87. Trading Good for Great (CEO Summer School)
Welcome to the first episode of our CEO Summer School series! This is where we lay the foundation for how you want to think about your business in the coming months, and we’re kicking off the series with one prompt that can have a huge impact on you personally and on your business.
If you could wave a magic wand, what would great look and feel like in your business one year from now? Trading what feels good for what could be great can feel risky. Our brains aren’t inclined to search for what could be great when things feel good enough, so it’s your job to proactively nudge it in this direction, and I’m here to help you.
Join me in this episode to learn what trading good for great will require of you and why answering this prompt for yourself will likely feel uncomfortable and challenging. I’m highlighting a few things to consider as you practice thinking about your business in this way, and what trading good for great looks like for me in my business.
CEO Summer School is my summer podcast series where we’ll explore the power of questions. Click here to join me in CEO Summer School!
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What You’ll Discover from this Episode:
What trading good for great will require of you.
Why trading good for great can feel uncomfortable and challenging.
3 things to consider as you apply the concept of trading good for great to your business.
How trading good for great doesn’t necessarily mean adding more things.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Full Episode Transcript:
Hey designer, you’re listening to episode 87. Today is the first episode in the CEO Summer School series, and I can’t wait to get started with you. The topic is trading good for great in your interior design business and we’re laying the foundation for how you want to think about your business in the coming months. Let’s dive in.
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. We are in full-on summer mode here at the Creswell household. Let me tell you, I am so grateful for past me who consulted with me earlier in the year for tweaking my schedule so I was not totally scrambling right now. So, thank you. I’m patting myself on the back. You can do the same, consult your future you and think about what plans you need to be making right now to make that happen.
I am really excited today because it’s the first day of CEO Summer School. School is in session. If you are tuning in for the first time, or haven’t listened to the last few episodes, let me loop you in briefly.
CEO Summer School is a special summer series I’m doing here on the podcast that I’ve created for all of you interior designers who want to have space to tune in to yourself and to your business in a really accessible low lift way over the summer. My intention is that you use this series to proactively reflect and reassess so that you’re better equipped to enter into fall and winter with renewed energy and new ideas and purpose in your business, while also having space to go live your life this summer.
This is intentionality without the force. Because CEO Summer School is not going to take you a lot of time and it’s not going to be a lot of hard studying or anything like that, it’s going to be something that you can weave into your business practices throughout the summer. And even though it’s not going to take a lot of time, this bit of intentionality and reflection is going to have a huge impact on you personally as the business owner and on the business itself.
If you aren’t already signed up, go ahead and subscribe to the podcast now and then head over to desiid.com/summerschool to sign up. This is how you’re going to get the bonus resource guides that are going to help you integrate what I share on the podcast, but you’re only going to receive those if you sign up. It’s free, but you do have to sign up. And you do that by going to desiid.com/summerschool.
And then what will happen is every week that I release a CEO Summer School podcast, you’re going to get these one sheet guides delivered straight to your inbox where you are going to be able to create your own resource guide for your own business and for yourself as you print the sheets as we move through summer.
If you’ve already signed up for CEO Summer School, you’ll receive an email with this bonus guide the day the episode airs. This is one of the ways that I want this to be a really interactive experience where I am coaching you through the podcast. And one of the ways that I can do that is, of course, sharing what I’m going to share in the episodes, but then also you printing the guide that I’m going to share to you so you can actually interact with the content and apply it directly to yourself.
And then I want to interact with you as well. When I say I want to hear from you, when I put that at the bottom of an email or tell you that here on the podcast, I really, really do mean it. I’m curious what these prompts are revealing for you and what your a-has are and what your questions are and what this opens up.
It really delights me when I hear from you, whether you’ve been in my world for a long time, whether I’ve been your coach or not, or if you’re brand-new to my work and this is the first time we are having a conversation. So don’t be shy and let me know how this is going. Of course, if you have any questions at all during this, feel free to shoot them my way. For now though, let’s dive into the topic for today, trading good for great.
I talked about this a bit last week when I was mentioning how we often resist reflection because it opens up the possibility of seeing something we can’t unsee. Or we fear that we’re going to have to let go of something we’re afraid to let go of, or to be afraid almost of where we want to be next or what might be required of us or who we have to become to go to that next level.
So whether you’re resisting taking a look at what has felt okay, but not amazing, maybe resisting something that you’re tolerating or feeling like things are pretty good but you’re feeling a bit stagnant, there might be some shedding required. That shedding could be denial or avoidance of a masked truth, or a letting go of people, services, or even identities that no longer align with your future vision.
Trading good for great does require embracing uncertainty and embracing not always knowing the exact steps of what is going to take your business from good to great. And here’s what you need to know, is that the human brain loves to know what to expect. It’s part of our survival and safety mechanisms. So homeostasis for our human brain is preferred, which is why this trade of good to great can feel so challenging at times, because the real trade you make is the known for the unknown.
And of course, nothing is ever actually known, let me remind you of that. But our brain takes what is here in the present moment and likes to assign permanence to it. And in that way, it can feel kind of scary to trade good for great. Even if the unknown isn’t all that different or a radical change from what you have right now, it can feel kind of risky and dramatic in our internal world.
I know, personally, when I think about trading good for great, when I think about trading good for great in my business, my brain wants to tell me that I am throwing away everything, that I’m going to be starting from scratch. And of course that sounds awful, but it’s also not true. I’m bringing everything that I’ve made, everything that I’ve brought myself to good, or what even I thought was great, but now I’m seeing as good, that all comes with me and I just continue to build on it.
And I have to consistently remind myself of that, which is why I want to remind you of that as well. Because our brain is looking for that efficiency and path of least resistance, it’s not going to be inclined to ask ourselves, what is going to be great? What am I going to trade good for great for? And we have to proactively intentionally nudge it in that direction.
And that is the question I want to pose to you today in CEO Summer School. The question I want you to consider is this, if you could wave a magic wand, what would great in your business look like and feel like one year from now? I want you to think about what your new version of great would look like. Not what you used to think would be great. Not what someone else thinks would be great for you, but really look to that future version of yourself who has made the trade of good for great. What does that look and feel like?
There are three things I want to call out as you apply this question to yourself and your interior design business. The first is don’t worry about how you’ll make this happen or if it’s even possible at this point. Spoiler alert, your brain is probably going to tell you it’s not possible, but we don’t have to worry about that right now. You have a magic wand, tell yourself what you really want.
What is it that you’re craving as you move forward? You have to have the vision in order to start exploring the possible paths that could get you there. You have to have the vision in order to explore who you need to become in the process of achieving your goals. And when you get overly concerned with the how and the exact what of how you’re going to do the whole thing, that really starts to block your creativity of imagining what great could really be for you.
The second thing I want to add is that great doesn’t always mean adding. It could mean shedding or stabilization. This is something I specifically wanted to include in the Designer CEO Mastermind topics that I was working on for the group that I just started, because I think we often forget as we grow, our business is going to go through cycles and seasons.
And sometimes growth looks like adding a lot of things that you and others can see externally. But sometimes the season of growth you’re in calls for releasing, resetting, or recalibration. I know for me right now, great looks like simplicity, reevaluation, and less complexity. And of course, that’s going to shift what my business looks like, and that in itself is growth.
There are many ways to grow into your greatness. And I want to be clear that sometimes that looks like adding and sometimes it looks like shedding. And you as the designer CEO are going to know what that is for you.
The third thing that I want to call out here is the possibility that what you think in your business is currently great is actually only good. I’m going to say that again. What if what you think is great is actually only good? How could you open your mind up to this possibility? Where have you put a cap on your own greatness that you haven’t yet seen? Where is there a ceiling that you’ve created for yourself that needs to be broken?
I want you to consider that there is a version of great lying dormant just waiting for you to see it.
With those three things in mind, I want to share the question for CEO Summer School again. The question is, if you could wave a magic wand, what would great in your business look and feel like one year from now? That is the prompt I want to leave you with today. As we kick off CEO Summer School.
If you haven’t signed up for the bonus guides, do that now by going to desiid.com/summerschool. And then when you get the guide, print the guide and answer this question for yourself. I have space for you to write your own answer. There is something about putting pen to paper that opens up wisdom and insights inside of you. I have seen this so often for myself and for my clients.
And I’m also going to be sharing in that guide, a couple of bonus questions that are going to help you further apply this concept of trading good for great to your interior design business.
Next week on the podcast, you’ll have an episode that is going to help you further explore this question and this concept. And then the week after that, I’ll be back with another episode of the CEO Summer School series. That’ll of course include a brand new question for you to be considering and marinating on over these summer months. I can’t wait to dive into the topic I have planned for you. And until then, I’m wishing you a beautiful week. I’ll talk to you soon.
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. 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. We are in full-on summer mode here at the Creswell household. Let me tell you, I am so grateful for past me who consulted with me earlier in the year for tweaking my schedule so I was not totally scrambling right now. So, thank you. I’m patting myself on the back. You can do the same, consult your future you and think about what plans you need to be making right now to make that happen.
I am really excited today because it’s the first day of CEO Summer School. School is in session. If you are tuning in for the first time, or haven’t listened to the last few episodes, let me loop you in briefly.
CEO Summer School is a special summer series I’m doing here on the podcast that I’ve created for all of you interior designers who want to have space to tune in to yourself and to your business in a really accessible low lift way over the summer. My intention is that you use this series to proactively reflect and reassess so that you’re better equipped to enter into fall and winter with renewed energy and new ideas and purpose in your business, while also having space to go live your life this summer.
This is intentionality without the force. Because CEO Summer School is not going to take you a lot of time and it’s not going to be a lot of hard studying or anything like that, it’s going to be something that you can weave into your business practices throughout the summer. And even though it’s not going to take a lot of time, this bit of intentionality and reflection is going to have a huge impact on you personally as the business owner and on the business itself.
If you aren’t already signed up, go ahead and subscribe to the podcast now and then head over to desiid.com/summerschool to sign up. This is how you’re going to get the bonus resource guides that are going to help you integrate what I share on the podcast, but you’re only going to receive those if you sign up. It’s free, but you do have to sign up. And you do that by going to desiid.com/summerschool.
And then what will happen is every week that I release a CEO Summer School podcast, you’re going to get these one sheet guides delivered straight to your inbox where you are going to be able to create your own resource guide for your own business and for yourself as you print the sheets as we move through summer.
If you’ve already signed up for CEO Summer School, you’ll receive an email with this bonus guide the day the episode airs. This is one of the ways that I want this to be a really interactive experience where I am coaching you through the podcast. And one of the ways that I can do that is, of course, sharing what I’m going to share in the episodes, but then also you printing the guide that I’m going to share to you so you can actually interact with the content and apply it directly to yourself.
And then I want to interact with you as well. When I say I want to hear from you, when I put that at the bottom of an email or tell you that here on the podcast, I really, really do mean it. I’m curious what these prompts are revealing for you and what your a-has are and what your questions are and what this opens up.
It really delights me when I hear from you, whether you’ve been in my world for a long time, whether I’ve been your coach or not, or if you’re brand-new to my work and this is the first time we are having a conversation. So don’t be shy and let me know how this is going. Of course, if you have any questions at all during this, feel free to shoot them my way. For now though, let’s dive into the topic for today, trading good for great.
I talked about this a bit last week when I was mentioning how we often resist reflection because it opens up the possibility of seeing something we can’t unsee. Or we fear that we’re going to have to let go of something we’re afraid to let go of, or to be afraid almost of where we want to be next or what might be required of us or who we have to become to go to that next level.
So whether you’re resisting taking a look at what has felt okay, but not amazing, maybe resisting something that you’re tolerating or feeling like things are pretty good but you’re feeling a bit stagnant, there might be some shedding required. That shedding could be denial or avoidance of a masked truth, or a letting go of people, services, or even identities that no longer align with your future vision.
Trading good for great does require embracing uncertainty and embracing not always knowing the exact steps of what is going to take your business from good to great. And here’s what you need to know, is that the human brain loves to know what to expect. It’s part of our survival and safety mechanisms. So homeostasis for our human brain is preferred, which is why this trade of good to great can feel so challenging at times, because the real trade you make is the known for the unknown.
And of course, nothing is ever actually known, let me remind you of that. But our brain takes what is here in the present moment and likes to assign permanence to it. And in that way, it can feel kind of scary to trade good for great. Even if the unknown isn’t all that different or a radical change from what you have right now, it can feel kind of risky and dramatic in our internal world.
I know, personally, when I think about trading good for great, when I think about trading good for great in my business, my brain wants to tell me that I am throwing away everything, that I’m going to be starting from scratch. And of course that sounds awful, but it’s also not true. I’m bringing everything that I’ve made, everything that I’ve brought myself to good, or what even I thought was great, but now I’m seeing as good, that all comes with me and I just continue to build on it.
And I have to consistently remind myself of that, which is why I want to remind you of that as well. Because our brain is looking for that efficiency and path of least resistance, it’s not going to be inclined to ask ourselves, what is going to be great? What am I going to trade good for great for? And we have to proactively intentionally nudge it in that direction.
And that is the question I want to pose to you today in CEO Summer School. The question I want you to consider is this, if you could wave a magic wand, what would great in your business look like and feel like one year from now? I want you to think about what your new version of great would look like. Not what you used to think would be great. Not what someone else thinks would be great for you, but really look to that future version of yourself who has made the trade of good for great. What does that look and feel like?
There are three things I want to call out as you apply this question to yourself and your interior design business. The first is don’t worry about how you’ll make this happen or if it’s even possible at this point. Spoiler alert, your brain is probably going to tell you it’s not possible, but we don’t have to worry about that right now. You have a magic wand, tell yourself what you really want.
What is it that you’re craving as you move forward? You have to have the vision in order to start exploring the possible paths that could get you there. You have to have the vision in order to explore who you need to become in the process of achieving your goals. And when you get overly concerned with the how and the exact what of how you’re going to do the whole thing, that really starts to block your creativity of imagining what great could really be for you.
The second thing I want to add is that great doesn’t always mean adding. It could mean shedding or stabilization. This is something I specifically wanted to include in the Designer CEO Mastermind topics that I was working on for the group that I just started, because I think we often forget as we grow, our business is going to go through cycles and seasons.
And sometimes growth looks like adding a lot of things that you and others can see externally. But sometimes the season of growth you’re in calls for releasing, resetting, or recalibration. I know for me right now, great looks like simplicity, reevaluation, and less complexity. And of course, that’s going to shift what my business looks like, and that in itself is growth.
There are many ways to grow into your greatness. And I want to be clear that sometimes that looks like adding and sometimes it looks like shedding. And you as the designer CEO are going to know what that is for you.
The third thing that I want to call out here is the possibility that what you think in your business is currently great is actually only good. I’m going to say that again. What if what you think is great is actually only good? How could you open your mind up to this possibility? Where have you put a cap on your own greatness that you haven’t yet seen? Where is there a ceiling that you’ve created for yourself that needs to be broken?
I want you to consider that there is a version of great lying dormant just waiting for you to see it.
With those three things in mind, I want to share the question for CEO Summer School again. The question is, if you could wave a magic wand, what would great in your business look and feel like one year from now? That is the prompt I want to leave you with today. As we kick off CEO Summer School.
If you haven’t signed up for the bonus guides, do that now by going to desiid.com/summerschool. And then when you get the guide, print the guide and answer this question for yourself. I have space for you to write your own answer. There is something about putting pen to paper that opens up wisdom and insights inside of you. I have seen this so often for myself and for my clients.
And I’m also going to be sharing in that guide, a couple of bonus questions that are going to help you further apply this concept of trading good for great to your interior design business.
Next week on the podcast, you’ll have an episode that is going to help you further explore this question and this concept. And then the week after that, I’ll be back with another episode of the CEO Summer School series. That’ll of course include a brand new question for you to be considering and marinating on over these summer months. I can’t wait to dive into the topic I have planned for you. And until then, I’m wishing you a beautiful week. I’ll talk to you soon.
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. 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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