interior designer, creative director, and someone who believes that the spaces we live in quietly shape how we think, feel, and move through the world. This season is a little different. It's just me sharing my perspective on design, home, style, motherhood, and the everyday decisions that make a life feel considered. This isn't advice. It's perspective. Take what resonates and leave the rest. Thank you for joining us today on The Interior Perspective. I'm your host, Nicole Fischer. For those who don't know who I am, I am the president and principal designer of Nicole Fischer Interiors here in New York. Over the last few years, I've really changed my daily habits to include a ton of things. But one of the really transformative things for me has been reading. and specifically nonfiction personal development reading. That's where I first discovered Simon Sinek. He's an author, motivational speaker, and he is behind Start With Why and The Infinite Game, two of my personal favorite books. And I was recently listening to a podcast with him and another businesswoman who I love and look up to, Emma Greed, when I heard a line that really stopped me in my tracks. He said, quote, a strong corporate culture is a group of people that agree to grow together. Wow. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I still literally can't stop thinking about it because at first glance it sounds so, so simple, almost obvious, but the more I sat with it, the more I realized how Rarely we talk about what that actually means. Not just in companies, but in friendships, partnerships, families, teams, even creative work. Growing together sounds so nice. Growing together sounds so nice, but it is not passive. It's not comfortable. It's definitely not automatic. So today I want to talk about growth. what it really requires, why it's so damn hard, and why agreeing to grow together might be one of the most powerful commitments we ever have to make. I think a lot of people confuse culture with chemistry. They think culture is liking each other. They think culture is having shared interests being aligned right now. But growth doesn't happen in stillness. It happens in motion. To agree to grow together means agreeing that we won't stay the same we won't we'll always be in sync we won't always be comfortable growth introduces tension edges expectations and culture isn't the absence of friction it's the agreement on how we move through it growing together means we allow each other to evolve without punishing each other for changing How rare is that? Here's the part we don't romanticize enough. When one person grows, it changes the dynamic. When a team grows, it exposes what the gaps are. When a company grows, it demands more clarity, more ownership, more honesty. Growth focuses on the question, who am I now? What do I need? What am I no longer willing to, like, tolerate? Not everyone wants to answer those questions. Definitely don't want to answer them at the same pace. And that's where tension really comes in. Sometimes people say they want growth, but what they really want is they want progress. They want progress without disruption. It just, it doesn't exist. Have you ever outgrown a role, a relationship, a version of yourself? You know this feeling. I am personally going through that feeling, that quiet discomfort before things break. right before things evolve. Growing together means choosing evolution over that ease. One thing that struck me about this quote was the word agreement. Agreement is active. Assumption is passive. Most groups don't actually agree to grow together. They just assume they're going to grow together. They just assume they're going to grow together. They assume everyone wants the same thing. They assume growth looks the same to everyone. They assume alignment will just, what, happen? The real culture requires naming things. What does growth look like here? What happens when someone grows faster? What happens when someone doesn't grow anymore? Agreement requires conversation. recommitting to each other, sometimes renegotiation. That's where the trust, that's where trust comes in. I mean, I've been thinking about this a lot of my own life, my work, my leadership and my relationship. I've learned that growing together doesn't mean never growing apart. It means being honest when that growth starts pulling in Some people are meant to grow with you for a season. Some Being a business owner does not make that part any more easy because you are constantly being forced into figuring out where that growth lies. Letting that be true doesn't mean failure. And that's a hard pill to It's Knowing that doesn't mean It can mean respect. The most painful situations aren't when growth happens. They're when growth happens without acknowledgement. Silence creates resentment. Clarity creates possibility. If you lead people formally or informally, this matters. Strong culture isn't, Strong culture isn't about keeping everybody happy, right? It's about creating a container where growth is expected. It's supported, it's named that I am 100% an advocate of feedback. Feedback when it's uncomfortable, allowing people to outgrow their roles, recognizing when alignment has shifted. In life, I think it's exactly the same. We're growing together requires generosity, A friend of mine the other day said they were dismissing a relationship that they were in because the other side was no longer curious. And I was struck because it's so true. When you lose curiosity, you've lost interest, you've lost the importance of growth. So it really asks us to say, I'm changing and I want How fucking powerful is that? How fucking vulnerable is that? I mean, if you're listening to this and you're thinking about your own world, your work, your relationships, your Who are you growing with? More importantly, Have you actually agreed to grow together? Or are you just Because growth is inevitable. But growing together, that's One that requires honesty, intention, care. And honestly, this has been So if this resonated with you, I'll write more reflections like this in my sub stack, which I'll think in the show notes. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening, willing to grow, and I will see you next time. Perspective doesn't always change things immediately. Sometimes it just gives you a different way to look. If this episode gave you that, I am so glad you're here. Until next time, thanks for listening to the