30. Wanting to Escape to Loving Your Business with Stephanie Brown
I'm excited to share another client interview with you this week! On this episode, I'm speaking to my current Out of Overwhelm client, Stephanie Brown, who has been running her interior design business for 10 years in Vancouver, Canada.
There is a real emotional component to what we do as interior designers, especially as it relates to being an entrepreneur. Stephanie found herself falling out of love with her business and experiencing escapist thoughts, even considering changing industries altogether. She decided things needed to change, and that's when she joined Out of Overwhelm.
Join us on this episode as Stephanie shares the challenges she was facing in her business when she first found Out of Overwhelm, and some of the biggest shifts she’s made since joining the program. You’ll hear the areas of focus Stephanie needed to work on to create less frustration and overwhelm, and what she’s learned about the power of prioritizing your business.
If you want to know how to create focus on demand and prevent your time and energy from leaking, come join me for Coffee & Coaching on May 18th 2023 at 11am Central! Coffee & Coaching is totally free, so click here to sign up!
Enrollment for our summer round of Out of Overwhelm is now open through to May 25th 2023. If you want to learn how to manage your time as a creative in a way that feels both supportive and flexible, click here to get more details!
What You’ll Discover from this Episode:
Why Stephanie decided to get support by joining Out of Overwhelm.
The hesitations Stephanie had about joining Out of Overwhelm.
How Out of Overwhelm helped Stephanie address the challenges she was experiencing in her business.
The areas of focus for Stephanie inside Out of Overwhelm.
What has shifted for Stephanie now that she’s going through the program.
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Full Episode Transcript:
Hey, designer, you’re listening to episode 30. This is the one where I’m talking to my client, Stephanie Brown, about how she learned to love her business and leading her team after wanting to escape it all.
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.
Desi: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to The Interior Design Business CEO. It is another day with a client interview. I’m so excited to have Stephanie Brown here. She is one of my current Out Of Overwhelm clients and I can’t wait for you to hear from her.
So, welcome, Stephanie, so glad you’re here.
Stephanie: Hi, thank you for having me.
Desi: Of course, of course. So why don’t we just get started by telling everyone a little bit about who you are and what you do, how you serve clients and a little bit about your business.
Stephanie: Yeah, absolutely. Well I am based in Vancouver BC, Canada and I’ve been doing interior design for 20 years now, which kind of feels like forever. But I have had my own business for 10 years after previously working for another firm. And we serve mainly a high-end residential single family home kind of customer base.
And our clients are throughout the Vancouver area and we have a great little niche segment of our business where we actually do a lot of our clients’ vacation homes which brings us to really wonderful locations like Hawaii and Palm Springs, the Bahamas and throughout BC. So yeah, that’s kind of the area of business we focus on, which is super fun.
Desi: And you’re actually in Hawaii right now as we record this, which is really fun.
Stephanie: Yes, I am. It just worked out that we are on a business trip right now to visit a few projects. So yeah, I’m staring out at the beautiful tropical view as we speak.
Desi: Oh, that’s perfect. I love Hawaii. We haven’t been back in so long. Well, it was, yeah, my son was I think maybe one the last time we were there. So that was like eight years ago, we need to get back there.
Stephanie: Wow.
Desi: You’re lucky, it’s a quicker flight for you than it is for me.
Stephanie: True. It’s still not quick.
Desi: It’s still not quick, but yeah, I totally get that. Did you bring your team with you?
Stephanie: Well I brought one of my designers with me, which is actually the first time I have done a business trip of this magnitude with bringing one of my team. So that’s been really great. Currently our projects are growing in scale, I would say, but also just in the quantity of projects we’re doing.
So while in the past I might have been able to handle doing a really big, detailed house by myself, doing the trip by myself, now we just have more going on and it’s a little bit harder for me to be the worker, and the thinker, and the planner and everything at once. So Wen, who is with me on this trip is super detailed, she’s been immensely involved in this project from the get go, so it felt really good having her here to support me and we’re able to just put two minds on everything and be so much more thorough and efficient.
Desi: Yeah, and I know inside Out Of Overwhelm, team has been an area of focus for you, which I’m sure we’ll get into later on. Why don’t we just rewind a little bit. We’re headed into month five of the six months, so take me back to when you decided to join Out Of Overwhelm. What was going on for you in your business or even just in your personal arena where you felt like this was the time to get support and why get support?
Stephanie: Yeah, it was last fall. So I guess kind of fall, winter 2022 and things were not feeling great. I was, like big picture mental state. I was truly falling out of love with what I was doing, with work. And I found my mind wandering to like questioning if I even need to be doing other things. Like my husband has a construction business so I thought, well, maybe things will be easier and less stressful. Maybe I can work for his business and somehow support him.
When your mind starts considering pivots when this has always been my dream and my passion since a very young age, it’s kind of weird to suddenly be questioning it like that. Which then made me kind of need to take a harder look at why am I so unhappy with my career and my business right now?
And, obviously, it was stemming from stress inside the business, both things I could pinpoint like some staffing issues. I think in 2022 I had a couple staffing hiccups that – We have a very small team. We’re a very boutique, small team who everyone has a high degree of responsibility and involvement in the projects, so when something isn’t working, it’s a big deal. I can’t just kind of like smooth over it.
So there were those that really got to me and really were dragging me down and weighing on me a lot. And then honestly, my business being kind of like my first child and such a passion for me, when something isn’t feeling good at work and in my business, it totally affects me at home. I’m less happy, I’m stressed out, my mind is always slightly there, and then of course that affects our family. So it was really just like a ripple effect of things aren’t great.
Also in the fall I think we felt a wee sign of a slow down I think as the economy took a shift and countries were starting to point towards recession and stuff like that. You know, people often joke that, oh, Stephanie, your clientele is so well off, you do high-end homes, they’re unaffected, right? And that’s not true. Our clients run big companies and even our biggest client felt like, hey, this isn’t a great time for me to build three houses. I’m going to build only one and let’s put those on pause. That does affect us hugely.
So there were kind of like layers of stress and I’m definitely a sensitive person and I’ve always had a history of taking that stress on and it affects my emotional wellbeing and everything. So that’s where I was in the fall.
Desi: Yeah, I think that’s so common. Just with the clients that I work with I think especially since our work is so personal. You’re not selling widgets, so it is very possible to separate yourself from the business. And at the same time I think it’s important to acknowledge that there is a real emotional component to what we do and just being an entrepreneur in general.
Stephanie: Yeah, it’s really hard. And we all, well, a lot of us go to design school, we learn how to design and that’s our passion when we get into this. And there’s so much on the business side that you learn as you go. But even then you need help sometimes, right?
Desi: Yeah.
Stephanie: Because learning as you go, there’s a lot of mistakes to be made along the way.
Desi: Yeah, and I think one of the things that you shared was so interesting, and this is a pattern that I see with clients, is when we notice that we have those kind of escapist thoughts, right? What you were talking about, maybe changing fields or what am I doing with my business? I think so often it’s we’re not wanting to run from the business or escape from the business itself, but from that mental load and that mental stress and pressure that we’re experiencing.
And that’s what we’re trying to get rid of, and we’re looking to change the circumstance of, well, it must be my business. And yes, there’s structural things that needed to change for you, for sure. And also there’s this other emotional support piece that’s equally as important in order to navigate those changes.
Stephanie: Absolutely. And I mean, perfect segue, but that is exactly what really clicked with you. So I remember I came across you through Business of Home, you hosted a webinar about kind of personal and work life balance, I think. Something to that effect, it feels like so long ago now.
Desi: Yeah.
Stephanie: But I remember kind of reading your bio of like, well, who is this person running this? And that’s really what stuck out, is your story of how you had all those same pivot feelings of this isn’t working in commercial design and then wanting to pivot to residential. And then pivoting to business coaching, which was a natural direction you’d really wanted to go into that made sense.
But just these feelings of when you do get so overwhelmed with the stress and the frustration and those escapist thoughts. I’m like, oh my gosh, she felt the exact same way. I need to hear what this person has to say.
Desi: Yeah, totally. It’s one of the biggest lessons that I can look back on is you bring your brain everywhere you go. And so whatever thought patterns or belief patterns you have, changing the circumstance, sometimes it’s an easy switch. And it’s like, yeah, if you can solve for it that way, go for it.
But also, if it’s a major component of your life and who you are as a person, those thought patterns are going to create very similar results no matter what business you have. And I think that’s why it’s so important to look at the root issue. And that’s why I always am coaching on the mindset piece plus the strategy piece.
Stephanie: Exactly.
Desi: So what did you see about Out Of Overwhelm specifically as supporting you in addressing some of these challenges?
Stephanie: Well, when I looked into the course I looked into the modules, like what the topics would be throughout the course. And some of them just immediately were like, oh my gosh, this is what I need to talk about and hear about. Those included things like perfectionism and procrastination, check. People pleasing, check. Delegating, check.
It’s just like, oh my gosh, these are things that you just feel lonely when you’re in a business, running it on your own. And I do have some support outside, my husband owns a business, but it’s so entirely different running a construction business with a bunch of men. My dad was an entrepreneur our whole life, but again, a vastly different business structure and people.
So to be able to delve into the challenges we have running our businesses that are completely focused on interior designers, is just so huge, this is what I’ve been looking for. And, honestly, as my business has kind of grown over the last couple years, I’ve been looking for this and I’ve tried different things.
I’ve gone to five day seminars, and they’ve been super fun and wonderful, but you’re listening. You’re just listening and hoping these people are going to give you this magic nugget of information that will click and you can know how to apply it and solve your issues. But it’s really indirect and not super efficient.
So when I saw, you know, after doing your webinar and then following you and getting to know, oh, you’re a business coach. Ooh, that sounds like something that could be helpful for me. Oh, and then you offer this program. So I liked that the program would be a small group, it’s like an intimate setting.
So that immediately tells me I’m not just listening and kind of being a bystander and trying to get the help and information I need. Actually we’re interacting, we’re going to be able to talk about our specific challenges throughout the group and get one-on-one coaching. That, I think, really appealed to me. And that just, it just felt like I need to give this a shot, this sounds like it could be a far better source of help than anything I’ve tried in the past.
Desi: Yeah, and I love that you bring up the intimate piece, because that’s one of the things that I love, too, is having that personal relationship with each one of my clients and knowing the thread that we go through throughout these six months. And for some clients, they continue on and do multiple rounds, and to be able to see them grow. And they bring up something three months later and I see a pattern that is coming from something we talked about a month or two months ago. So I just love that. And I appreciate that you bring that up and value that as well.
One of the other things that you had mentioned about like you could tell that you’d be doing and implementing with the program. I remember right after maybe the virtual retreat, or maybe we were just one or two weeks in, I hadn’t even gone into exactly how to use the planner that I create and provide for the program.
And I’m always encouraging clients to celebrate wins and you came into the community and you were like, “This is already making a difference.” And I’m like, “I didn’t even tell you how to use it yet, so this is amazing.” I loved that you just were like, “I’m all in, I’m going to use this thing and it is going to work for me.” And you created that result for yourself, so that was really fun.
Stephanie: Yeah, totally. I mean, getting the materials. I was like, there’s materials? And it’s just kind of like, I don’t know, I’m just one of those hungry for information and knowledge and learning people. So it’s like materials, I’m going to flip through these. And then I just assumed, hey, I’m going to start using this, not realizing that, yeah, there’s a process here, but hey.
And that’s been great too. You’ve always, throughout the course, been like there’s a framework to what we’re doing in this course, but it’s flexible. And like that, when another challenge came up during our first couple months together and I brought it up, you were just like, hey, go flip forward and check out this module that’s coming up. And I’m like, I can do that? Yes. Oh my God, I feel so empowered. I’m going to fast forward and check out this module that’s completely applying to me right now.
Desi: Yeah, I love that. I love that. And I mean, I think, yeah, so one of the things that I like to think about too, is just you guys are already feeling kind of overwhelmed and stressed. So having to print your own workbook or worksheets, I was like, I’ll just send it. Plus I love getting things in the mail. I don’t know about you, but it delights me.
Stephanie: Yeah, when they’re not bills.
Desi: Yeah, that’s true. I know.
Stephanie: Some things, yeah.
Desi: Yeah, for sure. For sure. Did you have any hesitations about joining? Or were you just like, nope, I’m in?
Stephanie: Yeah, one of the things that, ironically, initially triggered a little bit of hesitation for me was realizing, oh, we’re going to have these weekly Zoom calls. I am going to have to, given the kind of dynamic of our really open office space, I’m going to have to probably do that from home. I’m going to have to spend my mornings at home that morning, every week. I’m going to miss out on work. I’m going to fall so much further behind.
These were worries that went through my mind like, oh, if I give myself this hour or two hours to focus on my business, I’m going to get further behind and it’s going to be counterproductive, which now I know is so totally not the truth. And it’s actually, you know, you need to prioritize your business, and therefore yourself.
And this is such a productive time that is helping to create now, like a ripple effect of everything else, where it’s helped me as a person, it’s then helping our business, it’s helping the team, it’s helping my staff. And then in turn, it’s going to spread throughout our projects and our clients.
So I can see now it’s like, this is like the best two hour use of my time during the week. And I’m really going to miss it. So, yeah, looking back, that was actually initially a bit of a concern. Can I do this? Can I set that time aside, just to not be working, but to be working on my business?
Desi: Yeah. And I think so much more so than just, okay, I showed myself I can set aside that Tuesday hour for this particular course. But what a lesson for you moving forward, I mean, for the rest of your business, when I prioritize something for me and the business, we all win.
Stephanie: Exactly. Yeah, it’s definitely, it’s the opposite of a bad use of time. It is the best use of my time, totally.
Desi: Yeah. I’d love for the listeners to know what your areas of focus were.
Stephanie: Well, I think a big thing, and it’s more of a mindset thing for me, was to go back to finding a sense of joy. But I think I more so emphasized the word calm for me. To find calm throughout my day, rather than feeling this ratcheting up of my stress and just feeling like each day is this roller coaster of adrenaline.
So scheduling, daily scheduling, and finding balance was really huge for me because it’s so different going from being an individual designer to you’re a manager and you have this team around you, and they need you. But sometimes you just want to hit the off button because you can’t focus, you’re being pulled in a million directions. There’s a lot of distractions. And like I said, just the stress.
So I just needed my days to not feel so chaotic. And I remember when I filled out the kind of intake sort of application for signing up for Out Of Overwhelm I remember I used the term air traffic controller. Like as I’ve grown a team, I’m like, okay, so my role as a designer is decreasing, decreasing, decreasing, and I have become an air traffic controller.
I am just literally, this thing’s coming in, it needs to go out there. Oh, I need to prep this person to do that. And I need to review this from that person. I need to send that to that client. Literally, it’s like 90% of my time. And there’s not much joy that comes for me in doing that. I didn’t sign up for this to, you know, work for London Heathrow Airport.
Desi: Yes, that’s very true. That’s very true. Okay, so tell me now, Stephanie, we’ve talked about some of the changes that you’ve made. But I want to hear, like let’s elaborate, what is different for you now that you’ve been through the program. And we’re not even at the end, which is really exciting, too. But tell us a little bit more about your after picture.
Stephanie: For sure. So, going back to where I was and things I was feeling and struggling with before. So, as I said, a huge thing was feeling quite frustrated and stressed and having some HR problems per se when I was entering. So as we went through the course, mindset was a huge thing.
Sometimes there are circumstances that we encounter as business owners that we don’t have a lot of control over. And as I awaited a certain circumstance to sort itself out on the team side of things, what I did have control over that you really made clear to me was my mindset towards the issue.
I didn’t really realize I was choosing to let it overshadow everything in my life. It was a very stressful circumstance and highly unusual, but my response to it was up to me. And I hadn’t realized that prior. I just thought this is a terrible situation and I am entirely entitled to feel overwhelmed and it’s ruining my life.
Desi: Yeah, and I think that’s where we can think about, like is this serving me to be telling this story, to be thinking about it this way? Because I’m remembering coaching you on this, and yeah, that is not a circumstance anyone would choose.
Stephanie: No, no.
Desi: And then what, right? We’re dealt it, so now what are we going to do with it?
Stephanie: Yeah. And it’s funny, I even remember bringing it up early on in the group coaching calls. And, yeah, I was in a really bad state of mind. It was super stressful and awful to deal with. But just saying out loud how, I think I used the term despair, you know, I felt so bad. And saying it out loud, it at least also helped put it into perspective for me like, wow, you’re being a little bit melodramatic.
Desi: Brains do that to us, it just happens.
Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. Like, my feelings just go there. And it was like, yeah, so wait a sec. So while I didn’t have complete control to solve that circumstance on my own, at least I could start by solving my mindset piece and my approach to it mentally and moving on.
And you also coached me on what do I have control over in this situation? And what can I take from this and learn from it and do differently next time of the things I have control over? And that helped me go from a place of feeling like I had lost control of a certain thing, an aspect of my business, to no I haven’t, I can get through this. And here’s how I’m not going to let this happen again. So that was huge. It just took me from this very low point to feeling like, no, I got this. I got this, it’s going to be okay.
And then, as the world works in mysterious ways, thankfully the circumstance remedied itself. It went away. And now through our work together, and it was an HR issue, and now I can at least look at moving forward in a much more confident and optimistic way and feeling more empowered of, hey, instead of letting that horrible experience be like I’m never hiring people again. You know, I’m scarred for life. Honestly, that’s dramatic, but those are things I would have told myself in the past.
And I was ready, I was ready to tell myself that even after the circumstance went away because that’s how I usually operate. But now I’m like, no, that sucked, but that wasn’t all me. And that was just a circumstance and I’m so much more well prepared to move on now.
Desi: Yeah, and I think you learned some really valuable lessons about this next hire that you’re making, which I know you’re moving forward with.
Stephanie: Yeah. Hire slow, fire fast. I had heard that prior, but sometimes you’re in the thick of being so busy and you just want to jump on something and there’s that impulse. And now no. No, no, no, methodical.
Desi: Yeah, and I think that really speaks to where we have to look at why we aren’t following advice or strategies or things that we hear and we’re like, yeah, that sounds like a good idea, like around the hiring. And now it’s escaping me exactly what we coached on, but I remember we found one thought, particularly, and I can’t remember exactly what it is now.
But when we were looking at the self-coaching model, which is a tool you learn inside the program, it was very clearly leading to you taking certain actions and not taking certain actions because of the way that you were viewing the hiring process. And for somebody else, it could be totally different, the reason why you hired fast, or maybe why you’re putting off hiring. Because I work with clients on that a lot, too.
I mean, we were just coaching on that in the group last week, where it’s like we know we need help, but there’s some things. And that’s really where the coaching piece comes into play. Let’s figure out what’s going on for you specifically because it’s not just, oh, here’s a piece of advice, go run with it. Because if it was that easy, all we’d need is Google.
Stephanie: Totally, yeah.
Desi: So tell me a little bit more about what has shifted for you in your business. Even just how you’re feeling emotionally, I’d love to hear too.
Stephanie: Yeah, for sure. So aside from that HR piece, other big shifts have been, as I mentioned, really desiring that calm, which I kind of could predict from a feeling of calm within each day, I would be able to get back to a place of joy, of I love what I do and I love my business. So to get there, I mean, I think it really came down to two things, which was, how do I approach my days in a way that they’re going to be structured and set up for success?
And as a part of that, how do I approach and work with my team and set them up in a way where they have a good framework and we have a proper way of like avenues of communication and it just not feeling like a firing range and the air traffic controller situation.
So, the tangible things that went into getting back to that sense of calm for me were the planner and breaking it down into, okay, let’s look at this week. Let’s look at this week. What are all the things you think you need to do this week?
And I’ll be honest with you, running an office with multiple employees and so many projects, I can’t even write it all down. But the great thing is we do have some software where it tracks all that stuff, so I don’t need to write it all down, it’s too much to even fit on the box.
Desi: That is, again, taking the process and personalizing it to you, right? Because there is no planner that’s going to check all of the boxes for every single person. And so you’re taking the framework, the principles behind the time management approach that I teach and then using your CEO brain to say, this is how I’m going to make it work in my business. So I just have to congratulate you on that. That’s a win.
Stephanie: Thank you. Yeah, 100%. I mean, I could kind of see, okay, this isn’t a small box, but I know I can’t fit everything in there. So I automatically just looked at it in terms of, okay, bigger picture, let’s just step it up a notch. What are our key milestones this week that need to be happening? We need to get this client’s drawings to a certain point, we have a meeting with this client. I need to re-select this thing for that client.
So I took it up to the higher level of what are my things that I need to do for that week? And then I had clear priorities, rather than feeling like there are 1,000 things our business has to do right now. But no, no, no, let’s just hone it into what’s this week? And what will actually realistically happen this week? Because I think often we all feel the weight and pressure of all the things and it’s like, no, no, you don’t need to feel it all right now, just focus on what’s applicable in the next five days.
So starting with that was great. And then looking at one day at a time, what are the three things I’m going to focus on today? So that was huge, because while a day for me might even have 10 things or six things blocked out into my calendar, they’re definitely not six highly intense, critical things. There are definitely just maybe three things or even two things that must get done today.
And then by being able to say, well, these are the two or three things, I make sure I don’t put them off. I make sure they don’t slide to the next day. The other little things that weren’t that important could slide. So that was really huge for me. These are the priorities and then being self-accountable. And being accountable to the program in general is huge, where that’s really stuck with me of creating some framework and purpose each day.
So that was huge. I was already doing calendar blocking, I think as your business gets bigger you kind of have to. There just isn’t all this time in the week to let things organically slide around. So I was already blocking out my calendar and my days of this is a chunk of time for this, this is this meeting, this is a review with an employee, blah, blah, blah. But there were obviously things that were totally not working with that, which is why I felt like an air traffic controller and overwhelmed.
Stephanie: So you had some really great tangible advice for me, such as, looking back it’s like little things but it’s so obvious now, leave time in between the things. You know what I mean?
Desi: Yeah.
Stephanie: So the way my calendar works I can only set things to 15 minute intervals, which is probably a good thing.
Desi: I would agree.
Stephanie: Yeah, right, five minutes can vanish in the blink of an eye. So I have at least a 15 minute blank spot, which I’ve in hindsight really realized I need. We have so many projects and when you are really deep in thought about something and you’re getting there, the creative juices are flowing, oh my god, I’m making so much awesome progress on this and I’m so deep in it. And then poof, I need to talk to this employee about this other thing that’s so different.
And to switch your mind in one minute is not fun and it just did cause me a lot of mental friction. So now having a buffer and telling my staff not to put something in that 15 minute period there, that’s open for a reason. And I’ve explained to them the why and how beneficial this is for all of us. So that’s been huge.
Also, part of the delegating piece and feeling like things just get shot at me and sometimes feeling like maybe a task that I’ve perhaps given a teammate, what I perceived as the milestone or what I was expecting to see during a check-in for that task was not how that employee understood it. And yeah, you had just the great advice of, well, one of my clients in the past with her team has a 15 minute repeating check-in with every employee every morning. And that was huge.
Honestly, that has made such a difference because now I just come in, I do my emails, I do my scheduling, and I turn to an employee. I’m just like, hey, what have you been working on and what’s happening today? What do you need to talk to me about? And even we’re still learning from it because I’ve even learned they might just be like, “Oh, it’s good. I’m working on this and it’s coming along.” And I’ll be like, “Cool, show me where you’re at.”
And it just provides us this little micro minute of time to be like, if we need to pivot, we can pivot right then rather than waiting till two days later when they’ve put all this time in and they might be slightly off track.
Desi: Yeah, and then they’re not interrupting you as much during the day. And it’s just so helpful for everyone. And I think one of the things that I love about that approach is really empowering the employee too, to take some ownership over where things are at, how it’s going to be presented to you so they’re ready for the meeting. I think it helps them build themselves as a higher quality, more valuable team member, too.
You mentioned that, of course, stress impacts your family and personal life too. And I’ve certainly found that to be true too. When my brain is very active and busy and I can’t shut it down, there is this sort of flooding into the family culture from me. So tell me about how that has shifted for you as well.
Stephanie: For sure. Well, I think naturally when you’re able to get to a place where your work day isn’t so ratcheted up in an emotional state, in a stress level, it’s a bit more calm, and it feels controlled, right? It feels like there’s a start. There’s the things I’m going to do today. And then there’s a stop, right?
And I know a lot of people who work from home suffer from that issue of like, when does it stop? I don’t. I mean, I work from an office, I leave. But you know what? Being a business owner, it comes back with you in your brain and in your mood.
But the great thing is just having control over my days and my time, like it’s just that ripple effect where by more appropriately planning my days and having a better handle on how to delegate and work out my employees expectations and their tasks as well, it’s just reducing the stress. It’s bringing things down a notch.
It’s allowing me to feel better, calmer, happier throughout the day, so that when the day is over, for the most part, it’s not five o’clock and I’m like, “Oh my God, I didn’t get this done. I’m so far behind.” You know what I mean? That’s gone. It’s just like the day is over. I did what I realistically set out to do for today and I feel good about that.
Desi: I love hearing you share that. That’s so wonderful because, I mean, we go into business so often because we want to create that flexibility or we want to have the boundaries around our time and then they slide, slide, slide.
Stephanie: Being a business owner you are the last person, as all of us know, boundaries around our time, it’s like, holy, it can go 24/7 if you let it, right?
Desi: Yeah, and it’s a conscious choice you have to make about whether or not you’re going to let that continue on or not. And so I celebrate you for making that decision to live and work the way that you want to work in a way that supports you and your business goals, and also how you want to show up in your personal life as well.
Stephanie: Absolutely, yeah. And I think a lot of us, too, struggle with being in the nature of interior design and the nature of our clients, and especially if we’re working on their homes, they like to reach out at any time, right? Because they think about their home when they go home, right, from work or whatever. So information or requests and things can flood in at all times.
And I’ve always had a pretty good handle on, no, we’re not communicating after hours and whatnot. But just the program and speaking with, you know, hearing our peers in the group and you talk, it’s just really reinforced that for me too, of the fact that I have these boundaries is great, and do not backtrack on those. Do not compromise. And if anything, make them a little bit stronger.
So that helps with that personal happiness and life feeling as well. It’s like, no. I always think of the analogy, and I’ve never used this on a client yet, but I’m prepared if I have to. Like do you text your dentist at 10 o’clock at night to say, “Hey, was just thinking, should I put a cap on this tooth?” You don’t do that, right? No.
Desi: That is hilarious. That is hilarious. No, you don’t.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Desi: Or like what do you think about my flossing technique?
Stephanie: Yeah, what’s your opinion of this floss over that floss? Hello, you do not. For one thing, you don’t even have your dentist’s cell number.
Desi: That’s true too.
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Desi: Yep, excellent point. So amazing. Stephanie, it’s been so great to chat with you.
Stephanie: Thank you.
Desi: And Out Of Overwhelm is open for enrollment now through May 25th. Our next cohort kicks off July 18th. I’d love for you to speak to all the listeners and share what you’d want to tell them about joining Out Of Overwhelm.
Stephanie: Absolutely. I think a wonderful approach to looking at the program and seeing if it speaks to you is to look at the module topics. Just understand everything that’s covered throughout the program, they are such, I think, topics that resonate for us as interior designers, and it can be different for everyone. And as I’m feeling right now, it could be different for you in six months from now, like what is relevant and really something that you’re struggling with at the moment.
So that was huge. And then also, I mean, Desi, you’re great about if you’re feeling unsure of, hey, is this program a great fit for where I am right now in my business? Just reach out and ask those questions. You’re not kind of behind a brick wall in this big huge corporation of, no, just sign up.
Desi: No, not at all.
Stephanie: Yeah, you’re really there to actually hear, like hear where people as individuals are at and how can this help them right now? And I mean, speaking from experience, obviously, there’s me and where I’m at in my business. But our little family that’s in the program right now, people are at completely different places. And yet, they’re getting what they need because everything’s translatable to different stages of your business. So, yeah, it is just so helpful.
I know just both from an emotional point of view and tangible improvements, how much it’s helped me feel back on course, fall back in love with my business, and see a future, get past that state of feeling overwhelmed and kind of negative about things and even questioning my business as a whole. So, it’s been huge for me to get back on track.
And I know I’m not done. I know my work isn’t done and I know as I move forward with new stages of my company, challenges will change and evolve. And at least I know there’s an area of support where I can get the actual focused individual help and assistance and coaching that I need. And yeah, so I look forward to continuing that.
Desi: Yeah, I think that’s an excellent point of these tools will grow with you 100%. I have clients who are past clients who were in the program maybe two-ish years ago and, I mean, they tell me they still reference the workbook because as their business continues to grow, they continue to evolve as a person, their priorities shift, whether that’s life or business. It’s something that’ll be with you always.
And it was so exciting on our last call when you brought to the table around thinking about that three year vision and what’s next. And it’s been great to see that evolution in you, Stephanie.
Stephanie: Oh, great. Thank you so much, it’s been wonderful. Thank you for all the help.
Desi: Oh, it’s been my honor. So tell everyone, where can they find you online?
Stephanie: Absolutely. Well, our website is stephaniebrowninc.com. And also you can find us on Instagram, @StephanieBrownInc, which is maybe a little bit more current and gives a nice snapshot of everything we’re working on and behind the scenes projects and, yeah, a little bit more of an up close and personal look at what we have going on.
Desi: Yeah, you’ve got some fabulous projects going on right now. I’ve been on the account looking at them. I did a podcast on this, how I’m not really producing content specifically for Instagram anyways, but I still love going on there and connecting with clients and seeing what you’re up to. And it’s my little way, I guess, of living vicariously through you since I don’t do design projects anymore.
Stephanie: Yeah, yeah. It’s like, what is going on with us behind the scenes? And you can probably even see the evolution of your clients, which is so fun.
Desi: Yeah. Yeah, it’s really fun. Well, thank you so much for being here. As a reminder to everyone who’s listening, Out Of Overwhelm is open for enrollment now through May 25th and we’ll be kicking off July 18th. And you can click the link in the show notes to get all of the details, you can read all about those modules that Stephanie listed.
And then there’s also going to be a button where you submit a quick form that you heard Stephanie reference as well. And really, the purpose of that is for you to tell me a little bit about where you’re at, what you want to get out of the program, and make sure that those goals that you have aligned with what I deliver in the program to make sure it’s the best fit on every side. So you’ll find that on the website.
And thank you so much again, Stephanie. I so appreciate you being here and sharing your wisdom with everyone. And I hope you have a wonderful rest of your time in Hawaii, seeing that project come to fruition.
Stephanie: Thank you so much, mahalo.
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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.
Desi: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to The Interior Design Business CEO. It is another day with a client interview. I’m so excited to have Stephanie Brown here. She is one of my current Out Of Overwhelm clients and I can’t wait for you to hear from her.
So, welcome, Stephanie, so glad you’re here.
Stephanie: Hi, thank you for having me.
Desi: Of course, of course. So why don’t we just get started by telling everyone a little bit about who you are and what you do, how you serve clients and a little bit about your business.
Stephanie: Yeah, absolutely. Well I am based in Vancouver BC, Canada and I’ve been doing interior design for 20 years now, which kind of feels like forever. But I have had my own business for 10 years after previously working for another firm. And we serve mainly a high-end residential single family home kind of customer base.
And our clients are throughout the Vancouver area and we have a great little niche segment of our business where we actually do a lot of our clients’ vacation homes which brings us to really wonderful locations like Hawaii and Palm Springs, the Bahamas and throughout BC. So yeah, that’s kind of the area of business we focus on, which is super fun.
Desi: And you’re actually in Hawaii right now as we record this, which is really fun.
Stephanie: Yes, I am. It just worked out that we are on a business trip right now to visit a few projects. So yeah, I’m staring out at the beautiful tropical view as we speak.
Desi: Oh, that’s perfect. I love Hawaii. We haven’t been back in so long. Well, it was, yeah, my son was I think maybe one the last time we were there. So that was like eight years ago, we need to get back there.
Stephanie: Wow.
Desi: You’re lucky, it’s a quicker flight for you than it is for me.
Stephanie: True. It’s still not quick.
Desi: It’s still not quick, but yeah, I totally get that. Did you bring your team with you?
Stephanie: Well I brought one of my designers with me, which is actually the first time I have done a business trip of this magnitude with bringing one of my team. So that’s been really great. Currently our projects are growing in scale, I would say, but also just in the quantity of projects we’re doing.
So while in the past I might have been able to handle doing a really big, detailed house by myself, doing the trip by myself, now we just have more going on and it’s a little bit harder for me to be the worker, and the thinker, and the planner and everything at once. So Wen, who is with me on this trip is super detailed, she’s been immensely involved in this project from the get go, so it felt really good having her here to support me and we’re able to just put two minds on everything and be so much more thorough and efficient.
Desi: Yeah, and I know inside Out Of Overwhelm, team has been an area of focus for you, which I’m sure we’ll get into later on. Why don’t we just rewind a little bit. We’re headed into month five of the six months, so take me back to when you decided to join Out Of Overwhelm. What was going on for you in your business or even just in your personal arena where you felt like this was the time to get support and why get support?
Stephanie: Yeah, it was last fall. So I guess kind of fall, winter 2022 and things were not feeling great. I was, like big picture mental state. I was truly falling out of love with what I was doing, with work. And I found my mind wandering to like questioning if I even need to be doing other things. Like my husband has a construction business so I thought, well, maybe things will be easier and less stressful. Maybe I can work for his business and somehow support him.
When your mind starts considering pivots when this has always been my dream and my passion since a very young age, it’s kind of weird to suddenly be questioning it like that. Which then made me kind of need to take a harder look at why am I so unhappy with my career and my business right now?
And, obviously, it was stemming from stress inside the business, both things I could pinpoint like some staffing issues. I think in 2022 I had a couple staffing hiccups that – We have a very small team. We’re a very boutique, small team who everyone has a high degree of responsibility and involvement in the projects, so when something isn’t working, it’s a big deal. I can’t just kind of like smooth over it.
So there were those that really got to me and really were dragging me down and weighing on me a lot. And then honestly, my business being kind of like my first child and such a passion for me, when something isn’t feeling good at work and in my business, it totally affects me at home. I’m less happy, I’m stressed out, my mind is always slightly there, and then of course that affects our family. So it was really just like a ripple effect of things aren’t great.
Also in the fall I think we felt a wee sign of a slow down I think as the economy took a shift and countries were starting to point towards recession and stuff like that. You know, people often joke that, oh, Stephanie, your clientele is so well off, you do high-end homes, they’re unaffected, right? And that’s not true. Our clients run big companies and even our biggest client felt like, hey, this isn’t a great time for me to build three houses. I’m going to build only one and let’s put those on pause. That does affect us hugely.
So there were kind of like layers of stress and I’m definitely a sensitive person and I’ve always had a history of taking that stress on and it affects my emotional wellbeing and everything. So that’s where I was in the fall.
Desi: Yeah, I think that’s so common. Just with the clients that I work with I think especially since our work is so personal. You’re not selling widgets, so it is very possible to separate yourself from the business. And at the same time I think it’s important to acknowledge that there is a real emotional component to what we do and just being an entrepreneur in general.
Stephanie: Yeah, it’s really hard. And we all, well, a lot of us go to design school, we learn how to design and that’s our passion when we get into this. And there’s so much on the business side that you learn as you go. But even then you need help sometimes, right?
Desi: Yeah.
Stephanie: Because learning as you go, there’s a lot of mistakes to be made along the way.
Desi: Yeah, and I think one of the things that you shared was so interesting, and this is a pattern that I see with clients, is when we notice that we have those kind of escapist thoughts, right? What you were talking about, maybe changing fields or what am I doing with my business? I think so often it’s we’re not wanting to run from the business or escape from the business itself, but from that mental load and that mental stress and pressure that we’re experiencing.
And that’s what we’re trying to get rid of, and we’re looking to change the circumstance of, well, it must be my business. And yes, there’s structural things that needed to change for you, for sure. And also there’s this other emotional support piece that’s equally as important in order to navigate those changes.
Stephanie: Absolutely. And I mean, perfect segue, but that is exactly what really clicked with you. So I remember I came across you through Business of Home, you hosted a webinar about kind of personal and work life balance, I think. Something to that effect, it feels like so long ago now.
Desi: Yeah.
Stephanie: But I remember kind of reading your bio of like, well, who is this person running this? And that’s really what stuck out, is your story of how you had all those same pivot feelings of this isn’t working in commercial design and then wanting to pivot to residential. And then pivoting to business coaching, which was a natural direction you’d really wanted to go into that made sense.
But just these feelings of when you do get so overwhelmed with the stress and the frustration and those escapist thoughts. I’m like, oh my gosh, she felt the exact same way. I need to hear what this person has to say.
Desi: Yeah, totally. It’s one of the biggest lessons that I can look back on is you bring your brain everywhere you go. And so whatever thought patterns or belief patterns you have, changing the circumstance, sometimes it’s an easy switch. And it’s like, yeah, if you can solve for it that way, go for it.
But also, if it’s a major component of your life and who you are as a person, those thought patterns are going to create very similar results no matter what business you have. And I think that’s why it’s so important to look at the root issue. And that’s why I always am coaching on the mindset piece plus the strategy piece.
Stephanie: Exactly.
Desi: So what did you see about Out Of Overwhelm specifically as supporting you in addressing some of these challenges?
Stephanie: Well, when I looked into the course I looked into the modules, like what the topics would be throughout the course. And some of them just immediately were like, oh my gosh, this is what I need to talk about and hear about. Those included things like perfectionism and procrastination, check. People pleasing, check. Delegating, check.
It’s just like, oh my gosh, these are things that you just feel lonely when you’re in a business, running it on your own. And I do have some support outside, my husband owns a business, but it’s so entirely different running a construction business with a bunch of men. My dad was an entrepreneur our whole life, but again, a vastly different business structure and people.
So to be able to delve into the challenges we have running our businesses that are completely focused on interior designers, is just so huge, this is what I’ve been looking for. And, honestly, as my business has kind of grown over the last couple years, I’ve been looking for this and I’ve tried different things.
I’ve gone to five day seminars, and they’ve been super fun and wonderful, but you’re listening. You’re just listening and hoping these people are going to give you this magic nugget of information that will click and you can know how to apply it and solve your issues. But it’s really indirect and not super efficient.
So when I saw, you know, after doing your webinar and then following you and getting to know, oh, you’re a business coach. Ooh, that sounds like something that could be helpful for me. Oh, and then you offer this program. So I liked that the program would be a small group, it’s like an intimate setting.
So that immediately tells me I’m not just listening and kind of being a bystander and trying to get the help and information I need. Actually we’re interacting, we’re going to be able to talk about our specific challenges throughout the group and get one-on-one coaching. That, I think, really appealed to me. And that just, it just felt like I need to give this a shot, this sounds like it could be a far better source of help than anything I’ve tried in the past.
Desi: Yeah, and I love that you bring up the intimate piece, because that’s one of the things that I love, too, is having that personal relationship with each one of my clients and knowing the thread that we go through throughout these six months. And for some clients, they continue on and do multiple rounds, and to be able to see them grow. And they bring up something three months later and I see a pattern that is coming from something we talked about a month or two months ago. So I just love that. And I appreciate that you bring that up and value that as well.
One of the other things that you had mentioned about like you could tell that you’d be doing and implementing with the program. I remember right after maybe the virtual retreat, or maybe we were just one or two weeks in, I hadn’t even gone into exactly how to use the planner that I create and provide for the program.
And I’m always encouraging clients to celebrate wins and you came into the community and you were like, “This is already making a difference.” And I’m like, “I didn’t even tell you how to use it yet, so this is amazing.” I loved that you just were like, “I’m all in, I’m going to use this thing and it is going to work for me.” And you created that result for yourself, so that was really fun.
Stephanie: Yeah, totally. I mean, getting the materials. I was like, there’s materials? And it’s just kind of like, I don’t know, I’m just one of those hungry for information and knowledge and learning people. So it’s like materials, I’m going to flip through these. And then I just assumed, hey, I’m going to start using this, not realizing that, yeah, there’s a process here, but hey.
And that’s been great too. You’ve always, throughout the course, been like there’s a framework to what we’re doing in this course, but it’s flexible. And like that, when another challenge came up during our first couple months together and I brought it up, you were just like, hey, go flip forward and check out this module that’s coming up. And I’m like, I can do that? Yes. Oh my God, I feel so empowered. I’m going to fast forward and check out this module that’s completely applying to me right now.
Desi: Yeah, I love that. I love that. And I mean, I think, yeah, so one of the things that I like to think about too, is just you guys are already feeling kind of overwhelmed and stressed. So having to print your own workbook or worksheets, I was like, I’ll just send it. Plus I love getting things in the mail. I don’t know about you, but it delights me.
Stephanie: Yeah, when they’re not bills.
Desi: Yeah, that’s true. I know.
Stephanie: Some things, yeah.
Desi: Yeah, for sure. For sure. Did you have any hesitations about joining? Or were you just like, nope, I’m in?
Stephanie: Yeah, one of the things that, ironically, initially triggered a little bit of hesitation for me was realizing, oh, we’re going to have these weekly Zoom calls. I am going to have to, given the kind of dynamic of our really open office space, I’m going to have to probably do that from home. I’m going to have to spend my mornings at home that morning, every week. I’m going to miss out on work. I’m going to fall so much further behind.
These were worries that went through my mind like, oh, if I give myself this hour or two hours to focus on my business, I’m going to get further behind and it’s going to be counterproductive, which now I know is so totally not the truth. And it’s actually, you know, you need to prioritize your business, and therefore yourself.
And this is such a productive time that is helping to create now, like a ripple effect of everything else, where it’s helped me as a person, it’s then helping our business, it’s helping the team, it’s helping my staff. And then in turn, it’s going to spread throughout our projects and our clients.
So I can see now it’s like, this is like the best two hour use of my time during the week. And I’m really going to miss it. So, yeah, looking back, that was actually initially a bit of a concern. Can I do this? Can I set that time aside, just to not be working, but to be working on my business?
Desi: Yeah. And I think so much more so than just, okay, I showed myself I can set aside that Tuesday hour for this particular course. But what a lesson for you moving forward, I mean, for the rest of your business, when I prioritize something for me and the business, we all win.
Stephanie: Exactly. Yeah, it’s definitely, it’s the opposite of a bad use of time. It is the best use of my time, totally.
Desi: Yeah. I’d love for the listeners to know what your areas of focus were.
Stephanie: Well, I think a big thing, and it’s more of a mindset thing for me, was to go back to finding a sense of joy. But I think I more so emphasized the word calm for me. To find calm throughout my day, rather than feeling this ratcheting up of my stress and just feeling like each day is this roller coaster of adrenaline.
So scheduling, daily scheduling, and finding balance was really huge for me because it’s so different going from being an individual designer to you’re a manager and you have this team around you, and they need you. But sometimes you just want to hit the off button because you can’t focus, you’re being pulled in a million directions. There’s a lot of distractions. And like I said, just the stress.
So I just needed my days to not feel so chaotic. And I remember when I filled out the kind of intake sort of application for signing up for Out Of Overwhelm I remember I used the term air traffic controller. Like as I’ve grown a team, I’m like, okay, so my role as a designer is decreasing, decreasing, decreasing, and I have become an air traffic controller.
I am just literally, this thing’s coming in, it needs to go out there. Oh, I need to prep this person to do that. And I need to review this from that person. I need to send that to that client. Literally, it’s like 90% of my time. And there’s not much joy that comes for me in doing that. I didn’t sign up for this to, you know, work for London Heathrow Airport.
Desi: Yes, that’s very true. That’s very true. Okay, so tell me now, Stephanie, we’ve talked about some of the changes that you’ve made. But I want to hear, like let’s elaborate, what is different for you now that you’ve been through the program. And we’re not even at the end, which is really exciting, too. But tell us a little bit more about your after picture.
Stephanie: For sure. So, going back to where I was and things I was feeling and struggling with before. So, as I said, a huge thing was feeling quite frustrated and stressed and having some HR problems per se when I was entering. So as we went through the course, mindset was a huge thing.
Sometimes there are circumstances that we encounter as business owners that we don’t have a lot of control over. And as I awaited a certain circumstance to sort itself out on the team side of things, what I did have control over that you really made clear to me was my mindset towards the issue.
I didn’t really realize I was choosing to let it overshadow everything in my life. It was a very stressful circumstance and highly unusual, but my response to it was up to me. And I hadn’t realized that prior. I just thought this is a terrible situation and I am entirely entitled to feel overwhelmed and it’s ruining my life.
Desi: Yeah, and I think that’s where we can think about, like is this serving me to be telling this story, to be thinking about it this way? Because I’m remembering coaching you on this, and yeah, that is not a circumstance anyone would choose.
Stephanie: No, no.
Desi: And then what, right? We’re dealt it, so now what are we going to do with it?
Stephanie: Yeah. And it’s funny, I even remember bringing it up early on in the group coaching calls. And, yeah, I was in a really bad state of mind. It was super stressful and awful to deal with. But just saying out loud how, I think I used the term despair, you know, I felt so bad. And saying it out loud, it at least also helped put it into perspective for me like, wow, you’re being a little bit melodramatic.
Desi: Brains do that to us, it just happens.
Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. Like, my feelings just go there. And it was like, yeah, so wait a sec. So while I didn’t have complete control to solve that circumstance on my own, at least I could start by solving my mindset piece and my approach to it mentally and moving on.
And you also coached me on what do I have control over in this situation? And what can I take from this and learn from it and do differently next time of the things I have control over? And that helped me go from a place of feeling like I had lost control of a certain thing, an aspect of my business, to no I haven’t, I can get through this. And here’s how I’m not going to let this happen again. So that was huge. It just took me from this very low point to feeling like, no, I got this. I got this, it’s going to be okay.
And then, as the world works in mysterious ways, thankfully the circumstance remedied itself. It went away. And now through our work together, and it was an HR issue, and now I can at least look at moving forward in a much more confident and optimistic way and feeling more empowered of, hey, instead of letting that horrible experience be like I’m never hiring people again. You know, I’m scarred for life. Honestly, that’s dramatic, but those are things I would have told myself in the past.
And I was ready, I was ready to tell myself that even after the circumstance went away because that’s how I usually operate. But now I’m like, no, that sucked, but that wasn’t all me. And that was just a circumstance and I’m so much more well prepared to move on now.
Desi: Yeah, and I think you learned some really valuable lessons about this next hire that you’re making, which I know you’re moving forward with.
Stephanie: Yeah. Hire slow, fire fast. I had heard that prior, but sometimes you’re in the thick of being so busy and you just want to jump on something and there’s that impulse. And now no. No, no, no, methodical.
Desi: Yeah, and I think that really speaks to where we have to look at why we aren’t following advice or strategies or things that we hear and we’re like, yeah, that sounds like a good idea, like around the hiring. And now it’s escaping me exactly what we coached on, but I remember we found one thought, particularly, and I can’t remember exactly what it is now.
But when we were looking at the self-coaching model, which is a tool you learn inside the program, it was very clearly leading to you taking certain actions and not taking certain actions because of the way that you were viewing the hiring process. And for somebody else, it could be totally different, the reason why you hired fast, or maybe why you’re putting off hiring. Because I work with clients on that a lot, too.
I mean, we were just coaching on that in the group last week, where it’s like we know we need help, but there’s some things. And that’s really where the coaching piece comes into play. Let’s figure out what’s going on for you specifically because it’s not just, oh, here’s a piece of advice, go run with it. Because if it was that easy, all we’d need is Google.
Stephanie: Totally, yeah.
Desi: So tell me a little bit more about what has shifted for you in your business. Even just how you’re feeling emotionally, I’d love to hear too.
Stephanie: Yeah, for sure. So aside from that HR piece, other big shifts have been, as I mentioned, really desiring that calm, which I kind of could predict from a feeling of calm within each day, I would be able to get back to a place of joy, of I love what I do and I love my business. So to get there, I mean, I think it really came down to two things, which was, how do I approach my days in a way that they’re going to be structured and set up for success?
And as a part of that, how do I approach and work with my team and set them up in a way where they have a good framework and we have a proper way of like avenues of communication and it just not feeling like a firing range and the air traffic controller situation.
So, the tangible things that went into getting back to that sense of calm for me were the planner and breaking it down into, okay, let’s look at this week. Let’s look at this week. What are all the things you think you need to do this week?
And I’ll be honest with you, running an office with multiple employees and so many projects, I can’t even write it all down. But the great thing is we do have some software where it tracks all that stuff, so I don’t need to write it all down, it’s too much to even fit on the box.
Desi: That is, again, taking the process and personalizing it to you, right? Because there is no planner that’s going to check all of the boxes for every single person. And so you’re taking the framework, the principles behind the time management approach that I teach and then using your CEO brain to say, this is how I’m going to make it work in my business. So I just have to congratulate you on that. That’s a win.
Stephanie: Thank you. Yeah, 100%. I mean, I could kind of see, okay, this isn’t a small box, but I know I can’t fit everything in there. So I automatically just looked at it in terms of, okay, bigger picture, let’s just step it up a notch. What are our key milestones this week that need to be happening? We need to get this client’s drawings to a certain point, we have a meeting with this client. I need to re-select this thing for that client.
So I took it up to the higher level of what are my things that I need to do for that week? And then I had clear priorities, rather than feeling like there are 1,000 things our business has to do right now. But no, no, no, let’s just hone it into what’s this week? And what will actually realistically happen this week? Because I think often we all feel the weight and pressure of all the things and it’s like, no, no, you don’t need to feel it all right now, just focus on what’s applicable in the next five days.
So starting with that was great. And then looking at one day at a time, what are the three things I’m going to focus on today? So that was huge, because while a day for me might even have 10 things or six things blocked out into my calendar, they’re definitely not six highly intense, critical things. There are definitely just maybe three things or even two things that must get done today.
And then by being able to say, well, these are the two or three things, I make sure I don’t put them off. I make sure they don’t slide to the next day. The other little things that weren’t that important could slide. So that was really huge for me. These are the priorities and then being self-accountable. And being accountable to the program in general is huge, where that’s really stuck with me of creating some framework and purpose each day.
So that was huge. I was already doing calendar blocking, I think as your business gets bigger you kind of have to. There just isn’t all this time in the week to let things organically slide around. So I was already blocking out my calendar and my days of this is a chunk of time for this, this is this meeting, this is a review with an employee, blah, blah, blah. But there were obviously things that were totally not working with that, which is why I felt like an air traffic controller and overwhelmed.
Stephanie: So you had some really great tangible advice for me, such as, looking back it’s like little things but it’s so obvious now, leave time in between the things. You know what I mean?
Desi: Yeah.
Stephanie: So the way my calendar works I can only set things to 15 minute intervals, which is probably a good thing.
Desi: I would agree.
Stephanie: Yeah, right, five minutes can vanish in the blink of an eye. So I have at least a 15 minute blank spot, which I’ve in hindsight really realized I need. We have so many projects and when you are really deep in thought about something and you’re getting there, the creative juices are flowing, oh my god, I’m making so much awesome progress on this and I’m so deep in it. And then poof, I need to talk to this employee about this other thing that’s so different.
And to switch your mind in one minute is not fun and it just did cause me a lot of mental friction. So now having a buffer and telling my staff not to put something in that 15 minute period there, that’s open for a reason. And I’ve explained to them the why and how beneficial this is for all of us. So that’s been huge.
Also, part of the delegating piece and feeling like things just get shot at me and sometimes feeling like maybe a task that I’ve perhaps given a teammate, what I perceived as the milestone or what I was expecting to see during a check-in for that task was not how that employee understood it. And yeah, you had just the great advice of, well, one of my clients in the past with her team has a 15 minute repeating check-in with every employee every morning. And that was huge.
Honestly, that has made such a difference because now I just come in, I do my emails, I do my scheduling, and I turn to an employee. I’m just like, hey, what have you been working on and what’s happening today? What do you need to talk to me about? And even we’re still learning from it because I’ve even learned they might just be like, “Oh, it’s good. I’m working on this and it’s coming along.” And I’ll be like, “Cool, show me where you’re at.”
And it just provides us this little micro minute of time to be like, if we need to pivot, we can pivot right then rather than waiting till two days later when they’ve put all this time in and they might be slightly off track.
Desi: Yeah, and then they’re not interrupting you as much during the day. And it’s just so helpful for everyone. And I think one of the things that I love about that approach is really empowering the employee too, to take some ownership over where things are at, how it’s going to be presented to you so they’re ready for the meeting. I think it helps them build themselves as a higher quality, more valuable team member, too.
You mentioned that, of course, stress impacts your family and personal life too. And I’ve certainly found that to be true too. When my brain is very active and busy and I can’t shut it down, there is this sort of flooding into the family culture from me. So tell me about how that has shifted for you as well.
Stephanie: For sure. Well, I think naturally when you’re able to get to a place where your work day isn’t so ratcheted up in an emotional state, in a stress level, it’s a bit more calm, and it feels controlled, right? It feels like there’s a start. There’s the things I’m going to do today. And then there’s a stop, right?
And I know a lot of people who work from home suffer from that issue of like, when does it stop? I don’t. I mean, I work from an office, I leave. But you know what? Being a business owner, it comes back with you in your brain and in your mood.
But the great thing is just having control over my days and my time, like it’s just that ripple effect where by more appropriately planning my days and having a better handle on how to delegate and work out my employees expectations and their tasks as well, it’s just reducing the stress. It’s bringing things down a notch.
It’s allowing me to feel better, calmer, happier throughout the day, so that when the day is over, for the most part, it’s not five o’clock and I’m like, “Oh my God, I didn’t get this done. I’m so far behind.” You know what I mean? That’s gone. It’s just like the day is over. I did what I realistically set out to do for today and I feel good about that.
Desi: I love hearing you share that. That’s so wonderful because, I mean, we go into business so often because we want to create that flexibility or we want to have the boundaries around our time and then they slide, slide, slide.
Stephanie: Being a business owner you are the last person, as all of us know, boundaries around our time, it’s like, holy, it can go 24/7 if you let it, right?
Desi: Yeah, and it’s a conscious choice you have to make about whether or not you’re going to let that continue on or not. And so I celebrate you for making that decision to live and work the way that you want to work in a way that supports you and your business goals, and also how you want to show up in your personal life as well.
Stephanie: Absolutely, yeah. And I think a lot of us, too, struggle with being in the nature of interior design and the nature of our clients, and especially if we’re working on their homes, they like to reach out at any time, right? Because they think about their home when they go home, right, from work or whatever. So information or requests and things can flood in at all times.
And I’ve always had a pretty good handle on, no, we’re not communicating after hours and whatnot. But just the program and speaking with, you know, hearing our peers in the group and you talk, it’s just really reinforced that for me too, of the fact that I have these boundaries is great, and do not backtrack on those. Do not compromise. And if anything, make them a little bit stronger.
So that helps with that personal happiness and life feeling as well. It’s like, no. I always think of the analogy, and I’ve never used this on a client yet, but I’m prepared if I have to. Like do you text your dentist at 10 o’clock at night to say, “Hey, was just thinking, should I put a cap on this tooth?” You don’t do that, right? No.
Desi: That is hilarious. That is hilarious. No, you don’t.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Desi: Or like what do you think about my flossing technique?
Stephanie: Yeah, what’s your opinion of this floss over that floss? Hello, you do not. For one thing, you don’t even have your dentist’s cell number.
Desi: That’s true too.
Stephanie: Mm-hmm.
Desi: Yep, excellent point. So amazing. Stephanie, it’s been so great to chat with you.
Stephanie: Thank you.
Desi: And Out Of Overwhelm is open for enrollment now through May 25th. Our next cohort kicks off July 18th. I’d love for you to speak to all the listeners and share what you’d want to tell them about joining Out Of Overwhelm.
Stephanie: Absolutely. I think a wonderful approach to looking at the program and seeing if it speaks to you is to look at the module topics. Just understand everything that’s covered throughout the program, they are such, I think, topics that resonate for us as interior designers, and it can be different for everyone. And as I’m feeling right now, it could be different for you in six months from now, like what is relevant and really something that you’re struggling with at the moment.
So that was huge. And then also, I mean, Desi, you’re great about if you’re feeling unsure of, hey, is this program a great fit for where I am right now in my business? Just reach out and ask those questions. You’re not kind of behind a brick wall in this big huge corporation of, no, just sign up.
Desi: No, not at all.
Stephanie: Yeah, you’re really there to actually hear, like hear where people as individuals are at and how can this help them right now? And I mean, speaking from experience, obviously, there’s me and where I’m at in my business. But our little family that’s in the program right now, people are at completely different places. And yet, they’re getting what they need because everything’s translatable to different stages of your business. So, yeah, it is just so helpful.
I know just both from an emotional point of view and tangible improvements, how much it’s helped me feel back on course, fall back in love with my business, and see a future, get past that state of feeling overwhelmed and kind of negative about things and even questioning my business as a whole. So, it’s been huge for me to get back on track.
And I know I’m not done. I know my work isn’t done and I know as I move forward with new stages of my company, challenges will change and evolve. And at least I know there’s an area of support where I can get the actual focused individual help and assistance and coaching that I need. And yeah, so I look forward to continuing that.
Desi: Yeah, I think that’s an excellent point of these tools will grow with you 100%. I have clients who are past clients who were in the program maybe two-ish years ago and, I mean, they tell me they still reference the workbook because as their business continues to grow, they continue to evolve as a person, their priorities shift, whether that’s life or business. It’s something that’ll be with you always.
And it was so exciting on our last call when you brought to the table around thinking about that three year vision and what’s next. And it’s been great to see that evolution in you, Stephanie.
Stephanie: Oh, great. Thank you so much, it’s been wonderful. Thank you for all the help.
Desi: Oh, it’s been my honor. So tell everyone, where can they find you online?
Stephanie: Absolutely. Well, our website is stephaniebrowninc.com. And also you can find us on Instagram, @StephanieBrownInc, which is maybe a little bit more current and gives a nice snapshot of everything we’re working on and behind the scenes projects and, yeah, a little bit more of an up close and personal look at what we have going on.
Desi: Yeah, you’ve got some fabulous projects going on right now. I’ve been on the account looking at them. I did a podcast on this, how I’m not really producing content specifically for Instagram anyways, but I still love going on there and connecting with clients and seeing what you’re up to. And it’s my little way, I guess, of living vicariously through you since I don’t do design projects anymore.
Stephanie: Yeah, yeah. It’s like, what is going on with us behind the scenes? And you can probably even see the evolution of your clients, which is so fun.
Desi: Yeah. Yeah, it’s really fun. Well, thank you so much for being here. As a reminder to everyone who’s listening, Out Of Overwhelm is open for enrollment now through May 25th and we’ll be kicking off July 18th. And you can click the link in the show notes to get all of the details, you can read all about those modules that Stephanie listed.
And then there’s also going to be a button where you submit a quick form that you heard Stephanie reference as well. And really, the purpose of that is for you to tell me a little bit about where you’re at, what you want to get out of the program, and make sure that those goals that you have aligned with what I deliver in the program to make sure it’s the best fit on every side. So you’ll find that on the website.
And thank you so much again, Stephanie. I so appreciate you being here and sharing your wisdom with everyone. And I hope you have a wonderful rest of your time in Hawaii, seeing that project come to fruition.
Stephanie: Thank you so much, mahalo.
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