WHY YOU KEEP ATTRACTING BOUNDARY-CROSSING CLIENTS (AND WHY YOUR MARKETING ISN'T THE PROBLEM)

intro/outro: [00:00:00] After generating over a million dollars in sales and selling one of her businesses with a single email, your host Catherine Thompson, takes an unconventional approach to marketing and sales. So if you are ready to tap into a more powerful way to be seen, heard, and a Sought after Entrepreneur in your industry without having to spend endless hours marketing your business and chasing clients, you are in the right place.

Be The Sought After Entrepreneur Podcast is here to help you ditch the cookie cutter one size fits all approach to marketing, and use your unique energy to effortlessly attract the most aligned clients. When you do this, you can spend less time marketing your business and more time doing your soul work and enjoying the richness of your life.

Welcome to Be The Sought After Entrepreneur Podcast, and here's your host, Katherine Thompson. 

Kathryn Thompson: Hey, hey. I am super stoked that you're tuning this week's episode and cannot wait to dive in today's [00:01:00] topic because I think it's gonna be really. Insightful or beneficial for you. If you're someone who tends to maybe overextend or overcommit yourself and or chronic sort of people pleaser you like to keep the peace and you also like to please your clients or your family, or whatnot, I think you're really gonna benefit from this episode because I want to show and share with you.

My own inner patterns for people pleasing and overextending and overcommitting, and how that's impacted my business, and also where I kept looking in the wrong place for the answer or the solution. And if you've been in my world for a while. You know, a big part of the work that I do is the internal piece of this.

When I started this podcast be the Sought After Entrepreneur, I started it [00:02:00] because I truly, truly believe that we are magnetically attracting what we want in our life, in our business, based on our internal state, and I think as a result. We often look in the wrong places for what needs tweaking or changing, specifically when it comes to marketing and sales strategy, business, you name it.

And I am equally guilty of this. I'm gonna tell you straight up, I have worked across the spectrum with businesses who are just starting out, who have yet to land their first client or made their first sale. All the way to business owners that are making multiple eight figures and everywhere in between.

And after 25 years of doing this work, not only from the external, as a marketing consultant, as a copywriter. But also as somebody that's [00:03:00] in it who's running a business and not only who has been running a marketing led business, but who had a brick and mortar business producing and selling wine, I can tell you that at every phase and every human, these patterns present.

Pretty much in the same way. It doesn't matter which stage, and I used to buy into the message new level, new devil in that I was buying into the message that when you grow and evolve that that looks linear. For example, everybody below 10 K months was at that same level of patterning and struggling with the same things.

And then when you shift it up and shift it up, it was like this hierarchy and that you would have these new levels with this new identity shift. And I can tell you from 25 years of experience and working across the spectrums, that isn't true. [00:04:00] In fact, a lot of seven figure eight figure business owners.

Have very similar patterning to me, and that's what I want to talk about today. Meaning we are attracting what our internal landscape is and it won't matter which level you're at in business, you're gonna attract that. So for example, I am somebody who tends to people please. Oftentimes not in the most conscious way, which I think a lot of this is, right, but it's not from a place of like, pick me, pick me, pick me.

Pander, pander, pander. It's not that. And I'm gonna dive into what my root is because I think when we use things like people pleasing, we use these labels, people pleasing, self-sabotage. They get all wrapped up in a generalized definition, and for each and every one [00:05:00] of us, it's going to look a lot more nuanced and sure, it's easy to label things, to compartmentalize things, but I hope that in my reflection with you today in this, what I'm calling a very deeply personal episode, because I'm literally sharing with you my, some of my patterning and then where I looked in the wrong places to help.

Fix this and why that hasn't transpired into the results that I wanted and how I'm looking at it differently now, and that across the board, it does not matter what level of business somebody's in or where they're at in their journey. Like I'm not talking about evolution and growth journey. I'm talking about I can attract.

An equal people pleaser, or I can attract an equal founder that has no concept of time, who's at seven figures, and also at less than [00:06:00] five figures, like, because my internal landscape is putting that out there to attract those people. And so two of the biggest patterns that I've been working on in my own life is the people pleasing.

Which under that umbrella of people pleasing, I would categorize over extension. So overextending myself saying yes to projects and things, but it's a lot more nuanced. And so if you're somebody who overextends themselves and or finds yourself in situations where your boundaries are constantly being pushed, I think it's easy as a business owner to say.

My marketing must not be working. My messaging must be off. My offers must not be reflecting, and I can tell you this, after years and years and years of making these tweaks that it didn't matter. I have tried on every hat, and I say [00:07:00] that truthfully, I've tried on switching messaging. I've tried on. Doing the offerings.

I've tried, you know, putting it out there that I wanna work with seven, eight figures because I find that multiple six or new entrepreneurs have different struggles. In reality, it wasn't the truth. And one of my biggest frustrations was attracting people into my world that. What I say has no concept of time, and when I say that I, I mean that in the most compassionate way, but they would come to me going, Hey, I wanna launch this thing and I'm giving you two months to do it, or I'm giving you two weeks to do it.

They were always hyper-focused deadlines. That one never gave them an opportunity to truly succeed because they didn't have the runway, they didn't have the map laid out. They didn't, they didn't give themself the, the space and the time to actually succeed. But it also never gave [00:08:00] me the, the time to actually.

Succeed and to perform and to create something of, of real value that gave them the results that they wanted. And I kept asking myself, why do I keep attracting these people that have this like really distorted picture of timeline? And like I said, I tweaked messaging, I tried to make it more sophisticated.

I tried to speak to that higher caliber client. I tried to revamp my off. Maybe I just need to create an offer that's bespoke for one-to-one and raise my prices. Because if I raise my prices, then I'm only gonna attract people that are willing to pay that price, but they're gonna have their shit together.

And that's not true. It doesn't matter. I've literally done the scale. I've quoted people 10 K, and they've paid me 10 K for the same project that some people. Are willing to pay me four and two. And it didn't matter what level of business they were at, they had the funds to invest at 10 K, but we're paying two.

Right. And the, and what I'm saying by that is, is [00:09:00] that the Entrepreneur, quote unquote, the level, the external level, we were measuring them on. Their income, their client roster, all of that, their credibility, their authority, their audience size, it didn't matter. They were all sitting around that same sort of level and they all came with the same sort of thing.

This hyper need to have things done in a very quick time period. And when I say that, I mean they don't have the concept of time. That will allow something to perform really, really well. And yet they've experienced success so. Doing it the way that they've done it, and therefore they don't think that, that, that's actually the problem.

But I'm not here to talk about that and, and fix that quote unquote. I'm here to talk about the patterning and the underlying patterning of saying yes to something and agreeing to a timeline or agreeing to a project [00:10:00] that ends up overextending you, ends up stretching you, and, and also then sets you up for failure, which is.

What it ultimately will do and that looking at the external things that can help you get a different result is not the thing that's gonna get the result. And I'm living, walking proof of it. And if you're somebody who has, like I've, but I've done the work, I know this, I know that I'm a chronic people pleaser.

I know that I overextend and overcommit, I know these things. And if you're somebody who's tried on these habit hacks. Always give yourself 24 to 48 hours before responding, right? That's a hack. Okay. I'm gonna sit with it for 48 hours before I respond and allow myself to really sit in it before saying yes.

Don't say yes immediately. Right? These are hacks that, sure they help to some degree, but what they don't do is they don't prevent you from [00:11:00] attracting that same sort of energy into your world because they're just external hacks and so. I got fed up, like I think a lot of people probably get fed up is, is like I got fed up with the fact that my external reality hadn't shifted and it hadn't shifted because I hadn't actually looked at the internal landscape that was driving that external, particularly around overcommitting overextending, and that one is very much linked to, for me, is very much linked to value.

Being of value and the measurement of value by somebody else, and it's the lack of self-trust in my own process. That if I don't fulfill the project based on the timeline and scope that the person's proposing, [00:12:00] then I'm not of value and I'm not as good as somebody else. Right? So I start to doubt my own ability and capability because, and outsource that authority and expertise to the person sitting in front of me.

What I've realized over 25 years that it doesn't matter how much experience you think somebody has or how knowledgeable you think they are, or how capable you think that they are, like everybody. They don't have it all figured out. And I know that might seem like duh, but it's not that obvious. So I'm just gonna give you an example.

Two years ago I was hired by a seven figure brand. I've shared a little bit of this story, and the project scope was a three month plan, [00:13:00] and it was to deliver a website. So that's exactly what I signed up for. That's exactly what I promised to deliver, and that's what we started to work on in less than a month.

I was starting to get roped into team meetings. I was starting to get roped into other marketing things. I was starting to get roped into a launch that was happening in less than two weeks. And when I say roped in, I mean. Quite literally being invited to the table to have a say at it. When I was only hired for this particular project, and my thought process was at the time to be helpful, to be a value, right?

To say yes to these projects or these additional things because they saw the value in what I brought to the table. But I put so much. Credibility and [00:14:00] credit into the human sitting in front of me that they had their shit together. That I made a lot of assumptions in that process, which ended up leading into massive overextension, massive projects, creep all of it.

And why this is important is because that overextension that was being presented to me that. Pushing the boundaries, quote unquote, was because I had, I wasn't honoring the my own boundaries, but I was outsourcing my belief, my process, my structure to somebody else hoping that I was going to be seen as a valuable asset within this person's company, and that beyond the three months, they would keep me.

Naturally. Again, I think when the frustration starts to brew that this is happening, I think naturally we go to our process. How can I make my contract [00:15:00] better? How can I make the communication even more clear when I start? How can I, you know, all of these things, what's included, what's not included, and those are helpful.

I'm not saying that they're not, but what I'm saying is it wasn't until I started to look within myself and go, one, the quality of my work isn't something that can be squeezed into these really tight deadlines and. The quality of the output and the results requires a more extended period of time. So when I think of marketing, and I've said this a lot on my podcast, is that nine times out of 10, most people do not give themselves enough time to actually succeed.

So most people want to launch something in a week. [00:16:00] Then they wonder why after that week they're not getting the results they want and then they ditch that idea and they go try something else. Right. And that's a, that's a pattern in and of itself, and that's what's actually setting you up to fail. But there is something within that to look within yourself of why you're doing that.

Right. There's something there for sure, but what I'm saying is, is that my own internal pattern of wanting to be valued and also feeling valuable based on the work that I produce, when jobs came across my plate with these really tight deadlines and someone was proposing this to me, one, I had an internal battle with my own knowing that was like, we need more time.

And two. An internal battle of like, what's my responsibility and what isn't my responsibility. It isn't my responsibility to all of a sudden be running someone's marketing department. Right? Which I think is a natural scope creep that [00:17:00] happens for me when someone hires me for a project, all of a sudden, before I know it, I'm, I'm acting, or there's the expectation that I'm like their CMO and that's not my responsibility, right?

So there's this responsibility creep that sort of happens and. No amount of changing a contract and no amount of being super fricking crystal clear and no amount of anything was going to shift the people that were coming into my world until I was willing to shift my own internal boundaries around value and around my own worth, until I started to look at why am I actually, what am I of value?

What is my worth? And I started to really honor that. Saying no to things and being okay with that. Challenging somebody's perspective on timeline or strategy and not assuming that they have all their shit [00:18:00] together. Which brings me to this second piece of this, which is the people pleasing. The really deep underlying value around that were root for me, which was not wanting to be difficult.

So it had nothing to do, in my opinion, to being pick me, pick me, pick me, or like kind of pandering, right? Like, like the, you know, golden retriever puppy dog. Ooh, like me, like me, like me. It wasn't that. It was that when I was setting a boundary or when I was saying no to something or when I was like, this isn't gonna work, I felt like I was being difficult and I felt like people don't want difficult, they want ease and flow and someone who's flexible and goes with the flow of things.

And while I am very flexible and I can pivot quickly, and I do move very quickly. [00:19:00] I am also someone who can see the big picture very quickly, and I'm also, someone can see the implications of decisions and that for me was something that I just assumed everybody else could see, that when somebody wanted to change one element of something, then everything else changed.

And I could see the ripple effect of that. I was 12 steps ahead of people before they were even on step two. And so my whole identity being wrapped up, and if I point this out to them, I'm being difficult. I'm slowing things down and slowing things down and making things more challenging makes it less likely that people are gonna wanna work.

With me and or therefore I'm not delivering on what I said I was gonna deliver on, which then gets wrapped up all in value and [00:20:00] no amount of changing your messaging or your offer or anything like that is going to shift that inner piece of your definition of difficulty and what the meaning is you're making from it.

If you're wrapping. Things up as it's being difficult or challenging perspective or painting these things for people to prevent them from going down a path that's probably not a great path, that you are being difficult rather than just being agreeable. And agreeable feels more acceptable and. Why I think this is so valid and so important to being that Sought after Entrepreneur is, is because I've talked with so many women lately, particularly that are exhausted and are tired, and it's not like a, I can just go sleep it off sort of tired.

[00:21:00] It's a soul tired, and I do believe that it is connected to. Us desiring and wanting to be liked to be a value, to be seen, to be recognized, whatever it might be for you, and the underlying thing internally that's driving that and us compensating by working so hard at changing the external. When the internal piece is the thing that's actually needing to be shifted.

And I think a lot of us think we're working on the internal, but we haven't really gone deep enough. And I know that sounds. Tough when you're like, man, I've been busting my butt. But I don't think we make that connection. And I know I've struggled with it and I know I've questioned, [00:22:00] man, I feel exhausted, or I feel like I, I don't have the energy like I used to for this.

Or why does this keep happening? Right. And I think that question can. Be victim mindset if we stop there. But I feel like I've asked that question a lot, particularly over the last eight years since working online. Like why do I keep attracting this into my orbit and what's wild about it when I talk to people about it and I share some of the stories that I've experienced, like massive scope creep, like.

Someone hiring me for a website and then all of a sudden I'm being expected to show up to team meetings and then be making strategic decisions about the overall marketing and launch. It's like sometimes you just get in it, or at least I do. I think I, I just get in it. I'm like, how did I get here? I never agreed to this from the beginning.

And my husband, I often used to say to me, Catherine, you set the tone. And so if you agree to it one [00:23:00] time, if you even let that boundary slip one time, then people expect it, and that's harder to recover from. And so. I think it's, like I said, it's easy to look externally, to look at your contracts, to look at the way you communicated, to set up better systems.

Even one of the things that I was thinking about at one point, I was like, maybe I should just sell something really hyper specific rather than marketing, which can be quite broad, right? For example, when I sold wine, people came in, they bought the wine, they left, they came back six weeks later to get their wine.

There was no like, Hey, can you like. Make me a charcuterie board and like, oh, by the way, do you mind making me a wine table? And like it was not that right? Whereas with the marketing world, I've always felt like there's this overarching creep that happens and. Not knowing how to like compartmentalize things in a way.

And it's exhausting, I think, to [00:24:00] be on that hamster wheel or that treadmill where you're constantly trying to fix the external and it doesn't, nothing seems to, to quote unquote work or nothing seems to shift that much, or you think you're getting that shift. I'll tell you another story. So about a year and a half ago, I was hired by another multiple six figure brand, amazing woman.

Absolutely loved what she was selling, and I got into her world and I was, I was hired contractually. So a lot of the people that hire me are contracts, and I'm not a full-time employee. I'm not even a part-time employee, and that is very transparent of the get go, right? I'm, I'm not a full-time employee in your business, but within a month.

There was this expectation that I was running the entire marketing department, quote unquote, of her company. And I was like, you're not even paying me part-time wage, [00:25:00] let alone like, so, so you can't expect me to do that work. But the reality of it was, is that. She was so disconnected from her reality of what is needed and the time it's gonna take to do things and do things well, because she's an Entrepreneur that's just been running the show herself pretty much, that she's on that hamster wheel.

When you're an Entrepreneur and you're a leader and a CEO, there's a real disconnect with time because you're, you're used to boots scrapping, you're used to like bootstrapping, not scrapping, bootstrapping. You're used to that. You're used to. Doing things yourself and you, you lose that sense of time. But when you go to get support, that's one of the biggest lessons as a CEO and a founder that you need to learn is that like what you're willing to do and the time you're willing to spend, you can't expect your people to do that.

And if you want them to, then you've gotta pay them a lot of money to do that, right? Because [00:26:00] they're not working for you full time and, and often I'm met with. Well, I didn't hire that person full-time, or I don't expect you to work full-time. Well, you don't expect me to work full-time. But then do you have any relation and any concept of what it actually takes to write a really high converting sales page?

Do you have an idea of what it takes to write and create a high converting funnel and then the value that that asset creates within your company? Like do you have an understanding of that? And I think people don't. And I also think the internal worth piece for me was that I wasn't valuing the work, right?

So I was undercutting my prices. I was accepting low ball offers. So if I'm accepting these low ball offers and I'm, I'm taking these undercut it offers, what does that tell me about my own inner worth? But then also, what expectation is that setting? And that's where that [00:27:00] internal piece is so key. And if you feel like you're doing this work and you meditate and you've done the work and you're journaling and all the things, and you still feel like you are receiving these things into your life that you're like, man, I feel like I worked this out, then I'm gonna ask you to go even deeper to the root, because it's beyond people pleasing and it's beyond, I don't feel enough, or I'm not valuing myself enough.

It's beyond the price point piece of it of like I. Undervalue myself, and I know that it's beyond mindset, right? It's there is a safety piece within your body that does not feel safe to say no. And for me it was, I did not feel safe quite literally telling somebody this, we cannot do this, or we can't do this, but if you want to, this is what it's gonna look like.

If you don't feel safe doing that because you feel like if I do that I'm gonna become, I'm gonna be seen as difficult. And if I'm seen as difficult, I'm [00:28:00] gonna lose the job or the person isn't gonna like me, or whatever it is. Right. And sure, you can then tie it back to, like I said at the beginning, you know, I wasn't the person that was like, please pick me.

Please pick me. That isn't the energy that I'm going in with. But there is that energy there, right? Where it's like I might lose the job. And it was, and it's less about. Again, picking me and more around the financial security, right? So if you, if you start to really unravel this and go, well, if I lose that job, then I lose the financial security or.

Another big one for me was that I was constantly having to push to attract sales because I was attracting misaligned clients In, I said yes to misaligned clients. Then 3, 6, 12 months later, they left and there was no referrals. There was no rehiring, there was none of that, and so you just end on this perpetual cycle of.

Constantly needing to be selling [00:29:00] and marketing, selling and marketing, selling and marketing on the front end of your machine because that's the only thing driving new people into your business and you're always having to create new, new, new, new, which was exhausting for me. And was such a contrast to my corporate world, which every opportunity that came came via word of mouth referral.

Anytime somebody talked to somebody that knew me or worked with me, I got the job. My brick and mortar business was very much word of mouth stepping into the online world. Old. I think as a personal brand, there's a lot more identity work here that's so, so necessary. And when we don't do that, I think that's the lesson in and of itself, and that's what I've been unpacking, unraveling for, you know, eight years in this in various ways.

Right. I've, in various, various ways, but, but the big, [00:30:00] big ones for me have been overextension over committing and the self-sacrificing therefore of Right. And the people pleasing. Piece of it where I didn't wanna say no to the things or I didn't want to, um, challenge project scope, that sort of thing because I felt like that's a difficult person versus the more agreeable person.

And, and I think. I always think people know this stuff. Like it comes so it's so obvious to me and it's so, um, like it's just so obvious. And so I think originally I would get really frustrated with having to explain it because I'm like. Why do I have to explain this? Like you're running a multiple [00:31:00] seven, eight figure business.

Like why am I having to teach you how to run your team? That's where I think my frustration and my judgment also then hindered things because I'd get frustrated rather than just being professional isn't the right word, but just like clearly stating what the parameters are. And then shifting the responsibility back to that person, and I think.

The overextension wrapped in that is taking on more responsibility than is yours, and really not knowing the difference. Right? Not knowing what is my responsibility, what isn't my responsibility, and or being very clear within yourself what your responsibility is, and not giving two shits if somebody challenges you on that.

Because in those two examples I shared with you, right? All of a sudden I'm like, it's not my responsibility to, I. Do X, Y, and Z that you're now telling me that I'm supposed to be [00:32:00] doing right. So for example, one of the women we had worked together for almost six months and she was never quite ready to sell her offer.

Then she put her offer out there. And it didn't quite sell the way that she wanted to, and then had mentioned, well, but I've been working with you for this long. Like, why am I not seeing an ROI? And I'm like, well, there was nothing to sell. That's not my responsibility. Like it's not my responsibility to get your offer ready to sell and to be ready to open the doors.

That's not my responsibility. My responsibility is to do the marketing and build the customer journey to get people to the offer. But if you're, if you're not creating the offer to actually open the doors with, that's not my responsibility. But that's what I'm saying is where that, that blame or that projection or that like shifting of responsibility happens so quickly and can happen so subtly where you're like, what, [00:33:00] what planet am I on?

Are we, how are we not seeing this from the same perspective? Because. Of course it's not my responsibility. And what's wild and interesting about all of this is often is met with, but I'm not saying that, but it's like, but you are, so what are you saying then? Right? What, what, what is the actual message that you're trying to say?

And in reality that's what it is, but they're just not seeing it from that perspective. And so anyways, I wanted to. Have this episode be really about what's really below it. And you can do, you can go back and look at your childhood and you can do all of those things. But like I said, I, I feel like if you're in my world, you've probably done a lot of the personal development.

And to me, a lot of the personal development is merely scratching the surface in a lot of ways because it focuses very much on what happened at X period of time. And then. It's about raising the awareness and then it's about shifting that awareness. But the problem is, is that if we don't feel [00:34:00] safe to say no, if we don't feel safe stating what we need, if we don't feel safe, like in our bodies, I'm not talking about in our minds, I'm talking about like in our body.

Like I remember, and I'll vaguely remember this, like when I first said no to somebody in my business, I was like, this is outside of the scope of the project. I just never heard from that person again. And I remember thinking my worst case scenario happened, right? The worst case scenario that I was playing in my brain happened that if I state what I need, the person's gonna go away and disappear.

And that's exactly what happened. 'cause this particular client kept. Pushing the boundaries in that kept submitting and asking me to review their copy like years after we had worked together. Like I'm talking years. I'm not talking like a year. I'm not talking about five months. Doesn't matter. When you stop working with somebody, it's no longer their responsibility to provide you with support.

And it was four years [00:35:00] after we had worked together, she started submitting copy again. And I was like, excuse me. And that's the, my, my system goes into kind of a shock because I'm like, I don't, I don't understand. Like I would never expect that from a mentor. I would never go back to one of my coaches I worked with four years ago and start asking for support for, for free, quote unquote, right.

And so I had to say like, this is outside of the scope of what. You had paid for four years ago, and I'm happy to review this, but this is what it's gonna cost. And I never heard from them. And it's fine. It's totally fine. There's, it's, I, I, it's all good and I feel good about it, but I remember that moment, right?

And this was years ago, but I remember sending that and that worst case scenario playing out like, oh, they won't. They'll fire me or they won't wanna work with me, or they'll say something bad about me or whatever it might be. And there is that underlying root, the roots that are, that are there, that are beyond the people [00:36:00] pleasing, that are beyond the shock and awe of like, what?

I can't believe that this boundary's being crossed or stepped or whatever. And, and I think that people don't know they're crossing or overstepping a boundary unless you state that. And I. That then goes down and boils down to all of that internal bits that I think are the thing that's, that's magnetically attracting those people into your world.

So if you were attracting somebody into your world, that keeps causing some sort of frustration. If it's a boundary creep, if it's a project, scopes not being clear, if responsibility and expectations aren't clear, if all of these things aren't clear or. I don't know, whatever. Or the project targets keep changing, right?

'cause that can happen and the, the goalposts can shift. Whatever the frustration is, right? If, if something keeps reappearing into your reality and you feel like you've done the work, the mindset work, the [00:37:00] meditation, the journaling, whatever, and you feel like you're aware, you're like, yes, I know I'm a people pleaser, or, yes, I know I overextend, or whatever it is, and you're like, I just need to stop overextending, or I, I need to stop people pleasing.

What I'm gonna tell you is that you're gonna do that work and you might start setting these boundaries. The reality is, is that if your system is still terrified of that, you're going to continually attract that from the get go and you set the cadence and you set the scene when you buy in and agree to these things.

And so it can be very subtle, but it can also be very, very obvious. And, and if you've done the work and you're sitting there going, I've done the work, then that's the work. Because if you keep having those people come into your world, I'm gonna guarantee you right now that you can spin on your messaging.

You can spin on your offer, you can spin on your contracts, you can spin on all of it. I'm not saying that some of that stuff won't help, but what I'm saying is, is that if it's a pattern that's has been repeated [00:38:00] over and over and over again. There's something internal that needs to shift. There's a, a level of safety that needs to be created that hasn't been created yet.

And there's something there from an ego perspective that's getting in the way. And for me, it was stopping so difficult. Why can't you just agree? Why do you keep stalling? Why don't you move quicker? Right? Why can't you just say yes to the thing? And the problem is, is that when you do open the door of saying, yes, I'm willing to talk about X, Y, and Z or whatever, then you, you, you're opening the door for more boundaries to be pushed or more scope creep to happen, or more expectations to be put on your shoulder when you should never have inherited those expectations or responsibilities in the first place.

Like unless you're working in somebody's business, I say this like literally full time and you have the responsibility [00:39:00] that they've given you the responsibility to like run the show in your business, it is not your responsibility at all to do that. So when people hire me as a marketing person, right, it's not my responsibility to make sure that every marketing piece in your business is running tickety boo.

If you ask me to come build a funnel, that's my responsibility. It's your responsibility to see how that funnel fits within everything else. It's not my responsibility. You are the leader of it, and I think leaders love, love to off put their responsibility onto other people and somebody else's responsibility to make this magic happen.

No, that's the leaders, that's the CEOs. When I hired my sales call position, I didn't hire her and then throw her to the wolves and say, Hey, start taking calls. Most people do that. That's how most people hire people. I've been hired by so many people and I'm always in awe of like what the actual [00:40:00] is going on.

Do you actually want people to thrive, whether they're contractors are full or part-time employees? Do you want them to thrive? That's a whole other conversation that I can get into in terms of leadership and finding support and hiring support and making sure that you hire the right support. I think it starts with knowing what you wanna hire and all of that, and the expectations, which again, is your responsibility as a leader.

But I digress. That is an internal look of some of the patterning that runs the show, and I was really shocked to see the, I don't that I felt like there was some sort of negative connotation to being difficult and that it's more acceptable to be agreeable. It's more valuable to be agreeable and in reality.

It's not. So with that, I leave you with your own contemplation to look into your own deeper story below, and where you don't feel safe to disagree, where you don't [00:41:00] feel safe to ask for what you need, where you don't feel safe to clearly state what you want and don't want when you. It can start to really get clear on that.

So much external will will shift around you. So with that, I hope you have Fab Day. Cheers. 

intro/outro: Thanks for listening. We'll see you right back here next time. You can also find us on social media at creatively owned and online@creativelyowned.com. Until next time, keep showing up as your authentic self.