 and we're live. Thank you guys so much for joining me here today. I am so excited about today's session because as long as I've been in business, there's been a need for boundaries. What? Boundaries? I know what you're thinking. You got it all figured out, right? No, we don't. We all struggle with this every single day. So I'm really excited and we've got a special guest here with us today. She's been a psychotherapist for 20 years and she's worked with thousands of families, but her specialty is she's a high-performance business coach. I know. So she's going to sit here and she's going to take everything that we know and she's going to give us all the reasons why we can tweak it just a little bit, make our lives even better than it is right now. Now one of the things that caught my attention about Amy is that she says, strike the word balance from your vocabulary and replace it with the word boundaries. Oh, yes, I am so excited. All right, you guys are required for a real treat. Please help me welcome Amy Worthy. Thank you. Amy, how are you today? I am wonderful. I am so happy to be here to talk about my absolute favorite topic. Well, I love that this is your favorite topic, but I got a question because I've never met in my entire life somebody that woke up and said, I'm going to grow up and I'm going to become boundaries expert. It just doesn't really happen. And yet here you are. And yet here I am. Here you are. So tell us how did you come about this? Tell us about that. Well, a lot of difficult experiences, a lot of needing to practice boundaries. You know, you and I were talking for a few minutes before we went live and you said something about boundaries being a survival skill. And for me, boundaries was absolutely and still is a survival skill. So I've been a therapist for 20 years and a coach for 20 years and boundaries is something that my clients are continually struggling with. And again, like I said, something I've struggled with and I've had to really practice. I used to really struggle with setting boundaries and I still do. It's not easy. It's never easy. But I had to do a lot of work on myself and personal work. And then again, working with clients for 20 years, this is how I became a boundaries expert. And it is life changing. When you have healthy boundaries and you can get comfortable setting boundaries, it's absolutely life changing. Your life becomes so much more free and joyful and really easier. Okay, so let's go back for just a second. And for those people that are not quite sure of what boundaries are, give us the rundown on what exactly boundaries are. That's a really good thing to cover. I actually did a little survey of some family members one time and I said, when I say boundaries, what do you think I mean? And they had no answer. And I find that that's actually pretty common. So it's a real big buzzword right now. We hear about boundaries a lot. But what are boundaries exactly? So I'm going to give you first the most simple definition. I don't know if anybody watching Angela or if you know Bernay Brown, the great Bernay Brown, but she has a very simple definition for boundaries, which is simply what's okay and what's not okay. It's just that simple. What's okay with you and what's not okay with you. I often go with just a little bit further and say boundaries are the clear lines and limits that you have for yourself internally and for other people, for your business, the clear lines and limits. And then when we're talking about inner personally, right, between me and you, it's the space between the space between me and another person. That's where boundaries are. So my question is then, how do we know what's okay? You say what's okay with you, how do you know? Because sometimes we don't realize we need boundaries until we get in the middle of a situation where we're like, whoa, that's not okay. Yes, yes, exactly. And that sometimes that's how we know. Sometimes we don't know that we have a boundary about something until it's been crossed. And then it's our responsibility to actually name that boundary and get clear about it. So probably right now there's lots of boundaries you could name, right, that you have as a business owner, as a parent, as a family member, whatever the roles are in your life, there's some really explicit boundaries that you have. But the way that we learn what our boundaries are is through experience is through being in the world and having things happen. That's how we get it. And that starts really from a childhood, figuring that out. Well, and I know as a high performance coach, you work with a lot of business owners. And so this was one of my interests today because we have a lot of business owners that are in the cleaning industry. And they go to customers homes. And when they get to the customers homes, they have a certain way they run their business. But the homeowner does not know how the business owner runs their business. So they don't know what the boundaries are. And we find a lot of homeowners that are pushing boundaries just to kind of find out where those limits are. And so how do you set the boundaries from the beginning, so that you're not constantly fighting with the clients that are pushing boundaries, just because they don't know where the boundaries are? Oh, such a good question. Well, like you just said, setting up boundaries from the very beginning is the best time to set up boundaries. So whatever your policies and procedures are, making sure you go over those really clearly. And this is what we do. I have two businesses. I have a private practices therapist and I'm also a business coach with Next Level Wealth. We always go over what the boundaries are very explicitly in writing and we have people sign that. So you can always refer back to that. That's the beauty of it. And then as time goes on, there may be situations that happen that you didn't realize was a boundary and that you might need to add into your contract or into whatever you show people. And then you have to address that more in the moment. But if you just a friend of mine says, I love this expression, you better start out like you could hold out. Okay, because it's all right, because it's so much harder to go later and re and we can talk about that too, about how you go back and reinforce boundaries when you've been lax. But oh, it's so much harder. So the best thing you can do is start out like you can hold out think about what is going to be okay with you now and in the future. And just go ahead do it that way. So if that's true, start out like you can hold out. If my end goal is to have boundaries with my cleaning clients, then in order to start out like I'm going to hold out, I've got to start out with my employees so that my employees are reinforcing those boundaries that our company has. That's exactly right. If you have employees, it's so important that they have bought into the boundaries and that they've bought into your culture, whatever culture you're creating in your business. And so that sounds like it goes back even one step. Whereas a business owner, you have to be crystal clear about what your boundaries are in order for you to be able to teach your employees and then for them to be able to reinforce those with the clients. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And usually, this is my assumption, usually by the time you hire employees, you've been doing this for a while or you've done it before. So you know a lot about what your own boundaries are and what boundaries you want to have for your business and with your clients. So it's your job to coach and mentor your own employees about those boundaries and what your expectations are and then to hold them to that. It starts with you as the business owner. You have to set the tone and you have to keep reinforcing that over and over again. So I don't know where you were when I started my business, but I did it all backwards. Most of us do. I did too with my first business, by the way. Did you? I did everything by trial and error and I just started the cleaning business, not knowing anything about business. And as people would walk all over me and they would take advantage of me, then I'm like, I don't think that's okay. And I don't know what the answer is, but I'd go home really angry and I would feel jilted or taken advantage of or maybe verbally abused or something. And then I was like, I don't like the way I feel right now and I don't want it to happen again. There need to be boundaries. And so if you find yourself in that situation, how do you know what the appropriate boundaries are to create when maybe you don't have any training or background in boundaries? Sure. Yeah. Well, I mean, just like you were saying, the first sign that a boundary has been crossed is that sort of icky feeling you have, right? Where you start to feel anxious about going to this client's house or talking to this client, where you start to feel even scared sometimes. There may not even be anything to be scared of, but it's a reaction we have when our boundaries are being crossed. You start to feel angry, you start to feel resentful. When that's happening, you can rest assured you've got some kind of boundary being crossed and you need to take a step back and really sit with that. What is happening when I talk to this person? What is what is actually happening when I show up at their house? And then notice what happens when you think about that, right? Just and you really have to take some deep breaths and really sit with that because it's confusing. Sometimes we get triggered, right? We get we have these big emotional reactions. So take some deep breaths, ground yourself in what you know to be true about you and about what you're doing and then really go through that timeline with that client, what's happening when you talk to them and when you clean for them. And notice what happens internally inside of yourself when you think about that. That's going to give you a pretty big clue about what the boundary needs to be. Well, I want to stop for just a second and say hi to everybody that's joined us today. Thank you so much. We have the broken road saying hello. We have Christie saying hi. Good afternoon. I'm so happy to catch you live. Hi, guys. If you have questions, this is the time to ask them. So if you have any boundaries questions, we've got the expert on with us today. If you found yourself in business and you found yourself up against maybe some difficult customers, don't hold out. Today is the day that we want to get those questions answered for you. And we have to Kitty Cross saying hello. Hi, guys. This is so exciting that you're joining us today. So I'm curious besides doing an energy check, when you decide you're going to create boundaries, all right, let's say that, all right, I've decided now, I'm going to create my boundaries. I'm going to do this. It's really easy to say it and not to enforce it. How do I actually enforce it? Because when I get to my customer's house, what if I don't know the right words to say or what if I kind of self doubt myself and I'm not sure if I can follow through on the boundaries I want to create? How do I go about doing that? I'm going to say something that might sound, was going to be very direct. Okay. And this is the way I would say it to my business coaching clients. You got to get over it, first of all. You have to commit to your boundaries or you will burn out as a business owner. I've seen it happen so many times. It happened to me. It happened to me in my first business. So the first thing I would say is you need some support and you need, I'm going to talk to you about that, but you have to commit to getting past that. In other words, you have to commit to being uncomfortable. It's not going to be comfortable and you will never feel ready. So that you can't really, you can't be a business owner and have a healthy life and have a healthy business if you're not willing to set boundaries. So just get ready to get uncomfortable. That's the first thing. And so you have to build up your tolerance for that and you have to practice and you have to really be willing to do that. If not, people are just going to run over your boundaries all the time. Listen, humans are lovely. Many humans are lovely. Some are not so lovely. Oftentimes people will consciously or unconsciously attempt to push past your boundaries to get, to see what they can get. That is, that's what humans will do. So you have to find the employees do that. Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes. Absolutely. Employees will do that. Humans do that, right? They see, and I'm not, again, humans are lovely and we all have our issues, right? And so people will try to figure out what they can, what they can get away with and what they can get. And so you've got to know that as a business owner and you have to commit to yourself and to other people, I will hold my boundaries. That's a conversation to have with an employee and with a client from the very beginning, from the very beginning. These are my boundaries. And yes, you got to figure out what those are. And those will shift and change over time. But start out with the expectation that there are boundaries. Okay. When I started my business, I was determined to set boundaries and didn't know how to do it. And I was uncomfortable. And I found that when I would try to enforce boundaries with a customer or a client, they would say, well, but I'm different, right? That applies to everyone else. But I'm different. I'm special. I'm special. And I made, I made accommodations for the longest time, like, okay, well, I'll make an exception for this one client, because they are special and they were with me from the beginning. And I, I justified all these reasons for not keeping to the boundaries. And I found that, like you said, every time I would go to the customer's house, I started liking them less and less and respecting myself less and less, because I didn't follow through my boundaries with that person. And the thing that really caught my attention, and this is as I advanced my career and I started getting smarter and less tolerant over the years, is I realized that for every accommodation I was making, it was raising my stress level up. Yes, yes, yes. That's right. That's exactly right. And so, at what point do you say, okay, this is, I know you said set them from the beginning, but at what point do you start enforcing them and saying no accommodations? Yeah, that is such a good question. And I, you know, similarly, when I started my first business, I took on some client, I don't know if anybody listening this can identify with this, but I was scared to start my own business. I was scared I wouldn't make the money. I was scared I wouldn't survive. And so I took on clients that really, I knew in the back of my head, I thought this is probably not a good idea. And I did it. And then it ended up biting me later, right? And so it can be hard, especially in the beginning when you don't have a wait list, right? When you don't have everybody trying to contact you, and you're, you're scared about the money to enforce these boundaries. But what I learned, and I think what you learn to is that you really have to commit to doing that up front if you can. I know it's hard, but that's super important. And now I've totally lost the plot of what you were asking me because I wanted to share that about my business. No, I'm glad you did because I found myself in a situation in my business where I discovered I can't stay in business if I keep doing the accommodations. I can't stay in business. It's not negotiable anymore. And so I got all my customers together one by one. And I said, no more accommodations. I've gone as far as I could doing the, you know, your special kind of thing, but no more. I can't run a business that way. It's not working out for me. So either I go out of business, or I have to kind of like back up and take back those words, right? Then I sat all my employees down and I said, okay, today you either leave the company or you, you tread lightly as we transition over into a no accommodations policy. For me it was little things, but like at the end of every week for my employees and my independent contractors, I would write them a paycheck on the last day of the week instead of saying we have payday on Sunday or something. And then that's the same day for everybody, whether you work half a week or a full week or whatever. But I was trying to write checks this back in the days when we wrote checks. I was trying to write checks like multiple times a week sitting down trying to do partial bookkeeping all throughout the week. And it was killing my time, my time and my schedule. And then it was making me mad and people would surprise me and say, oh, today's my last day of the week. Can I get paid today? And it would be easier if you just waited till the end of the week and I wrote checks all at once. And finally I just said no more. It's going to be Sunday at 6 p.m. That's it. No more. No advanced loans, no early money, no accommodations. We're not doing that anymore. And we did have two people that left. They were like, ah, I don't like this. Okay, see you. Bye. Okay. Yeah. And I had to literally restructure my business because I was literally going insane. I was like, I can't keep doing this. Yep. Gosh, that makes so much sense. So that's right. What we're talking about, when do you let someone go? I think it's part of the question, right? When do you say no more? So as a business owner, you have to be willing to fire people and you have to be willing to let people quit, whether that's a client or whether that's an employee. Because like you said, every single accommodation you make, every single time you treat someone as special, it adds stress to your life. So then you find yourself inefficient, disorganized, stressed out, resentful, trying to do a million things at once. And then you forget what accommodations you've made for this person and then this person. And it gets so confusing. So have fair and decent policies and boundaries from the beginning. Like what you just described to me, it's completely fair. This is when we do payroll, this is when we do paychecks, this is what it is. That's completely fair, right? Well, I discovered that hiring was driving me crazy because I traditionally, and I don't know if this is just a house cleaning business. I'm speaking for on behalf of house cleaners everywhere, but we tend to be people pleasers. And so we are naturally, we go into people's houses and people are like, man, my life is falling apart. We're like, I can help you. I know what to do. I look around and I see what needs to be done. I can make your life better. People are like, oh, great. Can you do this? We're like, yes. And they're like, can you do this? We're like, yes. We just, we promised the sun, the stars and the moon, right? And then we jump through these just irrational hoops to try to make it happen for these people. And at what cost? Yes. It would be easier to say, man, I wish I could do that and I can't. That's not what we're bidding on right now. And that's not in our scope of work, or we can do it, but that will be extra money. Yes. Yes. And so there came a time where I said, okay, from now on, my boundary is a checklist. Everything that we do is on this checklist. And if you want something else that's not on the checklist, it costs more money. And my go-to was if it's not on the checklist, it costs more money. You're going to have to call the office. You're going to have to schedule extra time and extra money in order to make this happen. So yes, I can jump through those hoops and I will, but at a cost. I love it. Yes. So it's either, yeah, you determine that, right? Yeah. It's even no or it's yes and yes and I will, this will be because of the stress levels. The stress levels were so high that I didn't want to do this anymore unless we had some boundaries, right? Exactly. It wasn't worth it. It's not worth it. No amount of money is worth it. If you're going to burn out, be stressed out, have your family life suffer, have your life suffer. It's just not worth it, right? And so boundaries will save you every time. Boundaries will save your life. I know that sounds dramatic, but it's true. It will save you so much. And the thing, so the biggest thing people struggle with, I think, and you tell me your experience too, but the biggest thing people struggle with is they are, it's not about how to set boundaries. Although again, we can talk about that. I've got some steps. The truth is most of us know how to set the boundary. We do not know how to tolerate the discomfort. That's the thing we're avoiding. That's the thing that we do not want is the discomfort, the guilt, the anxiety, the wanting people to like us, being afraid someone's going to fire us. That's what we're avoiding when we avoid setting boundaries. A boundary is just a no, but the feeling that comes after the no, this is what we're really struggling with, right? So what's the answer? How do we fix that? Okay. Well, one of the, one of the answers you're not going to like. I don't know. Maybe people are not, are expecting this, but one of the answers is practice. Okay. So just like with any skill, this is a skill. Boundary setting is a skill. It's not, okay. If you, if you were trying to learn how to play tennis, you wouldn't take one lesson and then go enter a tournament. Okay. That's true. You know, you want to become pro level at this. You've got to practice. You have got to practice and you can start with lower risk situations. That's a great way to start. So, you know, saying no to something that it doesn't cost you a lot of emotional energy to say no to, that, that is maybe a little bit uncomfortable, but you, you know, you can handle it. So you want to build up a tolerance for that discomfort. The more you practice, the better you're going to get at it. But I will tell you, don't ever start to think it'll be easy. It's not, it's not easy. I've been practicing this and coaching people on this for 20 years and it's not easy. So another mistake people make is waiting until they think they've got it. I'm going to practice in the mirror or I'm going to wait until I feel ready and then I'm going to do it and then I'm going to do it. You will never do it. Just push yourself to practice. Well, I've discovered for me, and this is just me personally, but I've discovered for me, the easiest time to set boundaries is when I don't have an emotional connection. Yes. So if I first meet somebody, we're not bestie friends yet, right? We haven't built an enormous emotional connection yet. That's right. So it's much easier for me to say, hey, these are the boundaries right up front. So there are no surprises later on, take it or leave it. And then if they leave it, well, I don't have a lot invested in that relationship. But it's like years down the road when they're like your best friend or they're your sibling or your cousin or your best client or whatever, then you're like, now I have to do something uncomfortable and re-establish the whole relationship. So right now, one of the boundaries like in the ads that I do right now, true story, when I'm making an ad to hire new employees. I've done this for the last 15, 20 years. No drama. We are in no drama workplace. So if you're a little drama addict and a little drama queen and you get all theatrical and whatever you're going to be gossipy, you're going to be causing drama. No, no, this is not the business for you. Do not come our way. We do not like drama. We are boring people and we celebrate boring. Yes, I love boring. And so when people come over literally in the job interview, I say, I just wanted to remind you, we are a no drama workplace. So if you duke it out with another co-worker or whatever, the two of you are going to go outside and fight it out between yourselves. And if only one of you comes back, I don't care which one of you it is, but not both of you are coming back and you're not going to be at odds with each other. And if you're having sensitivities, just declare it. Hey, I'm having sensitivities today and we will walk on egg shells around you. And that's fine. If you have a bad day, everybody has bad days, but don't take it out on everyone else here. We do not deserve that. We will not tolerate it. Is that clear? They're like, yes, that's clear. Okay, then they can have the job, but from day one, this is a no drama workplace. What's cool is all the employees on the team are like, I'm having a bad day and it's not welcome here. And so they don't bring it here. And then they reinforce that with each other. Oh, you're having a bad day. That's not okay here. And so they don't fight with each other and they don't gossip and there's no backstabbing because we do not allow it. And it's very clear we do not allow it. And so then everybody kind of like clues each other in like, not allowed, not allowed. And I love it because I don't have to be the bad guy, right? I love that. So this is the company culture that you've set up. And that's a big thing we talked to our clients about too when they're business owners. What do you want your culture to look like? What are your values? So I love that. I mean, that's one of ours too. No drama. The expectation is you communicate. You get to have a hard time. Things happen in life, but you're not going to bring it to work in the way that you are mistreating other people or acting inappropriately. Like you said, if you're feeling sensitive or you're feeling a little vulnerable, name that. Say that. And we're going to figure out how we can support you in that. And also this is still a job. This is still your workplace and you have to show it professionally, right? So setting that expectation. I give everybody three days. Everybody gets three days in my company. And I tell them this from day one. This is during the job interview when I don't have any emotional connection to them yet. I don't know how they respond when they're angry or frustrated or stressed out or having family problems or any of those things. But I do know this as house cleaners. They're probably a couple of days a month when you're not going to be at your best. It's either biorethmic or it's a monthly cycle or whatever it is. But you're just, you're going to have PMOS or a bad day or something. I give you three bad days a month, three. But I want you to take the whole entire day. Don't be taking two hours here and an hour here and 10 minutes here. Don't be miserable in little bits. Take the whole day and just say, whoa, I'm having one of those days. And then we'll be nice to you that day. And then just kind of will isolate you, work by yourself, keep to yourself, eat your own lunch privately. Don't mess with us. We won't mess with you. But then on the other days, show back up again and be the best version of yourself. And don't be breaking it up into little bite-sized pieces because then I will go crazy. And you don't want me crazy. I believe that. So those are my weird boundaries and people are like, okay. And I've literally had texts at six o'clock in the morning that said, I'm having sensitivities today. I am not coming in. And I'm like, I got it. I understand. I understand what that means. Mmm. I love that. And this is something I hope everyone's listening to and really paying attention to because it's not you saying you don't get to have a bad day. It's you having boundaries. Life is not all balanced all the time. I don't even like that word. I can't stand the word balanced. They're going to be off days. So what do you need on those days? And here's what I as an employer am willing to give you to support you. And this is what I can offer. So boundaries aren't just no. It's the yeses. Here's what I'm not going to do and what I'm not going to tolerate. But here's what I am going to do. This is also a boundary. I'm willing to do these things for you. We have a couple of questions that came in. And I want to ask these questions because we have a couple of house cleaners that are struggling with particular boundary issues. And I think they merit bringing up. Someone says, boy, do I need this one. I have lonely older clients that won't stop talking after I repeatedly say I have to go. How can I stop this? And that's so true where we have a particular demographic that they don't get out as much. And they're not as social. And then someone comes to their house and they feel like, oh, someone showed up. And they do the chitty chat the whole time. Absolutely. That is tough. I bet that happens a lot. So when I hear this question, here's what I think about. I think about actually some of my own clients that maybe have a tendency to have bigger needs than others and maybe tend to run over or want to take up more time. And so something that I make sure to say is very clearly, I only have three minutes just so you know, I have three minutes and I would love to talk to you for those three minutes. Now, if you don't have any time, it's just you don't have any time, but I only have five minutes and then I got to go to the next appointment. And then if they continue to talk past that five minutes, you look at your watch or you look at your phone and you say, I'm so sorry, I've got to go. If I don't go right now, I'm going to be late to that appointment. I can't wait to see you next week though. And then you just leave. By the way, whether you have another appointment or not, it's fine. These are ways that we can exit out of a situation because I'm betting most of the people that are watching this and have these kinds of clients, they care about these clients. You develop relationships with your clients over time. So you name your limit and then you name the limit again when they run over it and you just walk out. I have literally walked out of an appointment or a call or hung up on a call while a person's still talking because I had to. I really had to go. So it's okay to do that. It's not being unkind as long as they know what the boundary is. In house cleaning because this is an ongoing issue where someone next time will say, well, maybe you'll have more time next time. And so we do a couple of things to support what you just said where as a business owner, you only have 168 hours in a week. That's all you've got. You don't get any more no matter how successful you are. That's all you get. And so if you have a certain allotted time for business at the end of whatever that particular session is, you're done. And so the appointment that you have your next appointment, even if it's not another customer, it's you doing your own social media at home or doing your accounting or whatever it is you have to do next for your business. So that is an appointment for yourself that needs to be on your calendar and you need to exit out quickly. And so from the very beginning, from the very first walkthrough, when we show up at a customer's house, we have, I think three minutes is very generous, but we have a 60 second rule. And we announce it on the walkthrough. And I say, listen, every time today we chitty chatted for a while, we got to know each other, we walked through your home, we looked at your priorities. But every time I come from here on out, it's 60 seconds. I'm going to get inside your house, I'm going to put my shoe covers on, I'm going to put my gloves on. I'm going to say hi to your dog and hi to you. And then I'm going to work because I'm on the clock. And you are my boss and you are paying me. And so to be respectful of your time, 60 seconds. And then I'm out the door. So 60 seconds at the beginning and the end of the job. And I'm out. So let's make sure that we both keep to that. That way I'm not interrupting you because you work from home. You're not interrupting me because I work out of your home now while I'm here. And people will go, Oh yeah, that's great. Then every time we get there, like, Hey, in 60 seconds or less, how are you doing? And we remind them, right? Oh, yes. On the clock, I'm paying you by the hour, by the job or whatever. And it's again, we have not established the relationship. Because for me, and I don't know why, but if you're my best friend, I don't want to make those kind of like talking to me for 60 seconds. You know, but if I don't know you, I have no problem saying that. Sure. Well, there's less risk. It's not, you know, it's not an emotionally connected relationship. Certainly not yet. And it will ever be the way it is with your best friend. So that's beautiful. I mean, so much of what we're saying here is start out like you can hold out. You got, you set it up from the very beginning because it's so much easier to do it that way than to do it later. So that I love that rule. 60 seconds in the beginning, 60 at the end. That's, that's what we've got because, you know, and giving in another way to put it is, like you just said, I want to give you the best possible level of service. And this is the time I have. So I don't want to not be able to clean something because you and I got distracted in the conversation. Right. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. I will say one thing about the elder customers because I found this to be true. A lot of them are in fact lonely. Yes. And for the ones that I felt particularly close to, I will ask them this, I would really love to chat with you because you're of a certain age with a world of experience that I don't have. And I will never, I will, there will always be a generation gap between us. And so I would love to take you out for a cup of coffee when we can just sit and chat and we're not doing this around a mop and a broom and whatever. Would that be okay? And there are a couple of clients I've had over the years, not many, but a couple where we've actually met for lunch once a month. And we've just enjoyed each other's company because we, we wanted to, and I kind of adopted them like my grandparents, you know, like, hey, my grandparents have passed, but these people are willing to kind of like, you know, hang out with me for a bit. And so then it was separate, but then it wasn't on the clock and they didn't feel like, oh, am I being billed for this hour? And it didn't get weird, right? It keeps it clean. It keeps it clean, so to speak. I just realized that was a pun, but yeah. But then my, my boundary for that was when we are at lunch, we do not talk about house clean. Right. We've exited that because this is not a business relationship right now. Right now we're friends at lunch and that's different. And so, and I have, yeah, that's right. That makes sense. So then the next boundary, and this is the next question, because Christy says she has problems setting boundaries and she's used to being taken advantage of. And you guys, I appreciate you, you jumping in here and adding your comments because this is something we all struggle with. And like Amy said, it happens at every phase of your business. Right? This is not something that only happens as you're getting started. This is, this happens at every phase of business. We have one here that says the difficulties come from expectations between a regular clean versus a spring clean versus a vacation clean. I do explain the differences, but they always expect me to do more. And they did add more to this comment. And the more to the comment was a customer will try to negotiate saying, if you didn't clean this room today, can you clean this other room instead when it's not on the list? And it hasn't been bid as part of the job. Or they'll say, we didn't use this part of the room, can we deduct some from the bill? How do you maintain boundaries when people keep trying to change where the boundary lies? Okay, well, I have two thoughts to that. And one of them is something that you actually do and have done in your business. And I love it, which is to have a checklist that you go over. So have everything in writing. That's the first step to me is have everything in writing and ideally have them sign off on it so that then you can say, I hear you and this is our policy. Right? So the second thing I'm going to say is a technique I like to use a lot with people who try to get around things and try to negotiate and try to say, well, what about this? Well, what about this? So I call this the broken record technique. I'm just going to repeat myself and say the same thing over and over again until they get tired of pushing. Right? So whatever they come at you with, you're going to have a line that you say. And it'll be something like, as we went over when we met and the document that you signed, this is what we do. Right? I hear you. As we went over when we met, this is the document that you signed and this is what we do. Right? And so you just keep saying the same because if you get caught up in being defensive and defending yourself and answering every question they have, you will get so confused and potentially angry. And you just, you won't know which way is up anymore. It gets so confusing. So just keep repeating the same thing over and over again. So that's the broken record technique for those kinds of clients. I think it's really useful to do that. I love that. And is there anybody you can't use it on? I don't know. That's a good question. I don't think so. I think it's just particularly helpful if we think about who it's most helpful for. It's most helpful for people that are really pushy around boundaries that try to get whatever they can out of you and run over your boundaries. That's a really great technique to use. It's just to say the same thing over and over again. And then if they continue to not get it, let's remember, as a business owner, you have to be willing to let people go. So someone who continually pushes boundaries, that's not a client I want to have. And at this point in my career, it's not clients that I have. I do not have those clients. And like I said, when I first, when I started my first business 20 years ago, I tried to keep those clients and tried to accommodate and was worried about money and them firing me. And granted, I didn't have a lot of money. That was a legitimate concern. But now at this point, I can look back and say, gosh, there's some ways I would have done that differently. I really would have done that differently. Like I said, no amount of money is worth really potentially abusive clients. I mean, I'm sure you can identify with that and some folks on here. There are people that can get a little bit scary that you work with. And you got to find a way to get out of that. I found for me personally, when I and you mentioned it earlier, doing an energy check, when you're in the middle of a situation, how am I feeling right now? And I don't like being in a situation where I feel that I'm not in control, or they don't feel that it's a fair deal, or I do feel like I'm being taken advantage of where I'm willing to give. But because I'm willing to give, they're just willing to take, take, take, take. And then I feel like this is a really uneven exchange. And it's not like, what do I get out of it? But it's kind of like, what is the reward for just keep giving? I do feel taken advantage of. Of course. Right. Right. And you are being taken advantage of. And the other truth with that is that, and this is the self responsibility part of boundaries, you do have to check in with yourself and say, what's my part? And I know you know this number one thing that is our part is that we have not explicitly stated boundaries. So some, you know, so that that's often what I see come up, right? Is that we have been afraid to set the boundary and then we end up being resentful or reset the boundary one time. And we think that should do it, right? Hardly ever. We have to do it, right? We have to do it over and over again. Again and again. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. I know that because I am a business owner, I know that some of the boundaries I had to set early on, we talk about start out like you're going to hold out. I love that. I love that. Every day for the rest of my life. I have to credit my friend for that. I wish I'd come up with it, but it's so good, right? I took my husband aside and I said, as I'm in business for myself, you have a lot of say in what happens. And so I want to set a boundary right now up front that if I ever have to make a decision between us or my business, I will always choose us first. And so my boundary was I choose us. And I said, please don't ever let me forget that. And it's interesting because there are nights, I hate to confess this. And if you guys are watching, don't repeat this, but there are nights I kind of work past quitting time. And it's like nine o'clock at night, my husband pops in the door and is like, are you going to eat dinner tonight? Are you going to make me any dinner? Or are you going to wrap it up for the night? Are we going to connect it all tonight? Or are you just going to work all night? And I'm like, Oh, no, I want a deadline. I got to keep doing this. You know, and he's like, is this where you decide between the business and us? And he reminds me of those boundaries. I'm like, whoa, wait a second. I did, I did say it was us if I ever had to make a choice. And right now you're asking me to come clean on that you're asking me right now to make a choice. And I will always drop what I'm doing. And I will like, yes, wait, I did make that choice. So my question for you is at what point do you have somebody hold you accountable for the boundaries that you've set? I think at any point, frankly, accountability is so very important. In both of my businesses, I have my identified people who hold me accountable and who know what to look for for me. I also have a family too. And I have a young kid and there's some inherent boundaries there. So it's it's not about and I think this can get a little bit confusing because the situation you just scrapped with your husband was so perfect. It's not about control. It's not about someone's trying to control what you do and make you stop what you're doing. It's an expectation that you've set within the relationship. And then what you're asking for in that relationship is accountability and a conversation about that. And it sounds to me like your husband isn't calling that card in unless it's really necessary, right? Unless he's really seeing. So you want accountability from people that you trust the people that you trust the most and who are invested in you. So get get accountability going right away for anyone who's a business owner. And there's probably other people I'm betting that you that hold you accountable in your business that work with you. And that say, I see you doing that thing. We want those people in our lives. Accountability is super important. I'm a big fan of it, obviously. That's part of what coaching is. This is what I do as a coach too. Well, I know that I've hired a director of operations for my business for that very reason. Because if I'm in a meeting and I start to explain something that maybe is not today's priority. To me, it's perfectly like you got to know what I'm talking about right now. She'll call me on the carpet and say we do need to know that, but we don't need to know it today. And I'm like, I love it. We want those people on our team, right? But I do think having an accountability partner is super important, especially if you work alone. Because it's so hard to say I've been I've been making all these accommodations for other people because like you said earlier, we need the money. We don't want the account to go away. We don't want those people to not like us. We don't want them to make their business elsewhere. And so we do what we think we have to do in order to keep the account. And as people, users, we fall short so many times because we're afraid people are not going to like us if we are not tough. That's right. At the very least, we think we're worried they're not going to like us. At the worst, we think, oh, we're going to be fired and we lose the money, right? So both of those things are big factors. And you and I both are in the helping business. And all the folks listening right now probably, right? Because cleaning houses is it's we got into this for a reason and we want to help people and we want to support people. And it's okay to have boundaries and to want to be paid well and to make good money with what we do. That's also okay, more than okay. It should be an expectation, right? So you've helped families, thousands of families with these very issues. So share with me. Has anything really bad ever happened to somebody just in your experience where somebody set boundaries and then they held firm to them and then like everything I could put on them? Oh, that's a really good question. You know, in my work, especially in the past, I worked with a lot of folks that had serious mental health issues and there might have been domestic violence involved in that kind of thing. So one thing I want to name is that on the extreme end, one reason why we might not set boundaries is because we're literally afraid and for good reason. So I just want to say that too, that we might be really afraid and for good reason. Usually the worst case scenario with setting a boundary is that someone calls you on that and runs right over it. This is where consequences come into play. It does no good to set boundaries if you don't have clear consequences for the boundaries. So I see people do that a lot where they set a boundary and then they say what the consequence is and then they don't follow through with the consequence. But the consequence has to be something you can really live with and commit to. So that's a hard thing to happen. I mean, again, at the extreme end, let's say it's a relationship, not just with a client, but maybe with with the spouse or with someone that you really love and you're saying, if you keep doing this, I will not stay in this relationship and it will devastate me and I don't want it to be like this, but I won't stay. That's a devastating consequence, but you don't want to name that unless you really mean it, unless it's that important. So that's a hard thing that can happen. But yes, I have definitely worked with people who had really terrible consequences, you know, and we knew that might happen if they set this particular boundary with someone. We knew that that person might try to do some pretty harmful things. So it has to be worth it. It has to be really worth it. And do we stop at that point realizing there could be a difficult consequence that you may have to enforce? And you say, but I'm willing to do that because I deserve to be treated with respect. And as a human, you deserve to have somebody follow through on these boundaries just so that you don't run wild with everybody that that you're dealing with. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean that self-worth is, you know, I have these four pillars of boundaries that I coach people on and the very first one and the most essential one is self-worth. Are you worth it? Do you feel worth it? Do you feel like having this boundary will give you something so big that's so important to your self-worth that you can enforce the boundary, right? So one example, so as far as business owners, right, I'll give you a quick example of this and around self-worth is I have a business owner that I work with who had a pretty difficult negative situation with an employee who was very well connected in the community. So her fear was if I fire this person, the person was toxic, toxic to have as an employee, right? Her fear was if I fire this person, they're going to talk about me. They're going to make my name mud in the community. They're going to say terrible things about me. And what I said to her is you're probably right. So you have a choice to make. Is it worth it to keep her on and to be held emotionally hostage? Or is it worth it to deal with the aftermath, which will also be hard, right? So one of the things about setting boundaries is that we're often feeling like we're in between two impossible situations. There's no graceful way to out. There's no great way to do it. There's no way where everybody wins. That's the nature of it. So you have to decide what's more important because there might be negative consequences that you have to deal with. Is it worth it, right? Am I worth it? I remember one time and to this day, I will never forgive myself for what happened, but I kept an employee about a year too long because they were doing a lot of things right, but they were doing more things wrong than they were doing right. And they were costing the company a lot of money and causing a lot of stress. And I remember one day I was out jogging and I asked myself, how much would I pay to make this problem go away? And I realized I would be willing to pay their salary twice. And then I said, then why am I paying their salary once to keep them if I would be willing to pay it twice to make them go away? It was just this weird epiphany that I was like, why are they still here? And I literally went home from that jogging experience when I fired them that day. I said, you know, we're not doing this and this is not worth the stress. That is so good. That is such a good example. Yes, right there. Right. I'm willing to pay a ton of money to not deal with this problem. So what am I doing? Right. Right. And I think self-worth is huge. Speaking of self-worth, we had another question that came in and this was a tricky one because we have a husband and a wife team who are cleaners and they said, we have a very promiscuous customer that follows my wife around making suggestive and inappropriate lewd comments and his wife is at home. So the homeowner is at home with his wife and the homeowner is heading on the cleaning wife and making lewd suggestive comments. They're really uncomfortable and they don't want to go back. What would you recommend as far as creating and setting boundaries for this particular situation and then for their business moving forward so they don't find themselves in that situation again? I don't know if this is true, but I hope it's a rare situation. So the first thing I want to say is that this is abusive. I just want to be really clear about that. So my initial, very initial gut reaction is do not work with these people. Just let them go. Don't put your wife in this situation to be sexually harassed is what sounds like it's going on. So is this a situation where sure, could you have a conversation with them and say this is inappropriate, we won't tolerate this behavior? You absolutely could, but you also have to ask yourself the question, do I want to work with someone who would even do this? Do I want to work with someone who would make these comments towards my wife and then in front of their own wife? Are these people I want to have in my life in any way? And if the answer is no, then you let them go. It doesn't matter. Even if they responded well to the boundary and stopped, you have to ask yourself, do I want these kinds of people in my life? So that's kind of my initial reaction because that's a pretty serious to me, a pretty serious situation. But I'm curious what your thoughts are about that too. Well, it is a tough situation and it has occurred multiple times. This is not the first time I've ever heard this. The very first thing that I like to do, and it goes back to what you said earlier, make the boundaries like you can hold out, start out like you can hold out. But in the very beginning, and I kid you not, we used to advertise on Craigslist and in our ad, we are advertising cleaning services and we added in our ad no sexual favors because Craigslist was notorious for a different type of house cleaning where a house cleaner would come and they might be a little bit more loose and open with their blouses or their work styles or whatever and maybe short shorty. Yeah, and there are people that advertise that and that's what they do and that's their choice. But for a legitimate type of cleaning business where we're literally coming in to clean and that is our only intention, we would be 100% clear in our ads that that is all you get. This is not an alternative service that offers more. Right from the very beginning, we were setting that expectation. And to me, I like to say it's a setting expectations. And to me, it's not necessarily a boundary as an expectation. I don't want you to be surprised if we literally come and all we're doing is vacuuming the floors and wiping windows and stuff. That's what we're here to do. That's the thing. Right, that's the actual service that you're paying for. We are cleaning. If you're paying for something else, there's probably somebody out there that's a little younger and a little better looking than we are. There you go. Go find them. And go find that. And that's fine. That's a personal choice, not what we do. So you set that up from the very beginning, right? Yeah, and there are a couple of times that we've had to say, and I will try to catch it early on. If there's a suggestive comment or a hint, and I feel like they're just pushing boundaries, I'll say, oh, wait a second, we don't do that here. And be very, very direct about, uh-uh, no way that is not acceptable here. Are we clear? Okay, yes, we're clear. Got it. Okay, great. Then we move on like nothing ever happened. And I have gone back again and again where people were like, I got the message loud and clear. But I also, in this particular situation, I also am 100% conscientious of how I present myself, because I want to send a message as well. And so when I show up, I always wear a colored shirt, and it always has one button. And it's not that I'm large-chested or anything, and it's not that I could undo the button and I could kind of like be leaning over anything, but I'm very clear about when I'm here. I am 100% professional, because when I leave, I want you to turn around to your friends and know exactly what you are recommending to your neighbors and your friends should you recommend me to them when I go to their house. I'm going to behave the exact same way. I'm going to address the exact same way, because that is how I want to present myself and how I want to be perceived. And I'm not suggesting that this couple is dressing inappropriately or they're being lewd in their behaviors or anything, but I'm saying there's a very clear message that you send. And if somebody even hints, hints at some suggestive or lewd behavior, oh, no way, we do not do that. Are we clear? And get a commitment back from them. We are clear. This is not ever going to happen again. Are we clear? And if they're not clear and they're like, oh, come on, you know, I'm just having fun on the way, then don't come back. That's right. This is not the business deal for me. Yeah. I like what you're saying because you're saying, you know, you want to address this from the very beginning. And then at the very first slip of that, if it happens, you address it in the moment, you address it right away. And then you really want to pay attention to how they respond. If they get defensive or angry, that's a no. If they try to joke with you and make it okay and do it again, that's a no. So, you know, you need to know that to me that there are certain, you know, boundaries can be somewhat flexible. We have different boundaries with different people. We have different boundaries with different clients even. So you have to figure out what's okay and not okay with you. Some things for me personally are an immediate absolute no from the get-go. Other people might be willing to have a conversation with that person and see what happens, right? So you want to really get as clear as you can about that and then address it right away. The problem, and I don't know about this situation that they wrote in about, I'm not sure how long, if it's been multiple times, what you run into, if you let things go on for a while and there's multiple instances of it, right? Then you get into the situation where it looks as though you have given some kind of implicit consent. This is not blaming the cleaners at all, but it's basically, like we've been talking about, and some people have commented about, some people will try to see what they can get away with and they will push and they will push. And if you don't say no, they're taking that as consent. So that is a problem. Yes, I see a comment right there, you teach people how to treat you, you sure do. You have to teach them that, right? And you want to pay attention to how they respond when you have that teaching moment and then have to accordingly. It's not just the situation we're talking about, but I see this also happen frequently with employees where one of them will show up late and then the next week they show up late again maybe you didn't say anything the first time or two, but there comes a time when you have to actually sit down and have a conversation with them or write them up and say, hey, this is not cool because it's not fair to everyone else on the team. You keep showing up just a few minutes late and a few minutes late. I've tried to let it slide, but you keep taking advantage of that. So it is not cool starting from today on, you do get written up for every time that you're late. Is that clear? And I always ask, is that clear? Because I'm really intimidating. My eyes are really big and I'm scary. When I asked that, are we clear? And just in a very direct, like my voice ends, like it's not a question. Like it's not, are we, are we clear? You know, it's, are we clear? Yeah, you're not apologetic. You're not saying, is that okay? We are clear. Are you feel about that? You're saying, no, are we clear? Do you hear what I'm saying? You know, and that makes me think too, and something I'll do with people sometimes is I'll say, okay, now I want you to tell me what you heard me say. And I will actually have them repeat that back to me. So, because sometimes they'll say, they'll give their interpretation of it, and it'll give me this opportunity to go, that's interesting because that's actually not what I was saying. This is what I was saying, right? So that's another thing that you can do when you're trying to explain a boundary is, is have them actually tell, because you can say something as clearly as possible. And the way that it lands and the way that people interpret it, it's fascinating. What happens between me saying this and someone else hearing it, right? I think more than ever that became true when I started a YouTube channel, because people will make a comment like, well, you said this, and I'm like, I did? Let me check. It does not sound like anything I would say. How they interpreted it was different. I'm like, okay, there you go. What's interesting, and I have to ask this question. Do you think that people like you better or worse when you have boundaries? I think it depends on the person. I absolutely, it depends on the person and the relationship. Some people will not like you better if you have boundaries, but that's somebody I don't want to be in relationship with. What I think is more true across the board is around respect. People will respect you more if you have boundaries. Some people will like that and some people won't like it, right? I mean, I've had people end relationships with me over my boundaries, and that's fine. That's okay. I, I, I, I agree to that. I think that there are times that relationships have ended, and what you said a second ago about are those the kind of relationships you want to be in. I know that I have intentionally ended relationships because boundaries weren't met, and where I'm the one that ended the relationship. And I ended it, I ended it as it's my fault. And I remember telling someone one time, I'm not emotionally well enough to be in a relationship with you. Every time I'm around you, I get angry, and I don't like that about myself. And so I'm going to end this relationship because I think you're an amazing person, but not for me. See you, bye. And then I, I got out and I got so healthy after that. It was just amazing. Amazing. Why didn't I do that five years ago? You know? Because it's so hard. It's so hard. I have so much empathy for all of us trying to set boundaries. It's really hard work. Speaking of empathy, our time is up. It went so fast. So fast. I know. All right. So tell our listeners where they can go to find you, Amy, because this was absolute goal. This was so much fun. Oh, well, great. And I would love to come back. That would be so great. So the best place to find me is, so I hang out on Instagram a lot and my, my hand, I guess my handle, as they say, I'm not up with all that lingo, but Amy in Worthy, in as in Nicole, Amy in Worthy. So you can find me on Instagram, follow me, message me. I'd love to talk. Also, you can check out our website, which is www.nextlevelwealthcoach.com. And we have a free newsletter that I would love for you to sign up for. It has lots of tips. I do talk about boundaries a lot, but I talk about many other things like burnout, self-care, stress management, making more money. So please follow, follow me, sign up for our newsletter. And we do have a free masterclass actually coming up on boundaries on September 26. So I would love for you to join us in that class as well. More information will come out about that on the website and in the newsletter. All right. So make sure that you guys sign up for her newsletter so that you don't miss out on the information that she has to offer as well as the masterclass. Because if you've been in business, if you are in business, or if you are a house, a homeowner that hires house cleaners, you also need boundaries so that the house cleaner does not take advantage of you. We've heard it from both sides of the story. Anyway, you guys, this was so awesome. Thank you so much for joining us today. I hate that our time is up, but I do want to say thank you so much for joining us. And thank you, Amy. I will forever be indebted to you for joining us today. And I will thank you for that. I will have you back. Please. This was awesome. Great. All right. Thanks again, you guys. You guys have a great weekend. We'll talk to you soon. Take care.