Conquering Workflows & Systems For Bookkeepers & Accountants | with Alyssa Lang (Workflow Queen)

How to Set Boundaries with Your Team, Clients and Yourself

• Alyssa Lang • Season 1 • Episode 107

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In this solo episode, Alyssa Lang covers the importance of setting strong boundaries for leaders in the bookkeeping and accounting industries. Alyssa emphasizes how boundaries foster structure, clarity, and respect within your business, highlighting the benefits of saying no, defining roles, and promoting accountability to create a healthier and more sustainable work environment.

In this episode you’ll hear:

  • Why setting boundaries is essential for business growth
  • How good leaders use boundaries to protect time, energy, and space for themselves and their teams
  • What strategies to implement for effectively setting boundaries with clients and team members
  • How to empower your team by shifting responsibilities and avoiding being the bottleneck

Resources mentioned in this episode:

💻 Breakthrough for Bookkeepers & Accountants

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Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. Today we're diving into a topic that is absolutely essential if you want to grow as a leader and scale your firm successfully. And it's all about boundaries. And here's the thing. Boundaries aren't a bad thing. I know that a lot of people think that they are, but in fact, saying no more often is one of the most powerful things you can do as a leader. If you're constantly saying yes to every single client request, every team need, and you're just feeling every single demand all the time, You're setting yourself up for burnout, frustration, and a business that controls you instead of the other way around. I've learned this the hard way in the early days of my business. I didn't set clear boundaries and I let my team come to me with everything. I overextended myself for clients and I felt like I had to do it all. But once I started setting boundaries with my team, my clients, myself, and even my friends and family, Everything changed. I became a better leader. My business grew faster, and I actually had more freedom. In today's episode, I'm breaking down why setting boundaries is crucial, the key areas where you need to start setting them, and how to implement boundaries without guilt. I'll share some of what happens when you actually don't set boundaries, and trust me, I've been there too. By the end of this episode, you'll know exactly how to step into your next leadership role, create structure in your business without feeling like the bad guy, and start saying yes only to the things that actually move the needle. So quite frankly, one of the hardest lessons I've actually learned and I've been learning, I feel like the past year, really, really a lot more than usual is I've learned as a leader is that setting boundaries aren't just helpful, but they are so needed for my business for the expansion of myself and just the skill ability and just what I need, whether it's been with my team or with my clients or even with myself, I just If I don't set these expectations, I just know myself way too well. I'll feel drained. I'll feel overworked and frustrated. And the truth is, as you guys are continuing to scale, you should not be saying yes to all the things like we mentioned earlier. Because, uh, At the end of the day, you need to protect your space. You need to protect your time. You need to protect your energy just as much as your team needs to have boundaries for themselves. And so do your clients, right? Because for so long, we've all just allowed our team to walk all over us. Our clients walk all over us, other people to do the same or just not listen to our own intuition. And we've just told everybody what we thought was acceptable, whether we set it verbally or we just said it through our actions. But up until this point, you've allowed people to do something and you've shown them what you feel is acceptable up into this point. But now we actually want to rewrite those rules. And today that's what we're gonna be deep diving into about creating those strong boundaries for yourself. for your team and with your clients as well. So at the end of the day, boundaries really create structure, clarity and respect within your business. You can't respect yourself if you do not have the right and appropriate boundaries to move things forward. Without them, you're just going to feel that Just constant need to kind of like prove to other people and I know that feeling because I've been there myself I mean for my own personal journey, I feel like recently over the past year. I've really leaned into true hardcore leadership I think for so long I thought I was leading until I realized that leading is not doing Leading is like truly guiding other people and empowering them to make moves without you. It's empowering my family. It's empowering my friends It's empowering my team my clients like If I, if it's empowering my students, I'll give you a great example of this. Like a lot of times people are like, Alyssa, just give me your full SOP on this specific thing, or give me your full process on onboarding, or this specific thing. At the end of the day, if I just keep giving you guys my exact stuff, how are you going to know how to actually tweak that for yourself? Right? So that's true leadership. Leadership and and support is really, truly coaching and guiding someone to understand something without you needing to be there. But it's a really hard concept to grasp because, like I said, I've just been barely over the past year leaning into this. And for this whole time, I thought I was leading, but really, I just wasn't doing it in the way that was actually needed and necessary for the team. At the end of the day, good leaders aren't afraid to say no. I actually say now in my business more no's than I actually say yes's. But the more no's that I say, I actually get more yes's. It's the weirdest thing ever. It's a very hard concept for me that for quite some time was like, wait, if I say no, then how am I going to get yes's? It means that when you're saying no, you're defining to someone, that is not what I stand for. That is not what I want to do. It's not in alignment for me. However, this over here is what is an alignment. What I'm willing to say yes to. It's kind of like an opportunity for you to showcase what you are willing to say yes to. So also when we're talking about boundaries and how they're essential for leadership, a lack of boundaries will actually lead. to you constantly putting out fires, really unclear roles within the team, mismanaged expectations with clients and team members, it can just get out of control. And here's the thing, when we're talking about boundaries, we're not really putting in the context of, you know, being controlling and telling people how to do things and this is my line and you can't cross it and like. being rude. It doesn't have to be rude. It can be very compassionate. It can be very open. It's truly about creating a business that works for you and not the other way around. So let's talk about setting boundaries with your team, because this is, I think, one of the biggest key components for those of you who do have a team, whether they're contractors or employees, I do want to set the tone. Then we're going to get into setting boundaries with their clients and setting boundaries with yourself. And as you start listening to this episode, if you have any, If you want to get, you know, feedback or you want to share an experience that you went through, come over on Instagram at Workflow Queen. I love hearing about your guys stories or email us at supportatworkflowqueen. com. I love hearing all the things. So, let's talk about setting boundaries as a team. As a leader, you may feel like you actually need to be available all the time or that saying no makes you look like a bad boss. I'm doing bunny ears but you guys can't see it. Like a bad boss. You might also worry that setting boundaries will make you seem unapproachable. This is not true. These are all going back to mindset things. Things that we convince ourself are fact. It's things that we are just making assumptions about. That, you know, this is what people told me. That I always have to be available if I'm the leader of the company. No guys, if you're constantly available, how are you going to pour into your own cup to lead the team? You can't. You can't do both, right? So let's talk about how to logistically set your boundaries with your team. I want you guys to define roles and accountability with each of your team members. This is something that I see get overlooked all the time. People are like, Oh, I'm just going to hire a bookkeeper. Cool. They'll do trans transactions. They'll do some reconciling. I'm going to hire a bookkeeper. And they're just going to make sure to do their tasks. Guys, that is not defining roles and that is not giving accountability. That right there is just throwing it out there and hoping for the best. And that's okay. If that's part of your journey and what you need to experience in order to understand what you really need to do with setting these right boundaries is really defining those roles and accountability. Your team should know who owns what, who is doing what on the team. No more dumping things on you at the last minute. No coming to you for all these questions. The thing is you've allowed it. You've allowed them to come to you and have these consistent messages and emails and slack messages and Alyssa, can you figure this out? And you know, blah, blah, blah. Can you do this? All these things, there's no wonder the team does it, because every time they dump it on you, you just do it. You answer. How many times, and it's okay, because like I said, I have been here, guys, more than I like to admit. How many times has a team member Slack team been like, Ah, damn it, I'm just gonna go do it. It's just way freaking easier if I just do it myself. And then you go in and you say, don't worry, I'll go ahead and take care of it, I'll just go ahead and do it. Every time you do that, It trains your team to know that when things get hard for them, that you'll just do it. This is how you train your team to know that you are the person that's just going to go in and save the day. No wonder they're constantly asking for your help. No wonder they're waiting for you to give them an answer. No wonder, because you're not making it hard for them. You're making it way too easy. We need to give accountability to the team and let them know there needs to be a system in place that says when you guys have a question, you need to first do the research. propose me with two different solutions, explain to me how you got to that solution, and then I want you to tell me what overall you kind of learned from this, right? You need to define this kind of stuff in place. If we constantly tell someone we're just going to take it and pick it up and do it ourselves, even though, yes I know guys, sometimes it is a lot faster, I get the concept, I get the theory, but at the end of the day, You need to put it back on their plate. I always say it's like hot potato. I'm literally always hot potatoing things back to my team. Like, every time they come to me and they throw something on my plate, I'm like, well, how would you do it? and then they would tell me, right? And then they'd come back and be like, you know, here's, here's this, project. What do you think? I'm like, well, what do you think? Like, I'm so annoying, probably, because I just mirror back what they say to me. At the end of the day, they have a freaking answer, and half the time, or probably more than half the time, they're right. They always have the right solution. It's just like, some people just don't feel empowered and it's usually not a team thing. It's like you've trained them to just dump things on you and take it over. I also want you guys, when you're coming to setting boundaries with your team, is setting response time expectations. Like I said, you don't have to answer messages to your team, one. And number two, You shouldn't be doing this at a certain time. That doesn't make sense. Let the team know when you're available if you are going to be answering any of those questions. Plus also guys, you have to lead by example. I usually will schedule my slack messages. That way my team doesn't know that I'm working on the weekends, even though like it doesn't really matter. It's just I try my best to make my team like not work on the weekends and not have to worry about things over certain hours. But if I'm constantly slacking them, like I'm just giving them an example that like I don't respect my own time. So therefore you don't need to respect my time and that's what's the most important. Another thing too with coming to your team and setting boundaries is. Stop being the bottleneck. I'm gonna repeat that again. Stop being the bottleneck, people. This is so normal. Like I said, this is something that I have done many times, more than I like to admit. This is something that like, I will constantly get in my own way. And you are probably doing the same. And like, this is a loving. kick in the booty to be like, hey guys, let's get our shit together, right? So if a team member is coming to you with a problem, ask, what do you think we, should do? Instead of you solving it for them. This all goes back to them dumping things and then they know that like, okay, if your old habit used to be people dumping things on you and asking questions, you always gave an answer or just took it over and did the thing. No wonder they're always doing it, right? But what if we change that? What if we just started doing, and it's not realistic to just like next day be like, Nope, I'm not answering. What I mean is we could slowly migrate you into a position where now when the team comes to you, now instead of just giving it an answer, you say, What do you think? And now instead of you taking on your plate, you say, I can't take this on my plate. I do not have the space or capacity. I will therefore give you a little bit of information and context that you need to solve this problem yourself. When you're done with it, come to me and I'm happy to help you approve it, but you don't need my approval if it's done case, right? And so we can slowly transition into that, and that's something that as a true leader, is something that you do. You are not supposed to be the bottleneck of the business, right? Implement a performance plan if needed with your team. If you're having tough conversations about boundaries and expectations with an underperforming team member, so the key point is that they're also under, underperforming for you. But, at the end of the day, you have to do a thing, like what we call, is performance plans. We do this for our team. This is mostly for our employees. We don't really do them for contractors, because contractors aren't employees. But we do them for our employees. And what we do with this for our performance plan, Is we pretty much sit them down and say these are the things that need to improve plus these boundaries are not crossed You know up until this point I've been you know, a bad leader and allowed you to like cross these boundaries But I'm letting you know, these are the new rules These are new expectations new boundaries, but you're still underperforming and I need you to fix this by X number of days, right? And so at the end of the day guys, you're not a bad leader for setting boundaries You're actually a great leader because of them. You need to set boundaries with your team. Just as much as I need to set them with the team, they need to set them with me. I have a team member, her name's Mackenzie, and she's like the queen of boundaries. Like, I'm dead serious. Queen of boundaries. Like, most impressive person on my team with such solid boundaries. I have such a level of respect for her. And at the end of the day, I wasn't mad at her for having her boundaries. Like, she did it in a way where it was like, Yeah, absolutely. I'll do it within these times that I'm working today and then outside of that, I'll be back tomorrow. Like, she's really good at setting those boundaries. So as much as I need to lead because I'm trying to set my boundaries, she, therefore, also needs to set her own boundaries as well. So let's talk about setting boundaries with your clients. This is probably one of the hardest ones because we all know what scope creep is. We all know that we love to help our clients and all the things. And the reason why this so hard is you're so afraid of losing business. If you say no, you think that your clients are going to hate you. You think that, you know, they're going to go over to this person who doesn't have boundaries. I want to be able to offer, I'll give a great example of this. When people, um, clients come to you and you're like. Okay, a client, you know, wants us to do sales tax for them, but we just don't offer it. But like, I don't want to lose them as a client. I don't want them to like go to another firm. Then I see people all the time trying to learn sales tax. I'm like, y'all, what are you doing? We just simply partner with other people, like experts, like sales tax experts to be like, hey, look, we're not going to do it for you because that's just not our zone of genius. Trust me, you don't want us to do it because we do not have the knowledge. However, we've got Sally Sue over here who owns a sales tax firm. That can totally help you. And what we'll do is we'll be the liaison between you and them that way they could get us the information we need to make sure we're booking everything correctly, but they'll actually do the filing and you'll go work separately with them. But however, we will make it as easy as possible to make it seem like it's all within one place, but really you're working with them separately. And so this is really normal in the industry where I see it all the time where people would be like, I have a client who I absolutely love who just started another business and it's real estate. And we only help marketing agencies, but I feel this obligation to have to learn real estate because you know, my client, I absolutely love them and I don't want to lose them. Yes, I know it's probably a pain in the ass to have a client with two different bookkeepers, but you just have to do such a good job of convincing someone of why you need someone in two different spaces. I'm sorry, but if we specialize in marketing agencies, you don't want us to do your real estate books. Like, and that's honest and that's real. I don't need to spread my team too thin. So at the end of the day, you're not setting clear expectations with your clients and doing that, you You might feel like you're going to lose business, but usually you don't. And if you do, they're not for you at the end of the day. Right? But that's your choice. It is up to you what feels really good for you, but you have to set those sorts of boundaries. But what are those boundaries? So some clients might feel entitled to, you know, 24 seven access to you because that's what you've trained them to expect people. What do you expect if you have emailed a client at two o'clock in the morning or responded back to them like an hour after they emailed you or you're constantly picking up the phone or you're constantly responding immediately after or you're just getting on emergency calls like you have trained them to expect this so you can't get mad at them. You've just allowed it for so long. So If you are changing this, it's a lot harder for someone who's used to that. What I will say is you could set out a new expectation email to let clients know like, Hey, we're actually reworking some things. We are no longer available 24 seven. If we're out of office, we're out of office. Like we will be back the next day. If there's an emergency, just put emergency in the email and we'll be back with you on the day we come back , from out of office, right? So let's talk about setting those actual boundaries with your clients. I want you to set clear working hours and communication policies. So you're not their personal CFO guys at all hours of the day. You're not the personal bookkeeper all the time. This is such a key component to this. So what we do is upon onboarding, we give our clients our listing working hours, our communication. We let them know if you have this, you email here. If you have a document that you want to upload, then put it here. If you've got this going on, message us here. Like, if you want to, you could connect with us on Instagram, but we will never talk about your finances on Instagram. Like, you can talk to them and tell them what they need. And here's the thing, the clients won't remember what you tell them. That's just the fact. It happens all the time. But when they do cross the line, you just say, Hey, like, I love this message. Thank you so much. Can you actually do me a favor? And instead of putting it here in Instagram on our, you know, on our DMs, can you please do me a favor and email our team at, you know, support or whatever your, your email is, with this information? Because if not, if it stays here, it's going to get lost. It's going to be a hot mess and you don't want that. So like, we just kind of like re gear them back if they kind of get out of scope or out of, communication creep. And that's totally cool with me. Like I said, they don't, aren't going to remember all that they're working with. a bunch of other people, they're not going to remember your specific rules, right? Another thing too, when it comes to setting boundaries with clients is sticking to your scope. This is a huge one for the industry. It is a massive thing that most people deal with. If a client constantly asks for things outside of their package, they need an upgrade and they not free extras. They need an upgrade, not free extras. Let me repeat that, right? And so what we mean by this is that We are so notorious in this industry that when someone comes to us because we're like Oh, well, the client also wants us to like, you know, customize their, I don't know, their payroll mapping and, and go in and like run their payroll, but it's kind of part of bookkeeping. Like I need to do that right in order to do the bookkeeping. No, your clients can go run their own payroll if they want to. You can offer to run payroll. Like that's what we do. We're like, we won't be running your payroll client. We'll be like, Hey, we have a new onboarding team member. I'm like, cool. That's congrats. And they're like, great. Can you guys onboard? I'm like, no, that's not part of our payroll fee. Like, Our payroll means that we are running payroll, but we also have a very defined scope. And the client doesn't get mad. They're like, Oh, cool. I didn't know that. Awesome. yeah. Can you guys just go in and charge me the fee or whatever? Send me over the invoice. Like it's, it's not as crazy as we think it is, but there is a point where it becomes nickel and diming. But at the end of the day, like, I'll give you an example of this. The other day I was on a, last week I was on a call with one of our clients at my firm and he's on an advisory package. And we were talking and we were having a conversation and, and he's just growing so fast. I'm super proud of him. But anyways, what happened was, He was talking to me about how he's concerned because he's got six months of services that were paid up front by a specific client. And he's concerned that the big thing is that, how is he going to manage the cash? And I was like, you know what? We might need a budget. And so he was like, yeah, that sounds really great. I'm like, the budget unfortunately is not included in your package. However, I'm happy to send you an email. Let me just do some back end stuff. I'll send you our a la carte menu, which is something that we have for our clients. And then that way you could choose. If it makes sense for you. If not, no big deal. It's just something that we do have to charge for. And he was like, yeah, for sure. So I sent him an email on Friday. Literally sent him the a la carte menu. And said, here everything is. And he literally was like, cool. Let's do the budget. Let's get going. Like, that's how it worked. And so for us, we stick to our scope. If it's outside the scope, we usually let the clients know. This happens all the time during 1099 season when like the clients. I don't know, a taxpayer would be like, Hey, did your firm, your bookkeeping firm, you know, file your 1099s? And we're like, no. Like our clients literally told us they didn't want us to do it. And then the client's like, wait, I thought the tax firm was going to do it. And it's like, that's the thing. The client needs to know these things, but we just have to nudge them along the way. When it comes to setting boundaries with clients, hold them accountable for their deadlines. If they don't send you docs on time, their work gets delayed, or you guys just continue, produce reports that are not accurate. At the end of the day, I am not going to sit here and babysit the client at the end of the day. They are choosing to work with us, and I only want to work with people who are going to hold themselves accountable. I don't want to hold anybody up. I'm at place in my business journey, across both companies to be honest, of You chose this. Like, we are here to support you and make life super easy but this is not something I can hold you accountable at the end of the day all the time. Like that, you are an adult, you can do that on your own but here's some nudges that we're gonna have automated for you to get you there. And so you have to remember, like, what are you defining as that boundary that you want to set with your clients? Another thing too is fire the wrong clients, people. I'm not saying go on a firing spree. What I mean is like, if someone disrespects your boundary over and over again, They're not a dream client, they're a headache. So if someone disrespects your boundary, they're not a dream client, they're a headache. This goes the same for people in your life, this goes the same for team members, this goes the same for clients. You need to have someone around you that's respecting those boundaries. If that client is not respecting them, sometimes, just because a client emails me in the middle of the night doesn't mean a client's disrespecting my boundary. I just have a good boundary to say I don't check emails until 9am. So like, I don't care when my client emails me. What I do care about is that they're calling me the next day saying like, why the hell did you not answer? Now that's a disrespect, right? So you have to draw that line. You have to define it because my level of boundary is might be different than yours. Like I said, I'm almost nine, I'm almost 10 years, but I'm currently in nine years of being an entrepreneur, three different businesses. I. I have very clear boundaries. Boundaries for my team, boundaries for my clients. I also even have boundaries to protect my team from my clients. Like, I've got so many boundaries in different ways. And when you set boundaries with your clients, you actually gain their respect. The right clients will appreciate it, and the wrong ones will literally just weed themselves out. It's beautiful. So, let's talk about setting boundaries with yourself. I know this is something where you're like, what does this matter, Alyssa? Here's one of the biggest reasons why this is hard. You don't even realize that when you're crossing your own boundaries, the things you promised to yourself, the things that you said you would do, it's easy to let work take over when you're running a business. Y'all, at the end of the day, I get this. This is something that I did for quite some time. I'm going to be very vulnerable and quite guys. 2020 was a great year as far as like where I was in my health. And then Workflow Queen, I had Workflow Queen in my first firm at the same time. 2021, my health just declined from like 2021 until 2024. I really just neglected my body, neglected my mind, neglected my sanity, like neglected a lot of different parts of myself because I didn't set boundaries for myself. I didn't set boundaries with the business. I didn't set boundaries with my friends, my family, all these different things. I gained a lot of weight during that time. I'm one of those people who literally will just like gain weight. Like if I look at food, it's sad. Anyways, it's neither here nor there. The reason I'm sharing this with you is because this was the result of, like me gaining that weight was a result of me not respecting my own boundary. And it's been something I've had to work on. And it's freaking hard to work on. I have to wake up every morning and be like, Yep, at 6 o'clock I'm going to the gym. Yep, during lunch you can't have that, you have to have this. Like, I have to set my own boundaries to respect myself. And so this is something that's so important. So let's talk about the logistics of setting boundaries with yourself. Stop overcommitting is one of the number one things I can tell you. Every yes means there's a no to something else, and which is usually yourself. So this happens pretty often for myself. I know that I'm still an overcommitter, but I try my best not to be. And I've gotten a lot better at it, but I naturally will just like, used to, a lot of times, say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, cool, cool, cool, yes, I'll speak, and yes, I'll be on your podcast, and yes, I'll do your books, and yes, I'll do the, like, all these things, yes, yes, yes. Then it got to a point, guys, where my calendar just became so filled up, I, I just got really exhausted, and I just had to start saying no. And so I had to start pulling out of events, things I already committed to, I would literally pull out of. That was like me in 2023 and 2024. There was a lot of things I said yes to. That eventually when it come, you know, came a month or two out from whatever the event or whatever the thing was, I'd be like, you know what? I can't do it. I just can't. And I started to learn to respect myself and actually say no later. And so that was really big for me. Now I have like more of a discernment on this where I'm like, you know what? Am I going to over commit myself? Can I handle this? Is this something that I can do? I also want you guys when you're setting boundaries yourself to create CEO time on your calendar. This is where you'll have dedicated space for strategy. And not just client work, like what I'm talking about is no client work actually gets done during this time. This is my time, my CEO time is actually the first two hours I wake up every day. It is something that I absolutely love. Mind you guys, I have two companies, so I'm like in CEO time across the two. And from four to six a. m. I am on CEO time. I do not look at email, I do not look at Slack. I have created a boundary for myself. where I am fully just doing something I love within the business that really helps to move the needle forward and helps to expand me as a leader and as an individual from six to eight. I'm going to the gym, getting myself ready, doing all the things that is my new boundary. And that is something that I am absolutely holding to a T. So from four a. m. to eight a. m. When I first wake up, because I'm a 4 a. m. wake upper. I'm like, I don't even know that's how you say it. But anyways, it's fine. Uh, from 4 a. m. to 8 a. m. I literally am 2 hours in CEO time and 2 hours pouring into myself. After that, I'll take calls, be on, you know, emails. If I need to be on an email or do whatever I need to. Get on a team meeting, whatever that looks like. So just create that space for yourself. For me, it's every single day for the first 2 hours. I want you guys to detach yourself from the self worth of your business. So what I mean by this is that your success. in life doesn't come from working more. It comes from leading better. So I see this concept a lot where people are like, Alyssa, I want to grow my business by double, but I'm really scared because I'm gonna have to work double. No guys, a true business growth should not mean that you're working more. You should actually be working less and leading more. And so this is where like this concept is very hard where people like attach their self worth with the number of hours they work and it's mostly because of what generation a lot of us grew up in is that we were told the more you work, the more successful you were, the more hours you put in, the more you were like looked at in a different way. And that's just not how it is anymore. At the end of the day, like my self worth is not equal to the number of hours I put into the business. If I actually put the number of hours in the business that most people think are their self worth, I would literally be so burnt out and I probably wouldn't have the business to be honest. I want you guys to give yourself permission to unplug. This is so huge. And this is like literally my mission here at Workflow Queen is to get you guys to a point where you're work optional or removable CEO. So you can truly step away in whatever format that looks like, whether it's a vacation or whether you're just burnt out and I just need space. I want you guys to have that. that ability in your business. And so the reason I bring this up, guys, is because you don't give yourself enough permission to actually unplug. And sometimes the reason you can unplug is because you don't have the right systems, you don't have the right team, or you're just not at that place in business. That's where we help. That's what Workflow Queen does. We literally help you guys get to that point through the right systems, the right offers and the right team. And that's what we do mostly inside of our breakthrough program. We are literally here to help you guys through a lot of our different resources. to get to a place where you don't have to burn out. I want you guys to remember that if you burn out, no one wins. Not you, not your team, and definitely not your business. The best leaders don't just set boundaries for others, they set them for themselves as well. So when we're setting boundaries at the end of the day, I know that sometimes The things that are going to happen are some of the scariest things, which is losing people. And I'm telling you, you might lose clients, you might lose team members, or even friends and family, and that's okay. I know that's really scary, I know that's hard to hear, but it is something you have to do. I just went through a loss of a really close friend of mine. I had to like cut her out of my life, and I loved her so much, and she was just such a great human. But at the end of the day, there wasn't boundaries. I allowed her. to talk negatively all the time. And she wasn't talking negatively to me, but just in general about things. It started to seep into me, but I allowed it. But then once I set the boundary, she wasn't happy with it. I was able to come back and say, you know what? It's okay. You're not a bad person. I just have these new boundaries and you're not willing to accept them. And at the end of the day, I have to do what's best for me. And it was hard, guys. Cried for like weeks. It's been like a month of processing. I get it, but it's okay. It's okay to lose these clients. It's okay to lose the team members. It's okay to lose the friends, the family, all the things that you need to when you set these boundaries. And you will off people because the reason why you'll off most people about boundaries is because they can't hold boundaries for themselves. So the reason that someone gets mad at you when you hold the boundaries is because they lack boundaries themselves. The people who actually hold really solid boundaries will respond. I respect in full capacity when someone's like, Nope, I'm not willing to do that. I'm like, okay, dude, hell yeah. Hell yeah, the fact that you know exactly what you want to tell me no. Like, I love that for you. Another big thing, too, when we're talking about setting boundaries and what this might actually come up, is for so long, you've allowed so many people in your life to not, you know, accept your boundaries. So you can't be mad at them for like following the rules that you set, even though you might not have verbalized it. Your actions speak louder than words. Your actions are telling them the boundaries you've set. If you don't even respect yourself, how can you expect other people to respect you? Right? The people who like are here and the ones who are actually sitting here and benefiting from these boundaries are the ones that need to leave the most. The ones who are seriously always here being like, Hell yeah, I know I can always get away with that with this person, because they're always going to be really cheap. They're always willing to keep their prices really low. I know I can always just, you know, get what I need from them, because that's how they are. We all know those people that we've even had in our own life, where we're like, oh, we kind of know that we can step on it, right? That we can go past our boundary. They're going to be fine. Oh yeah, if I do that, they're good. They'll be chill. They'll be good. You probably are that for someone else as well. We all are in our own way. We also think about that of other people. We naturally can see people's boundaries and we know the limits at which we can push someone. So same goes for you. People will see that. And people will push that, right? So what's on the other side of all of this? At the end of the day, it's a more healthier, more sustainable business that actually has people who love and respect you. It also means in your life and in business, in so many different ways, you'll find people who just respect you a lot more. Don't fear losing people. Fear staying stuck in a business that actually drained you from not having boundaries. If you're really serious about becoming a leader who isn't stuck in the day to day, I really genuinely think if this really resonated with you and you're having problems with the team, Not respecting your boundaries, clients, yourself, then honestly, I really do think that our breakthrough program is a really good fit for you. If you are even remotely interested in having that conversation and seeing what that program is like and how it can actually support you with these boundaries. Please feel free to reach out to me. I'm here for you. I get what you're going through. I get what you're experiencing because this is something I've had to build so many years of my own development, my own walls to create these boundaries. And I've got you. You can shoot me a DM on Instagram at workflow queen, or just shoot me an email at support at workflow queen. com. We can talk about if it's a good fit for you. In our program, because that's really what our support is all about is helping you guys set those boundaries. So just to do a quick little recap of what we covered today, good leaders set boundaries with your team, theirselves and their clients. Boundaries don't push people away. They actually bring in the right people. Another thing is you also have permission to say no more than you say yes, and you can't scale if you're constantly available and overextended. If this episode resonated with you at all, shoot me over a DM on Instagram at workflow queen and let me know what boundaries you're setting up for yourself and what you are doing for yourself for this year.