39: How To Bring Your Past Skills Into Your Current Business

They say "you don't know what you don't know," but I'm here to flip the script and remind you that you "DO know what you DO know!" And that's a lot!

It's time we take pride in our past and value our skills and accomplishments. Bettering ourselves is great, but also let's remember to take stock of what we already bring to the table!

In this uplifting episode you'll learn:
*What is your "sliding scale of skills"
* How to take count of the past successes that are a part of you now
* How to notice successes that occur TODAY
* When you might want to consider opportunities for learning and growth and how to best choose those  growth opportunities.
* How the people you surround yourself with are a link in the chain of your success.

Now, get comfortable and pat yourself on the back! You're here and there's a lot to be proud of for what you DO KNOW!

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Transcript

While growth is essential, I also want you to embrace who you are and what you're already great at. And you're great at a lot of things. You don't have to be perfect, because by the way, perfect does not exist. Let me say that again for the people in the back. Perfect does not exist. And you do not have to have all the answers, right?

You do not have to have every answer in the book, and you will never have every answer in the book. You are enough just to be. As you are, you are enough and I love you the way you are. Hey y'all. You're listening to the designer within podcast, episode number 39. 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. transformative experience, my friends, because it's time to Unleash The Future. The designer within. Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of the designer within podcast, episode 39, the age that I'm perpetually holding in my mind, it's the age that I kind of thought that would be old one day, but now I look back and I'm like, gosh, 39 seems so young when you're 48, but nevertheless, here we are and we should count our blessings.

So happy to have you here. Just wanted to do a quick reminder too. If you're heading to high point market. for Spring Market. I am going to be there too. Come and find me. I'm doing some great panels and a great speaking engagement as well at Universal Furniture on Saturday. So go to my Instagram page and check out all of the places where you can find me at High Point Market.

I would love to have you stop by and come up and give me a hug and say hi. I'll be giving you more details later, but for now you head to the links on my Instagram page and find out all of the places where I will be at High Point Market and I will see you there. Thanks for being here today. This episode is going to be a short, but sweet, but powerful one.

And I want you to hang in here with me because it's probably not what you came here to hear. Today's episode is going to be more of a pep talk, a reminder, a gentle nudge to tell you that you are. You are smart to tell you that you know a lot because today's episode is really about embracing your expertise and really acknowledging your successes, which is something that I feel we don't do a lot.

We all are looking for the next great fix. We're looking for something to better ourselves, which is definitely not wrong. And I always look for ways to better myself as well. But, if we're constantly looking for something to change ourselves, or to fix quote unquote something that we're doing quote unquote wrong, then we aren't neglecting the stuff that we are possibly doing right already.

Cause here's the thing, they say you don't know what you don't know, but I say you do know what you do know. Let that sink in. And you do know a lot. So, I want you to know that you do know what you do know, and you do know. A lot. Say that three times fast. But as entrepreneurs and interior designers, we often find ourselves in this crazy cycle, as I said, of seeking improvement and looking to learn more and constantly pushing ourselves to be better while growth and development are such big aspects of running a business.

I know that. Again, I do it all the time. I'm always wanting to take a new course and get more coaching. And I do it all the time. There are always ways to better yourself. And this is me as a business coach saying these things, of course. I coach people all the time, and as you know, I have courses that teach people things.

But, as I said, while these are crucial aspects of running your business, it is equally important for us to stop and recognize this huge wealth of knowledge and experience that we already possess right now. So today, I want you to start taking inventory of what you know. Think about all the skills that you have acquired over the years.

I call them your sliding scale of skills. Think about those little sliding scales, right? You can kind of, like, two little pieces of paper, you know, one's inside of the other one, and you slide it and the numbers are inside of that. Think about that being all of these skills that you have collected over the years from various jobs or various things that you've done.

And it doesn't even have to be a job. It could just be things that you've learned through being with your family or things that you've learned being with your kids or things that you've learned just throughout life. Life will give you lessons that you can apply in your business. I want you to take inventory of those lessons because, oh my gosh, my friend, when you do that, you are going to be able to start to apply those lessons and those situations and those experiences to lots and lots of client situations right now in your design business.

I do it all the time. You know, Dolly Parton does something, which, you know, I love Dolly Parton, and she does something which I think is so genius. She goes into a meeting, with a group of people. And as she goes into this meeting, it can be a group of people that she doesn't even know. But as she starts to look at these people and interact with these people, she starts to see characteristics of those people as she's in the meeting.

And she starts to label these people with characteristics of her own family members. So she says, Oh, look, he's like my uncle Bob, or that lady is like my aunt Jane. And so as she's seeing these people, she labels them. with characteristics of her own family members. And then she starts to interact with them with this same format.

So her interaction is as if they were a family member. And I think this is genius because what it's doing is taking down that barrier, taking down that wall of, Oh, I don't know who you are. I have no idea how you're going to react to this. But if you look at that person as a relative, as a friend, as a family member, and you are interacting with them, you are communicating with them in that manner, Then suddenly your guard is down and you're probably saying things in a different format in a different manner and you're communicating in a much more relaxed way.

So very much along those same lines, you can take your past situations and apply them to the way that you are running your business right now. So like Dolly Parton does with the way that she works with her meetings and have these family members sort of become a part of her meetings with strangers, same thing with your design business and find ways to intermingle your past.

Successes, your past life, your past lessons, your past jobs, your past family, your past interactions, your past anything that you've done that is a life lesson, you can bring that into your current career and take it even further than you did before. So think about something that you've done and how you can apply it to your design business now and how you can even give it bigger wings to fly and take it further than you did in the past.

How do you do this, you might ask. I want you to start taking inventory of what you know. Think about all these skills, as I've said, that you have acquired over the years. The projects that you've completed, the challenges that you've overcome in life, in your job, in your career, in anything. Even in college, in school.

All of these things. You have a unique set of talents and expertise that sets you apart. And these are yours and yours alone in the world of interior design. These are that When I do interviews with people that I ask them about and that special sauce is yours. Nobody else has it. It is yours. And you have to find that.

And the way that you find that is by delving deep into your past and looking at things that you did really well, sometimes things that you did bad too. But we're not going to talk about those today. Today's about the positives and the successes. And you find those things that you did really well on in the past.

And you think, Oh, that's good. Oh my gosh, I handled that like an ace. How am I going to bring that into the world that I'm in now? And that is what is going to set you apart. It could be your eye for color, your true ability to transform a space. Maybe you walk into a room and you instantly know, you instantly see the outcome of that room and you instantly know exactly what's going to happen into that room.

And if you guys could see me now, I'm pointing all around the room, I'm flailing my arms like a crazy person, but you know what I mean? You know, we walked into a room and we. And maybe your superpower, your special sauce, is that you can instantly communicate that to your client. Some designers don't have that ability.

Some of us don't have the ability to verbally communicate that to our clients and get them excited. Maybe your special sauce is that ability to communicate that to your clients because you have been able to communicate So well with people in your past and you just find communication comes so easily and you're so talkative and you find all the right words to say to beautifully describe a space and a situation to someone that magically transforms and takes them there.

So don't, don't, don't overlook that power. That is truly something that is unique. And if you really look at how that superpower and that And that special skill can transform your business? Oh my gosh. Sales will start to come in, clients will be very, very happy with you, and you will begin rocking and rolling with this special power, this superpower that only you have.

Because there is so much that you bring to the table that you're not giving yourself credit for. Now, let's reflect on those successes and wins. Take a moment to celebrate those projects that went smoothly. The clients who were there. Thrilled with your work. Think back. Think back when you walked into the room and they cried.

Think back when you were doing the big reveal and you got hugs all around. Think back when the kids came into their bedroom and jumped and ran around the space and told you how much they loved it. Think back about the happy messages you received after a project was over. Stop and celebrate those. Many times we will just move on to the next project and we will treat a project something that is truly transforming a client's life.

life as transactional. That is a discredit to ourselves and a discredit to the client, frankly. So I want you to stop right now. If you need to pause this, that's fine. I want you to stop this right now and list two to five projects where you were so satisfied. with the outcome of those projects, not only aesthetically, but the happies, the warm, the fuzzies, all the things were flowing in that room.

The vibes were a vibe and in that space, and I want you to think back on those projects and list those projects out, put them on a post it note and put them right on your computer, put them on your desk, put them somewhere where you can see them and put a happy little heart around those because those are something that I want you to see every day to remind yourself that those were great projects and you had successes and you had wins in those.

Now, the next thing, think about any milestones that you've reached in your business. These could be things where you have added new clients, where you have added new employees, where you have added new offices. Maybe you purchased your first office. Maybe you were looking to add a new service. Anything that you've had a major milestone.

Maybe you went from 100, 000 to 200, 000. Maybe you went from 500, 000 to a million. Whatever milestone that you were setting for yourself, think about those milestones and list those out. Again, we go past these milestones and we just move on to the next thing without thinking. We have to know that those milestones deserve a celebration.

If we work so hard to achieve something and we don't give it the credit that it deserves, then what are we achieving it for? I can say this from experience because I am guilty for raising my hand and it has been many, many situations in my career and life where I've worked so hard to get to something and then I'm like, Okay, now, what next?

Isn't that terrible? And it even happened recently with my coffee table book. Something that I worked so hard on, something that I know many of you strive to have, and I did too, and something that I worked really, really diligently to produce, and to even get the book deal. And then once that was done, and the excitement was out there, and the book was done, and I'm doing the book tours, and all the things, I'm like, Okay, what next?

How terrible, right? Like I should literally smack my own hand with a ruler because that is such a disservice to all of the other people who helped me get to that point. My family, my husband, my publisher, my PR firm, all of the people who were there helping me get that book out and to have that success.

I should be ashamed of myself that I did not stop and before I moved on to the next thing. So I told myself, John, you have to stop and you have to acknowledge the success that you have achieved from this before you move on to the next quote unquote big thing. And I'm not saying you should not keep trying to change your goals and get bigger goals.

That's not what I'm saying. If you want bigger goals in life, that is totally fine. Goals should be something that are personal and something that you strive to do to better yourself. But I am saying when you plant that flag on top of that mountain, you should stop for a minute to feel the wind and see the wind blow that flag.

When you're standing on top of that mountain, those accomplishments deserve to be acknowledged and they deserve to be celebrated. It's important to recognize that you don't just. You don't have to constantly be trying to change or improve yourself as well. While growth is essential, I also want you to embrace who you are and what you're already great at.

And you're great at a lot of things. You don't have to be perfect. Because, by the way, perfect does not exist. Let me say that again for the people in the back. Perfect does not exist. And you do not have to have all the answers, right? You do not have to have every answer in the book and you will never have every answer in the book.

You are enough just as you are. You are enough and I love you the way you are. I want you to be better if you want to be better at something, but if you don't, that is okay. You are fabulous. It's just the way you are. And if you are happy and content and you are satisfied with where you are in your career and in your life and you are loving things and you are loving your clients and you are loving where you are in the world, you don't need to change a thing.

You do you, boo. Now, if you're having a little difficulty embracing your expertise and acknowledging your successes, here are a few tips that may help you to start to do better with that. Write them down. Sounds simple, but if you want, you could keep a journal or you could just put them down in the notes section of your phone.

I love doing that. That's an easy peasy way. You know, you have your phone with you all the time. We all do. And you could just take some time each day to write down your achievements. No matter how small, by the way, they seem, reflecting on your successes can help you boost your confidence and remind you of how far you've come.

So even little things during the day, if you had a great call with a contractor, if you closed a consultation, something that you did during the day that made you feel good. That was a success and it could be something that you've been trying to overcome or something that you've just even honed and gotten better at.

That's okay. Keep these successes written down and be happy about them. And then you can look back at the end of the year and say, Oh my gosh, look at how many successes I've had this year. year. And if you did this daily, if you did 365 days of these, one success a day, and you look back on December 31st at the end of the year, and you had 365 successes to look back on in the little note section of your phone or on a Google doc or wherever you decide to keep it on a notepad, and you look back on those, how happy are you?

Are you going to be to know that there are 365 successes looking at you and smiling back at you in your face? That is a wonderful feeling. I promise you. Next, surround yourself with positivity. Sounds easy, but it could be hard for some of us. I know. Surround yourself with people who uplift you and support you, whether it's your friends, whether it's your family or other designers in our industry.

Having a supportive network can make a world of difference in how you perceive yourself and your abilities. If there are people with bad energy and you know people with bad energy, you know what you feel, Get away from them. You don't need to be around them. Be around people who are going to uplift you.

You don't have to agree on everything. That's not what I'm saying. But be around people who are going to support you. And I personally like to choose collaboration over competition when I am choosing people to surround myself with. Practice gratitude. Take a moment each day to express gratitude for your skills, your talents, and experiences that have brought you to where you are today.

Gratitude can help shift your mindset from focusing on what you lack to appreciating what you have. Again, you know what you know. You know a lot. And you have a lot and you need to be thankful for those things. You need to be thankful. For instance, I'm terrible at CAD. I would never stop and give gratitude for my CAD skills, but by golly, I could design a space.

I could choose all the fabrics, all the colors, all the lighting, all the furniture, probably in a few hours if I had to. So, you know, those are things I'm really good at, but I'm not going to stop and give gratitude for my AutoCAD skills because they're sucky. So you can give gratitude for AutoCAD skills then stop and give credit for that and give gratitude for that.

But I can't. But my point is this. Stop and give gratitude for the things that you're good at, for those talents, for those skills, and even for those experience that have gotten you to where you are today. And it could be a client, it could be a referral, it could be anything that has gotten you to where you are today.

When you are thankful for something, it truly will change your mindset and you're going to think about those positive things and you're going to really appreciate all the things that have propelled you to where you are. And lastly, own your expertise. Yes, don't be afraid to own your expertise, and don't be afraid to share it with others.

Whether it's through speaking engagements, whether it's through workshops, or on social media, show your skills and show your knowledge. This can help not only attract new clients, opportunities to you. As you've heard me say it before, Dolly Parton says it. You got to toot your own horn or they do not know you're coming.

Right? So I want you to toot your horn. I want you to be proud of who you are. I want you to be proud of what you know, and I want you to be proud of your accomplishments. And this will lead to so many different things down the line. It will propel your space in the industry. It will propel your brand. And it will cause other people to want to work with you.

When you are confident in yourself and confident in your skills, and when you are thankful for the things that have brought you to where you are, those people who feel the same way and who want to be around that will feel that energy. And like a magnet, they will be drawn to you and they will love being around you.

Now, all this to say that there are times, of course, when we want to better ourselves. And as I said, I'm a coach, you know this. I'm a business coach and I have courses for people and there are times when we want to help ourselves and get better. So knowing when to reach out for help versus when to focus on learning is actually a skill as well.

And here are some ways to recognize when you might want to learn more and increase your knowledge. Be honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses. Recognize when you've reached the limits of what you know. or the expertise that you have, and when it's time to bring in outside help. Trying to tackle everything on your own can lead to burnout.

And also, it can lead to subpar results. So really, you just need to acknowledge that you have limitations, if you have them, and look for assistance when you need it. Because it will affect your business if you don't look for help when you do need it. I really just base it on my instinct and my intuition.

Sometimes it comes down to that. If you have this gut feeling that you're out of your depth, or that seeking help would be the wisest course of action, trust that instinct. On the alternate side of things, if you feel confident in your ability to learn and adapt to something new, go ahead and take the initiative to expand your knowledge and your skills.

The other way that you can assess a situation is to think about the complexity of it. If it's something relatively simple or within that area of your expertise, you might be able to tackle it on your own with some additional research or some kind of self study, right? So you may be able to teach yourself how to do something.

But if it's a super complex issue that does require some specialized knowledge or some skills beyond what you currently have, it's probably time to look for help outside of what you already know and maybe get some professional advice or some outside assistance. And as you know, that can go a long way.

And also don't hesitate to look for feedback from your colleagues and for mentors or advisors. They can offer valuable insights and perspective on whether you should tackle a problem on your own or look to others. Maybe they have tackled the same problem before, or maybe they have worked with someone who has helped them tackle the same problem.

They may also be able to recommend those resources from someone that they've worked with or other experts that can help you address the issue more effectively. So if there is a group that you can be involved in that can help you with these type of things, for instance, in my design success Academy, we have a very active community where everybody helps each other out and ask questions and lends their advice.

And it's just a wonderful community. And I know there's lots and lots of those out there. So look for those and join something where you can find a colleague who can lend you that advice and possibly lend you a resource to help you out with gaining more knowledge. But the real point of this episode was this.

Remember. You are an expert. You're an expert in your field and you have so much to offer in the world of design. I want you to embrace your expertise. I want you to celebrate your successes, and I want you to know that you are enough. Just as you are. Can I get an amen up in here? I'm telling you this was good.

I hope it helped you out. I hope you feel more confident I hope you will look back on all of the things that have shaped you into where and what you are I am proud of you, my friend. You are free Fabulous. And you were going to get even more fabulous if you can believe that. Right. And if you need any help doing that, I'm raising my hand right here to help you every week.

This podcast will do the same. That's what we're here for. And I hope we will continue to do that. So remember, they say you don't know what you don't know, but I'm telling you, you do know what you do know, and you know a lot until next time, I'll see you on the next episode of the designer within. Keep designing a business and a life that you love, and I love you, my friend.

See you soon. 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. 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.