Episode 306 | Building Unshakeable Boundaries with Barb Nangle
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Intro:you could hang out with successful women lawyers, ask them about growing their firms, managing resources like time, team, and systems, mastering money issues, and more? Then take an insight or two to help you build a wealth generating law firm. Each week, your host, Devina Frederick, takes an in-depth look at how to think like a CEO, attract clients who you love to serve and will pay you on time, and create a profitable, sustainable firm you love. Devina is founder and CEO of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, and her goal is to give you the information you need to scale your law firm business from 6 to 7 figures in gross annual revenue so you can fully fund and still have time to enjoy the lifestyle of your dreams. Now here's Devina.
Davina:Hello, and welcome to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. I'm your host, Devina Frederick, and my guest today is Barb Nangle. Barb is a boundaries coach, speaker, author, and podcaster. She has a master's degree in sociology and worked for nineteen years at Yale University as a program coordinator for urban education prevention and policy research. While working at Yale, she hit a codependent bottom, which landed her in 12 step recovery where she learned to build healthy boundaries.
Davina:She was astonished at the ripple effect of her boundaries on her team and her project. Communication, morale, and effectiveness improved dramatically. This showed how when one person changes the dynamics of their interactions, everything around them changes. Formerly masking her struggles with substance use and overeating, she shed over 100 pounds and confronted her deep seated negativity and fear. In 02/2017, she got laid off from Yale and found her way into the world of startups, innovation, and entrepreneurship in New Haven and at Yale.
Davina:Driven by desire for growth and social justice, through her business, Barb now empowers professional women to break patterns of self neglect. Through boundary coaching, speaking, and her podcast, Fragmented to Whole, she guides women to reclaim their power and say no to what no longer serves them, fostering a world where inner change drives societal impact. Please join me in welcoming Barb Nangle to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. Hi, Barb. It's good to see you today.
Barb:Hi, Davina. It's really good to be here. I'm very excited for this conversation.
Davina:Me too. Well, you are a boundaries coach. So I have a lot of questions about that. Want to get into it. First though, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to be a boundaries coach.
Barb:Sure. And I will try to do the micro version because there's a lot to it. I just want to start by saying like I'm a sociologist by training. I have a master's degree in sociology. I worked for nineteen years at Yale University as a program coordinator for urban education prevention and policy research.
Barb:And seventeen years into my career at Yale, I hit a codependent bottom. And just in case people don't know what that means, welcome to the club, I didn't know what it meant either, even though I had read a gajillion self help books and been in therapy and done all kinds of personal development work. So a codependent person is someone who is essentially fixated on everything outside themselves. Like, what's he doing? What's she doing?
Barb:What do they need? What does the person need? What does that situation need? The classic codependent is in some kind of a relationship with an addict or an alcoholic. And I landed in twelve Step Recovery for codependents, and that led me to get into a couple of other twelve Step Recovery programs.
Barb:And all of the decades of personal development that I did before recovery sort of scratched the surface of the iceberg of my life, Divina, whereas recovery melted the iceberg. So, I learned so many things. I learned so many things about myself that I wasn't aware of despite all that personal development work. But I think for me, because my core wound is codependence, learning how to build healthy boundaries changed everything. So I was still working at Yale when that happened and what I started to see was there was this ripple effect of my boundaries on my team and the project.
Barb:And I was like, wait a minute, like none of these people are in recovery. What is going on here? And it really just goes to show that when one person changes the dynamics of their interactions, things around them change. So one of the many myths about boundaries is people think if I have healthy boundaries, I'll be able to control other people. No, you won't.
Barb:Who you will be able to control is you, and then that will have a ripple effect. So you can't control other people, but you can influence them by setting limits and holding those limits and also setting limits for yourself. So I stayed at Yale for another couple of years. I was laid off and through a series of wonderfully serendipitous events, I found my way into the world of startups, innovation, and entrepreneurship at Yale and in New Haven. Started my own business, very quickly started my own podcast, which is called Fragmented to Whole Life Lessons from 12 Step Recovery.
Barb:And I started it really not thinking it would have anything to do with my business. It was all about taking all of this wisdom I was learning about in recovery and bringing it out into the world. And now that podcast is the number one way that I get clients. Initially, I wasn't a boundaries coach. I was just sort of like generally coaching.
Barb:And of course, as you know, you have to have a niche. And when it came time to figure out what that was, it just made sense for me to become a boundaries coach because of my just utter transformation as a result of boundaries. And by then, every client I'd worked with had needed help with boundaries. And I found that I was really good at helping people. And one of the ways that I think I became so good at it, only from building my own boundaries, was that I learned through this sort of haphazard meandering path in twelve Step Recovery to build healthy boundaries.
Barb:It wasn't like somebody set me down and was like, Okay, we're going to build boundaries. That's not what happened. It was a byproduct of the work. But after I started to have boundaries and I saw this enormous impact, I started reading about boundaries. And it helped me to retroactively understand what happened and what I went through and how I was thinking and all that stuff.
Barb:And while I was doing the reading, I would take notes and I often found myself doing drawings to visually depict like these concepts about boundaries. Well, those drawings turned into handouts and those handouts turned into a workbook, which is now the backbone of my boundaries coaching program, which is called Unshakable You, the fragmented to hold method. And it's essentially like how I went from fifty something years with no boundaries to having such healthy boundaries that I now coach people on healthy boundaries. So that's about as micro aversion as I can give you.
Davina:Good. Because I have some questions based on that. There's a lot of feedback So the first question I have for you is I wanna go back to where you mentioned your team and the ripple effect on of you not having boundary having poor I call them porous boundaries. Right?
Barb:Yes.
Davina:Yes. And how that affected your team. Could you give us a little more insight? Because a lot of the people listening to this podcast are women law firm owners. They own a business.
Davina:And so understanding how their behaviors affect their team is very important. Can you tell us, give us an example of some of the things that, how that showed up, what it looked like?
Barb:Yeah, for sure. So I want to start by saying, so my boss was a faculty member at Yale and then I was underneath her. And then there was two divisions. There was the research and evaluation part and then there was the program part where we're actually delivering service. It was mostly college access programs.
Barb:So, we were providing services in schools to kids and parents and teachers and stuff. And so, I was on both of those. So, than I was the only person other than the boss that had purview over everything. So, I impacted everything. I had what I now know was a nineteen year codependent relationship with my boss, where she was just honestly one of the most unreliable people.
Barb:Obviously, she's a faculty member at Yale. She knows what she's doing. But she didn't follow through on things. Didn't like she'd set up an agenda for a meeting and never follow it. She blew people off.
Barb:And I kept wanting her to be different. And I had all this frustration and all this resentment and I would talk about her behind her back, which I now know is gossip. And I'm not stupid, but I somehow didn't understand that because I was basically brought up, you don't directly communicate with people and say, hey, this isn't really working. Can we come up with a solution that doesn't? And so I created this culture of expectation among my colleagues because I was also there longer than everybody except for the boss.
Barb:So not only did I have purview, but I had longevity.
Davina:Security, yeah.
Barb:So I created this culture of expectation that we don't solve problems, we talk about them. And we blame the boss for not being the way that we want. So there was that whole container that I created of this is how we do things here. And then when I didn't know how to directly communicate with other people, I learned how to do that through building healthy boundaries. Because boundaries are clear and not murky, your communication about them must be clear and not murky.
Barb:So I learned to communicate much more effectively with people. And stopping gossiping about the boss was, I can't tell you enough about how important that was. And partly, like a huge part of it was when I stopped complaining about her, my resentment against her went way, way, way, way, way down. Because I was expecting her to be different and she wasn't. And so I get to
Davina:go And you thought you could fix it. You thought you could fix it if you
Barb:I kept thinking if I contort myself in enough ways. I mean, I had nineteen years of evidence that it wasn't true, but I still kept thinking like she's the problem. And I started to realize I'm the problem. And then I kind of conveyed that to everybody else. So what started happening was we started communicating and kind of going around her instead of waiting for her to be there.
Barb:So we started like when we're in a meeting, so the deal was if she wasn't there then I chaired the meetings. And I always followed the agenda and kept people like, if you have something that's outside of what's on the agenda that goes at the end of the meeting unless it's super important and all that. But we started really communicating much more clearly. We stopped worrying so much about offending people. I learned to delegate.
Barb:I realized I'd gotten the feedback so many times from all my three sixty reviews that I don't delegate. I don't ask for help enough. And so I looked at why don't I delegate? I found that there was three reasons. One is that I felt like nobody could do it as good as me.
Barb:This is what I see in women entrepreneurs all the time. Two, my boss gave me stuff at the last minute all of the time and I hated the idea of doing that to other people. So I just sort of took the hit and tried to do it myself. And number three, there were certain things that I really enjoyed doing and I didn't want to delegate them. And I looked at this and I was Okay, first of all, my team is amazing.
Barb:They're all super talented. Why would I not delegate something to them? Maybe they're not going to do it the same as me, but it's going to be great because they're all top notch. Number two, all of my team knows. I don't delegate things at the last minute.
Barb:I don't do things at the last minute. If it's coming to you at the last minute, it's because it's from the boss and that's just the way it is. And they get to push back on me if they want to. And then number three, if I have lots of time, then I can do the things I like doing. So the thing that pops in my mind is I loved designing flyers.
Barb:We have an administrative assistant who is very talented at that and actually designs better flyers than me. And also, it's in her job description, right? So I started to be like, I had to look at, like, I felt I was such like, I need to do everything. I can't ask for help. There's something wrong with asking for help.
Barb:So when I started doing those things, other people started doing those things. And other people started stepping up because I was requiring them to step up. So I could go on, but I think I've given you some ideas of how that Yeah, for sure.
Davina:For sure. The piece too that I found interesting as somebody who I've been through decades of therapy, you've been through decades of therapy. It was like what, forty years of therapy and personal development, you said?
Barb:Thirty seven. Yeah. Thirty seven years. Okay. Great.
Barb:And then continued after that. Yeah.
Davina:So I am really curious about, because I've recently been following someone who is therapist and she's been really changing my thoughts about therapy and it's been very interesting. But what is it to go through that many years of therapy and never hear the word codependency? Surprises me that you never did. And what is it do you think with therapy that was different that the 12 step sort of program for you as a codependent made the difference?
Barb:Yeah, I think, frankly, I had a lot of mediocre therapists, to be perfectly frank with you. They were sounding boards for me. The therapist that I was with when I got into recovery, I found out she was a trauma therapist. So my main program is called Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families. It's a trauma recovery program where you reparent yourself and you use the 12 steps to recover.
Barb:I didn't know that I had trauma. I didn't know that I suffered from childhood trauma and intergenerational family dysfunction, but she knew and she didn't tell me. When I finally
Davina:had to remember kept just letting you talk about it and hoping you would finally pick it up.
Barb:Right. And then when I finally figured it out and started going to recovery and then I developed the wherewithal to say something to her, like, why didn't you tell me? And she said something like, I don't feel like it's my place to tell people who they are, to diagnose them. And I remember thinking, wait, I didn't say this because I still didn't have the ability to communicate directly. I thought, if it's not your job, whose job is it?
Barb:But I think there are some therapists who feel like if people come up with something on their own, they're much more likely to buy into it. And that may be true. But you could literally have saved me years of my life if you had said you might want to look into codependence. Yeah. So I think there's that.
Barb:And then the 12 steps of recovery, I think, are really powerful for many reasons. So it's a technology is really what it is. So it's a systematic 12 steps. You do it in this order. This is how it works.
Barb:Number two, it's done in a group setting. So you have people all along the pipeline, people who've been in the program for years, people who've just recently started and brand new people. So we're all learning from each other from an experiential standpoint. Whereas I think a lot of therapists become therapists because they have their own issues, but they never tell you anything about their own stories because they're supposed to be objective, which I don't think is really possible as a human being. And so you're learning in a group setting.
Barb:You've got multiple points of support with those people. And then number three, twelve Step Recovery is actually spiritually based, which means it doesn't have to do with God, but for some people it does. It means I'm part of something greater than myself and I know it. And so we're dealing with ourselves as these spiritual beings in the context of this group of people who've gone through the same drama and trauma and chaos that we have and have healed and can share that wisdom. And we're following this 12 step process that's been laid out and has worked for millions of people around the world for multiple things.
Davina:Right. So now as a boundary coach, I think a lot of people get confused, especially when people are doing coaching in any sort of relational or interpersonal development kind of space. Business coaching is pretty much understand. Coaching is this framework. But when it comes to this, I think that sometimes a lot of people confuse coaching and therapy.
Davina:They think, oh, we have people who wanna be therapists, who are coaching, quote, quote coaching. And I even get that as a business coach. When I first started out, it's very easy to get sort of sucked into that thing like a therapist, right? But you're not a therapist. And explain to us how your work as a boundaries coach differs that sort of world and from 12 step recovery, right?
Davina:Because people may come from a lot of different experiences.
Barb:Yeah. So I have a very structured system. I have a whole curriculum that's multimedia that I take you through. So it includes PowerPoints, podcast episodes, articles, and a workbook. So there's multiple ways for you to take in and learn and integrate the material.
Barb:The majority of the coaching sessions I do with them is the actual talking about their specific situations, issues, relationships, etc, and helping them apply what they're learning in all this other work to their specific life and helping them like troubleshoot. And I will say, like, all of it's valuable. But of course, the most valuable part is the one on one with me where they get to explain their scenario. And I can say to them, and of course, I do so gently, things acting like a victim, as if you have no choices and you actually do. And the reason I can spot that, Divina, is victim mentality is hands down the biggest paradigm shift of my recovery.
Barb:And I'm not the quintessential victim. I never was like, Woe is me. The world is against me. I've always felt like a powerful woman of agency. And yet I was going, oh, if only he would change, then everything would be Okay.
Barb:And then when I did my relationship inventory in 12 Step Recovery, I saw that I thought that about every relationship I ever had. And I started to see, well, wait, that's me acting like I have nothing to do with the status of any of my relationships. And that just doesn't make any sense. So I can point out very specifically, like this is what you're thinking. Here's another way to think about it.
Barb:Here's a way for you to start actually making choices and go from being someone who's reactive to life to someone who's proactive in their life. And I think what happens for people as they build healthy boundaries is they're getting to know themselves. Like, who am I? Where do I end and other people begin? What do I like, want, need and prefer?
Barb:What's Okay with me and what's not Okay with me? And for me, the biggest impact is what have I been doing in my life that's created chaos or drama or exacerbated the already existing chaos? So the gossiping is a really good example. I think of it as I was lobbing bombs into my own life, but I didn't even know it. And so I call these boundaries of self containment.
Barb:These are things I either need to contain or stop doing altogether. And I would say that those type of boundaries specifically cleaned up 85% of the trauma and and chaos and all that stuff in my life.
Davina:I think it's so interesting too, because as people who are codependent, and I had that diagnosed years ago, decades ago, I've done a lot to overcome that. But one of the things that we think we're doing, and this is very common, is we're fixing or we're helping. We're fixing or we're helping. I'm trying to fix. I'm trying to help.
Davina:And so if you say, I've I can my idea will fix this problem, and you have an idea about other people's lives about how to fix it. Red flag. Red flag. Right?
Barb:And the temptation to
Davina:fix it because you feel like you know something that they don't. The temptation to fix it is there to fix it for them. You're talking about boundaries, give us an idea. I want to go deeper into the business boundaries specifically, but tell me the different areas where you cover boundaries and kind of what distinguishes them.
Barb:Yeah. So what I found, you know, as I mentioned to you before the call, I do a lot of networking with women entrepreneurs. I identify strongly as an entrepreneur myself, and many suck with boundaries. So this means things like they're not charging at least market rate. They are not delegating things.
Barb:They think they need to do everything themselves. They are absolutely paralyzed asking for help. It feels somehow like they're stepping down a level. Know for me, to ask for help was absolutely enormous in my life. Now I'm like, oh my God, help is awesome.
Barb:I love help. They don't let go of toxic employees, vendors, clients, etcetera. And they really don't take good care of themselves. So women suffer from this idea that is somehow selfish. Like I actually, Devina, had a client say to me, I'd rather be called a whore than selfish.
Barb:Like what is going on
Davina:in Wow, that's so powerful. Wow.
Barb:Right. Right. Like, it is not selfish to take care of yourself. It is self preservation. And I love the metaphor of this.
Barb:I don't know if you know who Ashley Kirkwood is. She wrote the book Speak Your Way to Cash. She's actually an attorney by training. And she says, you want to pour from the overflow rather from an empty cup. Well, the only way you're going to have overflow is if you fill your cup first.
Barb:So just like in an airplane, they say, hey, if the oxygen mask falls down first, you put the falls down, you put it on yourself first if you are helping someone. What they don't say is because if you're passed out, you can't help other people. If your cup is empty, what you're giving to other people is not good. So you get to take really good care of yourself and pour into your business and your clients and your families and your loved ones from the overflow. But you are in charge of filling your own cup.
Barb:You can't wait around for circumstances to be right. So you need to make sure that you're doing something. And when I say fill your own cup, when I say self care, I mean what fuels you? What gives you energy? So what gives you energy might be completely different than what gives me energy.
Barb:I do things like meditate, pray, yoga, go for walks in nature, journal, do creative projects and stuff like that. Those are things that fuel me. Read. I love the Hallmark channel. I used to be like parent I used to be I'm a former closeted Hallmark fan, actually, because I used to be like, oh, people are going to think that's sappy.
Barb:It is sappy. And now I don't care if people think that because I like it. There's always a happy ending. I used to, before recovery, I watched Law and Order, CSI, Criminal Minds, and I was activated all the time. And now I'm like, Oh, that's so sweet.
Barb:So that's a good example of my recovery. Before Criminal Minds, after Hallmark.
Davina:True crime documentaries. Those of us true crime documentaries. Of when you talk about so I wanna dig a little deeper into boundaries because I think boundaries is really the primary self care that you're talking about as well. I mean, we just start with just boundaries. Yeah.
Davina:So I wanna talk about some examples of what boundaries look like in a work setting and work environment, especially if you're the boss. Because I think there's a lot of social media out there telling employees and corporations you need to set these boundaries. Tell your boss you're not working at this time and that time and all this. And this is a Gen Z phenomenon that's come out. But I see a lot of women law firm owners that really struggle to set boundaries, not only with their prospective clients and clients, but also with their employees.
Davina:So, to give you an example of, recently somebody was talking about, an employee, I mean, a client who was calling their office all the time and kind of berating the team because they wanted stuff done and all of this kind of stuff. And the berating the attorney and her assistant who was taking the call and having such struggle with how do I draw and then enforce that boundary? Because it's not just enough to draw it. You have to actually stick to it.
Barb:Enforce. Right. Which is that's the hard part.
Davina:So what other kind of you know, what other examples do you have of sort of where you see entrepreneurs or business owners, particularly lawyers struggle with boundaries?
Barb:So I think that's a really good one that, you know, having clients who want the scope of work to expand and they don't want to have to pay for it. I think that's pretty classic. And so if you think about it, policies and procedures are boundaries. They tell you this is the purview of the work that we're going to be doing. And so I want to give this tip, and that is that we want to set boundaries as soon as we know that we need them or preemptively.
Barb:And so there's a saying, the best time to plant a tree was thirty years ago. The next time is today. The best time to set a boundary with someone is before you start working with them. The next best time is today. So to prevent that kind of thing from happening, you have policies and procedures in your contract with your client and you tell them, like, this is how much service that you're going to get for this amount of money and anything beyond that we're going to have to renegotiate.
Barb:And if they are telling you, hey, I need to do this and do that, then you could say something like this is fantastic that you love our work and you want us to do more with you. This is outside the purview of what we've agreed for. So either we can renegotiate the scope of work or you're going to have to get that service elsewhere. And some people might think, oh my God, that's terrible. I can't say that.
Barb:That's cruel. Like this is a business. And if you really want to be there for your other clients and you don't want to be depleted by this person and you don't want to resent your client, then you need to clearly communicate to them. This is why doing it ahead of time is much better. And so, think that the work life balance is the other thing I've heard from attorneys all the time is that because, like, let's say that you're an associate and you want to work your way up to partner, then you know, like if a partner comes to you at five on Friday with file and say, I need this on my desk by nine Monday morning, you might feel like, oh my God, I don't have a choice.
Barb:Well, you actually made the choice by choosing to be an associate who wants to work up to partner. And so you get to let go of any like resentment or anything like that against the firm or the profession or the partner and take that energy that you might be upset about and put it towards doing the work. Or you could say, actually, this isn't the lifestyle that I want. And I think, you know, speaking of lifestyle, the way that I start with all of my coaching clients, Divina, is I have them start by going through an exercise to determine their top five values and then they use those values as guideposts or almost like guardrails for how to make decisions and how to set boundaries in their lives because your values are yours for a reason. They didn't come up for no reason, and so they should guide the way that you live.
Barb:And I think this is important in business too. So let me
Davina:scroll back to the example that you used. So in the scenario you talked about, our listeners would be the boss of that associate. And so if we have a boss of that associate who says, Well, I worked forty two hours last week and forty four the week before, so this week I wanna take off early, which that's part time for lawyers. Forty hours is part time for most lawyers. But this idea of, well, I worked a couple hours extra, so this week I want to leave early or whatever.
Davina:And then you've got the boss who has spent their whole career putting in extra time and worked to get the client work done and the client satisfied. And that means maybe an eighty hour weeks. How does a boss communicate those? What's the best way for bosses to communicate those boundaries? And then I would say, hold those boundaries.
Barb:Yeah. Yeah. So communicating them starts when you hire the person. Like, this is the expectation that you're going to work however many hours are required. And it's not based on how many hours you worked the week before.
Barb:It's based on the work that gets done. Are you in for that? And if they are, then you just remind them that this is what's going to happen. And if they come to you, you can say, as a reminder, here's your contract or your job description or whatever it is, and this is the job. And if this isn't the job that you want, then you might need to look elsewhere.
Barb:So you do like immediately. You need to do it as soon as it happens, the very first time that it happens. And you can say, listen, I hear you and I get that you don't want to do that. But the reality is this is the job. And the problem, like a lot of people think, all I need to know is the words.
Barb:If I just have the right words, I could get people to listen to me and respect my patterns. Having the right words is really important. This is why my module two is communication, right? But just because you have the right words doesn't mean you can stand firm in your boundaries. That's the problem.
Barb:Because the thing that causes most people to either not set boundaries or to cave on them is guilt and shame. They feel guilty and shameful about setting boundaries with people. And I think this is especially so for women because we are acculturated to be like the givers and the helpers and the caretakers and all that sort of thing. And we feel like we have to somehow take care of the people that work for us. And you actually don't.
Barb:They're adults and it's their job. And if this isn't the right job for them, then they're the one that gets to leave. So standing firm in your boundaries means you have to believe. You have to have the big picture in mind, and you have to believe that the firm that you have set up is meeting the needs of your employees in the professional ways that they need them to meet. If they want their personal needs met, they get to take charge of that.
Barb:And so I think what I haven't said so far that I think is important to share here is I think the crux of what shifted for me to go from fifty something years with no boundaries to having such healthy boundaries is that I came to care more what I think of myself than what other people do. And this doesn't mean, Davina, that I don't care what other people think of me. Of course I do. What it means is I used to be willing to throw my integrity out the window. I would say yes to things I didn't want to do.
Barb:I would say no to things that I actually wanted to do, either because I was afraid to be judged or I didn't have time. I would act like things were okay with me. I would not speak up when things really bothered me or they went against my values. So, I was, that's called lying. And then, I was manipulating people by being a people pleaser.
Barb:So, I was doing things to get them to like me. It doesn't mean I didn't want to be helpful. Of course, I did. But wanting to be helpful doesn't explain that we get to the point where we're over giving and we're resentful and all that stuff. So here I was lying and manipulating.
Barb:I'm no longer willing to do that for someone's approval. Like, it's more important for me to be an honest woman of integrity than it is for you to like me. I want you to like me, but I don't, with claws, need you to like me the way that I used to. Well, and
Davina:it's interesting you say that because I don't think that, that's incredible self awareness. When you say, I realized I was lying and manipulating. I think most people don't think they're lying and manipulating. They are acting in a way that along their way in their life, they've been trained as sort of how to interact with people. So it's the self reflection piece that I think is so powerful and we often don't do.
Davina:When we think about people working for us or our clients working with us or whatever, looking and saying, how am I doing that? Of the things I want to touch on with that is, and the thought just went right out of my head. You were saying something about keep talking and then I'll figure that out. You were saying, I wanna talk about this boss relationship and this idea that this boundaries with employees and what those boundaries mean. There's something along the line of, oh, I know what it is.
Davina:Boundaries, people often have this idea of you're not doing what I want. So you're crossing my boundaries. So I want you to talk a little bit more about boundary setting and in a in a work environment when you're the boss. Mhmm. What what boundaries give me an example of what boundaries look like and how they can.
Davina:I think some people will look at it and say, well, I set my boundaries, you cross them, therefore, you're out of here. As opposed to understanding boundaries really are not a weapon, boundaries really are about being real about who you are or whatever it is. So can you explore that a little bit?
Barb:Yeah. So healthy boundaries are proactive, not reactive. So you don't set a boundary after the fact. Like a healthy person does not set a boundary after the fact because somebody did something egregious, right? They are proactive and they're like, this is, you know, like the job description or the expectations for the work is you setting a boundary.
Barb:And then the consequence is what happens if they don't. So, you know, let's just use the example. They came to you and they're like, Oh, well, I worked forty four hours the week before last and I worked forty two, so I want to work less this week. Well, you say, Okay, well, the expectation is not actually the number of hours per week. It's the work that gets done.
Barb:And so my expectation is that you're going to get this work done. And if that doesn't happen, then we're going to make note of this and you're going to get written up for that. Like, there's probably a policy of like, if you get written up three times or something like that. And I hate
Davina:to I think a lot of people don't have those policies. They need them. And that's where when they own their own So those entrepreneurs often don't have I'm always talking about how policies, procedures, contracts, all these things are leadership tools. They're actually leadership tools.
Barb:And they're boundaries. They're like, here's the expectations. You know, like, when you have healthy boundaries, you essentially teach people, this is how you can expect to interact from me. Or the way that I like to say is, if you want the best of me, this is what is going to happen. Is like, if you want the best of me as a boss, you're going to work on the projects that you said you're going to work on.
Barb:You're going to give me lots of notice and you're never going to blindside me about things, that sort of thing. You're going to tell them, this is what I appreciate in an associate. These are the kinds of things that are going to get you promoted. Like, this is what's going to work for you. And the other, I think the distinction, especially for women, is these are not your family members.
Barb:These are your employees. And you need to treat them like family members and you're the boss. You're not their sister. You're not their friend. You're not just their colleague.
Barb:You're their boss. And that means something. And so you need to act like a boss, which means you need to learn how to have difficult conversations and you need to have them as soon as possible. You do not let things become toxic. You deal with them as soon as they come up.
Barb:That's Yeah,
Davina:you hit on that family piece. And I think this is something I see with most entrepreneurs, especially women, no matter what business they're in, is when you start out, you're so this is your baby, your little seed. There's so much fear around whether it's gonna grow and and you're worried every day. Am I gonna get clients? Am I gonna grow this the way I want?
Davina:Am I going to make the money? And then that first person that you hire is your help. They just become your right hand. And we often see this with that, this person has been with me for years and now I've hired other people and this person is becoming a problem, but I don't want to give up on her because she was there with me in the beginning when it was so hard. That sort of thing.
Davina:And we see this with women and other women, different than with men. Having worked with men, you know, men don't stress so much over giving feedback about somebody's performance or firing them quickly because they're not working out. Whereas women wanna try to make it work. We wanna try to fix it. Wanna try to see if we can salvage the relationship.
Davina:Have you seen these kinds of things that, and also what I talked about, you were talking about family.
Barb:Yeah.
Davina:That starting person that was with Yeah.
Barb:Yeah. So what is coming to mind is there's a book called Buy Back Your Time by Dan, forgetting his last name, is fantastic. He actually helps start Really, really good book. And he talks about how the CEO of the startup, when they go public, they often don't stick around because they're the starter and that's heartbreaking. But the board knows, like that person got you to here, but they're not going to get you to go forward.
Barb:So it's understood in the startup business, this is what happens. Well, what that means is when you start up a law firm, the first person you hire isn't necessarily going to be the person that can get you started is not necessarily the person that's going to grow you and get you to the next level. So knowing that ahead of time, I think this is one reason they say that when you start to grow your business, bringing human resources firm on board doesn't mean you have to have them in house, but that can help you think through the long term, like what kind of policies and procedures do I have? And if you're doing regular annual, semiannual evaluations and you're talking about like, okay, here's where we want to go. If it's pretty clear this person isn't going to grow into this role, you can let them know.
Barb:It seems like where this firm is growing might not continue to be a good fit for you. So if you kind of go into it knowing that, I know that it's too late for many people because they started their firm X number of years ago.
Davina:And now they already have this right hand person and this right hand person maybe, in a lot of cases I've seen, sort of sabotage going on. There's this feeling of I'm close to the boss. I'm the right hand of the boss, and now you're coming in and you don't know her like I do. Right.
Barb:Right. Yeah.
Davina:That kind of thing.
Barb:Yeah. And I think the solution to just about all these problems is directly communicating with people about what is going on, like going to them and saying, I can't tell you how much I appreciate what you've done to help me build this business to where it's at. But it seems to me like where this business is going is not really where you're best suited. Like, what's your feedback about that? Or are you willing to, whatever, get professional development, continuing education, whatever is required?
Barb:But also not letting them do that thing where they're like, I'm like this with the boss and, you know, I've got her ear and nobody else does. Like, you can't play favorites like that. Especially not if you're like, this person's an administrative assistant and then everybody else are attorneys. There's a certain like, you know, attorney camaraderie that needs to happen. And if you're putting someone else in the middle of that, it can be really disruptive.
Barb:But it's hard for people to think like this when they've never started a law firm before, which I'm sure is where you come along.
Davina:Right. Well, and having the piece where they're establishing is this is the family. I brought this example up because of the family piece that you mentioned. This idea, you're so such in a vulnerable in such a vulnerable place when you're starting your business and you're hiring that first one or two people And this idea that we're family, we're going to and and really that's a point where you need to start setting those boundaries and that differentiating on the boss. And what we see happen oftentimes is we're all friends.
Davina:Like, you're working as friend. We're gonna go out. I I know all about your boyfriend drama. They know all about my, you know, husband's situation. And, you know, we're all going out for cocktails to bond, that kind of thing.
Davina:And I think the intention is very good, wanting to treat people as human beings and care about them. But I think one of the things that comes up for women that doesn't come up for a minute as much is that when we were growing up, women were taught to sort of compete with other girls. So girls compete with other girls. If you had a best friend and a third friend came into the picture, it didn't go very well. Somebody got their feelings hurt.
Davina:The games that we played were one on one kinds of games rather than team things. I know that's changed some since my generation, but that idea of comparison with women. And so when you get into a work environment, you may be the lawyer, but you're also hiring people. And then I often see it happen where women are challenging and they're saying, you think you're better than me and you're not. You have not in a direct way, but in a behavior way.
Davina:Who do you think you are? You think you're better than me because you went to law school, you became a lawyer, all that. I'm just as good as you. I'm gonna go to law school too. Well, great.
Davina:But that's a lot of what we see among women is this idea. And that doesn't mean that that's the case across the board. I'm just pointing it out for those who have experienced it or are experiencing. Have you seen that, you know, in the entrepreneurial world?
Barb:Yeah. I mean, I don't see that so I mean, it's probably happening, but it's not something that I actually see directly from other people. But I would say that people who are secure don't make comments like, Oh, you think that you're better than me? Then people I think you're making the comments, to my No, in their minds. They're not even thinking that.
Barb:And also people who are secure don't act superior to other people, and they don't. And so I think that a lot of this stuff could be prevented ahead of time, but it's too late for so many people. But the reality is sitting down and having a direct conversation, perhaps having a retreat of your people that's facilitated by an outside person and letting them know, like these are some of the issues that are going on. How do we heal this in such a way that we can gel again as a team, as human beings, and still be professionals together and do the work? I think if it's gotten to that point, then you might need some kind of outside intervention like that.
Barb:But I think it starts with who the leader is. Like, if you personally do not have healthy boundaries, your business is not going to have healthy boundaries and your employees are not going to have I mean, maybe one or two of them might, but in general, they're not going to have healthy boundaries.
Davina:So I guess that's my point because I have heard this very scenario that I'm sharing with you and it's not something overt that people say. They're not saying,
Barb:but there's
Davina:a challenge in the way they're challenging the owner of the firm. There's a challenge that is happening that indicates that there is that sort of inner dialogue of, I have to prove to you that we are equal. And so what I'm looking for is a way, how do women law firm owners deal with this disrespect really that comes from an employee because they're saying, you don't get to tell me what to do. It's like life literally. I get to tell you what to do, right?
Barb:Yeah. So we command respect. And I don't mean command like, you're going to do this. I mean, we command respect, which comes from internally. You can't command respect if you don't feel self respect.
Barb:If you feel like it's not my place to tell them what to do and you're the law firm owner, why are you a law firm owner if you don't feel like you should be telling them what to do?
Davina:I think many people just say, I'll just do it myself and do it. This is your delegation thing you're talking about. They just say, I don't want deal with the hassle. I'll just do it myself. And
Barb:I just do it myself does not get you to being a successful law firm owner. Yeah. Like nobody gets to the top without other people. Nobody Like, I think it's Arnold Schwarzenegger said, There's no such thing as a self made man. There's no such thing as a self made woman.
Barb:Like, he didn't get to be Mr. Universe or whatever he was by himself. Nobody gets to the top by themselves, right? But you are the leader and you set the tone for the organization. So if you feel disrespected by your employees, that's on you.
Barb:They're not going to change on your own. You have to start commanding respect and saying, I know that up until now I have tolerated XYZ behavior, but going forward, here's what's going to happen.
Davina:Yeah. So commanding respect, I think this is the point that where I'm trying to get with this is that part of commanding respect is boundaries, is this idea of boundaries. And also you talk a lot about this and I want people to make sure they walk away with this realization is that when you're talking about boundaries, communication, direct communication, not subtle communication or manipulation, manipulative communication, but direct communication and is a big piece of boundaries. Just having like your own, like a little internal boundaries without articulating what they are in any given situation is a problem. And it's not a text of, don't do that.
Davina:You're talking about human to human conversation and interaction. Right.
Barb:Yeah. And I think, you know, you bring up a good point about texting. I am not a fan of texting anything that is potentially difficult or you know, there's so much that's lost in text. There's no like voice inflection or tone or any of that stuff. So even if you can't see them, then call and leave a voice memo so they can at least get the intonation of your voice and make it really clear.
Barb:There's way too much important information that is being People are having relationships via text nowadays. And I get, you know, for some people they have to do that for whatever reason. But if you need to have an important conversation with somebody, please don't do it on text.
Davina:If you're the leader of a business, that really is not the same with email, you know, before text was email and there's a danger in that because I understand with attorneys, we like to document things and that's okay to follow-up with such a thing. But when you're dealing with your employees on an interpersonal level or any other types of boundaries that you're setting or any other clear expectations you're setting, they really need to be conversation.
Barb:Yeah, yeah. And I think having regular one on ones with your employees is really valuable. And it could be a touch base fifteen minutes a week or every two weeks or something like that. And then you set specific meetings for topical things if you need to do that. But having a one on one with people on a regular basis so that you're continually feeding back to them, this is working really well, this is not working really well.
Barb:And they can also feed to you, like the way that you're doing this isn't really working for me, or I have a suggestion for how we could change that. But that keeping communication flowing, like everybody knows communication is the key to good relationships. We just don't know how to do it. Like, I truly believe, Denina, that I was a good communicator. I was a program coordinator running programs in up to 25 schools in three school districts at a time.
Barb:So I kept the communication flowing. And that may be so that in that way I was a good communicator. But when I got into recovery, I realized, oh my God, I was doing a lot of beating around the bush, implying things, expecting people should know things, expecting that people should read my mind or trying like I didn't understand what somebody meant, so I filled in the gaps typically with some kind of negative spin on it. And now if I'm not really clear, what does somebody mean? I say, I'm not sure what you mean by that.
Barb:Can you explain or can you give me more information? I'm a little confused. And I know now, like if I think people should know something, I'm wrong because if somebody should know something, then they would know it. So you come right out and tell them. I was doing a meeting at a church group one time and this woman was like, after forty years of marriage, he should know blah, blah, blah.
Barb:And I was like, well, apparently he doesn't. And so we take it. She was taking it personally like it was a personal affront to her that it was purposely not doing the thing. Everybody thinks differently, especially men and women. People retain different things.
Barb:People attend to different things. So if you think someone should know something, then come right out and tell them, right? Don't beat around the bush. Say directly what you mean to the person so that there's no error, you know, there's no mistranslation error going on there. And we somehow believe, especially women, that it's like rude or mean to directly communicate.
Barb:I know that when I started doing it, I was just like, Oh my God, this is awful. This is mean. And what I now know is it saves a lot of time and people trust me because they know I'm going to tell them the truth. That doesn't work for me.
Davina:That's huge. Discuss that with my clients all the time, especially if you're the boss, right? You own the You need to be communicating directly. I grew up in the Deep South where women are taught to sugarcoat everything. Want to serve it up with a little bit
Barb:of onion, Sugarcoating is the play.
Davina:I was like, this doesn't work because people aren't understanding what you're saying. You think it's so clear and it also feels manipulative, even though it's not intended to be that way. And in a work environment, it just doesn't work. I mean, you really have to be a, a, you know, much more direct. And when you first start doing that, it does feel mean if you've been taught that that is rude or not, but we can be direct and be kind.
Davina:Absolutely. The kindest thing you could do is be direct.
Barb:Yes. Clear boundaries are clear and kind.
Davina:Barb, thanks so much for being here and talking with me about this topic today. Know our listeners are going to get a lot out of it. Tell us how we can connect with you and find out more information about working with you.
Barb:Absolutely. So my favorite place to hang out on social media is on Instagram. I'm at Higher Power Coaching. You can find me on LinkedIn also at Barb Nangle. That's N as in neighbor, A N G L E.
Barb:And then I do offer, Accelerate Your Boundaries, the Fast Track Starter Kit. It's boundariesstarterkit.com. It's free and it's a good way to just get started.
Davina:Very good. Thanks so much for being here and I look forward to continuing our conversation in the future.
Barb:Excellent. Thank you so much, Devina. This has been great. I loved it.
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