Easy Scaling with Jordan Schanda King

How to create boundaries in your business with Julia DeWolfe

July 28, 2022 Jordan Schanda King / Julia DeWolfe Episode 1
Easy Scaling with Jordan Schanda King
How to create boundaries in your business with Julia DeWolfe
Show Notes Transcript

Tune in as we discuss the concept of boundaries in business, the fine line between personal and work boundaries, setting boundaries around client communication, and what happens if someone challenges a boundary.

For the full show notes and access to resources mentioned in this episode visit
https://www.easyscaling.com/blog/episode1

In today's episode, we’re talking about boundaries. We're talking about what they are, how to have them in your business, what happens when they’re challenged, and so much more. 

My guest is Julia DeWolfe, she is one of my coaches, she is a certified Cognitive Behavioral Therapy practitioner, and she’s what she calls an 'everything coach' for entrepreneurs.

Julia is an absolute lifesaver for me. I cannot imagine doing what I do without her support, and she is going to be coming onto the podcast as a regular guest to discuss the more emotional side of running a business.

Topics Discussed:

  • The concept of boundaries (and the 3 types of boundaries)
  • What a boundary is and is NOT
  • Why boundaries do not equal confrontation
  • Setting boundaries around client communication
  • The fine line between personal boundaries and work boundaries
  • How to create new boundaries
  • What happens if someone challenges a boundary
  • Signs that you need to work on your boundaries

Launch_Ep_1 - How to create boundaries in your business with Julia DeWolfe

Jordan: All righty. In today's episode, we are talking about boundaries. We're talking about what they are. We're talking about how to have them in your business, all kinds of fun stuff. And we are talking with Julia DeWolf. Julia is one of my coaches. She is a certified cognitive behavioral therapy practitioner and what she calls an everything coach for entrepreneurs.

And I can vouch that's exactly what she is. Julia is an absolute lifesaver for me. I cannot imagine doing what I do without her support. And so Julia is going to be coming onto the podcast as a regular guest. We're gonna talk about all of this stuff that she has, knowledge and expertise around. We're gonna talk about cycle syncing and this kind of more emotional, less strategy.

less Business strategy and more like the mindset, the emotional stuff as I call it, and it's gonna be a ton of fun. She has a lot of value and information to share, and we're also going to be looking more behind the scenes in my own business. the things that I've, I've gone through, that I've struggled with, that I've overcome, the things that I'm dealing with kind of on an everyday basis.

And I think it's gonna be, a lot of fun and I, I really hope you enjoy this conversation and those to come. 

Jordan: Welcome. Welcome everyone. And welcome Julia. I am beyond excited for this. 

Julia: I'm really excited too. Thank you for inviting me to 

Jordan: do this. Yeah, of course. And for everyone listening, this is gonna be a really cool recurring thing that we do here on the podcast. I'm gonna bring Julia on and we're gonna explore some, some things that I apparently like to call emotional stuff.

in particular, as it relates to my journey and my business and the things that I've, had to fumble my way through over the last year as my business has grown very, very fast. so with that in mind, I think what we're gonna talk about today is boundaries, but we're gonna see where it goes. 

Julia: I'm excited for it.

I'm excited for it because most people have heard of the concept of boundaries everywhere. Especially now I feel like this has really picked up steam in the last, like couple of years that people are talking about how. We need to have healthy boundaries, but they don't really know what boundaries are.

And they also feel like boundaries like are kind of confrontational. So I know we've done a lot of work on boundaries, but your idea of those have changed. So when we first started together, what did you think boundaries were? How would you define like, well, I need to have some boundaries around that. 

Jordan: Mm mm.

I think that, so boundaries felt like rules and they felt like things that I it's hard, it's hard to go back and like define them previously without my current definition influencing that, but I'm pretty sure it was like a rule. that I would have that I would like need to enforce for other people is how I would describe it.

yeah. And maybe, maybe we, cuz I, I think we might need to dive into, we can keep talking about this, but I, I want to give people some context about what you do exactly. Oh sure. And, and our journey and what we've done together. But but feel free to go ahead and, and finish that thought on the definition of boundaries.

Julia: Sure. So, you're right in a piece there that they are rules, right. But they're not rules for other people. They're rules for ourselves. And most people think of boundaries as I'm making these rules for other people. You can't talk to me like that, but really they're rules for ourselves. So you were half right on that definition, but it's just, who's going to enforce it for who it's always about ourselves.

Cuz nobody likes it. Right. You're just living your life. And then someone comes up to you and tells you like, oh no, you may not do that. You're like, I'm, I'm sorry. Who are you? So we, we want to function in a way that's respectful of other people, but also of ourselves. So there's those rules 

Jordan: for ourselves.

I have. Okay. I wanna add one other thing that I feel like is a misconception about boundaries because yes, a lot of people think that there are rules that you make others follow . Yes. That are directed at you. Like how you want people to act to you. Mm-hmm the other thing is like this internalized. how I should act or the things that I should do, what my boundaries should be.

There's a lot of that I feel like too, and I know we've, we've gone through that, but I even heard someone talk the other day and they were describing like, you know, needing to not work at night because of boundaries. And I was like, well, what do you mean? They're like, oh my husband doesn't, I'm like, well, that sounds like his boundary, not your boundary like that.

That's like boundaries. Isn't what you, what other people tell you that you need to 

Julia: do? . Yeah, exactly. And that's actually, as we talk more, there's three kinds of boundaries. Usually when I hear someone talk. So if I'm on a coaching session and I hear someone, and I know that we've done this a lot too, where I'm like, if you're saying should a lot, I'm instantly like what's going on here because that's usually a gap between.

What we want to do and what we think we should do. And so that's always an invitation to explore, but usually there's this like rigid boundaries, very strict rules. I'm, you know, very closed off. This is the way things are. This is the way that they have to be there's poorest boundaries, which are that like, oh, someone else said I should do this.

So then this is the way, and there there's usually something that we can explore in there. And then we have healthy boundaries. And so we have these three kind of clear sets of boundaries that I, as a coach, We'll hear people saying and I know, okay, we're gonna have to move in this other direction, but this, I should kind of a thing because it makes someone else upset.

You're exactly right. That's not necessarily your boundary, that's them expressing their boundary. And then you're going to decide what, what you'll do with it. 

Jordan: Mm-hmm mm-hmm yes. Love it. Okay. So teaser, this is what we're gonna be diving into. so let's give some people some context. So when did we, when did we start working together?

Julia: So we started working together about just a hair over a year ago. And I know this because it was right before you were starting your business. You were right at like the baby stages of figuring out what do I wanna do? And you were like a completely different person from where we are now in like, such a great way, but.

I'd love to hear your perspective on where you were when we started working together, how 

Jordan: you would describe that. Yeah. Oh man. Okay. So it's so crazy cuz I can't, I almost can't wrap my head around the fact that that was just like a year ago, because so much has happened and anyone who knows kind of what I've been up to the last year would, would agree.

But even just, just on the business side and, and what I was doing with myself, I was still in my previous business with my co-founder and we were wrapping things up because we had, we had both decided and I, and I tell everyone this, that I'm actually extremely lucky that I've had two, two co-founders, two business partnerships.

Two separate ones that have ended, but ended very well. One was with my mom and I still love my mom. goodness. and, and enjoy her. And one was with like one of my very best friends and we are still fabulous friends. And, and so that is not everyone's story when it comes to partnerships. And I'd be happy to dive into that on an episode someday, but, was still in that partnership.

And we were wrapping things up because we had decided that, you know, we both had different ideas about what we wanted to do with the business. We both had different, like availability to invest our time into it. We both had different things that we enjoyed and it was very clear, like, okay, well, this business could easily be split into two separate things that we could each run with and pour our energy into it.

And so we decided to do that, but then I was left kind of with like this big question, mark of, okay, well, what the hell do I even. To do. I mean, I'm, I'm coming into it with like, you know, some, some IP, some information I can turn into a course, like, that's really cool, but I was feeling like I needed to do something like drastically different.

We were doing some, some coaching and some mentoring and it wasn't totally resonating with that work and with that title. and I was just like, it was just a big question, mark. I mean, I remember so many of the conversations we were having were around like, like these little mini breakthroughs of like, oh, maybe this is what I want to do.

Or like maybe this, or I'll try this. I think I applied for like a job at some point I was like, maybe I just wanna get a job. Like the, you know, business ownership, maybe that's too much. Cuz I had a, I had a one year old. yeah. It was a very fuzzy time when we started. 

Julia: It was, I think fuzzy is a really good way to describe it.

And over that course, I mean, it was very quickly like Bing bang, boom. Like, is it gonna be this thing that you wanna do? Is this the thing that you wanna do? And then when you landed on, no, this is what I wanna do. It just felt like a lightning bolt of everything really quickly started to get into line.

And you built such a wonderful, sustainable thing going forward, because it was so focused on your strengths, your wants, and exactly aligned with your gut. And that has been something you've worked so hard on along the way, too. 

Jordan: Yeah, I think there's multiple things here. There was like really a perfect storm.

One is. that piece that you mentioned around finding alignment, which I am just obsessed. I am obsessed with that. And I think it's absolutely critical for people to build a business that feels really easy is to make sure you're aligned with what you're actually doing. and I know this from experience because this is my third business and I did not feel that way in my others.

And I have from day one felt that way in this business. And I think that that's a lot of why it has grown so fast is because there hasn't been as much stopping and stalling around, like what I'm actually doing. That's just always been clear and easy, you know? So it's more just like optimizing all the time.

The second piece. Which is so funny now that I think about it, I originally signed up, signed up to work with you because you were doing work with cycle sinking mm-hmm . And I was like, oh, that's so cool. And so we started doing the cycle sinking and I started my business and I, yeah, I was like totally aligned.

And I was like, I'm gonna make this big investment. I'm going all in. And then two weeks later, I think we, we did cycle. We had maybe been working together for like a month or month and a half at that point. And then I found out that I was pregnant and I was like, huh, 

Julia: cycle, no more 

Jordan: cycle thinking no more.

I just started a business. I have a one year old and now I'm pregnant and I can't not do the business. Like I'm all in on this thing. It's too late. So, um, I. I think at the time that was like a very troubling experience. Now that I look back on it, I think that was the absolute best thing that could have happened to me because you know, me, I am like kind of a workaholic or I can like tend to that.

Jordan: You're probably gonna tell me not to, not to say that about myself, but, I have been a workaholic in the past in businesses. I'm like, I am the queen of hustle. Like just, I could do it and I can do it for a really long time, even though I know it's not good for me. so I think that was actually one of the best things that could have happened is me getting pregnant and being like, okay, well, I can't hustle my way through growing this business.

And I want to take time off when I have this baby. So now how do I build it? 

Julia: I think you're exactly right with that, because even with. you growing a baby we were still doing a lot of work to make sure that the hustle was a healthy hustle. Right. Mm-hmm because I think sometimes people go extreme on this idea of like, I am, I am deeply anti hustles culture, but I'm not anti working hard.

Right? Yeah. And so there's that difference there. and having ambition. And so sometimes it gets a little murky and the hustle is the part where we are happily blowing past our emotional and our physical needs, because we have to put in the sacrifice. Right. So I think that you already, like you said, you had that marker where you're like, I'm working on something important, I'm growing a baby.

So that is, you were naturally going to make sure that that was happening and okay. But then there was those other moments of. okay. How, how much do I wanna go in on this? What's actually important to me. And we did a lot of, a lot of checks along the way of like, okay, what's this all for? How do you want this to feel?

And those things are also all boundaries while we're on the topic of it. 

Jordan: So tell me more about that. What do you mean? 

Julia: So again, along this idea of a boundary is a rule for you knowing how you want things to feel or what you're working towards means that when, when things come up that don't really mesh with that, like, oh, that's not matching up with my, my integrity or the way that these, the way that I want this to go.

It's kind of easily a no, like, no, thank you. That's not where, or I'm not gonna be doing this. I don't have the time for that. And those are all rules that you are making for yourself. That's all a boundary where you're saying this thing, a boundary is where something stop stops and something else starts.

And so you're just kind of saying like, Nope, this is that's my end, mark. That's as far as I'm willing to go on this thing. And so I think that's an important distinction because a lot of times, like I said, people think boundaries equal confrontation, but we are all setting boundaries all the time. We're all deciding on it all the time.

So most of us are a lot better at it than we think we are because it's, it's just coming up and happening. Do you feel like you're like you see yourself doing that now where you're like, oh yeah, I set boundaries. 

Jordan: Yeah, for sure. For sure. And. I think I've, I think I've kind of fallen into that category of like, I've gotten so used to it.

It used to be so foreign and now it's not that I think a lot of the times, I don't even notice that I'm doing it anymore, which is a weird change. 

Julia: that's a healthy spot to be though, because again, most of us don't wanna be coming up to people all the time where, you know, somebody's behaving really poorly.

And then we have to have some kind of a conversation around like, this is not okay. Right. That should be in that happens. But it's probably in a slimmer column of our life versus just all I used the example the other day of like, if you don't want to talk to your clients on Saturdays, because you want, that's your family day, you don't have to express to all of your, you can tell all your.

You know, I won't be getting in touch with you on Saturdays, but if they send something to you, it doesn't need to be the end of the world that you're like, I can't believe you're not ex, like that's not their problem. It's up to you to hold that, to hold that boundary. And so those are the kind of things that most of us are doing all the time in hopefully a healthy way, but maybe we're not, maybe we're noticing, we feel that jump of like, oh, I need to do this thing because someone else asked.

And so that's kind of an important thing to, to catch. 

Jordan: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how I shifted that. I mean, you were obviously a big part of it, but it's hard for me to even think back to like what the moment was and maybe it was my maternity leave, honestly. kind of locking into place, a lot of boundaries because I had planned so much for it.

And. then I really, I really was able I had like skepticism all the way up to the moment that this was gonna like work out for me to not work for several weeks. And I actually ended up taking off more time than I had even planned, which was fantastic. like, but it's almost like you need something to kind of like lock it in to like show you like, oh, I, I can, I can set that boundary.

I can reply to client messages. I can rely on my team. I can, you know, do all of these things, turn off my notifications and the world doesn't end. And then it's like, oh, well now there's no going back cuz I've already done it. And it was fine. I think it, the, yeah, the hard part is just getting over the hump of like ever having done it to then it being your new normal.

Julia: Yeah. And I think it's also important to realize that that's okay. That's okay. and we sometimes get really hard on ourselves where we feel like, Ugh, I haven't done it all of these times. That's okay. Yeah. Maybe there was fallout or things like that, but we're working with right now. We can't do anything about that, but we can change it going forward.

We're never in so deep on a habit that we don't like that we can't change it. You know, we're never, we, we always have that option to change our mind. And you mentioned something there that is a really important thing, which is looking at the evidence that you have, that this will be okay. That. you know, at, at its core, it's safe for you to do that thing in cognitive behavioral therapy.

That's what we're working on all the time is like, okay, this is the belief that you have, that this thing will happen. Like if I don't respond to my client within five minutes, they are going to think that I'm not doing a good job and they're going to fire me. That's this belief that a lot of people have.

Well, what evidence do you have to prove that that's true. And what evidence do you have to prove that that's not true? How can we work moving forward in a way that you're not losing yourself in this whole process, that you're not scared all the time. And then once you have that evidence, then now you can start.

Even if you haven't acted on it yet, you still can kind of start to move in the direction. that you like, but I would argue that you had boundaries click into place a lot earlier 

Jordan: than, oh, for sure. I just mean with that with, yeah. Some there's something about the messages thing that like responding to clients' messages or like reading them that took me a long time to like, get over

Julia: What exactly were you nervous with with that? 

I don't know. I think like a lot of business owners we can make our work and role and other people's work definitely more important than it is. Not that my client's work isn't important. And my work is also important, but like you said, is the world going to end?

Jordan: If I don't respond to a message over the weekend? Like, no, it's not. And that's just not, that's not ever been the case. There's not a single situation where that's been the case. Yeah, I don't know. I think it's partly that we, or I have worked very hard and my team also works very hard to, to be very responsive and make our clients feel like they're, they're, they're cared for.

And they're, they're, you know, we're there for them all the time and yeah. I don't know. It just, it's like a scary thing to make someone feel like, oh, they're not responding to me. What's going on. 

Julia: Yeah. I think that's an understandable thing, right? Because you want peop that, that is often a core pillar of our business experiences.

We want people to feel taken care of. Yeah. And we know how it feels on the other side. Maybe we've paid for a service or working with a coach or something, and we. Pour our hearts out about something that we're nervous about or something. And then it's just crickets. And then all you can do is kind of loop around.

Like, did they get this? Is this not important? Or, you know, we might start to spiral a little bit so we can put our, we have some empathy around that. But for the sake of the, for the sake of the listeners, when you feel like the world's going to end, right. When you used to feel like the world's going to end, if you don't respond to a message, what specifically did you think was, were you afraid of happening?

What was the world ending in that context? 

Jordan: Oh, losing a client for sure. Okay. That's like the worst thing that could happen that they don't see value in what we do, man. We're going real deep. I know. I know. Look into my soul, everyone. 

Julia: that's the danger to be clear. I did switch off the podcast hat and for a minute, I thought we were on a call.

Jordan: yeah, I could tell it's like, this feels really familiar. 

Julia: so, well, I think it's important for people to know. Right? Like, and to start figuring out the process of how, how do you get specifics on this stuff? Because our feelings are so big around making these rules and, and sticking to it. It's like, if you have a little kid and then you're like, no, you can't play on your iPad.

now everybody has to deal with the rule, right? Mm-hmm like, you feel like it's such a good rule, but then you're like, oh, now I have to stick to the rule and it doesn't feel as fun anymore. And it's the same thing with ourselves. just for instance, vouch for that. so it's the same thing with ourselves where now we're like, if I make this rule, now I'm gonna have to stick to it.

Like, even if it turns into this whole boiling bubbling mess, but it can be helpful for people to look and say, oh, okay, this is the specific thing that I'm actually afraid of happening. I'm afraid that if I don't respond to this message within, you know, a specific amount of time that you feel whatever you feel yourself jumping, that you feel like you need to respond.

Okay. Well, does that feel true? Does that feel accurate? Like, is that really what they would walk away with feeling? Is there a way that I could make this. Expressed earlier, like, Hey, on weekends, if you send us something or, you know, on Tuesdays I don't respond or like there's ways to kind of pat it. So that way you can protect yourself in there.

Have you kind of incorporated any of those things? 

Jordan: Yeah. You know, what's interesting is we actually started that way and I think, and I think a lot of people do this. Like they have the best intentions when they're setting boundaries and I always go, like, I go back to contracts and I like always recommend that my clients have this stuff figured out, put it in your contracts and communicate it to your clients up front.

But even then we were doing that, like in all of our, in all of our client contracts, in all of the welcome information, it's like, we respond within 24 hours, excluding weekends and holidays. Like it's, it's all in there very clearly they know this going into it, but then. the way we show up. And I know other people do this is you over deliver and you want them to have a really good experience.

And then you almost kind of get locked into not what the contract says, not what you said you were gonna do, but what you're actually doing. And so if they're expecting you to respond day of every time, they're expecting you to respond on weekends, then you're almost setting up the situation for them to be disappointed.

When you, when you just go back to the thing that you said you were originally gonna do. And I know that that was at least my fear. Luckily I have fabulous clients and they , they, none of my clients would be mad if no one on our team responded for an entire weekend, like that's not gonna happen. I do sometimes work on weekends.

My team does sometimes work on weekends just because we all make our own schedules. So we work whenever we want, which is the beauty of what we do. Which is why, again, we could go back to like the poorest boundaries around feeling like you have to hold a boundary. Yeah. Cause so you've said you don't work on a weekend and then you feel bad cuz you're working on a weekend.

It's like, well, but during the week I spend most of my week off. So if I wanna work a little bit on a weekend, that's okay. you know, so it's like some, some muddiness there too. Yeah. 

Julia: Because sometimes we get very rigid. It's very, it's black and white. Again, if we're looking from a, a C B T stand of things, black and white thinking is something's not, we're not thinking things through properly.

That's a, that's like, oh wait a minute. I wanna examine this a little bit. So as soon as we get in that, like I cannot work on weekends because of X, Y, Z, if that X, Y, Z, isn't a real reason. It's just because, well, nobody works on weekends, everybody. Like if. That's not a good enough reason for you personally.

And so then we can kind of end up making ourselves feel bad for no reason, but then we start to move into that poorest side of things. When we're our feelings about ourselves or about our business or how good of a job that we're doing is, is very dependent on the opinions of other people or we're getting over involved in some of these problems or things that we might be seeing with our clients where we're, we're getting really invested in a lot of things.

And then if they're not happy, then we are not happy kind of a thing. And it gets really porous. And a lot of that does end up getting, when we dig a little bit deeper, we find that a lot of times it's, it's rooted in some kind of like ashamed situation where we're afraid of feeling ashamed or we' worried that.

We're not meeting up in some way. And so we start to like really over deliver on that stuff, but then the healthy boundary on that would be maybe there is some flexibility, you know, we have certain clients that we're willing to do different things for those clients because of our relationship with them.

We know that they're respectful of us, you know, I think of conversations that we've had at times that I would never real, but I'm just like, yeah, I wanna see what Jordan's talking about. And so I'll check in and see, and that is a, that's a healthy boundary because we both are respectful of, of those boundaries.

And so a healthy boundary is still flexible. It doesn't, it doesn't have to be once and always forever on, on that rule. 

Jordan: Yeah. Yeah. We talked about this at one point because I was, I was kind of beating myself up for sometimes I would, I would take my laptop. and I still do this, cuz we've decided this is okay for me to do.

If I wanna do it, I will watch TV at night and I'll have my laptop. And I'll just kind of like mess around with stuff. Maybe I'll like tweak a sales page or I don't know. There's a million things that I could be doing at night and it's almost always stuff that's like, Ooh, that sounds kind of fun. Like maybe I'll take a look at that or play around with this.

Or I have got some idea. Maybe I'll make a new offer. and I would came to cuz I was like, oh, you know, like I just feel bad. I feel bad because my whole thing is like, you know, telling people that they don't have to work all of the time. And I'm over here at night watching TV, drinking wine on my computer, like, should I feel bad?

And ultimately we decided, no, I can't remember how we got there, but we decided no, like I'm enjoying myself and I think I may have. A little bit, fuzzier of lines between fun and work than maybe some people, because I love what I do so much. And so it's, it's, it's, it's tricky. 

Julia: It can be tricky when we really enjoy what really enjoy what we do, but I believe some of what we did around that was like, is it taking away from something else that you feel would be important to do at that time?

And also, I remember that you expressed that that's actually a big part of your creativity is working on those things. Like it's not creativity in the sense that I think you were defining creativity, but you were creating a lot of things and you found it fun and you also found it kind of. Nourishing, right.

Mm-hmm like it was helping you stay excited about these things. And it was a lot of things that you were working on for your own business versus like client stuff too. Like, it was just things that you were kind of having fun and it was a lot of this creation process and, and playing, it was a kind of play for you.

Jordan: Yeah, for sure. For sure. And I think part of it is. I that's the time of day. I think that I like to do that stuff. It always has been like when I think back to running my very first business and I was still, you know, working a 40 hour a week job, I was getting my master's. I didn't have kids. So it's like, oh, that sounds like a joke.

compared to my schedule now. But then I was also running this business and I was working way too many hours, way too many hours, but most of them at night and all like doing all of the stuff for myself, like building the sales pages and like writing copy and that type of stuff at night up till, you know, three in the morning or something, I don't stay up till three in the morning anymore, but that has always been the time of day that I like to do those things.

Jordan: So that's been kind of a difficult thing again, when it comes to like these expected boundaries, these things that I think I need to do. And then balancing that with. What I actually want to do. 

Julia: Yes. And

I think it's important for us to realize that boundaries when you're building your own business, when you're, when you are building a business, how corporations run, or even how other people run their business and the needs of the people in those settings, miles away different than where you are at as an entrepreneur, building this business from the ground up, right?

Like you, your schedule's never gonna be the same. it's and that's okay. That's the whole reason why you're doing this. So for a corporation to say nine to five, this is what's happening or whatever they've got going on. They that's their boundary. They need to have that because they need. Order, they need to have some kind of a system for people to work inside of you are building your new one.

And probably the whole reason you're doing that is because that's where you thrive. You probably really thrive in this kind of a freedom. So you don't have to, Monday through Friday, anything you don't have to nine to five, anything. And one of the best gifts, especially for women who have their own business is learning.

What are your own energy cycles? What are your hormonal cycles? How, how are you expressing your creativity? What time of day? Not everybody wants to wake up at four o'clock in the morning and like miracle morning. It, I am not one of those people 

Jordan: so I, I wake up at four in the morning, but , I don't do anything like that.

I roll back 

Julia: over and then go back asleep if I wake up at four. So learning and in coming to terms with that and having full acceptance of. then now you get to look and say, well, what do I enjoy doing? And then you can start to create boundaries around that. another thing that I know that we did some work on, and I think this is really important for women who have their own business is how do you have fun?

Like work fun is awesome because we can, we can get our businesses to a point where we are doing like 99.9% of the stuff that we're doing is fun. And, you know, maybe just a little bit like making sure your taxes are okay and that kind of stuff, not so fun, but for the most part, we can have fun. And then also making sure that you have some kind of tap in on just fun in general.

Like how are you kind of resting and recharging people who are creative need time to just. Have not a lot going on. Like they can figure out what they want, want to do. and that's, that's an important thing to start checking in with because then that can be a roadmap for, okay. What are some of these rules that I have for myself for instance?

And I'm gonna ask you in a second, what maybe one of those rules is? So I'll give you a second to to think about it, but for myself, I have a rule that like on days where if, if I have something happening in the evening, that is gonna take a lot of mental power. Like I'm, I'm really gonna need to be paying attention or focused.

I don't work in the afternoon. I know, I know myself that I need some rest and re recharge time. I talk a lot on my Instagram about how I have ADHD, lots of women who have their own business have ADHD and, and knowing myself for like, I need to have some fun at that time. I need to kind of just like, let my brain do its thing in order for me to check back in and pay attention again in the afternoon, that became a boundary that I had to make.

I can only book clients in the morning on those days that I know I have something going on in the evening. If I wanna feel like I'm doing a good job at that thing at night. And so that became a boundary in my schedule where in the middle of the day, there's gonna be some fun. So that way I can get back to doing a good job later in the day.

Do you feel like you have any of those kind of like internal rules for yourself? 

Jordan: Yeah, for sure. I mean, when it comes to scheduling, I have gotten, oh my gosh, I have gotten so much better with my schedule with the exception of last week, because I'm in the middle of launching a podcast. So , I had a little bit of a packed week, but, typically there's only certain days that I do client calls.

and I don't like to mix different calls if possible. So like, I don't wanna have a client call then a podcast interview, then a client call, then a podcast interview, then a client call like that. That to me is too stressful. I also remember there was a, at one point I came to you and I was like, I gotta do something about my schedule because I had set aside time to like work on my business and do some kind of like deeper work around, you know, identifying limiting beliefs or like working on my mindset.

Jordan: And then I had client calls the rest of the day and I was an absolute mess. I got at the end, the end of the day, I was just like, I'm dead. Like I can't, my brain doesn't work. I'm I was like more dead than I have ever felt at the end of the day. And I was like, okay, well, I'm never gonna combine those two things ever again.

the other thing that I am pretty strict on now that I didn't even realize was a rule until as, until we're talking about it, but I sleep in, I sleep in over almost every day. I have a newborn ish. He's not technically a newborn anymore. He's like two and a half months old. and a two year old, he's pretty new.

Jordan: He's, he's fresh for sure. He's fresh. Uh, he's not quite sleeping all the way through the night. So, that's what I'm doing when I wake up at four is typically feeding a baby or pumping or, you know, something like that. And then I go back to sleep and I have a nanny and a Saint of a husband. And so when I go back to sleep at four or five in the morning, I typically sleep till about nine sometimes later.

And that's just my routine. Like I, I don't schedule calls before nine 30 ever. and I don't usually like to schedule them before 10 or 10 30. so that, that's a pretty hard rule for me because I don't function on little sleep. 

Julia: So with that being your rule, how do you. Express that to other people.

Cause that I think that's a perfect example of a boundary. And so how do you carry that boundary out with people? 

Jordan: Mm, I wouldn't say that it's something I necessarily have to express. It's just a choice in how I schedule, so I don't, I don't give the option. Otherwise, the only exception that I make is that I have tennis, two mornings a week.

Now that is a little bit earlier and that's just because those are already set times and I make an exception, which means I try to go to bed a little bit earlier, the night before and not drink wine, but that doesn't always work out 

Julia: but that's okay. That's 

Jordan: okay. You know, it's a choice I get to 

Julia: make that's right.

so. now let's talk about, I think, you know, if you want to move to it, what happens if someone challenges your boundary? Cuz I think that's like the scary or like not a challenge, but now you have to tell someone there's like a line in the sand. 

Jordan: I have a hard time even imagining getting into that situation.

I will, I will say so just the other day, I think I maybe told you about this. I had to reschedule a call or no, the, the person I had a call with had to reschedule and they sent me their calendar and I really wanted to do it like the following week. I didn't wanna wait. And so they sent me, they sent me their calendar.

Jordan: I looked at the times. and everything on there was before, cuz they're in a different time zone before my time that I like to do calls, I think the latest one was like eight o'clock and I was like, oh man. Okay. Like I think I could make it work. Like it's just one time. And eventually I came around to like, yeah, no, I'm not doing that.

I'm not scheduling that call at 8:00 AM. And so again, it's not something I necessarily had to express to them and say like, Hey, I'm not scheduling this call because I like to sleep in . But just getting back to them and being like, ah, okay, none of the times that that week will work. So let's, you know, look at the next week or here's my calendar.

Can you pick something on my calendar? so again, it's not like expressing it it's, it's more of like an internal thing that only I know is happening, 

Julia: which is the path to a healthy boundary because. Again, someone out there listening might feel the need to explain that. So if, if we're not in a healthy spot with our boundaries, we may feel the need to give an explanation as to what that's not gonna work.

Because especially when we have an opportunity, right? Like this thing could, could be something that we want, that we're excited about. We wanna get in on it. And then if we're not able to do it, we might be really, really tempted to overexplain or overshare. The why behind it, like, oh, I, I, I really want this opportunity.

I'm really excited about this, but my schedule is like this and I have a new baby and I wanna sleep and I wanna do, and then we can kinda get, and then the person on the other line is like, or the other end is kind of like, well, what are we okay. You know, they don't really know what to, yeah. They don't really know what to do with that information.

you know, the, the other thing. Just being tempted to break the boundary. yeah. And I'm not saying that there's not ever any situation where I'm gonna do something before 10:00 AM, right? Like, of course there is, but a great example of this and, and it it's, it's kind of like, I know when it's happening, cuz to me it feels very much like frantic energy, which I used to have a lot of.

Jordan: And I don't like we've worked through a lot of the things that cause me to feel frantic. and usually it is some type of like worry about a missed opportunity or a potential for a client and maybe, you know, I should try to make it work. And this just happened. I was thinking about this last night because.

We have, we've totally changed how we like work with clients. We have all these cool new offers and, we're running Facebook ads cuz Facebook, a ads is, have always worked really well for us. And so we turned our Facebook ads back on last week and now people are probably hearing me talk about this, uh, on different episodes.

And it's gonna feel really out of order because it changes all the time. But, we've had almost 15 applications I think in like 10 days. So I had, wow. I think I had four come in overnight last night and I, I was thinking, oh man, I should open up my calendar this week in case anyone wants to schedule a call cause they wanna get started with us soon.

But I, I purposefully blocked off my entire week this week, cuz I already had some stuff scheduled. I I've got a two day retreat that I'm going to virtually this week. Uh, some podcast episodes and a couple of other random calls. And last week I had probably my busiest call week that I've maybe ever had ever, but definitely in since you know, in the last like six months or more.

And so I was like, I'm, I'm blocking off this whole week. And I almost talked myself into opening up my calendar and then I was like, no, because if they really wanna work with us, like they can ask questions via email. I I've invited them to ask me questions. In other ways, we don't have to get on a call.

They can DM me, you know, worst case scenario. I can give up my boxer handle and we can boxer back and forth. But there's absolutely no reason for me to open up my calendar for this. Opportunity like that. I'm not gonna start the, our relationship that way. You know, , 

Julia: that's really an important thing to have in, especially with a new client or a new business relationship.

And that first that's gonna set the tone for a lot of things moving forward, and the energy can be all off on that. As soon as it's like, you know, we're, we're, we're going to feel frazzled. If our calendar is already booked with a full week of like, here's these other things that are going on. And then we add in this whole different kind of energy that we need to expend for like a sales call, kind of a situation, or like a, getting to know somebody that you need that needs its own focus.

And that's where I do love cycle syncing for that kind of stuff. Cuz we have some kind of a plan behind when we're going. But as soon as we start to open that up, we feel frazzled that interaction is. Going, we're not gonna walk away and be like, that was my best work yet. I'm so happy with that. And so that's where it also goes back to, we need to know where we're going and what we're doing and what the purpose behind those boundaries is.

Because if that purpose is really in touch with our personal purpose and goals and focus, it won't feel so loosey goosey. It won't feel like, well, I don't really have any reason to not do this because then we feel guilty. We feel this shame around, like, I'm just putting this person out. I'm going to miss out on this opportunity.

What if they don't sign with me? Like we go around that. But when we know this boundary is here, because I need to do a good job on this thing, I have all this other stuff planned. We feel confident in. , we don't need to be ashamed of having a full workload, whatever we decide that workload is, and that things get bumped out.

Like that's not something that we need to feel shame over. And so it's really important that we know what's the purpose of this, and that's why it has to be your boundary and not a boundary that you picked up from someone else. Or you think someone might get mad at you if you don't do this thing, it needs to be in touch with, at your core, your 

Jordan: beliefs.

Yeah. And I think the other thing that can be hard to it's, it's almost like hard to put your finger on it, but, trying to hold boundaries that create a schedule that are going to work for me long term can make things really difficult in the moment when you're making little decisions like that. And it can be like, well, I'll just do it this week or, well, I'll just, but if you do that every single week, you're always gonna have a schedule that.

Like just like a mess, like an absolute mess. Like you're always gonna have that if you're, if you're constantly making like those little exceptions. And so that's been something I've been trying to get a lot more comfortable with and have come a really long way and still have ways to go, but being really intentional with how I schedule things and making little decisions like that on well, these people don't have to meet with me this week and I've already made the decision that I want some spaciousness in my calendar.

And that is important to me for many different reasons. Like you're saying kind of knowing that why behind it makes it easier to be like, no, that's not a good exception to the rule. and practicing that so that I have the spaciousness in my calendar all the time. , you know, otherwise it spirals out of control.

I feel like there was something else I was gonna, gosh, there's so much we could talk about boundaries and. I, I think boundaries when it comes to clients and finding the right clients, is that something I really wanna talk to, and maybe we can combine that in a conversation with firing clients, cuz I know that we've gone together on that path many, many times and how messy that can be to fire a client and to do it.

Jordan: to do it well. though, I don't know if I've ever had a great experience firing a client cuz it's just not any fun. and people take it personally, which is understandable. I probably would too, but I think we can talk about, you know, I'm just kind of teasing it here cuz it's on my mind, but like, seeing red flags.

in potential clients actually firing clients, navigating when things are maybe not working so great with a client and you maybe don't wanna fire them, but holding your boundaries there, I think there's all kinds of stuff. We could talk about boundaries related to that. So I won't go down that rabbit hole 

Julia: right now.

Yeah. I think one of the most important things before we can get to that point is that we need to have an idea of like, what is that? What would be my healthiest boundary? What do I actually want? And that's all about a you, right? That's all about like in your gut, does that feel right? Does that feel like something you wanna do?

Yes or no. Talking about working with people. I know we've done a lot of work on that where I've literally made you list out. Like what kind of a, what client made you feel happy? What client made you feel. Gross. Right. And then comparing, what were some of the things that each of those categories did that made you feel that way?

Because then you could start to see, okay, this is how other people might behave that might not mesh with or, or makes it even better. What my, my boundary is. Right. And so I think that it's really important to have a lot of that. self-reflection because like we talked about at the beginning, your boundaries will always be for you mm-hmm they will always be your behavior, what you feel comfortable with.

And so you have to start on that before you can start to really look at like what's other people's behavior that I'm not feeling okay with. Yeah. And then another thing that ties into this, but we'll tie into that conversation too, is that people are allowed to. have an emotional . I mean, we, they, they, nobody should be behaving in a way that they're getting like angry or like inappropriately.

That's not okay. But people are allowed to have a response to a boundary, just like we, we have, we are having responses to people's boundaries left and right. And we don't always realize it because sometimes it can be positive. I really love the breakdown on when someone tells you, Hey, this made me a little uncomfortable, or I don't feel comfortable like doing X, Y, Z.

That's just them letting us know how to be a better friend or be in a better relationship with them. They're letting us know this is how to love me. and so now we get to honor that we get to respect. It helps those relationships gel better to be, to work that we can work better together. So it's not always a conflict when someone tells us, oh, I just, like, I don't know.

Sometimes it may be a positive thing where someone says, you know, I'm someone who just needs like a lot of affirmation, like, is this good? Does that, that might sound familiar. right. I'm somebody who needs a lot of affirmation. Like, let me know when something's going well, so that way I can keep doing that thing.

Nobody's gonna be like, how dare you ask me to tell you that, you know, like we're going to be like, oh, sure. And then we'll pay attention to it. And so boundaries are something that people have a response to. And, and just because someone has a response that we have flagged as negative. Doesn't mean that our boundary was wrong or improper, or even needs to be changed.

It just is. We're just giving them the space to respond and decide what 

Jordan: they'll do. Mm mm-hmm yeah. And I think there's, we're gonna touch on that a lot. I think in this next conversation that we have about, clients specifically, but what else should we talk about around boundaries kind of more generally, or other areas where boundaries might show up?

Julia: Well, I would love to know from your side, because we talked about this a little bit before of, um, how boundaries kind of like spill over. So your boundaries in your personal life may affect your boundaries in your work life or those kind of a things. and we've worked on, on those things too. And you mentioned about your maternity leave.

I would love to hear a little bit from your side. Like, what were some of the boundaries that you were stressing about with your maternity leave versus what ended up happening? 

Jordan: Oh my gosh. Yeah, this is the, the, I, I think this is the poorest boundaries example. so I was planning for maternity leave for a very long time because , I knew it was coming.

And I had a interesting experience with my last maternity leave with my daughter. I was still in a nine to five, but I also had my side hustle and I took a ton of time off cuz it was paid cuz I had a job and I was so bored. I was so bored now context. This was also pandemic. So my daughter, both of my children are pandemic babies.

which has also been a unique experience in and of itself. But with my daughter first kiddo, it's a lot of work. But I had all this time off and I was beyond board at home and my husband and I were both working from home and we didn't even have help. We didn't have a nanny, we didn't have anything.

Jordan: This was like early days pandemic where no one was coming in contact with each other. And so I ended up starting a blog. I was like, oh, I'm gonna be a mommy blogger. Like, I'm gonna like write all these articles about like what products I'm using, because I needed some kind of outlet. I was just like, going crazy.

And so going into this maternity leave, I was like, okay, well, I don't really wanna take that much time off cuz I know I'm probably gonna be bored. Like I don't want my and my husband would be like, please don't like force yourself to take off work because then you're just gonna find another project to fill your time.

If that gives you an insight into my personality at all, um, But I was reading this book and I, I mentioned this book to all the time, cuz it's a fabulous book called, clockwork. And it talks all about this concept of operation vacation. And it's like taking four weeks off and like building your business in a way that where you can take four weeks off.

And so I got it into my head and everyone knows listening. Well, you may not know right now, but you're, you're gonna hear me talk about this lot, a lot. I'm an Ingram one. So I think there's a right way to do everything. And so when I read a book like that, I like really internalize the rules that it sets out and I'm like, okay, well I have to take four weeks off.

And then I internalize everybody else's expectations. And people are like, oh, like, you should make sure you're taking off at least 30 days. Or like, you should take at least six weeks or you should take eight weeks or, you know, all of these expectations for how much time I should take off. And so I settled on four weeks and I was beyond stressed.

I mean, every time we talked, I was just like, I don't know how this is gonna be possible. My business is gonna fall apart. I can't step away for four weeks. Like that's a long time. I was just dreading it and dreading it and dreading it. And eventually we settled on, okay, well, what actually feels good? Like how much time do you want to commit to taking off?

And for me that was two weeks. I was like, oh, well, two weeks, nothing too terrible can happen in two weeks of me, cuz I wanted to be fully off the grid. It was like kind of the expectation that I was setting for myself. So we decided on that and I think I ended up taking four weeks, which is kind of funny now that I look back.

But, it was only after I saw like, okay, I, I, I took off an extra week right at the end of my pregnancy and then I took two weeks off and then I ended up kind of extending that out a little bit longer because I had seen that it was working fine without me. . So it was quite, quite the journey of navigating everybody else's expectations for what I needed to do.

Julia: Yeah. And that you flagged it, right. That's the poorest one, right. Where we're like, well, what do you think? What do you think mm-hmm . And especially in that situation where, you're the mom and you're the business owner. Yeah. So you were, you know, you were gonna be deciding what felt right. The whole time.

And of course we get input from people, but then we're trying to like match it all up. 

Jordan: Aw man. People were shouldn't all over me. They were like, yes, you should do this. And you should do that. Yeah. Unsolicited, shoulds 

Julia: shoulds are almost always based in shame. And I think, you know, at this point you don't even say should on our calls anymore because I'm like, eh, let's use a different word.

Like please let's use a different word. and I think what was really helpful there was that we just kinda like took the pressure off where it was like, who are you answering to like pick what you want. And then you had that sometimes all we need is that flexibility where it's like, where there was so many moving pieces to that particular.

And that's how most people's lives are, where there's all of these moving. And you're like, well, what if this happens? And what if that happens? And you can't always plan for all of that, but you do have the mental capacity to decide to tackle that thing once it comes. And I think that's kind of what we landed on, where it was like, if you need to send a message here or there you'll probably feel okay with that.

And then what ended up happening? You said you took more time, but you were like, you were able to really go off, right? Like you. 

Jordan: Yeah. Yeah. I, I don't know why. This happened, it could be just the nature of having two kids instead of one. but I really was craving the time off and I was not, I was not looking for projects.

It was a totally different experience this time around, which I wasn't expecting. I couldn't even have planned for that. You know how to, like, there's just no way to know how you're gonna react to it. And so I think it was getting away from the rigidity was the important piece, like you were saying, like, okay, I say I'm gonna take two weeks, but.

Also allowing some flexibility. So I did, I kept it very open when I communicated it to clients. It was like, I'm taking two weeks. I'm gonna be off the grid. You know, Molly's gonna be your point of contact. Like you're gonna be taken care of by the team. And then I will be EAs back in after that. And there was no, I didn't set any kind of like specific expectations.

You know, you may or may not see me on calls. Like I left it very open and I think that was the best thing I could have done because you know, even saying, I'm gonna take four weeks off is just as stressful as I'm only gonna take two and I'm gonna be right back, like any kind of like anything set in stone.

when you're coming back from creating a human, bringing a human into the world, like you just don't know how you're gonna feel. so it was the flexibility. I think that ended up being the best part of it and allowed me to just like, feel into. people know I'm not. Woo, woo. Even though I love Wu stuff, like feel into like, what do I actually want to do?

Like, do I feel like going back to work this week, do I feel like maybe just checking some voxer messages, but still not really chiming into anything. Like I could just kind of feel my way through it 

Julia: and that's my favorite way to operate always in forever. and we talk about that a lot where it's like, what, what do you want?

And, you know, your, your boundaries, your rules that we have for ourselves, our rules for ourselves are based off of our like, beliefs, right? And then our beliefs are based off of our thoughts. Right. and so we've got this like whole, and then our, our thoughts feed our beliefs, which then feed our actions.

And so voicing the boundary or being like, or acting within that boundary is, is kind of that action. And so when we work it back, then we're able to look and say, okay, why do I feel like I need to do this thing? Like, I, why do I, why do I feel like I would owe someone the response to say, I'll be back in four weeks and then I'm coming back and you it'll be like, you never even missed me.

And like all of this. And then when we start to work that backwards, then we can land on the, eventually we land on the thought, which is what we wound on with you, where you were, you were really like, what if people aren't able to manage the workload because you knew how key you were at the time. Right?

Mm-hmm . And so you were worried about, you didn't wanna abandon your team and to kind of just like, be like, okay guys, like you were, you wanted to know that you had prepared them enough. And so then we were able to work around that thought and to say like, okay, but like what work have you done? And, and you were able to start acting on new thoughts of, I wanna give them a little bit more autonomy so that way they can feel.

Like they're handling these projects. And so then you started to go out and that gave you a whole new branch of thought and that's that power of like walking those things back and you could physically see your stress going away on those calls. I can still see you and your little window on zoom, the way your office was set up that day when I could like see it melt away.

Jordan: Yeah. yeah. I, I, I won't, I, I could talk about the team autonomy thing for that. That's absolutely critical. it's definitely an ego thing. we could talk about that too. it's a whole other episode. 

Julia: so what would you say you learned? Because I would, I would flag maternity leave as kind of a personal life boundary, right?

Yeah, because that was that that's kind of like pocketed over into life. Especially with like people close to you being like, you should do this, you should do that. Mm-hmm and like, that's, that's a personal boundary, but then it, a lot of the pressure on that personal boundary was connected to business and that was a whole different set of boundaries.

But what do you feel like you learned from that experience moving forward about boundaries in those two categories? 

Jordan: Mm, yeah, I don't know. It's so tough because the line for me is not super clear. It, it's still very fuzzy for me, like where life boundaries start and work boundaries start and where that is, because what I do is so integrated into my identity as a person, and also just like.

I mean, I work from home. My husband works from home. We're home all the time. We're still not like fully integrated back into society. because we live in a new city. We don't know a ton of people. And so we spend a lot of time at home and we don't necessarily have work hours. And so that, that I think makes it more fuzzy for us than it may, for some people, even like, I've been thinking about getting a coworking space, this is like not answering your questions.

This is exactly how our car, our call goes. I can tell that all of our calls is like, Julia, ask me a question and then I go on a tangent about something else. Um, and then maybe she'll bring me back down to get me to answer the question. but I've been thinking about getting a co-working space because it's difficult to find the edges I think of life and work, especially with like social media and like all the things like, I don't know.

So I don't know how to answer that. okay. 

Julia: Well, I think you kind of did, because what I heard in that is that you're looking for a new way to create those boundaries. Like you had, you had maybe more of that experience while you were on maternity leave. I mean, you're pretty new back from maternity leave.

Yeah. So it's it. What I'm hearing there is you're like, well maybe I want more clear definition. You're looking for some, some boundaries there just mentally. 

Jordan: Well, yeah, just mentally and like for anyone who's a mom, like, I mean, I can hear on this, on this episode, I can hear my kids, you know, so it's like, that's the other thing is it's not just that work bleed into personal life.

It's like personal life bleeds into work constantly because I can never get away from them. yeah. You know, like everyone is always here. And so, yeah, it's just, it's fuzzy. I would say there's a lot of experimentation like this weekend. I don't know. I as like rigid of a person as I think I can be, I don't really do do well with rigid rules, around like behavior.

I just don't do well with that. So like saying I'm gonna put my phone away, you know, after this time of day, like, I don't like that. I do, I have to have the flexibility. I don't like saying I don't have my phone on, on a weekend and it just makes me uncomfortable. not because I wanna work, but just because I don't like to be forced to do anything in particular, but last weekend, my husband and I kind of experimented with like an off the grid day.

We for the most part, we're not on our phones. I think we got 'em out like a couple of times to call a family member or do something. But for the most part, we were not on our phones and we definitely weren't on our laptops that whole day, for any reason when it comes to the laptops and it was so nice, like we had a, a lot of like time just to like do other stuff.

But I think I would, I would rebel against the idea of saying we have to do that every Saturday. You know what I 

Julia: mean? yeah. That's a real thing where people make the rule themselves and then instantly rebel. And it's like, nobody's gonna tell me what to do, including myself. Right. and so that's a real thing.

And that's where I think it's very helpful to remember that healthy boundaries are still flexible. You get to decide because none of us can say. totally solid. Exactly. What's going to happen every single day, how we're going to feel things, change things, come up and it's a gift to have the flexibility to be like, you know what I'm feeling like, especially excited to make social media graphics today.

And so that's what I'm going to do. Like that's the fun of having your own business, but it's also important to, we've talked about this before. That balance is a lie, right? Like this idea of perfectly equal balance is not going to exist. And the pursuit of that is what makes us miserable. But if instead, we're able to look and say, what are some core important activities or areas of my life.

And then what are some goals that I have in those areas, then you still have the flexibility. Like you can do it on a weekly basis and to say like, I would like for our family to spend some more time together this week. And then one of the goals is like, okay, one day we're going to, you know, go to the park for three hours.

We're gonna have a picnic or you start to get these specifics in there instead of, for all of time. Every Saturday, every electronic device does not exist in our house. That makes me annoyed. Just thinking about it. yeah. And so we just get, instead to look at what are the specific areas of our life that feel like they need a little bit of extra love, and then how do we want to make that a little bit better this week and just improve a little bit and we can check through those same areas.

You know, we think of like our work, our health, our emotions, our marriage, our passion in life, a hobby, we start to list out these categories and then we can start to build some goals. And then that naturally starts to create some boundaries for. 

Jordan: Our lives for sure. For sure. And this, I mean, like I said, it's, it's a lot of experimenting and for me, the things that have formed the best boundaries that like are consistent week to week or day to day is more around like habits.

And so I'm not really, like, I'm not making the rule and then trying to stick with it. I'm kind of like making little decisions in the moment. And then that becomes kind of the habit. So like, like you said, like I'm making, I'm making decisions about how I'm gonna spend time outside of work. Like every Thursday I have a tennis lesson every Friday.

I go to this tennis clinic every Monday night. I like, I have a lot of tennis that I've integrated into my schedule. And then over time kind of unintentionally. I have a habit where I don't take my phone with me when I, when it's bath time for, to like time to put my daughter down for bed, we do bath time.

And then we do bedtime. I don't take my phone upstairs with me. I used to take my phone upstairs with me, and then it was kind of like there, you know, and now I just don't take it with me. So I don't have like the temptation, but every once in a while I will take it with me. But, but it it's the thing that has been important for me is to not make that mean anything.

like, I'm not a failure. Um, I'm doing something wrong. If I do take my phone with me one time, like, it's not that big of a deal. so allowing again, like for me, it's the flexibility, but it's easier said than done, right? Like, this is why everybody needs a Julia's because like, it's like a constant, like trying to figure out all of this all the time.

Julia: Oh yeah. And honestly, So much of my time with clients is asking, like, who told you that? like, when they're like, oh, and then I have to do this. And that makes me a bad person. And it's like, says, who like, what, where are we attaching that? And I love that you brought that out of like you breaking your own rule is not like a moral failing.

There may be some big rules for your life where you're like, I don't steal like that. Okay. Yeah. That's a big one. Right. But like these small things of, I don't bring the phone upstairs. Well, maybe you wanna take pictures at bedtime or like may, like, that's not, oh my gosh. Like I can't even stick to these Bo boundaries or have flexibility.

The healthiest boundaries will have that thought process behind it of like, well, this isn't a big deal. I know I'm not because probably. The rule around your phone is that you don't wanna get a notification that will distract you from this time that you're spending together or to be tempted. Oh, I'm just gonna check my email really quick or something like that.

So it's not the device, it's the world. That's, that's the hard thing also about our phones, like our everything. Right. We have our personal stuff we have. And so that's its own separate thing. And so I don't like rigid rules around that stuff, but I love that you brought up, it's not a moral failing to change your mind.

Jordan: Yeah, absolutely. Well, we've covered a lot. We did, this was all fabulous. And we have a long list of fun stuff that we're gonna keep talking about. And like I mentioned, this is gonna be something that we do on a regular basis to have these conversations and, and look kind of behind the scenes at some of this emotional stuff.

it's not all emotional stuff, but it's, it's. It's not business strategy, but it's equally, if not more important to figure this stuff out, but why? Um, yeah, so this is gonna be really fun to come back and, and talk about a lot of these things, every month. So is there anything else you want to leave people with before we wrap?

Julia: I think I would just look at, from like a very practical standpoint of, if you feel like you are struggling with creating boundaries in some way to kind of examine a few key markers for yourself. the first thing is like, if you're feeling a lot of resentment around how other people are behaving or the work that you're putting in, that's usually an invitation that some kind of a boundary of yours has been ignored by you.

So if there's that kind of a feeling is popping up a lot. I would then look and say, okay, I probably need some help. around getting some boundaries. Also, if you feel like you cannot ask anyone for help, because you can't trust that they're going to do on it to do what you want them to do. That's again, a invitation for you because you may have some very strict rules that you are either not expressing clearly to people, or maybe you need to loosen up a little bit.

If you feel like you struggle with oversharing or Underhar, that's also something for you to look at for getting some boundaries. And if you have a hard time saying no to other people or saying yes to the things that you. Or if you feel totally rejected, if people say no to you, that's all of those things are big, big flags for you to look and say, okay, I've gotta do some work on my boundaries because we might not know.

And so that's my thing. If you listen to that and you're like, oh my gosh, check, check, check, check, check, then get some help on checking in with your boundaries, how to do it in a way that feels good with your integrity. and it's gonna feel good. It won't feel 

Jordan: scary. Mm, well, I think we've got an agenda for our next call.

not one of these, but one of our calls, because I could definitely resonate with some of those things. that's so funny. It's, it's a constant work in progress, right? Always, always I love it. Well, this was super fun. Thank you. And, uh, thank you. We'll talk soon. Absolutely.