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. Welcome back to the Interior Perspective. I am so excited to have this conversation with you today because I finally get to come full circle on this journey, being back in New York and really what it means. The last six months, actually probably closer to nine, have been some of the craziest months of my life. Literally the moment that it became concrete, we were going to be relocating. Everything just went into full motion. That was finding the space to have the team have this new office, getting the lease, doing the build out, getting our trades, all the while building this new team, a key employee leaving, having to sell my house, relocating my family, all of it within the span of a few months. And I want to think back and think if I ever considered whether this was worth it. And 100% it was. I mean, I thrive in chaos and this, this time period just really made me know deep in my soul that I can pretty much handle anything that comes to me. So the lease was probably the hardest part of all of this. What I didn't anticipate was how much back and forth I had to get commercial attorney that dealt with the real estate component, go through so much legal jargon and parse down literally 80 pages of legalese to get to a place where everyone was happy. The verbal communication with this team was like, amazing. They were just, yep, whatever you want. They were so keen on doing the build out, they were keen on getting us in, they were keen on, you know, our crazy timeline. And what I didn't expect was the next, like two months being back and forth almost every single day with the attorney and the opposite party. And for some reason, I thought the apartment component was going to be much more difficult, but it wasn't. It was the. The office. But we found the space. Space is amazing. We got our lease signed and then we went into full build out mode. The building itself did all of the work for us that was like non decorative. So we came in and we brought our millwork, our tile guys, our stone, everything that we needed to make this place what it needed to be the wallpaper installer. And these relationships are so important because I am literally asking people to just jump. I'm asking people to say, hey, remember all the work I gave you? It's time to pay it back and do me a solid and come in tomorrow and finish the office. And that's the only way we could have gotten this build out done in literally a month. Leaning on everyone and anything that we have in terms of our inventory, in terms of relationships, in terms of our vendors, tradesmen, to get to the end result that we needed to in a crazy, crazy amount of time. All the while upstate, the family was still up there, the decision was made to sell the house. And crazily enough, in the middle of winter, where we probably had like the craziest winter of all time, there was more snow, I think, in New York than, I don't know, don't quote me on this. And we captured this winter wonderland of a day and decided to pitch this house as more of a cozy, warm, layered, beautiful space than this summer pool destination. What I thought we were initially going to do with the house when we eventually sold it, but it really just sold itself in the winter. A friend of mine who came over was like, you are crazy. This house is going to fly in the winter because it's so warm and cozy. And honestly, thank goodness because it did. Relocating the family, having to think about the school, having to think about where we're going to go, having to think about going downsizing. No matter what, we were going to be downsizing. We were coming from a 5,000 square foot house that was just not happening as our first place back in New York. And leaving these friendships, leaving the community that we've built, leaving the office, leaving a lot of the just relationships that we had made up there for the last, like almost a decade. And it's just. I just can't believe this day is actually here where we can just take a breath and know that we're here and we have made our mark and now it's time to see what we can do with it. The best part about this move has been the office, in my opinion. It's not the. The square footage is amazing, but really like what it means to walk into this place, walking in alone in this space that is so representative of what we. Of representative of the characteristic that we bring in. The warmth, the vibe, the sexiness, all of these elements that we bring into all of our client projects, we're bringing into something for us. And it really became the celebration of space that we can all, as a team, be so, so proud of. And it just really became this destination, this place that I really wanted to come to. And that was the goal. I wanted it to feel like a spot that people actually wanted to work. How do you get people to want to come to an office every day? And I think it's not only culture, it is everything around them. And when you can create a space that's beautiful for them to enjoy, they want to be there. And when I walk in here, I just feel like. I feel like a million bucks. I mean, I can't describe it any other way. That decision was made. It was never questioned. The vision I had to pre sell to people when we were interviewing. So think back four months ago when we didn't have this office space. I had to sell a vision while interviewing people. Hey, this is what we do. This is where we're going. This is the space that's to come. This is where you're going to be working. Take a leap of faith. Take a. Just jump with me. And selling a vision in that way, we sell visions to clients all the time. But selling a vision to an employee I found was a challenge in itself. It was unexpected in the excitement that I received, and they really believed it. And I'm so happy because every single thing that I said was going to happen has happened. Every beautiful inch of this space that I showed them on a photo show them in a rendering that this is. This is the vision. Come on board. This is what we're doing. Even before this, like, lease was signed and signed, I had people who had bought into this next phase of nfi. And it takes a lot of confidence to make others believe in something that doesn't yet exist. And I have been. I've always been a very passionate person, but a confident person and a convincing person who can really tell a story. And I think that's what has made this firm so successful, is that we're incredible storytellers. We are not just creating a beautiful space. I'm creating a space in which you are going to spend your days. Now I'm going to think about how am I going to adjust this vision based on who's going to be here and how their days are going to be spent. I'm thinking about open concept. I'm thinking about where meetings are going to happen. I'm thinking about podcasts. I'm thinking about where they're going to have a private doctor's call because it's something that didn't exist in the old office. And I wanted this space to check off so many boxes and become something that they enjoy going to now. All of this sounds like a fairy tale, which it really was, in a way. But the negative side of all of this was the family side. In order to do that, it meant about three months or so. Just seeing my son on the weekends, it was really hard. I mean, I became like a weekend parent overnight. I joke that I just became like a divorced dad who got to, like, see their child and then ship them off, you know, have fun with them for a day, spoil them for a day, and then ship them back home. And, you know, he's. He's like, old enough to know I'm not there, but not old enough to, like, understand why I wasn't there. And it was hard to see how easy it was for him. Did he miss me? I'm sure. Did I miss him? Of course. But he's resilient. I'm resilient. There's. I want to think that we were able to be so successful with this because we're independent, because he has been given change so many times in his life, given freedom, and I think it's allowed him to just go with the flow. So in a way, there's some serious positives there. My marriage unexpectedly strengthened during this time. We were really forced to communicate. Something my business coach told me a long time ago was not only compartmentalizing calendar, which we talked about in a previous episode, but also compartmentalizing the things that are super important. These weekly household meetings between me and my spouse ended up going on the calendar. They're designated hour that we talk about everything we need to talk about. The accountant, the financial advisor, the lawn guy, the water bill, whatever, vacations, anything that we need to talk about that doesn't need to flow into our personal time, that doesn't need to just flow into our family time. Let's get all of these more. Technical things out of the way in this allotted time. And it's really started to work for us, which is like crazy. It makes me think, you know, we're. We're better, more robotic. But that's just how my brain works. And it's. It's kind of worked for our. Our family in that way. So I'm grateful for this time that's forced us to reevaluate how we communicate. The friendships, the community. The house that we built there that was really hard to say goodbye to. I flip homes and we move around a lot, and this last one was the one that really. Hurt. And it hurt because we really embedded ourselves into this community. We really became a part of. Everything going on there. It's not my vibe to have a forever home, but it was the first time I felt like it could be a forever home. And honestly, three years is like basically forever in my book. So it's as close to a forever home as it gets. At least for me. Standing in this office now, I think about one thing that I could go back and tell myself. Tell the version of me who is like rehearsing what to say to an employee a few years ago. And I think the biggest thing is this. Stop thinking, the train starts and stop stops with you. I wish I could tell myself that the bigger picture doesn't have to do with me. The bigger picture has to do with this team and how I built it. Because the last few years have shown me, and especially these last couple months, all of this shit going on, all of the shit going on in the family, the move, the office, the hiring, the employee leaving, the restructuring, the new location, all of this going on. We still have projects, we still have 12 projects going on and the team is just full steam ahead. There was no pause, there was no gap, there was no time that work wasn't happening because all of this other shit was happening in the background that didn't happen. And it's taking me till now to realize, holy shit, you have some like kick ass team. And when you can get out of your own way, there is like no end in sight. And I wish I can go back and tell myself to do this earlier. To hire with conviction, to learn how to be a good leader, to understand what it means to be a good leader, know how to hire, know to hire people smarter and better and more talented than you are so that the ship can run without you, so you can do all of these things. I completely uprooted, changed everything about my life in the last six months and not one thing was dropped. And that is the thing I'm most proud of. I'm not proud of. I am proud. I'm proud of everything that was, that went on personally. But I'm most proud of this team for doing the thing, for doing the the job well, doing the job better than I would have done, making the ship move without me steering. And it is like. Out of all of this, the best feeling in the world. And I go more into this on the sub stack that's going to come out this week. If we learn how to hire, we learn how to get out of our own way. Sky's the limit. So I'm going to leave you with that. Next week we've got a very special guest coming on and I want to know what resonated with you. Tell me in the comments. Subscribe. I look forward to to chatting more next week. 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 fisherinteriors. See you next time.