How To Value Yourself As Much As You Value Your Clients

You, my designer friend, are your best and most important client. Everything that makes your business what it is starts with you!

Why, then, do we always put the issues of others ahead of our own needs?
Why do we think that a client's feelings are more important than our own?

If your foundation is not secure, you are of no use to anyone, especially those in your business.

In essence, just like they say on the plane....
put your own mask on first, then take care of everyone else.

I KNOW this is hard to do! I have struggled with it too! But in this episode, I am going to give you 4 ways to become your own best client and serve your family, your business, your vendors, your trades, and anyone else around you in the most optimal manner.

Come with me on my morning walk on this episode! I am shooting from the hip with no script, just my thoughts and a plan of action for you.

Here's the 4 methods to learn to be your best client that I will discuss in this episode:
1) Prioritizing Your Own Time
2) Prioritizing Your Own Finances
3) Prioritizing Your Own Mental Health
4) Setting Your Values to Align With All Of The Things Above

I hope you enjoy this episode and take it to heart to apply to your own business and start the journey to treat yourself as the VIP client that you are!

Let me know if you like (or don't like) this off-the-cuff walking episode as well!

Here's the download to start to define your own values: https://john.myflodesk.com/defineyourvalues

(or find it in the LINKS in my Instagram bio).

What if you could finally create the interior design business of your dreams while consistently making 6 figures and doing it all with no stress? Join Design Business Fast Track today to make your Design Business dreams a reality!

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For all things John: www.johnmcclain.co
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Transcript

Stop right now and think about something that you have crossed off the list to make time for a client, to make time for your business, I want you to think about something that you have pushed to the side to give a client Or your business, the preferential treatment and put it back on your calendar.

And that is a non negotiable. You will show up for that appointment and everything else I promise you will work around it. 

Hey y'all, you're listening to The Designer Within, episode 21, and it's time to take a walk with John!

I'm John McClain and welcome to the designer within podcast, the business minded podcast created for creative entrepreneurs by a creative entrepreneur. That's me. I know firsthand the challenges, but also the victories that can come with our careers. And I'm here to sip and spill the tea with you. It's time to dive deep within yourself and redesign your own business and your life from the inside out.

Together we will uncover secrets and share valuable insights. So prepare for a transformative experience, my friend, because it's time to unleash the designer within.

 Hello, everybody. You are doing something a little different today. I am doing something a little different today. I am taking you for a morning walk with me. And if it's a little windy, if it's a little loud, maybe there's some car noises, I'm sorry. But I felt that this might be something a little different.

And also just a fun way to chat with you as I take my morning walk, because my morning walk is, oh my gosh, it's such a ritual for me. I love it so much. It is the way I start my day. It is the way that enlightens me. It gives me so much, valuable insight that I really don't think I would have had otherwise.

So I just wanted to take you along with me today. on John's morning walk. And on that note, if you don't have any sort of morning ritual or something that you do for yourself maybe think about that. I like to ease into the day. I like to work myself into the day so that it just doesn't come and smack me in the face with all of its problems and all of its issues.

I'm able to basically control how I start the day. So we're going to try this John's morning walk situation of chatting with you and. there's, some companies who actually have meetings that they schedule around walks. So Google, for instance, has walking paths around its facilities that say, if you have a 15 minute meeting, take this walking path.

And if you have a 30 minute meeting, take this walking path. So it's basically a walking meeting. So I think today, let's have a walking podcast, right? It'll be fun.

as I said, I normally take a walk every morning, and I did it for a couple of reasons. It started out as trying to keep my steps up. We took a vacation to Spain earlier in the year during the summer for my birthday in August, and it started out as a... Way to keep those steps up because we were getting like, oh, my gosh, like 15, 000 18, 000 steps.

You know how it is on vacation. So it started out as let's take these steps in the morning. You can get those steps in 10, 000 steps and then you can go to the gym and get another 5, 000 or so and on the elliptical or whatever. So that's how it started. And then I realized, oh my goodness, there's so many other benefits of it than just walking and getting those steps in.

The mental, the mental release that I'm getting from it, the ideas that I'm getting from it. And if you missed the episode that I did on dreaming, I know that wasn't the most downloaded episode because I think a lot of us don't value the time it takes to dream and giving ourselves time to dream. please go back and listen to that episode on.

Giving yourself time to dream and the benefits of dreaming and how that does help us as business owners and as the leaders and CEOs of our company. It really is important. that being said on my walks, I tend to get my best ideas and I tend to get, uh, sort of revelations about my business and about where I want it to go and about, you know, things I can do for you for the podcast and podcast ideas and course ideas and all these things come along with me on the walk.

And I listen to other podcasts on my walk. I'm sure you're probably listening to this one right now on a walk. So if you are, we're walking together. There you go.

But to give you an idea of what I'm seeing, it's a gorgeous, gorgeous sunny day. It's about 62 degrees. There is a slight breeze, as you can hear. The sky is, as I said, completely blue. There are no clouds anywhere that I can see. The trees are still a little green, and the birds are chirping. There's squirrels running around as I'm walking.

And just to give you a visual of what I'm seeing, it's quite cool. It's quite lovely, so it's nice. I had another podcast episode scheduled to go out today, but I just returned from an event in Orlando, Florida with my friend Luann Nigara, Luann Live, and I was her VIP special guest, and the whole week, was about four days, three and a half days, And the entire event was really about, leveling your business, which Luanne is so great at, but also a lot of it was about your mental health.

And it was the sort of overarching theme was health and wealth. It was something that I took away, even though I was there to talk about my book and how I got my book published. of course you guys know that I am a business coach and I worked with a lot of designers like yourself, but for me, the part that I took away was how many people raised their hand or had an aha moment or had some sort of revelation about themselves.

on the wellness side of things, on the mental health side of things. And by the way, my husband is actually a wellness director for a very large tech company, so it is sort of ingrained in what we do on a daily basis, and even we, even he doesn't find the balance of mental health and always find that wellness balance that we all need.

as I said, the event was starting and I knew again, the theme was health and wealth. So part your business and part of how your mental health and your physical health and how everything is Really interrelated and how we really need to stop and realize that they are interrelated and Luanne started a conference by saying of course all the wonderful things that she discusses and Gets us motivated on and is really such an inspiration on But also mentioned to us. Do we take better care of our clients? Then we do, ourselves and she gave the example of the for your mask on first and the mask coming down and you put the mask on first on the airplane, then you put the mask on your Children and other people.

And it really is that. And I've tried to always remember that philosophy in life. And in business and it caused me to realize and to relate to you that we really are our best client. We really are the client that is number one. But we don't treat ourselves as if we are number one.

We don't give ourselves the same credit. We don't give ourselves the same rights. We do not give ourselves the same respect that we give a paying client. And that is very disrespectful to ourselves. So if we can't even stop and treat ourselves with at least equal respect that we give our clients. We don't deserve to even have clients, right? I just wanted to dive deeper into that, because I too have been guilty of that. I have been guilty of, you know, putting clients first, and, how many of us have missed something that happened in our family, missed an event, missed a family reunion? Couldn't travel, couldn't do something because there was an installation, whatever, or maybe missed a baseball game.

But we have never, probably never, missed a client installation, or never missed a meeting with a contractor, or never missed a client presentation appointment, because we would come in there beaten, bruised, and battered just because we want to please that client. But we never stop to think. We also have to please ourselves and how terrible is that that we are not even taking care of the person who is taking care of so many other people and that doesn't even include taking care of your staff, taking care of the people that you work with your trades and your vendors.

It just has these, you know, these arms that expand out from it. And it is something that I want you to really stop and think about how many times have you put your business or your client or your vendor or your trades before yourself, before your family, before your kids. And there are four ways that I want you to treat yourself as your best client as your number one client. The first one is to set priorities for your time. We're going to talk about setting priorities for your finances and for profitability. We're going to talk about setting priorities for your mental health 

and we're going to talk about setting values and how the values for your company is the foundation for all of these other things coming into play in your business. So let's jump into it.

let's for a minute stay on the subject of time commitments and holding ourselves accountable for our own time, for our own things in life, for our own meetings outside of the business that we own and operate. And I want you to think about yourself as a client. I want you to think about yourself as.

Valuing those meetings. Valuing those appointments with you, with your family, with anything, not only that you have to do, such as doctor's appointments and dentist appointments and all the things, but all the things that you want to do. So maybe you want to have a dinner. Maybe you want to, like myself.

Start your day with a 60 minute walk and get those steps in and meditate Really think about what you want to do in your business and your life put that on your calendar and that is a non Negotiable my friend that is not going to change you are a client You are your client and you are putting that appointment on your calendar and you are going to show up at that appointment And that is going to hold you accountable Just like you hold yourself accountable to a client that is going to hold you accountable to show up for that appointment.

And I want you to. Stop right now and think about something that you have crossed off the list to make time for a client, to make time for your business, I want you to think about something that you have pushed to the side to give a client Or your business, the preferential treatment and put it back on your calendar.

And that is a non negotiable. You will show up for that appointment and everything else I promise you will work around it. And that is what we don't realize we can. work around this. If we set those boundaries with our clients and with anyone else in our business, they will understand. And I know that I'm very well aware that my clients could be listening to this podcast.

Hello clients, if you are, I'm very well aware that your clients could be listening to this podcast. It does not matter. You guys know I work on a transparent and honest and open model, and that is what I believe in. So if you are listening, It is just about educating, and it is just about letting clients know, once again, or vendors know, or manufacturers know, or anyone else on the arms of our business, that we are just as important, and when we show up as a better person who is organized, who has collected our mental thoughts, who has, you know, basically set ourselves up for success by organizing our own lives, we show up as a better business person, and we can make better decisions, And we are a better leader.

we can handle confrontations. We can handle issues when they arise. We're not frazzled all the time. We are better designers. We come up with better design plans because our mind is in the right place. So hold yourself accountable to yourself. for these special appointments. Right now your job is to go through your calendar and figure out what you have brushed off in the past or what you want to put on there in the future and add those appointments to your calendar. It was funny at the conference. There was a speaker Jude Charles and I've had Jude on the podcast a few episodes back.

He's an amazing storyteller, and that's his superpower, right? So he tells us about his storytelling and how he does that, but he also takes two months off every year. And he just kind of casually mentioned it during his presentation or during his panel. He mentioned that, oh yes, I take, I think it was, uh, June and September, if I'm not mistaken, but it could be, I could be wrong, but anyway, he takes the entire month off, and I was like, oh, good for him, you know, it kind of just crossed my mind, and I was like, oh, great, cool, that's awesome, but the thing that really blew my mind Was during the Q and a session a lot of the questions were about how do you do it? How do you take this time off? What does your business do? Does your business still run? I mean, so many questions around how do you leave your business? And it really woke me up and startled me in a way.

To think that you all could be so married and tied to your business that you can't take the time off from that. And there's many things that can allow you to take time off from your business. You know that I love systems and processes and I teach them in my courses and to my students. My own firm has those set up, which is why I can live on the West Coast and my East Coast office still runs just the same.

so if you have all of these things set up in your business and you have the processes set up and you have all of that done, that is step one. Step two is just to say it. Step two is just to say, hey, I'm not going to be available. I'm not going to be there. I'm not going to, you know, be around during this month or this week or this time frame.

And that's it. you don't have to give any explanation. You can just say my next available appointment is, or our next jobs will start, or our next design projects are available here. You don't have to explain yourself. And that is what we Tend to do. We tend to overexplain ourselves to clients and to anyone else associated with our businesses, when all we have to really say is we are not available. That is it. That is a complete sentence. That is exactly what they need to hear. And if they really want to work with you, which I'm sure they do, or they wouldn't have called you, then they will come back and, I do like to do things like, let's go ahead and put this on your calendar for when I do return.

Or such as on my website, I have automation where they can actually book a consultation or a discovery call when no one is around. So there are things that you can do to still have your company operate. And if you want to hear more about that, I did an episode as well. About how to take a vacation from your company and how to take a vacation and still have your company operate.

And that is also on one of the earlier episodes. I want to say like number, maybe number 10 or 11, something like that, but go back and listen to that episode. If you want to find out how to actually take time away from your company, because you can, you can take time away. The other thing is no is a complete sentence.

We've heard that before, but it is the God's honest truth. No, it's a complete sentence. So if you can't do something now. Simply say no. There is no reason to explain. You don't know anyone else anything. You don't have to go into these long dissertations of why you can't do something. No is a complete answer, or we are taking on projects in March, and that is the final answer, and you don't have to tell them that you're going to Spain for a month, or going on vacation, or just taking a mental break.

Does not matter. To that person, why you are not there, you are going away. Now, if you do have that team and you do have people still in your company, such as I do, which is, I'm very fortunate, you can keep your business still in operation and things will still keep going. If you are a solopreneur, which I was in the beginning as well, you can use, again, this technology and these other things that will help you keep your company going.

You can pre schedule things, you can pre schedule posts on social media, you can pre schedule your newsletter, you can pre schedule your blog post. There's so much tech out there right now that will keep your company looking and acting as if you were still sitting there behind the computer, pushing publish to that button and you are not even around.

So, think about that, think about utilizing those technologies and softwares that are available to us, and it will just help you to run your company as a multi team company when you may even just be a 1 person show. All right. So that's the first one I wanted to touch on, which is keeping your appointments to yourself and managing your time.

I can talk on and on about that, but that is just the highlights of what I wanted to mention there. Secondly, I wanted to talk about financials and profits and how we undervalue ourselves as a business owner. Sometimes by being the best client for yourself, you have set company goals. Hopefully you have set financial goals.

You have set things that you want to achieve in places that you want to go for your company. And if you set these financial goals, whether it be by the year or by the quarter or by the month, then you know where you want to be and you know you want to get there. The problem comes in when we start to devalue our pricing and devalue our value and our worth to our clients and to people that we are pricing things for.

when you start lowering your price because a client asks you to or because you just somehow feel that you need to, You are taking food out of your kid's mouth. Think about that. You are taking food out of your children's and your family's mouth. Sounds dramatic.

I know I'm trying to prove a point here. You would never tell your son or daughter or a family member or anyone let's say your kid is graduated from college and they're ready to apply for jobs and they're getting these offers and the job offer comes in. And the offer is for 85, 000, you would never tell your child to come back and lower that to 75, 000 because they're not really worth what that company is telling them that they're worth as far as their pay.

You would never ever do that and you would never tell your kid if they're selling candy bars that they're selling for, you know, 4 a piece and that's the price that the school said you would never tell them to say, Hey, you know what? Go ahead and sell that for a quarter. It's fine. It's not worth it.

School doesn't need the money. The fundraiser doesn't matter. whatever rules we have in place don't matter. You would never ever say that you would never devalue and lower the price. of something for yourself, personally, or for your own family. So why on God's green earth are you doing it for your business?

I know you because I am you remember that and I have been there I know if you charge hourly, which I did when I first started. I now do flat fee, but hourly in the beginning. I know that if you did hourly you have come up with that hourly invoice that you're sending out for the month and you get it all together.

It's all organized. You have the details in there of what you did for the client and you look at the total and You're like, oh my god, they're never going to pay this. They're never going to pay this invoice. They're going to look at it and come back with me with, oh, that's too much. I can't believe it took you that long to choose that sofa, or I can't believe it took you that long to draw that reflected ceiling plan, whatever is on the invoice.

you're going to look at that and doubt it. I know you do. I know you do. I did too. Why are you the one to decide what is worth your client paying for? Your client agreed to work with you. Your client agreed to pay for your services. Your services have tremendous value, or your client would have never hired you to do them.

Hold your stance, be proud of what you're presenting to your client. Be proud of the work that you do. Be proud that you are giving something to your family. You are a provider for your family. And I don't care if you are a one person family. If it is just you, you are still a family and it is still your household.

So your household is going to be losing out. If you are going to go down to the bottom of that invoice and add a negative line and deduct 500 or a thousand dollars from that invoice. Just because of the fear of what that client will say. Stand firm in your value, my friend. Send that invoice out, and if you need to justify it later, you can, because you have all of the documentation to do so. But I beg you, please know your value. Please charge your value. And please don't lower that for fear of what the client will say. Or even if the client does say something, do not lower that because you know that you are worth it. Side note, just to keep you up on our walk, it is still beautiful and I found this lovely Kind of private little pathway that I love and it is just tree lined and there's rocks and there's plants and there's flowers and It is just really, really pretty, but there's no one around.

So I like that because you know me, if you've ever seen me present or online or in person, I'm flailing my arms around everywhere as I'm talking to you. So I kind of look like a crazy person, but I really don't care because this is you and me having a great walk and talk, a walking meeting. Okay. Stay with me.

We're not too far from being done, but the next topic I want to talk about is your mental health. This could be a tricky topic with some of you. I know. We tend to shy away. I'm from the South. We just pretend those things don't happen. You know, we just pretend we don't have any of those issues, but I have decided in my life to confront them head on.

And I'll tell you when it came to a head with me, and I've talked about this on social media before. But I was at a very large speaking engagement, a very big conference. And as I mentioned it, you don't know about it, but it was a very large conference I was on a panel and I did the panel and it was, you know, went great.

Had a couple of panels that day. Actually, this was the last one of the day. So, I did the panel, you know, tried to be funny, tried to be charming, tried to be informative, all the things that you need to be when you're on a panel, and it was over, and there were people waiting to chit chat, and I talked to a couple of them, but as I was talking, I could feel my face started going flush, and I could feel my body temperature changing, and I could feel, you know, sort of like these things happening internally with me, and I knew that something was going on.

So, I... Remove myself and really what was starting was this panic attack. This anxiety attack was coming on and it was the first one I've ever had. I had never had one before until that point. So I found a place in a cafe That was there on the premises of the conference center, and I basically took a chair, turned it into the corner of the wall, and just stared at the wall, and waited until that passed, took some deep breaths, and realized that that was actually a panic attack, that was an anxiety attack.

And I needed some help for that. What brought that on? Overworked, overthinking, just putting everything else ahead of myself. And from that moment, I started to reach out for help and got help with therapy, got help with medication. And all of those things have made me a much more balanced person.

I share that with you just in case you've ever encountered anything similar. And once I started speaking with more designer friends and just friends in general, behind the scenes in DMs and on text messages... I saw that we were all kind of going through a very similar thing and going through very similar emotions, and we were just sort of pushing them aside and, thinking that it was going to get better or continuing to overwork to compensate for that feeling and just sort of masking it with something else you can't just take a picnic blanket and throw it on the ground and cover up all of your emotional issues and your emotional problems that you might be having your emotional well being and your mental well being is literally going to be there if you pull that blanket up.

So think about that. You're not going to be able to hide it. You have to combat it head on and you have to find a way to help yourself. And again, it's sort of putting that mask on first so that you can help other people because if you are not in the right mental state and if you do not have your emotional health in check.

You are not going to be able to help other people. I invite you to take inventory now. Ask yourself, have you been covering up your emotional health, your emotional well being, any negative things that have been emotionally or in your mind? If you have been covering those up or masking those with just more work, please stop that and it's time to make appointments on your calendar.

For you, your best client, to take care of your mental health. But for my mental health, I knew it was important for me to give myself time for myself, to make myself better for my team, for my clients, for everybody that's around me, for my husband, even for my dog. It just really is important for you. To give yourself time.

So for me, I start that, as I said, with a walk. And by the way, it's not a first time of the morning walk. It's not I wake up and head out for a walk. No, no, no, no. I start my day even slower than that. I grind the beans and make the coffee. It's a ritual that I love. So, you know, if you don't have a morning ritual, I urge you to find one.

It's very nice to have. Well, maybe have a podcast episode about that down the road, but my morning ritual is very important to me. I do all of that. I sit on the patio with my dog around the pool and we just, you know, he plays and then I drink my coffee and have a lovely start to the day. I probably have at least 2 cuts of coffee, sometimes 3 and do a little work after that.

after I sit on the patio for maybe 30 minutes. Go and watch a little morning television, get caught up on the news, and then go do a little work, check emails and so forth. Then, I go for my walk, because I finish my two or three cups of coffee. Leisurely finish my two or three cups of coffee, and have started my day that way.

I then go on my walk, and my walk is, oh my gosh, I'm so honored that you're here today. It's just, it is just such a special part of my day. it brings me into my day and such a wonderful way where I'm able to recenter myself and bring myself back to the things that are important and see the birds and see the squirrels and see the chipmunks and.

Notice the clouds in the sky. They are there and feel the breeze and it is, the beauty of nature and yours doesn't have to be nature, whatever you do to bring yourself back to a calming place to give yourself time for your mental health. It definitely does not have to be nature. It could be something else, but find whatever it is for you.

My husband loves to play video games, for instance. So, for him, it is stopping to take a break. I got him Switch for his birthday. Yes, he's 43 years old and loves to play Nintendo. So, I got him a Nintendo Switch for his birthday. He will stop and play Nintendo Switch for 10 or 15 minutes.

That is his mental break. That is what does it for him during the day. Of course, he loves to go to the gym and work out and that is his sort of physical. break as well. And you could do that, too. But whatever it is for you, I just urge you to try new things. And it doesn't have to be an hour like I take.

It could be 10 minutes. It could be 15 minutes. My walks started out as about 15 minutes, and then that I increased that to 30 and then 45. And then I was like, Well, why don't I just do an hour? Then you go through your brain and you're thinking, Oh, can I do an hour? Could I actually Take an hour from my day.

Yes, you can. And you're saying, no, John, I can't. I'm a one person show. If you tell that GC or that builder or that client that you are not able to take meetings until 10 a. m., I promise you, They're going to say, okay, I'll see you at 10 a. m. or I'll see you at 10 30. You are the one setting the boundaries for your company.

I am very sick and tired of us letting other people tell us how to run our businesses. you did not become an entrepreneur. And the business owner to take orders from other people. You did it for the autonomy. You did it for the quote unquote freedom, which sometimes I know we question if there even is freedom but the one thing you can do, and the one thing you can take control over is running your own company and running your own business in the way that you want to see it run.

And I think that that begins with setting your own schedule. And putting these things on your calendar, and taking care of your mental health, and again, as I said, treating yourself as your number one client. Okay, so we talked about time, we talked about your finances, and we talked about your mental health.

And the thing that's going to bring this all together, and really is the root, and the basis, and the foundation for all of these three things happening, Is your values, what are your values and are you expressing them to yourself, to your company and to your clients? So here is how I feel about that. Your company values are an extension of your personal values.

And I'm not going to go too deep into this because I have done an episode about it in the past. but your company values are not separate from your personal values. They are the same. They are an extension of one another. You cannot work with a client that has totally separate values than what you hold true as your personal values.

You just can't. There will be a problem that arises that is a result of the clashing of those values, So if you have a firm hold on what your values are as a human being, as a person, you For yourself and for your family and for everybody around you that you surround yourself with you Need to extend that into your company and declare your company values as a part of that as well And I have a download for you.

I'm going to put it in the notes section here. You can also head to my Instagram and grab it as well, but it will help you define your values. And it's totally free. There's nothing you have to give me for it, but it's a really good little document to download a little worksheet that will help you define your values if you're a little unclear on how to find them or how to define what your values actually are.

Because even if you think you don't know , that they're there, they are there and you do know what they are. if one of your values in your life and in your well being is your family, and taking time for your family and being there for your family, and you are shu your kid's softball game practice or game or recital or anything that's important for your family, you're shunning that off to take care of a client that is Quote unquote more important or the issue is quote unquote an emergency, your values are not finding their way into your company and that is a problem.

For years, I did not talk about my husband. I did not talk about my relationship. I did not talk about the fact that I'm a gay male. None of that came up. None of that was part of my conversations with clients. I just didn't talk about it and I was in fear of... Turning that client away or maybe having that client be turned off by the fact that I was gay or that I had a husband.

Why, why was I so worried about showing someone that I am in a relationship for 22 years? Why would I be worried about showing someone that I have found the love of my life and have built a world and a life, a beautiful life around that? And it has made me a better person. Why would I be worried about showing stability to a client?

once I realized, years ago, that I need to stop, stop hiding, stop hiding behind that, and really kind of come out of the closet again, in that aspect, to my clients, it has opened up so many conversations and so many fun conversations. And has it weeded out some clients that probably didn't align with my values?

Yeah, it did. Do I care? I really don't. Because that person was not the client for me. And their values did not align with ours. What it did do was find those clients who were right for us. Clients who love Pete, and love myself, and love our relationship, 

and I remember one sweet client in Florida sent us a lovely, lovely gift for our wedding because we let them know about it. And so it's just those extensions of yourself that will weave their way into your business and will make you a richer person and will make your business so much more well rounded and will allow your clients a little peek into what's important to you as a human being.

Okay. My friend, I have so loved having you on this walk with me today, by the way, it's still beautiful.

It's still sunny. The birds are still chirping. The sun is still shining. I hope you're enjoying it as much as I am. And if you are, let me know, and maybe we'll do this again. If you're not, we'll go back to the studio. It doesn't matter. But just to recap in four ways that I want you to prioritize making yourself your own client, your own most valuable client is , how you value your time.

I want you to think about how you value your profits and your finances. I want you to think about how you value your mental health. And the root of all of this is finding out the values for yourself. And your company and weaving those into your business and all of the other three factors will fall into place.

I appreciate you. I'm sending all of my positive vibes to you because you are my number one client today. And I want you to value yourself and take care of yourself, my friend. Put that mask on first. And by the way, thanks to my friend Antonio from Luann Live who helped me to realize that this would be a great Podcast episode.

And I hope you have enjoyed it. And I will see you next time on the designer within.

Thanks for sticking with me to the end of the Designer Within podcast. It means the world to me. If you're ready to dive deeper into the topics that we've discussed here, be sure to check out my online courses and coaching program, Design Success Academy. The Design Success Academy is open right now in my beta launch program.

You can join the Academy for 50 percent off, but only until November 19th. After that date, it will increase to the regular price and the next enrollment will be in January. So, if you want to be a part of helping me shape this new course, helping me put things into the course that are important to you as a designer, things that you want to know, please consider joining the beta course for my Design Success Academy.

The Design Success Academy is a six week program where you will learn things such as my entire project journey, every single process that I use within my company. will be taught to you inside this program. I will also teach you how to choose and price your services in your own design firm. On top of that, you will learn self marketing success, my favorite ways to market and grow your company.

We are going to discuss teams, trades, and vendors. I will be showing you my favorite technology that I use every single day in my company, as well as the leadership mindset that you need to start, run, and grow your boutique design firm. Find out more at DesignSuccessAcademy. com You will join other like minded creatives in various phases of their own businesses, whether just starting out or career veterans, who are enjoying the freedoms and profits that can come from an organized and structured business.

Now's the time to make the change for you and your company, and I'll be right by your side the entire way. Learn more at johnmcclain. co, that's johnmcclain. co.