85. CEO Summer School Is in Session
My new podcast series, CEO Summer School, is starting June 19th 2024! Before you think you have to spend your summer studying and doing lots of homework, I want to reassure you that this is not the kind of summer school I have planned for you.
Summer tends to be an exceptionally busy time for all of us. Your schedule is probably all over the place, you might be taking time off from work, and you probably want to get out and enjoy the sun. However, while you might want to devote less time to your business over the summer, you can’t ignore it. You want to be ready for the rest of 2024, and CEO Summer School is the perfect way to set yourself up for success.
Join me on this episode to learn what you can expect from CEO Summer School, how I’ll help you reassess and plan your interior design business goals every single week, and why I’ll be going to summer school right alongside you!
CEO Summer School is my summer podcast series where we’ll explore the power of questions. To join me in CEO Summer School, subscribe to the show to make sure you don’t miss an episode!
If you're interested in working together one-on-one in the fall or winter, now is the time to put your name on the waitlist for private coaching. Click here to secure your spot!
What You’ll Discover from this Episode:
What you can expect from CEO Summer School and how to enroll.
3 reasons why I’m offering CEO Summer School.
Why I’m going to CEO Summer School with you.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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79. The Evolution of a Designer CEO with Client Heather Peterson
Full Episode Transcript:
Hey designer, you’re listening to episode 85. This is the one where I’m sharing all of the details on the special summer series I’m hosting here on the podcast, CEO Summer School. I’ll be covering how you can use the upcoming episodes of the podcast to reflect, re-imagine, and energize to improve your interior design business through asking better questions and identifying small but impactful ways for you to set yourself up for an incredible fall when you’re ready to catch that back to school energy and dive back into work.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you’re ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you’re in the right place. I’m Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let’s go.
Hello, designer, welcome back to the podcast. I hope you are having an incredible week. At the time that I am recording this, we have one more day of school and then it’s the start of summer break. May has just flown by and I don’t know what has happened to the month.
A friend of mine introduced me to the term May-cember, like December but in May, where there’s like a gazillion things that are all packed into one month. It certainly has felt like it this past month with all the kids’ activities at school and just kind of navigating that transition space. So it’s kind of been a lot. And although it feels slightly like I’m being flung into June, I’m also looking forward to settling into our new routines that the summer months are going to bring.
And if you listened to my previous podcast on my summer slowdown, you know that I am going to be working some this summer but it’s going to be a little bit less. And I’m still going to be thinking about all of you and thinking about my clients and what I can share with you.
And that really brings me to the topic of today’s episode. This summer I’m launching a brand-new interactive series here on the podcast that I created for you to participate in this summer and it’s called CEO Summer School and it is for all of you interior designers. If you just said, ew, summer school, let’s back up.
Before you dismiss this, let me just clarify this is not going to be a lot of studying with lots of homework. That is not the summer school that I’m going to be hosting today. What I want to share with you in this episode is what CEO Summer School actually is going to be, why I’m offering this and how you can participate totally for free.
So you might be wondering if it’s not all serious and super hard work, why am I calling it summer school? Well, one, I love alliteration. CEO Summer School sounds really great. And I was brainstorming with my podcast team and was kind of sharing what some of the ideas were about how I wanted to structure the summer episodes, and Devon from my team came up with CEO Summer School. And immediately when she said it, I thought, oh my gosh, yes, this is it.
The second reason I’m calling it CEO Summer School is I know you’re probably in a similar situation to me, summer is busy. If you have kids, your schedule is different with camps and driving all over the place. Even if you don’t have kids, summer just tends to be busy. You’re taking time off for going on vacation. It’s nice out, so you just don’t want to work as much. You want to get out and enjoy the sun.
And while you might have less time or want to devote less time to your business in the coming months, you also can’t ignore it. You want to be ready for when we head into fall and the rest of 2024. And in that way, what I’m sharing with you is kind of like school where it’s going to be preparing you for something.
But like I said, CEO Summer School is not going to be like actual summer school. It is not punitive or remedial because you were slacking off during the actual school year. It’s also not going to be boring. What I plan to share with you throughout the CEO Summer School series is meant to give you opportunities to, one, pause and reassess the way you’re doing things in your interior design business so that you can decide if you want to keep doing them that way.
The second thing is to be inspired and feel invigorated in your business. Either get your energy back, or maybe things are feeling pretty good but you want to have them feel even better. And then the third opportunity I want to present you with with this series is to start setting the stage for the remainder of this year. This could look like loose planning on paper or in a digital document, or even just in your mind, letting things marinate.
One of the beautiful things about our human brain is that you can pose a question to it and it will get to work answering that question without you even doing anything. If you listened to my last episode, episode 84 on asking high quality questions, you’ll know what I’m talking about. And if you haven’t listened to that one, definitely go back and listen to episode 84 because it will be a great primer to get you ready for CEO Summer School.
With this series I really wanted there to be a low lift way to keep your business moving forward with doable, intentional actions that are going to build upon themselves so that when you do get that back to school vibe, that fresh start feeling that we all feel in fall, you’ll be ready to dive back in with a little bit of momentum under your feet.
If you aren’t already subscribed or following the podcast, you’re going to want to do that now. And then that way you’ll never miss an episode. This is all going to be audio straight to your podcast feed as a series, and tuition, going with the theme, is totally free.
So here’s how CEO Summer School is going to work. Starting June 19th, every other week I’ll be in your podcast feed with a brand new episode for all of you interior designers. I’m going to be posing a simple but powerful question you can use to pause and reassess, be inspired and plan for your interior design business goals.
With each question that I pose, I’m going to be sharing how you can use this question in your business and the different ways you can apply it directly to you. As I said, the brain just goes to work answering questions for you. And so just listening and considering the question and perspective I share in these episodes is going to be impactful.
And then this is where it gets really fun. So of course, if you’re a listener and you just want to tune into the episodes, you absolutely can. But what I really am encouraging you to do is enroll in CEO Summer School. It’s still totally free, but you do need to enroll because for every episode, there’s going to be a downloadable one-page episode companion guide.
This resource is going to include key points from the summer school lesson that you’re going to want to return to and remember. It’s also going to include the question I pose in the episode where you can put pen to paper and really reflect on your answer. And it’s also going to include a few bonus questions so you can take your insights even deeper and beyond what you’re going to be hearing on the podcast.
This series is completely free. I want to offer this as a fun way to engage with me and for me to engage with you this summer in a way that’s really going to impact your business. But what I want you to know is that you’re only going to receive the episode companion guide if you sign up.
So to do that, you’ll just go to desiid.com/summerschool, and then that will get you enrolled. For every episode of this series, there will be that bonus guide sent directly to your email. As the weeks go on, you’ll be able to print each of the one sheet resources. And by the end of the summer, you’ll be able to bind these individual sheets together to create your very own business playbook.
And if we’re going to stick with the summer school theme, we’ll call it a textbook. But frankly, a textbook doesn’t sound very fun. But anyways, the main point is this is going to be where you can collectively capture your insights and ahas, which you can then use to set the course in your business for the remainder of 2024.
And it’s going to all be in one spot and everything’s going to be delivered bite-sized, implementable to take you step by step through the summer and through the thought process that I want to lead you through so that when fall arrives, it’s not like you’ve lost all the momentum, but it’s also like you’re not exhausted from trying to grind away all summer long.
The other interesting thing about this is that I’m going to be going to summer school with you. Of course, I’m going to be the one producing the episodes, but I’m also going to be answering these questions for myself over the summer as well.
For a while now it’s felt kind of like the beginning of a new chapter personally and professionally. And let me tell you, being in this liminal space, that kind of in between can feel very murky and uncomfortable. And I also know it’s a necessary process of evolving as a business owner, and frankly, being a human being.
It’s really interesting, when episode 79 came out with my client, Heather Peterson, the title of the episode is The Evolution of a Designer CEO. And my friend actually took a screenshot of how the podcast episode showed up on her screen. And it said the evolution of a Desi, which of course my name is in how you spell designer, so that was really, really fun.
She sent it to me and I was like, oh my gosh, that’s true because this does feel like a period of reassessing. I’ve just kicked off the Designer CEO, the mastermind that I created for my more advanced interior design business owners. And in the past year, I’ve brought back some things, I’ve let something go. I’m going to shake up the podcast a little bit this summer.
So it does feel like a period of taking a look at what’s on the table and what is on the table that I want to keep, what I want to put on the table and add, what I want to take off. And so that’s why I’m going to school with you. And I want you to consider this episode your official invitation to join me for CEO Summer School.
If you’re already subscribed to the podcast, you’ll see the first lesson in your feed on June 19th. And if you aren’t subscribed, do that now so that you don’t have to go looking anything up or trying to remember that the episode was released. It is one less thing to remember in your already full brain. Automate whatever you can, as a side note. And then head over to desiid.com/summerschool to sign up.
Again, when you sign up at desiid.com/summer school, that is how you’re going to get enrolled to receive the bonus resources and then have the tools to apply what I share in the episode directly to your interior design business. Once school is officially in session and you’re enrolled at desiid.com/summerschool, you’re going to receive a weekly email announcing that the episode is live along with a link to your bonus resource that will further enhance your experience and application of what you’re listening to.
Oh, and the other thing you should know about this, I originally thought that I’d be releasing episodes every other week as part of my summer slowdown plan. You can listen to episode 80 if you want to hear more about that. When I was having that conversation with my podcast team, and I was thinking about this series, we all decided collectively, it would be really helpful for you to have an episode in between the CEO Summer School series that would support the summer school lesson.
So what I decided to do is in the off weeks of school, meaning it won’t be a CEO Summer School specific episode, what we’re going to do is we’re going to pop in a past episode with a new intro, which will be a take on how you can apply that particular episode to the summer school lesson. And so it’ll be your standard episode, which I know all of you love because it’s super straight to the point, very actionable tips, and it’ll be one more layer of support through this experience.
As I was reviewing my podcast stats, it turns out you all really love to relisten to episodes. I mean, we’re talking many, many times. I was looking at the number of subscribers and downloads, and you love the repeats. So this format is going to be really helpful and I’m going to be able to further curate those topics that I want you to revisit over the summer.
And of course, if you don’t want to revisit the past episode, you absolutely don’t have to. And you can just wait for the next episode of CEO Summer School to pop into your feed.
All right, that is what I have for you today. Hopefully that gives you a great understanding of what CEO Summer School is, helps kind of give you a behind the scenes look at my thought process on creating new things in my business. And I want to give you that final reminder to subscribe to the show so that you’re ready when school is in session on June 19th.
This series is going to run through the end of August, and you’re going to want to sign up for the bonus resource guides that you’re going to be able to put together to create that customized playbook for your interior design business that will send you into fall. Head over to desiid.com/summerschool to sign up and then you’ll be able to listen to the episode and find your printable bonus guide right in your inbox and take what you’re hearing to the next level.
If you want to add a layer of accountability and community, definitely tell one of your interior design friends about this series and then you can listen together, discuss the questions and see what unfolds. I’ll be back next Wednesday with a brand new episode. And until then, I’m wishing you a beautiful week.
Have you ever wished I could be your coach? If so, keep listening. For a limited time when you leave a rating and review for the podcast you’ll be entered to win a one on one coaching session with me. I can answer your questions and coach you on your unique challenges.
All you have to do is scroll down to the bottom of your podcast app, tap the five stars and leave a review. Tell me your favorite episode, why you look forward to listening every week, or why another designer needs to check out the show. It won’t take long, and as a thank you for leaving a rating and review you'll have the opportunity to win a private coaching session with me.
Just click the link in the show notes to submit your review so I know how to get in touch. I can’t wait to select a winner and it might be you. I'll talk to you next week.
Thanks for joining me for this week’s episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit www.desicreswell.com. And if you’re ready to take what you’ve learned on the podcast to the next level, I would love for you to check out my signature group coaching program, Out of Overwhelm.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you’re ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you’re in the right place. I’m Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let’s go.
Hello, designer, welcome back to the podcast. I hope you are having an incredible week. At the time that I am recording this, we have one more day of school and then it’s the start of summer break. May has just flown by and I don’t know what has happened to the month.
A friend of mine introduced me to the term May-cember, like December but in May, where there’s like a gazillion things that are all packed into one month. It certainly has felt like it this past month with all the kids’ activities at school and just kind of navigating that transition space. So it’s kind of been a lot. And although it feels slightly like I’m being flung into June, I’m also looking forward to settling into our new routines that the summer months are going to bring.
And if you listened to my previous podcast on my summer slowdown, you know that I am going to be working some this summer but it’s going to be a little bit less. And I’m still going to be thinking about all of you and thinking about my clients and what I can share with you.
And that really brings me to the topic of today’s episode. This summer I’m launching a brand-new interactive series here on the podcast that I created for you to participate in this summer and it’s called CEO Summer School and it is for all of you interior designers. If you just said, ew, summer school, let’s back up.
Before you dismiss this, let me just clarify this is not going to be a lot of studying with lots of homework. That is not the summer school that I’m going to be hosting today. What I want to share with you in this episode is what CEO Summer School actually is going to be, why I’m offering this and how you can participate totally for free.
So you might be wondering if it’s not all serious and super hard work, why am I calling it summer school? Well, one, I love alliteration. CEO Summer School sounds really great. And I was brainstorming with my podcast team and was kind of sharing what some of the ideas were about how I wanted to structure the summer episodes, and Devon from my team came up with CEO Summer School. And immediately when she said it, I thought, oh my gosh, yes, this is it.
The second reason I’m calling it CEO Summer School is I know you’re probably in a similar situation to me, summer is busy. If you have kids, your schedule is different with camps and driving all over the place. Even if you don’t have kids, summer just tends to be busy. You’re taking time off for going on vacation. It’s nice out, so you just don’t want to work as much. You want to get out and enjoy the sun.
And while you might have less time or want to devote less time to your business in the coming months, you also can’t ignore it. You want to be ready for when we head into fall and the rest of 2024. And in that way, what I’m sharing with you is kind of like school where it’s going to be preparing you for something.
But like I said, CEO Summer School is not going to be like actual summer school. It is not punitive or remedial because you were slacking off during the actual school year. It’s also not going to be boring. What I plan to share with you throughout the CEO Summer School series is meant to give you opportunities to, one, pause and reassess the way you’re doing things in your interior design business so that you can decide if you want to keep doing them that way.
The second thing is to be inspired and feel invigorated in your business. Either get your energy back, or maybe things are feeling pretty good but you want to have them feel even better. And then the third opportunity I want to present you with with this series is to start setting the stage for the remainder of this year. This could look like loose planning on paper or in a digital document, or even just in your mind, letting things marinate.
One of the beautiful things about our human brain is that you can pose a question to it and it will get to work answering that question without you even doing anything. If you listened to my last episode, episode 84 on asking high quality questions, you’ll know what I’m talking about. And if you haven’t listened to that one, definitely go back and listen to episode 84 because it will be a great primer to get you ready for CEO Summer School.
With this series I really wanted there to be a low lift way to keep your business moving forward with doable, intentional actions that are going to build upon themselves so that when you do get that back to school vibe, that fresh start feeling that we all feel in fall, you’ll be ready to dive back in with a little bit of momentum under your feet.
If you aren’t already subscribed or following the podcast, you’re going to want to do that now. And then that way you’ll never miss an episode. This is all going to be audio straight to your podcast feed as a series, and tuition, going with the theme, is totally free.
So here’s how CEO Summer School is going to work. Starting June 19th, every other week I’ll be in your podcast feed with a brand new episode for all of you interior designers. I’m going to be posing a simple but powerful question you can use to pause and reassess, be inspired and plan for your interior design business goals.
With each question that I pose, I’m going to be sharing how you can use this question in your business and the different ways you can apply it directly to you. As I said, the brain just goes to work answering questions for you. And so just listening and considering the question and perspective I share in these episodes is going to be impactful.
And then this is where it gets really fun. So of course, if you’re a listener and you just want to tune into the episodes, you absolutely can. But what I really am encouraging you to do is enroll in CEO Summer School. It’s still totally free, but you do need to enroll because for every episode, there’s going to be a downloadable one-page episode companion guide.
This resource is going to include key points from the summer school lesson that you’re going to want to return to and remember. It’s also going to include the question I pose in the episode where you can put pen to paper and really reflect on your answer. And it’s also going to include a few bonus questions so you can take your insights even deeper and beyond what you’re going to be hearing on the podcast.
This series is completely free. I want to offer this as a fun way to engage with me and for me to engage with you this summer in a way that’s really going to impact your business. But what I want you to know is that you’re only going to receive the episode companion guide if you sign up.
So to do that, you’ll just go to desiid.com/summerschool, and then that will get you enrolled. For every episode of this series, there will be that bonus guide sent directly to your email. As the weeks go on, you’ll be able to print each of the one sheet resources. And by the end of the summer, you’ll be able to bind these individual sheets together to create your very own business playbook.
And if we’re going to stick with the summer school theme, we’ll call it a textbook. But frankly, a textbook doesn’t sound very fun. But anyways, the main point is this is going to be where you can collectively capture your insights and ahas, which you can then use to set the course in your business for the remainder of 2024.
And it’s going to all be in one spot and everything’s going to be delivered bite-sized, implementable to take you step by step through the summer and through the thought process that I want to lead you through so that when fall arrives, it’s not like you’ve lost all the momentum, but it’s also like you’re not exhausted from trying to grind away all summer long.
The other interesting thing about this is that I’m going to be going to summer school with you. Of course, I’m going to be the one producing the episodes, but I’m also going to be answering these questions for myself over the summer as well.
For a while now it’s felt kind of like the beginning of a new chapter personally and professionally. And let me tell you, being in this liminal space, that kind of in between can feel very murky and uncomfortable. And I also know it’s a necessary process of evolving as a business owner, and frankly, being a human being.
It’s really interesting, when episode 79 came out with my client, Heather Peterson, the title of the episode is The Evolution of a Designer CEO. And my friend actually took a screenshot of how the podcast episode showed up on her screen. And it said the evolution of a Desi, which of course my name is in how you spell designer, so that was really, really fun.
She sent it to me and I was like, oh my gosh, that’s true because this does feel like a period of reassessing. I’ve just kicked off the Designer CEO, the mastermind that I created for my more advanced interior design business owners. And in the past year, I’ve brought back some things, I’ve let something go. I’m going to shake up the podcast a little bit this summer.
So it does feel like a period of taking a look at what’s on the table and what is on the table that I want to keep, what I want to put on the table and add, what I want to take off. And so that’s why I’m going to school with you. And I want you to consider this episode your official invitation to join me for CEO Summer School.
If you’re already subscribed to the podcast, you’ll see the first lesson in your feed on June 19th. And if you aren’t subscribed, do that now so that you don’t have to go looking anything up or trying to remember that the episode was released. It is one less thing to remember in your already full brain. Automate whatever you can, as a side note. And then head over to desiid.com/summerschool to sign up.
Again, when you sign up at desiid.com/summer school, that is how you’re going to get enrolled to receive the bonus resources and then have the tools to apply what I share in the episode directly to your interior design business. Once school is officially in session and you’re enrolled at desiid.com/summerschool, you’re going to receive a weekly email announcing that the episode is live along with a link to your bonus resource that will further enhance your experience and application of what you’re listening to.
Oh, and the other thing you should know about this, I originally thought that I’d be releasing episodes every other week as part of my summer slowdown plan. You can listen to episode 80 if you want to hear more about that. When I was having that conversation with my podcast team, and I was thinking about this series, we all decided collectively, it would be really helpful for you to have an episode in between the CEO Summer School series that would support the summer school lesson.
So what I decided to do is in the off weeks of school, meaning it won’t be a CEO Summer School specific episode, what we’re going to do is we’re going to pop in a past episode with a new intro, which will be a take on how you can apply that particular episode to the summer school lesson. And so it’ll be your standard episode, which I know all of you love because it’s super straight to the point, very actionable tips, and it’ll be one more layer of support through this experience.
As I was reviewing my podcast stats, it turns out you all really love to relisten to episodes. I mean, we’re talking many, many times. I was looking at the number of subscribers and downloads, and you love the repeats. So this format is going to be really helpful and I’m going to be able to further curate those topics that I want you to revisit over the summer.
And of course, if you don’t want to revisit the past episode, you absolutely don’t have to. And you can just wait for the next episode of CEO Summer School to pop into your feed.
All right, that is what I have for you today. Hopefully that gives you a great understanding of what CEO Summer School is, helps kind of give you a behind the scenes look at my thought process on creating new things in my business. And I want to give you that final reminder to subscribe to the show so that you’re ready when school is in session on June 19th.
This series is going to run through the end of August, and you’re going to want to sign up for the bonus resource guides that you’re going to be able to put together to create that customized playbook for your interior design business that will send you into fall. Head over to desiid.com/summerschool to sign up and then you’ll be able to listen to the episode and find your printable bonus guide right in your inbox and take what you’re hearing to the next level.
If you want to add a layer of accountability and community, definitely tell one of your interior design friends about this series and then you can listen together, discuss the questions and see what unfolds. I’ll be back next Wednesday with a brand new episode. And until then, I’m wishing you a beautiful week.
Have you ever wished I could be your coach? If so, keep listening. For a limited time when you leave a rating and review for the podcast you’ll be entered to win a one on one coaching session with me. I can answer your questions and coach you on your unique challenges.
All you have to do is scroll down to the bottom of your podcast app, tap the five stars and leave a review. Tell me your favorite episode, why you look forward to listening every week, or why another designer needs to check out the show. It won’t take long, and as a thank you for leaving a rating and review you'll have the opportunity to win a private coaching session with me.
Just click the link in the show notes to submit your review so I know how to get in touch. I can’t wait to select a winner and it might be you. I'll talk to you next week.
Thanks for joining me for this week’s episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit www.desicreswell.com. And if you’re ready to take what you’ve learned on the podcast to the next level, I would love for you to check out my signature group coaching program, Out of Overwhelm.
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86. Hitting the Reset Button in Life and Business
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