Everything looks great on the outside. Your life, your business, the people around you. But on the inside, you’re not feeling it the way you used to.
You’re so good at what you do that you keep solving problems, holding everything together and carrying more than most people realize. Somewhere along the way, you started accepting things you never would have accepted before. Not because you wanted to, but because you’ve been saying yes and carrying it all for so long that it simply became normal. And in that normal, you stopped noticing what was missing.
In this video I share the three things I stopped tolerating after 23 years in business. Those decisions changed my business, my marriage and the life I wanted to live.
1. I Stopped Letting the “Tolerable Tolerations” Continue
This one isn’t easy to say out loud. After 23 years in business, everything looked good from the outside, but something was very wrong. I thought I had my team’s respect. It wasn’t until we had to make some tough decisions after COVID that we saw what we had been tolerating.
We had people who were no longer a fit, and it had created real toxicity. I personally had to take action. I had to stop tolerating how they treated each other, how they treated the business and how they treated me.
2. I Got Clear About What I Would No Longer Accept
This is the moment you stop saying “it’s fine” or “it’s manageable.” You stop looking past it, look at it straight on and say, “That’s it. I’m done.” You see it, you name it and you decide.
For us, that meant conversations, some private and some in the open. We told people what we would and wouldn’t accept. Then came five months of discomfort and documentation. We let people go, we hired new people and we rebuilt the team from the ground up. I stopped saying “soon” and started saying “now.”
For you, it might be one conversation, one boundary or one line you finally draw. It starts the moment you stop allowing what you’ve already decided is unacceptable.
Standing up for myself after 23 years may sound easy. It wasn’t. I was hurt, and I was ashamed that I had let it get that far without seeing it. But those first two decisions didn’t just fix problems. They rekindled our love for our business.
3. I Stopped Going Along With Old Plans
Once we had the right people on the team, people who respected me and my role, my husband and I got very clear about what we actually wanted for our business, for ourselves and for our future.
We stopped doing things a certain way just because we always had. We reimagined the business with clear roles, each of us doing work we loved and a culture of connection, teamwork and dedication. We got clear about what lit us up, not just what we were good at. We had been good at things that drained us for years. That’s when the real magic happened.
Your Tolerations Exercise
Grab a journal and give yourself about eight minutes:
- Write it all down. Everything you’re tolerating: at work, with clients, with your team, with partners, at home. The things you’ve grown so used to that you no longer notice them. Don’t filter. Don’t judge.
- Choose one. The toleration that’s costing you the most, or the one that’s easiest to let go. Then ask: do I need to remove it, delegate it, change it or confront it? That question tells you what to do. Then take action this week.
- Ask what’s now possible. What becomes available when you stop tolerating that one thing? Where else have you been tolerating something so long you stopped seeing it?
- Turn the page. Write down one thing you used to love about your work and your life that you haven’t done in months. That’s not an afterthought. That’s what is calling you forward.
Most people get honest, see the problem and then do nothing. You don’t have to wait for the perfect moment, or until you feel you’ve earned the right. Stop tolerating, stop going along with old plans, and reimagine what’s possible.
What are you no longer willing to tolerate? Share it in the comments on the video. And subscribe to At the Heart of It All with Pierrette on YouTube so you don’t miss what’s next, because you deserve to live fully in your business and in your life.
