Now more so than ever the line between what’s business and what’s personal is interesting, confusing, and a complete contradiction.

When trying to understand your own boundaries, it’s often helpful to look at the examples that other people set, and the lessons they’ve learned along the way — I know it was for me. I’ll share two stories that helped me learn more about myself here with you, to help you get those wheels turning.

Early on in my business ownership I set out with the intention of connecting with my employees. I shared what I did over the weekend, I asked about their hobbies, their plans for their time away from work — I wanted to get to know them, beyond sharing a salon with them. In the beauty industry especially, so much of our work is about connecting with people and helping them feel seen, which translates into our relationships as colleagues, too. There’s a lot of psychology in my world, namely when it comes to helping my employees do great work. There's that phrase “it starts from the top,” which even back then as I was just getting started, I took to heart.

Part of my endeavor to lead my team well consisted of hosting monthly meetings to connect with my employees across topics: transparency on numbers, honing the art of their craft, and also to discuss how they felt about their work. 

I would ask them: Are there any challenges in particular that you are facing? What are you loving right now? Have your goals changed, whether that's personal or professional, so that I may better support you, as your boss and employer?

As my business moved ahead I came to understand that I had one particular employee who no longer wanted to work with me — she was going to make a switch in regards to salons. 

Never in any of our monthly meetings did she raise concerns. I didn’t have the opportunity to hear about the issues she saw, she never shared what she’d like to see changed. I was shut out of her decision making process, full stop.

How does a boss or employer work with that, and more importantly, how does one learn from that?

It's a hard question, and I had to look at it deeply because that is who I am. I took the situation to heart. That's just how I'm built.

I couldn't come up with the answer, I couldn’t figure out the reasons for this employee’s decision. So I asked myself the next best question: What was the energy in the room? What was the energy that I presented as her employer?

As a mom, so much of my self-reflection loops around to what I’ve learned with and from my kids. One key piece of wisdom being that your tone and your approach in moments of heartfelt discussion are so important. There's a difference between a parent saying to their child, “hey, I'm concerned about you, you're a bit quiet today. Is everything all right?” 

The child might choose to not respond, and then it’s our opportunity to go further and say, as the parent, “I can see that there's a lot of things that you're feeling. Please know that I respect that you don't want to talk about something right now, but you can always come to me. Whether that's later today, tomorrow, or whenever. Just know that I'm here to listen.”

Great way to go about it, right? 

Now let's explore the counterpoint of the other approach. In our frustration with the situation, it can be an easy mistake to fall into saying, “What is wrong with you? Why are you so quiet? You don't even talk to me anymore. I'm your parent! I'm the one that cares the most about you. If you've gotten yourself into some trouble… Well then we're gonna have some big issues.” 

Maybe while reading that you can picture the scene all too well, from either the child’s or the parent’s perspective — which proves how impactful tone and approach is, especially in times of emotional conflict. Being aware of this is a beautiful thing, because it’s something that can be taught and learned, if you’re willing to try.

Now of course, your employees are not necessarily your children, but as a business owner, mentor, and their boss, in my case, I am in many ways a guardian for them. As such, I felt that I needed to look internally and assess if I was taking the right approach, and setting the correct tone. 

I stopped to ask myself: Was the energy that I put out when speaking to this particular employee empathetic? Was it peaceful? Did I leave space for the employee to give a response? 

This brings me to my second example of a story from a local preacher.

When talking about the journey of his relationship with his wife, a local preacher shared that he was surprised by how quiet his wife was during their first few dates. He would ask a question, she would just kind of look back at him with those beautiful doe eyes. She was demure and didn't answer, and yet, he himself would enjoy the dates. Eventually she would talk, but it took a lot, in his view, to get her to engage with him. 

It was starting to become frustrating on their dates that she wasn't talkative, so he started to turn on himself. He thought, “maybe I'm just someone that she's not that interested in.” 

He even started questioning if it was worth pursuing her. 

But he took a few steps back, and upon further reflection, he recognized that when he would ask a question he didn't give her even a half of a second to respond before he would take over the conversation. He's a great speaker. He's a great conversationalist. He loves people. That's why he's a preacher. But when it came to that personal relationship, he didn't allow enough room to get to know her, for her to respond. 

Interesting, right?

Suffice to say, some of our skills that help us succeed in our professions don’t translate well to our personal lives, and vice versa.

This relationship mattered to this preacher. He felt that there was a connection. So he looked at himself, and made a commitment, “I'm going to shut up until she replies.”

Reinvigorated by his resolution and self-reflection, he was determined to show her that she was important to him. During their date the next evening, as the conversation started it became obvious that old habits die hard — he was leading the conversation again! He brought his speech to a thoughtful conclusion, asked her a question, and then simply… stopped talking. 

He waited. 

And waited. 

And waited for her to respond.

The preacher says, when he tells this story, that it felt as though it were 10 minutes of absolute silence, of him being determined to have her speak up. (Then he laughs, and shares that in actuality, it was probably 30 seconds.)

So the story goes, as you might guess, that once he shut up she couldn't stop talking. She had lots to say, she was intelligent, she was cultured, she had so many gorgeous stories to share with him, which just made him fall that much further in love with her. Because he knew all of those beautiful things were there, somehow he knew that they were there, but he had to learn — through self-reflection — that she just needed to be given the space to share.

So ultimately I contemplated both of these examples, my own lessons in parenting and this preacher’s tale, while contending with the situation with my employee. I asked myself about my tone, my approach, and if I had given her the space to share. I took a hard look at where my personal life was pouring over into my business, and concluded that… No. I wasn’t checking all of those boxes. 

It was during this same chapter of my life that my husband was struggling terribly with alcoholism.

Big mic drop there.

Life was horrible at that time for my family, and although I was trying to come from a good place and wanted to support my employees, I just wasn’t cutting it. My life was full of so much uncertainty that despite my best intentions, my circumstances played a part in me being uncertain in my role as a leader. I was not a great employer. I wasn't the boss that that particular employee needed, and honestly, I likely wasn't even a safe space to even speak to at that time.

I wonder how many managers, CEOs, board members, and bosses can identify with that? 

And on the other side of the coin, how many of you have had professional meetings with prior bosses where you've thought, “oh, there was absolutely no way I was going to speak up in that meeting,” when a boss was behaving like an absolute ogre. 

I will tell you, I wonder if I was an ogre and I didn't even know it at the time.

So when it comes to personal vs. business, I think so many of us hope to and strive to separate the two in a really beautiful way, but in reality when times get tough, things spill over whether we like it or not.

As a leader today I hope to be empathetic, I hope to be relatable, I hope to share parts of myself so that my employees feel understood and heard. I want them to feel like work in setting where family is respected and personal time is honored, because their boss shares about how they govern their own personal time. I aim to make sure that they take the time to recharge.

Part of leadership is also understanding that there has to be room for different personality types. People learn differently, people look at things differently, and even if you are one person amongst 20 team members, sharing your personal life is a way of connecting with the team member next to you. It keeps us human.

There’s always the chance that if you extend your hand to someone, if you go out of your way to connect with them, they may barely even acknowledge you. The possibility of that exists, but it shouldn’t keep you from trying. I'm thinking of someone in particular when I mention this, and maybe you are, too. They are someone who is very black and white about their job — as in, “I do this to get a paycheck, and that's it. When my job is done, I'm turned off, I couldn’t care less when I walk out the door.”

Do any of you know that person? Maybe you’ve worked with that person in the past, or are working with them now.

Years ago while working at a hardware store (maybe some of you remember that hardware store from one of my earlier blogs) I had a colleague who was very serious about their job. And to their credit, they did a good job! Back then, I could see the wheels turning in their head, I could see them thinking, “If the box needs to go here, that's exactly where I will put it.” 

And yet, if I said good morning to them they ignored me.

Like I said, personality types.

But at the same time looking back on it, I almost can’t help but think to myself, “gosh, I know you're working at the hardware store, but are you happy?” If I was going to be working someplace 40 hours a week and I had such a mentality I would feel miserable.

That's a huge part of what we’re talking about here: time. Time that you're spending away from home doing this job, and what it means to still want to feel a sense of connection, of being understood, by the people who are a part of this “other” portion of your life. 

For myself, and for all of you modern mothers out there who are pursuing beautiful careers, there is a desire for a balance to be struck. We want to be connected with those that we work with, and choose to thoughtfully do so because we want to enjoy our time away from home, away from our families. We want to feel joyful while using our talents, and part of that means having that clay-like heart, in which we're moldable to relearn things, when we can recognize our egos that can get in the way of us doing good work. Let my story be a cautionary tale — when I think back to being a new business owner, and how my fears translated into some ego, I regret how that prohibited me from truly connecting to my employees at that time of my life.

I wonder if past employees, not just of my own, know that your old boss does think of you once in a while. You've come across their mind, and they might recognize they weren't the ideal person when you needed them to be, because the personal side of their lives influenced their business side without them realizing it at the time, let alone being able to verbalize it.

From a leadership standpoint, creating safe spaces for our employees starts with being really mindful of our own energy, both in our own personal and professional lives, so that when we are going into those career spaces we have self awareness of what we're putting out there, and are able to flourish within that fluidity. 

Ask yourself this as you’re building your career, would you be passionate about the things that you’re learning if they didn’t earn you a paycheck? 

And then the second question would be, is it important to you to be understood? (Is it equally as important to you to understand others?)

It's an ever-evolving concept, I think, working with people and being interactive in the workplace, as well as in our personal lives. I think those that are able to answer those questions have the capacity to have amazing careers of unlimited wealth.

Sometimes we learn things the hard way, as in my case, but it’s my hope that you can glean something from my journey. Maybe you even see a part of yourself in my story that you could mold a little bit differently by choice, with these lessons in mind.

If you have any comments, I would love to hear from you! Cheering you on always, friends, as we all strive to connect in the workplace and at home. 

Love,

🤍 Quinn