Welcome to the Interior Perspective, where luxury real estate meets timeless design. I'm Nicole Fisher, a Hudson-based interior designer working with the region's most exclusive properties. Each week, we sit down with top brokers to explore the stories, insights, and inspirations behind the most remarkable homes on the market. This is your front row seat to the art of elevated living. Let's get started. Hello, and welcome back to The Interior Perspective. Today's guest is someone who stands with me, not just as a designer, but a companion on the journey. Erin Warren and I have walked the path together, business coaching, creative pivots, celebrating wins, and lifting each other up. In this episode, we're gonna talk about what it means to design your life and business in parallel, how your creative vision, your inner story, and your professional growth all weave together. Erin brings that full spectrum design, mindset, friendship, entrepreneurship, and I'm honored to call her not only a colleague, but a friend. So let's dive into her journey, how she defines success and how partnership, both in business and life, makes the process feel richer because design isn't solo. It's all So, Erin, welcome. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to chat with you and just see you and hang out for We haven't seen each other since April, right? Is that the last time we saw each other? Okay. It's been a minute, but we are consistently keeping up with each other on social media. So the powers of the interwebs allow us to... I probably talk to you more than I talk to a lot of people just I love it. It's so powerful just to be able to stay connected in that way. I love it. You know, it could either be a blessing or a curse to be on social media, but the way that it actually can connect us is really beautiful. And you get to share each other's wins and just connect and lift each other up and feel like we're a part of each other's lives in a really cool, I love it. So Erin, tell us about your earliest memory of Yeah, I have always had an eye for art in a way. I've really loved beautiful things. I've loved nature. I've loved architecture. And I would say that it wasn't until maybe college that I started to realize that beautiful things, whether it be architecture or art or interior spaces, really had an effect on the way that I felt. And, and once I realized that I was like, Oh, this is actually like really cool. I can, here's a new thing that I can kind of nerd out on. And it this kind of sense of self-expression really made me feel most authentic to myself, which I thought was really cool. So I don't think there was a singular moment, but it was just kind of this collective realization, this collective awakening where you start realizing there's something here and there's something about this that just truly lights me up. And it's a way that I can express myself and almost Yeah, just sharing through your work. Yeah. So what point did you kind of start marrying the business and the aesthetic part? Because I know we've been in this business coaching journey together. And for me, I certainly had Yeah, yeah, it was maybe about five or six years ago, my husband and I started started investing in short term rentals. And just by necessity, I was the designer, I was the the person putting together the sketches and picking products and designing mood boards. And over the course of five years, I designed and renovated 10 homes for myself and it was a super aggressive schedule to be doing that because I was also working my full-time job at the same time and throughout that process I really realized how important interior spaces were in curating a vibe, matching your space with like the energy that you want to cultivate and it was so much more uh creating a feeling rather than just this is the aesthetic that i want to go to and that was another kind of awakening for me of this lights me up this makes me happy and there is a tremendous amount of value in what this can do for people It started with how am I going to create a guest experience to now with my business of coaching folks on how to design their spaces with intention, it's now this process where we really figure out what makes you happy. What vibe are you trying to create? What feeling do you want to create? Because a lot of people don't even know what their interior design style actually is and how to get there. What are the tangible steps to create this idea? in this space that truly feels like us, that truly represents us, and that we can feel most at Right. So let me ask you, on those short-term rentals, are you designing for the ideal guest or are you designing for yourself? Like whose feeling are Yeah, designing for the ideal guest. If you look at any of the properties that I designed five years ago in one location or just last year in another location, they're vastly different based off of the guest experience. um based off of the the home itself the aesthetic of the home itself and honest and just honoring that uh kind of the natural aesthetic and the natural vibe that's like baked into the home um and so it completely varies and and that's what kind of gave me permission to be able to help folks design their spaces is that I never really felt like I was designing for myself. I was designing for guests and designing for them in a way that would make them feel most comfortable, most at home, most at ease, and almost be this place of rest, but also this jump-off place to make memories together. And that Right. No, I love that. And I think this short term rental thing is has always been a challenge in my head because, you know, garnering the attraction from multiple people, not just like a single person who, you know, exactly kind of what they want, but making that appealing, but also adding into the fold this idea of experience that you have to, you know, bring to the table and then also adding this idea of it's a business. It's not something you just walk away from, right? So the, I'm curious, what, how do you guard your creative voice while building like these systems and making sure that what you're building through these short-term rentals are still something Yeah, I think that when you're designing a space that's authentic and where you have the guest experience in mind the entire time, the business side of it will naturally happen. If you're just designing a space as quickly as you can with Wayfair top 20 first page of STR, buy these things for your STR. The guest experience is completely diminished and they will walk into your space and they will know Because people are smart and people can feel energy and they walk into your space and if it just feels flat and if it feels like you didn't care, that will in turn reflect your ROI. That will in turn reflect how much money your business is actually bringing in or if you have repeat guests. And then when you, on the flip side, when you design the space with intention and with wanting to just enhance the guest experience through good design and through thoughtful curation of spaces. The end result is that you're going to have folks that send you a message and say, this is the most thoughtful space I've ever been in. My family was able to relax. we made memories here that we could have never made before. And they just have this real sense of ease in your space and real sense of appreciation that then translates to your reviews, your guest retention, and even just word of mouth, where people are like, my friends stayed here, my family members stayed here, Yeah, that's so powerful. I love hearing that. It makes you just motivated to want to do more, right? And to do it again for other people. It's that level of satisfaction that's just so gratifying. And it's just so powerful. So tell me about the Yeah. Yeah, I really wanted to be able to help other people design their spaces. I really saw this need where folks are just especially when when you get to, you know, mid 40s. A lot of people in my circle have just the last 1020 years have been designing their spaces by default. They really haven't put any intention into what they want their space to look like or feel like. And They really haven't prioritized themselves. We've just gotten so busy where our sense of home isn't this incredibly restful, nourishing space. um that it could be it's a sense of chaos it's a sense of dissatisfaction and it's not in alignment with who we are and how we want to feel and i've just seen this in all of my circles and all of my friends and all of my family that it's just become this afterthought and as you know our interior spaces are this this energetic relationship that it can either uplift you if you are sitting in a space that's in alignment with who you are and is an expression of how you want to feel, or it can completely drain you and be this sense of constant friction because you're not in a space that nurtures you in the way that it can. So what I do is I work with clients for a six-week program where we discuss not like all right tell me your ideal you know are you a farmhouse or are you a mid-century modern you know check the box type of thing yeah we we get super intentional um we do meditations we look at a ton of different images that aren't even interior design images um just images that they feel a sense of connection to. And throughout the process, we decide what their design style actually is by pulling together, okay, what are the top five through-line keywords that we can just continuously pull from as we're designing the space? How do you want to feel in your space? And we also go through a intentional clearing exercise as well, because over the course of 10, 20, 30 years sometimes, we've just accumulated all of this stuff by default without any forethought of, this is how I wanna feel, this is intentional. And if someone hires an interior designer, they're gonna come in and say, there are a ton of things in here that you need to get rid of, because they're not in alignment with where we're looking to go. They don't support that vision. And so that's the other big piece of this as we go through more meditations, intentional clearing. So that way you, you create the space that then you can start to build from. So it's, it's quite the process. And it's a lot of kind of looking inward and asking questions where you may have never thought to ask yourself or you may have never given yourself permission or the space and time to think about how you want to feel and Wow. I mean, it's so therapeutic what you're doing. I always say I'm just an unpaid therapist. That is 75% of the client maintenance that you have to do consistently acting as that neutral middle ground with you know, clients on their project. But what you're doing is you're kind of taking that a totally, you're taking that a different way. You're using the therapy as a very constructive, positive direction that they can use all of this, all of those things going on in their minds and put it out in a much more positive way. And that's, that's so wild. I've never heard of anyone doing this. How did you come up with Really by, I guess kind of by accident, after working for five years on all of these projects and living in construction, living in absolute chaos, not prioritizing myself or my space, I hit a point at the end of the five years, where I was just like, a shell of a person. I don't know what a mental breakdown feels like. But I was close to having a mental breakdown. I was just like, I have zero identity, my stress levels are through the roof, I haven't prioritized myself, my mental health, my physical health, because I've been living in absolute chaos for the last five years. And I just said, I need to take a break. And I need to reset, I need to reset my nervous system, I need to reset my priorities. And I need to have a few months of just calm to figure out and ask myself questions about what do I need right now. And through that process, I realized how here I am creating these spaces for guests, so that way they can feel a certain way. But meanwhile, I was not taking care of myself. Meanwhile, I was completely crashing out, wondering what the hell is going wrong, going on with me in my mind and in my body. And And it was then that it clicked for me that I needed to prioritize myself. I think a lot of times we get so caught up in taking care of other people and putting ourselves on the back burner and working really hard to build our careers and take care of our employees and our clients. and we forget to take care of ourselves. And so it was really through that process of just like completely burning myself out and realizing I needed to prioritize myself and my space that I was like, I'm not alone in this. Pretty much everyone that I've spoken to is like, yeah, you know what? I haven't thought about this. My space does not bring me peace. I haven't thought about the ways that I can even nurture myself in my space. And it just became this really beautiful conversation with other people about what opportunities they had to then feel better at Yeah, it's so it's so powerful. I I'm right there with you. I think the biggest takeaway for me in the coaching part is that it forced me to take care of me. And by taking care of me, I'm able to show up better for the people around me, including clients, including like in a workspace. But what you've done is you've been able to take this and inadvertently teach other people how to take better care of themselves too, you know? So I think it's a, it's such a powerful thing that you're doing. I think that's so beautiful. Do you have people who are hesitant about the, like the meditation component or like getting too deep or like, that's woo-woo, we don't want to deal with that. do I feel like some people are a little surprised that the meditations are part of it. They're like, wait a minute. I didn't know that I was signing up. The only time I've ever done a meditation is, you know, in a yoga class or maybe with my therapist or something like that. But you are the damn therapist, right? Yeah, that's right. It is a sense, you know, a sense of therapy. And emotional regulation, you know, and it's really important to be able to go kind of go inward and think about the way that you want to feel because you can't just ask someone a surface level question about okay, what do you want your what top five interior design styles do you like, you know, it's like, it's so much deeper than that. And when we put intention behind it, and we go through the meditations, people are surprised at what they find. People are surprised at the spaces that are most draining to them energetically and most nurturing to them energetically. And it's really cool to see people kind of start to open up to that idea of, okay, well, now I know what my priorities are. Here I was completely overwhelmed and thought that I wasn't going to be able to even identify a place to start. But now I know um, through this meditation, what my, what my highest priority will be that if I start tackling this, I'm going to start feeling better Yeah. That's incredible. I love that. Um, do you also do this with budding designers or is this just for people doing work I haven't worked with budding designers yet, but I would love to. I think that that's such a thoughtful way to be able to approach your relationships then with your clients, that there's this extra level of intention to really key into what your clients are looking for and how they I think, you know, the more we put ourselves out there, the more people that are perhaps inspired by what we're doing or, you know, we give them permission to kind of take that next step. The mentorship on that feels like an clear next step in something that you could do and I think would, people would find so inspiring. And I, I'm so excited for what you, what you're doing. What is, how do you take what you're doing now and kind of expand on it? What's looking ahead is, you know, the next step for Erin. Yeah. Ooh, I love this question. thinking bigger. I, I would really love to help as many people as absolutely possible. I see such a need for this in literally almost every home to just get more intentional about about what you're doing. So that way you can feel incredible. Like who doesn't want to just feel incredible. It's like exercise or something like that, where it's like you need to have some form of exercise to be able to regulate your nervous system, feel as best as you can, prioritize yourself, build trust with yourself. It's as necessary as something like physical exercise actually is. And so I see a need for this in every home in America. I would love to be on Netflix to be able to be accessible to people and expand my audience. I would love to be giving workshops and seminars in big theaters to be able to bring these ideas and concepts to people in a really approachable way. And i really just see it see it being huge a huge opportunity for people to heal in a way when they're able to come home to a place that truly feels nourishing and restful And, um, you know, who doesn't want that? Who doesn't want to just like feel better and be inspired in their spaces? Um, so I'm thinking big. I love that. I love that. Like damn, damn right. You're thinking big. That's the way you're supposed to So what would you say to someone who's just starting out and wants to create a business that feels kind of meaningful and aligned with their Yeah. I think you need to think about really difficult, challenging times in your life and ways that you overcame what that is. And then if you can find a, like some sort of intersection between that and something that just like absolutely lights you up and that feels like your soul's purpose, that's just your unique fingerprint on how you can help yourself and also help the world. And when people want to build a business, it's gonna be really hard. It's gonna be really challenging. I forget exactly what the phrase is, maybe you know it, but it's like, building a business is like the best self-improvement journey that you can ever go on because it challenges you in ways that you never thought were possible for you and you have to continuously level up and show up. And if you don't have a vision and a purpose behind what you're doing as you're building your business, you're going to burn out. But if you have that, and you have the intention of wanting to help people through your work and the business that you are building, it really helps you when Yeah. Having that foundation to kind of keep you afloat is so important, and I could not agree more. I am so excited for what you're doing because it's so unique and feels so, so, so personal. We get personal to an extent, but we don't get the level of personal that you're doing. And I think it could just unlock an entirely different component to how we're, you know, approaching design. And we want people to feel amazing. when they come home. And I think I've only considered this on a more aesthetic way and in a practical way for kids and pets and entertaining and all that jazz. But taking the true deep insides of the homeowner and parsing that out, I think could potentially open up just a whole different layer to this business. And I'm so excited to see what you're developing and how you're Thank you. Yeah, it's so exciting. It's so exciting to think about and I mean, What you do, I think it's already baked into to what you do with creating a space that results in people coming home and being able to exhale people coming home and being able to feel supported by their space. coming home and not feeling this constant sense of friction, which is what 99% of all of us feel when we haven't put the intention behind what we want our space to look and feel like. And you really do start to understand how it can be a sense of nervous system regulation when you walk into your space and you're just like, Oh, this is it. Like this feels incredible. Um, so yeah, it's, It's really exciting to think about Yeah, I love it. And what I love about your journey is how it shows design isn't just a career, it's mindset, it's collaboration, it's support, it's therapy. When we build our businesses, our homes, our lives, we don't do it alone. We bring in mentors, peers, friends who light the way. and we receive that light back. So thank you, Erin, for being that for me and for a lot of designers out there who know that creativity flourishes when we hold space for each other. So until next time, Yeah, you can find me, I'm most active on Instagram and it's Erin Warren with three underscores, unfortunately, because I am not the first Erin Warren on Instagram, but you can find me there and send me a DM, connect with me. I love connecting with people. It's like part of my routine to, in the morning before, after my reading and before I go to the gym, I love connecting with people and sending voice notes and sending messages. And so if anyone has any questions about how they can feel better in their space, reach out to me. I love chatting with people. So, and this is what it's all about, just kind of creating that connection and that Yeah, amazing. Erin, thank you so much for being here. And I can't wait to give you a hug in person sometime soon. I know. Hopefully soon. Hopefully soon. I can't wait. Thanks for listening to the Interior Perspective. If today's conversation inspired you. or you're a broker with a story worth telling, connect with us on Instagram at NicoleFisherInteriorDesign or visit NicoleFisher.com. Until next time, keep creating beauty, living with intention and seeing every space through