People pleasing has truly become a pandemic in some ways because we are so ready to say yes to everything. Even though that we know deep down that we do not want to do that because it is not something that we hold as a value. and I'm telling you today that you can say no. I'm giving you a full permission slip to say no. There is no end date to this permission slip. And you can pull that permission slip out at any time.
It does not expire. And here's the second part of that. You don't have to continue after you say no. No is a complete sentence. Period. Hard stop. End of story. Done.
Hey y'all, you're listening to the designer within episode 26. It's a take a walk with John episode. Put on those walking shoes and let's go./
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.
Hi, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the designer within episode 26. This is another take a walk with John episode. You guys had such great feedback from the last episode that I felt that I should do another one today, and I don't really plan these episodes as I'm walking because I'm not sure if you've heard, but I do take a walk every morning or at least try to take a walk every morning.
And sometimes it's a hour walk. Sometimes it's a 30 minute walk, but my goal is to do a good solid hour walk every morning,
and that walk really levels my brain, it calms me down, it centers me, it gets my day started right, and I also get a lot of ideas and thoughts on these walks, and a lot of times I'm just putting the notes in my phone. To share them with you later, but on certain episodes of the podcast, I think it's good if I just whip out my phone and start recording.
So that is what we're doing now. And thank you again for the great feedback from the previous episodes and thank you all for being here and listening. I'm not sure how long this episode will be today because I've sort of just laid out the outline in my brain, and normally I'm sitting behind my computer listing everything out, but this is just a, again, off the cuff episode where I am talking with you, and we are having a walking chat, almost as if I'm having a coaching session with one of my students, which is always fun.
So, let's dive into the episode today. Today's episode is something that's been on my brain and probably on yours, too. Right now, it is December. It is the holiday season. It is very crazy. You're probably working very hard with your business. You're probably working very hard with things with your children and projects with them. And you're probably also juggling any personal obligations that you have, such as parties and that sort of thing.
And the thing that came into my mind is you can't do it all. You just can't. And there's no reason that you should try to do it all. So today's episode is a permission slip. A permission slip for you to understand that you cannot do it all. To really absorb what that means. And hopefully I will teach you some filters to filter everything through so that you understand if something is worth pursuing for you in your personal life and or your business.
So, today's episode is all about you cannot do it all, side note, nor should you do it /Whether you know it or not, you have values, you have values that you live by. You have values that you subscribe to for your business, for the people that you associate yourself with in your business, and the people that of course you associate yourself with in your personal life. And this can be family, this can be friends, this can be work associates, this can be team members, this can be tradespeople if you're a designer.
today's episode is not just geared necessarily toward designers. All of what I'm talking about Will apply to everyone today and the nuggets of information that I hope you gather from this is. That this is, again, your permission slip to say no. A lot of you may know I am a business coach as well as an interior designer, and I came into coaching other designers and other creatives on how to operate their businesses because I am successful in the way that I operate mine.
And as I started coaching people and creating my online courses and so forth, I realized. That there is a formula that I subscribe to. There is something that has found its way into every single decision that I've made for my company. Every single decision that I've made in my personal life have always come back to one thing.
And that is my values. That is what matters to me. those are the things that I hold so dear and hold so tightly to. That I don't allow anybody else to change.
And if you're one of my students or if you've ever heard me speak, I teach what is called your golden thread of values. And this golden thread of values is, I want you to imagine there is this beautiful golden needle with a gorgeous golden thread laced through the needle. And on that thread is all of the values that you hold dear.
And I don't want you to just jump into what these values are, I want you to really think about it. Because it is so important to take the time to know what your values are rather than just pulling them from someone else or making them up because that is what you think the world wants to hear. I want you to think about what values you hold dear.
And what matters to you. So this could be things such as work life balance. This could be family and friends time. This could be transparency. This could be honesty.
You could hold religious values. Any value, again, there are no right or wrong answers. It is what matters to you.
it is that one phrase, or that one word, That you will never ever bend and waver on that is something that you will stand for and that everyone that you work with and surround yourself with will also stand for or at least subscribe to in some way. again, you have this thread, this beautiful needle with a thread and on the thread, you are going to list your values. I want you to just take the time and come up with. Five or six values that you feel are important to you. And again, go across the gamut of everything.
Think about your spirituality. Think about how you operate your business. Think about how you manage your time with your family. How you handle confrontations. What is important to you? And what do you want to see in the people that you surround yourself with and by extension, what do you want to see in the opportunities that you surround yourself with?
because the opportunities in life and in business are, of course, backed or developed by a person. And those opportunities and the person who developed that opportunity has values associated with And an important thing to remember is that your values could and probably will change over your lifespan and over the time that you operate your business.
And as you are educated and as you experience new things in life. Your values will start to evolve to adapt to those things and you will be removing values and you will be adding more values, but your core values, those values on that beautiful golden thread are the ones that are always going to remain constant and everything that you do and every decision that you make. and if you're listening to this at your desk or at your home, it's a good time to go ahead and pause the podcast and jot down in your phone or on a pad those values that you're thinking about right now. There are, again, no right or wrong answers. Just start writing things down.
If you are writing things down with no judgment, that is when the true Feelings come out of your brain, and that is when the true emotions and the true words will start to flow onto the page or into your phone.
So no judgments start writing put those things into your phone put those things onto a notepad And start writing your values list again. No right or wrong answer This is just what you are feeling right now and if you were forced to come up with your answer for your values right now What would you write down and we can?
Adjust those later. welcome back. If you did stop the podcast to write down your values. If not, please go back later after your walk or after you leave the gym or after you finish the laundry and come back and write down your values.
And the next thing I want you to do is look at those values. And think about what characteristics or what traits will cause those values to happen. what traits are you looking for in other people that will illuminate those values?
And these will become your defining traits. these are the defining traits that you're going to look for in other people that you do decide to surround yourself with and that you do decide to be with in your business and in your personal life. So what are those defining traits that you're looking for?
As a, for instance, if work life balance is critical to you and is one of your values as it is mine, perhaps one of the defining traits that you see in other people is that they have a hard stop to their workday. So if you're working with a trades person, if you're working with a vendor
and you know that that person has a hard stop at 5 or 6 PM, then you know that is a trait that helps to define the value that you hold dear. So that person is probably going to align with you when you tell them, Oh, I'm not available on the weekends or I'm not available after 5 p.
m. because their values are going to be the same as yours because you're seeing that trait in them that leads to that value. I hope that makes sense. your job now is to look at your values and all of the ones that you have written down on this beautiful golden thread and think about what traits will cause those values to happen. And so under each value, I want you to list three or four traits that you think will lead to the Successful outcome of that value happening.
And as you start to actually pay attention to your values and see them in your daily lives and in your personal lives and in your work lives, you will start to understand that those characteristics are crucial to the successful outcome of that value happening. And you will start to notice those more and more in the people that you are around.
So as you are surrounding yourself with people, look at their actions. Look at the characteristics, look at the traits of that person or that business or that entity and ask yourself, are those traits what they are showing me about themselves, about their business?
Is that something that I can subscribe to as one of my values and one of the traits That leads to a value for me.
I know many times we jump into a situation because we're excited about it. It is a great project for us. For instance, as designers, we see a beautiful home and we think, oh, my gosh, the potential here. It could be in a magazine. I will get this published. Everybody will be talking about it. But, you know, deep down that there is an inkling of something not right.
The client's not right. The location's not right. Something about the project and the opportunity is not right for you, but you brush that aside and you move forward with it. And then it later reveals itself to be, oh, there's the true reason why this did not work. the thing that you are shunning, that piece of you that you are shunning away, that is a value, that is a, what some people call red flags,
and I don't really love that term red flag because I feel a lot of times we just use that term to avoid the truth that is lying underneath it. So if you pick up that flag, there is the truth about yourself that you're probably just avoiding wanting to deal with. But that red flag is probably a value in yourself that you hold dear and you are not seeing that manifesting in the person or the business or The opportunity that is in front of you, and because your stomach has that gut feeling of, Eh, something's not quite right about this.
You know that it is not right, but yet you still move on with it. That person is showing you a trait that is not a defining trait of your values on your golden thread of values. And you. are doing a disservice to yourself, a disservice to the business that you run, and a disservice to the other person because you are engaging in a relationship with someone who does not subscribe to the value list that you hold dear and that does not have defining traits that will lead to that value.
So now's a good time to look back on the past. Let's do it. You know, that whole hindsight is 2020 thing. Let's look back on some opportunities in the past that perhaps we did take upon ourselves that we didn't feel. were exactly right for us, and they did somehow blow up in our face at a later date. And I can probably name four or five of those before I started understanding truthfully what my values were.
So I want you to take some time to reflect on opportunities or situations or anything that you said yes to. That you really felt that you should say no to, and it doesn't even matter at this point. The reason why, because once you fully define your values and fully define your defining traits, you're going to understand exactly why you said no to that.
So look back on some things in your past that you said yes to that did not turn out so perfectly and ask yourself, was it because I said yes to something that was not on my golden thread of values?
And what I subscribe to and what I teach all of my students in my program is you're going to create a filter, and this filter is going to save your hide so many times this filter is going to be the thing that you pour in all of the opportunities, all of the people that you're going to partner with any sort of event that's happening, any sort of family event that's happening,
essentially anything you do in your life. You can have a defining traits filter for your business, and you can have, if you want, a separate defining traits filter for your personal life. I know, and I find, that my business and personal life are completely intertwined, so there really is no difference for me.
But perhaps for you, there could be a slight difference between your business and your personal life. So you might want to develop two defining traits filters.
But I teach, and I find that we all have one set of defining traits that lead to our golden thread of values.
So your first job is to create your golden thread of values. And then your second job is to look for the defining traits that support all of the values on your golden thread.
And then thirdly, you're going to start to filter every situation. Every opportunity, anything that arises in your life and your business through that filter and ask yourself, does this opportunity or does this person present? The defining traits that support my values. If the answer is yes, move forward.
If the answer is no, you will not move forward. Isn't that simple? whether it's the holiday season, whether it's a busy time for you at work, whether it's a busy time for your family, there might be soccer games, there might be all the things happening that you have obligations to, that are valuable to your family and to yourself.
but the next part of what I wanted to talk to you about is it is okay to say no. I'm giving you a full permission slip to say no. It is signed. By me, and it has an open end date on it. You can use it forever. There is no end date to this permission slip. It is a permission slip to say no, and you can pull that permission slip out at any time.
It does not expire. I'm giving you that permission slip now to say no. People pleasing has truly become a pandemic in some ways with some people because we are so ready to say yes to everything. We are so ready to say yes to that client if they ask for something outside of the scope that we agreed upon. We are so ready to say yes to our family to do something, even though that we know deep down that we do not want to do that because it is not something that we hold as a value. and I'm telling you today that you can say no. And here's the second part of that. Here's the caveat. You don't have to continue after you say no. No is a complete sentence. Period. Hard stop. End of story. Done. No is a complete sentence. we always feel that we have to back up our reason for saying no. You do not. You are a grown person. You have a right to say no to something. Without explaining your life in details, and this is a hard, hard thing to do, you will get better with practice, but I can tell you, once you first start doing it, and once you start saying no, period, and then move on to something else, even though that person is waiting, by the way, for you to explain in detail and give them all the reasons why, you just say no and move on.
Now I have had people ask me, can you tell me why? Can you explain why you can't do that? Can you let me know the reasoning behind that? Which I think takes a lot of balls to do that, actually. Like, for someone to actually ask you to explain your choices in life is, is almost appalling and very rude and very invasive.
So, I think back to, there is something that RuPaul says, the drag queen. Yes, RuPaul the drag queen. he says this at parties when people are saying something to him, and he said it is the answer that he goes to all the time, and no matter what the question is, it's always the answer that he goes to if he doesn't have the right answer for someone or he doesn't want people to start prying for things.
I don't see how that is really any of your business. Now, I understand that could be taken as rude to some people, but it all depends on the delivery, I'm sure. But the point of that is there are ways to phrase, I don't think that's any of your business, into other sentences so that you're not sounding rude or that you're not pushing off another opportunity down the road that could be right for you. as a for instance, I was recently asked to be a influencer at an event, and it was a big event in our industry, and it is something that you know, most people would be happy to do, but I looked at the opportunity, after I ran it through my filter, I realized it was not the opportunity for me.
It did not work for me. It did not work for my business. It did not work for what I wanted to accomplish. My goals were for next year. So I said, no,
and I think the way to do that is to give them one factual statement, if they're pushing you for an answer, give them one factual statement, tell them it is not a fit for you at this time, this is not the right opportunity for you at this time. And I wish you all the best, and hopefully down the road we can work together in the future, but at the moment, I will be passing on this opportunity. You can stop there if you want. However, if the person pushes, or if you feel like you have to give some reasonable explanation for it, have one factual statement ready to give that person.
Again, back to my situation, speaking about the opportunity that I had, it was not right for me because of the time commitment, and that time commitment was pulling me away from other things that would, frankly, pay me more and be more valuable to me in the long run. So that was part of what I filtered that through.
And this is a good time to just show you that a defining trait does not always have to be this beautiful altruistic, pie in the sky thing, it can also be financially driven. It can be financially motivated and something that you again, hold dear. So again, there are no right or wrong answers to your values.
It is just what you want to have for your own set of values, financial or otherwise.
And back to my opportunity. So for this situation, graciously, I said no. Thank you so much for the opportunity. I wish you all the best in your event. , however, the time commitment is more than I am able to give at the moment. End of story, period.
I didn't have to do that. And I didn't really feel like I had to do that, but I did want to be professional in this situation and keep the door open for future opportunities down the road, because I knew that there could be future opportunities for this particular company.
And I didn't want to completely lock myself out of having opportunities from them down the road. So you have to look at each individual situation and whether or not you feel that a limited explanation is warranted.
However, most of the time, I can tell you that I do simply just say no, and I do leave it at that. I say thank you so much. Unfortunately, this is not going to work for me at this time.
Period. Peace out. I'm done. And if you start practicing this and start using this, you're going to get better at it. You will get better at saying no, you will get better at understanding what you want to do, what you need to do based upon your values. it and it will get easier to say no, and it will get easier to move on.
And you will stop that people pleasing mentality
that we all can tend to subscribe to at times.
To give you a little walk update, it is a beautiful sunny day still. , there's a plane going overhead, I think, and all of the trees are still changing colors here in the West, so there are still trees of yellow and orange and red, amidst all of the palm trees, of course, but the view is stunning, and the sun is making me very happy, and it's probably about 62 degrees right now, I would say, getting it a little bit warm, so there's your little Walk with John weather update,
And here's the thing about people pleasing. People pleasing isn't bad always. People pleasing can be good. People pleasing can be a great thing actually if you make that person happy and you are following guidelines to do that. So if you have guidelines for your business and that makes that client happy and you're pleasing that client and you are not falling outside of those guidelines that you have laid out for yourself, you're not going overboard on meetings, you're not allowing them to increase the scope of work for your project, that sort of thing.
That is how you people please to people when you are doing your job that you were paid to do it. It becomes a problem when we start to go outside of those boundaries that we set.
And simply start doing things to make the other person happy without any regards to what our obligations were and what our values were. So look back at your obligations for, let's say, your business. Again, with a client, clients sometimes can try to say, Oh, come and look at this front porch. I need you to help me pick out colors.
And you can say, Oh, it'll just take a minute to do that. Of course, I'll go ahead and do that. No, your time is valuable. Your time is money.
so when you start saying yes to everything, and you start pleasing the other person, you are taking things away from yourself. , let me give you a mental picture of that. You have two buckets. One is your family time. One is the time with your kids. This is a value that you have. You love dinner with your family. You love to watch a movie with your family. And you do not work on weekends.
So that is your family values bucket in that bucket is all of the time, all of the things that you want to do with your family. And imagine each bucket is filled with the value balls. Let's let's call them value balls for sake of conversation.
Every time your client asks you to do something that does not align with what your obligations were that you were going to do for them, To meet them after hours or that client asks you to meet them during a time that you have scheduled with your family or your friends or things again that are on your values list And you say yes. And by saying yes, you are taking a value ball out of your family bucket and your friends bucket and your personal time bucket and putting that into your clients bucket.
Does that seem fair to your kids? Does that seem fair to your family?
All for the sake of people pleasing. All for the sake of making them happy. Because you could not say no. You could not pull them back into the limitations that you have set for them and say, Actually, I mentioned to you when we first started working together, that I do not work at nights and I do not work on weekends.
And that is my family time and that is what I'm going to be doing.
That's all you have to say. That is the answer. Because when you are taking that value ball out of your family's bucket and putting it into your client's bucket or to your business's bucket, you are stealing from your family. You are stealing from your children. Is that fair? Heck no. And before you know it, what happens?
The family values bucket is completely empty. There are no more balls in your family values bucket because you've given them all to your business or to your client. So ask yourself now, what are you stealing from yourself, from your family, from your friends, from your private time, from things that you hold dear?
For the sake of making other people happy in your business or your personal life,
the way to avoid this and to prevent this from happening is to set up those barriers right now to understand what you are providing to your clients and to your business and be very, very straightforward about that. Because what happens is your values. become your non negotiables. Those non negotiables are things that you are not going to waiver on.
Those non negotiables are when you stop work, when you start work, what you do. If you take Fridays off, that is your business. So that is your non negotiable. You don't take client appointments on Friday. Totally fine. You put that out there up front. You've told everybody about it. That is your non negotiable.
Same thing can happen with your personal life. If you have a non negotiable in your personal life, stand by it. For instance, if you like to stay home on Sundays, be with your family, and keep your pajamas on all day. I can say this because sometimes I do it myself. That is okay. You can say no to any other opportunities that come up on Sundays.
It is okay. You do not have to say yes to things just because somebody asked you. If you understand what your non negotiables are based upon your values and what's important to you, the answer is always super clear. As to what you say yes to and what you say no to because you have listed those out ahead of time.
Okay, here is how I want you to think about it in our business and on a past episode, I talked about this, but we have what we call a how we work document and this how we work document lays out all the things that our clients need to understand about our business when we work. What are the hours that we work when we're available?
How we communicate all the things. So what if you made? A how we work document for your personal life. What if you had an internal how we work document for your family, for yourself, for your, all the things that you value for your own personal needs and spirituality and growth. All of those things. What if you had
here is how I work. And these are the rules of engagement with me. It's basically your personal how I work document and you don't have to of course give this to people like we do with our business document, but if you have this how I work document listed out for yourself, I do suggest you write it for yourself actually.
So you write these things down for yourself. You imagine every engagement, every encounter that you have, you have this how I work document. And you can verbally tell the other person, this is how I work. Nope, I don't do things here. I Prefer this. it's your own personal how you work document that you're going to share with other people when you're either meeting with them or when they are trying to cross the boundary that you have set for yourself.
And you can do this very easily just by going in the back of your mind and looking at that how you work document on your own terms and give them a reason for why that opportunity is not right for you. As I said, this came into my mind because it is a busy holiday season, lots of you are traveling, we're wrapping gifts, we're getting ready for parties, we're still trying to take care of our businesses.
Are you doing things that you should have said no to? are you saying yes to things that do not align with your values? Are you saying yes to things that you knew? Deep down, there was an urge inside of your stomach, in the pit of your stomach, that you knew were not right to do.
This can be a hard pill to swallow. I promise you it will get easier, but at the beginning it is going to feel pretty rough. And something that my own business coach has taught me is You have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. and this uncomfortable stage of saying no, based upon your values, is going to feel a little odd in the beginning.
Because if you are a true, quote unquote, people pleaser, and All you do is make other people happy at your own detriment, then you're going to start to disappoint people. People are going to feel slighted. And especially if you have always said yes to people.
But it is important to definitely put yourself first in some situations. And remember, friends, this is not the end.
An overnight journey, changing the way that you have done things, changing your habits. It is going to take time. It is going to take practice, and you will get better at it just like anything that you do over and over and over. But you're not going to get better at it until you start practicing it. I try to do a hot take on episodes, and today's hot take is start to define your values, start to write out your golden thread of values. And on this golden thread of values, again, there are no right or wrong answers. This is what matters to you and your life and your family and things that you hold dear.
And once you start to write down those values, you're going to start defining your own traits. you're going to start to see a pattern of things,
and then you're going to start recognizing characteristics that lead. To those values. So you're going to see the characteristics in yourself and you're going to start defining those traits that will accomplish the goal Of recognizing your values and appreciating your values.
Hold your values close to you. Don't let anybody steal those away. Have those as part of who you are ingrained in you. And if you have this, how you work document, and that is your non negotiables. You will always have something to fall back on and you will always have something to point to When you start to go astray and it will realign you very quickly
Because when you have these defining traits that lead to your values on your golden thread of values And what you're looking at whatever opportunity whatever situation arises does not Align with one of your values it's something that someone is doing. It's not a defining trait of a value that you care about.
You are going to say no. Simple as that. I want you to learn how to say no.
I want you to remind yourself that no is a complete sentence. If you want to expand, remember, you can give one factual statement of why you do not have to do that if you decide to do so, but you are under no obligation to explain yourself to other people.
And I will say, this gets better not only with practice, but it gets better with age, too. I'm 48, and I can tell you that I can definitely say no much easier now. Then I could in my 20s, but I wish I had spoken to someone who was 48 when I was 20, who told me exactly what I'm telling you now, which is, it is okay to say no, and that you have to subscribe and live by your own rules.
Golden Thread of Values, and that Golden Thread of Values is going to sew the most beautiful gown. And on that gown is going to be all the things in life that you treasure. So look at that Golden Thread and that Golden Needle
As creating a beautiful gown of life for you. And again, the hot take for today is to start to define your values. Start to list out your own golden threaded values. And then I want you to start looking for those characteristics of other people and yourself that will start to define those traits that will lead to your golden thread of values.
And then once you have all of that done, you can start to pour everything through that Defining Traits filter, and that filter is going to tell you whether that opportunity is right for you or wrong for you. You have your homework, my friend. I hope this has helped you.
I hope you've enjoyed the walk today. It's been great for me. It's been great to chat with you. And as a reminder, your permission slip is signed by me and there is no expiration date. So pull out that permission slip and say no to things that do not align with you and your values. And I hope to see you on the next episode of The Designer Within. Until next time keep designing a life and a business that you truly love. See you soon friends
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 coaching and courses program, design success academy. com here. I will teach you everything you need to know to run your interior design business.
From starting the project all the way to the end, including marketing and pricing your services for profit. And for more information on this podcast, including how to be a guest or my design services in general, go to johnmcclain. co. That's johnmcclain. co. See you soon, friend.