Are you walking around with a destructive label inside your head that determines the choices you make and how you live your life?
This week I met “Cynthia” (not her real name) by phone. She has been dabbling at being a home stager.
“Dabbling” because she’s done a few free projects for friends.
Cynthia has spent money advertising her staging business, and she’s never had a paying client to show for it.
In other words, she’s lost money on this idea and is NO closer to figuring out how to make being a home stager work for her!
She told me about how she has always loved decorating. That people have been telling her for years that she has God-given talent.
Cynthia has never used her decorating talent to earn a living before.
She’s 49 years old. Her kids are self-sufficient and she really wants to create a real business. She imagined that home staging would be her calling— except that right now she can’t seem to make money at it.
“I really need your staging business training,” she said. “But I never follow through on anything so I’m afraid to invest in your courses.”
After more discussion it turned out that she felt she “never follows through” because she did nothing with the medical transcription training she’s already taken. And she gave up a multi-level marketing (MLM) business selling weight loss products.
No surprise, she hated hassling friends, family, and anyone else she ran into to, to buy products.
Personally I could relate. How about you?
I’d be hard-pressed to think of a less creative way to make a living than medical transcription! And, I’ve never been interested in MLM, because I hate hard-selling and cold calls (home staging requires neither of these).
My Conversation With Cynthia The Home Stager Continued
“Can you see any similarities in the two previous career ideas you haven’t followed through on?” I asked.
“I wasn’t passionate about either of them,” Cynthia replied.
So I asked her how her life might be different if she had a formula to follow to make money from her passion for decorating and whether she thought that would hold her interest so she could follow through.
After some additional discussion about what it’s like being a home stager, she decided to order the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program.
The next morning, she left a message asking whether it was true that I offer a money-back guarantee (I do). Within 2 days (even before her program arrived in the mail), she asked for a refund.
Apparently she discussed it with her friends and everyone said, “Why did you order that? You never follow through on anything!”
I have no problem giving Cynthia her money back because I only want happy students who plan on taking action with the training they receive from me.
What breaks my heart about her story is that she’s lived DOWN to her friends’ expectations, rather than standing in her own power and moving forward with what she wants to do!
As a person who “never follows through,” she couldn’t allow herself to follow through on listening to the training program.
She could have listened to the entire Staging Diva program over a day or two in the comfort of her own home.
Then she could have started implementing the many ways she would have learned to turn her staging hobby into an actual money-making business for an entire month before deciding if she wanted to keep it!
But she didn’t. She closed off that possibility while the training package is still in the mail on its way to her door.
You see the labels we give ourselves (or empower others to give to us), are something we live into.
If you walk around telling yourself any of the following, you’ll find them to be true:
- I never follow through on anything.
- I’m not smart enough to have my own staging business.
- No one will ever pay me for my decorating talents.
- I can’t be a home stager unless I lose weight.
What negative thought or label are you walking around with?
Pull out a journal or a piece of paper and write it down so you can see how harsh and unproductive it is!
After you write the negative thought, list 3 pieces of evidence that it’s not actually true, then let it go so you can embrace all the joys and new experiences that lie before you!
Seriously, play along with me here. I know you’ll find that negativity loosen its hold on you AND you’ll inspire and empower others too!
Photo by Katrina Wright
Since I’ve suggested an exercise for everyone, I’ll go first and break the ice! For 25 years, my negative belief was:
“I’m not creative enough to make money from my creativity.”
Evidence this isn’t/wasn’t true:
1. When I designed/made jewelry in my teens, strangers would buy the creations I was wearing. When I showed my jewelry in office lunch rooms, everyone would buy something.
2. When I found the courage to call myself an artist at 40, and put my floorcloths, paintings and mirrors on a website, I sold them to customers across the US and Canada.
3. When I bought the ugliest house in the neighborhood in my late 40s, my simple changes let me sell it at a profit, even though the local real estate market was dead.
Ok, your turn! List your negative thought/label and 3 pieces of evidence that it’s false. Then let it go and step into your own power!
Oh Debra, Oh Debra…. Negativity kills everthing!! I myself have a little monster in my head that rears up every once and a while and says ” you don’t have a degree in interior design so you can’t be one!” Well….. let me tell you… I am one! Some of the most successful decorators and designers Don’t have a degree 1) Nate Berkus 2) Sara Richardson 3) Martin Lawrence Bullard Need I go on I tell myself. You are what you are! And thats all there is to it. You must dispell those thoughts because what you put out in the universe is what comes back. Walk the walk, talk the talk and you eventually realize you matter!! Thank you again for the wonderful mentoring you so gracefully do for the Staging Diva Community Debra.
Bravo Melissa!!!! You are totally right, I suffered from that “I don’t have an interior design degree” one too! To your awesome list of famously successful designers and leaders in that industry (who aren’t trained interior designers) I’d add: Barbara Barry, Debbie Travis and Martha Stewart.
I also really appreciate your kind words! I have my own demons screaming in my ear as I hit “publish” on a blog post saying, “That’s dumb, no one will want to read that!” So I hit that button anyway and cross my fingers. When a compliment like yours comes back to me, it means more than you know.
debra!
as usual, another great post! I told myself for years that I didn’t go to school for the proper design training and couldn’t do staging despite friends and family asking for my advice on their home projects. i also had an overwhelming fear of failing/making mistakes so I stayed stuck in a career that was soul sucking. then I was diagnosed with something that if it had gone detected would have taken my life prematurely. that was a game changer. so was finding the staging diva! I am about to celebrate one year in business and just made more in the month of january than I did last year in my business. amazing, liberating, still scary, but now i now know that’s ok!
Lori, thank God you allowed that warning bell of a health scare to wake you up to how precious our time is and how we better not waste it in a “soul-sucking job.” Serious illness is so terrifying (I’ve been there).
This reminds me of an interesting idea I heard the other day. It was about how we stay with jobs we hate and work ourselves literally to death for money. Of course it’s never enough, because as our standard of living improves, we chase ever-more expensive “toys,” houses, cars, clothes, etc. The irony is that any millionaire or billionaire would give it all back if it was a matter of life and death.
Congratulations on having such a successful January, more money than you made all last year, wow! That’s how it works, you gradually take your annual income and turn it into a monthly income and if you keep going, you’ll even be able to turn it into what you can make in a week! Just make sure you don’t recreate the money-trap and work so hard you take the joy out of your success. Doing work you love is a true blessing to be enjoyed.
Thanks for your comments, I really appreciate you stopping by:)
My negativity starts with me being young and inexperienced. I have drug my feet starting my business because I automatically assume no one is going to pick me! When people ask me for decorating advice, I panic. Although I know I have the talent to put things together and make a room stand out in ways people may not think of, I am constantly second guessing myself. I think, I am just not smart enough to make talent into a business or who on earth is going to pay money or take advice from a 24 yr old! It is a never ending battle that I cannot seem to shake.
I know it is untrue because I would not have been given this talent if I was not meant to do something with it. When I am asked on a weekly basis for advice, I understand that while I am young, I can still be credible.
I know it is untrue because anyone can be taught. So while I may not understand business or marketing, I can learn and become more knowledgeable in effort to make my business thrive.
When I think about the many women who have turned a passion into an extemely successful business, I understand that it was not height, age, Harvard degree or anything like that that made them money. They were passionate, focused and driven. And I know I am all those things!
Thank you Debra for your support, though I have only been able
to get course 2 so far, I know I am well on my way. I am so glad I found your programs and thoroughly enjoy reading your blogs!
Brynn, thank you for sharing your comments. Imagine if Mark Zuckerburg had let his youth get in the way of starting his business. Facebook made $1 billion in profit this past year and announced an IPO yesterday that is predicted to raise $50 billion! I’m twice his age and I’d be terrified to be in his position, but that’s another story.
It’s ironic that women in their 30s, 40s and 50s spend so much energy wishing they looked younger and there you are at 24 worrying no one will take you seriously because of your youth. Young (or not-so-young), it’s not your actual age that matters, it’s how you present yourself.
Remember we’re decorating houses to appeal to buyers and the two growing segments in the real estate market are first time buyers (who tend to be closer to your age than mine), and single women. I’d say you could actually embrace your age and position yourself as the expert in staging for those demographics.
Glad you were able to jump into Course 2. Implementing the pricing strategy you learn in that one course for your next client or two will make you enough money to more than pay for the entire program.
Take your passion, focus and drive and you go girl! Your successful future is waiting for you just around the next corner. Keep going, you are definitely on the right track!
Jenny, Thank you so much for jumping in with your thoughts and experiences!
I hope seeing in black and white all the evidence that you ARE actually disciplined and able to stick with things that are important to you will help give you personal “ammunition” next time that voice of resistance inside your head starts telling you that you don’t.
I battle with this myself every day! Sometimes I just tell my negative voice, “Thanks for sharing, and you can stop talking now!” Then I consciously tell myself the opposite and keep going.
As far as “work is not supposed to be enjoyable” — that’s a prevailing (and destructive) attitude and I’m so glad you brought it out into the open!
I’m going to do a follow up blog post about this notion. I agree with you that it’s something that gets passed from generation to generation. The cool thing is you have in your power to change that belief for your own children (but only if you model a different reality for them).
Really appreciate your comments, thank you and let’s keep this dialog going. I know it will benefit our whole community!
This blog could have been written about me. I have two things that consistently play in my mind: 1.) I am not disciplined enough to be an entrepreneur/I never follow through. I did nothing with the real estate class I took. I was never successful at the home-party business I started (for the same reasons mentioned in the blog) 2.) Work is not supposed to be enjoyable, that is why “they” call it “work”.
I know in fact that I am quite disciplined. I manage to run a home, be an involved mother, work a demanding part-time job, make time to work out and take care of my body. The “juggling” requires a great deal of discipline. Real Estate has always been a passion of mine…but not the selling and contract negotiations, more the interest in the designs & decorating of the homes. And the business I was in was definitely not a passion, even though I thoroughly enjoyed the other women I met in that company.
#2 is something I am not sure how to get past. It feels firmly ingrained from my upbringing. Not to mention that my husband is quite unhappy in his position (which is lucrative, and our primary income) and I think I would feel quite guilty if I were actually enjoying my work when he is so unhappy in his position. Crazy to acknowledge, but honest none-the-less.
I am passionate and head strong about moving my business forward. My negativity doesn’t pertain to me or my abilities personally. I am negative, however, about my community and its ability to accept Staging. After just over one year of working to educate sellers and Realtors I haven’t made much headway. It is tough too because I can’t devote myself full time to my passion. I need to make a living so I am still working my full time job as a Real Estate Paralegal. I do write a monthly column which appears in a local FSBO/Realtor Magazine. You can check it out at http://hottehomes.com. I make the rounds of Open Houses on the weekends. I have done a couple of presentations at Realtor sales meetings and last Spring I had a booth at the Greater Binghamton Association of Realtors Trade Show. I also spend time on Facebook. Linkedin, Twitter. I have a blog at http://addedcharmdecor.blogspot.com. I am working all the angles and am running out of ideas.
Lisa thanks for visiting. I completely understand your frustration but I think a lot of it is due to your focus on real estate agents. Contrary to popular belief, they are not where the real money is in home staging for the majority of successful home stagers.
As a start I recommend you read the articles on this blog in the “marketing” category, here’s the link:
https://stagingdiva.com/homestagingbusiness/category/home-staging-marketing-2/
You’ll also find out a lot about dealing with real estate agents if you search “real estate agents” in the search box.
These resources will all help you moving forward, however, to fully understand the marketing side of dealing with your community’s ability to accept home staging, I recommend you listen to course 4 of the Staging Diva Program. You can get more info on it here:
https://stagingdiva.com/store/#course4
Thanks for sharing your experiences here, I appreciate it!
my self-limiting beliefs are really all just tied into money. I have a horrible attitude about it and fear that I never have enough/make enough. This results in me really never making the appropriate decisions for my business or investing in further education, etc.
Why it’s not true:
1. I am earning a good salary through my business
2. I have money left over to go out with friends, etc
3. I actually cannot think of a third. This is tough!!
Great post!
Julie, thanks for sharing. “Money” is tricky business for all of us!
During my first year as an entrepreneur (1989) I made weekly calculations on how long it would take for me to become homeless. I was so afraid that I wouldn’t earn enough that I’d literally imagine myself pushing a shopping cart up and down alleys as a bag lady. Doing the calculation of my net worth and listing all my monthly expenses (and seeing which ones I could cut if needed) was my only way to reassure myself that I wasn’t in as much financial danger as I kept scaring myself into believing.
I think it’s great that you’ve recognized that you earn a good salary and that you have enough left over to go out with friends but that you don’t put aside money to invest in your business or your own continuing education.
Everything we do with our time, and how we spend our money, comes down to choices. When we say “yes” to one thing, it means we’ve said “no” to something else.
In the early days of building my staging business (2002), I pared back on all but the essentials because I knew any investment I made in my business or my own business knowledge would pay back big time. For example, I quit the book club I belonged to because I decided I couldn’t afford to bring a snack and bottle of wine, buy the book, and hire a baby sitter to attend. It’s true that it was the only socializing I was doing, and it was once a month, but I decided when I added it all up, it was about $75/month or $900 a year. There were too many other things that would benefit my business that I could choose to invest my money in instead
I see other ladies getting regular mani/pedi’s (I’ve never had either one!) and several new outfits every season, yet they don’t want to spend the small sum it would take to find out how to properly market their business. So they complain about how they never have enough money, and their income never changes because they keep doing the same old things and expecting different results.
These are only a few examples of course. And I’m in no way saying that giving up a book club membership was an actual hardship. I’m just suggesting that most of us have things we spend money on without even thinking about whether we really need/want that thing anymore. So even if we keep making higher and higher amounts of money, it’s never “enough” because our spending habits keep going up accordingly.
I, like Lisa Ketz, am a talented, independent, capable woman, not caught up in my own negativity (every once in a while it tries to sneak in so I read something inspirational and it pulls me out). The negative that I too face is no matter how much ‘educating’ I do with realtors or sellers, it’s like beating a dead horse. They all agree it makes sense and say “wow” to photos or testimonials…and then their brain goes dead. People just don’t get it!
Sara, so the negative belief you have right now is that “no matter how much ‘educating’ you do with realtors or sellers, it’s like beating a dead horse.”
I agree you can find plenty of evidence to support that view and if that’s all you look for (whether consciously or unconsciously), that’s all you’ll find. Your challenge is to look for ways to turn that belief around because otherwise you’re sabotaging yourself in your own marketing efforts.
If a home seller REALLY believed home staging would help, he’d do it before whacking $10,000, $20,000, or $30,000 off his asking price. What you need to do is find out is why they’re not believing you, or what’s standing in their way.
For example, people like instant gratification, if they think something will be “too much work,” they don’t want to do it. (That’s why ‘get thin overnight eating all your normal foods’ schemes that we all know don’t work, make up a multi-billion dollar industry.)
It’s possible that you’re not talking to the right target audience (there are many segments within the overall group of home sellers), or perhaps the people you’re talking to are operating under the faulty assumption that using your services will be too hard for them.
I’m must tossing that out as an idea to get you started, hope it helps.
Thank you. I really appreciate your feedback. And your absolutely right.
I’ve been thinking about your article since I read it…a lot! I realized (after deciding to ‘play along’ 🙂 that the problem really is my own attitude and thoughts about what I do and the value I bring; as well as an underlying fear of success. I was in the midst of a personal and professional ‘value crisis’. I realize, there must be part of me that believes that they ‘don’t get it’, and when things do start to pick up, I’m the first one to say (not out loud) “what if I screw this one up?” “I’m not an interior designer” ….even though I’ve designed countless works of art and rooms!! I’m standing in my own way, and quite possibly standing in theirs as well! OMG. Someone get me a lobotomy! =-)
Thank you so much for writing that article.
Ever onward!
Thanks Sara for coming back with your follow up comment, it’s most appreciated not only by me, but I’m sure your fellow home stagers.
We’ve all had that “What if I screw up?” thought. I STILL get that and I’ve been staging houses since 2002! I’m not an interior designer either by the way, but it hasn’t stopped me from doing hundreds of homes.
It’s always easier to come up with reasons that something won’t work than to do the work that’s needed to make it a success. But when we look hard enough, we realize that many of the reasons are really excuses to let ourselves off the hook.
“Ever onward” indeed and congratulations for breaking through your own personal barrier to realize what was really going on! That was the point of the “exercise,” great job!!!
Hi, Debra!
I recently purchased your 5-course training and it just arrived last week. I am very excited for this next (ad)venture in my life as I pour over the materials and tackle the exercises. I turned 50 back in April, my son is now 12, and I am at a stage of life where I finally want to follow my passion for creativity and turn it into a thriving business. I started out doing my research, then ordering your training course,
and now working though the naming, etc of my business, all with a goal to “hang my shingle” by Jan-Feb 2020 timeframe. However, I do suffer as well from the 2 biggest fears of “I don’t have an Interior Design” degree (I started design school in my young 20’s but had to dropout due to work-life/paying the bills balance issues that come from living on my own). I also suffer from the “I can’t stick with anything” syndrome. I was enlisted in the Army right from High School and had already received my “Honorary” discharge before my 19th birthday, leaving me lost as to what my future would then hold. From there I have changed careers multiple times in the past 30 years: from a successful Techology Solutions business-to-business sales rep career spanning 15 years, to going back to school to get my Paralegal certification after my son was born and doing that for only 6 years (and working for numerous firms during that time span), to now being a “stay-at-home” mom who is helping my husband run his own successful (construction survey) business for the past 5 years. Finally, to this moment: Ordering your course last month and diving into this new endeavor. I was very apprehensive about taking this leap because I want this to “stick”, and was worried that there may be something wrong with me since nothing has previously. Thank you for sharing your own truths with the rest of us because it gives those of us with those moments of fleeting courage the strength to push through that and endure, to hopefully becoming a success as well!
Thanks for commenting Dawn! Those two fears you mention are SO COMMON! We’re really all in the same boat (or variations there of). As long as you keep moving forward toward your goals, those fears can still be there, they just won’t be controlling your life anymore.
I’m so glad you’re diving into the Staging Diva Training Program. You’ll find your confidence grow as you listen to the recordings. You’ll also so a very specific To Do list ahead of you. Just keep following all the breadcrumbs I’ve laid out for you and your new dream business will fall into place.
I would also redefine what “sticking with something” looks like. You had one career for 15 years and another for 6 years. Does “success” mean you stick with one single thing your entire adult life (even when you’ve grown out of it)? That might have been more realistic when the average lifespan was 60 years. Now, not so much!
I believe life is the adventure you make it. I’d rather look back on mine and relish in all the things I tried (even if some of them only kept my interest for a short time), then look back on a life lived in a restrictive box of my own making.
More and more, I’m trying to see everything as an experiment. If I’m learning and growing, helping others and having some fun along the way, then I’m on the right path. When it stops being about learning and growing and fun, then it’s time to modify the experiment.
Hope that helps, and I think you’ve just inspired me to turn this into a new article!