When I work with CEOs, developing trust is one of the most important aspects of our collaboration, it can also be the most challenging. 

Why?

Because for it to work a CEO needs to be vulnerable, and if you are a CEO Friend, that is likely NOT how you achieved your success up to this point in your life.⁣

You excel in almost every area and to do this, you have trained yourself to be self-reliant, always in control and not to let go. Perhaps you struggle in a very competitive work environment? In my work with female CEOs in particular, their trust of another woman can be a challenge because they may have competed with other women to get where they are.

If you over rely on your strengths, you may not get to where you want to go regarding your home. Because being truly at home requires vulnerability. As your designer, if I'm to really understand you, I need to see things you may not want me to see. I need to have deep conversations to discover who you are--really. A good designer will pay attention to the details of your life without judging them.⁣
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The relationship between you and your designer should, by necessity, become a very intimate one. At the end of the day, your designer will not only have knowledge of your profession but most likely an understanding of your financial situation, marital relationship, and the overall temperament of everyone in your home. They will probably know many of your insecurities.

To create a space in which you will thrive, it is best to have that deeper relationship. I get vulnerable too. We both do.

Our relationship needs to work for both of us. In my case, my clients are not just choosing an interior designer; I am also choosing a client. We both need to be vulnerable so that you can let go of whatever prevents you from digging deep and discovering what you really want, not just what you have seen in the magazines, but what you really enjoy.⁣