I'm Nicole Fisher. I design spaces for a living. Crafting those wow moments our clients get to enjoy every single day. And I've spent the last 13 years figuring out what people really want versus what they think they want. Turns out that applies to basically everything in life. So pull up a chair. This is the interior perspective. Years ago, almost to the day, I was a few days away from closing. my business. I've been in business for over 13 years and the first 10 were a grind, a grind to the point where that's what you think you have to do. That's what we're told to do as entrepreneurs. That's what we're told to do as women. You need to absorb everything. You need to put your head down and you need to work hard and you have to work hard to the point that you start to see some light at the end of the tunnel and only working harder will get you more success. And when I thought I was going to close, it was because I lost a key employee. So 10 years of grinding. Fast forward. I finally key hire. I hired another designer and she And at the time we were doing about a dozen projects, she had her hands in everything. We both had our hands in everything. And the idea of her leaving at that point was unfathomable. There was no way I was going to absorb what she was leaving on the table. There was no way I was going to get somebody in deep enough to be able to handle these projects with me. There was no way I was And it was the ever had happened to me, I remember thinking, what more could I possibly give? I was already working 80 hour weeks. I was already missing my son growing up. I was already having a marriage on thin ice. What more And I didn't think there was anything left to to gain. So, um, that There was no, there was no coming back. I called my financial advisor and I explained to her that I was closing my doors. And she said, get a grip and go read this book. And the book was buy back your time by Dan Martell. And I remember that day like it was yesterday. I downloaded the audio book, went on a walk and cried hysterically for hours. For the first time, I felt seen as an entrepreneur for the first time. I felt like there was a reason I was so overworked and I was doing it to myself. There was a reason I wasn't growing. There was a reason we weren't making more money. There was a reason I wasn't seeing my family. There was a reason I was a shitty boss and everything came back to me and everything came back to what I was doing, how I was spending my time and how I was delegating or I changed, it was the most pivotal changing moment of my life. Well, My name is Nicole Fisher. I own, operate a luxury interior design firm in New York. I've been doing this for a long time, and I realized I have a lot of opinions about this. And it's really a lot of opinions outside of throw pillows and everything that is what the outside world thinks interior design is all about. And, you know, I think the last few episodes, I haven't been completely honest. I haven't been totally me. I am not sharing enough of my journey that the fact that I'm not perfect, the fact that I've had so many failures, the fact that I am where I am because it took a lot of beatings to get the nerve to rise And I have a lot to share about this So the first thing I thought of when this employee was How am I going to take on what she is leaving? The clients knew her, the builders knew her, our trades knew her. Hell, my husband knew her, everybody knew her. And when she did finally leave, I The floodgates were just going to open and it was going to be insane and I was going to go crazy. But no, I had this book. And Nothing about my day to day changed that much. And it's because I never was a leader to her. I never allowed I never allowed her to do anything without micromanaging her. I never allowed her to take that leap into ownership on anything in the business. So when she left, it was right back where I started. Instead, realizing that I treated her as more task management, more one-off things, and then fine-tuning everything she's doing, checking everything with a fine-tooth comb. And it was the biggest slap in the face from me to me, knowing that I thought there was so much pressure on, how am I gonna get out of this hole? but You never taught her how to work with you. And that was the craziest pill to swallow. When I realized that she actually wasn't contributing because I didn't let her contribute. a That was, it was, it was insane. And I really, from day one, reading that book, it changed everything about how I reframed talking to my employees, working with my employees, how I was hiring, how I was firing, how I was building this culture and brand. Fast forward three years to what you see now, all of this growth happened over that time. And I had to completely restructure. The book taught me that there is nothing more valuable than And taking things off the founder's plate for things that don't give the founder energy, for things that don't give the founder money, Those are the first to go. If I can learn, if I could learn how to focus on the shit that really lights me up, on the shit that really makes me money, then And I had to reframe my entire mindset around that I realized in auditing my time over a few weeks, I spent like 80% of my time on administrative work. How insane is that? Literally admin work, answering emails, working through calendar, meeting with clients. And immediately, My first hire was not another designer because that's The buyback principle works where you hire So 80% of my day was around admin. So my first hire was an administrative assistant and And I will say. the most important thing is not only hiring for a position, you're hiring for culture, you're hiring for experience. And then the probably the most important thing is you're hiring people who know how to do it better than you know how to do it. So hiring somebody not who wants to get into interior design, hiring somebody who comes from an EA background was like mind blowing to me. They were implementing things, simple, simple things into my day-to-day that just rocked my All of a sudden, my time I wasn't micromanaging my emails. I wasn't chained to my I was able to break free from And over the last three years, I have made it my mission to build something that's bigger than me, build a brand with legs, build a brand that can withstand anything, build something that's going to live past me. And it took a lot of growing, failing, hiring, firing, building culture, rebranding. We rebranded a There is no shortage of work in what it takes to really do this. But when you start leveraging what you have and what you don't have, and what I don't have is time. And what I brought on were team members that not only knew how to do the thing, but do it better. All of a sudden we bringing each other up onto a different level. I'm seeing this person doing this thing at this level. Now I'm going to be that. I'm going to do it at that level, or I'm going to do it even greater. And all of a sudden we start building a culture around being the 10.0 version of ourselves, being the best fucking version of who we can be every so important to this team, to this brand, to what we're building, what we're doing together, and whether or not they stay here or move on and do their own thing or move on to other firms or whatever I know that we gave them a beautiful, incredibly intense foundation of coming to this next venture as the 10.0 version of that person. And as And that's why we have rock stars on this team. That's why everyone is an amazing, dedicated, because we lead with that element of culture. And now you will be damn sure that I have systems in which they can fully own their role here because I will not go backwards. I will not repeat the thing I did with that fateful It was the biggest life lesson that I've had as a CEO. that without ownership, there is no future. You have to own owning the system, owning it in a way where if there's a problem, you take ownership of said problem, owning it in the way where you are owning solutions to said problems, their ownership has become a core value in our company. And it's And it's super important for for us as we grow. That that stays right at the forefront because there is nothing more important to me. Fast forward three years to today, we are Nicole We have relocated back to New York City. We're right in the heart of Chelsea, and this represents the next phase of growth for what we're doing. There is no stopping this train. The new office represents everything that is important to our brand. And that's creating, making the world a more beautiful place and taking things that don't necessarily seem like they go, but creating unique spaces that give you these wow moments and our entire office is a wow moment. And it is so inspiring to be here and to be working here and to have this team And there is no ceiling for what we're doing here. So stay tuned. The interior perspective is back and we're This will not be your typical design interior focused podcast. We're getting into the who, what, why, when, how of it. that is a bit different from the creative direction that you normally see. So stay tuned. We're so excited that you're here. That's it for today. If something landed, send it to someone who really needs to hear this. Like, subscribe, come back next week. And if you need more in the meantime, you can find me at Nicole R. Fisher and everything NFI at Nicole