Live Coaching: Learn How Your Boundaries Impact Your Leadership Skills
Think you don’t have what it takes to be a leader? Or just can’t see yourself as an effective one?
Welcome to Corinne’s world. She has owned her movement studio for 11 years and is a pioneer for this industry in her neck of the woods (and a self-admitted gypsy). But ever since becoming an “accidental entrepreneur,” she’s missed the part about being a leader and hasn’t considered herself as one.
However, a specific situation caused Corinne to feel disrespected as a CEO and question her leadership ability. So we got on a live coaching call so she could pick my brain about the subject of leadership.
Today on the Pleasurable Profits podcast, you’ll learn about what makes a great leader and how you can be a more effective one in your business. I’ll teach you why having boundaries in place is so important as a leader (without overdoing it) and the approach you need to take with employees or contractors to gain (and keep) their respect and keep them around.
4:34 - How Corinne defines leadership, how the best leaders become great, and who the most effective leaders are
10:30 - The puppy story that demonstrates what Corinne feels she has to do in her business
13:36 - What unbridled freedom really is, and why it’s not the positive thing you think
18:01 - A working definition of boundaries (and how they differ from barriers) and the experience that broke one of Corinne’s
25:44 - A key you can use to undo one lock you might have built around yourself
30:43 - How a lack of boundaries can cause a spiraling situation within your business
33:34 - How feeling disrespected as CEO by staff members trickles down (and the quickest way to gain respect)
40:32 - Why employees and contractors aren’t doing you a favor
50:44 - What Corinne feels she has been lacking in terms of leadership ability
54:26 - Why you need to reiterate things to your staff constantly
Find me on Instagram or LinkedIn or email me at hello@lesliedlyons.com.
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Transcript of Live Coaching: Learn How Your Boundaries Impact Your Leadership Skills
Leslie Lyons: Hey boss, I am Leslie Lyons, your embodied leadership and sales coach, and this is Pleasurable Profits. This podcast is ideal for owners and leaders of tattoo shops, permanent makeup studios, cannabis businesses, movement studios, sex toy shops, and other industries that are too often left out of the leadership conversation. If you’re looking for a woo meets strategy approach to defining your strengths and values, designing a business that supports you, and creating a soul-driven, and of course, pleasurable plan for profitability, then let’s get started.
Hey, party people. It's Leslie, your embodied sales and leadership coach. How are y'all doing? I'm doing amazing. Thank you for asking. You guys are always so polite. I appreciate it. Well, today I am doing another on-air coaching call. I absolutely love doing these calls, y'all, because number one, I get to help a business owner, which is what I'm in business to do, but then number two, it gives you a little peek into what it's like to work with me.
I love when someone steps up and like, “Yeah, I'll let you record it. Let's do that.” Before I introduce my guest though, I want to let you know that when you come on here and the world is going to hear your story, I have an obligation to protect you, if I will, to provide some anonymity, if you will, around the things we're going to talk about so that you feel comfortable sharing your heart.
The guest I have today, her name is not Corrine but that is what we're going to call her. If you ever come on, you don't have to worry about that either. We're going to come up with a cute name for you too so that we can protect who you are and so that you can get the coaching and support you need without the fear of your business being all over Beyonce's internet streets.
Without any further ado, I would like to welcome you, Corinne, to Pleasurable Profits. So glad you're here.
Corinne: Yeah. It's wonderful to be here. Thanks for having me.
Leslie Lyons: Oh, I'm super excited to support you. Thanks for agreeing to have this recorded for our podcast friends out there. Here's what I want to do, I got a lot of background information before this call so I know where you are in the world, I know how many employees you have, I have all of that information so I really just want to dive in though so that they will have some context around you own a movement studio and how long have you owned your movement studio.
Corinne: Eleven years.
Leslie Lyons: Eleven years, man, and I often say in the movement studio world, it's like dog years, and I know you're a dog person too, so it's like you’ve been a business owner for 77 years. That's what it feels like. It's like one year in the movement world really feels like seven.
Corinne: Lots of wisdom.
Leslie Lyons: Oh, my gosh, lots of wisdom, lots of lessons, also, I would say a pioneer in our industry because when you really think about the movement industry, it's been about 25 years here in the US where studios have been open and active so you coming in at 11 years in an area where there was nothing that existed before, you pioneered and paved the road, so thank you, kudos to that.
Corinne: Yeah, thanks for pointing that out.
Leslie Lyons: Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about what you were hoping to get from this call today, what would feel like a good use of time that would feel very supportive for you in this coaching call.
Corinne: I think that it would be really helpful to just pick your brain about leadership. I admire how you speak. I've listened to all of your podcasts. I guess I never really considered myself a leader because as you say, I'm an accidental entrepreneur and I'm scrubbing the floors, plunging the toilets, paying the electric, teaching the classes, and then I just so happen to have trained a whole bunch of other people to teach the classes, but I guess somewhere in that, I missed the part about being a leader.
Leslie Lyons: Yeah. What does it mean to be a leader to you? How do you define leadership?
Corinne: Good question. I would define leadership as the ability to corral and inspire a group of people, by corral I mean like bring them together to have them operating on the same page with the same belief system to create a team and to have team spirit.
I think to be a leader is to be respected and I think that a lot of times, those lines get blurred. A good leader is respectable and respected, encouraging, compassionate, empathetic, strict, and disciplined. I think those are some to name a few.
Leslie Lyons: Okay. When you think of a really good leader who you've experienced personally or you just look up to in your life, who comes to mind?
Corinne: It's hard to say. That is hard to say. I don't know.
Leslie Lyons: Okay. Well, that's something to think about because the best leaders have had leadership modeled before. Oftentimes, when we identify who we look up to as leaders, they're typically a mirror or a reflection of the deepest parts of you that crave to lead. That's the type of leader that you're aspiring to model after because that's innately who you are.
I would say chase your desires like who do you look up to? Follow that and then question why you really enjoy that person, look up to them, or respect them.
Corinne: Yeah. That's such a little bit of a triggery question for me because I realize I really raised myself and I wouldn't say I'm a motherless child but I am a little bit of that, fatherless, motherless. I just was a gypsy for a long time. This was just a matter of surviving, not thriving this business. In that way, I'm a little bit of a Trailblazer Rogue and I just kept my eyes on the road and really didn't have a chance to really do that.
There's so much hustle in it but to think about that now is pretty interesting. It's like, “Oh, there are some studio owners that I respect,” but I don't pay attention to their business because I'm still paying attention to my business but there are some studio owners that have great boundaries with their late policies and they just don't give a “mm-mm,” they're about their Yelp reviews. It's like, “No, we have a five-minute late policy and we were going to lock these doors,” that kind of stuff, I really admire.
Whenever I try to enact those policies, it's like I'm up all night trying to combat bad Yelp reviews and it's like, “I don't want to do that.” I want to be like, “Guess what, I don't care what you think.” That's the kind of leader in this business, with the kind of leader, there are different types of leadership but we're talking about the business that's helpful.
Leslie Lyons: Here's what's interesting to me is that you said there are different types of leadership for business and I would push back a little bit and say no. You're a leader wherever you are. You are who you are wherever you are. I think one of the interesting things, especially for female-identifying folk, is that we do think that you can separate this or that it needs to be separated.
I'm saying, “No, you're a holistic person and who you are is who you are wherever you are.” One of the things, the most effective leaders are integrated leaders, the most effective leaders are embodied leaders. The most effective leaders, I truly believe, are people who, like you said earlier when I asked you to define what a leader was, you were like when you corral people towards a shared vision, a shared goal, that is what leadership looks like so it's really not separate.
It's also interesting, and we'll get into this a little bit, about how you define boundaries because it seems like even before the call, and you talked about boundaries, boundary seems like rules with you. Am I picking that up right? Because I could be off with that.
Corinne: I think that you're right, especially since we talked about the puppy. It's like before the call, boundaries for me, I guess, are rules. I'm all about freedom. That was my mantra, that's why I fell in love with some of the moving modalities that I did because it was all about freedom. But freedom isn't free without restraints so that's something that I'm learning but yes, I see that is true, for me to look at boundaries as rules, I do see that, like a policy is a boundary. It's not, that's a policy, and a boundary is something very different.
Leslie Lyons: It is. The policy is the tool to help enforce your boundary. I think getting very clear on the type of leader you want to be in this call, I'm hearing, might serve you well. So thank you for that.
Let's talk about the puppy analogy. Let's let the audience in on the puppy story because you came up with this, Corinne, on your own just out of the blue but I think it was so intuitive of you to see the comparison. So share the puppy story if you don't mind.
Corinne: I have a senior dog. Ironically, the dog is the same age as my business. I opened the business when I got the senior puppy because I was like, “Wow, now I gotta get off the road and stop being a gypsy and do something.” So I put all my creative things under one roof and got a brick-and-mortar.
Now it's 12 years later and I'm terrified of the said dog dying so I was like, “Whatever comes, God's going to bring me a puppy. So now I got this puppy. The old dog had no boundaries, he could do whatever he wanted. He got a treat for waking up. He got a treat when I got home. He was never in the crate. He comes with me to the studio. He sleeps in my bed. He rules me.
Now I got this new puppy and I'm working with a trainer and it's so counter-intuitive. The trainer says, “The puppy has to go in the crate, puppy has to sleep in the crate, puppy has to stay in the crate for an hour after he eats,” and so puppy will cry and me naturally, the way I handle things is like, “Well, let me alleviate that puppy's pain.”
It's not just about me not wanting to hear the puppy cry, which believe me, is one of the most awful sounds, but it's also like, “Oh, I don't want that puppy to feel sadness,” same with clients, same with staff. I'm watching myself go against my instinctual grain and keep the crying puppy in the crate. It's actually way more work.
It's much easier to appease somebody with my “love” than it is to have tough love and to have somebody stick it out, not be attached to their reaction to my truth. That is so counter-intuitive for me. I'm watching it with the puppy and I'm like, “Wow, this is what I have to do in my business. I have to do this.” It's a lot more work. I gotta get up every three hours. I'm not laying down as much.
Me and senior dog used to be able to nap all day after teaching five classes and we would just lay around on the couch, can't do that when you're training a puppy. That's the analogy. It's like, “Alright, I gotta be more of a disciplinarian,” and that also is what a good leader is I think too, to go back, it's to be a disciplinarian in a way.
Leslie Lyons: Okay. Now what's interesting to me is a lot of how you define leadership absent of a model, because I do believe there is someone who you do look up to a model, it’s just I caught you off guard with that question, I think when you think about it, absent of a model, it sounds very much so like leadership sounds punitive, it sounds like rule enforcement, it sounds like strict disciplinarian, it sounds like painful.
Corinne: Yeah, I'm a child of the wild. I'm a wild child, barefoot, I was on the road for like five years before just traveling the country before I got my brick and mortar and so I do see that. I am like that. I don't want to follow anybody's rules, why is anybody going to want to follow my rules? In my studio, freedom is the mantra.
Leslie Lyons: I love that. But freedom without boundaries leads to bondage.
Corinne: Yeah. That's so interesting that you said that. I never heard it put that way and you know what, that's the attachment style that I attract that it's my fault. That's so intense what you just said. I never heard that before.
Leslie Lyons: Yeah, because unbridled freedom, which is what we think we all want, is really anarchy in disguise because if all of us just operate from a place of “I want complete freedom, reckless abandon, do what I want to do,” depending upon your natural proclivities, your values, whatever, it'll be anarchy.
People who aspire to have freedom without boundaries most often times end up in the most unpleasant places in their life, whether that's physical addiction to food, drugs, alcohol, sex, those sorts of things or they end up in situations where they're harmed a lot because you put yourself in situations or you allow things into your space that never should have been there because there is nothing and so you end up enslaved to the thing you thought that you wanted.
Corinne: Well, that's wild.
Leslie Lyons: So it's just something to think about. I love the fact that you've come to the realization though, even with your background, and thank you for being transparent about like, “I was a gypsy, basically I was raised by the wolves, this is me barefoot in the forest talking to the trees,” I get that and I love your awareness around that though, Corinne.
Because so many, especially reluctant leaders, accidental leaders, people who didn't start out to have a team of 20 people like you do, they don't realize how much of their background, our past trauma, our past life experiences, all the things, come into how we run our businesses.
Corinne: Yeah. It’s like I said to you beforehand, it's like evolve or go extinct. If I don't step into this now, that's it, then I'm going to go to the bank and hope that they want to hire me. I'll just hope that I could wear whatever I want to wear.
Leslie Lyons: I can tell you at a bank, I used to be an HR for many years, you will not be able to wear what you want to wear. If you pick out of all of the industries for a free spirit to go into, banking ain't one of them. Banking is all about conformity and risk management so we all look alike, we dress alike, we speak alike. I love it.
Let's talk a little bit about boundaries because I don't want you to think about rules, I don't want you to think about policies right now, I want you to think about a working definition of boundaries. Let me give you one. Audience, if you're looking for a working definition of boundaries, I always say it is teaching people how to treat you. It is clearly expressing what you need and what you will also give.
Boundaries are different than barriers. A lot of times, when people have this come-to-Jesus moment, that's what I call it, where you realize, “D*mn, I'm expected to lead. D*mn, I'm expected to grow this thing. D*mn, I got to do something because I’m in charge here, the inmates are running the asylum here, it is me,” when you have that come-to-Jesus moment, the first thing that people do is start saying, “Well, I'm not going to take this sh*t anymore. I'm not doing this. I'm not doing that. We're not doing this,” and they start to build these walls brick by brick.
They think they're boundaries but it's actually prison. Every brick that you put in place that’s building around you is a prison. That is not a solid boundary. That is a barrier. Boundaries are give and take. This is how you treat me and this is what you can expect from me. How does that definition land with you? What does that bring up for you?
Corinne: You want a working example like something in the studio?
Leslie Lyons: Whatever feels true to you at this moment.
Corinne: I feel like I am one of those people that rather than establish that, I just take it all on myself. Even when a new hire comes in, for instance, it's like they just get thrown into the fire, it's like you're going to teach this class, and then it's only through trial and error.
It's like, “Okay, no one signed up for the class, I'm just going to cancel the class. They have access to do that in mind-body.” In my head, it's like, “That's ridiculous.” Instead of being like no, taking the time in the beginning like a senior dog, taking the time in the beginning meeting with the staff member being like, “This is what happens,” it's like I'm not even establishing a boundary.
Leslie Lyons: Around what?
Corinne: Anything, around how they should treat me, an introduction, I'm more hideout. It's like I just duck out from it like, “Please don't talk to me, please don't talk to me. I don't even want to talk to you right now.”
Leslie Lyons: When you get in that mode, what are you protecting?
Corinne: I would say my energy. I'm just probably too overworked to have any extra energy but what my therapist says is that I'm just insecure. There's an insecurity there and you can't be an insecure leader.
Leslie Lyons: Sure you can’t.
Corinne: To say to them you cannot cancel a class, this is a no. You have to ask me and I'm the one that will be the one to cancel the class. You don't get to go into mind-body and hit cancel or if there's only one student signed up for your class, you don't get to contact the student. That's all in my head. But rather than articulate it and have the conversation, I just keep it compiling and then there's resentment. It's a little codependent-y I would say.
Leslie Lyons: Interesting. Let's use this example to explore. Why is that offensive to you?
Corinne: Which?
Leslie Lyons: Me, I've only got one person in my class so I decided to reach out to that student to let them know I'm canceling class as opposed to calling you.
Corinne: Which offensive?
Leslie Lyons: That I did it, yeah, because obviously, it bothers you. You gave this scenario like that should not be happening so it bothers you.
Corinne: Because I've had that student, I've had that happen where the student is on the way here and they get the call from the teacher, and then I'm the one that has to hear all of the feedback on that, not the teacher. The teacher is just trying not to come to the studio and being like, “This is the easiest way that I'm going to do it,” and then I'm the one that gets the backlash.
There's got to be better policies in place on my end where that's not even an issue. It's like two hours before the class, we make a call, we communicate but then because I don't have a desk person, it's all on my cell phone, then the reason I let them get away with it is because I feel fallible. I feel like my infrastructure is fallible. Then the internal dialogue is like I still suffer from that decision that teacher made with their own free will.
Leslie Lyons: Yeah, and they're at home watching Netflix and you're on the phone with the IRA client who was five minutes away and got the phone call from your instructor.
Corinne: 100% exactly. It's like, “What?” Then they get to show up the next week as if there are no repercussions.
Leslie Lyons: Right, there are no repercussions. When they do that to you, what are you making that mean about your leadership? What does that mean to you? What does that bring up in you when they do stuff like this? What do you make that mean?
Corinne: Well, there are two things happening simultaneously, there are two things happening at the same time. The one thing is that I want to be able to say, “That was wrong, you can’t do that. You have to contact me first and I'm the one that's going to make the call and send the email or you just show up,” whatever, but then the simultaneous fallible accidental leader internal dialogue is, “Well, if you had a better infrastructure and they had proper management, then that wouldn't have happened.”
That's the leeway that gets them to continue this type of behavior. Then I think, “I gotta really make this infrastructure more legit so that this doesn't happen so that everything can be referred to,” but I have all these old dogs that I'm trying to put in the crate.
Leslie Lyons: Yeah. They ain't going.
Corinne: They're not going in the crate.
Leslie Lyons: I ain't going. I've been sleeping in your bed, I'm not sleeping in the crate. Would you sleep in a crate after sleeping in a king-size bed?
Corinne: I just want to tell you that though right now as we speak, my old dog is in a crate at the house.
Leslie Lyons: Oh, okay, alright.
Corinne: We’ll see how that goes.
Leslie Lyons: Alright, because they are dogs. They will do what you make them do. But the point is if given the option, are you going to choose a bed or a crate?
Corinne: Exactly, the bed.
Leslie Lyons: Absolutely. Here's the thing that's interesting for me and I want to give you a key to unlock one lock on the prison that you've built around yourself.
Corinne: Okay, let's do it.
Leslie Lyons: We referenced it before but I want to reiterate it because it's come up again, you think that leadership is about legislation, meaning giving policies, giving procedures, those sorts of things. I want to let you free. I want to set you free. I want to hand you a key right now. You cannot legislate the human heart. Policies do not change hearts.
If anything it does, it makes people double down on the bad behavior because it puts people in defensive mode, and in our businesses, when people get defensive, they get rebellious. The answer is not the policy. Whatever that little monster is in your head that keeps telling you that you're a bad leader because you don't have an employee handbook, you're a bad leader because you don't have policies or infrastructure, that is a product that is an outcome of having porous boundaries in leadership or a lack of structure.
But that's the easy stuff to fix. The hard thing is really getting your heart to the place of figuring out “Why does this piss me off?” That's the question I'm asking you. When they did that to you, yes, you have to deal with the fallout of it but how do you think they feel about you when they do that?
Corinne: Disrespected.
Leslie Lyons: Right, so you feel disrespected because they're not doing what? What makes you feel disrespected?
Corinne: They're not respecting me enough to ask me how to handle the situation. They're taking it on as if it's their own. It's like, “Yeah, you're an independent contractor but this is not your business.” I think I'm jumping back because there's like this whole all one, we're all equal, there's a power struggle. It's like, “We're not all one. You want to be me? You got to pay the rent. You can do it. Let's see you do that. Keep the electric on. You keep the heat on during the winter.”
But there is some part of me that's like, “They’re a friend and I'm not.” I mean I am, I just had this conversation with a couple of my teachers today that teach for me that are talking about their own classes and I could say it to them like, “These students are not your friends in the classroom. As soon as they smell a little bit of fear in you, a little bit of vulnerability, then all of a sudden, they're walking you.”
I have that same thing all the time where it's like I feel disrespected but I put myself in a position to be disrespected. So it's like I'm pissed more. I'm just pissed at myself most of the time.
Leslie Lyons: Okay. Going back to our definition of a boundary, how you treat me, and what you can expect from me, what would feel more life-giving in that type of a situation?
Corinne: Another scenario like how it could have played out differently?
Leslie Lyons: Yeah, exactly. What would feel different? What would feel good about it?
Corinne: She's also one of my students, that's the other thing, all of my staff are my students because I've trained them all so that's another thing. If that student/staff member sent me a message saying, “Hey, I have one person that signed up. The roads are bad, what should I do? How should I handle this situation?”
It puts it in my hands as opposed to taking it on themselves, and doesn't take it on themselves and handle it themselves before I even have a chance to make the executive call. That would feel more like giving because I would feel respected.
Leslie Lyons: Sure. I love that. Coming to you being like, “Here's the scenario, how would you like me to handle it?” By me doing that, that shows you that I respect you. What else does that show?
Corinne: That they are adhering to the way that I want the business to be run.
Leslie Lyons: They're on the same page.
Corinne: On the same page. They're on my team.
Leslie Lyons: We're on the same side here. What's one thing you think you could do in a conversation with this staff member who did this that would get you guys on the same side of the table?
Corinne: Well, what's interesting is this was a situation that actually has happened. It's a retroactive conversation. I'd already been listening to your podcast when I was going through this. It was like more to the story. I just really dumbed it down. I was trying to be really proactive and really gain some respect. You could just tell when somebody is just not in it anymore like that.
I said, “Let's meet. Let's have a conversation. Why don't we meet in person and talk about how I could have helped you in that situation, make a better decision? I want to meet in person. Here are some days that I can meet.” She bowed out, she didn't want to meet.
Leslie Lyons: Because she doesn't have to, she's a contractor.
Corinne: Then I gave her some time. I tried that. Anyway, this one is no longer with me, which was painful.
Leslie Lyons: Was it because of this incident?
Corinne: That was the first of a few more incidents. I could tell that she was starting to lose respect. She was starting to lose that camaraderie of the team. In hindsight, and this is something that you notice, it's transient in a lot of ways, it's like instead of her being able to say, “My heart's no longer in this,” she was creating a sabotage.
I'm just trying to run my business. I don't want to read your mind, and so in the end, the end thing after her three strikes of doing similar things and not meeting in person, I said, “Listen, I'm going to fill your classes, I'm going to put somebody else as a teacher in your classes until we can have that conversation.”
Leslie Lyons: Love it.
Corinne: And guess what, we have still not had the conversation.
Leslie Lyons: Well, she chose to quit.
Corinne: She chose to quit without really quitting. That's always painful for me. That never is easy. Losing a staff member like that, she was with me for probably seven years and that's how it ended.
Leslie Lyons: So when you said she quit without really quitting, what do you mean?
Corinne: There was no closure. It was like I'm still waiting for her to have that conversation, I said, “Your classes are filled until you meet with me and have a conversation.”
Leslie Lyons: That was your last conversation with her?
Corinne: Yeah.
Leslie Lyons: Okay. Here's what's interesting to me about that whole scenario and a boundary that I'd like to offer you to think about in those sorts of situations. If this is one thing where you would feel more empowered, more respected, more like a leader around how we handle canceling classes, my question to you and the answer to this question is the lead-in to the conversation around the change.
When they do things like this, it makes you feel disrespected, we've gotten that clear. What does it do to the client?
Corinne: The client that's coming that gets the call from the [inaudible]?
Leslie Lyons: Yeah.
Corinne: Oh, my God. I could tell you because I've had the experience, it makes them go somewhere else.
Leslie Lyons: So we lose a client.
Corinne: Lose a client and before they go, they post a story on Instagram. There's a smear campaign that happens, they never go quietly.
Leslie Lyons: Never go quietly.
Corinne: I wake up in the morning. I've refunded somebody's money on Venmo, she spewed venom at me, on Venmo I'm like, “Wow, people use it, they will use your mistake and they will travel on every social portal to run your name through the ground.”
Leslie Lyons: And when they run your name through the ground, what impact does that have on your business?
Corinne: I lose money.
Leslie Lyons: And when you lose money, what impact does that have on you?
Corinne: I can't eat.
Leslie Lyons: And when you can't eat, what impact does it have on your instructors?
Corinne: They can't get paid.
Leslie Lyons: Ah, here we go, sh*t rolls downhill, party people. Part of leading with boundaries around something when you're putting a boundary in place is communicating how this impacts not just me, this is how it impacts all of us. Now we know how I feel, we know how the client feels, how does this negatively impact them as an instructor?
Corinne: The instructor that made the cancellation?
Leslie Lyons: Yeah. We know one of them.
Corinne: For the most part, they get a little tap on the nose.
Leslie Lyons: Do they?
Corinne: I don't know if they're really feeling any sort of repercussions over here.
Leslie Lyons: Well, let me think of a few, let me offer a few. Number one is the obvious, they’re not getting paid because you're not paying people who don't teach classes, correct?
Corinne: Yeah, that's true.
Leslie Lyons: I know it's nominal money for them because most people in our industry are doing this micro part-time and it's not big money, but the point is you're doing it for a reason, you're not getting paid for that.
Also, whatever it is that teaching gives them. I remember when I was on teaching staff in my spaces, it was cathartic for me and so being in that space around those people, getting my own juiciness filled up, and all the things [inaudible] well, I just missed that too. I was missing out on that connection, the juiciness that I felt from being in class and around that, I'm missing out on that as well.
There are other things that they are missing out on that we want to communicate that this is not just about Corinne and the studio, it's not even about fussy McDuffie client, this has negative impacts on you as well. When we approach things from the perspective of this benefits us all to move in this direction, not just it benefits me, the quickest way to build respect with the leader amongst your people is for your people to know that you care about them.
When we go to them with just our list of “This is how sh*t negatively impacts us or even our clients because that's still about us and our money,” it makes people feel like all she cares about is money. Yeah, I do care about money, that's part of my job, I'm the CEO. If I don't care about money, nobody in this b*tch gets paid. Do you hear me? Nobody eats. I do need to care about money. But that's not all I care about. I also care about you, your fulfillment, why you're doing this job, what you get from it, and is it meeting your personal needs? I care about those things.
When people know that you care, they show up differently, if they're sane. Now here's another rule for everybody who's listening, I do not negotiate with terrorists or toddlers. If you exhibit either behavior, toddler-like behavior where you're throwing tantrums and all of the things, expect to be shut down. If you appear to be a terrorist where you think you're going to bully me and do whatever the hell you want to do, expect to be shut down. Shut down is shut down however you want it.
But the truth of the matter is the better you get with saying, “This is how this impacts you,” because at the end of the day, that's all they care about until they're inspired to care more. When you think about that situation and saying, “Okay, this is something we need to put a boundary around,” what does that look like in terms of a conversation with your team, not with just one person?
Corinne: Yeah. That's a beautiful point. It looks like me reminding them how fulfilling it is to teach and to work here and how much their students actually rely on them because they are their leader, they're micro leaders, and to remind them that that's important, it's significant, and it makes a difference and maybe ask them to think about what their life would look like without it. How would you feel if you didn't have this?
Leslie Lyons: Oh, that's a juicy question. Corinne, I almost said your real name because that was so juicy. That was so [inaudible] I almost said your name. But Corinne, seriously, that is so juicy, that question of what would your life be like if this studio wasn't a part of it if you weren’t able to teach? That's a power question.
Corinne: And it's an identity. I had this friend, she's a hairdresser and so she has a salon and she rents her chairs out. She said this thing once that irks me because she said, “People are doing you a favor when they work for you.” They're doing you a favor because of the nature of its micro contracting, it's not a career, I'm not paying them a salary, it's a couple of bucks that they're doing me a favor.
I need to change that narrative because they're not doing me a favor. For anybody who has taught, I tell my students, I do teacher trainings and I say that a class is such a small part of our day, 75 minutes, maybe 90 minutes but it really informs a good part of our life.
They're not doing me a favor because when we teach, we are bettering ourselves, and when we stop teaching, we're not on that journey so much anymore. I do think that if they lose it, and they might think that they could go, that's another insecurity, oh, you're going to go to another studio, that's a huge insecurity because if they go to another studio, then they take everything that they've gained at this studio, learned, even the stories. That's a big paranoia of mine, but whatever, that's something that you just gotta deal with.
Leslie Lyons: Yeah. I want to get back to the “they're not doing you a favor” part. I want to revisit when you said this friend of yours, the hairdresser, who was reminding you that these people are really doing you a favor by working for you, that is one shift that I really want you to think about and you've already started thinking through it through the question of just how you would make this about us as opposed to just about you and the studio.
There are immense benefits that go beyond pay and working in a small business in general, so not just in a studio but a shop, small businesses. There are so many benefits to working at our environment whether it's exposure. Think about some of the things that they get from working with you. Can you name a couple? We talked about one, it's just the satisfaction of imparting knowledge and how that makes you feel, but can you name a couple of others? What are some other big things that people get?
Corinne: It's a beautiful space.
Leslie Lyons: What does that do for them though?
Corinne: It's inspiring, it's another identity, it's like the best that there is in the area I think. I think that it's a supportive space. They get to take classes with some of the best teachers. They get to have amazing very honest community.
Leslie Lyons: What is that doing for them though, taking these classes with excellent instructors?
Corinne: Making them better, the best at their craft.
Leslie Lyons: Well, f*ck the craft for a minute. What is it doing for them as a person?
Corinne: They look good.
Leslie Lyons: Oh, alright, we all like to look good, but what's happening in their emotional heart, spiritual space?
Corinne: They’re healing, they're expanding. They're changing their life. People's lives change, they’re healing. Their hearts are open. They're connecting to something bigger.
Leslie Lyons: When I connect to something bigger, how does that change my day-to-day life?
Corinne: You have faith. You're just happier, mentally sane.
Leslie Lyons: So mental clarity, mental peace, would you feel like that's fair to say?
Corinne: Yeah.
Leslie Lyons: Yeah. These soft skill things, Corinne, is what you want to talk about because when we start talking about the aesthetics of our place, and I don't doubt I'm looking at the background of it immediately when you told me what it was, I was like, “F*ck, this is amazing, I want to come move in that space, it sounds beautiful just the openness of the space, all of those things, that sounds really good.”
But that's aesthetics, and guess what, that's the thing that can be duplicated because with the right amount of money, I can go buy something similar to you. Seriously, I always tell people this, if I can buy your brand, you don't have a brand, you don’t have aesthetic. Those are the things that can be duplicated, but what can't be duplicated is the heart of you as the leader who constantly reminds me of that, and calling me to something higher, something bigger.
I don't forget the people who've done that for me in my life who called me higher, who called me bigger. Those are the people who I would go to war for. It isn't about money or the micro money that we're paying people, just because I'm not paying somebody $100,000 a year, Corrine, what you're offering them is priceless. But if you don't keep it in front of them, if you don't keep reminding them, it's easy to think that I am doing you a favor and this little money ain't sh*t for me. That's leadership.
Corinne: D*mn, girl, I'm crying. I am, that was moving.
Leslie Lyons: Tears are welcome in this space.
Corinne: That's it. That's moving. That's powerful.
Leslie Lyons: What's bringing the tears? What's behind the tears?
Corinne: Truth, this is truth, that's so true. You gave me a sermon.
Leslie Lyons: Well, even my [inaudible] clients have to respect the Jesus in me, no, I'm kidding. I’m kidding but I'm serious.
Corinne: I gotta read your shirt to the people because they can't see you, “I got God and a therapist too.”
Leslie Lyons: And I spoke to both of them today.
Corinne: Oh, sh*t, that was good.
Leslie Lyons: But what is it opening up for you? Because tears are typically a gateway.
Corinne: Those are truthaches, that's what I call them, those are truthaches, it's like a reminder that there's always going to be people, especially in this industry, any industry, there's trauma. I built this business with my bare hands. I told you, I don't even have a credit card. I was on my own hard-earned, this is sweat equity in this space, and there are always going to be people I'm sensitive to the naysaying and not even aware when it's actual naysaying.
I'm not like, “That's that and this is this.” I'm going to always hear that bottom-feeding statement and take it as truth. When I'm reminded of something like you just said, you put it very good in the sense that's like, “This is not about the money. These people aren't coming here for their nominal daily, whatever their class pay is, there's something so much more here,” I have to be reminded of that because for me, I'm writing the checks in order to keep the community experiencing exactly what you reminded me of, I'm writing the checks and I could forget.
I could forget. I could become lost in my responsibility, that more linear role sends me into a place where I forget. That reminder was a truthache. It's like, “Yeah, that's powerful for me to even be offering that to people. That's life-changing.” They're not going to forget.
I would say that when a staff member goes, when they walk away, or when they can't rise to the occasion, it probably hurts them more than it hurts me. But it does hurt me and I couldn't articulate it the way you did and when you articulated, I was thinking about this one particular person, it's like, “You walked away from a space that keeps you walking in the line, it helps.”
I don't know where that person is. That's a maternal thing that I sometimes get lost in but it does, it makes me concerned. But I think that it hurts them too. They might not be able to say it.
Leslie Lyons: It does. Part of leadership is language. Corinne and I were just giggling for a moment because I had to pause this podcast, y'all, to kick [Jeezy] man out, y'all, know how he does, he's so spoiled. She reminded me that I need to work on my leadership of my d*mn dog. I need to put some boundaries in place for him.
But as we just think about it and bring this conversation to a close, I think that this little ending on this thought of you are offering more than a paycheck for people and really putting value to the hard work that you do each and every day, what you've spent almost 12 years building has value, it has worth, and you're doing something that they couldn't get somewhere else.
That mindset shift alone, when things start to get crazy and you feel like the inmates are running the asylum kind of a feel, that could be a grounding for you to remind yourself that this is bigger than this one situation.
Corinne: Amazing, amazing.
Leslie Lyons: What would you need to tell yourself in your own words when things start to feel like, “Yeah, maybe they are doing me a favor so I better not question them, I better not have an expectation for them,” we don't have time to go into that now but that's what comes up when you feel like people are doing your favor, you walk on eggshells around them.
Corinne: Yep, 100%. I have to remind myself of that sermon that you just gave about the worthiness, the value that's beyond the number, the value of this community of having me in their life and me actually, I got to be more confident. It's not the energy, it's not the practice, it's this person right here.
Leslie Lyons: Who has the energy, who manages the space that gives the practice but it is you.
Corinne: And being a leader requires ownership of that role and confidence. I think that that's really the part that I have been lacking. I don't think somebody from the outside would be like, “Well, she's not very confident,” in fact, it's quite the opposite but there's a wounded child in there that's like, “Don't leave me,” abandonment, all that stuff.
Leslie Lyons: That we deal with all the time as entrepreneurs, which is why we have to keep a therapist and for me, God too. But I really do feel like we all deal with that, I want to normalize that, that we all have that little child that's like, “What's going on inside of us?” What do you need to tell her when that little girl rises up and it's like, “Oh, if you tell her don't cancel classes, she's going to walk out”?
Corinne: That their loss is greater than mine, that this would be a very big loss.
Leslie Lyons: And in order to help people feel the loss, we have to help them feel the impact of what they do.
Corinne: Remind them that they're important, that this is important, that community is important, isolation is depression. There's so much. Not forewarn, but give a little forecast, maybe even point it out from time to time, like “Don't you love teaching?”
Leslie Lyons: People need to hear things over and over again, what I tell people who work with me inside of my containers, whether that's one-on-one or in a group container, I'm always telling people that if your team is not saying, when you start to talk about your values, your principles, if they don't start rolling their eyes and sucking their teeth like, “Yeah, yeah, we know, we know,” that says enough.
Because the way our minds work, one of the biggest enemies to good leadership these days that makes leadership so hard is distraction. People are distracted by sh*t that don't even matter. Even though they're listening, they're not.
Corinne: Yeah, you got their phone in their hand.
Leslie Lyons: They do. We would be remiss to think that if I tell you once a month is enough, if I tell you once a year, hell, if I tell you one since you work with me, that's not enough to keep it in front, your job is to fan the flame, literally fan the flame in their hearts to remind them of what they do. As you fan their flame, Corinne, it's going to fan yours.
Corinne: Mutually beneficial.
Leslie Lyons: It is. What are you taking from our call today?
Corinne: I gotta go get a bag of potato chips, so many things, we had a good session, you get a little cry, you cry a little bit, you need a big potato chips.
Leslie Lyons: You do, you need some salt.
Corinne: So I'm going to go get some potato chips. I just feel empowered. I feel that I got some good nectar, some good positive ammunition to move forward and begin again in a way. I think that I have to retrain my brain a little bit.
Leslie Lyons: What's one step you can take towards retraining your brain this week?
Corinne: Well, I told you in the beginning, I have somebody coming in and helping me administratively. I think trying to think about something where I bring the team together, just envision something, I've never even done that. Just thinking about things like that and also reminding myself in the meantime, especially while training this new person that this is so worthy, to not be insecure about that person coming in.
Leslie Lyons: This is so worthy, the work you're doing is worthy work.
Corinne: It's worthy work. It might not pay for the Beamer.
Leslie Lyons: Those are expensive, I drive one.
Corinne: Me too.
Leslie Lyons: That’s why I like you.
Corinne: Mine's pretty but she's a [inaudible].
Leslie Lyons: It is definitely a [inaudible]. But I like a Beamer girl. I'm not an Audi girl. I am not a Mercedes girl. I'm a Beamer girl until I can get my Ferrari because I'm really a Ferrari girl.
Corinne: That's okay. That's a good launching point.
Leslie Lyons: Right. I'm like, “I'm really a Ferrari girl but living in a BMW girl body.” But no, in all seriousness, as you're taking that mantra with you that this is worthy work, let that feed you. It's a good place to start.
Here's where I'm going to end this, first of all, thank you for being vulnerable, thank you for being open, thank you for the work that you're doing because I do believe that when we do worthy work, it truly makes our world better. I really want women in particular to think about the work that we're doing is literally changing our world.
It might just be changing the corner of the world you're in but that's the corner that God gave you. That's the possibility that you have. Whether it's a hundred people that come in there a day or two people, that's your assignment and I want you to do that.
I think what would be a good next step for you too is start to put your vision on paper. What is the vision now? Because it might be slightly different than what it was 12 years ago. What's the vision now, especially as you're bringing on this assistant? You got to get it very clear. You have a great opportunity to make it clear that this is who we are, this is what makes us different, this is what we're going, and this is why we do what we do.
Before you get this person ingrained in the day-to-day of mind-body, this is the late cancel fee, this is what we do here, this how we turn off the alarm, and all of that, you want to get crystal clear on the heartbeat of why you do what you do, and that comes from you.
One of the things that if we did work with each other in another container, the first line of action would be you gotta articulate your vision, you got to get the vocabulary for it, and be passionate about your vision so you can call other people into it.
Corinne: Yes, I love that. That's homework.
Leslie Lyons: It is. Well, thank you so much. I almost called you by your real name. I'm like, “Corinne.” Thank you so much for your time. Guys, this wraps up this week's episode. As always, your most valuable commodity is your time. I don't take it for granted that you spend an hour with me every week listening to me.
If you too would like to get coached on air at a discounted price, you need to send me a note because I'm committed for the next quarter to do at least two of these a month with you so if you're like, “I'm not sure if I even like this woman, if I want to work with her,” or if you are like, “I can't do anything long term but I just need a shot,” I got two spots a month where you could do that. Hit me up in my DM on @lesliedlyons, you can find me on IG or LinkedIn, and until next time, grace and peace.