You are listening to The Design You Podcast with Tobi Fairley, episode number 95.
Welcome to The Design You Podcast, a show where interior designers and creatives learn to say no to busy and say yes to more health, wealth, and joy. Here is your host, Tobi Fairley.
Okay, friends, I’ve said it before and there’s been one episode that I said was my absolute favorite, but I’m telling you this one is going to give it a run for its money. This episode is incredible. My guest today is Nancy Levin. And Nancy is a life coach extraordinaire and her specialty is boundaries. And not just boundaries with other people, but especially the boundary that we need most, the one with ourselves.
In fact, Nancy says all boundaries with ourselves. But when you dig into your goals this year and you start to decide what you really, really want and then you look at how you’re going to achieve it this podcast is going to be an incredible tool for you to actually create the year that you want. Because if you find that you have been a people-pleaser or an over-worker like me, a workaholic, or you’ve had issues with your relationship with time or with other people in any way, it is likely all about boundaries and Nancy is going to tell you in this episode what to do about it.
So, get ready because after this episode you basically will have zero excuses for going out and creating the life this year that you absolutely want, okay? So, sit back with your journal because you’re going to want to take notes because you are going to love this conversation with Nancy Levin. Enjoy.
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Tobi: Hey, Nancy, welcome to The Design You Podcast.
Nancy: I’m so happy to be here with you.
Tobi: I always say this every time, how excited I am, but I can already tell just from our pre-podcast chat, I literally am kind of tingly all over. I am actually so excited because I know this is not only going to change my life, it’s going to change a lot of people’s lives because they have no idea what’s about to hit them in the realm of boundaries and worthiness. I mean, just so much goodness I cannot wait.
But before we get to that, why do you tell everybody, in case my audience doesn’t know you and they haven’t read one of your amazing books – you’ve got four or five already out and one coming out. Tell them who you are, what you do, why they need to know you because clearly, you’re a genius at many things they’re going to learn today and I want you to give them a little taste of what that looks like.
Nancy: Thank you. So, I’ll start where my life imploded.
Tobi: Ah, perfect.
Nancy: Ah-ha, because it really was the catalyst to the life that I’m living now. So, about 10 years ago I was on my way home from a business trip and I was the event director for Hay House Publishing. So, Hay House is the international leading publisher of personal growth and self-empowerment materials and I was traveling the world with the greatest minds in the fields of inspiration, motivation, self-empowerment, and yet none of their teachings could land in me until I was going through my own crisis. And so, I was on my way home from a business trip and discovered that my husband of 18 years had read my journals.
Tobi: Everybody’s greatest fear that I know about journaling. So many people won’t journal for that reason.
Nancy: That’s right.
Tobi: And I’m always like, nobody is going to read them. You probably aren’t even going to read them, but yet you’re telling us your husband read your journals, wow.
Nancy: He did. He did, indeed, and that was actually the most devastating experience and the most freeing. Not quite at the exact same time.
Tobi: It took a little while maybe for the freeing to catch up, right?
Nancy: It took a little while, but the truth of the matter is it had me look at the ways I’ve been living my life because I had been living in such a way where I was projecting an image of perfection to the world and I was managing the perception of others. In other words, I only wanted people to see me through the lens I gave them to see me through.
Tobi: Yes, which we so often do. I’ve just been reading a book about this concept and we know a lot of us have heard that, like that shadow self, or the ego self, or the version you put out to the world, but wow. So, you’re saying that actually was happening and then this was the moment of truth.
Nancy: This was the moment where I had to really come to terms with the fact that I had been hiding out for most of my life and, in fact, I didn’t want anyone to know what was going on behind closed doors. My marriage had been crumbling for quite some time. I was in a very abusive relationship and I didn’t want anyone to know. And I was in shame and I was very invested in protecting my image and protecting him.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: And I was living my life by the motto, “Never let them see you sweat.”
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: And so, I was superwoman at work, and behind the scenes in my marriage I was quiet as a mouse. I had no voice. I had no way of expressing my own needs. In fact, I lived most of my life priding myself on having no needs, being independent, self-sufficient and I sublimated all of my needs in order to bring to fruition the needs of my now ex-husband.
Tobi: Wow.
Nancy: Yes. So, as the marriage was crumbling and I was living by this motto, “Never let them see you sweat,” he knew my biggest fear was any sort of exposure and so there were ways in which it became clear to me that I needed to take the reins of my own life and I needed to start telling the truth.
Tobi: Yeah.
Nancy: The truth telling had to begin with me because I had been avoiding my own truth for so long that I wasn’t able to be the truth of who I was with anyone else in my life.
Tobi: Wow, that is so powerful and those of us who know about shame, and we’ve heard the Brené Brown stuff and we’ve studied it all.
Nancy: Of course.
Tobi: We know all of that lives in the secret, and the shadow, the shame exists when everything is secret and the only way to really resolve that is start telling the truth. Like, expose yourself before others can expose you, right?
Nancy: Exactly, that’s right.
Tobi: Just step into that truth.
Nancy: Right, and I often say similarly, “Rock your own foundation before someone rocks it for you.”
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: And we don’t have to actually wait for crisis in our lives to step in and start inhabiting our own lives instead of the way we’ve been living someone else’s because, ultimately, we’ve been packaging ourselves to be digestible to others.
Tobi: I love this. I mean, and I know it’s going to resonate with everyone who hears this and it’s truly hitting me at like a gut level even though I’ve done a lot of this work and have gone through things in my own marriage.
We didn’t break up, we got stronger, but it was kind of a similar situation and I can relate in so many ways. And I love this so much. Wow, it’s so powerful. And I think where we want to take this conversation today is to say from that – of course, there may be something else you want to share with people so they know about you. I’m going to tell them all the places to find you and everything, but what you and…
Nancy: All the gory details are in my books.
Tobi: Yes. But what you and I ultimately want to get to for everybody today is really your messaging around boundaries, which I’m sure were at the core of exactly that situation, right?
Nancy: Yes, because I had none and I didn’t even know what a boundary was. I didn’t know it was something that I was even allowed to have or allowed to set and maintain. And so, as I was going through my divorce it really was the critical point of my own inner learning about my interior landscape. Really beginning to connect the dots of my life. And seeing where all the people-pleasing and peace keeping and not wanting to rock the boat originated.
And once I was starting to be able to connect the dots in my life I actually decided that I wanted to do a year-long life coach training and certification program even though I had no designs on being a coach because I had my dream job at Hay House, but I knew I wanted to do this particular training and you mentioned shadow, that’s really where my foundation is. Going into deep shadow work.
I wanted to do a coach training around that specifically and once I had completed my training which was actually more rigorous than my master’s degree I was unrecognizable from the woman who began. And I realized that even though my job at Hay House had been the dream job, it was now time to actually move into what my life purpose is and I realized I’m really here to help other people get free.
Tobi: I love that. And interestingly enough when I do my own life coaching on myself the feeling I’m always after that eludes me a lot of times is freedom. It’s what I’m always after. Time freedom, financial freedom, it’s always about freedom and I’m sure that’s true for so, so many people.
Nancy: And so that’s why my latest book is called, Setting Boundaries Will Set You Free. And it might sound counterintuitive.
Tobi: Right.
Nancy: Right?
Tobi: Yeah.
Nancy: But because we often think about boundaries as the way we’re sort of keeping everything out and the way that we’re keeping ourselves locked in. But I want to shift the conversation to actually look at boundaries not only as what we’re releasing or what we are deciding is not okay for us, but also around what we’re consciously choosing and carefully curating to bring in.
Tobi: Yeah, because setting boundaries feels kind of scary. It also feels kind of rigid at first glance for a lot of people, but what they’re not realizing that I think you’re saying is the opposite of setting boundaries is a lot of people’s default, which is people-pleasing.
Nancy: That’s right.
Tobi: It’s some level of self-sacrificing because they haven’t put those parameters in place, right? You even had said to me earlier before we started recording, it’s about non-negotiables, which kind of fits into that same sphere. Yeah, so good.
Nancy: It’s about knowing your non-negotiables and it’s about getting clear on, and this is really my definition of boundary, it’s really getting clear on what are my limits around what I will or will not do, will or will not tolerate, and will or will not accept? So, we’re always wanting to look at, essentially, what’s okay and what’s not okay with us.
Tobi: Right.
Nancy: Not in reference to someone else, because, again, when we are these people-pleasers and the peacekeepers and conflict-avoidant and we don’t want to rock the boat we’re overly concerned. We’re taking more responsibility than is ours in relationships.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: We are overly concerned with others and we’re not nearly concerned enough with ourselves.
Tobi: I love that. When I learned this concept, and I know there’s so much more work I can do and, clearly, I’m going to learn it in your book, but when I learned that concept that most of us are trying to take responsibility for other people’s emotions and delegating our own to other people at the same time, which is ludicrous because we can’t control other people and they can’t control us, they can’t create feelings, only we can do that.
Nancy: Right.
Tobi: When I had that epiphany it really changed a lot of things for me and I don’t think most people know what.
Nancy: Because most people are still in the mindset of, I can make someone happy or I can make someone mad.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: And we’re also in the mindset, especially when co-dependency comes in because just like you were saying about the delegating our own emotions, essentially in co-dependency what’s happening is we are wanting someone else to regulate our own emotions, which is our responsibility.
Tobi: Yeah, because it’s way easier. If we delegate it to them and it doesn’t work then we have somebody to blame, right?
Nancy: That’s right.
Tobi: And that’s way easier than just really fully stepping up and taking responsibility for your own emotions, feelings, good or bad, happiness, all the things. Yeah, it’s way easier to delegate and we do it really well.
Nancy: We do. We do because we want to make someone else responsible. And if we stay in that blame space that’s when we’re really in the victim role.
Tobi: I know. And none of us want to be a victim when you call us a victim except a lot of us live our life in the victim space, right?
Nancy: Right. And so, the key to being able to move into empowerment is actually taking responsibility for ourselves.
Tobi: Yes, and it’s a lot deeper work than it sounds.
Nancy: It is. And if you are someone who has been living an other referenced life, putting everyone else first, abandoning yourself for the sake of someone else, the way I look at it is always making sure that the table is set with the fine china and the crystal and the silver and the big juicy steak, or the big juicy tofu, and here I am, in the kitchen, in the dark, eating scraps and crumbs standing over the sink.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: And that’s how most of us have been living our lives. We’ve been settling for what’s left over, we don’t put ourselves at the table, we don’t bring ourselves into the conversation, and we’re looking at everything outside of us instead of actually looking within and coming into contact with what is true for me, what is my preference, what is my desire, and how do I actually bring that into expression?
Tobi: Yes. Oh my gosh. Every bit of that is so powerful, and I know before we finish this conversation today, we’re even going to move into where productivity fits in, because a lot of us also, in addition to delegating our feelings and taking responsibility for other people’s feelings, we also find ourselves, I think, in that place of if I just work a little harder, then everybody will be happy. And if I just do something, then everyone else will get some level of happiness, joy, benefit, and we carry the weight of all of that based on doing, and I think that’s a really important piece too, so important.
Well, and even I know you wanted to talk about this, and let’s talk about it right now. There is some level of reward that comes from that taking responsibility for other people, right? We’re even taught that by our culture and we prop ourselves up on our value, based on all those things we’re doing to please other people.
Nancy: Yeah, so a couple of things in here that tie together. One is what you were alluding to earlier, the way in which we feel we have to actually earn or prove our worth, which we do not. We are actually worthy. It’s inherent in us just by being here on this planet, and yet we believe that our worth and our value is tied to something else, and so what we do most often is we hitch our worthiness to someone else’s wagon. We let someone else be the determiner of our worth.
Tobi: That is so good. Yeah, let’s just sit with that for a minute. We hitch our worth to someone else’s wagon. Wow. I mean, I hear you, and I hear also often, I have this conversation with myself that logically I’m worthy for just being here, yet every day I get up and get back on the treadmill. I logically know that, and I logically hear what you’re saying, but I can’t wait to unpack this. I love where you’re going with this to see in theory, yes, but then we go, “But all these things have to be done,” all that stuff.
Nancy: Right. So what I see time and time again, and listen, I have lived this, I’m speaking from experience, and I’ve coached thousands of people who are dealing with this. And what I see time and time again is that when we’re putting our value and our worth in someone else’s wagon, when we’re letting someone else determine our worth, we’re essentially hooked into the seeking of external validation. And we are chasing gold stars. And I am here to tell you that no gold stars will be enough. No amount of gold stars will ever be enough to fill the void.
Tobi: No.
Nancy: Even though I’ve tried.
Tobi: Yeah, me too. And that’s that feeling that we all get when we strive and it’s not even that we’re just sitting around being miserable humans that feel unworthy all the time and we don’t do anything. It could be that, but it’s also those of us who look super successful on the outside and we get some level of success, and then we go to the next level, and the next level, and the next level, and like you’re saying, every time you get there you’re like, “Oh, this doesn’t really feel like I thought it would feel. I guess I haven’t gone far enough. Let me just go to the next level,” and it doesn’t feel that way at that level. You’re exactly right, it’s like this insatiable seeking, right? Because it’s impossible to ever get those feelings from that doing.
Nancy: Exactly. We will never get it from the doing and we will never get it from the outside.
Tobi: Yeah.
Nancy: So, first of all, every single thing we’re seeking externally needs to be resolved internally first, and we have it backwards. We think that something or someone outside of us is going to have us feel worthy. If only this thing or that person said this or did this or this happens, I’ll feel worthy. And we have it backwards, because it actually has to begin from within so that we can be a magnet for it.
Tobi: I love that. I love that. Almost manifesting by the way we – that goes back to your non-negotiables things or what you’ll tolerate, because if we’ve decided we will only tolerate this level of whatever relationship with other people, then we’re going to repel the people that don’t align with that and we’re going to attract the people that do.
Nancy: That’s exactly it.
Tobi: Yeah, so good.
Nancy: Then what starts to happen is that if we’re tied into this proving our worth and value by what we do, achieve, produce, what happens is it’s like an amplification of the way in which we abandon ourselves, because what happens is we get it in our mind that, “Oh, well if I do the thing just for me, if I do self-care, or if I make myself a priority, or if I name my needs, I’m not going to get the validation, I’m not going to get the accolades, I’m not going to get the applause, so why bother?”
Tobi: Yeah, because we don’t feel like we can give that to ourselves. We only believe it comes from someone else.
Nancy: So the practice becomes how do I actually really move into and embrace what matters most is that you approve of you, I approve of me?
Tobi: Yes. I love that.
Nancy: Then we actually move into that, because that’s the only way we’re ever going to feel good enough is if I approve of me. And that’s really – we’re talking about worthiness here, and for me, I always bring in the way that self-worth and net worth are intertwined.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: Because when we believe we’re not enough, we also believe there isn’t enough.
Tobi: Right. Scarcity. Lack. All of that, yes.
Nancy: Right. And we go into this idea that the world is a zero-sum game, that if you have, it means I go without.
Tobi: Right.
Nancy: Or, if I have, you go without. And we’re so much more used to taking the hit ourselves. I’ll go without. I’ll be the martyr. I’ll compromise. I’ll suffer. I’ll acquiesce.
Tobi: Yeah, because that’s way more acceptable in culture. You’re selfish if you do the other, and nobody, especially women, we don’t want to be selfish. A mother wouldn’t do that or a friend wouldn’t do that or a sister.
Nancy: I’m glad that you just said that because I am literally on a bandwagon to reclaim selfishness.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: We have disowned selfishness, and then what happens as we disown selfishness, we draw people toward us who we’re going to point a finger at, and say he or she is so selfish because they’re holding the mirror back to us of what we’ve disowned.
Tobi: And again, when we were just chatting about what we were going to talk about today, you even said, which I think is so important, that not only do we assign a selfishness label if we were to do those things for ourselves, but to justify, I don’t know, sacrificing our self, we become really self-righteous in that I’m such an amazing person because look at what I do for everybody else. I sacrifice me and so I’m an amazing person because – that whole martyr piece becomes our badge of honor, right?
Nancy: Absolutely. And I would say, it’s a big piece. Even as we’re talking about boundaries and worthiness, because they’re very interconnected, even as we look at what is our motivation and intention that underlies our choices. Let’s look at this from the perspective that I know we all can relate to. I know from my work with so many clients and my work with myself that many of us go right into a knee-jerk “yes” when a request is made of us.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: Right? We don’t want to say no.
Tobi: Yeah, and we were taught to, especially southern girls like me. You keep everybody happy; you don’t upset anybody, you say yes.
Nancy: Right, so you say yes. You go right to the knee-jerk “yes”. And the knee-jerk “yes”, what’s underlying the knee-jerk “yes” is some version of I don’t want to someone else to be disappointed or angry.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: I feel responsible or obligated. And then there’s also the piece of I want to be the one and the only one. I want to be the hero.
Tobi: Yes. Absolutely.
Nancy: Right? So again, the righteousness.
Tobi: Yeah, somebody’s got to do it. I’ll sacrifice me because nobody else is going to do it. Let me swoop in and save the day.
Nancy: Exactly.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: And none of that has anything to do with desire. So, I’m really wanting us to start looking at how can we only start saying yes to things that are in the realm of desire, and to be able to say no with grace and without guilt?
Tobi: That’s incredible.
Nancy: Yeah.
Tobi: And it sounds sort of like right now, if you haven’t experienced it, it sounds like fantasy land a little bit, right?
Nancy: Yup, it does.
Tobi: Like it’s not even possible.
Nancy: Right. So the first thing we have to do, is we have to build in some space. I often will say, “If you can say no right up front, say no, but if you can’t say no, let the other person know that you’ll get back to them tomorrow,” so you can at least build in a space for you to check in with yourself instead of being in reaction, so that you can actually respond versus react. These are two very different things.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: When we are reacting, it’s literally like the ricochet off of someone else’s energy. When we’re responding, it’s from our own authentic agency and integrity and alignment.
Tobi: And we’re believing we have a choice, whereas when we’re reacting, we’re believing we don’t have a choice, I think.
Nancy: That’s right. That’s right. And we always have a choice even when we don’t think we do, and that’s a very important thing to know. We’re always making a choice, whether we think we are or not. So to be able to bring in the space to actually discern is this something I desire to say yes to, because we all know, I mean every one of us knows what it’s like to say yes to something and two seconds later we’re like, “Oh my god, how the hell am I going to get out of this?”
Tobi: Right.
Nancy: Right?
Tobi: Or you’re like, oh I can pull it off, but then when it’s time to actually follow through on it the day before, you’re like, “I hate myself. Why did I say yes to this?” Yeah.
Nancy: Exactly. So, we want to start getting more discerning about our yeses and noes, because the truth is once we know our noes, it will free our yes.
Tobi: Awesome. So, are you saying then that we literally have a list of some of our noes that we know we always say yes to this and we always are mad that we did, so that goes on the list of noes?
Nancy: Absolutely, and that goes into the non-negotiables, that goes into the way that I check in with myself, the ways that I know that here are the things that I’m not going to say yes to, that I will say no to, and here are the things I’m willing to consider, but I’m always going to say no to requests that come in about X, Y, Z, and to just start getting clear so you’ve got a map and then start building in some space. And then here’s the important piece that I think no one has ever taught. You can say no gracefully, with gratitude, and not apology.
Tobi: I love that. Because what do most people do that are people-pleasers? They have to have a legitimate excuse, right?
Nancy: Right.
Tobi: They’re like, “Well, I would love to, but my husband’s mom’s sister’s aunt’s cousin’s dog died and I have to go to their wake,” or something, because we feel this pressure that we can’t just say no, we have to have a legit reason.
Nancy: Exactly. So, here’s the thing. I want to talk about saying no without an excuse, without a reason, without an explanation, and without a song and a dance.
Tobi: And without caring if the other person’s happy about it because that’s their responsibility, right?
Nancy: Bingo. We are speaking the same language. So if someone else’s response to our truth is their responsibility, and we can say any version of, “Thank you so much for thinking of me. I’m not available for that.”
Tobi: Right.
Nancy: “I really appreciate the invitation. I won’t be able to make it.” Or, “I know you really are asking for my help. It’s not something I can help you with.” Whatever it is. It doesn’t need to be an excuse, an explanation, and there doesn’t even need to be an apology involved.
Tobi: And I think that a lot of us can start to get our head around that from a work obligation or like a social event, but I think where it gets really tricky is when it’s like, your sister, or your mom, or your child, or your grown child, or your spouse, or one of those other closer relationships that there’s a lot of other sort of thinking and emotion that happens, right?
Nancy: Yes. And so, it’s funny, I remember a time, it’s a while ago now, it was while I was going through my divorce and my mother, we were on the phone, and my mother said something to me like, “I just need you to do this to make me happy,” and I said, “I’m no longer in the business of making anyone else happy but myself.”
Tobi: I love that. You got there because you had this critical point, so how do you get there if you don’t wait until rock bottom?
Nancy: That’s right, we don’t need to wait for the crisis, and that’s one thing, the most foundational piece here is to come into contact and connection with you first instead of with the other person first.
Tobi: Okay.
Nancy: So again, I often talk, and this is really the disbanding of the codependency. Instead of having my attention on, oh my god, what are they going to think? Or if I say this, then they’re going to do this or they’re going to – what are all the consequences out there? I have to really look at what are the consequences if I don’t? What’s going to happen inside of me if I don’t actually stand up for my truth?
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: Because anytime we’re avoiding the external conflict, we’re creating more internal conflict, and we’re just so used to our own internal conflict, we’re so used to living with it, that we often will actually unconsciously choose our own inner conflict before anyone else’s.
Tobi: Yeah, because we’ve practiced it so much, it’s the only reality we know, right? And so, sometimes, there’s that saying, “The pain you know is better than the pain you don’t know,” or something like that.
Nancy: Yes. And so, we have to really start, and I’m talking baby steps, we have to really start offering up our own truth. This can be, as an example, as simple as, we’ve all done this too. “Where do you want to go for dinner tonight? Where do you want to go for dinner? I don’t care, what do you want?” Right?
Tobi: Right.
Nancy: So, to actually come in with, “I’d like sushi tonight,” and then the other person might say, “Well, I want Italian,” and then there might be a conversation and a collaboration about what’s for dinner.
Tobi: Right.
Nancy: But the truth of the matter is you will feel far less resentful if you’ve named what you want than if you’re just going to eat Italian and you’re biting your tongue with every bite.
Tobi: Yeah, I think that’s so huge. Let’s talk about that for just a second, that whole idea of resentment, because if we’re seeing resentment popping up a lot, if it’s our go-to emotion, is that meaning that we just pretty much are running up against this no boundaries situation every time we feel resentment?
Nancy: Yes. Resentment is a telltale sign that we do not have boundaries in place. And so there’s a couple things I want to say here about this. I’m sort of just going to share the secret about boundaries that no one talks about.
Tobi: Okay, awesome. I can’t wait.
Nancy: So, here’s the deal. Because we’re all very quick to say some version of, “I tried to set a boundary, but he or she kept doing the thing,” right? “I tried to set a boundary, but he or she crossed my boundary.” Here’s the secret and here’s the truth. If your boundaries are being crossed, you are crossing them.
Tobi: Awesome. Wow. Because it’s kind of like you can’t make other people have a feeling, so other people can’t really cross your boundary unless you allow them to, is what you’re saying.
Nancy: Unless you allow them to, that’s exactly what I’m saying. So when we are setting boundaries, we have to be really clear about the boundary that we’re setting and we have to be clear about the way that we are maintaining the boundary, because it’s up to us, it’s no one else’s job to uphold, respect the boundary. It’s up to us. And so if our boundary is being crossed, it’s because we are enabling or allowing the boundary to be crossed.
The other important thing here is recognizing that that resentment, we want to think it’s directed toward another person, but it’s actually directed toward ourselves, because we’re not showing up for ourselves with alignment.
Tobi: Yes. I mean, that is so huge, right? Especially, and I don’t want to make this just a gender thing, I just, as a woman, can relate to a lot of other women that we have this issue, following through, showing up for ourselves, doing what we say we’re going to do, and we kind of act like it’s out of our control a lot of times too. Yeah, so, I love that. Yes.
Nancy: Two things that are popping into my mind to say here. One is really recognizing that in setting a boundary, we want to keep it about ourselves, not the other person.
So it’s not you always or you never, it’s, I notice – I’m just making up an example. “I notice that I feel really uncomfortable when we go out to dinner and you have more than two drinks. So, moving forward, I’m just letting you know that if you choose to have more than two drinks at dinner, in order to take care of myself, I’m going to leave the restaurant”. That’s an extreme example, right?
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: But I want to just show it big first.
Tobi: Okay. And how, just to clarify, because that sounds a little bit like you’re trying to control the other person, and a lot of people would be like, “Ooh, yeah, I finally get to control my husband or my whatever,” so help me see the difference.
Nancy: I never once said you can or can’t do this.
Tobi: Right.
Nancy: Never once. I said, “If you choose to continue doing this, here’s what I’m going to do to take care of myself”.
Tobi: Okay.
Nancy: So I never said, “You always get drunk when we go out to dinner.” You see what I’m saying? I never made it about them and their choice.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: I made it about I feel uncomfortable to a mother-in-law. “I don’t like when you try to micromanage my parenting skills. So, in order to take care of myself and my family, I’m just letting you know if it continues, we’re not going to come visit you for as long of a time.”
Tobi: Yeah.
Nancy: Right?
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: So, it’s not pointing a finger, saying, “You’re doing this wrong,” it’s, “Here’s how I feel in response to your behavior.”
Tobi: And do you have to verbalize it to other people or can you just know that when x happens, I’m going to y and you just do it. The most important piece is that you just actually follow through.
Nancy: That’s it. So, first of all, you don’t ever want to say something out loud if you’re not going to uphold the commitment to yourself, because then you’re the little girl who cried wolf.
Tobi: Okay.
Nancy: And none of these things need to be said out loud because ultimately any boundary is between you and you.
Tobi: Right. I love that.
Nancy: I can just know, for me, here’s what acceptable, here’s what’s not. When the unacceptable occurs, in order to take care of myself, this is what I’m going to do.
Tobi: And I think the part that’s really important that I’m thinking about is it doesn’t have to involve, and shouldn’t, any level of conflict, because most of us, right, the only way we can psych ourselves up to stand up for ourselves a lot of times is to have a knockdown drag-out, or say something you’re going to regret, and so it looks very dramatic and you exit the room or the restaurant, or you throw all the kids in the car and you peel out of the in-laws’ house, and it’s not about that at all.
Nancy: No, but here’s what I want to say. I also want to reframe conflict a little bit.
Tobi: Okay.
Nancy: Because I think especially for those of us who have been conflict-avoidant, we have this idea that conflict is bad.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: And what I want to present is that conflict is really just the illumination of our differences.
Tobi: Okay.
Nancy: And that we can stay connected while we’re in conflict. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Tobi: Right, and there’s a difference between sticking with the facts of the conflict and personally attacking the other person on something that has nothing to do with the boundary or the conflict.
Nancy: Right. And that’s why I was saying before that it’s not about you always or you never. It’s, “I feel X when you do Y, and in order to take care of myself, I’m going to do Z.”
Tobi: Yes, so good.
Nancy: That’s the equation. That’s all it is.
Tobi: So, so good. So good.
Nancy: That’s what it is there. And so, and I really want to say it about this conflict piece because I think we’re so invested in thinking that the goal of relationship is harmony.
Tobi: Yeah.
Nancy: And harmony…
Tobi: Everybody needs to be happy, and if they’re not then something’s wrong.
Nancy: Right, but here’s the thing, harmony at all costs comes at a high cost, and it comes at a high cost to us. When we’re invested in doing whatever it takes to keep the peace, it takes a high toll. We always know that we’re in this loop in our head, some version of, “What do I need to do or say to make everything be okay?” Right?
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: That takes us right out of the present moment. That takes us out of any authenticity. That takes us into managing, manipulating, and controlling.
Tobi: Ooh. That’s really interesting. Managing, manipulating, and controlling, yeah, which is where a lot of us go to, right? We have this cycle of people-please, people-please, people-please, get fed up, get to that point, and then I guess those are the things we move into as an alternative to try to get what we want or get an outcome we want. Managing, controlling, manipulating, yes.
Nancy: Right. And so what that does, is it basically blocks true intimate connection.
Tobi: Right.
Nancy: And here’s the deal. If we’re wanting change in our lives, and I call this my transformation equation, so if we want change, change equals vision plus choice plus action. We have to be willing to make a different choice than the one we’ve always made. We have to get out of the groove of the old pattern. We have to be willing to make a different choice.
I believe that where you are, where I am, where everyone listening is right in this moment, we are here as the culmination of every decision, choice, action we’ve made up until this moment.
Tobi: Yes. Or even inaction because we didn’t speak up for ourself.
Nancy: Of course. Of course. We’re here in response to that, so if we don’t do anything different, if we don’t make a different choice or take a different action, our future arrives looking like our past.
Tobi: Right. We keep recreating the same life over and over again.
Nancy: Exactly.
Tobi: And wondering why nothing changes.
Nancy: Right. It’s Groundhog Day.
Tobi: Yes, exactly.
Nancy: Exactly. And so I look at our present moment choices as the predictor of our future. They are the crystal ball. We want to know what the future looks like or what the future holds?
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: I am in complete empowerment around that future based on the choices I’m willing to make today.
Tobi: Yeah. And every time we avoid discomfort or anything, however we want to describe some level of what might feel negative in the moment, we’re just postponing it or impacting our future. We think, “Well, why do today what you could put off until tomorrow,” right, just to avoid it, but then ultimately you get to tomorrow and you’re still unhappy.
Nancy: Yeah, I often say, “The easy way out will bite you in the ass in the end”.
Tobi: Exactly. Yes.
Nancy: You think, oh, in the moment, I’m going to make this particular choice and then we realize yeah, we’ve just prolonged what’s inevitable.
Tobi: Yes. So good. I think this is all amazing and I love how it is helping us see our relationship with other people, but I want to dig back into, because I kind of cut you off a little bit, we went down another tangent and I want to circle back to this productivity, even over-working, which I happen to do to a lot, the whole self-worth, net worth, all that. I want to come back to the boundaries with ourselves, boundaries with our calendar, because it’s almost a little easier to see it outside of you and with other people.
And I think the person that we consistently don’t show up for is us. We show up for everybody else, we don’t show up for us, and we especially don’t show up for us in the things that nobody knows about. We put it on our own calendar, or our own to-do list, or our own goals list or dreams list, and then we’re like, “Eh, I don’t really feel like doing that today. I’m just not going to. Nobody will know. It won’t hurt anything,” but it absolutely hurts something for sure.
Let’s get into this conversation, and definitely I want to see how it shows up, again, digging a little deeper in the productivity and the net worth piece, for sure.
Nancy: Yeah. Well, a couple of things I would say here. First of all, it is about putting yourself on your calendar as your most sacred client and blocking out the time that is reasonable and realistic, so this is what’s critical. When I’m working with clients, I’m wanting them to set goals and then we create an action plan and we move them forward, but because I will often draw toward me the people like me, so I get all the overachievers, all the type A.
Tobi: Why do you think you’re on this podcast today? I mean, seriously, why? We laughed earlier that we manifested each other. I guess I’m into this whole manifesting thing right now. I just read Gabby’s book and so I’m like, we totally attracted each other.
Nancy: I totally agree with that. So, I have clients who essentially are setting a goal, like, “I’m going to run a marathon every day this week,” and I’m like, “How about you run for 30 minutes three days this week?” You know? “How about we actually rein this in to what’s realistic and doable and achievable and let’s take in bite-size chunks.” So, I think what often overwhelms us is we set the bar too high for ourselves.
Tobi: Yeah. All or nothing, right? All or nothing.
Nancy: Exactly, all or nothing, black or white. And so part of the keeping the promise to ourselves, part of keeping the boundary and the commitment with ourselves, is actually to block out for what is really doable and achievable and realistic, and understand also that what happens is we get into this routine around anxiety and overwhelm.
Tobi: Okay, yes.
Nancy: It’s really a habit.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: It’s a habit to feel anxious and overwhelm. Action will alleviate overwhelm and anxiety. Taking an action in any direction, we can always course-correct, but movement is going to mobilize possibility here.
Tobi: Okay.
Nancy: So we have to begin to take action instead of staying stagnant or sitting on the fence. So, like I said before, the first layer here is around time and making yourself the most sacred client in your calendar. Let’s face it, we all know, time is not a renewable resource.
Tobi: Okay, yes.
Nancy: Everything else is. Money is. Everything else is.
Tobi: There’s only 24 hours. Period.
Nancy: Right, and yet we are giving all of our time away. We are spending our lives pleasing other people, which means we are spending our lives.
Tobi: And I hear you and I absolutely agree with you, so what about the person who is hearing you say and getting, again, on a logical level, on paper, “Yes, I agree with her. I have to make an appointment with myself. I have to be the most important person in my life, but I keep putting myself on the calendar and I keep not showing up for myself.”
Nancy: Right. I always ask the question, what’s it going to take? So, does it take getting an accountability buddy, where you text and say, “Okay, I’m going in, and I’m coming out from my time.” This is a beautiful use of working with a coach.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: Because what I find with many of my clients is, again, because I’ve got the overachiever clients, they don’t want to disappoint me.
Tobi: Yeah.
Nancy: Even if they don’t want to do it for themselves, they’re damn sure not going to show up to our session not having done whatever it was that they committed to, first using me as the reason. So I’m like, “Okay, let’s do that if it works upfront, and let’s the training wheels off then, and you’ll see that you’re now doing it for you. You’re not doing it for me.”
Tobi: Right.
Nancy: So, any kind of scenario where you can create accountability, whether it’s a friend, whether it’s a coach, that can be a good starting place, because it’s true, we’ll override ourselves more quickly than we’ll ever override someone else.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: This is a practice. The only way it becomes a ritual, and the only way it’s going to be concrete is to actually engage in the action of the practice. So, it literally has to begin with one day at a time, today I’m looking at my calendar, I’ve blocked out this time, can I keep this promise to myself? If I can’t keep this promise to myself, where can I move this hour later in the week that I know I can hold it?
Tobi: Yeah, I love it. I love the realistic plan piece of it.
Nancy: It has to be. It has to be realistic, otherwise we’re screwed because again, we’re holding ourselves to such a high bar, and quite frankly, we’re holding ourselves to a higher bar than we hold it to others, than we hold others to, I mean. Yeah.
Tobi: And for those of us who are type A, when I hear you say action is what alleviates overwhelm and my brain wants to say, well, action’s what got me into overwhelm. In a way it feels like it, because I’m doing too much, but it’s not necessarily that I’m doing too much, it’s either that I’m saying yes to too much or I’m thinking too much or something else. It just feels like action sometimes, but it may be more consuming or agreeing or worrying or overthinking, but it’s not actually checking off the thing. Is that what you’re saying?
Nancy: Yeah, it’s not the action that’s going to move you forward. You bring up an important point, because it is also about the discernment of what’s on my plate and what’s on my plate that I’ve said yes to that I’m deciding I’m going to say no to and take off the plate. The other thing is, and especially for entrepreneurs, we think we have to be 24/7 on call, like we’re doctors.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: We think that life or death, we have to be 24/7 on call. And we have this idea that if we’re not “working,” that we’re somehow sabotaging our own success.
Tobi: Yeah, or for me, I don’t even have to be on call for everybody else. I just don’t let myself not work because I have some level of belief that that’s lazy or it’s not my definition of success. My definition of success is that laying around watching Netflix or just hanging out having a three-hour lunch with a friend, it’s like I’ve got to be busy to be worthy, to make money, all of that stuff, yeah.
Nancy: Let me ask you, and I would imagine that if you are very quick to point a finger and roll your eyes at people that you deem as lazy.
Tobi: Oh, yeah. I was taught. So were my parents, but that’s what they taught me. By all means, be anything you want, but just don’t be lazy.
Nancy: I hear you. Do lazy people show up in your life?
Tobi: Yeah. Everywhere.
Nancy: Everywhere, right? Of course they do.
Tobi: Yeah, and my parents have lazy people show up in their life all the time. Yeah. How funny. Yes.
Nancy: What happens is the harder we disown an aspect of ourselves, because we are everything, so anything we see in another exists within us.
Tobi: Oh, I love it. So, you’re saying I’m supposed to embrace lazy.
Nancy: Bingo.
Tobi: I love that.
Nancy: And the quicker you are willing to embrace your own lazy, and let me unpack this…
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: The quicker you’re able to unpack your own lazy, you’re going to be able to have compassion for the quality of lazy.
Tobi: Yeah.
Nancy: So, here’s the thing; this was a big one for me. I grew up very much how you’re saying. Disowned lazy, then – you and I are the same here, I know already, the way we hide our lazy, we overcompensate for our lazy is workaholism.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: Overdoing so that no one could ever say, “Hey, I experience you as lazy.”
Tobi: Ever. Like, that would be the ultimate – you’re so right. That would be the ultimate – you can call me a bitch, you can call me selfish, you can call me anything you want to, but you cannot call me lazy because not a single person would agree with you, which, I might kill myself in the process, you’re going to be like, “Well, she had a heart attack, but she sure as hell wasn’t lazy.” Right.
Nancy: So, here’s what happened for me, same thing. Then what do I do? I marry a man who was basically dictionary definition of lazy. He did nothing to work.
Tobi: Ever.
Nancy: Ever, he did not want to work.
Tobi: I don’t think it’s funny now, but I just think it’s so ironic. That’s crazy.
Nancy: I was the breadwinner. I did everything to enable him not working. I worked harder to make more money so that I could support us, buy two properties, the whole thing.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: Buy him trucks and buy motorcycles and all the things because he didn’t want to work.
Tobi: Yeah.
Nancy: Right? Now, this happened post-divorce, mind you. I had to really look at how I had driven myself to do all of these things because I had disowned lazy to such a degree that I had to go into high achievement mode all the time.
Tobi: This is literally blowing my mind up right now. It is such an a-ha moment for me.
Nancy: It is. No, I get it. It was for me, too. I get it. So, I had to look at first of all, I had to separate out the quality from the behavior, this is what’s very important. So, it would be very easy for me to say, “I’m not lazy. I’m a workaholic. He doesn’t work.” It’s not about the behavior. I have to find my version of lazy.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: So, my version of lazy I’m going to lay on the couch and I’m going to binge watch six episodes of my favorite show.
Tobi: Yeah.
Nancy: That is my lazy, but here’s the thing. The gift in the lazy for me is I get to relax. I get to recharge. I get to rest. I get to laugh. I get to cry.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: So, there’s a gift in my lazy. How lazy serves me.
Tobi: And when we’re not being lazy, guess what, the feeling always comes up is we’re resentful because we’re looking at other people and on one hand we’re saying, “I don’t want to be lazy. I abhor laziness,” and at the same time we’re secretly jealous of all the people. We’re like, “Why does everybody else get through life and everybody allows them to be lazy, but we’re not allowed to be lazy?” And the only person not allowing us to be lazy is us.
Nancy: We’re not giving ourselves permission to own all of these aspects of ourselves.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: And so, we are the ones who are pushing ourselves to these completely unnatural levels. The other thing that starts to happen here is when we’re really getting tweaked by – when we’re getting triggered, essentially, by any behavior of anyone around us. And this is why the people closest to us do trigger us the most. They’re always going to be reflecting to us an aspect of ourselves that we’ve rejected.
And so the goal here is – and just see if you can even – I’m just playing with you right now. See if you can even do this, if you can really say, “I am lazy.” And notice what happens in your body. You want to break out into hives?
Tobi: Yeah, kind of. Yeah, or fight myself.
Nancy: Right.
Tobi: Get angry. No, I’ll prove to you that I’m not.
Nancy: So, for me, believe me I was there. And the fact that I can right now say, “I am lazy,” without any visceral response has been a huge part of my own personal growth and we can do this with any aspect of ourselves that we have been pushing away.
Tobi: I love, love, love it and I know that the net worth piece is just another layer of that same thing, right? Because, for me, I associate the money with the doing also, and it’s just one more piece of that.
Nancy: Yeah, so here’s the other thing; and I learned this for myself in a very sort of experiential way. So, I would be someone who would be constantly worrying about all the things that needed to get done. I hit a place where I was actually able to have a conversation with myself where I could say, “I am actually a person who gets everything done.” Like, I am that person.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: I get everything done that I need to get done. I bet you do, too.
Tobi: Yeah.
Nancy: I get everything that needs to get done will get done. I actually don’t need to worry about it. I don’t need to worry about writing my blog for four days.
Tobi: Right.
Nancy: It will get done and then actually bringing in – there’s something called Parkinson’s law which I will paraphrase, so it’s like a task expands to the time allotted for it.
Tobi: Right, yes.
Nancy: So, if I give myself a week to write a blog, it’s going to take me a week. If I give myself one hour it’s going to take one hour.
Tobi: Right, yes.
Nancy: So, this circles back to how do we actually hold ourselves as our most sacred client. I am the biggest fan of working with a timer. I set a timer for everything including packing my suitcase.
Tobi: I love that.
Nancy: I do.
Tobi: And the beauty of that is so many people have no idea how much time things take and a lot of us think – it goes both directions, right? Some things we think, “Oh, that’s going to take forever,” and it doesn’t. But most things I think we underestimate how long they take.
Nancy: We do underestimate, but the other thing that I notice is the things we dread actually take far less time than we think they will take and you should actually do the things we dread first.
Tobi: Yes, because when we’re in those moments of resistance where we’re almost having a tantrum and we build it into this big, dramatic episode in our head and we tell everybody in our life how much we hate it and how mad we are and all that. And then we’re like, “Oh, fine. I’m just going to do it.” And you’re like, “Well, that wasn’t even anything.”
Nancy: “That wasn’t even anything. That wasn’t a big deal. Why I did spend all that energy not wanting to do this?” Of course, the goal is let’s create lives where we don’t have things that we dread.
Tobi: Right, yeah.
Nancy: But the truth is that when you’re people like us, you’re hyper responsible, you’re going to get things done you don’t need to be worried about. They don’t need excessive obsessing about, they just need to be assigned into a spot in time.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: And so that’s the other thing. My calendar is so multi-colored for all my different kinds of…
Tobi: Me, too.
Nancy: And I put every single thing into my calendar including my daily hike. I often will put into my calendar when I’m going to go get groceries.
Tobi: I do the same thing.
Nancy: Yeah, of course.
Tobi: My only problem is that – this is where you need to help me. My only problem is I don’t put any white space or margin or buffer time in-between. So, I get to the end of a day and this, again, I think is where the net worth kind of ties into it. It’s like I have some belief that I have to do all of this stuff, so I’ll literally have seven or nine hours of really intense thinking or working or problem-solving or doing and I get to the end of it and I’m just like, “Oh my God.” I feel accomplished, but I feel exhausted. And I do that – I recreate that scenario far more often than I would like to admit that I do.
Nancy: Right. So, I would say two things here. One is to actually give your – are you a morning person?
Tobi: Yes, typically. I’m one of those people that can be either, I just can’t be both. I need eight hours of sleep, so my favorite schedule is going to bed at 9:30, getting up at 5:30 but right –
Nancy: That is exactly me.
Tobi: That’s you? But I have a teenager right now that’s 14 and she suddenly wants to hang out and talk to me at like 10:30, so it’s stretching my night back a little bit, so when that happens I get up at 6:30, but either way it’s still what most people would definitely consider a morning person, yes.
Nancy: Right. When you wake up are you already anxious about the day?
Tobi: I’ve worked on this. I used to be very much so. Like I felt like I was already behind before my feet hit the floor. When I really perfected my time blocking it helped a whole lot because I at least know when things are getting done, but I still do pack my days too full.
Nancy: Right, and so what I would also say to this is you could probably only devote six hours a day to your work.
Tobi: That’s what I want. That’s my dream schedule, yeah.
Nancy: You could probably only devote six hours a day to your work and still get done everything you need to get done.
Tobi: That’s awesome. I love that.
Nancy: I fully believe it. The other thing I was going to say earlier is it’s really important, I believe, I know for me, it’s important for me to give the best part of my day to myself.
Tobi: Yeah. Oh, I love that. My favorite days are when I do that. My least favorite days are when I have to wake up and the first thing I do is have to be on a call or a meeting. My most favorite days are when I literally spend an hour journaling and drinking coffee.
Nancy: So, let me ask you, why do you have to do that? Why can’t you decide you’re not going to take any calls before 10?
Tobi: Yeah, I absolutely can and I’ve decided it a lot of times, but there’s some level of that people-pleasing that creeps in occasionally or some level of productivity, lazy kind of thinking that creeps in periodically.
Nancy: Right, and so here is another way we’re boundaried with our time about, I’m not going to take any calls before this time.
Tobi: I love that. So, this is one of the boundaries that – this is exactly what I was looking for. So, that’s a lack of a boundary with myself, again, that I’m breaking because I…
Nancy: That’s right.
Tobi: This is going to be my number one thing for 2020, how do I set this boundary with myself about time?
Nancy: Yes, it was a big deal. So, the reason you cross this boundary is you’ve got some – again, we’re coming back to the net worth piece. You’ve got some idea that if you say no to a client they’re going to go somewhere else, or they’re going to be disappointed.
Tobi: Or if I say no to one of my team members then I’m going to have to do it later and I’d rather just get it over with and check it off the list because there’s that level of accomplishment, so yeah let’s just get it done.
Nancy: Right, but I want to support you in determining – okay, so for me, literally I don’t do any calls before 9:30 in the morning. And I’m up. I’m up at 5:30am.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: It’s not that I’m sleeping.
Tobi: We are so kindred spirits. It is so amazing. I mean, that’s how – my preference is to get up at 5:30 and to not start work until 9:30 or 10.
Nancy: Right. So, I’ll tell you something that changed my life, okay? A little over four years ago I went to Thailand and did a 10-day silent meditation retreat. I was not a meditator.
Tobi: Wow.
Nancy: I was off the couch, I went and did a 10-day silent meditation retreat. I came home and very surprising to me, I instantly became a consistent meditator at home. So, from there the piece that really shifted everything for me going from waking up in the morning thinking, “What do I need to worry about today?” So, you know what I’m saying?
Tobi: Yeah.
Nancy: And hitting the ground running. I now have a really specific evening and morning ritual that sets me up for success. I go to bed like we said. I literally go to bed at 9:30, no joke, I take a super-hot shower, I get into bed, my phone is on airplane mode, I listen to a 10-minute sleep meditation, and I’m out like a light.
When I wake up in the morning, I go meditate, I write in my journal, and I drink a large mason jar of hot water and lemon before I even have my coffee and I don’t put my Wi-Fi back on my phone until I’ve done all that.
Tobi: So good.
Nancy: So, I don’t wake up to any notifications. I don’t wake up feeling like I have to do all these things that people are looking for me or waiting for me.
Tobi: Yes.
Nancy: I enter the world of work and Wi-Fi on my own terms.
Tobi: I love it and that is just a boundary. That is a boundary. I love it.
Nancy: I do it no matter where I am, no matter who I’m with.
Tobi: Amazing. So, if you fly to New York for a week because you’re going to have meetings you still don’t compromise that.
Nancy: Nope. I do not compromise that. I don’t because it’s what sets me up to have my best day.
Tobi: Yeah. That’s amazing.
Nancy: And then, like I said, I’m up early, but I don’t have calls before 9:30 because I often have to write or I have to create content or I have to – and that’s the time of the day that’s best for me.
Tobi: Yes, and I agree. That’s exactly how I am. I mean to a T. We’re so similar, that’s so interesting. Oh my gosh, this has been so life-changing in so many ways. We’ve covered so much.
Nancy: I know. I feel like I could talk to you forever.
Tobi: I know, I’m just thinking, I’m sitting here writing notes to myself. She’s going to think I’m weird, but she needs to be one of my new friends. Like, I want to talk to her again. We’re going to hang out.
Nancy: I want to be your new friend.
Tobi: I want to be your friend, so we’re on the same page. Yay, this is so good. So, do people go to this new book? When is it coming out? Is it already out by the time they’re hearing this?
Nancy: Yes.
Tobi: Do they get the nitty gritty of the how-tos in this book about setting boundaries to set yourself free?
Nancy: Big time. It is a step-by-step action-oriented experiential book that will take you through the whole process.
Tobi: Amazing and when is the book – is it already out, is it coming out?
Nancy: It’s out as people are hearing this.
Tobi: Amazing.
Nancy: Go get it from anywhere that books are sold.
Tobi: So good. I cannot wait and I just honestly, I’m already thinking like everybody is getting this in 2020 for their birthday present or something, everybody I know.
Nancy: I love it.
Tobi: Such a gift, such deep work here. I can just already think about how – I’m going to need to have you come back on the show. I’m looking at my notes that I’ve written and I’m thinking I want to go deeper into this whole idea of desire and us not giving into desire and I want to go deeper into these things that we’ve decided are dirty words like selfish. There was another one, conflict. There’s so much still to peel away. I know you have a book you said called Worth or something about worthiness.
Nancy: I have a book called, Worthy: Boost Your Self-Worth to Grow Your Net Worth.
Tobi: Okay, awesome.
Nancy: I have a book called, Permission to Put Yourself First.
Tobi: Wow. So yeah, they can just literally start and go through all your books and it’s like a master class in everything we just talked about. Perfect! All for less than $100, friends.
Nancy: That’s right.
Tobi: Just go get all the books and do the work.
Nancy: And I’ll say, if anyone wants the gory details of my marriage and divorce you can read Jump…And Your Life Will Appear, it’s all in there.
Tobi: Oh, interesting. Yes. I’m sure people do. I’m sure many, many people do. Yes, so interesting and it’s so fascinating – that’s the one place where I had similar struggles, but I ended up staying married because I did a lot of work on myself and my husband did a lot of work on himself, but it’s so fascinating how a lot of it was probably still the same work that you had to do.
Okay, yeah, I’ll have to check that out. Okay, well, thank you so very much. I think this is going to be incredible for people and it’s so timely because even getting into things like goal setting if we don’t set those boundaries for ourselves how will we ever reach any of our goals? We’re going to constantly be not showing up for ourselves and putting what was our goal yesterday behind what everybody else’s needs are.
So, I think this is so timely, so practical in so many ways and I just can’t thank you enough. And I’m literally already going to get off this call and message you because I got to have more of you in my life.
Nancy: I want more of you, too. I’m delighted. I really am.
Tobi: Thank you, thank you. The whole night I’m going to have to chew on this stuff. Wow, there’s so much here. Thank you for being honestly, so transparent and so straightforward because I think that’s the part that helps people the most and hearing your story and being able to see ourselves in parts of that. So, just very, very grateful for you doing that and being here today.
Nancy: Thank you. Thank you so much.
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I honestly am only occasionally speechless and this is one of those moments or episodes where I cannot fully wrap my mind around so much we talked about. In fact, that felt like a master class to me and those are my very favorite kind of podcast episodes. So, I’m going to listen to it again. I’m going to get out my journal and I’m going to get work on the boundaries that I need most in my life and I absolutely hope that you are now equipped to do that work in yours.
So, if you want to know anything else about Nancy, her books, check her out online, for sure, but we’re going to put all of those details in the show notes so that you can easily find everything you need to know about Nancy and her incredible resources. And I just thank you so much and you should thank yourself for being here on this episode today and listening because it is a game changer, friends.
Okay, go out, tackle 2020 and I’ll meet you here next week, same time, with another episode of The Design You Podcast. Bye for now.
Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of The Design You Podcast. And if you’d like even more support for designing a business and a life that you love then check out my exclusively monthly coaching program, Design You at TobiFairley.com.
