I'm Nikita Williams. Host of Business With Chronic Illness.
I've been living with endometriosis for years. And for a long time, it felt like my body was the problem standing between me and the life I was trying to build.
I moved to a new state, away from family, in the middle of a health crisis. Endometriosis was making it hard to keep a job, let alone find one. What I needed wasn't more hustle. I needed flexibility. I needed something I could build around the life I was actually living, not the one I wished I had.
Right before a major surgery, I found a coach who changed everything. Working with her was like a light coming on in a room I didn't know was dark. I started mapping my past skills into a real business, one that served women online who needed exactly what I had to offer.
I did it all for a while. Facebook ads, website design, funnels, social media management. And it worked… until it didn't. The stress of digital marketing as a service provider started triggering flare-ups. I knew something had to change. I just didn't know what yet.
Then a conversation with one of my own clients showed me the answer.
I was helping her see how fear was keeping her stuck in work she hated. And somewhere in the middle of that conversation, I realized I had been helping women get clear on who they were, what they offered, and how to build around it. That was the work. That was always the work.
So I started a podcast. I called it She's Crafted to Thrive. The vision was big and open — bringing creative women and entrepreneurs together to talk about their journeys, the obstacles they pushed through, the lessons that cost them something, the wins that changed them. It was good work and I loved it.
But life had a more specific direction in mind.
The more I showed up in my own business while managing endometriosis, the more I realized that the conversation I kept needing to have — the one nobody else was having — was about what it actually looks like to build when your body does not cooperate. Not the inspiration version. The real version. The flare-up days and the financial decisions and the pivots that had nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with survival.
So the show became what it was always moving toward. Not because I figured out how to fight harder. Because I stopped fighting altogether and started listening. My health wasn't the obstacle. It was the teacher.
Why This Show Exists
Your diagnosis isn't a reason to work harder. It's a life and design input.
Running a business while managing a chronic illness is hard. I won't pretend otherwise. But it is not impossible, and it is not something you have to figure out alone.
Every episode is built around one belief: your diagnosis is not a dead end. It is a design constraint. And when you build around it instead of fighting it, something shifts.
We talk about the real stuff here. The flare-up days and the pivot decisions. The money questions nobody else is asking. The way your business has to be built differently because your life is different, and why that is actually your advantage.
You are an entrepreneur or aspiring business owner living with a chronic illness, and you are tired of advice that assumes you have unlimited energy, unlimited time, and a body that cooperates. You want to build something real, at a pace that does not cost you your health to maintain.
Whether you have been listening since episode one or you just found us — welcome. You are in the right place.
Nikita shows up in conversations all over the podcasting world.
Business With Chronic Illness is Nikita's home base, but you can hear her as a guest across business strategy, chronic illness entrepreneurship, podcasting, and building on your own terms.