From Perfectionist to Progress by Identifying Triggers
Anyone can struggle with balance, perfectionism, disappointment and conflict. As a small business owner, my guest today, Natalie Johnston and her daughter and business partner, Brittany Dyson, come to the show for an on-air coaching call to get my help in handling perfectionism and disappointment brought on by a conflict with a client.
Unhappy customers are bound to happen in any business at some point in time. Having a better understanding of what might have triggered your customer’s reaction, and how your customer’s reaction might be triggering a reaction in you can help you navigate the situation more gracefully.
This call with Natalie and Brittany will dive into the four conflict personality types and the anatomy of a conflict to help you identify triggers and move from perfectionism to progress.
What you’ll hear in this podcast:
- How perfectionism shows up internally and externally
- What a triggered-reaction looks like and how it impacts you
- What changes when working with family
- How conflict impacts both parties
- How conflict starts and what it looks like
- How conflict can keep going when you don’t know about triggered reactions
- What steps to take to be prepared for conflict and the feelings that come inevitably along with uncomfortable situations
- How most of the time, conflict and difficult situations have nothing to do with you or what you have done, outside of the triggered reactions of both parties involved
To listen to the full audio, CLICK HERE.
Lara:
Hello and welcome to the program. I’m so glad to have a couple of special guests for an on air coaching call today. We’ve got Brittany and Natalie from OCD Cleaning in my hometown of Seattle. Wait you guys are in Tacoma, right?
Brittany:
Yeah, it’s near Seattle. You can call it Seattle.
Lara:
It’s all a big family area up there in the Pacific northwest. So can you two tell me a little bit about yourselves and I’ll start with you, Natalie, tell me about yourself.
Natalie:
I began OCD about a year and a half ago. Um, I was a stay at home mom and my youngest just turned 18 and I wanted something to do and I really liked cleaning and clean after three girls. I just thought it was something that was really good for me. So, I put a little, small ad out and I couldn’t believe the overwhelming responses that I’ve gotten and realize maybe I was doing something a little difficult with my pricing because it was too overwhelming for me to keep up with everybody. So, I do high end detail appliances and homes for move in and move out and it has been the best thing that I can think of. I mean, I was a correction officer for four years and being transitioned over to a OCD was the best thing I ever did.
Lara:
Yeah. Yeah. So tell me a little bit more about that. What do you mean by you do the appliances? Do you do like deep cleaning, like detailing of those appliances?
Natalie:
Yeah. I’m going to turn you over to Brittany because she is actually a specialist in that.
Lara:
Perfect. Hi Brittany, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself first?
Brittany:
Yeah. So I’m Brittany. I am her oldest daughter. I actually am in telecommunications and I was in between two jobs when my mom was like, I could really use some help. Kind of getting this all organized for me, her business, like she said, it’s only been around for a year and a half and uh, I basically took the training wheels off of this bike and was teaching her how to ride her bicycle in a sense of how to balance it and how to do all this and let me give you the tools on how to get better organized. And uh, we have about 18 routine customers that we do. Um, and then we also, like she said, do those move out, move in and cleans and what those are. We spoke, we team up with real estate agents in the area and we basically get homes to look as good as new.
Lara:
Especially in this area where the housing market is insane. And so I can see that getting on with the realtors was a stroke of genius because they, it’s not good enough now just to clean up your house. It has to be in show quality and those things are flying off the market. So yeah. That’s great. So what is most important to you in your business in this coming year?
Natalie:
For me, I’m really just reaching out to as many customers as I can. I’m not a franchise so that makes it difficult because once they see our detailed work, they really want us to come back and doing the math there’s only 30 to 31 days in a month and we like our weekends off, so we try to get out there and get as many people with the attention to detail that we can. And for me, I’ve had to turn away people. Unfortunately I’ve had to say I’m booked out. These are circumstances that I’m running into that um, I want to overcome this year so we’re going to kind of go back to the drawing board and figure out a way that we can try to get everybody on the schedule and meet their needs.
Lara:
So, so your, what’s most important to you and your business is probably like making sure that you take care of your customers, but that you can actually have as many customers as you can take on. And now something…
Brittany:
Finding that balance, you know, balance. Uh, I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I’m sorry to interrupt. It is just, you know, you can take on so much. But these relationships that we’re building with these clients, you know, it’s almost like we’re harvesters. You know, you plant a seed and then you go back, and you water that seed. And you take away all the weeds and coming back and you want to check on the status of it and we’ve got a lot of big things that we want to do for 2019 and we finally are getting the tools that we have and we’re just really excited to roll up the carpet and show, basically show off what we worked so hard for.
Lara:
And you have a family business which brings an entirely different dynamic to a team. So you have, you and Brittany and your younger daughter. What is her name?
Natalie:
Her name is Megan.
Lara:
Megan, my sister’s name is Megan.
Natalie:
You know, that is the most important factor because these girls were brought up with me. So they’re very, very, uh, already in tune with the cleaning. I don’t have to train, I don’t have to worry about their worth ethics. I don’t have to worry about if they going back over and double checking. Are they accountable and reliable and trustworthy because I instilled all that in raising them. So it just becomes very, very, very natural. Customers see that and they know who’s in their home and that’s a big, big thing with some of these other cleaning companies is they don’t know who’s in their home. They just know that they’re licensed and bonded. But with OCD they have a family within a family and there’s a huge amount of trust is being installed off that.
Lara:
That can be great to work with family members and it can also be a little problematic at times. I can imagine. So how close are you in getting to this goal that you, you want to achieve in 2019?
Natalie:
I think it would probably be pretty close to say maybe six months or so. Um, we’re trying to really get a game plan together and be able to figure out a way to communicate with our customers so that they are flexible with us and they understand because they’re… The biggest thing I’m seeing is I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to lose you. So, with the overwhelming responses that we get with all the houses were just trying to accommodate everybody and make them a priority and just kind of build within that without overworking ourselves.
Lara:
So what about your personal life? What’s important for you this coming year in your personal life? That was a deep sigh. The listeners can’t see you, but I can. That was a sharp intake of breath.
Natalie:
I’ve been so focused with work and just making everybody happy and doing the best, for the best that that’s something I’m going to have to take a deep breath and really think about for me because “Me Time” I’m realizing is important. If I’m not giving myself a break and enjoying what made me enjoy this in the beginning, I’m really kind of sacrificing a lot and it shows and I don’t want to be worn down.
Brittany:
And then to kind of touch on that too, my sister just turned 18. My mom is one of the most selfless people that I’ve ever met. And so for her to not only go from a very giving job as a mom, but then to go to, it was a very giving job as a, you know, this, this right hand man for a lot of these clients just giving and giving and giving. I think that she just kind of needs to look at the blindfolds from giving and just look at, hey, what, I’m still in here somewhere, you know, what are the, what are hobbies and things that I liked to do. And we actually just talked about that. She asked me, she’s like, what are your hobbies? Well I have a two-year-old, and so I run around like a chicken with its head cut off half the time and she is starting to run this business. And so we’re quite the dynamic duo. But you know, it’s, I think mostly we’re kind of homebodies on the weekends. We just like to be able to, you know, sit in our company with our family and just really embed that time with the ones that matter most. And they’re the people that are the backbone of this company. And it’s a family that serves on the forefront, but we got a whole rally of family behind us that are pushing and, you know, cheering us on. And that’s really what we have found to just spend that quality time with.
Lara:
Yeah. Have you happened to have read my book?
Natalie:
I haven’t, we’re just talking about that.
Lara:
Yeah, there’s a section in there. It’s called the tripod and there are three things that you need, you know, we talked about balance earlier right before the call and you know, I kind of think that balance is a myth. I think that it’s more like riding waves, you know, there are times when we’re going to be feeling like, I’m the bomb. I can take care of anything. I can, you know, I can do whatever and my clients love me. And then there are other times where it’s just like, oh, this is just so overwhelming. There’s, you know, we have ebbs and flows and all of our relationships and emotions and the tripod really is that you have to have the skills in order to do what you do. Both internally and externally, and then you have to have the practices like, okay, so how do I put those skills to work and then you have to have the self-care because every single thing that we do takes a toll, you know, it takes a physical and emotional toll on us. So if you don’t have the self-care behind it and hopefully it’s not bad self-care, oftentimes people fall into the numbing habits instead because that’s the way that they escape. Other people they love spas and massages and you know, whatever the time is, for me, I like to just get out and go hiking or go for a walk or you know, hang out with friends or whatever it is. So when it’s specific to you, each thing that you do, but you have to have those tripods, one of each, you know, to hold us up basically. That was a bit of a soapbox.
Natalie:
Oh Nice.
Lara:
Yeah.
Brittany:
Some of those 10 hour days, I’m like, mom, hey, I could really go for a massage right now. I could go for a spa, you know.
Lara:
Get to the Olympus. So what’s your biggest challenge today and what brings you to the on air coaching call?
Natalie:
Well, I ran across your blog on dealing with difficult and that really hit home for me. We had an experienced that I’m happy that we experienced it. At the same time, I wasn’t sure how to handle it and it’s a hurdle that I’m sure I’m going to have to overcome and deal with maybe on a more regular spectrum now that we have more overflow, but it’s how to respectfully communicate and just not being able to meet somebody needs or say that were not available or um, you know. For instance, we had a home that we did and um, I think they really expected us to remodel the home. And I was floored because, knock on wood, I’ve not had anybody discouraged or upset with any of our work, but it was really, it really brought me down because I have not been able to meet somebody needs. I’m the kind of person that will go back and do it and do it until it’s right. And that just hit home with me. So I was like, how do we overcome that? What tools do we need so that we’re prepared in an incident where, um, maybe their idea of a deep clean doesn’t meet a remodel expectation. So, um, I thought it was important for Brittany, I to get in touch with you and kind of get some ideas and some skill on how to communicate, how to be okay with saying no and still feel good about what you do on a daily level.
Lara:
Yeah. I love this one because I can see the, I can see the triggered reaction that you had. I can see the context that brought about that trigger reaction, which means there is a solution, there is something you can do for next time. But before we dive into the solution, why is this a problem for you? How is it impacting you?
Natalie:
I’m the kind of person I think I go over and above and that’s just who I am and, and I built this from, from a little baby all the way up to what it is today. And to have to look at the disappointment. Somebody that, um, I built a relationship with at the time that I did the bid, and everything was going well, really didn’t settle good with me and I had to really pull myself back and figure out how I’m going to respond in a polite business manner without being rude.
Lara:
Because defensive brings out defensive.
Natalie:
Yeah. And I, you know, we always push ourselves over and above and if they say they just want this area, we do the whole area because we don’t, we don’t want that feedback. We want them to be marveled and just wow. So, to get disappointment was like, wow, I need to get a crew up here. I need to figure out how to deal with difficult behavior in this area.
Lara:
Yeah, because if it doesn’t change, how, how do you think it’s going to impact your business?
Natalie:
Exactly. So yeah.
Lara:
So, what would your ideal outcome be from today’s call?
Natalie:
That’s a good question. And I don’t think I have the answer to it.
Brittany:
I think, um, I think really what a lot of these, uh, well this was just one occurrence when we haven’t had very many to, to really reference, but it was this one in particular that really stung just because of how much more after the fact we had given our, of ourselves, we offer complimentary services and things, but really just how do you, how do you help realign those expectations, you know, cause people set the bar of what their expectations are and within that bar, as a businessperson, you’re looking at the financials, you’re looking at the resources, you’re looking at the tools and the skills and a lot of those tripod things you’re talking about and what’s within those bounds of that expectation on your customer side. But even more so, there’s an expectation line for yourself as a business person and you know, you’re looking at your client’s expectations, but you have expectations that you hold yourself. And my mom is super critical of herself and her work and that’s what’s gotten her to this point. But I think, uh, I think really what, when she came into this and she talked to me about this, is that she’s, she’s trying to figure out how to have those healthy conversations with your clients to help realign those expectations and to have those difficult conversations and be like, I understand that what you’re asking for is this, but from my stance and my perspective, this is my balance and my boundaries that I have to fulfill those expectations for you to have those healthy relationships and healthy conversations with those customers that are difficult.
Natalie:
At the end of the day. I want to feel good about what I did, but I want more important for them to feel like they got what they paid for. They got their expectations met and they’re comfortable and happy and they enjoy their home. That’s, that’s my reward.
Lara:
And so how did you react at the time?
Natalie:
I didn’t respond until the next day and I sent her a very respectful text message back to her because that’s how we were communicating at the time. And I just told her that after reviewing a document, everything, I always take pictures of every transformation that we do in a home before and after. So, I said, you know, after taking some considerable time in looking at the images that I’ve taken, I have to respectfully offer you another clean that, that would make you happy. But we over exceeded by hours, by the time resources, materials, and we worked within our means. I mean there was a part of the home that didn’t even have running water and that’s not something I usually deal with, but we were already on site working so, and it was referred to by a previous customer. This was a very high a recommendation. So, I tried to treat them with the utmost of respect in that area. And so we always go over and above and that was really hard. But I just, um, I offered to come out and do it again. I offered to do anything we could so that she would be completely happy, and the answer was still no.
Brittany:
Which is okay. It’s just a matter of we have to, you know, my mom, if something’s not right, she’s always, always instilled, well, this is kind of like her correctional side, you know, she’d tell us girls to clean our room and if it was to her standard, she’d take everything out and tell us to start all over again and you know, and that’s kind of what she’s taught us as professionals too, if it’s not done to that standard, then you started all over again. You go from the ground up and you try it again and don’t get discouraged and don’t have that attitude about it. Just know that you’re learning things and that, you know, recovery and that attempt again, that you didn’t learn the first time. And so, and she, she offered that and the response back was very passive. It was very demeaning to my mom what my mom has instilled in her business and she just kind of had to swallow her pride and just be like, okay, we’re just going to part our ways and that’s what she wanted and that’s what we did. But you know, to know that she was referred. She was someone that we had met previously because we always do a face to face personal bid before we do any cleaning. We’re all clear on expectations, and then after the fact she was as appalled as she was, it was very humbling to say the least.
Lara:
Well, there are a lot of things that I see here that I could, I want to do them all. I want to help you with your boundaries and I want to help you with. I’m going to assume, I don’t know if you’ve heard the podcast on your conflict personality type, but I’m going to assume that you tend towards perfectionism.
Natalie:
Yeah.
Lara:
With the OCD being in the cleaning and with what I’m hearing, I’m guessing that you know, you have a very high standard for yourself and for others. And along with that, there’s a lot that goes with that. So, I’d love to dive into that whole section with you. And I’d also, I mean this has got triggers written all over it.
Natalie:
Right.
Lara:
That’s something else that we can really dive into. And then there is the anatomy of a conflict and that’s something else that. But you know, that’s actually, that would be months of working together. So what I’m going to pick out is something that’s also in my book, it has a worksheet on it that helps you deal with this very situation. So, you were triggered and I’m assuming that they were triggered, they were triggered because when you look at the anatomy of a conflict, there are always four things. There are expectations, there are assumptions, there are judgments and there are feelings. We don’t separate the two. How much time have you spent since this even, thinking about it, being worried about it? If you were to take a guess.
Natalie:
I would say I handle every clean from that point on. I go over it and um, it almost takes her to go, mom, we are like, way done. You can only go over something so many times. It is beyond perfect. And so I’m constantly looking for fault or maybe an area that I missed because I don’t want to give a reason. And for me that takes a lot of energy out of just myself.
Brittany:
She’s almost looking for reassurance from another client that she is doing a good job because of the judgment that was cast upon her from a previous client and that’s how she’s been kind of able to cope. If I didn’t do it well enough at that time, I’m going to show that you know, my worth to myself doing any, maybe the simplest thing, you know, like I’m going to go and go above the cabinets and just do something that they didn’t ask for me to do.
Lara:
And this is the curse of the perfectionist. What happens when you view yourself as having a bit of a shortfall? You set your standard even higher. Even if, I mean, I just… Well, I’m sorry I was going to go off on a whole tangent, but what I want to do is be of use to you. And so what I want to talk to you about is a triggered reaction, one for you and one for what happened. So this is what a trigger reaction looks like. There’s an event and usually it’s something that happened internally and I’m assuming for your client it was, they had an expectation that wasn’t met. Whatever that expectation is, that’s all inside their head. Maybe they, you know, remember what the house looked like when they first bought it, and that’s what was in their head. And you just don’t know what their expectation is or what their assumption is. Right? So you have the event and then you have to trigger. And a trigger is automatic, immediate, visceral and physical. You can feel it. I mean, when this happened to you, did you feel it in your body with, in your stomach or in your head or in your shoulders or you know, it manifests in us physically when we have a triggered reaction. And then there’s the response. That’s the third part. So the event, the trigger, the response which leads to the outcome. So with the assumption that expectation that you had and the assumption and the expectation that they had, um, the response was also insufficient for both of you. So the need doesn’t get met. So this circle just keeps happening. So, then that’s a secondary event with another trigger which then leads to another response which leads to an outcome which then still is not satisfying. So, you know, you just get stuck in this loop and the loop becomes almost a self-fulfilling prophecy of negativity on its own. It becomes bigger than it was, you know, if you were to relive it again, you’d be like, oh well this wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was. You know, and it’s because negative emotions often we dwell on more. They used to say in the psychology world that you felt them more and they found that’s not true. We just as humans focus on the negative stuff because in order to survive, we have to know the negative stuff. We don’t sit back and say, oh, the joyful times, let’s ruminate on those. You know, we just don’t do that. So, the first thing to do is to identify your triggered reaction. Can you identify what feelings you had? What was it that was triggered? Was it that you weren’t good enough? Was it that you were failing at your job? Was it that you were letting someone down, what was the trigger for you?
Natalie:
I just always went back to the whole, um, you’re working yourself way too hard and now your customers are starting to see how much you’re overworked. So, the blame started with blaming myself and that just took a whole toll of my own initial, okay, I’ve got to take a break. It’s time when this starts happening. I need to take a break. I need to take a “me” break and just kind of recap and see exactly what I’m doing wrong and where I was maybe taking a shortcut that I normally don’t take and evaluate that a little bit. And after doing that I realized there was no way I did any of that. And so there was not going to be a conversation of being convinced that I had done my job any less than I’d done any other house. It just came down to the point of you’re not going to make everybody happy. And I had to be okay with that.
Lara:
So why was the first place that you went, that you had done something wrong and that people could see that you’re overworked?
Natalie:
We were pushing, let’s see, almost three houses a day at this point and they’re pretty big homes and it was becoming where we’re just trying to meet everybody’s needs and just be there and make sure that their homes were all being done the way that we had talked about the bid. And I went from doing one house every other day to three houses in a day and I realized my body and her body, we were just drained. And so, I was going before this even happened, I was talking to her about, um, keeping hydrated, you know, this is a physical job. Are we getting enough sleep? Are we prepared? Is all our inventory up to par? A lot of that takes a toll on you and then you pile on 2100 square feet times three. It’s not the average week for us. So I just was going, okay, as the owner, I’ve got to give us a break. You know, I can’t just pile and pile and pile and then expect to keep performing at an exceptional, you know, there’s no way. At some point your body’s going to get tired, you’re going to get tired and I don’t ever want to lose interest in what I love, so I have to make it a point to make, just call it and just say, we’re taking a break.
Lara:
So, do you think the trigger was that you thought he or she was right, that you didn’t perform your best?
Natalie:
At one point. And I overcame that by just realizing that in the future we had a talk about it and we’re going to communicate, communicate, communicate. We do these bids, we want to make sure that we are absolutely clear and if for any reason, if there’s something that they didn’t want done where they do want done, that, those are a priority and those get met first. That way I can alleviate some of that guilt that I have because I want to make sure that I’m. Did I not communicate well enough? Did I not make this clarified and not go over this? What is the reason why they weren’t happy? And I racked my brain for a long time and I realized, okay, this is easy, we’re just going to communicate really, really, really well.
Lara:
And so I’m hearing a couple different things. One, that you had a triggered reaction that “oh they’re right, I didn’t do my best.” And then you had another triggered reaction, which is I need a break. I can’t deal with these people anymore that can’t keep up this pace. And then you had a triggered reaction in that, oh this is going to keep happening unless I have some system in place to deal with this. Because as human beings you’re going to come across this again. I mean there’s just, you can’t control other people or their reactions or their expectations. You can only be as clear as you can possibly be. So I want to kind of check in with you now at like the middle mark. How are you feeling? Do you feel like we’re making progress that we’re hitting on the right thing?
Natalie:
Absolutely. Yeah.
Lara:
Great. And do you still have the same question or has it morphed into something different?
Natalie:
Every situation is different So to have an idea of just how to deal with a difficult situation like that for me is a tool, something I’m going to use in my back pocket all the time because I’m going to be prepared and I’m going to be able to handle it. Like, Oh, okay, we’ve done this before. Okay. So here we go.
Brittany:
I have to say too, since that situation kind of came down, my mom has had a different respect for herself too, you know, she is one, but she is one very good one and she can do very much but she can’t do it all and she’s learned to say no. There was one there. If there’s one thing that my mom didn’t used to do, it would say no and there is a new, you know, humility and a new respect that she carries on her back and she knows what she has to offer. But there is a price and there’s resources and there’s, there’s a bunch of different factors that she’s realized that needs to come into play for that expectation on that line to be met and you know, I think that’s been the biggest growth point. If we’re going to talk about how difficult the situation was and kind of riding that wave, you know, like you’re saying, we’re at a very, um, we had, we had serviced so many homes in that last year that we had one very negative situation happened. That’s a pretty good record and she looks at that and she was like, you know, it’s, I’ve got to grow, I’ve got to grow from this and I’ve got to be better and it’s okay. And I can say no and I know what I have to offer to my clients and that’s why I have all these monthly recurring revenue coming in from all my other customers. And I can say no and if they don’t want to, if they insist that we try to work it out, then I can communicate, and I can use these tools that I have to reevaluate those expectations, and everybody be on the same page. So it’s been really successful from that point forward.
Lara:
This is why I love difficult stuff through difficult comes our greatest opportunity for growth and understanding not only understanding other people, but understanding ourselves and if we don’t look at the hard stuff and if we don’t kind of dissect it, you don’t want to ruminate, you know you don’t want to stay in it. There’s this theory that I was just listening or just hearing about and I actually want to dive into it more. It’s called the “Tyranny of Shoulds” and we can get stuck in this loop of should, should, should you know, you just don’t, don’t should on yourself. Not a good place to be, but when, when you understand that the triggered reaction, so do you remember what they are? What the four parts of the triggered reaction arm, oh, the, the event, the event trigger.
Brittany:
Then the judgment and the assumption.
Lara:
Yeah, and then you respond and that respond keeps the loop going or it stops it. Now, when it comes to communicating difficult things, or when you have someone who’s upset at you, the very first thing you can do is figure out how you can talk to them when they’re triggered. Now, the more practice you get at this, the better you get at it. The first thing that I do, because, um, you know, it’s new, it’s like a learning to drive. You’re not really good at it, right out the gate. You got to practice and practice. I rewrite history. I think, what if, what would I have wished that I would’ve said in that moment? What do I wish I would have done in that moment? And you can kind of rewrite it so that the next time you’re in the situation, you’re like, oh, I’ve already solved this problem. I know how to do this. So you kind of practice ahead of time. And how you do that is you decide what is the outcome that you want and the outcome can be different. It can be. I don’t want my original customers to be mad at me that I disappointed them with this referral. Or it could be, um, I want to part ways amicably with both of us having good feelings. It could be whatever it is that you want and that’s how you tailor your response. So, um, now if it is that you want everybody to be happy, it’s like, okay, so what do I need to do in that situation? If I say, “fine you’re right” and I’m going to give you back the money, well I’m not happy. Maybe this customer’s happy and my other customers happy, but that, what does that tell my crew and me? You need to think about what outcome you would have wanted. What do you think the best outcome could have been with this particular client? That’s reasonable?
Natalie:
Yeah. I think she’s right. I think going back and just offering them to redo the home or point out maybe what their first thing that they wanted to address be done. Um, and really just kind of hit on that. To be honest, they never had a house cleaner before, so they didn’t really know what to expect, which is why I say that maybe their expectations were exceeding what we’re able to do, and that’s kind of where that miscommunication and some of the bad feelings kind of came from because there was no clarity really on, I know what I’m capable of, but I didn’t know what they were expecting and the people that had referred them to us had a different category of a home. So they’re seeing work that we do to this home thinking maybe that we can bring that to their home that is still going under a remodel. And still having all these things being done to it, no running water, limited resources to have us fulfill our job. So, there’s that kind of reiteration of what they’re seeing and what they’re wanting us to apply to this customer, you know, customer A to customer B, who’s disappointed. So that was a very distinct difference, too.
Lara:
And so do you now have processes in place that you onboard people and you set their expectations and then you off board them and you make sure that everything is clear?
Natalie:
Yeah, we do. And in saying that, we also, um, you know, I’m very humble. I’m a very open and honest, straightforward person. So when I meet with these people, I’m not afraid to let them know that I had a discouraged customer. I want them to know that my goal is to make sure that I don’t ever have to come across and if I can avoid it at all costs, I will. So, the more they communicate with me, the better I can do my job to make sure that their needs are met and that’s the most important thing. And they respect that. I’m very humble about that. And it just say, you know, um, this is a relationship. This is, I’m going to be in your home with your valuables and your things. I want to treat your home the way I would treat my home. And so, if there’s anything that’s off limits, I want you to be clear with me because I don’t want to have any bad feelings. I want to be able to build from this and have you be happy with knowing you can go to work and when you come home everything is done to your expectation and there’s that building, that trust and that relationship, and they don’t have to question or feel bad about or feel like maybe I’m paying too much or I’m not getting what I want. I want all that to just go at the wayside.
Lara:
So it sounds like you’ve, you’ve handled the communication part upfront. Like when you go in, probably from this event, specifically the next time someone, some conflict happens that you would like me to give you some help around.
Natalie:
That’s a good question. I can’t really think of anything. Um, other than I’ve never had to come across an angry person. I don’t know. This is just communication. If I had somebody that was a very verbal and angry person, I think, to be honest with you, I would go now I don’t think I would know how to deal with that.
Brittany:
Um, we take life by a grain of salt. So I think anyway, that would be very angry with us. First of all, anybody that meets my mom and I in their home, they can tell from the get-go. We are a buttload of personality. We have fun with our job. We get to be in new environments every single day. But we’re very professional. We walk with grace and we walked with a lot of humility and that’s why we’re happy. And so, people who are very angry, we tend to run into very little people who are very angry because it’s an energy thing that when you walk in, you approach somebody home with positive energy and a very good vibe. It’s very, very hard for somebody to pick up on those vibes and crush it. Unless them themselves or you know, we have found that when we walk in with that kind of poise or an attitude, we get that same kind of response and that’s throughout the entire clean. We have people who are recording us the entire time so we have to be, not that we would be any different because we’re just comfortable with ourselves, you know, but they’ve seen. I mean, we’ve had customers see me completely eat it in the middle of the floor, like just laugh about it later and I’m just like, Yep, that’s me. I’m a Klutz, you know? And they’re like, okay, well I said nothing broke or you know, my mom’s even had people to report her breaking something and it was just that honesty and upfrontness that we are and that we’ve been 100 percent of the time. We get that same kind of response from our clientele. So for us to get somebody very, very angry, I mean this was all this other client that we’re talking about that was difficult, was all done via text message. We never talked with her face to face and I guarantee you how do we talk to her face to face that kind of interaction would be much different as well. Um, so I mean people can be keyboard warriors. They can sit there behind a screen and say so many disruptive things that they couldn’t say to somebody’s face. So, we have a very good de-escalation type of mannerism to our self and our business when we’re speaking to people face to face.
Lara:
I love that phrase by the way. Keyboard warriors. Well, there are, there are three ways that people like to communicate. Some people like me are visual, they’re visual and verbal and I like to see and talk to people and I love that kind of interaction. Other people are like, send me an email, send me a text. Why are you calling me? Why are you, you know, they want it in writing. And other people don’t care about the visual at all. They want to talk to you on the phone and they call that um, auditory, kinesthetic and visual, those three different ways. And that’s kind of the first thing that you can do in a conflict is how is the person talking to me? What are the words that they are using? Are they using visual, verbal or kinesthetic word? Like, um, “well, you should see this. You should see how it looks or you know,” um, there’s actually, I did a whole podcast on this and so if you get a chance to go back and listen to that, I talk, I break out each one of the words and how you can kind of guess what the other person is. And then you can also kind of guess what their trigger is because whenever we have a triggered reaction, it’s going to be around a couple of things. You know, it’s going to be around judgment, around finances, around expectations. And these are all internal and it sounds like you have very high standards for yourself and that you don’t give yourself a break much. And so what happens is you were triggered to go in and kind of punish yourself when this person was probably just venting or is not happy. On my website, I have a whole free series on the secret gift inside every emotion. And one of the emotions is anger. Anger and fear are what they call mask emotions. Now, sometimes they are a true emotion. Where we actually have anger that’s very valid and very reasonable. But they are masking emotions because they are the great protectors. If you are scared, if you’re frightened, you know, anger and fear come to the rescue. Anger is a very, very powerful, powerful emotion. And some people will go there first, and it sounds like maybe this person who is under a lot of pressure and stress with the house remodel and has expectations and Lord knows what else was going on with her, you know?
Brittany:
Six kids, she has six kids. Oh, that’s all under the age of 13.
Lara:
So. Oh well, no shocker. That was actually, that emotion was probably just a great protector for her. And it had nothing to do with you, but it triggered you to have some of your own stuff that’s like, oh, you know, I need to figure out how to, how to deal with this internally. So it sounds like you might have, that’s where you need to like really focus. What is this emotion? What does it mean to me? And I would start by asking yourself what if everything that she said was true and what if everything that you felt was true, then what?
Brittany:
Just don’t should on yourself, ha ha ha.
Lara:
Because if we don’t even know we go down these roads, you know, there’s this theory called “Desire Paths” and on any large campus, a big campus like Amazon and Google and all that, they don’t landscape the, the grounds until after like about a year when they see where the employees are going to walk. And if you just google desire paths, I think it’s like Michigan State or something like that. They did aerial views of these desire paths and you can see where people walked and everything and where they said, okay, this is a danger. We don’t want people crossing the street here, so we’ve got to put a hedge up there, or oh, okay. This kiddie corner walk is where most people go. We’re going to go ahead and put a path there. Well, you have emotional desire paths too and you’re going to go to your go to emotion, you know, and whether that’s shame, I’m going to go straight across the quad to shame or whether it’s, you know, self-judgment or whatever it is. So I want you to institute a new trigger for yourself. The next time you feel shame, I want that to trigger you to think about, “is it valid?” Have I done something shameful? Is this an emotion that I deserve? If not, why? How is it serving me to feel this right now? What is it keeping me from really feeling that I need to actually take a look at? Is it that, you know, do you have a guess? Was it maybe that you’re overworked or was it maybe that you’re just, you’re scaling really quickly, and this could become huge? This could be, you know, you could train other teams and you could triple your prices and your company could take off. And is that scary? Is that something that’s being triggered? It’s, what do you think?
Natalie:
It’s funny you say that because actually after my response to this person, um, I did find out that it really probably had nothing to do with me at all. There was about six to 10 hours in between the time that the clean was done and the person was home with X amount of people in the house.
Brittany:
Everybody else in that house had gotten home before that.
Natalie:
And there were friends and there were things that were going on. And to be honest with you, um, I think if the person was really adamant and really unhappy, they would have responded and taken me up on the, on the clean. I think after she had said what she had said, she realized that there was x amount of things that happened and she kind of felt bad. But instead of just saying, I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to come at you the way I did, I didn’t know so and so had friends over and blah, blah, blah, x, y, z. So, I had to really kind of like take the no response as a, you’re okay. You did your job, feel good about it because not everybody’s going to just own after telling somebody you know, off basically. I was wrong. So, um, I felt good that I at least ended my part with opening myself up and trying to make it right and letting her know that, you know, and owning it.
Brittany:
And you reflected afterwards too, and there were things that were brought up that you knew very well, but you would have never left in the condition that you did.
Natalie:
And that is just because it’s part of our checklist. It’s part of our routine, which is why I document things, so I don’t have to question myself too much and do the whole I’m too tired. I’m too tired, I wasn’t too tired to take pictures and document everything, which is why I have the resources to go, that’s impossible. You’re okay, you didn’t do this, you’re not going to make everybody happy. Move on.
Brittany:
Easy. Easy now.
Lara:
Yeah. And you can use your own mantras going in when you do it that way, you know, it’s like everything is okay. Whatever the mantra is for you, you know, you can use different coping skills. So, in today’s call we talked about triggered reactions and what they are and what they look like. Kind of the anatomy of a conflict and how that plays out and how internally what’s going on and why you need to reflect back and seek, dig down deeper, you know, just keep digging down to see exactly what’s going on. Is it valid, do I need to make a or am I just walking on this desire path and I’m on the other side of the quad and I don’t even know what’s going on. That happens to me a lot. I would encourage you. not to just sell my book, but any book that would, uh, you know, that would help you with the mindset practices, the mindset, the skills and the practice that you need to put into play that would be good in positive situations. I’m like, wow, that went so well. Why did it go so well? What am I going to do? How do I know? You can kind of break down what went well, why? Is it just your personality types happened to mesh? And that was just, that’s what it is, you know? Well good. Knowing yourself and your personality type, then you know, what’s going to happen? And I got to say with the conflict personality types, there are four. There are the, I’m going on, I promised myself I wouldn’t, but I’ll wrap it up. There’s a whole, there’s four shows on each one of the conflict personality types, but for you as a perfectionist, well, a victim blamer is like your opposite, your nemesis. They are the ones that are going to trigger you most often and you’re going to trigger them most often because the other side of perfection is control and they go hand in hand. Perfectionism is internal, control is external. And what happens when you’re a perfectionist is that you take all of the internal stuff and you make more controls to try and fix the internal perfectionism. So, I won’t go on and on about that because you and I could talk for hours.
Natalie:
Well I’m going to look into that.
Lara:
Well, and I would love to work with you more. So if you would like to work with me, I give a 10 percent off discount on all, on air coaching calls. And that can be anything from attending a workshop or having me come work one on one with you for 60 days or coming in and training your whole team for up to 30 people. So I’ll have you take a look at that and I can follow up with you offline on that. But I am so grateful that you guys came onto the podcast and were vulnerable because this stuff is hard. It’s hard to talk about stuff that triggers us, that makes us, you know, that really impacts us because it’s really, really loaded. And I really am very, very grateful that you two are willing to do that. Thank you so much.
Brittany:
Thank you for your time. It’s been nothing but fun and uh, yeah, no, it’s just nice to be able to collaborate and to touch on the difficult, you know?
Lara:
Yeah. It’s important stuff.
Natalie:
Yeah. Very important. And I found it very informative because I have resources to kind of overcome some of my whole backs and move forward and be a better, more successful person because of that.
Lara:
Absolutely, you know, like my grandma tiny used to say, and my listeners are probably really tired of hearing about my grandma tiny. She used to say, I remember it like 98 or 99. She’d be like, “oh Lord, I’m sick of learning lessons.” It never stops. Trust me.
Natalie:
The more the merrier.
Lara:
Well why don’t you tell our listeners where they can get a hold of you. Now you’re going to be even busier, OCD Cleaning.
Natalie:
Yeah, we are in Tacoma. We’re doing most of the south and we’re working towards the north end, but we’re based out of Tacoma, Washington. And you can visit us at OCD Cleaning. I always get it wrong.
Brittany:
www.ocdcleaningwa.com/ and we can schedule your bids and your site assessments and everything on there. We’ll go out and meet you face to face, view your home, send you out a bid based off what we’ve seen and hopefully see you again. Just do your cleaning.
Lara:
Excellent. I will. Of course, listeners, we’ll put all of the links in the show notes so that you can get in touch with them directly and again, thank you so much for coming on and I hope to see you again soon.
Natalie:
Thank you.
Brittany:
Thank you Lara.
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Episode 16 – The Perfectionist
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