Episode 313: Your circles of influence
As a business owner, are you struggling to maintain your boundaries? In this episode, Fiona highlights the book "Setting Boundaries" by Dr Rebecca Ray, focusing on the concept of circles of intimacy and influence to establish and maintain boundaries in personal and professional relationships. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
"Setting Boundaries" by Dr Rebecca Ray
The impact of the book on small business owners and recommendations
Discussion on circles of intimacy and influence as a tool from the book
Setting boundaries with different layers of relationships
Balancing kindness and generosity without being detrimental to oneself
Importance of prioritizing and not giving equal attention to everyone
Avoiding burnout and feeling stretched by maintaining boundaries
Recognizing the need to stick to boundaries and not sacrificing personal well-being
Reflecting on one's own circles of intimacy and influence
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
Welcome to episode 313 of the My Daily Business podcast. Today it is a quick tip episode and this one resulted after a pretty awesome session that we had recently in Group Coaching, and I'll get into that in a second. But it came out to that and I thought this is important and I think this is something that my audience would love to know more about. Today I'm going to share that. Is it a tip tool or a tactic? I think it's a tool that is going to help you in life and business. Before we get stuck into that, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the beautiful land on which I live and record this podcast and interact with my Group Coaching wonderful members. And that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. And I pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. Let's get into today's quick tip episode.
If you have ever done Group Coaching with me, you may well be aware that we have a business book club as part of Group Coaching. This is something we brought in a couple of groups into the program it was something that had kept coming up. We were discussing different books and business books in particular, and which ones were good. And I thought, let's just have a business book club as part of Group Coaching. In that, we work with each particular group to determine the top six books, and we then work with WellRead, which is a fantastic small business out of Sydney, I believe, and Laura at WellRead always finds these books for us and sends off these lovely packages to our members. One of the books that I have had in the last three rounds of group coaching is Setting Boundaries by Dr. Rebecca Ray.
I love this book so much that I even have had Dr. Rebecca Ray on this podcast, and I've done a separate episode just about this book because I know that it has had such an impact on the small business owners that I know that have read it, and I've recommended it to so many people. But today I want to talk about one particular tool from Dr. Rebecca Ray’s book, Setting Boundaries, which is important. This came up in a discussion recently that we had with Rebecca and one of the groups of group coaching. They have just read Setting Boundaries. We had a session, and this is one of the best things about this. We often have the author come in and talk about their book, which is just lovely and I have to thank Dr. Rebecca Ray for making the time for that.
But we were talking about the concept of circles of intimacy and influence. This is something that if you have a copy of Setting Boundaries, you'll find the diagram on page 286. I'm looking at it right now, but Dr. Rebecca Ray talks about the circles of intimacy and influence as a helpful visual to determine your boundaries with somebody and figure out how close they are to you in terms of how much effort and brain space and everything else that you want to give to them. If you imagine that the circles of intimacy and influence are you've got a circle in the middle, then you've got a circle around that, then so forth. In the very centre, you have yourself, you have you because you are the one that you're going to put the most effort into for yourself and understanding your boundaries and they have to be super strong.
Then you have your inner circle around that. these are people that are super important to your life. They are the people that you're going to go to when things are very tough and you need a shoulder to cry on, or equally, the first people that you call when something is amazing and you just have to share that news. Then you've got outside of that inner circle, the next layer, family and friends who are like family. Sometimes we get to have our family and have great relationships. Other times for some of us, we want to create a family from friends because for whatever reason, maybe other dynamics play in our real blood family. we are making our own family. That second layer is friends who are like family as well as family.
That's a layer outside of your inner circle. Some of these people may cross over, and maybe your family is also your inner circle. And then the third is friends and coworkers who are also like friends. And these could also be some of your peers that you work with or people that you are their boss technically, but you are you've got great relationships. Then outside of that, you've got coworkers, then acquaintances, and then the last is strangers. What can happen, and about business, this happens quite a bit, is that we are treating strangers with the same ability to bypass our boundaries than we would have for maybe friends or close inner circle. Let's say you've got somebody in your inner circle who is going through a difficult time and maybe they're going through a divorce or they're going through something very difficult in life, maybe they've lost a parent, or somebody close to them, during that difficult time, they need to call you at 11 p.m. when usually you wouldn't pick up the phone at that time because maybe you're going to bed or asleep or whatever.
You would pick up maybe in that instance because you're like, they need me right now. What we were discussing is that sometimes we give that same level of care and it's okay to walk on my boundaries to a stranger or acquaintances or to a random person who has DMed you on Instagram. You are willing to bypass your boundaries for these people that if you were to layer out from your inner circle to strangers, they're, they're much further on the outer. it's like asking yourself why are you giving them that level of intimacy with you. That level of attention and effort and everything else that is really should be saved for your inner circle and maybe your friends and family, but you're putting that pressure on yourself to give that level of care and effort and everything else to everyone in your life.
Therefore you can feel burnt out and you can feel stretched and used and all sorts of things. But when we were talking about it, Dr. Rebecca Ray, obviously the book is called Setting Boundaries. We were talking about how you can put boundaries in place and also stick to those boundaries by utilizing something like the circles of intimacy and influence where you're thinking, that person is technically a stranger to me. And that's not to say that you're not going to be kind and nice and all the other things, but it's to know I've got strong boundaries in place and I don't even know them. Why am I letting them bypass these boundaries? Why am I just folding my boundaries so that they can come in and utilize my attention and my time when I don't even know them? I know that that can sound a bit harsh because a lot of the time your customers and clients are strangers until they become a customer or clients.
It's not to say that you can't be kind and generous and everything else, but not to a point that is detrimental to you. If somebody contacts you at 11 p.m., if it doesn't suit you get back to them then don't get back to them and don't treat that request with the same level of urgency as potentially getting a request from your best friend who's going through a divorce right now, because they're different. They're very different and they both need attention in their way, but one of them can wait. I think that's what happens sometimes in business and particularly when you're starting and it's just you are doing the social media and you are doing the customer service and you are getting back to every single email. And particularly if there's a complaint or something negative that's come in, it's sometimes in our nature to want to just fix it immediately, even if it's midnight and you need to get some sleep because you are getting unwell and you can feel a cold coming on.
Instead of sticking to the boundaries that you've set for yourself, you are treating that customer complaint or that just random email, even a request for something good like a collaboration or something else that's going on, you are giving it the same bandwidth as you would give to a close friend. It's figuring out in your mind who is in those different layers and what the boundaries that you're creating for those different layers of the circle of influence and intimacy are. Again, those layers are the inner circle family and friends who are like family, friends and coworkers who are like friends, coworkers, acquaintances, and strangers. Basically, the inner circle are the people you should have boundaries with everybody, but potentially you may have looser, for one better word, boundaries with some of your inner circle.
Because you are there for them and they're there for you and you're like right or die, whereas a stranger, you don't necessarily owe them the same level of intimacy as you don't owe anyone levels of intimacy, but I hope you can understand what I'm saying. You don't owe them the same as potentially your best friend or your sister or somebody else that is much closer to you and is part of your tight circle or inner circle. That's just something to think about. If you are somebody who finds yourself thinking, why can't I catch a break? Or why am I always the one getting back to everything? And it could not just be in your business, it might be sporting groups that your children are part of, or it could be stuff at the school or the kindergarten or part of your church or Moss community and you feel like I'm always the one doing all the work for everyone. I don't have a minute to myself.
Come back and think about this idea of the circles of intimacy and influence and think about that vision and how many times you are just letting anyone in and you are letting go of your boundaries so that you can give. Even though in some instances it's just not the right thing and you are burning yourself out because you're doing that to everyone in your life, whether they are a stranger, an acquaintance, a friend, or a family member. I thought it was a great discussion in Group Coaching and I think that visual has helped some of the people in group coaching, but also myself as well looking at it, I have heard of this stuff before and even if you've read my book, cultivating your crews and coming up with the different people in your life, for sure, we all have that group if we are lucky of people that we can turn to in the hardest moments and also that can turn to us, but don't feel like you have to give that same level of effort and energy out to people that you don't even know.
You should always be respectful and kind where you can. And in your business, align with your values, but that doesn't mean that you have to turn around at midnight and get back to somebody if that is not part of your normal working hours. I hope that makes sense and if you want to check out the book, it is called Setting Boundaries: Care for Yourself And Stop Being Controlled by Others, by Dr. Rebecca Ray. And I think Rebecca has just brought out another book called Difficult People, which I cannot wait to read, but you can find out all about her books and everything else at rebeccaray.com.au. And we'll link to that including this book Setting Boundaries in the show notes. The show notes for this you'll be able to find at mydailybusiness.com/podcast/313. Thank you so much for reading. I hope you have fun figuring out your circles of intimacy and influence.
