Rebuilding Your Capacity After Caregiving Burnout and Business Loss | Erika Coleman

Here's where I've landed.

The version of you that got you here is in the version that takes you forward.

I know we've all heard this before.

I know I have.

You built something by pushing harder, staying stronger, longer, proving you could handle, you know, the things.

And for me, and probably for you, this worked for a time, until the day it stopped working.

The question isn't whether you're capable, it's whether the way you've defined yourself in capability is actually serving you anymore.

Today, you've been running on a formula you learned a long time ago.

Effort equals results.

2 Plus 2 equals 4.

Just give your best and maybe a little bit more than that and life works out.

That's what our guest, Erica Coleman, believed for her life.

And she did well in school.

She built a successful company, she had good friends and she had a strong family.

And the formula worked until that year of 2022 when her mom was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.

Her business started collapsing.

And no matter how much she gave or more she gave, the results kept going down.

For the first time in her life, the math wasn't mathing, it was wrong.

I'm really encouraged by this episode as your host, Nikita Williams of Business with Chronic Illness along with our guests to talk about this topic, because as you know, I am a huge component on redefining what it means to be doing things differently now versus how we've done it.

Erica is a founder and researcher who studied stress, well being and high performance at Harvard.

After her whole body shut down from burnout, she didn't figure out how to work harder.

She figured out how to redefine what her best actually is.

Most of us were taught that caring means giving everything.

That if you're not exhausted, you're not trying hard enough.

That rest is something you earn after the work is done.

But what if the work is never done?

What if your body doesn't recover the way it used to?

What if the version of you that built this business can't build the next one the same way?

That's the identity shift that we all tend to avoid and never embrace.

And we keep trying to reiterate versions of ourselves that no longer serve us now.

And it's in this conversation Erica walks straight into sharing us, sharing with us how to shift this dynamic.

In this episode, Erica shares the exact moment she realized she'd been using effort to prove she cared, why she had to let go of the overachiever formula that got her to where she was at first and how she now defines success as an even achiever, someone who gives their best without giving their all.

You'll also hear what changed when she stopped trying to save the ship alone, and what she learned sitting still with her mom instead of planning one more big event, and how she rebuilt her business and her life around a completely different metric of capacity.

If you've ever been proud of what you built and exhausted by how you built it, this episode will give you the permission to do it differently.

If you want to have more conversations with us on this topic and go deeper with the community, be sure to join us and find the link to that in our show Notes in the meantime, stay tuned.

Are you tired of hearing business advice that completely ignores what real life looks like when you're navigating chronic illness?

Autoimmune disorders flare ups, medical appointments, and just life.

Lifing business with chronic illness is for entrepreneurs who know they're capable of building something meaningful but need a way to do it that actually works with their body, not against it.

This podcast brings you honest conversations with founders, CEOs and other bosses, sharing their strategies, adaptations and lessons they've learned while building businesses alongside chronic illness, including what worked, what didn't, and what they wish they had done differently before burnout forced the lesson.

I'm your host, Nikita Williams, a globally ranked podcast host and entrepreneur who's built my business while navigating chronic illness and helping others do the same without sacrificing themselves.

I created this show to open up the conversations most business spaces avoid.

The promise of Business with Chronic Illness is simple to show you that you can build a thriving business with chronic illness and autoimmune disorders without sacrificing your health, your peace, or your profit.

You're not behind, you're building differently and you're in the right place.

Hey everybody, I am so excited to have Erica on the show.

Today.

We are going to talk about a topic that we all are very familiar with when it comes to pacing yourself in the you know, the work of becoming whatever it is you're becoming, whatever dream you're chasing, whatever thing you're trying to create in the world, how do you actually pace yourself?

And my thoughts about this, Erica, is that how do we do this in the world that's constantly pushing against our pace?

Like it's constantly giving us these parameters around how our pace isn't enough and being judged and all of those different kind of things that are systems that are kind of designed around us, kind of like overriding our own pacing in a way.

So let's start There.

Tell us a little bit about how you came to this topic of success and without burnout and pacing and basketball.

Can't wait to talk about that.

Yeah, let's do it.

Let's do it.

I love it so much.

So I like to explain that growing up, I kind of thought that life was like a math problem, where just as long as you gave your best and maybe a little bit more than that, then things work out.

Like, that's.

That's how you do your best, is that you're always just giving as best you can.

And honestly, it worked for me for a long time.

Like, I did really well in school.

I started my own company and went really, really well.

I had good friends.

Like, I was like, yeah, this is the formula.

Why is.

Why is people.

You know, it's not that hard.

Come on, folks.

Just give your best and life is good.

Yeah, math was wrong.

Definitely was wrong.

Right?

Like, that's where it's like, ouch.

So in 2022, my business, which was in virtual training, the world is opening up.

And so I knew no matter what business demand was going to go down.

And so I was like, okay, new challenge.

We're going to pivot.

We're going to have so much fun.

We're going to figure this out.

Started leaning in harder to, like, new marketing channels and consulting, but I was worried that, you know, this could be a rough year for us.

And then I got a phone call that no one wants to get, which was, your mom's in the hospital.

And I remember going, okay, you know, still overachiever mode.

We can figure this out.

We can figure this out.

Like, grief.

There's lots of research on grief.

We can figure out how to do this.

We can figure out how to care for mom as best as possible.

And she ended up having terminal brain cancer.

And what sucked is, for the next 14 months, I watched my business sales and my mom's health drop pretty much in tandem.

But what was I doing?

I was giving more and more and more and more.

So this was the first time in my life that if I was giving more and following all the rules and all the best practices, that it wasn't going up.

The results weren't up.

They were going down.

And I pushed and pushed, expecting some point for it to turn.

But just 14 months later, my mom passed away.

And two months after that, I had to close my business.

And I remember it was the first time in my life I'd checked off every box on my to do list because, you know, I'm one Of those over to doers, where I'm like, okay, here's the dream to do list.

Here's the reality to do list kind of a thing.

I checked all of them off, and the results were, businesses closed.

Mom is gone.

And what was hardest for me is that my body then started to finally shut down because I finally sat still and my nervous system was just kind of like, gay.

You have spent your quota for what I can handle.

And I was like, what do I do?

I literally couldn't stand up.

At one point, my daughter came in with a picture in my office that she had colored that she was so proud of.

And I was too tired to smile.

And that's when I was like, okay, I'm not okay.

I can't just keep pushing through this.

I tried still, though, of course, because,.

You know, that's what we do, and.

That's what I trained to do, right?

Like, this worked in the past.

I just got to keep pushing through it.

I never was one to be like, okay, body, you want me to listen?

It was like, no, you got to keep up with me.

Just keep up with me.

Don't you realize you just got to keep up with me.

So I applied to a master's program at Harvard.

Not what I'd recommend for recovering from burnout.

It's like the heart.

Like, it's like, the last thing you would want to do, recovering from burnout.

Like, okay, yeah, that was me, because whatever.

I'm like, well, I can't go backwards.

I own my own business.

What do I do from here?

I was like, obviously, you pick the hardest school you can think of and you enroll.

Yeah, first semester was rough.

It was really, really rough.

I'm really grateful for my family that carried me through that because especially from the.

Your understanding of this, when we talk about, like, how our body is fighting us.

I had to sit with the fact that I couldn't do what I thought was simple before.

I was so tired, and if I overextended even a little bit, I'd have to sleep for, like, three days.

So I wasn't really present for my family.

I wasn't.

I mean, I was getting by on my classes enough, but that's because I was spending every ounce of everything I had.

So I wasn't, like, eating well.

I wasn't sleeping well.

I was.

My house was a disaster.

Like, everything else was second to the work I was doing.

And kind of had a come to Jesus moment with my husband at the end of that first semester.

He's like, you can't go at this pace.

You can't.

You're killing yourself.

And so still stubborn headed me.

I said, okay, well, I'm at Harvard.

Let's study stress.

If I couldn't figure it out, let's figure out what I did wrong, because, you know, I'm that kind of a student.

I was like, show me.

Show me the ones on the test I missed.

Tell me what I missed.

I want to know.

Oh, my gosh.

I'm laughing because that's totally me.

Oh, my gosh.

I'm like, no, prove it.

Like, I need to see now.

I was like, no, I feel like I should have gotten an A on this.

So where did I miss this?

Right?

Yeah, that's where.

For the next year and a half, I finally was like, studying stress, studying wellbeing, studying high performance, studying motivation, studying competition, where I finally started to shift and understand, okay, there is a different way to do this.

So when I look at pacing, once upon a time I would have thought, oh, you're slowing down.

You're protecting your energy.

No, no, no, no, not anymore.

Pacing is an athletic endeavor.

Pacing is how I do high performance.

Pacing is how I win my race if I want to do it.

Well, it changed my mindset from, okay, this is less about me proving I care, which I had to sit with.

I was like, I'm realizing I used effort as a way to prove that I care.

Is that true?

No.

I can care and not kill myself.

Guess what?

It's possible.

It is.

Yes, it's possible.

And it's desirable, and it's wonderful.

Wonderful.

So that's when I started changing and saying, okay, let's take everything I learned at Harvard and let's put it into a practical method.

And I named that even achieving.

That's what I introduced in my TED Talk because it was this idea of what is the major shift?

And the major shift for my brain was, you don't have to give your all to give your best.

I want to give my best.

I'm never going to not want that, by the way, ever.

Yeah.

Don't ever ask me to underachieve.

Yeah, no.

Yeah, that's not gonna happen.

No.

But I began to say, okay, I need a different measurement for what my best is.

Cause before, I always thought it was my all.

Yeah.

I mean, there's so many things, Erica, in your story that I feel.

I think it's so interesting that you started off with talking about, like, math.

Two plus two equals four.

It's interesting how we all have this experience and school teaches Us this right.

Teaches us this idea that two plus two does equal four.

And also that there is a very specific that you have to make that equal four.

Oh, yeah.

When.

When I was in school, I would usually get the answer right, but I would never do it in the way that the formula said to do it.

Like, never.

Like, I would be so irritated that I would get my test back and then be like, yeah, you got a half right, because you got the answer right, but you got the formula wrong.

And I thought, man, well, that's stupid.

Yeah, I got the right answer.

Hello.

Just because I was creative about it.

What do you mean exactly?

And.

And I feel like for part of my story that I feel like connects to you is like, I've always found that a frustrating part of life, right?

Of being like, yeah, these rules tell you to follow the structure, but what if it doesn't work in the way that you work?

What if it doesn't work in the way that you are experiencing life?

Because we all have different things, but you still can get four out of two plus two.

It's just gonna look very different.

And so to your point of, like, all of the things were adding up and going into the.

It fit the formula, and then it stopped working.

And then still the same equation, in a way, is still there, but it still wasn't math and still wasn't mathing.

Right.

And how do you feel like, that realization for you in that space?

Of course, you know, family is important.

You know, your mom and school and, like, work and all those things.

Like, those are all the things we do.

Like, we're doing things to like, okay, I'm going to support the parent.

I'm going to be there for them.

But the emotional aspect of that for you, what did that actually look like while you were trying to check off all those boxes for you?

Oh, my gosh.

That is a beautiful question.

First and foremost, that the emotional weight, I think, was probably the part I dismissed the most and probably wore me down the most.

Right.

As a leader in my organization, I'm like, you have to pierce strong.

You have to be brave.

You have to be encouraging.

Even though inside you're like watching numbers and you're like, this sucks.

Like, trying to choose when to be as open with everyone and when to be like, no, hang on tight.

We are still turning the ship around.

Right?

That tension was intense because there was moments I was like, I know as soon as I tell them the ship is sinking, I'm going to lose everyone they got.

And they should at some point be able to go choose a new job.

But I was like, okay, but when is the right time for that?

Because we still might be able to save the ship.

So there was math there.

But then with my mom, I mean, the stages of grief are no joke.

And my mom was literally the luckiest person I have ever known.

And so, like, when I say luckiest person, like, she would enter a raffle and always win the grand prize.

We had TVs and bicycles, and it was always just like, how.

How.

Wow.

Like, she was so lucky.

And so when we heard brain cancer, all of us at first were like, no, not Mom.

She's too lucky for that.

And so, like, the first stages were trying to figure out how to kind of accept that this was a terminal diagnosis without xnaying the fact that she always found loopholes.

Like, she always found loopholes.

So we were, like, trying to balance.

How do you make sure she doesn't fall into despair?

Because despair can only make things worse.

How do you make sure that the hope isn't overdone?

Because too much hope also makes things worse, because then you're not accepting reality and doing treatments that you need.

And, like, that part of it was so heavy.

And then we became this, like, well, don't waste a single minute.

And then that was plan.

The best Christmas we've ever had.

Plan the family talent show we've always wanted to have.

Figure out ways to get her in public with people that she loves because she was so social.

There was hundreds of people that wanted to visit her, and we were like, well, we don't want her to bring her down, and we have to make sure they don't bring germs.

Like, the logistics were a nightmare.

And yet, at the same time, we did some things really, really well.

So I've been sitting in this paradox of I am so proud of what I did in the 14 months that burned me to the ground.

Yeah, no, I get it.

Yeah, it is.

It's such a duality of that.

Right.

Realizing, oh, I'm proud, and I could have done it differently now that, I mean, Hindsight literally is 2020.

I have been saying that's a lot on the show.

Like, you really don't appreciate that aspect of looking back, being like, oh, yeah, right.

And you're.

You're bringing that out.

It's like, yeah, I wouldn't.

It sounds like you wouldn't have changed at the time without knowing what you knew, how you actually were choosing to show up for your mom and for your life at that time.

Yeah.

At that time, for sure, I wouldn't have changed it.

Now, time there is probably I would have done less and sat still with her more.

Oh.

Because.

I share this in my keynotes, one of the moments I'm most proud of is the fact that I just sat still and held her hand and watched a movie once.

I was like, of all the big, glamorous, Pinterest and Instagram worthy things that we did, the actual moments that mattered to me were sitting and snuggling my mom and the fact that she didn't want us to get too sad, and so she would make us do regular dance parties around the kitchen.

And I'm like, guys, if we had also held that at the same value as the big, glamorous stuff, I probably would have pushed a lot of the glamorous stuff away.

But at that time, I wouldn't have believed it.

I'm like, no, we need the memories and the pictures and the, you know, how do I achieve this kind of a thing?

Whereas really the moments that mattered most were just being with Mom.

Yeah, I feel that.

I feel that.

Erica.

The small things are the big things.

Yeah.

Oh, that's the perfect way to say it.

The small things are the big things.

They are.

They're the thing that lasts longest on our hearts forever.

Right.

Like, the big things can slip away.

They can shift and change, but those in between moments, those glances, those funny, ridiculous things that someone said, the dancing in the kitchen room, you know, the.

Text messages, like, yeah, you start losing your vision.

So they got really creative.

Yeah.

Right.

This so interesting how in your research, you know, that you've learned in, like, stress and management and burnout and all of those things.

Where do you think that in the research that people lost or have lost the understanding about the smaller things meaning so much.

Right.

I think a good way to tackle that is to first kind of sit with why do we achieve?

Because there are different motivations for why people will achieve.

And if I simplify the science, there's kind of two schools of thought.

I either achieve because the thing or the process of achieving is either I want to do well or do the best or can be.

I just don't want to do it poorly, which is kind of that side, or there's a relationship side of achieving, and I don't want to let someone else down or I want to beat somebody at this or like, it kind of is this comparison kind of piece.

And so between those two schools of thought, in the world that we live in, those both get compounded on Us all the time.

All the time.

And so as we're looking at trying to achieve, well, it feels like I need markers from these two opposing schools of thought to prove I'm achieving right.

How am I proving that I'm doing this?

And so making those little moments realize that they stack up to the big things is hard because they're harder to measure.

And when you look at one little moment by itself, it's like, so what is one little moment?

The ironic thing, I think, is that works for performance.

It also works for stress.

A lot of the worst stress are these tiny little obnoxious things.

They were like, so what?

Look at that one thing.

There's dishes in the sink.

But they compound and they compound.

So it's like, okay, if I look at these small moments as compound factors, it changes how I want to look at them and approach them, because those consistently build versus the big, important, intense things that are really great for a snapshot.

They're just like a bright flame.

They go fast and then they disappear and they run out.

But it's really hard to measure that difference because it takes a lot of work to measure small compounded moments.

Yes.

No, I was just going to say, and it's interesting because to your point, stress is the same way for women specifically living with chronic illness.

We hear all the time, you know, if you live with an autoimmune disorder or something like that, the first thing they always tell you is to lessen your stress.

I always laugh at them when they say this, and I'm like.

But also, like, scientifically, the research shows that the reason why a lot of these autoimmune disorders are triggered or are sparked in our system is because of those tiny little things of stress.

We.

From my research, it's like allostatic load.

The allostatic load of stress is like all these little baby little things.

I love it when people use research language.

Keep going.

Yeah.

All those little baby little stress magnets, you know, they built on us.

And as we're dealing and like, living with now the.

I call it, like, just the manifestation of the invisible.

Right.

Stress that has kind of just become part of our lives, we somehow still miss.

Right?

We still miss.

Like, okay, lessen my stress.

Now I'm going to stress about.

Lessen my stress.

Oh, yes, 100%.

Oh, my gosh.

Okay, now let me to do.

Do my unstressing.

Let me do this, let me do that.

Let me do my, you know, cold plunge sleep.

Oh, my gosh.

I've done all the infrared sauna.

On top of, oh, I'm also supposed to live my life.

I'm also supposed to take care of my family.

I'm also supposed to figure out how I can contribute to my household.

And the idea of pacing almost becomes like, how do you even pace all of those things?

Like, you're, like, looking at that from, like, the big end, like, zooming in.

How have you found in your working with, you know, high achievers and leaders and just people in general around?

Okay, you have this big, you know, kahuna of a thing, and now you're telling me it's not about slowing down, but it is about pacing myself.

But how am I pacing myself when this thing looks like this big old burger and I'm trying to eat or the basketball that I'm trying to shoot from the other side of the corner and I got two seconds on the clock?

Like, how does that work?

Erica, that is so great.

Well, first there's a mindset piece, and then we can talk about actions.

If you want the mindset piece first, that started changing it for me is you can't be your own rival.

So let me explain what I mean by this.

There is research from the world of negotiation where they're trying to figure out why it is that often really smart and really talented business people will go into a negotiation and spend more money on a deal than it's worth.

So it means technically, they win the negotiation, but because it costs so much money and whatever they bought wasn't worth that, it's a loss overall.

So the researchers, I'm like, guys, that's overextension.

When I first heard that research, I was like, that's what I do.

I win the game.

And at what cost?

You lose it.

What plays into that?

Why do we do that?

Because no one here is like, yeah, stress.

Give it to me.

I want the nervous breakdown.

Like, we all know stress is too much.

Stress is bad.

So it's not actually an understanding issue.

It's a look, life has demands on us issue.

These researchers said, okay, let's do some case studies.

Let's do some experiments.

And they found out if four factors are present, you're up to two times more likely to overextend.

Now, three of these four factors are really, really good things.

If they're not overdone, they're things that we use to help motivate us and get stuff done.

So the first one is a spotlight.

Someone watches you, you try harder.

Yep.

We have people in our life that have expectations.

Oh, yeah.

Accountability, Right.

That's on the level of accountability.

Exactly.

So built into our life.

Okay, cool.

Factor number two is a time deadline.

So pressure.

The closer we get to a deadline, the harder we're going to push.

Okay.

Yep.

You said two seconds on the clock.

It's there.

I'm going to try harder.

I also like that because without deadlines, am I going to get anything done?

Probably not.

Just follow my feelings all day long.

It's, it's a harmonal response in our brain, how it naturally responds to that.

Yeah, exactly.

So and then the third factor is called time investment.

The more time and energy you put into something, the less likely you're to walk away from it.

Even if walking away is the better choice.

Now, every high performer I've ever talked with, the reason they are high performers is because they care.

So the last thing ever want us to do is, well, just care less.

That's how you get out of this.

Like, no, but it does mean we are primed for those three things.

But you can still perform well without overextending with those three things.

Until you add in factor four, which is the presence of a single rival.

Now, in negotiation, it makes sense.

If you're bidding against eight other people, the price goes too high.

You're like, eh, I'm out.

Too rich for my blood.

Let someone else take it.

But if you're bidding against just one other person, then researchers found out the objective changes.

You change from I want to get a good deal on this to I want to win and all I have to do to win is beat that guy.

But if you think of this in terms of a high achiever, who is your biggest competition?

Usually yourself.

Yeah.

And as long as it's healthy competition, that's great.

But the moment you start taking those other factors and you compound them and you start treating yourself as the thing that's getting in the way of getting those things done, suddenly you've changed yourself into a rival and you're far more likely to overbid on whatever success you're going after.

And I don't have to tell you that that cost comes in your health, can also come in your relationships.

It comes in your long term capacity to serve because you've shifted from I want to give my best to I've got to win.

And all I've got to do to win is beat that guy.

But that guy is you.

I'm like, such a good point.

And if I win against myself, like, who's the winner?

There isn't actually a winner.

That's the problem here.

So that's when I go, okay, when I'm at that two second buzzer, I want to shoot my shot, but how do I do it?

So I'm not shooting in such a way that I've torn my ACL and.

I fall to the floor.

Like that's the difference is saying, am I treating my body as the thing that's getting in the way?

Because if I am, I can't.

That's the pacing difference.

I am the vehicle for getting things done and I want to do a great job, I want to do my best, I want to perform with excellence.

But I can't do it if I'm being my own rival.

So that's the first shift you've got to make.

Because the more you train your brain to treat yourself as the enemy, no wonder why we get autoimmune issues.

You've been telling your brain over and over again, this thing is in the way.

Yes.

Or what I hear often with my clients is my body is against me and, and in a lot of different ways.

From a scientific standpoint, it does.

Literally it's attacking itself in a way.

However, the shift to your point in mindset is I used to like for myself personally, I used to feel like, man, my body is just.

My doctors would always say, your body's just too sensitive.

And I use that as a, like, I started using that as like a thing that beat me up about like, yeah, I'm just too sensitive.

I'm just too sensitive.

And then one day it dawned on me in the hospital because I went against what the doctor had told me to do.

And I was like, no, I don't think for once this began the whole, you know, unraveling of this thought of actually don't think that that is.

I don't think that's for me.

And I know everyone is going to yell at me about this, but I'm going to do this differently.

And that moment like shifted everything because then more evidence came to the play.

My intuition was right.

My too sensitivity was right.

Like all of these things started to be like, oh, wait a minute, what if my too sensitivity being too sensitive is actually just a superpower that I haven't actually listened to to allow God the promises.

Right?

Yes, yes.

I think it's the same thing in what you're talking about here when we're talking about business and like pursuing these goals is that you almost lose your presence of like the purpose of your presence of why you're doing what you're doing just so that you can say you won when you actually losing.

Yes, 100%.

Right.

Because we are so good at putting those blinders on.

Right.

It's this.

I have now made this objective so important.

I just got to push through and get to it.

But I love you saying that.

The sensitivities.

I had one professor used to call those emotional green flags.

Like, how often have I told my body, no, no, no, shut up, it's okay.

I'm gonna just keep doing this.

Just.

You can make it 10 more minutes.

You know, when really it's trying to say, look, I'd like to help you get there.

I want to be part of this process with you.

We don't take that into account enough, I don't think.

And there's, as you said, a superpower there.

Very much so.

You know, while we're talking about this, I can't help but to think about last year's NBA Finals.

Yeah.

If you know what I'm talking about, y', all, you know what I'm talking about with the Pacers.

And we're watching in the fourth quarter that they're.

The best shooter goes within the last left, like, 11 seconds of the, like, 11 minutes of the game and the fourth quarter, and he takes a step and then he's on the floor.

And I'm thinking to myself, no, that didn't just happen, right?

No, because, I mean, come on.

Right?

Yeah.

And I can't help but thinking, how often does that happen to all of us where we are in, like, that last.

You know, you're in the last bit of the negotiation.

You're in the last.

Like, you've done all this work.

You've been in this business for however long you're getting this opportunity.

And your body told you something before the moment of doom, told you it, like, big red flag, said hello.

And you're like, no, I'm choosing to push forward.

Or you were so consumed with that goal at the end that you missed it, that now our poor Pacers this year are in the bottom of our bottoms.

Long term cost.

Right.

So in your TED Talk, you talk about pacing and how specifically in basketball.

Because to me, to your point, and in.

In your TED Talk, you talk about you.

They have so many games to play.

It's one of the only sports that they are, like, playing.

Playing multiple games a week.

Exactly.

Sometimes in different cities.

They are constantly traveling.

Like, my husband and I talk about this in comparison to football, and we're like, they got nothing on basketball players.

A whole week, sometimes a bi Week.

Like, yes, yes.

Football is a lot more physical.

But when you watch basketball, it is very physical as well.

Constantly on their joint, all of these things.

Right.

And so when you're thinking about this as a business owner, if you're thinking about this as someone living with chronic illness, it is to me it is a marathon, an athletic mentality.

You are in your body constantly having to gauge when you're giving way over overextending versus being in rhythm and flow and pace with what is possible right now.

And so we've been talking about what this looks like from a very our personal stories, but how does the science show that we can shift into being able to actually accurately pace ourselves?

Yeah, instead of doing the science, I'd love to tell you what I heard from sports psychologist of the Boston Celtics because that's where I grabbed that understanding of, oh, if you're in the NBA, you can't leave it all on the court.

Not for every game you can't.

She completely shifted my mind about learning how to say, okay, look, if you want to motivate people to show up and show up well and show up often, you spend a lot of time in recovery, you spend a lot of time building in awareness and you spend a lot of time getting to know and trusting your team because it's not a single player game.

And if you noticed even your top players aren't playing the whole game, they get swapped in and out.

Well, I think where we mistake it way too often is we end up taking on too much by ourselves because one, we care, two, we want to prove something.

I mean, there could be lots of different reasons why we take it on, but we.

The number one reason I see people who especially care about what they're doing overextend.

It's in that I'm not trusting anyone else to help me carry this load.

And I loved how much work that team would do to make sure they were ready to perform as a team.

So yes, they would spend time off the court in recovery.

I mean, think of athletes, they've got their cryo chambers and all of that we're talking about.

But what they're doing is saying if I need to perform at this level, I have to also provide skills and resources to myself to do that.

So that's nutrition that's talking.

They talk about how to make sure they have enough time with their families between games because it's heavy on them.

A lot of times they're playing on big holidays.

So how do you make sure morale isn't dropping?

How are you making sure that we're connecting with each other so I can trust the team.

And they have team huddles without any, like every time.

So they have these team huddles where they root for each other, they learn about what they want to talk about the game and then what.

I also loved that she did.

She said, we review our win games as much as we review our losses.

So too often I think with us too, we're like, we won, check it off, move on.

She goes, no, no.

What went right in that game?

What do I want to replicate as I go again?

Because guess what?

Pacing is.

I'm going to be better at doing the things that I know work long term and sustainably.

So for me, if I'm also pacing my success in terms of saying what went well, how do I celebrate this?

How do I replicate this?

And that's where the science, by the way, comes in.

Do you know about positive psychology?

One of the most famous, powerful exercises you can do is a gratitude exercise.

But it's not just I'm grateful for X, Y and Z, it's I'm grateful for it.

Why did it happen?

How do I make it happen again?

How can I invite more things like this in my life?

So when I say pacing, I'm saying how do I identify what worked well so I can incorporate more of that without overdoing it because I'm my own champion, I'm not my own rival here.

What didn't go well?

Where didn't I not feed my soul and where it needs to be fed?

Where did I maybe push past the health needs that I have because they are real.

If I ignore them, they don't go away.

They're still there.

They get louder and bigger and more obstructive,.

Right?

So when I say pacing, that's what I'm doing.

I'm being more intentional about the work that I'm doing.

And I'm still doing it because it has to happen.

I mean, I'm a mom.

If the kids don't get fed, I'm in trouble, right?

For multiple reasons.

Could be from the government, could be from the fact I love my children.

I don't want them to die, but like, I can't get out of that.

I hate feeding my children, but it's something I have to do every day.

So it's being able to say, okay, there are pieces to my life that go well and they're pieces that I don't like, but I still am going to tackle them.

How do I tackle them in a sustainable way?

I Mean, so good.

I mean, yes.

I mean, yes.

Like, I would add to what you're sharing, which is, yes, definitely the team.

I love that because it is a team in business specifically, and especially if you're just starting.

Especially if you are, you know, quote unquote, scaling and wherever you are.

The thing that I find that also holds people back in creating that team like, environment is also the conditioning that we've been conditioned in entrepreneurship.

That is that we cannot ask for that type of help or we can accept success that help until such and such.

Like, it's a.

Until you've reached, you know, a million dollars, until you've reached 200 million followers on whatever.

Like, it's.

Until so many people hold themselves back from creating success in a way that is paceable, sustainable because they feel like they don't deserve it yet, or they haven't reached the, you know, societal marker of, well, I can't do that yet because I'm not those people.

And, yes, why did we accept that?

Yes, exactly.

And I have just always said, if the big people can prioritize their time and energy, you have to too.

It doesn't go away because you just have more people.

It's actually even more important when you have less people around you, even if it's that one system or that one personal assistant that maybe spend two hours a month, something to support you.

And whatever you're doing is so important.

And I think we just go it alone.

To your point, we go it alone too much.

Too, too much.

And I'm a big spiritual believer that we were all.

We were never designed to do anything alone.

Love that.

Oh, I feel the same way.

Well, and science backs it too.

You can look at anyone in the evolutionary space.

They're like, the reason we say survives is because we created these groups that could survive as societies.

But even beyond that, like, I love that you've brought up this, like, why do we feel like we have to earn it?

And I've had to shift my own thinking with that because I. I mean, I found my high school journals not that long ago, and I think I used the word independent like every other page.

Like, so fiercely independent.

So proud of how independent was.

I don't need anybody.

That's not true.

So.

But what I had to shift is there are people who would love to be part of my success.

Why am I leaving them out?

That's how I changed it for me, so that I don't.

Because I don't want pity.

I don't want pity.

I don't Want to feel like I am not as capable as you are.

So I had to start thinking in a generous way.

Can asking for help be generous?

And it can.

Arthur Brooks actually just released a book, and this is a key piece in his Meaning of Life where he talks about, if you're not careful, not letting anyone else help you becomes a way of not needing anybody.

And that severs relationships.

Guess what the number one most powerful stress management tool is.

Relationships.

Right?

Social support, and then even the relationship you have with yourself.

That's why I start with, don't be your own rival.

Practice your gratitude.

Because first you gotta heal that relationship with yourself, but then you also have to heal it with others, where you say, look, how do I actually ask for help so that I'm inviting people to be part of my success?

That changed it for me.

That's when I started looking at people differently.

And I found help in different places.

Like my nanny from four years ago who helped me with my kids during COVID I, like, was texting her about something else, and I said, oh, I would love some help finding a connection to the school you went to.

She's like, easy, here are three names.

And I was like, I have been sending LinkedIn emails, and I have been like, I'm wasting my time.

But it was this idea of I didn't think about who wants to be part of my success.

People actually feel more feelings of meaning and purpose when you let them help you.

And that's been a skill.

I was like, crap, I suck at that.

How do I get better at asking for help?

I suck at that.

Yeah, you know, I don't do it often, but.

And I do talk about this often in the show, and my guests, you know, people who listen to the show, know I'm very spiritual.

And so there's a verse in the Bible that talks about there is more happiness in giving than there is receiving.

And that is scientifically proven to be the case.

However, what's interesting is that you have to do that in pace as well.

It cannot.

It cannot be.

And the motive behind you doing it matters.

And I think to your point, is that we, in general, especially when it comes to business, I feel like when we.

When people get into business and you're trying to make money, like a lot of these things, as humanity, like that works for us, for humans, we somehow have decided that it doesn't really affect you and your business.

And it's like business is personal because it's all based on relationships.

So all of the things that we think that are just, you know, in these boxes that, you know, men have decided are not important doesn't mean that they're not important.

Yeah, exactly.

We're a lack of better terms here.

So you want to talk about richness of life.

Those things they labeled not important are actually all the things they give you the richness of life.

Exactly.

And so when you look at the research that you found for those who are.

Who decided to step into this, I call it embodiment of what I hear you're talking about, of, like, I can have and give in a place from generosity and abundance.

And it doesn't mean I have to be less for me.

Right.

This bartering system of whether or not you deserve enough or you need this, or you can just deplete everything about you to get to where you think you want to go.

What shifts in the idea of what success looks like.

Does that question make sense?

Yes, it does.

And what I love is, for me, I don't know that I've defined it myself very well, but I've felt it.

So I'm going to try my best to define it for you.

Because I thought if I didn't feel the frenzy, that usually was how I paced myself.

Right.

I used to treat myself like spinning top.

I thought if I ever held still, I'm going to fall over and never get back up again.

Guess what?

It did happen.

But it doesn't have to be a spinning top.

I have a base.

I have a foundation.

And so I've started saying okay.

Since practicing, even achieving, I thought, okay, well, the amount of accomplishments will go down.

Right?

They have to.

I'm not doing as much since then, I've graduated with a master's in Harvard on the Dean's list.

I've given a TED Talk.

That TED Talk has now reached more than 57,000 people.

Wow.

I have started a new business, and I have had a stronger relationship with my husband and my kids than I've ever had before.

And one of my favorite compliments I've gotten from people that have known me since before and now is they go, you're glowing.

And I'm like, what?

How do I measure that?

But at the same time, what I've noticed is that all of the things that I would have been doing before are still happening.

But I feel peace, I feel confidence, and I feel grounded.

And what's I. I'm now also better at differentiating between busy work and meaningful work.

And there is some busy work in my life that will always happen.

As I said, dishes.

Yep.

At Some point, maybe I can hire someone to help me with dishes until that day.

They are my nemesis.

But mine is laundry.

My kids are old enough that I now make them.

I'm like, you're in charge of laundry now.

If you would not like to stink at school, that's your job.

But it is now also being able to say, I am better at saying, this type of work here is draining me and it's not giving me results and I don't stay there anymore.

Now I say, where are my results coming in?

And then how can I see what's working well and how can I add in more of that?

And then suddenly I'm in flow more often.

That stuff is happening.

And I'm also better at saying, even the stuff I like doing, by the way, which I love doing.

A lot of stuff, I can overdo and push myself back into burnout.

That was the hardest one for me.

It was finding out that the good stuff also can wear you out.

And I think I spend more time pacing myself on the things that excite me that I want to do than on the other things themselves too.

But learning also how to say, guess what?

It's still going to get done.

And it's going to get done well, because now I'm treating myself as a champion, not as a rival.

So for instance, I still have moments where I can feel the burnout start to creep in.

And instead of saying I got to just push through for the next two hours, I go, I think a 26 minute nap here is going to make me more effective for an hour and a half.

And I go do it and I love it.

And then I wake up and my brain is ready and the work I'm putting forth is actually high quality work and I'm proud of it.

Instead of before, well, I would have slogged through it, I would have been working and then the next day I would have read and be like, oh, I sent that out in the world.

So that's what I'm talking.

I love that you were saying your body is sensitivities.

What happens if you actually listen to them and just give them a little bit of love in that moment?

Could you possibly increase your output afterwards?

Yeah.

It is so powerful what you just shared.

Because in the community of living with chronic illness and autoimmune disorders, a lot of the belief systems and everybody knows when I talk about this, it is true that we are dealing with, in the community, we call it spoons a little, and the spoons aren't the same every Single day.

I think that concept of, like, you wake up with 10 spoons is changing because we all don't wake up with the same amount of capacity every day.

But the idea that we are already starting off deficit often drives the push of.

In those moments where you're like, man, I cannot.

I feel what I'm feeling, but I have to do this thing.

And you push and you push.

And most of the folks who are listening knows what that means because, you know, there's no.

We don't have a doubt in our mind that if we're pushing that the next day and the next day and probably the next two or three weeks or a month, you're still paying for that pushing, right?

You're still paying for what that meant for you.

That is hard, though, for them to make that shift from if I just give in and go take a nap or get up and, like, go eat something even, because I know I need to do this for my body and it's going to support me.

So many of them, it's this, like, tug of war and trying to win.

I'm trying to win my day.

Yeah.

I don't win my days anymore.

I don't win my days.

I don't want to win my day.

I want a great day.

I don't have to win the day to have a great day.

That's the difference.

If.

If a nap feels like I'm losing.

I'm trying to win my day.

Who's the rival?

I'm the rival.

I don't want to win my day.

I want to win the game, and I'm going to win the game.

Then I have to be able to say, okay, I have an injury.

Like, that's how I treated my burnout.

I didn't want it to be like, oh, I'm less than.

I can't.

I have an injury.

If I had torn my acl.

You're a terrible, awful person.

You tore acl.

No, this is have an injury.

Right?

So that's how I started treating it.

It was this idea of, and if I believe I have an injury, then I'm going to spend the time with my physical therapist doing exercises to rebuild that muscle.

How do you make an injury permanent?

You keep pushing past it until it rips and shreds apart, and then you need surgery.

Right.

Like, I'm.

Like, if I'm at the point where I can feel it just tearing, I don't want to make that injury worse.

So I'm not going to try to win the day anymore.

Nope.

I Don't win my day.

I have great days.

I have excellent days.

I get lots of good stuff done in my days, and I do it because I'm not following the formula I used to.

I'm not my own rival.

I'm my own freaking champion.

If my body needs a nap, I'm gonna take a nap.

I'm gonna be proud of it.

I'm wake up and be like, wow, that was so great.

Look at me taking care of myself.

And then.

And then I get the output done.

Because that's where I'm thinking of it.

It's performance.

This isn't giving up.

This is adding fuel to my performance.

Yeah.

That's all.

Yeah.

I love that.

And for those of us listening to this is like, that's so easy to say when it is.

When it is like an.

Like you tore a ligament versus you live with lupus or sickle cell.

There is no technical recovery of that.

However, you can in how you live your life even more so trigger those symptoms in those situations from the idea of, like, well, since today I have the energy or I have the day, I need to win today, to your point, like.

And so it's really.

And this is something I talk about with all.

Like, everyone who's on, who listens to the show knows that I'm like, I am very much an advocate for owning what is yours and finding what works for you in this situation of how you're living with what you're living with.

And yet don't make yourself the enemy.

Right?

Don't make your body the enemy.

Your body is literally just trying to keep you alive.

Like, it's working on it.

It might have worked across signals, but it loves you.

It loves you.

It really does.

It might be overly loving you, and that could be the problem here, but, like, it loves you.

That's what it's trying to do, is to protect you and serve you, even if it feels like crap.

Yeah, I mean, exactly.

That's the duality we started with here, right?

Yes, exactly.

I love in general, thinking through and saying, okay, what is it my day needs from me today?

And how do I show that love back to myself?

And that.

That's what I mean by self love.

When I think of self love, it's never been just bubble baths and candles.

I'm like, no, nice.

That doesn't relax me.

We know that in this.

On this side of the Internet, that's not what we need.

We like, we take those because we have to.

Exactly.

You're like, at this point, I'm gonna need the Epsom salts, and I'm gonna need the extra.

Like you.

You found your system to help with that.

And do I think there's also an untapped opportunity with that.

Anybody who lives with chronic illness, you can teach the rest of us.

Right.

When you start advocating for guess what?

Without shame.

My body needs this right now, and I'm gonna do it.

Like, how inspiring is that?

Yes.

For anybody who's not struggling with that to be like, oh, if they can stand up for what they need, I can stand up for what I need.

Erica, you are speaking to the choir.

Anybody who's like.

And they know this, but women who come on my show who don't necessarily identify living with chronic illness or autoimmune or just women who I work with who don't identify with that, that is the biggest thing.

I. I cannot.

I can give you tons of emails of people being like, thank you for rescheduling this.

Thank you for it.

I decided to do this thing because we are living in a world that wants us to believe that sacrificing who and what we need is the only way of us getting success.

And that's literally how we all die.

Yep.

Why are we running that race so fast?

We all know the end.

I don't want to rush to that ending.

This is not going to work.

It's not working.

This logic doesn't fit.

Yes.

And I love that, Erica, you have shared your message and you're sharing your story with how that looked like for you and how you're still working through it.

I love also how in this conversation, you consistently said, and I'm still working on what this looks like for me, because none of us have this, like, perfectly figured out, you know, to the point of basketball players.

All my basketball players, we know that they don't perfectly have it figured out because they still have times during the season when they have to be out for two or three or six weeks or whatever because they may have Ms.

Paced themselves.

Right.

And so it is such a powerful thing, though, to have a conversation like this, of being like, here's what this can look like.

Here's what it looks like in figuring it out.

And what is something you would want to leave with someone who's listening to the show today, and it's like, oh, my gosh, I really feel this.

I want to implement this.

I don't know where to start, because it feels like I have to pace so much.

Yeah.

I think the hardest part of any form of pacing, stress management, any of it is the awareness piece.

And that's why with my TED Talk, I have those two questions I give at the end.

Where I think this one probably is the best one for your group is the ask yourself.

If I continue at this pace, and it might have to be daily, in the morning, with however many spoons I have, if I continue at this pace today, when I get to the end of the day, will I have enough energy left to celebrate?

Because if you won't, you push too hard.

If you do, by the way, take the freaking time to celebrate.

Because we often are just like, no, I made it.

Like, we just take a relief and move on to the next thing that we're trying to do.

Our brains need us to fuel our motivation consistently.

And especially if you're dealing with chronic illness, you're also trying to retrain your brain about what is good.

So every time you do it well and you're proud of it, tell yourself that it doesn't have to be huge.

It could be a gratitude practice.

It could be a happy dance.

It could be whatever it feels.

But be like, dang, we did good today.

We did good today.

It feels good.

I'm proud of it.

And let those tiny behaviors stack up, because they can and they are powerful.

Oh, Erica, this was great.

I feel like I could talk to you forever and ever.

Amen.

And ever.

I feel like every time we've been able to even connect at all, they're.

Like, oh, this is so good.

I know.

I feel like we could talk forever.

I've been ending the show with this question with everyone.

But before I ask that question, please tell us how everyone can connect with you or if there's a way that you're supporting people.

Please share that for everybody.

We'll of course have it in the show notes, but we'd love to hear.

You can always find me, Erica colemanspeaks.com I write weekly, for instance, there.

If you want tips, tricks, help, I go into the science.

I bring in stories.

It's fun.

If you have a team, like, at work and you know you're high performing, I have an assessment you can take for free.

No strings attached.

Just, is my team actually high performing or are we, like, quietly moving towards burnout?

No one's wanting to speak up.

If you want to take that assessment, you can@balanceyourteam.com and then I'd love for you to reach out.

Let me know what you learn.

Oh, I love that.

I love that.

Okay, so the last question.

What is something you believe was true when you began your business this time that you no longer believe is true.

I thought for sure when I started that I was going to have to just show up with grit every single day.

Because you're an entrepreneur.

That's how you do it.

Businesses are built on grit.

And I thought for sure I was going to have to push and then figure out how to recover again and maybe build the perfect system this time.

And I'm grateful for my body for literally making it so I couldn't do that to find another way.

There are a few times I pushed, it was like, nevermind, you're sleeping for three days.

Congratulations.

Enjoy that.

And so now I actually know for sure it can feel different.

And it wasn't until I intentionally built my own systems and structures and tested the heck out of them.

Because as you know, everyone's is going to be a little bit different.

But built a system that works for me to serve others.

I found meaning, purpose, and a pacing that was sustainable.

Love that.

Well, thank you again so much for being here.

I really appreciate you so much.

Thank you.

I've loved being here too, and I wish your audience all the best.

You're amazing people.

You really are.

That's a wrap for this episode of Business with Chronic Illness.

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It helps more entrepreneurs living with chronic illness and autoimmune disorders find these conversations.

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Until next time, remember, you can build a thriving business without sacrificing your health, your peace, or your profit.