first place.
• 1:01:10
  And it's not often times about the tactical of what people
• 1:01:13
  think of like, oh, yeah, like I just need to say no.
• 1:01:15
  It's deeper than that. It's about the fact that we
• 1:01:18
  maybe we don't even know what it is we're trying to protect and
• 1:01:21
  maybe we don't believe that we are worthy of that protection.
• 1:01:25
  That we don't believe that we are worthy of having time and
• 1:01:29
  space and sticking up for ourselves and just saying no for
• 1:01:33
  the sheer reason of saying no because it's what feels right
• 1:01:36
  and best for us. Now at some point though, yes,
• 1:01:39
  you will get into communication, which is how you actually going
• 1:01:43
  to voice and dialogue about your boundaries.
• 1:01:46
  And I think my biggest learning with the communication side is
• 1:01:51
  that number one, if your boundaries have depleted over
• 1:01:55
  time and they've kind of declined or they've withered,
• 1:01:57
  withered away, you still can reinstate them.
• 1:02:00
  So don't feel like just because at one point you haven't had
• 1:02:04
  boundaries that now you never can.
• 1:02:06
  They definitely at any moment can be reset.
• 1:02:09
  There's not like an expiration date on boundaries, but I think
• 1:02:13
  the thing with boundaries and the way you communicate them,
• 1:02:15
  which is why it's important that you have this deep belief and
• 1:02:18
  clarity first, is that they have to be voiced very clearly.
• 1:02:23
  And it typically when somebody is an empath or they are, you
• 1:02:26
  know, potentially if you self diagnose like me, a people
• 1:02:28
  pleaser, if you're a people pleaser, you are going to feel
• 1:02:32
  such discomfort and expressing your boundary.
• 1:02:35
  So because of that, when we are uncomfortable, what's the first
• 1:02:37
  thing we're going to do? Yeah.
• 1:02:39
  But like, you know, it's fine. Like obviously if you need me,
• 1:02:41
  but like I just tried to, you know, not any calls on these
• 1:02:44
  days. But obviously like in a rare
• 1:02:45
  situation, like I would obviously be open to right.
• 1:02:47
  It's very wishy washy and it's very Gray.
• 1:02:52
  And it leaves this kind of like, OK, she's saying she can't do
• 1:02:55
  it, but she also might be able to do it.
• 1:02:57
  But like she doesn't want to do all the time, but in some
• 1:02:59
  instances she will do it. Like it doesn't feel clear as to
• 1:03:02
  what is the freaking boundary here that you're trying to
• 1:03:05
  establish. So I think that the invitation
• 1:03:09
  is to have this clarity and confidence slash almost like
• 1:03:13
  conviction first so that you feel like you can communicate
• 1:03:17
  that clearly in a calm, centered, constructive way.
• 1:03:23
  And I think the other thing that's also really important,
• 1:03:25
  especially in business, is if you can try to handle the
• 1:03:29
  enforcing of these boundaries early.
• 1:03:31
  Because the thing that most people don't realize is that the
• 1:03:35
  reason that people maybe are, you know, testing you and your
• 1:03:38
  business or, you know, you're feeling that they're like,
• 1:03:40
  they're just not getting it. They're like trying to break
• 1:03:42
  break your boundaries all the time.
• 1:03:44
  Truthfully, most of the boundaries that are broken in
• 1:03:46
  business is because they haven't actually been established.
• 1:03:48
  They were never spoken to. They were never created as a
• 1:03:51
  baseline. So when we don't have boundaries
• 1:03:54
  developed, it's going to be really hard to follow those
• 1:03:58
  because we don't really know what they are.
• 1:03:59
  They were never really properly voiced.
• 1:04:01
  So that could be, for example, in contracts, it could be
• 1:04:04
  policies within your business, it could be expectation
• 1:04:06
  guidelines. Like even for us within our
• 1:04:08
  onboarding of our mastermind, we have a onboarding portal of a
• 1:04:12
  couple different steps. And one of the steps of that
• 1:04:15
  process is to have expectations of like if you are late to a
• 1:04:20
  call, here's what we typically do.
• 1:04:22
  If you need to reschedule, here's what we typically do.
• 1:04:25
  If you send us a file that you want us to review, it will take
• 1:04:27
  us a couple days to get back to it like to to dive into it.
• 1:04:31
  It's not instantaneous. You'll have it tomorrow morning.
• 1:04:34
  Like we set those boundaries so that when someone just say wants
• 1:04:38
  me to look at their sales page, they can say, OK, great.
• 1:04:40
  Well, I'm going to send it to Kate because I know I'm going to
• 1:04:42
  need probably 5 days before I get that back, right.
• 1:04:44
  So we established these at the beginning because what it does
• 1:04:48
  is it helps people to also start to know how to work in unison
• 1:04:52
  with us to get the best outcome and get all the supports that
• 1:04:55
  they need. So with that, I think, you know,
• 1:04:59
  like if you are finding that people are pushing boundaries,
• 1:05:04
  you have to also go also ask yourself where have I failed to
• 1:05:09
  properly, effectively communicate my boundaries?
• 1:05:12
  And boundaries often are going to fail when they are assumed or
• 1:05:17
  when they are kind of. Yeah, just generally assessed
• 1:05:21
  versus actually established and expressed clearly.
• 1:05:26
  You don't want someone to be like, well, they should know.
• 1:05:29
  I cannot stand that within business, which is that the
• 1:05:33
  clients should know. The clients should know that
• 1:05:36
  they're not going to get an answer in 24 hours.
• 1:05:37
  The clients should know that I'm not going to get back to them
• 1:05:39
  that quickly. Who says that they should know?
• 1:05:43
  Since when Maybe another coach lived on their cell phone 24/7
• 1:05:48
  and then they come to work with me and it's 24 to 48 hour
• 1:05:50
  response time and they go, whoa, my last coach answered me within
• 1:05:54
  30 seconds. And it's like, OK, great.
• 1:05:56
  But I then again, for me, I don't do the emergency stuff.
• 1:06:01
  And my whole thing is if you do need an answer within 20 minutes
• 1:06:04
  all the time, there's a serious issue with your business because
• 1:06:07
  like no one should need that. But what I do is I make it clear
• 1:06:11
  at the beginning, it's 24 to 48 hour response time.
• 1:06:14
  I don't answer on weekends. So if you message me on a
• 1:06:16
  Monday, you're going to get an answer on the Monday or the
• 1:06:20
  Tuesday versus within 20 minutes.
• 1:06:23
  And with that, that I, I'm really clear about response time
• 1:06:28
  that I don't answer on the weekends.
• 1:06:29
  So if you want to send me 18 messages, I at times have gone
• 1:06:32
  on my phone for sure and I've seen messages from people, but
• 1:06:35
  I'm not going to answer them because that's my boundary.
• 1:06:37
  I will answer it when I come back on Monday.
• 1:06:38
  And that's it because it's just I am clear about protecting my
• 1:06:43
  own energy. And I'm also confident that it's
• 1:06:44
  OK that I take the weekends off and they are totally OK and very
• 1:06:48
  self-sufficient entrepreneurs that they will be OK if they
• 1:06:51
  have to wait for an answer until Monday.
• 1:06:53
  So the communication is also asking, have you set out these
• 1:06:57
  boundaries upfront and put these expectations clearly
• 1:07:02
  communicated to the person you're wanting to enforce it
• 1:07:05
  with? It is really, really important
• 1:07:06
  that we do that. The other two pieces are
• 1:07:09
  consistency. You must be consistent in the
• 1:07:13
  execution of these boundaries, enforcing it without going wishy
• 1:07:18
  washy back and forth. A boundary that you are
• 1:07:21
  constantly bending is not actually a boundary, OK?
• 1:07:26
  A constant, a constant boundary that you are bending is not
• 1:07:29
  actually a boundary. So a boundary needs to be
• 1:07:33
  established and then it needs to be enforced, right?
• 1:07:36
  So it's like if you for anyone who has kids, I don't have kids,
• 1:07:39
  but I have so many dear friends who do.
• 1:07:41
  And when they have kids that are around, they say, no, you can't
• 1:07:45
  have that. You can't have, let's just say
• 1:07:47
  like one person said that their kids can't have the iPad before
• 1:07:50
  10 AM And it's, there's just no iPad before 10.
• 1:07:53
  AMI will tell you that first day that you're like iPad at 9.
• 1:07:57
  AMI literally had someone, I saw their son.
• 1:08:00
  They were like, well, yesterday I had it before 10 AM.
• 1:08:02
  What's different today? And it was like, so like it was
• 1:08:07
  the fact that you went you, this person went against their
• 1:08:10
  boundary. They went against what they said
• 1:08:13
  was here's what the defined boundary is, here's why I'm
• 1:08:16
  confident in it, and here's how I'm communicating.
• 1:08:18
  They did all the first three steps.
• 1:08:20
  The problem is they weren't consistent in the execution and
• 1:08:24
  enforcing of it, which meant the person that they were trying to
• 1:08:26
  instill a boundary in, IE his son, he was not picking up on
• 1:08:32
  the fact that it was going to happen consistently because
• 1:08:34
  there wasn't a consistency in executing it.
• 1:08:36
  So it is important that not only are we establishing and getting,
• 1:08:41
  you know, the clarity of what it is, the confidence to believe
• 1:08:43
  that we are worthy of that and also communicating it, but the
• 1:08:46
  consistency truthfully helps to train other people on how to
• 1:08:51
  treat you when you are not consistent with what you say you
• 1:08:56
  care about or what you say you believe.
• 1:08:58
  It tells people where your weak spots are and it tells people
• 1:09:02
  where she says she does this but she doesn't really care, or she
• 1:09:05
  says this but she doesn't really enforce it.
• 1:09:08
  So like one of these, for example, is like late payments.
• 1:09:10
  If someone has late payments or failed payments, you have to
• 1:09:14
  decide what is your process with that?
• 1:09:16
  And like what is your boundary that you are confident and clear
• 1:09:19
  that you are going to enforce? And have you communicated that
• 1:09:22
  from the time that someone starts to work with you?
• 1:09:24
  And so these are things that require consistency.
• 1:09:28
  It's like anything else in life. If you want to have these
• 1:09:31
  outcomes, you want to remember that they are going to require
• 1:09:38
  ongoing effort. And especially I'm going to warn
• 1:09:40
  you now, if you are somebody who has been notoriously a people
• 1:09:43
  pleaser, you're going to find that this is going to take a
• 1:09:45
  little, it's going to be a little stretchy for you.
• 1:09:47
  And that is something that's OK. It was for me too.
• 1:09:50
  And which is why it's been a constant work in therapy because
• 1:09:52
  I find new buckets of my life. I like learned business
• 1:09:56
  boundaries. But then it would be, you know,
• 1:09:57
  a personal boundary that was difficult.
• 1:09:59
  And then I'm like, so then I would go and I would handle and
• 1:10:01
  rewire my beliefs around that. And it would be like a
• 1:10:04
  relationship boundary. And I'm like, OK, great.
• 1:10:07
  Well then that's not going to impact that area.
• 1:10:09
  And then it did. And so it's like the lack of
• 1:10:11
  boundaries is really something that typically is going to touch
• 1:10:15
  all areas of your life. It's not usually siloed in one
• 1:10:18
  area, but it is something that as you start to practice it,
• 1:10:20
  you're going to find does create a little bit of a domino in
• 1:10:24
  these different buckets. And the last of the five, right?
• 1:10:27
  So remember, we've got clarity, we've got confidence, we
• 1:10:30
  communicated effectively. We need consistency in the
• 1:10:33
  execution of it. But I think the exciting part is
• 1:10:35
  number 5, which I would label as like curation or better known as
• 1:10:40
  capacity, which is that when you have boundaries, you're curating
• 1:10:46
  capacity for what you want to have space for.
• 1:10:51
  And that space can be emotional space, mental space and
• 1:10:55
  energetic space-time space, physical space, like it can be
• 1:11:00
  space for anything. But boundaries are not about
• 1:11:04
  closing doors. They're also about opening them.
• 1:11:08
  So when I created the boundary that I don't work client facing
• 1:11:14
  or meeting facing on Mondays and Fridays, it wasn't like I'm
• 1:11:16
  pushing away people and pushing away my business.
• 1:11:20
  It was about like, what would me being able to ease into the week
• 1:11:24
  look like? What would me being able to ease
• 1:11:26
  out into the weekend look like, right.
• 1:11:29
  And so it was about the excitement and the opportunity
• 1:11:33
  of what having those days could mean for me.
• 1:11:36
  That was exciting, not a matter of what it was pushing away.
• 1:11:40
  It was also a matter of if I did this, what would it be inviting
• 1:11:43
  for me and for my business. And so even in like a situation,
• 1:11:47
  let's just say of like people are saying that they can't
• 1:11:50
  afford your price, that they want a discount and all these
• 1:11:53
  things, well, OK, yes, you know, you might say, well, my
• 1:11:57
  boundaries, I'm not going to give a discount.
• 1:11:59
  And that, yes, you might think, OK, well, that's turning away
• 1:12:01
  business. But what it's also doing is it's
• 1:12:04
  inviting and it's curating and it's, it's creating this
• 1:12:08
  capacity for you to sign clients who see your full value at the
• 1:12:12
  prices that you're asking, who maybe even will be paying in
• 1:12:15
  full, right? Like there really is an
• 1:12:18
  opportunity on the other side of what you're seeing to be your
• 1:12:22
  boundary being enforced. So what we think about with this
• 1:12:28
  is like, OK, so let's just say A team members, I'm just wrote
• 1:12:32
  down to situations here, A-Team member asking you to make every
• 1:12:34
  decision clarity. Your role is the CEO, not the
• 1:12:37
  micromanager confidence. You have hired them to get their
• 1:12:42
  own outcomes, that you have hired them with the intention of
• 1:12:45
  not needing to babysit communication.
• 1:12:49
  This is about making sure that they are clear what is within
• 1:12:52
  their decision making area and what is not.
• 1:12:55
  Did we have a clear understanding of what they are
• 1:12:57
  intended to do versus where you truly need to be involved?
• 1:13:00
  Consistency is that you do not backtrack and when they come to,
• 1:13:04
  you try to solve it for them. Instead, you invite them back
• 1:13:07
  into solving it themselves. And what this does, what this,
• 1:13:12
  you know, curates and what's creates capacity for is it
• 1:13:15
  builds a culture of empowered leadership versus having a team
• 1:13:19
  of people who are dependent. OK.
• 1:13:23
  So like that's an example of how you can go through these seas
• 1:13:26
  and look at, OK, great. How would this work in my
• 1:13:29
  business? How would this work in my
• 1:13:31
  situation of what I'm experiencing?
• 1:13:33
  Another situation was a client who's maybe pushing for a little
• 1:13:37
  bit more deliverables. So they that's kind of, again,
• 1:13:39
  we talked about scope creep, that's where we're getting
• 1:13:41
  people pushing for more things from us.
• 1:13:45
  Well, OK, the clarity is this is not in scope and what I'm
• 1:13:49
  protecting is my profit margin, the confidence I deserve to be
• 1:13:53
  paid for the additional work that I'm going to be providing.
• 1:13:56
  So I can provide the work, but I want to be compensated for the
• 1:13:59
  additional work that I'm providing.
• 1:14:01
  Communication to the client would be that this is not
• 1:14:03
  included in the traditional services that we have together.
• 1:14:06
  But if you would like to add it, I would be happy to add that
• 1:14:09
  additional investment. If you'd like consistency, every
• 1:14:13
  time that they come to you asking for something outside of
• 1:14:16
  contract, you need to consistently communicate that.
• 1:14:19
  And this is not just with, you know, the easy clients that this
• 1:14:23
  is able to do that you're able to do this with with every
• 1:14:26
  client. It needs to be consistent with
• 1:14:27
  every single client. And again, what this does is
• 1:14:31
  it's creating capacity for you to be positioned as
• 1:14:34
  professional, to work with clients who respect your
• 1:14:37
  process, who respect your investment, who respect your
• 1:14:40
  time and respect the money that is a result of that time.
• 1:14:45
  So like these five CS, right? The clarity, the confidence, the
• 1:14:49
  communication of it, the consistency, and lastly, the
• 1:14:52
  ability to curate or create capacity of a new opportunity.
• 1:14:57
  This is something that you can put into practice yourself.
• 1:15:00
  So as a little homework for you, I want you to kind of think step
• 1:15:04
  one, identify an area in your business, in your life maybe
• 1:15:07
  where you feel like your boundaries are the weakest.
• 1:15:11
  OK, so maybe it's client communication, maybe it's
• 1:15:13
  payments, maybe it's a relationship, maybe it's a
• 1:15:16
  friend or a partner, whatever it might be.
• 1:15:19
  And then I want you to run through those CS, OK?
• 1:15:23
  Ask yourself, what are you protecting?
• 1:15:26
  Do you have confidence to protect that?
• 1:15:28
  Do you believe you're worthy of that protection?
• 1:15:30
  If if so, why? And if no, why not?
• 1:15:34
  What would consistency in this look like?
• 1:15:37
  How are you going to communicate it?
• 1:15:39
  And what is the exciting thing from which you're curating more
• 1:15:42
  capacity for in doing this? It's a really simple exercise.
• 1:15:46
  You can do it, you know, just in a journal, you might even just
• 1:15:49
  ask yourself these questions and write these questions on your
• 1:15:52
  phone, on your notes and just think through situations.
• 1:15:55
  And even just the reflecting again will bring up the
• 1:15:57
  awareness. But I want you to remember that
• 1:15:59
  boundaries are not about restricting.
• 1:16:02
  They are about protecting what is important to you, whether
• 1:16:06
  that is energy, time, capacity, whatever that thing is.
• 1:16:10
  And that if you are somebody who has noticed in listening today
• 1:16:16
  that you need to do a little bit of sharpening of of the tools
• 1:16:19
  here when it comes to boundaries that you can choose to just do
• 1:16:22
  that today. You don't have to just because
• 1:16:25
  it's always been one way, continue to have it that way.
• 1:16:28
  The people that again, get impacted by your enforcing of
• 1:16:32
  boundaries are the people that we're taking in some way
• 1:16:36
  leverage or advantage off the fact that you didn't have any.
• 1:16:41
  So we don't want more of those relationships.
• 1:16:44
  We don't want more of those situations.
• 1:16:46
  We don't want to have more instances where our lack of
• 1:16:49
  boundaries are the reason we're successful, that our lack of
• 1:16:52
  boundaries are the reason we have a relationship or a
• 1:16:55
  friendship or a client or a team member.
• 1:16:58
  The people you want to have in your life and in your business,
• 1:17:00
  the realities you want in your life and in your business are a
• 1:17:04
  result of boundaries. And the right people and the
• 1:17:07
  right experiences and the right things that are supposed to
• 1:17:09
  happen should never be on the other side of you not having
• 1:17:13
  boundaries as a required factor for them to be there.
• 1:17:18
  So with this, I'm going to give you a little personal
• 1:17:21
  accountability if you should feel so inclined.
• 1:17:26
  You know that I love to hear from you and I get amazing
• 1:17:28
  messages after every episode of like, this was my nugget.
• 1:17:31
  I'm taking this homework and I'm going and doing it.
• 1:17:33
  Or maybe there's a line that I said today.
• 1:17:35
  There could be a phrase, there might be a step or situation
• 1:17:38
  that you resonated with, whatever it may be.
• 1:17:40
  The best quote that I wanted to share, which I always share on
• 1:17:42
  this show, is that the most transformative way of being able
• 1:17:47
  to see change within yourself and within your life and within
• 1:17:51
  your business is to be witnessed within it.
• 1:17:53
  And So what that means is that when someone else sees you in
• 1:17:57
  transformation, it actually creates overall a deeper
• 1:18:00
  transformation within you in the thing that you're looking to
• 1:18:02
  address. So maybe it's a sending me your
• 1:18:05
  5C's of what is the boundary you're going to enforce in your
• 1:18:08
  business and how you plan to do that.
• 1:18:10
  Maybe it's a line that you have taken as your motto from today
• 1:18:14
  that you're going to put on a sticky note on your laptop or on
• 1:18:18
  your monitor and use as kind of a thing to anchor into in this
• 1:18:21
  process of flexing this new muscle.
• 1:18:23
  Whatever it is, reach out, slide into my DMS.
• 1:18:26
  I would love to hear from you and just kind of hear what was
• 1:18:28
  your take away today when it comes to boundaries and what
• 1:18:31
  you're going to do differently after today to start taking
• 1:18:35
  those steps to having the Better Business, the better life, the
• 1:18:38
  better relationships that you want to have and the better
• 1:18:41
  experience you want to have in your life and in your business.
• 1:18:43
  So I hope today was helpful for you.
• 1:18:46
  If you again have any questions, please feel free to reach out to
• 1:18:49
  me if there's anything that you feel kind of sparked for you
• 1:18:51
  that you're curious about. And with that being said, if you
• 1:18:54
  are someone as well who feels like you are needing more
• 1:18:58
  boundaries in business and you're looking at like strategic
• 1:19:01
  ways to integrate this, you know where to find me.
• 1:19:04
  This is the type of work that we do with clients all the time in
• 1:19:07
  helping them to really harness their business so they can enjoy
• 1:19:10
  so much more of the process of what it looks like.
• 1:19:12
  So all of that being said, reach out to me.
• 1:19:14
  You know where to find me if you need support.
• 1:19:16
  And with that, I will see you on the next episode.
• 1:19:18
  And, as always, stay ambitious.