Welcome to Visionary’s Pursuit, a podcast where we explore what it takes to turn your bold and inspiring ideas into reality. I'm Carolina Zuleta. I'm a life and business coach and your host for this podcast. I'm thrilled to have you here.
Welcome back. This is episode 41 of the Visionaries Pursuit Podcast.
One of the commitments I have to my clients is to tell them the truth. Even when at times that might be hard to hear. And usually when I'm gonna say something that I anticipate might be tough to hear. I'll say something around the lines of, can I coach you on this?
Or I have something hard to say. Are you open to hearing it ? And that's the question I wanna ask you today. Are you a people pleaser? And if so. Can I coach you? Can you give me permission to say something that might be hard to hear , but that I know once we navigate this together, it's gonna create profound transformation in your life?
All right, and here's what I wanna say.
People pleasing is lying. People pleasing is deception and manipulation masquerading as kindness, generosity, and being a team player.
So hear me out. One of the core needs we have as human beings is to belong to a group of people. We are all so scared of rejection, of not being liked because it's visceral. Our DNA, our human history tells us that if we are not accepted in our tribe, we are going to die.
That's a reality. We can't live by ourselves as human beings. We are social animals and we need each other. And therefore people pleasing. Makes sense. Because we have this strong need or desire to belong. Sometimes when we're not conscious, we do things that are not true, that are not honest about who we are, what we believe, or what we feel or how we think in order to get the other person's approval and belong.
Like I said at the beginning, it might be hard to hear this and I want all of us to look at this topic with love and compassion for ourselves, for our humanity, right? For like one of my friends says, our human mess.
We people please as an unconscious response to wanting to belong as an unconscious response to wanting to be liked so we don't have to face rejection. That's it. Now, when we are leaders, when we're visionaries, when we're business owners, people pleasing can be the death of our projects and our ideas. So therefore, it's something that we really need to pay close attention to, overcome and learn other ways of being, and those other ways of being will feel hard, will feel challenging.
But it's the only way that we can sustain and grow and become the version of ourselves we wanna become.
So let me get into some very specific examples about how I see people pleasing, affecting business owners. And leaders.
One way people pleasing shows up is because we give discounts. We undercharge. Now that I've been in this world of self-development and being a business owner, I can see it so easily when I'm buying a product. That they tell me, oh, it's worth $200 or a service, whatever it is, and immediately they give me a discount without me asking for it.
And I know the reason they're giving me that discount is not because they wanna give me a discount. It's because they're very uncomfortable. With the tension that occurs when we say out loud our prices, when we make an ask of money for something in our business and they don't wanna lose me as a potential client, they don't wanna lose me as a potential investor.
So they're immediately try to soften that tension by giving me a discount or offer me some type of deal.
But does that actually create value? I work out multiple days a week with a trainer and I'm always talking to him about his business and how he sells.
And he many times is so worried about giving someone the price that he gives a discount because he doesn't wanna lose that client. But the conversation I keep having with him is, listen. Discounting what you do is not giving value to your client instead of pleasing your clients in the easiest way we can think of, which is a price reduction.
I think it's more interesting and more valuable to our customers when we do the hard work and try to understand what really adds value to them. So for example, when I think about a personal trainer, how they would add value to me is being flexible with the times showing up on time and ending the class on time.
It's by maximizing what I do during that hour. It's by pushing my limits and motivating me. To do something I didn't think I could do. Those are the ways a personal trainer would add value to me, and I would prefer to pay more for someone that is, challenging me in my exercise than someone who's just giving me a discount.
So let's think about it from the other side, right? When we are the business owners, when we are raising capital for our idea, instead of simply giving a discount. To make the other person happy, let's do the hard work of understanding what is that they truly value and giving them that value in a different way.
Let's communicate that value in the way that they can understand it. That is harder work, but it's gonna be way more rewarding because let's be honest. We don't value what is cheapest, right? If you're going to Amazon to buy something, you're not only gonna buy the cheapest thing.
You're looking at the reviews, you're looking at, you know, other people's comments about the product of what you see of the materials. We're looking at other characteristics. The price is just one of them, and I think that is very important that the first person we sell the price to is to ourselves, is for us to go and do the hard work of understanding why I am pricing things the way I am, pricing them, believing it's the right price, and being able to convey.
Why is that price, what's the value behind that price and feel really good about it. So again, people pleasing by reducing our price. Giving a discount is a very cheap and easy way to make someone happy, and that's not at the end of the day why our customers are gonna stay with us.
Another way I see entrepreneurs, people pleasing, is by allowing our clients to. Get more of what we initially agreed. So, you know I see it in people who have service-based businesses that initially, I dunno, this project and you get two revisions or three revisions, but then the client wants to change another little thing and another little thing and another little thing.
And because we're thinking, oh, I just wanna have this client happy. I don't wanna lose them. I don't want them to be upset with me. We keep saying yes. And the scope keeps growing and growing, and then it doesn't make sense for us. And we start resenting our clients and we start being frustrated. And we are not delivering with love and desire.
We're delivering because we're trying to check something off the list. And then what I see often happen is that we blame the clients. Ah, this client is so hard to work with. This client always wants more. But the truth is that the client is asking for what they want, and because we're trying to please them, we're not setting our boundaries.
Our clients, most of the time , don't know what to expect from working with us. We are the ones that have to tell them. We have to explain what are the rules of engagement with our business. And again, before we go and tell this to our clients, we have to tell this to ourselves and do the hard work of understanding why we're gonna set certain boundaries, why we're gonna stick to them, why we believe in those boundaries, or those rules of engagements wholeheartedly.
In my coaching practice. One of my rules is I start on time and I end on time period. Maybe I'll go over a minute, maybe two, but that's it. And what happens is that my clients have learned that that's the way they engage with me, and they are very punctual and we make the most out of the hour together.
When I hear other coaches complain, oh, my clients are always late. They're taking their calls while they're driving, they're not being present. For example, in my business, when I decided what I was going to sell, right?
I could sell one hour of coaching. Or I could sell a week of coaching, but what I sell is a program that is six months long and it's three hours a month, and it has this number of details and rules of engagement. The first person I sold that program was to me, I sat down and I asked myself, why am I making these decisions?
Why am I setting these rules? Do I like my reasons for creating this environment when I'm coaching and when I wholeheartedly said yes, then I shared it with my clients. And when at some point, I don't know, for example, I've had clients who are very busy and we start coaching and I see that they're, you know, writing an email or looking at another screen.
I usually just stop. And I say, listen, you can do what you need to do, but I'm not gonna keep coaching you until we're both here, because that's a disservice for you. And it is uncomfortable to tell my clients that, but I can tell them because I have done the work to understand that I'm telling this for them, not for my ego. Pay attention to me. Pay attention to me. That's not where it's coming from. It's coming from, listen, you invested in this hour of coaching. I want you to get the most out of it, and I want you to respect your own time. So setting and holding boundaries becomes easier when we make the time to understand why we have them.
And we're not creating them just because we said so, or our ego, but because we truly believe it's in service of the business, it's in service of our clients. And that means that at sometimes. Potential clients or clients will not like those rules of engagement and they might leave and that's okay. That is 100% okay.
Because if they leave, because they don't like playing under your set of rules. Then that means they weren't your ideal client anyway. And if you're gonna start violating your boundaries or rules for them, you are the one who's gonna end up resenting them, being in burnout, not enjoying what you do.
Another place I see a lot of visionaries and entrepreneurs, people pleasing is when it's in regards to other people within their company, meaning their teams, the people they hired, or the people they report to the board, or when they have a partner in their business.
I often hear that people are so scared of losing employees, so they end up doing work for them, protecting their feelings, talking about we're a family here and they're being way over concerned if an employee is feeling comfortable or not.
And of course, I'm all about treating our employees with respect and kindness and making the work environment engaging and caring for them. But not to the point where we're people pleasing. Because remember, people pleasing is saying what we think they wanna hear or doing what we anticipate they want us to do in order to make them happy.
But that's not honest. That is a manipulation tactic. And at one point, either we're gonna be so resentful of them, so tired of them, and we might even end up firing them.
Without giving them the opportunity to course correct and start meeting the expectations we had from them and their job. So yes, sometimes when we have those difficult conversations, sometimes when we hold our employees accountable. They might leave us, they might be upset at us, they might not agree with us, and that's not gonna feel good, but it's better that they leave than we keep them and we start doing the work for them.
But it's better than us letting things slide and then building resentment, never giving them true feedback.
Being nice is different than being kind. Being kind is speaking our truth with respect and compassion. It's letting our employees know where we stand, how they are performing, if they're doing well or not, where are they missing the mark, and where are they exceeding our expectations? That culture of honesty, of kindness, of truth is healthier than the people pleasing culture.
And same thing for our partners, especially when we have a business partner, right? That relationship has to be built in truth and honesty. If not, the business at some point is going to suffer because there's gonna be so much tension between you and your business partner that it's gonna end up affecting the business and also with a board.
Having the tough conversations, setting our boundaries, holding them, speaking our truth. Might feel hard, will probably actually feel hard in the moment, but it will pay dividends in the long term versus people pleasing? Okay. It might feel good today. Everyone left feeling happy and smiley, but then having a bigger problem down the line.
I've had both types of bosses. One that was super direct. Sometimes I was a little bit scared of her intimidating. I know that she would tell me when she didn't like something immediately and very clearly, and one that was always so loving and smiles and I thought in his eyes I was doing everything great.
And I'll tell you this, in the long term. I trusted her for being so honest with me, even if sometimes it would hurt my heart or I would get really nervous. I valued her honest feedback because I knew where I was standing with her. I knew that if she said something was good, it was good.
And if she said, I missed a mark, I missed a mark, and I could learn and I could do better, versus with my other boss. I always had this feeling of does he actually really like me? I don't know. Does he actually really like my work? I never quite felt like I knew where I was standing with him.
So I think that's gonna be true for your employees, your business partner, your board. It's better that they know where you stand. They will trust you because you have a backbone, because you have a good reason for the things that you're doing, because you've been thoughtful about your boundaries because you've communicated clearly versus when someone is just people pleasing there's a moment that you really stop trusting them because you don't know that that's their truth.
People pleasing is leaving our revenue, our profits on the table. People pleasing is moving us towards burnout. Resenting our clients, not enjoying what we do. People pleasing is creating a culture that is toxic within our business. It's losing trust from the people we work with.
The antidote to people pleasing is. First, looking within ourselves, what is it that we want? What is it that we think? What is it that we need? What is our truth about a certain situation?
Why are we doing the things that we are doing? It's taking that moment to be clear with ourselves. That's step number one, because if we don't know what we want or where we stand, then how could we ever communicate it to anyone else? Step number two, and this might be the hardest part, and it's risking other people's disapproval in order for you to approve of yourself.
It means risking the possibility of being alone, but knowing that you stay true to who you are and what you believe and your perspective. It's risking, staying alone, losing a client, losing an employee, losing even a business partner in order to know that you are being truthful with yourself and you're showing up. Who you truly are. Some years ago I worked with two business partners who were having some challenges with the business, and at the beginning when they came to me, the problem seemed quite superficial.
You know, we wanna do this and we're not making progress, and we're having a hard time really hiring people for this other project. But when I started coaching them, what we discovered is that each of them had a very different vision for their business.
And because they wanted to make the other partner happy, they weren't being upfront about it. So it always felt like this tug of war that you couldn't pinpoint, you couldn't understand what was happening. Like why things couldn't move forward, why they would have obstacles that just held them back and made things slower and many times held them from getting to where they wanted to be.
The moment that they had an honest conversation, they both said what they really wanted for their business, they realized that they were no longer compatible, that they were seeing the future of the business in two very different ways. So they decided to part ways. One of them stayed with the business to turn it into their idea, and the other one decided to start from scratch.
So yes, that was a very, so yes, it was really hard for them and it was really sad, but it was better in the long term because each of them got to build what they wanted. Instead of staying in a relationship that wasn't benefiting each of them and either of them that wasn't benefiting either of them, and definitely was holding the business back.
So that's what we need to risk. We need to risk disapproval. We need to risk losing clients, employees, business partners, board members in order. To know that we're not losing ourselves, because when we lose ourselves, that's when it really gets complicated because we start feeling burned out and depressed and stressed, and we don't love our business, and we start resenting everyone, and then things don't turn out well.
Okay, so let's recap Step number one first you get clear on where you stand and you get very clear on the reasons why you stand there, and you make sure you like those reasons. Step number two, you decide to risk losing others so you know you won't lose yourself. And three is when you actually communicate to others what you're thinking, what your stance is, what your boundaries, and you hold it. I wanna give you one more tool that might help for many of these conversations. And it's something I actually learned, uh, while doing a program about couples with my husband.
And it goes like this when you're making a decision and you are nervous about what you think or you really wanna make sure that you're heard, but you wanna hear the other person.
You say, okay, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to say first if I could have it all my way, this and this, and this would happen. And then you would hear the other person say, if you could have it all your way, what would you want? And the reason why this exercise works so well is because it creates a safe space for each person to share their true desires.
When we are clear, when we know what everyone is thinking, then we can make better decisions together.
So as most things in the Visionary pursuit, there are hard choices. Do I risk losing people being alone? Or do I risk losing myself? And I will say losing others is always a better option than losing ourselves. So let's overcome people pleasing by being compassionate to ourselves, understanding why we do it, and let's build the inner strength to be able to not please others, but serve them and work with them from an honest place in our heart.
All right. I'll see you next time.
If you're currently pursuing a big, bold idea and would love some support, let's talk. In my coaching program, I'll teach you how to manage yourself, your own thoughts and emotions. as well as your team and your money so you can turn your beautiful idea into a reality. Go now to carozuleta.com slash consult that is c a r o z u l e t a dot com slash consult and complete the form to book a complimentary call with me.
See you there!
