131. How to Thrive When Things Feel Uncertain
Is uncertainty in the design industry keeping you up at night? With economic shifts, political changes, and market fluctuations, it's easy to feel like the ground beneath your business is constantly shifting. As interior designers, we're not just navigating our own businesses—we're helping clients make significant investments during these same uncertain times.
In this episode, I dive into practical strategies for not just surviving but thriving when everything feels unpredictable. I share why our brains crave certainty and how this natural tendency can actually work against us as business owners. The truth is, uncertainty has always been part of entrepreneurship—it's just more obvious during some periods than others.
I'll walk you through powerful mindset shifts, specific questions to ask yourself, and practical approaches to stay grounded as a CEO. Whether you're facing industry-wide challenges or personal business hurdles, these tools will help you move forward with confidence rather than getting stuck in a reactive cycle. The future may be uncertain, but your ability to navigate it doesn't have to be.
If you've been thinking about working with me one-on-one, be sure to get on the private coaching waitlist! Click here to learn more about Design to Thrive and secure your spot to be the first to know when availability opens up.
Don't miss out on the Midwest Design Retreat from May 5th to May 7th, 2025! We're diving into key topics like pricing for profitability, vendor relationships, client experience, and much more—plus, I'll be sharing insights on the mental and emotional side of running your design business. Click here for all the details, and feel free to reach out with any questions.
What You’ll Discover from this Episode:
How to shift from feeling paralyzed by uncertainty to making empowered business decisions.
The specific questions that transform your perspective from victim to creator during challenging times.
How to identify and challenge the faulty assumptions your brain makes when faced with uncertainty.
Ways to stay informed about industry changes without becoming consumed by negative news cycles.
The importance of sticking to facts and data when making business decisions during volatile periods.
Why waiting for stability is a losing strategy and how to build resilience instead.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
If you love what you’re learning on the show, and want to learn how I can support you, click here to learn more about coaching.
Click here for the latest workshops and free resources.
Follow me on Instagram!
Sign up to my Monday Mindset email list to get bite-sized insights on topics that you can use to set your week up for success!
Get my free Life & Business Vision Journal!
Check out my CEO Summer School series!
124. Fear of Wasting Time: Why Withholding Effort Holds You Back
Full Episode Transcript:
Hey designer, you're listening to episode 131. In this one, we're talking about how to thrive in your interior design business when things feel uncertain. I think we can all agree, there's a lot going on in the world, our industry is impacted, and it can feel like a lot to navigate. That's why today, I want to share some strategies, mindset shifts, and powerful questions you can use to equip yourself as you move forward with confidence towards your business goals, no matter what.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you're ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you're in the right place.
I'm Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let's go.
Hello designer, welcome back to the podcast. I feel like I'm in a nature show right now. I just was looking out my office window and it appears that there's a pair of trumpeter swans that are nesting on our lake, which I saw them last year, they nested on the other side and was closely tracking their progress, but now they are in view this year from my own house. So I'm really excited about this.
I was obsessed with the book, The Trumpeter Swan, or it's I think maybe it's The Call of the Trumpeter Swan. I can't remember the exact title by E. B. White when I was in third grade. And as I was checking on the trumpeter swans, I saw that we actually have a great blue heron right out on our dock right this minute. So, here we are, National Geographic. Not really. But those are my little delights and, you know, as we start to talk about these uncertain times that are very much on our mind, I think those little moments of delight and wonder and looking at nature and seeing how it always moves forward can be so helpful when things feel hard.
That's what I want to talk about today, how to navigate uncertain times. And not just get through them or slog through them, but actually thrive when new challenges arise.
Before we dive in, I want to give a shout out to a listener who left a review. Thank you. Thank you. And they titled this review, “She Really Understands Designers.” The review says, "The podcast is great to listen to just for the soothing measured tones of Desi's voice." Oh, well, thank you. "She has truly impressive insights into the self-sabotaging, self-limiting thoughts and actions that interior designers experience. Sometimes it feels like she has eavesdropped on my brain. It's nice to know that I'm not alone in various undesirable patterns. I have recommended to my friends, and I will recommend to any designer who wants to grow."
Thank you, thank you so much to the listener who left that review. I truly appreciate it and very true, you are not alone. I can be in your head because I have experienced these things in the past. It is part of what has led me to do what I do today. And I so appreciate that you made the time to leave the review and also share the podcast with your friends.
If you, listener, have not left a rating or review, please take the time to do that. It is one of the, it's one of the main ways that I can help get this in front of other designers so that they know they are not alone and that there are solutions to the things that they're facing.
With that, let's get started with today's topic. It's inspired by conversations because, yet again, you are not alone. Right? I've been having these conversations about things feeling uncertain with my private coaching clients, with listeners who have written in. And let's face it, we're all aware of these headlines that we're encountering. We can't miss it.
Of course, there's been changes in the political system, the stock market, talk of a recession, tariffs. I know lots of my clients have been asking like, how do I talk about these tariffs with my clients? So yes, there's just lots going on in the world. And today, what I want to talk about is, what do you do with that so that you don't just feel wrecked by it, so that you don't just throw your hands up and go, well, I guess we'll see. Let's talk about it.
And of course, what we're discussing today, while it's focused on a lot of the current headlines we're seeing in the news, it can very much be applied at any time when life feels uncertain. Maybe you or a loved one has received a health diagnosis that's going to greatly impact you. Maybe you've had a sudden loss of a key team member, or a project you thought was going to take you through the year gets put on pause. Whatever it is, apply this to whatever that future is that feels uncertain.
With any of these circumstances, the question is going to become, what do you do? How do you move forward when things feel like you can't predict them? Or like everything's going wrong, or like the rug got pulled out from underneath you? I know these things can feel kind of heavy, paralyzing even. And by the end of our time together today, I really want you to feel empowered in your business and how you move forward.
I don't want you seeing these headlines or whatever it is that you're encountering as a reason to stay stuck, spinning, or be in a position where you're making really reactive decisions and changes. Instead, we're going to get you in a grounded place, grounded in you as the CEO, so that you can make thoughtful decisions and progress towards your goals with purpose.
Whenever this idea of uncertainty or unpredictability comes up, I think it's always useful to remember that your brain is constantly making predictions. It's encountering things out in the world, people, places, things, and it wants to make meaning of it. It wants to understand it. It wants to know what to expect. And that's because it equates knowing what to expect with safety. And that is one of the brain's primary goals is to keep you safe.
When you know what to expect, or at least you think you know what to expect, you can plan and prepare. And when you can plan and prepare, you increase the likelihood of survival, or at least you think you do with that level of expectation that you've created. Often, the desire to predict is so strong that your brain will even default to the worst-case scenario. Well, for sure this is going to happen. Just so it can feel in control of the future.
When we keep this in mind that our brain is just trying to create safety, we can go, yes, of course. Of course, when we encounter these changes or things that feel like they're really going to impact us, it makes sense that they appear to be a major roadblock and a major stop sign. With this tendency to want to be able to predict, then we want to essentially know what the circumstances will be in order to feel like we can make a plan to create that security for ourselves or to make decisions or take actions.
But plans, your calendar, your goals, they can never truly create security. You create security. You as the CEO generate that feeling for yourself by what you choose to believe. So don't go outsourcing your feelings of security to the future.
Now, to be clear, I fully support still setting goals and planning. But I just want to remind you that those are all tools that you leverage as a business owner. They're not what creates the results or experience. They're tools that you use, and you own the result or outcome you create. You are the one who has the greatest influence.
So when your brain offers up that the future is uncertain, and maybe that things are going to get really, really awful, or that you can't do anything, that you need to go into reactivity mode, I highly suggest you pause and pull back and notice that the future is always uncertain. That is true. In the past, this has been true, and in the future, this will be true. Uncertainty is just the name of the game.
We create the illusion for ourselves that the future is predictable because we enjoy the feeling of security. So we tell ourselves we can plan for certain things or know what to expect. We create that feeling of security by what we believe, by telling ourselves this is how it's going to go. There are times when this illusion of predictability, of knowing what to expect, of certainty, it's easier to carry with us. And there are times like these where the world presents its uncertainty in a much more blatant fashion. It's much more in our face.
There are new challenges being presented right now as an interior design business owner. But we've been through challenging times before. Humans have encountered all sorts of challenging times throughout history. And here we are. We'll continue to encounter the new and unexpected and possibly undesirable. And that doesn't mean that you can't thrive as a business owner.
I know it can be tempting for our brain to argue this fact, but when we drop the resistance to what is, to just the nature of life and being an entrepreneur, it becomes easier to navigate whatever's in front of you. Once you accept that nothing is a guarantee, then you can shift your focus to more useful places.
I don't want you to put yourself in a position of, I'll have to wait and see, or this is completely outside of my control, and everything's happening to me. Because you're going to be waiting for what you want then for a very long time. If you listened to episode 124, that was not that long ago, it's titled “Fear of Wasting Time.” Even if your plan needs to pivot, even if the approach you had planned to reach your goals for this year needs some tweaking, moving forward rather than standing still will always be to your benefit. I go into that extensively in episode 124. If you haven't listened to that one, that's a good one to check out.
Hopefully, I have you on board here with the future is uncertain, and just because it's uncertain doesn't mean you can't do amazingly well and take care of yourself and take care of your business. So I want to share where you should direct your time, energy and resources once you've accepted that uncertainty is a given. And you, dear designer, are the perfect person to show up for yourself in times of challenge and change.
The very first thing that I recommend you do is start to focus on who you are being. Who you are being is far more controllable than the future. This is a question we always want to be asking ourselves as business owners as we evolve into new levels of leadership in the business, setting bigger revenue goals, bringing on staff, getting press, whatever it is, we have to ask who do we want to be? And it is even more important now.
I want to share a few questions you might want to ask yourself to help you step into a really clear identity of how you want to show up for yourself and your business right now. I'm going to be sharing questions that you can reflect on throughout this episode. So as a reminder, you can always go over to DesiCreswell.com and click on the podcast tab, and you will see links to all of the individual episodes with a full transcript, so you can always go through and come back to these questions so that you can reflect on them and put them into practice.
All right. So when we think about who do I want to be when I encounter challenges? Some questions you can ask are: What values will guide me? Always coming back to value, so, so helpful. You might also ask, how will I make decisions? Or what rituals and routines will help me keep aligned and focused? Or you could even use this as a way to sort of tap into who you're being now and who you're becoming as your future self, and think about, what do I want to see or experience as I look back at myself being the person who has overcome these challenges? That can give you some great insight as well.
With all of the incredible business-building tactics and strategies that are available to you as a business owner, I think it's easy to forget that you are the greatest asset in your business. You are the creator of your results. Yes, we can employ lots and lots of different strategies, but when we come from the place of who we want to be and how we want to show up in the creation of those results, everything becomes easier and becomes much more effective and it's more fun too.
A long time client of mine recently shared this incredible image with me that she used to guide herself through a really challenging time over the last year and she described it as being a tree. And she was the strong tree trunk. The leaves, the branches, they could blow in the heavy wind, but she anchored herself in this imagery of staying sturdy as the trunk. And I thought this was such an empowered way of looking at her position in the challenges she encountered. So you can use the questions I provided, but also maybe there's an image that you come back to when you're feeling like you need some internal support.
Because deciding who you want to be really can be a lifeline, and it's a way to consistently ground and empower yourself as the winds blow.
The second thing I want you to focus on is asking better questions. I did do a past episode on this called “Quality Questions for a Better Business,” and that's episode 84. But I want to dive into it particularly with this topic. Now, as I said at the beginning of the episode, your brain loves predictability, so much that it'll catastrophize simply to have a perceived outcome to plan for.
So, I want you to just take a pause real quick and ask yourself, am I asking really crappy questions right now? Am I asking the type of questions- and often this is like not conscious, and this is why we have to pause and reflect- that are leading me to doom and gloom answers? Ones that put me at the effect of everything else instead of being the cause of my results. And if that's the case, we really need to course correct.
As way of an example, this could sound like, how am I ever going to get through this? Now, we could slightly shift that question, right? And it could become a powerful question of like, how could I solve this problem? I mean, I just want you to even notice the way that I'm talking to myself, the shift in my tone, right? One is going to assume the belief that I've got this, I can figure this out. And one is assigning you to a role of drudgery and muck and trying to claw your way out, right?
Another one could be like, when's the dumpster fire going to stop? I even want you to just think about how you're talking about world events right now. Maybe talking about the world as a dumpster fire… I'm hearing this phrase so often. But maybe it gets you going in a way that then you go out and take action and make the changes you want to see in the world, in your community. But I would say for the majority of people, when I hear them refer to current events in that way, that type of talk just leaves them feeling in despair with a lot of internal angst without outward action or doing anything about it. So, I guess this is like a tangent bonus tip of not just asking better questions, but noticing how you're talking about what is happening.
Now I want to give you some better questions to ask. The first one being, what possibly faulty assumptions am I making? Maybe it's that you're assuming no one wants to spend money right now. And if you want to borrow one of my beliefs is that there will always be people who have the funds and desire for luxury services. I believe they will always be there. And with that belief, you just need to work on finding them or establishing relationships that would help introduce you to those people.
Another assumption might be that you can't reach your goals because of XYZ. Or another way of putting that would be, I can only reach my goals if XYZ happens. I want you to question this. You're making an assumption without poking any holes. That is coaching, right? A lot of times, poking holes. And you could see that, well, what if maybe just the way that you thought you were going to reach your goals, you were mistaken about the way that would happen? Maybe another approach is needed. But that is not the same as if this doesn't happen exactly this way, then I can't have this. One leaves you with no options, and one opens you up to possibility and next steps.
Another great question you can ask here is, what can I influence? If your business has space available where you're not at capacity and you want to be serving more clients, marketing is where you need to go. Of course, we can never force anyone to hire us, but what you could influence is your marketing. So you can always review what has been working for me? What have I been doing? How have I been doing it? Where have I been doing it? And then leverage those strategies.
I know for one of my clients, they've really been leaning into their Instagram strategy and making some uplevels there because they know that that's something that works well for them, historically. And they know that with some of this uncertainty, there's an opportunity there that they can influence.
Maybe another thing, even with marketing, could be you could influence how you are presenting your message about how you talk about who you work with, or how you work, or why a client would want your product or service. You could also definitely influence the relationships you're developing and nurturing. I know I've talked about this on the podcast before, but relationship-based marketing is something that I am a strong proponent of and can be so influential in getting in front of the right people who want to work with you and who are a fit.
The last question you could explore here, and of course, not the last as in the last ever, but the last I'll share with you, is what are my opportunities? Maybe there's a new way of delivering your services that you'd really like to explore and see could fit with the current marketplace. Maybe there's a new partnership or collaboration that you want to explore. Maybe it's time to lean into your differentiators. Maybe you have been kind of hesitant to really own what makes you stand out in the crowd and now is the opportunity to become more bold about that. Episode 109 with copywriter Deb Mitchell, we talk about upleveling your brand messaging and positioning. That would be a great one to listen to.
All right, two more areas I want to share that you should focus on to really thrive in times of uncertainty.
The next one is sticking to the facts. I always want to come back to the facts. That's not to say there's not a place for intuition and creativity, but when we don't have the facts, we can easily default to those faulty assumptions. A lot of times when we're encountering challenges or outside circumstances that feel uncertain, our brain goes into fear mode and then we make assumptions about our pipeline, our leads, our financials, all those things without ever fact-checking them. So get the numbers and data you need to make an informed decision about what you do next.
This really helps you stay out of that reactive mode. I know when we were asking that question of, what are my opportunities, and I offered the suggestion of maybe there's a new way of delivering your services. Yes, that could be true. And maybe your fear-based brain is saying, I have to offer something different. I have to change all these things because da da da da da. But then you take a moment and you look, oh, these are the facts. This is what's actually happening. I don't actually need to offer a different type of service. It can just be so clarifying and so calming to know what you're working with.
And also, if you find, oh, actually, like I do need to bring in some money right now, then you know what problem you're actually trying to solve for. When you think about who you want to be in the business, the first thing we talked about, I highly suggest you begin to be someone who draws conclusions from neutrality. And that level of detachment or seeing things from an outside perspective can be so much more available to you when you have actual data to work from.
The last thing that I suggest you focus on is staying informed but not consumed. This is your invitation and recommendation to limit your intake and be selective about where you're consuming information. If monitoring the news or engaging in arguments, either in your head or online, is consuming a lot of your time and mental bandwidth, I highly recommend deciding how you want to engage with news cycles or just even engage in conversations with other people or just any other kind of updates that you're receiving.
Often, this like constant monitoring or consumption of information can give us this feeling of we're doing something or even having the knowledge can help us protect ourselves from anything bad happening, or our brain tricks us into thinking if we have more like, updates, then we can predict and that creates safety, right? Going all the way back to the front of this episode. But that's not true.
You really can be informed and care about what's happening without having it be a constant distraction or just having it in your face all of the time. The ability to stay focused and nimble during times of increased challenge really is essential for your mental and emotional wellbeing in addition to the growth of your interior design business.
Right now, now that we've established that the future is always and will always be uncertain, your job as the CEO is not to wait out stability, but rather to build your resilience and show yourself you're capable of navigating running your business no matter what comes your way. And it's also your responsibility to give yourself supportive circumstances like getting yourself the information you need to make decisions, and to be conscious of what you're putting in and what you're exposing yourself to, and the impact of that to whatever extent that might be.
I'm confident in your capacity to pivot, to change, to figure things out, and I hope that you are too. You're strong, and I want you to stay grounded in your decisions and your ability to adapt. If you want to hear more on a similar topic, you can go all the way back to episode 18, “How to Recession Proof Your Business.” And I'll have some different angles that I explore in that episode. And I think it's kind of interesting too, the fact I did that episode over two years ago. When I was looking for the episode number, I was kind of surprised how long ago that was. And, you know, back then there were rumblings of a recession that did not come to be. And, you know, really it's just another reminder that that unpredictability is always there and that you're ready and you've got this. You really do.
All right. So that's what I've got for you this week. And of course, next week, I'll be back with a brand new topic for you. If you're not already subscribed, take a moment to hit that follow button. I have some great episodes planned for you. And until then, I'm wishing you a beautiful 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 DesiCreswell.com, where you’ll get immediate access to a variety of free resources to help you take what you learn on the podcast and put it into action. And if you love what you’re hearing, be sure to rate, review, and follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. I’ll talk to you next week.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you're ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you're in the right place.
I'm Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let's go.
Hello designer, welcome back to the podcast. I feel like I'm in a nature show right now. I just was looking out my office window and it appears that there's a pair of trumpeter swans that are nesting on our lake, which I saw them last year, they nested on the other side and was closely tracking their progress, but now they are in view this year from my own house. So I'm really excited about this.
I was obsessed with the book, The Trumpeter Swan, or it's I think maybe it's The Call of the Trumpeter Swan. I can't remember the exact title by E. B. White when I was in third grade. And as I was checking on the trumpeter swans, I saw that we actually have a great blue heron right out on our dock right this minute. So, here we are, National Geographic. Not really. But those are my little delights and, you know, as we start to talk about these uncertain times that are very much on our mind, I think those little moments of delight and wonder and looking at nature and seeing how it always moves forward can be so helpful when things feel hard.
That's what I want to talk about today, how to navigate uncertain times. And not just get through them or slog through them, but actually thrive when new challenges arise.
Before we dive in, I want to give a shout out to a listener who left a review. Thank you. Thank you. And they titled this review, “She Really Understands Designers.” The review says, "The podcast is great to listen to just for the soothing measured tones of Desi's voice." Oh, well, thank you. "She has truly impressive insights into the self-sabotaging, self-limiting thoughts and actions that interior designers experience. Sometimes it feels like she has eavesdropped on my brain. It's nice to know that I'm not alone in various undesirable patterns. I have recommended to my friends, and I will recommend to any designer who wants to grow."
Thank you, thank you so much to the listener who left that review. I truly appreciate it and very true, you are not alone. I can be in your head because I have experienced these things in the past. It is part of what has led me to do what I do today. And I so appreciate that you made the time to leave the review and also share the podcast with your friends.
If you, listener, have not left a rating or review, please take the time to do that. It is one of the, it's one of the main ways that I can help get this in front of other designers so that they know they are not alone and that there are solutions to the things that they're facing.
With that, let's get started with today's topic. It's inspired by conversations because, yet again, you are not alone. Right? I've been having these conversations about things feeling uncertain with my private coaching clients, with listeners who have written in. And let's face it, we're all aware of these headlines that we're encountering. We can't miss it.
Of course, there's been changes in the political system, the stock market, talk of a recession, tariffs. I know lots of my clients have been asking like, how do I talk about these tariffs with my clients? So yes, there's just lots going on in the world. And today, what I want to talk about is, what do you do with that so that you don't just feel wrecked by it, so that you don't just throw your hands up and go, well, I guess we'll see. Let's talk about it.
And of course, what we're discussing today, while it's focused on a lot of the current headlines we're seeing in the news, it can very much be applied at any time when life feels uncertain. Maybe you or a loved one has received a health diagnosis that's going to greatly impact you. Maybe you've had a sudden loss of a key team member, or a project you thought was going to take you through the year gets put on pause. Whatever it is, apply this to whatever that future is that feels uncertain.
With any of these circumstances, the question is going to become, what do you do? How do you move forward when things feel like you can't predict them? Or like everything's going wrong, or like the rug got pulled out from underneath you? I know these things can feel kind of heavy, paralyzing even. And by the end of our time together today, I really want you to feel empowered in your business and how you move forward.
I don't want you seeing these headlines or whatever it is that you're encountering as a reason to stay stuck, spinning, or be in a position where you're making really reactive decisions and changes. Instead, we're going to get you in a grounded place, grounded in you as the CEO, so that you can make thoughtful decisions and progress towards your goals with purpose.
Whenever this idea of uncertainty or unpredictability comes up, I think it's always useful to remember that your brain is constantly making predictions. It's encountering things out in the world, people, places, things, and it wants to make meaning of it. It wants to understand it. It wants to know what to expect. And that's because it equates knowing what to expect with safety. And that is one of the brain's primary goals is to keep you safe.
When you know what to expect, or at least you think you know what to expect, you can plan and prepare. And when you can plan and prepare, you increase the likelihood of survival, or at least you think you do with that level of expectation that you've created. Often, the desire to predict is so strong that your brain will even default to the worst-case scenario. Well, for sure this is going to happen. Just so it can feel in control of the future.
When we keep this in mind that our brain is just trying to create safety, we can go, yes, of course. Of course, when we encounter these changes or things that feel like they're really going to impact us, it makes sense that they appear to be a major roadblock and a major stop sign. With this tendency to want to be able to predict, then we want to essentially know what the circumstances will be in order to feel like we can make a plan to create that security for ourselves or to make decisions or take actions.
But plans, your calendar, your goals, they can never truly create security. You create security. You as the CEO generate that feeling for yourself by what you choose to believe. So don't go outsourcing your feelings of security to the future.
Now, to be clear, I fully support still setting goals and planning. But I just want to remind you that those are all tools that you leverage as a business owner. They're not what creates the results or experience. They're tools that you use, and you own the result or outcome you create. You are the one who has the greatest influence.
So when your brain offers up that the future is uncertain, and maybe that things are going to get really, really awful, or that you can't do anything, that you need to go into reactivity mode, I highly suggest you pause and pull back and notice that the future is always uncertain. That is true. In the past, this has been true, and in the future, this will be true. Uncertainty is just the name of the game.
We create the illusion for ourselves that the future is predictable because we enjoy the feeling of security. So we tell ourselves we can plan for certain things or know what to expect. We create that feeling of security by what we believe, by telling ourselves this is how it's going to go. There are times when this illusion of predictability, of knowing what to expect, of certainty, it's easier to carry with us. And there are times like these where the world presents its uncertainty in a much more blatant fashion. It's much more in our face.
There are new challenges being presented right now as an interior design business owner. But we've been through challenging times before. Humans have encountered all sorts of challenging times throughout history. And here we are. We'll continue to encounter the new and unexpected and possibly undesirable. And that doesn't mean that you can't thrive as a business owner.
I know it can be tempting for our brain to argue this fact, but when we drop the resistance to what is, to just the nature of life and being an entrepreneur, it becomes easier to navigate whatever's in front of you. Once you accept that nothing is a guarantee, then you can shift your focus to more useful places.
I don't want you to put yourself in a position of, I'll have to wait and see, or this is completely outside of my control, and everything's happening to me. Because you're going to be waiting for what you want then for a very long time. If you listened to episode 124, that was not that long ago, it's titled “Fear of Wasting Time.” Even if your plan needs to pivot, even if the approach you had planned to reach your goals for this year needs some tweaking, moving forward rather than standing still will always be to your benefit. I go into that extensively in episode 124. If you haven't listened to that one, that's a good one to check out.
Hopefully, I have you on board here with the future is uncertain, and just because it's uncertain doesn't mean you can't do amazingly well and take care of yourself and take care of your business. So I want to share where you should direct your time, energy and resources once you've accepted that uncertainty is a given. And you, dear designer, are the perfect person to show up for yourself in times of challenge and change.
The very first thing that I recommend you do is start to focus on who you are being. Who you are being is far more controllable than the future. This is a question we always want to be asking ourselves as business owners as we evolve into new levels of leadership in the business, setting bigger revenue goals, bringing on staff, getting press, whatever it is, we have to ask who do we want to be? And it is even more important now.
I want to share a few questions you might want to ask yourself to help you step into a really clear identity of how you want to show up for yourself and your business right now. I'm going to be sharing questions that you can reflect on throughout this episode. So as a reminder, you can always go over to DesiCreswell.com and click on the podcast tab, and you will see links to all of the individual episodes with a full transcript, so you can always go through and come back to these questions so that you can reflect on them and put them into practice.
All right. So when we think about who do I want to be when I encounter challenges? Some questions you can ask are: What values will guide me? Always coming back to value, so, so helpful. You might also ask, how will I make decisions? Or what rituals and routines will help me keep aligned and focused? Or you could even use this as a way to sort of tap into who you're being now and who you're becoming as your future self, and think about, what do I want to see or experience as I look back at myself being the person who has overcome these challenges? That can give you some great insight as well.
With all of the incredible business-building tactics and strategies that are available to you as a business owner, I think it's easy to forget that you are the greatest asset in your business. You are the creator of your results. Yes, we can employ lots and lots of different strategies, but when we come from the place of who we want to be and how we want to show up in the creation of those results, everything becomes easier and becomes much more effective and it's more fun too.
A long time client of mine recently shared this incredible image with me that she used to guide herself through a really challenging time over the last year and she described it as being a tree. And she was the strong tree trunk. The leaves, the branches, they could blow in the heavy wind, but she anchored herself in this imagery of staying sturdy as the trunk. And I thought this was such an empowered way of looking at her position in the challenges she encountered. So you can use the questions I provided, but also maybe there's an image that you come back to when you're feeling like you need some internal support.
Because deciding who you want to be really can be a lifeline, and it's a way to consistently ground and empower yourself as the winds blow.
The second thing I want you to focus on is asking better questions. I did do a past episode on this called “Quality Questions for a Better Business,” and that's episode 84. But I want to dive into it particularly with this topic. Now, as I said at the beginning of the episode, your brain loves predictability, so much that it'll catastrophize simply to have a perceived outcome to plan for.
So, I want you to just take a pause real quick and ask yourself, am I asking really crappy questions right now? Am I asking the type of questions- and often this is like not conscious, and this is why we have to pause and reflect- that are leading me to doom and gloom answers? Ones that put me at the effect of everything else instead of being the cause of my results. And if that's the case, we really need to course correct.
As way of an example, this could sound like, how am I ever going to get through this? Now, we could slightly shift that question, right? And it could become a powerful question of like, how could I solve this problem? I mean, I just want you to even notice the way that I'm talking to myself, the shift in my tone, right? One is going to assume the belief that I've got this, I can figure this out. And one is assigning you to a role of drudgery and muck and trying to claw your way out, right?
Another one could be like, when's the dumpster fire going to stop? I even want you to just think about how you're talking about world events right now. Maybe talking about the world as a dumpster fire… I'm hearing this phrase so often. But maybe it gets you going in a way that then you go out and take action and make the changes you want to see in the world, in your community. But I would say for the majority of people, when I hear them refer to current events in that way, that type of talk just leaves them feeling in despair with a lot of internal angst without outward action or doing anything about it. So, I guess this is like a tangent bonus tip of not just asking better questions, but noticing how you're talking about what is happening.
Now I want to give you some better questions to ask. The first one being, what possibly faulty assumptions am I making? Maybe it's that you're assuming no one wants to spend money right now. And if you want to borrow one of my beliefs is that there will always be people who have the funds and desire for luxury services. I believe they will always be there. And with that belief, you just need to work on finding them or establishing relationships that would help introduce you to those people.
Another assumption might be that you can't reach your goals because of XYZ. Or another way of putting that would be, I can only reach my goals if XYZ happens. I want you to question this. You're making an assumption without poking any holes. That is coaching, right? A lot of times, poking holes. And you could see that, well, what if maybe just the way that you thought you were going to reach your goals, you were mistaken about the way that would happen? Maybe another approach is needed. But that is not the same as if this doesn't happen exactly this way, then I can't have this. One leaves you with no options, and one opens you up to possibility and next steps.
Another great question you can ask here is, what can I influence? If your business has space available where you're not at capacity and you want to be serving more clients, marketing is where you need to go. Of course, we can never force anyone to hire us, but what you could influence is your marketing. So you can always review what has been working for me? What have I been doing? How have I been doing it? Where have I been doing it? And then leverage those strategies.
I know for one of my clients, they've really been leaning into their Instagram strategy and making some uplevels there because they know that that's something that works well for them, historically. And they know that with some of this uncertainty, there's an opportunity there that they can influence.
Maybe another thing, even with marketing, could be you could influence how you are presenting your message about how you talk about who you work with, or how you work, or why a client would want your product or service. You could also definitely influence the relationships you're developing and nurturing. I know I've talked about this on the podcast before, but relationship-based marketing is something that I am a strong proponent of and can be so influential in getting in front of the right people who want to work with you and who are a fit.
The last question you could explore here, and of course, not the last as in the last ever, but the last I'll share with you, is what are my opportunities? Maybe there's a new way of delivering your services that you'd really like to explore and see could fit with the current marketplace. Maybe there's a new partnership or collaboration that you want to explore. Maybe it's time to lean into your differentiators. Maybe you have been kind of hesitant to really own what makes you stand out in the crowd and now is the opportunity to become more bold about that. Episode 109 with copywriter Deb Mitchell, we talk about upleveling your brand messaging and positioning. That would be a great one to listen to.
All right, two more areas I want to share that you should focus on to really thrive in times of uncertainty.
The next one is sticking to the facts. I always want to come back to the facts. That's not to say there's not a place for intuition and creativity, but when we don't have the facts, we can easily default to those faulty assumptions. A lot of times when we're encountering challenges or outside circumstances that feel uncertain, our brain goes into fear mode and then we make assumptions about our pipeline, our leads, our financials, all those things without ever fact-checking them. So get the numbers and data you need to make an informed decision about what you do next.
This really helps you stay out of that reactive mode. I know when we were asking that question of, what are my opportunities, and I offered the suggestion of maybe there's a new way of delivering your services. Yes, that could be true. And maybe your fear-based brain is saying, I have to offer something different. I have to change all these things because da da da da da. But then you take a moment and you look, oh, these are the facts. This is what's actually happening. I don't actually need to offer a different type of service. It can just be so clarifying and so calming to know what you're working with.
And also, if you find, oh, actually, like I do need to bring in some money right now, then you know what problem you're actually trying to solve for. When you think about who you want to be in the business, the first thing we talked about, I highly suggest you begin to be someone who draws conclusions from neutrality. And that level of detachment or seeing things from an outside perspective can be so much more available to you when you have actual data to work from.
The last thing that I suggest you focus on is staying informed but not consumed. This is your invitation and recommendation to limit your intake and be selective about where you're consuming information. If monitoring the news or engaging in arguments, either in your head or online, is consuming a lot of your time and mental bandwidth, I highly recommend deciding how you want to engage with news cycles or just even engage in conversations with other people or just any other kind of updates that you're receiving.
Often, this like constant monitoring or consumption of information can give us this feeling of we're doing something or even having the knowledge can help us protect ourselves from anything bad happening, or our brain tricks us into thinking if we have more like, updates, then we can predict and that creates safety, right? Going all the way back to the front of this episode. But that's not true.
You really can be informed and care about what's happening without having it be a constant distraction or just having it in your face all of the time. The ability to stay focused and nimble during times of increased challenge really is essential for your mental and emotional wellbeing in addition to the growth of your interior design business.
Right now, now that we've established that the future is always and will always be uncertain, your job as the CEO is not to wait out stability, but rather to build your resilience and show yourself you're capable of navigating running your business no matter what comes your way. And it's also your responsibility to give yourself supportive circumstances like getting yourself the information you need to make decisions, and to be conscious of what you're putting in and what you're exposing yourself to, and the impact of that to whatever extent that might be.
I'm confident in your capacity to pivot, to change, to figure things out, and I hope that you are too. You're strong, and I want you to stay grounded in your decisions and your ability to adapt. If you want to hear more on a similar topic, you can go all the way back to episode 18, “How to Recession Proof Your Business.” And I'll have some different angles that I explore in that episode. And I think it's kind of interesting too, the fact I did that episode over two years ago. When I was looking for the episode number, I was kind of surprised how long ago that was. And, you know, back then there were rumblings of a recession that did not come to be. And, you know, really it's just another reminder that that unpredictability is always there and that you're ready and you've got this. You really do.
All right. So that's what I've got for you this week. And of course, next week, I'll be back with a brand new topic for you. If you're not already subscribed, take a moment to hit that follow button. I have some great episodes planned for you. And until then, I'm wishing you a beautiful 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 DesiCreswell.com, where you’ll get immediate access to a variety of free resources to help you take what you learn on the podcast and put it into action. And if you love what you’re hearing, be sure to rate, review, and follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. I’ll talk to you next week.
Enjoy the Show?
Don’t miss an episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube Music.
Previous
Previous
132. Decision Debt: A Framework for Better Decision-Making
Next
Next