1162: WWLD: When Consistency Became a Responsibility

Welcome to a well-designed business.

My name is Luanne Igarra and I'm so glad you found this podcast.

Together with my husband Vince and our partner Bill, we have grown our company Windowworks

from the ground up.

So I know and I understand the challenges you face in running your interior design business.

I also know that your talent alone isn't enough to ensure your success.

So on this podcast, we talk about strategies and practical steps to help you grow your business.

But make no mistake about it.

We have our share of fun here too, mixed in with those aha moments that I love so much.

This isn't fluff, nobody has time for that.

Whether you are a new interior designer or a seasoned designer, I am here to help you

create and to manage the kind of interior design firm that you dream of.

It's straight talk and it's action.

Are you ready?

Let's get started.

Welcome to a well-designed business.

Today is the second part of a series in celebration of 10 years of this podcast.

Over these several weeks I'm walking you through some of what it actually looked like

to build the podcast, the decisions, the pressure, the mistakes, the systems and the moments

where it almost went sideways.

In the first episode, we talked about why the podcast started.

Today, we're talking about what happened next because starting is exciting.

Gaining momentum?

That's a different thing.

Now, before I get into it, I want to take a moment to thank my Domestudio.

My Domestudio is yet another sponsor who from the very beginning saw the potential of

this podcast, saw the potential in you and had the same desire as Cravidink and myself

to be a part of your journey to create a profitable business.

My Domestudio is your all-in-one designer toolkit created by designers for designers.

It's built to streamline your processes, track every project, detail, keep your client

communication on point and give you back your time.

Ready to make your life simpler?

Go to mydomestudio.com forward slash a well-designed business and get 20% off your first three

months.

As my friend and colleague, Desi Creswell says, due today, the thing your future self will

thank you for.

All right.

Now, let's talk about when the podcast started gaining traction.

And before I get into that, I want to chat about an idea that is getting so much attention

over the last probably year to three years in social media and conversations with friends

on podcasts, all the things.

And it is this idea that if something feels hard, it must also somehow be wrong or at minimum

be misaligned with you as a person, as a human, as a business owner, whatever.

The idea that hustle culture is bad, the idea that working too much is unhealthy and that

if you're exhausted and tired, you should just stop and look, there's truth in these.

But this is the part that's bothering me.

When it is legit true, first of all, when you are working, pushing, stressing yourself

and probably those around you, then a correction must be made.

Yes, point blank, total agreement.

But what I'm objecting to is feeling like I'm feeling and seeing a knee jerk reaction

that whenever something feels harder, stressful, then it also must be wrong, like the correct

response is to stop.

And I think this is an over correction, right?

Because hard is not the same thing as harmful.

And for context, you know, look, we did live in 2023 and we called it health and wealth

because I know and I sincerely believe that you cannot build real wealth if you ignore

or take for granted your mental, physical and emotional health.

These things matter to you, to your life, to your business.

But here's the rub.

I don't believe that there is one universal definition of too much, too hard.

When I review my entire life, I've always piled it all on my plate, always, long before

social media, long before you could see it.

My girlfriends, my kids, my family, they could always see it.

This wasn't imposed on me.

It's how I'm wired.

I like motion.

I like activity.

It's how I'm happy.

And even when I rest, I don't rest sitting still.

I move, I ride my bike, I walk, I clean my house.

And what I've discovered is in doing these things, that's how my brain rests from work.

That's when the creative ideas come.

That's when the dreaming happens.

That's when my future self pokes me and says, hey, what about this over here, right?

Many people journal, meditate, literally rest, read and spend time in stillness.

Say them.

And if it's you, yeah, you, I'm glad you have found what you need to recharge.

But I've noticed over the last several years, as my life has become visible to everyone,

the one thing that 99% of everyone I meet says to me is, oh my goodness, you are so busy.

Typically followed by, I don't know how you do it.

It must be exhausting.

And at first, I barely registered it, figured it was kind of like polite filler talk.

And then it kept happening over and over and over.

I need to think to myself, why does everybody think I'm so busy?

This is normal, okay?

And the thing is, when you take it into context now, combine with this sort of anti-hustle

culture, you know, when people talk to me and speak to me about this, it starts to feel

like concern, like, can you handle this?

I care about you kind of thing and I don't want you to burn out.

So a few months ago, this is nuts, but I did it.

I actually stopped and asked myself, you know, is being this busy, busier than most

other people, an actual problem?

And you know what?

The answer is no.

It is a hard N-O, qualified by, as long as I'm paying attention.

Because it's not my responsibility or yours to follow a cultural narrative, right?

The responsibility is to know yourself, to know your signs, to know when a week, a week,

a month, or a season has gone too far.

And I know those signs.

And here's the other thing.

The point is different for everyone.

Now, recently, one of my chairman of board clients recommended a podcast that I listened

to with Tony Robbins and Jay Shetty and she said, as beginning of the new year, it's

a great motivational, rational, reset kind of thing.

I really loved it.

I thought you will love it too.

I'll link it in the show notes in case you want to hear the whole episode.

But of all the things that Tony Robbins, who I adore, shared that day, the wisdom, the

advice, the observations, there was one thought that resonated with me so strongly.

Tony and Jay were talking about hustle and hustle culture.

And I prepared myself to be told I need to meditate.

Then Tony expressed the exact essence of what I'm hoping to convey to you today about

growing your business.

He said, hustle without purpose drains you.

Hustle activity without direction creates stress, busyness for busy sake.

But Tony said, effort toward something you believe in, something you're building intentionally,

something you're actively monitoring and proving that isn't bad.

Even if it's hard, how about this, even when it's hard?

And even when you are occasionally tired or frustrated or confused, right?

Because the thing is, when you're building towards something, often despite these feelings

that will crop up, it also can be energizing, right?

A mistake leads to a breakthrough.

And when I look back at the early years of this podcast, this description fits exactly.

The work was hard and exhausting.

Researching on the internet every single Sunday to find dozens of potential guests and then

individually emailing them with personal invitations designed just for them to invite them

to the show.

Then following up on the emails and then what do you mean?

What is this podcast and how do I do it questions?

Then ultimately when they're booked, researching each guest more thoroughly, more deeply so

that I could build a real conversation.

Then collecting bios and headshots and other images and assets, editing every word of every

episode myself and preparing those written edits for the audio editors, writing every

word of the intro outro myself, managing the sponsor reachouts, the negotiations, the agreements

and the deliverables.

And oh, and by the way, all while still having my full time role at Windows works, okay?

The days were long.

Sometimes it felt like it was 24-7, I mean practically it was, let's be real.

But here's the important part, I wasn't depleted, I wasn't resentful, I wasn't dragging

myself through it, I loved it.

So if you're in a season where you're working hard and you keep saying and you keep hearing

I should say from others, this shouldn't feel like this, it shouldn't be this hard.

I want you to ask yourself a better question.

Are you spinning your wheels or are you moving forward?

Because there's a difference between being busy and being purposeful.

Hard does it automatically mean wrong.

Sometimes hard means you're building the thing that will eventually make it easier.

In your business, it often looks like this, serving clients while still building the

systems to serve the clients, right?

Doing the work while figuring out how to actually run the business, carrying more weight,

more responsibility because you haven't earned leverage yet.

It's not failure, this is construction.

Hard doesn't automatically mean wrong.

Remember, sometimes hard means you're building the thing that will eventually make everything

else easier.

Now, before I go any further, I need to give you a little context, especially if you're

a newer listener to the show.

When I say I was still running Windows works, I don't mean I was overseeing things from

a distance, right?

At Windows works at this point was a multi-million dollar business, but it relied on two people selling

me and the VIN man.

I was responsible for bringing in my half of the $2 million gross revenue.

This was not a do-it-in-my-sleep sales job, right?

And I was also responsible for all the designer facing projects.

More details, more expectations, more campus deadlines because it's revealed day or photography

day or it's just the day we promise we'd be there day.

So when I added the podcast, I wasn't substituting those hours at Windows works for the hours

to build the podcast, not yet.

Instead, like any one of you who have started or continue to run your design business with

another full-time position, this was stacking something else on top of something that already

required me to be present, focused and available.

And the challenge in addition to time was that window treatment appointments are rarely

predictable.

And once the podcast started, that unpredictability collided with something new, fixed commitments.

And here's what it looked like in real time, I'm in a client's home.

The appointment has gone longer than planned, not because anything wrong is wrong, but

probably because everything's great, it's going well, they want more rooms, they want

more options and whatever.

And in the back of my mind, I'm watching the clock, I have a podcast interview scheduled,

I have to get home, I don't have any staff yet, I have no one I can text or boxer and

say I'm running late, please let the guests know.

And if I stay at this appointment, I risk missing the interview.

If I leave, I'm disrespectful to this potential client and definitely risk losing the sale.

That feeling right there, that tightening in your stomach, that's a pressure cooker.

And if you're listening, I want you to recognize this because it probably shows up differently

in your business, but I know it feels the same.

Maybe you're a solo designer, you schedule a site visit on a day, you also are the one

to pick up the kids from school.

The contractor shows up late, the client shows up late, what should have been an hour

turns into three.

Now you're doing math in your head.

If you leave, you look unprofessional.

If you stay, your kids are alone and scared.

No matter what you choose, you feel like you're dropping a ball.

That's not because you're bad at time management, that's not because you're unorganized.

It's because you put an unpredictable thing on the same day as a fixed commitment.

Sadly, I have to tell you, I had to have that experience and that feeling several times

before I was willing to say never again.

The thing on us talking about earlier, you have to recognize the sign, right?

Hard does it mean stop?

It means recognize the sign.

Some lessons are harder than others though, you know what I mean, right?

So when you have find, when you find that you have repeated the same uncomfortable scenario

over and over, those moments are telling you something.

They're not telling you to quit.

They're telling you that they have information.

Those moments are teaching you something, okay?

They are showing you where you need to draw lines.

They're not telling you it's too hard, take a nap, take a rest.

They are telling you be better, be smarter, create boundaries and protect priorities.

Once I recognize that pressure cooker for what it was, I didn't respond by just trying

to do everything faster or more.

I responded by getting clearer.

And this is something that I learned well before in the podcast.

And that is consistency, Trump's other deficits.

I had watched it played out for decades at Windows Works.

I have seen hundreds of customers forgive mistakes, delays, even missteps as long as we

communicated and showed up and did what we said we would do, right?

But the moment you say you're going to do something and you don't, that's when it falls

apart.

Trust begins to a road.

Your credibility takes a hit.

And that's the core of this dilemma.

If I had a potential client in front of me that I was earning trust with and I had an

up-getting guest on the podcast that I needed to do the same thing, like it's the same thing.

I need to be the same person of both people, okay?

Because when I launched the podcast, I didn't think of you as the audience as listeners.

I thought of you as clients.

And I knew from experience I had to make a very specific agreement with you.

Three episodes a week meant three episodes a week, not when it was convenient, not when

I felt inspired, not when it was easy.

Because just like the missteps on projects, one maybe not your most favorite episode does

not break your trust.

But inconsistency does.

If you cannot rely on the person to do what they say, how long do you actually care about

what they say they are going to do?

The answer is not too long.

Think of any contractor, any vendor that breaks their word.

How long do you say they miss meetings, they deliver late, they always go over budget.

Oh, but the work is good.

I'll keep going with them.

No, you do not do that for very long.

You finally draw the line, right?

So with the content schedule, I knew, I just knew it's human nature.

Some episodes would land better than others.

I knew not every guest would resonate with every single one of you.

But I also counted on this if I always showed up.

And I was always doing my best with every conversation.

If I stayed in it with you, I was betting you'd show up too.

But if I broke our implied agreements, no amount of brilliance and mind-bending ideas for

your business would make up for it.

So consistency isn't simply a tactic.

It's the job.

It's my job.

It's your job too.

And in thinking about your own business, know this for absolute certain.

Consistency doesn't mean perfection, ever, ever, ever, never.

It means reliability.

It means your clients will know when you'll follow up.

Your vendor knows when you'll call them back.

Your team knows what on-time means.

You can recover from a lot, but it's really hard to recover from being unreliable.

And this is where this gets very practical.

In the beginning, I didn't have many systems.

I didn't have a dedicated staff.

I didn't have backup people and things.

What I did have, though, were two businesses competing for the same hours.

So I learned quickly to serve them both with my best work.

I could not mix them.

OK, I mean, at first I did try.

Yes, sir.

Yes, ma'am, I did.

Right?

I thought I could squeeze a window work appointment in before a podcast interview or

do a drapery quote in between recordings or just handle one more thing that didn't work.

Why?

Because both businesses had the one thing in common.

They both had unpredictable situations and they both had fixed commitments.

Newsflash.

This is not rocket science.

Your business is exactly the same.

And guess what?

So is your garage mechanics business.

But sometimes the obvious news to bang on our heads, you know, we don't always see it,

right?

So at window works, the moment you press send on a quote, like you'd do this, you know,

three hour quotes, send it off, literally, I can't tell you how often within 10 minutes

it comes back and says, oh, we changed the fabrics in these three rooms.

Can you revise the quote and turn this around before I see the client at two?

You know, and if I had a podcast interview in the next half hour, because oh, I was doing

that in between, now I was going to drop a ball over there.

Same thing with the podcast interview.

If it was a really good interview and it was going longer, what am I going to go?

Because I got to do a quote.

So when I tried to blend them, I ended up doing neither very well.

So I made a rule podcast days were podcast days, window works days were window works days,

no overlap, no exceptions.

The decision made the work easier and it made it cleaner, okay?

And this matters because that takes away the hustle for hustle, sake and puts it to the

hustle for the effort, the hustle for the goal, right?

And it will show up differently for you, but it's the same.

So if you're trying to do site visits on the same day and admin work on the same day,

maybe you're scheduling client meetings on day when you know you have a family obligation.

Maybe you're trying to be everywhere at once and that's why it feels so heavy.

This isn't a discipline problem, it's a boundary problem, right?

Just before the systems, before software, before help, you have to decide what gets protected.

All right?

And for me, protecting the podcast meant honoring the commitment I made to you.

And for me, protecting window works meant carrying my weight, meeting my sales goals and

not dropping the ball with our customers or employees.

And the reality there, a dozen employees paychecks were riding on me showing up as fully present

when I was there.

You know, it was me and a VIN thing, right?

And the reality at the podcast, think about that sponsor, that reality and that responsibility.

Sponsors like Cravid Inc and My Doma were there from the beginning and they weren't like,

we'll pay for it whenever you feel like showing up, okay?

So clarity comes before scaling.

Boundaries are intentional so that you can leverage them.

And at the time, I actually thought that decision was the hard part.

I was wrong.

All right?

Here's the thing.

I did not underestimate how hard the work would be to put together a quality podcast, right?

I was never interested in a podcast.

I was always interested in the best podcast.

But I did underestimate the depth required to do my best in interviews.

The volume of work before and after the interview.

And the pressure of the never ending cadence of rents and repeat.

And this distinction also matters because we don't typically break from one hard week.

But we sometimes break when we realize that that hard week is never going to end, right?

So in the early years of the podcast, I was not surprised by the effort.

I knew it would take time.

I knew it would take focus.

I knew it would require discipline.

But what I didn't really grasp at the beginning was that every episode wasn't just a project.

It was a commitment that would repeat all again and again and again three times a week.

There's a big difference between saying I can do this and I can do this every week without

exception for years, right?

That's the math we don't often do up front when we start our business.

In business, we're very good at asking, can I do this thing?

Can I design a room?

Right?

We're not as good at asking.

Can I sustain this without breaking something important, including myself, right?

And that's why this shows up so early once momentum starts because momentum is sneaky.

At first, it feels like validation, more opportunities, more demand, more yeses.

What momentum doesn't reduce the work, instead it multiplies the frequency of the work.

The problem is that something takes you five hours to do.

The problem is that it takes you five hours every single time.

And that's where businesses quietly start leaking energy, joy and clarity.

You know, this shows up in your business too.

I know it does.

It's the one install that runs long.

It's the fact that it's not the one install, I should say, that runs long.

It's the fact that they all run long and you haven't fixed it yet.

It's not the one contractor who needs extra handholding.

It's that most of them need extra handholding and you get surprised every time instead of creating

a system to mitigate that.

It's not that bookkeeping takes time.

It's that it takes time every single month and you keep pretending it's temporary, right?

Having effort without intentional design is where good businesses quietly exhaust their

offer, their owners, I mean, right?

That goes back to the Tony saying, right?

And at this stage, I was not burned out by any stretch of the imagination, but I was beginning

to see the shape of the future.

And that matters because this is where you decide one of two things.

I'm either going to keep muscling through this or if this is going to continue, I need

to redesign how it's done.

And that question is the difference between momentum that carries you forward and the momentum

that runs you over.

It's also the difference like I keep saying between hustle for hustle sake and hustle with

intention direction and goals, right?

And this realization set up the next set of decisions that I had to make, not about working

harder, but about working differently.

Once I understood that this wasn't about effort, but it was about recurrence, the next thing

became obvious.

Whether you do something once a week or five times a day, you must create clear non-negotiable

standards.

Because without standards, repetition cannot fuel momentum.

Reps without standards or roads, outcomes, energy and trust.

Think about it.

You could do 5,000 crunches a day, but if you do them the wrong way using your neck and

shoulders and you're never going to get your abs stronger, you're never going to get

a six pack, right?

It's just doing the busyness of moving your body, but you're not moving it right.

And this is where it's tempting because you're so busy to just keep plowing through.

But you know what, you want systems, you want software, you want help.

But none of that can happen if you haven't first decided how you do what you do.

For me, the first non-negotiable standard for the podcast showed up in audio quality.

From episode one, I required guests to use a basic external headset.

Nothing fancy, $25 on Amazon, but it plugs into your computer.

And the fact is, so many guests pushed back.

They would show up to the interview and say, oh, my earbuds do the trick or my Bose things,

they're amazing.

I can hear you okay.

Oh, well, the sound of my built-in mic in the computer is great or my personal favorite.

The sound on my computer was good for the other podcasts I've been on.

Just don't get me started.

And you know, especially early on when guests were scarce, I didn't want to be difficult.

It was really uncomfortable standing my ground when I got these pushbacks.

I mean, it's still uncomfortable now 10 years later, but I knew without a doubt.

From being a long time podcast listener, that if the audio isn't good, you don't stay.

You don't power through.

You don't give grace.

You can't.

I mean, and why should anyone stay for bad audio?

I mean, it's an audio podcast for crying out loud.

So when a guest showed up without the proper equipment, we didn't record.

We rescheduled.

Oh, and yeah, there were sometimes people showed up miffed, pissed, huffed, puffed, and

canceled.

Whatever.

Keep it rolling.

This wasn't rigidity for no reason.

That was me holding my agreement with you, my client.

Audio wasn't the only standard.

There was also a standard for content.

I wasn't going to entertain conversations without substance.

Don't come to me with a big idea.

It's the best idea ever, but you can't tell me how you make it happen.

If a guest said, you need a really good bookkeeper, I needed them to tell me, how do I find a good

good good paper bookkeeper?

What do you review with your bookkeeper every week?

What's different for you working with the good bookkeeper versus the bad bookkeeper, right?

If someone talked about hiring great employees, I needed to know what do we look for?

How do we interview?

Why doesn't it make a difference in my business when I hire well versus hiring good enough?

Because my responsibility wasn't just to have a conversation.

My responsibility as the owner of this business was to protect the promise of the podcast

mission, to help you build a profitable business, to protect the intelligence of the room,

and to protect your time for showing up with me, right?

And there was another standard that surprised a lot of people, I will tell you.

I decided from day one that we would not curse on this podcast, I have to tell you.

Believe me, anyone who knows me personally found that surprising.

And actually, I remember my mom and Vin were the most surprised by this decision, not

because they didn't agree with it.

In fact, they were glad.

They supported it.

But let's just say in real life, I'm not exactly a graduate of Ms. Darleen's Charms School

for young ladies, right?

But I knew how people listened to podcasts, I knew how I listened to them in my car with

my kids in the office with my employees, right?

The podcast wasn't about expressing myself, it was about creating a space that you felt

comfortable to come to and to be in.

Standards aren't about control, they're about intention, about your brand, about your

mission, your vision, and your values.

And here's why I know this makes sense to you when you cross it to your business.

In your design world, you have standards, right?

I hope you've got them formalized.

But I know you have them even if they're in your mind, formalized them, by the way, if

you don't.

But maybe in your firm, a standard is that grout always matches tile, it never is contrasting.

You don't argue about it, you don't waffle on it, you just know it works.

Maybe in your firm, you only use high grade performance fabrics in family rooms, no matter

how confident the client is, it'll be fine because you know how that story ends.

Maybe in your firm, a standard for you is unless a room can be closed off by a door,

that room is considered a common area and the paint color does not change from the adjacent

area, right?

Of course, there's always one-off projects where you'll push the envelope one time out

of 500 times, you'll put contrasting grout, right?

Sometimes you'll go outside your box, but I'll bet the biggest majority of the repeatable

design questions you face project after project, you have developed and defined a set of internal

rules that you trust.

Those are your standards.

They're not about creativity, so much per se.

They're about protecting the outcome of your creativity, right?

As I said, you'll break them sometimes, but when you do, you break them intentionally,

not casually, and not just because it's easier or because you didn't remember or you think

about it.

And that's exactly how I thought about the podcast.

I needed standards and boundaries around the show and the content the same way you put

them around your designs.

Systems comes later, delegation comes later, scaling comes later, but first you decide

what your way is and you protect it.

And now, up until this point, everything I've described still lived in somewhat fragile

phase, right?

The podcast was growing, the work was working, but it all kind of still felt like something

I had to protect with my whole body or it might go away.

If I missed a step, if I lost momentum, if I made a bad decision, I was always wondering,

is it a thing yet?

Is it real?

Is it a big girl business?

And there was a couple of moments that changed that.

The first was in January of 2018.

We were in Mexico for our youngest daughter's wedding, a destination wedding, we were away

from home for 10 days, and I remember coming back to the hotel one late afternoon.

We had been at the pool with everybody, been and I were getting ready to go back out

for dinner.

And I happened to open my laptop and check the downloads and I hadn't checked for several

days while that was there.

And that day, the podcast hit 1687 downloads.

I remember the number exactly.

Why?

Because at the time, our daily average was about 900.

And you know what, it wasn't a celebrity guest, it wasn't a special promotion, it was

a spike that had no explanation, except it was just happening.

I remember looking at Vinnie and saying, we had 1687 downloads today and he looked at

me and said, is that good?

And I said, yeah, that's really good, it's almost double or good.

And that moment, something shifted in me, not relief, not celebration, recognition.

This was no longer something that existed only because I was holding it together.

It now was tracking momentum of its own, right?

There was another moment like this, several years later.

It was when we hit 5 million downloads.

For some reason, even when we hit 1 million, 2 million, 3 million, 4, they were amazing.

But for some reason, 5 felt truly significant.

Now we're almost 9 million downloads and the 5 million mark stands out for me.

I remember that day, the day I expected it to hit based on our data.

I was checking the podcast platform all day, waiting for the number to roll over.

I wanted to see it.

And I did.

It was surreal and it was cool.

Did that mean the word stopped?

No.

It didn't mean I relaxed my standards.

It didn't mean I stopped paying attention.

But it stopped feeling like a fragile glass that I was holding in my hands, right?

And now it told me that the work, those standards, those hours were coming together and they

were worth it.

As long as I stayed in my values, as long as I made thoughtful decisions, as long as I was

a good steward of what I was building, this thing would keep moving.

And if you're listening and you're waiting for that moment in your business, I want you

to hear it.

It doesn't arrive when everything is perfect.

It doesn't arrive when things get easy.

It arrives when repetition, standards, and consistently consistency quietly stack long

enough that the business begins to carry some of its own weight.

You don't stop showing up, but you do stop feeling like if you blink, it will disappear.

The shift is from fragile to real.

And once that happens, the work in front of you changes.

Because now the question is, how do I keep this alive?

The question is, how do I take responsibility for what this has become?

There was another moment, not long after that, that surprised me in a different way.

Up until then, I understood that the podcast was valuable to you.

You were learning.

You were growing.

You were making amazing changes in your business.

You shared this with me.

But I thought of the podcast as something I was doing for your benefit, specifically.

And then one of my early power talk Friday expert guests said something to me that started

to reframe it in a different way.

She had been on the show once before.

We had a fabulous conversation, smart, thoughtful, generous with her knowledge.

And I invited her back on the show a few months later.

And then again, after that, and then here we are for our, I think it was the third interview.

And one morning, we're getting ready to record.

It was early.

We made an appointment for like eight o'clock in the morning.

And I was leaving for a speaking engagement that day, just in a few hours from then.

And everything felt rushed.

I didn't want to cancel her, though.

I knew I was lucky to get her back on the show again.

She was, as you've heard me say, a billion times, a hashtag smart lady.

And the thing is, when we started and said hello, she noticed my vibe despite my efforts

to be calm.

And she asked me if everything was okay.

And I said something like, you know, I probably shouldn't have scheduled this for today.

I have a flight in like four hours and I'm not even finished packing.

But when you asked for this day in time, I didn't want to say no.

I really appreciate you're doing with this with me again.

And I know it's a commitment away from your business and your family.

And so, yeah, so I'm good.

Let's go.

And she looked at me and she said, can we just be real about something for a second?

In the last six months, since being on the show, the last time, I have made more than $60,000

from clients who found me through your podcast.

And while that money is good, heck, it's great.

She said, the sweet part is, your listeners, the clients that I get from your show, they

come to do the work.

They are a joy to work with.

So you got to know, whenever you call, whatever time you want me here, I'll be here.

And I remember just sitting there because it was the first time I fully understood what

this had also become.

This wasn't me just giving value, you know, getting value from guests and giving it to you.

This wasn't me asking guests for favors.

It was, but not just.

And it wasn't one-sided.

It was mutual.

We were creating a platform where you learned how to build a better business.

The experts also grew their business.

And the ecosystem reinforced itself in the most positive, wonderful, amazing way.

And then years later, the filmmaker and now my dear friend, Jude Charles, put language

to the something that I was sensing and experiencing, but hadn't been named.

He interviewed me for hours for his road mapping process, which he does when he does a

docu-series with you, which I highly suggest you check out mine and the others that he's

done.

But after hours of interviewing me and asking me questions, I can picture him.

He's standing at a whiteboard and he turns around and looks at me and goes, you know what,

you Arlo?

I mean, really?

When it cuts all down through all of it?

And I said, what, Jude?

And he said, you're an economy.

And when I thought about it, I got it.

Because in the process of teaching you how to be profitable, I had also built something

where everyone around us became more profitable too.

And this realization changed how I thought about the responsibility here.

Because once other people's livelihoods were impacted positively by what I was building,

it was no longer about whether I liked it or not, or I felt inspired or not, or in the

mood or not.

When that happens in your business like it happened in mine, this next step is about

leadership.

It's about commitment, right?

And it's important moment to pause because in your business, it happens too.

It's the moment when your vendors rely on projects from you through the consistency of your

pipeline.

Your team relies on your leadership through good times and bad times.

Your clients rely on your standards to create beautiful results, not sometimes every time.

And so the question isn't, can I do it?

It becomes, am I taking it seriously enough?

That's a different way, not heavier, clearer.

And once I understood that, I stopped asking whether the podcast was worth the effort.

I started asking whether I was building it in a way that deserved the trust it had earned.

And that question led to another shift.

Because momentum without structure eventually becomes chaos and intentional stewardship requires

documented systems.

And here's the part that no one actually warned you about.

When something starts to work, the work doesn't stop.

It changes.

By the time the podcast was several years in, it had momentum.

The audience was growing, sponsors were coming, speaking invitations were stacking up, books

were getting written, opportunities were multiplying.

And from the outside, it looked like a success, right?

But internally, something else was happening.

I was still doing the work, the way I had done it from the beginning.

I was still editing every episode myself, still listening, listening, line by line to

every single show, still taking detailed notes, still writing every intro and outro from

a blank page, not because no one else could do it, but because I believe that that part

was me, truly me, that it was my voice, my thinking, my pattern recognition, my intellectual

property.

And in my mind, handling that off to someone felt reckless, felt scary, and frankly impossible.

So what did I do instead?

I absorbed it.

I pushed it to nights, to weekends, to early mornings, to after before and around everything

else on paper, and in Instagram, the podcast was thriving, in reality, it was quietly claiming

every margin of my life.

And this is the moment that we don't often recognize it for what it is.

We think the problem is workload, right?

Oh, hustle culture, it's too much, or it's time, or it's bandwidth.

It's the dangerous territory of hustle for hustle's sake, unless you are in the moment,

unless you are choosing not just doing, right?

The actual problem is that the business has that as outgrown, the version of you that

insists on touching everything.

If you're a bit down the road in your business, I'm going to repeat myself, consider if your

business has outgrown, the version of you that can insist on you touching everything.

If it feels familiar, let me say, it's not about being too lazy to do what's required

of you.

It's not about lack of commitment to do what your business needs, and it's definitely

not about lowering your standards.

This is about understanding that what got you to a place will usually not take you where

you're going.

In design, this is the moment when you are still approving every single selection.

You are still managing every trade conversation and status check, still fixing every little

mistake and miscommunication.

Still answering every single client question, like what time is the painter coming today,

right?

Maybe not because you don't trust others, but because you are the standard.

You haven't externalized your standard.

As long as that's true, growth comes at the expense of our lives.

I didn't realize it yet, but I was standing at the edge of the next shift, and that one

brings the question is, how do I do this well instead of that question, it becomes, how

do I let this be done well without me doing all of it?

And that answer to that came in a way I didn't expect.

For years, I could feel the workload was getting unsustainable.

I knew the hours were stacking up, and I knew I was the bottleneck.

But knowing something intellectually is very different from being willing to change it

or knowing how to change it.

It starts with what you believe, and this is what I believed.

I didn't believe anyone else could listen to an episode and hear what I heard from it.

I didn't believe someone else could put the same lessons in that I was getting from it.

I didn't believe a writer could write in my voice.

Remember this way before AI?

So this wasn't theoretical to me.

These beliefs were real.

And I believe that if I let go of the intro, outro writing, the quality of the show would

drop.

The thing that made this podcast different would be gone.

The secret sauce would disappear.

As you know, just like I do, few podcasts do the outros the way I do them.

Most interviews end with thanks for being here.

See you by.

But my outros, they can be eight and ten minutes long.

For me, that's where the teaching happens.

That's where the patterns are connected.

That's where the podcast episodes are referenced for deeper learning.

That's where the sponsors are integrated with integrity.

I genuinely believed if I stopped doing this, the whole thing would fall apart.

And that kept me stuck.

And that's where coaching with Amber De La Garza mattered.

Not because she gave me a system, not because she just said to outsource it, but because

she insisted I separate my beliefs from truths.

And she insisted that I look at the cost, both the emotional and operational cost.

And she finally said something like, what will you do if you cling to these beliefs?

Where is it headed?

How many years will you be okay with seven days a week?

How many years will VIN be okay with you doing seven days a week?

And Lou, now that grandkids are coming along, what about time for them?

And that was a moment I realized I knew I was heading for trouble, but then I saw it clearly.

You know, in the back of my mind, I was like, this, this is hard.

I can't, how can I keep, but this was clarity.

And in the name of protecting quality, I was clinging to control.

And that's pretty funny, five years outside of this exact conversation with the benefit

in hindsight of today.

Because I wouldn't say I was clinging to control, today I would call it actually clinging

to maniacal control, okay?

So here's a huge lesson in this gift from the work with Amber.

It led me to a moment where another person showed up for me in a very real, very generous

way.

When I finally admitted out loud that I could not keep doing this part myself, Amber challenged

me to search for up in the whole world, any person, any place with a solution.

I also heard my cousin Eileen Han in my head who always says to me, who do you know that

can help you or lead you to help?

Do not invent the wheel, do borrow it.

And so when I searched my mental database of colleagues, friends, and family, one name popped

into my head, dead Mitchell.

Dead had been on the podcast.

And while we instantly liked each other and definitely like respected each other, at that

time, we had not yet met in real life and we had not yet had many significant interactions

other than the interview and some comments on Instagram and so forth.

Deb is a copywriter.

Deb is a copywriter for our industry.

I knew Deb understood the show and that Deb, because she worked with you and for you,

she understood you, it's like called her and left a message.

And Deb, if you're listening to the episode, I wonder if you remember this message too.

I know you remember what happened, but I wonder if you remember the gist of the message.

I said something like, I need to systemize the intro outro, writing the social media

captions, the website blurbs, and I'm going to be honest with you.

I have no idea how this could possibly be done by anybody but me.

And I went on to say, and you know, I don't even think I'm here with an actual ask because

I don't think this can be done the way I want it done.

And I can't imagine what it would take for someone else to do it.

But here's the thing, Deb, I gave my word to Amber that I would explore at least one

path to a solution.

So if you have no idea where to point me, that's completely fine.

I'm really just doing this because let's reveal.

I'm investing my money with Amber and Amber is investing her time in helping and coaching

me.

And at the very least, I owe it to her to respect her and to do what she said to do.

That's how it touched to my limiting belief I was that I said I need help, but you can't

help me.

While I was asking for help, I was already explaining why the help wouldn't work.

I wasn't saying, can you help me solve this?

I'm saying, I don't believe this is solvable, but hey, I'm checking a box, right?

Because that's what happens when you have deeply embedded beliefs.

You intellectually want to change, but you emotionally show up and protect the exact

thing that's holding you back.

But then Deb left me a message I'll never forget.

She told me, as I expected, the role wouldn't be right for her personally.

But if I would let her, she would like to do something else for me instead.

She asked if she can go into her various writing communities, create a job description,

define the criteria for success, interview writing candidates, evaluate them with a rubric,

and present me with recommendations.

When she said, Lou, you and your podcast have given me and my business so much value,

I would be delighted to do this as a gift to you.

I was floored to think that you would do all of that for me.

I mean, it was just wow, right?

Just wow.

And this ties very much into the theme of this podcast memory lane that we're on for

this month or so.

Because I realized at that moment, it didn't come out of nowhere.

I had been pouring in to all of my guests, Amber, Deb, in the ways that I could.

Not, oh my God, I'm doing something for you, but you know, one day you'll do something.

No, it just, you know, it reminds me of all the years we would have a designer client

at window works and maybe one designer client would have a baby or one of their kids would

go off to their first apartment.

Many times after having me out there to decide what the new window treatment should be in

the nursery or the apartment, I would say these are on the house for you.

You have given us so much business.

You have treated us with so much respect and so much kindness.

We at window works are happy to do this for you.

And in that moment, these two women showed up for me in a meaningful, personal way.

That's not luck.

That's relationship equity.

The same thing happens in your business.

Look for the signs, right?

Maybe your trusted window treatment professional will arrange installs for you when you're

rearranged installs for you when your photographer changes dates.

Because you've shown up for that window treatment person consistently.

Your contractor will fix the mistake without drama because you didn't throw them under

the bus and you never do, right?

They don't say not my problem.

They say we'll take care of it.

Not because it's convenient because there's trust in the bank, right?

Now, before we go jumping up and down for joy, this was not a handoff to the writers.

So, you know, a note about systems and creating them, you know, so that you can hand things

off to writers.

I still had the same fears about the show quality in this new process, which meant it was

a non-negotiable that I had a bill system that protected my standards, clear guidelines

for writers, a formal document, how to write an intro outro, constant communication and

shared Google docs for up to date info and changes, explicit expectations with defined

deadlines and deliverables.

I was already taking notes during every interview.

Now, I took notes for the writers.

I would literally write this connects to what guest ex said in a previous episode.

This reinforces from the lesson from why episode.

This idea enforces and supports the product of X, Y, D, Z sponsor.

Make sure that's connected for the listener.

We collaborate on the episodes.

We discuss titles and categories and in creating the goodies.

Nothing goes live without my eyeballs.

And here's the part I didn't expect.

The more the writers worked on the show, the more they knew the show like I did.

They started making connections on their own, remembering past episodes, layering the lessons.

The body of work became part of their knowledge, too.

And my role shifted.

I wasn't staring at a blank page.

I wasn't spending five or six hours on every episode.

I was editing from a document, not from a blank page, refining, approving, 30 minutes,

not three to six hours.

And that was the game changer, right?

Letting go does not mean lowering standards.

It means documenting them, communicating them.

It means protecting it in a way that does not require your constant presence.

You're not losing control.

You're stepping into leadership.

Once the standards were clear and the right people were in place, the next phase wasn't

about adding more work.

It was about moving friction.

Over time, the systems evolved from informal to intentional.

Moving on, that looked like small, but meaningful changes.

Guess could not schedule until their assets were uploaded.

No more chasing bios, headshots, or links.

No more last-minute scrambling.

Every workflow was documented, not because I love process and creating documentation,

but because I owe it to myself, I owe it to my team, just like you, to yourself, and

to the people you work with to do this.

Today the podcast runs through click-up.

Every episode has a clear path.

Every handoff is visible.

Every role is defined from me to the podcast coordinator to my executive assistant to

the writers, to audio editors, to my marketing coordinator to our external social media

team.

Defined, clear, no guessing, no one says, oh, I didn't know.

Anyone can say, I forgot.

I made a mistake.

I misunderstood.

But no one can say, I didn't know.

That's a big difference.

This is what allows a team, especially a remote team, to work smoothly.

This is what reduces friction.

This is what makes growth sustainable.

And here's the important part.

None of that freedom comes from letting go and hoping.

It comes from knowing that systems exist to support and foster excellence.

This is what I teach you on the show.

I know you know this, but unfortunately this is where most business owners hesitate for

a lot far longer than they should.

Right?

Now, let's talk about the emotional side of this, because growth doesn't eliminate pressure,

it changes the nurture, the nature of it.

There's still pressure, but it's pressure by choice.

I often think of it like a professional athlete stepping up to the home plate.

Right?

High stakes, a lot riding on the moment, but also they're exactly where they want to be.

Right?

The pressure is responsibility.

Response for me, it's responsibility to you, responsibility to accuracy.

It's responsibility to respectfully challenging something that doesn't quite sound right based

on my experience.

Right?

Responsibility is say, I don't know when I don't.

And that's important to say out loud, I've never felt the need to be the smartest person

in the room.

I'm comfortable learning publicly for you to see.

I ask questions, I change my ideas, my mind, my beliefs about things when I see a better

way.

I let you hear that process.

And I think this isn't part because I started at 53 years old with more than three decades

of business experience behind me.

I know this informs this ability to be okay with learning publicly.

It grounds me, it gives me context, and it removes the pressure to perform expertise

and instead to share it.

Think about where you are now, even if you've been a designer for even less than five years,

you know more than your client does who has never been a designer.

Be confident in what you know and what you don't know, be confident to go get the answer.

Your client wants guidance, direction, expertise, not perfection.

If they knew it all, they wouldn't have called you.

So it doesn't matter if you own the answer or you get the answer.

It matters that you are there with the information for their benefit.

If you ever doubt this, think about the show.

Could you care less if Nicole Heimer of Gloria and Brand teaches us about a good website

and what it's supposed to do or Kato Harrah teaches about the luxury client?

You don't care that they teach it instead of me as long as you get the info.

You don't think less of me because they taught both of us at the same time.

Instead, you appreciate me because I brought them to you.

Hello, same with your clients.

You lead.

You do.

You guide.

They're happily.

Happy.

Right.

Right.

So here's why I want to end this episode.

Talent alone is not enough.

And romanticizing talent without business discipline is one of the most dangerous mistakes

I see because it creates cash flow without wealth activity without profitability pride

without security.

You can be incredibly talented.

You can be published.

You can be busy.

And it still might not be a business that supports your life.

The real power comes from the combination, talent and business acumen, creativity and

financial literacy, vision and systems.

This is what creates longevity, creates freedom, and creates wealth, not just a salary.

And that's where I want to leave you today.

What I've been describing is not hustle.

It's not grind.

It's not luck.

It's what happens when you build something intentionally with standards, clarity and leadership.

And then you stay long enough to see what it asks of you next.

Because once the foundation is solid, something very interesting starts to happen.

Opportunities don't feel random anymore.

They feel earned.

And what comes next isn't about what you can build.

It's about what you have to become in order to build and lead it well.

So next week's episode, I'm going to talk about that shift.

All right?

I have to say, thank you so much for joining me today.

I hope you are enjoying this little travel down memory lane.

If you have questions on the episode, you know you can comment with me and my Facebook

group on the Instagram post.

You can always send me an email.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for joining me today.

This podcast is a production of Luan Nigara Inc.

If you want to know more about me, my books, or Luan University, go to LuanNigara.com.

And if you are interested in having window works help you with your next window treatment

or awning project in the New York, New Jersey metro area, go to windowworksnj.com to learn

more.

Have an excellent day.