Episode 318: Bedbugs, Boundaries, And Business: How To Be A Person Of Your Word

How does it feel when you cannot trust someone? But I think the better question we should ask is, what if you do not trust yourself? You might be thinking, how am I not trusting myself? Plain and simple, it is when your yes doesn't mean yes or your no doesn't mean no. We have all met that person in our life (or maybe we have been that person) that will give you a yes, but in reality, they mean no. How does this translate to your business? How can you be the affirmative leader and make sure your staff trusts your word? Today I get a little personal with you, sharing stories that helped me realize the depth meaning behind someone's yes and no. And how this will translate to your life, your staff, and your business. How you can ensure your staff trusts you. If you haven't already, subscribe to Bella In Your Business on your favorite podcast streaming site today! Biggest Takeaways: 1:27 Bed Bugs Story! 5:20 Actions don’t match the words 7:45 Does your staff trust you? Recommendations: If you have ever had to ask yourself if you need to trust someone in your business you know how difficult that feels. Trust is a two-way street, and when running a business you need to know you are trusted by your staff as well. Learning how to build this trust comes with a lot of business, HR and everyday types of questions. The Mastermind Group is a community of like-minded business members going through similar situations, learning and growing together. With years of HR questions answered by an expert, a plethora of guest speakers and 1:1 guidance from Bella herself, the Mastermind group is an investment business owners cannot afford to to miss out on. Links: Better Marketing With Bella Bella Vasta Instagram Mastermind Group Transcript This is episode 318 of Bella in Your Business. Hi there, I'm Bella Vasta from Jump Consulting. You might know me from CBS, NBC, Fox, Huffington Post, Entrepreneur, or maybe you've seen me speak on stage or read my book, The Four Dogs That Every Business Owner Needs. In any case, get ready because you're about to get your hashtag Bella Butt Kickin' in this next episode of Bella in Your Business. So what do you say? Let's get ready and jump. Welcome to another episode of Bella in Your Business. I hope your Thanksgiving was great. I am back with another kind of like heartfelt podcast episode for you today, and it basically comes down to how do you know if your staff really trusts you? When we're talking about this, this is way bigger than just your staff. This is going to be a very introspective podcast where I want you to really consider like, hey, there’s a point here. This also, of course, comes from my own very personal experiences. I've learned so much in my life this year. It's probably been one of the biggest growth years for me personally. And from it, it really makes me happy and excited, and I want to share it with you. So I'm going to do my best because everything that happens in our personal life also relates to our business, right? So I'm talking today really about trusting yourself and others—and others trusting you. I want you to really think about this, and I'm going to start off with a couple of stories. There was this person that came into my life a couple of years ago, and we were supposed to meet up and just hang out and grab lunch. It was literally like a half hour before I was supposed to go out, and he’s like, “I found out that the hotel I was staying at had bed bugs. I have to get all of my stuff into bags, fumigate, and buy all new things.” That’s really random, right? But the interesting thing about this is that prior to him actually saying that to me, I did not want to meet up. I was not feeling well emotionally—not necessarily physically, but emotionally. I was just feeling down and out. A series of events had happened and I kind of just wanted to stay at home and not talk to anybody. And I was actually happy when he told me that he had bed bugs and had to take care of it. It developed into this conversation because he told me about the bed bugs, he felt really bad, and I was like, “You know what, John, I actually don’t mind because I have some stuff going on and it actually works out well for me.” And he said, “Well, Bella, if I didn’t cancel on you, would you have canceled with me?” And I said, “No, John, I gave you my word that I would show up. My word is my bond. It’s what I grew up around.” And he goes, “But Bella, why aren’t you honoring yourself? Your yes needs to mean yes and your no needs to mean no. Because if we had showed up, I know you wouldn’t have brought your Bella, and I would’ve known something was off. And then I wouldn’t know if it was me or if there was something wrong with you—it just would’ve been off, you know? You wouldn’t have shown up as your best self because honestly, you wouldn’t have wanted to be there.” And it was kind of profound. And I really hope I’m conveying that message to you right now. But he was like, “If you can’t trust yourself, how can you expect other people to trust you?” And I was like, whoa. Mic drop. You are so right. And I was like, “But, but, but, I told you I was going to be there today.” And he’s like, “Yeah, but why would you want to come and show up as not your most authentic self? Why wouldn’t you want to take care of yourself and be like, you know what? I just need a mental health day?” Now obviously, if you do that to someone multiple times again and again, that’s not a good thing either. But I’m talking to all of you overachievers, time blockers, and over-schedulers, right? Where you are constantly go, go, go, go, go, and you’re like, “I really don’t want to do this.” Are you honoring yourself? Because I think after a while, people actually start realizing it. I’m going to flip this to a different scenario. I know this other person who I’ll call Sally. Sally would be like, to your face and admittedly to herself, “Yes, let’s go! Let’s take this interaction up to five, ten, fifteen, twenty speed!”—making all these future plans and all of this amazingness. And the minute that this interaction ended, quietly to herself, she would be like, “My gosh, is this really happening? Did I go too far? Actually, I don’t really want to do this anymore.” And all this anxiety and double guessing would come in. And then what I would get on the end of my line would be this mismatch. It’d be like, “Wow, when I was with her, it was so gung ho and making future plans and let’s do all this stuff,” but then Sally’s actions wouldn’t really match her words. So then what happens from the outside? You don’t really trust Sally, right? There’s no follow-through on it. There’s not that same kind of excitement and the actions don’t match the words. Sally didn’t think about things thoroughly before she committed to them, therefore giving other people mixed messages. I’m trying to keep it really simple, you guys, and I hope this is making sense. But whether it’s you honoring yourself or someone in your life—again, romantic, platonic, or business—where you can’t trust what they say, it becomes a pretty wishy-washy relationship. They might say something to you, and I know you guys are thinking of someone right now, and you’re like, “Yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it.” Or, “They say they will, but we’ll see if it actually happens.” This could be a parent, a sibling, a loved one. It could be a friend, could be a lover, it could be anybody in your life. But I want you to really think about it. What can we learn from these people? How does that feel when you can’t trust somebody? Because quite honestly, they don’t trust themselves. Do you want to be that person to other people? This isn’t the extreme of when I was talking with John about “My word is my bond. If I said I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it.” Because that’s basically negating yourself and not giving yourself self-preservation. Does your yes mean yes and your no mean no? On the other hand, there’s another person in my life that I also know that I literally could set my watch to them. They don’t ever overcommit, right? But when they do commit, I know without a shadow of a doubt that I can trust their word and they’re going to do it. And they’re going to do it from a place of joy—not from a people-pleaser overcommitment. But if they say they’re going to call me at 4:30 in the morning, they’re going to call me at 4:30 in the morning. And that’s a pretty extreme example, but I’m saying that to get my point across. They’re not going to commit to something because they’ve already checked in with themselves and established that that’s what’s going to happen. Now, how does this pertain to your business? Do your employees, your office manager, your social media manager, your HR person—whoever you have on your team—do they know that they can trust what you say? Or are you going to go back on your word? Think about it. Do they trust you? The types of leaders out there who have followers that will follow them over coals and fire into battle happily—it’s because they trust their leaders. Do you have people that you hire, and maybe you’re such a hot mess because we’re all a work in progress, honestly, right? But you’re such a hot mess that they don’t know if they can actually trust you because you’re not consistent, you’re not showing up authentically, and your yes doesn’t mean yes or your no doesn’t mean no. The other thing to this is something that’s really powerful—if you don’t take anything else from this episode, listen up. This is the one thing I want you to listen to. Even all you kids out there listening right now—this is a really good lesson for life. When someone asks you something and you want to answer back in the affirmative that you’re going to do it or you agree, there is a major difference inside your brain, in your neural pathways. I’ve read this so many places and it’s so true because I’ve done this in my life.